trina News

The Deeper Issue

Trina

I just read an article in the Sunday, March 30th edition of the New York Times about health insurance parity between medical and psychological maladies. Our federal government is finally doing what 42 states have already attempted to do, legislating that insurance companies must cover costs for psychological illness to the same amounts as it does medical illness. Apparently, more and more biological evidence shows that psychological disorders, such as schizophrenia and addiction, are caused by measurable, detectable brain disorder and therefor are "medical" issues. This evidence is making it difficult to deny people help for psychological challenges, in spite of those who still assert that issues like depression and addiction are just the result of poor decision making.

This reminds me of the ongoing scientific research that is attempting to prove that homosexuality is genetic. There has been much research done trying to show that being gay is a biological imperative, rather than a choice, so that us queer folk can have equal protection under the law.

Both of these issues get me more than a bit riled up. I completely support psychological ailments being treated and covered by insurance to the same degree as physical ailments. I completely support the legalization of gay marriage, same-sex partners being insured by their spouses health insurance, and any other example of people having equal rights regardless of their orientation (or gender, for that matter). But I take issue with the establishment's need to justify support for these measures with "physical evidence." It's like saying, "If you choose to be different, we don't support you, but if you can't help it, well, okay."

Have you ever made a choice that effected your life in far reaching, deeply felt ways, knowing it wasn't what you wanted, but it was what was expected of you? Do you remember how it felt? Are you working a job that leaves you feeling drained and worthless, for instance? Do you wish you had traveled during your twenties instead of going straight to college and joining the rat race? Even that party that you went to because your girlfriend really wanted you there that left you wondering what you two have in common anyway... What I'm getting at is that we all have something inside of us that we could call our personal, "Truth," and when we make choices that go against that Truth, that deny it, that undermine it, it feels BAD. We are left feeling far from ourselves, confused, wondering who we are, where we're going, what our purpose in life could be. When we listen to that inner knowing about what is right for us in each moment, we stay close to that Truth and we have a strong sense of self, clarity about what gives our lives meaning. Is it fair to expect people to "choose" between their own Truth, their sense of self, what makes them feel safe and whole, and what is expected of them by a society that would exclude them for being different, for making their own path?

This is all more in reference to the biological vs. social gay discussion. In reference to addiction or depression, which many people also see as behavioral issues that come from people making "bad" choices, I would say that when people are compelled to do things that lead to their own destruction, 'something' is wrong. Does it matter what or why that 'something' is when deciding whether or not to help? If a person is sad, struggling with deep, unmet needs, confusion, self-hatred, oughtn't we help that person? We treat medical diseases of lifestyle, like diabetes and heart disease, as though people couldn't help that they got sick, when simple changes in diet could have prevented these diseases, and yet we argue that someone who grew up surrounded by addicts, learning all of the behaviors that go with this disease, having their neurological pathways shaped from a young age, should be able to "choose" something different for themselves.

All of this just points to the deeper issue, the issue I'd much rather be discussing, the issue of supporting one another's well being. I wish we were talking about why, as a society, we need physical evidence for whether or not a person deserves help. I wish we were talking about what it would take to become a society that supports the health and well being of each of it's members, whatever that means. We are individuals. It means something different to each of us. But collectively, we have the resources to see that each of us is getting what we need to be healthy, if we make that our priority. If we stop worrying about just ourselves and start looking out for one another, trusting one another to look out for us, being generous with one another, developing the natural inter-dependence that is modeled for us in nature, quality of life will improve for everyone.

We also need a redefinition of what "healthy" means. How someone feels about his or her self, whether or not someone is able to have constructive, loving relationships, whether or not someone can find meaning in their work, as well as someone's sense of significance and belonging in their community must all be a part of how we measure health. A sound body is useless without a sound mind and both are useless if one is excluded by one's society for having a unique Truth.

