RANDOM THOUGHTS AND LESSONS FOR TODAY by Katherine Ari

RANDOM THOUGHTS AND LESSONS FOR TODAY

Today is Wednesday, October 28, 2009 and I have not blogged since Oct. 15. The reason is Life got in the way – We had some pond improvement work. It was a challenging job and the customer seemed to be expecting us to rip him off or not do what we promised. By the time we finished, Doug and I had worked for little more than minimum wage. Something we usually find to be rewarding work became tiresome and dreaded. But it is my policy to look for the good in everything and for what was learned.

I learned that no matter how much someone likes to go on verbal word that you need to have things in writing and with lots of details. No matter how much you need some work and income, make sure there is a written lists of exactly what is expected. Inform customers of your company policies and maybe why you have them. Every time we have cut corners to please the client, we have regretted it. People get confused. They think they have said everything that is on their mind but that is not always the case. If you have it in writing, then they can look over the list and add on BEFORE you begin. If they want more, write it all down and just what is involved in their requests.

There is no doubt that as we “mature” our brains get filled up. I won’t say Senior Moments but that we just have minds full of lots of facts and figures. Sometimes things get pushed to the back of the pile. The next thing you know you are doing a lot of things that are not included in the bid. We don’t like to add on to estimates and I usually estimate a little high to account for unexpected issues. When you work with nature, it is really hard to predict just how long it will take to do something. People who are used to working with manmade materials and supplies don’t always understand that part of a job.

It all made us realize that we need a better idea about how to produce income. I want to work one on one with people seeking to improve their lives. I love people and seeing them unfold in their own empowerment. I have a wonderful office in our garden and no matter how much Doug complains about all the work, he really enjoys using his restlessness or hyperactivity to work on our garden. It is NOT about getting money but working doing the things I love most.

I also love writing – not just these blogs but writing my stories. I love painting. While we were finishing the pond job, the local Cultural Arts Center representative called to ask the Dannels family to produce an art show sometime next year, maybe April. Kyler, my son, and Doug, my husband, were in their National Juried Show last year and Kyler won the trustee award. My other children and my mother-in-law are also artists. We will put our best work together to show in the spring. Kyler also encourages his dad to put together his sculpture in bodies of work to present to galleries in Santa Fe. It is time for Doug Dannels to do what he really loves most – claim his incredible art and let the world see it.

I know we did a good job this week. I know that we did more than what we were paid for and that is okay. The customer seemed to be expecting to get ripped off and didn’t trust us but we did everything we thought he wanted with limited materials. It’s all good!

The Faith of Tim Tebow by Katherine Ari

Readers who follow football, especially college teams, will know the name Tim Tebow. Mr. Tebow is a senior at University of Florida. Two seasons ago, Tim won the Heisman Trophy and almost won it again last year. Watching him, he didn’t think Sam Bradford of Oklahoma would beat him and watching him this fall season, he wants to win it again this year.

Tim is also on the number one college football team in the nation and it looks pretty definite that his team will be in the BCS or national title competition again this year. Personally, I think that it was the University of Tebow that beat Oklahoma in the BCS the first of this year – not the University of Florida. Tim leads the team and pushes himself and the team hard to play smart football and defeat all of their competition. It’s working again this season.

I am an alumnus of the University of Oklahoma and Sam Bradford. I hate to see Florida win – over and over. Sam won the Heisman last time and people think he is a bit arrogant but it goes with the trophy and being that good. No one but other winners can tell them how to handle that much fame. So I try to dislike Tim Tebow. The harder I try, the harder it is to find fault in him. He is strong and a good player in all respects. He is a leader on the team and according to the media, off the field too.

Tim is the son of a missionary family. Tim gets a lot of press traveling with his religious family and ministering to people in foreign places. It isn’t that I want to follow his religion. I don’t. It isn’t that I believe that he is favored by God because of his faith. It is his faith, his absolute belief system that carries him all the way.

I don’t believe in a God in the sky or a white bearded man that judges and picks favorites. I believe that the Universal Force that is called God acts impersonally. Whatever we put in our minds is what we get. All thought is creative because it goes into the mind of God that is in all of us. Tim Tebow believes so strongly in his religious beliefs without doubt that he creates that which is in his mind. I will be totally surprised if he does NOT win the Heisman again this year. He had a concussion two weeks ago and everyone prayed for his swift recovery. He believes in those prayers and those prayers got him ready to play again last Saturday.

