Here is my TEDx Asheville talk. It’s funny to me that all I could see at first are the places where I messed up and how I wished I didn’t wear those boots…be who you are, it is so much more than enough Guess we teach what we most need to learn.

The title of this post is the same headline as the secondary headline of Monday’s Asheville Citizen Times. With a great big photo of me. You can read the article online. It was an exceptional experience and one I count as one of life’s best days. I’ve dreamed for years of being on stage and inspiring people. In fact, when I played the game of “when I am taking my last breath, what would I be sorry I never accomplished?” and this was it. My hope is it is the first of many. I was in awe of the people who told me that I inspired them and particularly in awe of the 2 women who had so much emotion it spilled out of their eyes. It is a life worth living to have that ability. That gift. I am careful not to take credit as I do believe it is a gift to have the desire to inspire in that way.

Though I did lead off the evening, what followed were people I am most humbled to be in the company of. Please take some time to watch the livestream. The day before was TEDxNGA, the kid’s version though there was nothing childlike about their talks, other than their innate wisdom pouring through without barrier. A lovely way to be childlike.

Enough said. I’d rather you spent your time checking out the talks. I’ll write more at some point. Big life changes.

I am well aware that back in the 1950’s, I might be a candidate for being put away in a sanitarium. I left my husband of 26 years, moved to a little hippie town in the Blue Ridge mountains, starting smoking pot, flew out to Oregon to adopt a dog, left 90% of my worldly possessions and moved to Arizona to be with my daughter who was pregnant, spent all my money and worried constantly about making more, being attracted to men years younger than myself, becoming a yoga teacher and vegetarian, authoring an inspirational, spiritually-oriented website daring people to dream and live their dreams, doing it myself.

Yep, I might have been committed. Perhaps it is this town in particular but I believe that it is happening everywhere. People are waking up to what has happened to our world under our watch. We are leaving a legacy of crooked politicians, corporations, wars fought for fabricated reasons to achieve a goal of ultimate power. People who have behaved badly. We let them, if we were not one of them.

So now what to do? Do we stand by and shake our heads as oil spews into the Gulf. It is too sad to go into all the ramifications. Who are we to mess with another beings habitat? To not ensure the greatest safeguards to keep their home safe. I read an article that said that during the Bush administration a decision was made not to enforce that upon our offshore oil rigs. It saved the companies several million dollars, and this disaster will cost them many billion, along with the deep guilt and despair. I hope the people of those oil companies and those who enabled them, oh which might include us who fill up our cars with $3 a gallon gasoline and enjoy the freedom that provides.

Where have our voices been? Why have we been so silent to let it get so out of hand? Please wake up. Please. Those of us who have been need you to come along too. We need greater numbers of people who are willing to be considered crazy to go against the norm. The norm is ridding our planet of one species at a time, one ecosystem at a time.

Are you thinking “what can I do about it”? It seems an awesome task to turn this ship around. The Renaissance was only 1000 people. We turned the world around then. We can turn it around now. Please join me and, I’m hoping, millions of others around the planet. Wake up and smell the smothering, burning oil in the Gulf, the blood on the battlefields in cities, towns , villages and neighborhoods all over the world. We are killing each other and those that get in the way of that intention.

So what can we do as individuals? We can speak out. Talk about this with your friends and your neighbors. Start a conversation. What you bought at the mall conversation can wait another day. It’s time to ensure there will be another day for someone somewhere. People are starving and we go to McDonalds and eat food kills our bodies[1].

What stops you? I think about what has stopped me and that is fear of rejection. Fear that my children will think I am insane. Fear that others will consider me someone to fear. A general nature of fear, which I have been shedding over this lifetime. I have held a fear of being found out to be the person I have been trying to hide. No one hides for real, only creates a feeling of distrust for a person who doesn’t seem congruent. Something is off. We are the last ones to see ourselves, which is a pity. Enjoy who you are. Be who you are. It is oh so much more than enough.

I’ve been listening to Congressman Dennis Kucinich and Ralph Nader on Democracy Now. The interview by Amy Goodman started with Dennis Kucinich apparently is the deciding vote on the healthcare bill as it stands. What I understood from the interview is that Rep. Kucinich had little choice as there is no consensus in the congress to provide a public option within the bill, which I still don’t understand what that means. Kucinich has compromised his desire for a fair healthcare system in order to get the bill passed. Rather this bill than none, is his position.  The conversation went into the war in Afghanistan and how we have become a society that accepts war as a natural course. Ralph Nader contends that we are being yet pushed aside for the bigger interest of corporations. He wants the American people to get angry and demand a system that provides healthcare for all. He wants us to take to the streets as the people in France do. Civil demonstration, peaceful demonstration, letting our voices be heard that we are not a society that wants war. We are a society that wants peace. We want love to be the dominant force in the world. I am in agreement that we must all take a stand personally. Begin with self. Let your desire for a peaceful and loving existence begin in your heart, your soul, your entire being. Be peaceful and loving. Peace and love starts right here.

