The Pause Between Heart Beats…

It’s the day after Thanksgiving and I rush to my computer to find I’m being followed on Twitter by Johnny Depp. I’m Twitterpated.

Now I need to write some clever tweets, oh my, the pressure.

So, here we are the day after Thanksgiving, and if you would open our refrigerator you would be met with a mound of silver, that is aluminum foil wrapped packages as big as an Oregon woodpile. Now the only way to find what is in those packages—you know, left-over turkey, cranberries, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, relishes, is to plow through the packages. Oh, the pressure of it.

What shall we talk about today? I have things rattling around in my head—thoughts like what am I doing here? Isn’t life a fabulous mystery? When did the spark of life that is us begin? Isn’t it incredible that a physical form is enlivened one minute and gone the next—where did it go? Was it always? And will it continue into forever?

These are questions I can’t answer. I saw a documentary this past week that stirred my mind into the comments I am placing here. The documentary was titled, “I AM” by director Tom Shadyac. In one interview Shadyac speaks with a scientist who studies the heart. He stated that the heart has more control over the brain than the other way around. Scientists have tracked the sign-wave (beat) of the heart and they found that when the heart pumps there is a spike on the monitoring screen. Between spikes are small sign-waves. In those small spaces EMOTION can be observed. Anger, pointy peak, calm peaceful emotion, smooth peak. In metaphysical circles I have heard it said that God resides in the pauses. Perhaps here is evidence.

In meditation, God can be found in the silent no thought moments when the mind stops yammering. It is in those moments that God speaks to us.

Shadyac also observed that while we the people have been taught that animals, including us, are in a competitive world with a dog-eat-dog mentality, that is not so. There is more evidence of cooperation than of competition. How about that!

Well, well, well.

Aloha from Joyce

P.S. I have found no other place but Hawaii who has such a beautiful premise under which their society operates. In Hawaii it is Aloha. It means to give without expecting anything in return. The word “Aloha” has come to be a greeting, hello or goodbye, but it is more. In the spirit of Aloha we can gain the wisdom of the wind and water and soil and trees, and when we greet someone with “Aloha,” is it similar to the Indian word Namaste, taken from Sanskrit which essentially means, “The God in me sees the God in you.”

Foul and Fowl

Foul:

Genetically Modified: The 2 Words the Food Industry Spent $45 Million to Avoid Using

(Primarily Monsanto (MON), PepsiCo (PEP), Coca-Cola (KO), Kraft (KRFT), and Kellogg (K)).

Here is a fascinating factoid:

Produce is labeled already!

Note, produce, not packaged goods.

Here are the produce sticker codes:

Stickers on produce have a 4-5 digit number as a price look-up.

4-diget PLU in the 3000 means conventionally  grown produce.

5-digit PLU starting with a 9 means organically-grown

5-digit PLU starting with an 8 means genetically modified produce.

My daughter in Oregon said that proponents for GMO labeling were heartened that 46.9% of California voters still wanted labeling despite the negative campaigning. "Okay," they say, "What's next?" How about that for an attitude?

That threat of a $400 per year grocery bill increase scared some voters into a no vote I guess, otherwise who would give a flying rat's ass if our foods were labeled.
 

 

Fowl:

Okay back home on the farm.

Fowl care is foul at times. Turkeys have died off on a regular basis. The owner contained them in a too small, too humid space and they caught colds. He built a wonderful airy palace and they are happy, although not fully recovered from the flu. We are treating them, maybe some will make it. I out-finagled the coyote by putting up poultry wire with small holes over the field fencing that turkey heads would fit through to lure in a coyote. You just have to shake your heads at turkeys.

Home of the twenty-egg omelet:

Delicious eggs by the way.

You know about the quail and all those lovely eggs? No more. We are down to four quail, and no eggs. One morning I discovered five quail. This was out of about 30. Five? What in the heck… gone. No evidence. I searched the enclosure and found a 4 inch hole where the wire had been pulled back. The bobcat we figured. Husband dear saw the modeled, short-tailed, wild cat one night.

One sweet little quail died in my hand as I was carrying her to the house—I blessed her on her journey.

The quail are in the tractor garage now—I’m taking no chances.

Okay, another shoring up of enclosures. The owner put double wire on the sides, and wired the top and bottom of the former quail enclosure. It now houses 14 “silky” chickens (a breed). He said to count them every morning, 14. Three days now and we still have 14. Ta Da!