He does not inspire me to change religions. He DOES inspire me to believe in what I want to create in my life. He believes so strongly, so completely with no doubt, in his beliefs. There are no doubts. He creates exactly what he believes in. We all have that ability. We can all show that kind of faith. There is no place for doubt because if we think doubt, that is what we will create. I strive to have the absolute faith and belief that creates what I want in life. “Tim, you are a fine example of faith helping you to create exactly what you want. It isn’t that I have to believe the same dogma you believe.” It is that I need to believe in my own beliefs with that same amount of unfaltering conviction. I declare that I put into my mind what I want to create and nothing else. And that is what Tim teaches me and everyone else.

Racism - Jesus was NOT a White Man

Racism – Jesus wasn’t a White Man
October 14, 2009
Katherine Ari

I grew up in a traditional Baptist home in a small town in Oklahoma. For the most part, the Choctaws and other native people were respected but people of African descent were treated unfairly and a few other words much worse.

We sang, “Jesus loves the little children of the world. Red and yellow, Black and white, they are precious in His Sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.” I believed that and when my love extended to the African American fellow students, my mother and dad got upset. I felt I knew Jesus, that I had a personal relationship with Jesus. I believed then and I believe now that if he walked among us he would be loving to everyone.

The idea of being unkind and hating someone because they have skin that is a different color or different hair or different anything is absurd to me. To hate someone whose ancestors came from a different country is even more ridiculous because Americans ALL came from different countries and continents.

The fact that this intolerance is carried on in churches, in people who act all religious, righteous, and pious while practicing racism or other intolerance, like towards gays, toward anyone different with different beliefs is incomprehensible. Jesus would not do that. A friend once said you could take the Bible out of many churches and they wouldn’t know it was gone. Jesus would not preach hatred and bigotry. Jesus would love everyone. Jesus is humble and kind. If someone walked in and said he was Jesus and then acted angry and hateful, he would be kicked out of the church as a pretender.

I do not believe I am better than anyone else. It seems so many fundamental groups and individuals need someone to hate, someone to judge, someone they think is not as good as them.

No one has my skin color, my hair, eyes, lips, and genetics. All humans have blood, bones, muscles, and similar parts but there is one thing we all have in common. Everyone wants love. Loves takes many forms. We desire it. We seek it. When we feel it, we know it. Real Love is the same for everyone – even atheist. They may not believe in a man-God out in the sky, but they believe in Love. This One Power, Love, is God. And if Jesus is the son of Love and we are the sons and daughters of Love, then we must Love. If you hate, you are not living God or Jesus in your life. People who feel insecure in their own lives look for someone to put down. “Well, at least I’m smarter or prettier or something better than that person, that kind of person.” If Jesus were standing before me right now, he would love me. He would love my neighbors, black or white or Mexican or Gay – everyone. “What would Jesus do?” What would Love do? - Love. Remember, if you are really honest, Jesus was not a White Man. If you turn your back on dark skin, you may be turning away from him.

Find Your Own Ceremonies

Today is October 12, officially Columbus Day, a holiday for banks and the mail. Columbus did NOT discover this country as he never set foot on North America and how can you discover a country populated by over 20 million people? But it sedgeways into another topic - that of Native Americans or the people that met the boats and the Spirituality of their lives.

In the news this weekend, there was tragic news of 2 people dying an a pseudo Native American sweat lodge ceremony. No one should ever die in any kind of sweat lodge ceremony. Ego, personality, carelessness, irresponsibility, sexism, and other such human errors can enter any sweat lodge whether it is an elder or a non-native pouring the water. I was not there and so I am not going to get into judgments, but I do KNOW that something was out of balance.

This ceremony to me is about going into a rebirth situation and the experience is between the individual and Spirit. It is for Spiritual healing of the person's soul. It is the job of the leader to pour water AND pay attention to everyone in the lodge. If he or she wants to sweat for their own "stuff" they should not be leading. When the leader is totally turning it over to Spirit, Spirit or God will tell them that someone is having a hard time and needs assistance - and I have been in many lodges and every leader I have had ALWAYS knows. Their outside ego may have been ass holes or a mess but inside they turned it over to Spirit.

Many ideas float around about what the rules are. One time, a woman came to a lodge of another elder I know and pitched a fit because the lodge wasn't built out of willow. But in Georgia, most of the red willow has died out because of some kind of disease caused by pollution. My own understanding of the ceremonies was that the people of a particular area developed it in tune with their particular circumstances. That's why, the people in this area did not do above ground sweat lodge ceremonies. The inipi hut made of red willow was not called for here. Spirit did not lead them to do that. When the lodge is built that way it is a Western lodge used mostly on reservations.

