Feb 6, 2023 Full Moon Zoom. Emergent Themes. Death, and relationship to life. Music as inspiration and hope. Transition Town Movement.
Particpants: Edie, Tammy, Jack & Deanne, cohosts, Sooz, Robin, Jubulient Jo. From MI, VT, NY ! A gathering of souls, sharing & connecting!
| Person | What’s alive in you? | What’s inspiring you? |
| Edie | The hardest few years of my life these past few years. Process of putting my life back together as I went through. Whole house plumbing freeze? My own resilience is what’s keeping me going. SO lost. Had a friend pass away in the middle of it. You know what, I’ve been through a lot of stuff, and I’ve still got a lot of fight left in me. I shifted what I was focusing on. Sometimes you don’t have a choice. That’s just what is. There’s a lot of lessons: who was I surrounding myself with? How supportive are they? How vampiric are they? | Understanding my own resilience. Somewhere somebody told us that this was going to be an easy road, and that’s just not the reality. It’s okay. It’s normal to feel things besides great. We’re just not taught how to get through it when problems arise or when people pass away. I have the skill set now to move through these things. The house that I had been remodeling had to be completely gutted. It was a year-long fight with insurance for over $150,000. Very powerful for my spiritual growth. My home is me. 2 homes, The other one I managed to get stable enough to move into while we deal with the other one. |
| Robin Mallor | What you believe has to come to be your life. For her, it was walking with Jesus and reading the bible every day. We’re just coming to the end of a 1-day Jewish holiday. It’s called Tu BiShvat. It celebrates the importance of trees in our life. The more we go on, the more we find trees and humans are connected. Biblically speaking, man is like a tree in the field. When you wage war, don’t cut down the fruit trees. Any tree that nourishes you must not be cut down so that we all may continue to be nourished. What he said in his little discourse, I can’t be happy on this holiday this year. I can’t just sing songs with kids this year. I have been following what’s going on in Atlanta: forest protectors. They’re taking a stand to prevent trees from being cut down. It seems so futile at this point, having been there doing the same things myself. I so love the music from that group. | |
| Peggy Suze | I feel pretty alive. I’ve been thinking about the woman who just died. On Wednesday I will be 79. That’s really alive in me. There’s so much to think of when you get old about being ready for death. Share about Arlene: I was reading the overstory by richard powers. I got about ¾ through with the book and became really despondent. It just felt futile. There is so little we seem to be able to do against the wishes of big corporations. What you were saying about the trees, Robin: that just really feels right. That’s what’s alive. I have a cat, I’d like to pick him up. 7-toed cat: The Great Zor. He’s in the dying process. I didn’t think he’d make it to the new year. He’s really slowing down. It’s all making me feel so alive. He has written about dying well. How our attitudes are so against actually. I listened to it again tonight to start in getting ready to die. I want to be responisble. There’s a lot of neat stuff that I’d like to continue loving as I have loved it. I have a couple of opossums, and I love it. I used the dry ice method on some unwelcome rats in my home, but the best thing seems to be the opossum. That feels very alive as well. Just the best way to keep control of these rats. The lithium helped me a lot to get over the lows and futility that I felt from The Overstory. | Richard Powers Overstory video interview Richard Powers on The Overstory
Carolyn McDade song playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vn-Zukczqg&list=PLkMD7pVhgj1cZ8xQ2I9vAjSkRPsNPJrbl Sacred Economics, Money, Gift & Society in the Age of Transition revised https://sacred-economics.com/ by Charles Eisenstein
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| Jubilant Jo | We made it through the very cold spell here. Wind chill of -19. It was brutal outside. Windy and incredibly cold. All the chickens survived okay. Today was actually a little bit above freezing. I’m sure we’ll have some more cold spells this winter. I’ve lived in the North most of my life. These cold spells come readily, and I’m confident and prepared for them. Very frustrated with my computer right now. I’ve not been able to access the prison site for the prison emails. We were trying last evening, and I still cannot get on. I have emails to send and some need to get in touch with me. Some are quite important. I’ve been working primarily inside of the buildings because of the cold and the depth of the snow. 400’ to the well and 600’ to the mailbox (opposite directions). Lots of work with mohawk valley collective. The building had no insulation in the walls. Drywall was put up in the early 1930s. All insulation taken out, now putting in new insulation and drywall. Blown-in insulation in the attic. This past saturday because it was too bitter cold. I’ve been kind of thinking about the best way to deal with the cellulose insulation. I’m the only one on the work crew that is small enough to get up into the crawl space. They just can’t maneuver up in that crawl space. Assembly line