See you Later

I don't like goodbyes.  I usually say "see you later".  Colorado I will see you later.  We are leaving for Nevada tomorrow.  It appears there is quite a storm approaching including very cold air and the "s" word.  Yes, that would be snow.  We have stayed longer than years past. 

It has been a full summer with many visitors, lots of forestry work and many unexpected adventures including an epic flood.  

People ask me if I am sad to leave such beauty to go to Las Vegas of all places.  My answer is we love it when we in Colorado and we love it when we are in Nevada.  Our life is simpler in Nevada.  It is time for us to regroup.  We are able to pursue matters of the mind and body.  The ranch is shut down and hibernates.  BRC likes to say we get more done by leaving and coming back.  If you had told me 10 years ago I would be spending my winters in the Las Vegas area I would have told you you were crazy.  I have seen Las Vegas through BRC's eyes and found the outdoor life through my own.  There is so much for the outdoor enthusiast including trails, Lake Meade, Mount Charleston including a ski hill an hour from the strip, Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon all within a days drive.  I can be at the beach in 4 1/2 hours.  We can fly to almost any destination in the World.  Then there is the Strip with great restaurants, shows, shopping and people watching. What a fortunate human being I am.  

So I say thank you to Colorado and all that I experience here.  I say thank you to Nevada for all that I experience there.  I will see you later.  

  

I am off to the West, figuratively and literally.  It will be the fourth class in the Energy Medicine Course for which I am getting my certification.  It is held in Joshua Tree, California.  Never did I ever dream when I was in High School and we would travel to Yucca Valley and 29 Palms for athletic events would I be back taking an Energy Medicine course.  I used to think who would ever want to be out here?   The Four Winds describes the course as follows:  

"Just as the jaguar has no predators in the jungle, learn to have no enemies in this world or beyond.  Leave behind the traditional archetype of the violent warrior and step into the shoes of the luminous warrior, who speaks only truth, walks truth, and calls truth. Break free from the grip of fear and prepare to journey beyond death.

In The Way of the Jaguar, you will have an opportunity to explore inherited ancestral and karmic patterns that propel you toward a certain destiny. You will participate in exercises that help you to come into right relation with these patterns and to honor the gifts of your ancestors, so that you can set them free and empower yourself to create the world of your dreams.

In addition, you will be introduced to the shaman’s perceptual states, which will allow you to track or “see” phenomena on the physical, emotional, mythic and energetic levels.  You will also learn the ethics of tracking so that you may use your skills to promote health and well-being in those around you, including your clients.

In working with the Luminous Energy Field of others, you will learn the art of Extraction which includes:

Extraction of Crystallized Energies – removing energies that have solidified in the Luminous Energy Field due to a lack of energy flow for a prolonged period of time.

Extraction of Fluid Energies and Entities – removing energies that move freely through the Luminous Energy Field but are foreign to that energy field and can create a parasitic relationship with its host.

Removing crystallized energies and fluid energies or entities frees up the flow of light and energy, altering the energetic blueprint and promoting optimal health on the level of the body, emotions, and soul."

Bring it on!

Water, Water Everywhere

Water, Water Everywhere

It has been almost a month since "biblical" floods hit our area of Colorado.  Some areas got up to  20" in a matter of days in areas that had already been saturated.  This is a picture of Highway 72 which is our main road down to the Denver area.  It will be closed for some time for repairs.  We were having to drive an extra hour each way, going through Black Hawk or Idaho Springs.  On Monday Highway 119 opened from Nederland to Boulder.  It is amazing what you take for granted.  We were fortunate and did not have much damage on the ranch-a pump, a leak, road repair, always erosion and drainage work.
It was a unique storm in that it just parked itself along the front range.  The Weather Channel reported it was a one in one thousand chance.  Areas from Estes Park to Colorado Springs and out East where the South Platte flows were all affected.  This year we decided to stay in Colorado until December 1st to do some extra work on the Ranch, especially in the hanger before going to Las Vegas for the winter.  We shall see.

You are studying what?

Today is August 22, 2013.  I haven't written in this blog for quite a while and decided it was time again.  So much has happened since my last entry-I got married, retired, started a two year certification course from the Four Winds Society in Luminous Healing and Energy Medicine, started wood turning and am working on the ranch full time.  

I have included this picture of a fox as I feel it is my animal totem.  I see a lot of foxes.  I even saw one in our subdivision in Henderson, Nevada.  The fox spirit is called upon when you find yourself stuck in any sort of rigid thinking to help you escape.  The thought is to be in the flow and not to worry.  We possess all the skills necessary to adapt to whatever circumstances life throws our way.  I will be posting a variety of fox pictures just for fun.  

