A Few Updates

Blue House Nearing Completion:

Five months into the happy detour of taking over the house next door as a writing office/community space/larger classroom/guest house, along with expanding my garden into another yard, including the planting of 1,000 spring bulbs this fall, everything is now finished except my writing office and the back laundry roomed turned indoor garden center. Those will continue to progress, but the main public spaces are finished except for some very minor details. This feels like a milestone, because I’ve finally finished enough of the setup to return to some of the exciting projects I initiated shortly before life opened up in that highly expansive way.

First order of business: finishing my Permaculture Design Course so that I can officially share my permaculture knowledge via classes and consultations.

Permaculture Education Center is one of only two accredited online versions of the original 72-hour PDC created by Bill Mollison. Although many people prefer to take their PDC in person, for me, the online option works well — no travel complications, no need to worry whether or not a locale can meet my dietary preferences/needs, no concerns about fluorescent lights in a classroom, no need to be away for two weeks or several weekends, much lower cost than in-person classes, plus the ability to work at my own pace.

Since I already have a lot of experience gardening, designing, and visiting various permaculture set-ups, I didn’t feel like I needed another in-person experience if that meant I’d need to wait for perfect timing to begin. When I first signed up, I thought I’d jump right in, but with the wonderful, yet unexpected late summer through fall detour, I really appreciated the flexibility to put studies on hold until fully able to concentrate on them.

Dr. Enzo contacted me back in 2014, recognizing I’ve been using permaculture design principles in our yard since I began transforming it in early 2013. He explained how the PDC would offer expert feedback on those designs, as well as additional, more in-depth permaculture information than what I’ve learned through books and mini-courses. So far, I’m enjoying the course, and I can attest to the thorough critique of homework and excellent response time for emails! As mentioned before, Dr. Enzo has also offered a $50 discount for any of my blog readers who wish to study through Permaculture Education Center. Just use coupon code LauraB when you sign up. (I’m not an affiliate — just passing along the discount to my readers.)

Writing Update

Some people might remember that I originally became interested in Haus am See (our name for the Blue House), because I wanted a writing office with better views. The downstairs bedroom overlooks my extensive gardens instead of staring at a wall, factory or blank field. I had given up on writing any fiction in our lovely home, because the only spaces I could write in here either have offensive views or are filled with the energies of phone sessions, blogging and/or everyday living. In order to create something inspired and new, I knew I needed a very different space that allowed for my soul to exhale the everyday and inhale Awen.

Earlier this year, pre-blue house, I had begun OBOD’s Bardic Grade course as a jump start to my writing and inspiration. I actually credit those initial studies with the spark that led to the magical intention that drew forth the new opportunities via expansion next door; however, the appearance of that intention in real form resulted in me putting a serious delay on continuing those studies. As the winter months settle in and we make our way past holiday guests and travels, I will be taking advantage of weather imposed restrictions on gardening projects and teaching large volumes of in-person classes so that I can spend more time as a student, completing the courses begun earlier this year.

What This Means for the Blog:

When I first began my studies, I had announced a conscious inhale and reduction of posts and outer commitments. After a very quick inhale, the sudden, unanticipated new direction of the exhale resulted in a surge of larger in-person Reiki classes, house guests, and hosting community events, plus all those new gardening projects! All my creative energies focused on setting up Haus am See, researching plants, finding decorations, manifesting more furniture and bargains, and designing the yard and sacred indoor space. Blogging felt like a still-productive and creative chance to sit down, so after a short respite ,I ended up continuing nearly the same level of blogging as before.

While I do enjoy blogging and view all the support I offer here as a sort of tithe, blogging and excess email correspondence remain the easiest, most logical areas from which to draw extra time for other creative projects. I will still continue a regular load of coaching and intuitive clients; however, please don’t be surprised that frequency and length of blog posts will drop into hibernation-maintenance mode for awhile. I need to reclaim that time and energy to focus on coursework over the next few months in order to be able to offer those things I feel led to share in 2016.

