This brought tears to my eyes.
Silly me, I know. Why flowers? For heaven’s sake, you can’t eat them, and what we need is food, food!
This latter opinion, I used to hold. Only pragmatic values held true for me. What changed? Well, I’d say that the submerged feminine side of me needed to come forth and shine equal to the masculine side of me. The right brain, which is linked to the heart and reaches into infinity, receiving bursts of intuition from that mysterious realm, had to find its value within myself.
Trained as a “philosopher,” but in rebellion during the latter stages of my doctoral studies, my feminine side did surface, briefly, to compose a dissertation that flew in from elsewhere.
And yet, 50 years later, when I started to take permaculture seriously, and began to envision growing food here in our tiny Green Acres Village, I asked my permaculture teacher, “Why flowers? We don’t eat them. What good are they?”
What good are they? I ask myself now. Well, for one astonishing thing, each one comes in its own very specifi form, which is usually a mandala of some sort, the contemplation of which helps us center ourselves within our own bodies, and breathe in concert with both the earth.
Notice this rose, or example. Really pay attention to it, from its center, spreading out.
What good are they? Well, each one offers color, often brilliant color, like the above salmon rose, much like song birds do. We live in a world of color.
And yet, walking through the gorgeous IU campus this morning with puppy Scampi, more than 9 out of 10 students that passed us either were on their screens, or listening with earbuds to what is not the surging spring of nature that surrounds us all in early April. Listening to something second hand.
Luckily, I’m aware of what I’m missing. And thus when walking, I never use technology, instead immersing myself in the mysterious surround. Yes. Aware that though I’m in a female body, the female side of the brain came in undeveloped, and still needs to be continuously cultivated.
Okay, switch now to not just cultivation of the forgotten pole in any polarity (and that’ what 3D is for, folks, to help us learn how to continuously and dynamically balance the two poles of any polarity, including the conscious and unconscious aspects of our own inner lives, the balance between our mysterious inner world and the equally mysterious (if only we realized it) “outer world” which streams into us via the “five outer senses.”
And, when we actually work to remain “present” in our lives, for example, when I take my daily three to four mile walks with puppy Scampi, my challenge is, to remain present, in all ways. Inside my body, appreciating its rhythmic stride, it’s expert coordination; and outside! the vast outside which, especially in spring, like now, is simply bursting with new life. And I listen, to cultivate sound, the song birds letting me in on it, their excited chatter thrilling through the air. And I cultivate sight, the trees and bushes sprouting leaves — from nowhere! — surging into form.
Everywhere, new life!
Usually, however, except on my daily walks, if you’re like me, you’re caught up in the bullshit that streams in over the internet, trying to discern this from that, following through with this train of reasoning or that; and usually, what is being presented is fear-based, leading to “doom” one way or another.
I can choose to concentrate solely on this kind of (left brain) comprehension of the world, or I can stop, tune in, listen.
I can re-immerse my embodied self with the deeply intertwined, organic, natural order, with every living being, from bacteria to insects to rodents, to mammals on up to stars and planets, each giving of its whole being, according to its own specific laws, in concert with others doing the same. A vast co-creative symphony.
Just think of the intricate ecosystem that powers your own body!
Now back to the photo above. Why did it bring tears to my eyes? Why did it suddenly thrust me into my right brain/heart?
Because the flower garden represents new life emerging from the detritis of the old.
Because this flower garden is a gift from one culture to another, in acknowledgement of our empathic communion with others’ suffering.
Because deciding upon a flower garden is a very creative act! And creativity, folks, is what we humans have, in abundance, though usually latent, covered up by “education,” indoctrination, not to mention the screaming headlines all spelling doom! Fuck that!
Cultivate awareness. Cultivate the “useless” flower garden inside your own right brain/heart connection! For once we go there, nothing is impossible.
Want to know the secret of “going there”? It’s very simple. GRATITUDE. Gratitude for one’s conscious awareness; gratitude for one’s own strong body; gratitude for friends, birds, flowers, on and on — the extraordinary reach of creation.
”And you? My teacher looked up, his left eyebrow arched, pencil poised. 'I want to do a paper on the concept of time.’” I mumbled, timidly. 'Time?' He sniffed. “I wouldn’t touch the subject. Too difficult.” — AK, 1967
Ph.D. 82
Astrologer, published author, conference presenter, world traveler, founder & editor of Crone Chronicles: A Journal of Conscious Aging (1989-2001) , and founding visionary of Green Acres Permaculture Village (2010 to present).
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Your article is written in such a basic, free-flowing, relaxed and non-critical manner that it is the best piece I have read in years
And the good thing about it is, if you read it twice you get even more out of it.
Your account of your experiences with Dances of Universal Peace touched me deeply. I relate to it so much. This paragraph: ‘In those dances where we passed by each other, looking in each other’s eyes, I invariably entered a dimension where souls live in communion, each so precious, so unique, and so very alive! So beautiful. There was no stopping it. There was only a re-membering, of the divine breath flowing through and re-linking us All.’ Yes!! Yes!!
I am a long time reader of your writing. I found your work initially on Celestial Navigations and then on to Exopermaculture and now at your current website and blog. Thank you so much for your beautiful writing. Many of your pieces have had serious resonance for me and have been part of the magical, collective energy of my own spiritual work. Your words move energy!
And again: “Wanted to send you a thank you for all the beautiful moving writing you have been compiling and releasing on your blog. It is awesome! What many are needing right now and will continue to need. Love to see how things like this move on the time tapestry. Please know you are appreciated.”
Thanks Ann – for the grounding, the (self) reflexivity, and the old-crone-wisdom that situates organic human – actual – emotions, within the poetics – even – of this ongoing bifurcation. (and yes, I’ve noticed for some years – exhausted by those who haven’t!) What a time we’re living thro’, witness to, and participant in…
“I haven’t dropped in here for a while – but very grateful to return to now. You dropped into my head – guidance! and very grateful too – to be introduced to Quantum Tumbler. With love