I got married to a man I have known for 35 years.  I said I really didn't need to marry again unless it was for financial reasons.  I realize that doesn't sound very romantic, but at my stage in life it was realistic.  Turns out it is very positive on many levels including health insurance and many other benefits, besides I love the man in a ridiculous manner.  We married quietly, at the Justice of the Peace in Las Vegas.  It was just right. 

I retired.  Truthfully, I retired from driving 53 miles each way to a work place that did not serve me well anymore.  It is wondrous not to be driving that far anymore.  I do miss the people I worked with and the paycheck.  I am working full time on Bill's ranch in Colorado which is a different kind of labor.  We do forestry work, cutting, thinning, stacking, chipping, etc.  Weed control which involves spraying and cutting, but first identifying.  Fence repair, house maintenance including a deck repair and driveway repair this year.  Everything that goes into maintaining 300 acres.  It feels good physically at the end of the day to be tired.  

Wood turning.  How did you learn to do this?  You Tubes.  It is amazing what you can learn by watching You Tubes online.  Also just experimenting.  I have made my share of firewood.  I make pens, letter openers, coffee scoops, ice cream scoop, pizza cutters, back scratchers, vases, light holders, shavers, rattles and bangles.  Pretty much anything that has a handle.  I use both wood and acrylics.  I usually make the vases out of Aspen and give them as wedding presents.   

Light body School:  Luminous Healing and Energy Medicine.  Which brings me to the subject of this blog and what I will be writing about in the future.  I have always had an interest in various methods of healing.  Bill bought me a Kindle.  On the Kindle you can explore different books and topics.  I read a book about Shamanism.  Kindle recommended Alberto Villoldo's books.  I read Shaman, Healer, Sage and thought wow! I am aligned with this.   I then read the Four Insights and Illumination.  Dr. Villoldo wrote of The Four Winds training.  I researched and thought I would love to take this course,  so I signed up to take the two year program.  

Chapter 3: The Man who didn't believe in Love

Today is the first day of April.  It has been a year of learning, but more importantly, a time of putting into action the knowledge I believe is important in making my life what I want it to be.  I have been in the process of examining beliefs that I hold, positive and negative, how these beliefs impact my life and changing the ones I want to change.  This chapter tells the story of a man who did not believe in love.

This man thought that love did not exist.  He had done a great deal of observation, research and was very convincing to anyone who wanted to listen.  He compared relationships to that between a drug addict and the supplier of the drug.  The one with the biggest need was like the addict and the one with the smallest, the provider.  The one with the smallest need controls the whole relationship.  The man summed it up by explaining that "love" is nothing but a fear relationship based on control.

Then of course, one day he met a woman.  She did not believe that love existed either.  She related her experience, how she and her husband had lost respect for each other, then there was no more love.  This man and woman were so much alike, they became best friends, they respected each other and never put each other down, there was no control.  The relationship kept growing.

When the man was away he began to think that love did exist, but it was not as he had thought it would be.  He thought he was not responsible for her; he didn't want anything from her; he didn't want to control her; she doesn't need to take care of him;  he didn't need to blame her for anything; he had fun with her; he was happy for her successes, etc.  Perhaps love did exist.  (I think you can see where this is going).

He spoke with her and found out she felt the same.  They became lovers and lived together.  But eventually the man put his happiness in her hands, he made her responsible for his happiness.  Happiness never comes from outside of us.  The author states that if you put your happiness in someone else's hands your relationship will fail.  You have to take responsibility for your own happiness.

I read a book when I first graduated from college by Liv Ulmann called Changing.
She talked about not depending on another person for your own happiness and I remember thinking she was so right.  This is not the way I grew up thinking.  I bought into the whole fairy tale idea and I was disappointed many times.  I had set myself up for failure, but didn't realize it at that time.    


I picked up this book thinking it was going to talk about relationships between a man and a woman, which it does, but then again it always goes back to the relationship you have with yourself.  I believe that I am a whole person by myself, I don't need someone to complete me.  I do believe that a loving relationship with other human beings provide me with my greatest joy here on this Earth.  

Chapters 1 & 2: The Wounded Mind and The Loss of Innocence

This photo is in our bedroom in Nevada.  It reminds me to focus on the positive light, the love present in this universe.  Here it is almost the end of March.  I have had a challenging month at work along with a case of the crud and strep.  It still amazes me how easily I can slip back into the fear-based mode out of habit, but I remind myself what I want to create for my life and continue onward.

