Whispers From The Desert

©2012 Danise Codekas
“All my life, my heart has yearned for a thing I cannot name.”--Andre Breton

I spent the afternoon after a meeting, driving around Albuquerque, near Sandia.  There are some meetings which one should never attend for the simple lack of commonality of interests. Yet, one which drives all, simple greed.

One person made it clear that he had to be somewhere else and tried to set the cadence of the discussion. Sitting back, observing, kicked in and I realized, being the only woman present, these guys were not on the same page and they should be as they represented the company.

There have been times in my life when I have regretted walking away from an opportunity, simply because of the beneficial results, for me, personally. This did not apply in this instance since I have changed in the past few months.
A new perspective is in place and should I not follow my gut instinct, higher level of awareness, I am doomed to repeat the lesson over again, until I get it. I am tired of reincarnating. So this is my last lifetime.

Comes a point in most of our lives when we know something or someone is not right for us. You can dress the situation in a million illusionary scenarios, yet until you are at the table or with that person, you really have no ideas what your read will be on them/it.
I can carry along for so long in a situation like that and then my mind begins to wander, or finds it necessary to get up and walk out of the room.

I like people. Like them around me, talking to them, sharing a meal, going out, visiting their home. Yet, there are some who represent a silence once maintained, when I was too immature, too in awe of, to walk away from at the time.

We have limits to what or who we can tolerate. There will always be people who challenge our comfort levels. That may stop once, you have morphed into the perfect human being, and at that point, you will either seek to be revered as a god/dess or escape to a place of peace.

Asking myself the question as to why I embarked on this journey becomes redundant, as the answer will not reveal itself until it appears before me. So many are in pain now. Live in fear of the next moment or day.
Seeing it in their faces, which we have the opportunity to do daily either face-to-face, via the media, or across the internet, throws me into a state of gratefulness for all that I have now.

Friends still question my sanity about the drastic moves taken to divest myself of many lovely things, get in the car and drive away from all that had been my world for a number of years. More stuff will come, new friends, new locations. Not concerned about those things. That is the world. This is something else, someone else.
The View From My Home – Looking North to Olympic Mts. and Vancouver B.C.

Strange place I find myself in as I’ve led such a solitary life for a while, except animals or visitors. Since I left Steilacoom and my place above the Puget Sound, the only time I’ve been alone is in hotels. May 12th is when I handed over the keys and drove off.
“And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.”—William Shakespeare

It has been 2 months that I’ve been on the road, staying with friends or family. My first degree program was Anthropology. This experience has placed me in the role as an Urban Anthropologist. Seeing how people live, how their relationships change and grow, satisfies that other degree of Communications/ Sociology. Put them together, and my mind and energy is being fed continuously because these people are wonderful.

Kindness, craziness, and a roof above. I’ve traveled so much in my life, leaving home when I was 15 to live in Argentina, with people I did not know, shifted my perceptions, as all travel does. Now, older, still learning about myself, I find an incomparable experience, one which others have traveled seeking, for millennia. 

I am being led somewhere, to someone, something which rests in the mists of my journey. Unexpected, unplanned roads, people arise before me, frequently now.
Each has a message, or is a period at the end of a sentence which confirms the lessons I learned before they arrived, or, the sentence clears an incorrect perception for me.


At this point in time, major evolutionary shifts are recognized by Hopi, Aztec, Maya, Navaho, Buddhist, Jewish, The Seven Tribes… need I go on naming them? It is not the end of the world. It is the beginning of using the knowledge we’ve gained in the past 5,000 years that brings us to a cross point in evolution.

If you continue doing things which bring you harm, deny love to those you are drawn to, turn away from your life’s mission by silencing your soul for another 5,000 years, then you will join the group who resonate to your fear, guilt and sorrow.

Hopefully, you are listening to what you know is the truth for you. You won’t have a long time to decide if you want something, or if there is someone, you know resonates to you, that you finally acknowledge. Denying yourself that which you have yearned for, asked for, prayed for which now has been brought into your orbit, may cause you to lose it, forever. Some might say we are addicted to our seeking. When it arrives, that which we’ve yearned for our entire lives, some keep walking. They do not know how to stop.

What will they become if they do attain that which they desire?
You understand that this new paradigm, the end of the 4th world as the Hopi call it, places everything you want and need in your hands for the evolution of your life. You see people’s lives change swiftly, radically, at a force, dimension and transparency which is breathtaking.
 http://motherearthfathersky.org/hopi-prophecy/#.UCSh8qA0-So

And, it is amazing to experience. We all know something incredible is taking place in our lives, and yet, so many still believe it is an illusion.
I know when someone is looking at me, as if I did not exist. In the past, I may have gone toe-to-toe with them to make them look at me. I do not bother, any longer. It really was always my perception of who I was, which gave me a ghost-like presentation in those instances. Does not matter any longer, since the universe hit me over the head a few times.

I chose the experience of almost dying about 6 or 7 times. Others choose financial ruin, destruction of family, ending a love relationship, or what ever it takes to slap them awake and bring them into present being, fully consciously aware of their purpose, passion and self-worth to the species.

“There is only one admirable form of the imagination: the imagination that is so intense that it creates a new reality, that it makes things happen.”--Sean O'Faolain

Guilt has no place in your personal belief system, any longer.You and I know when we are doing something against nature or ourselves. It is part of our DNA, it is how we are wired. Everything I have done in my life, brought me to this point, this awareness. I cannot deny my Self. Perfection was never a goal. Understanding, health, love, joy, comfort lay at the base of my seeking across the planet.

Always, I have believed that I was sent/came here to be happy. Always, I have known that someday a man would appear and we would know. Some have called me a fool, and in their eyes, I am but thank god, I am not them.

I was guided to this place in the Southwest. It was not planned until a week or so before I handed over the keys to the house. You know when you’re a little scared, yet you have to take the chance or you will never have it again? That has been my guidance for these 2 months. I take the chance, turn off the “NO” voice, and it has proven to be an incredible journey.

Traveling, I am. This is not the final destination and there will be someone or something guiding me, directing, taking me to the next place on the map. I have no other way of explaining it to you. Yet, you understand clearly what I mean. We are all being challenged to drop the roles, the false personae, the excuses based on fear: the diluted, out worn fabric of our lives which no longer hides us from one another.

“As love without esteem is capricious and volatile; esteem without love is languid and cold.”--Jonathan Swift

You know immediately, when you meet someone, either in virtual or real life, if there is a connection, a resonance. Doesn’t take long to figure out anymore, does it? Marvelous possibilities arise, and yet, so many run from them because they see them through old, painful memories which exist in the mind. Change your mind, change your life.

So, my wish is that my game-playing ceases to exist with you. There are moments when I fall into an old pattern. Does not last long. Seconds, minutes when I realize I am responding out of guilt or fear. Thankfully, they are infrequent now. I do not want to run away from the most transformative moments of my life, when they are offered.

There is no room for fear, of what someone thinks of you, if you know who you are and are truthful with them. Wouldn’t you like to be with someone who is truthful with you? If you do, then you must resonate that in everything you do. Pay attention to the signals and symbols the universe is placing before you.

The universe always wins. It has phenomenal energy to persist eternally, or until you realize, this package is for you. Be brave. Open it. Rip into it. It could be the only chance you shall ever have in this lifetime.

“And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.”--Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Writers and Cobras

©2012 Danise Codekas

Surely all art is the result of one's having been in danger, of having gone through an experience all the way to the end, to where no one can go any further. (Rainer Maria Rilke)

When I was looking for inspiration today I came across a book by Elizabeth George, Write Away. Elizabeth has won all types of writing awards from France, Germany and the US. I remember one statement she made which goes something like, ideas are alive if you are awake to them.

With all the input we receive daily from people and experiences in our lives, Internet info, Twitter and Facebook communications, sometimes it is difficult to follow a random thought, a good idea, with all the overload we accumulate.

