Living

When Neighbors are Creatives: and Share Bald Eagles

February 10, 2012 by Robyn

Seattle has bonuses. Some of them are bald eagles.

In our Seattle neighborhood we cherish our bald eagles. Some of us are old enough to remember when they just weren’t around. The youngest of us take them for granted.

And some of our neighbors are skilled photographers who freely share their love of bald eagles and photography with all of us.

Gary R. Jones is one of those people. Here, for your viewing pleasure, are some recent bald eagle photos he shared with me.

Bridging the Paradigms isn’t the best showcase for photos. It is, however, a place where community is respected and appreciated, where good businesses and people are promoted.

Enjoy.

Filed Under: Living Tagged With: bald eagles, business ethics, creating community, good businesses

Are Humans Too Stupid to Live?

January 5, 2012 by Robyn

La Nina is sticking around. But are people? And should we?

On January 5, the U.S. Climate Prediction Center (part of NOAA, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration) said that La Nina will last into spring way up here, in the northern hemisphere. That means they are thinking the crippling drought in the U.S. southwest and in South America will continue.

Whatever. Doesn’t seem like it will make any difference, because what really matters is what humans do.

Human stupidity, to be precise. Predicting La Nina is a no brainer. One thing they are not predicting, probably because it’s guaranteed, and therefore not subject to predictability, is people who can’t think.

Think about it.

We’ve been watching a drought in the U.S., especially in Texas, for several years. Lakes and rivers and streams and ponds are drying up. Crops withering. Cattle dying. Wastelands developing where no one, and nothing, can live. And no end in sight.

But damned if they don’t still water their lawns.

Maybe humans are just too stupid to live.

Maybe that’s why we invented government. Like the year we had a drought in Seattle. Nobody could water their lawns, and the water police made sure people didn’t water anything else except on a strict schedule. Lawns died. Watersheds survived. Somehow we all got along.

We conserved.

I visit the Alki Point Lighthouse a lot in the summer. People visiting Seattle stop in at the lighthouse on summer weekends. I happened to be there when the visitor from Texas stopped to remark on how cool it was, what a relief from the heat in Texas (yep, Texas has had its drought, Seattle has not had summer for two years).

“It costs me $150 a month to water my lawn,” the woman laughed.

Her body posture, her flippant tone, and I realized she was proud of herself for that. I was completely appalled.

She didn’t care about her community, about where water resources should go, like to grow food so we can all eat. Nope, she was going to water her lawn.

Lawns have no useful function, unless you’re into chemicals for artificial growth and you’re make money from allergies in people and animals, because lawns are what keeps those people in business.

Lawns have no place anywhere, especially in drought country. They are a choice, one that society has to make. Together.

Society is a choice. Do we have group choice that benefits all of us, or do we just have what individuals want?

If we as a society can’t smarten up enough to say, “Let your lawns die and use the water to grow food,” well, then, we’re too stupid to live.

Maybe we already are, if we’re bragging about wasting precious resources.

Or, maybe, I’m not the only one who can look at foolish choices and poor policy and speak up.

La Nina, well, weather comes and goes. It will continue.

Will we?

Better put: should we?

Filed Under: Living Tagged With: business ethics, creating community, La Nina

How A Simple Thanks Will Pop Your Business

December 7, 2011 by Robyn

I just bought dishes from Crate & Barrel. It’s not the first time I’ve purchased from them. It sure has heck won’t be the last.

I like the value of their products. You can buy inexpensive home products or go nuts for their higher end stuff. I love their Classic Century Dinnerware, designed by a woman in 1952 (hey, it was a great year and still looks great). I regretfully settled for a cheaper design that fit my budget and my clumsiness factor.

I like their service. In the store, they are as attentive to an $8 purchase (listening to what I needed, and offering suggestions) as they were to my online order.

But there’s nothing like a really pleasant surprise to seal the deal.

They delivered the dishes to my door. Essential when you’re handicapped and can’t lift and carry. Sure, everyone will do that, and some of them for free (this was).

It was what was inside the box that surprised me. You couldn’t miss it. Sitting right in the middle of the box, so it was the first thing you spotted: a thank you card.

A thank you card. “Big thanks” it said.

