Friday – A Freedom Hard Won

For American woman the battle for freedom has been long and hard. Equality while it is coming more and more into balance in certain segments of society and pockets of the globe is still not a reality. The war against injustice has not been won. Some battles have been won. Some rights have been established. And, yet, it seems that sometimes the greatest enemy for women is the attitudes and conditioning of other women.

When we as women, or men, do not celebrate the success of women and support their desire to succeed and make their lives and their children’s lives better, we set back the quest for freedom as surely as sexual harassment in the workplace, as surely as less pay for women versus men, as surely as every sexist joke that is spoken in thoughtless jest.

I have seen miracles in my lifetime in the changing roles of women. Powerful women create a powerful nation and a powerful world for our daughters and sons yet to be born. Condoleezza Rice, Oprah Winfrey, Hilary Rodom-Clinton, Martha Stewart, Meg Whitman, Jackie Joyner Kersee, Anita Hill, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mary Cassatt, Gertrude Stein, Eleanor Roosevelt, Julia Child, Dorothy Parker, Anais Nin, are but a few and the list goes on and on and gets stronger and stronger.

Today, on Women’s Equality Day, I celebrate woman. I celebrate the warrior goddess that empowers us to continue until every woman has the right to be who she is by choice and not by expectation.

The best protection any woman can have is courage.

Elizabeth Cady Stanton

The Monkey Mind

The Monkey Mind

My mind is restless jumping from here and there. It is hard to concentrate on nothing. It is impossible to still the monkey mind.

I have always been a Monkey. I was born in the year of the monkey in the Chinese Zodiac. And, as a totem, there is no animal more intriguing then the monkey.

The monkey is the trickster, ready to play with your mind and tease you and pull you into a sudden collision with the dichotomies of reality.

For those who follow the rules or create the rules, the monkey is rather a disturbing creature because even when caged he looks at you and mocks conventionality. You want order, he brings chaos. You want to cry, he makes you laugh. You want to frown, he will turn upside down.

It is the business of the monkey to be in constant action and to find pleasure in the small and the absurd.

The monkey is our mirror reflecting our desire to be more than just another hairless ape.

On a more serious note, in meditation the goal is to quiet the mind. Some teachers have called this quieting the monkey mind. It is in the stillness that the writer can find the form for his or her writing.

A monkey sees a shining sphere in a deep pool. The excited creature reaches out precariously to grab it, but can’t reach far enough. If the monkey lets go he will fall into the dark water. Yet if he pulls back into the trees, the quest will have been abandoned.
You don’t need any special powers to discover that light seen in the reflected moon is real.
http://meditationproject.com/Monkeys.html

The monkey running rampant in our mind, doing its business of thinking distracts us from the form of reality. To understand reality we must understand being and not being. We must understand movement and stillness. When we think too much, we sense less than is possible. When we stop the monkey mind we move on to be the sage who is observing and is witness to the world. It is this observation that brings insight and not the thinking about what is happening. Thus when we learn detachment the monkey goes to sleep and we are one with the Tao.

Thus the business of the monkey is to let us see the reflected light of reality, but then through detachment we discover that whether reflected or direct the light is just the light.

pomelos rose

Today I have traveled from Roanoke Virginia to France to China to Spain to Mexico and then to my memories in search of an illusive pomelo rose. You might say I have circled the globe to find this succulent globe that is not only healthy but its roots go back 20 million years. So I have not only traveled through space I have traveled through time... who could ask for anything more.

2 pomelos roses (ou pamplemousses)3 avocats pas trop mûrs1 cuillère à soupe de moutarde au citron2 cuillères à soupe d'huile d'olive1 cuillère à soupe de vinaigre de vinQuelques brins de ciboulette fraîcheSel, poivre blanc



PréparationPelez les pamplemousses à vif au dessus d'un bol pour en récolter le jus.Puis "déshabillez" les quartiers de pamplemousses de leur peau et posez-les dans un saladier. Coupez-les en deux s'ils sont trop gros pour être mangés d'une bouchée.Pelez les avocats et taillez-les en gros cubes. Placez-les dans le saladier.Dans le bol avec le jus de pamplemousse, réalisez la vinaigrette en ajoutant la mouarde, l'huile et le vinaire. Salez, poivrez.Versez la vinaigrette sur l'ensemble, remuez très déicatement. Clairsemez un peu de ciboulette fraîche coupée et dégustez immédiatement.

Pour des raisons esthétiques, il est conseillé de préparer cette salade au dernier moment sinon les avocats s'oxydent et noircissentOn pourra ajouter quelques petites crevettes qui complètent bien l'ensemble.

A grapefruit by any other same is pamplemousse or pomelo

How does one become a rose of the grapefruit? By being a red grapefruit

Does a red grapefruit by any other name taste as lush and rich and filled with promise? Well it does have the promise of health...

Red fruit are loaded with beneficial plant compounds called phytochemicals, which preserve your health in several ways. These phytochemicals can keep your brain agile as you age, guard against heart disease and cancer, ease arthritis, and ward off urinary tract infections and ulcers. Many phytochemicals are antioxidants, which fight off health-damaging free radicals. http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0NAH/is_4_32/ai_85174715


As I began my journey I traveled to france and saw a painter - a very intense middle-aged white man who painted with an african flare. I traveled further to find out that he was painting a woman with a grapefruit with a ruby red inner flesh. His symbology became more interesting.
Then the recipes in French and then studying the citrus from ugly fruits (grin) to sour or bitter oranges in Mexico which were imported by Spain.
Which reminded me of a story or two.

