A Prayer for Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was a holiday created by the United States government that became established in the early 1900’s. (Abraham Lincoln declared an official Thanksgiving holiday in 1863.  It took a while for it to become the widespread celebration we know today).

Thanksgiving was declared at a time when the country was becoming a “melting pot” and the diversities/differences between the peoples called for a common bonding to strengthen the ties. (See this link.) The story of Thanksgiving with the Pilgrims and Native Americans developed within the official start of this holiday. It is a story of history, myth and omissions. The truth that remains is that for three days the new settlers (Pilgrims/Puritans) and the Native American people feasted together in relative peace.

What I have gleaned from this more accurate telling of the history by Chuck Larsen with an ample bibliography to support it, is that, this holiday is really more about a Nation trying to find commonality, a common celebration in order to come together, to unite, peacefully.

There are certainly many significant and good holidays. However, Thanksgiving is one of my favorites. I love nothing better than to join with friends, family and at times, strangers, to share a meal, to raise up gratitude and to share. This is personal-ism at its best. And what could be more appropriate and deeply needed for our country at this time?

So, with humble gratitude I share my prayer of Thanksgiving with you:

God of Love, Wisdom and Compassion,

Now with joy and gratitude, we gather here and thank you for this home (or shelter), this family, and this Thanksgiving meal. We call to mind the water, air, earth, animals and people who labored and sacrificed to bring this meal to our table. Please bless all of them and their families, as we offer our grateful reverence for each one. We call to mind those who have no home, who have no means, who are alone, ill and those who are suffering. We ask for your blessing and compassion to be upon each one now, with your healing and abundant love. In this world and nation, there are countless diversities and differences between us; yet today, we raise up our connection with all life as family, and we are truly thankful. As we gather here with love and appreciation, may each moment now, draw all life closer and further into love, goodness and peace.

Amen.

Mitakuye Oyesin

Thank You God, for the water.

Water is one of the pressing issues of our time, from global privatization human rights issues to pollution in the rivers and ocean that threaten to leave us in dire crisis. Water is one of the most prevalent resources we have on this little planet, and yet it is in such a dynamic right now, that it seems there is not enough and many are suffering because of it.

I have to wonder, with all the abundance of water, if it is really our attitudes, and actions that stem from our attitudes, that needs to change. Do we suffer because of how we treat our resources? How difficult might it be to change?

It seems we are being called to appreciate the simplest of experiences and the smallest of things. In my mind, our attitudes towards our garbage and water are in about the same state. We want to use it and be done with it all at once. Once it goes down the drain or in the garbage can we want to feel as if it goes somewhere to be replenished or it goes somewhere to disappear. But in reality our neglect to care or appreciate blinds us to the fact that our garbage is overwhelming and polluting our resources severely. Our water is being sucked dry and polluted by industry, agriculture and corporations, and is being taken for granted by the average citizen of the USA. In the same motion that we consume and use, we take the water and our garbage for granted.

Yet, in face of this crisis, perhaps a shift of consciousness is needed in order to provide clean water for everyone, for the world and to utilize our garbage with innovation and appreciation?

I think of Masaru Emoto’s book, The Hidden Messages in Water, and the idea of our ability to hold love and gratitude for water or for whatever is before us to effect positive change and healing. Sometimes it only takes one word or one kind motion from a person who is radiating love and gratitude, to change the whole tenor of our day and shift the direction we are going.

In response to Emoto’s work with water and his findings, children in schools held experiments regarding our attention and the emotions we set forth with that attention, as mentioned in Emoto’s books. The children had three jars of rice. One jar they thanked every day. The second jar they hated every day. The third jar they ignored. As the rice decomposed in all three jars over time, the results differed between the jars. The jar receiving gratitude decomposed with a sweet smell and pleasant appearances. The hated jar of rice decomposed with an ugliness and a stink. The ignored jar fared the worse though, and it’s decomposition was the most terrible seeming. The conclusion was that gratitude has healing effects. Hatred has ugly effects, but not as bad as the effects of complete inattention, neglect. These experiments are consistent.

