All Inked Up

So these are my tattoos.  So far.  They are both located on the inside of the forearm.  I never thought that I would be the type who would get tattoos.  Then one day I was told that some of the symbols and images that I have a habit of drawing on my body should be there in a more permanent way.  Who told me that?  Spirit of course.  These are the first 2 of a few that I will be getting.  They are unique and totally my design, although the tattoo artist can now say that the images belong to her because she has put them on my body, which is her canvas.  I don't really care.  It is not like they will be useful to anyone else who puts them on their bodies.  Not in the same way they are useful to me.  You see, they are not just images.  They access certain energies that then emit from my being.
That is why I have not had any of my power animals tattooed on my person.  I don't want to anchor them when in ethereal format they can move around and leave me and then come back to me energetically.  But these ones actually activate certain energies withing me.  Those energies then get put to use and when they are done they become dormant once again until the next activation. 
I know that this sounds hinky for some.  I don't care.  The proof is in the pudding.
I am happy with them and that is what counts.  Anyone who has a negative opinion about them can keep that opinion to themselves because I don't need their approval at all.  As my eldest daughter says, "At fifty years old, Dad, I would think that you know what you are doing and that this is not just a phase you are going through."  Gotta love that logic!

50 Truths about ME.

1. This was inspired by my friend, Glo.
2. I am not sure how well I will do getting up to number 50, but I thought that when I was 49.
3. I have a huge heart that breaks easily.
4. I have a strong heart when others need strength.
5. I love my daughters from here to the end of the Universe and back.
6. I love my partner to the deepest part of my soul.
7. My absolute best companion is my dog.  She adores me and never disagrees with my wishes.
8. I sing Jazz very well.
9. My voice is best used for healing chants.
10. I like to wear a bit of bling, but always take one piece off before leaving my bedroom in the morning.
11. I love receiving flowers...for no particular reason.
12. I was one of the most incredibly shy children in the world.
13. You would never know that by how I am now.
14. I am still shy and like to have my quiet moments.
15. I think the last one should count as 2 things.
16. I am an artist and I have always been artistic.
17. I think that a creative mind is the only kind that will adapt to circumstances and come out on the other end of change having changed.
18. I like Zen gardens.
19. I like soft music.
20. I like candle light.
21. I play piano.
22. I also play drums and percussion instruments as well as a Shruti Box.
23. I have never had a quiet laugh, which has annoyed many and delighted some.
24. I am almost halfway to 50 and I think that this is going better and faster than I imagined it would.
25. I am a crack shot with pistol, rifle, and FNC1's and FNC2's.
26. One of my many jobs growing up on the farm was to shoot the millions of pesty gophers.  This is why I am still a crack shot.
27. I speak to dead people on an almost daily basis.
28. I don't believe in any religion as much as I connect with every spiritual path.
29. I love to garden and growing flowers in my favorite type of gardening, although I think that there is also a lot of value in growing your own food.
30. I am omnivorous and will eat anything that I define as "food", whether it grows in dirt or moves around on stilts and, yes, I DO know the difference between a pet and a steak on stilts.
31. I enjoy watching TV.
32. Yes, I am a shaman who also enjoys watching TV.
33. I love presenting talks to groups of people and educating folks on how to connect with their OWN path instead of a path that they are told they must follow.
34. I tend to defend people who are underdogs or in some way viewing themselves as powerless to change their situations.
35. This has gotten me into hot water a number of times and I don't care and would still do it again and again until all the idgits of the earth finally get it through their thick skulls that oppressing people is NOT COOL.
36. I have an eye for women's fashion and sometimes help female friends find clothes that work really well on their body types.
37. I wish I was as good at finding men's clothes that look good on me as I am at finding women's clothes that look good on women.  I think I live in the wrong area of the world for that.
38. I used to have very long curly blond hair.  Then I cut it shorter....then I had kids.  You can draw your own conclusions about that one.
39. I often feel that I am not doing enough and that my best is not quite good enough.
40. I have had to learn to stick up for myself as much as I stick up for others....and that has not been easy.
41. I have a belief that people just need to be honest...mostly with THEMSELVES...and then the world would be a much more harmonious place in which to live.
42. In my alternate reality I am a gentle and regal prince who likes to spend his time meditating on an ocean beach at sunset and communicates with a beautiful spirit guide who sets him straight when he is messing with his own mind.
43. I think that my alternate reality is what helps me get through my current reality....many times.
44. I believe in magic as it expresses itself to us through spirit and nature and that it is an avenue to God/Goddess consciousness because it forces us to take responsibility for our own thoughts and deeds.
45. I lost my voice for 16 years.
46. I found my voice when singing lullabies to my babies.
47. I found my courage when I became a father.
48. I found my personal path when I let go of everything that everyone ever taught me about who I was supposed to be and how I was supposed to be that.
49. I am grateful every single day for the many family and friends that I have in my life and whom I love and who I know love me.
50. That's how old I am.  AND I am looking forward to the next 50 as well.

