Simply love Organic: Mourning Doves

Simply love Organic: Mourning Doves: As some of you know I have lost both my brother and my Mother in the past year. With those losses also came the forced loss of my beloved ho...

Mourning Doves

As some of you know I have lost both my brother and my Mother in the past year. With those losses also came the forced loss of my beloved home through a pesticide/herbicide poisoning. With that came the collapse of my health. I can no longer be with people who wear perfume or hairspray or cologne. I am covered in rashes and I have been diagnosed with Ulcerated colitis. There have also been losses of friends. In death and indifference. All in all it has been a refining year, one that showed me clearly my weaknesses and fears. I have come close to the edge of myself, that place of "Where the wild things are." I have felt as wild as the wind on the desolate prairie where I now live...in an RV...without tree's. My emotions have become supersized. My faith has swayed and dropped and fallen into a crack. I have set my gaze to return to that faith time and time again. Without much change in..well anything but that is the very definition of faith I guess. The substance of things hoped for, not seen. Seeing something doesn't take faith, peering through tear stained and pain wracked eyes does. I also lost to cancer one of my dearest friends Tom and now another, beloved Elizabeth has months to live. I stagger with the load and when well meaning people say "Just give it to Jesus" I don't feel very Christian. It's this place of bewilderment, this wandering in the wilderness both literally and metaphorically that I am writing this. To share the meaning of suffering for me and to encourage you in yours. To feel crazy can be very normal during times of intense stress. To grow numb as Novocaine or understand the meaning of "postal" is also normal I am told. Pain brings anger. It is just the facts. Anger at circumstances we cannot control, anger at indifference or judgment from others who HAVE NO CLUE. It's the journey of loss and pain.
So this morning while fighting wind that threatens to flatten my 92 pounds of pain I was momentarily thankful to see two pair of mourning doves come to the feeders that I have hung up to nourish them. Those doves brought me a moment of grace. God used doves to bring peace in the bible. I am praying those visitors with the gentle voice and the black ring around their necks are bringing me a message of peace. To a dry and weary land. I am choosing to believe it is so. It is all I have this day among the pain, a choice. To keep the faith, and keep on keepin on. You too ok? Let's walk it out together.

The gift of Honey/ A lesson from the Bee

Honey is this amazing, golden, delicious and nutritious nectar that when properly gathered from those precious bee's and properly processed it brings so many healthy options for your life!
First of all honey has so many inflammatory properties that it heals skin conditions like magic! Burns, eczema, cuts are all helped. Acne is another skin issue that honey helps. People used to drive over 100 miles to my organic spa because it helped their skin so much. The spa secret ingredient? Honey! Honey and lavender are beautiful ways to soothe and bathe your aches and troubles away! Honey has been proven to be as effective as the more toxic cough suppressant dextromethorphan found in most over the counter cough medicine.
It works beautifully with lemon to ease a sore throat. Soothe a nervous stomach with ginger and honey. Honey is a beautiful gift to give as a hostess gift. Find local honey for allergies. Drizzle honey over organic cheese for a special dish. The only caution I have for the use of honey is to NOT feed honey to a baby under 2 years of age.
Look for honey that is in the raw state. It will be thicker and crystallized. The honey that is liquid and smooth is filtered and will lose many of the healing properties that make honey so valuable.

Remember those beautiful honey bee's this spring and summer. NEVER use ANY pesticides or herbicides in your garden or on your lawn. Plant some of these beautiful plants to nourish and strengthen those bee's.* Never be afraid of a honey bee. They are mild mannered and gentle. Nourish and protect them and they will continue to give us the gift of Honey for years to come.
* plants
Lavender
Mint
Bee Balm
Borage
Thyme


Also know that Honey from China has been found to be contaminated with antibiotics and heavy metals and 75% of honey sold in major supermarkets (Walmart, Target) is missing healthy elements of the honey and is untraceable as to the source. It is better to buy honey from local farmers markets, the bee keepers themselves.

Gardens and grace

I love a garden, any garden. Gardens bring me hope that any problem can be faced. They push through hard soil, freezing barren winters and light up the spring with their little hopeful shoots of glee straining for the light and the warmth. They inspire me, those shoots, they challenge me to care about them, to want to nurture them. In nurturing them, they nurture me. It's this amazing dance of life. When that little shoot becomes a plant and then a flower that has overcome so much to bring it's glory to the garden, to nourish the bees and the birds and the visual nourishment of color and light I am in awe of it's beauty. I will bury my face in it's petals and breath deeply of it's fragrance and marvel at the grace by which GOD grows his garden.

Thankful

"Give thanks" that's what the bible says about life. "Give thanks in all things."  All things Lord? What does that mean? Surely it doesn't mean thanks for the pain or the loss or the grief over an injustice. How can that be from a loving God who wants only good things for his creation? Can that really be true? All things?

