The Nouns: All We Need (and have ever needed) Is Love

When folks start asking when I'm gonna write my next blog piece, I guess it's time I got my butt in gear and start writing again!

It's been a great month thus far. I LOVE Autumn! I've looked forward to Fall since, well...last Fall! September 22 is my birthday, and ushers in the season; I know there's a connection there. Sweater weather...leaves on the trees turning colors and falling...more rain, snow in the forecasts...harvests going on everywhere...the last big hurrah of Farmers Markets. I know The Big Crush happened this weekend, in Amador County. I can envision the cool crisp air, the beautiful vistas of vineyards covering the hillsides in brilliant reds and yellows...

There are so many "nouns" I love in this, my Third life. I love the new people I've met in my travels...my friends who keep in touch with me...finding new destinations, traveling to new places, shopping in new shops...buying things that are more meaningful than faddish, trivial or commercialized. That's why I love Farmers Markets...people, places and things, all in one!

I love my family, my community, my co-workers. It's one of the reasons I moved back home in the first place. It's been two years since moving from the people I've loved in California, to being a part of the community in my hometown again. I've joined the RHS All Class Reunion and have met some awesome folks who have known me (or at least my family) all my life, and it's truly a Homecoming gift to settle into a great town like Riverton, Wyoming.

I do have a somewhat difficult time adjusting to life when I come back home on the weekends, after traveling. I have this tendency to "soak in" others' energies and troubles during the week, so sometimes I need time to retreat, relax, refocus and regroup. Sometimes I'm so saturated, I need a good wringing! LaTonya at The Lotus Dawn takes very good care of me each month. This time, though...she did some shoulder/back work and said, "Girl, what have you been doing to yourself?" Brandy LaRae of the Amador Wellness Cottage used to say the same thing! Answer: "Well, that's why I come to YOU!" I love, and will always invest in, someone's healing hands and caring touch.

I've said the word "love" several times so far. Love is a noun. It's a person, place or thing. If we think about the nouns we love, more than the nouns that suck the energy and goodness right out of us, could changing the world really begin with us? I think so...because, I believe in love.

I believe that Love can and should change the world. I like to look for and bring out the good in people. I believe in compassion, forgiveness, in righting wrongs, but I also believe in allowing and helping others to right their wrongs. And I expect people to tell me if I've wronged them in any way, so I can try to make it right.

The obstacle, in my opinion...is pain.

We as humans, cultures, races and societies have not learned how to deal with pain. And I'm talking about the deeper pains...the kinds of pain that grow like cancers from infancy to childhood...to teenhood...to adulthood. We have found plenty of ways to hurt each other, demean each other, bully each other, control and manipulate each other, kill each other...but we have not found enough ways to love each other. We seek counseling, therapy, drugs, religion, motivational speakers, gurus. We look to social media, comedy and entertainment for band-aids and quick fixes...some sort of sarcastic humor to get us through the day. We go to church, hoping to find some solace and comfort there, maybe some sense of belonging...but eventually find that there are cliques, gossip, bigotry, politics and judgment rampant there, too.

But we don't look inside our own selves to address the real pain(s), and the truth of where those pains originate. Instead, we take it out on others when we experience a flashback, a relapse, a pang of the pain that we thought was gone, but resurfaced through just one trigger. That's all it takes. One trigger to pull the trigger.

I watch the news sometimes, and wonder, "Who the hell have we become?" I watch our leaders, our government and Wall Street making deals out of our sights and control, affecting our economies and livelihoods, but...today, I just bought a jar of honey pecans for $5. I see the "lifestyles of the rich and famous" on social media and the pages of tabloids at the check out counter...yet today, on my way to the Salt Lake City Farmers Market, I passed several homeless people, and several piles of human feces (yes, feces) in the alley way. I saw a guy with [clear] mental problems on the street, jumping over the cracks in the sidewalk.

We all see the hate, the injustices, the bigotry, the discrimination. Yet, do we take a moment to think about which wolf we feed?

My purpose with Coffee Pong is to bring out the love...the good...the laughter...the hope. To speak to, look for and bring out the good in people, even if they may have done some bad things in their past. Doesn't matter to me. Because there may be a deeper hurt, a deeper pain that you do not see or know about...and the world has yet to find a cure.

Except for love. Love has always been the answer.

EMTs can give you something in an emergency. Doctors can prescribe medications. Counselors and therapists, programs...may be able to help. Religion may be able to set one on a good path. But what will help the lingering, deep-rooted pains? The kinds that make one feel helpless and hopeless? The kinds that are so deep as to make one lash out and hurt others. The kind that makes one retreat and lick wounds until they're worse than ever before.

I was asked once: "If you had billions of dollars to spend, what would you spend it on?"

Answer: "I would spend every dollar for whatever Love could buy." I would create tiny home communities for the homeless. I would actually solve the problem of world hunger. I would strive to give every human being the opportunity to find a place in their community where they are valued and appreciated...where they are called by name, not a number. I would rid the world of greed and selfishness, of political corruption.

But...that's just me.

Two of my favorite binge shows have been Game of Thrones and The Walking Dead. Both, because of the depictions of good and evil. I also like watching any Marvel or DC shows or movies for the same reason. I think there is a reason we are drawn to such entertainment...we hope that there are some superheros to save us, to save the world...to save humanity.

What if that superhero...is you?

My boss has cancer. Her 3-year-old grand-daughter also has [inoperable] Ewing Sarcoma.The outpouring of love from the communities of Fremont County has been tremendous. My own mother died of pancreatic cancer. Cancer is a bitch, and to me...it is an "evil" that must be eradicated. There are so many good people in the world who are working for a cure for that evil...but it also makes me wonder what evil is preventing that cure and healing to millions of those suffering, all because of...the almighty dollar? Those who can afford it, live? Those who can't, die?

These are just my thoughts...on one of my weekends away. I guess until we figure out how to give larger doses of love, compassion and forgiveness,we will never solve the problem of ANY evil in this world. But it sure makes me smile when superheroes do step forward and take action.

If you are in Riverton, Wyoming tonight...stop by. (see flyer below)

If you are where you are in the world...give a dose of love to someone. You never know who you will cure.

"A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another."

- Jesus Christ

“Be kind, for whenever kindness becomes part of something, it beautifies it. Whenever it is taken from something, it leaves it tarnished.”

- The Prophet Muhammad

“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.”

― Dalai Lama XIV

“As rain falls equally on the just and the unjust, do not burden your heart with judgments but rain your kindness equally on all.”

 – Buddha

"Everything on the earth has a purpose, every disease an herb to cure it, and every person a mission. This is the Indian theory of existence."

– Mourning Dove Salish

“At heart we are all powerful, beautiful, and capable of changing the world with our bare hands.”
― Dianne Sylvan