New Website in the Works:

As further preparation for the expanded direction, I also feel led to consolidate old websites and create a new website that focuses much more on gardening, permaculture and in-person, local classes, along with a shorter bio and vaguer descriptions of intuitive services palatable to the local customs and consciousness levels here. This blog will remain, but some of the free time I would devote to blog posts will get funneled into creation of a new WordPress hosted website, which I’ll announce when ready. I’ve already shut down two eBook websites and redirected them to the books page on this blog. If you’d like copies of my novel Schizandra and the Gates of Mu, or my non-fiction books, The Lazy Raw Foodist’s Guide and/or If I Only Had a Brain Injury, please contact me for purchase details.

The new website will include a new newsletter signup, as well as standalone information about classes and offerings. Since my international blog readers and clients appreciate far greater depth and breadth of topics and discussions than what most of our local community finds comfortable or comprehensible, it seems wisest not to try to be all things to all people via a single web presence. The new site will also provide clients with a chance to refer people to me or my services, without requiring new people to wade through the blog.

Wishing You a Blessed Winter Season:

‘Tis the time of year (in the Northern Hemisphere) for going indoors, hunkering down, reading, dreaming, incubating and nurturing seeds and bulbs that won’t reveal any evidence of themselves until spring. I wish you all a creative, productive and joyful season. You’ll still hear from me, but in order to preempt concerned emails about my seeming incommunicado or a deluge of “must post” links, I wanted to share the new direction now.

If you have must share links or information, please find ways to share that through your own channels. I’m not currently looking to host my own radio show,  become a news aggregate website, or list every single article available on faeries, permaculture, growing your own food, Putin, geoengineering, magick and/or countless other things I’ve blogged about. I’ve always envisioned this blog as a springboard offering — a place from which to bounce as your own interests and passions lead you to respond to the many challenges and opportunities facing our world today.

If you would like my personalized attention or discussion of various issues, then please contact me to book a session. This blog is a public service, but the income from private sessions and classes is what allows me to offer so much here for free. It also allows me to model how local volunteering and local projects help to ground effective and empowering changes in our larger world.

I know many wonderful, informed and creative people through this blog, but in order to create deeper and more informed, wonderful offerings, I need to focus my time and energy on the projects at hand. You are powerful. If you believe I need to post a link or become aware of some new topic, please step back and ask yourself what you feel called to do with that information. Please let your growing awareness of our crazy world inform and inspire the actions that you take, as I follow my inner guidance here.

Blessed Be … and be the blessing!

 

This is my Thanksgiving hope for everyone . . . from a Reader, Tony . . . my thanks. ~Jean

Thank you, Jean, for sharing this prayer and for the heads up about the book, “Living in Process.” Our local reading group is looking for another book after we finish “A Time to Stand Up.” This looks good, and we’ve found the discussions generated among readers are just as — if not more — important as the book itself. Peace and blessings!

November Specials Reminder

Before things get crazy for everyone with the holiday weekend, here’s a quick reminder of this month’s specials. Wishing everyone a Happy Gratitude Day, tomorrow and all days.

As always, this month’s offerings reflect my sense of how to support the current and emerging energies, as well as responding to client and reader questions and requests. In this month of All Soul’s Day, it seems fitting to offer a brand new Soul Reading Special. Whenever planetary consciousness rises, past life bleedthrough seems to increase, crying out for attention and release. So many of last month’s Medical Intuitive Special sessions revealed past life factors that I thought I’d offer a more directly soul focused special this month.

NOVEMBER 2015 SPECIALS

$131 Soul Readings

Soul readings are what some people would call Past Life Readings, except we choose an area of focus — specific repeat challenges or relationships — and I share my impressions of the multiple lifetimes and patterns (attempted corrections and over-corrections) that have resulted in your current experiences. Bringing long-repressed past life stories to the conscious surface allows you to consciously address them, releasing old trauma, while embracing latent gifts. $131 (25% off) if prepaid on or before 11/30/2015. Please contact me to sign up.

$222 Mini-Coaching Packages

Back by popular request, this three-pack of half hour sessions represents a $52 savings over the usual rate. Sessions can be scheduled weekly or as needed. They can address anything from career changes to relationships to esoteric skills, potential relocation, past life issues, and/or health concerns.

$222 if prepaid on or before 11/30/15. Please contact me to sign up.

ANH ~ Monsanto’s Spy Software to Control the Entire Agricultural Market

After receiving today’s Alliance for Natural Health Action Alert, I will grant Big Smother a few points for creativity, but enough is enough. I really think some binding magic is in order for biotech behemoths. On the more mundane level, perhaps this petition? Calls to John Deere? Keep in mind that Monsanto already owns the weather.

