August 2, 2009

Samuel: Hello, dears.

Hi, Samuel.

S: Do you want to sing a song? Well, this day is Martin’s birthday. [audience sings “Happy Birthday”]

Thank you, love, for saying yes. That was fun. And you do this a whole lot better than some of the other ones you’ve sung. You have a lot more practice with it, eh?

All right, listen very carefully to my question. “What have you done today to make somebody’s life a little better and brighter?” Mary and—you just never know. Was there not a hand putting its way up here? Then it will have to be Chris . . . all right, all right, then Gwendolyn, then Marion, then who is back there, then Gail.

Well, it’s Martin’s birthday today, and I was the first to sing “Happy Birthday” to him, and then I took him out for breakfast this morning and we spent some time together.

S: Did it make your day better and brighter?

It sure did get it started in the right direction, didn’t it?

S: You’ve got to be careful you know when you’re saying the person you made better and brighter is right there next to you. You’ve got to watch out for that. And Chris?

There was a classic car show very close to our house this morning, so I took Owen up to the show so he could look at all the pretty cars.

S: Starting him up early, are you?

The cars were by the library.

S: And you made his day better and brighter?

He seemed very excited to see all of them. [Owen giggles, audience laughs]

S: All right.

Today my daughter, my eldest daughter was house-sitting but also dog-sitting for these people that raise and show big dogs. And then they also have them come in and stay at their place, board them, and very often she has to give them all baths and brush their teeth and clean their ears and cut their toes. Anyway, I had called her because my dog had gotten into something that was more aromatic than I really wanted to live with, so I called her and I said, “Do you think I could get you to wash Zip for me?” And she said, “Oh sure! Come on over.” And then she started telling me the people were going to be gone a little over a week, ten days, and the lady told her that she had left food for her. And she knows that my daughter’s a vegetarian. Well, I think she got a bag of carrots, and a couple of things, and she said, “You know, I’m starting to get hungry.” So I said, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll go out in the garden and look around and bring you  . . .” things are starting to get going. So I made this really big care package and added a few other goodies so that she’d have them, and took them over to the farm where she, not too far from my farm. And before I left she said, “You’ve saved my life.”

S: More than once.

S: That’s lovely.

So we both got a gift.

Don and I excused ourselves from our house guests this afternoon to go to Gary’s house for a memorial for Lee, our friend who had passed on. And we went for Greg, and I think it made his day better that we were there and he knew we loved Lee, too.

S: It makes a nice difference.

Well, today I was not planning on stopping at the farmer’s market; I thought I was just going to the co-op. But I saw all these people gathered and all these tents, so I thought this was a good day to go and check out the vegetables. So I did. I walked down and back up again and I stopped at the purple . . . what do you call them . . . purple peppers. They’re very strange, Samuel. I stopped and looked at them and suddenly the lady behind the counter said, “I love your shirt.” It says, “Around Here the Cats are in Charge.” And I listened to her about five or ten minutes about her big fat cat who likes to lie on its back, and all the cats that she has rescued and found homes for, and that she loves cats. And she had gone from being hot and sweaty in a very, very warm part of the day to totally animated and totally cheerful to the point that she said . . . I asked her how much the peppers were and she says, “Well, they’re one for a dollar, but you can have two.” And each time I would ask her how much something, she said, “Well, you can have more than that.” It was this wiggling situation, an immediate affirmation for me that when you do that with somebody, for somebody, that you get such an immediate return. And for me, it was all vegetables. It was a purple theme, too. There was also purple basil. It was a purple morning.

S: How lovely. Peter Piper . . . picked a peck of purple peppers.

If tomorrow was the day that you were going to become king or queen of the world—don’t answer me this; answer you this—what would be the first thing you would do? You are going to be the king or queen of the world. What are you going to do first?

Now I’ve got another question. You find out from a visitation of the Fairy of Death that this is it: tomorrow’s going to be your last day on the planet. What are you going to do on that day? How do you choose to spend it? And yes, I will toss in the cheesy reminder that you never know, could be your last one. Course, if that’s the case I’d be really irritated at you because there’s still a lot more to do, but it’s that free will stuff, you know.

And then finally, you’re looking back, back back back back back. Maybe back back back back back, back back back back on your life, and you’re thinking, “What is the best thing I’ve done?” Or you can turn it a bit and ask this instead, “How am I going to be remembered?”

