Todays harvest of flowers

Today these are the flowers that were ready to be harvested from the garden... includes delphniums; peonies, (red and white), pink and yellow roses, white lupins, foxglove. Wow! Amazing, so many flowers and I still have more blooming......more roses, pink and yellow, red peonies, orange lillies, delphniums, and lupins. what an abundance of beauty, and I have four vases inside now. Still my neighbors can enjoy what is left to bloom. I love my flowers!


Also I have this shrub that blooms stunning red flowers that look so incredible, and open to pink insides.....it is a Japonica of some kind I think , but I have no idea what it's name is, anyone care to speculate?
By the way, Kim's blog had a link to a site, "Make poverty History." Check it out! It is time we began to take care of basic needs of all peoples. No one should starve today, nowhere!

Peonie

Holy Places and Night flowers

Memorial Day backpack trip to the convergence of Royal Creek and The Dungeness River: Here the water is glacier blue, large boulders are all around this area, covered with moss, and ferns grow from them. I guess they were moved by Glacier activity. This trail is near Sequim, and way up the mountain, the hike in is only a mile to this campsite, and Royal Basin is about 6 miles from there. It is stunningly beautiful place to hike, the shame is, few hikers I have seen seem to see the incredible beauty there, being so busy hiking. There is one area with a campsite that is so green, and the light is soft and muted, it is a holy place.


When I came back from the Dungeness, I found my peonies and roses in full bloom, so I took these night shots to share.

From Yogananda, on Tennyson; of interest....

The poet Tennyson has left us, in his Memoirs, an account of his repetitious device for passing beyond the conscious mind into superconsciousness:
"A kind of waking trance-this for lack of a better word-I have frequently had, quite up from boyhood, when I have been all alone," Tennyson wrote. "This has come upon me through repeating my own name to myself silently, till all at once, as it were out of the intensity of the consciousness of individuality, individuality itself seemed to dissolve and fade away into boundless being, and this not a confused state but the clearest, the surest of the surest, utterly beyond words-where death was an almost laughable impossibility-the loss of personality (if so it were) seeming no extinction, but the only true life." He wrote further: "It is no nebulous ecstasy, but a state of transcendent wonder, associated with absolute clearness of mind."

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Letters from Bodhiavasa in Wales ( Avasa and Shakti)

For all my friends who met Avasa and Shakti when they came for Satsang here at my home.

HI Sherry
No one hears from em much these days as I do not get
on line very often , Life changes and the days of
email contact are fewer.
We are good and have just returned from Sicilly where
all went down well for a first visit and we have been
asked back already. We have had to cut down on working
as we are inundated with people inviting us all over
the world. We are in Italy and house hunting as we need
abase, many folk are saying that as soon as we find a
place they are moving into the neighborhood to be
with us there. WE do hope to be in the US again in the
winter as Austin has been calling loudly as well as
other places and also Canada. Its lovely that so many
people appreciate what we share but it spreads us a
bit thin if we don’t slow it down and do things in our
time,, WE both often think of you guys and rest assured
that you are always in our hearts.
BIG hug to you and all the best to Mike.
Love Avasa

5/30/05
Hi Sherry
Its strange for me, I hear what you are saying and I
ghear similar from many people who attend satsang for
the first few times and i cannot see the problems that
they talk about, when the attention is on the
Awareness all else dissolves leaving only this
beautiful GLASSY ESSENCE, as Shakespear named it.
Many of the folk now in satsang rest in this or at
least touch it and taste it in satsang and it is
becoming more and more familiar to people. When new
folk turn up they are immediately absorbed into the
presence that the others are rested in and it is
infectious.
Maybe you should get some money for a flight and a trip
to Italy and chill out here with us for a couple of
weeks and meet the friends here and share this space.
The trips into the countryside I agree are a great
idea, I would love to come fishing there, but the best
company is not nature but the company of people rested
in this, the source of nature.
Regardless of what you say I SEE a big difference in
you now to when we first met, as long as I see this it
will continue to change your inner structures for
clearer ones when you yourself are not so clear, I am
clarity itself so how can you lose?
A big hug to you and all my best regards to Steve.
Avasa

Time Goes by

I visited my friends; Kim, David, Dianne, and Matt this Sunday. They were having a block party. At least 4 homes were open and serving, drinks, main courses, desserts, etc.
It was in Edmonds, and so nice to meet all those friendly folks, and see their homes, and what they had done with them; painting, remodeling kitchens, etc. I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I took photos for Kim, but many didn't turn out very well for some reason, people moving looked like ghosts! Scare ME!