When you combine owning all the data on weather, plus all the data on what gets planted where, when and how well it yields, this move positions Monsanto into the all-seeing eye, top of the pyramid. Yet another reason to grow, save and trade your own heirloom seeds and perennial veggies, as well as learning how to forage in unsprayed local areas.

As devastating as an EMP would be, at times like these I wonder if it’s the off radar solution. No pun intended. Ted Koppel’s “Lights Out” book brings awareness of EMP’s to mainstream readers. Preparing for that would require exponentially greater levels of community preparations and paradigm shifts, but seriously, when I consider how much the “elite” rely on A.I. and electronic data gathering in order to push control, I really do start thinking, “alt, delete.” Even with no EMP, the less we rely on Big anything, the freer we are. Thoughts to ponder as you read/take action on the info below:

Monsanto’s Spy Software to Control the Entire Agriculture Market

We must stop this attempt to create a new and potentially even bigger monopoly. Action Alert!

Monsanto recently reached a deal with Deere & Co. that could dramatically alter the US agricultural market, and not for the better.

John Deere, the world’s largest producer of agricultural machinery, agreed to purchase Monsanto’s Precision Planting LLC equipment unit. As part of the deal, information on crops contained in Monsanto’s FieldView software app, used with the equipment, will send continuous information back to Monsanto. Monsanto will know which farmers have planted which crops, and where.

Importantly, Monsanto has similar deals with two other top producers of similar agricultural machinery, CNH Industrial NV and Agco Corporation.

As Dr. Mercola brought to our attention and astutely points out, access to this information imbedded in farming equipment across the country will give the company “unprecedented insight into market yields of any harvest before anyone else, and this information could allow [Monsanto] to manipulate and reign supreme over the commodities market.”

This is an outrage. The government has done everything in its power to grant Monsanto a monopoly over the seed industry. Now, these technology deals could give Monsanto another monopoly—this time over agricultural information and, through that, the commodities market.

Action Alert! Write to the Federal Trade Commission, the Department of Justice, and the Commodities Trading Futures Commission, and tell them they must act to stop this outrageous expansion of Monsanto’s monopoly power. Please send your message immediately.

 

Other articles in this week’s Pulse of Natural Health:Plan for an End Run around GMO Labeling

Big Pharma Connections? No Problem, Says Nominee for FDA Chief

Feds Crack Down on Criminal Supplement Dealer

Fighting Daily Black Magic

Gentle, yet powerful Wisdom here. To add another Tolkien quote, “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

A Druid Way

With a dramatic title like that, this post really has to deliver! But all I mean by it are the usually small ways we destroy, unmake, sabotage, undermine and discourage … ourselves.

Successful psychic attacks by others are remarkably rare. Those we work against ourselves are all too common. I can’t. I shouldn’t. I don’t. I won’t. And of course, let’s not discount the low-level psychic garbage of much contemporary media, with its insistence that it knows better than we do what the truth is about the world, its prospects, our futures in it, the roots of our safety and happiness, and so on. You can almost feel “know, dare, will, be silent” seeping out of you and spinning down the drain. “If it bleeds, it leads” may sell advertising space and draw viewers and readers, but it’s less than optimal energy to nourish ourselves with, to try to live on.

One of Best Buy’s…

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Energies of Now: Zap-Zone Holidaze and Handy Intel

Astro-weather report from Jamie: stormy with a touch of Sturm und Drang. I’m not an astrologer, but I can attest to the accuracy of Jamie’s report based on all the drama I’ve already heard about through this week’s coaching and intuitive sessions.

In addition to Jamie’s sage advice, it’s also a great time to remember the energy brush off: sweep your right hand from your left shoulder, down past your finger tips. Repeat on the other side. Repeat, repeat, repeat. Flick the energy off your fingers, too. Let. It. Go.

It’s not yours. YOU are the eye of the hurricane, the calm in the storm, the Two of Swords, and the birther of dancing stars.

Sophia's Children

Spiral Eyes, from Team Pixie U.K.

Uh-yup, it’s a doozy of a week, a dilly of a pickle, and the bees knees of energetic swirling dervishes … and likely a few Tantrum Yogis and Hissy Fit Artists, too.

