We Reap What We Sow!

Nothing teaches us more about life then nature, it is the ultimate reflection of our existence. Gardening in particular had become my solitude. There in the garden you are one with your surroundings. Everything can be seen through the success and failure of you “reap what you sow“. Maintaining a clean area, continuing attention to the soil needs . The implementing of nutrients with the correct amount of sun and water provide us with the ultimate of beauty. Yet we see that some thing’s are out of our hands, to much rain, not enough sun, violent storms, an occasional late frost, many things can alter our success at the end of the growing season. It is a on going lesson, that tells us when we need to step up our efforts and when we need to step back and absorb the beauty of hard work. It is this balance in nature that we allow into our being. We are merely human and we are very susceptible to the conditions in which we grow. Our
vulnerabilities are based on the circumstances with which we must face. How we survive illness, financial situations and the unexpected is continuant on our own mental well being. The ability to handle stress varies amongst us, we need to reach out to one other, support each other and love each other. For all of us will meet up with the storms in life at one time or another. It’s how we stand strong through those storms, that separates those who fall and those who survive and gain enough strength to rise above the current storms.

When I went was a child our Sunday teacher taught us
the moral of gardening, sometimes we need to be reminded.

Plant peas:
1. Peace of mind
2. Peace of heart
3. Peace of soul


Plant squash:
1. Squash gossip (talking about other people in a mean way)
2. Squash grumbling
3. Squash selfishness


Plant lettuce:
1. Let us be faithful
2. Let us be kind
3. Let us be patient
6. Let us be meek and humble

Plant beets:
1. Beat down pride
2. Beat down ignorance
3. Beat down envy
4. Beat down hatred

Plant carrots:
1. Your Bible - carry it to church
2. Love - carry it with you everywhere
3. Faith - carry it with you in times of trouble
4. Joy - carry it with you in your heart

Plant Thyme:
1. Time for Jesus
2. Time for family
3. Time for each other

Live and Let Live

History proves there are no winners in a war. Looking back at the civil wars and some of the worst world wars, I asked myself “what was gained?” I shed many tears not for myself, but for mankind. How can people be so intelligent and so ignorant? Yet wars are so ever close to home, the social war that effects our children daily, drugs, alcohol, mental health. We fight to maintain freedom and to keep our youth out of the hands of tyranny.


I thought back to my teenage years and the Vietnam war. Many of our friends including my brother was drafted. I remember this one particular soldier who was a P.O.W. I purchased the bracelet to support the search for the lost soldiers and Srgt. William Powell was the soldiers whose name was on my bracelet. I searched for many years to see if he ever was found. Not until computers was I able to find the information. Srgt. William Powell was not one of the lucky ones he never made it back alive.

I do understand like a lioness who protects her cubs that if we are being attacked we have to protect those we love and defend ourselves. The question is are the reasons that people and countries choose to attack have any merit?

I use to paint the same picture when I was a little girl, each day I couldn’t wait to get to school and have my turn on the easel. Every day I would paint the identical picture with snowflakes falling down. The only difference between the paintings was the color of the snow, each day the snow was a different color, except for this one day it was rainbow. My third grade teacher wasn’t to impressed and failed me in Art. I laugh as I look back and think about getting an E in art. Though now as a adult, I can see that the varied colors represented the confusion in life, each color represented a emotion, Yellow snow was sunshine, blue a fair day and black a really bad day, a colorful rainbow was a mixture of emotion. It is clear that life isn’t always black and white, sometimes we do have to add a little color. There is way more to life, then a simple yes or no.

I remember thinking that we and I mean that as a whole the world as one would have advanced further in education more and less in violence. I had prayed that we would never see hand to hand combat or have men and women die for causes that are so gray in nature.

Is war truly about man fighting man? Or is there a much stronger evil that gains strength with ignorance. If you scan over the cause of war, you find that most of the reasons are of greed, religion and land or just plain pure evil.



