MY INNER CHILD EXPERIENCE

A Lesson in Flowers

More 20 years ago I attended a workshop with John Bradshaw in the cafeteria of Las Vegas High School. John was wearing a white dress shirt with no tie and stood right down on the level where we were sitting. This was before he started thinking he was a famous speaker.

As the climax of the workshop, he offered us a creative meditation opportunity and suggested we go inside our minds and meet our inner child. He didn't say wounded inner child or maladjusted inner child, he just said  inner child with no embellishments.

It wasn't a "guided" meditation since his only voice-over was "Go meet your inner child" or words to that effect.

Lest we be wary of this experiment, he informed us there were psychology students from UNLV standing by in case we got upset.. Having them there bothered me. I think I resented the fact these were only psychology students as if we didn't rate real psychologists. How serious could this be? (It turned out nobody needed them. I bet they were disappointed and vowed never to volunteer for anything ever again.)

I had no worries at all except perhaps thinking the people on either side of me would distract me with crying or screaming.

Once he set us loose in our own minds to find our inner children, he was silent.

I was then, and still am now, good at reaching an alpha level and doing creative visualizations. I've 

received a good deal of inspiration from wandering around in my subconscious. (In fact, there're a good deal of people who would say I wander around in my subconscious a good deal of the time.)

So I went into a relaxed state immediately and "saw" myself walking into an elaborately decorated parlor with Victorian style furniture done in large flowered upholstery. There was, in this small feminine room, a little girl with curly hair, dressed in a white frilly dress, lace trimmed socks and shiny, white Mary Jane shoes. She appeared to be about four or five years old.

She grinned at me. Did she know who I was? Was she expecting me?

Suddenly she said, "Come on, let's jump on the sofa." And she hopped onto the sofa and commenced jumping up and down with wild abandon.

I gasped and said, "We can't do that."

She said, "Yes, we can. It's my sofa." I had no argument for that so I just watched her enjoying herself in horrified silence.

She then ran over to a fabulous black-enameled baby-grand piano. She situated herself on the bench with  her feet dangling above the floor. She began pounding on the keys making a loud, cacophonous sound, smiling as if it were the most beautiful sound she'd ever created.

I shouted over the din, "We can't do that."

She said, "Yes, we can. It's my piano." I silently gave her that and shut up and simply listened.

She then ran out French doors into a wonderful garden completely covered in bright, big, beautiful blossoms. She laughed with delight, wrapped her arms around the stems indiscriminately grabbed up a huge bouquet.

I cringed and said, "We can't do that." I was still worried we'd be scolded.

She said, "Yes we can. It's my garden."

At that point John brought the meditation to a close. I glanced around the room feeling guilty that my inner child trip was so joyful.

I realized then, my inner child was fine. It was my outer adult that was seriously fucked up.

MADE IN CHINA PLASTICS

I'm embarrassed to say I bought my shoes at Walmart. I have excuses. Walmart is the only store closer than 20 miles of me. I need some shoes I don't have to worry about. The don't have to last long, I can wear the hell out of them. They can get dirty. I can toss them in the washer. So throw away quality is the highest priority.

I also have a pair of Mary Janes for dress up. (I got them online for $80 plus shipping and handling and I have no idea where they were made not.) They're fairly attractive, fit good, have a non-slip tread, and will last a long time.


Before I got these mail order shoes, I gave away every last shoe I owned. Probably a thousand dollars worth. Including leather Spira's, Z-Coils, sandals, "tennis" shoes, boat shoes (though I  live a thousand miles from the ocean), assorted cute shoes and a pair of shoes with one sole built up.

I sometimes wish I'd saved some of them but I honestly thought I'd be wearing nothing but the built up shoe for the rest of my life. The darn things cost $400 (while Z-Coils are only in area of $200 to $400). I had to find a foot person to measure me for a built up shoe and then go to a specialty store to have the 'prescription' filled.

My right leg is 2 inches shorter than the left. It didn't used to be. After a long illness that resulted in spine surgery the leg was shorter. I don't blame the doctors. I'm glad I'm not dead. 

To make a long story short (no pun intended) I'd rather limp and walk with a cane than wear an elevated shoe. (I preferred a raised heel not a full sole raised but it was silly of me to think I could actually have what I want for a mere $400.)

I discovered the elevated shoe was heavy, clumsy and  didn't bend at the place a shoe is supposed to bend while actually walking.  And it made my back hurt. Ugh.

The shoe guy who measured me for a lift said it was customary to raise the shoe half as high as the actual discrepancy. Dolt. I limped worse in those expensive leather speciality shoes that were supposed to fix the problem. Again, who am I to judge? Shoe guys and fancy shoe stores have to make a buck. Whatever.