Our Time with Jax

This is my 5 month-old grand nephew, Jax.  The other day his mom and aunties went to a Billy Talent concert and, because 2 of them are from out of town, I got to spend some time taking care of the little guy.  I haven't had a baby to take care of since my youngest was a baby, and that was 14 years ago!
 
It went very well, considering it was the first time that he and I met.  But I knew that we were going to be great friends by the end of it all.  He doesn't like a sling, according to his mom.  But after the first hour of walking him around the house to show him stuff and keep him entertained, I decided that the sling really wasn't for him.  It was for me. So I made a sling out of a massage table sheet that I had.  Then the challenge was to figure out which way he would rest in it best.  After a number of configurations, he finally decided that he liked having his face to my chest the most.  Most likely he liked the sound of the heart beat.  Or maybe he just didn't trust me enough to let me out of his sight.  It is hard to tell.

By the end of the evening he was very ready for his mom to return.  And she did.  Of course, he was all smiles and giggles for her.  That made me feel good.  I didn't want her to feel bad about leaving him with me.  And really, he is a very easy baby.  Babies cry.  Sometimes they get upset for reasons other than fear, like hunger, teething, gas, wet diapers etc.  So once all those things were covered in the arsenal of supplies that she left me, he was able to let out a really good vomit of his bottled breast milk (all over me I might add!) and then get on with having fun singing and dancing (wait a minute....that was ME) and sleeping (that was him).  I also had to have a little talk with him about his tendency to flirt with my girl.  Of course, he is related to me, so I knew that everything that I had to say about that was going to be completely ignored.

I love babies.  They smell good (most of the time) and they are fun to cuddle and kiss and buzz with the lips.  Their giggles are completely contagious and they tend to think that I am the oddest thing that they have ever seen.  And they would be right about that.

I know It's Coming!

Eventually!  Spring will be here.....eventually.  The weather has finally begun to warm up and the 6 foot snow banks in my front and back yards are beginning to melt away.  I am very grateful for the fact that we have a sump pump that we installed 2 years ago.  We are gonna need it!

In the meantime I am preparing myself for the surge that happens to me every spring.  I get the garden goobledygooks!  That's right.  I think that it is somewhat equivalent to, and yet much more mild than, "Farmer Fever".  I am itching to get into the garden and greet the flowers as they pop up and express themselves in the most luscious and aromatic ways.  The bright colors of the Tulips and the deep rich colors of the Monk's Hoods, and everything in between.

I have also decided to put some of my photos of my garden flowers onto canvas!  That way I can enjoy them throughout the year.  I can hang them in my bedroom, in my living room, in my kitchen, in my bathrooms and so on and always have my garden with me.  That just might help me keep my sanity when we get another long and harsh winter like the one we just came through.
I may even decide to sell some of the canvases and share the vibrations of the medicine of flowers with whomever wishes to embrace it.
I am curious is anyone else out there has the garden goobledygooks?

Spirals have often been in my life.  Spirals are actually what make up the cycles of birth, life, death and rebirth.  Since I was a small child I have been attracted to spirals.  I remember the first time that I saw my mother carve a spiral design into the pastry for the top crust of a pie.  It was fascinating!  I then made spirals out of my mud pies, set up my toy towns in spirals, and even began dancing to music in spirals.  Things were completely spiraling out of control!

In winter, I like to make a spiral in the snow to walk.  This winter it has been impossible, as the amount of snow we have received, when piled up, is over my head in places.  Imagine trying to cut a spiral path out of that!  So I have been missing the spirals.