Well, here it is. The Earthship is shaking some of the dust off…that would be us. Can you not hear the call to get busy? Sitting in your stuff twirling it around isn’t getting anything done. Get up, get out, do what you came here to do, be who you came here to be. Now is the time. What do you need to happen in your life to get your attention? Do you need some personal tragedy to wake up? Or can you take a deep breath, stretch out your legs, place your feet on the floor and get moving? Do whatever it is that comes to you as the most fruitful thing you can do with who you are. If it simply means being a nicer person, do that. Start there, in fact. However nice you are, however kind and loving you are, step it up a notch. Surely a song has been written about all this? We’ve sung it, we’ve danced to it, we hear it in our head. “There’s a place in your heart and I know that it is love. and the place could be much brighter than tomorrow…Heal the world, make it a better place.”

Normally I don’t start my day looking at the news as it tends to affect my mood. I don’t like starting out the day with sadness. This morning I had to do some online banking and when I was done clicked over to CNN.com. I read the article and listened to the clip about James Ray being arrested for the deaths of the 3 people in his Sedona sweatlodge last fall. As I watched him walk into the prison, he seemed to be falsely holding his head high, feigning dignity. At least I hope that was why his body language reflected a “holier than thou” attitude. I imagine he is afraid. He is human. A human who got lost in the power of inspiring people to greater heights.

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I’m up high in the world, in Aspen…actually 12 miles from Aspen in Basalt…visiting my son and his family. The sun is brightly and strongly shining on my face right now. Sunglasses might help with the deep furrow that is getting deeper between my brows but then I might not be able to see the screen and if I get up and away from this writing I might not get back.

A couple months ago I planned this trip, though it was to begin a week later. My Christmas trip away to visit my son here and my daughter in Arizona. I took full advantage of bragging rights as I told friends that I was going to Aspen and Scottsdale for the holiday. Holding my pinky high. I get to do this easily as my son is a pilot and I fly the very friendly skies free of charge. Every time I do this, I wonder why I don’t do this more often and so I quietly make a resolution for the coming year to get on a plane and fly to as many places as his airline goes, packing my bag of Verbal Remedies tricks, becoming a traveling saleswoman. Selling peace and love and pledges to the earth. Hopefully I will also create an opportunity to speak to groups and organizations, daring them to live the life they dream of, sharing the gifts they were born to give.

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As much as I want to escape from this feeling that I keep tucking back down inside of me, I know this time I want to stay all the way through. Stay where? Stay in the emotion that keeps nudging my diaphragm. Well it feels like my diaphragm. It’s in that region of the third chakra. The Manipura, the will power chakra. That seems to be the place where I generally stop the feeling and tamp it back down to the netherlands of my first and second chakras. No wonder I have low back pain. Got a bunch of stuff that sits there wishing to be expelled. And so I do, through my yoga practice. I let go. However I had so much stuff from past that needed to leave, I’m just now getting to the current issues at hand with some focus and clarity.

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I wake this morning with that title thought. There is a general feeling of waiting for things to calm down, feeling ungrounded, uncertain. The media treats us like puppies on a leash, pulling us in one direction then another, wherever government or somebody wants us to go. We had this feeling that with the election of Obama we were going to miraculously climb out of the trenches and be back in our technicolor Pleasantvilles again. But the chaos lingers, the fight over healthcare, the gas prices rising and falling, the stock market, blah, blah, blah. And then there is everyday life, relationships, work or lack of it, illnesses, cleaning the toilet. How does one maintain or achieve a positive outlook with all of this and more?

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Procrastination. Waiting for inspiration. The luxury of such is no longer viable. It’s time to move in the direction your soul is guiding you. Take the time to listen to your heart and if you cannot hear it, seek guidance to help you. The following is a message from the Hopi Elders of the Arizona Nation…

“You have been telling the people that this is the Eleventh Hour. Now you must go back and tell the people that this is The Hour.

And there are things to be considered:

* Where are you living?
* What are you doing?
* What are your relationships?

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