BTW, being out $400 sucked, too.

So anyway, as I said, I chose to limp and carry a cane & keep my balance. Who knows it may come in handy if I see a mugging and have to clobber someone.

So the point to this story is: I wear cheap shoes now.

I've had a horrid awakening that all Made in China plastics and vinyls are not the same.

Some stink like they are emitting poisonous gas. (I didn't care how funny I looked in Walmart sniffing all the potential shoe purchases. It's Walmart so who's to notice--even the employees ignore us. I didn't look any more conspicuous than the old, plump guy decked out in bright tie dye--shirt, shorts, and hat. He looked like a Mardi Gras parade. 

Check out this link!

Warning: Chinese plastics, being smelly, must be put outside until their smell fades away. I wonder though if this just gets rid of the smell and not the toxicity. And watch out what you put in handbags and such so whatever it is doesn't pick up the smell and toxicity.

I ask you to please smell (and taste) all plastic things before you put them on a baby, give him a toy to play with or wash him up in a Chinese plastic bathtub.

As far as tasting plastic, I had a tiny doll I wanted to pass on to a little girl I know since the doll looked like her. So out of curiosity I smelled it. Okay so far. And then touched it slightly with my tongue. IT WAS INSANELY HORRIBLE. The taste burned and lingered for an hour and nothing would make it go away. I felt I had been poisoned and waited to drop over onto the floor. Fortunately I didn't.

But my curiosity taught me a few things....

PLEASE TASTE ALL THE CHINESE PRODUCTS FOR CHILDREN BEFORE YOU ACTUALLY LET THE CHILD TOUCH (AND TASTE) THEM. 

This was actually true about some crayons I bought (they used to be wax when I was a kid and we were able to chew them). I think it's a harsh way to teach kids to avoid putting imported things in their mouths. You just don't know where they've been.

What's it going to take to stop America from relying on imports from China? After all, Mexico and Canada are close by and need the money.

I put the crayons outside a few weeks. I found out they don't melt either. I also suggested they wash their hands when they were done 'creating art' as they called it. 

To continue, I'm not going to taste my shoes. I dare say, no one else will taste my shoes either. If I see a drooly baby crawling my way, I'll move out of his range.

The Walmart shoes I bought smelled fine, too. So I'm wearing them for the first time today. They may not be gorgeous but at $10 per shoe they'll do.

Take a stand on Chinese plastics

REMEMBERING DREAMS

I started recording my dreams. It's interesting to see the insights I get about my myself.

Remembering dreams is a matter of waking up with feelings and translating those to thoughts and receiving the 'message'.

Today I dreamt I changed into a boy. I went fishing in a boat with 'my father' who happened to be my second husband's father Jake. 

I had trouble becoming a boy and realized I had to behave like an adult. Be a man, so to speak. 

This dream has double meaning.

When I was a child (in real life) I decided that if I had to grow up to be a woman instead of a man, in this patriarchal and male-dominated world, I wouldn't grow up at all. I'd stay a little girl.


So.

I think I've accomplished that 'goal'.

I believe this dream has less to do with gender and more about claiming my power as an adult.

The dream's more about why I stayed childish instead of childlike. I realize now that I'm more immature than I am a late-bloomer. 

In other words, the message of my dream today is: "GROWN UP" and "GET A LIFE".

Sometimes those old cliched axioms are still right-on.

Would that we were 40 again

Less than 25 years ago but oh so far away.



Sexiest man in the universe
1989



I was so lucky. I finally had true love. And he was thrilled. He believed he had a trophy wife.



WHAT DO SNOW & ATLANTIS HAVE IN COMMON?

Today it's sunny cloudy sunny cloudy sunny.  The snow is blowing around, big flakes flying up, down, and sideways. And in spirals.

The weather is crazy lately. But after all it's 2012. What can you expect?

Today it's 34 degrees. Last year it was 34 below zero. Never, ever, never, ever that cold here.

 I wonder if what Zecharia Sitchin wrote is right? He wrote in his book The 12th Planet that a planet with an orbit around our sun taking 3600 years. When it's ready to cut through the orbits of the rest of us planets it causes gravity to go haywire and cause all sorts of cataclysmic events on known planets. Heck, probably on other planetary solar systems too. 

Maybe it's gravity will pick up Pluto and whisk it away and the debate over whether it's really a planet will cease. But then Marduk will be the 11th planet not the 12th Planet.

Yes, it's name is Marduk. I don't know if that's the real name of it or just what he calls it. There's a Marduk in human mythology, I'm sure.