I hope that in these years to come, as we continue working toward a collaborative, embracing, global community of humanity, we will begin to find ways to support one another's health in all of the many ways we each feel challenged, whether one faces physical challenges, emotional challenges, social challenges, spiritual challenges, or even vocational challenges. We all know what each of these feels like and we all know how horrible it is to suffer alone. We all know what it means to need help. And we all know how good it feels to offer it.

I feel blessed to be building a community with you all in which we can acknowledge these parts of ourselves and contribute to one another's lives in meaningful ways. I look forward to the day when we take care of each and every one of our fellow human beings, in community.

From, "The Gift," Daniel Ladinsky's translations of Hafiz

Trina

A GREAT NEED

Out

Of a great need

We are all holding hands

And climbing.

Not loving is a letting go.

Listen,

The terrain around here

Is

Far too

Dangerous

For

That.

What I Learned about Guatemala's Politics

Trina

Post Number Two regarding Guatemala:

The political situation here... Hmmmm...

Well, I guess I´ll start with the war. There was a civil war that went on for about 35 years. During these years, all of the presidents were military officers, most of them Generals. The war ended in 1996 when el Fondepaz (Fuente de la Paz: Fountain or Source of Peace) was signed. The army disbanded and the fighting stopped. However, I´ve been told that since the war ended crime has gotten worse and worse. There is a sentiment among those who are educated about politics and the causes of the war that the ex-military don´t know what else to do with themselves after years of massacres.

So, what about the causes of the war? As has been the case in many countries in Central America, poor workers wanted to be paid better for their hours of labor. The farmers in the country sides were tired of the extreme poverty they lived with after centuries of being pushed off their land by powerful Spanish land ¨holders.¨ The poor working class and the hungry indigenous, who have been pushed further and further up the mountainsides as the valleys have been taken over by haciendas, realized that their struggle was the same struggle and began to unite. They demanded better wages, better healthcare, safer working conditions. They wanted the government´s help to give them a humane quality of life. The government, however, chose to represent the interests of big business. It is said that 23 Spanish families own most of Guatemala. There are also many factories owned by Japanese companies. And of course, the United States has a great interest in maintaining an oppressed working class here as well.

As people began to unionize, the government sent the army to kill them. Anyone who spoke publicly about the injustice of their extreme poverty was tortured and killed. Community leaders, including priests and teachers, were publicly tortured and killed in order to scare everyone from continuing their struggle for basic amenities like running water or electricity. If there were demonstrations, crowds would be shot. People began fleeing the towns for the mountains, camping, in order to hide from the army. In the mountains, small bands of civilian militia began to form to try to protect people from these murders and massacres. This is the army that we call the guerillas, which is Spanich for "little wars." Guerillas fight little wars, small, surprise attacks, rather than big battles, like big armies prefer.

As the guerrillas gained momentum, the army began massacring villagers in the mountains, in order to discourage these people from supporting the guerrillas. This is how the war went on for thirty-five years. Many people fled to Mexico, and still live as refugees there. Their land, deserted, has been taken over by the huge hacienda farms.

Because people were killed for speaking about the injustices of their extreme poverty, because people were killed for educating others about the power they had when they organized, and because most of this killing happened in small indigenous communities, there are still many people in Guatemala who don´t know why there was a war. Nobody talked publically about why the guerillas were fighting, out of fear for their lives. Unless you were a part of the community of people who needed the services they were being denied, there was no way for you to know why these people were fighting. On top of that, the government used propaganda to tell the television watching, big city dwelling public that the guerrillas were just criminals, thieves, murderers from whom the army was protecting them. Add racism to the mix, and you find here a place lost in a fog of misunderstanding and pain.

