"He Lives As Though He Has No Relatives"

Listening to a local afternoon show on KRCL I caught the tale end of a show regarding Bioneers. I tuned in right as a man was asking a Native American elderly woman the worst insult you could say to a Native American. Her reply, after giving some thought was, being told you live as though you have no relatives. This one line has stuck with me for the past 5 days. Living as though you have no relatives. Certainly you could take this and go concrete and literal implying you shun your biological or social "family." But, as I've allowed it to move around my mind, soul and heart, I believe the term "relative" and its implications are much broader, fluid and greater encompassing. I went to a website that shared some Native American spiritual beliefs that beautifully articulated what I was feeling:

The intention of Native American Spirituality is to strengthen ourselves, our relationships with our families, communities, nations and the Earth itself. The beliefs are for everyone "native" and "non-native" alike. We are all Earth's children with varying nationalities and ancestry. This is an invitation to be good stewards in this life, to respect such teachings along with honoring and respecting other "family" members and other's beliefs, all cooperating to work together for a united vision of peace. Peace is also seeing others with the eyes of the heart - spanning race, color and religion. The Spirit considers all things sacred, we are all One, all connected. So what we teach our children will be carried into generations to come.

To live as though you have no relatives disconnects you from yourself, your family, your beliefs, your community, nature and the earth. It is a survival of this fittest and no one will look out for you but yourself, you cannot depend on anybody but yourself, you are not responsible for anyone but yourself.

I think we as American's have lived as though we have no relatives, and as an entitled people. We have assumed the earth will continue on regardless of how much trash we dump, how many chemicals we dump into our waters and how many gases we spew into the air. That our country will always be the powerhouse regardless of how we treat our neighboring countries, how we handle our finances or how our values as a whole shift. That someone else will help out the person who needs to jump start their car, or someone else will feed that hungry family or visit the elderly person who has no family. What a wonderful place this world could become, what potential is out there, if we all lived as though we were related to everything and everyone. If we moved from selfish to selfless. If we didn't shun responsibility and took up our own accountability. The idealist in me says, start with yourself and impact 5 people who each impact 5 people and change could begin. And when that happens...what a beautiful world :) --@DP

Faith in the Little Pink PLUS Sign

Finding out your pregnant is a surreal moment in any woman's life. In fact finding out your not pregnant is equally as surreal because for most of us who do home tests, your fate rests in this little pink plus sign. You may test time and time again only to have one solo horizontal dash until that one day where two lines appear like trains colliding. Then the questioning. Are there really two perpendicular lines? Are they strong enough? Maybe it's just a shadow? Then subsequent "proof" tests follow to make sure you really are what it's saying: proof positive pregnant.

Even though I am experiencing some mild pregnancy symptoms, I'd say overall I'm feeling pretty good. But this little sign has become the captain of my ship. I am relying on its accuracy to help me make my decisions about my food, exercise, travel, and work. No immediate, tangible evidence. It's not like you find out your pregnant and you can suddenly feel a "kick" or feel inner movement. Especially not having experienced this 9 month life cycle before and experienced the fruits of this labor, I am really trusting my symptoms and my "sign" will in fact result in my little poppy seed turning into a beautiful baby with 10 fingers and 10 toes.

I always thought the day I would be a mother was the day I delivered my baby and held it in my arms. How different I feel now as I have had the opportunities for mothering moments even in this seedling stage. My mothering has begun. I have realized this little one is depending on me to look out for its overall well-being, making sacrifices and setting my priorities. I think about it and its pretty amazing in the overall scheme of things. It makes sense that you "grow" into motherhood. You have to start making small decisions and sacrifices relative to the stage of life. Decisions to not drink caffeine, eat sushi, or take Ibuprofen and to slow down on the athletic side of your life. At this point those decisions and sacrifices may be somewhat challenging, but the I'm sure the decisions and sacrifices will gradually increase as the baby increases in my belly and in my life. It's the same idea behind being overwhelmed with parenting five children. Unless you have quintuplettes, you will grow into FIVE children ONE baby at a time gradually developing and adapting new skills, abilities and confidence in you. So can I be a mother? At this point I'd say yes because on a small level the mysterious maternal instincts I have heard about seem to be present and my desire to do what's best seems to be in place. Even if its as small as a grain of rice, I am responsible to do the best on its behalf.

I am not sure if the manufactures of these little "in house" kits realize the power that lays within the little stick BUT the results are literally life changing. At this point I am not sure if I could have enough proof but I am sure grateful for the little pink plus sign.--@DP

An Argument FOR the Valentine's Argument

As I have been listening to NPR, reading various blogs both small and big, and having conversations with people, the arguments,"I don't do Valentine's because we should show love everyday" and "it has turned into a commercialized holiday" have come up too often to not make note.

