A Prairie Thing

Move over ‘Newfie’.  Whether departing the confines of Smoking Tent or feeling exhausted after a long drive to finally reach Climax, one thing is certain—Saskatchewan just may be the best province or Territory in Canada for unique place names.

A person can travel from Cadillac to Kandahar or from Girvin to Mervin, spend a day communing with nature on Nut Mountain, Onion Lake, or Carrot River, get married and have a romantic honeymoon in Love, spend the rest of your life in Livelong or Young, pick yourself up from a way-too-long blue funk by moving the family from Wartime or Shackleton to Smiley or Unity, make a huge life decision in Major, Choiceland, or Cando, spend the winter in Summerberry or the summer in Winter or Burr, start a business in Success, Reward, or Bounty, live like a king or queen in Imperial, Star City, or Paradise Hill, spend the night brushing your teeth in Colgate, listen to classical music in Mozart, quench your thirst in Drinkwater, or even sip a cup of tea in Earl Grey.

Some towns purposely flaunt their unique names; for example, no one can miss the big sign an hour’s drive due west of Saskatoon that reads “New York is Big, But This is Biggar.”  Whether you are of masculine gender and want to visit Beverly, Francis, Mildred, Margo, Laura or Nora, or a woman who would like to linger in Leoville, Scott, Kyle, Bruno, Allan, Ralph, or Theodore, a person will have a good chuckle at the road signs to any destination in Saskatchewan but will likely have to wait for a date in Findlater.

Last weekend I drove to a small community called Elbow which leans on the eastern shores of Lake Diefenbaker north of Moose Jaw and just south of Eyebrow, a community that appears to be plucked out of the vast prairie landscape.  My purpose for going there was simple—I was missing the sea.  It had been over eight months since I set foot on the familiar fine sand of Crescent Beach in Lunenburg County, Nova Scotia, before my departure to Arizona last fall, my last embrace with the salty cool breeze, the warm squeaky white sand beneath my bare feet, and the soothing healing energy of the Atlantic Ocean.

Are we there yet?

I must be honest—when I first arrived in Saskatchewan, I seriously questioned my sanity regarding my decision to come to such a flat, desert like, and desolate-looking environment.  The long drive from the US border to Craik, Saskatchewan, was not only arduous on the poorly maintained secondary roads with their potholes and broken pavement but also in stark contrast to the rolling hills, lush pastureland, and snow-capped mountains of Utah, Idaho, and Montana.  But once I saw the water’s edge in Elbow, I felt as though I were right back on the shores of the Atlantic—my new home away from home.

Options

“You are feeling overwhelmed not because you do not have any options but because you have more options than you are willing to acknowledge.”  Ouch!  Those words stung a little.  Okay, a lot.  But they were very wise words spoken to me by a friend a year ago when I was beginning the process of a major life change.

At the time I didn’t believe that her wisdom held any meaning for me.  After all, nobody knows my life better than I do–right?  But when I gave myself permission to accept and trust her honest perspective, I began to see and understand the choices that were lying at my feet all along.  Until then, I felt confused by what my future could possibly hold and was held captive by fearful thoughts about change, a fear of the unknown.  This prevented me from taking a step in any direction, and I remained stuck in a rut for a very long time complaining about my life to anyone who would listen.

Change can be difficult; there’s no doubt about that.  But it seems to me that we’re the ones who make it that way.  It is not change itself that is such a challenge; it is finding the courage and motivation to take those first few steps and trusting that the universe will support the decision.  Once the options are examined and a verdict is made and acted upon, the actual process of change can be very exhilarating and empowering, a satisfying feeling of really starting to make things happen and creating movement from what I had been calling “a drowning place.”

Human brains are hard wired to seek the comfort and security of the familiar, and as a result, most times people choose to stay where they are, even if it makes them unhappy.  It just seems like too big a deal to embrace a new experience with no certainty that the chosen future will take them to a healthier, freer and more fulfilling situation.   Fear has a way of creeping insidiously into the consciousness stuffing minds with doubtful and unconstructive thoughts like “What if I fail?”  “What if I’m making the wrong decision?”  “What am I going to do for money when I get there?” “I don’t know anyone; I’ll be lonely.”  “I can’t do this on my own.”  “Who’s going to help me?”  “I’m giving up everything I’ve worked for here.” “I can’t afford…It won’t work out…What’s there for me…How will I……”  And on and on the internal dialogue creates a heyday in the wilderness of the vulnerable mind.  The torment is always in the head, not the heart.