Since the war has ended, there have been important developments in many parts of the country. Roads have been built and slowly people are getting the electricity and running water that they need. But today, one of the two most popular candidates for president is an ex-General, Otto Perez, who directed many of the massacres, and is connected to Rios Mont, the bloodiest of the military dictators that oppressed the Guatemalan public during the seventies and eighties. I´m told that many people don´t know this. Illiteracy is a huge problem here and many people living in the countryside don´t have televisions to see reports, even if this kind of information is reported. There is also the problem that even the ¨educated¨ public has been educated to believe that the civil war was a case of the army protecting the good, working people from those they racistly believe to be greedy, lazy, indigenous campesinos.

Since the army disbanded, there has been more and more violent crime. Many of the army´s veterans of this civil war are now wondering the countryside ransacking houses, mugging people in the streets, and it is said, at times they kill for sport. Many people who were never affected by the civil war that was happening in the small pueblos and in the mountain indigenous communities are now experiencing frightening violence in their cities. This has led to the opinion that Guatemala was safer when Generals were in charge. Many people want to go back to the days when an army was keeping them safe from these violent crimes, as they perceived it, as the government told them it was.

The other popular candidate is Alvaro Colom. He is an engineer with no apparent ties to the military. Most people I talked to believed that he would win. And I certainly hope so given that the second runner up right now is a war criminal.

I´ve heard two personal stories regarding the state of things today. One is the story of a family whose home was invaded by a band of criminals. Grandma, her three daughters, the husband of one of the daughters, and her granddaughter were in the house when five men with guns, at least one of them ex-military, came into the house to rob them. They had no money and the men shot everyone. They also raped the youngest of the young women before killing here. One of the women survived, as well as the two year old granddaughter, the niece of the surviving woman. Tragically, stories like this are not uncommon anymore, here in Guatemala.

The other personal story that was shared with me is the story of a woman who worked as a social worker-therapist with the indigenous women in the mountains after the war ended. She was helping them to process the extreme trauma of having witnessed massacres, tortures, of having buried loved one´s alive, of having been raped repeatedly. She began to write a book that included information about Otto Perez and his involvement in these atrocities. Then, she began receiving death threats and she has since fled to Mexico.

I guess all I can say in summary, is that there is much work to be done. This country feels to me like a body torn to pieces. Everyone is bleeding and noone knows exactly why. At the same time, as is often the case, there is an incredible spirit of hope and faith here. People want to heal and many exciting things are happening all the time, to move the country forward, toward wholeness and wellness...

Mayan Women's Collective in Guatemala

Trina

I was in Guatemala studying for a couple of weeks last month. Here is the first of some of my writings during that time:

We went this weekend to a small community of tejedores, weavers, outside of the town of San Martin. There is a group of 30 Mayan families there of a specific group called, Mum. 15 women of this group, representing half of the Mum families, have started a collective and they are succeeding at improving the lifestyle of the people in their community, after many years
of pain and struggle. The story is long and sad, but it must be told, as it is amazing how few Gauatemalans know what was happening in the mountains for those 35 years of civil war.

27 years ago, the army came to the village of these women, looking for guerrillas, as they always were, austensibly. In actuality, it was genocide and oppression, but that is a much bigger story. In this story, they shot and killed 30 unarmed villagers. Many more were wounded, including the woman who told us this story. Her name is Francisca and she was shot in the knee, after the soldiers guns weren´t functioning properly when they tried to shoot her in the head. They tried to kill her, the guns didn´t work, so she ran. They shot after her and she was hit in the knee. She fell. They came and again tried to kill her and again, their guns didn´t work. They said, we won´t kill you this time, but you will help everyone else dig graves now. The surviving villagers were forced to dig shallow graves for their murdered family members and were also forced to
bury alive some who were wounded but not dead. Francisco was 14 when this happened. Some of the women that I met were 3 years old, or 6 years old, when this happened. Some of them can´t stand to even be in the room while Francisca tells the story.

