Water on Cherries by Casey

Cherries by Casey, my 11-year-old grandson. They are CGI, but I thought they looked so good I talked him into allowing me the right to use them.

These cherries look like the sort I used to pick way back in high school--under duress--I might add.

My folks had a cherry orchard, and they thought I ought to be out there picking fruit. We kids, sitting atop a cherry-picking ladder, used to eat our fill, then throw them at each other. A few managed to get into a bucket, then a box.

As I remember, we picked them for 5 cents a pound. 

Oh, my week? Thanks for asking. I was distracted by Casey's water on cherries. This past week I feel that I have been drinking from a fire-hose.

I've been taking #Marie Forleo's B-School course, and feeling overwhelmed. It's a course for business people which I'm not, but I'm a wanna-be.

And then Saturday was DEMOLITION DAY!

We rented a John Deere scoop tractor and tore up the yard. The weather notice said there would be wind, but since I had reserved the tractor, I figured, a little wind, so what.

Husband dear and I took turns at the wheel, oh a tractor has levers not a wheel, you know, bucket up, bucket down, scoop, right, left, it's fun. I learned on a Bob Cat, which I thought we were getting, but the John Deere worked the same. I figured husband dear could rescue me if I got stuck--he's been known to do that.. 

After he cleaned up the remains of an old shed, and filled some boxes with dirt for raised vegetable beds, I set off for the front yard to sculpt.

  

Well, that day was the most blustery one we have had since we lived here. 

Even though the tractor had a roof, the sides were open, and the wind carried in the rain until my raincoat that isn't water-proof any longer weighed about ten pounds. The yard turned to mud, I spun the wheels but managed to get out without rescue. The wind blew down a neighbor's tree and shut off the power for the afternoon.

The yard looks like a hurricane hit it.

I slept for about 12 hours afterward.

I'm not as young as I used to be.

The miracle is, I'm still here.

And how was your week?

The Shaman

My daughter has asked me repeatedly about the negative energy we felt on the Big Island of Hawaii. What was it? 

Some might have been coming from us; we acknowledged that,  for we felt traumatized by the move, but there was more.

We knew something uncomfortable was coming from the Island that we could not explain. 

We called it negative energy.

I even tried meditating in our back five acres one day to see if I could get some understanding. You meditate with your eyes closed right? So I sat down, and a minute later, I said, “Nope,” and left. That was not the place to do it.

Last night while reading Steven Pressfield’s book Turning Pro, I got a hit, something that related to our Island experience.

Pressfield had a chance to travel to Africa. One of his stops was at a Masai camp so far from civilization that they had to fly there.

When they got to the camp, a great commotion was happening. Their guides explained to Pressfield that the Shaman had told the people that the site they had just chosen was “unwholesome” and that they had to move.

The camp consisted of about five hundred people, young, old, children, plus all their livestock, so moving was no small feat.

The moving procession had to be led by the white cows, and they were scattered about, so the warriors set out to round them up. The women had to pack up all the household belongings. All this required sweat and sacrifice.

Yet, no one complained.

When the whole camp was packed, the warriors, those tall, slim morans, were jumping up and down and singing their ritual song. The young maidens sang the chorus.

Finally they moved.

About two hundred yards up the hill.

Pressfield began to wonder what invisible evil could be warded off by moving the camp. Did this make sense? And he admitted that he felt better after the move. Would something had befallen the tribe had they stayed? Would a young bride have miscarried?

These people had a brilliant culture, their dress, their rituals, their social organization. The young men, strong and beautiful could stand up to lions single handed, with only a spear.

 Pressfield concluded that they must be doing something right.

He wished he had his own Shaman. He said he would have breakfast with him every day and do what he said.

Or better yet, he wished he was a Shaman.

I wished, as did Pressfield that I had a personal Shaman to guide me, but I know that one of the lessons of life is to trust and follow your own intuition, your own guidance system.

And that perhaps we do have a Shaman. It lives inside of us and speaks in a small voice.