[interaction with Owen] Aren’t they great? How old is he now?

Almost two and a half.

S: Wow. He’s a bright one. Now, I want you to think for a moment about if you are looking at the wheel of the year, or looking at ancient connections to the way the world goes by, earth-related holidays. What are you about to come up on here? [more interaction with Owen] And at two and a half he’s not forgotten. Isn’t that great? What if you were two and a half and being reared by people like Jess and Chris?

And the answer to that question was Lughnassadh. And what is Lughnassadh? And why does it fit with those odd questions I was asking? Anybody.

It’s about harvest time.

S: It is. It’s about your reaping what you’ve sown. It’s a time of celebration and going into the winter, the inward.

S: Not quite that far into it. First harvest, not second harvest. But yes, yes.

Mostly the “reaping what you sow” is how I look at it.

S: That’s a good way to look at it. More. Suzanne.

Lughnassadh is also, being one of the earth holidays, is a good opportunity to touch into manifestation energy and creation energy.

S: Isn’t it, though.

The body system that’s connected with that is the gall bladder and the digestive system, just to recap the teaching. By activating that system, we can touch into that.

S: How would you activate that system, or can it not be spoken of in this public place?

It’s fine. We did a wonderful demonstration of cutting a lemon and tasting that sour lemon juice, because anything sour activates the gall bladder. And avocados are also very good for the gall bladder. And some of those oils. Coconut oil, avocado oil.

S: Good work. It’s always impressive when your students remember an hour after it’s been taught. Needless to say several days. That’s pretty impressive. Mary Claire.

Its name comes from Lugh, L-U-G-H, the god of the sun in the Celtic world, and probably other worlds, too, on this planet . . .

S: In one name or another.

Yeah, many names I’m sure, but that’s the creativity, the creative and active part of that festival evolved from because it was a celebration of that very active principle. That very active force in this world.

S: Good. And finally Gayle.

It’s the winding down. It’s approaching Samhain, which is the new year. It’s pointing in the direction of a closing.

S: The beginning of the ending. But the beginning of it, and that’s important, yes.

But how does it fit with the questions? Nobody answered that. All right, go!

It’s a time of hope and insecurity, because we don’t know what’s going to happen. It’s hope because it’s the first harvest, so grand! Great! Sunny days. But we don’t know if we’re going to make it to the second harvest, so attention must be paid. Hope and insecurity.

S: Nicely done. Nicely done. All right, let’s do a quick review. What’s the first question I asked?

[ . . .]

S: the question was not “Are you going to be a king or a queen?” The question was, “What would you do first?” King or queen . . . no, no, no, no. “What would you do first?” What’s the second question?

If tomorrow would be your last day of your life, what would you do?

S: What would be the nature of your last day on the planet? And finally . . .

Looking back,

S: Looking back, how would you like to be remembered? What would you think of as the best thing? How does that fit with Lughnassadh? Those questions, how do they fit? Paula.

What they have in common is they’re all about action. And Lughnassadh is a time when we’re reaping or looking at actions that have been taken—and actions that can be taken, because there’s another harvest to come yet.

S: Excellent. Perfect right there. I’m not even going to take it any further than that.

This is a very important year. Now, when I say it’s a very important year, I am saying you are experiencing all manner of growth in your life. Now, I made reference to a calendar that really isn’t particularly in use anymore, certainly not the way that it was originally set up. But every ancient civilization related their function in the world to the function of the planet you’re on: the cycles of the earth, because they so represent the cycles of a life. Your life goes through those same kinds of cycles, and at any given time, you’re experiencing, in every one of the different aspects of your life, a part of that cycle. Now, it’s not the same part for every aspect because something that you started a month ago isn’t going to be finished yet. Well, I suppose that depends on what you’re doing. But you might have this one that’s at the beginning of a cycle, and this section of your life that’s at the middle of a cycle, and then these two sections of your life in end cycles. And it’s all about change; it’s all about releasing the old and accepting the new. Do you notice that I said “accepting the new?” Why would I say that, as opposed to enjoying the new, or getting the new? Accepting the new, what am I saying there? Kathy.

Sometimes with accepting the new there’s having to let go of the old, which involves an adjustment period, maybe sometimes grief, and having to look at a bigger perspective of why what has been served you and why it should go and how the new is actually better for the bigger picture.