With the grocery stores being more and more efficient (if that's what you can call it) by having the next holiday's affairs set-up the first possible day (even if the holiday is two months away) I can see the everyone's point. Who wants to feel like their days of celebration are being reduced down to nothing more than cardboad wrapped chocolates, cheap flower bouquets and singing cards? However, this holiday exploitation is happening with EVERY holiday, not just valentines. Take Christmas for example. If the same argument aforementioned applies, shouldn't we choose to NOT celebrate it because we should be celebrating Christ year-round? What about the 4th of July? Shouldn't we showing our patriotism year-round?

Singling out Valentines Day seems silly to me when looking at the big picture and I'd be curious to hear the justifications and arguments as to why we can celebrate one holiday vs. another. Why not take a day to celebrate love? It's what makes the world go round right? When taking to the symbolism of holidays, we have New Beginnings/Fresh Starts, LOVE, Resurrection, Independence/Patriotism, Scary Tradition, Gratitude and Christ. Why is love getting singled out amidst all of these other values?

I think the bigger argument is really missed here. The commercialization and exploitation of the holidays. Don't boycot the holiday, boycot the commercialization. Maybe what I should really be saying is... give love a chance! --@DP

My clothes arn't fitting me...

For so long I have had an identity, identities plural I suppose, titles that I made and confirmed WHO I WAS. It was never a difficult question for me to answer when someone asked what I did, qualities I liked about myself or where I was headed next. I was confident, I was secure and I had esteem. When you think esteem issues my guess would be all of us would defer back to our adolescent years when what was "cool" and being "hot" was not something limited to only changing with the weather. But not me, I was steady and secure. The soccer player, The pianist, The sewer, The socialite, The fish processor, The student, The 1st counselor, the girlfriend, The wake boarder, The snowboarder, The business owner, The counselor, The crisis worker and the wife. These are all labels I have worn throughout my life, some mutually exclusive while others simultaneous and some I still wear today. I have always been 2 steps ahead of myself, when I settled into something else, I had something in the wings that was always waiting for me to transition in to. My life has mostly been the pursuit and obtaining of something and I've always had something to obtain and pursue. AND I have always felt right about it...until now. At 27 when my current identities feel like old worn out clothing and yet I have nothing to change in to. I know who I have been but I continue to struggle with who I am right now. The question that replays in my mind like an old 8-track on repeat is this: How am I supposed to be spending my time right now? To be honest with you, when I look into the future I currently don't see anything, not like a depressive state where the future is bleak but I literally don't see anything. The canvas remains blank and I the painter stare eyes glazed with paint and brush in hand and no idea of what to paint next. The obvious next hat to wear is Mother, but what does that look like? A part of me wonders if this is my maker's way of finally turning to HIM to ask who I am, my purpose and how I should be spending my time. If that is the plan, it's working.--@DP

Letting Go of God

I heard a woman talk on NPR a couple of days ago named Julia Sweeny. Julie has written a book called, "Letting Go of God" and travels around the country speaking about the idea of letting God go. She grew up in Catholothism and now is atheist after REALLY reading the bible. As the show was going on I was writing a couple of things down that I wanted to blog about because it was just so curious to me. She discussed how if people REALLY read the bible the would realize you can't possibly believe what's in their because it's crazy. God asking you to kill you son? She also said we have no evidence of GOD at all or for anything that happened in the bible. She feels like she has a higher level of thinking now after letting go of God because now she can actually think and question things. Next up was the caller who stated Sweeney has really helped him to Let Go of God but he describes the process as "graduating" from God and he has moved on to a more sophisticated level of thinking because of it. At the beginning of the call he talked about growing up Mormon and doing the whole mission thing and in the middle of the call said he had to move on from the church because he was gay.

I was so intrigued due to the argument, most often laid by far left liberals, that believing in God is frankly naive and to believe in God, you must not have stopped to question, challenge or critically think about anything. Because if you had, well you wouldn't believe to be quite frank. I can totally see how the stories in the bible are "crazy" if looked at through our modern day lens and not considered from their context. I can also see how the stories have gotten somewhat lost in translation. I also think it's sad when people get so into the intellectual process they miss out on the spiritual/intuitive process (I said spiritual not religious) and subtleties of life. If everything has to be scientifically proven well, that would discount a lot of things including my hips that healed due to fasting and praying? The group think is also not limited to Utah, I have found it in any place where their is a dominant cultural norm. Go to the bible belt and get your Baptist and Evangelical on, go to Utah and get your Mormon on, or don't, because religion is such a either or issue here (if you're not Mormon well then you're nothing), go to Hawaii and get your Polynesian on because if you're white in certain parts it simply won't cut it.

