Press The Button...

... and PAUSE for a moment...

Step beyond the door of all your worries, your projects, your responsibilities and BREATHE in the sweet simplicity of just being...

 

Receive the beautiful gift of your life... 

Not Christian or Jew or Muslim, not Hindu

Buddhist, sufi, or zen. Not any religion

or cultural system. I am not from the East

or the West, not out of the ocean or up

from the ground, not natural or ethereal, not

composed of elements at all. I do not exist,

am not an entity in this world or in the next,

did not descend from Adam and Eve or any

origin story. My place is placeless, a trace

of the traceless. Neither body or soul.

I belong to the beloved, have seen the two

worlds as one and that one call to and know,

first, last, outer, inner, only that

breath breathing human being.

 

~ Rumi

I Need Help...

 ... and I need it now!

 

 

I know it's a lot to ask...

 

AND I need some help thwarting my son's father's attempt to take custody of the boy by implying I'm an unfit mother...

 

This is/feels much bigger than I can handle by myself... 

 

If you've been reading this blog, you will know this saga has been going on for six years now and I have run out of money, resources and stamina...

All the "free" or "low income" services are snowed under with more demand than they can meet... 

 

So, if anyone knows of a Seattle, Shoreline, Vashon, South Seattle attorney who is willing to do some PRO BONO family law work, would you please let me know ASAP... 

 

Alternatively - If you can/will help me pay a lawyer so that I keep custody of my son, I would be eternally grateful!   I've been told that an attorney would want $US6000 up front to take this on... 

 

I have a donation page set up here: KOHA - Love Offerings

 

With many thanks and much love... knowing that in all things, Thy will, not my will be done...

 

Namaste

 

Sahila

 

 

I Love You...

...just the way you are...

You do not have to be good.
 

You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting.
 

You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves...
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
 

 

Meanwhile the world goes on.

 

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
 

 

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air are heading home again.
 

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting,

over and over announcing your place in the family of things."

~ Mary Oliver

 

 

 

 

Things I Have Learned...

"One ought never to turn one's back on a threatened danger and try to run away from it.   If you do that, you will double the danger.   But if you meet it promptly and without flinching, you will reduce the danger by half."

~Winston Churchill 

OK then... after a week of turning my back on a problem I knew existed, I took the bull by the horns a couple of days ago and checked the bank account to see what had caused the quite rapid and unexpected dissipation of my funds...

And in doing so, I found out what happens when I forget that a particular chunk of money now goes into one account AND that now I have to transfer it to the working account to cover my outgoings... 

The credit union was helpful and understanding (though not as helpful and understanding as I would have liked!) AND still the results are not pleasing! 

A substantial correction is called for, please Universe...

The positive that has emerged from this financial mess?

I learned that I have finally let go of the need to internally slam myself for days and nights on end, for my oversight, for adding to the difficulties we are experiencing...

I learned that I can finally be understanding and compassionate with myself for being human and not perfect... 

 

 

 

 

Ch-Ch-Changes...

 

Everything we touch, we change...

 

We take in energy constantly, and although this is how we feed, this energy is never destroyed.  Through us, it is transformed.  It changes states.  It resonates to a higher level...

Yet every birth is accompanied by struggle and pain... 

 

Every rebirth is just as painful. It may seem that we bring destruction, chaos, and turmoil to all those around us.   And in a sense we do.  But the changes are always for the better, even though the initial change may seem terrible...

Change is terrible. It tears away what we've grown comfortable with.  It destroys what we find familiar, stable, and simple, leaving uncertainty in its wake...
 

But to face uncertainty and to thrive is to become stronger.  Everything must change or die.   We are active participants in this universal mystery...

Every person that we come into contact with, no matter how casually, is altered... 

 

Wherever we go, change will follow... 

 

Our dynamic spirits stretch out all around us, and the wake we leave in our passing is like ripples on the ocean.   Only the ripples we cause can become tidal waves..

As beings on a threshhold state, we are living embodiments of the dynamic complementarity that keeps the universe in constant motion.   This is our burden...

 

Yet this also is our purpose.  In the grey area between two polar opposites lies revelation... 

 

We feed upon all around us.   Yet we can also harness that energy to heal... 

 

We tear away and bring destruction, yet we also nurture new growth.  This is our nature, the mystery of who we are...

There is no rebirth without destruction...

 

Light only blinds without shadow to throw it into relief..

 

Understanding comes from balancing all these things within the Self...

 

We are that Balance.  We affect it, and it affects us...

 

We are facilitators of the universal flow...

 

We must accept this, and never fear to move with that flow...

