Saving the Planet by Trusting Ourselves and creating a wish garden that may get you uninvited to the annual block party

Some days the news is so bleak I can't watch it.

My hubby was getting nosebleeds during the early weeks of the Japan nuclear crisis and we reached a point where we turned it all off.

I felt guilty over this because I do not want to be one of those people who turn from things I do not want to look at - the kind of person who steps over the homeless, avoids looking at the scarred and pushes her own stuff down so deeply that neither years of therapy or a two ton John Deere can unearth it.

(we were thinking - "I just can't go there. It is too hard to look at this stuff. It is too hard to feel this stuff." We put the brakes on.)

These are challenging times (and I am talking about things other than Japan here and many of us are feeling it) - times maybe we will be telling our grandkids about if we are lucky enough to have any. I think we are all here for a purpose, meant to be right where we are, right now.

None of us know what is going to happen. We believe things will get better, but suspect that maybe things will get worse first.

So maybe the greatest, most powerful thing we can do is to simply say, "What the hell, I will go there. I will look. I will feel what I need to feel. I sur­render."

Maybe we don't have to worry about being centered while we are in this place at this time.

If we intend to always be in control we are out of luck. Control is like a box that will never allow us the range of movement that is needed to knock down boundaries and belief systems anyway. Control has always been highly overrated.

My Hindu guru artist friend says to me, "Is the world really collapsing around us? Or is it lift­ing itself around us while everything that stays the same just feels like it is falling?"

Maybe we will know exactly what we need to do, exactly when we need to do it. Maybe we just need to not be afraid to look. Maybe we just need to not be afraid to feel. Maybe we just need to trust ourselves.

I am writing this post on Earth Day after a neighbor asked me what I am doing about my 'dandelion problem' - I told him I'm not sure and he said to me, "well, I thought knowing you, you were probably growing them on purpose"

*sigh*

I do know we are not about to pour toxic chemicals all over the tiny little piece of the planet's skin that we are the caregivers of right now.

I will never understand how a dandelion is any less beautiful than a daffodil.

Maybe there is some organic remedy I could look into or maybe I should wait until they turn into little puffballs and then erect a little fence around my dandelion patch with a sign that reads - blow me.

:)

*never trust a blonde print by franticmeerkat
*dandelion print by briole