There were ceremonies that developed over time and done the same way but they had to be flexible because sometimes Spirit would say - do it this way this time. As a way to express this, three summers ago, we were hit by a drought. We had water shortages and had to adapt to the situation. Today, we were awakened all night to rain, rain, and more rain to an area that was hit by a flood in September. Rain dance ceremonies were more than successful - too much so. The elders would not continue to do a rain dance for more rain if it was flooding because they always did a rain dance.

Several years ago, we wanted to build a lodge on some land owned by a friend of ours. We wanted to do it Cherokee style and put it in the ground. There were books out then about a couple of celebrities that built houses out of discarded car tires. They packed them inside with clay and then covered them with adobe mud. The days came when we were about to create our own style of lodge - down in the earth and someone dumped a whole load of tires along the side of the road. We don't have the same kind of clay as New Mexico or Arizona, but we have Georgia red clay. Doug collected the tires and put them in a circle around the chosen area and as he dug the red clay he packed it inside the tires and then outside - adobe style.

We listened to the land and the other world spirit helpers that showed up to help us. We built it totally unique to the needs of the land around us. It actually was the second one we built there. The first we did Western style and had to use poplar saplings. It didn't work very well. But the one in the ground that was three feet high at the highest point with an almost flat roof was powerful. You crawled on your knees into it like a birth canal. Over the time we used it, we had several water pourers. No one ever died or got burnt but one woman insisted there was a scorpion in there that stung her. I kind of think that the difference of the lodge for that land instead of a traditional red willow Western lodge was too much for her. But the leader was a Native American elder and he did not have any complaints about our lodge.

I have gone the route of teachers and I honor and respect their ceremony. It isn't that I do not believe in the old ways. What I believe in is listening to Spirit and I believe in helping others listens to their own inner guide. As some people find their most rewarding Spiritual food a traditional Christian church, some people find God in other ways. One friend sat in my private garden and said to her it was such a Spiritual experience that it was a cleansing ceremony. "This is a lodge!" She said. So I believe in praying and listening to Spirit and letting Spirit tell me what ceremony to use. Maybe it will be the same as the indigenous people because Spirit is Spirit - all the same Power and maybe it will be different. A Cherokee man by the name of Chief Two Trees said being Native American is believing that God is in everything and being in tune with nature.
There are many "elders" and traditionalist that would disagree with that. They expect their students and followers to follow their rules. But that's like saying that there is only one set of rules for worshiping God and anyone that does not believe THAT set of rules will go to hell.

Elder Jeni Pearlsong told me if any elder pressured me to take peyote to speak firmly and say that is not my truth. Every elder that poured water in a sweat lodge I was in did it differently. That does not mean that anyone was wrong. But a lodge where people died and others were sent to the hospital - that was beyond personal differences. Mistakes were made.
But I wasn't there and it is not my place to lay judgment on what happened. I am sorry for all involved.

I spend time daily within my own ceremonies. Many times the wild life in my area talk to me. I listen to their calls and sometimes my personal Spirit guides take me into ceremony. I have not been led to a sweat ceremony for many years now. I believe it is because I spend so much time in ceremony in my own way. I do highly encourage anyone that considers going into a sweat ceremony to ask many questions. It is a good idea to learn with an elder or two first, one that HAS been taught by Native American tribe elders that really, REALLY knows what a sweat lodge is about. It isn't about seeing how much heat you can take - if that is what you want go to the gym to the sauna. No one should ever go into any kind of ceremony without knowing what it is about. If they can't tell you, maybe they don't know. And the participant should know what is in integrity. You go in to have a personal connection with the earth and Spirit but it is really important to have that before hand to know when it is safe and when it is not, when the water pourer knows what they are doing. Beware of water pourers looking for followers and supporters. Their motives may be less than altruistic.

And here is another caution. Just because you have sweated with someone before does not mean that today, if it is a sweat lodge day, that person IS in integrity. Ask questions or check out your inner feelings and pay attention to those inner red flags. I am not going to call a name but here is why I say this. There was an elder who poured water in our earth lodge. He was in integrity and did a powerful lodge. A few years later I heard that the local Native leaders had to put him into the VA hospital or else have him prosecuted for molesting young girls in his lodges and giving greenhorn wannabes peyote. His own personal ego issues had interfered with the integrity he had when he lead our lodge. He has not been heard of around here since.

Find your own cermonies you do in your own private home. Don't let anyone make them wrong. Believe in yourself but it is okay to learn from others. One man can say oh no, do it this way - my way. The next will tell you something different. You have your own understanding of say a dream and what it means to you. You feel good about it. Then that elder or man that wants you to follow them comes along and says No, this is what it means. If you learn to Trust your own inner guide you probably won't even discuss it with a teacher or guru.

And that is what is on my mind today.