Q: I am having trouble sleeping, can you help?

Waking, dreaming and deep sleep are three states of conciousness that reflect the process of death and rebirth. When you dream, your life-force leaves your body and plays on the astral plane. Impressions gathered in your waking life get revealed and you experience happy/unhappy states. This information is then brought back into your sleeping body to integrate and then hopefully percolate up as intelligence into your conscious wakeful body as intelligence. Simply stated, deep sleep is key in the integration of intelligence gathered while dreaming.

Deep sleep occurs at the origin of the heart, inhibitors to deep sleep are:

• wrongly digested food
• conflicting impressions and associations
• poor diet
• unhealthy use of the senses
• unsupportive relationships

obvious, right? But well worth the naming.

Start by looking at what you eat, patterns of thought especially in the last few hours before you go to sleep, folks you interact with during the day… in general what you introduce into your mind-body-spirit is probably what is at the bottom of this. As Hippocrates said: It’s more important to know what kind of patient has a disease than what kind of disease a patient has.”

In other words, What is the first thought form your mind grabs in the morning when it surfaces from the fluff?

The deeper mind/deeper heart is reflected in the life-force/waking self. You need to help the deeper mind complete its circuits so your life-force is free to flow.

I’m a fan of growing and foraging my own plants, but given the sense that plants are dormant in temperate climates in January, you will probably be supporting an herbal shop instead. However, all of the plants I recommend are easily grown during the growing season without too much effort and January is a good month to plan those guerilla plantings and fire escape gardens in SPRING!

These plants are naturally relaxing – some quite doping. They are listed in rough order from mild to strong:

• lemon balm (tea)
• chamomile (tea, flower essence)
• rosemary (food, scent, tea)
• lavender (food, scent, tea)
• catnip (tea)
• passion flower (tea, tincture)
• skullcap (tincture)
• california poppy (tincture)
• hops (tincture)
• valerian (tincture)

General blood tonics are good to integrate too – oats, nettles, and one of my best friends – dandelion!

But before you run off to mainline a bunch of teas and tinctures, I need you to ask yourself again: What is the nature of your hamster wheeling?

• Stressed? oats and lavender
• Anxious? skullcap and valerian
• Depressed? lavender and passion flower
• Insomnia? california poppy, hops and valerian
• Hyperactivity? red clover, oats and dandelion

So try this for a week: eat well, interact with more supportive people than not, connect to the generous and abundant, and before you lay your head down, set your intention to integrate what you gain from the astral plane, lay back and breathe into your deep play mind.

QUESTION 1:

It's butt-ass cold outside. What can I do *right now*, inside my home, to move our home and lives closer to an appropriate way of being a human on this planet?

mous Northerner

&

QUESTION 2:

The holidays are over, it's the New Year, and I don't know what I'm doing with my life. I think I may be approaching a full-blown Spiritual Emergency. How can I calm down without going on pharmaceuticals?

Increasingly Nervous Nelly
Jamaica Plains, New York

 

Sounds like both of you are talking about feeling potentiality – the first of you feels you’re at the base of a big hill. The other of you is feeling that you are at the top of that hill looking out and figuring out which way to roll down.

I could suggest to start composting your own crap, write someone an ink and paper letter, get to know the trees on the way to work, sing your personal aria while riding your bike, cook a meal with a neighbor, give your lap to a cat… And those are all great things to do, but I actually have further questions for you both.

Do you ask yourself this question on a sunny day in June? How are you relating to your socio-biological environment? What is your conscious intent? What do you consider “human”?

To ‘know that’ is not necessarily to ‘know how’ which is another way of saying that a good theorhetician can be a poor practicioner. Practice proceeds the theory of it. Heck, what are you doing right now to connect top the larger picture you are a part of?

So you have the option to jump now, scroll down to a simple answer or read on for a story about someone I recently met. (Hoobaby! So many choice!)

I had spent the train ride home with my eyes closed planning my 100 FOLKS CRYING IN PUBLIC action (stay tuned, details later) after I was forcibly told to “calm down” by a security officer in a public building. I had been on the pay phone for over forty minutes talking to one taciturn civil servant after another. I kept getting disconnected and having to wander around the milling public asking if anyone could break my singles for change to begin again. I wanted to scream and the effort to hold it back was immense so I had started crying. When I ignored him, he summoned two other guards and they stood by at arm length just in case anything escalated as I continued on my phone calls. Was it really that interesting of a spectacular to call your friends to watch? How many years are we away from a police state? No. Would it take three men to successfully restrain a frustrated woman? Maybe.

ANNOUNCEMENT

Emotional displays in public spaces can be seen a cause for alarm by authorities.

