I have neglected the flower beds the last couple months. I am always surprised how quickly nature tries to reclaim the land that has been lost to cliviliztion. Homes, acres of parking lot, driveways, streets along with woods cut down for fields of grains and ditches to drain away the swamps. It never takes long for maples, oaks, walnuts and cotton trees to sprout creating new woods. Poison Ivy, poke weed, corn flowers-just a side point, I love corn flowers a true blus flower-, dandelion-another side point a happy yellow flower- and others. A house left alone for long, will quickly need paint, proches in need of attention and holes show up on the roof. The affect of acid rain, the over use of many cides, and introducing invasive plants/animals. And then what about our bodies?
We limit our intake of fat, caffeine, sugars, and white flour. We check the list of ingredients, use only sea salt, and snap up organic produce. We try all sorts of diets, the latest cure all fruit and the over abundance vitamin/herbs. And what about the assorted side affects. The list of affect are far longer then the benefits. Thus in my case, I over compensate. It is no wonder that many of us are caught in a vicious cycle. What works for me may not work for you. I turn to you for advice, what should we do to stop this nightmare occuring in our bodies? I remember these words:
As life grinds on does it grind you away? Are you swallowed up by the hurts and bombardments of life or does the grinding nourish us? Do you allow the grinding to only grind away the grim of this old system or to rebuild us, refresh us?
I look forward to your words of wisdom, until the next time HeWal

The last few days have been tough on me. I think it might be the weather. I never really thought that weather cN effect one so. I muscle hurt more then normally. I feel extra drain. My body is crying out for more naps then usual. The last few days have been damp, cool almost chilly, rainy, a slow persistent rain. My gardens have been neglected the last five-six weeks. I have not bothered with baking sweets( I have been addicted to sweets as long as I can remember). My reading has been limited, along with my art. Not really art, I have found that the coloring books from Dove Publications are wonderful. I have been trying to mix crayons with colored pencils, or pastals. I am laboring to read some books on drawing with pencils. My left-side brain always blind sides my right-side brain. I keep working at linking up with that 'think outside the box'. We have many great artist in our family, it simply by-passed this person. I mull over the thought that "Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond; cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education." I wonder what I am?
Until the next time-HeWal

What is it, when a man, goes to the store for groceries? At least with me,Ellen gives me a list of eight item and I come home with twenty-four items. I walk up and down the aisles and all of these products, jump out at me. I ask myself 'you know I will want to have this item for a snack, or want this for supper, or I can make this for breakfast and on and on.' Many of these items, are left unopened in the freezer, frozen like the mammoths of long time past. Each time this happens, I am scolded. The same questions-
Why? Who? What? When? And I have never understood the last w is how???? Every time, Ellen will review with me, the above questions and every answers are the same-I was hungry for it, it was on sale, i might forget about the next time I am at the store. As example, I saw some meat which was marked on sale. I count how many pieces are in the package and think this will provide two meals for four. Or when I am walking past the deli, it states ham on sale. You will save so many cents. So why not buy it. After all I am saving so much. Each week, Ellen will state 'Yes you might save so much, however you paid six dollars and that is not on sale. You stilled paid way to much.' Week after week it is always the same.
Men and women truly are different in every way. However,these difference, are what it takes to make us whole, complete. It is why most men need to be baby when faced with health problems and most women just live with health problems. In most cases, once again, it is what completes us.
Lao-Tzu wrote
"To remain whole, be twisted!
To become straight, let yourself be bent.
To become full, be hollow
Be tattered, that you be renewed."

The next time HeWal

I have had the privilege, this week, to meet with two very wise gentlemen, both my uncles and both in their nineties. One uncle was from Dad's side and the other from Mom's side. They come from a time after a great war, great depression, a second great war, Korean/Vietnam wars.
The two of them are so alike, but yet so different. Just think of all their combined knowledge, wisdom and practical advice they have to offer.
And yet many of the younger generations fail to tap into their brain, including myself. What took me so long to find them? To ask them about their early childhood, what was it like during the depression, the cost of food, the endless walking on foot? There is an excitedness in their voice when they start to dwell on childhood. They lived in a time without electricity. They had to entertain themselves with nature, homemade tools and just a box to play in. It seems that we are always in a hurry, racing off to work, bustle to the store and step on the gas. We dash off so we can wait in line. We wait in lane and grumble. We wait and complain how precious our time is. We wait so we don't miss that show on TV. We just wait to hurry some more.
In their eyes, I am just a young whippersnapper. Why Uncle Butch and I, are to wrestle someday and if we were to actually fight, he would win. You can see the great pride in his work. Uncle Emerson, he one time tricked me into eating a hot pickle. I still remember that moment and to this day I love hot food. You can see he takes great pride in his environment. Their combined lives, represent a time now lost. A time in which I would love to live. I truly enjoy their company.
As any of you have experience, one day you feel great and the next you feel lousy. Thus the time when you feel good you want to drag by. We appriecate that time. However the time when we feel lousy, well we need to enjoy that time as well. I think about my uncle's lives and I know they still enjoy life to it's full.
We need to change the focus of our eye and then the event changes. Do we see our long body or just the short? Is life a non-eventful place or an event that one looks forward with each awakening? Are we a shadow or the sun? Do we darken or provide coolness? Do we burn or provide warmth?
Until the next time HeWal

