When you think of your community, who comes to mind? What beings do you include? What does community mean to you?

This is the perfect question for me to find tonight.  I have just returned from an amazing day.  At work, lots of, lots of, lots of data entry must be done.  We have to switch to a new computer aided dispatch system.  It's stressful for many of us.  I do enjoy change though and challenge, so it's okay with me.  My work community is filled with hard workers, smart folks, conscientious and giving people.  I'm lucky and also, it's not just luck.  I've contributed to my work community being the way that it is.  I have a choice in each work relationship.  My relationships have really grown and deepened over the twelve years that I've worked there, much of it is because I have grown. 

After work I wandered the streets of Aspen town for a couple of hours before going to the FREE Architecture Lecture.  Town was filled with happy summery people.  kids playing in the fountain and on the playground equipment right next door to the outdoor restaurants and cafes.  Musicians on every street corner downtown.  A cellist.  A banjo player.  A string quartet.  A big band.  Bicycles everywhere.  And the pedicabs (I'm going to be driving one tomorrow evening-- yippee!!). 

I wandered into the Big Wrap, the yummy healthy wrap place and called Adam who was still working, to see if he wanted anything.  He did, so I picked up a burrito for him and walked down to the Mountain Rescue Cabin to drop it off on my way to the Aspen Institute. 

I was a little early for the lecture, so I found a nice spot of grass under a tree and just looked up at the sky for awhile.  When it started to rain I went inside and read The Aspen Idea, all about the Institute and what they stand for-- values based leadership.  Soon it was time for the lecture. 

I love, love, love architecture lectures because of the amazing diversity of problems the architects are faced with.  I love hearing them talk about how they solve the problems of site, usage, energy, materials, and design-- how they make all the puzzle pieces come together.  Tonight I was so fortunate to get to hear Enrique Norten of TEN Arquitectos speak.  Wow!  I don't even know where to start.  All of the projects he showed us were astounding.  And every single one incorporated a deep respect for the earth, it's resources, and it's people.  He cares about community.  He cares about humanity.  He cares about all the puzzle pieces that make up the big picture.  How do I know?  Because all of his projects reflect that regard.  He makes me want to be an architect when I grow up.  Of course, almost all of the architecture lectures do that.  But tonight's talk went above and beyond.  Mr Norten and his team are rehabilitating a UNESCO cultural heritage site in Mexico City.  They will clean the water using energy from biomass that is grown right at the sight, preserving a way of life (growing vegtables and flowers) while also creating an energy source, at the same time creating a new civic space and he is incorporating all of this into his architectural plan.  The whole project will be entirely off the grid.  And he is passionate about it!  It gave me SUCH renewed hope and joy for the world--for humanity. 

After the lecture I meandered back to the Mountain Rescue Cabin, the home base and command center for Search and Rescue.  Adam was still working (MRA is essentially a part of the Sheriff's Department- it's complicated) because of a Rescue in the Maroon Bells area. MRA (Mountain Rescue Aspen) members are volunteers.  They take time ouf of their own busy lives to train for, organize, and run searches and rescues in our amazing backcountry.  They willingly, even happily, head out into the Wilderness with big backpacks to help injured climbers, skiers, hikers, etc or lost ones and often end up spending cold nights out.  I gave Adam a brownie to help keep his energy level up (he'd been at work since 7am and it was almost 9pm) and headed out to catch a bus home. 

Even the bus driver and the other passengers made me think of community.  I loved how the bus was nearly full.  If every one of us on the bus had been driving our own car, then how much more congestion and pollution?  Wow.  I said a silent thank you to every other passenger. 

I am more than blessed to live in this magical community.  I would like for everyone to be so blessed. 

And then, a few moments here at Gaia.  Another wonderful part of my life.  I love, love, love this life.  Thank you Gaia for giving me a place to share my love of it. 

(I'll apologize in advance for any typos.  I'm typing fast so as to be able to get some laundry going and get to bed so I can work early in the morning and then ride the pedicab from 5 to 9pm.  If you're in Aspen and need a non polluting way across town tomorrow night, I'm you're grrrrl.  :-))

this is worth giving your attention for the entire time and it's not fluff! 

