Someone is living part of my dream somewhere

Photo by Carolyn Johnson Hampton, used with permission

Someone is living a part of my dream, somewhere. In this life, I will always be partial to redheads - and GSDs. Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and all the best.

Until one has loved an animal, part of one’s soul remains unawakened 

Anatole France

Live - process - attend to -feel

Live according to what you notice.
Process what needs to be processed
Attend to what needs to be attended to.
Feel what needs to be felt, all the way
Down. - Dr. Wayne Carr

Wake up, Grow up, Clean up, Show Up

From an Integral point of view, simply "Waking Up" isn’t enough. We are also being called to "Grow Up" (mature emotionally), "Clean Up" (engage in shadow work), and "Show Up" (embody our insight in our daily lives). Jun Po’s unique Mondo Zen process is a nondual approach to emotions, in which our angst, informed by Zen mind, becomes our liberation. - integral life - 

"Enlightenment is just the beginning, later on come other skills, ...patience, a forgiving nature, extreme attention...." E.J. Gold

Love and go on

 

~~ You can shed tears that he is gone, or you can smile because he lived. You can close your eyes and pray that he will come back, or you can open your eyes and see all that he has left. Your heart can be empty because you can't see him, or you can be full of the love that you shared. You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday, or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday. You can remember him and only that he is gone, or you can cherish his memory and let it live on. You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn back, or you can do what he would want: "Smile, open your eyes, love and go on." ~~
~ David Harkins~

The essential YOU

The more you live by your deepest inner guidance and in integrity with your being and heart - the less you'll be able to be controlled by some capable manipulative other...so, get hip to what is the essential YOU.

C. Wolters

Timely Quote

“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma – which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of other’s opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become.
Everything else is secondary.”
~ Steve Jobs

Dog fighting - a glimpse behind the scenes

Very good essay on dog fighting

The compassionate non-vegetarian?

Since I can remember, I have always loved animals, even though the only ones we ever had at home were a couple of parakeets, and my sister had a hamster. Once we found an injured wild baby rabbit which we nursed back to health and then set free. We explored the world of frogs and tadpoles. We delighted in the sighting of any wildlife on walks. I played with and eventually fed a neighbor's collie, who started to stay in the back of our house at night. He was eventually given to a farm by it's owners. Still,even though I never had any of my own,  I loved animals. Wherever we moved, there were always bird songs in the spring and songbirds to observe raising their young. We did get to watch all animal shows on TV and back then in Germany, they were good documentaries on all kinds of wildlife and their habitats, animal's lives and plight. My favorite animals were dolphins, then dogs (German Shepherds and Collies especially), horses, songbirds, wild cats, rabbits, cows, deer, foxes, birds of prey, wolves, and you name it. Once my dad told us about having to kill a mouse - and how  that is when it's just there, still, looking at you with these big brown eye's asking: why are you doing this? And I understood it then, and even more so now.
We also often got game from farmers during hunting season, parts of a deer, rabbits, occasionally wild boar. I learned to skin and gut rabbits. We also, already way back then, tried to get eggs from free ranging chickens and beef from a cow that had been allowed the life of a cow on a pasture.This was after it became known how the animals were kept.
I have eaten meat most of my life,  once or twice a week, and in recent years only chicken from free range organic farms.
And then Skye came into my life, this majestic German shepherd husky and because of wanting to do the best for her, I looked up a lot of dog related stuff online and inevitably came across all the horrific accounts and images of abused dogs, neglected dogs and the whole domain of the plight of dogs in shelters and their killing and for the first time in my life, I could imagine being an activist - in fact, in my own way, I became one.  Sensitized, I also watched the Video: Glass Walls, below. And even though I had sort of known for a long time, this time it hit home in a different way. You could say: I feelingly awakened to a new level.


I became a vegetarian, and it has been easy.

