Message from a supporter

“Welcome back! Glad you have Re - -Turned!”

This message came to me in an email today from one of New Horizons supporters. Short as it was, it prompted me to respond with the following comments. I liked what came of it. My response might be of general interest here and/or useful to Possible Human, Possible Society Study participants.

My response is as follows.

Dear “Anonymous”

Please feel free to forward this message.

Thank you for your email message. I am grateful that you chose to offer me your perspectives on my present "Great Turning."

My response to your message follows.

I invite you to continue the dialogue that connects us and your view from outside and mine from the inner. I do, also, have some perceptions of the outer as well as input from others. Continuing to converse in meaningful, growth producing ways such as in Possible Human, Possible Society Study interviews, our Think Tank, storytelling and New Horizons Small “Zones of Peace” Project group presentations and programs are keys to this unfolding dialogue in the thinking paradigm of New Horizons.

“Turning,” as I am meaning it in my “Tis A Gift To Be Simple” article, is a spiritual discipline, luv. So I have not re-turned to anything, physically from anywhere. I am where I always am, physically, and, yet, still I am “turning” spiritually. On the physical plane, one need only reach out to me, personally, to get a personal response as you are receiving here.

Please re-read the “Tis A Gift To Be Simple” article and postings from both blog sites to pull forth additional conversation points.

As I live my life as a shaman, journeying endlessly from earth plane to the ethers, this does not always allow me to write for public presentation. Meditation and contemplation are timely pursuits. However, I am delighted to have been missed and will always do my best to respond to individual requests to the best of my ability and as quickly as I can.

Absence of my blog postings is not a sign of my leaving. Should this be otherwise, such as in the case of medical emergencies etc., Sue or Lisa, my board members, would no doubt, if appropriate, let people know.

I am regretful if it seems I have gone away, please let me know what else you might need from me and I will do what I can to accommodate, if I am able.

In terms of the study, we are now requesting college interns to assist us and the formation of an advisory board to assess study findings. Volunteers from our base of study participants have also been requested, but so far have no takers. Much is to be studied and assessed as this study and our various Small "Zones Of Peace" Project are enormous undertakings, needing as much support as possible at this time.

Please do use the blogs for your information gathering, though daily or even consistent weekly postings are not possible at this time without the assistance of volunteers. We are in the midst of a very revealing study and data gathering with our Possible Human, Possible Society Study.

The study in now beginning Round 2 of its mission. Approximately 70 people have so far been interviewed; some only briefly, others in-depth. Round 1 means the first year cycle of the study process. Round 1 with addendums for various phases completes August 30. Round One with its various additions included:

• Serene Survivor Inventory
• Lifestyle and History Inventory
• Peace Buddy Inventory
• Community Unity Building Inventory
• Addendum, Labor Day, 2012

There is still much research to do ahead with both new participants and those already onboard. However, we are pleased to announce that all present participants will soon be eligible to receive a draft copy of our submission, if permitted, to Murat's new forthcoming book, Ahmsta Kebzeh: The Science of Universal Awe, Volume II, due out, likely, before the end of the year.

We will await permission from Murat's administrative office for this before we proceed, however. So please be patient and plan to buy your early copy of the entire book as soon as it goes on sale.

An obligation will accompany receipt of this manuscript by present study participants. The obligation will be that the submission entitled "Doing Our Love" is read, contemplated and discussed as a teaching tool, one on one or in coming Think Tank meetings or other Small "Zones of Peace" Project programs (i.e. the Bus Ride Story Adventure series etc.). This will allow current participants to continue their active participation in the study, if they choose and go deeper and deeper, higher and higher with us as possible humans building a possible society.

Current plans suggest, of course, that all study participants to date are appreciated for their contribution. However, only a select 20% in each of the four categories will be included for ongoing data collection. If you, or any of the people you introduced me to, wish to be included in the 20% from the to date participants, please let me know.

Anastasia

Tis A Gift To Be Simple

I am turning. And, whatever that means, it feels quite awesome! Of this I am certain. The dictionary defines “turning” as the act of altering one’s position, changing or rotating. But how am I changing, I wonder.

This Great Turning of mine began as I stood, face-to-face, presenting my piece to our audience/guests at the Abkhazian Dinner. If I asked them to tell me what they saw then and perhaps before and after, could they tell me what they witnessed? Could those who bore witness help me now to know? Was there some kind of magic afoot such as the goddess or Merlin could create or a Houdini-like act taking place? Who can tell me? I wish I knew.

