Life Do Overs

Life's Do Overs

 

I was thinking about 2012 and all the anticipation its brought to so many people. After reflecting on all the reasons that it's held us enthralled one simple thought rang out. 2012 offers a chance to really start anew with a blank slate. The more I thought about that blank slate, it seemed that like kids or casual golfers, we're looking down the barrel of a real-life Do-Over.  

Life is so full of promise and opportunity, especially when you're young. Goals get set and each one seems achievable. You're invincible! You can do anything and conquer any challenge. Then something happens along the way. John Lennon called it life. He said, "Life is what happens when you're busy making other plans." He said that in a song lyric written just before he died.

But what about us? What about the goals and invicibility? As we get older, go off to college, get a job, assume more and more responsibility, perhaps get married and have children, the goals go dormant. All the promises and ideas we had sort of go into limbo. Most of the time, even the dreams get put aside. Every so often we're reminded of them, but usually it takes a crisis - health, job loss, death in the family, or even age - to revive the old thoughts or ideals of our youth. As the crisis unfolds we finally take time to look back on the life journey and wonder how the choices of the past took us to this point.

But what if we took a moment at this stage in life to reflect on what's important now? Is what we're doing now different from what was important in our youth? Can the dreams be re-captured?  What if the dreams aren't lost but were merely shelved? We often ask "God" to help us out of the crisis and usually make promises that go for naught.  But, what if there was a chance to "do over" our life? 

Recently, I read an article about a hospice care-giver who spent most of her time with patients in the final stages of their lives. She noticed most people grow the most when faced with their own mortality. So she undertook a project of asking herpatients what were the five things they most regretted in life or would have done differently. The patients, knowing they were in the final hours of their lives, wished they had done many things before it was too late.

Their Life Do-Over wishes were more than a list. The Do-Overs were really a philosophy of living. They spoke of being true, having courage, nurturing friendships, and expressing joy.  Their top five said:

 

1) I wish I had the courage to live a life true to myself instead of the life others expected of me.
2) I wish I hadn't worked so hard.
3) I wish I had the courage to express my feelings.
4) I wish I had stayed in touch with my old friends.
5) I wish I had let myself be happier. 

2012 opens the gateway to the new world prophecies. We have a clean slate and can write anything on it. We have more than the hospice patients. We have the dreams, the memories, the friendships and the awareness. And, better yet, we have the time. It's not too late for us! 

   

Jo Mooy - April 2012

13 Clanmothers

The 13 Clanmothers

In many ancient cultures the role of mother and medicine woman is honored, butmore specifically, in the northern Native American tribes, the Mothers of the Clans were held in sacred reverence.  These Clanmothers were the historians, the faith-keepers, spiritual advisors, and the ones who chose tribal leaders.  They served in rituals, ceremonies, medicine and spiritual events.  As life-givers, their role was keeper of the culture and history of the tribe. 

The Clan Mother was a leadership hereditary role, passed down from grandmother to mother to daughter.  In a sacred ritual, the baton was passed, impressing each woman with the importance of just rule, honoring the spirit, animal and earth kingdoms, keeping the stories of the lineage alive, and insuring the tribal leaders were functioning in alignment with the great laws of spirit and earth.  Because they were responsible for selecting the chief of the tribe so too would they remove the chief if he was not serving for the good of all.

Solar-Lunar Cycles

The Clanmothers like the Druids, Incas, Maya and other cultures dating back 5,500 years, honored the sacred rhythms and cycles of earth.  It was a natural process for them to follow the moon's rotation every 28 days because 28 days was also the female biological cycle.  This explanation led to a more harmonious indigenous calendar of 13 moons in a solar year.  In time, a specific Clanmother with a distinct role and message was assigned to each moon.

Clanmothers 

Each Clanmother has a purpose and a moon month.  The Clanmothers beginning with January are:  She who Talks With Relations, Wisdom Keeper, She Who Weighs The Truth, Looks Far Woman, Listening Woman, Storyteller, She Who Loves All Things, She Who Heals, Setting Sun Woman, She Who Weaves the Web, Walks Tall Woman, She Who Gives Praise, and the 13th and last one, She who Becomes Her Vision.

Each Clanmother has a specific color associated with her role and her mission.  That color holds a vibration that represents the month of that moon.  The Clanmother also brings a teaching message to men and women who wish to heal themselves and to prepare their own personal cycle for the coming new earth.

Equinox March 20, 2012 

In 2012, every one of the seasonal cycles becomes more refined, especially by the intentions we are setting forth for the year.  We are part of the great awakening of human consciousness.  On the Spring Equinox of March 20th, the rebirth begins in earnest.

Join in this sacred ceremony at South Lido Beach State Park at 7 pm.  Hear and take into your hearts the message from each of the Clanmothers.  It is the season of renewal, one that calls to us and to all we aspire to be. 

   

Jo Mooy - March 2012  

What's Love Got To Do With It

What's Love Got To Do With It?

