A friend just wrote to me about recent experiences of all sorts of emotions coming up.  The last 2 months have been filled with many changes for all of us and this new year has started off with much movement and activity.   He shared with me that the image of this piece I carved, inspired soothing feelings.

This piece is Quintessence. ‘Quinty’ is one of my babies, at least that’s the way I feel about ‘her’.   Hand cut from a slab 1/2″ thick and inlayed with pure silver.

Ten years ago, I gave  ‘Quinty’ away as a Gift. 

To Oprah Winfrey.  Oprah wrote me back a thank you letter. 

“In keeping with the Kindness Chain, I ask you to share your Light with the World.” 

and an alternate view, of how ‘she’ looks  without any color filters…

Always embraces all ways.  May we rest from these changes, in Peace.

I have a story to share. 

This story begins with introducing you to my older sister.  My older sister was born 3 months premature in 1950.  The doctors and nurses at that time gave her up for dead.  No one held her.  No one rocked her.  No one cuddled her.  Because no one wanted to grow emotionally attached to a baby that was just going to die.

After many months in the hospital, my sister surprised them.  And lived.  At that time the State took her (and her siblings) away from their parents and placed all of them up for adoption.

“This baby has a lot of problems, mentally, emotionally and physically”, the social worker told my parents.  “That just tells us this child needs a lot of our loving”, they responded.

That let’s you know what kind of people our parents were.

My sister has worked hard all her life, doing the best she can with what she was endowed with.  She’s the type of employee that won’t miss a day of work in 20 years and will always show up on time.

When I moved away, my sister told me I had given her the greatest gift she had ever received:  the opportunity to have her own life.  I left her well taken care of in terms of property and assets.

Today, she called me.  She got fired from her job and for good reason.  “Mustn’t cuss at customers.”

And this all happened 2 months ago…and I’m just now finding out about it.  The company put a block on her applying for any unemployment.  Keep in mind this is a mentally handicapped person.  That has worked for said company for over 20 years.

She also informed me that she had been gambling at the racetrack.  On her credit card. And had wracked up a debt of $13,000.00.  Why the State of Oklahoma allows gambling on credit, I don’t know.  Other states, don’t and, for this reason.

Now I already know I could sue the company; literally pounding them into the ground but I’m not going to do it.  I hold my hand from taking such action. 

For I see the Universe moving to bring me my desires in this act.  I have been missing my sister.  She’s the only ‘family’ I’ve got left from my childhood.  And I have been sensing unease as it concerns her.  Now I know why.

I told her I was giving her 10 days to find a job before we were coming to get her.  A creature of habit, of course she doesn’t want to move.

I really wish I hadn’t given her 10 days.

Because what I’m picking up right now is that my sister has been under ENOUGH mental and emotional anxiety and I desire to see her released.  She’s done the very best she could and has done an exemplary job considering what she’s had to work with.  Which is a lot less then most of us and still, she tried.

Washington State is not like Oklahoma.  Washington State will embrace my sister with Compassion and help her with aid that Oklahoma denies.   But she’s scared.  She’s got it in her head if she lets anyone know she’s mentally handicapped, she’s going to be locked up in a mental institution.  Because that’s the kind of attitude they have in Oklahoma.

And of course, something like that would NEVER happen to her, even over my dead body.

What I’m asking is for my sister.

I ask she be surrounded with Love.  Her name is Sherry.

I ask in her name because she can’t.  She doesn’t know how.  Please surround her with Compassion and Assurance, as steps are taken to get her out of an unloving environment and back into the bosom of her family.

She’s scared.  And she has no reason to be.

I gotta’ Rainbow on Christmas Eve and snow on Christmas morning.

What’d Santa bring to you?

It’s safe to come home now {{Catherine}}.

When you told me the estimates were 2-3 weeks and to prepare for the worst, I said I didn’t believe it.  I said I knew Who I was and, was going  to re-write reality.  Watch for Miracles…

Our power came back on at 12:45 AM last night.

But the crappy furnace isn’t working; neither do we have any hot water.

Greetings EveryOne!

{{Catherine}} is my upstairs neighbor and friend.  {{Debbie}} GentleEssenced, left a comment on “Love’s Extensions” but I couldn’t approve it until this morning.  BECAUSE….