Now back to the story… I left the station and hit the icy sidewalk. A scrapper with a mother load of oversized, odd shaped metal bits all stuffed in tied onto a shopping cart clattered up the middle of the street. He looked young, small, his non-pulling arm was swinging clockwork crazy propelling him forward. Hope flew from my chest. I yelled, ‘Right On!’ and he turned and grinned at me and kept going. I started jogging in the slush to keep pace with him.

On the other side of the underpass, he hit a hill. He was straining, his free arm windmilling, his body low to the ground. I stopped dead and the other me asked me, “What the hell are you doing, Nance?!” and I stumbled over the waist high wedge of dirty snow, joined him at the center line and started pushing that cart. At the next stoplight, I moved to the front, imagining myself as the second horse. That’s when I realized that he was a she. “My name is Nini and I want to tell you, this ain’t no dog eat dog world. People think it is, but it ain’t.” Then the light changed. The cart was heavy and we were breathing the cold air in deeply. Cars from both directions honked and swerved past. A perpetually sour neighbor of mine sped passed, her face screwed tight. “That’s my neighbor” I said. And Nini and I laughed.

I left Nini off at 25th street. She had three blocks to the scrapyard. She was going to make it there before it closed.

And if you haven’t figured it out already, my answer is: Get on the ground and join hands and hearts with the brave.

INVITE THE WILD NEIGHBORS TO DINNER

Charismatic mega-fauna are really taking it on the chin these days. They look great on posters and t-shirts, but don’t let them walk un-tethered through town!

I was quite upset when, in April, a mountain lion showed up in Chicago, and was shot seven times by the police. I too have always felt a bit conspicuous and unwieldy in the city.

This cougar traveled hundreds of miles to get to Chicago. Perhaps it knocked out a few slow squirrels or stray cats when it touched on the interminable sprawl of Chicago, or Milwaukee, or even Rockford, Illinois, but there were no human attacks. Of course, there could have been – but there wasn’t.

Last year, also in Chicago, a coyote showed up in the refrigerated beverage section of a downtown sandwich shop. After forty-five minutes, and after several people-customers took pictures of it with their cell phones, animal control showed up. The coyote was given an overnight stay at a suburban wildlife rehabilitation center and released – probably back into the suburbs.

Most people around here are asking why these animals show up in huge metropolises. I think a better question to ask is this -- don’t you ever feel like one of these animals?

Mountain lions are both protectors and nurturers. They are loners and independent types. They stand for something quite formidable. Heck, they’re lions! It doesn’t seem like city folk are ready to live with such animals. Most have fear rather than respect for them. Lots of fear. Some reasonable. Some -- not so much.

So, if you feel like you’re a big cat in the big city, how do you protect yourself from being shot?

Is it better to adapt the strategy of a weed?

Weeds are plants that were once valued and cultivated but now have escaped cultivation. Some have been further domesticated into a more mild form now recognized as food. For instance, our lettuces are domesticated variations of wild lettuce.

Weeds are really good at hiding in the open. Their secrets are kept close in their invisibility. Their numbers are always spreading.

Be a weed:
thrive no matter where you are
make your own food and oxygen
make soils better for the next inhabitants
send out a gazillion seeds
reincarnate frequently in unexpected places

I want to introduce you to mugwort – Ms. Artemesia vulgaris. She is widespread in the United States. Mugwort pops up in both our urban and rural settings. She is downright plentiful and ready for you to use. (Note: if pregnant, please do not use this herb. Read more about it first.)

Artemis, the Queen of the Beasts was a wild one. She was an supreme hunter and friend of forest beasts. Artemis found mugwort and delivered it to the centaur. Forever after, the herb has carried her name.

I recommend you look for Artemesia vulgaris. And when you find her, gently trim a piece and dry it (simply burn it in a saucer) and inhale the smoke. This plant is a protector from evil as well as an aide to communication with the plant world.

Native Americans, Asians, and Europeans have used this plant medicinally and as a healthful culinary herb for hundreds of years. In Europe it was used as the main bittering flavor for ales until cultivated hops took over. My friend Tree, just shared some of his herby mugwort ale with me. yummy stuff paired with the homemade raw cheese we were munching on.

Mugwort is used in moxibustion. In acupuncture, this is the smoking punk they hover over your acupuncture points. It draws blood to the skin’s surface and unblocks your body’s meridian points of stuck energies.

Fresh or dried mugwort also repels insects, cleanses your blood of toxins, promotes sweating, and reduces tension. Lastly, you should know it has some of the same properties of its mysterious cousin of a different species (any guesses?).

Mugwort is also used for lucid dreaming. Cut a spring and put it under your pillow or tuck a sprig into your pocket for protection. Burn some before you settle into an evening outside. Smoke some before you go foraging or before you lie down in a meadow for a nap.