Daily I write 1500 words. Twitter or Facebook does not count.  Sometimes the ideas are not coherent, sexy or a fount of knowledge. I do not edit or feel guilty when I am done, and should, at life's end, someone come across the millions of words scribbled, over my lifetime, I ask they burn them, if they read any of them at all.

As I meet new people, I wonder sometimes if they are the type of person who would enjoy reading any of my dribbles. There are some people, I have encountered, who I would prefer they not read anything I wrote.

There are very many people who have become friends across the Internet, with me. People I would enjoy spending time with, over a meal, or even travel with for a while.

-Letters to a Young Poet
May you gain more and more confidence in what is difficult and in your solitude among other people. (Rainer Maria Rilke)

 

Writers are solitary personas, for parts of their lives. Closing a door, sitting down and writing in silence, for hours, can be wearing on another person, who lives with you.

On the other hand, relationships survive, because one of the partners is an artist. I have never lived with a man, in an intimate relationship, who I could write around. Writing Time was something that was interruptible;  my request that one had to wait, until I was done, with the next sentence or page, met with resistance.

I didn’t know myself, well enough then, as an artist. I also did not realize how deeply an artist feels passion and drive, when they are creating. I do now and could live with another artist, or visionary or creator, since I understand the need to close the door, and travel to a far off location alone, in the mind or physically. I am not afraid to close a door, nor for someone to walk out a door to pursue the Muse.

What we call fate does not come into us from the outside, but emerges from us. (Rainer Maria Rilke)

However, the patience to endure interruptions was a lesson I needed to learn. Life happens and interruptions bring me to amazing adventures, more and more. I do understand the need for attention. We all want attention, sometimes.

I am also a photographer and think nothing of stopping the car, or changing a flight because there is something drawing me to that location, that vista, that opportunity to meet a mystic, healer or a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Rushing around a country, trying to see every museum or natural wonder is not comfortable for me. Can I do it? Yes, and I have within groups, or with one other person.

Trained as a communications sociologist, an urban anthropologist, demand I sit in a cafe, on a public square and watch or begin conversations with the person at the next table. How else do you gain a perspective, of where you are at, if you do not engage in conversations with strangers?

“When you look at some faces, you can see the turbulence of the infinite beginning to gather to the surface. This moment can open in a gaze from a stranger, or in a conversation with someone you know well. Suddenly, without their intending it or being conscious of it, their gaze lasts for only a second. In that slightest interim, something more than the person looks out.” –John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom.

I once was on a trip to Southern India, with 15 people. One of them was a nurse, who had never been to India. During the flight and overnights in Thailand and Calcutta, she told people that cobras could crawl up pipes into toilets.

Part of the travel adventure for me is observing what other people, around me do, when confronted with unexpected events on the road. The loss of a passport, the cancellation of a flight, injuries requiring medical assistance, and, being stopped by military troops and questioned.

Watching her preconceived ideas take root in some of the group members' minds, was disconcerting, as she was injecting fear without cause and dimming the fun for a few. As karmic payback goes, I was able to witness her reaction, when a village boy, with a large woven basket, removed the top and held it up to her, as she sat in a human-pulled rickshaw. She would not walk, in the village streets, because of the possible diseases from refuse.

Her fear of snakes was realized when an entrancing, black cobra, raised its body above the basket lip, and hissed in her face. Screaming, at the boy, and the man pulling her rickshaw, she escaped  from black cobra and smiling village boy.

I stood their mesmerized, looking at the Cobra. A group of village men gathered round the boy and me, quickly.  He dumped black Cobra, in the dirt, before me.Cobra began hissing, which sounded like a low growl of a dog, and I stopped breathing.

I was a captive, in ancient Phoenician, Celtic, Egyptian and Hindu myths, as the Cobra’s black scales glistened in the sunlight, staring at me, possessing me, and probably part of my soul, too. Incredible moments. I saw its soul, too. Yes, that serpent had a soul and it is expressed in its eyes. Like all creatures, yes?

It began undulating to the hand movements, of one of the men.  I was awestruck as it expanded its neck, wider and wider. It coiled and danced up to my knee height,  and then it stopped and we stared at one another, neither of us moved.

The little boy touched my arm, as he bent down and gathered this sentient being, of ancient history. Boy asked, "you are not afraid? You like?" All I could do was nod my head and smile back.

Consciousness returned slowly. The village men spoke, then began laughing, about "the other American lady" who ran away.

Still in a bit of a trance, I asked why were they laughing.  Seems, the Cobra had its poison sacs removed/milked when it was young. It became the village's good luck charm, the embodiment of King Cobra. It could bite, but its venom, which is enough to kill 20 humans, or one elephant, was not present. It was the village pet.

This is in the end the only kind of courage that is required of us: the courage to face the strangest, most unusual, most inexplicable experiences that can meet us. (Rainer Maria Rilke)

Hindus in India celebrate Nagpanchami, on July 30th.Snake God, fascinated me and I find myself, wishing to go to the Ajanta Caves, which are a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Snake God is represented throughout the caves. Bruno Poppe has taken incredible pictures of the Ajanta caves. This link directs you to his gallery, at the UNESCO site: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/242/gallery/

Later, that afternoon, while enjoying siesta time, with 3 German travelers, on my hotel balcony, the hotel manager and his wife joined us.

I retold my morning adventure story, and the Indian couple began laughing, when they heard about the nurse's belief that cobras would crawl up sewer lines, into toilets. Screens are installed in the water pipes. Cobras do swim, however, they cannot live in water. They like trees, branches and grass. They are the only reptile that builds nests.

Yet, that night, upon awakening, I did crawl to the end of my bed and jump across the floor, to the bathroom, with trepidation.King Cobras' power and powerful eyes, shall remain in my memory, forever. Yes, there was a bit of love shared with the Cobra. He was magnificent and a tribute to the power that creates life.

“The heart is the inner face of your life. The human journey strives to make this inner face beautiful. It is here that love gathers within you. Love is absolutely vital for a human life. For love alone can awaken what is divine within you. In love, you grow and come home to your self. When you learn to love and let yourself be loved, you come home to the hearth of your own spirit. You are warm and sheltered.” –John O’Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom.

TV Interview Surprise

©2012 Danise Codekas

Surprised, today, when NBC Affiliate News, Channel 4, in Albuquerque, interviewed me. Don’t know if it will air at 5PM or later tonight. On the other hand, the news director could pull the spot. I just hope the cameraman did not include my hips in the shots. I look horrible on video tape, at least I always thought so. However, I did give a good interview about the advantages for me, in the New Mexico job market, as a Writer/Editor.

Life is sweet sometimes and glad I pulled myself out of the house this morning. Wanted to stay home and write, since the deadline for the poetry book looms darkly ahead. I cannot get over the internal voice that keeps pushing me to finish these 2 books.

I am an Op-Ed columnist for www.thenewandroid.net, so, I also need to finish the next editorial piece, I’ve been researching.

As I move closer to finishing, and away from the fear factor of you reading a book of poetry and a non-fiction work, about MEN, events happen which help to support me. I accept the fact that both of these books are going to be published, soon.

Probably the same mix of attempt at perfection and time to release it, for anyone who is creative and re3ady to move onto the next project. Started outlining the next book, already.

You get to the point where you let it roll and the only thing that can adjust your focus is a surprise, or a visit from someone you are not expecting.

I do not think that at this time I can say there are no worries, following me across the Sandia Mountains, however, I will say there is a sense of being in the right place, for now. Especially after being the swimming pool on Sunday. Lord, I love to swim and that water was perfect temperature. A pool does cut down on missing being around the Pacific Ocean.

Last night had a call from a friend who offered me a place back in the Pacific NW, if I want to head back there. My response was “thanks”. For now I need to pursue whatever I am doing here.

There is nothing I can add to this realization except there is no indication, internally, to move on. The next indicted thing has not arisen on my path. Whatever there is here for me to absorb, whoever it is I am here to meet, whatever work I am to do here to expand my life and sense of well-being, well, those things are in process now.