"The hawk perched awaiting its prey, allowed me relatively close as it did not appear afraid. You have to appreciate its stance in the chain as it only kills what it needs to sustain, it doesn’t fight for money, religion or for land. There is a lot to be taught to the angered man. Natures natural selection is survival of the strong. I think as a people we are doing something wrong. "copyright 2005

There is no doubt in my mind where there is good there is evil. How else could we explain mans hatred for man, that people are willing to kill innocent people. My heart breaks for those who cannot see through my eyes. I have been told that it is naive to believe of a world of unity where respect for one another flourishes, where people can appreciate the differences and come together as one to better mankind. I liked to disagree, there are more good in the world and
some day we will unify.

My mother worked in a hospital, as she was assigned to the terminal ward she told stories of those who said they were atheist , she said there last dying words were “Oh God help me.” I always told my children that who ever first translated the bible they made a great error on two world God = Good and the Devil = Evil from the beginning of time Good and evil existed. We were given something special, a mind to reason and hands to perform. Life is about one thing and one thing only that is choice, for each of us on this earth have been the gift of choice.

I am saddened not for myself but for the future of my children, as far as man has come, he has not come far at all. Yet I know it is human nature the defense mechanism. If someone would dare to hurt my children I wouldn’t hesitate to defend them.

My daughter raised rats and there was truly a lot we learned from them. We learned that certain colors were more dominate and others carried a more violent gene. We saw that when the mother thought her babies were endanger, the once calm rat became hostile. We found that others were naturally calmer and made better pets, some smarter others more active.
Could some day genetic selective engineering, delete the hostile irrational gene from the human blood line? Could the paradise we dream of exist? Where the world works together to rid the darkness. How simple a statement “live and let live”.

One tear for every life that has fallen at the door of hell.

Dancing with the Angel of Darkness.....

One tear fallen for those I'll not chance to meet,
another for those I have and lost.

When Tragedy comes to visit.

The Violin played was melodic music to the ears, but it was the
hands of fate that played me throughout the years...........

A potential client was screening my thoughts on Suicide, he went on to tell me of a couple who had one son at war and another son who recently hung himself. “What is your view of suicide and where do you stand? he asked." My first thought was it was a cowards way out and then I reviewed out loud how diverse mental health issues are. His request was that I write for the couple and the loss and love of their two sons. He said how will you know what I want to say or how I feel. I replied from our discussion and if you have any thoughts, jot them down. The next week he delivered this whole letter which seem like a honor for the son who had commit suicide. I usually give clients two rough drafts and allow them to choose. I felt very strongly that this was different. This project I was working on was to honor these people as parents and human beings. I knew that if I were in that position I would have a weight of guilt, first I needed to relieve them of the heavy weight "the burden of guilt. "

I started writing to the graphics, “ Nothing Separates the bond between parent and child, it is eternal even at the time of death. “ Then moved on to write about their achievements. When it was finished, my client paid me twice my asking price, he said you are very in touch with what they are feeling. I replied, I have had experience, been down this road before. Different stories the same emotions. We are after all human!
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It jarred thoughts of how close suicide was to my own family and the scars it leaves or maybe its the negative lesson of an “easy way out.” I never had a chance to know my grandfather, though I heard of him. He was a professor of music and he had a great love for the future. He was the first on the block to own a car and a television. But he will always be remembered for his love of the violin. I guess that is partly where our love for music came from. All of us girls played the violin, but my older sisters both played concert and could get down and fiddle.Grandfather had been stricken with ear problems it had developed into mastoid ears. Medical technology not as advanced at the time, grandfather was going deaf.

Standing in the graveyard reading over his gravestone, my mind chased over the stories to try and clarify what had truly happen. He was not in the section where family was buried. Grandfather had chose to end his life. In the 1940’s suicide was so frowned upon by the church that he was forbidden to be buried on sacred grounds. He was in the section they called “lost sinners.” The story my mother told us what that he couldn’t live with going deaf, though my great aunt told me the dirty little secrets of a marriage gone bad. My grandparents had separated and grandmother was filing for divorce. Depends who tells the story, which version you hear. At this point that mattered very little, the black mark against the family would become a string of an unwanted legacy.