When I married my husband I found a poem written by his father where he wrote (translated) "my son is a bitter orange."

I did not understand his symbolism until today. What a wonderful adventure free write has given me.

I discovered that in Mexico the bitter orange is used for medicinal purposes.

Sour orange juice is antiseptic, anti-bilious and hemostatic. Africans apply the cut-open orange on ulcers and yaws and areas of the body afflicted with rheumatism. In Italy, Mexico and Latin America generally, decoctions of the leaves are given for their sudorific, antispasmodic, stimulant, tonic and stomachic action. The flowers, prepared as a sirup, act as a sedative in nervous disorders and induce sleep. An infusion of the bitter bark is taken as a tonic, stimulant, febrifuge and vermifuge. http://www.hort.purdue.edu/newcrop/morton/sour_orange.html


And I remembered traveling the Yucatan and I would visit with Aunt Lucilla who told me of using bitter orange (a sour orange with a red sour flesh reminiscent of the pomelos rose which brought me to this memory) to heal so many different health issues in the Mexican culture. You see my husband Mark is descended from a long line of Yaqui shamans and thus when his father wrote about his son being a bitter orange, he meant the birth of his son was his healing.


Did you know:
citrus grew in Asia 20 million years ago?

citrus was first mentioned in literature in 2400 B.C.?

the first varieties of citrus were bitter and not edible?

each person in the U.S. eats about 12.5 lbs (5.6 kilos) of citrus per year!!!

citrus is the most widely grown crop in the world!

Brazil produces the largest amount of oranges and grapefruits in the world!

in Florida there are approximately 10.3 million citrus trees on 853,000 acres of land!

there is more fiber in an orange than in most other fruits and veggies!

Florida oranges may be greener than California oranges because the night temperatures in Florida are warmer, which causes more chlorophyll to migrate into the peel; they are still ripe and sweet though.

British sailors used to be called “Limeys” because they ate citrus to prevent scurvy on long sea voyages.

if you plant a single seed from an orange you will probably get more than one plant growing from it.

immature growth on most citrus trees will have sharp thorns. These tend to break off as the wood gets older.
Myriam Maytorena, M.Ed.Life with Mother;A Journey of Love, Death and Rebirthhttp://lifewithmother.com/ http://manifestreality.com/http://myriamsmuse.blogspot.com/

Tuesday - An ordinary day

It was an ordinary day. But in my world, ordinary days usually turn out to be quite extraordinary. I decided to take a nap out in my goddess grove. It is so peaceful there and about 10 degrees cooler than the rest of my yard. It is surrounded by a bamboo grove, and is sheltered by an umbrella from nature in the form of a mock cherry tree. You can smell the honeysuckle and feel the energy of Mother Nature in this safe haven from the world and mundane reality.


I seemed to fall asleep yet I felt totally awake. I felt my body rising up toward the sky and yet when I turned and looked down I could see me nestled safe in my grove. I was on the flight of a lifetime.


I kept drifting higher and higher in this spiritual levitation. In the middle of my solar plexus I felt a warm glow of pink energy that began to expand until it was completely encircling the planet. I felt one with Mother Nature and all her creatures. I could not tell where the earth and I were separate. We were one pure energy form of love and light.


The energy was pulsating and alive. I could feel the circle, or perhaps globe is a better term, of energy expanding. I felt greater and greater connection with the sun and planets that surround and balance our planet. The expansion continued until I was in a state of infinite awareness. Slowly the pink energy mutated until all colors were a part of my being and I was alternately pulsating between black and white – between void and light.


Then the energy begins to collapse into me and I felt myself becoming smaller and smaller until I was so small as to be totally invisible. Through this whole process my mind continues to witness this true epiphany of infinity. I recognize that I have returned from my flight but I am now in the consciousness that is the subatomic reality of one of my brain cells. Then I expand again. I can feel my body arousing within the beauty and safety of my goddess grove.


Was this a flight of fancy – or a journey through multi-dimensional realities? You be the judge. I only know that on any ordinary day I can make the extraordinary my reality and travel through the dimensions of time and space by focusing on limitless possibilities.

Monday August 22 2005 Contaminated

Résumé
Razors pain you;

Rivers are damp;

Acids stain you;

And drugs cause cramp.

Guns aren't lawful;

Nooses give;

Gas smell awful;

You might as well live.
Dorothy Parker

Most writers are contaminated. Or is that condemned? Maybe it is the same thing. We are contaminated by strange neurons and electrons connecting in weird and disturbing ways in our brains. We are condemned forever to try and create order even if it is ugly out of those thoughts and ideas creating visions and delusions that must be exorcised before we go totally mad. What we know and what we see is often different than what the outside world perceives and thus we must educate them to the nuances of pain, ecstasy, and reveal that there is more than mediocrity.





Even the charmingly trite who keep their words light know that the dark dwells beneath the conscious mind. Even my buddies Tweetie and Sylvester make us laugh at pain and the constant conflict and confusion of our society. We pander to the quirks and smirks of mankind and we often sit back and observe our own stupidity for even trying.





A writer without a pen as sharp as a razor might as well become a journalist or a copy writer. But, we who look into the abyss always knowing it will return our glance know that madness is but one stroke away on the keyboard. We are fierce, mad and defiant. We are the ultimate egotist because we believe that someone somewhere will be intrigued by what we write and value what our thoughts reveal. For some of us this might become a reality, for others not. But all of us will continue the valiant war of the words in an attempt to birth our thoughts into form that might someday say to the world: See, I told you so… I am a writer.