No, It Just Can't Be!

 I am sharing one of those "set the camera on the table and run to get in the photo" shots of my gang taken on Christmas Day.  From the back left:  Garic, Gary (my ex), Jason, Meaghan and Jeremy. Second row:  me and Renee. Front row:  Skylar and Jaden.  I enjoyed wonderful holidays, a good two week's worth since they included travel to Cincinnati where Garic (my middle son) hosted Christmas at his house (Jason and Renee helped with the food);  travel to Mtn. Grove to visit Mom and family there;  three open houses and a four day visit from my friend Jody from Maryland.  I hope all of you had equally happy holidays!

 I awoke this morning to the thought, "How can it possibly be January 19, 2011 already!!"  The year 2010 flew past me like a full throttle jet.  And this in spite of  trying my best to stay focused on "living mindfully in each moment."  There are those who claim time is speeding up.  Perhaps they are right?  Yet, there are others who talk about the relativity of time? Or that there is no such thing as time?

   My concern is that we continue in our culture to be "too busy."  Last year was a time of transition for me, and a focused attempt to slow down my weekly schedule.  In this year I hope to manage a fuller consciousness of what I am doing each moment so that I may experience each day to the fullest.

   I set my intention on NYE to be more aware, more conscious and to listen to my intuitive guidance.  I do believe God speaks to us most clearly through our intuition.  Though he/she also speaks through every thing we experience.  Hearing requires being "awake."  As I look back over my life, had I known how to do this, or known TO DO THIS and to stop second guessing what my gut was telling me, I could have saved much energy and even much pain.  Of course, we do learn through that pain, so it is OK that it has taken me awhile to learn to listen.

   I do find it so interesting that in hindsight I can say "I did know the truth of that."  Yet, over and over I will talk myself out of really trusting that knowing.  And, I do this second guessing in spite of the fact that the accuracy of my intuitive knowing has been proven correct over and over.  I have even had dreams that spoke the full truth to me; I have had strange events that in looking back I could see where trying to shake me into seeing I already new what to do, I just needed to act on it.

   Am I right in guessing that I am not alone in this behavior?  And if so, why do we tend to do this, to not listen to that something within that is sometimes even yelling out the truth to us?  I have some thoughts as to why this happens:
        1) our culture does not teach that we have this inner knowing.  It is thought of as psychic phenomon and
            is highly suspect
        2) we don't always want to hear the truth.  We get caught up in what we want to be the truth and ignore
            evidence to the contrary
        3) we think if we just "hang in there" the situation or even the person involved will change
        4) we believe our patience and our unconditional love will cause that change
   
   In my experience patience and unconditional love can work miracles, but NEVER when my intuition is screaming out the opposite.

   So, my new years intention is to listen, to trust, and to act on my inner guidance.  It will be very interesting to see where it leads me in this new year.

   I wish a very peaceful and blessed 2011 to all of you.

   I'd love feed back of your own experiences concerning intuition.

JOY In The Moment

I have gotten very busy; caught up in Christmas shopping, decorating, trying to finish up this quarter's grades and evaluations in the midst of holiday activities.  It is Saturday morning; the day is dark, a dreary rain falls from a wintry gray sky.  The Art Museum is my destination....meeting students for a tour.  It will be Christmasy and festive.  I will enjoy it.

I sit within my cozy warm studio overlooking the pond as raindrops disturb the surface.  The drops falling one by one remind me of a very young Jeremy (my youngest), maybe 8 or 9 running into the house one summer day.  He rushes to his bedroom where I hear him digging into his toy box.  He comes out with his snorkle and goggles and runs out the backdoor to jump into the above ground pool.  In a few minutes he comes in all excited:  "Mom, you should see how the rain drops look from the bottom of the pool!"  He had ran out, jumped in to lay on the bottom so he could watch the drops from below.

Youth, so fresh, so alive, so caught up in the wonder of life.  A touch of sadness washes over me as the thought of disease and dying punch into my thoughts....Jeremy lives with chronic disease and did, even then.

Yet, living this very moment there is only joy!  How very important it is:  to know, and even to have the ability to contemplate that we WILL die, yet, to stay focused on this moment, this joyuous miraculous moment of life, bursting forth life!

Raindrops dancing now, splashing into the pond.  The Koi have Jeremy's view from that day.

What must it feel like to be an ant being hit by a huge raindrop?

A Revealing As The Leaves Fall Away

 

Fall, the season I am living both literally and symbolically as I find myself at an age considered the fall of life.  The work of fall has to do with leaves:  much change in appearance, much letting go, sweeping away that which is finished,  looking at who we are as we become bare, as we watch "things" fall away, things such as youth, physical beauty, careers if we retire, fame if we have accomplished it, successes and accomplishments.....all kinds of attachments.