to collect the insulation, and I’ll be on the front line. Can you compost cellulose insulation? I enjoy eating, and so I do that frequently. My daughter went to work on the computer, and she said I may need a new computer. Often I am the relay to the state office: change in the court or death in the family. | This piece of land is so incredibly beautiful. Even the day it was so cold, the green on the trees and hemlock. The dark shapes of the trees. The way the shadows go on the snow, and the drifting. The way the sunlight creates sparkles. The sunrises, the dawn, it’s amazing that as many years as we have known that the earth revolves around the sun, we still call it sunrise and sunset. What else would we call it? Sometimes I can see 15 miles to the horizon, and even 15 feet away I am still in awe at the beauty of this land. (Deanne responds: Sister Corita Kent. She was writing about religion and stuff “Morning is not a time of the sun, but of the earth facing up to it.” |
| Deanne | My uncle Harold died last week, and his funeral was Saturday. I have been keeping in close touch with my cousin in a care facility. Hanging tight with her. Going through the process of death and her loss. Harold was her main peep, her dad. Talking to her a lot more frequently. Interns were here for a month: dynamic, and it was all I could handle. I did feel successful at keeping and providing the program that I did to the best of my ability. I tried and tried and it was good enough. I got a message here that I wanted to share with you. There was a woman who came to the workshops, her name is Pam Jackson McMahon I met her at a strawbale workshop with Andrew Morrison 15 years ago or something. She was real connected to the bible and her faith. I gave her the compassion NVC book. That is the form that I have been following for the last quite a few years. Thank you for the compassion book. I only finished ch. 2. You are right these are important and powerful skills to practice. For personal application to not judge others, just state my need for choice, space, etc. So nice to share what has been so nice to me, and it has worked well for her | REconomy. The transition movement that has been growing since 2005. Low carbon, socially just future with resilient communities. More active participation in societies. Caring culture focused on supporting each other. Transition principle. Practice participation. Community green spaces. Support social and environmental change. Community, care, repair, reskilling. 48 countries around the world, transition hubs. Lois Robins Oakland County transition. Permaculture meetups started to happen, implementing the ideas and taking action and sharing and making public. Satisfied and felt that we were doing it through the permaculture meetup. People can take turns hosting, fermenting, gardening. Come together, have a potluck, learn-share. You don’t have to know anything about to start it. |
| Jack | On death (Nirankari)
Reconnecting with an old “friend” Platelets Forming connections to total strangers on the internet I’m meeting people online through my studies to pass a test in French ! Inspired and connected! I’ve been meeting with Robin and Greg at her Satsang twice this month. I wanted to comment on death It seems to be a belief in many religions that what we are feeling and believing at death… is what we carry on with us after death. They say that is a good way to “go out”…feeling what is most dear. After our social meditation, (satsong) I met with an old friend. Reading my poem, she responded to one, and felt that the circle was closed. And we are friends. That is great. |
What’s inspiring me? At the Satsongs with Robin Mallor, one thing that’s struck me is that part of this sharing… is to carry the faith with us. For some it is a full time job. Holding the awareness to the next satsong . Jack sings: “When I look into the face of the enemy, I see my brother. I see the wounds that bind all of human kind.“
Tammy: Songs can keep you going every day! Songs are so powerful. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w38mhsb0JXo the song |
| Tammy Maver | I’ve had emails for the longest time. Some of the things that you do. Just as we were coming back from running out tonight. I saw the full moon, and I knew that I needed to get on. (Deanne responds: propose an idea, and I will respond to the seed you plant). Drum circle. (Deanne responds: Full moon potluck for your family when the weather is better and it’s bright out. Bonfire.) I homeschool my daughter (with the post-high kind of kids). (Deanne responds: There was a young woman here for 2 weeks of a 4 week WInternship. Crafts and learning.)
Everybody’s on their own journey, their own path in life. Everybody’s normal is different. I have two kids on the spectrum. I have a 24 year-old recovering from a car accident. We all went to Illinois. Brain scans, holistic, and outside the box. Part of faith is believing in action and family whatever you believe and love. Passion for love and healing. (Deanne responds: Joanna Macey: active hope: taking the steps to make the things that we believe in hope. It’s not passive. It sounds like you have a very active vision of the capacity of your family and the energy of the universe that holds you all. You’re actively engaging that and keeping it about you… We share here as deeply as we like here in this group.) |