There is a recording tape running in my mind, for all that I am seeing and hearing here in the Southwest. The only judgment I have reached here is I miss water, large bodies of water.

 

Just Rolling In The Deep is playing (a propose)  on one of my favorite Hilo stations, KKBG-FM.

Synchronicity becomes the norm now, for me and I hope,  for many of you. The right place, at the right time. You cannot plan it, however, you do need to be open to follow that little voice in your head, when it tells you to get up, go down that street, wait and speak to this stranger, pack your bags and go, get in touch with that person on-line.

You know that voice. It is you, talking, you know. In that head of yours, however, motivated by something in the area of your gut and heart. Jump on it. You get a moment, sometimes, before it disappears in the ethers.

I would love to get some technical writing, documentation work soon, so I can continue writing without worrying about…well, you know.

A challenge is what I hope to find in the work environment,  with some good people who are dedicated and working on projects which are intriguing and powerful change factors in the world. Have wanted to work on a space project, like SpaceX or Virgin Galactic, for a long time. Nothing in my field, yet.

I guess that seat on a trans-planetary flight draws me in. Too bad the Concorde stopped flying. To see the curvature of the earth would have been a lifetime memory.

Don’t fall into depression for too long, or dissatisfaction with this work you are involved with now. Look at it as a leap to the next level of your creativity. It sucks when you cannot see the sky because of the clouds. That is the way it is sometime. At least, if you can see the cloud cover, you know you are close to coming through, the other side of the cloud.

Synchronicity and unplanned events are all coming into our lives now. The speed they arrive astounds me, when I let go of preconceived ideas as to how my plans are to be carried out. Things happen in universal time and conditions. I forget that I am carbon-based, physical being, not just mind and gut.

I am working on 3 chakras, now. My 2nd, 3rd and 5th. Here is a guide from www.mindbodygreen.com which explains where I am opening, blocking, and the issues surrounding the 3 chakras I am dealing with in a new location, a new lifestyle, initiated 2 months ago. I know how to keep balanced, after years of training, with the Tibetan monks and other wise beings.  Maybe you should think about what is tightening up in your body, the area that tightening is experienced, and see what it means based on the insert below.

Being conscious of the effects, of your daily life and thoughts,  in your body and psyche, and relating it to one of the 7 areas below, might help you understand what is going on at another level of consciousness. Don’t laugh. I know some of you like to make fun of this stuff, however, it was written about thousands of years before you re-appeared on the planet.

1. Root Chakra - Represents our foundation and feeling of being grounded.
Location: Base of spine in tailbone area.
Emotional issues: Survival issues such as financial independence, money, and food.

2. Sacral Chakra - Our connection and ability to accept others and new experiences.
Location: Lower abdomen, about 2 inches below the navel and 2 inches in.
Emotional issues: Sense of abundance, well-being, pleasure, sexuality.

3. Solar Plexus Chakra - Our ability to be confident and in-control of our lives.
Location: Upper abdomen in the stomach area.
Emotional issues: Self-worth, self-confidence, self-esteem.

4. Heart Chakra - Our ability to love.
Location: Center of chest just above heart.
Emotional issues: Love, joy, inner peace.
More on Heart Chakra healing

5. Throat Chakra - Our ability to communicate.
Location: Throat.
Emotional issues: Communication, self-expression of feelings, the truth.

6. Third Eye Chakra - Our ability to focus on and see the big picture.
Location: Forehead between the eyes. (Also called the Brow Chakra)
Emotional issues: Intuition, imagination, wisdom, ability to think and make decisions.

7. Crown Chakra - The highest Chakra represents our ability to be fully connected spiritually.
Location: The very top of the head.
Emotional issues: Inner and outer beauty, our connection to spirituality, pure bliss.
--excerpt from http://www.mindbodygreen.com

Well, need to get back to the ranch to get ready for my Albuquerque film debut, on Channel 4, this evening. Jeeze, my hair was a mess, too, and I forgot they were filming and just went on and on. Thank you, UC Berkeley for all those TV film/video classes, I had to take and made videos for… I Forgot everything about on-screen delivery.

What Are You Waiting For?

©2012 Danise Codekas

Strange time for many of you. Glad to see I am not alone in these transitions taking place in my life, and mind. My ideas about myself are changing.

My reactions to situations, have changed in the last 3 months, as my life moves forward, even though to some, my life appears to be stalled in a cosmic paradigm, they cannot relate to. A parting of the ways for many of us now, yes? 2012, huh?

It was never going to be the end of the physical world. It is an end time, as written about,  and predicted in numerous indigenous cultures, in futuristic prophecy, and religious writings.

(photo credit-Great Salt Lake,Scott Stringham)

What I was not prepared for, and perhaps you, too,  was that our beliefs about ourselves, our work, families, friends, geographic locations on the planet, have been challenged, removed as possibilities or realities, in my case, and replaced by deep, personal introspection which leads to actions, unexpected, and upheaval, to that which was the norm of our lives.

There are moments when I do not know what to do, so I wait for those moments to pass. It is not a time to hold back your wishes and desires until the right time. The time is now to fulfill them, seek them out. Create our new lives. This moment in universal evolution is for us to kick off the old skins, and blast , physically, into the unimaginable wonder of our desires.

I put my head down, close my eyes and take a breath. Sitting here at the Flying Star, opening my eyes, realizing I am here for a non-profit event for the Corrales Library Fund. 10% of all our dinner purchases, tonight, are donated to the library.

What I like about the Corrales Library is that it is self-supporting, funded by the residents of Corrales, NM. It is not part of the county or state library system. A private library, located in a wonderful, Southwestern, architectural conformation, which has been through a number of design enhancements, as the years pass.

Independence is a highly respected and rampant demeanor  demonstrated by the neighbors of Corrales, NM. The way the community supports one another, in the artists’ ability to survive and their studios, and the way business is conducted, whether purchasing a pottery business, started decades ago, or selling property, which is mostly farm land, ranches, wineries and adobe homes.

I did find a wonderful ranch/home in Los Ranchos de Albuquerque, when I got lost driving to the Albuquerque Museum of Art. And the bonus of getting lost in the villiage of Los Ranchos was finding out that their Lavender Festival is this weekend, along with the dinner dance and auction, Friday night. Lavender Festival Los Ranchos de Albuquerque.

Lavender farming, and production  is one of my passions,  and I travel to France  to spend time in the fields, of Grasse and Eze, to learn about the different uses and growing methods,  and observe perfume production. My next trip to Europe will include a sojourn to Corsica, to live and learn about organic, lavender farming,  for a few weeks. Corsica has a high number of flower and herb farms, and organic growers populate the island off the coast of Nice.

I lived about 100 miles , SE of Sequim, WA. which is the largest, lavender production farm area, in the US. This proximity to the farms, over the past years, has helped me to observe and learn a little about lavender farming.

The Sequim Lavender Festival is next weekend, July 20-22, 2012:  http://www.lavenderfestival.com/lavenderfest.html .

There may be no hotels available, as people come in from all over the world, to see new production equipment, observe growing methods, and discuss the politics of farming, water and government restrictions around the world.

Anything you can imagine using organic lavender for, including coffee, ice cream and wine is there for sale at the farms,with great bands, and some of the best crab in the world. Dungeness is a few miles west of Sequim. Yes, Dungeness Crab!

Sequim also has many organic wineries in the area. It is a ferry ride away from Victoria, BC., and sits at the base of the Olympic National Park. Here are some festival pics, http://www.lavenderfestival.com/maingallery

The discordance of the blog, today, I don’t apologize for, as there is a point. Wherever I go, in the world, there is always someone I meet along the way, or an event that is happening, which puts me in touch with myself, and restores a sense of balance to my solo travelling show. Finding out that lavender farming is here, and thriving, leads me to believe that there is another reason I am visiting this area, that was totally unexpected. Lavender connects me to earth. This earth.