~author unknown

 

 

LYRICS:

 

I still don't know what I was waiting for
And my time was running wild
A million dead-end streets
Every time I thought I'd got it made
It seemed the taste was not so sweet
So I turned myself to face me
But I've never caught a glimpse
Of how the others must see the faker
I'm much too fast to take that test

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don't want to be a richer man
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Just gonna have to be a different man
Time may change me
But I can't trace time

I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream
Of warm impermanence and
So the days float through my eyes
But still the days seem the same
And these children that you spit on
As they try to change their worlds
Are immune to your consultations
They're quite aware of what they're going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Don't tell t hem to grow up and out of it
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Where's your shame
You've left us up to our necks in it
Time may change me
But you can't trace time

Strange fascination, fascinating me
Changes are taking the pace I'm going through

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Oh, look out you rock 'n rollers
Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes
(Turn and face the strain)
Ch-ch-Changes
Pretty soon you're gonna get a little older
Time may change me
But I can't trace time
I said that time may change me
But I can't trace time

 

  

We Need...

... more Garbage Warriors...

Capitalism Is Dead...

It's a law of nature (physics, biology and chemistry) that one cannot have infinite growth in a finite system...

Looking at the world around us, it appears we've had some reluctance in accepting this truism...

However, in our economic and environmental relations it seems we've finally reached the time when we must acknowledge that CAPITALISM IS DEAD...

Though don't go rushing round looking at any of the other social, political and economic "isms" we've already tried, to save us...

They don't work either...

Time for us to get creative...

Is She Worth It?

Blue Marble 2012

Gaia - deceptively calm, peaceful, healthy and whole

- NASA's latest HD composite  image taken from space

... worth finding a way to live on, with, in, through her - our mother - in sustainable harmony with all the other life forms that complete her/us?

AND if we all agree that it is worth the endeavour, can we, will we, get it together before it's too late?

I'm Not Male, I'm Not Jewish & I'm Not American...

... but I'll take with pride, the association a Twitter follower made with Saul Alinksy...

This is who Saul Alinsky was: Saul Alinsky - Life and Work

and this is some of what he said in his 1946 "Reveille for Radicals":

"... A People’s Organization is a conflict group, [and] this must be openly and fully recognized.  It's sole reason in coming into being is to wage war against all evils which cause suffering and unhappiness.  A People’s Organization is the banding together of large numbers of men and women to fight for those rights which insure a decent way of life. . .

A People’s Organization is dedicated to an eternal war.  It is a war against poverty, misery, delinquency, disease, injustice, hopelessness, despair, and unhappiness. They are basically the same issues for which nations have gone to war in almost every generation. . . War is not an intellectual debate, and in the war against social evils there are no rules of fair play. . .

A People’s Organization lives in a world of hard reality.  It lives in the midst of smashing forces, dashing struggles, sweeping cross-currents, ripping passions, conflict, confusion, seeming chaos, the hot and the cold, the squalor and the drama, which people prosaically refer to as life and students describe as 'society'..."

 

 

Newt Gingrich doesn't like Saul Alinsky... how sad... too bad!

 

Data Collection...

It really is time we took the word "mistake" out of the language...

It makes people - children - WRONG, DEFECTIVE...

Every action each of us undertakes is, at the core, merely data collection - this is what happens if I do this, that is what happens if I do that...

AND, just imagine, what if...

???

I personally don't believe there is a state of being "wrong"... 

Nothing in nature is "wrong"...

The invention of wrong and right is a function of the human ego, needing to find a place in duality for a sense of security and a function of the need to exert power and control over others/life...

It creates or feeds into the "either/or" paradigm...

I think "and/also" is more dynamic, wholistic...

Buying into things being "mistakes" or "wrong" narrows our world...

And for many people - given the negative connotations of making "mistakes" and the fear that punishment will follow being "wrong" - it shuts them down...

Incommunicado...

Wow - three days without the internet due to cables being downed by ice and snow, and the world is still here and it appears I haven't missed much!

Really weird watching post office and UPS workers valiantly braving the ice and snow, risking life and limb to keep the mail and parcels delivered - crazy... as though it matters that a letter or parcel is delayed for a couple of days...

Played UNO with the boy and housemates - fun...

More conversation happening...

Some twiddling of thumbs and consideration given to catching up on paperwork, and getting the knitting out of the back of my van... didn't happen!

Realising how much of my communication is with people I have never met!

Boy said he was sorry that the TV/Netflix was down, but not that the internet was because I spent much more time with him.... hmmmmm... have been thinking about the issue of balance and being present to and for him lately... a bit of a shock to have the truth that he is feeling neglected come out of his mouth... 

AND he also is having a hard time with being an only child - me being with him 100% of the time is not possible nor necessarily desirable/healthy and no amount of playdates with other children ever satisfy him...

Realising how much slower and sane the world was before computers and the internet...

Getting back to listening to the radio, and enjoying it very much - though HATE, HATE, HATE that I have to listen to evil GATES FOUNDATION advertisements on National Public Radio...

Back on line now, and no more excuses not to move certain parts of my life forward and to take care of outstanding business!!!

