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< Current Newsletter
August 2007
"How can I serve today?"
–Peggy McColl
Fire season rapidly approaches
in southern Oregon.
By mid-summer the Rogue Valley
may once again find its air thick with smoke from the surrounding
mountainside forests. When seasonal fires are severe, as they
were just a couple of years ago, the valley air becomes thick
with ash. Sunlight turns gray and a lot of people resort to
wearing air filter masks when they’re out and about.
Enter the volunteers.
Hundreds of women and men
are on call 24/7, risking their lives to contain and put out
brushfires and fires throughout the Cascade and Coast mountain
ranges. It’s common for so many of us to rush about in our
frenetic lives with nary a thought for the volunteer firefighters
who, for the greater good, put themselves in harm’s way.
And let’s not forget the volunteer
food providers and medical personnel who leave the comforts
of their homes and communities to nurture the firefighters.
These people are all heroes,
yes, but they are heroes in the way that all of us should
be. Starting with good intention, they labor for the benefit
of others. Without even knowing us, they sacrifice for us.
Like so many before them,
they do their work so that our culture will survive and continue
to thrive. They expect no accolades (and receive far too few!)
for their effort, but their spiritual rewards are great.
May we be as fortunate in
the practice we follow and the work we do!
*
Grateful
Be grateful that you live
Inside the head you do
How many times have you
Gone sailing through
Your bed or favorite chair
to
Wave a sign in the sleaze
Of traffic: Need Money,
Please!
How many times have you
Suffered with the losers
Of war, or chafed and simmered
On a reservation, or brokered
The rescue of many from fear?
How many hours have you
Survived the lessons of gender
Change, or held your hero,
So splendid because of you?
Be grateful. Be father and
mother,
Be teacher, sister, and brother
In all that you dream and
do,
Against the day your ledger
Is opened up to you.
*
THE POETRY MENTOR RECOMMENDS
Horses and the Mystical
Path: The Celtic Way of Expanding the Human Soul and
Horse Sense and the Human Heart, by Rust McCormick,
PhD, Marlena Deborah McCormick, PhD and Thomas E. McCormick,
MD.
These fabulous books are
available at www.amazon.com
and will be hard to put down. The McCormicks have made the
elusive but available-to-all connection between the bewildered,
contemporary, western individual and the natural world with
its grounded, mystical laws and healing energy. Through unforgettable
anecdotes from their extensive travels and work with horses,
the McCormicks have benefited countless individuals in their
spiritual quests and physical healing.
Working from their ranch
in Spring Brook, Texas, the McCormicks offer "courses
and retreats using ancient principles and practices of kinship
with horses to develop human spirituality and intuition."
They can be contacted at www.therapyhorsesandhealing.com
Blessings and Love!
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