For some reason I've found people's answers to today's question fascinating.  I've noticed that several people say that keeping promises to themselves is challenging, because it's easy to let things slide, and nobody else will know.  And I can certainly agree with that.  That's one area where "dieting" actually taught me a positive lesson at a relatively young age, because I realized that I can intend to do something, but that doesn't mean that I will actually do it.  The positive side of that lesson is that I don't make "promises" to myself.  Instead, I work from my values.  I don't want to compromise my values, so I weigh what I am going to do in response to particular situations, but I don't make blanket "promises" to myself that I will do or not do things. 

For me, the difficult promise is "for better or worse, in sickness and in health."  What, exactly, do these two phrases mean?  Certainly there are boundaries to these statements.  As an extreme example, nobody would expect someone to continue with a partner who is dishonest and abusive.  But many relationships are moored somewhere in a gray area--not even gray by intention, neglect or incompetence, but gray by virtue of time, luck, changes of the wind and sea.  In my case, he is unable to remember making these vows, and still we stay the course.  In any case, things would be completely different now than they were 25 years ago.  This is a really difficult thing to learn about, and I'm grateful for the lessons.

Hello!  I'm using the Q&R to reach as many of you as possible, to let you know that Danita came through her spinal fusion surgery OK today!  She is fine!  --or as fine as a person with a newly fused lumbar section of the spine can be. 

I am SO grateful, and SO relieved!  She was talking, knows where she is and what's what, and she's now healing, rather than surviving!

Who knows?  Maybe next time you see us you'll be able to note that she's about 10" taller than me! 

Of course, my wish for December, 2008 is that Danita continues to heal and grow stronger, smoothly, simply, and miraculously, and that she really feels the deep respect and love that everyone who knows her feels for her as an exceptional and inspiring woman! 

(The picture is a pencil drawing by Viestarts Aistars.)

OK, Danita's surgery has been rescheduled for Monday.

It will really happen Monday.

Dr. Datta will build her a beautiful new spinal framework on Monday.

Her chi will have a brand new network to flow through on Monday.

The healing will be amplified on Monday.

Our LOVE will have another day to romp through on Monday.

We are all connected on Monday.

And every day.

We are all filled with LOVE and LIGHT together.

I'm so thankful that YOU are here and we are all together, every day.

I don't post a lot of Danita updates.

I'm sorry.

I really, really thought they would do the surgery day before yesterday, when I posted that last blog.  Silly me.

Yeah, we're pissed.  Yeah, we're frustrated.  But what ya gonna do?

They did a prep procedure and found more infection.

It's like they find a new infection every day.

She is as packed with antibiotics as I believe a human being can get.

Thank you all for your LOVE and LIGHT and support.  Who knows where we would be without it?  There are tears in my eyes right now.  We will get through everything.  We will.  Thank you all so much.

Just a note from a little dip.

OK, a big dip.

When I was a kid, Big Dip was a kind of ice-cream.  Now it's just a large idiot or something.  Or a new move for the financial markets, or one of those things in life...

So, they canceled Danita's big operation that we've been anticipating since this spring.  They canceled it again (this is like about the 4th iteration) today, this morning, before they rolled her in and so forth, they told her they wouldn't be rolling her in.  When I found her, she was asleep, and so I left her that way.  She is so beautiful when she is asleep.  Well, when she's awake, too.

We're going to try Springforest Qigong.  Anybody out there doing that?

A wonderful friend and employee of Danita's nonprofit, White Apple Institute, created a CaringBridge site to keep you up to date on Danita. CaringBridge is a nonprofit organization that helps friends and families stay connected.

You can visit Danita's CaringBridge site at http://www.caringbridge.org/visit/danitaapplewhite.  This will update you on the space/time coordinates of our roller coaster car. 

