The Clear Mind

12/13/2021

Steve’s new blog: Crashing Waves & Sprinkles of Stardust:
“The two weekend shows at magical Trading Boundaries in Sussex had a wonderful atmosphere…”
Read it here: http://www.hackettsongs.com/blog/steve-hackett-trading-boundaries-live-2021.html

Trading Boundaries LIVE John Hackett Amanda Lehmann

09/23/2021

Provided to YouTube by Sony Music EntertainmentThose Golden Wings · Steve HackettAt The Edge Of Light℗ 2019 InsideOutMusicComposer, Lyricist: Jo HackettProdu...

07/11/2021

Hmmm

Christina Haack says toad venom 'reset' her brain and kicked out years of anxiety in 15 minutes.

06/30/2021

Enjoy

recorded at:BB King Blues Club & Grill in New York, New York, United States (2008-06-23)Liquid Tension Experiment:TONY LEVIN Chapman Stick, Bass Guitar, Doub...

05/30/2021

Enjoy

Amidst the great uncertainty of the modern world, the exact knowledge needed for transforming our lives resides within us, waiting to be revealed. Initiation involves a revelation of the deeper self within us and an awakening of the unique story of our own soul. Although formal rites of passage have...

05/09/2021

Dear Brave Souls: Blessed Mother's Day to you and all whom you mother, whether children, adults, comadres y compadres, the four legged, the winged, the angels in heaven. I join in honoring you with a special set aside for...

MOTHERS ALONE
I would invite you to pray with me, for all new mothers. Especially for those who are alone and afraid and those who are giving birth for the first time.

Thus, in action prayer: Don't ever hesitate to reach out to partner a young lonely mother, and walk with her, for short or long, as you are called, as she is called... and to gentle her in bringing her child into the world.

The mother could live on your road, or on a road across the world. There are millions of doorways to finding the lone mothers who are in challenge and need.

During the Gulf War a group of us acted as 'surrogate' husbands to so very young army wives whose hubbies had been deployed to the other side of the world. The young mothers-to-be were poor as church mice, the military-entry positions back then paying about 12k per year, giving pittance in housing allowance, but lower prices for food and supplies at commissaries.

The call came 'to help the mothers left behind,' and that's how I came to find myself belly to back in the alien to me, lamaze classes, embracing more than one dear young 9.5 months pregnant girl, with her and me hoo-hooing and haa--haa-ing a little like mad owls...lol. We literally all fell over like children's tumble-toys, laughing hysterically.

Yet as I had once been too, the young mothers were so lonely and scared, far from any support, far from their mothers and tias y abuelitas and big mamas, and knowing their babies would not see his or her father for many many months yet to come...
and as much unsure of how to take care of a baby once born.

We can help the mothers [and the fathers--nothing better than a grown man [or woman] walking with the new father-to-be, beforehand, but also remaining fastened after long and long, if possible].

The care of a tiny one is pretty straightforward most often, but encouragement and care of oneself as new mommy and all the sudden fears and questions... deserve many hands, many ears to listen and to help.

Also, the how-to's about how to take good care, best practices, for new mother's heart, spirit, body, mind and soul, are as important... and often are exactly where a new young mother begins to flag.

We can help with smiles, words like 'Good job,' and 'You did that well,' and 'What are your best instincts about this situation?' and 'Good!' and 'Try this,' and 'Way to go!'

You could do this too. You call the local military base, the Veteran's Hospitals, the wounded warrior foundations, the Social Service offices of counties and cities, the court system, the victims assistance funds, the refugee groups, and ask to be put in touch with those who are helping young mothers.

You could also write handwritten cards to a mother you know is alone. You could send a packet of sealed envelopes, one to open every week for several months with a strengthening message in it.

You could slip a 5 spot or a tenner into her pocket or purse. You could take walks together [with masks and 6' apart]. You could tell uplifting birth stories of your own, if you have them. You could listen. Alot. You could tell jokes and laugh together. You could make a baby quilt. Together.

You can bless strangers.