Hey, something made Atlantis sink, and Machu Picchu to rise up from the coast to 14,000 feet elevation. An event that changed the Sahara and Egypt into deserts and made the sea wash over the Sphinx. (Don't you watch those cable channel 'documentaries'?)

Graham Hancock in Fingerprints of the Gods convinced me that the Sphinx is way older than archaeologists think it is (another story. http://www.grahamhancock.com/)  He also convinced me Atlantis didn't just sink. When the earth went through all those cataclysmic changes  most likely the tectonic plates moved around and moved the continent we jokingly call Atlantis to the bottom of the planet forming (you guessed it) Antarctica. 

As you recall Antarctica has land under the ice. Thought I don't believe the maps showing Antarctica are real. I suspect Atlantians spoke Atlantian not anything we call a language today.

Who knows what everybody will think tomorrow.

And as I can't remember what the point of this was so I'll end here lest your eyes get weary of listening.

THE END IS NEAR? Thoughts on 2012

TS Eliot (1988-1965) Poet

The Hollow Men

....This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

This is the way the world ends

Not with a bang but a whimper.

Is the world going to end in 2012?

I do believe the end is in sight. It's might be in 2012, it might be in 2112 of 2121, but the world will definitely end sooner or later.

The "world" in this case means the same as it does in in A Course in Miracles. ACIM says the world's an illusion. It means basically that what we've created in real-time isn't really real.


I think "the world" in both of these scenarios means the world of things and activities that we've created--we've made--we've built.

The world is not The Earth. The Earth will be fine without mankind's world of events.

However it does end, of course a few humans will survive and start the world all over again.

I think the Mayans are talking end of the world, not the cessation of the earth, when they made their calendar end at 12/21/2012. (How do we know they meant the year 2012? Their calendar was different. Way different. It's only 2012 to us because we decided to appoint a year "#1" 2012 years ago. Let's not get into that. I hate math.

If it is the earth of physical matter that's to end, it could be instantly gone and us with it. We wouldn't even be aware of not being here. But I don't believe it will go that fast before we suffer a little at first. (Or with a whimper a la Eliot.)

After all, look at the Mayan civilization. It basically ended. They had an advanced culture and it's gone. Now they've made a good start at starting over; resurrecting their language, art and culture. And re-populating as Mayans.

We'd have to be mighty ignorant to assume that won't happen to other cultures and civilizations, including our own. It's happened too many times to many tribes and nations. Plus there are the ones that are so long gone we don't even know they existed.

It would a very simple and quick way for the world, as we know it, to end. Some scientists predict cataclysmic weather and even geological/geographical changes, possibly caused by sun spots. Some even go as far as to predict upheaval of the tectonic plates rearranging the land masses and bodies of water. (Which is proven to have happened in the earth's past more than once.) Maybe there were other civilizations before the dinosaurs and if big reptiles could think they'd wonder why people went extinct.

So. How could the world end?

CUT OFF THE ELECTRICITY !  

Everything would come to an abrupt halt. Chaos would soon reign. Human existence would screech to a halt.


Let's face it, someday we are going to use more electricity at the same time than we can handle it. That will cause a tremendous blow-out. Civilization will suffer a power-meltdown. Since nearly everything in the world is based on using electricity, the world has no choice but to "end."  

There are just no batteries big enough to handle us. And nuclear energy has proven unreliable. (Or if we could use it, we could just go up in a puff of smoke or particles or whatever.)   


Without electricity we can't eat or heat, drive or thrive.

All our food production in "advanced" societies is dependent on electricity. It'd only be a matter of time before animals were killing us for food rather than the other way around.

We'll be burning things down to keep warm. We'd be stuck in massive traffic jams with no way to get anywhere, as if being somewhere would matter.

Even our communication is built on electricity, so read my blog while there is still time left.

Of course there will still be a few "modern" people left who will travel to where the primitive people (?) never used electricity. These "modern" people will teach these so-called primitive people what they know and start the whole ball rolling again.

But no matter whatever happens to us, I think Mother Earth will be fine. Even if She fell into the sun, she'd be glorious & bright.

In fact, She might even be better without us. 

SECRET TEENAGE MEMORIES

"I'm still haunted by the things I did for a Klondike Bar"
....Anonymous

Some funny things I remembered about my teen-aged years. I better write them down before I forget them.

This is based on a letter to my brother who is 2 years younger. It's about things that happened 50+ years ago, so spare me the righteous indignation.


Dear Bro,

Remember when I had one of my boyfriends over and you put on some music for us to listen to when you went to bed? A zillion years ago? He and I laughed when we heard it and you came back in a huff and took it back upstairs. It was John Phillip Sousa's marches. Not exactly the most romantic music I've ever heard. I hope you have reconsidered your taste in music for romantic occasions.