After the massacre, the remaining villagers, over 30 families, walked for over two weeks from the south of Guatemala to Chiapas, in Mexico, where a kind farmer helped them to go through the immigration process. They were refugees, allowed to live in Mexico, but not allowed to wear their traditional clothing, with it´s rich symbology and familiar comfort, and they were not allowed to speak their own language. They had to learn Spanish. So, of course, they did. They worked for Mexican farmers and slowly built a life for themselves.

After about 12 years there, many wanted to return to their homeland, to raise their children in the Mayan ways, with the Mum language, allowed to wear the clothes they choose, on the land that their ancestors had worked. The jovenes, the young people (between 18 and 35), who remembered well the massacre and who still had the strength to reclaim their heritage, set out. They went in small groups, a few families at a time. The older people, the parents of the trekkers, were scared, tired, and just couldn´t go through it all again.

The small group of families who began this homecoming first worked for a farmer in Guatemala, getting paid about .15 cents a day. They realized quickly, of course, that they would never be able to buy land in this situation. They were barely surviving, living under trees and tarps. They started a collective as weavers. They retained the help of an international microlending non-profit, based in Holland. They borrowed about 20 dollars to buy the tools they needed, the loom and the thread. They made a bag which they sold for 14 dollars. They bought more thread. They made three bags which they sold for 14 each. They paid back their loan and continued to weave.

After a couple years of slowly building this ¨business,¨they were able to buy some land. More families came. Slowly, over the years, they have built houses together. There are now 15 families participating in this women´s cooperative, and 30 Mum families living in the area. With the help of other NGO´s here, they have brought electricity and running water to their community.

More recently, with the help of two students from the the US who learned of these women through Celas Maya, the school that I am attending, the same way I learned of these women, they have built a community building for their meetings, and for the education of others who also need to know that this kind of cooperation is possible, and that it can change the lives of
Guatemala´s most poor, the victims of three decades of genocide.

So, that is the story of the Association of Soqjal. I spent the weekend there, these last two days, hearing the story, getting to know the women (and their children), and experiencing how they live. We stayed in their homes. We were gifted with a presentation of Mayan dances, including explanations of the stories that these dances tell. We saw a demonstration
of how these women weave their beautiful fabrics, by hand, tying one end of their work to a post, and the other end around their waist, rolling the fabric up as they create it, maintaining tension with their bodies. We played soccer with the boys, and I made a pretend soup of grass and seeds with the little girls... And of course, the food was incredible. Avocados
fresh from the tree, shrimp fresh from the sea, tortillas fresh from the oven, papayas, bananas, sweet bread.

They are all bilingual now, and there are international organizations using their story as a model for development among other groups like theirs. But if you listen carefully for what part of the story elicits the most passion from these women, as they speak, it is the pride that they feel that they, as women, have built this community. They are proud that they know that they are people too, that they can not only participate in, but they can lead community development, that they can make their own money, that they don´t need to tolerate violence from the men in their lives, from the police, or from their government. They are empowered and they want to share their story because they want other women to be empowered as well. At least a dozen times, I heard from different mouths, ¨We know our rights!¨

So, that´s what I did this weekend! My friend, Carrie, and I were the group translators, having more Spanish than any of the other students, and that was exhausting! But, of course, it was a beautiful weekend of support and sharing, connection and inspiration. Perhaps some of you are inspired to help as well??? *wink, wink*

Transformation rather than Rejection

Trina

I have been thinking about it this way lately... Since the Michael Mead (mosaic voices.org) retreat I attended, I think. You know how language is so important- how the way we say things is an inherent part of, or a clear expression of, how we think about things. Well, I realized that it wasn't serving me to say, "I am trying to release this." It makes much more sense for me to say, "How can I use this energy more constructively?" Tranformation, rather than the rejection, expulsion, "release" of the energy... I'll give you an example.

