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Live Bold, Die Bold

This morning I look to my right while in the drive-through line at the bank and see a Diebold truck. For those of you who don't recall it or never knew of it, Diebold is the voting machine company that was at the center of the  controversial presidential election involving George Bush and Al Gore in 2000 and then again in 2004 with John Kerry and George Bush.

I still don't trust the company but today I sit in the drive-through line and smile. Today I see "Die Bold."  Every moment I live passes and in the passing there is a death. I want to Live Bold so I Die Bold.

Imagine the Shift of seeing with new eyes the messages tucked into advertising slogans and symbols. Imagine the Shift of living boldly.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse 31 january 2012

Posted by Dawn Kirk at 12:18 PM No comments: 


How beautiful that the Spirit that would not or could not let me hold her physical body four years ago January 28th now lies on me this very moment nested in the blue throw across my legs as I write.  I knew she couldn't let me hold her because she was having an equally hard time letting go of me after nearly 18 years.  Humans aren't the only ones who feel deeply when it's time to say good-bye.

Bogeysattvah now sits on my lap.  Bogeysattvah whose name was inspired by the need to have love and compassion with bogeys on the golf course, as well as the course of life, returned as I requested  four months after Templeton died. As Templeton made her shift, I asked that I recognize her spirit the week of my birthday.

Along came May and I began to search for her.  I listened until one day my heart recognized her.  My heart, unaccustomed to leaping much back then, immediately leapt though my head said, "Wait, she's a he this time."

Bogey's now been with us four years and I periodically still find some little behavior that's Templeton's.

It's said life comes full circle. Templeton, Bogey and I would agree.  We sit here knowing, feeling, seeing and experiencing grace, beauty and love.

Summed up in a word, I feel joy for this feline Spirit and I have come full circle. Four years ago we opened the doors wide to grief and walked out the door to part for a time, to follow the Mystery that was and is ours.

I consider my pets destined to be mine and me theirs. What about yours?  Is your pet destined to be yours and you theirs?

Mine and Me call this Good News.

-Dawn, Bogeysattvah &Templeton, The Good News Mews, 28 january 2012

Posted by Dawn Kirk at 12:08 PM No comments: 
Fur Play

I initially titled this 'Why I Love Jerry" as Mystery followed him through the house this morning. He, a cat convert of four years, rubbed her. No, it's always more than a rub, pet or pat. He always vigorously jostles her and she loves it.  She continued to follow him as he sought hammer and nails for minor bird feeder repairs caused by overnight winds.

He found what he needed as Mystery followed him to the door where he jostled her once again. This time she rolled over exposing her belly.  I hear Jerry say, "I'll be back, Mystery. That was just foreplay."

From the nearby chair I smiled and said, "That was fur play."

She looked up knowing she'd have to wait as he walked out and said, "This is cat-us interruptus."

Cat-us interruptus happens throughout our day as both Mystery and Bogey want us to play.  Mystery especially will meow, grab my calf (put her front paws around my lower leg) then bolt down the hallway. I'll go in pursuit as she runs under the bed or behind the curtain. Then she'll streak down the hallway again.

It happened seconds ago as I moved from the chair to get my lap top except this time she raced up the stairs and under the bed then back down again.  Yes, I followed.

To not follow means I would have missed the joy of a spontaneous moment.

The dear Beings that come to us as cats and dogs offering fur play and cat-us interruptus being it chasing, jostling or just hanging out shine and share love's light throughout the day.

I call that Good News. And on second thought fur play is foreplay and that's good news too.

-Dawn, The Good News Mews  28 january 2012
Posted by Dawn Kirk at 10:28 AM 1 comment: 

Your Favorite Tree - Win a Brenda Stein Pen

I love trees. I've come to especially be mesmerized by them in Winter when the intricacy of their limbs are most evident. It's only been in the last few years that I've realized how trees are integral to my home life from being the substance of my floors, walls, tables and chairs to paper, pencils, picture frames, boxes and baskets made of bark not to mention a source of sustenance in syrups, figs, fruits and nuts galore.  As I learned in biology but take for granted we could not live without trees as they use the CO2 we exhale while giving off the oxygen necessary for our inhale.