“Good girls like myself need subversion. Being solemn, I aspire to comedy. Being a novelist, I aspire to the musical. Being organized, I aspire to luminous chaos. Loving the power of grammar and the fine distinctions of language, I seek the part of the mind I didn't know was there, the part 'sheer,' 'no-man fathomed,' 'cliffs of fall.” --― Janet Burroway

At this time in my life, this is what I am doing. I am living in the Santa Fe area, meeting people, writing, spending time capturing nature and art in photos, and trying to find some great people to work with, while I am here.

Footloose, would be the correct description, yet I am more in tune with my heart and my work, than ever before. Writing becomes impossible to ignore, for one day. One of my favorite quotes about writing:

“Writing isn’t hard; not writing is hard.”—Janet Burroway. Andre Dubus III appends, “that is only true if you’re a writer.”

So, I hope you understand what I need to do now. You will, if you are feeling like walking out that door, jumping in the car or a plane seat,and going where you a dreaming of now.

You can visit if you feel like heading this way. We can have dinner and watch the Sandia Mountains fade into the moonlight.

“Don't dread. Do.”-Janet Burroway

Ground-Hitched? Yes or No?

©2012, Danise Codekas

“My turning point was my pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. It was then that I, who had dedicated most of my life to penetrate the 'secrets' of the universe, realized that there are no secrets. Life is and will always be a mystery.”--Paulo Coelho

 

The last thing any of us want to see is unexpected, unplanned change occur in our lives. We have desires that supersede anything the universe has in store for us.

(Photo-Moab,UT. Store closed years ago, by owner, and no one is allowed to enter to remove items from shelves.)

We are humans and since the beginning of time have thought we should be able to control our environment, execute our plans without interference, and see successful completion of our work. Is this is a healthy outlook?

I do not think so.

 

 

Photo-Moab,Williams Drug Co,1902-1956

Sometimes surprises arrive in our lives, without reason.

Awareness that they will occur should be kept in the Wise Section of your Pandora’s box. The last thing left in her  jar (box) was Hope.

All the possible good, by some accounts, were set free, out of man’s controlling hands forever. So, we struggle for those things that bring us joy and sustenance. And battle the unknowns.

There are times when what we desire , arrives, only to be questioned, denied and, at times, let go.

(Photo-Moab, Originally Williams Drug Co., as it sits today, Closed. Would love to open a Bistro and Wine Bar, here. Wouldn’t you?))

 

 

 

 

 

You can see that in your relationships, work, and even the car you just bought. To just accept things as they are takes practice.

I pay attention when a stranger interrupts my musing and says something which, although it might sound crazy, could be a trigger to a belief, or ego-centered liability, I am ignoring. Who would I be if I let go of the self-centered ideas I have about myself? Who would you be?

Labels we append to our names, like author, publisher, psychologist, inventor, politician are not who we are, but where we direct our energy and creativity. Stripped of all labels, who are you?

The adjectives we believe about ourselves: good person, honest, kind, loving,  are for the present moment only. Threatened, abused, or lied about, ignites other thoughts, not so kind, that we direct toward the perpetrators. So, the forgotten labels are revived?

Sometimes, not knowing why you are here on the planet, creeps into the mind, and who are you, now? Nothing but flesh and bones? Where does that type of consistent thought process lead? To destruction of our lives, suicide, committing atrocities against others? Sometimes.

If I were to list the horrible news of the day, which creep across the headlines, the intriguing destruction of the Holmes-Cruise marriage by religious differences, for instance, I remind myself to look behind the story to see what is really happening, in the world which is camouflaged by the Scientology-Cruise conflagration.  Is it a reflection of what we, as co-existing beings on this planet, are experiencing at some level, in our own lives?

One of the best movies, I viewed,  during the Clinton-Lewinsky reveal , was Wag The Dog. http://nyti.ms/OeTXiv

Layers upon layers of revelations occur everyday around us and in our lives. The wife that awaits her husband return, at night, and tells him she is leaving because she knows he is unfaithful. Surprise? Sure. Denials, recriminations, hours of arguing and finally, both give up and go their separate ways. I have seen it and always am surprised that the partner who is unfaithful is surprised to be found out.

The woman who begins a flirtation at the office, which morphs into a relationship, and the partner who begins to feel that something is wrong, yet, cannot see the truth of the situation. Why do we put each other through these games? Do we think we can win, by deceit?

Yes, I know, some do win. However, I believe in paybacks from the universe. Not by the same person who was deceived, but in another situation, at another time.

Walking away from our desires, our dreams can be difficult, yet always another arises, doesn’t it? Another dream may include the old desire, with new wisdom garnered on how to procure it, with the awareness that anything can arrive from the universe, with surprise.

(Photo- On Road to Puye Cliff Dwellings, NM)

“The two worst strategic mistakes to make are acting prematurely and letting an opportunity slip; to avoid this, the warrior treats each situation as if it were unique and never resorts to formulae, recipes or other people's opinions.”--Paulo Coelho

 

 

The second language I learned was Latin. Wise, in Latin is translated as  Sapiens, sensible, and Prudens, prudent. To be wise, in Latin, is also Peritus, experienced. So a wise person is sensible, prudent and experienced. My third language was French, and wise can be translated as sage, prudent and discreet. Spanish, my fourth, translates wise as Sabiduria, having common sense.

Where am I going with this? It comes down to basics, doesn’t it? Listen to the inner voice, connected to your heart. Don’t turn the anger into fear, or visa versa. Figure out what you want, need, and make your needs known. Do not live in silence with another. No one can read your mind or your heart.

True, there are some incredible sages, yogis and saints on the planet who can tap into you with remarkable wisdom. However, you have to be open enough to want to hear that information laid before you. That takes courage and what you do with the information, which another can help you to see in you, is up to you. Free-will universe.

(Photo-Ladder Climb Out of Puye to Mesa Top)

“Freedom is not the absence of commitments, but the ability to choose--and commit myself to--what is best for me.”--Paulo Coelho

 

 

 

There are times in my life when I do not know what to do, so I wait, I write, and try not to be overcome with what other’s think, I should be doing with my life. I fail, have failed and will continue to challenge myself, and fail again. It is part of the trek across the cosmos, up one ladder and down another.

Not every road I take leads me to Nirvana, or the bucket of gold at the end of the rainbow. However, to not take a step, once I can lift my foot and proceed, would be to battle myself, and that is just stupid.

Those footprints in the sand, you left at the last beach, or on a ladder in a high desert mesa, are gone now. Your energy entered that space and will always be reflected in those particles of sand and crystal remaining behind.

You and I cannot live every moment of our lives remembering every thing we say, do, think and traverse, are affected by our presence, unless you’re a physicist or a yogi. That is how powerful we are as beings in the cosmos.

I like the Spanish verb mistificar, to perplex. That is what life is doing to us, every day, perplexing us. In doing so, we are inspired, led down pathways which call to us, talking to strangers who share a phrase which sparks a self-inquisition, and nudge us to walk through the challenge before us.

Or, we find the answer and accept its meaning in our lives. Hence, you and I will find, hopefully,  life to be esse in pretio, (to be prized) as the historian Livy (59 B.C.-A.D. 17) and the poet,  Ovid ( 43 B.C.-A.D. 17) agreed upon.

Unfortunately, Ovid was banned to a fishing village on the Black Sea and died there, and Livy remained a friend of Emperor Augustus. Two different men, yet both believing life is to be prized.

So, whatever is wreaking havoc in your life right now, take a deep breath and try to discern if you should be looking for a different way, a new place to go, a release of whatever it is you are holding on to which is keeping you stuck.

Sometimes you have to let go, or stop trying to change those things, or people, who do not understand who you are now. Look at what is before you, not what is behind you. Remain in present time. If you want to remain ground-hitched, there is nothing to do but wait.