The call also reminded me of grad school in social work at the University of Utah where you literally had 30 people in each class divided into the "Mormons" and the "Liberated." The liberals, which included everybody that wasn't Mormon, would claim they were thoughtully open and liberated with their thinking--so open that they were closed to even discussing religion/spirituality period. Mormons were pegged, pinned up and not heard in those classes because "our arguments were naive and filtered through a religious lens." It was the first time I actually joined with 16 other students out of the 130 to talk to the dean to express some discrimination not just from the students but the professors. Mind you one of the aforementioned classes was a class on Diversity. I don't like Utah for that reason...religion is very polarized and it's just as bad if you are as if you aren't--at least in Salt Lake Silly.

As a self-proclaimed spiritual RepubliCrat who has found her place of expression and spiritual medium in Mormonism, I feel strongly to question and grapple with my religion, life's happenings and what is being taught within acaademia. I can question my Prophet and find out for myself if what he is saying is true. However, my process of questioning is not solely through my brain or science and what I know or can have proven to know. Does this make me naive, a blind follower? I think not, I think it opens me up to all of the possible ways to gather information through all of my God given senses--even the ones you can't see or prove.--@DP

Life's Timing

Think back to when you were 14 maybe 17 possibly even 6 years old and all of the plans you would lay out for your life. "I'll graduate from High school, go to college, get married at 24, get pregnant 2 years later at 26 so "we" can enjoy our time together, have 3 children..." Sound familiar to anyone? What was never taught or discussed is when you reach 24, you're done doing YOUR things, the prince of your dreams isn't just there waiting for you, in fact you haven't even met him and sit single and dating a bunch of non-committal or not-right guys which really sets your plans back a few. You get married at 26, 2 years later, after meeting many princes but not THE prince, then when it comes to having kids 2 years later, according to the plan, TRYING gets a whole new meaning, and maybe take you longer than 2. In fact trying just meant, "Kay I'm ready, let my pregnancy begin" assuming that getting pregnant simply happens. I guess what's the amazing part about life is when you project into your future, you are projecting your current self from your current age. You dream of life as you basically have known life or know it currently. So when you are 17 you look at your future from a 17 year old perspective, or from a 14 year old perspective or a 27 year old perspective. What's not taken into account is all of the unpredictable events, timing that is much bigger than your own and all of the ways you will grow-up, change, and develop your perspective and experience base. I have learned and relearned that some of the best things in my life were not planned for at all, the way the timing of the events actually happened was far better than what I could have timed, and all of the new things introduced into my life because of life's spontaneity were incredible.--@DP

"The Finer Things Club...It's a Pretty Exclusive Club"

On last weeks office, we were introduced to the highly exclusive Finer Things Club whereby you only get to participate IF you receive an invite from one of the members. Even if you are an Andy type and try and get your way in by reading what "they" read, dressing how "they" dress and talking how "they" talk, if you're not personally invited, you're not in.

This has been an ongoing battle for me in my life, wanting to be a part of a "club" or a group of friends, but enjoying being a floater and hanging out with ALL of the different groups. In high school I was friends with the jocks, the skaters, the loners, the preppies and even a few Gothics. I had 2 best-friends as my core, but having friends from all walks really kept my life interesting and edifying. I really like the idea of having a solid go-to group of friends but feel it can at times be pretty limiting, especially, for the extrovert in me who loves rather thrives on meeting new people.

However, there are pro's and con's to both the floater and the groupie. If you are part of a group when it comes to gatherings you are ALWAYS included because you're...a part of the group. You have friends that you go through life with and are woven tightly into your life story. Now if you don't go to a group gathering inevitably you will get harassed because it's a group gathering and when they mean group that means you. You also end up giving a lot of your social time to this group which for many is no big deal. The nice about a group, however, is you always belong somewhere.

For the floater, you get to go to a lot of different events with a lot of different people, which for me, can be a lot of fun. Trips, gatherings, parties, dinners, weekends all with different people BUT if it's a group thing you risk not getting invited because you're not a given as a part of "the group." Being a floater can take a little more effort simply because you have more people to stay in touch with if you choose to not be with a group and if you want more of a social life then sitting home and blogging about a scene in the office that reminded you of something or who knows what. But if you can make the effort life can be pretty spicy!

What does this have to do with anything? I've recently started with some other couples a "club" if you will. Part of the club is we do dinner once a month but it's not an open invite, which for me has already been quite the challenge. If one of the couples is interested in having another couple join, then you bring the other couple to some other hangout session so the club can see how things mesh. This is all so counter-intuitive to me because I have, for the most part, been a more the merrier type girl. Which, as many can attest to, has made for some rather awkward or not as comfortable as it could be gatherings. AND I am always along the lines of, I like 'em so everyone will like 'em.

For all of my life I have never prescribed to a group unless soccer or other sports count. I've liked my freedom of roaming but have envied the luxury of always being included. This new club I think will be a good balance where I have a group of friends to belong to while still being able to go out and do my floater thing...The Dinner Club..I guess we're pretty exclusive :)--@DP