Last week I had some cool things happen. A string of what some would call coincidences and others would call fate. Me, I call them listening to what the Universe is telling me.

It started with a quote I came across by Alex Osborne, he is the guy that coined the term brainstorming.

“Creative ideas reside in people’s minds but are trapped by fear of rejection. Create a judgment-free environment and you’ll unleash a torrent of creativity.”

Those words really spoke to me. I have not done many things out of fear of rejection and I tend to judge others and myself way too much.

The next thing in my string of message from the Universe was a post I attempted to make on Craiglist.org. I wrote a nice plane factual ad about wanting to find other musicians interested in playing together with me and my Native American Flutes.

Just as I was about done with the add I click a link I had put in it to make sure the link worked and POOF… I lost the whole add. Some how when I hit the back button the form data was gone. All my work lost! I have done this very thing many many times and never once lost an ad.

Now I would normally have gotten mad, cussed Craig and his website for losing my work, told myself that the ad probably would not have gotten any response anyway given up and gone and done something else.

Instead I remembered the above quote, an in that instance realized that I should not judge harshly what had just happened. That the Universe was sending another message, telling me I should not post the ad I had just written. That it was not the right ad. Not that it was bad, or wouldn’t have worked, just that it was not the right ad.

So I listened and came back later to write a new ad. Here is that ad:

Native American Flute Player in search of…

Date: 2011-03-05, 11:38PM MST
Reply to: comm-msdw9-2249811354@craigslist.org

Hi,

My name is Ron and I play the Native American Flute.

I love this instrument. Its sound can be playful, joyous, or haunting. It grounds us; centers us. It lets us soar with the eagles. It speaks to our souls.

I have been playing for about four years now and have learned much about myself through my playing.

I am now being called to share with others. To play and explore the healing power of music. Share my wisdom and learn your wisdom.

I am looking for people to play with. People who want to explore new sounds. People who want to create music that speaks to the soul.

Style is not a major concern. It might be traditional native, new age mystic, good old country, down home blues, or improvisational jazz.

What does matter is wanting to do something amazing, wanting to touch people, wanting to share in the wonder of it all.

Are you such a person?

I await your reply.

Peace,
-Ron-

P.S. If you are not familiar with the Native American Flute click this link to hear a song of mine, Under Tofino’s Spell

Now the above is nothing like my first lost ad. This ad speaks from my soul, it comes from a place of non-judgement. I was not thinking of what the response would be. I was not thinking of what people would think. I was just expressing who I am and what I want from the Universe.

I found my place of sacred non-judgement. This is a powerful place. You can do anything from this place. You can be anything you want. You can dream dreams that will amaze the world.

Oh and by the way the above link, to Under Tofino’s Spell, is the exact same link I lost my first post with, with this ad no POOF!

The next item in my string of messages from the Universe was a post on my Facebook Wall from my coach and good friend Molly Burke, The Queen of Confidence. She posted a note about a Native American Flute player named Mary Youngblood.

And as the Universe would have it, I had been reading about Mary just the day before.

Turns out Molly has a close friend that is related to Mary Youngblood. Small world? Or is the Universe really talking to me?

I choose the later. So since I have the Universe’s attention and it has mine. Here is a request from my sacred non-judgement place. I want to meet and play NAF with Mary Youngblood.

I will end this post with a question for you. What will happen when you find your sacred non-judgement place and open yourself to the messages the Universe is sending you?

I would love to hear about it.

Peace,
-Ron-

About three years ago I was formally trained to work with animals and Reiki. But since my earliest days of practicing, some 15 years ago, I have shared the gift of Reiki with my cat Kiri.

For those not familiar with Reiki a little background. The word Reiki is made of two Japanese words – Rei which means “God or Spirit Wisdom” and Ki which means “life force energy”. One translation then for Reiki is, “wisdom of life force energy.”

It is a relaxation, meditation, and healing technique. It is practiced with the recipient fully clothed or furred as the case may be.

The practitioner is a conduit. By laying his/her hands on each of the body’s major energy points they allow the innate wisdom of life force energy to flow through themselves to the recipient.