Compare this to a dog in a shelter

I have friends who also became vegetarians, and I have friends who point out the detrimental effects of grains on human digestive systems, and the benefit of an all meat diet. There is the right diet for your blood type theory. There are camps pro and con vegetarian, meat eating, and the health benefits of each. Even Buddhists don't forbid the eating of meat.
To summarize what the suttas tell us: it appears that one may, with a clear conscience, receive, cook, and eat meat that either was freely offered by someone else, or that came from an animal who died of natural causes. But as to purchasing meat, I am just not sure. There are no clear-cut answers here.
We are all guilty of complicity, in one way or another and to varying degrees, in the harming and death of other creatures. Whether we are carnivore, vegan, or something in between, no matter how carefully we choose our food, somewhere back along the long chain of food production and preparation, killing took place. No matter how carefully we trod, with every step countless insects, mites, and other creatures inadvertently perish under our feet. This is just the nature of our world. 
from "Frequently Asked Questions About Buddhism", edited by John T. Bullitt. Access to Insight, 18 March 2011, http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/authors/bullitt/bfaq.html.

I also am not sure that my body does not need meat to do better, my own sense is that is does. Maybe I'll see an specially trained doctor for guidance on the matter.
So the dilemma is there, how can I possibly eat meat again, even if my body needs it? I am not in principle and under all circumstances opposed to meat-eating for everyone. I oppose and object to the mal-treatment of animals and the misuse of the earth's resources in order to "raise meat" commercially the way we do, no matter which or where. But could I kill them? In a survival class with Tom Brown Junior, the Tracker, the groups were each given a white rabbit which we were to kill for food and usage of the fur. This did not go without the teaching of the sanctity of it's life and the way to kill with a sudden blow. So, you get the gist - there are many different kinds of ways to look at the entire issue of food, including meat. Someone once said, as the topic came up and we were munching on carrots and other vegetables: ask them what THEY have to say about that - as if they did not have to give their life to become food, and I can tell you - if you do it with enough sensitivity, pulling out weeds or harvesting gorgeous lettuce hurts too.

Then there is the issue of: if we can eat cows and pigs and chicken, why not horses, and dogs and cats and monkeys and goats and sheep...and the list goes on, whatever happens you are able to find.
Yet, they are all these beautiful sentient beings with feelings and their life's purpose.
Recently I have come across lots of outrage of the Chinese eating dogs and their general disrespect in how those dogs get treated, with lots of comments calling the Chinese barbaric. But I ask you, watch the video below and then tell me: how are we less barbaric in this country? How can anyone not think this is atrocious and monstrous? Just saying, it is not a Chinese characteristic. In fact, we as a society may be more barbaric - they simply use dogs as food culturally, not having lived with dogs at the same level of companions as we in the West have been relating to dogs.Of course they skin them alive...I don't know how they can do it....




This one is about eating meat or not. Are we human designed or meant to eat meat? Are we supposed to "outgrow" our need for meat as we ascend the evolutionary ladder to a more awake and enlightened species? Does it depend on your genetics?
It is also about how we go about caring for the animals we breed as life-stock and giving them a life in the process as well as honoring and thanking them for giving their life for us.
It is also about how we choose which animal is ok to eat and the cultural differences and traditions.
It is about the life on this beautiful planet and how to honor all sentient beings, about giving and taking and sharing and sacrifices and the deep respect for other forms of life.
Can there be a compassionate non-vegetarian?