As I stared at it, I felt a big grin take over my face.

I opened the card. It included a thanks for buying and simple directions on what to do if I needed anything else. And, of course, my shipping bill.

Wow, think of that. A few quick lines. A follow-up thank you email.

A customer for life.

I thank my clients, too. Not as elegantly, I discovered. But I will.

After all, when a huge company can personalize a transaction with a mass-produced thank you card, then one person in business can do it, too. This company has it down: distinctive graphics, good products, a personal touch.

I thank people in person who come to see me and my crystal partner, Fallon. I thank everyone for everything. But this little touch reminded me that we happily do business with people who pay attention to us. It’s the little things that build community.

Like thanking customers for their business with a simple yet elegant thank you card clearly tied to the brand.

Thanks for the lesson, Crate & Barrel.

I will be definitely be back.

So, when was the last time a business thanked you for shopping with them? And when did you last thank someone for shopping with you? Did it matter?

Filed Under: Living Tagged With: business ethics, business mentors, creating community, good businesses

Tech Wizardry: At Last My Genes Don’t Matter

December 5, 2011 by Robyn

From my dad I inherited the ability to not understand mechanical things, so I can’t figure out how to get machines—and tools—to work.

From my mom I inherited the talent to sew a button on a shirt while sewing the shirt to my pants.

Mystification. Clumsiness. And left handed to boot!

Then I got an iPhone 4s.

And it didn’t matter.

Filed Under: Living Tagged With: business ethics, good businesses

No Jobs Are Menial: America Get to Work Already

November 30, 2011 by Robyn

Occupy this and protest that, but get to work already.

Now, are you going to scream at me or read this article?

It’s true, many people are unemployed, can’t get employed, and are suffering. Their children are suffering. Their animals.

Many people want to work. They find what they can and are proud to have a job, whatever it is.

I salute those people.

Many others are chronic complainers. They have no work ethic and don’t want one. They want to work, but stop when they make a buck or two. They live off unemployment because they can. They retire donkey years earlier than anyone else because they have a government pension (or worse, are proud that they are ‘double-dippers’).

You, fellow Americans, need to get back to work. Now.

I know very well about working, about wanting to work, about not being able to. I’ve been handicapped for 22 years. I couldn’t work for more than 15 of them, because of illness and physical limitations. So I worked on what I could: I polished my writing, I worked to get healthy, I created a healthy balanced life with animals, I lived community with my family and friends. I took care of my aging, ill parents.

I worked at health.

I wanted to go to a regular job and couldn’t. I also knew that no employer would have someone who’s handicapped like I am, because chronic illness is unpredictable.

So I created my own company. I quietly nurtured a loyal client base, helping people develop and publish their books. I taught writing. As I developed my intuitive abilities, I launched an intuitive consulting business. Now that’s what I do: I write true stories and I help people learn to tap their intuition. My partner is a crystal. His name is Fallon.

I’m working as best as I can.

I don’t quit. I won’t. I can’t. Why?

Because good work is part of life. It creates and nurtures life. It balances us.

The problem is, we Americans have forgotten what that means.

So I was intrigued by an article at msnbc.com contributed by Elizabeth Dwoskin at Bloomberg Businessweek. Crops are rotting in the fields, essential services are not getting done, because Americans call it ‘menial labor.’ They won’t work in the fields. They won’t clean homes and businesses. Well, look beyond your noses at this quote from Dwoskin’s article:

‘Massey says Americans didn’t turn away from the work merely because it was hard or because of the pay but because they had come to think of it as beneath them. “It doesn’t have anything to do with the job itself,” he says. In other countries, citizens refuse to take jobs that Americans compete for. In Europe, Massey says, “auto manufacturing is an immigrant job category. Whereas in the States, it’s a native category.”‘

Americans want to be managers. To them that means they tell other people what to do. They are inspired by personal coaches (I’ve not quite figured out what they are, but they are busy) who write golden futures for them that somehow lead them to classify work. No one wants to do the basics.

Well, I see it differently.

I grew up in a small Oregon town where the kids got up at the crack of dawn in the summer, climbed on buses, and went to pick crops so farmers could get that food to the cannery or grocer. Today, crops rot in the fields because no one will pick them.

