Multiple Voices: a choir

"I have seven active blogs,"  I told her. 
"Why?"  She asked.
I thought about my answer for a couple seconds, and said, "I've been a writer most of my adult life, and I love to write.  There's so much to write, slightly different voices, same life."  There wasn't much discourse from that point between us, though the question was asked by others in different ways.  Madeline L'Engle wrote, 'But I cannot write just when I feel like it, or I will have nothing to write with.  Like the violin, I must be tuned and practiced on constantly."

A couple people asked what happened to our 'old' blog, and I said the story had been told for three years, and it was time to stop telling that story.
"Do you think others have followed in your footsteps?" One friend asked.
"I'm not sure about that, though at least one couple is building a tiny home, and is in touch with us."
The friend said she had been to our our blog a lot.  I said she would be welcomed to see the archived posts; we could invite her to read them if she asked. 

Pete and I were gathered with a group of people who live with different manifestations of an illness diagnosed as Multiple Chemical Sensitivities.  We met these folks three years ago when my physical symptoms were the most difficult to understand, and support for this unravelling came from this group.  We garnered ideas, listened to the stories each shared and enjoyed the company of fragrance-free companions.  We so appreciate the experiences we heard back then.  We have often been, and continue to live a distance away from this Seattle-based group.  Our trek from South Whidbey is made with consciousness and preparedness.  The pollens are in sky-high infusion in mid-May, so my decision to travel is done with Plan Be, once again. 

1. BElieve I can do it.  My desire for the company of these folks is strong.  We  haven't seen these friends for nine months.
2. BE positive.  Knowing what I see as a good-thing and a step toward good-feeling (joyful company, catching up, sharing), I focus on the good and step away from resistence and feelings that distract.
3. BE prepared.  We travel with an oxygen tank, face mask, homeopathic remedies, glass jug of filtered water, and know to keep talking to each other as we pace our way from the woods to the city.  We plan the two hours journey into the city with ease and fun built-in:  ice cream cone for me, a good and healthy lunch even before the late afternoon potluck.

The weather was mild and allowed a pleasant few hours with our friends.  The stories and the voices were multiple, but focused mainly around the illness.  A new supplement for one woman aides her to sleep; another friend rests peacefully on a blanket laid on the grass beside our picnic table enjoying the sleep she hasn't been able to get as she wades through a multiple-month challenge of in-her-home invasion; bone-building physical stretches shared just before our 'good-byes' attracts the interest of three of us; a successful search for a new home is a victory shared. 

In one afternoon gathering the voices of experiences are multiple, and each voice and story fueled by a personal decision based on wanting to 'feel good.'  The varied choices and the progress toward good as diverse as is the dozen or so folk who came to the park that spring afternoon.  As Pete and I headed home, we recounted our adventure.  Though it was rush-hour our path along the alternative highway north was easier, fewer banks of the pollen that is most difficult for me made the journey a most down-stream experience.  We had napped earlier, sunning ourselves in the car as we waited for our friends to arrive.  So we had refreshed enough ... pacing ourselves to allow the good into our flow.  We could not share the driving because I needed to use the oxygen from time-to-time, I need to remember to thank Pete and appreciate him more often.

When we got home, we both were glad we adventured, but even more glad to be home.  What a nice feeling to know 'glad to be home.'  Back in the Quonset I stowed away the food and supplies we'd purchased from the city.  JOTS was still out and away in the woods.  Pete was off tending to the ducks and chickens.  When I peeked out the door, I saw him sitting at the nearly built wooden table now so comfortably a part of the orchard.  He and Eileen were chatting.  I turned on the c.d. player, checked to see that the sounds I wanted to hear were there, shut the lid on the player, pressed the PLAY arrow button and listened to the other part of my PLAN BE.  I am newly training myself to turn down-stream for my good news and good feelings.