From "Turning..
The Great Whirtling Dance"

Bismillah ir-Rahman ir-Rahim

Whatever it is and was is truly momentous, nothing I will ever easily forget. So here I am, now, five months and one day past that event that was far more than the simple occasion billed, knowing full well that I have significantly changed my position – whatever it was -- if I stay true to the definition. But from what to where I cannot tell. Clarity eludes me.

Ever my traveling companion on my ongoing hike up the Mountain of Awe, Sue offers me the Shaker song, "Simple Gifts," as an image. (I/we often reach the peak of our mountain ascent. And soon after another trek seems to take us to a new starting point and a fresh climb begins once more.

The song was originally written “by Elder Joseph.” The lyrics are below: Soon after finding the words to the song on the internet, the gentle lyrics and tune began turning round and round in my heart and my head. They haven’t yet stopped. Perhaps they are my simple gift for today, elegant as simplicity can often be.

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free
'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,
And when we find ourselves in the place just right,
'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gain'd,
To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,
To turn, turn will be our delight,
Till by turning, turning we come 'round right.”

I cannot quite see the path ahead of me on this turning. Yet I find myself “in the place just right.” From what I can see, I envision myself turning from face-to-face with our Abkhazian Dinner audience/guests to about half way round now, heading to wherever it is that I will stop when this cycle completes.

Of major importance to what is presently occurring is Murat’s new forthcoming book, Ahmsta Kebzeh: The Universal Science of Awe, Volume II. So please stay tuned to what will happen next in this regard. Whatever is ahead must surely be in the realm of “awe.”

Sue and I have just submitted an article for the book. We look forward to its publication some time before year’s end. This can be no accident. Our Abkhazian Dinner was about honoring Murat. Now this book publication is not far off and we are included in it! Surely, on our horizon as we, once again, scale our Mountain of Awe (which we are blessed to have a definitive map for climbing, as it happens, from Murat), magic is afoot.

One must certainly take note of this bit of wonderment. Wouldn’t you say?

That’s where my writing time has been for most of the past month; authoring our article for the book (Topic: “New Horizons Bus Ride Story Adventure,” written by Murat Yagan.) I hope I was missed here. I certainly missed being here. .I was absent, as well, from the New Horizons Small “Zones of Peace” Project blog.

But I am back now, hoping to be welcomed, with every anticipation of offering interesting updates that will soon come forth from New Horizons present behind the scenes activities; reports on the Possible Human, Possible Society Study, our Bus Ride Story Adventure plans and what our being included in this book means for us and more.

The Basement Stairs

Anastasia’s Story

I am five years old, sitting on the basement steps, wondering. My mommy and daddy are right before me arguing while I sit there—on the basement stairs, second or third from the bottom. I don’t recall ever having seen arguing before, upset, conflict, division, chaos, upheaval.

Mine is a world of order, unity, practical day-to-day doings, comings and goings; family, community, participation in life, mostly lively and happy. A few tears now and then, nothing very big as I think back on it now.

But now in this moment, something different, bringing confusion to my child mind, just as I am entering an age and stage where I am beginning to wonder, am called to consider, as I sit here on the basement stairs, the meaning of things. So I ask myself, “What am I to do with what I am watching here?”

After all, we had only come down here to the basement to work on mommy’s canning closet. A brief family time of seeing the pears and the peaches on the shelves daddy built. And, of course, the pickles, bread and butter pickles, and always lots of kosher ones with dill.

I watch now – mommy and daddy – upset, arguing, angry. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anger before. Certainly not between mommy and daddy, maybe once or twice at me but I forget. This I will remember.

Who am I that is sitting here watching this upset?

Who are they? Still mommy and daddy?

And, of course, almost biggest for me – what am I supposed to do here?

Later I will know. And what I know will become New Horizons’ Small Zones of Peace” Project and the Possible Human, Possible Society Study.

At least as far as I can figure it out for now.

Anastasia’s Story

I hadn’t thought to become a storyteller. I simply thought I had a story I ought to tell. In the process that which I held so close to my heart as to nearly make it invisible would be seen. In that, I believed, there could be benefit. Though I had not yet discerned, for sure, what that benefit might be. The year was 1979, just before New Year’s eve.