Yes, my parents wouldn’t let us pick crops. Instead, my dad put me to work in his pharmacy/gift shop in the seventh grade. My dad had a habit of choosing shy, industrious teens to work in his store. He helped them become hardworking, honest citizens with a strong work ethic and the know-how to follow through.

I have an MBA from the University of Michigan, one of the top business schools in the country, but what I learned about good solid work came from my dad.

We need more dads like that right now. We need more people who are willing to work, and work hard, and do good work.

I’ve met some of them. Two of them clean my house for me, necessary because my body isn’t strong enough to do it myself. These two women are excellent examples of work ethic: they come in, they clean expertly, and they take pride in their work. They are also hilarious: they keep wanting to do more, because my standard of housekeeping isn’t up to theirs. Not once have they ever said anything I asked them to do was menial. They chose a business. They do a fabulous job. I admire them.

I do not get computers. I was simply too sick in the early years and now too busy to go back and figure them out. I have had a hard time finding people to work for me, to do computer work. One small business offered a simple website in two weeks, and three months later still had done nothing. Another badmouthed me to my face, not to mention other people, and refused to follow directions while complaining about ‘menial work.’ Fortunately, I now have a terrific website guy who keeps things running, never complains about his work, and is deservedly swamped. I continue to seek an able, supportive, genial assistant: asking around, I find many other people experiencing the same problem I have—people won’t work amd simply don’t know how to.

I have had other people ask to work for me, and when I call back to book their services, turns out they’ve just made a few bucks and they “don’t do that work.”

Menial labor again.

Well I talk with things. With homes, businesses, animals, chairs, cars, weather systems, whatever. I see the world from what I call an earth paradigm. I know we’re all in it together. All of us, no matter what it looks like. All life believes that. Except some humans.

I know that no work is menial. That word has no real meaning. Unless you’re mistakenly arrogant.

I have never in my life looked down on any work as beneath me. As not important or crucial for society. I am in awe of construction workers, and grocers, and farmers, and sometimes even physicists (for making livings making things up, and with math no less!).

I am grateful for the good honest work that so many people do.

And I am telling you, and everyone out there, that we don’t build an economy with people who won’t work. Who look down on doing whatever honest work there is to keep going. Who choose honest work and do it well.

Just quit complaining. Be glad you have a healthy body that can work. You can make any work mean something. And you can put food on America’s tables by picking those crops, keeping things clean, building things that work, and taking pride in making a contribution.

Because if you won’t, other people will. They aren’t Americans now. But they will be. Because they live what Americans should be living: productive lives.

They do the work. All work matters.

So?

Filed Under: Living Tagged With: business ethics, creating community, good businesses, working in the new economy

Thanksgiving: What We Should Really Be Grateful For

November 21, 2011 by Robyn

I was thinking, what should I be grateful for this Thanksgiving? Then I saw this silly article, again, and I knew.

I’m grateful for common sense and for refusing fear.

This article, written by Joan Raymond and updated 1-25-11 at Pet Health on msnbc.com, suggests sleeping with our animals can give us diseases. Okay, it’s a good article. We have to take health seriously, including our multi-species family’s health. And we have to report on it responsibly, as Joan Raymond does. The article is not silly in the reporting but in the culture it reveals.

Reporters can’t comment on the facts or sense of their articles. That’s why they report: they give the facts and let us figure it out. We need straight objective reporting.

Those of us who comment on the straight objective reporting write about what it means to us. For me, it’s how can we re-connect people and the planet, from people to animals and the land and waters around us.

So, Raymond writes about the things that can get us if we sleep with or kiss our animals. Things like plague (from fleas), meningitis, round worms, and other horrific or just annoying things. Okay, first, really? Our animals should be healthy, just like us! They shouldn’t have these problems, so fix them already!

Here’s the problem with this reporting: it’s all filler material. No common sense. Just fear. You wade all the way through this article and find out that what they’re trying to scare us about never really happens.

People get hurt and killed in cars every day. You can sprain your ankle getting out of bed. You can choke on a cherry.

So do you avoid cars, getting up, or eating cherries?

No. You get smart. You say, no, I’m not going to be afraid of that. But I am going to be careful and pay attention.