Trees sustain us with substance, sustenance and beauty.  We need them and they need us, our appreciation, gratitude and admiration.

That's why I want to know about your favorite tree.  This came to mind near Christmas when I learned 2011 was the "International Year of the Tree."  The holidays arrived and time passed. Yet I was still curious as to folks favorite trees and thought, 'Every year should be the year of the trees.'  Don't you agree?

So in honor of trees tell me about your favorite tree. What kind is it? Where is it? What draws you to it? It may be a tree you recall from an earlier time.  Tell me why it comes to mind.

I was going to choose the winner next week. Then I read Wednesday Feb. 8 is Tu B'Shevat, the New Year for Trees in Jewish tradition. So on Wed. February 8th (that's only 12 days away) the winner will be chosen by the folks down the street with the heart in their tree and will receive a beautiful cherry pen (value $60) by local artist Brenda Stein.

Represented by LeQuire Gallery, Brenda creates art from felled trees, many of which are Tennessee hardwoods.  Warner Park commissioned Stein for pieces made out of trees fallen on their grounds. She was commissioned to design and create the awards for the 2007 Governor's Awards in the Awards for the State of Tennessee by the Tennessee Arts Commission.

Brenda's work may be seen through Feb. 4th at LeQuire (4304 Charlotte Ave.) alongside the current exhibit figures in charcoal and terra cotta by Alan LeQuire and Juliette Aristides.

So please tell me about your favorite tree in the comment box below. If "Comments" proves frustrating, don't sweat. Email your comment to email@example.com and I'll post it below. Feel free to include a photo of your tree.

Now let's Imagine the Shift as the masses love trees !
-Dawn, The Good News Muse  27 january 2012
Posted by Dawn Kirk at 10:02 AM 7 comments: 

"Touch" & the Mystery of the Divine Feminine

Tonight as I prepare for bed, I'm mindful that last night I lay in bed and saw opaque fabric in the universe.  A white veil of sorts gradually made itself visible among the stars.  Its folds reminded me of a never ending bridal train.

I someone who seldom watches TV had just seen "Touch" a new series in which Kiefer Sutherland plays a widowed father to a young autistic son who's never said a word but through his sensitivity intuitively taps into messages and codes of numbers.  For years I've known greater awareness and increased consciousness weren't just for those who meditate.  I was covered in goosebumps from head to toe repeatedly through much of the hour knowing "Touch" is exposing all who watch it to our interconnectedness or entanglement as Quantum Physics calls it.  I was elated.  The only reservation I had after the show was the references to the mystery of numbers and not the mystery of love.

Yet now that I think of it the mystery of love was woven throughout the show as the father persisted in trying to understand his son, as the son paid attention to the messages and especially in the shows final scene.

It was an hour later while lying in bed that I saw the fabric in the stars.  I didn't just see the energetic fabric of the stars I now know I saw the Mystery of Love, the Divine Feminine revealing herself in the Universe, waiting to be called for, to come to us and be part of the Mystery as it makes itself known on Earth.

Click this link "TOUCH" for more on last night's preview show and to watch. The series begins March 19.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 26 January 2012

Posted by Dawn Kirk at 10:33 PM No comments: 
The Nature of the Inner & Outer -A Musing While Browsing Home and Earth's Decor

“We walk Earth holding ‘the goods,’ the beautiful fabric of our insides in a world of beautiful design.   Is it possible much of the bad in the world happens
because we miss the goods within and thus the good without?”

I don’t get out much at least to home décor stores, but last week a $10-off coupon arrived in the mail and I found myself in a store.  Beautiful fabric on richly colored pillows caught my eye while there.  I ultimately used the coupon for owls painted on canvas while the pillows remained.

This week I returned to the store to stand before the wall of pillows still a feast for my insides.  I chose four then turned with pillows in hand to mix and match them on a nearby sofa.