Whenever I have a shower or a bath, I always feel so grateful. It is a life giving feeling to renew ones self with water. After the bath or shower, I thank God for the water and send it down the drain with that empowerment from myself of love and gratitude. I cannot take it for granted, my response is genuine thankfulness as the benefit is so keen before me. I do the same when my daughter bathes, since she was a toddler. She often pretends to be a mermaid now, and they also cannot live without water she realizes. We say, “Thank you God, for the water.” as a kind of love song as the water goes out the drain. She also emerges from the bath with a new glowing birthed-like feeling. Having witnessed droughts and the necessary provisions of water I have learned to pay closer attention to how I use and need water. After a bath, I sometimes mention to myself, God, my husband or my daughter how good water is, and how every being on the planet has a right to enjoy water in this same way…clean and cared for.

Francis and Clare of Assisi spoke of water as lowly sister water. To be lowly, in their language, is to be the greatest of all. As Jesus hinted at, with the least being great, the last being made first, and making one’s self servant, in order to be great, well, that is water for us. Even better then, would be for each of us to be servant for water. How can we bring love and gratitude to water in our daily lives?

St. Francis said water is servant of all and therefore, one of the greatest resources, relations, sisters of all time. If we neglect her and take her for granted we face crisis, drought and hopeless polluted water. If we really see her, if we really look at sister water and appreciate her — we can look at the abundance before us and make sure to care for it.

We begin with simple actions and feelings of love and gratitude for what nourishes us and makes our lives possible. Besides the breath that we breathe, there is nothing else more fundamental to life than water.

If we look at the pollution in the waters from agriculture, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, human and animal waste, and garbage (especially plastics) we can feel overwhelmed and perhaps hopeless. However, we have the ability to hone our choices down for the greater good. If each person makes each choice and action in their day as conscious as possible, the impact would be globally positive and healing. If we were to begin to value even the smallest things in our lives, that we have been programmed to ignore and disregard, we could transform life and infuse it with inspiration and joy. Our garbage could be evaluated in a new light and we can utilize it with a sense of appreciation rather than disdain, neglect or shame.

What if the health and well being of all the world and the world’s most precious resource- water, rests in our ability to love and give thanks?

Wouldn’t that be good news?

Be informed about the state of water: See the BBC’s flashpoints world map regarding the growing global water crisis here.

Visit the Food and Water Watch website here.

The Wolf of Peace and My Enlightenment

I was walking my dog in the neighborhood the other day, by a place that is very rundown and ugly looking really. My dog came from a shelter and she can be frightened and defensive with strange dogs who approach her. Well, we were across the street from this rundown place and out saunters an unleashed wolf/Malamute or something like that. Whatever the breed, this looked like a huge wolf-like dog to me. I calmly told the dog “no,” as he came across the street towards us. A man shortly came out after, who by judgment of the eyes looked thin, tall, and not up to general standards of fashion –or hygiene for that matter.

I was on guard, skeptical. I had already judged him as he walked towards me. But what I experienced in meeting him and his dog, was great presence, gentleness and peace. I was swiftly corrected as to who I was meeting. The man apologized with more grace and consideration and manners than anyone I have come across in a long time. And his dog too! His dog stood by mine with the same peace and presence. My dog would normally have gone nuts defending herself. She stood meeting this dog with no protest, this dog was healing for her!

He apologized to me with gentility, and I told him, how regardless of the initial fear my dog and I had, this encounter turned out to be healing for her. I was reminded quickly and beautifully that the Holy Spirit/Presence resides in each and though some may not own much, they own a tremendous peace and grandeur within them.

I later reflected, if that man was in the same room with a person with a more impressive role or class, who would we be drawn to, value more? Yet, I think of how this kind fellow and his dog were, definitely unassuming and humble, and, not having met them, I judged them. My eyes didn’t realize, couldn’t see through appearances, not until we were right next to one another, talking and being. Well, does it matter? What does that say about me or the values of our society/world? My own being was awakened to a mistake I was making, categorizing. Though my instincts are there to help with survival, they do not know everything. Instincts are good, but are not necessarily always plugged into a soul level knowing or wisdom.

From the world’s output, we may feel we need an honored position/role or to seek connection with only those with “honored positions” to have and feel worth. How deeply do appearances matter in comparison to an inner goodness, kindness and peace? Can we live with that kind of contradiction? Or will we feel a compulsive need then, to befriend this sort of fellow and “make him over” so his outside “matches” his insides?