So here’s what I’m paying attention to at Thanksgiving. Here’s what I’m grateful for:

I live in a country where we can disagree and still be safe, even though there are plenty of people who would like to change that.
A dear friend sent me a link to an inflammatory documentary on purebred dogs, thinking that my dogs being purebreds was the reason they had some health issues. She cared. It made me think about our assumptions, which I will address in future articles. Mainly: shelters and rescue organizations make a lot of money creating fear and prejudice, when they should be encouraging people to find their heart’s match in a dog or cat. Think, people, think! Talk to each other. Love. Be lucky that your friends care enough about you and your family to say something.
People who were users and not friends have left my life, providing openings for wonderful new adventures, wiser choices, and real friendships. Awesome!
Wonderful stores like East West Bookshop in Seattle and Vashon Intuitive Arts on Vashon Island have made me and my crystal partner, Fallon, welcome. We’ve met many wonderful people. And other venues are welcoming us.
My jade tree, Raymond, was dying, but community came together and saved him. A 200-pound houseplant given to me by my father is going into his fifth decade. Yes!
My great-grandparents had the vision to settle in North Dakota and pass a piece of it on to their descendants.
Finally, at long last, some smart medical practitioners have figured it out!
I’m grateful that my writing has touched lives, and that my book, Bridging Species: Thoughts and Tales About Our Lives with Dogs, was recognized with the prestigious Merial Human-Animal Bond Award.
My multi-species family is proof that the human-animal bond is alive and well and sleeping cozily together at night, 10 years now and counting!

This Thanksgiving we are grateful that we are all here, together, so we can write and talk about what makes sense, what doesn’t, and how we can create love from fear, starting with sleeping sensibly with our animals.

We celebrate Thanksgiving at our house: yes, that means the animals get to eat, too (and no, not stupidly).

We celebrate something everyday at our house, even if it’s just the joy of greeting each other in the morning and at night: in bed.

We celebrate birthdays. We celebrate the day each animal joined the family. We celebrate season changes, holidays, mistakes, triumphs, a good meal, a bad meal being over with, gas in the car, sun and rain, cozy flannel sheets on a winter’s night, friendship and family.

And we celebrate reporters who remind us that they’re sometimes stuck with silly assignments, and can still keep a straight face.

We celebrate Thanksgiving. We invite the whole world to celebrate with us.

Filed Under: Living Tagged With: animal care, bridging species, cats, Cavalier King Charles Spaniel, dog care, family harmony, family rituals, human-animal bond, multi-species families

My Mom Wore Tweety Socks: Why I Care

November 4, 2011 by Robyn

My mom wore Tweety socks. She thought they were hilarious. She’d sit in her chair and raise her feet in the air, wiggling them at the world. Giggling.

Made me laugh, too.

Annoyed my brother. In fact, he was offended and objected to her wearing Tweety socks. They weren’t age appropriate.

Really? What is age appropriate? Braids? Beards? Hats in church? Cleavage? Shorts?

What’s traditional?

I asked my brother why he was so irate about the socks. Mom was a grandmother, too old for Tweety socks.

My mom was 68.

She had a collection of strange socks. She also had red hair (acquired when she was six months pregnant with me and bored) and expensive tastes, running to Ferragamo shoes, fast cars, and … Tweety socks.

When she died, at 68, I wanted certain things to remember her by, that had sentimental value, that made me smile. I took her socks. Even though I’ve since cleaned out many of the things I got from her, I kept her Tweety socks.

I found them in my drawer last week. They made me smile.

Truth is, my mom and I didn’t always get along. It wasn’t just the normal mother-daughter thing.

It was cultural.

My mom was adamant that women were inferior to men. She’d shake her finger in my face and yell it at me. Her insistence that neither of us were as good as a man because we were women still shocks me.

It wasn’t intellect. Or job. Or honesty or responsibility or respectability. It was being female. God and society told her so. That made it true.

I rebelled against that from Day 1. They slapped me in uniforms in Catholic school, and I stuck gaudy jewelry on them and hiked the skirts up. They insisted on hats in church and I wore a used handkerchief. I was a brat when I wasn’t giving in. I rebelled.