I can't embed the video, but you can just follow the link.......

http://fora.tv/2009/05/10/Healing_Mother_Earth_EO_Wilson#fullprogram

breathing in and breathing out.  smiling.  being alive.  loving.  kindness.  ease.  peace.  stretching.  growing.  playing.  gardening.  singing.  dancing.  making love.  hanging clothes on the line.  eating watermelon.  and peaches.  and certain kinds of cheese.  sleeping.  dreaming.  waking up.  yoga.  silliness.  laughing.  snuggling.  smiling.  working hard then resting completely.  wondering.  reading.  helping.  pedaling (bicycling, tricycling, unicyling, pedicabbing).  sharing.  caring and letting go.  stories.  songs.  friends.  family.  listening.  talking.  walking.  being.  here.  now.

"life is like a mirror.  if you look into it with a smile, it smiles back."  ~vikki the happiest bus driver I've met in a long while.  

Really the very most recent thing that touched my heart was seconds ago.......

gratitude for a wonderful friend as I bit into a scrumptious oatmeal and chocolate chip cookie that she baked for me. 

and then gratitude for my husband touched my heart as I forwarded him an email about chicken coops from Mother Earth News and sipped some coffee that he had made for me just before he left for work. 

when I first woke up this morning, I saw that I had a voicemail from a friend whose youngest daughter went off to college last week.  as I listened my heart was touched by the sound of a wee bit of loneliness in her voice asking me to call her when I have a moment.  I recognized myself in her voice, missing our children a bit, even as we celebrate their accomplishments and growing independence. 

last night, after work, I went to my "academic achievement" class.  I'm taking the class to brush up on my math skills to get them back up to a college level in preparation for taking some college math classes on the way to a degree.  Many other folks are taking this class in preparation for taking their GED (high school equivalency) exam or in preparation for other college courses.  I think it is really a blessing to be able to take this class, not just because of the academic improvement opportunity, but because of the diverse array of people in the class.  in this semester, in a class of less than 20 people, we have folks from 5 or 6 different countries, with several different first languages.  we are students ranging in age from late teens to late 50's.  we are men and women.  we have such diverse ending goals, but we have one common goal and that is to further educate ourselves.  the teacher had us write a paragraph about ourselves & our goals and choose two images to represent ourselves.  one image to symbolize who we are now and one to symbolize who we are at the end of this class.  and then we each stood up and introduced ourselves and shared our words and images.  it felt like kindergarten and also a bit like this gaia website to me (show and tell with words and images - smile).  my heart was incredibly touched and inspired by the things my fellow students shared.

my heart is touched, daily, in so many ways, but recently it felt absolutely torn assunder.  as most of you know, I work at an emergency dispatch center.  a call I took several weeks ago broke my heart and caused me to cherish each moment of life even more than I already did.  initially I thought the caller was reporting a reckless driver or a drunk driver because she said she saw a vehicle driving very erratically, barely staying on the road.  she was able to tell me aproximately where they were, give me a vehicle description and a direction of travel, then she said, "I think something is wrong, I don't know what happened, but I saw the windshield just shatter."  then she said the vehicle was going through a red light, not stopping and a few moments later she said it was stopping at the side of the road.  meanwhile, my co-worker took a call from another person who had also seen the vehicle and stopped as it did and then said, frantically, "I have to go help them." and hung up.  my caller also stopped and soon said something like oh my god they're bleeding.  then she stopped talking to me.  for the next 3 or 4 minutes I heard only screaming.  I didn't know who was screaming or why.  of course we sent help.  police, ambulance and rescue units arrived very quickly.  what they found was that a large rock had fallen onto the vehicle and gone through the windshield, badly injuring the driver and to a much lesser degree injuring a child who was sitting behind the driver.  the occupants of the vehicle turned out to be a family who had been visiting our area, on vacation.  a mom, a dad and 3 kids between the ages of 4 and 14.  the father, who was driving, died of his injuries.  the mother, who was in the passenger seat, had to struggle to get control of the vehicle while trying to calm her children and help her badly, badly injured husband.  she probably saved the lives of herself and her children by stopping that car.  it took her more than a mile to do it, but she did it.  I cry as I type this, as I've cried many times since that day when I think of the loss the children and mom are living with now.  my bus passed by the scene of the accident on my way home that day.  I saw the vehicle with the giant hole in the windshield and 5 mountain bikes on a rack on the back and I cried.  when I opened the gate to our yard minutes later, I was greeted by a scene that could have been straight from tuscany.  a red clothe covered table (made of an old door and some sawhorses) set for two with candles and a bottle of wine decanting.  what a surprise adam had arranged for me.  and what timing?!  we had dinner together in our yard, surrounded by growing things, with the amazing, ever changing, colorado sky above us.  that night I sobbed on adam's shoulder and when he asked me why I was crying the only answer I could give between sobs that shook the whole bed was, "because life is so utterly beautiful and tragic and joyful and painful all at the same time."