It was 1984 when Tina Turner first asked that question in a song. The question hascolored the world that I see ever since I first heard it and it's become a pseudo-mantra in raising my own consciousness. When confronting any challenge, life change, large or minor life situation, the mantraWhat's Love Got To Do With It? puts a spin on the event that begs for more careful examination of what's being observed.

While the song highlights the physical, emotional and mental experiences associated with love, other aspects of love are alluded to. For, as the lyrics proclaim, "it means more than that."

Philosophers, scientists, chemists, biologists and mystics all interpret love from the lens of their focus. They say: Love is a chemical reaction in the brain; love is an emotional sensation; love is a religious experience; love is a magnetic energy field; love is God. From each perspective they're all correct. But sometimes, love can't be defined in scientific or metaphysical terms. In fact, when we see the effect it can have on humans or animals those definitions are useless. What's love got to do with those definitions? A whole lot more!

 

Worldwide, there are countless stories of compassionate caring and loyalty between species and within the same species. Recently, an internet video with over two million hits, showed a remarkable dog in Chile pulling its injured "friend" out of the way of four lanes of oncoming cars after the friend had been hit on the highway. After the tsunami in Japan, a Springer Spaniel stayed by the side of its injured companion for days, refusing to leave it even when rescuers arrived. Soldiers who have been away for years in Iraq or Afghanistan return home to find their loyal hounds overjoyed in welcoming them back. One video with over ten million hits shows a soldier arriving home from Kandahar, his duffel bags on the grass, as Gracie his Golden Retriever hears his voice, rushes from the house, circles around him and slobbers kisses all over him until the film runs out. What's love got to do with that?Everything! But love still "means more than that."

Love is a quality that's beyond the physical, emotional or mental ideas. Love is an ideal. It's a force in life that creates an energetic bond between beings. This force binds us together through loyalty, love, memory and friendship in a common compact. It causes us to risk our lives to save a stranger by rushing into burning buildings, forging raging rivers or standing in front of a shooter. This love which is selfless and unconditional, is the perfection of what we can become.

On this second month of 2012, we celebrate Valentine's Day, a day dedicated to Love. Future generations may look back and ask what really happened in 2012. They may find that Love had everything to do with 2012. In the new world dawning perhaps every day will be a day dedicated to Love. What a legacy to leave the earth. 

Jo Mooy - February 2012  

Two Discs One Message

Two Discs - One Message!

    

Two tiny spacecrafts, Voyagers 1 and 2, were launched in 1977.  Built to last only 5years, their mission was to fly to Jupiter and Saturn.  Then maybe, if everything worked out just right and the mechanical parts didn't freeze up, go past Uranus and Neptune.  Thirty years later they're now poised at the edge of our solar system and headed for deep space.

  
You may be wondering what Voyagers 1 & 2 have to do with 2012.  Probably nothing specific  but maybe everything in the abstract.  Scientifically and philosophically, Voyager was the best earth had to offer the cosmos.  If there were other beings out there, we not only wanted to contact them, but we wanted them to know about us.

Voyager was a messenger representing earth's hope for the future.  Each one carried a Golden Disc time capsule embedded with the sound of 55 languages and 115 images intended to communicate the story of earth to other space civilizations.  We were reaching out to the stars and desperately hoping someone would hear us.

Maybe the Mayan calendar served a similar purpose as Voyager.  It was also amessenger out of time that told us about an ancient culture.  The Mayan Disc presented a time-capsule of their recorded history, and shone a light on their knowledge of astronomy and mathematics.  The calendars within calendars explained the governance of their land, how they measured time, and best of all indirectly gave hope to future generations - ours.  

In many ways, the messages of the two discs are universal in scope.  They portray another time on earth.  They ask us to respect the old ways.  They suggest we might consider alternate possibilities for the future and perhaps choose a different path than the one being followed.  When the Mayan Discs were found, interpreters created a stir by predicting the world would end on the Winter Solstice of 2012.  More enlightened minds in the last 10 years disputed that theory by insisting the "end times" were simply that - the end of one long cycle and the start of another.  Instead of our species dying out on 12/21/12 we'd wake up on the 22nd with a renewed purpose.  In the awareness of the date, many of us would go on living our lives but with higher values and in more aligned states of being.

The young engineers who launched Voyager are now grandfathers.  They are being taught by  younger scientists and physicists.  Using newer technology, the young engineers are issuing commands to the two tiny ships so they can continue deep space exploration using less energy than it takes to run three light-bulbs.  They hope that when the spacecraft finally fall silent in the years to come, the message on the Golden Discs that once promised a peaceful earth would in fact be so.

While Voyagers discs have not yet been found by another civilization, it's pleasant to consider another species finding the discs, deciphering the messages, and visiting earth.  Who knows, maybe our great great grandchildren will be the ones traveling to distant galaxies to find the discs.   

But at the end of the day, or cycle, or time-line, the message from both discs is that the inherent human spirit is creatively alive and filled with hope;  that we look to the stars for inspiration; and there's the ultimate message of hope.  It is one that says wherever humans reside or interact with other species, spiritual peacefulness will prevail not just on earth but across the galaxies.