 

(Ground-hitched describes a horse standing as though hitched with reins on the ground. Horses are trained this way out here in the Southwest, and don’t be surprised to have to walk back to the corral, without the horse) Surprise.

Independence: Into the Unknown

© 2012, Danise Codekas

So, if the planet is dying, are you going to grab a seat to an outer planet? Been thinking about the possibility, that is now a reality, the more flights and advances SpaceX makes, as a private, commercial carrier into outer space, that I just might buy a seat on that space flight,  from Elon Musk.

Leaving the population area of Seattle-Portland-Vancouver corridor, I realized how much I like peace and quiet, however, I also have tremors about never returning to earth, should I take off in a SpaceX seat. However, that is true for any time you leave home. You may never return.

Critical mass extinction grows as our numbers expand, human, animal and bacterium. At the same time, knowledge on how to save the planet expands, also. Side by side, life/death, extinction/expansion walk together into the future.

No one knows what is going to actually happen, however, their influence on your psyche, as to what to believe, how to live, can turn the tide toward annihilation or integrated balance of needs, space and peaceful co-existence.

Driving across this side of the North American continent, 3 times in the past 2 months, gave me a lot of re-adjustments in my thinking about what is really endangered out here from Seattle to Los Alamos.

Farming, water, fighting over wind energy costs vs. benefits, lack of food for animals because of the droughts, local restaurants that what to serve local, organic grown produce cannot find farmers who can fill their orders, and fast food restaurants advertising for help as people leave small town areas because of lack of work, failure of their ability to pay mortgages.

Selling off farm animals, and large acreage,  because they cannot feed the livestock, because of the drought which inhibits their ability to water their lands, and prohibitive costs of shipping in feed, due to gas prices. I see the connectedness of my food chain, to weather, the economy, closure of schools because families are migrating to urban areas hoping to find employment.

If there is one thing that will be said about this depression, and it is one, it will be the migration rates in population over the past 3 years, which continues as fewer areas provide jobs for current populations.

There are not that many large cities between Albuquerque and Seattle. Driving two different routes, twice, there is Seattle, Portland, Yakima, Pendleton, Boise, Twin Falls, SLC, Provo, (may as well include those 3 together, as it is one long industrialized-residential strip along routes 84 and 15), Farmington, Gallup, then the smaller towns in between, like Moab, Green River, and Cortez. 

Lots of mountains, desert, plains and miles of land, stretching out like the Atacama desert, with no human in sight, except the fellow travelers along the road.

Sometimes I wished to be back in the big city. Almost took a left, at SLC, the first time I drove back to Gig Harbor, so that I would end up next to San Francisco Bay. I wanted to smell the ocean, feel the dampness of the fog on my body, after driving for 3 days across the Southwest.

However, the thought of driving across Nevada desert, when I could be climbing Snoqualmie Pass, and be sitting at my favorite bistro across from the Gig Harbor Marina, gave me clarity and the will to drive on. On the way across the Pass, rain tested my wipers’ speed. It was a welcome back to the Pacific NW which I shall never forget.

And yet, here I am again, in the Southwest. When I drove into Gallup, it started pouring rain. Last night, for the first time in months, a storm came through Albuquerque, bending trees and sage bushes, dark, mysterious skies, and finally the sky could not hold back and let the storm rip overhead. Appreciate rain is something that I will remember to do, when I depart the Southwest.

This is a place I have wanted to experience for a long time. It is a dream of mine to live in a geodesic dome home, and here, near Santa Fe is where I imagined the dream to evolve into reality. It is still a dream, however, whether it is here or not, is not important since living here for a few weeks, in the past 2 months, between trips, has satisfied my curiosity about my ability to enjoy the environment, and how my body would respond.

My body feels good here, today. No aches, pains or any other glitches which I am aware of when living in the wetness of the Pacific Northwest. I am on an exploratory journey, again, trying to find that place, or a few places, which work for me physically, emotionally, creatively and humanly.

If I do not explore them now, check them off the list, or keep them on, I fear unhappiness and restlessness will continue to grow, as it did the least few years living in the Pacific NW.

A friend wrote today that we are all experiencing blowouts in our lives, professionally and personally. He listed some of the agitated reactions that are being observed by him with himself and his family and friends. People are reaching for something new and they are not sure what it is, he says.

I think we are all expanding our lives, and we create the opportunities to do so, throughout our lives. At this point in history, so many more of us are communicating the changes we create and blast them across our social networks with speed and immediacy.

The ability to do so, at lightening speed,  has never occurred in human history. These changes affect us intensely, because we are able to experience and explain them, immediately, across the planet to friends, family and strangers, with pictures. Thank you, Vinton Cerf and Tim Berners-Lee.

So, in some ways I consider my migration a success, and in other ways a failure. Balanced, I am in that in order to know whether something will work or not, you have to do it, go there, experience it, say it, write it, build it, film it, sing it, paint it, photograph it and then share it with the world. Quietly successful until perfection occurs, could take forever.

Input from others assists when I falter, doubt myself, doubt the process. Cogitating advice from others takes place, however, the next move comes from a feeling, an urge inside me. I learned, long ago, not to blame anyone else for the way I am designing my life. When I come to a fork in the road, sometimes I can go both ways, and in that a new way evolves.

So, Elon, save me a seat on that off-planet, vacation shuttle you have parked in your garage. Next September would be perfect, or even the New Year’s Eve flight for 2012.

"Failure is an option here. If things are not failing, you are not innovating enough." –Elon Musk

Or, as one of my ancestors once wrote, in a similar, 500-400 B.C., mindset,

“There is in the worst of fortune the best of chances for a happy change.”--EURIPIDES, Iphigenia in Tauris

http://www.facebook.com/danisecodekas

How Do You Create?

©2012, Danise Codekas

The incomplete life is a good life, if you are still breathing. So many serendipitous moments and experiences occurred in the last few months, I am still aligning the events with my brain and emotive body. Without a doubt writing has encompassed and recorded some of these events.

On this pilgrimage into to the southwest, I keep bumping into others’ ideas about creativity, including writers', yet, no writers’ experiences are ever the same, are they? The one thing, dominant in their writings about creativity and the inspiration, is the overwhelming passion they feel about writing. Some, a day cannot go by, without writing their words down.

The flow is unlike that which I feel, when I am sitting on a mountainside, camera in hand, watching a bear and her cubs walking together. There is a different rush and alertness than when I am shooting video, or clicking away at a pack of watchful coyotes, than when I sit with my favorite French pen, in hand with white legal pad, and stroke words between lines.

Both ignore time, yet one demands my full attention, remaining quiet or hidden so as not to frighten away the animals. The other, demands pauses, staring off into the distance, and what really surprises me, if I have pair of headphones on someone can be sitting in the same room, watching TV, and with my music and headphones, the words still flow.

It doesn’t matter whether I am alone, in my kitchen, or office, or enjoying flying between Madras and Singapore. I can write anywhere.

Sometimes, I seek out noisy coffee houses and restaurants for the sheer pleasure of the warmth of humanity that emanates, in a place where bohemian glasnost and hazelnut latte smells, swirl around the tables and talk, vilifying the cruelties of the world, and exalting the impeccability of joy, within the human spirit.

What really grabs my attention is when a cashier, or a barista, is an exceptionally joyful being. Making people relaxed, getting them to laugh, for no reason, other than it is more desired to uplift, than not.

Those humans are worth of my notice. When they remember me, flick my attention from my morning concerns to focus on who is standing before me, in a lackadaisical, kind kidding, sort of way, then they have my respect.

How to get to this point in a dialogue without saying anything of merit, for you, is the mark of a great writer. Some of them, boring treatises, white papers, dissertations, or scientific discoveries are those which do not tie the topic to the heart, or draw parallels, and enhancements, for any human invited to read the author’s document.

Sometimes, we just have to type along until ideas make sense. In my case, I write along, until what I understand, morphs into understandable dialogue. I reach a momentum, during writing, which excludes anything else in my orbit, sensually. Time and space disappear when I am writing.