In looking for some images, I came across this blog - this is what happened to me too: the images - and once you really know, you cannot "unknow"
the-face-on-your-plate

Core Values of Integral Relationship Evolutionaries

 These are not my own words, if you'd like to learn more, please follow the sources. Thank you

If you are still after a relationship -well, if u are after one, then is it hunger? ...but nvm about that - I do appreciate the core values as outlined:

From http://www.integralrelationship.com/

12 Core Values of Integral Relationship Evolutionaries:*

1. We choose to love (instead of something that happens to us) and see the quality of our relationship as an indicator of our psychological health and spiritual realization.
2. We transcend our primary fantasy and base our relationship in Being values, versus material, sexual, or emotional neediness.
3. We use our relationship for ongoing mutual learning, healing, growth and awakening towards the capacity to love unconditionally.
4. We hold an evolutionary perspective and have reached or strive towards an integral, transpersonal or higher level of consciousness.
5. We continuously develop, balance and harmonize our healthy feminine and masculine polarities.
6. We meet each other as opposites and equals to create synergy at the level of all seven chakras.
7. We share a purpose for our relationship that is larger than either individual and that is offered in service for the greatest good of the largest number of people.
8. We have an Integral Life Practice (ILP) with modules for the health of our body, mind, spirit/soul, shadow, as well as ethics, sexuality, work, emotions, and relationships.
9. We make an explicit agreement to tell/listen-to each other’s truths without the need for validation or acceptance from our partner, and to own our emotional reactions to our partner's reality.
10. We set and respect each other's healthy boundaries.
11. We share material resources and pursue an environmentally and socially responsible lifestyle.
12. We engage in sacred/tantric sexuality and practice monogamy out of choice instead of fear.

* These 12 Core Values for Integral Relationship Evolutionaries outline the relationship potentials for integrally informed men and post-postmodern (evolved) women.  They were inspired by Elizabeth Debold's 10 Core Values for Evolving Women

Below are Elizabeth Debold's wonderful 10 Core Values for Evolving Women. The Integral Relationship Website is dedicated to the male-female relationship potentials that women become available for once they embody these values.

1. Holding an Evolutionary Perspective
   She strives to live in the knowledge that the creative intelligence that gave birth to the universe is not separate from her true self. She knows that all of the ways that she is conditioned—biologically, socially, and psychologically— are not personal to her, but are part and parcel of a universal developmental process.
   
   
2. Trusting in Life
   Through letting go of her need to control over and over again, she has discovered the empty Ground of Being that lies at the depth of her self. This profound experience of liberation frees her at the deepest level. As a result, she is at ease, manifesting an undefended innocence, dignity, and independence of spirit.
   
   
3. Taking Responsibility for Evolution
   Knowing that the entire developmental process is One, she endeavors to take full responsibility for evolving her own consciousness, realizing that her development moves the leading edge forward for all womankind
   
   
4. Realizing Unity with Other Women
   She relaxes more and more into a unity with other women as she refuses to act out of the nearly universal compulsion for women to separate from and compete with each other. She doesn’t deny that this compulsion, which has been key to women’s survival in the past, operates in her psyche, nor is she afraid or ashamed of it, but she works to keep her focus on evolving women’s relationships through trust, transparency, and a passion to create the future
   
   
5. Being Emotionally Rational
   Despite how overwhelming any emotional experience may be, she strives for objectivity and aspires to liberate her power of choice so that she is no longer trapped by fears and desires rooted in her biological and cultural conditioning. She is developing the emotional maturity to not dis-integrate and give in to ancient survival impulses when she finds herself under pressure.
   
   
   

6. Standing Autonomously and Not Wavering
   Rather than gauging her responses by what she thinks others want and need, she is cultivating a radical autonomy, grounded in her longing for liberation and her passion for the evolution of consciousness. She increasingly finds manipulative game-playing distasteful, and craves being simple, straight, and clear in her relationships with other
   
   
7. Relinquishing Sexual Power
   She is awake to how deeply identified she is with her sexual power and how instinctive it is to use it to get what she wants. Aspiring to drop this fundamental identification, she finds that sexual relationships become more straightforward and less of a priority and marker of personal success. The more she succeeds in this aspiration, the more she discovers a profound intimacy with others that is not related to sexuality at all.
   
   
8. Leading by Example
   Dropping the many masks of pretense and self-image, she strives for a rare vulnerability and authenticity that is not emotional but comes from being unafraid of the impulses and motivations that drive women. She is discovering a deep confidence that is not edged with hardness but founded in transparency and humility. She is willing to step forward and be a pioneer, and does not abuse the power that comes with leadership.
   