"Be easy about this. Be playful about it. Don't work so hard at it. Let your dominant intent to be to feel good, and if you don't feel good, then let your dominant intent be to feel relief. Feel your way through it. If you think your way through it, you can get off on all kinds of tangents. If you feel your way through it, you can come quickly to your Core Energy, and when you do that only good can then flow to you."

--- Abraham
Excerpted from the workshop in Rye, NY on Sunday, October 12th, 1997

My choosing gets better with practice.  I listened to my c.d. and turned to the sink, and the bottles that needed to be refilled with filtered water.  I knew this choice to drive into Seattle was done on an 'Ole Moon when rest was the best choice.  I took a risk, and now I feel the price for extending beyond my reserves.  Before the tape was finished Pete came back, we traded places in front of the laptop. 

"Would you keep an eye on the bottle?  I need to go into the vardo for a lie-down." 
"Sure," Pete said.
"I can turn that tape off," I said before leaving the Quonset.
"No, that's okay, I'll listen."

I walked across the gravel path to the vardo steps, opened up the vardo saying a silent hello of appreciation, changed into my robe, straightened up the covers a bit and climbed in.  Rested from one more adventure in this life,I noted the different choices made by others on their path. I recognized the contrasting examples as research for my bettering-life.Those 'Ole Moons of the Hawaiian Moon Calendar are there for good reason, and when I push my will again the wobble of those resting moons, there are consequences.  My Plan BE, reminds me that I choose to tell a different story and keep deciding consciously.  It takes practice.  My new story is newly sprouted, cultivating a soul takes care.  I'll remember that, and it's my own dear soul over which I can care...mine alone.  Does it take 7 blogs to tell my story?  A choir is multiple voices, I like the sound of that. Here's a video of virtual voices ... a 6 minute 'different musical story'... ready?

FREED-up

It's a beautiful spring day in the woods, sunny with a breeze that sends the tower of hundred foot firs into a graceful movement of olapa (picture the most graceful of hula dancers).  Pete is in Seattle leaving truck and car in the gravel lot just around the corner from the vardo.  I have not left the woods in two days.  Something happened to me when I asked Pete the other day, "What did that cost to fill the Subaru?"  "$30" was his answer.  When he drives Bernadette the beast truck it costs a lot more, and the old girl needs a new carburator, so the emissions are no way near low-impact.

When we were living on the road, the option to leave Bernadette and Scout (the truck and the car) in place wasn't yet our see-it-do-it reality.  We needed both truck and car to move ourselves and chattel again and again.  But, in our dreams and in our imaginings there was a place to settling in; accessible to public transportation and services we needed.  The desire was amassing.  The years of driving both truck and car hither and yon was the crack in time between believing and allowing.  We were learning things, learning what we didn't want, and still the dream of what we did want and why we wanted it was alive and well. 

Our first winter honed down my resistence to believing this could be the place.  One week at a time, one experience at a time, I relaxed into now.  Now, I feel what it's like to be comfortable.  Now I know I can survive and then flourish even without a car to drive during the coldest, darkest times of winter.  With no resistence, my relexes and habit of struggling eased.  The habit eased some more.  Four months later, when I could be in the Subaru, I didn't want to be in it.  I'd become comfortable with the company of the woods, the quiet and with me.  The folks at STAR Store couldn't see the difference in me, though I was a daily shopper before the winter hiatus.  Pete felt the difference most because he took on the shopping tasks. 

It takes time and pacing to come into alignment with your dreams.  FREED-up from beliefs that no longer fit the version of our lives today, Pete's been on a bike, a ferry, on foot, on a bus, and on a train to get from South Whidbey to Beacon Hill in Seattle.  I've walked the trails with JOTS, watered the peas, and will make rhubard sauce and left-overs for supper.  I'm telling people, "We are thriving on the Island."  The change in my story surprises them.  Delighted for us, one of those friends asked, "How did it happen?  Was it emotional or physical?"  I told her "It was both."  "Which came first?"  I tell her about my winter with no car and the slowed down, freed-up release that has allowed me to believe differently, and to choose better-feeling thoughts. 