Super sweet:

Cranky, tetchy, touchy, intense energy soup just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S., and for the ‘Black Friday’ start of the often manic, angst-stirring holiday ‘shopping season’ common to the more consumer-driven cultures.

Woo hoo! But remember that in chaos and seeming crisis there’s great potential and creative juice, too.

So here’s a bit of energy weather reporting and Rx suggestions for us all.

Snapshot for the tron-maimed, five-second attention span:

We have some highly sensitizing, electrifying, zap-zone energy dynamics afoot this week, increasing the tantrum-yoga, hissy fit, outburst, psychic-vomit potential.

Empath-sensitives get a heads-up to stay aware and honor self-care needs to be most skillful.

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Training exercises dovetail with mass shootings

Thank you, Jon, for the compilation. This won’t be news to some readers, but it’s important for more people to recognize all the co-inki-dinks in this absurdly simulated reality. Beware of active shooter drills in your area, and publicly document advertisements for crisis actors. Also notice the tell-tale immediate spin: behold, the magical passport that opens portals to other wars! Watch in amazement as that very same magical passport destroys natural human rights in the name of security. Watch as we shove your self respect into this tiny box and slice it in half before you can say abracadabra. Poof! It’s gone.

May the props drop and spectacles fail. There are so many more interesting and life affirming, creative possibilities than the sick, rerun scripts the media-military-industrial complex churn out ad nauseam.

Poetic Justice, please feel free to make a cameo appearance. Your presence would spin these hackneyed plots in a refreshing, new direction. The boy who cried wolf meme can work both ways. What happens if the “useful idiots” and “useless eaters” get so bored with all the trauma-drama that they refuse to perform their appointed roles? What happens if all the actors and the audience walk off stage and out the theater door? What happens if the gloating producers and directors slip on rotten tomatoes and GMO banana peels?

What happens if we make them obsolete? They push control; we hit alt, delete.

It’s catchier than the Hegelian Dialectic, and a much more effective “solution.” In a world of mediocre scripts, uninspired characters, and tawdry spin doctors, become your own show. Play your life with skill, passion and excellence, and as you begin to realize how good you are: show some self respect! No one needs to whore after a “director.” You are stardust. You are golden. Get out of the theater and into the garden.

Ancestors, Culture and Identity: What I Learned in the Menno Ghetto

Soooo, here’s a little confession that might surprise some people: much of my increased interest in pre-Christian European heritage and ancestors has stemmed from living in such a hugely Amish and Mennonite area. Despite living near a factory and train line, I still hear the clippity clop of Amish horse and buggies at least a few times per week, even while sitting on our futon. Our farmers market has Amish vendors. Our credit union has a horse manure bin, and the local Walmart, ALDI and Menard’s all have buggy parking.

I’ve traded recipes, kefir grains and plant cuttings with an Amish family, and I have a(n Amish) 5-pointed star on my garden trellis facing the street, which means when the 9+ family bicycle outings of Amish ride by, they always wave. Indeed, we share an interest in gardening and protection magic, although I’m sure they’d use different words to describe their stars.

I love the Amish I’ve met here, and if I weren’t so concerned I’d get them in trouble  with the bishop for hanging out with faery-witchy me, I’d be much more social. They know loads about natural healing, gardening, organic farming, self-reliance, and off-grid technology. They don’t have driver’s licenses either, and they’ve got no qualms about honoring spiritual principles over stupid, invasive laws and customs. I respect that, though our views on religion (and women) differ. Widely.

On various occasions, I’ve talked with Amish people on their cell phones. Oh, yes, the Amish have cell phones. And solar powered aquaponics systems. And refrigerators and fancy fishing boats. I have it on good authority that some Amish children (and husbands) even eat … Cap’n Crunch!

One of my all time favorite memories of living in Goshen was when David and I drove up to some Amish friends of ours and saw two of the three young children working with their mother in the garden. When they turned around in their blue and grey Amish outfits, the little boy and girl had on fluorescent green and fluorescent pink heart-shaped sunglasses! David needed to calm me down before we exited the vehicle, because my cute-o-meter was on overdrive. I think I actually squealed.

