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Angie’s List

Posted by Terri on Jul 12, 2012 in Events and Education, Green or Nature | Comments Off on Angie’s List

Hello all!    It’s been awhile, most posts  have been happening over at the Spirituality Blog the last few months.  But this is all about straight up Blessings business, so I wanted to post this here.

We have begun to use Yelp and Angie’s List to assess whether we’re keeping valued clients like you happy. If you are so inclined, feel free to leave a review on our Yelp page or visit our Angie’s List Review Page in order to grade our quality of care and your experiences here.

As always, if you have any questions or concerns about anything, don’t hesitate to call or email us!  Hope this finds all well!

Peace,  Terri

Alternative Medicine in St. Louis

Deserts and the Eight Worldly Dharmas

Posted by Terri on Jun 12, 2012 in Emotions, Grief, Happiness, Healing, Loss and Letting Go, ponderings, Spirituality | Comments Off on Deserts and the Eight Worldly Dharmas

Hello all ! It’s been forever since I stopped by, so I thought I’d say hello.  Blogger Slacker, indeed!  Truthfully, I’ve been out living my life instead of blogging about it.  As part of those life adventures, I spent some time in the southwest, rambling around in the desert.   This picture was taken while hiking in the canyons of southern Utah, one of the most gorgeous places on the planet.

I was thinking about the desert and my Utah trip this morning.  I love the southwest.  LOVE IT.   And as I proceed across the landscape of my life, with grief from recent deaths, lots of shifts in many areas and a renewed sense of intention about some things, I was thinking about how the desert represents that journey for me.

Sometimes I look into the depths of my life and it feels like the desert:  Wide open, sort of dry in places, yet full of Light that knows how to get into the tiniest of cracks of the surface, into the deepest places inside of me, those places where there are just no words.  Only stillness, a deep stillness inside of me.  The desert is like that place… still, so still.  Not silent necessarily, but still.  It teems with life at night, when it’s easier and safer to be out, out of the harsh sun that gives life but can also take it away.  In the desert, the most common ways to die are from dehydration or drowning, hence this sign.  Paradox, paradox.  The desert is full of life, full of mysterious canyons and deep drop-offs, ancient dwellings full of art painted or chiseled into the stone walls centuries ago, the artists long gone, yet their creative spirit remains.  It’s also full of potential death if you are not prepared and observant, aware of your surroundings and willing to take care of the basics.

I think that’s part of why I crave the desert~~there’s nowhere (now here?) to go, nowhere to be, other than right here, right now.  The basics matter.  So when all else fails, sometimes it’s really important to remember the basics.  Like, water and food and shelter.  Like, fire burns and when it rains the earth gets wet.  Like, my safety is my responsibility.  Like, it’s important to know current and predicted conditions, because something happening miles away can sweep me off my feet in a second, a flash flood of emotion or information or experience, just as surely as a sudden storm in the sky.  My journey truly is my responsibility.

The Power of Words

Posted by Terri on Feb 10, 2012 in Cool Art, Healing, Music or Other nifty things, Peace, Spirituality | 1 comment

It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it…

This will take less than 2 minutes of your time, I promise you’ll be glad you watched!  🙂

Have a great day!

Kim Seer Class

Posted by Terri on Jan 23, 2012 in Events and Education | 1 comment

Hello Everyone, Happy New Year!  Our friend Linda Wanner is bringing one of her favorite teachers to St. Louis for a series of classes beginning in March and I wanted to pass along that information, scroll down to see their brochure.  I have never worked with the presenter so cannot personally attest, but FYI in case this is something that resonates with you.

This is an exciting time of change and transition and if you are feeling fearful, out of balance or as if you are not thriving, it’s good to seek support during those times.  For some people that means coming to someone like me or other coaches, healers or therapists.  For many that means a new way of thinking and relating to the world and to our stories.   Sometimes that means doing something different, so I wanted to pass along this class info.   A lot is happening for all of us, and this is a deep time of change.  Change is good, but it can also be scary,  so ride the wave and know you are safe and all is well.

Hang in there, sweet friends.  We are all we have, but it’s important to remember we are enough.  YOU are enough.  It’s ok to allow yourself to be happy, joyous and free in this new year and beyond.  Breathe and enjoy the ride!

The rest is a cut/paste from the info about Kim.  Contact Linda with any questions.    Thanks!

