RENEGADE MONTH

Our neighbors probably think we have a new car.

We hoped for another visit to our Arizona retreat before the weather changed, but it wasn’t to be.  Yet, if we have learned something, it is not to invest much in expectations.  Two weeks ago, we were T-boned by a big Ford SUV. Now we are driving a cute Jeep Renegade rental until the Subaru gets out of the hospital.  I like the way it looks but it is shorter than our Forester, with a rougher ride and smaller gas tank. The electronic gadgets on it are fun though.

Summer came to an abrupt end this week. I suppose it’s the tail end of the tropical storms but the rain was very welcome. So while the hurricanes are too much weather for those at landfall, we benefited. On the downside, I’m afraid that coffee on the patio is over for 2015. To compensate, the turning trees have been especially colorful this year.  As the warm weather fades, the film project, Awakening in Taos is drawing to completion. We have been involved in this story for five years and its producers for longer. Everyone involved is like family and I hope we can stay in touch even after this movie launches into the larger world as a young bird flies from its nest. The premier showing will be at Lensic Performing Arts Center in Santa Fe (http://awakeningintaos.com/premiere/) on November  18,  7p.m.  There is a pre-screening party from 5:00 to 6:30 p.m. at Blue Rain Gallery.

PQ and Brazilian Guitarist Zooga Malaga

This weekend we were in Santa Fe for a recording session for the movie. The first day was rehearsal with guitar, violin, drum and flute. The second day was serious recording. Nancy Kinney, our music person was in charge and I was impressed by her choice of musicians and the way she created and wove certain musical themes in and out throughout the entire movie score altering them to the mood, location and time period. 

On an entirely different theme, we just learned that PQ’s oxygen delivery company is now restricted to delivery once a month and he must choose either large tanks or small.  They are no longer allowed to deliver both sizes. This is apparently a limitation newly imposed by Medicare. Once again, poor people are cut back so that the wealthy won’t be impacted by economic shortfall.  PQ had to go with the larger  tanks because we often have power outages in Taos, sometimes lasting all night or all day when he can’t use the electric concentrator and small tanks don’t last long. However, it is so much easier to handle a small tank when out and about.  

Although the oxygen tank cutback was a surprise, I’ve been feeling subdued about our country and for that matter, the state of the world.  I don’t really want to let my imagination go beyond the present,  because the thought of the political, money obsessed global economy driven by human nature in its current state of un-development suggests a looming catastrophe greater than the results of global warming.  However, sometimes humans find their better qualities in the most challenging times. Nevertheless, I’m glad I’m not a young person as of now. I know this rings of cowardice, but I’d like to ride out a few centuries (maybe more) before returning. Perhaps next week I’ll feel more courageous.

Beautiful Cottonwoods along the Rio Grande

Mabel Dodge Luhan and husband Tony had a vision for cultural soul retrieval. It didn’t happen in their time and it may still be far in the future but I’m glad that it is coming back for another review  in our time. After all, it was a vision that didn’t belong just to them. It was for the world. Perhaps, four years shy of a Century it is time for the vision to reincarnate.

LATER IN SUMMER

PQ has been painting, "18 drum $350 if  you are interested
This drum has a greaat sound.

Taos is now  lush in a maximum display of gorgeousness just as the sun is beginning to distance itself from us. The effect is a love affair barely one day beyond its prime.   Fall is sneaking in and with it is that intense tickle in the heart that is ecstasy mixed with pain of anticipated loss.  There is something unique about Taos summers and this summer especially takes me back to the summers of my first years in Taos.

Sometimes it seems that Taos is the Garden of Eden right after the fall. In the valley are overgrown willows, tall grass and late summer flowers of gold and purple. In my garden, the grasshoppers are eating our flowers as fast as they bloom. Every afternoon the mountain displays itself in back-lit jade, azure shadows, with touches of lavender and mauve resembling a piece of Art Deco.  It is the perfect movie set for all the human soap operas churning in its shadow.

I think Taos works on people like a honey-dipped flytrap. Even though most of us don’t have the resources to get ourselves out of this trap, there is plenty of entertainment while we anticipate the next episode in our story, the one that just might bring resolution. But, experience says the story will run through numerous seasons. Really, most of us get addicted to the drama and forget that we are victims of our projected hopes and fears.  