Maybe it is time we invite these charismatic mega-fauna and not-so-charismatic weeds to the table. Set a place for them. I am not talking about putting them on the menu at some upscale restaurant so we can create a demand. I am simply proposing we let them walk through town. Let them take up shelter under our porches or feed off the extra bunnies.

Speaking of weeds, please do serve them up, drink them, smoke them, learn about them and love them. Find an overarching but examined respect for them. You should, because the mega-fauna and weeds are already here or on their way.

While riding my bicycle by the train line recently, I saw the ghost image of the big cat out of the corner of my eye. It emerged from the alley and then ducked back in. In other words, the cat’s spirit hasn’t left.

A Small Sampling of Snapshots from Mike's Itinerant Summer

This badly lit photo is of a diorama by Ella Silcox, made from surplus copper wire. The title reads, "Breaking Virgin Prairies." I wonder what this wire was used for and where it was mined, and how the hell Ella got ahold of it? I neglected to note down the year, circa 1950, maybe. Martin County Historical Society, Fairmont, Minnesota.

Here I am attacking a windmill. These things are incredibly large and menacing when you get up close. Near Windom, Minnesota.

This is a hunting decoy of a buffalo on which tourists can practice their atlatl dart throwing. An atlatl is a hook-like stick used to throw darts, a pre-bow-and-arrow hunting technology used in North America, and many other places around the world. It's fun. I missed. Near Comfrey, Minnesota

Here is one of the thousands of petroglyphs, a turtle, possibly as old as 6000 years, at the Jeffers Petroglyphs site. This picture was taken mid-day, the worst time to see the faint carvings. The best time is in the raking light if the morning or evening. But I was happy to see them at all, since I had just endured about four days of heavy rain while biking through southern Minnesota and almost had to skip the petroglyphs altogether. Near Comfrey, Minnesota

This is an encampment I stumbled across on the southeastern shore of Prairie Island where someone was eating A LOT of mussels from Sturgeon Lake, on the Mississippi River. Near Prairie Island, Minnesota (obviously).

I had never heard of NAFEX, but probably you have. This is one of the many curious discoveries in the Dreamtime Village Public Library, a collection of amazing, pre-internet publications, which is quite frankly in a state of neglect and jeopardy. West Lima, Wisconsin

This is a portion of Paula Kaplan's bowling ball collection at her farm, Little Bluff Farm. She let me stay in a small cabin on the little bluff for a week in exchange for 2 days of labor. It was a good deal. Near Brodhead, Wisconsin

This is a sod house, similar to the ones that some European colonizers of the Midwestern prairies lived in during the 1800's. They would peel the skin off the prairie and pile strips of it to make the walls, then cover the roof slats with the canvas wagon cover and place more sod strips on top of that. Luckily this one was locked up on the day that I visited because when I peered through the window there was a creepy mannequin dressed like a settler in there. Fort Belmont, Jackson, Minnesota

This is a platform adjacent to one of the plots of a large experimental garden, Vasa Gardens, that reminded me of the corn watching stages described in Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden. When I asked I was told that it was built as a platform for long range rifle target practice by the son of the man in charge of Vasa Gardens, who had recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq.
Vasa, Minnesota

I’ve quit dancing twice. I wanted to be a prima ballerina since I was small, but I gave up when I was 19 because of sensing not enough talent in me and I was so tired of competition. I felt I should be more helpful rather than dancing and spending time and money for myself.

One day, my friend told me, "In Chinese character, we write 'for person' and it reads 'fake'." That was very true. Also my seminar professor told me, "to make other people happy, first of all, you should be happy." That sounded very true, too.

I was taking Buddhism studies, and one day all of sudden, the concept of ‘Furyu’ which literally means “wind flow” hit me. Furyu is the feeling of not staying in either the worldly nor the sacred. Instead, the state experiences going back and forth in between. I felt Furyu is the dominant sense of Japanese people and because of the characteristic, we cannot say yes and no clearly.

I thought the Furyu state of being is also my mentality of swaying inbetween. One day, I encountered the writing by haiku poet Basho, who talked about how he ended up creating useless haiku. Basho felt it was ‘damn to do‘ because he could not help anyone with his poetry. He called himself “fruitless banana tree.” However, Basho couldn't help following this thing, ‘furabo,’ which can be easily broken by wind, yet keep swaying in him all the time and took him to this path. And he said that path is connected to all other paths and of other peoples paths.

I also encountered Taoist's Chuan-tsu since Basho loved reading him. He was also talking about being as it is, following the nature.

- - - - - - - - - - - -

Pages: 1 2