I seem to remember I mentioned something to you recently about "sexual abuse"? I don't think that was technically true. That was what Mom and Dad thought. I thought I was gonna marry the guy. I guess they thought I was too young. I must not have agreed with them (like when they hinted I should stop smoking) so instead of them taking me to a psychologist or a minister to advise me, they took me to a lawyer who yelled at me for 30 minutes about how hard it is to be married and make it in the world and to raise kids, etc. (I bet he never said all that to his wife!) It's one of my funnier memories. Mom and Dad were strange. Or they were just horrified to learn that girls like sex as much as boys.

One time, too, I took one of Mom and Dad's miniature whiskeys to a teen-aged party. I found out I was the only one there with a spiked drink. The party was really boring and the "band" was playing the same unknown song over and over. So I called Mom and said there was drinking at the party and would she come and get me. Bet she bragged to her friends for years about that. I wasn't even invited to the party, I crashed it.

I came home from a party one time drunk on sloe gin. (I heard from guys drinking boiler makers that they wouldn't touch sloe gin with a ten foot pole. It was a college-aged party. I was almost 18.) I came in the front door and discovered Mom had waited up for me. So I faked being sober and said good-night, went upstairs and fell onto my bed completely wiped-out. I prided myself on pretending to be sober at a moment's notice. (I haven't had a drink now for 37 years. It stopped being funny and became, well...just stupid.)

Do you have any funny secrets? Like the time you came home drunk and asked me for a goodnight kiss. You probably forgot that. I said: "Go to sleep, you jerk." That's before dirty words got more acceptable in the 60's. (I learned how to say shit in 1963 and took it from there.) So in the 21st Century I could've said, "Go to sleep, you asshole."

There are just not enough words to describe a younger brother, are there?

I'm in a silly mood but all this is totally true.

Love, Sis





Isn't  this the face of an angel?



PS: Oh yeah, I remember when we were little being mad at you for something so I hit myself on the shoulder and pointed out the red mark to Mom and told her you hit me. Ha ha. But I guess you got even with me the time you locked me out when I came home from school one day. You stood inside and made faces at me laughing that wicked laugh. I was so mad I put my fist through the glass. I got in big trouble for that. (BTW, why didn't you let me in? I had to pee real bad.)

Notice to readers: I might have been a drunken slut but my brother was a BRAT.

We're friends now, and we're both real nice.

My brother wrote me with some teenaged secrets of his own:

Dear Sis,

I remember one time I was walking home from a friend's house late at night because we'd been working on my car there. A local cop pulled up. I looked at him and said; "What?! am I walking too fast?". He said, "Oh it's you. Where's your car?. I told him and he said must be true "because you're wearin' coveralls and have grease on you. Hop in and I'll give ya a ride the rest of the way."

[Our town only had one cop. He had his own car painted to look like a cop car. Gotta love those small towns. ~S]

We used to walk all over too and ride my motorcycle. One night I went the wrong way on a one-way street near the church and the cop was comin' the other way. I stopped. And he stopped and looked at me, then put his hand in front of his face and said, "I didn't see a thing, get out of here." We were only going as far as the house on the corner where the guy lived who was on the back of my motorcycle with a 6 pack we'd just bought at 7-11.

Are these funny or scary? Kids is all nutz.

SOME THINGS I'M GRATEFUL FOR TODAY

I'm grateful that my butter doesn't spoil when I leave it out on the counter. On the other hand that means it's not soft either. Things are better than last year when it was colder in the kitchen than in the fridge. (This winter I got a heater so I'm grateful I could afford one.)

I'm grateful for Family Dollar store selling strawberry jam more cheaply than the grocery store. It means I can have more jelly bread for the same cost. (Or whatever. I don't do math in my head.) 

Other things are cheaper at Fam$ too. I just refuse to fight the crowds at Smiths to pay $2.50 for a can of soup. And I don't have to race for a parking space at Fam.$ or dodge people who try to run over cane walking old ladies.

I'm grateful I can still open a vacuum sealed jar of jam. However, I plan (when I'm really old) to have the clerks open my jars at the checkout counter before I take them home.

I'm grateful I'm in a happy mood even tho it's overcast and snowy outside. (As a matter of fact it's stopped snowing. Which doesn't mean anything. We could get two feet of it by tomorrow. Ah, the joys of living at 7200 ft. elevation.) I'm also grateful I got a couple studded snow tires a couple days ago. Maybe next year I'll get some for the back.

I don't know if I have S.A.D. but I sometimes I'm sad when it's dark and gloomy outside. Except at night. I like it dark at night. I'm a "night owl" & stay up really really late. Quite contented to watch movies and eat jelly bread.

What are YOU grateful for today?