Medicine Bird, "22X"48, $2,100 (Acrylic)

We are stuck here for a while (notice the refusal to accept defeat) and are making the best of it. Actually, I’ve uncovered some of my original feelings about this place. A divorce drama that seems it will never end has snagged PQ’s youngest son, Jay. Thus, we often have his three girls while he attempts to find a job and a vehicle that will last. It has been a corkscrew roller coaster ride but things are looking better at the moment. On the upside, he and his daughters have discovered the Pueblo.  Could it be this is the most important reason we have been stuck in Taos these past two years?  Both of PQ’s sons have now lived in the ancestral pueblo house. Being a bridge between the world of his traditional parents and their grandsons may be PQ’s most important work at this time. I often feel that we have failed to stay on track concerning PQ’s medicine heritage, but I’ve got the beginning of an inkling that the real medicine is just being available for how spirit chooses to use us.

PQ has had increased physical challenges after experiencing that first intense exacerbation of his Pulmonary Fibrosis last spring. My wish was to get him to Arizona as soon as possible, but our life contract had writ a different agenda. His health has leveled off some since it plunged in June and is now holding steady.  I have settled into the present and find that it stretches and contracts as needed.

Recent life has been ordinary but something extraordinary is growing in the background. It isn’t visible out front yet is changing everything from the inside out. Sometime this month I gave up worrying about money. I’ve noticed that the more I try to control it, the more likely it is to jump over the fence. I ought to know by now that thinking smaller and smaller makes the need larger and larger. There is a trickster element involved and when I’m thinking caution, appliances breakdown, relatives need help, and the Taos Pueblo clinic quits carrying one of  PQ’s  more expensive meds.  I’ve given up. The unknown is uncontrollable. This doesn’t mean I throw all reason out with the drifting leaves, but I now acknowledge that the real issue is self-confidence and belief in my own path. Will I be loyal to the life I chose with PQ, or try to appease an old demon? That is the real issue.

POWWOW AND MORE

It’s been a long time since I have had time to write. Probably only two weeks but time is an experience not just a measured process. Suddenly, we have arrived at Powwow weekend.  The summer is surging forward at breakneck speed. Soon we will be looking backwards toward today.

I’ve always been fascinated by time. It is a mystery that won’t allow possession, much like a rainbow; time is always just ahead or just behind.  My dreams lately have been too strange to remember. Actually, it’s not that dreams are strange in content so much as strange because they don’t always wait for sleep but come in flashes during the day.  Are the dimensions actually becoming close enough to cross over here and there? According to a number of seers, the turning point was 2012.

Powwow Kid

An experience of realities crossing over:  I recently had the thought that I must contact a young man that I know well with some news (I don’t remember what it was) of  importance to him, and then I remembered that he had passed away and it was too late to deliver any news, and then that scene or dimension suddenly changed and I realized that I have never known this person, at least he wasn’t in my identifiable memory. His face was very distinct and he did not resemble anyone I’ve known as my familiar self.  This was just one of a number of strange time glitches experienced recently. I’m mentioning this with the awareness that some of you might think I’m a bit schizo but that is a common tag for experiences that don’t fit conventional reality.  If I hailed from the fundamentalist perspective of my upbringing, I might blame God or the devil. It all depends on the version you prefer and they are all perceptual conventions. I personally suspect that conventions themselves are under attack by a much larger reality.  Our accustomed shell is too small and it is beginning to crack. Perhaps we already live in a much bigger egg but the membrane has yet to break and reveal it.

PQ has been experiencing a lot of muscle pain since we came home to Taos. After much coughing, his neck and shoulder muscles became inflamed. The new doctor at the Taos/Picuris clinic gave him a number of muscle relaxants, anti-inflammatory, and pain killing drugs and we discovered a new lozenge that seems to be more effective on cough. But, the times are inflamed as well and our bodies do reflect our environment.   His youngest son is going through a challenging family crisis. We can love and support but nothing from our love and good will can make his struggle go away.  It is his, and a part of his own life process and yet it affects all of us.  That is one of the mysteries of life and relationship. 