The message of the discs suggests that we have the power to form a new consciousness.  In a world view we can acknowledge differences yet embrace the one-ness of all people.  We are on the threshold of a glorious and peaceful universe.  It's ours to create.  And that is the biggest message of 2012 and beyond!   

Jo Mooy - January 2012  

Next Year Things Will Get Better

Next Year Things Will Get Better!

  

At the end of each year it's a Rite of Passage to look back on the predictions made at its start and see which ones were accurate and which failed to materialize. I was especially interested in 2011 because it was supposed to be the transformational eve for the major prophecies about 2012. So I took a journey into the history of predictions and was surprised where I ended up.  

   

Annual predictions have been part of every culture on earth far longer than recorded history. Geologist found star systems mapped out on cave walls dating over 25,000 years showing that ancient people looked to the stars for some sort of guidance. The movement of the constellations dictated the building of temples, the planting of crops, or the start of a war. So, I followed the trail from ancient times to the present to find out why predictions seem to be such an important part of our collective heritage.  

It's a natural behavior to contemplate the end of one season while preparing for the next one. Animals, birds and even the elements do it - storing up food, migrating to greener or temperate environs, air and temperature changing from hot to cold and back again. But humans add one more aspect to the process not evident in the other kingdoms. That aspect is Hope. It's an inherent trait evident in our species. Hiding behind the obvious prediction, humans assess their current situation but are generally hopeful things will get better the following year.      

Well publicized predictions through the ages are easy to find but not so the more subtle evidences of 'hope'. While preparing to write the December article a story found me. It's depth and scope was heart-warming. It was a story that showed how Hope remained kindled in the hearts of a group of men for more than 70 years even as their numbers dwindled. Their story is an indicator of human patience, conviction and finally justice. It's evidence of humanity's belief that "it will get better next year." From that perspective all the predictions of 2011 came into focus.

Most have heard of the Tuskegee Airmen, a squadron of African American pilots who served in World War II. But there were thousands of other African Americans who joined the elite Marine Corps whose stories were kept under wraps until 2011. "The Montford Point Marines" as they were called for the segregated boot camp they trained in, faced discrimination from the time they signed on until they were discharged. In the racism of 1941, the commandant of the Marines, when ordered to enlist the black recruits, said he would "rather take 5,000 white soldiers over 250,000 blacks."

  

The "Montford Marines" were sent to different boot camps from the white soldiersand kept in segregated units. When deployed, they sat in segregated trains. If the "black cars" were full, they had to wait for the next train, even if the white cars were empty. Their service was restricted to support services like defending the base or hauling ammunition to the front lines of battle. In the South Pacific these Marines carried their injured white counterparts back to safety while others readily picked up the weapons of the white Marines who were killed in battle. They stayed and engaged the fight before being ordered back to the rear at the conclusion of the battle.   

  

At the end of the war they faced more humiliation and discrimination when they returned home. The Red Cross routinely set up Welcome Home Stations with music, banners, coffee and sandwiches at the train stops for the soldiers coming home. Yet when a train with black soldiers entered the station locals closed and shuttered the food booths until the train left the station.  

  

Because they were not encouraged to remain in the service, the "Montford Marines" quietly exited the stage of national consciousness feeling unwanted and unrecognized.  But none of them ever forgot they were once "proud marines." For 70 years, though the Marine Corps refused to recognize them, they met every year to honor themselves, always hoping that "next year it will get better."   

  

Amid all the financial, political, and environmental predictions about 2011, no one paid any attention to the dwindling number of Montford Marines, now in their 80's and 90's.  That is until the current Marine Commandant heard about them and looked into their story. It so captured his attention he wanted to rectify the wrongs of the past.  He ordered that all new recruits be taught the history of the Montford Point Marines along with the rest of the Corps' legacy. He incorporated their story into the curriculum of advanced classes for senior officers. Then he went a step further.   

  

He rounded up the remaining "Montford Marines" some in wheelchairs, others using canes, to Washington D.C. where they were feted at a banquet hosted by the commandant and served by young marines in crisp blue uniforms. They watched a parade in their honor with the Marine Corp commandant and other military dignitaries. They met black officers who were now commanding the Marines. In a rare showing of bipartisan support, the US House of Representatives unanimously approved the Gold Congressional Medal for all the "Montford Marines" formally recognizing them for their proud service to the country.

   

The outpouring of support overwhelmed the aging veterans. One, struggling with hisemotions said, "At last I feel like a real marine!" When their bravery in the jungles of the south Pacific was mentioned, one said, "We did everything to prove our mettle, but it never seemed to be enough until now." One of the Montford Marines told a black officer "I feel so much pride seeing you in that Marine uniform. It's enough to make an old marine cry." The officer responded, "I owe it all to you, Sir!  I stand on your shoulders."

  

It took a stodgy military seventy years to make things right. All the while, the dwindling "Montford Marines" kept hoping that "next year things will get better." Then in 2011 a shift in consciousness occurred and things did get better for the remaining Marines. It was just a matter of patience and hope. 

Jo Mooy - December, 2011