Connecting with friends, new and old, makes life feel really good! I don't live on their block, and I just wandered in, but I was made to feel so welcome that I felt I lived there! Maybe next time I will have one here at my house for my neighbors, such a great idea, Just think, we could all begin connecting, and who knows what might happen in this world if we connected again..Wow!



I headed over to the peninsula Saturday alone to go to the Dungeness again, but when I finally found it, the winds were howling, and the rain was coming soon, I decided not to hike in and camp alone. One of Kim's neighbors that I met Sunday said that was a good decision. He was a Mountaineer.

On my way home a big storm blew in and I wonder what kind of night it must have been way up there where I was planning on camping ...alone! I have rarely seen so much rain here. It was like a flash flood! Strange weather last few weeks, but I guess everything is going to be nice for Memorial Day.

As Time Goes By

Yesterday I joined my farm friends for a small mask making workshop alone with Randa’s group on manifesting. Six masks were made in all, and everyone seemed to have fun out there on that big porch while it rained, and then birds sang a thank you song for the sunshine returning, ok, slightly.


I completed a test fire on my new kiln, and it doesn’t even need to be calibrated. I will do a bisque fire as soon as these masks are ready, and we can raku after that. I am asking they do their masks in B&W, but to be honest, I would love to offer color.

The B&W idea came from realizing there are not any books on contemporary masks, and many books on even glazes, which should be in living color, are in B&W due to costs, but what use is a book on glazes in B&W? So I decided to try to get masks made in B&W for a book of masks on B&W. Right? Makes sense! or maybe not! :)

Steve and I cut boards for work areas just prior to everyone showing up. It worked out well, I will pick the masks up soon and bring them here to dry I think. I am hoping to do the raku at the farm.
I am sure everyone will be happy with their masks, and have something to take home to hang on their walls. They don’t yet know what a wonderful experience they will be having with raku.

The group is interesting, people trying to manifest what they want, people always manifest what they want, however, we are all doing that all day, everyday. Changing your awareness of what you want is the hard part, becoming aware that you are in fact creating your reality, and maybe what you are creating is not so great as what it could be is an awareness that sooner or later, is may be time to come to in life.

Change of this nature, after a lifetime of careless creating can be difficult. Especially because ego is so entrenched, and people cannot see it when it is so obvious to others. We are alway able to see others short comings, but the real power comes from seeing your own, and earnestly wanting change. Not wanting to be the leader, wanting to teach, wanting to be in charge of others visions, not in speaking for others, or judging others, but just knowing for yourself that your life could be better.

And that in the end, after the seeing is asking, and waiting, and just being with a stillness in waiting that brings about all wonderful things. Life is living us, you see. It is not that we are living life, life is living us. All that we can do is see what life wants to do , and allow to to do so wonderfully, perfectly, without interference on our part. If we can see with enough humility, we begin to have the grace to let go of all that is less than the divine purpose we all share, allowing life to live us, beautifully and perfectly. In this a highest purpose is fulfilled for all of us. It is the most we can do, and if we do this, we will be content, and bring healing, and love to everyone.

Farm friends, and friends that live nearby

My friends live all over the world. Japan, Canada, Austrailia, Mexico..all over the US.
I love these people and sometimes we write, and sometimes we just get in touch now and again, but it is always true they are in my heart. Some live here close to me, and some of these folks are just like family, whether old friends like Kim and Diane,( Mother and daughter) who date back to my college days, and lived where nearby then, and now, so many many miles away from where we originated. Well I have landed here from PA. From one coast to the other in a span of one lifetime.

Then my farm friends, a long story about the farm, I won't begin today, but I will be writing about these influences, and how my life is enriched by these local friends as time moves on. I think you wil find it to be an interesting story. "As time goes by"
Today I meet Steve at 11:30 to get a new plug fror my new kiln, and some wood to cut for use in my ceramics projects. Yesterday, he and Linda ( astrology fame) went skating and bike riding together at the trail in Snohomish. Linda rode her bike, Steve and I skated, and I had my ipod whhich I shared with Steve. We sang, laughed, and had so much fun together, We all care about each other, and we are like family. I better run, I have to meet Steve soon.
PS. I have my new trusty pedometer, and I have to try for 10,000 steps a day, yesterday I came up 3,000 short, and I skated 4 miles or so...?

window shopping is always an option!

When you can’t sleep, E Bay is always moving along, and window shopping is cheap. Here are a few items coming up for sale soon. Wiinblad ceramics, A 1001 nights plates, and a nice teapot, too. I am very tempted to bid, but alas, my magic lamp is yet to be found for me to get my wishes to come true, although I am working on them..I am working…



And more shopping, this is nice!