More than thirty years have passed since then. And, for all intents and purposes, I have, only recently and without too terribly much conscious purpose seeking to do so, now, become a storyteller. Simultaneously, the motivation for doing so has taken on a broader, more definitive purpose; storytelling is a path to peace. I didn’t know that back then. Only in recent years, after being blind and recovering from the challenge (1998 – 2006), has that fact become clear to me

Built-in to the beauty and grace of storytelling one finds a pathway to one’s own inner peace, relationship bonding and harmony, community unity building, insights into how we can find our ways, individually and collectively, to local and global peace.

So pull up your chair and sit down beside me at the setting of the sun. Or, maybe not on a chair, but out on a rock in front of a fire at New Horizon’s sacred fire circle where so much healing has taken place in the past. And, let us begin.

Perhaps, together we will discover the benefit, the why and the what of that which I set out to offer so long ago. When I was without the wisdom that has grown up inside of me, without understanding the power of simply telling and listening to stories.

Back In The Day

Birthday Month Musings

Back in the days when I was a neophyte at finding the light in the darkness, as I had only just begun to see my own, my eyesight was as challenged as my psyche. I had a long way to go back then in learning to see the world, let alone myself, with the vista I have come to have.

Along the way, not only has the world changed dramatically, but so have I. And, while my eyesight is still a huge challenge for me, when it comes to seeing and dealing with the dark side of human nature I have become quite an artist and I am proud of it.

Among the most important lessons I have had to learn was how to see the dark in myself as well as in others. Then I had to learn how to confront that darkness, giving myself full range to understand it in both positive and negative terms. (I could write books about it all. And, actually I have.) Finally I have had to learn how to dance with the dark, doing my part to guide it to move to its higher potentials rather than being caught in its descent.

Looking back to the days when first I began on this journey of mine, out of the darkness into the light, I give praise to whatever it was that protected me from the worst of the dangers of the Washington, D.C. fast track that could have befallen me. But I was fortunate. Something in me and/or the blessings of some kind of inheritance of mine was already attuned to circumventing the myriad traps humans can set for one another in the “games people play.”

When I look back on those days, the most challenging being 1965 – 1973, when I was immersed in the D.C. fast track (and almost caught in its net), I am grateful beyond measure that the notorious fate of doomed damsels was averted by me. Perhaps it was that the intoxication of a Hollywood adolescence had seasoned me so well to flash that Washington power players did little more than challenge me to learn how to see through their gloss.

Teen-age years at the side of my beloved father might have opened my eyes to the cost one might pay for admittance to the courts of glamor and power. Raised in a small Ohio town of 2,500, he was at his best as a big fish in a small pond, never quite catching on to the dance and the dazzle of Tinsel Town well enough to fully make it his way.

Whatever it was that inured me to falling too far into the sink hole of the fast track game, I left it behind before too long, preferring to analyze and understand its darkness from the periphery rather than make it my own. The Washington, D.C. fast track is fraught with dangers for a naïve, vulnerable, well-built twenty something woman. And, I was certainly one of these. Excitement and drama can easily entice one into it. Especially when she begins to taste her own power and what it can begat, as I was already doing in my small way. (Tales for another day.)

But escape I did, rejoicing over the years at my standing back from Watergate, far enough to assess, understand and write about its lessons, using them to teach vulnerable others. Now when someone such as the woman, Vicky Triponey, who confronted Paterno, at last, gets her due in recognition and respect for her clarity and courage, I can applaud her as one of my kind, knowing full well the price she has had to pay for the effort.

I can, also, draw comfort and validation from such steadfastness in the face of undue pressure. I have done that numerous times this past week or so as I, once again, danced with the dark side in my own small New Horizons arena, disentangling us from the relatively benign Pretender Peace Buddy Pod that, at the very least, was more than the blemish it was for us. Corruption in a system is corrupt. No matter its size or import in the overall scheme of the day.

The Lift Is The Gift

One cannot be content to crawl when one feels an instinct to soar. Helen Keller

A magnificent gift came to me last night as the sun readied itself to set on the official day of my birth -- day celebration. I had all but completed the highlights of the day’s festivities when an unexpected birthday gift of a lift came my way.

Oh, my. Oh, my.

Still lamenting, off and on, the losses our Pretender Peace Buddy Pod affair produced, yet graciously embracing the gifts; teachable moments, augmented maturity and all that, along came tangible evidence that the Divine does work in mysterious ways.