As I turned I happened to look up.  My breath was taken.  Across the expansive asphalt parking lot and over mall and business roof tops was the setting sun as I, a connoisseur of sunsets, had never seen it.  Hues of orange and pink clouds looked like huge angel wings in the blue and blue-green sky.  I commented to a salesclerk who joined me for awhile.

The pillows couldn’t compare to the beauty nature provided in the then and there.  I was acutely aware that moment in my life and the sky would never be repeated.  Never again would these exact colors and angel wings appear.  I wished for my camera while knowing moments like this can never be captured.

I then walked around pillows in hand for when I do shop I’m the customer who walks about the store holding the goods before usually returning them to the shelf or rack.

I  browsed and found myself at the window again where the colors had intensified and glowed.  I stood leaning against the huge sheet of glass aware that Life is more like Nature than home décor.  Like life, nature is fleeting, changing moment by moment whereas our homes insides are static and only change upon redecorating.

While decorative changes happen seasonally for some, this happens every decade or so for me.  The pillows on my sofa were bought in Colorado fifteen years ago.  The one pillow I finally held would complement them. If placed on my sofa, it would be used and walked past daily. Yet slowly and surely it would be taken for granted, taken for granted the way nature is taken for granted.  In this way, Nature is similar to my home décor - ignored.

When ignoring happens, relationship and connection are missed be it with the stuff of our homes or the stuff of Mother Nature.  Our insides, our bodies, hearts and minds, are likewise neglected.

I continued to lean against that store window while wondering how many people decorate their homes trying to bring the beauty of the outside in. Meanwhile we miss the beautiful moments in Nature all around because we are inside, not inside ourselves but inside cars, houses, offices.

I wonder if we were more awake and aware within what might we realize?  What might shift if we were in relationship with our insides, the insides of own bodies, hearts and minds yet also the insides of our homes?  What would we keep? What would we pass on? What might we discover?  What might shift if we were in relationship to the outside be it the angle of the sun in the sky or the cloud shapes overhead?

I didn't capture a photo that day, but I got something much more important.  I glimpsed Earth's ever present decor through the window of a home store thanks to the window of my soul.

Days later I realize just as I walked the store with the potential goods in hand, we walk Earth holding the goods of potential, the beautiful fabric of our insides in a world of rich color, pattern and design.

Is it possible much of the bad in the world exists because we miss the goods within?

Imagine all that would Shift if we realized the beauty of really being awake, aware and alive?
-Dawn, The Good News Muse 26 January 2012
Posted by Dawn Kirk at 12:10 PM No comments: 

The Patriarchy, Perimenopause and Me -Mystery and Memory's Black Hole

I spent the end of last week sensing something stirring within while troubled to find my brain wouldn't work.  As hard as I tried, I could not think clearly. I could hardly think at all.  I felt myself internally scurrying about  panicked, fearing I was loosing what was just beneath the surface and that whatever it was would enter Memory's black hold (I accidentally wrote hold but meant hole) to forever vanish.

Then Friday I realized it was that time again.  This explained a lot.  I'm a woman of 52 still having an occasional period. There's something deeply satisfying about bleeding yet despite knowing better, I resist the accompanying changes a couple of days preceding this now bi or tri-monthly cycle. My energy fails as does my brain. Highly stimulating places like the grocery or just being inside my own skin can feel overwhelming.

Upon finally surrendering, I realized that when I resist letting go and struggle against my flow I'm no different from the patriarchy or men in power trying to maintain control.  When I choose action over being and use force over mindful stillness, I'm no different from the line of men in powerful positions who seem to need to wage war of some sort.  The war I wage is within.

When I force my path rather than stopping to sit and listen, I'm no different from the Cheney's and Rumsfeld's who at least as far as I can tell aren't open to Mystery but need to put everything into boxes of us vs. them for ego and financial gain.

When I resist, it's me versus the Mystery, the Mystery that when I stop struggling and listen always reveals something that in that moment that I need to hear.