Sometimes in grocery stores, in the dollar stores, I see a very young girl, perhaps 13 or 14 only, so very pregnant with the sacred basketball-sized belly under her hoodie and she looking unhappy, and her parents looking sullen and desultory as though everyone is tired of life and po-ed.

I take a deep breath, ask Holy Mother if it is alright to approach, and if She says yes, I do. What I might say varies, but I gently address the young mother, saying 'Ah, you are carrying very nicely, [I pat my own belly] you look good!'

Inevitably, she smiles shyly. Often however, her parents glare at her. I can read their thoughts as though they are written in the air in icicles. They are embarrassed and ashamed and angry at the turn of events. They feel responsible, and that their daughter is irresponsible and 'bad.' They feel they will have to use their already stretched resources to pay and pay to take care of their daughter and the baby. Often the father of the baby is AWOL.

Sometimes, there is a lot of 'we didnt raise you this way' is flapping in the air. No one very much has asked the young mother about how she feels.

In this case, I suggest a How To: Though you speak with regard, first, to the young woman, our real intention is to speak to her parents too.

Either to let them overhear your loving comforts to their daughter, or to speak to the parents directly, always with understanding and compassion, always watching for the unsoftened scowl that means you ought bless down hard on them and move on your way.

But most often the parents listen. They are lonely and unwalked-with, too. And you can see on their faces, with relief, that someone, often older, has some perspective that helps them.

However, consider this, for those of you who would like to bless strangers as called: Consider the moment, and ask Greater to lead you. Consider saying some version of this to the parents: Will this be your first grandchild?
Often all will come pouring out then.

I have long silver hair. Most see me as abuelita/ grandmother or maybe dotty old lady, lol.

And for certain, often the parents of the young woman say, right there, standing in the cleaning supplies aisle with me, with detergent on one side and paper towels on the other... what is on their hearts. Truly.

You can tell they often have no one to speak their hearts to. They think they are supposed to keep stiff upper lip and just soldier on. They forgot, for a bit, that there are souls in the world who might be 'sent' for just a small amount of time, to help define a better attitudinal course.

Regardless of the variations as they detail their fears which is often another word for their heartaches that have not been realistically soothed by others-- they can only hug themselves all alone, for so long.

I most often say the same thing in various ways depending on what seems to be the parents' backgrounds ethnically and otherwise. I gently remind:

'Babies often come when they are meant to. On their timing, not ours. If we can we prepare to receive these little beings that are going to put their arms around our necks and suddenly we know we would die for them, that our love will never let them go-- that looking forward to that, will lift us, for that is where the true heart and soul focuses-- on the joy of and in a child.'

I tell them, 'You will work this out, day by day, easy does it. You have been through a lot' [they always always nod violently, or look at the ceiling and say Yeah!] I gently remind that most of us appear not to have been 'planned,' that we too showed up as a big Surprise! And at times when nobody was 'ready'.

' And that maybe that's why babies take 9 months, so we can get ready-ier. That all will be well, that most important is to walk together in love, and mercy with each other, so we have good stories to tell to the baby about the months before baby was born.'

There's more, but I always take my leave by blessing the whole family including the soon to be born baby. Almost always the little bewildered family blesses me back in some way, a little less bewildered, and for certain, not feeling as alone, not as burdened.

And it is my prayer, that an old woman who stepped out from the side of the road was able to plant seeds that might continue to grow; seeds of perspective and strength and mercy.

You can, as you feel called, do this too. You may be, already.

Especially as you grow older. Remember, we are not here to correct the world...

that is an IMPOSSIBLE task. We are here to bless everything we can. We are here to bless every soul we can, as we are called.

"We old women are also here to interfere," but that's a prayer for another day. lol

FOR THIS DAY AND ONWARD
For this day
and onward:
Help me be aware of,
look for, pray for
the mothers now,
and if called by Higher,
help me see how to
make prayer-action
in ways gently useful
but not intrusive.

For this day,
and onward,
help me see,
help me look for
mothers with challenges
of health; lone mothers
in loneliness;
those with babies on the way;
those with grown children
with challenges;
those who are carrying
timorously, perilously;
those who have lost a child;
those with deep motherly hearts
whether having children
from their bodies or not;

for any and all women
who love a child, including
four legged children,
are Blessed.