See, it came from the story that Michael told about the bird who had to beat on the little piece of charcoal that he found- the one that he thought was what was left of his home- after all of the earth had been consumed by fire and only charcoal was left. He had to beat on that charcoal, as though it was a drum. And when a tiny, fresh tendril of green life sprouted out of that charcoal, he sang to it and danced around it, until it grew into a great tree. The story goes on, with ever enriching imagery, but the story I'm telling you now is this one: Michael asked us, "What is your charcoal? What is the dead thing you carry that needs to be sung to, so that new life can spring from it?"

The answer that first came to mind was, of all things, housework. Funny, huh? So I thought about it. What does housework mean to me? I couldn't stand housework. I had no motivation to do it. Why not? Because this house that I'm supposed to be caring for doesn't feel like mine. It feels like it belongs to the marriage that was supposed to have died four years ago. I felt like I was living in an empty coffin. What haven't I let go of that is still living here, in this house, making me feel as though the house is still stuck in 2002, while I'm supposed to be here in 2006? Inadequacy. Powerlessness. Isolation. Those were the answers that came. Those were the words that told the story of my marriage that was swimming in my depths, infusing my house with negativity.

Back to the bird with the charcoal. Does the bird just, "Let it go"?? Does he, "Get on with life" and find another Earth to build a home on? Does he, "Get over it" and "Release his sadness"?? No. He sings to it. He picks up the charred, dead bits of what used to be his home and he sings to it, therby, transforming it.

Inadequacy => Humility
Powerlessness => Surrender
Isolation => Solitude

Shadow and Light. The wound is the blessing. The curse is the gift. Don't banish your pain. USE IT.

Silliness Saves the Sensitive Soul

Trina

One time when I was a girl, my best friend and I were crying because a young man from our school, a beautiful artist of a boy, had died of a brain tumor. We went to the funeral and went back to her house and we were just crying and crying and crying. Even as we were lost in our grief, we had a clear sense that the loss of such a beautiful soul, at such a young age, was so tragic; the angels were crying with us... We decided to listen to some music to try to get ourselves out of the depression we were feeling and Open Arms by Journey came on. We were putting cream cheese on bagels, while we cried, while Steve Perry was belting out his melodramatic lyrics, "...living without you, living alone, this empty house seems so cold..." when out of the blue, one of us smeared the other's face with a thick wad of white gooiness. A very fervent cream cheese fight ensued and we were singing, "So now I cooooommmmme to yooooooouuuuuuuu, with cream cheeeeeeeeeese on my faaaaaace!" We started laughing hysterically, smearing cream cheese all over each other, lovingly, like we were giving one another a facial, laughing and laughing and laughing, tears streaming down our cheese covered cheeks...

Sometimes you have to lose your mind for a bit, to give your heart the space it needs to feel and breath and heal and live.

Vulvaliscious Love Fire

Trina

This is the beginning of a new kind of visual art that I am delving into. I've always doodled, so now I'm painting my doodles with water color. This is one of the firsts... It's Kymberlee's. :)

I will try to get photos of the others that I have done and given away too. I like them a lot and I'm excited to be making bright, joyous, colorful artwork that just flows from me, like water. Part of how I know I'm on the right track with something is when it's flowing from me like water. That's not to say that a sticky, hard, molasses-like process, digging through layers of fear and resistance to find the jewel, hidden beneath years of conditioning isn't well worth my while too! But there is a time for everything, isn't there?

Yay!!!

Wet and Chilled

Trina

And as the rain fell down her cheeks he moved away and said, "Why? Why is it so cold today? The sun is shining!"

But the grey cloak he wore left her seeing only hazy shadows of feathered beings come and gone and come and gone again and the rain was blurring her vision so that even his voice wavered in her mind.

Was the sun shining? Why hadn't she felt it on her bare skin? Perhaps she had made a mistake when she'd shed her thin, black shift.

"The problem is," she said, "I didn't realize we were going outside."

"I would have bundled up."

He removed his cloak to wrap it around her, but she preferred shivering to taking on the illusory wings of someone else's shadow.

