Bless the Bugs and the Common Man

This morning during my walk, I ran my hands through a neighbor's rosemary bush.  Within a few steps I gasped.  I had a bug on my glove.

This was not a "Yuck, a bug!" response. This was a gasp of compassion as I held this dead little green grasshopper of a sorts.

'Bless the bugs,' was the first thing I thought as I walked along feeling 'bug love.'  Bugs - they are small yet such survivors.  Many bugs work together in community.  I'm not a bugologist but I'm fairly certain this helps in their survival.  Bugs, in our time, have been assaulted by Monsanto's chemicals yet they persist. 

The bug reminded me of people. 

Bless the common man who feels so small.  He too now bears in his body evidence of Monsanto's assault as chemicals contribute to cancers and disease.

I walked along cupping the bug in my gloved hands.  I thought I felt life, but decided maybe I was just imagining things.

Jerry pulled into the driveway just as I walked up.  He was happy to see me.  I was happy because of the bug. (Fortunately my cherishing creatures is something he loves about me.)

I was especially happy because the bug I carried was not dead after all. 

Can you imagine my delight upon seeing the bug move first one leg then another.  The warmth of my hands must have awakened him from his sleep. He began to stretch.  This little bug was very much alive.   

I took a photo then filmed him before returning him outside to our rosemary bush.  Inside I smiled.  How many people return bugs to their yards knowing it or its kin may next summer eat the very plant on which it's placed.  I ensured he was tucked in leaves near the plants center knowing the cold was on its way.

As I turned to walk away I thanked the bug for reminding me... 

The common man may feel insignificant and small but like the bug he is persistent, strong. 

And like the bug, the sleeping people are waking. 

-Dawn, The Good News Muse at Imagine the Shift

26 November 2013 

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

I Want A Heart of Garlic

Garlic's POV at sunset

This is my fourth year to have garlic's green sprouts breaking Earth's brown skin.  I continue to find myself mesmerized by the magic of how garlic grows.  Scientist-types of course would be quick to point out there's nothing magic about growing garlic for the credit belongs to soil, sun, rain and nutrients.

Garlic is still magic to me.  I am mesmerized by the fact that over eight months time one small clove can morph into 7-8 cloves clumped together providing the kick we savor on pizza, veggies, scrambled eggs and all kinds of things.

Garlic feeds me in all kinds of ways.  

I look at the word clove and c-love (see love).  If I can c-love in the darkest of people, acts and times then my heart of compassion and my mind of understanding will grow and multiply like the cloves of garlic in my yard outside. To C-love is the key to returning to relationship with rather than having power over.

Who decided to call it a 'head' of garlic anyway?  Why not a heart?  I'm not surprised it's a head as over the centuries, the head's gotten way out of proportion to the heart in our world. Valuing reason and thinking over the emotional and intuitive experience has gotten us to this place of such deep divides.

Divine Love is like a clove of garlic in Time's dark soil, stretching, expanding and morphing into multiple cloves. We have reached the end of Time's long night.  Love has been waiting.  Love is ready to be harvested, gently pulled from the shadows and the dark.  Divine Love is ready to be brought into the Light from the dark, yet magic Earthen Universe.

When I look at my garlic beds, I C-love and think, "I want a heart of garlic with a head, a thoughtful, open head of garlic on the side."

-Dawn, The Good News Muse at "Imagine the Shift" 30 June 2013
dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Green Beans of Wonder

Have you ever awakened with food on your mind?

I awoke recently with green beans on mine, not just any green beans, but my own.  I was still savoring their taste from the day prior when eight had been my meal gently boiled with the last of last summer's garlic and five quarter-size potatoes (that were not mine) all held in a little brown bowl thrown by Thor at Sparta's Fragrant Mushroom. 

The week before I had been in the grocery buying green beans impulsively not realizing mine were of eating size. 

I so prefer being in my little raised beds over being in the grocery.  I have heard Jean Houston refer to needing to teach children 'whole system processes.'  She explained what she meant but it wasn't until growing and eating my green beans that I got it. I am an adult just learning about whole system processes which is why I am often filled with the wonder and magic of life. To mindfully be involved from planting to preparing is sacred. 

Growing things feeds me.  I do not grow enough to feed myself physically but the feeding I receive is the soul food of experience that for me at least can't be found in the grocery aisle.  

Yet this week as I awoke with beans on my mind the part I was taken with related to the bodily satisfaction I experienced as I ate one bean at a time.  (I do not usually eat one bean at a time, do you?)

A place in my core felt soulful, bodily satisfaction.  It was the taste as well as knowing this tangible, tender green thing before me, then in me, was a cooperative venture resulting over time involving nurturing and nature. 

"Little Farma" is about the relational whether you're growing just a bit like me in raised beds or buying food from local farmers. 

The next time a bite of something is on your fork, stop for a moment to consider your relationship to what is about to become a part of you.  Have you been a part of it? Don't judge. Be mindful.  Wonder.

-Dawn, The Good News Muse, 28 June 2013

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

Little Farma - Signs and Symptoms

Like Spring's seeds sprouting, signs of "Little Farma" will soon be coming to sidewalks, parks and places all around my Nashville town and I suspect your community too.  With genetically modified products on grocery shelves and chemicals in everything, it's more important than ever to know where your food comes from, what's put on it as in pesticides and what's put in it as in fertilizers. 

I love Little Farma's focus on the local, not so much because I'm anti-Monsanto or anti-anything, but because I find great joy and aliveness in the sensory experience related to growing things, from digging in the dirt, to watching seeds break through to light, to the color and texture of foods at my local farmer's markets to meeting the young men and women with such spirit and heart, the new generation of farming.  

Since the season of "Little Farma" is upon us here's the signs and symptoms I've discovered years prior juxtaposed to Big Pharma. First let's compare and contrast.

* Farmaceuticals are packed with nutrients.  Pharmaceuticals are packed with chemicals.

* Farmaceuticals come from Mother Earth. Pharmaceuticals come from labs (after having gotten Mother Earth's secrets through plants.) 
 
* Farmaceuticals alter the mood without addiction as a risk.  (Okay I admit, there is an addictive quality I've found in growing things but aren't some addictions good?) 

 
* If for some reason you need to find new health insurance, the only pre-existing condition related to Farma-ceuticals is a willingness to get dirty.  Pre-existing conditions related to pharmaceuticals result in higher premiums or no coverage for that specific condition. 

As for the "Little Farma's" symptoms, these may just be related to me but I don't think so.  (This is where you imagine me speaking in that hurried, low and serious tone heard at the conclusion of drug commercials.)

Symptoms and/orSide effects include most of the following.   

 

Time spent in front of the television and computer may decrease. One's home as well as friendships may be neglected. Warm, bubbly, tingling sensations are not reason for panic.  These are the first signs of extreme peace and wholeness.  Food may taste different. This does not suggest taste bud disturbance. You are actually discovering how vegetables are suppose to taste. Farma-ceuticals may result in random episodes of philosophical wonderings and creative surges. Farma-ceuticals carry a risk of heart break due to the interaction of bugs and fungus on growing things. It is advised to engage and enjoy the process without attachment to outcome. If you experience any of the above, do not consult your doctor. 

 

So with the sun finally popping out in Nashville, get yourself outside, get earth under your nails, make way to the farmer's market and check out Local Table! magazine on-line and in print for farm-finds all around Middle TN. 

 

Now I've got to get outside myself. 

-Dawn, The Good News Muse 5 April 2013

dawn@imaginetheshift.com

And here's the original "Little Farma" story from Summer 2009.