Farewell to the East Coast.............

Well, hit the road today, leaving as I always seem to do from Lilydale first and last.  Now there's a sign you won't see everywhere..........but maybe it would be a much better world if you did.

I leave with great gratitude at the friendships I've revisited and new ones I've made, and the places I love that I also revisited, old friends that have given me new and sustainable courage.  I leave with much affirmation and encouragement to just keep on doing what i love to do - as Joseph Campbell famously said:  "Follow your Bliss, and doors will open where you don't expect them to."   And to quote from  a younger woman who was myself somewhere along the road:  "We live in a house of Doors".  

I was pleased with my show, which gave me a chance to share the original paintings from the  Rainbow Bridge Oracle as well as doing readings from the deck, something I haven't done in a while and find I still do well.  I was also pleased with the turnout my friend Berkanna got for showing "The World According to Monsanto".  There is some information to update on this issue, but don't have time to post right now. 

“What might we see, how might we act, if  we saw with a webbed vision?
The world seen through a web of relationships…as delicate as spider’s silk,
yet strong enough to hang a bridge on.”  Catherine Keller 

Perhaps I also always leave from Lilydale because I want to leave remembering that we're  provided with "invisible means of support".   It doesn't work in simple ways, and we don't always get what we "think we want", but I have always found that I get what I need, and synchronicities, dreams, and friends continually offer guidance along the way.

I don't know if there is a cure for evil such as the greed and destruction that drives a corporate monster like Monsanto.  But I do know that if we really understand, in our daily lives, how  intimately  connected we are to the vast multiplicity of life around us...........we would live with empathy, and act with empathy, because what we do to the earth and to all Her Beings,  is what we do to ourselves.  Ironically,  I believe that's the essence of what Jesus of Nazareth taught long before the church became the strange phenomenon it is now, long before doctrines about heaven and hell, being "saved", Christian soldiers, "God Fearing",  crusades, inquisitions, holy wars, and so on.  As I prepare to pass through the often scary "Bible belt" I find myself reflecting  on the loss of  Christianity's Gnostic beginnings.......well.   The origins of the U.S.A. included religious freedom, and the right to free speech, so in that spirit, my bumper stickers stay on the back of my car.  Including the one that says "God is Coming, and Boy Is She Pissed!".

For myself, I began this trip feeling very unsure of where to go now, what to do, and I leave the adventure with all the answers I need - serve the Goddess, serve kindness, beauty, and "a webbed vision", and all I really need will be provided.  

As I was saying goodbye to the "stump cathedral" in Leolyn woods, I saw that people had left all kinds of offerings/mementos on the "stump", and I remembered something I've been carrying around in my purse since the trip began - a plastic replica of a sheaf of wheat.  Admittedly, not something all that impressive, but back in April I was looking all over the Internet and Michaels for plastic wheat, which I wanted to use for a Demeter mask.  I was not successful, and finally gave up on the idea of finishing the mask.  So, it was a funny thing to discover a plastic "wheat sheaf" on the ground at a rest stop in Flagstaff as I was headed east. No big deal - but I had to laugh, and say "thank you".   

Oh..........and watch out for those Dragons!

Danger on the Beach (thanks to Joyce Weiss)