Happy New Year! We are at the beginning of a new and exciting year that has the potential to be the best year we have experienced, EVER. In order to help you make the most of this powerful and amazing year, I would like to invite you to Thriving in a New World, an awesome series of courses that is unlike anything you have experienced before. Below is the brochure with more detailed information about these courses and what you can expect from the classes.

In these courses, Kim Seer will guide you through the releasing of fears, excuses and patterns, helping you become the very best YOU that you can become. If you are looking for a deeper connection with yourself, an understanding of the changes that are happening on the planet at this time, or would like to learn to help bring balance to situations going on around you, these courses may be for you!

Course dates are as follows:

Segment 1: March 10-11, 2012

Segment 2: June 23-24, 2012

Segment 3: September 22-23, 2012

Segment 4: November 3-4, 2012

Courses will be held at Garden of Life Spiritual Center in Crestwood, MO, about 4 miles from the intersection of I-44 and I-270.  Hotel suggestions can be provided upon request for those wishing to stay nearby on these weekends.

For more information or to register, please contact Linda Wanner 314-963-1978 or linda.wanner@att.net

THRIVING IN A NEW WORLD gives you clear, accurate information not only for this time but for years to come. In this process, you will move into a place of absolute clarity and confidence with information for yourself and others on levels you have yet to achieve. Author your Destiny literally in ways that far supersede what you currently believe is possible. It IS possible and it will be by YOUR hand that you experience amazing things in your life.

www.kimseer.com

Grief is its own Medicine

Posted by Terri on Jan 23, 2012 in Emotions, Grief, Happiness, Healing, Loss and Letting Go, Spirituality | 2 comments

“Grief is itself a medicine.”                        ~~William Cowper (1731-1800)

I went to visit my dad over the weekend.  It’s been almost five months since my mom died and Saturday morning we went to the cemetery.  It was an overcast Ozark day, one my mother would have called “dreary.”  Too many days in a row like that and I start to get sort of squirrely, but today I found the starkness of the country landscape beautiful.  It seemed like a good day to go to a grave.

My mom is buried four or five miles back on an old country road, in Clubb Cemetery, outside of Zalma, MO.  The road is a dusty, red dirt affair, full of remnants of the red clay that is in and around the area.  You have to drive slowly so even though it’s not far in miles it takes about half hour to get there.  I find the drive beautiful, the landscape dotted with old barns, some abandoned white churches with steeples still intact, wide open fields and woods.  My dad was born and raised in an old house on one of those hills, near a place called Pond Creek.  He attended a one-room school house and they didn’t have electricity in that part of the world until the mid-1950’s, when he was about ten years old.  His dad never lived in a place that had running water and my dad didn’t have it until he was nearly twenty, when he came to St. Louis to find work.  His mom died when he was a teenager and he and his dad farmed and hunted the surrounding land for years.

My dad is an old country boy, a decent and kind man, a southern gentleman at heart.  Even after all the years he lived in the city, he always thought of this place as home.  I am in my forties now and live in the heart of the city.  While I love the convenience the urban life affords me, I find as I get older I crave the solace of the country.  My soul resonates deeply with the land here.  I suspect this is at least partly because life is slower and the pace kinder here, not so connected to the rat race.  The older I get, the more I realize that being in the rat race mostly just turns people into rats.  I got off the mainstream hamster wheel years ago, but have yet to find a way to reconcile my living being made in the city with my soul being made in the country.  In the meantime I go back and forth a lot and have a big garden to play in, sort of an Urban Homestead.  It will have to do for now.

Lost in this thought, I was surprised when we arrived so suddenly.  Clubb Cemetery is small, about the size of an average city lot.  It’s not much bigger than my front yard, surrounded on all sides by hardwood forest.  The woods are dense here, full of oaks as hard as the stones and boulders surrounding them.  Sometimes I think it looks like a bowling alley for drunken giants, with fallen trees scattered like pins everywhere, rocks strewn all around them like a child hurling his toys down a hill in a fit of glee to see how far they can roll.  It’s a gorgeous place, a quiet final resting place for people long gone, headstones dating back to the  early 1800’s.  There are old Civil War grave markers there, although no one knows who lies beneath them, the details of their lives long gone but the stories not forgotten.  The Missouri Department of Conservation has taken over the land but my dad’s family still maintains the cemetery, cutting the grass and tending the graves with care and respect.  Every Memorial Day the family comes and they clean the cemetery, straighten up what needs to be taken care of and have a prayer and a picnic under the pavilion near the edge of the woods.