Eckhart Tolle tells us that the grandeur, awe and prized silence of a mountaintop resides within us, as well as around us. It is the practice of observing that “peace that passes all understanding” within us and around us — at the supermarket, in traffic and in the grandeur of nature. I found it in an unlikely place, somewhere I would normally be repelled not welcomed. By an old poor man in a rundown place with a dog who looks like a wolf to me. I love wolves, but one walking briskly towards me is unnerving and not always desirable!

Thank God for those unlikely places that seek to awaken our hearts to an unconditional peace and goodness that breaks the barriers constructed by the judgments of our mind and eyes.

I found and realized that correction for myself in that moment. I stood corrected, and gladly so. Through this process I am learning to appreciate presence that goes beyond outward appearances and celebrity. Something I had kind of forgotten in my role as parent, actually. I am remembering the words to one of my favorite songs from church asking God to “bring me beyond my wants, beyond my fears, from death into life” –to look beyond and through the ugliness and chaos of some situations, which may be an illusion of sorts, into the depth of silence, Sacred Presence that is simultaneously, within and without.

“Their purpose is to do everything in a sacred manner.” –Eckhart Tolle in “A New Earth” page 307.

Many thanks of joy and peace to Eckhart Tolle, Oprah and classmates in the 10 week class “A New Earth” that ends tonight, it has been priceless and enlightening,

CSS moonseeds (sistr moon)

The North Pacific Gyre, The Plastic Vortex, The 8th Continent:

Looking for accurate and informative resources regarding the enormous amount of plastic garbage in the Pacific Ocean?

Follow the links below to better understand the importance/urgency of changing our habits, and drastically reducing daily throw away plastics and the general “throw away” mentality from our lives for good, and to seek positive solutions.

This page was last updated August 2009:

Most recent (August 2009):

National Geographic reports:  Plastic breaks down fast in the Ocean

Wallace J. Nichols posts on (April 2009) recent surveys and abstracts regarding the plastic pollution in the ocean and in sea animals, as well as reflecting the historical progression with graphs.

And for organizations dedicated to healing the ocean link to Ocean Revolution and also this Eco News Release with links to several other sites working to help the oceans, like adaywithoutplastic.org, LIVBLUE.org, shrimpsuck.org and seeturtles.org.

NPR on the vortex

Garbage from Hawaii to Japan-UK Independant

The Oyster’s Garter…re: images of the Gyre… and more

Greenpeace International on the plastic polluting the Pacific

Bloomberg.com on “Plastic mistaken for Plankton”

~

As I try to do my best to change my habits and really reduce throw away plastic and other needless garbage from my own daily life, especially, plastic bottles and shopping bags, I am mortified by how threaded it is through so many actions and things we take in a day. Suddenly I see the little wraps of plastic to seal the lid of a product or the packaging of something I am buying and I think of the dead and starving sea turtles, albatross and others with plastic filling their stomachs. This is obscene.

We as people need to take broad and firm action in this matter. Laws need to be passed that prohibit certain uses of plastics and reign in tightly the chaos of its production and disposal.

It is difficult, I have learned, from the above sources, to have a photo or satellite image of the plastic vortex. Most of it is submerged and breaking down, lots of it as tiny as plankton. It is a big complicated mess. There is not just one area of concern, there are many.

If we look for signs in nature with a spiritual eye, this is certainly one that does not speak well for us or for future. The animals who live far from us and our disposable lives are consuming plastics and dying of toxins and emptiness. May we recognize the urgency of this reality.

Certainly hope may rest heavily on the spiritual at this point. Faith must be grown strong especially in the darkest of times. Nothing is impossible for God. I am relying on this trust now, in a time when prayer and individual action may not be enough. However, there are countless loving, intelligent, capable people and groups/organizations who can make a difference here — young, old, and all the rest. May it be so.

with earnest hope and love for this life,

Chandra

Roots and Presence:

“Just to be is a blessing; just to live is holy.” –Abraham Heschel

All sacred truth comes along on a breeze, in a rock, in a moment, with the silence and the breath. When we open ourselves and submerge our hearts, when we choose to open our hearts bravely amidst this great and terrible myriad home, the Sacred answers, ‘Yes.’ and stays faithful, never abandoning such effort. It is relationship from roots to mountaintops. It is effort from soul to muscle. Grace comes to mind, and miracles.