There are two ways that change can happen.  Life can force a person to change through circumstances that appear to be beyond personal control, or a person can exercise free will, examine the available options, make a decision, and take the first step towards change.  When I was in that fearful place last year, I kept asking myself why I found it so difficult to get something going in my life.  For a long time I also couldn’t understand why God and my angels didn’t seem to be helping me.  I prayed all the time asking for guidance and direction to move forward.

As writing over the last several years has been a way for me to communicate with my angels to heal most issues in my life, I started to dialogue with them in my journal.  Here are some excerpts:

I don’t feel the freedom or the connection to anything, including myself.

When you don’t like something, you avoid it.

Meaning me?

Meaning the value in your life. You see no value in your life.

I’m lost, aren’t I?

You’re misdirected. Direct yourself to what is important to you. What do you want?

That’s the problem; I don’t know.

Then you can’t take direction and we can’t help you. Spend some time deciding what you want and then focus on it. That is all you need to do.

After that dialogue, I followed my angels’ advice and made a comparative list of my wants and not wants.  I knew that I wanted to feel love and acceptance, fulfillment, abundance, joy and freedom of expression, but my list seemed so surreal that any decisions about change left me spinning my wheels again.  A useful exercise for me was drawing a line down the center of a sheet of paper.   The column on the left was headed “Want” and the column on the right “Don’t Want”.  I proceeded to search within myself for answers as I spilled my guts on that one intimidating sheet of paper.

When I was finished, there were only four lines of “want’s” and a page and a half of “don’t want’s”.  It was quite obvious at that moment that I had no vision for myself and came to the conclusion that my angels were helping me see that I didn’t know exactly what I wanted.  I found it was easier to talk about what wasn’t working than I did talking about any decisions for change.  If I didn’t know where I was going, how could I expect even the spirit world to help me get anywhere?  And of course, the fearful internal dialogue wasn’t helping my cause, and there was lots of that.  Back to my journal and more dialogue:

I’m having difficulty visualizing my wants and feeling that they are obtainable.

It’s up to you to fulfill your commitment to yourself here.  Make it real in your mind’s eye in whatever way that works for you.  The more you see, the more you be.

Why do I find it so difficult to make a decision for myself?

Decision making is a skill, and you were never taught that.  So—write it down. Lay it out.  You develop the decision-making skill first by writing down all your options even if they seem preposterous, then looking at your list, and deciding the best route—what resonates with you.  This is easy.  Over time you learn that you don’t have to write it down anymore because you can do the same thing in your head.  The skill has developed to a point that very little ground work is needed to arrive at your decision.  It becomes almost an intuitive process in time—you just know what to do.  So spend some time looking at your options.  And you do have options–you’re just torn as to how to choose between them.  All options at this point are good because any one will get you moving.  But you need to be clear on only one.  The process of figuring it out in your head right now is too difficult for you.  It is like running the Boston marathon tomorrow when you’ve been on a couch all winter, if you get our drift.

I get your drift.

Make this decision in training—write it down.  Other people do not have to do this because they’ve developed the skill.  But when something big comes up in their lives and they have to make an important and difficult decision, many people revert back to the training in their earlier lives and write it all out so they can see clearly the good and the not-so-good about each option.  It’s too difficult and complicated a decision to do it all in their heads.    You are faced with the biggest decision in your life and you have very little skill development in the field of decision making.

So my decision to take this journey in my RV first to Arizona for the winter and now to Saskatchewan for the summer was part of this process and the only option that fully resonated with me.  This adventure has so far been the best decision of my life and has taught me many things.

The biggest lesson has been to let go of the worry about what the future could possibly bring, to trust my intuition to guide me to the next step, and to live in the moment knowing that each experience and every person I meet will hold something special for me.  Freedom has been a long time in the making.  This journey has also taught me to enjoy the spontaneity that I have allowed myself and to acknowledge and gratefully accept the guidance and support of the Source of all life and to trust that Divine guidance will always be there because it always has been.