My dad’s grandmother was a Clubb and on the way over he tells stories of his growing up, stories about these people now resting in this garden of stones, stories of people I had heard about but had no true connection to until my own mother was laid among them.  I sit on the back of the headstone where his brother Glenn lies and stare at my mother’s grave marker, feeling a multitude of feelings, memories and thoughts washing over me in waves.  My father is not comfortable with much display of emotion, so I do not cry when I am there with him.  I just sort of sit in The Big Empty of grief and listen to him talk.

They haven’t come out yet to chisel in the death date and this is beginning to irritate him.  He talks about needing to spread grass seed in the spring, because the heavy equipment tore up the earth in digging the grave.  These are not the manicured lawns you may be used to seeing if you live in a city or visit a large, professionally tended cemetery.  This is a small place in the middle of nowhere, surrounded in every direction by dense woods.  The way the funeral procession brought her over was almost five miles in the other direction, but still down that same red dirt road, dust blowing all over the hearse and cars behind it, ground as hard as the rocks in it after a long, dry summer.  I’m sure it took a lot to dig the grave and a lot was disturbed in the process.

My dad frets about the grass, channels his emotions into “doing,” a very instrumental griever.  He was a good caregiver for her in her final years and I think he is beginning to sort of live his own life again.  This gives me a sense of relief; I was not quite ready to begin taking care of him too, as selfish as that may seem.   I think about all of these things while he picks up sticks and small rocks and flings them into the roadside ditch.  His cousin and her son came over the morning my mom died and cleaned up the place, used a weed eater to make even the ditch and roadside look nice.  I love the country way of doing things, an interdependence here that makes it seem like family and community still really mean something.  The sense of it is tangible in small acts of kindness and respect, things I find tremendously reassuring in the midst of what at times seems like a world gone mad.  My mother would have been pleased.

The drive back is always easier than the drive over, the weight of the anticipation of seeing her fresh grave and the rush of feelings is always strong for me.  We pass the open fields again, remnants of old homesteads still evident by the stone chimneys seemingly rising up out of nowhere, by the random pump handle along the side of the road. No doubt water would still flow if you needed it, and I’m sure at times people do.  Deer and wild turkey abound here, as do deer and turkey hunters.  Cords of wood line the sides of the homes, for it is all they have to heat their houses in the winter.

The sky is stark, and I am mesmerized by it today for some reason.  It’s like an Ansel Adams picture come to life, still black and white, the trees as gray as the sky beyond them.  The occasional white branches of sycamores or the green of the pines and the cedars stand out against the cloud cover, making it seem almost surreal.  The sumac is tall this year, fodder for deer and other game, a glorious deep burgundy color with oval pods hovering tall above the thinner stems beneath them.  Soybeans and corn are staple commodity crops here and in recent years they have begun to grow rice as well.  Rice is a pretty crop, not one people think of as growing in southeast Missouri, but it grows in abundance here and is gorgeous to behold.  Some of the farmers have put in winter wheat and it is coming on, blanketing the otherwise barren landscape with swaths of emerald green, like an Irish angel sent to give some life to the otherwise quiet fields.

We passed a curious sight on the way back and my father actually stopped the truck.  Sidebar—for the uninitiated, there are only a few modes of transportation here, trucks and what you may think of as a car.  Here, however, they are not called cars.  For the most part, anything not called a truck or tractor is called a vehicle, and it is pronounced “vee-hick-ill.”  Do not confuse this or you will be confused when attempting to ride with someone.

So back to the topic at hand.  My dad actually stopped the truck and said, “Now, look at that.”

I wasn’t sure what I was looking at, so naturally I said, “What?”

“That,” he said, pointing to an open field.  A ratty old trailer was perched on stilts, high above a cornfield, near the edge of the woods.

“What’s that?” I asked again.

“Well, I imagine it’s his idea of a deer stand.”

“What’d he do it like that for?” I asked, innocently enough.

“Well personally, I think he’s ate up with the dumb-ass.  I mean, look at that.”

Now. Two things.  First, my father is 68 years old and has hunted and fished his whole life, in his younger years as much as for survival as for sport.  He has probably forgotten more about deer stands and deer hunting than I will ever know.  Or hope to, for that matter.  So I do not have the clinical training to ascertain if a ratty old trailer perched on stilts is a fitting deer stand or not.  But apparently not.