And I’m still rebelling. But that’s a topic for another day, the one that goes on about things like young women who claim they’re not feminists and take their husbands’ name when they get married. Excuse me: call yourselves whatever you want, except by your husbands’ name: culturally, intellectually, emotionally, that means you accept that you are inferior. So do men, other women, and society. Our children.

Until that changes, nothing changes, and society, and culture, remain stifled. If you act inferior, you will be. Just like my mother said.

But back to the Tweety socks.

One day years ago I was walking through Nordstrom’s when I spotted a sweatshirt sequined with a winning poker hand. Not only was my mom a poker player (a regular winner at the local tavern), but she loved those sequined sweatshirts. I always thought they were gaudy, but she liked them, and that’s still how I remember her, wearing those gaudy sweatshirts. That day at Nordstrom’s I bought the sequined horror. The excited clerk giftwrapped it and prepared it for shipping while I tucked in a note that said, “I love you, mom.”

Mom was shocked when she got it. I guess she thought I was prepping her for something horrible, like a disease or a new husband. I’m not one for giving spontaneous presents, and especially not expensive ones. But every once in awhile you get to tell your mom that you love her as weirdly as you can. That was all.

I saw her wear it once. For me. She was clearly uncomfortable. I had to chuckle at that: I never liked the clothes she bought me, either. She’d buy things that were way not me and pink: the only pink in my house is a laundry accident (well, okay, I have two cross-dressing flamingos).

My mom was smart enough to buy things just to annoy me, but only one thing ever did (for long): her hatred of equality.

I don’t live in an unequal world, because inequality isn’t the way it really is. I know. I talk with things: with animals, with our businesses and homes, with land and weather systems. I talk with them as equals, and they talk back as equals. There are masculine and feminine presences, and none of them are worth more than the others.

Think about that. A world where everything is alive and we are all equal. Think of what we could create! Think of what our children could be.

Last week when I found mom’s Tweety socks again, I thought about her, how the socks outraged my brother, and made me and our mom laugh.

I thought about her beliefs.

And her attitude.

My mother was a product of her times. She did what they told her, believed what they insisted, never achieved what she could have, not just in a career but in her life. She was always sad.

She also sold the house out from under my dad one day when he was working.

She played poker at night at a local tavern.

And she wore whatever she wanted. Right down to her Tweety socks.

Honestly, my mom was a rebel, in her own way. Not brave enough to stand up for the big things, but aware of the differences. I like to think her ugly duckling daughter’s rebellious spirit rubbed off on her.

Or I inherited hers, and am just running with it.

I wonder if rebelling is what mom was doing with the Tweety socks. Why she refused to get rid of them. I wonder if that’s part of the reason why I kept them.

Protest with humor.

Nevertheless, no one ever saw her Tweety socks except the family. They were covered up in public.

Her socks were in the closet.

No one, and nothing, should be. Not even our Tweety socks.

That’s why I kept them. That’s why I care.

Here’s to mom. And equality.

Filed Under: Living Tagged With: culture, family harmony, family rituals

The Alchemy of Grief: 50 Years Later

November 1, 2011 by Robyn

In Memoriam: Randall Ray Fritz, July 26, 1947 – November 1, 1961.

Years ago, I couldn’t imagine that today would ever occur.

Today, it’s been 50 years. What to make of them?

In October 1961 my grandparents came out from Montana to visit. My oldest brother, Randy, was sick, in and out of the hospital, and in those days, it was a long drive to Salem from our small Oregon home town. So far, in fact, that in September Randy moved to Salem to live with our grandparents during the week, so he could attend Catholic high school.

Just like that, Randy got sick.

I remember the last time I saw him. He was in the hospital, pale and thin beneath the covers. Alert.

I was just a kid. Naïve. Trusting. Sheltered. Optimistic. Like all kids and many adults I was uncomfortable visiting the hospital. And I didn’t know why Randy was there and couldn’t come home.

All I knew was that I had always adored my older brother, which is not the same thing as always liking him. But the sun rose and set on Randy. Even when we talked about death in school—because Catholics, at least, only talk about dying, from getting ready to die to actually doing it—I used to think that everyone could die, even my parents.

But not Randy. No, Randy would never die.

All those years ago, I didn’t know what it meant to be intuitive. I just remember what hit me in those last few moments, before we left that day. The last day I saw my brother alive.