The work that I do at 911 (and in the public safey and helping professions in general) has the potential to make a person less compassionate or maybe just less feeling overall.  We can begin to wall ourselves off from strong feelings as a way of "protecting" ourselves.  I think there is a technical term -- compassion fatigue -- or something like that.  what I have discovered is that I don't want to protect myself from these painful feelings.  I want to allow myself to feel them, to go through them.  they are really a gift, allowing me to feel the gratitude for life and to see, hear, smell, taste and touch the beauty that is all around me, more deeply.  breaking my heart open like that---- well maybe that's not quite right.  if your heart is already wide open it doesn't have to get broken open, does it?  I don't know.  but, yes, that heartbreaking event had my heart so wide open, so raw, so unprotected that I nearly fell to my knees when I opened the gate and saw the red tablecloth and the romantic dinner scene my husband had created there.  perhaps each of these events can help a heart grow stronger, the way the leg muscles get stronger each time we pedal up a hill? 

the next day,  my heart was touched by a phone call from a deputy who had been on the scene of the accident, asking how I was doing.  our conversation probably helped each of us heal the wound a little.  later that day I got a call from another deputy who knew I had taken that call, again just checking in to see how I was doing.  I don't really have words to express my gratitude for the amazing people I work with, inside and outside the communications center.  They are incredibly professional and caring and giving.  I feel blessed to know and work with them.  they go above and beyond the call of duty for the citizens of our community and for each other. 

this question has me wanting to go on and on and on, sharing moments that have touched my heart. 

it reminds me of my first impression of siona on the web...  those big, beautiful eyes and the words, "i love". 

I leave you with this.  it always makes me cry and laugh and smile and cry.  :-)  


watch it carefully, there are some sweet surprises in it.  and now that video  ^  is the very most recent thing that has touched my heart.  I have tears running down my smiling face. 

What about the natural world appeals to or calls to or nurtures you?

nature.   I love how planet Earth is the perfect habitat for humanity.  I love how we need air for survival and how nature provides us air to breathe, absolutely free of charge.  I love how, in order to survive, we need water, and how nature provides water, again, completely free of charge, for us to drink.  I love how the planet, if left to her own devices, has a perfect system for the water cycle-- perfect water filtration system, free.  no charge.  it seems like magic, but it's only natural.  :-)  I love that.  I love how a seed can fall into dirt, and rain can fall on it and sunshine can shine on it and it magically turns into delicious food that we can eat.  We need food, and food is provided-- with minimal effort.  I love most things about nature.  I don't like wood ticks much, but they serve their place in the big scheme of things too.  I love, love, love that it's impossible to ever know everything about this gorgeous blue ball that we live on, that we can keep learning for a lifetime and never get bored, endless food for thought.  I love how the sun, moon and stars seem to circle round us.  I love how the wind blows the clouds past the stretch of sky that I can see.  I love the wetness of rain, the delicate perfection of a snowflake, the sheer vastness of the ocean.  I love the way the mountain feels as if it's looking out for me.  I love humans too, especially the ones who have found out that they are a perfect magical part of nature and have started trying to live with her and share in her goodness, rather than trying to conquer her or exclude or emprison her.  I love nature.  I am nature.  and so are you. 

one of the definitions of nature is "the universe, with all its phenomena".  I love that one.

recently I was given an assignment to write an essay about one thing I would change in the world, if I could magically change anything.  here's the answer....