Jupiter Island

shady path to the ocean

Jupiter Inlet

evening surf

paddleboard pair

"The Sea" by Mary Oliver

               The Sea

Stroke by
    stroke my
       body remembers that life and cries for
             the lost parts of itself----
fins, gills
    opening like flowers into
        the flesh----my legs
            want to lock and become
one muscle, I swear I know
    just what the blue-gray scales
        shingling
            the rest of me would
feel like!
     paradise! Sprawled
         in that motherlap,
              in that dreamhouse
of salt and exercise,
     what a spillage
           of nostalgia pleads
                from the very bones! how
they long to give up the long trek
     inland, the brittle
          beauty of understanding,
               and dive,
and simply
     become again a flaming body
           of blind feeling
                 sleeking along
in the luminous roughage of the sea's body,
     vanished
          like victory inside that
               insucking genesis, that
roaring flamboyance, that
     perfect
          beginning and
                conclusion of our own.




Poem from MARY OLIVER: NEW AND SELECTED POEMS Volume One (Winner of the National Book Award and the Pulitzer Prize) pp.172-173  Beacon Press, Boston www.beaconpress.org

 This poem originally appeared in AMERICAN PRIMITIVE by Mary Oliver (published by Little, Brown and Company)

a beautiful prayer for Grandmother Earth which I just received via email.....

SIOUX PRAYER REQUEST 

>A letter from Chief Arvol Looking Horse
>(Present Chief and Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe of the
> Lakota, Dakota, Nakota Nation of the Sioux)
>
> Gulf Coast Oil Spill - Sioux Prayer Request
>
> ****** A Great Urgency ******
>
> To All Nations
>
> My Relatives,
> Time has come to speak to the hearts of our Nations and their
> Leaders. I ask you this from the bottom of my heart, to come together
> from the Spirit of your Nations in prayer.
>
> We, from the heart of Turtle Island, have a great message for the
> World; we are guided to speak from all the White Animals showing
> their sacred color, which have been signs for us to pray for the
> sacred life of all things. As I am sending this message to you, many
> Animal Nations are being threatened, those that swim, those that
> crawl, those that fly, and the plant Nations, eventually all will be
> affect from the oil disaster in the Gulf.
>
> The dangers we are faced with at this time are not of spirit. The
> catastrophe that has happened with the oil spill which looks like the
> bleeding of Grandmother Earth, is made by human mistakes, mistakes
> that we cannot afford to continue to make.
>
> I asked, as Spiritual Leaders, that we join together, united in
> prayer with the whole of our Global Communities. My concern is these
> serious issues will continue to worsen, as a domino effect that our
> Ancestors have warned us of in their Prophecies.
>
> I know in my heart there are millions of people that feel our united
> prayers for the sake of our Grandmother Earth are long overdue. I
> believe we as Spiritual people must gather ourselves and focus our
> thoughts and prayers to allow the healing of the many wounds that
> have been inflicted on the Earth. As we honor the Cycle of Life, let
> us call for Prayer circles globally to assist in healing Grandmother
> Earth (our Unc'I Maka).
>
> We ask for prayers that the oil spill, this bleeding, will stop. That
> the winds stay calm to assist in the work. Pray for the people to be
> guided in repairing this mistake, and that we may also seek to live
> in harmony, as we make the choice to change the destructive path we
> are on.
>
> As we pray, we will fully understand that we are all connected. And
> that what we create can have lasting effects on all life.
>
> So let us unite spiritually, All Nations, All Faiths, One Prayer.
> Along with this immediate effort, I also ask to please remember June
> 21st, World Peace and Prayer Day/Honoring Sacred Sites day. Whether
> it is a natural site, a temple, a church, a synagogue or just your
> own sacred space, let us make a prayer for all life, for good
> decision making by our Nations, for our children's future and
> well-being, and the generations to come.
>
> Onipikte (that we shall live),
> Chief Arvol Looking Horse
> 19th generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe

tune in for a very special Earth Day episode of THE WISDOM OF THE LABYRINTH which airs this Thursday

Listen to "Earth Day Wisdom: Labyrinths and Nature" with my special guest, Nanette Lawrenson of the Loggerhead Marinelife Center of Juno Beach.

suppertime for the sandhill cranes

Two adult sandhill cranes and their twin babies were feeding right beside the road just on the edge of a protected natural area tonight as we drove past. They were breathtakingly beautiful....

parents, educators, counselors: please support this important national study on the effects of using finger labyrinths with children having ADHD

I was so pleased when Dr. Lauren Artress forwarded me Neal Harris's email regarding his Relax4Life national research project. When I immediately indicated my great interest in this research, Neal was kind enough to send me one of his patented Children's Cretan Intuipath finger labyrinths.

This lovely, lightweight wooden finger labyrinth is 17" x 8". It has found its new home on my coffee table, and I can't quite tracing it (see picture posted just below)!  I love the feeling of balance that using both hands at once to trace the dual labyrinth pattern provides.

Read on for more information about the study or visit www.relax4life.com. If you know a child aged 7-17 who has a medically-confirmed diagnosis of ADHD, please consider signing them up for this important research....

Peace for your Path,
Robin

my newest, favorite finger labyrinth!