What is the answer to my life's questions? More of God in my life. More Jesus, more love, more learning how to roll around in the deep with the maker of my days and not struggle under the weight of the waves that are crashing upon me. More of raising my eyes unto the hills and knowing where my help comes from. My help comes from the Lord. Becoming thankful for all things because I gave God my life. My life is his to do with as he will. To be thankful all of these days, thankful brings witness to grace and grace brings ease of assurance that I am in his hands. Thankfulness is the key to open me to more grace from Gods storehouse of love. It opens the flood gates for the spirit of love to reside in my eyes. That I may see the many gifts he has given. From the light upon the wings of a thousand birds landing in a field to the droplets of rain on a window pane I have eyes to see these things. I have ears to hear the gentle snoring of my loved one beside me, to the sounds of Mozart in the air where I reside, to the laughter of my 86 year old Father who is still with me on this earth. Ears to hear the gifts. To know that my very breath this morning has come from his love and I can know this and feel thankful. I am on a quest to see the grace around me, to know the hand that feeds me, to hear the voice that gently calls my name in the third watch of the night. I am hunger and I am thirst and there is no quenching the fire apart from the grace of thanksgiving. There is no filling of the wine or the breaking of the bread inside the challis of my life with him, apart from thanksgiving. I see lack and he see's plenty. I feel fear and he is faith, I wander and he waits. Only the grace of his presence restores me to sanity again.
I am thankful this morning, this Thanksgiving morning, for the many gifts of his grace. For the wisdom to know that the answer to everything empty and lost is thanksgiving for the one who brings life and heals wounds and bears sin upon a broken body made whole. I am thankful for the table of love that I will be seated at, with loved ones new and old that have brought grace into a tempus storm. On this amazing grace morning I can only raise my eyes to the dawns early light and see the wonder of the gift and say "thanks" in a hushed tone of one long waiting for the answer to the pain. It has been there all the time I wandered lost and weary. The answer is thankful. The answer is grace in thanksgiving. The answer is in the eyes that see.

Amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me, I once was lost but now I'm found, was blind but now I see.

Exquisite Earth

The earth, the exquisite earth, the pull of the earth, the draw of the earth, the sounds, the movement, the light of the earth, the glory of the earth, the smells of the earth, the dance the earth does under the touch of the maker of the earth
I am swept into high places
deep ravines of mysterious wonders
thrown myself into the galaxies
that have made known to me
the majesty
of one so great
I tremble at his feet.

Winter has wrapped me up again

I love the fall. I love the crisp air and the blue skies and the crunching, blazing leaves on the tree's and the soups! I love the sweaters that have been hidden all summer in my closet. I love the sunshine that keeps me warm and the beauty of a soft morning. I love fall and I love a tiny bit of winter too, but just a tiny bit. I love, love Christmas and snow from December 15th through New Years day. I love the sounds of Christmas and the candlelight services and the writing of Christmas cards and the connecting with friends. It's a Wonderful life is the annual Christmas movie under a warm comforter, with a pot of tea. Love that too.
That seems to be where Winter and I part company. I find the long dark nights to be oppressive. I hate waking in the dark and having it be hours before light comes. I hate the early sunsets and the freezing ice under my feet on my morning walk and the layers upon layers that I must wear to keep my skinny butt warm. I hate the dragging feeling that pervades my days. Oh and the longest day of the year (solstice) why can't that be in, oh say, June?
I love to be outside, to garden and to move and winter wraps me up and makes me heavy and lethargic and wanting to be babysat by HGTV. I know, it's pathetic. Oh, and did I mention my Hubby, hates winter even more than I do? So he is a cranky guy in the cold and that makes for a loooong winter too. So Winter is (as my Dad would say upon looking at me at the breakfast table when I was a snarly teenager) "A thing of beauty is a joy forever"

I am trying to look around for beauty and all I am seeing is brown under dirty snow. Brown, beige, blah. I am also wearing beige and my hair is tossed into a bun on top of my unruly head that just wants to go back to bed. It's Noon and I am still just dragging myself around the house. Then I remember that several dear ones passed away before their time this year. They didn't get the privilege of living to experience the promise of a new day. They didn't get to have another chance to make things right with a person your mad at, or help a suffering stranger, or voice a loving thought to a hungry ear. Brown or not I have been given that choice today. No matter how I might feel. So I am choosing to say "Thanks world." I am choosing to go for a walk and listen to the crunching snow beneath my feet and to be thankful for coats that keep me warm and food to fill my belly. I can call my hubby and encourage him and tell him he matters to me. It's this choice to see the pink flower blooming from the Christmas cactus in the living room. Prickly and pink....Nice