   
9. Being Trustworthy
   Resisting the temptation to be dishonest or inauthentic under scrutiny, she desires to act with integrity so that her word is her deed. She aspires to be consistently true to a higher purpose no matter what personal challenges she faces
   
   
10. Rejecting Victimhood
    She recognizes that she has cocreated history with men and is not a victim of it. She seeks to take full responsibility for her own choices, past and present. Today, she stands side by side with men as an equal cocreator of an enlightened future.

Managing time - prevent burn-out ?- on priorities, life's purpose and love and passion

a question came in via e-mail today and it was suggested that what my fingers typed might be good for a blog. so here it goes. (the question is at the end of the post, with permission).

here are some points, not necessarily in that order, which might be
helpful.

if you want to continue "working" in any kind of efficient or
responsible way which also sustains you:

SELF-CARE
you need to stay healthy enough to work - to that end, you need to do
what is necessary. how much time and what one needs to do: this
greatly varies between people as well as a phase in life you might be
in. consider your physical as well as emotional body.


NECESSITY
we here do get a lot done, and part of it is that we are doing it for
others and in a group. both help.


LETTING GO
and - i know for myself at least, i have had to drop things/projects
that were dear to me and it was and is painful. a couple of them,
especially website work,  actually appear to be necessary - but i
simply do not have the time and energy to do them.
letting go of what you can no longer do is important.


MEANING
the activities i continue are meaningful to me within my life's
purpose.
luckily what i do is also work i enjoy...but make no mistake - i
never get done and wish i had help or less work. meaning though
somehow seems to help make energy available.


ACCOMPLISHMENT
i can check off little things though - like: ok, that dvd is done and
available, or that item is done and delivered. - i think it is
important to stay aware of what you DO get done.


LIMITS
learn to set a limit....ie, decline, or find ways that help to limit
your involvement. there are things i will not take on as a job, just
occasionally help out if needed. because once i take it on - i am too
responsible to just walk away. and if i really can't do it anymore -
it is taking it's toll to say - i can't do it better or not at all.


LOVE AND PASSION - an OPEN HEART -> CONNECTION
with skye, i said "yes" when asked to take care of her, even though i
had not a single minute of time to spare in my daily schedule,  and
from then on i did absolutely everything i could to serve her in a
way that she would be a well adjusted and happy dog. the question
was: what did she need and what did i need to do. turned out, with
the way things are here and the other 2 dogs, it was a LOT of work,
difficult and  more that i EVER imagined. i had to observe,  study
and learn, it was physically exhausting - and then i got lucky
because i actually fell in love with her - for reasons i can't really
explain - she had the key to my heart, and doors opened, energy
poured in, healing happened,  transformation happened. absolutely
amazing in many ways...and the transition is still in progress....and
there is a big lesson -  an open heart is a must at some level on
this path. ...for me, it was this dog and wanting to do everything i
could to take care of her properly. she catalyzed something.
and - it lead to a transition and a different level and sense of
connection - with everything.
i can't tell you how to get there tho, or what it would take for you.


FLEXIBILITY AND ADJUSTMENTS
once i said yes to this living being, that job rose to the top right
next to the brane-power jobs i have ->  it is ok that priorities
change!!!!

myself, one of the many things skye  (you know, the dog i had been
asked to take care of) has taught me, - quite inadvertently,  because
she required it and i was committed to it - , was that a lot of
walking and working with her outside is something i needed. after an
excruciating 6 weeks,  i noticed the vast improvement in my body
(including emotional). it really does much better physically spending
time walking and outside. now that she is gone - it took about 2
weeks for my body to get into the same pain patterns and i am now
starting to walk again - without her. this takes time off other work
i could be doing i guess, but i need to do it.

and now we are back to self care.

i could go on and on -

rest when you are tired, eat when you are hungry, make some time for
play each day. accept you can't possibly get everything done - if
your plate  is too full and you also feel responsible to take care of
everything that is on the table...ur gonna burn.