This brings harmony to the energy fields of the body. This harmony promotes deep relaxation and healing on physical, emotional, and spiritual levels.

Where it is not possible to directly touch the recipient, for example a burn patient; wild or traumatize animals; being physically distant, the Reiki practitioner can send the energy from a distance.

I have occasionally felt, when I give someone a session, that they did not really feel all that much and that the session was not very productive. And yet these people would still tell me that they felt better. That the session was good.

I think sometimes people just don’t want to hurt another’s feelings and they tell those little while lies that they think will make everyone feel better.

Kiri - My Reiki Junkie

When you give an animal a Reiki session and afterwards you see their pain relieved; you get a great big thank you lick across the face; you see a 600lb pig get up on his feet for the first time in over a week.

Well then, you know in your heart that Reiki works!

I have known for a long time that this stuff works. My family, friends, clients, and my Reiki Junkie Kiri, all know it works.

Reiki is now recognized by main stream western medicine as being a valid alternative treatment for many diseases. Check out the links below or google “reiki in hospitals” and you can read all about it.

I encourage you to look into the healing wisdom of Reiki. Find a practitioner near you and have a session, get your dog or cat a session too. You will enjoy it and I know your pets will show you how much they like it too.

You may just find that, Reiki is you and your pets best friend.

Peace,
-Ron-

Reiki Links:

Shelter Animal Reiki Association – SARA
Kathleen Prasad – My Animal Reiki Teacher / Founder of SARA
Reiki use to treat Mesothiloma
Healing Wisdom of Reiki – My Website

I had a revelation today. I was thinking about all the projects and ideas I have come up with over the years. Ideas for businesses, ideas for cool inventions, ideas on how little things like the Universe work, so many ideas.

I have taken action on many of my ideas as well. I have started up websites and worked on business plans and you know what? None of them have seen great or even minor success.

Now I could, and have, labeled myself a failure in life for all these ideas that have gone nowhere.

Today’s revelation was that ideas can be seen as different types of drinks and how they are made and consumed. Let me elaborate, I can see that dazed look on your face.

Some ideas we have are like soda pop, once made and caned they are meant to be consumed right away and some are like fine wines or liquor, they need to be bottled and then aged for months; years; sometimes decades before they are ready for consumption.

I have been a soda pop guy in my consumption of my own ideas. I want to consume them as soon as I have them. I want to enjoy their taste right away. Today I realized that most of the ideas and concepts that I have are not soda pop. They are like fine wines and need to age to come to their full potential.

I have just been giving up too soon. I have expected to enjoy things right away and when I don’t get that enjoyment, right away, I toss the idea out before it has had it chance to age into something worth waiting for.

Have you had a great idea that didn’t work out? If you haven’t totally thrown it out, if it is perhaps still sitting on a dusty shelf covered in cobwebs somewhere in the back of your mind, go and find it, dust it off, and see if it has aged to perfection yet.

I am looking back at some of my great ideas now with new eyes, seeing that some are getting close to their perfect age for consumption and that others still need to age more.

I am also still bottling great ideas each and every day. I know now that some of my ideas will need to age before they are ready for your consumption.

Here’s to the anticipation of getting to uncork many a wondrous idea in our futures.

Peace,
-Ron-

Well don’t get to excited because I am certainly not going to answer that question in this article or most likely at any time in my lifetime. Instead I am going to ask more questions, point out some observations that make me think, and ask you to comment as I would love to hear what you think.

There are two major camps of thought as to how everything came to be, Creation or Evolution. Was/is there a Creator that had a grand plan or did everything come about due to pure random chance and coincidence? I think maybe the reality is somewhere in between.

Let’s take a look at the amazing creation or beautiful coincidence that is the place we call home.

First let’s look at our Sun, a class GV or Yellow Dwarf star. It is what could be called an average star as far as stars go. But that is really good if you are looking for a place to live as you do not want to live in the neighborhood or a White Dwarf star or a Hypergiant as one is too cold and one is too bright. Kind of a Goldie Locks thing we have the star “that’s just right.”