When I finally surrendered early the evening of Friday the 13th, I began my day over again.  The day hadn't started as usual.  I allowed an 8:00am meeting to preempt my morning routine. Finally on Friday evening I sat down with my journal and the written material with which I usually start each day.

I seldom have a plan for what gets written in my journal and this night was no different.  I opened the cover and spontaneously wrote, "Why do I hesitate writing what I know?"

Without effort, the answer immediately came.  I am concerned with being questioned.  I sensed some unknown authority demanding information of me.  I wrote in response, "I know it in my body as sure as I'm breathing and writing.  I know through my body and soul yet what I know for me doesn't have to be for you.  What do you know in your body?"

In the moment this didn’t make sense yet it was what showed up on my internal radar as I sat in the quiet and listened.  I then read the information for Friday the 13th and learned this date was initially associated with the feminine and Friday was originally named after the planet Venus from the Norse tradition whose primary goddess was Freya. Friday was Freya's day.  In ancient times 13 was the sacred number of the Goddess.  Then political and church leaders wanting to increase their power and control associated Friday the 13th with bad luck to separate the people from the feminine and the goddess.

Not only did I learn Friday the 13th was originally a good day, but that the French Templars on a Friday the 13th in 1307 were arrested on this day and eventually questioned and killed.  Reading about the Templars brought a sudden sense of ease to my entire body and being that I had not had all day.

Since going to France I've sensed I had a connection with the Templars be it a life with them long past or a present day sensitivity to their experience.  The next morning I awoke seeing five or six scrolls in a stack and later knew I had been part of the Templar experience in some way that was connected to the feminine.

Days later I am mindful of the Mystery unfolding in me and in this Time.  I think of Memory’s black hole and what we as humankind have collectively placed there through repression and fear over time. I imagine all that has been split off from consciousness and disconnected from like the fear of the feminine from hundreds of years past.

What was it the church fathers feared?  What is it men in power so fear today? How is it my own fear and discomfort keep me from personally slowing down to deeply listen and connect?  In my unconscious busyness what do I repress?

I imagine all that has been placed in Memory’s black hole as being like a seed growing over time, awaiting us in this Time.  I imagine this period in which we’re now living as the time for us as Earth gardeners to gently water this seed with tears of joy and sorrow and like the sun coax it forth with the warmth of love.

This is the time of Mystery moving over and through Memory’s black hole calling forth through us the Mystery of Love wanting to grow in this time, a Love that redeems, forgives and joyfully celebrates.

As I wrote in my journal a week ago, this is what I know in my body and soul. What do you know, not in your mind, but in your body on the inside as truth for you in this time? What have you contributed to Memory’s black hole desiring now to emerge?

Imagine the Shift of honoring what is planted within and allowing it to grow forth in the Mystery of this Time.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse 20 January 2012
dawn@ imaginetheshift.com
Posted by Dawn Kirk at 10:27 AM 1 comment: 

Light Bringers I've a lantern recently purchased at an after Christmas sale. Every time I pick it up, I've this bodily knowing that I've done this many times. I've carried a light to dark places be it to assist the mother in the middle of the night bearing new life or the early morning hours to milk the cows and gather the eggs. Or over the battlefield like Florence Nightingale tending the wounded, saying prayers over the dead.

I don't know that it matters whether this is a past life feeling or a present life knowing that I'm here to carry the light to the darkest places inside myself and into the misunderstood and forgotten corners of shadow and darkness in the world.

We are all built to be light carriers, light bringers in this time.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 12 January 2012

Posted by Dawn Kirk at 6:56 PM No comments: 
The Hand of God & Mystery This morning as I awoke I saw a hand, a dark hand with its palm facing me and its  fingers upright. Then the hand became a tree much like the one I photographed in recent moonlight.

Moments later as I noted this in my journal I suddenly realized I was being shown how the hand of God became a tree.

How might our daily lives change, our comings and goings by foot, bike, car, bus and train, if we realized God in the trees? How might our inner lives change if we opened to and considered the dark hand of Mystery growing through our lives, holding us at all times?