Among many other things, David’s Dutch father is a Mennonite historian, specializing in both European and North American Anabaptist traditions: the Mennonites, Amish and Hutterites. Not only have I learned about these traditions by osmosis; I’ve also listened to countless explanations of the differences between “black bumper Mennonites,” “Amish,” “Old Order Mennonites,” “Dutch Mennonites,” “Pennsylvania Dutch,” and “Church of the Brethren.” (It’s all very complicated, so please don’t quiz me. Apparently, if you grow up Amish and/or Mennonite or first generation ex-Amish, which it seems most people here did, then you just know these things.)

I grew up in Bethlehem, PA, founded by Moravians, and of course, everyone in Quaker-founded Pennsylvania knows about the Amish in Lancaster. But before moving to Goshen, I had never heard of “The Menno Game.” After “hi” and sometimes even before “nice to meet you,” people share who’s married to and/or descended from whom and by way of which spelling of which 3-6 syllable German-sounding, often hyphenated last name, in order to establish lineage and relationship to one another. Though not by any stretch of the imagination a Mennonite, thanks to my time in Goshen, I can now play passable, vicarious rounds of The Menno Game. (I can also play “A Vonderful Goot Game” of Dutch Blitz.)

When we first moved to Goshen, I found the Menno Game extremely irritating. David’s not a practicing Mennonite, but he’s got the cred’s. Me? I’ve got some pirates, a distant, but unclear connection to Admiral Byrd, and a mishmash of Irish, English, Welsh, German and Eastern European, and somewhere way, way back, maybe a bit of the Anabaptist Roger Williams. Or not. Williams is a mighty common name.

My paternal grandmother’s family came over ten years after the Mayflower. Supposedly, I’m a Daughter of the American Revolution on both sides of the family, but other than these snippets, I know little to nothing of my lineage. Due to many secrets, conflicting stories, and exaggerations and omissions, I feel more certain about details of my own past lives than the history or identity of my ancestors.

I’ve lived in over 40 locations, often exclusive resort areas or high cost cities, but I never felt like an outsider until moving to “Menno Ghetto” Goshen. Not everyone here is Mennonite or Amish, but the more famous Lancaster is also more diverse. I’ve spoken to some other Outlanders about this, and they’ve agreed: there’s something about the patriarchal conformity, close-knit church communities, plain values, modest dress, severe hairstyles, and flat, grid like land of Goshen that makes you positively yearn for the Goddess.

Well, obviously, not everyone feels that way (hardly!), but for some of us, the contrast of all this community focused on a loving, generous, earthy, yet highly patriarchal culture and strict dogma triggers the inner longing for the Divine and Sacred Feminine so strongly that even if you overlooked Her before, you’ll pine for Her after living here for awhile. Or not. Apparently, most people here don’t, and that’s when I realized, I’m not just a little different. I’m not agnostic. And I’m not just a lone wolf. I value community, and I value compatible spiritual community.

Once I started my own little offshoot group of gardeners, poets and pagans celebrating the Wheel of the Year, I was able to admit to myself that the thing I found most irritating about The Menno Game was that I have almost no idea about my own lineage beyond my grandparents and a few rumors. My maiden name, “Derbenwick” isn’t even a real surname. It just happened to be the last of three consecutive misspellings of my immigrant, paternal grandfather’s last name on his BS, MS and PhD diplomas from Stanford. Coming from a family of illiterate Eastern European farmers, he didn’t bother to correct the spelling, and to this day would-be family historians argue about the original spelling, location and culture of the paternal side of the family.

My mom’s mom divorced twice, and each time she completely reinvented herself and her history. Who knows what’s real and what’s a convenient half-truth?! Don’t get me wrong, I love the fact that my family knows how to reinvent itself, and that’s a trait I know I share. Brain injury gotcha down? Can’t read books anymore? No problem. Turn your intended PhD in English literature into a career of “reading” people. Don’t like your life’s trajectory? No problem. Tell yourself a different story, and claim it as your own. Stories are powerful, and ultimately, we do — or at least can — exert tremendous influence over our own scripts. For that lived reality, I thank both sides of my mysteriously dysfunctional family.

But living in the Land of Goshen, filled with people who can track their 100 first cousins, or who know their second cousins, twice removed, along with their detailed family history through four or more generations, I do sometimes feel culturally adrift. That quirky Menno Game and the Amish connection to tradition highlight my own gypsy, mutt, forgotten and confabulated ancestry, which oddly enough, gives me more in common with the majority of 21st century Westerners, even though I’m such a minority here.