But as for the second part of this equation, I have worked in and around clinical mental health for years, hold a masters degree in a related field and make my living doing such things.  This is an area in which I feel qualified, or at least I pretend to be.  I can, therefore, assure you with no hesitation whatsoever that my father has a rare diagnostic ability when it comes to spotting anyone afflicted with the dreaded malady known as Being Ate Up With The Dumb-Ass.  If we had been in mixed company or around some of the churchier folks among us, mostly Baptists, he would have dumbed down his clinical assessment and said something like, “Well personally, I think the boy’s cheese done slid off his cracker.”

But it was just the two of us, so I got the full clinical evaluation and diagnosis.  If you have ever lived or worked with someone suffering from the dreaded malady known as Being Ate Up With The Dumb Ass (as you surely have), you know this is an affliction for which there no known cure.  Furthermore, the more you try to cure it, the worse it gets.  So in general it’s best to just leave it alone and let nature take its course, as it surely will.  Because the Universe is a kind, generous and largely harmonious place, I find that most people in this state of affairs are blissfully unaware of their condition and if no one tells them about it, they’ll never know.  Which often seems like the kindest way to handle it.

So we drove on, more relaxed than on the way over, pointing out the sumac and the cattle laying down, which indicates further “falling weather,” as it is called here.  It was cold, cloudy and we had just been to my mother’s grave.  I’ve been there many times since she died, but for the first time I felt relaxed afterward, in awe of nature and the turning of the seasons.   I laughed with my father on the way home from my mom’s grave.  Grief is its own medicine, and it was a beautiful day.

Hope yours is too!

You May Say I’m a Dreamer, But I’m Not The Only One…

Posted by Terri on Jan 16, 2012 in Healing, Peace, prayers, Spirituality | Comments Off on You May Say I’m a Dreamer, But I’m Not The Only One…

Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you also refuse to hate him…                                   ~~Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor…        ~~Anne Lamott

Hello again!  I know, I know.   You don’t get a post for days on end and now two in one day.  How fortunate you are!  I just couldn’t let today pass without acknowledging Dr. Martin Luther King, so here it is.  There has been a great deal of recent media attention about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and his famous  “I Have a Dream” speech.  I absolutely do not want to politicize this blog, but I would like to talk about the background of non-violent resistance and the spirituality of the choices we make to non-violently engage aggression or  oppression, in ourselves and with others.

Dr. King based a lot of his approach to non-violent civil disobedience on Quaker philosophy and Mahatma Gandhi’s philosophy of Ahimsa, which means non-violence in every aspect.   Ahimsa is the philosophy of total non-violence.  It refers not only to physical violence, but all violence– all cruelty, all unkind words, thoughts, values and behaviors toward self and others.  Teachers and committed practitioners of non-violence emphasize that peace begins within, with disciplined and mindful practices of prayer and meditation.  True peace involves cultivating skillfulness in these areas.  We cannot be peaceful toward others if we hold self-hatred in our hearts.  To love one’s neighbor as oneself means we must practice peace and self-love first; not in an indulgent, mindless way, but with true mindfulness and balance.   We must truly practice non-violence within first in order to extend that to our fellows.  We must be kind and gentle with ourselves first if we are to ever be consistently kind and gentle with others.

Gandhi struggled  with what to name this movement of active resistance and eventually coined a term he called Satyagraha.   Satya means truth, the equivalent of love, and both are attributes of the soul.  Agraha is firmness or insistence.  Satyagraha is therefore translated as Soul Force.  Gandhi wrote, “Satyagraha is the vindication of truth not by infliction of suffering upon an opponent, but on one’s self.  The opponent must be weaned by patience and sympathy…”

Weaned, not crushed or in anyway violated or retaliated against.  A true adherent of Ahimsa shows the patient love of a mother to endure pain for the greater good of the birth of a beloved child.   Soul Force assumes peace is possible and returns good for evil until the evildoer grows weary of the evil itself.  That’s amazing to most of us and a life-long practice for anyone who seriously believes in this practice.