Imagine the Shift of realizing the Divine in trees and opening to the Mystery of your life.

Dawn, The Good News Muse 12 January 2012

Posted by Dawn Kirk at 9:54 AM No comments: 

Divine Messges in Nature

I had determined to run the mile home during this morning's walk yet at the turn my breath was taken. I thought I had come upon beautiful paper until I picked it up. I had found bark. Bark found me. It seemed mutual this encounter with exquisite pages from a nearby birch. Assembly lines cannot create this work of art with orange, brown and blue hues and Morse code lines etched in tissue paper layers.

I now hold this sacred text and feel blessed and mesmerized. Divine messages are written in Nature before our very eyes.
-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 11 January 2012

Posted by Dawn Kirk at 9:26 AM No comments: 

The Call of Cranes and Colquitt Over the entrance of the Colquitt, Georgia emergency services department hangs a sign reading: "When Called, We Respond."

February 2-5 people will gather in Colquitt responding to another call, a call to care for Mother Earth through the arts of storytelling, community building and social change.  In it's 6th year, the Building Creative Communities Conference will feature Peggy Rubin founder of the Center for Sacred Theater in Ashland, Oregon and workshops on Social Artistry with Jan Sanders, Community Storytelling with Dr. Richard Geer, Community Development with Dr. Tim Chapin and presentations on local food initiatives. See the link below for scheduling, registration, etc.

Nearer home in Middle TN this weekend, Jan. 14/15, bird lovers far and wide gather for the TN Sandhill Crane Festival in Birchwood, TN to see and hear the literal calls of 1,000's of sandhill cranes wintering at the Hiwassee Wildlife Refuge.  This year's a special treat as endangered whooping cranes and a lone hooded crane found in Asia are present at the refuge also.  Already in the past month visitors from 35 states and five countries have seen and heard these amazing birds that are 2.5 million years old. (Sandhill crane fossils are one and a half times older than the earliest remains of most living species of birds.) A link's provided below for directions, hours and activities planned through the weekend.

Both the cranes and Colquitt share great story.  Sandhill cranes have returned from the verge of extinction while Colquitt like so many small towns on the verge of dying has been resurrected by "Swamp Gravy" a yearly changing play written and performed by community members now in its 18th year.

Whether reviving small towns or wildlife, love stirs the call to respond, love for one's community and for nature.  Yet there lies a deeper beauty and grace-filled gift in responding to calls such as those presented by Colquitt and the cranes.  As we rescue our winged kin and small towns, we are personally rescued and revived.  Our hearts, minds and imaginations are invigorated and our personal ties strengthened.

We are called more than ever today to show up and wake up to the revival of great story, a story of creativity, community, cooperation and collaboration, a story of great love unfolding on Earth.

Today we are called. How do you respond?

Get yourself to the TN Sandhill Crane Festival, Jan. 14-15 8am -6pm. See link for a schedule of presentations at the Birchwood Elementary School and Native American presentations at the Cherokee Removal Memorial Park

And seriously consider attending Building Creative Communities Conference in Colquitt, GA.

These events are inspiring, stirring and part of today's Good News.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse 10 January 2012

Posted by Dawn Kirk at 10:03 AM No comments: 

Thoughts on Light and Flight

How many flames quietly burn in our world?
In the past year I’ve wondered how it is that in the city, I feel a literal connection to nature that I don’t in the country. How is it running or walking city sidewalks, I feel circles of energy moving from the trees to me and back again from me to the trees?  How is it that I, an introvert, am fed by this energy as traffic noisily passes; while in the country where I could run and not be passed by cars, I stay inside or in my yard?

I love the trees in the country.  They quietly stand, encircling me, but I seem to take them for granted.  Whereas the trees in the city seem to call out and say, “Acknowledge us not just on Earth Day but every day.”  In the land of concrete and asphalt where Nature is easily forgotten, they see me and I see them seeing me.

New Year’s Day I decided to venture out and run the country road I don’t often travel.  I didn’t run to have an epiphany but as I ran I felt a sense knowing in my body.  The wide open spaces of the country hold an expansiveness with which I’m unaccustomed.