Not only are we orbiting a just right star we are at just the right distance from our star. Closer we fry, farther we freeze.

Our beautiful blue planet rotates on its axis letting our just right start at just the right distance evenly distribute its life giving energy around our planet.

This rotation has a slight tilt on its axis. This tilt gives us our seasons. The seasons are integral to life on this planet.

We have a large and magnificent moon. This moon stabilizes the tilt of our planets axis. With out our moon the tilt would vary wildly from 0 to 90 degrees. Not good.

Our moon also gives our oceans their tides. And again the tides are integral to life on this planet.

Our planet Earth has a magnetosphere, a magnetic shield. This shield keeps us all from getting cooked by the cosmic and solar radiation that bombards our lovely little blue planet every second of every day. Yet another integral piece of the grand coincidence that is the place we live.

Are all of these very necessary and truly wonderful things we need to be due to coincidence and random chance or is there some plan, some design at play?

I wish I knew for sure, and then again I wish that I will never know.

The universe is truly an enormous place, so big it’s hard to comprehend. It is big enough to allow for an almost infinite number of possible combinations to occur. So given pure statistics the scientific side of me must concede that the above list of improbable conditions for us to exist could come about by pure random chance is possible.

And yet I still believe that all of this, all the perfection of life is just too beautiful to be the result of chance, that there must be a plan to it all.

I look at things like Fractal geometry and the precision, the perfection, the sheer beauty of such images and how they not only show up from pure mathematics but also are reflected in the designs of nature and I see the plan of a Creator.

I don’t see a creator that is still actively monitoring and manipulating the universe. I think the universe is just too big to keep track of everything going on and be actively controlling.

I believe more in the concept that there is a plan to all of this; that someone or something designed the way things work. I believe that the design has a purpose.

I believe that the Creator started this grand plan in motion and now, if still around, is simply watching the results unfold.

For me the argument that it must be either creation or evolution seems silly. Is it not possible that the Creator’s plan for the universe included Evolution; that the process of life improving itself by evolving is just part of the grand plan?

I once heard it put this way, if you believe that all the grandeur of the universe has come about by pure random chance then you must also believe that the Encyclopedia Britannica was the result of an explosion in a printing factory.

I would very much like to hear your comments. Please post and tell me what you think of my idea and/or what you believe.

Peace,
-Ron-

In my last blog post, Lost in the USA, I let you, my readers, know that a change was coming to this blog. A change of content and with that change I also thought it time for a new look to my blog.

So what do you think? Do you like the new look? If so why.

Do you hate the new look? If so why.

Please post your comments as I am dying to know. Be forewarned that while I want to know what you think I am also free to ignore anything you may say. So if I don’t act on your advice please know it’s not that I did not value your input.

I would also very much like to throw out some ideas I have on future article topics and get your feed back on which, if any, you would like to hear about.

I will be writing on topics that fall under the umbrella of, ‘Bringing harmony to Man, Animal, and the Planet’.

Here are some topics I am thinking about,

• Should Insurance Companies Practice Medicine or Doctors?
• Acupuncture, When ‘Sticking it to you’ Really Works
• Reiki, You and Your Pets Best Friend
• Laugh Yourself Healthy
• Singing In The Shower – Is it Good for You?
• Medical Marijuana, What’s From the Earth is of the Greatest Worth.

So what have the above articles have to do with, ‘bringing harmony to Man, Animal, and the Planet’ you may ask?

I have a dream, a passion, a life’s purpose to be a be a friend and explorer of healing wisdom. And this purpose is manifesting itself into The Center for Healing Wisdom.

The Center will explore and disseminate the best in Healing Wisdom from traditional and non-traditional medical and healing techniques.
The Center will explore and use the best techniques to live in harmony with the most powerful healing source, Mother Earth.

My Wisdom Quest will chronicle my journey of exploration and learning on the road to opening The Center.

I look forward to sharing what I learn with you.

I also want this site to promote conversation. Please post comments and start discussions. All constructive comments are welcome, no matter if we agree on a topic or not. I will not however tolerate any hateful posts. Or any attacks directed at any poster or myself. Such posts will be deleted.