The gift that was a lift!

The last thing I had scheduled for my birth-day, already filled with surprises and delights, was to do one more Possible Human, Possible Society Study phone interview. (Who schedules anything on a birth-day, I had asked myself, wondering at the scheduling? However, after all, this study is almost completely birthed of my heart and soul. What more can I say?)

The man to be interviewed was already on board from several previous talks and had already proven himself to truly be “a person of interest” for the mission of our study. I was genuinely eager to talk to him. And we had had difficulty meeting up earlier this week, as originally arranged. Still it was my big celebration day. So?? Therefore??

It was important. Make time for it, I would. Thus it came to pass that I conscientiously showed up for the interview, matching the commitment of my interviewee. Between watching the sunset (my favorite part of the day) and that last little piece of steak left over from Tuesday’s pre-BIG day lunch with my collaborator and spirit sister, Sue, for a final birthday repast, I believe I allowed in the most perfect gift I could have had on this day, by accident.

I got a gift of a lift! For who I am, what I believe and what I hold most dear, the accrued losses, emerging out of our Abkhazian Dinner incident, did take their toll on me, leaving me, at times, feeling a bit worn, longing for “real deal” peace builders. Possible humans, truly doing the work to build a possible society, at least, as I hold them to be in my, very occasionally, biased perspective. (The Pretender Peace Buddy Pod affair was, indeed, such an occasion.)

So you know what happened at the setting of the sun on my main day? I got a lift as a gift, watching the sunset while interviewing a man who could well be our next Annual Peace Buddy Award Winner. I needed this lift. It came just at the right moment. As New Horizons, now, moves forward toward our next Bus Ride Story Adventure rehearsal and our annual board meeting.

I am, thus, renewed. My level of inspiration uplifted, as I begin preparing my end of responsibilities for these events in motion. It is important that I be inspired, as I am the captain of this ship. And, our board, soon, will review the progress of our study, making ready to soon send it forth (January 1, 2013) on its second full year and its second one hundred participants. All in all I needed this most beautiful birth –day gift.

This morning as I came awake into my day, taking as usual my time to pray, I felt the lift inside of me that signals me, shaman/spiritual warrior, that I have become, taking flight. Up and off earth level, my spirit soaring as it is meant to do.

The Art of Seeing

Birthdays are beautiful most of the time. But then there was the one when we lost my toddler son on the beach and spent most of my birthday looking for him. Of course, I was totally desperate inside. Could my beautiful baby with the platinum blonde curls have walked himself right into the drowning water; one of a mother’s worst fears? Many hours later we found him, as you might have known, happily building sand castles with other toddlers he had discovered, wandering away from us.

That was the birthday, after finding my lost child, I discovered that I could and might need to celebrate my birthday for a month to properly mark it. One day could never cover all the downs and the ups that an annual commemoration – and – a review of one’s life to date -- might merit. So it began for me. Thus, today, the official day of remembrance for my birth, here I am on my main “honoring of Me —day,” as well as my most particular day to see where I need to clean up my act in the coming year ahead. 

Still I am under no obligation to see it all today. I do have my thirty days, if I need.

Seeing, you know, is of particular significance for me. This past year, alone, has had me, repeatedly, in and out of blindness (in my right eye). In the past few weeks there has been almost more blindness than sight. However, given that I have come to see my vision challenges to be, not only physical, but spiritual, I had to, again, ask myself what was this eye of mine signaling for me to see that, perhaps, I was somehow resisting.

So I came to today’s “trust the first thought that comes to mind” insight:

*The Abkhazian Dinner incident and its fallout truly brought a grievous loss to our organization; the loss of a great deal of time spent gathering data and building rapport with Possible Human, Possible Society Study participants and a stinging loss of beautiful connections with a particular group that seemed pregnant with possibilities to share with others of cherished hopes and dreams and visions. Perhaps it was this that I didn’t quite want to see wholly, as the impact began to unfold. Yet with the loss and the letting go came liberation and expanded clarity.

Perhaps it was all just as it must be; loss, liberation and expanded clarity going hand in hand. This, the art of seeing suggests to me. Would that such a spiritual insight could restore my lost eyesight.

*The Abkhazian Dinner was a wonderful event, nonetheless. And, few knew of the “incident.”