The last couple of weeks have been exhausting. Ellen and I lost a dear friend in death, a brother-in-law ( who befriended me from the first time we met) passed away and I caught a virus which sapped my little bit of energy that I might have. I have neglected my gardens the last month or so, thus I worry about weeds, missing some seed for another spring, or missing a plant that is a hidden gem in the beds. Then Alex, in passing, mentioned how the front yard looks over growing and junky and embarrassment to our street. Yes, the nicotiana is over eight feet, with leaves the size of umbrellas, nastrutium trailing over sidewalk, passion vine, which is so beautiful (which I am so grateful to cousin Todd) is climbing through every bush it can find. Brush pick-up for the city of BG is coming up soon. I love to recycle grass clippings, sticks that have fallen, weeds, old plants that have finished blooming back to the earth. When I recycle my brush, I feel like I am doing some good for the shrews, butterflies, bees, wasp, toad, rabbits, birds, well you get the picture. So around the yard, which is more like a postage stamp, with gardens around every corner, around the house, up and down the driveway and sidewalk, thus there are many piles of excellent mulch. The rotting leaves, sticks and other debri, will encourage fungus, mushrooms and other jewels. If I see a bag of waste plant clippings from a neighbor I quickly snatch it up, which my family finds disturbing. That bag might contain a rich assortment of goods. Which brings me back to brush pick-up. The boys have made it very clear, they will determine what will be at the road. In fact, they have mentioned, that once I am gone, they will mow off the beds. You must understand, while the boys where growing up, there a number of restriction. The boys were allowed to play in the yard, but be careful, not right there, no move more this way, caution this is a prize plant. Please play in the street but more up the street or move down the street, you are still to close. Our epitaph, our inscription is up to us. Some use little letters or big letters, this font or that font, red ink or blue ink. Our writing is represented by an inexhaustible number of jobs that encircles this earth. Even if you feel to puny to leave a mark, you do leave that mark. Never, ever, under estimate how you are earmarked. You simply do. A point, which I remember, from Elbert Hubbard's Scrap Book (which I give big thanks to cousin Becky for this book) this point is applied to each one us "A handful of pine-seed will cover mountains with the green majesty of forest. I too will set my face to the wind and throw my handful of seed on high." Until the next time HeWal

The birds have been gobbling food like a big old storm is getting ready to roll in. The house wrens, nuthatches, catbirds, chickadees, gold finches, house finches and titmouse all fighting who will get the top perch. They also chatter as to where the best food is, how to stake out a nich for the little ones and all of the other dominant qualities that we all have as creatures of the earth. Why even the hummingbird and wasp try to secure the famous red spot on the north-east side where the sun is the shiniest. Some days the wasp wins and on other days the hummer does. the morning doves are content with the seeds that fall to the earth, along with the shrew. The little rabbit, the last of the second litter for the year, waits for the seeds to become a rich bed of new, bright green seedlings. Let us not forget the squirrel, always the squirrels, trying desperate attempts to land onto the feeders. They hang this way and that way, sretch to the north, then sretch to the south. You would think that the squirrels have escaped the traveling circus. As humans, we to are seeking to secure our future. We look for food, shelter and clothing on our backs. We become so focused on the material things or absorb with the aches and pains of life we forget how wonderful and diverse life around us truly is. It was once said: 'If we have the courage to lift our eyes above the agony of the moment, we may see a world in which the forces of applied science and the diffusion of knowledge offer to all men and nations a plane of living, a freedom and richness of spiritual, cultural, and economic attainment that can scarcely be imagined at the present moment.' Until the next time-HeWal

Unhappy person compares life to a shirt button, because it so often hangs by a thread. Or There is no fence that does not allow wind through. Or We comb our hair every morning( I know some might ? This) why not our hearts. The above are old Chinese proverbs: Where were all of these enlighten gems, while I was growing up? Why did I not listen, while older ones, sitting around the table, after a meal swapping stories about work, canning, neighbors? The aged owls just chewing the fat of life, sharing the little snippets, that got then through. The generation that belongs to our parents had the benefit (some might question these benefits) of their parents who were coming out of the Great Depression, WW II and the Dust Bowl. Our grandparents worked extra hard to tuck away money, went more often to doctors, (whose progression of new Mircle Drugs were getting stronger) and sending their children to great buildings of knowledge. I cannot change the past, of my neglect to listen, but my boys might not. When Ellen was pregnant with Nicholas, a question was placed before me, 'what steps are you going to take to improve the lot of your children?' I remember my answer was 'that I will not complicate their lives for it well be so easy.' What was I thinking? I was given only twenty years to share what I had. I cannot believe that my two sons are already in the mid-twenties. How did it get away from me so quickly? Being plagued with a disease, has forced me to slowed down. So what am I going to do with this time? Am I going to loiter, procrastinate, become slothful? It I am so grateful for this opportunity. I want to appreciate this time. I also have learned, I have more then just twenty years to raise my sons. I hope with this life lesson it will be passed on to the boys, just as it was passed down to me. It has been passed, automatically to us, by DNA, stout genes and by our solid ancestrial blood line. A privilege to all. Until another time HeWal