Peace,
-Ron-

You know what happens when you set out on a journey with out a plan of where you are going? You get lost!

Now in my case I have not actually gotten physically lost, kind of hard to do with one of today’s smart phones with GPS and navigation software. I got lost as to what to do and where to go.

When I began my Quest I had a grand idea of setting out to travel across the USA with out a specific plan. To go where the wind blew me with the idea that I would have some great epiphany somewhere along the way. That magically the wisdom and knowledge of this great land would somehow find me and reveal itself.

Well is it any wonder that after three months on the road I feel lost and not sure what I should do next?

I have seen some amazing things on my journey. The National Parks with natural beauty that will take your breath away. Majestic Bison, Antelope, and Elk. And I am sure that I have learned a lot along the way. So, in a way, wisdom has found me. However this is not quite what I had hoped for.

You see I have an underlying goal. A goal that has fueled my actions. A goal that am still going to achieve. This goal is to open The Center for Healing Wisdom.

The Center’s purpose is to gather, teach, and practice techniques to bring Man, Animal, and Planet into harmony. I believe that in a state of harmony we find ultimate health.

The Center will explore and disseminate the best in Healing Wisdom from Eastern and Western, traditional and non-traditional medical and healing techniques. And use the these techniques to live in harmony with the most powerful healing source, Mother Earth.

The main purpose of my Quest was to learn what I will need to know to make The Center a reality.

But without a good plan my Quest turned into a vacation, a site seeing tour, a chance to visit with family and friends across the country.

Not to say this was a bad thing. I feel that this has been just what I needed to do when I needed to do it. And perhaps I did get the epiphany I was after.

I keep thinking of the saying, “you can’t fill and already full cup.” Certainly my cup was full. Full of the attitudes and crap that had accumulated from doing a job that I hated for way too many years.

Getting out of that environment and traveling this great land has done wonders to empty my head. To clear things out, to dump the junk and make room for the wisdom that I seek.

So what’s next, you may ask?

Well this blog was intended to document that process to acquire the knowledge needed to open The Center. It morphed into a travel log due to lack of a specific plan.

I know many of you have enjoyed the recounting of my travels and the pictures of the amazing places I have been. I too enjoyed these but, I got to the point where I just got tired of it. I knew deep down that this blog was not intended to be just a travel log.

So I did something that I am not real proud of, I gave up. I quit writing. I felt lost and didn’t know what I should do or write about next.

I spent several weeks in Iowa visiting my family. Going to rodeos, high school home coming football games, riding a horse for the first time in 30 some years. I even went bowling. But all the time I was trying to find my way back to my real quest.

I would not take back the time I spent in Iowa. Again wisdom did find me in Iowa but, it was not quite what I was looking for.

In the weeks since Iowa I have seen friends that are very special to me. Spent quality time with them that I really enjoyed and felt that I needed.

And during this time it became clear to me where I went astray. That lack of a plan spoken of earlier in this post.

Now I find myself way past the time and season for traveling the country in a travel trailer. Freezing weather and exposed water piping do not mix.

Hence I am high tailing it back to Arizona to winter over. While there I can promise all of you that I will be creating a plan for next summer and My Wisdom Quest II – The Sequel.

For those of you that have been following along on this Quest my apologies for the abrupt end to the travel log. Perhaps you can now understand what happened.

From now on I will be blogging about my passion. A passion to acquire, use, and disseminate the healing wisdom of this planet.

I hope those that follow this blog will continue to do so. If my change in direction is not your cup of tea I understand.

No longer lost,

-Ron-

Well first off my apologies for dropping off the face of the earth for awhile there. Well didn’t really fall off the face of the earth, just got lost in the heartland for awhile.

Iowa Falls Iowa to be exact.

The middle of the country, corn, soybeans, cows, deer, geese, squirrels and family.

A place to slow down, unplug, decompress and connect.

The first thirty six days of my quest have been a journey though the wonders of nature that our forefathers had the extreme wisdom to preserve for the enjoyment of all to come. The National Parks.