Surrounded by family, Randy looked over at me, held out his hand, and as I reached out and held his, our eyes met. In that moment, I knew.

Randy was dying. And he knew it. In that shared moment he said goodbye.

I was too stunned to do anything but stare at him in shock.

I don’t remember when that last day was. Sometime in late October the doctors told my parents that Randy had leukemia and would die in six weeks to six months. He was gone in less than a week.

Sometime in those last days the doctors also asked my parents to allow them to use Randy as a guinea pig. Literally. They need drug trials on a promising drug that wouldn’t help Randy, but might help others in the future.

My dad was a pharmacist. He knew from drugs. My parents agreed.

That last morning my Grandma Fritz sobbed at the kitchen table while my younger brother and I played. When asked, over and over, why she was crying, she simply said she felt sorry for Randy. It didn’t make any sense to me. Nothing did.

I had no context. Why would it make sense?

Later, we were called in from playing. I was taking off my shoes when my mom walked over to me and blurted it out.

“Your brother went to heaven an hour ago.”

I stared at her in confused, stunned silence until it sunk in. I burst into tears. In some ways I have not stopped crying all these years later.

My brother’s death destroyed my family. There’s no other way to put it. My parents … when I think of them I think of impossible grief. Of two people who’d survived a world war, created a good business in a small rural community, raised their kids to be honest citizens, anticipated a future bright with promise, and lost their oldest child in a matter of days to a disease they’d never really heard of.

On November 1, 1961.

My parents never recovered. Sure, they laughed again, they raised us, they staggered on. To a degree. With pain like that you have two choices: to grieve and move on, or to block yourself emotionally. I’m not sure which is the easiest, but they chose to be blocked. Because of that, two little kids didn’t just lose a brother that day.

I think now everyone must have known that Randy was dying except the children. Everyone had time to prepare, except for my younger brother and me. I think even Randy had time to prepare. They never told him he was dying. But I know he knew. I knew that day.

The community rallied around us. Food arrived. Friends and family and strangers flocked to the funeral home. To the funeral. There were so many flowers that the smell overwhelmed me, and, after being forced to touch Randy’s cold, stiff hand as we stared at him in his coffin, the flowers choked me and I turned and raced away as fast as I could, with my uncle running behind me trying to help. He did. But I re-live that nightmare every time I walk into a florist shop. I can’t stand the smell of carnations.

So here’s another story. For several years the community had been raising money to buy land to build a Catholic high school. That school was dedicated two years later, in 1963. My brother and I graduated from it, as did my nephews.

In their shock and grief my parents sought comfort. They decided to scrimp and save and donate $5,000 to the building fund for the school chapel, built in Randy’s memory. It was still there several years ago, at my nephews’ graduation. Once I learned the truth of that chapel, I never cared about it again. My parents had given the money they thought they would spend on Randy’s college education to build that chapel—to somehow make his death mean something, to ease their sorrow, I don’t know. Some people respected them for it. Others decided that if we had that kind of money to give away, then we didn’t need their business.

I know this sounds bitter. Really, it’s ironic. It’s all part of community, isn’t it? The not so nice part that you can sometimes understand because community isn’t perfect. It’s a whole lot of work. Even when it doesn’t work.

I didn’t get to say goodbye to my brother. I carried that pain and grief for years, the fear, that many kids have, that petty jealousies somehow cause our stricken sibling to die. That took years to get over. It makes me really useful to kids who are dealing with that now, because I know exactly what they’re feeling, even if they won’t say it. But I can tell them. And their parents. I can tell them to talk to each other. To hold on.

But for me, truly, it took a dog, and a dog’s well-lived life, to let the grief go. It took creating a family of my own, and seeing family beyond humans, to heal that grief.

It took expanding community to include all life, and working to build it. It took the ongoing work of creating a community with all life—that’s what I do, however I can, in fits and starts.

And healing took a goddess, but that’s another story.

Here’s the thing about grief.

Grief teaches us about all things. From grief we learn hatred. I learned to hate god. On the day we buried Randy I decided that a god who would allow my brother to die was not a god I could respect, or love, or acknowledge. Despite years of being a devout Catholic, and finally being brave enough to leave, I’ve held on to that. Call me stubborn. And consistent. And … whatever works for you.