In fall we become naked before ourselves.  I say "ourselves" because, after all, it is only ourselves we fool with all our attachments and outward coverings!  Bare of all those things I have covered myself with (talents, successful career, a look or attitude that attracts the opposite sex, publicity, possessions)....STUFF.  Naked.....all the leaves having fallen away, WHO AM I? 

This is what interests me now.  Is my core substance such that losing the leaves I am even more....because I shine from my core.  This is my hope; and in this hope is a resolve to let go (to grow old) with a grace that lessens the fear of ageing for my children....well for all who know me.

Life, death, consider them equals, and so they are, one as certain as the other.  One as important to the purpose of existence as the other.

So in this fall of 2010 I hope that you allow your inner beauty to grow and to shine.  There is purpose in the fact that fall is so beautiful.  And always fall triggers such introspection. See that it is the deep down authentic you, the real you, stripped of all the coverings, that is truly an expression of the joy and wonder that is life.



Give A Carrot!

Jason, my oldest son, his wife Renee and my two little grandsons, Jaden and Skylar, were here for the Halloween weekend.  It happens that my youngest son, Jeremy, and his wife, Meaghan, are recently the proud owners of a horse named Phoenix.  I won't go in to how this came about, but there is a whole other story there (I say this with a smile).  We took the boys to meet Phoenix; Jaden anxiously waited to feed Phoenix a carrot.  Phoenix loves carrots, and, in fact, yesterday Meaghan told me that Phoenix was getting a bit too fond of treats and therefore checking hands and pockets of every human he had the chance to meet.  Do you think he might be suffering from "entitlement?"

Carrots, as we all know, are very good for you.  The beta-carotene is good for your eyes, as is the fact that carrots convert to vitamin A in the body which also improves eyesight and helps you see better in dim light.  Beta-carotene in carrots is also an antioxidant that helps protect you from heart disease, cancer and macular degeneration.  Alpha-carotene, another benefit from carrots has been shown to protect from lung cancer.

The point is, if you are said to "Give a Carrot" you are giving something good for the receiver.  This brings me to the point of my ramblings today:  politics.  I do not typically get into politics except in very private situations.  I have long considered myself an "Independent."  I have in the past voted both sides of the ticket.  BUT,  like so many in this country I am absolutely disgusted with politics.  I am sick of the name calling, the blame, the black and white thinking, the refusal to work across "party lines" for the good of the people.  I am appalled to find that in spite of the fact that our President Obama won the Presidential seat only two years ago, with our country in the midst of TWO wars, right after the collapse of our major financial institutions and the spiraling downward of our stock market AND the bail out that was called by then President Bush a "necessity for saving our economy" many people in this country actually now "see" him, Obama, as to blame for it all.  Two years??? Do you suppose that is enough time to actually "fix" all that was wrong?  And to do so when your opposing party has said "NO" to cooperating with you in any way?  By the way, the consensus from experts from both parties is that we had to bail out these institutions.

Well that is my first frustration.  My second is that there seems to be an absolute "refusal" to work together among the heads of our two party system.  We are in trouble.  I don't care who is to blame (though from my perspective it appears to be the fact that we are now a global economy, like it or not; and our corporations have the wealth and the power to do whatever they want and to even buy off our congressmen and women.)  Remember, corporations are not patriotic unless they are headed by honest and patriotic executives.  Corporations are world wide citizens, moving wherever and whenever they can find cheaper labor and fewer regulatory inhibitions to their money making purpose.  THEY ARE NOT PEOPLE.  They do not have conscience nor empathy.  They do not "give a carrot!"

And are you aware that corporations can now contribute however much money they wish without having to say where it comes from to any campaign (and remember, they do have the money).  Do you not suppose this could mean they can also buy the candidate that best fits their interest?

So, isn't it time we SEE.  "GIVE A CARROT."  We are in trouble.  We have millions who have no health insurance and others having to declare bankruptcy due to illness, we have seniors who have to decide whether to forgo food or medications, we have poor right here in our ghettos and even in our rural areas who need help, we have a middle class that has been dwindling in numbers for the last 50 years.  It IS our middle class that carries the brunt of our tax burden.  And, by the way, it is a historical fact that a culture's strength and stability is directly proportionate to the strength and stability of its middle class.