The last few days have been rough. I have the symptoms of flu, slight fever, sore throat, over all yuc. However like most of you well know, it might be a reaction to medicine or food or disease. Toss them all up in the air and we still would not understand what is going on in one's body. If I or any of you, ran to the doctor about every little thing going on in our bodies, can you not imagine, were we all will live for the rest of our live's? It will be spent at the doctor's office. The body is so wonderfully designed. Can you imagine, if all of the wounds, we encounter as young lads or lassies, are still present? I am not sure, be can wager a guess, that every a spot of skin will be scarred, pussing or scab overed. I sure you got a picture of what I am trying to say. But yet our skin continues to be fresher as ever, until at some point, it quits. What is it that will assist us, during the times of hopelessness, gloomy days or when body quits reviving it's skin. We each have our own method. Mine was the love of gardening. The smell of earth, not dirt, the earth, feeling each grain in fingers, the wide range of colores, high lighted with sun or a cloud. Today, I can no longer spend the time I use to due to my lack of muscle strength. I still read up on plants, how to develope different Hostas, some Lillies. I try to walk around them at lease once a day. The last few months I have done a terrible job at it with the heat and all. I hope to start again with the cooler wearther. "From the glow of enthusiasm, I let the melody escape. I pursue it. Breatless I catch up with it. It flies again, it disappears, it plunges into a chaos of diverse emotions. I catch it again, I seize it, I embrace it with delight. I multiply it then by modulations and at last, I triumph in the first theme. there is the whole symphony." Strong feelings in which I could never express as fluidly as Beethoven, not just through music but also by writing. HeWal

Seneca wrote" Just as so many rivers, so many showers of rain from above, so many medical springs do not alter the taste of the sea, so the pressure of adversity does not affect the mind of the brave man. For it maintains it's balance, and over all that happens its own complexion, because it is more powerful than external circumstances." I have pondered this thought and I am not sure if I fully agree. However, it also makes the most sense. While this cold eye of my body, my health, continues to plague me, I feel that I have changed, not so much my body, but my mind, my inner being. These last couple of days, my shell of skin, no matter if I have taken extra meds, it hurts. I have been in misery. The one point that has changed is, I understand more and more why some want to, end their life. I keep asking the doctor when will I feel goofy, in la la land? I receive the same reply' if your body needs pain medicine, you will not end up in a trance.' Just once i would love to wake up and be free of this shackle, this illness of my body. Does the affliction, I go through, truly balance me. I realize that I do not have the strength or desire to murder myself. The wonder of life, the hummer bird fighting off the wasp at the feeder, the catbird that chases way the robin at it's bath water, or the gentle breeze on my unruly hair, I wait for the incredibly, astonishing, the surprise of life. So I keep coming back to the main point; what has truly change; the brain or the body?

These past couple of days, really the last few months have been filled with sadness. The loss of dear ones to death certainly strikes one's soul. Regardless of the age, your inner being is filled with sorrow. My mother stated that you experience a wide range of emotions even emotions you were not aware of. And this little fact did came true for me. I have been to more funerals then I care to these past few months, with most of the deaths being around my age. We live in a time of acid rain, polluted air, toxic foods. We eat eat these toxic foods, we breath in the polluted air, and drink poisoned water everyday of our lives. We can to try to convince ourselves that we will eat only organic items, drink purified water and wear face mask the reality is that no matter what we do our lives are in jeopardy. So what can we do? I found this little thought of Shakespear's in Richard ||: How sour sweet music is When time is broke and no proportion kept! So is it in the music of men's lives. I wasted time, and now doth time waste me; For now hath time made me his numbering clock; My thoughts are minutes. So I repeat, what can we do? I cannot speak for the rest of you out there but I know I have been trying to appreciate every moment of my life. I have come tot love each and every minute regardless what that moment has to offer. If I am sweeping the floor, I listen to the delicate sound the straw makes when striking the floor. Or when dusting, I marvel at where did that dust all come from and what about the color of dust? When I use to mow the yard, I came to enjoy the smell of fresh mown grass. What about pulling weeds, nothing beats the earthy smell coming forth. The list that each of us can come up with well be endless. With that, may each of you, please share how you enjoy each of your moments. Until the next moment,