Watch out world!

 

Seasonal Sense & Sensibility...

We've been having a snow "event" in Seattle over the past couple of days, and it will continue for one or two more...

This city is more used to rain - lots of it, falling relatively gently over an extended period of time ...

So when snow falls - around six inches worth over 24 hours - it's something of an "event"...

And watching the goings-on has left me with the question:

What is wrong with the American people?

They appear to think the sky will fall and earth will stop spinning on its axis if they stay home from work in a snow storm...

What programming propels people to take sleeping bags to the office, so they won't miss the next day's work if the snow storm arrives over night, as one female manager here in Seattle told a reporter she would be doing...

What huge reward or threat persuades wage slaves to leave their families to cope alone in the storm, while they don snow gear and trot, slide, crawl, off to the office to save the bottom line...

Isn't it time we got back in sync with the rhythms of the seasons?

Snow - quiet, isolating, dangerous... time to stay inside, to protect and nurture the self, to be with the people we love...

It's what our ancestors did...

Isn't it bad enough that homeless people have to survive out in the snow, without choosing to ignore the gifts and comfort given to us, and to endanger ourselves unnecessarily?

 

I guess the oligarchs really have got it all sewn up, really do rule when we turn our backs so thoroughly on nature and good sense...

Keep Your Hands Off My Web...

I will not be posting new blog entries

for 24 hours after midnight 17-18 January 2012,

in solidarity with the internet blackout protest

over SOPA -

the internet censorship legislation
the oligarchs are attempting to impose on US citizens...

 

Spring Fever...

... in the middle of a mid-winter "snow event" on Vashon Island, Washington

Jittery, impatient, nervous, jumpy, anxious, expectant, excited, exhilarated, confused, frustrated, waiting for something to change, but not knowing what, feeling I ought to be DOING something but not knowing what...

Maybe it's just the anti-climax after Friday; maybe it's just cabin fever...

Maybe it's yearning for a move into a more stable situation, with our own space and our own stuff around us...

Maybe it's missing yet another of my elder children's birthdays...

Maybe it's tuning into what's going on in the world, especially the Occupy Wall Street action in Washington DC today - a huge part of me so wishes I was there...


Whatever it is, Rodgers and Hammerstein captured the feeling perfectly...

 
LYRICS:

 

... I'm as restless as a willow in a wind storm,

I'm as jumpy as puppet on a string
I'd say that I had spring fever, but I know it isn't spring
 

I am starry eyed and vaguely discontented,

like a nightingale without a song to sing
O why should I have spring fever, when it isn't even spring

 

I keep wishing I were someone else, walking down a strange new street
And hearing words that I've never heard from a girl I've yet to meet
 

I'm as busy as spider spinning daydreams, 
I'm as giddy as a baby on a swing

I haven't seen a crocus or a rosebud, or a robin on the wing

But I feel so gay in a melancholy way, that it might as well be spring

It might as well be spring...

 

Friday 13th...

... is never a Black Friday for me...

and last Friday was no exception...
 

In fact, it was a pretty good day... apart from boy's separation anxiety and distress that I was leaving him at home because he couldn't come with me...

I was mentally prepared and operating in the flow of the now, called in the energies on my way into town and could feel the love and support of the wonderful, caring people in my life...

Every step of getting into town - the 6.40am ferry, getting printing and collating done, having some coffee and a muffin and turning up in plenty of time - just fell into place... 

Even the weather was nice enough to not be too cold and to gift me with some sunshine...

Long, long court process...

Weird and unnecessary dance...

No lawyer, but a lovely domestic violence victim advocate standing by my side for moral support...
 

Lies and manipulations...

Commissioner we've had before - which may or may not have been fortuitous; usually it's a crap shoot and the person sitting there up on the bench has no idea what's been going on, what is the history and often misunderstands/misinterprets the issues AND is time-challenged and doesn't like/want to wait for it to be explained to them...

Anyway... after the dance was over, and the Commissioner had made sure we all knew he was in charge, I:

 

Got the Protection Order renewed for another year...

Had the Contempt of Court decision deferred for 60 days - boy's father has to undergo three reconnection therapy sessions with boy before boy has to go visit with him, which I had been pushing for; and

It seems the Child Support monthly amount may be reduced a little but not sure - commissioner didn't agree with the figures presented by son's father and the worksheets have to be redone - and I have some leverage to take action to offset or reverse that... AND it's time to manifest a healthy level of income...

All-in-all, a win... another one - the 6th or 7th I've had, representing myself...

Next step is a mid-March trial to decide about going back to Australia...

The cold/flu I have been keeping at bay found a way in late in the afternoon, probably because of the lack of sleep over the previous 24 hours and the post stress let down, so am feeling like crap...

It's been snowing today, and we're on day two of a three-day weekend... lovely...