That's my hybid-trike!

I catch myself slipping on old habits and old thoughts.  But, here's the good news ... I catch myself sooner than later when it's easier to turn my attention down-stream where the good is.  What's down stream from here?  Well ... see that hy-brid trike?  It's down-stream with my name on it.

What's your good news?

... the first one!

Here's the GOOD NEWS…

This sign is posted in the two restrooms at South Whidbey Tilth.  For the second Sunday in a row, no chemicals or fragrances are used to prepare public restrooms in our neighborhood.  I swept, mopped, wiped and swished out the bowls with white vinegar, baking soda and squirts of Planet dishsoap.  An important job?  Oh, yes.  How good this feels to be part of the solution. How did it happen?  Plan 'BE' ... Believe it could be, Be positive and without resistence, Be prepared for what it takes to allow it. 

This is A

Fragrance & Chemical Free

Restroom

The Hand Soap is:

Planet

-unscented

-coconut oil based cleaner, salt,

sodium bicarbonate(baking soda)

The Freed-up and Green Cleaning Process:

White Distilled Vinegar and Baking Soda

"taking steps to Fragrance Free in 23"

www.fragrancefreein23.blogspot.com

It was raining, the ground soggy.  Our favorite neighborhood gathering place The Sunday Farmers' Market at the Tilth was happening soon.  Prescott stopped for a moment, and introduced me to a man who was there before the market's opening, "This is Mokihana, she's taken over the bathroom clean-up."  "That's an important job,"  the man said.  Yes, it is ... and what a success it is.  Later in the day, Pete returned to the Tilth to help clean-up.  I was back in the forest making soup and relaxing.  While he was there Pete stopped Prescott, "Thanks so much for letting Mokihana take care of the bathrooms.  It's making a difference for at least one more person."  (One of our friends who lives with MCS had a chance to use that restroom ... a big positive step!)

We are living here in South Whidbey, Washington becoming part of a community that makes room for others in meaningful ways.  In the year since we're settled into the forest with Eileen, MK, the nine ducks, three chickens, two dogs, three cats, hundreds of trees, and countless huckleberry and wild blueberry bushes, the vibrational reality of good/hope/abundance has lined us up to believe and allow health and happiness.  The journey has been so worth the experience.  Knowing what we don't want, the opposite experiences are now moving in as replacement.  "Mokihana, you get anything on my menu for your work," Ed said as I spread the table cloth over one of the wooden tables.  "Thanks, Ed."  What a deal!  My work: bringing fragrance-free practices and product to a public space in my neighborhood is another example of BEing and BEcoming the vibrational good-win in my real life.  The unfolding was easy, there was no stuggle only a being present with no resistence with the solution.

Looking forward to more good, it feels wonderful to post "...the first one!" and know the second, third, fourth, next is in the making ... somewhere!  Got a plan that needs BEcoming?  Would you like to be our next?  We'd love to work together and add to our list of successfull Freed-up spaces in our neighborhood.

Thanks and Congratulations to South Whidbey Tilth for being 'the first one!'



GOING Fragrance Free In 23 Mother's Day, 2011: South Whidbey Tilth (Restrooms)

We've volunteered to supply and maintain the Freed-up Clean-up practices in the two restrooms at  South Whidbey Tilth.  The Farmers' Market is now officially happening, Sundays from 11:30 AM -3:30 PM.  Local organic farmers, vendors and educational tables and booths and a delicious choice of meals are being served up at our favorite neighborhood market.  We'll  have our Freed-up Clean-up practices of using Planet Ultra Unscented Dishsoap as the handwashing liquid in place, Sunday, May 8th ... what a great MOTHER'S DAY GIFT to mothers there! 

