Poor Blossom

Oh, what a catastrophe, what a maiming of love when it was made a personal, merely personal feeling, taken away from the rising and the setting of the sun, and cut off from the magic connection of the solstice and equinox!  This is what is the matter with us, we are bleeding at the roots, because we are cut off from the earth and sun and stars, and love is a grinning mockery, because poor blossom, we plucked it from its stem on the tree of Life, and expected it to keep looming in our civilized vase on the table.

-DH Lawrence

Lady Chatterly's Lover

Psychic Anchor

"We hold onto childhood memories of certain places as a kind of psychic anchor, reminding us of where we came from, of what we once were, or of how the physical environment perhaps nurtured us when family dynamics were strained or the context of our lives fraught with uncertainty."
-Claire Cooper Marcus "House as Mirror of Self"

The Experience of the Sacred Translated Through Human Memory Patterns

 

"The sacred has a dynamic aspect in that it has a tendency to manifest itself of its own accord.  It tends to come into the world and make itself known.  Further, each incarnate form, each object of matter, has a tendency to realize its archetypal, universal, sacred meaning.  These two tendencies-- that of the sacred to manifest itself and that of each incarnate form to realize its deeper archetype--come together in such a way that any object at any time can incorporate within itself all the power of the holy.  When the sacred manifests itself in the world, something in the human allows it to be immediately recognized.  A part of the human, most often a subconscious part, experiences the sacred and says to the conscious mind, "that is the REAL."  The conscious mind is then made aware of that which is beyond it and that from which it comes, the sacred.

The intrusion of the sacred into human experience represents a direct transmission of the REAL, a transmission of God, Creator, Allah, Great Spirit.  The human who experiences this is made aware of a reality that transcends the human and thus predates the human linguistic and cultural contstructs.  This presents difficulties.  How does one retain the memory and experience of something that predates all things human?  To explain the experience and to retain memory of it, human beings automatically structure the direct experience of the sacred into internalized symbolic constructs.  Thus the sacred comes to be expressed in visions, wondrous feelings, thoughts and sometimes smells and tastes.  This is due to the nature of memory patterning. 

Human memory patterns are constructed of aspects of the five senses; that is, memories are encoded bits of sights, sounds, smells, tastes, feelings.  Thus the experience of the sacred is translated into visions, sounds, smells, tastes and feelings even though the sacred is both all and none of these things.  Examinations of  the written and oral records of those who encountered the sacred show that their experiences were very rich and generally included all of the five senses."
-Stephen Harrod Buhner from "Sacred Plant Medicine"

I Love Mother's Day

The sun shone down on a lovely breezy day.  The air was fresh, the colors around vibrant green and blue, yellow, shades of purple, orange and pink.  A mama who loves mothers day, for having learned the love of motherhood, found herself pleasantly off-grid, snug in a tent, surrounded by love. 

Moments later, a small boy packed his backpack with only the essentials: a set of bey blades and a travel size stadium.  His big sister, curls flowing in the gentle breeze, smiled, spread the sunscreen on exposed skin, and tightened the laces on her well-worn hiking boots.  Their mama packed lunch and her trusty hiking partner/ boyfriend carried it off.

"Shall we go to where we saw the rattle snake, Mama?" the curly, smiley faces urged.  "Or how about where we ran from the cow stampede?  We can go to the cow trough and play with the fish!"

Longing to stretch our legs a bit, we lingered in our hike, and found a colorful meadow of tall grasses and wildflowers.  The boy's curls peeked just above the grasses.  So we spread our blanket, enjoyed a lovely lunch, played bey blades, told stories, played our hiking games, and napped snuggled close together.  No rattlesnakes or cow stampedes this time, but so many more beautiful memories made.

Time to get up; how we all longed not to leave.  But the celebration had not yet ended.  Off went the hiking clothes as we jumped into our city finest.  And down the hill we drove, but just a bit to the lovely Mt. Hamilton Restaurant where we all met with Grandma and Uncle.  The historic restaurant was ready for a new milestone.  After 30 years of family ownership, it was transferring to another family's care.  We are so happy to be part of this lovely place's history.

We watched the sun drop down beneath our view behind the mountains, and the glorious hues of the descending sun were quickly replaced by the sparkling city lights dancing their busy paths down below.  We watched from a distance as we enjoyed one another in a warm and comfortable place and were graciously and well fed by the lovely family of the mountain.

I could not have wanted a better day.  Each moment was delicious and precious and beautiful.  But isn't every moment as a mama delicious and precious and beautiful?  We mama's all are so very fortunate!  When I began my first pregnancy, I had the realization: "Never again shall I ever be alone."  It was a bit frightening for this very independent woman, but so comforting as I became the loving mama.  Yes, we are all connected!