Parents and their ADHD children and adolescents wanted by Relax4Life for free, non-medication, national research study in your own home using an Intuipath finger labyrinth

In 1998, Relax4Life developed its now patented, mirror-image, 2-person/2-handed inlaid wood finger labyrinth design known as the Intuipath®.   Since that time, they have received numerous reports from parents, school teachers and therapists who purchased the Intuipath® about its calming and attention-focusing effects on their children and adolescents. 

Some parents, while seeing the benefits for their children, asked if the company would consider making a lighter-weight, smaller version of the adult Intuipath® for children and adolescents with smaller hands and reach. They have also been asked numerous times over the past 10 years if their contention that the Intuipath® brings greater relaxation and mental focus to those children who use it, is backed up by any scientific studies.  Since no scientific studies have been performed to date on the Intuipath® concept, Relax4Life decided to create a research project to study this and they developed a smaller, lighter-weight Intuipath® (the Intuipath® for Children & Adolescents) for this purpose.

 

The question that will hopefully be answered by this research is whether children and adolescents diagnosed with ADHD combined type or ADD with Hyperactivity, who use both hands simultaneously to move through a mirror-image wood finger labyrinth design (the Intuipath® for Children & Adolescents) for a specified amount of time (3-5 times per week for 5 minutes each) will show a reduction in the behavioral symptoms associated with this condition (hyperactivity, impulsivity and inattention) over ADHD-diagnosed children who engage in a similar activity (moving both hands through a tray of sand) for the same amount of time.

If you are interested in having your child considered for this study, these are the guidelines; 

1.  He or she must be between the ages of 7 and 17

2.  He or she must have a diagnosis (by a qualified health professional) of either ADHD combined type or ADD with Hyperactivity

3.  He or she can be taking medication for this condition or not

The steps to participation are as follows:

A.  Fill out a questionnaire and return it to Relax4Life.  To view and print out the questionnaire as a pdf file, click here.

B.  Once Relax4Life receives your completed questionnaire, they will contact you within 7 days (usually a much shorter period) and let you know if your child is eligible to take part.  If you do not receive confirmation in that time period that they received your questionnaire, it may be that the questionnaire came through the fax as unreadable or possibly was lost in the mail.  Please contact Relax4Life if you do not get a timely response confirming receipt of your questionnaire.

C.  If your child meets the criteria, they will then send you further information along with a consent form to participate and the first ADHD-SRS Rating Scale to be filled out.  The rating scale and consent form will be completed and mailed back to Relax4Life in a return postage paid envelope. 

Benefits/Compensation:

The benefits to participation are: your child showing a reduction in behaviors commonly associated with this diagnosis.  This might mean better school performance, increased social abilities, higher self esteem etc.

The tangible benefit for participating is that if your child is randomly selected to be in one of the groups that uses the Intuipath® for Children & Adolescents, your child will get to keep it once your completed paperwork is returned to Relax4Life. If your child is randomly selected to be in one of the sand tray groups, your child will be shipped a new Intuipath® for Children & Adolescents to keep once they receive your completed paperwork.

Research Procedure:

Those children eligible to take part will be provided with either an Intuipath® for Children & Adolescents or a sand tray for the duration of the study.

A parent or other adult, school educator or therapist will need to supervise the child either using the  Intuipath® design or a sand tray at approximately the same time each day, 3-5 times per week for 5-minutes each, for a consecutive 4-week period.

An observational rating scale (ADHD-SRS) with 56 questions will need to be filled out completely on your child (by a parent, school educator or therapist) three times: before your child begins the use of the Intuipath® or sand tray, at the end of the 4 week research period, and once more at 6 weeks (to determine any continuing effects of these activities). The ADHD-SRS observational tool typically takes between 10-15 minutes to complete.

Confidentiality:

All Participants’ identities and information will remain strictly confidential. Research results will be published in summary format with reference given to groups only.

click here for printable questionnaire to get started

For more information:

www.relax4life.com/research.htm

or call Neal Harris, LCPC
Relax4Life Managing Director

26404 Edgemond Lane

Barrington, IL 60010

Phone (847)842-1752

neal@relax4life.com

Breakage

by Mary Oliver

I go down to the edge of the sea.

How everything shines in the morning light!

The cusp of the whelk,

the broken cupboard of the clam,

the opened, blue mussels,

moon snails, pale pink and barnacle scarred—

and nothing at all whole or shut, but tattered, split,

dropped by the gulls onto the gray rocks and all the moisture gone.

It's like a schoolhouse

of little words,

thousands of words.

First you figure out what each one means by itself,

the jingle, the periwinkle, the scallop

       full of moonlight.

Then you begin, slowly, to read the whole story.

Source: Poetry (2003)

my heart was with the sea turtles as I prayed in the silent center of the labyrinth this morning

a sacred space for every OceanPrayer

sunlit shells welcome us to the entrance

listening to water and praying for the ocean

peaceful reading for the path

may ancient Life continue to prevail despite all our human failings

Join "OceanPrayer" on Facebook and Twitter and The Motherhood

http://www.twitter.com/OceanPrayer

http://www.facebook.com/pages/OceanPrayer/117698078263276?ref=ts

http://www.themotherhood.com/circle/show/id/61986

Start your own prayer group. Sign the Oil Spill Prayer Pledge started by Creation Hope.