Such places are my temples, my altars, the places I goto to reconnect with that from which we come. To listen and speak to the Universe. To find my center.

My journey through these magnificent cathedrals, The Grand Canyon, Zion, Bryce Canyon, Arches, Yellowstone, Devil’s Tower, Mount Rushmore, Wind Cave, and Badlands National Parks, was wonderfully centering and renewing. But the pace at which I saw them I must admit left me exhausted.

So Iowa Falls is where I am taking the time to slow the pace down for awhile.

The challenge of blogging one’s daily life was also more than I thought it would be. I must confess to just needing a break after 36 straight days. To unplug for awhile.

And then as if I hadn’t gotten the message when I got here Internet access was, still is, not very good. Even my body was telling me I needed this break as it rebelled a bit and I felt like a had a cold for several days. Thank you Universe message received. Action taken.

My Quest is now going to change. In fact is already has.

It has shifted from the quest for the wisdom of the earth to the quest for the wisdom of its people.

And how does one undertake a quest to find the wisdom of the people? By connecting with people.

And we humans connect with our fellow humans by sharing. By sharing conversation, food, laughter, crying, smiling, hugging, shaking hands, or by simply sharing space together.

So as I continue my travels I will be actively connecting with the people I meet.

The first people I am connecting with are the people that have the somewhat annoying property of being able to center us or unbalance us. Those that seem to affect us most, that most shape who we are. One’s family.

You know the old saying, “you can choose your friends but not your family,” well I don’t believe it.

You see I think we all “choose” everything that we experience in this life, including our family. I believe we are all eternal at our essence. If you prefer; your soul; your spirit; that which is truly you.

And I believe that this eternal essence is aware of what it is doing and that it chooses the experiences it will have in each of its physical incarnations. And that this choice includes every detail you will experience in your life, including who will be one’s family.

Now the kicker in this choosing is that once made and manifest into the physical, that is we are born, we forget that we choose all the aspects of the life we are going to live.

But you see that is on purpose. By forgetting that we made the choice to experience all that we do while on this physical plane, the experiences of this life are genuine. To put it another way we learn the lessons and have the experiences we choose to have because we can forget we made the choice in the first place.

So the lessons of family I choose seem to now to be how one deals with family at a distance. Or more specifically how much if hurts to miss out on things when your not around.

My brother, sister-in-law and niece and nephew, have lived half way across the country from me for the last decade or so. In that time I have only seen them five or six times.

So I have missed a lot and its not their fault because as I have said it was the choice of my eternal essence to experience that which I now feel. To come here and see my niece and nephew pretty much all grown up. To realize all I missed and to regret that I did not stay more in touch over the years.

And yet I also realize, its not too late. I can still be Uncle Ron. I can share a conversation, a meal, a laugh, a cry, a hug, a smile, or just sharing space together. And it feels great!

Oh and it gets better still. A lesson I had learned in the past is once again taught. The lesson that family goes beyond the ties of biology or shared blood.

This can and does happen in many ways. Marriage is the most common. We marry, our siblings marry, and our family grows. But sometimes families grow in non-traditional ways too.

We connect due to those forgotten choices. The lessons we selected to learn before our births.

People can come into your life and you are sure they are family even though they do not qualify by relation of blood or marriage.

I have had the most wonderful pleasure of getting to connect with such a new family member, one who comes to my family by non-traditional ways, my niece Corin.

The details of how life brought Corin to my family are not really needed. Suffice it to say that Corin has not had it easy. Her biological family has been the unbalancing kind. The lessons she choose this time around are some hard ones to experience and learn.

I hope she has now entered a time where she gets to experience and learn that life has many aspects to it. She has seen the bad, now she will cherish the good all the more.

I am not yet sure what the lesson is that her and I have chosen to learn from each other but I am sure after just a few days that Corin is family. She has my heart. I will always be there for her. She has an Uncle Ron.

Well I will leave you with those thoughts for now. Will be back in a few days with an update on the Iowa Falls Alden High School Homecoming of 2010. Should be a fun time!

Peace,
-Ron-