DON'T COMPARE
someone whose plate is huge but does not have much on it - easy.
someone whose plate is small might be overful with the same stuff on
it. so it really does not work to compare. some folks are overwhelmed
with what someone else might consider small jobs. some plates are
naturally bigger or stronger.

be kind to yourself.
speak truthfully.

ASK FOR HELP
this i had been doing  from the guides and higher beings
with every cell of my being. asking for help on this path - with the
attitude of: what is needed, even if i did not know what it was, even
if it might look to me that i wanted something else. accepting that
what help will come will be what I need on this path  - and i am
convinced that when ej picked out skye and gave me the job - those
higher energies were involved.

COMMITMENT TO THE PATH and PURPOSE OF YOUR BEING
I don't know how I could live without that...

not sure this helped, but that is what my fingers were typing.

c.



Hello,
I am writing to ask for your suggestions or advice on how to manage my time.
I know you all do so many things everyday at the Institute and I have often
wondered how you get it all done.

Presently I find myself in a situation with a tremendous amount of work on
a variety of different projects. I realize that this is an attention issue for me
and I am having trouble organizing it all and feeling very tired at times.

I would appreciate any feedback as to how I might focus and
organize my time to get everything done. And feel rested if possible.

Do you have any suggestions or ideas?

Being a Shepherd

For a number of years I have wondered and felt that somewhere, sometime, I was a shepherd. This sense, resonance or past life memory,  was triggered with certain activities and foods...one of which was eating cheese and bread - in chunks. Such a simple life - but not without knowledge.

When I took on the job of training our new dog, it seems to have come back, the instinct to walk, the dog just around somewhere, staff in hand. The other day I went into the other pasture to get her back from herding cows, and again, something just felt so familiar. There is supposed to be a partnership with  and reliance on the dog.

In my attempts to find "work" ideas for our new dog, I came across a site about the German Shepherd Herding Dog - and was amazed.
- a must read for lovers of the German Shephard herding dog

The picture above looks a lot more romantic than it likely was - but the times way back then were different than today.

I look at the pasture and wish there was a herd of sheep to take care of with enough public land. I'd love to walk it, with a couple of dogs doing their jobs. Our new dog is quite independent, and she already knows how to do this...or so imagine. You'd think it would get old, being out there with a hard and simple life, alone a lot. There are moments of freedom there though, lots of them.

Anyway - this was a couple hundred years back in another continent, but it's in my bones, in my soul and I am deeply grateful.

Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts wurden in Deutschland, Holland, Belgien, Frankreich, Italien, Ungarn usw. riesige Schafherden von Hirten mit Ihren Hunden betreut. Je nach Region und Land entstanden unterschiedliche Typen von Schäfer- und Hirtenhunden: Aus diesen Vorgängern entstand in Deutschland der "Deutsche Schäferhund", in Frankreich der "Briard, Picard, Beauceron" und nahe der spanischen Grenze die Pyrenäenhunde, in Italien der Maremmano, in Ungarn der Puli, Kuvasz usw.

Playing

I love the way she plays, she, our German Shepherd/Husky. It is delightful watching her invitations to the other dogs, the making herself small by laying down and on her back, the stopping when it seems to much for the little guy, her being able to outrun them and handle all situations with them...I love watching them all play. She is a beautiful being...and her playfullness is refreshing.
someday I'll post a video link.

A better world? - Things to do before you die

Ron Kurtz died - he originated Hakomi - and this is what Mukara said on facebook, along with the post of  a video:

beautiful life, beautiful gift. everyone is better because Ron brought Hakomi to the world.

 I agree, having done the basic Hakomi training. 

 What is it that I brought to this life? What am I leaving behind? - What about you?