One little annoying thing is that the site wants to know your email address and some vague information about you.  Personally, I don't like it when sites ask for any information at all, and that will sometimes keep me from participating in something.  But I would do anything for Danita, including furnish some vague personal information.  That's part of the enigma of friendship, right?  Because of love for them, you to try something that you wouldn't normally do.

Please send your love and encouraging energy to our fellow Gaian, Danita.

Definitely through the tugs of my heart strings!  If I know my heart, most times there is not so much a decision to make as a knowing that shows me the way. 

There have been a couple of times in my life when I've been ambivalent about an important decision, and this can be VERY painful!  What I do then is just stay with the discomfort until I know what to do.  This might take years.  It's an unforgetable situation, and leaves its marks on my soul in the same way as loss or hard-learned lessons. 

Oh Good Lord!  Where do you come up with these questions?  This is a creative question, for sure!

OK, well YOU, obviously.  Is there any audience more important than you?  I  Think Not!!!  :) 

Yes, here on the BLOG, my audience is you, dear Gaian friends. 

But I'm also an audience member.  Greetings to You from my Superego!  YAY!!!  Superego has a SAY about what goes in here.  Nothing too outre.  There goes the good stuff.  Genius is what gets by when the superego is asleep...

And of course, my persona-ego.  Mustn't put  anything out there that conflicts with the ego image that I wish to project to YOU...

And of course the eternal aspect watching, watching, watching.  God, what are You?  Some kind of Voyeur?  I feel that beautiful Laughter, Divine Laughter, breaking through...

God broken out like tiny pieces of mirror, giving myself back to me through so many eyes, consciousness aware of consciousness...

I remember my daughter in her one and only dance recital.  Pink tutu, so pretty, stepping into a persona to which she was completely neutral, amazed, staring.  She was four years old, angelic.  I knew she didn't enjoy what she was doing.  The audience, for her, wasn't even a consideration.  She would bestir herself for something else--for drawing pads and sets of colored pencils and markers, inks and paints, but not this silly movement in lines.  No delight in doing that for people.  But she liked the sparkly tutu, and kept it for years.

Michelle creates her art, and I write this blog.  I bow to You!

I like to wake up on my own.  That, to me, is the greatest luxury.  Not having to obey the alarm clock.  I love to wake up naturally, and feel fully rested. 

As to the other meanings of "woken up", again, it's nice to be in situations where there is something inspiring, like the wonderful nature memories that are running through my mind now as examples.  You know, circumstances that call upon your spirit, giving you the opportunity to awaken.  But yet, waking up needs to come from me.  It's definitely something that other people can't do for you!

It's paradoxical to me that peace is dynamic, yet one can be filled with it and peace-full.   I guess peacefulness as I experience it is a state of awareness, and it's based in balance and acceptance. 

Nothing can "keep" me peaceful, though.  It's a state that can be accepted and embraced and appreciated with gratitude minute by minute, second by second, in the now.  Peace is agenda-less.  BUT it emerges in my life when I have taken--I guess Buddhists would call it "right action." 

A dear friend of mine today spent about a half hour working with people who work in her organization, getting them to deal with their feelings of jealousy and powerlessness.  She listened over and over as they blamed each other and attempted to take control.  Each time they tried their strategies to help themselves feel more powerful and in control, she would stop them gently and ask them again, "What were you originally asked to do?"  "Is this thing that you are planning to do going to help you achieve what you were asked to do?"  "How could you change your plan so that you can achieve what you were asked to do?"  She said this over and over, going through 4 or 5 cycles with them, with no rancor, no judgment, only patience and support.  In the end, they were unwilling to abandon their control-seeking strategies, so she asked them to think about it and call her tomorrow.  She told them that they could show their love for her by calling her tomorrow. 

To me, this is real peacefulness.  She was never angry or irritated.  She helped them work toward the highest outcome that they were capable of, and their welfare was always more important than the task to be done.  I think this person's response to the situation of the feuding coworkers is an example of "right action," and as I watched, I felt at peace, and she did also.

(image from www.photowallpaper.com)