The new doctor reiterated what we have heard many times, “you need to be at a lower altitude” but this isn’t yet possible with the current circumstances and in the meantime, it seems that we are

supposed to be here in Taos. PQ seemed especially hungry for the medicine of the powwow. This year we went for two days and one evening. The weather was wonderful and touching our feet to that rich primal soil near the mountain refreshes the soul.  All the while the drums were pulsing, children tossing neon toys in the air and people milling to and fro  meeting up with old friends encountered while making the rounds, somehow the big mountain, the sky and even the grass meadow on which we were walking maintained that miraculous repose and power. It graciously allowed us our ride on a piece of eternity.

TAOS, WE'RE BACK!

There is a mountain meadow where our lawn used to be, giant flies are buzzing in and out of the house, Cottonwood seeds waft lazily past the window while we have our morning coffee and the crickets are in full song.  It was already too hot to have coffee on the patio this morning. It was like walking into a different world than the one we left two weeks ago. We intended to stay in Arizona for a week and then PQ came down with what may have been pneumonia or just a serious flu, even though he had flu shots this year.  Three days later, I also got sick. We ended up staying in Arizona two full weeks and spent most of it indoors. PQ was asleep much of the time.

Wild, but the south side is even wilder.

It was a very different visit (understatement). However, we don’t regret going and somehow it bumped us up a level. I know, that sounds contradictory, so I’ll try to be more specific. Being in a different world and perhaps a different dimension much of the time, made this place where our house lives seem less familiar. Something happened in a subtle way to change our lives. We were hoping to go to our Cottonwood retreat and enjoy all the familiar places, possibly check out some places to rent, but above all just enjoy being there.  Instead, everything changed on us and we felt a bit like we went to a different planet and then came back to another different planet, a bit like I imagine time travel.

Time seems to move faster as my earth years accumulate and this month I launched into my 73^rd year. Last summer melds into now and the winter in between dissolves from memory. Time resembles a kaleidoscope of experiences. One might think that the older one becomes, the more familiar the conventions of time would be, but in my experience, it is quite the opposite.

One of my favorite quotes from Einstein is; there are things we don’t see that move the things we do see.  PQ and I succumbed to something resembling a cold while in Arizona last week. I say resembling because I am now aware that even our dis-eases have a highly independent aspect as if they were actually a dialogue between a bug and its victim. However, I use the word “victim” with reservations. As I progress on my life journey, I recognize that nothing is fully explainable by our words and the core of each experience eludes capture by terms like flu or cold. These are mental shorthand to enable us to connect our experience with a common database shared with our fellow humans. However, the convention actually filters out the individual essence of each experience.

While in Cottonwood, I had more difficulty than usual putting words to things and concepts. It is always a challenge, but this time it was so extreme that I couldn’t pretend that it wasn’t significant. I knew the words that wouldn’t come but it was as if they sprinted like nervous deer into a dense forest the moment I began hunting them. It was the extremeness of this fleeing word problem that caused me to see how inadequate words really are.  

I’m a believer in the concept that many people have moved energetically from 3^rd dimension to 4^th and some 5^th. The transition is full of surprise revelations about the relationship with our human conventions and the underlying reality. This dimension thing is beginning to be more than pretentious New Age lingo for something that sounds elevated but makes no difference in real life.  This world has many doorways that I never noticed before. Familiarity is perhaps the most effective blinder there is. One observation is that I trust my intuition more than ever when approaching the unknown.

When we returned to Taos, I realized that my heart doesn’t want to rent out our house. I just believed that it was a must if we were ever to get to Arizona. However, this house is more than real estate. It holds our spirit.  We don’t want to feel homeless in Taos just to have a place in the Cottonwood. I can feel so much change coming that I’ve decided to put the whole issue to rest until we have a better idea of what is brewing.  For now there are family crisis to keep us occupied here in Taos.

UPDATE:

PQ was in great pain from spasms in the muscles of neck and shoulders due to non-stop coughing. We finally realized that we would have to visit a doctor. PQ attempted to get help at the Taos Picuris Health Center but that was an endless runaround. The building was recently remodeled and updated, but the service has declined.  Finally, we found a medical group that takes walk-ins. The doctors concluded that the problem was an exacerbation of the Pulmonary Fibrosis. I’ve read enough about this through an online community of people with IPF that this was already my suspicion when these symptoms began in Cottonwood. Still, I was hoping it was simply a cold.