All that is being transmitted across my fingers comes during the act of writing. I imagine, like a musician, humming along until the notes grab that part of the brain than says, and go write these bars down now. I can feel the words build in me for days, at times.

Some idea, like the one that pops into awareness, when you are half asleep, on a plane and it follows you along, for a few hours. If you don’t write it down, sometimes it is gone forever. Don’t know about you but I always figure it wasn’t meant to come into written form, then. Maybe in a few years or decades until that understanding is totally understood by a soul, yours or mine.

Comedians must be very good writers, I sense. To take serious subjects and draw parallels so that they can be delivered in a few minutes to a couple hundred people, and everyone laughs, or boos, however a universal paradigm is presented, analyzed and shown to be part of the human tragic-comedy, in a way, that connects everyone in the room.

They must write down some of their ideas, along the way, and need to present those ideas in 20 minutes. Very good editors, they must be. To collapse hour and a half speech to 20 minutes segments, we all understand.

How many ideas could we read and understand, if that were the norm? Those long, political speeches would become concise, understandable, and entertaining. If only a comedian could have a last edit with them.

I am going to sleep outside in my car tonight. There is something about being outside the house that has been feeding my curiosity, recently. When I visited the archeological site at Aztec, Colorado something clicked inside me when I walked into the great round kiva. It was built before horses arrived in the Southwest, before the Spaniards brought the horses to the new world.

Every time I sit in a square room now, no matter how large, I am suppressed. Not only do we change emotionally and psychologically, we also change spatially, internally. You could compare it to tasting vanilla for the first time or crème brulee. Some switch, dormant, clicks on, and there we are not content with just chocolate, any longer.

I am not content with just squares, any longer. I want a round house, still. Always a geodesic dome has been at the heart of my house building gene. Stepping into the kivas of Mesa Verde and Aztec reminds me that round is part of our DNA building material.

Discontentedness is easily mistaken as being uncomfortable. They are two different things. You can be uncomfortable, in your favorite chair, because the cushion is wearing out. Being discontented with a chair, has to do with the fact that there is another chair you have sat in or seen that you know will satisfy you more.

Where does this leave us for most of our lives? Leaving behind the desire for a new chair, fixing the old one, one may be able to find contentment. Once the mind is brushed by a new song, tastes a new flavor, or smells the scent of an ocean after years living on a mountain, there is no forgetting. It is physics at the most basic instinct level. Watching affects the observed and the observer.

So, too, the taster, the reader, or the traveler, sitting in a six thousand year old kiva are affected forever. True, every nuance may not be remembered at the mind’s forefront, however, the cells never forget.

The nerve endings that responded in the inner ear, at the back of the tongue, the optic nerve endings, the olfactory nerves remember forever and so we, you and I, are changed forever by the experiences we are led to by our souls.

The Crossroads

© 2012 Danise Codekas

Driving across the mountains and ledges of Colorado and Utah today, I fell into a somnolent meandering about my place on the planet. Long, empty bits of time, alone on the road was I.

Driving through golden desert, surrounded by monoliths of red rocks, pink stratum, and blue sky above. Statues of Egyptian gods, formed from relentless beatings by sand and wretched, from once standing mountains, to stand alone, higher than the skyscrapers which entrance the metro-skeptical, of modern day world cities.

The forms, amazing in their structure, remind me of one of Hemiunu’s designs, like the Great Pyramid. Maybe Khufu, too, decided to land outside of Moab and put together the Great Stupa,

Ruwanwelisaya, in Sri Lanka, so I could finally touch it,  and walk inside, without taking another 18 hour flight to the Indian subcontinent.

Finally, Moab, was there and grounding myself with an iced vanilla latte, seemed a very 21st century end to a long, sweltering, photo shoot from New Mexico to Utah.

It is big, empty world out here. There is more empty space in the world, than men and women covering it with their footprints and plastic bags. Feeling better about myself, cleansing many old beliefs and foolish illusions through the heat of the sun, and the unalterable majesty of emptiness portrayed by beauty in nature, enjoyed coffee.

The Hopi, Navajo, Ute, Zuni lead hard lives here, in their environment. They are kind, and were direct, no word games,  whenever we had interactions.

We forget there are those who are not afraid to leave their homes needing dialogue filters.

I know when someone is baiting me because they wish to not reveal who they are, as if they were afraid of who they are, and their defenses go up, against me, or you, and miss the joy of  an honest, heartfelt conversation.

I find myself ending these wasted word touches, as there is no real human intercourse taking place. They use, what I call, “Office Speak”. Pretense, illusionary, defensive posturing and tones, with no heart to share. Many lies, and more often, now, that financially, all of us know, the entire world has lost stature,  financially, in some way, pretending to be more, have more, understand more than we do.

Sad, this is for all of us. With suffering, comes wisdom, sometimes, and perhaps you can learn from me, and I, from you. I don’t want your soul. Having my own, keeps me busy. I am not perfect, nor do I assume you to be, or expect you to be. That is why you came to earth, wasn’t it? Learn lessons over and over, until understanding and compassion with self and others kicks in?

There is nothing you have I would steal, so your “stuff” is safe. So many people on this trip were sad, scared and seeking an answer to the collapse we all are mired in now. It will change, end, shift as all things do, in time.

Those who live close to the earth, who were not foolish with funds when they felt the pendulum of prosperity swing askew, survive. I never thought Christ, Buddha or Mother Theresa were angry,  impoverished people. I met her in Calcutta.

She had very little, yet, graciously offered tea. Tea and conversation with her interest in humans, and their lives and conditions superseded her desire to hide the true state of her life financially. She was not ashamed of her self, her choices, nor her lack of furniture or clothing.

Nor am I, now. Long ago, yes, when I was foolish and enamored of things. Now owning 13 boxes of things, a car, 2 computers, 3 suitcases of clothes, 1 bag of makeup, 1 bag of shoes, 3 hats, my relationship with people is different, in that my burden of taking care of all those things I had before, has lightened considerably.

The time spent taking care of those things, now is spent in nature, preparing my photographs for my portfolio, in order to find an agent, and writing. Strange state I live in, now, probably to you, who has many things to care for in your home. That is your life. This is mine.

It is 3:34 a.m., here in Moab world. Desert driving requires one arises early and stops, in the early afternoon. Hotel check in is 2pm out here, as the heat dries the brain, even though air conditioning is a dear friend.

I have to make a decision when I arrive in Salt Lake City, today. It will be made in moment of feeling, understanding the feeling, will come then. It always does. Shall I come to San Francisco, for what reason my soul knows, and has been quiet, so far, yet pulls me there. Or, continue on to Gig Harbor, sell my car, repack, and leave for Kauai?

Hmm. The crossroads are upon me. Are they also upon you? Go with faith, excitement of possibility, seriousness of a completion, amazement for a new beginning. Love, No Fear.

 

Time becomes immaterial, illusionary when death is an unknown, as I watch the wind and sand form new sculptures out of wind, silica and sun.

 

                    

Everything Is A Miracle

©2012, Danise Codekas, Corrales, NM., 11 June 2012

The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be – Marcel Pagnol.

The forest fires rage around us here in the Southwest. The Gila National Forest fires has grown to about 270,000 acres. 40,000 more than it was when I arrived here 11 days ago.

Seems every time I have traveled far, in the past few years, some natural tragedy strikes somewhere in the world. Perhaps, I just need to see how people respond to it, who are directly or about to be directly, or possibly could be affected by it.

3 of my trips were washed over by three tsunamis. There was also 2 major 8+ earthquakes, and the tsunami warnings along the California Coast highway I was driving in Oceanside, and then in Long Beach, also.

On this trip, besides wildfires near me, or on the routes I would have traveled toward the west coast, there have also been 2 deaths, related to friends’ parents or best friends, job lost by people I care for, oh, and my own realization that one of my thoughts about how a place would work out for me, fizzled in the sand.