Indeed, it is a marriage, to be truly alive. The vows all apply.

My embrace, my vow to embrace this life with all of my little life is the power to heal, to empower to honor the Sacred, all my relations. All is Mysterious and precious…as are you.

To seek right relationship, to resolve to seek the Sacred in all things in this life, despite complications and obstacles, is to proliferate death with great possibility and hope filled amazement that bridges on and onward into eternity.

A Shift of Thought and Action

Wielding Habit and Temperance for the Common Good:

I recently watched the one hour documentary on PBS entitled “Buyer Be Fair”. In addition to the PBS website, there is also a site about the documentary and it’s mission at buyerbefair.org

It is an excellent view into the effects and value of supporting fair trade products/people. I would recommend it to anyone who needs more information on this subject.

“Habit” as defined in the Fourth Edition of Webster’s New World College Dictionary: 4a: “a thing done often and hence, usually, done easily;practice; custom” 4b: “a pattern of action that is acquired and has become so automatic that it is difficult to break. SYN.–habit refers to an act repeated so often by an individual that is has become automatic…”

Driving becomes habitual in the sense that we can go on automatic pilot to a certain degree and follow with a good measure of trust, the “maps” set in our brains for the area in which we live. So it is in navigating our surroundings at home and work. Some of us have mapping so sturdily carved in our neural pathways that we can walk blindfolded or in the dark in our home and find our way around without any trouble. What has been discovered about our brains, as I found in reading “Primal Leadership” by Daniel Goleman is that our brains do form strong pathways through our habits. And those pathways are changeable, but it takes a lot of effort and practice to do that. As is experienced by those who are addicted to any substance, or act, such as food, cigarettes, shopping, pop, etc.

Along with this information is the fact that we don’t make the efforts for that kind of brain pathway changes unless we believe it is necessary and right in all levels of our being. If 1 to 5% (not a scientific example) of us is not on board with the change in habit, sabotaging behavior will manifest and interfere with progress along the way.

My own experience with this is especially in regards to life decisions I strive to make in accordance with a sense of moral and conscientious behavior. I first learned about Factory Farms and the reality for chickens, cows, pigs and turkeys in a thoroughly mechanized and totally objectifying environment about 15 years ago. My experience of nature and all living beings, especially the animal kingdom has been a healing and loving experience. I see all animals as gift, beautiful and sentient. I respect a hunter who kills to eat. I respect an animal who kills only to eat. Beyond that I cannot respect killing just to kill, for sport or torture.

To object the holocaust conditions that animals in factory farms live in, I became a vegetarian and then a vegan. That lasted for about five years until I met my husband. His father and brothers were hunters, the kind I can respect and admire in their passion and responsibility for nature and it’s balance. So, I started eating meat again, because I could not alienate myself from a tribe of people I was marrying into who I respect and who I wanted to be a part of. That meant sitting at table in their home, eating their food. In the time that I had been vegan and I also didn’t eat refined sugar, I found many people not only alienated by my strict choices, but also some people who I found to be normally kind and compassionate became angry and mean about my personal food choices, especially regarding sugar, as a matter of fact. I realize that people attach comfort and leisure with their desserts, and there is also a minor addiction involved as well. I observed quietly and calmly all of the reactions as I went along.

When I broke all of my diet restrictions back in about 1999ish I found out a lot of things about myself. I like the taste of meat, as I always have, but more importantly, I felt there needs to be a middle ground in my actions, a bridge between what I believe and the people I love. Gradually, I found that I wanted to eat meat again, but I did not want to support McDonald’s or Kentucky Fried Chicken or other chain restaurants who hugely support factory farms and contribute greatly to enormous acts of cruelty towards living beings.

In the last five years I discovered that the shift of thought and action that had started in my heart and mind 15 years ago had finally reached all levels of my being in understanding…my body no longer enjoys digesting or eating chicken, cow, pig or turkey. Turkey was the last to go. I no longer worry about alienating others. I know that my actions are for a greater good and the shift has taken a long time for me, but I can thoroughly understand it now. I do not want to support factory farms who treat and define life as commodity, as objects. Some other folks can make a shift in a day, a week, for others like me, it has been a longer journey.