Pete and I arrived and planted ourselves on this island, a year ago (April, 2010).  South Whidbey Tilth Farmers' Market (held on Saturday) became our one and only safe-enough-for-us event.  We had been long on the road to the present life-of-more-and-better feelings.  It was the once a week experiences at the 'Tilth' that made my 'PLAN BE' a vibrating reality ... one that was, but was not yet, see-able.

FRAGRANCE FREE IN 23 Frees-up the Tilth Restrooms
May, 8, 2011

PLANET Ultra Dishsoap

will be the freed-up, no harm, no fragrance

HAND SOAP

in dispensers found in both So Whidbey Tilth restrooms

We'll Maintain & Clean 

the restrooms using

BAKING SODA

WHITE VINEGAR

&

PLANET Ultra Dishsoap

(just a dash)

LINK HERE http://www.planetinc.com/udl.htm to read THE SIMPLE & HARMLESS ingredients used in Planet Ultra Dishsoap.  This site includes more uses for this product.  We, Pete and I are not paid for naming this product; we use this product ... the only 'product' other than baking soda and vinegar(s) to wash our everything and ourselves.  There are other un-scented and chemical harmless or less harmfull product to be bought.  The EWG Website can give you lots of info and then, choose.  We use Planet because it does no harm to us, we tolerate it well; and it's doing no harm to Earth.

See you Sundays at our first FRAGRANCE FREE IN 23 Freed-up COMMUNITY Site!! 

Happy Mother's Day, Mothers and Mother Earth.

Do you have a Community Site wanting to be our next Freed-up Site?  Contact us, it costs but a jot, and counts for so much.

mokihanacalizarATgmailDOTcom

Progress with STEP 1: Notice ... Are you?

STEP 1:  NOTICE

Fragrance Free in 23 the blog and the mission, was birthed in time for Earth Day 2011 and our very first outing and educational table at the Bayview Earth Day, So. Whidbey Island.  The first two posts to "FF23" lay the groundwork for us and those two 'stories' remain the bones upon which we flesh our venture forward. 

TAKE FIVE is the simple to remember ditty we began and continue to sing ... a way to change the momentum in our old beliefs and thinking about being human and being humans who don't harm.   So, this is a check-in point.  Covering ground again, we look at:

STEP 1

NOTICE what you do with what you have, and why you do it.


This is all about you:  what you do; what you have, and why.  Everybody has stuff and that's where we had to start when life as we'd known it washed away like drawings in the sand. Our lessons have been tough, but they have honed us good and plenty, over and over again. 

This is THE step to FREED-UPness.  Take whatever time you need, but do make time to NOTICE and record what you discover.  Our experience has been ... don't act on what you find at this point.  Just notice.  It's very much  like the process of effective change-making found in wise traditions across the Earth:  AWARE, ACCEPT then ACT. 

What DO YOU DO?
God, I do a lot of things.  Answering that question would take ... well, more time than I have.

Just take 5 minutes.  What do you do with any 5 minutes in your day; the first 5 minutes of your day.


What DO YOU HAVE?
Geez, whaddaya mean, what do I have?

Just that! 

Like I said already ...

Just take 5 minutes, maybe those same 5 minutes of noticing what you do ... notice what you're doing with WHAT YOU HAVE.


Why DO YOU DO IT?
I'm starting to get the picture. 

The TAKE FIVE approach to Fragrance Free in 23(Two Thousand Twenty Three) begins with slowing down long enough to NOTICE what we do.  Hawaiians have an exquisite word for that, KULEANA.  Roughly translated it means "responsibility".  Seems to us, as we continue to live one Freed-up Day on this glorious Planet Earth:  our KULEANA starts with knowing the answers to those three questions. 

What if you started or spent 5 minutes (or more) to SHAMPOO YOUR HAIR ...

Here's an article written a few years ago by Bill Bunn from Calgary, Alberta.  He asked the question "What's really in your shampoo?" 