I am learning how to deal with life without a touchstone.

Then, my entire life has been an exercise in dealing with the surprises, loses and upheavals, where ever I may be resting that evening.

You learning that too?

 

The wonders of advanced communication networks makes it all possible, of course. In the old days, being 18000 miles away, the news would not reach me until I heard it on an airplane heading somewhere else.

An ancient East Indian asked me, after our flight from Madras took off, what I thought about the Oklahoma Terrorist Bombings. They had just occurred that day, or the day before in the US, the Date Line thing has to be figured into this equation.

When I was a student in Argentina, one of my classmates, who hated Americans, would make it a point to query my feelings about some action made by the US Government that day.

Sorry, I never saw the news, seemed to be a good response since he always snorted, in Castilian accent, and looked at me as if I was an idiot, and verified his lowly opinion of the evil, Yankees del Norte.

Lucid, I was, however, my interest were in things Argentinean, which he did not wish to discuss. I was the wall he needed to throw verbal graffiti at every day in school. He finally laid off the teasing once I started dating, one of our classmates. It is a macho thing that would take too long to explain, unless you are muy macho.

So, today, waiting for the green light to get on the road, that gut instinct that tells me when to go, one friend calls and lets me help him figure out what he should do about selling his business. “Get a lawyer”, is my response. He did not like it, however, being called an idiot by me, pushed him over the edge, and he was speed dialing his attorney, as we were disconnecting, I hope.

Then my dear friend’s mom passed, I just found out, a day after she arrived to help her walk down that road to the end. The day after she arrived to assist. Blessings for all the family, as to watch someone slowly dissolve from human form is difficult. Believe me.

My hope is there is not too much drama with the siblings and others who are called to bear witness to the mother’s passing. I like quiet around me when someone I love dies. It is hard to achieve, I find.

Another close friend, arrived at work to meet her replacement. The person who took her job from her. Her job advertised on her company’s website, that she found out about while she was on vacation. Crappy way to treat a long term employee. When she arrived, the air conditioning broke down. I told her it was a sign to Get Out.

Since it is heading up to 96 degrees today in downtown Albuquerque, hopefully, she will be able to think of someway to get out of the building. Luckily, she was smart and is two months away from obtaining her Masters in IT Project Management, and will find a delightful, challenging new career in the perfect air-conditioned buildings.

My  interview for today was sullied when the headhunter hit Reply instead of Forward to an email, which contained the map, the documents she wanted completed before our a.m. meeting, and required they arrive with me.

Then admitted, when I contacted her, to let her know her docs still had not arrived, that she did not have any job, in my writing/editing areas, but she would call around and ask employers in the area. Hmm. I sort of knew that since she avoided the question, last week, the chances of her having a senior writer/editor position for me was, well, dim.

I think we all know headhunters’ games, right? It is a numbers game and they expect me to be professional, right? I called another headhunter instead. This is the year of immediate, quick connections. Act immediately, or, let it go. The jobs I have applied for in New Mexico over the past 2 years, are still listed, and I still poke at them, every so often.

So, the only thing I question is why the Subaru Service Dealer in ABQ has not called back yet. The Impreza needs an oil change, even though I had one a few thousand miles ago, before this trip. 200 miles short of that 6-digit mileage reminder sticker on the front windshield.

Since I am not sure which way I am headed out of Corrales, and into what type of landscape, Death Valley-esque or Eastern California mountains, better get the oil change, and the free carwash. Which is what it is all about isn’t it?

Free carwash, free advice, free kindnesses, free wi-fi. Open up and share. We are all trying to grasp the meaning of our lives, in places we love or places that are testing us, with people we love or people who challenge us to the depths of our souls, or just allow us to be so we can hear the inner probes and screams, and words of soothing, from the depths of our selves. Ain’t life grand?

What wonderful opportunities we have to do things in this world.

How quickly your and my reality erupts, evaporates or is re-created in the blink of an eye, in less than 24 hours?

 

What planet in the universe would we find so entertaining, so fulfilling to our imaginations, to the exclusion of death, the final, physical blow? Beyond your death or mine, well, that will be another adventure to explore, n’est pas? Except for the outer space thing. I really want to go on that ride someday.

The sage brushes overflow with lovely lavender and blue colored flowers, outside the patio doors. Looking across the Sandia Mountains, at the other end of the patio, the cloud cover brings ash-darkness from raging forest fires at Gila. Awareness of nature is what we are learning at this point in timeline human.

Discovering not only our own true natures and abilities, but those of every living organism around us becomes critically important.

We live in an expanding universe on a rock, speeding through space at 18.5 mps (miles per seconds), which due to the growing weight of humanity, removal of minerals under earth’s crust, and the elimination of thousands of acres per day, of sustainable environments, which CAN feed us all, is shrinking in available living space.

For some this is wonderful since it means more people to sell things to, as the laws protecting nature, dissolve under the hands of government officials’ and mega-national business partners’ signatures, on those contracts signed behind closed doors.

Did you know that the Occupy Movement is calling for supporters to protest at the Bohemian Club’s meeting in N. California, at their 2 week meeting, which starts mid-July? Why was I not surprised, yet, a bit unsettled when I read that the Portland, OR Occupy leaders were then ones who kind of led the way on this one?

Here is the link: Bohemian Club Protest 2012 . Google Occupy Bohemian Grove 2012 and check out the links.

The amount of police and security and number of arrests should be larger than usual for the small, No. California location. The media and how it controls reporting of the protest will be interesting from a sociological point of view of mass media. As many attendees, control major networks and media conglomerates.

Someone, once, sarcastically asked me why I studies mass communications at Berkeley. My answer is the same now. I like to see how those in control use the media to control the masses’ minds.

I loved learning how to create a poll, in controlled language sequences, that would give me what I needed to get funding for projects, government subsidies and donations from the poor, unsuspecting public, such as, me. Finding out how they do it, how info can be bent to get what you want, logically, was fascinating and deeply disturbing to me.

“People were created to be loved. Things were created to be used. The reason the world is in chaos, is because things are being loved, and people are being used.”-unknown

How do those in control keep it? Study mass communications, read Todd Gitlin’s works, and you might be surprised at how easy it is to gain control of a mind, with words, pictures and mindless, intentionally designed cartoons.

So, time to call Subaru again. Hope your day is in interesting one. Be aware of what is going on around you. Life and your work has import, for me and the rest of the universe. Use your time well.

“There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” - Albert Einstein.

Grok with Me or Choose Disambiguation

© 2012, Danise Codekas

Not sure where to begin, tonight. 10:25pm here in the high desert. Quiet filled with crickets. Darkness against mountainside seeps into my eyes faintly tinged with chartreuse and blue, deep blue. I avoid the words.

There is no one to report to in my life. Freedom, a word I cherish, spoken to me by a friend tonight, from 1500 miles away, eases my temerity about the next step I shall take on this journey.

Does seeking a place, a community, an enlightened gentry who united change the world’s view that no longer supports our evolution, seem unusual to you, at this age?

I am not satisfied with the way the world works. Nor, am I satisfied with the way I live so as was mentioned to me earlier, I am looking for my “golden” city.

It is more than a city, though. There are people, who are creating the new paradigm of health, electromagnetics, eco warriors whose homes reflect sustainability and enhance the eco systems they intrude upon.

Perfection was never my goal. That is a goal for hubris, demented humans. Harmonic relationships, gracious respect of nature, intense collaboration supporting ideas and inventions that no longer deplete natural resources.

Instead, my new gang, utilize the known powers of those resources, much to the dismay of the old order, whose livelihoods shall be depleted, as my “golden” city thrives, and influences humans.

These enlightened, fearless new friends encourage other humans, governments, mega corporations,  to do a 360 degree turn in their production, law making insanity,  before all the trees, and waters, and foods are corrupted, by the old ways of doing things.