If the animals are left to remain in this way, there will be no logic that will keep humans from being objectified in the same way, as of course we are. If one life is made to seem as an object, then all others will follow. We desensitize by saying nuggets rather than pieces of chicken flesh, or hamburgers instead of ground up cow flesh. We do not kill the animals we eat, so we have lost that act of gratitude and reverence for a life given for our nourishment. Our meals are all fast and mechanized. I hope this important issue becomes a greater focus for all people. Factory farms are also responsible for a huge amount of pollution and waste of water and land.

When I mentioned “Buyer Be Fair” at the beginning of this post, I was thinking of a statement made in the documentary about “waking the sleeping giant”, who are American Consumers…

One of the most powerful skills we can develop as Americans is the ability to DISCERN. What an important word. Our discernment, looking at where we eat, who has labored to provide us with what we wear/eat/use and how, is indeed a key to our survival and the survival of all life on this little planet. In our discernment we can empower ourselves and those we are in relationship with through our consumption. I do not want to empower people who are looking at animals as only commodity, with no respect for life. I want to empower a poor person who is close to the land and the animals and wants to support a family and honor the land and living things.

So, it costs more and I don’t have enough money. You know what I do? I don’t drink pop. I don’t buy junk food, I don’t buy meat, etc. There are ways to choose what is right and still afford to live.

We best educate ourselves and each other in a compassionate and gentle way. I realize there are people who are not capable at this point in their being to stop eating meat. I can appreciate that. I would eat meat for survival reasons. I eat fish, though less and less considering the strain of non-sustainable fishing methods being used in the waters.

It is still reasonable to request that an omnivorous person evaluate where the meat they are eating is coming from and to make, gradually, more humane empowering choices in their consumption. Where are the cows, chickens, pigs, turkeys living, what is their quality of life? Do their “farmers” care about and value life? What impact is there on our environment, health, values through these practices?

I am known amongst my family and friends for continually re-arranging things in my home. I have always done this since I was quite young. It is a sense within me of how energy flows and changes and I keep up with it to keep things fresh and open. The biggest challenge with that lately has been in moving the garbage can. For some reason the path to the garbage is a strong, less flexible path in the brain. I have moved it 3 times in the last year and I have met it as a challenge to myself to not get so comfortable about the convenience of garbage (throw away/apathetic mentality). Every time I would walk to where the garbage used to be, I would say to myself, “Aha, there’s my automatic pilot, so easily ingrained in a habit.” Surely, there is nothing wrong with our automatic pilot, it is a fine adaptation, but inserting intelligent, thoughtful, responsible choices within that ability is also a valuable tool in the shifting of action and thought.

My challenges on this front at present are in : the garbage I produce, the plastics I use and the ways I approach cleaning(free of unnecessary chemicals–pollutants, carcinogens). When I read about the plastic vortex in the ocean I felt such a despair for the marine animals falling victim to this senseless garbage and the reality of it’s eventual return to our own bodies. My habits in using plastic bags and such are frivolously ingrained. I have bags I use for grocery shopping, but sometimes when shopping for other things, I look down and before I know it, I have plastic in my hands. On other fronts, I have successfully become a chemical free home, using natural ingredients for cleaning the house, floors, toilet, laundry. This shift came slow too, but the result is filling me with well being!

We are capable of such innovative, and compassionate action, surely we can advance morally beyond our present habits that have such destructive repercussions…..

Trying and making progress fills me with hope and the momentum of industriousness, the strength that comes with right action. May we all go forward more mindfully, shifting to a more hopeful and healing future and reality for all life. May it be so!

peace and gratitude,

C.S.S. Moonseeds

Longing for the “Seven Generations” Legacy of Hope

I long for a legacy of goodness and hope for all the young people of the world and for those yet to be born. I join with those who seek healing for Mitakuye Oyasin (“all my relations”), as the Lakota people have taught. This is the basis of right relationship to all life.

I have always had hope without blinders on regarding the realities of this world. However, I have believed and experienced also, the uncommon, the miraculous, magical potentials as well. Beauty does not cease, though it may be hidden or fleeting. Though I was a child of the 80’s witnessing everything from Greed to Star Wars, I was also rooted in the land, Narnia and The Muppets. Go ahead and laugh. This is true. One of the first generations brought up with media and television of the new era.