Where could she go now? Would he come too? Was it raining? Or were her eyes just leaking, as they often did? Did he notice her goosebumps? Would he have the patience for her fire building? It was, to her, the only obvious next step.

But first, she would have to wait out the rain.

Kiss the Sky, Embrace the Earth

Trina

I want to be a round Rock,
rolling across the ground with purpose and force,
unhindered, unencumbered, unmoved from the course
straight ahead.
Solid and calm inside,
fed by the motion of moving
Forward,
around and around.

Then I want to Stop

and be the Wind for awhile,
blowing this way and that,
touching anything that beckons,

Kissing the Sky.

I will hold willing leaves for a time, then gently let them fall;
I'll make love to the lusciously silky light petals that tremble under my airy fingertips.
Laughing with the dust clouds that swirl in my arms,
whispering my secrets to the seeds that cling to me
before setting them down to begin their becoming,
I'll be invisible

and ubiquitous.

and after I've had a good look around,
a good tumble and dance and caress with all my kindred spirits,
I will go back to being a Rock

for awhile,

Confident on my Path,
because I have the Knowing of the Wind
and the Embrace of the Earth beneath me.

yen yang

Trina

So Pam and I were having a great conversation today (actually many were involved and it was wonderfully inspiring) and this idea that I kick around now and then came to the surface. I believe in the idea of balance- that this plane in which we exist is one of duality and that for our continued growth and evolution, we must transcend the illusion of duality and seperation, embracing the paradox that things aren't one or the other or even a little of both, but both at the same time (seperate and one, light and dark, masculine and feminine)(see the Jung quote below). So here's the question: If we aren't ever going to irradicate shadow, dark, evil, pain, etc. because the dark is the necessary complement to the light, the essential contrast that allows us to experience light, good, joy, etc. (your wound is your gift) then it seems that the next question is how do we manifest the balance/completeness of the two in one without causing the suffering that we do with our current, violent manifestation of the shadow? Do we? Can we? Is it naive to think that we can ease suffering? Or is there another way to manifest this yen yang? Is there another way to Know the dark and the light both, without having to immerse ourselves in one or the other, back and forth, being wounded, being healed, making war, making peace? If this struggle is the current dream of the planet, what is the next dream that is trying to be birthed?

Could midwifing that dream be like midwifing a song, or a painting, feeling it coming through, uncertain about how it will look when it's done, but certian as each note comes, each color choosing itself, guiding the brush...

Cause if that's what it's like, than we all need to fucking relax! You can't force that kind of truth! It has to flow from Source...

Here's that Jung quote: ..If a union is to take place between opposites like spirit and matter, conscious and unconscious, bright and dark, and so on, it will happen in a third thing, which represents not a compromise but something new...

Another part of the great conversation involved the seemingly apparent truth that trying to bring about change in our culture, our society, the institutions that we currently invest in in ways we don't even realize, was necessarily a difficult process that involved "swimming upstream" the whole damn way. Someone in our conversation was saying it happens so frequently that as soon as a real breakthrough seems eminent, something happens to smash it, that there are undeniable forces working against the changes that move us toward a more balanced, whole way of being, forces that we must constantly overcome. And so again, I wondered, maybe that's the old way. Surely the new way is something that has to be born from the very push and pull that we currently perceive as struggle. Old/new? Push/pull? What about FLOW???

Richard Tarnas says we're like a baby in the birth canal in this era. It feels like a fight for our lives at the time being, but it's actually a really natural process that will end in a new consciousness opening up to us. (He's a Jungian Depth Psychologist who has written some really interesting books about the history of Western thought and the myths that can carry us through our current dark times.)

I know there are myths for this stuff. I know lots of you who read my mental meanderings have ideas on the subject. Tell me a story. What is the Third Thing? How can it look? Where does the magic of conscious creation fall in this story? Let's muse over the relationships of these things for a while.... Please?