I’m in the middle of the disaster area called the Pacific Northwest.   Specifically, the Olympic Peninsula.  As of 11:30PM Sunday night, our entire county has been without power and mudslides, have blocked all the roads in and out.  Some places are quoted as looking like bombs went off, as the slides took trees, houses, etc., and desposited everything in the middle of the highways. 

For me, the story began Sunday night.   Howling winds rocked the house, making me thankful {{Catherine and her girls}} weren’t up there.  Right as we went to bed, the lights went out.   We fell asleep with ideas the electricity would be back on by morning.  And we were mistaken.    Monday morning’s conversation went something like this:

My husband says to the young man who has been staying with us, our friend, ”Go out to the garage and get the generator and the 1000 foot extension cord.” *presto*  We had power.   Normally, I’m not much of a coffe drinker but that cup of hot coffee sure did taste good.  Then we hooked up a TV to the generator to see if we could get any news about what was going on.  The news wasn’t good.  Our entire county was without power; floods and mudslides had left people stranded wherever they happened to be on the peninsula, as flood waters started rising every where else.  We weren’t warm but we were dry!

Strange….the way some things just work out…

Last week we had heard from a business partner of ours, an investor, that he could sure use my husband’s help with one of his properties.   And this property had a FIREPLACE.  That my husband had just fixed the day before.  We packed up our generator, coffee maker and my ironstone cookware and, drove 3 blocks to get there.   We had PLENTY of firewood…construction debris.

I emptied my frig of hot dogs and hot links.  Unlike the supermarket shelves, I also had bread and buns.   Banking some hot coals in the corner of the fireplace,  I cooked a pot of chili.   We had warmth, we had light, we had hot food and we had each other for good company.

Then we ran out of gas for the generator.  When my husband and our friend went out looking for gas, that’s when we started finding out how ‘bad’ things were.  No pumps in town were working.  And all traffic out of here was being turned back. 

I spent that evening nestled before a fire, drinking my hot tea, radiating waves of Gratitude for my whole day.  I thought of the line of cars and those huddled in them, trying to keep warm and running out of gas with no place to go and, wished I had the means to knock on car windows and invite them all to come to my place.  Or at least the means to offer blankets, hot coffee and cocoa.  

Around midnight we made the decision to come home to huddle in our beds with blankets and each other for warmth.  That night was as close as I got to misery.   A hot flash would wake me up with sweat pouring from every pore but, when the evaporative cooling stage came, it sent me to the other extreme, since our inside temperature was 50 degrees.(f)   Having a wet head was my biggest concern.  But my cat took care of that by sleeping across my head.

Tuesday we woke to no power and no gas for the generator.  We had managed to locate a battery operated radio…my daughter’s mp3 player and listened to what roads might be open.  That’s when I got the idea to syphon the gas from our old ford that had been sitting in the driveway for months with a cracked engine block.   But we found out someone else had had the idea before us.  The tank was already dry.   So was the tank in our friend’s car, that had been parked outside our house along the curb.   It was about that time {{Catherine}} showed up, telling me we had been declared a disaster area.

The transmission towers and lines that powered our PUD had been blown over.  

{{Catherine}} packed up some stuff, gave me the use of her little space heater, should our power come back on and, headed back to stay at a relative’s house, who still had power.  She is such a sweetheart, that she asked about my blog.  So I gave her suggestions on how to get the word out, for all my friends and family in blogland, to please specifically focus Loving thoughts in this direction.  In the Spirit of Christmas, please express it.  “Tell them I am fine and I BELIEVE in Miracles!”

The economy has been halted.  No businesses are open and most of the people here live pay check to pay check if they are lucky.  The only stores open ONLY take cash and no ATM’s or banks are working.   And no supplies can get through until the roads are cleared.

My lights and computer are running because I live 6 blocks from the PUD headquarters.   Bonneville Power got one feeder line in operation and energized it at midnight.  How long it’s going to take to get power back on depends on how far people are from the PUD headquarters.  Everyone who headed to the coast for the weekend is stuck there, without any power.  Literally 100′s of trees were blown down.  Estimates  of 500-700 trees down across the road on one county road alone.