S: Yes. Can you pull that into a sentence? That was a sentence. I’ll let you off the hook. Somebody else is going to.

When I release the old, I have a void; and when I accept the new I replace the void. If I don’t accept it, I still have that void.

S: True. And good there. And good there.

Jim.

I was going to say about accepting: You can have a whole range of response about what comes to you. It can be something you really like, or it’s something you’ve dreaded as being the worst thing that ever happened to you. But you have to accept it.

S: That’s very good. Steven.

Acceptance releases resistance. And by not fighting against the change, my energy is freed up to embrace it and work with what is.

S: Lovely. Would you say that again? You don’t have to use it word for word, but the idea, what you’re putting out there.

Acceptance releases resistance, so that the energy that goes into resistance is available to work with what is, to embrace what is.

S: The energy that you would have been putting into resistance is able to help your garden grow, which is meaning to be a way to take you back to the original Lughnassadh.

How many of you have gardens of one sort or another, and I would include even a pot of flowers or the kind of hydroponic food you can buy and keep alive until you can eat it? So, how many of you have something that you are growing in that line? All right, Frank and Stuart and the form have a lovely garden in the front of their house. And Bobbi and Suzanne have had a whole lot to do with it, and right now it has sort of an odd look to it, doesn’t it , Frank.

I guess.

S: Why might that be?

Some of the flowers have died off, and some of them are growing really well, and some of them are midway through their best blooming and just blooming here and there.

S: Exactly what I was waiting for. Exactly what you have going on in your life. Now, here is the trick to it all. In your life the areas you are paying the most attention to tend to be the only ones that you let yourself see the process. There’s a problem with that. If you don’t like the process going on in this one section of your life, if it’s one of the sections you’re spending all your time on, you’re going to get yourself discouraged because you lay that on all of your life. But you don’t grow that way. Change doesn’t come that way. You don’t wake up in the morning and all of a sudden the addictions are gone, the life-style has changed. Every part of your life has this just starting up, and this is in the middle, that’s really finished, and this is going on about mid-way, and this is brightly in bloom, and “I’m enjoying it so much that’s really the only one I’m going to look at.” And you start throwing yourself off that way.

This is a time of magic and if you look at what does not meet your expectations and judge your life by that, then the magic won’t be there for you. It’s not about what isn’t happening; it’s about what is happening. And to look and see where it is in the process requires something very important. Any ideas? Vision. Requires vision. In every area of your life you won’t know where you are in the process if you don’t know where you’re going with the process. Now, I know that sounds really simple. But if it was truly simple, you wouldn’t have doubts in your life. You wouldn’t have a sense now and again of, “Can’t I be doing something more/different/better?”

Is that a question?

Well, just that in so many accounts, what it takes is trust.

S: Hate that part, but there you go. But where I’m winding all of this to, is one of the ways you can build your life, build your trust, see more of it, make it easier. Now, if you were tomorrow going to wake up and be the king or the queen, the god or the goddess, the emperor or the empress—whatever you prefer—what would you change? Your answer to that is going to tell you action that you see needed. Don’t look at it as King or Queen of the World: “I’d bring peace everywhere.” Well, that’s lovely but that’s not what I’m looking at. Look under it. What is the action there?

Maybe what you would do is call it a day of rest. What’s the action there? It’s purposefully not doing something. What was your action? And I don’t need to know that. That’s not where I’m going. Where I’m going is this: what can you do to put a version of that action into your life? Because the truth of it is, you are a creator, you are the ruler of your world, and your beautiful consciousness working with your interesting sub-consciousness has come up with a statement for you. This is a time of creation. What action is your life needing?

The next question: What would you do? Yes? “What would you do?” is in all likelihood a statement tinged with your emotions, because this one’s about, “You’re at the end of it.” What would you do? Again, look at the action under it, because what you have here is a mental/emotional statement about what you are seeking. So, what are you seeking?

And finally, look back; how do you wish to be remembered? Or, what is the best of what you see? Your answer to that question is telling you a spiritual answer: what your heart wants, what your spirit needs.

Each one of these answers speaks to a part of you, and the fact of it is, you could switch your questions around any way you wished, and come up with answers every day that are a bit different, but as it is right here while we are together tonight, they are giving you an answer about, “What’s in my garden? What am I growing? What do I need to grow strong?”