The beginning chapters of this book discuss the fact that we live in a fear based society.  I can remember when I was influenced by fear more so than I am now.  I have had an awareness, a knowing that there is another option, living life from a place of love.  It is not easy to get beyond the fear, because it is so ingrained in us as a society.  I believe the first step is to understand where the fear comes from.

The author says the Toltecs believe the human society lives in The Dream, or mitote.  This big Dream includes all the rules of society, its laws, its religions, its different cultures and ways to be.  This dream keeps us from seeing what we really are, which is pure love, we are Life.  Human beings by nature are very sensitive beings in which we perceive things with our emotional body.  When something goes wrong with the physical body we have a warning in the form of pain.  With the emotional body, the warning is fear. As children, we listen to these warnings and then move on.  Children live in the moment.  They are not ashamed of the past or worried about the future.  They are not afraid to love.  By the time we are adults we have become domesticated.   We lose our innocence, we lose our freedom, we lose our happiness, and we lose our tendency to love. This domestication has been going on as long as humans have been on the Earth, but more so with our society in the past few hundred years.  "Damn those Puritans" is a phrase JBR and I like to say to explain those beliefs in society that we are not aligned with.

Can Hell be right here on Earth?  I think so.  I think we can create our own Hell right here by our belief systems, that part of our mind that is always judging.  We not only judge others, but continuously judge ourselves.  This judgment is based on what we believe and based on a sense of justice and injustice.  We find ourselves guilty and need to be punished.  This manifests itself by feeling unworthy.  When we feel unworthy, undeserving, unlovable how can we have healthy relationships with others?  Hell has many different levels.

So if I understand where my fear comes from, what my belief systems are, then I can continue on the journey I have chosen for myself.  I can remove my fear-based beliefs and live my life from a place of love.

2011, New Year, New Name, New Book

Here it is February 2011.  Sometimes the months just seem to fly by.  This has been an exciting year already. BRC and I got married January 2nd.  Jillian is off to France to study at Pont Aven until the middle of May. Will is making a home for himself in Iowa, engaged to be married in September.  I can feel the tides of change shifting to a more stable time.  I have decided to write the blog about the book The Mastery of Love by Miguel Ruiz, published in 1999.  It really resonated with me.  If you are not familiar with this author he also wrote The Four Agreements which was more commercially successful.  Don Miguel Ruiz is a Nagual(shaman) and a master of the Toltec mystery school tradition.  He recently experienced a heart transplant.  This is a description of the book:

The Mastery of Love

In The Mastery of Love, don Miguel Ruiz illuminates the fear-based beliefs and assumptions that undermine love and lead to suffering and drama in our relationships. Using insightful stories to bring his message to life, Ruiz shows us how to heal our emotional wounds, recover the freedom and joy that are our birthright, and restore the spirit of playfulness that is vital to loving relationships.

I really like playfulness as a vital part of a loving relationship.  So who are the Toltecs?  The book jacket states the Toltecs have three fundamental masteries that guide us to our true nature, which is happiness, freedom and love.  The first is the Mastery of Awareness.  This makes sense in that we need to have an awareness of what we really are.  The second is the Mastery of Transformation which teach us how to become spiritual warriors, breaking free of the knowledge that enslaves us.  We change the dream of our life by changing our agreements and beliefs.  The third is the Mastery of Love which is a result of the first two masteries.  when we master Love, we align with the spirit of Life that is passing through us.  We are no longer the body, or the mind, or the soul, we are Love.  When we master these three we reclaim our divinity and become one with God which is the goal of the Toltec.

Thousands of years ago the Toltec were known throughout Southern Mexico who were people who formed a society to explore and conserve the spiritual knowledge and practices of the ancient ones.  Over the millennia they were forced to conceal the ancestral wisdom and maintain its existence in obscurity.  This was necessary to shield the knowledge from those who were not prepared to use it wisely or use it for personal gain or intentionally misuse it.  It was passed down from generation to generation, unveiling at this time.  It is not a religion, it honors the spiritual masters who have taught here on Earth.

The book gives the following description:
    A toltec is an artist of Love, an artist of the Spirit, someone who is creating every moment, every second, the most beautiful art~ The Art of Dreaming.
    Life is nothing but a dream, and if we are artists, then we can create our life with Love, and our dreams become a masterpiece of art.

To be a Master of Love,  let my journey begin...