The spiral in this photo, however, is at my front door in a garden ornament that we decided to just leave outside this year.  I love it.  It catches the light and sparkles and shines and reminds me of my spiral nature.  It also gives me hope that next winter may be different in terms of the amounts of snow.  Perhaps I will get my snow peace spiral again...

Farewell Dear Friend!

I have often said that Pumpkin Pie is my favorite desert next to ice cream.....RIGHT next to ice cream!  It continues to be my favorite desert, which is a problem.  You see, I have had to change my eating habits.  This is frustrating.  The first thing that I had to do was to change the groceries I was buying.  If I were living alone, that would not have been such a big deal.  But the reason I am changing my eating habits is because I have found that I have food sensitivities that I did not realize I had.  Ignorance was indeed bliss.....for 49 years!
Now, I realize that I have what is called "Leaky Gut Syndrome"  Sounds just as ugly as it is.
So here I am, for the first time in history, READING LABELS in the store to make sure that stuff doesn't contain dairy, soy, peanuts, corn, sugar, eggs, gluten etc.  It took me three times as long to shop for groceries!  First off, since when is it legal to have ingredients on labels in micro-print????  My neck hurt from positioning myself so that I could see through my bifocals!  Secondly, when it says that something "May contain traces of peanuts", then is it safe or not?  I don't take the chance.  I have found ONE almond butter brand that does not contain ANYTHING other than almonds and water, and I am NOT telling which one it is because the store I get it from is constantly running out of the stuff.  I think others have found it, but I have not found them at the store as yet and when I do there is gonna be a scuffle!  And then there is the moment when, once you have it completely cased as to where you go in which store to find whichever product is compatible with your body.......the STORE REARRANGES THEIR SHELVES!!!!
It feels at times like a three ring circus.  And to top it off, when you are one of more than just one person living in your home, and the other person doesn't need/want to make the switch, it gets costly to by two kinds of things.  The good thing is that we are now down to just a couple of those things.  My Love is perfectly willing to use rice flour instead of wheat flour, and rice pasta instead of gluten pasta.  So that is awesome!  She still "Needs her milk chocolate to keep her color", so I buy milk chocolate for her and Dark Chocolate for me.  Now THAT was an adventure!  Dark Chocolate covered Almonds.  I was completely unsure as to whether or not I would even be able to stomach the bitterness of Dark Chocolate, but I guess that my system had done enough self-diagnostic cleaning that my taste buds had changed.  Even though I had all my wisdom teeth removed last month, before I even had that done (I was convinced that they WERE my sweet teeth), I no longer craved sweet stuff!  So Dark Chocolate it is!
And then there is the fact that I am losing weight in the process!  I knew that there HAD to be some benefits to all this hassle!  Now I need to go and find smaller pants to wear.  Shopping trip, here I come!
As for Pumpkin Pie.....farewell, dear friend!  Until I can find someone who can make you without dairy or soy in the pastry, I will just have to eat your out of the can!

Thunder Storms

I have always enjoyed thunder storms.  The sound of the thunder in combination with the rain has always thrilled me.  A couple of times in my life I have also been extremely close (a few feet at most) from where lightning has struck.  I was never harmed by it.  Mostly it was the tree around me that was hit and toppled.  But it is still quite the thing to see.  

So when I heard the words, "When lightning bursts from the ground you will know the Divine Dance of Power", it struck me as odd.  Since when does lightning burst from the GROUND?  It took years for me to discover that it actually does.

When it did, it was amazing!  Pink and blue lightning burst out of the ground about a mile away.  First on one side and then on the other.  As it did the air took on a strange hue and energy.  The hair on my body stood up and it felt like I was on another planet for a moment.  I was about a quarter mile from my house so it took a little while for me to get inside.  The bursts happened not once but twice.  I can't say I was ever frightened by it.  I was simply enjoying the experience.  It was only later that I thought that, even if I did get toasted, what an amazing way to go that would have been!  I don't know the exact location that it came out of the ground, as it seemed close (about a mile) but who knows?  Human perception can be tricky when it comes to things in the air.  I just feel blessed that I was there in that moment and got to witness it!

Blessed Be

Trent

www.deerhornshamanic.com