One of the things that you need very much in your life: you need friends. Friends. Now, that’s a rather odd thing for me to say, isn’t it? Come all this way to tell you you need a friend? So maybe some of you have kind of picked up a little that there must be something a little more to it than just chums. In your life, your friends tell a story of you. If you were not here but a group of your dear friends were here, they could create the composite of you. Now, that might should worry a few of you in here. Who are your friends? And what do they say of you? Now I don’t mean what do they talk about. What do they represent? Which part of you do they have? Guardians have a problem—well, all right, let me change that. It’s not unusual for me to see that Guardians have intimacy issues when it comes to friendship. “Oh, Samuel, that’s not true. I’ve got a lot of really good friends I am deeply committed to, and I know that they would give their life for me and I would give my life for them, and we are very, very close, and we talk about everything.” I’m going to say it again, anyway. It is not unusual for Guardians to tend toward a very small and exclusive group of friends. And the reason for that most of the time has to do with the inner-conflict that says, I should be doing more to help this world vs. I’ve got to take care of myself and there isn’t time to cultivate a friendship. So you do what you can to adapt to that by making it all right that you only have a couple of friends. But it’s not all right, because your heart needs the touch of another. “Oh, Samuel, no, I’m married. I’ve got my heart touched already. And I watch Oprah. And I get my heart touched every day.” Right? Oprah. Nope. What you are needs—hear me—needs to be a part of the life of others. And in perhaps a different way, it is true within every human. You need—on a deep and instinctual level—you need to be in touch with others.

So what do you do to make that happen? All right, even to those watching on a computer or later, on a piece of some kind of electronic medium, do you know how to make friends? Do you know how to plant the seed and then make it grow? Do you know how to support that plant and help it flourish? It’s not taking you back to fourth grade on Valentine’s Day, with everybody having the box and the people who had the most friends had the most Valentines. And the people who did not have so many friends. Every aspect of yourself should have a friend to nourish it. Every aspect of yourself should have a friend to nourish it. So, one of the things that means is you look around at your life and you look around at what the different aspects of you are. How do you spend your time? What makes up your days? Recognize that this part of my life is about being a child, and this part of my life is about being a good teacher, and this part of my life is about being a mother, and this part of my life is about—looking at how you fill your days. Hopefully you’re not going to see this vital part of my life is about television shows. And this vital part of my life is about movies, and this part of my life is about going to bars and listening to wild music and eating bad food and hoping that I can find someone who will mean a lot to me the rest of my life that way. I never did figure that out. The only way that you make friends is by practicing the process. And, you’re going to have to open up a little time in that tight, self-directed schedule that you have going, because you’re going to want to in some way have time to get to know this person a bit better. And to make it easy, you may well find that when you put out to the Universe that you are looking to make friends that they start showing up in your life in ways you’ve not noticed before. The people you work with start getting friendlier, you hear from somebody that you’ve not heard from in years.

You are looking at a time of magic and you need enough support in your life to be able to seek that magic, and that is what friends are for. Now, sometimes that means, like Moses, holding up his arms so that the miracles can be made lengthier. Sometimes it means somebody to play with. Sometimes it means somebody to cry with. But Guardians need to get better at giving away their heart, because it is only by giving it away and indeed risking it being just trampled on now and again, oh, my goodness . . .  It’s only by giving it away, putting it into fertile ground in which you are hoping for something new to blossom, it’s only then that you really begin to reap the important, the vital, energy that your heart needs.

Think for a moment about somebody who is a good friend of yours, somebody you really care about, somebody that is a friend. What is it that makes them your friend? What do you really appreciate about this person? Is your friend perfect? How do you deal with that? Of course they’re not perfect, but the love has a heavier weight than the irritation or frustration. And if you have been able to think about somebody that is your friend, then you have an example of what to be for someone else. If you have no friends, then you’re pretty free to just scatter the seed everywhere and see what comes up.

What comes up in the first harvest, at least in this end of the world, are those things that can stand the heat. And they are often very colorful and they are filled with what is good for you. Right now, that’s exactly what the earth is offering you, and you need to reach out and take what is offered. Look at your life, bring on the colorful. Bring on that which can take the heat. Tonight isn’t about reaping what you sow. It’s about sowing power, and you do that by planting friends. Be one. Get one.

Glochanumora. Happy, happy trails.