Gathering rocks and witnessing the ant hills that were strangely tall in our fields, making mud pies in solitude with the presence of sun beams on my shoulders, that is when and where I sensed God and, I felt and trusted hope. If you were to peer into my life at that time, at the sheer dynamics of my family, hope would not have been your first thought. Now, decades later, that hope has endured, though not without the despairing valleys. So what, that is the way things go.

I am a hopeful one still. I remember reading dear Anne Frank and how she still believed in the basic goodness of our kind. I reflect on this, because surely, that gift of hope does wane in me now. I have a child. Reading about the plastic vortex in the ocean and the difficulty of retrieving the small particles of broken down plastic and the ramifications of it is a compounded agony, which includes the war, the changing Constitution, and the beginning of a water crisis.

Deep sorrow is appropriate. Outrage is called for. I was crying terribly last night. What a blessing it was to cry to my Husband, whose heart is compassionate, tender and strong.

Hope is being lost. So, my mind and heart crawl to what wisdom I can find, like, “Faith, Hope and Love, but the greatest of these is Love.” So, if I lose my hope, Love remains within me and around me. I have no doubt of that. Love is what motivates the agony response to our present world.

There are no Presidential candidates who are addressing issues such as, the plastic vortex crisis in the ocean, the water crisis beginning in our Nation/World, appalling violations of the Geneva Convention, the appalling and anti-life standards in factory farms, the underground slavery/disappearance of children and adults (especially minorities) in this country/in the world who have no rights or protection, the need to close the S.O.A. and holding Government officials accountable for crimes committed and the state of the Constitution, to name a few.

Kucinich is the only person who comes close to being real and true so far in this process. But media treatment and unscientific polls neutralize him. Gore is green, to a good degree, but he’s not running. No one has stood up yet and said,

“Water is the most important issue on this planet. We can’t live without it. If you elect me as your President, I am going to put priority on making clean water available for all people. We are going to make reducing pollution and loss of habitat our priority over corporate greed, convenience, instant gratification. Your lives will have to change. All our lives will, for the good of many hopeful generations to come. We have habits to break. We can no longer be of the ‘throw away’ mentality. We can no longer sprawl and consume to the death. We have many powerful attributes we need to depend on more as Americans and world citizens, such as our ingenuity, inspiration, visionary solutions, profound discernment and a relentless disciplined effort. In securing the health of our home as far as we are capable, we will also make priority the needs of the millions of children living in poverty and violence in this country and in the world. This will lead us to eliminate the contamination of our food chain with inhumane and unhealthy practices that occur in factory farms, in the polluting of agriculture, industry and our own plethora of waste. In fact, any practices that treat any life as an expendable object must cease, that we may lead by example and give evidence of our love for our own life source and our own children. We must also engage our vast global family in concerted efforts to uphold these priorities. The process of peacemaking, hope-making, restoration, if unrelenting in our commitment, holds the promise of resurrection. ‘If not now, when?’”

Well, no Presidential Candidate is giving the Great Speech, or anything like I have offered above. Where are the leaders of great heart and mind, rooted in wisdom, ethics and compassion? And if there is one, such as Kucinich, I will not vote for him, because no one will. The power of democracy is in a strangle hold. The good man is discredited and shot down. Why? Because of his height? Because of his looks? Everyone’s looking for an Alpha male, is that it? Are we just predatory creatures, voting by size, brute force, voice and breeding and nothing else? This is not what the voiceless would choose. This is not for the greater good.

The war is an important topic too. It needs to end. Not accelerate. The troops returning (injured, traumatized) are being left behind by it’s own, it is immoral. The damage done to citizens is more vast than ever. The amount of care and restoration that is already needed here and abroad is enormous on all levels. May we not be overwhelmed. The restoration of our Constitution is quite important as well. What if the next president does not restore the Constitution, but alters it further? What then?

Each day, at the personal level, I, we, must continue to find resolve , to choose love, compassion, perseverance and to live with a sense of responsibility. Each day is an opportunity to find and offer love and healing despite the tempest and the raging. However small my life, I recognize the importance of each life I encounter as beautiful, as a gift, as necessary.

The Sacred is what we, I, seek. The way is challenging and I am often failing. I will try again today.

peace,

C.S.S.

*(Addendum: as of February 4th, 2008, I believe Barack Obama could be the hope for the Nation, he has given a great speech. He has touched on many of the important issues, Let’s see what’s next. Right now, I would vote for him.)