Grace

Trina

I was raised Southern Baptist. Of course, my parents wanted me to know God's Love, but I was also taught by the church to fear God's Wrath, and that sin is punished. There was a time in my life, when I felt very close to Jesus, in spite of the shame that I carried about "being a sinner". I felt well loved, well cared for, watched over, FORGIVEN, and then when I found out that the Baptists believed that all of my Jewish friends were going to hell when they died, it destroyed my faith in everything I had been taught. The God I knew wasn't that kind of God.

As an adult, and a devoted seeker, I've learned about all sorts of mystical traditions, from Toltec to Tao, Sufi to Santeria, and many more. I've also learned about people and myself and I've come to feel that there is a Spirit that gives me life, the Spirit of All Things, and that I am connected to All Things through this Divine Nature, that is essentially no more and no less than Everything. It's Gestalt! The whole is greater than the sum of its parts, and, miraculously, we each get to experience the whole within ourselves. What Grace! How incredible!

I had a wonderful concert last night, and then a little party at my house afterwards, and this morning, I'm crying tears of Gratitude. I woke up in the arms of the man I love, a commited artist whose devotion to truth and questions and inner knowing inspires me more than anyone I've ever known. I'm looking around at my beautiful house now, eating delicious party left overs with my amazing children, reading emails from my wonderful, wonderful friends, and I'm thinking, "Did I make this? Did I EARN the love of this incredible man? Did I raise these amazing kids? Did I make this house so beautiful? Did I create the experience that these incredible people that I love so much are thanking ME for???? How can it be???"

But you know why I cry, don't you? Because it's Grace that has made my life so wonderful. It's Grace that made last night so wonderful. It's Grace that is giving me the chance to appreciate all this beauty right now so that I can feel so JOYFUL! It's all the Amazing Grace of a Universe that is designed to take care of itself. It's all one, big self fulfilling prophecy. I believe in LOVE! I'm surrounded by it... Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

I'm known to say that I don't care whether I'm right or not, this is a fabulous way to live! My faith that the Great Spirit (the Creator, the Created, and the Play between them that is the present moment) CARES ABOUT ME, in some inexplicable way that has more to do with the nature of things, rather than something like the way humans care, GIVES ME STRENGTH. It's mostly this idea that by the Miracle that is Existance, everything I need comes to me (That's Grace.) when I believe that it is so. And it is so. In my life, it is so.

I guess another way of saying it is that simply by virtue of being alive, I am inherently lovable and all the possibilities of what that can mean in my life are available to me, if I am open to them. Oversimplified, I'm sure, and a conversation starter, I hope, but it may just be the bottom line, where my faith is concerned.

Don't get me wrong. I still have plenty of negative beliefs about myself and the world, and I'm still creating the opportunities I need to make myself aware of these limiting beliefs, and that is Grace too. Everyday is another chance to choose to Love, in the face of whatever challenges I've created for myself; I always have the choice to make my experiences healing ones. That's Grace. What a Miracle it is to be born into this existance! How delicious to wake up to our Divine Nature!

I'm so Grateful!

p.s. Have you read any Hafiz yet?

Benefit Concert Friday, December 2nd

Trina

This Friday, we will be performing at 313 18th Ave (one block South of Jefferson in the Central District), and I will tell you in the words of our host, because I like them so much, that, "This concert is held to benefit the spirits of those attending and to raise awareness and funds for the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation." (http://www.myasthenia.org/) This is a pay-what-you-will event (we suggest a $10-$15 donation).

Pam and Mary and I are looking forward to it very much, as it has been awhile since we did a house concert by ourselves and it's always so intimate. I feel very connected to everyone when I get to sing in a personal space, like someone's home, to a small audience. Our host's Dad has been diagnosed with Myasthenia Gravis and she holds these concerts on his behalf in a house that belongs to Sandy Bradley, so we are very honored, on many levels, to be invited to perform. The concert starts at 7:30. Please come! We would love to see you there!