We have no plans as of now and are just going with the flow, which happens to be a stretch of rapids. Sometimes it’s just one hour at a time. We’ve been home over a week now and I haven’t had time to deal with the mounting jungle outside. Maybe tomorrow will be the day.

BETWEEN DIMENSIONS

We just had lunch at FarSide Bistro, (our friend Carol thinks its possibly a wordplay on Farsi). It is amazing! Authentic, absolutely fresh gourmet quality Mediterranean and Persian Cuisine.  Every town is as individual as its people are. Cottonwood is rich in antique stores, wine tasting galleries, second hand furniture and exotic restaurants. Of course, there are lots of simple working class restaurants and shops as well and much of the town has a grass-fed feeling.  The owners of this restaurant are a young couple originally from Iran via the Midwest. The woman has a degree in fashion design and the man is a computer geek but boy can he cook. The décor is as tasteful as the food and the owners are warm and friendly.

Oak Creek Canyon Nearing Sedona

So here we are in Cottonwood again but it wasn’t an easy transition this time. From Taos, we drove the entire way in a state of ecstasy. I took big gasps of air to steady my heart as we made our way down Oak Creek Canyon, through Sedona and at last to Cottonwood. Time stood still and waited for us to catch up. We were approaching our personal paradise, but was it real? The next day reality bombed us. No, nothing perceptibly bad happened. The reaction was as if we had surfaced into this world too quickly and had a kind of subtle body version of the bends.

I was already experiencing some strange physical symptoms in Taos. Each foot seemed to weigh forty pounds and all my joints snapped, ground, crunched, and made me wish for a dose of WD-40.  My vision was very hazy. I suspected I was coming down with a virus but the symptoms were not familiar. On the way to Cottonwood, all these symptoms went away but as soon as we settled in, a new group of symptoms replaced them. PQ experienced even more coughing and stomach cramps than he had in Taos. So, what was going on? 

Perhaps we are in process of remake for life at a higher frequency. There are other changes as well as physical symptoms.  When I am here, I see more dimensions and their associations with greater clarity but struggle horribly to find the most common words.  Just as I open my mouth to say something, the words evaporate.  I’m not talking about high-toned or complex words but even simple words I’ve known since age five.

We live in New Mexico. Our chili is hot. The deliciousness is enhanced by the pain. Right to the edge of intolerable is where we must go to avoid hypnotic numbness. This life is a short ride, full of dangers and awesome views down dangerous drops.  Yet safety and comfort are also necessary for recovery and progress. Balance is the key, but don't expect it in this lifetime. It is a goal for the ages. Medicine is sometimes bitter and poison is sometimes sweet, the paradox provides enough confusion to launch a search for the middle way. Again and again, we reach for the truth and it wisely stays just out of reach while promising everything. The key is to keep grasping until practice morphs into wisdom.

PQ, Leslie Dillon and
Mabel Dodge Lujan's Great Granddaughter

Now we are looking for a place to live in Cottonwood. I’m learning that no event that dips us into the surging waters of life intends to drown us or wash us away. The key to survival is learning to swim. I think that is where we are now. The place we need to be exists and PQ has a clear vision that has stayed with him for five years. I’m learning to trust that we must honor the future world we choose to live in and not confuse it with the world we want to leave behind. That serves no one and wastes valuable time.  

I already miss our cats, my garden in Taos (the lawn looked like a hay field when we left) with the iris that are blooming now and our dear friends and family in Taos and Santa Fe. Just before we left there were two events to promote the movie, “Awakening in Taos.” We believe in the importance of this story, and PQ performed a blessing and song with inspiration and power at both events. He also met Mabel Dodge Lujan’s great granddaughter and Leslie Dillon an actress who frequently performs Mabel.  No, we are soul children of Taos and can never leave forever, but we have an equal pull to Cottonwood, AZ and miss it when in Taos. We must find the way to marry these places.