Strange, or is it?

Antelope Medicine

During one of my renditions singing “Home on the Range” while driving in northern Montana, I laid down some rubber on the asphalt when a herd of antelope appeared out of nowhere and crossed the road directly in front of me.  With my adrenalin immediately rising up, no time to decide which way to swerve, and antelope all over the road, the only action I could take was to blow my horn.  As if the herd’s decision was already being implemented, half the herd went left into the fields and the other half darted right.  Every one of these graceful fleeting animals was spared from injury, which is still a miracle to me knowing how close some of them were to my bumper.  This was the first time in my return journey to Canada that I witnessed animals so close to the highway, and I knew that the incident held some spiritual significance for me.

Thanks for the warning, but yikes, don't play on the road.

Later that evening, I Googled “antelope medicine.”  According to Native American spiritual tradition, antelope bring medicine to people “who need to learn to use their senses to hone-in on the issues at hand and know that a higher purpose is being asked of them for which they were placed on the earth in the first place.  Antelope people learn to use their senses to take action . . right now!” The timeliness of my medicine from the antelope was not yet apparent but would become obvious as my journey continued.  In the meantime, I didn’t sing the song for the rest of the day’s driving for fear that I somehow attracted them with the words.

Creeped Out at Walmart

With the antelope incident long forgotten, I arrived at the Walmart in Havre, Montana, shortly after noon.  Since I had been fighting a headache all morning, I decided to park at the far end of the ‘Walmart slant’ along a grassy field away from the noise of the nearby highway, the railway tracks, and busy shoppers.  It was a very quiet location and made me feel as if I had a backyard to myself for a change.  I then had a long nap in blistering heat with most of my RV windows open and only the screen door closed.  But before resting, I noticed a small green pickup truck parked at the far end of the parking lot in an area by itself, assumed it to be one of the employees’ vehicles, and thought no more about it.

Calm before the storm in Havre, Montana

After my much-needed nap, I then noticed that the same truck had moved to a spot beside me.  There was a rather odd-looking man puttering about the truck and wandering near my trailer.  It became obvious to me that this man had been in the parking lot most of the time that I arrived and would have been aware of my moves in and out of the trailer and the store.  There seemed to be no purpose to his presence, and I became increasingly uncomfortable with his meandering near me.

With the sun now disappearing behind some of Montana’s golden wheat-filled hills and the light of the day becoming dimmer, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck tingle, which has always been my cue to take notice of something.  I then heard an inner voice say “Get out of here, now!  No time to eat.  You need to leave now.”  Within five minutes, my supper was put on hold in the sink, everything was packed up, and I was pulling away from the Walmart store relieved to have averted a possible unpleasant experience.  The $40-a-night camping fee at Havre’s only overnight RV stop was extravagant but was the price I didn’t mind paying for a few hours of security and peace of mind.  It was then that I remembered the antelope’s message and the herd’s abrupt appearance in my life.

Pie in the Sky

During my approach from the south to Great Falls, Montana, the day before, I was distracted by an object in the sky above me.

How could anyone not notice this?

I scanned the rest of the sky to discover at least five or six of these objects hovering above  in an area of heavy chemtrails (for an explanation of chemtrails, see below).  10 minutes later in the Walmart parking lot, the disc-shaped objects were still in the same place in the sky, but most of the clouds had reshaped themselves.

For more information on chemtrails, please view

For additional information on off-planet visitors, please check out  www.openminds.tv

Home on the Range

Oh give me a home

Where the buffalo roam

And the deer and the antelope play

Where seldom is heard a discouraging word

And the skies are not cloudy all day

Moonscape

Why take a trip to the moon when you can drive to Page, Arizona.

 

Slot Magic on Navajo Nation

Imagine a large sandstone rock measuring 120 feet in height and several hundred feet in length situated at the bottom of a wide dry desert wash.  At some point in history, this rock was split in two with a deep vertical crack running from end to end.  Over the centuries the passageways through this rock eroded away from flash flooding during the monsoon seasons making the rock’s interior corridors deeper and rounding out its sharp edges in such a way as to create smooth wavy shapes.  Around Arizona it is called a “slot canyon” and the one in Antelope Valley on the Navajo Nation near Page, Arizona, is one of the most photographed canyons in the world.