The Child Spirit in us,
does not define 'child'
as the overculture
defines a child.
The Child Spirit
defines Child
as a sacred Being,
first,
last, and
forever.

For this day
and onward,
Let us hold
all mothers, motherlings,
madres y mamacitas
in our spirit arms
and pour kind prayer
over them.
Siempre.
Together.
May it be so for thee
May it be so for me
May it be so
each in her and his own way
as each sees fit,
for us all.

Aymen
Aymen
Aymen

[and a little woman]

_______________
CODA
I love that you love my dear brave souls, that you are called to love so much and so many. When I travel high above the earth in my prayers, I see each of you as a fully lit fire blazing in the dark like the most beautiful streams of firelight crisscrossing the entire globe, cooking what needs cooking, warming what needs warming, burning away the dead and dry, opening the way to so much good.

I'm proud of you. Proud to walk with you. Utterly. ¡Continuan!
Dr.e

Y mas:
The origins of this modern holiday was started after the U.S. Civil War to grieve and protest the carnage by women who had lost their sons in that war. Mothers' Day was proposed by a mother for mothers in need. Let us offer with a full heart our homage to our mothers [even for just bringing us to life which is a very big deal] and the mothers of everyone and let us not fall into facile sentimentality but dedicate ourselves to preventing the suffering of all mothers (and their children): poverty, hunger, abandonment, lack of shelter, lack of education, violence, war.

I send love comadre, compadre.

Olvidamos el origen de esta fiesta relativamente moderna. El Día de Madres empezó después de la guerra civil de los Estados Unidos como protesta a la mortandad en esa guerra por las mujeres que habían perdido a sus hijos a la guerra. Tal fue el principio del Día de Madres anual propuesto por una madre. Brindemos de todo corazón nuestros homenajes a todas nuestras madres y las madres de todos y no caigamos en el sentimentalismo fácil sino dediquémonos a evitar el sufrimiento de toda madre (y sus hij@s): la pobreza, el hambre, el abandono, el desamparo, falta de educación, violencia, la guerra.

te amo comadre/ compadre

04/12/2021

Consider

09/05/2020

Consider

Dear Brave Souls: I am here with you. Practice, practice, practice the strengths you have learned. Practice is what makes them yours forever. If you fall back, get back on the path. Say, Hell, it's a yes! instead of Well, it's a mess.

Do not listen to even one syllable of the negative and doomsayers duendes. You be the considered one, the one who helps to make solutions from Love and from the Light.

There are many challenges right now. Grifters, prevaricators, screed throwers, fish swimming with triple sets of backward chainsaw teeth just looking for tasty prey.

DO NOT be prey.

Keep your thoughts as YOUR own thoughts. Let no one write upon you. You have already been written upon perfectly by Greater. This is why you have the armor of Eternal Soul and the Helmet of Invisibility
.. meaning following the ages old ethics of Love and holding forth Light as summoned by Source without source, keeping your head while others are losing theirs...

and keeping mouth shut when useful to pass through barriers to larger places for you to unleash your Light and Love.

We are. Together. In this world and in the worlds we come from. We are. Together. Neither loll nor lament around longer than needed for Soul to grow.

Soon. I am getting weller. Fire, ash and smoke affected me. I was born with a fragile body but I am under the protection of the Water Bearer Aquaria, and Ehecatl, Bringer of the Winds. Close to perfect for directing and dousing, as needed for balance.

Soon. I am still putting finishing touches on Los Quatros ArchAngeles. I found a beautiful image to represent people from the great European tribes,, as well as Asia, Africa and los indios Americas

Soon.

I send all my love to you from a heart directing wind and water to calm and balance fire.

Dr.e

Coda
the image is cpe at sunrise ranch 2019 when I was with what I call 'our sudden village'. I so miss you all and send all my love to keep you cool if you are too warm, to warm you if you are too cool.

08/16/2020

In this excerpt from his new online series "The Soul of Genius", Michael Meade describes some of the challenges and obstacles to finding and giving our inner gifts. The ancient understanding is that each soul comes to life bearing inner talents and gifts intended to be given to the world.