The article starts this way:

"There are two types of ingredients in shampoo. One type cleans your hair. The other type strokes your emotions. I'm holding a bottle of Pantene Pro V, one of the world's most popular shampoos. Of the 22 ingredients in this bottle of shampoo, three clean hair. The rest are in the bottle not for the hair, but for the psychology of the person using the shampoo. At least two-thirds of this bottle, by volume, was put there just to make me feel good..."

Link to the entire article: http://www.salon.com/news/environment/good_life/2009/08/13/shampoo/

To find out what INGREDIENTS ARE IN WHAT YOU USE click

It's something to think about the next time you shampoo your hair, and then there's this

MAY DAY ... May Pole Dancing ... More of Plan "Be"

May is a month of many manifestations: May Day is Lei Day in Hawaii ... garlands of flowers everywhere.  May Day is also Laborer's Day ... thank the gods for people who know how to handle a shovel ... a hammer, a pick.  May Day is also May Day and May Pole Dancing.  Our Freed-up Lives of living fragrance free has taught us a lot about some things, and a little about a lot of things.  We know there's a connection between manufactured chemicals and fragrances concocted and not at all good for us, the critters or Earth.  May is also MCS (Multiple Chemical Awareness Month) all over the Earth, and in the state we now call home --- Washington.  So, we are conscious of the slowly moving effort to educate, as we do with this blog about being human without harming. 

Here's a bunch of 4th Graders doing a choreographed version of the May Pole Dance.  

So, multiple reasons to celebrate and dance around a May Pole on May 1st!  A short drive out of the woods where we live is one of the gardens where we love to be:  be planting dirt-hills seeded with squash soon; be with neighbors who sell their vegetables and goodies (cookies and home-made delightful things and some not-too-great-for-me scented things); be enjoying the lovely sun, and company of others.  At the So Whidbey Tilth where the wind and open space allows me plenty of room to navigate the not-too-great-for-me scented things and people, there was a MAY POLE.  That MAY POLE made from a recently alive alder was hung with 12 colorful ribbons.  In my fondest, and newest plan "Be"  I was dancing in that May Pole Dance.  Before I was cast into the role of old dear woman with many, many chemical sensitivities, I have been a child-at-heart who loved to be at glee.  I have had a life as a clown, taught and told stories to wee children, and love dancing unconsciously losing all cause for resistence in the process.

This Noon at the So Whidbey Tilth, my plan "Be" continued to be the best possible example of living more and more in a down-stream flow of believing before I see it reality.  The twelve volunteer May Pole Dancers surrounded the alder May Pole, children and not so young stood ready for instruction.  Not yet among them, I was none the less, in bliss, in the sunshine with my honey, Pete.  At the very last minute the gal in charge of the 'art installation' looked at me, and said, "You!"  "Would you help him!"  It was not really a question ... it was my plan "Be"  kickin' in.  Him was a tiny dark-haired, gray-sweatshirted boy in need of a guide person.  I was perfectly suited for the volunteer position.  We were given 2 minutes of instructions, and then we moved to the music of tin whistles, and string instruments played by a wonderful group of neighboring musicians.

15 minutes of over and under, which took a while to get synchronized, became a jolly, joyful, all colors of love and fun-time.  The ribbons at first wobbled, and our attention was mostly a query of consciousness ... apparent in our intense faces.  But, gradually, with each over and under of the ribbons, our consciousness lost itself in the fun of the dance and we were in the vibe.  May Pole Vibe!  I could smell the not-so-great-for-me fragrances, but they were not as  powerful as the unself-conscious plan "Be" that was guiding both the wee boy in gray and old dear with the colorful cap. 

I have waited 58 years for this May Pole Dance, and guess what?  It was worth the wait!  May your Plan "Be" include a May Pole Dance with your neighbors sometime, and maybe, year after year those May Pole Dances become fragrance free by 2023. 

Happy May Day!