The Navajo name for Antelope Canyon is “Tse’ bighanilini” which means “the place where water runs through rocks.”  The local Navajo people do not know how the rock split in two.  Some elders say that it was caused by an earthquake.   Others say it was a blessing from the Creator, for entering the canyon is like entering a cathedral.   According to the Navajo Nation brochure, “traditionally the Navajos would pause before entering the canyon to be in the right frame of mind and prepare for protection and respect. This would allow them to leave with an uplifted feeling of what Mother Nature had to offer and to be in harmony with something greater than themselves.  It was, and still is, a spiritual experience.”

Out of the Blue

A natural disaster can happen in a flash.  Lives can be lost and millions of dollars damage to businesses, homes, cars, and properties are likely.

Where do I go from here?

As a human race, we are currently experiencing an acceleration in the magnitude and occurrence of natural and man-made disasters, and it is getting more accelerated with each passing week.  One would have to be living in a bubble not to see this increased activity.  When learning of a disaster on the news, what is your reaction?  Do you say to yourself Oh, another earthquake.  How interesting.  Mexico?  Poor people.  So far away.  Not likely here.   Is the constant reporting of these tragic events in the news diminishing your sensitivity to the possibility of this happening in your area?

The Big One

There are two things to keep in mind:  1) Human nature being what it is, people never expect disasters to occur, and no one can accurately predict when they are going to happen.  For example, on the morning of the recent Japanese earthquake, people in that country were not saying to themselves “There’s going to be an earthquake today that will swallow us with a huge tsunami and shatter the Fukushima nuclear plant spreading radiation as far away as the west coast of North America.”  No one expected all that to happen.   2) It doesn’t matter where you live on this planet these days – no one is immune to an environmental disaster.

Referring only to North America, natural disasters at one time were considered specific to certain areas.  For example, tornados happened only in the US mid west, earthquakes mostly in California, etc.  But more recently, these events have been occurring all over this continent.  If you live near the coast, west or east, you are particularly at risk of a tsunami by an earthquake and rising sea levels because of the expected planetary pole shift.

If you were told that in 10 minutes you and your family would lose everything, your survival mode would begin, and your world would never be the same, how long could you live without adequate preparation?   A long-term plan for food, water, and shelter is essential to surviving any disaster because you can’t depend on anyone else but yourself.  Take a few moments to ask, where would I go if water suddenly surrounded my home and community, and how would I get there?   Where would I sleep to stay warm and dry?  Where would I find food and what would I eat?   You may be thinking about your freezer that’s crammed full of food, but that won’t last long if the power goes out for weeks on end because of a massive solar flare taking out the grid, like it did in Quebec in 1989.  You can’t depend on a vegetable garden either if the disaster occurs in the middle of winter.  There’s an abundance of information on the internet about survival preparedness.  Research is necessary to determine what could possibly happen in your area.

Out of curiosity, I occasionally ask a friend the following question about long-term food supply.  The answers over the last few months have been remarkably varied.  “If you had to survive on a deserted island for one year and there was plenty of good drinking water, a dry comfortable place to sleep, cooking equipment, and you were allowed to take only six items of food in whatever quantity you want, what would be your six items?   Keep in mind the shelf life and storage concerns, variety of meals, nutritional benefits, and food groups to stay healthy on the island for that length of time.

If you would like to answer the above question in a comment on this blog, your ideas and responses may help others prepare, or at least get them thinking in the right direction.  After long deliberation, these would be my six items – large quantities, of course:  basmati brown rice, pinto beans, corn meal, powdered vegetable greens, dried fruit, and powdered milk.  What would your list look like?

Whatever your previous views on the possibility of a disaster occurring in your area, my hope is that you will begin to take such a tragic event more seriously and see the necessity of preparedness.  The way things are going on the planet, expect anything to come from above or below, anywhere, and out of the blue.

Please take the time to view the following links:

Volcanic Eruption on Canary Islands (BBC News)

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/

http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/sun_darkness.html