The original chickens are doing great. They have a wonderful new home and they are happy as clams (or chickens). And they seem to like me. They are getting to be grown-up pretty chickens, maybe they will begin laying eggs soon. (Probably our days are too short right now. Sun comes up, gives us a couple hours, and wham, its down.) This morning upon approaching the chicken pen I was greeted by a debut crow from one of the “hens.” Ah ha, I had a suspicion. And a lovely one he is too.

I have to shuffle in both the turkey pen and the chicken pen lest I step on bird’s toes. We move as a unit. Guess I’m the momma now.

What Makes You Happy?

Can you name seven things that make you happy?  I took the challenge…here are mine.  I would love to see yours.

(1). I lost a pan lid. I don’t know how one loses a quart-sized sauce pan lid, but I did. Little Boy Darling said worms carried it away. Congers up a fascinating image doesn’t it? Happiness entry number one--Living with a 3 year old. What a kick.

(2). Sitting here at my desk in front of a window—I always have my desk in front of a window—I remember in Oregon when I first got my horse Duchess, I would write and look out the second story window and watch her grazing in the area we had cleared for our septic drain-field.  She made me happy. Remembrance of happy counts doesn’t it?

(3). Here, by my eastern window the sun wipes out my vision for the computer screen so I close the blinds—rather defeats the purpose of a window. Okay I opened the blinds as the sun has moved (not scientific), and now outside I see bright yellow Marguerite Daisies alight in the sunshine. Happiness number three—a view from my window, from my computer, winter in California, flowers are blooming. (A lot was stacked into entry number three.)

(4). Life—Life makes me happy. Animal life, plant life, my family’s life, my friends lives, my life. I read this morning that life is our greatest gift. We should not have to be reminded, but sometimes we (I) do.

(5). Something I enjoy doing. I enjoy writing. It is my self-expression. I tell myself it is important to sing whether anyone is listening or not. (I am hard to convince sometimes.) Still writing makes me happy. With it I’m in a zone, I go to a place where time stands still.

(6). Packing my suitcase in anticipation of going someplace fun—well the going is fun too, travel makes me happy.

(7). Getting e-mails from people I simply adore…that could be you.

Trick or Treat

What did you do for Halloween?

It slipped past us, but I did learn a fascinating fact about it recently: The first of November is “All Saints Day,” also called “Hallowed Days.” The eve before all Saints day is Hallows eve. Viola’ Halloween.  Okay, you may have known that already, but what I found fascinating was that the pagans believed that the veil between this world and the next was the thinnest at that juncture between the eve of October 31, and morning of November 1. People dressed hideously to scare off any unwanted spirits that might have crept through that veil.

 And we dress up in scary costumes to this day…Halloween  provides excellent inspiration however.

Best dog costume ever.

 

 

Chocolate covered pretzel pumpkins swith sprinkles, now that's something I could sink my teeth into.

I have an aversion to masks—carried over from when I was a child. Does anyone else feel that way? I don’t even like clowns, and horrors, when I was a kid, Santa Claus wore a mask complete with a fake beard. I knew though, that that wasn’t the real Santa Claus, and the idea of sitting on fake Santa’s lap was abhorrent to me. Luckily I never had to do it.

You could say I had a trauma. I always think it’s odd when someone says, I was scared by something as a child and now I am afraid of that something,” but with me and masks I wonder. Perhaps it was the scare I had at two or three years of age that did it. I ran to greet my father as he came home from the grocery store, and stopped short, screaming. He was wearing a mask! A cereal box came with a mask attached, and with the best of intentions, my dad thought it would be funny to come home wearing it.  It wasn’t.

One more tidbit before I close. A philosopher named Ernest Holmes called prayer “A Treatment.” This comes, like Halloween, from way back. Way back, physicians, that is doctors, were not the skilled scientists we have today. (And I have a feeling that Star Trek’s doctor Bone’s comment will prove correct. “It’s barbaric,”he said when he saw our present-day treatments.) When did doctors learn about germs and to wash their hands for heaven’s sake? Late 1800’s I believe. So, a person in need of healing had two choices—they could choose a doctor or a metaphysician (Medicine man, medicine Woman?) for treatment.

 

Holmes applied the term “Treatment,” as well for prayers.  He did not believe one ought to beg or plead for their desired results.. For while “God “ is “Out there,” He is also “in here,” meaning “Within.” Therefore, prayer is to prepare oneself. It is to allow oneself to me in a mood of receptivity. It is a “Treatment.”