Our young friend had cabin fever, so he volunteered to brave driving out of here to find gas yesterday.  My daughter rode along for company, while the cold and the chill in the house put my husband and I to sleep.  Our friend grew up here.  He knew the roads.  He kept going to the 3rd town outside of here and found gas.    Coming back, he also let us know that the restaurant, that we had so enjoyed the night of our fiasco a couple of weeks ago, had slid into the middle of the highway.

Again, we headed to the house with the fireplace.

“2-3 weeks, I just DON’T believe it.  I’m going to IMAGINE something different”, I said, sitting in front of a roaring fire, as I finally got warm, , for the very first time that day.   We ate chili.  We ate luncheon meat and cheese on crackers.  We drank hot tea; we drank hot coffee;  we watched “Harry Potter” on my daughter’s portable DVD player.  And we played around with the idea of hanging some Christmas lights, as a reminder of the season but, knew all our neighbors would most likely be pissed.

As I grew tired, my husband rolled out the carpet pad, that had yet to be installed.  I laid my blanket out on 3 layers of padding before the fire as my husband left to go back home to  collect more blankets, pillows and movies. 

And as he drove down the street, all the streetlights began coming back on. 

He got to our house and turned on the furnace.  It worked.  So back home we came.  We watched an “Earnest” movie on TV, as we started to unwind.  As the temp reached 69, the furnace quit working.

Understanding the way ‘new’ energy works, as our ‘old’ energy systems go down, I ask to IMAGINE 2 things for myself and my community.

I would dearly love to be warm.  And I would dearly love a hot shower.  

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

Today is Saturday.  Let me check to make sure….yes, it’s Saturday.   You see, all my days look the same.

A hot flash will wake me at 6:30AM and I’ll get out of bed so I don’t soak my sheets.   I’ll put on a pot of coffee for my husband and start brewing a cup of tea for myself.  After we’ve spent time visiting with each other over our first cups of brew, my husband will leave to go work on his project.   He’s a workaholic whenever he’s into one of his creative ventures.  If he tries to stay home, like take a weekend off, he just ends up thinking about work and getting frustrated because he can’t DO it.  So rain or shine, weekday or weekend, he’s up and going.

The next thing I do is treat myself to some alone time.   My daughter is not going to wake up until I wake her up.   As she is enrolled in an online school,  there’s no school bell or school bus to dictate our daily routine.  So I let her sleep while I write. 

On an average morning I will write between 4000 – 10000 words, all on the subject of our awareness and its evolution.

By afternoon, I’m working with my daughter and her lessons.  She’s zoomed right through all her math, so I invent new lessons, like ‘ let’s go bake a batch of cookies cutting the recipe in half’.  She zoomed through the art appreciation, too.  So I teach her how to play the piano.  We’re working on composition now and her first assignment is to write a memoir.

If it’s a weekday, chances are I’ll hear from my son at college.   Either to share wonderful news or seek Mom’s voice to calm down some crisis.   Last weeks hub-bub was about suite mates not washing any dishes.

I spend my afternoon taking care of laundry and whatever business details need tending.  I’m the office staff when it comes to my husband’s contracting business. 

By 3:00PM, I’m thinking about dinner and what I’m going to make.  I’m still one of those ‘old fashion’ Mom’s, who make complete dinners most every night.  By the looks of the weather outside today, tonight looks like a good night to make some chicken noodle soup.  Home made chicken noodle soup, with a dose of echinachea(sp?) added into the egg noodles to boost our immune systems.

After dinner my husband will ask ‘what’s for dessert?’ and ‘did you burn any movies to watch?’

And there you have my day.

I don’t get out much.  I don’t want to get out much.  Shopping at Walmart isn’t what I consider a treat and it’s about the only store in town.    I guess you could say it is sort of an odd fit, between this area and me, because blocking development of any kind is what this community is all about.  Slum lords are in power and want to stay that way…old farts that raped the forests are now raping people living below the poverty level, collecting rent from young single moms on condemned properties whose wiring is a fire hazard.

So in order to extend myself, to share what I have to share, I do it online, where I might meet people who value, what I have in abundance to share.

And that is the rest of my story.