I think of myself as being outside the box, yet running along with the sky overhead unencumbered by noise and boundaries I felt the box in which I live unknowingly. I felt viscerally constrained.

Arriving home I pondered the gift in this containment for I’ve experienced the energetics of me, how the body can circulate energy feeding and being fed.  I now ask can I open to the freedom of expansiveness wherever I am? Can my heart and being encompass the all, the unknown or will I choose safety, living constricted and small?

Then I hear: Light constricted is flame.

I don’t know physics but I think of the atom and molecule and the energy bound in very small things. I think of the seed and the child, the ant and the bee, the lessons found in small mysteries. Can I be bound by a body yet feel boundlessness at the same time? Can I open to something larger than my city streets and engage with expansiveness all around me?

How I Learned Containment I began the next day with a ritual honoring people past and present on my family tree. I  lit a candle to honor the flame my father carried.  Wanting to ensure this light burned through the day and into the night, I transferred the flame as the hours passed from candle to candle.

My father’s physical flame went out January 2nd six years ago, yet I suspect through many kind deeds known and unknown his light continues to burn.  His acts from which I benefited most were related to his hard work. With me, he was more often harsh than kind with words.

His parents feared the going out of his flame as a child for in his baby book my grandmother noted her fears early on of his dying from whooping cough.

Worried she and my grandfather hovered and smothered not wanting to let go. This worry became control leading to irritation and harshness between my father and his parents. Not knowing how to navigate vulnerability and closeness, my father in turn visited a similar harshness upon many of those who were close.

This generational dance of love and control is a piece to the puzzle of how I learned containment.

I sat with the flame representing my father and pondered his passing over several months time.  Although there was much I said to him, there’s always felt like one missing piece.

As I sat with the flame, the sun came through the blinds and I felt compelled to take a photo.  I wondered if I was diverting from the moment by trying to capture it. Yet when I looked at the photo I saw the presence of a light being. Not only did I see a beautiful six pointed star, but a green and blue orb sitting side by side with what looked like piano keys above the blue and green and a wing above and below.

Since green and blue represent the heart and voice chakras, I immediately thought, ‘The voice of the heart holds the keys to flight.’

It was around this time that it came to me, the one thing I didn’t say to my father, the one thing that was so obvious.

Twice while he was ill, I looked up to see him sitting in bed looking at me. Our eyes locked and his face was the saddest I had ever seen yet I looked away.

In a flash six years later, I knew what I wished I had said. I wished I had simply said, “You look so sad.”

How is it I allowed fear to keep me from being personal, from being me?  What’s the worst thing that could have happened?  He could have been sharp or dismissive, yet still that would have been his loss and I would have gained me.

In that moment, I was afraid of expanding.  Afraid of using my heart’s voice, I chose containment.

So I consciously chose to use my voice later that day and called a family member. I related the bittersweet realization to which she said she never talked to him that way either because she assumed if he wanted to talk about it (feelings) he would be the one to bring it up.

How much isolation’s been bred over time through not wanting to be rude or cause distress and upset?  How much constriction and containment has this quiet, no talk rule bred?  And if light constricted is flame how many flames quietly burn in our world? How many hearts await flight?
-Dawn, The Good News Muse 9 January 2011

Posted by Dawn Kirk at 2:37 PM 2 comments: 

Dust to Dust - On Dancing with Sunlight and Dust

The angle of winter sunlight coming through my windows is such that I see galaxies of dust, dust flecks sparkling and circling around me.  I've been known winter's past to remind myself of Princess Leah in my white housecoat/robe using the vacuum hose to suck particles from the air.

Now I'm less likely to warring and more prone to watching and wondering.

Recently particles swirled as I realized I was being reminded everything returns to dust, back to its origins in Mother Earth, including us.

Can I be at peace with this truth?  Yet I'm being offered more than peace.  Can I be joyful in the truth of constant change and feel gratitude for the preciousness of each temporary moment?