Grief teaches us fear. If we can lose someone we love, then why risk it? Close the door and hide.

Grief teaches us compassion. Again, you can choose to block life, like my parents did, or you can choose to move on, which is what I did, eventually. Compassion helps our hearts to cry while allowing others to cry with us. Compassion gives us the freedom to reach beyond the hurt to build community. Like my parents did with that chapel.

Grief teaches us love. If I had not been hardened by grief I would not have melted with love. If I had not defied my old community, the one of faith and religion and limitations and petty jealousies and extraordinary generosity and everyday comradeship, I would not have my new community. It means everything to me.

Without grief I would not now be a citizen of the world. I would not now be an intuitive who can talk with all beings, from animals to businesses to homes, to the land and waters and weather around us. I would not now be able to offer compassion to all life.

I would not now have the crystal Fallon as my partner.

There were many things I had to re-learn in the lives that led us back to each other: Fallon, the citrine Lemurian quartz who was rejected around the world, and the lonely lost girl whose invincible adored brother died.

I had to learn the alchemy of grief.

Alchemy is magic. Transformation. The changing of one thing to another.

Given a chance, grief becomes love.

That’s what I finally learned today. The day I realized that it’s been 50 years since my brother died.

Today I learned the alchemy of grief.

So here, 50 years later, I can finally say the tears have stopped. I have moved on. It’s done now. It has been. It’s just time to say it.

Yes, today I finally get to say goodbye to my brother.

Randy, thank you for taking a drug that couldn’t save you, but is now saving so many lives. Thank you for making methotrexate possible. They use it for rheumatoid arthritis now, and at one time it helped our dad as it is now helping a dear friend; it also helped a college student I knew years ago recover from the leukemia that killed you.

Randy, thank you for being my brother.

Randy, thank you for whatever it was we learned together.

Randy, thank you for saying goodbye to me.

Goodbye, Randy.

Filed Under: Living Tagged With: Citrine Lemurian Quartz, creating community, death, Fallon, family harmony, family rituals, multi-species families

Introducing LaBelle Construction

October 28, 2011 by Robyn

At Alchemy West and our magazine, Bridging the Paradigms, we promote community: from creating healthy, balanced lives with our animals, homes, businesses, and nature to creating connections between good businesses and good people.

Let me introduce LaBelle Construction, and my adopted godson, Vincent LaBelle, and his friend and coworker, Brian Meuller. Viincent is a general contractor, and Brian is a skilled tradesman.

I call Vincent my adopted godson because he’s my beloved goddaughter’s brother, and I decided I needed another godchild and latched onto him. Sometimes life is easy like that. And it means I can say he’s a great man and fabulous musician (trombone! plus he records for ‘avant garde jazz musicians’). He’s also worked for me, and I will vouch for him being a wonderful general contractor. Here’s what he has to say about his business:

“LaBelle Construction specializes in restoration, renovation, remodels, and repairs of old homes (pre-1950). We are a full-service general contractor capable of everything from framing to finish work, kitchens, bathrooms, flooring, painting, drainage and waterproofing, and much more. And while we specialize in older homes, we are more than happy to work on any project you may have. We’re a small operation, and we’re happy to take on small projects and repairs. See samples of our work at www.labelleconstruction.com.”

Call Vincent. Interested in a remodel or simple projects? Call him.

Filed Under: Living Tagged With: business ethics, good businesses

Phoning Home: What Women Should Do About Obscene Phone Callers

October 28, 2011 by Robyn

Unfortunately, I think what most women have in common is an obscene phone caller. We’ve either had it happen to us or to someone we know.

But I have a new way of dealing with it. Won’t you help?

An Obscene Phone Caller Strikes

My most recent experience with an obscene phone caller was shocking and unsettling in a way I never anticipated. Comcast had just installed wireless internet for me, and activated telephone functions I had never bothered with: one was Caller ID.

The call came one evening. I answered, and the man on the other end literally went off on me. Gross.

I hung up on him.

He called back several times over the next few days. I know because I learned what Caller ID was all about. One time, he left a beyond pornographic grunting message that was so appalling I had to cover my ears (not being smart enough to simply turn off the answering machine). Worse, I felt exposed and vulnerable.