DARK LIGHT , YIN YANG

It’s really time to go to Arizona and remove ourselves from the Taos soap opera. I’m realizing that I’m ready to become a recluse with just my husband, garden, animals and meditation. It’s not that I want to stay away from people so much as I need a certain amount of uninterrupted time to listen to nature and commune with my sources of spiritual guidance.  The older I get, the more I understand why one would want to be monastic but then, I don’t do well with institutions of any kind.

It’s also time to get out in nature while it is emerging from winter hibernation. Nature is an excellent rebalancer. PQ can’t really walk more than a few slow blocks at this altitude and we need the rejuvenating Medicine of Mother Earth. When one is on a very powerful stream of spiritual contact, it is very likely that some form of interference will emerge. The loyal opposition is always alert to opportunity. It isn’t that the tools of that interference are to blame. They are very likely deserving of our attention although the opposite is sometimes true. Either way, a completely neutral log may appear on the trail with perfect timing to create a stumble, and it isn’t the log’s fault, if you know what I mean.

Not everyone on the New Age vibe or a more traditional spiritual path believes in, dare we call it evil, but I have noticed that wherever  there is progress in consciousness, personal or social, something will emerge to counter or sabotage it.  Those who don’t believe in the loyal opposition are sitting ducks. Have you noticed that spiritual communities and organizations that wish to delve deeply into compassionate service usually become corrupt very quickly and fall apart due to internal conflicts and ego outbreaks? This is a good reason for regular and scrupulous self-examination and an open mind toward new insights.

Of course, there is a danger in becoming too vigilant for signs of evil influence. Paranoia is the word for this.  Nevertheless, it has long troubled me that incompetent exploitative organizations and self-serving, greedy companies seem to maintain cohesiveness much better than communities and organizations based on spiritual ideals and compassionate service.  However, if these spiritual ideals happen to be really whacko such as the Nazi party, for instance they keep their internal structure until they fall down in one great crash. I suppose they feed each other’s egos on seductive junk food while creating enough fear among the members to keep them loyal to the chosen lie. Long-term self-serving organizations such as the Illuminati, sometimes called the Cabal tend to give back just enough to avoid exposure while focusing public attention on seemingly external dangers.     

On the way to Arroyo Seco

Some time ago, it occurred to me that the desire to attune to a greater power is so hard wired into human nature that it will emerge one way or another and without an extended opening in the ego big enough to refuel from the main source now and then, little ego gets the notion that it has the one conduit to God.  This is really simple narcissism but it sure can create mass destruction and set the world back centuries. Perhaps misdirected spirituality is the opposition’s most powerful tool.  Right now, it is obvious in groups such as ISIS.  There is really no chance of getting away from this distortion because even atheism behaves so much like religion. Look at how thoroughly Scientific Materialism has taken over the human urge for some absolute source of knowledge.   The rational mind is groomed and developed but the emotional body and the Heart Chakra  exist in an unprotected immature condition. The shadow side of the emotional body then calls attention to itself in crazy destructive blowouts.

I hope that education will soon begin to understand that there is more than one kind of intelligence and the survival of our species and possibly the planet depends on nurturing the whole package.

Today it is summer! Not officially, but the weather is wonderful, the birds are singing, a gentle breeze wafts through the house because PQ took the weather stripping off  the garage door and opened it. He is painting with his favorite powwow music on the Boze CD player, the cats are wandering in and out like the breeze and I have banana bread and a roast in the oven.  We went to Abe’s in Arroyo Seco for a breakfast burrito and empanada. In other words for this moment life is perfect. Oh yes, I got a nice shot of snow and clouds over the mountains on the way to Seco.  

  

SIMPLE MEDICINE

It’s a beautiful day in Taos, the first true spring day this year. Looking around we see prairie dogs standing up near their holes to examine a world that they haven’t seen since before the last big snowstorm. We went out ourselves finally venturing beyond Walmart, the grocery store and post office. 

Right now, we are Munching on real Pueblo prune pies. A good friend we hadn’t seen for months kindly bought them for us at the annual show of Taos Pueblo artists at Millicent Rogers Museum. This show was our first real outing for several months. Over coffee just this morning, we had shared how contented we were to stay home this entire winter. Perhaps, the outing was even more pleasurable in contrast to our uncharacteristic prairie dog like winter.

Dad and Mom at a wedding ceremony
We thought of them today.