Some of the great Gandhi thoughts on this philosophy and his beliefs can be summed up in these quotes…

When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall — think of it, ALWAYS. …Non-violence is the article of faith…It is easy enough to be friendly to one’s friends. But to befriend the one who regards himself as your enemy is the quintessence of true religion. The other is mere business… Hatred can be overcome only by love…

Buddhism, Hinduism, the Christian Gospels and the Religions of the Book all teach peace at their core.  Gandhi understood this and thus his  ideas and practices were based on the Hindu scriptures from the Gita and from the Sermon on the Mount.  Dr. King and many others have followed those examples throughout the ages.  With that in mind, a few thoughts on the Sermon on the Mount…

Matthew 5: 38-42

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Eye for eye, and tooth for tooth.  But I tell you, Do not resist an evil person. If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.  And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well.  If someone forces you to go one mile, go with him two miles….”

These verses are taken from the Sermon on the Mount, a sermon in which Jesus addressed an oppressed people.  Many consider the Sermon on the Mount to be the key address on Christian non-violence.  It’s important to note that the people hearing this sermon were not rich and powerful;  they were the poor, oppressed and downtrodden subjects of an occupying military force, as well as people oppressed by their own religious authorities.  They were tired; they were in need of a Voice which told them they were loved and worthy, a Voice to speak of a deeper truth of Love, a Voice which reminded them, “You are the Light of the World.”   They were abused by the rich and powerful every day.  What Jesus is advocating in this passage is about social justice, but in a manner which emphasizes non-violent active resistance to a violent system.

The phrase, “do not resist an evil person.  If someone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other to him also,” refers to the custom of the day and meant more to them then than it means to us now. A better translation of this from the Greek  is “do not meet  violence with violence.” This is not instruction to passively accept brutality or injustice, it is instead encouraging a courageous stand which exposes the violence.   During that time, the master or slave-owner had the right to strike the subject or slave on the right cheek—but only the right cheek, with the back of the right hand.  To strike the left cheek would indicate a loss of temper or control and bring shame upon the one doing the hitting.  But since it is impossible to strike the left cheek with the back of the right hand, what Jesus is advocating here is exposing the violence, but doing so non-violently.

The next instruction, “And if someone wants to sue you and take your tunic, let him have your cloak as well…” refers to the time in which they lived and more customs of the day. At that time, the wealthy and those in power abused their authority by suing the poor and oppressed who literally had nothing but the clothes on their back.  The court would then say the person had to forfeit their tunic, leaving them essentially standing in their underwear in court.  What Jesus is saying is that if they want to try to humiliate you through abuse of power, to again resist non-violently and expose the violence.  Be empowered but do so through your own sense of internal power, of knowing  you are valuable and worthy as a child of God, but do not resist the evil of abuse with more violence.  So if they want to strip you of all you have—fine.  Counter with stripping down in court and exposing it all, literally.  But do so from a position of non-violent empowerment, not angry retaliation.

The next line, “if someone forces you to go a mile, go two miles...” is part of an expression we use all the time without understanding its context.  The Romans were an occupying force of that time and under the law a Roman soldier could force a person, usually an oppressed subject, to carry his pack one mile.  While this might not sound like a big deal, it was abuse of power with serious consequences.  The poor laborers of that time worked each day for their money and bought food for their families each night with their earnings.  So to force a man to carry a heavy pack a mile meant he would then have to turn around and walk back to town, ensuring he would miss a day of work; this meant he and his family would therefore go hungry that night.  Going the extra mile was again a way to expose the violence of the oppressor and be empowered in doing so, but again to choose to expose the injustice and violence through non-violent means.

There is much more to the Sermon on the Mount, as well as to the philosophy of non-violence called ahmisa.  I will cover some of that in a future post, but for now, if you have never watched the full I Have a Dream speech, you can do so in the video below.  It’s about 17 minutes long, so give yourself the time to really sit with it, and maybe ponder a few questions….

What are your dreams?  Are you willing to work toward them without force,  starting with yourself?  Are you ever forceful or violent toward yourself or others?  Do you practice self-hatred or self-oppression which leads to aggressive behavior with yourself and others?  Will you turn the other cheek with that voice inside that may be the oppressor and gently wean it from the harshness with which you speak to yourself?  Are you violent and aggressive with yourself while you smile and pretend life is good, do you act as if all is well when you are enduring great pain inside?   Does life have to be forced and perfect, or can you strive for an excellent peace? Can you cultivate inner peace and share that with others?

What are your dreams today?  What keeps you from your peace?

If you would like to work on any of these things this year, call or email me and we can explore your dreams in our sessions.  We may be dreamers, but we are not the only ones…

If you have never taken the time to watch the full “I have a dream” speech, it is worth the time.

peace 🙂