My friends insisted I call the police.

Well, years ago I’d had a similar, less pornographic experience. The police came out and sympathized while not commenting on how people should protect themselves if the caller showed up in person. The phone company advised me to shout, “I’ve got your number and I’ll see you in court.” I tried that: it worked.

This time, years of technology intervened.

The Victim Strikes Back

I called the phone company. They taught me how to find phone messages (no wonder people had been complaining about unreturned phone calls) and to how to block a caller. They also urged me to call the police.

So I did. From the nonemergency number I was directed to 911. The 911 dispatcher asked if I’d saved the message left on my recorder.

“Are you kidding me?” I asked. “I was not going to bed with that message on my machine. But I do have his phone number.” (At last, technology works for me!)

The dispatcher wanted to know what I wanted to do. He wanted to send a police officer to file an official complaint.

What did I want to do about this man? Honest, I thought about it. The answer came quickly, unexpectedly, and was totally right.

“I want you to call his mother,” I said.

“Ma’am, we can’t do that,” the dispatcher responded.

“You asked me what I wanted, and I want you to call his mother. I bet a lot of this stuff would stop if these creeps’ mothers knew what they were doing.”

“We can’t do that.”

“Well, you should,” I said reasonably and calmly. I was so right. “Besides, I’ve got his number, you should trace that back to him and find his mother.”

“Ma’am, I’m sending an officer to talk with you.”

The Police (Sort of) Step In … and On Themselves

And he did. Less than ten minutes later one of the tallest men I’d ever seen showed up at my door, in full uniform, including a gun. Honestly, he was so big I was intimidated. And his gun—what if it accidentally fired and hit one of my kids?

We talked. I gave him the obscene phone caller’s number.

He stared at it, shaking his head. “These guys are idiots.”

“No kidding,” I said. “But tell me, since everybody but me knows about Caller ID, did he do it on purpose, so I could find him, or is he just an idiot?”

“Hmm,” the officer said. “How do you think he found you?”

“The phone book?” I said. “How do I know? I do have websites, it could be the Internet.”

And here came the second shocker. The officer’s face twitched knowingly and a brief smirk flitted across it. “Oh, you’re on the Internet,” he said.

Granted, I’m an intuitive and hear things I shouldn’t, but you didn’t need to be a psychic to know what he was thinking. I don’t jump to conclusions, but his were written all over his face.

I was furious, but went deadly quiet. “I am a respectable businesswoman. I do not run a pornographic site.”

He had the grace to flinch and flush. But he didn’t apologize.

He filed a police report. Gave me a case number. Said the police in Oklahoma, where the phone was registered, would check it out. It wasn’t much, but it was something.

How Women Can Take Charge of Obscenity: Call Their Mothers!

Technology has such a large reach now that they can police anything. Find anyone. Anywhere. Sobering. But not real comforting. It isn’t solving our problems, like obscene phone callers. And it wasn’t what I wanted.

“What do you want us to do?” the officer asked. Again.

“I want you to call his mother. I want her to know what a creep she raised. I want her to stop him.”

He assured me that the police couldn’t do that.

Too too bad.

Really, wouldn’t respectability solve a lot of things? At least good manners?

Would wars end because women stood up and refused to send their children to fight?

Would thieves and bad bankers and bad mortgage lenders and bad businesses think twice about whatever crap they were pulling?

Would obscene phone callers be forever silenced if their mothers knew what they were doing?

Sure, some mothers don’t care. Some mothers aren’t really mothers, or citizens of the planet. But a lot of them are.

And more women are like me: sisters, aunts, cousins, friends.

So here you go. All you women out there, talk to your kids, to all the kids you know, about manners. Weirdness. Obsessions.

Telephone abuse.

Granted, our kids don’t always grow up to be good guys. But every woman out there has to try to teach them what it means to be good citizens and neighbors. Set an example of community, compassion, integrity, and simple politeness.

It isn’t that hard. Won’t you help?

Call their mothers. Embarrass all of them.

Stand up for your planet. Your country. Your neighbors.

Do right by your kids.

Make the rest of us proud.

Filed Under: Living Tagged With: creating community, culture, family harmony