Planting roots here (literally and figuratively) after all those relocations has forced me to recognize not knowing my own heritage as a kind of disability. I’ve finally realized why the powers that want to remain work so hard to uproot families via war, “free” trade deals, regulations and hostile corporate takeovers. Without conscious effort, uprooted people lose their heritage and with it, some of their strength. This orchestrated refugee crisis in Europe uproots not only those immigrating into Europe from Africa and the Middle East, but in such large volume it simultaneously uproots people in their own homeland. Tiny villages where families have lived for 400+ years suddenly have more Muslims than natives. Cities have no-go zones where native citizens can no longer go, where police fear to enter, allowing foreign law and customs to rule instead.

In our global economy and multi-cultural world, with such ease of transportation and communication, it’s so effortless to lose touch with the land, with our ancestors, and with our culture. It takes effort to reconnect, and having lived in an environment now where people do value and maintain their heritage, history and culture — even as they evolve with the times — I see that the effort to connect pays deep, incalculable rewards. We are all immigrants to varying degrees, but in this rapidly shifting, increasingly virtual world, we need to feel a real sense of belonging — to our communities and to our land, wherever and whatever those mean. We draw strength from those connections, and if we do not have them available from our histories, then we need to nurture them in our present and our future. We will be the next generations’ ancestors.

For my part, I anchor myself on this little plot of land here and by building local community. We are creating our own traditions and reinvigorating older, forgotten ways. I steep myself in stories from the Celts and Norse, tales of Middle Earth, Hollow Earth, Asgard, and Midgard, (Admiral Byrd, please visit me in my dreams … I’ve got some questions!). Over the decades, I’ve come to recognize the Hindu pantheon and stories as originating from the same source as the Celtic and Norse traditions. I study. I sing. I dream, and I create. I anchor myself through detailed past life recollections and through extensive local and global community. I share plant cuttings, trade clothing, and exchange cultures — sourdough, kefir, yogurt. There are so many ways to build connections through time and space.

This post is long, and it’s very late here. The Amish have long since gone to bed with the sun, as at one time, most people on the planet did. I hope my wandering and centering encourages each of you to seek, find and grow deeper roots. We will need them.

Blessed Be … and be the blessing

Street Art for the Heart

Oh, my goodness! These are so cute and delightful that I sent them to our city planner and city council. Thanks for these creations, and thanks to Jamie at Sophia’s Children for the reblog that sent them my way.

Creative by Nature

David Zinn is a street artist from Ann Arbor, Michigan, who turns cracks and dusty corners into surreal fantasy scenes. His imagination spreading out on to the streets of his city, it’s as if characters from children’s books have escaped into the real world, with a mission- to bring smiles, spark imaginations and warm hearts…

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Winter Wonderland Garden Update

First snowfall yesterday! Today, the yard looks like a winter wonderland, in delightful contrast with the lush and flowering indoor garden. Here are some photos to cheer you up on a chilly day. Well, it’s chilly here, anyway! A perfect day for vegan aronia-quinoa-cacao scone biscuits:

 

Flowering geraniums, a budding Christmas cactus, peppermint, a living palm screen, lettuce microgreens, aloe and jade in the southern window of our house:

 

The blue house offers a less sunny southern window for oregano, thyme, parsley, chives, aloe and a tree collard cutting, while Mr. Meyer Lemon seems to prefer my sunny southern office window, along with jade and snake plant companions. The office is still not finished, but at least the plants and crystals are happy!

Tonight we’re making a stir-fry and topping it with these homegrown Chinese artichokes, affectionately known by me as “the little dudes,” which I harvested on Friday alongside these self-sown carrots. Gotta love self-sown carrots! I harvested a few more before the snow arrived.

Chinese artichokes are related to mint and will hopefully be a perennial if I harvested them right. The little dudes grow from the roots, and they taste a lot like water chestnuts. You can eat them raw, as I did yesterday, and we think they’ll make a fun topping to a mixed veggie stir-fry. They required zero work, just a contained plot and some water, until harvest, so I hope the remaining roots prove vigorous enough to grow again next spring.