My mother was extremely close with her father and had prepared right before his death to move in with my great aunt and her father. She stopped into check on him as she always did and he wasn’t in the kitchen, calling“ come here princess” . She went down to the garage and there in his pride and joy, his 1945 Ford was her father, unconscious, cold. Grandfather had connected a hose from the exhaust into the cab of the car, closed his eyes and gone to sleep forever.Was grandfather depressed ? I am sure he was! Physically in pain? that too, heart broken, yes I think the fear of loneliness is more than many can bare.

Unfortunately the scars left behind from such a emotional experience seems to seed insecurities and a poor view of self worth, as well as give few alternatives to problems in life. My mother never really got over the loss of her father. She lived with a lot of what if. What if, they had the medication at the time to cure, what if he would have accepted surgery, what if they would have accepted his sisters invitation to move in with her, what if grandmother didn't want a divorce.

Mother’s life was far from perfect, her and my father had a physical spark between them but little else in common. Mother’s education exceeded his by leaps and bounds. But as life is very vulnerable for us all, we cannot put ourselves on a pedestal.Simply, because we do not know what we would do “ unless we walked a mile in their shoes” Mother repeatedly tried to take her life and her failed attempts baffled me. It seem like each generation had one who would come to close to walking in grandfathers foot steps.

My brother was engaged to be married, her parents wanted the marriage called off and at one point it was. My brother was devastated, he took my mothers pill from the shelf and went to my grandmothers and wrote a note, I cannot and will not live without her. Grandmother found him unconscious and had him rushed to the hospital where they pumped his stomach.

I feared how close would this sickness come to my own children or my own family. Overly cautious, I listened and talked as my children worked through the trial and err of life. If nothing I wanted them to know I was here, that there are options, that someone cares and loves them. I wanted them to know that I know about heartbreak and love and that they will survive and the heart will heal. That life will go on , but more importantly how saddened the world would be without them. How saddened I would be without them. I have been fortunate as far as motherhood goes. I say it is true “God only gives us as much as we can handle.” Though a few times I have said " Don't push it God"

Rainy day Sundays

The simplicity of childhood thoughts, as adults we try to jump over the rain puddles, as a child we jumped into them in appreciation of the magic of a summer rain. Raising children in such a technological world are they missing the magic of imagination? Simple joys have been replaced, by television and video games. How will the children of today view their childhood as they look back? Speaking with other older people, I realized that so few children played in the rain, It was those children who had the least who appreciated the most. They are rarely selfish or greedy and they see the beauty in the world even as adults through child like eyes.

new york

Dedicated to Gazie where ever you are...I love You!

Sisters

Music sets the mood or soothes the savage beast. In our home if our parents were playing music all was right with the world. Sometimes I think I am grasping as I try to remember the good times that were so sparse through out our lives. Music has been truly a comfort, entertainment and a complete joy. We were limited to what we were allowed to listen to at home. I can remember my second born sister rebelling and bringing home records that played, spunky upbeat rock and rhythm and blues. My father was furious with her. Many styles of music were not allowed or played in our household. As we reached out to the world we found a whole new place was waiting.

The last time the four of us girls were together was over twenty years ago, but the day stands out in my mind, maybe because some one video taped the event. Arm and arm we danced to New York New York. It was a special moment like being children all over again. It seems that when were together we could be ourselves and there was this magic about it all, we didn't talk about what went on in our lives we lived it and though each of us viewed it just a bit different, we all knew each of us was effected.

Somehow each of us came away with a love for a more simple way of life, we all loved to garden and animals and the magic of music and song. Until we all meet in the clouds, heres, to New York, New York..