EAT A FEW CARROTS.  They help us "see" the truth in our situation.  I think we have to stop reacting to the fear politics around us and take the time to look into what it is that will really help change things.  I guarantee you it is not about being Democrat nor Republican (NOR Tea Party).  It is not about defending the Constitution, it is not about whether or not our President is Muslim or a US citizen (that anyone can believe either of these persisting rumors really blows my mind).  It is about whether or not we can really "give a carrot" and put some time and effort into knowing the truth of our situation and seriously looking for ways to make changes.

It shook me last night when a teen in my class began sharing how depressed and hopeless she was feeling.  This was the case on many levels, but when she got into politics and how the condition of our country and its politics were affecting her, and the rest of the group chimed in in agreement, it really got to me.  She said she no longer felt "hope" that she could make her "dreams" come to fruition.  She said she was sick of our major political parties refusing to work together to figure out how to fix things.   Basically she was saying she has lost "the American dream."  This conversation went on to include how many teens each of these in my class knew who felt suicidal because of this hopelessness.  I think we must take this seriously for the sake of our children.  If we don't stop fighting and blaming and reacting and start really doing something constructive we are failing our children.  I really believe this.

So, the point of this blog today is to ask that you "Give a Carrot"....that you really care enough to do all in your power to stop the negativity and give from your heart something healthy, something that enhances the ability to "see" our way out of this mess we find ourselves in.  I believe we are the greatest nation in the world, but I also believe if we keep abusing this position we can lose it.  I do "give a carrot!!"

Cleaning In The Studio

                                          Classroom Studio


(Oct. 23, 2010, Jan Groenemann)


Saturday and feisty fall,
Outside my studio door
The wind blowing in with the leaves a fall thunderstorm
Forcing the chimes to scream more than sing
I find myself cleaning, clearing clutter
Pulling everything out, making it visible
Wrecking the order of my space
In order to discover and discard

Up on the top shelf in the far corner I find
Yellowed envelopes filled with written pages
I slide them out, taking a seat at an empty table
Here, reading from the mind of my much younger self
Young wife, mother of three small sons
One already diabetic
Trying desperately to keep a marriage together
That was destined to die

Hanging on, with my words
To a religion that ran low on regard
For a woman who needed strength
Who needed to know
It was OK to demand commitment
And respect and focus
Whose teachings of submission
Allowed for coping co-dependency

Even then I was optimistic
In my openly lonely situation
Learning to mother
Learning to give endlessly
Learning to love unconditionally
Learning to fly
Learning to let go
Let go, let go, let go

Filling black bulging bags
One after the other
Saying goodbye to the girl
The young mother
The submissive wife
The writer of religious themes
And stories, making space
Allowing for the changes that came

Giving birth to the woman
The mother of sons and grandsons
The friend to daughters-in-law
Loving unconditionally
Even the man whose side she left
So that the artist and poet
And mature spiritual being
Was allowed to emerge

I slide the writings back into the envelope
Even the one about “learning to fly”
And the poem titled “wife friend”
Even the girl, the young woman
Whose smile is still on my face
And whose belief that
In all things there is purpose
Still lives in my heart.

Leaves: A New Perspective

Leaves: A New Perspective


Spiraling downward on invisible currents,
Sailing on updrafts, leveling, landing
Gathering as a conference; colorful and individual
As members of a happy crowd
They dance and gossip
On the tarmac that is my drive
Moving in as close as possible to my door
Waiting there, quietly, out of the range of fall gusts
A steadily growing crowd of fall leaves
Their last wings
Final meeting
Waiting


It has frustrated me in past falls
This constant gathering, whispering, waiting
That they do at my doorway
As if hoping to sneak in on sneakers
Or breeze in on boots
Keeping me sweeping, sweeping
No end it always seems to the
Trail of crumbled colors
Descending into dust
To be vacuumed up
Discarded and dumpstered
A constant chore


As they leave the classroom, the group of teens
Who have sat and shared
discussed and drawn characters from their imaginings
For the last hour and a half
A fasting from the fall fury of school
And homework, SAT’s, exams
I complain about the levee of leaves that blocks the door.
Hearing them crunch beneath Rebooks, Nikes,
My background chorus as I say,
“Goodnight, have a good week.”
“They are all gathering here,” they cheer
“They love your house!!!”


Leaves, gathering here in safe haven?
Nature’s palette of creative colors
Floating, hovering, piling one on another
Inviting games like dig potato
Or offering to model
For rubbings or paintings
Or even just reminders of the myriad of colors
That only fall can conjure
Leaves for lessons
In letting go or going with the flow
A new perspective:
Leaves

New Work Completed

"Doorway With Curtain"

                                       "Doors Bleeding Time"