So many transitions over the last few days, for people around me and myself. Yet, the cleansing of many of these relationships was necessary in order to create a new way of communicating and expressing our true desires and needs with people who may not even be in our lives yet.

I am letting go of all those who no longer mesh with my paradigm, my understanding that in order to survive I must be around healthy, brave and inventive and intuitive people. The amount of sadness reflected in people’s eyes in the area I am currently visiting is overwhelming.

Seattle and its environs, people are still able to fool one another that their situation is not as desperate as it really is now. Here, in the Albuquerque area, the unhappiness, hopelessness is unable to be denied in those walking the streets.

No, not all. However, there is very little laughter anywhere around me. Stores, restaurants, parks, even spending time in Santa Fe, there was a morose undertone which overshadowed the beauty and power of Santa Fe. It was there in all my past visits, over the years. Not this time.

There is a reason the Hopi’s have descended into the Kiva’s and many of the ranches and sacred areas are not so easily accessed as once they were in the past. The Native Americans know that the darkness which has overtaken much of the world, due to the economic crashes which are still crashing after 5 years, brings many people to do things in order to save themselves, feed themselves, en mass.

It is better to be out of range of the protests, the anger which is becoming more obvious daily with foreign governments being over thrown due to the their harsh financial tactics toward their subjects.

I think many are blind to the true depression and the acts of depravity, many incite, because a world economic crash continues, after 7 years, and not any government can support the losses which continue to plague the nations and humans of the world.

Wake up. See the hopelessness around you and if it is over-whelming in your village or city, then perhaps you may want to go out and find your “golden city”, too.

You might enjoy being around happy, enlightened individuals rather than a city who is going bankrupt, a business model which has collapsed, and people who are afraid to try something new, elsewhere, and will pull you down with their negativity.

If you need a wake up call, maybe you should re-read, Heinlein's, Stranger in a Strange Land, again. Sometimes, to grok with others over literature is a very enlightening experience. 

Completely Unexpected

© 2012, Danise Codekas

Failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than I was and began diverting all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. -J. K. Rowling, Harvard Commencement Address, 2008

 

And, so, go on I must in spite of personal embarrassment, when all wonder why I came so far, and did not stay in New Mexico. The embarrassment comes from not pursuing this dream, I had about living in New Mexico, sooner; not from what anyone labels my 1700 mile effort, tonight.

Illusions not addressed immediately always remain illusions, don’t they? Usually a preconceived idea about someone or some place, persists throughout one’s lifetime.

This New Mexico illusion of mine persisted for over 20 years. Different it is from a vacation here, which I have enjoyed spending here over the years. Much different outlook coming here with the intention of living here and no where to return to now. Cautious is not how I am now, in spite of realizing this is not the place I will settle.

Overjoyed is more my demeanor as, Caesar said: I came, I saw, I conquered.

Conquer? The illusions have been destroyed about what life would be like here. Wanted to build a geodesic dome here. Vastness, space, unending sky draws me. Yet, those qualities of place exist elsewhere in the world, and they aren’t in semi-arid conditions.

The heat is wonderful for a while, yet, moisture and water and green is needed by my being. I love it here, in vacation mode. Perhaps, it will appeal to me at another time in my life. This day, this week, there is another reason for my coming. Unexpected surprise which had to do with personal clearing and revelations about myself.

Listening to the evening chirping crickets, animals of the night talking and barking with one another, no sounds of anything mechanical, I love this peacefulness.

The blue sky, the clouds, the unending space up mountainsides which shoots across endless air, I find mesmerizing. There are reasons it is good to come to the desert in order to drain everything which blocks flow in my body, my mind.

The heat and endless pounding of the sun steals anything your body is trying to hide, hold on to, or fight. Just let it go is my mantra in deserts.

Abolishing , all that I owned for many years before taking this journey, difficult, though it was, is not  really difficult at all compared to feeling my bones melt and my mind enter a state of limbo, in which thought ceased to be important. All that was important was being able to breath, to sit, to drink water, to find shade.

Going through a psychological eruption and allowing all objects to be taken into new homes, by new owners, prepared me for the physical eruption, ending here in the high, New Mexico plateau.

Like a dying woman being led to water, my psyche sought this physical cleansing which was needed for me to continue on with the next part of my life.

Right now, tonight, I am thinking of leaving New Mexico and heading toward the Pacific Ocean. However, in this cosmic time period, full of surprising changes,  as you are all experiencing, fool, I would be if said “absolutely, I go”.

At this point, in all our lives, it is all a crap shoot which has been designed by each one of us during all these years we’ve been living lives, uncensored, sometimes callously so, and many times doing the exact thing we did NOT want to do.

Untrue to our self, our hearts’ desires, and ignoring what our souls needed which we were completely aware of, yet believed the ego when it said the word, “unworthy” or “impossible”.

There is not time left for you, to keep telling yourself, you are anything less than being able to manifest, and create, that which makes you happy and content, with someone of like mind who enjoys your state of mind, and does not want to change you, however, wants to share the excitement, of this wondrous place and time with you, without you needing to change them, either.

Luck has nothing to do with it.

Karma does and following what you are feeling inside.

So, like Caesar said, “No one is so brave that he is not disturbed by something unexpected.” The amount of writing flowing out of me, is also something unexpected. The desire to write overtaking most of my spaces between thoughts about other things.

That should answer any questions you have about my sanity, responsibility, or lack thereof, in how I am going about my life now, or where I am driving to next. Even I am surprised by the unexpected wisdoms, about myself, gained by moving to New Mexico.

That New Mexico is not the final stop, the new home base, is completely, something unexpected. Writing ferociously, now, also, and for this I am grateful, and still entranced with the power of this very sacred and powerful place.

Do not be surprised if I am still here after another 20 years, either. You, like me, really do not know what the next breath brings, let alone tomorrow. For now, let us agree, on something completely unexpected intriguing us.

Journey to the Center of the Soul

©2012, Danise Codekas

Well, transition to another state is always interesting whether it be a geographical location, and a psychological state. In my case, it would be both.

You really do not know how things are going to be for you until you make a move toward something new, and away from something old. The shock of disconnect occurred for me in a couple places along the 1700 miles I drove from Gig Harbor to New Mexico.

There were some thoughts about returning to the Pacific Northwest the next day, when I arrived at a motel which was crappy. There were a few of them as there are like to be on journeys.

Being here in New Mexico is like riding a seesaw. Some moments are clear, filled with excitement and possibility. Others, like this one today, come with a bit of fear. Makes me want to pick up a sledge hammer and beat against my fate which has not revealed the answers to my questions about survival, home, work and relationships.

Thankfully, two lovely friends offered me their home to use as a base while I attempt to begin a new life. At least a place to sleep and think and plan my next steps.

This morning with hot weather and smoky air from the Gila Forest Fire, all my body wants to do is sleep some more. However, I am going to jump in my air conditioned chariot and head to a job fair at the Radisson. Money is an important factor to consider if one wishes to write books, put gas in the car to travel to work, or another part of the US, to seek work.

I am giving New Mexico 3 weeks, since my friends may be relocating to another part of the country, if jobs applied for there, come through. They have lived here about 7 years now and are ready for some changes.

I sense that changes for them will come swiftly. I did not know this was occurring before I drove down here. For me, it was another indication from the universe that my life needed to proceed like an bullet, fast and true, to the best indicated situation for me.

There is no time for lying around. It is time for me, and you, to take action. Our futures can be had for the asking and with sincerity and passion, we can create it like we want it, now.

The super lunar eclipse with Venus passing across the Sun’s face offers an extraordinary moment in time for humans to create their lives, exactly, as dreamed. This astrological, astronomical energy shift will not happen for about another 500 years. Hope you all watched it yesterday. Here in NM it began around 4PM.

This picture from Journey to the Center of Earth represents some of the mind-games which are accompanying me on my journey to the center of my soul’s quest.

 

Unusual, challenging, nothing to reference, no touch stones, categorically, except my car, my breath, friends, and my language.