I’m always amazed at how much talent lives within the photogenic mud walls of Taos Pueblo. There were artists we’ve known for years and then there were some wonderful things that were entirely new. Patricia Michaels was there with her beautiful clothing designs. She is now a celebrity after several TV seasons on Project Runway. It was a diverse group with glass art, drums, jewelry and even natural lotions, soaps and shampoos in addition to paintings and photography. 

PQ showed admirable restraint although I was worried when he started looking at bolos and bracelets. He is almost a jewelry junky. He did buy a beautiful photo of the Moon over the Northside Pueblo by neighbor Debbie Lujan, and a small micaceous pot. Not too bad. After being so careful  with cash all winter we needed to invest a little green in spring. Also we were gifted along the way. This generous spirit is one of the good things about the pueblo. Artists like to help each other.

Time is not really as set as we humans imagine since we started measuring it. As I savor the prune pie, layers of time and space collapse into a timeless world of soft tan dust, wood smoke and clear sharp air that is completely unique and beyond time. That slice of pie contained the entire pueblo, past, present and future and even the sacred mountain. PQ commented on it too.  For a few moments, we just relished being home. It may seem strange that I a non-pueblo person would say that but home is a feeling and a state of heart.

SECRETS OF LIFE ON THE EDGE

I automatically delete all emails about retirement investments, making the most of a fixed income, savings plans, health insurance ads, and investment opportunities, and so on. All are irrelevant in Taos, unless you have one golden foot in another place. Right now, I would love to get out of here, take a deep breath in that other world and then probably come back here after the respite. I never lived in the “normal” world but I used to live pretty close to it and had close friends who lived in that world. It was comforting to have some proximity to mainstream America. I imagined that someday I too would have health insurance, life insurance, savings account, and get my teeth cleaned once a year.

I never consciously chose to live a third world lifestyle but looking back, I can see that I was always headed in that direction. I’ve been immersed in this life on the edge for 23 years. Well, actually, I practiced for several years before moving to Taos but back in that earlier life, I fantasized that change was just around the corner. Now I’m accepting that I will probably live on moment-to-moment faith for my remaining time on this planet. It’s like lead floating on a cloud but for some reason it works. There is a magic element (I’m not being facetious) at work. It’s amazing what you can do on faith when conventional options aren’t available. 

Some things work precisely because other options aren’t available. What I’m learning is that insurance is an expensive illusion. This doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t have a Medicare supplement if I could afford it. It just means that the needs of the future are unpredictable and will remain so. When you aren’t living under the illusion that you have some control over the future, other resources come into play.

This is what a graduate degree in Taos living is all about. This unique place, a genuine third world country, nested in the so-called United States of America, specializes in getting 21^st century people back in touch with a more universal even cosmic reality. It sounds like a contradiction, but to have a spiritual relationship with the cosmos, having your feet in the sometimes muddy, un-groomed, still under construction earth is essential.It doesn’t work to fight the poverty, surly residents, dysfunctional Walmart, do-it-yourself traffic rules, and sometimes-caveman living arrangements. It’s like quicksand, the harder you struggle and fight, the faster you sink. Lay flat and belly walk and you will get where you are going a lot faster.  I’m not saying this will get you entirely out of danger. After all, it is danger that causes the blood to flow, adrenaline to push for the big challenge and the mind to jump out of the box. 

The Messenger

Winter is showing signs of weakening. I’ve been very patient with the way things are this winter and so has PQ. It was unexpectedly easy to live like the Prairie Dogs, coming out only when the sun did and then quickly retreating underground after a quick trip to the grocery store and post office. 

I look at pictures and videos of places I would one day like to visit, or visit again the way someone lost in the desert imagines a cool flowing rivulet. That’s OK; it’s nice to have something to draw one forward. Right now, it’s Sedona/Cottonwood. We have unfinished time there.  I’m ready to go but not in a hurry.  Even if having two places of the soul is a pipe dream, that dream is even now preparing the materials of a home for the next body of experience.

We can futilely watch the world news but aren’t in the know about who is behind the flare-ups in the Middle East, nor can we defeat the Illuminati, or corporate and government corruption. But, everything out there is also in here and that is where the future is conceived and nurtured in this holographic universe.