Change

Shasta brings so much laughter to our lives!
Our move from Northern California to Santa Fe, NM, 
was not easy for her.  Early on as we settled into
our Stamm home, she was really clear she "wanted to go home!"

Humans seem to be terrified of change, or at the very least are resistant to change. This, it seems to me, comes from holding onto their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors which were learned in childhood. My husband says I change more easily than anyone he knows or with whom he has crossed paths in his life. For me change comes naturally and is an organic, daily practice. If I experience something not working or supporting me in my every day life, I change. Perhaps, this ability comes out of the 10 years when I was very, very ill. Those ten years offered me an opportunity to look at the attitude, behavior and beliefs that came out of my childhood, at which time those are created. Or perhaps I learned change was essential very early in my life.

BEing really, really sick and unable to live life as I had, I "saw" the choice of either remaining sick, the illness becoming chronic, or figuring out what was making me so very ill. Changing: drastic change seemed the simple, not easy, path. As I began to heal awesome healers showed up during those 10 years of healing, aka transformation. Each individual offered me a fresh and never before considered way of viewing how I responded to events, people, food, etc.  "Automatic pilot," or in Enneagram vernacular, "habitual" response to everyday life led to severe PTSD which actually began when I was around eight years old. In my 50s I became aware of the trauma in my early infancy and the "self preservation" protective behaviors I employed to literally survive; the healing process began. The behaviors, attitudes, beliefs I learned from 3 to 6 months old when I was repeated orally sexual abused no longer served me. Allowing the body memories and emotions buried in my subconscious to come into my conscious BEing, and discharging them using laughter to laugh at what was NOT funny, l began to heal. 

LAUGH     LAUGH     LAUGH     LAUGH

*Vincent Craig, 1951-2010 (Navajo)
Illegal Aliens, 1977
Pen and ink on paper

*Pictures are from "Laughter and Resilience: Humor in Native American Art" now showing at the 
Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, 704 Camino Lejo, Museum Hill, Santa Fe, NM

Greta Thunberg

Prove Me Wrong

World Economic Forum

Davos, January 22, 2019

"Some People say that we are not doing enough

to fight climate change. But that is not true.

Because to 'not do enough' you have to do

something. And the truth is we are basically

not doing anything.

Yes, some people are doing more than they 

can but they are too few and too far away from

power to make a difference today.

Some people say that the climate crisis is 

something that we all have created. But that is

just another convenient lie. Because if everyone 

is guilty then no one is to blame.

And someone is to blame. Some people -

some companies and some decision-makers in 

particular - have know exactly what priceless

values they are sacrificing to continue making

unimaginable amounts of money.

I want to challenge those companies and 

those decision-makers into real and bold

climate action. To set their economic goals aside

and to safeguard the future living conditions

for humankind. I don't believe for one second

that you will rise to that challenge. But I want

to ask you all the same

I ask you to prove me wrong. for the sake 

of your children, for the sake of your

grandchildren. For the sake of life and

this beautiful living planet.

I ask you to stand on the right side of history.

I ask you to pledge to do everything in

your power to push your own business or 

government in line with a 1.5 degree C world.

Will you pledge to do that?

Will you pledge to join me,

and the people all around the

world, in doing whatever it takes?"

*

Several days later Greta Thunberg ended another presentation at Davos with:

".... I don't want your hope,

I don't want you to be hopeful.

I want you to panic.

I want you to feel the fear I feel every day.

And then I want you to act.

I want you to act as you would in a crisis.

I want you to act as if our house is on fire.

Because it is."

For quite a few years I practiced in the arena of "cardiac therapy" and "cardiac rehabilitation. We in the "healthcare profession" believed if we educated individuals, primarily men at the time, about their "disease" and their "risk factors", about their medications and diets that these men would change. Ha ha!  Very few did although I remember two who made drastic changes with one even discovering that he and his wife needed different friends who would support their healthy living. And a study was done evaluating information(education) and life style changes. The study's conclusion was that information did not change behavior. I firmly believe that people change because some event, some personal experience brings about an internal willingness, an awakening to do so.

*Dwayne "Chuck" Wilcox, b. 1957 (Oglala Lakota)
"Was It the American Dram Again?" 2017
Colored pencil and crayon on  ledger paper

A dear and long time friend once shared her frustration about "people not waking up" and becoming conscious rather than being asleep and habitual. She went on to say that doing so is so much simpler and those of us who do so are so much more happy. Making conscious choices in the moment rather than going about every day/month/year like the day/month/year gone before is just so much more soul satisfying. If one truly is in touch with one's Self, this repetitive, unconscious behavior becomes boring, the very heaviest of the four primary emotions (anger, boredom, fear and grief).

In our present day world boredom is disrupted with adrenaline: bigger than life action frequently featuring alien invasion in our media, movies, music, magazines, books. There are mass shooting happening all over our county. And with the climate crisis we have massive wildfires, hurricanes of heretofore unheard of destruction, torrents of rain someplace with severe drought in others, species becoming extinct at a horrific rate. All of this triggers adrenaline outpouring from our adrenal glands, often to depletion. 


Change is NOT easy and often is a threat to "the establishment" as Greta Thunberg experiences. The predominate patriarchal establishment is lashing out; lashing out at any and all females who are strong and wanting to BE treated as equals, to set their own boundaries and to expect those to be respected. Change is happening, even amidst the entrenchment and ugliness of patriarchy which, in my humble opinion is crumbling. 

Climate crisis is upon us, worsening by the moment, so the Sixth Extinction when the inhabitants of Mother Earth can no longer survive and will die, also in my humble opinion, is inevitable; not in the some distant future but most likely in my lifetime (I will turn 76 in May). Yet I am hopeful that as life offers us opportunity to discover the genesis of our tightly held beliefs, attitudes and behaviors, we all grab the moment and change. 

And before the beginning of, during and after our metamorphosis may we