I watch as the cosmos stirs around me.  Particles of dander, skin, pet hair, my hair, newspaper, toilet paper, paper towels, bed sheets, bath sheets, particles of this and more dance with me as sunlight makes the unseen seen.

I want to joyfully join the dance rather than try to control it.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse 5 January 2012
Posted by Dawn Kirk at 9:37 AM No comments: 

Son's of Earth

"Sun's of Earth realize the beauty you carry inside."

Since writing of Sun's nearness today, I thought it wise to sit in the sun, to soak up its rays and listen as often as possible, to see what it had to say. During an afternoon break, I sat down and immediately saw geometric shapes.  I was reminded of a similar occurrence this summer after which Jerry who was also outside called for me.  He had found flowers at the garden's western edge that we hadn't planted.

They took my breath away. Their honey comb insides looked like what I had just seen while sitting in the sun.

These were the flowers I thought of today when the shapes appeared.

These are the flowers I was thinking of when I heard "Suns of Earth realize the beauty you carry inside,"

I wrote "Suns of Earth" but was thinking, "Sons of Earth. Sons of Earth realize the beauty you carry inside."

What might be realized if men walking Earth stopped their warring and realized the beauty they carry inside?
-Dawn, The Good News Muse  4 January 2012

Posted by Dawn Kirk at 3:39 PM No comments: 

Sun - The Faithful Gardener On Earth's Perihelion Today Earth is at its perihelion or the closest we come in our orbit to the Sun.  There's something quite beautiful about this, this body of fire that warms our Earth, giving life to all that sustains us being so near in this coldest time of year in our Northern Hemisphere. Memory takes me to the Blue Ridge Parkway and the joy I felt last summer seeing multitudes of yellow flowers, visible reminders of Sun's energy come to Earth, lining the mountain roads.

We had not traveled this road in over twenty years. Jerry could not stop enough for me to take photos of what I saw as little suns on stems of green. Today I am mindful Sun is a Faithful Gardener gently planting seed waves of energy into Earth's soil and our souls especially on this winter's day.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse,
4 january 2012

Posted by Dawn Kirk at 11:33 AM No comments: 

May Separation Cease - Inspired by Gardens and the Homeless

Late today I spread a thick layer of mulch over recently planted garlic. As I did I thought of someone I know taking coats to the homeless.

I considered her act much greater than my own until I realized what matters most is an attitude of concern, kindness and care. Both of us desire to protect life and provide warmth in the predicted winter cold.

This may sound strange, but it occurred to me that to say her act is greater than mine perpetuates separation.

Beliefs around separation and systems built on theses beliefs contribute to how we segregate ourselves into the homed and homeless, thinking we nor our kin could end up on the streets.  Separation contributes as well to our disconnect from the foods we eat, forgetting food really comes from earth and not the fast food lane or grocery.

May our illusions of separation cease and every living thing on earth be cloaked in the warmth of kindness and love this night.
-Dawn, The Good News Muse 2 January 2012

Posted by Dawn Kirk at 8:27 PM No comments: 
When Water and Light Meet This morning in the shower, I saw a feather in the glass, a feather to my left and then snake or lizard skin to my right. I love both birds and reptiles and find it fascinating that these two creatures seemingly so different, earth and sky bound, are kin in creation's chain.

Fearing the images might vanish, I rushed downstairs to get my camera and hurriedly returned hoping they hadn't changed. The images faithfully remained. After taking photos, I realized the snake skin also looked like tree bark.

Bark, feathers and skin protect, protect the body while holding a being of light.

The interplay of water, glass and sun's light gave me this gift reminding me of a song line I heard over a year ago.

"We are made of glass."

Water on glass, our own light body, reveals who we really are. Yet I've often turned from water, my own and others, and when I do I deny in that moment who I am.

When I turn from the water of tears, I deny my light body its beautiful patterns, patterns that are meant to shine.

When water and light join there is passion. Where the water of tears and light of the heart join there is fire.

How are you in relation to water and light?

-Dawn, The Good News Muse,  2 January 2012

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