Gaia: PLAY-POD! - Winnie's Grace shower - Dancing at Dryad's bedside

Re: Dancing at Dryad's bedside

http://singerseeker.gaia.com — Tue, 16 Sep 2008 16:00:14 GMT

you are so beautiful and amazing! mega hugs!

love

nicole

Re: Dancing at Dryad's bedside

http://LightDancing.gaia.com — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 17:42:49 GMT

DEAREST FRIENDS!

THIS IS MY THANK YOU CARD . . . A COLLECTION I CALLED:

~ WITHIN A GATHERING OF ANGELS ~
~ A THANK YOU MESSAGE FOR A MIRACLE ~

IT CAN ALSO BE SEEN AT MY BLOG HERE:

http://lightdancing.gaia.com/blog/2008/7/within_a_gathering_of_angels_-_a_thank_you_message_for_a_miracle

Dearest Friends ~

I have been on a long, long sojourn of learning. I am learning patience. I am learning tenacity. I am learning the unimaginable resources of the human body and the human mind. I am learning the even more awe inspiring capacities of hearts and minds joined together in love.

I’ve been away from Gaia for quite a while. Part of that time I was unable to sit up. Some of the time I spent in Utah, with my mother, where I had a computer but no internet. Very quickly, the upshot on where I am physically is this: healing. Slower than I did at twenty, much slower than I would like, but I can feel it happening. I’ve had several more major falls, broken my arm, hurt my back again, learned how knees are really shock absorbers and ended up with bruises the size of continents that are really quite magnificent. I’ve also had a treatment for the nerves in my back that helped a great deal. It’s two steps forward and one step back, for sure, but I am stubbornly taking those two steps over and over. I'm working on goals of time management, perspective and closure.

I am very glad to be HOME.

What follows, below, is a Thank You Card, it is for everyone who has helped me so much on my healing journey. I had the thought that in trying to say ‘thank you’ for a gift that has changed my life, I must make something magnificent. I realized quite quickly that I couldn’t possibly ever have made anything that would in anyway touch what I had been given. How could anyone possibly ‘make’ something that would be adequate to say “Thank You” for a miracle?

Every day we open Gaia to see that we are a community that is changing the world. To some people this may mean the many big wonderful things the community does - making the entire world greener, more sustainable, more equitable, and better in so many ways. To me, this sentence means, first, that this community is changing me. In the year and a half I have been here I have changed from being very depressed, cynical and terminally despairing ~ to having hope again. I have hope in the essential kindness and goodness of people, because that is what I have seen and experienced here.

Granted, I don’t interact with all of Gaia or even many; my sphere is small. But I have found here more selfless giving, more genuine care and love for others than any where before in my life. In no school, church, social or service organization and certainly no Internet group have I ever found so much of the good in people. More wishing the best for each other, less envy and petty attention to self. I have seen the ME turn to WE. I’ve never really believed it possible before. I thought modern people were just too selfish. We are not everyone, but we are enough to show me that it is a possibility. Yes, perhaps, we can.

My very wise friend Jena said, “no one wants any thank you but for you to get well.” Yes. Very basic and undoubtably true. So that is what I am doing. Every day I walk on my Nordic Track, even when it hurts horribly. It always hurts. I drink my quota of water. I choke down all my vitamins. I meditate. I streatch. I hang upside down. I eat carefully and mindfully. And, perhaps the hardest for me, I am learning to move more slowly and carefully. In a few months there will be noticeable differences. In another year, I hope to deliver the real “Thank You Card,” Myself - healed and healthy.

I have many messages I need to answer and to pick up my Pod from the extremely capable hands that have been guiding it while I was gone. In a week, I am going to the Oregon Coast with several Gaia friends. I am so excited about that you would think I was five. I am going to post this now and then have a “Closure Parry.” Closure is one of my new goals and, you know me, I am always looking for a new reason to have a Party!

I do hope that my Grace Shower will continue and that everyone will feel welcome to come and receive as well as give. It is one of the most marvelous things I have ever experienced. Please come. Bring a friend. Yes, Amber, you can bring Boots.

Love & Blessings to all of you ~ Dryad
Edwina

Broken My Heart

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Nexrweekend I will be heading out to the Oregon Coast to ~Meet~Greet~and Celebrate Retreat with several wonderful folks from Gaia. It should be incredible . . . as there never were people who knew so well how to PLAY, to PARTY, to CELEBRATE and GENERATE JOY. I think we should make this "Retreat Into the Real World" an annual affair. For all of you who will come next August, I promise you the REAL Thank You Card. Me: healed and healthy. I will work toward it diligently all year. Come to the Oregon Coast in August of 2009 and I make this solemn promise ~ I will dance.

Dancing - August 2009

WE ALL WILL DANCE !

Beach Dancing in Oregon

With love's light wings will I o'er-perch these walls;
For stony limits cannot hold love out
And what love can do that dares love attempt;
(Romeo & Juliet II, ii)

Gaia, Annual "Retreat Into the Real World" 
Oregon Coast - 2010

2010

WE ARE SUCH STUFF AS DREAMS ARE MADE ON.
(The Tempest IV, i)

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Tagged with: Glad to be HOME, Learning, healing, Thank You Card, Miracles, Gaia - changing the world - changing me

Re: Dancing at Dryad's bedside

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 05:23:56 GMT

Hello Winnie,
I am missing you ...

I see you here ... thanks for revealing just a bit you you ...

You look strong!

Much love to you,
peri

Re: Dancing at Dryad's bedside

http://heemes.gaia.com — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 15:39:50 GMT

Blessings, Dryad. May light speed your recovery.

Re: Dancing at Dryad's bedside

http://kathysmith.gaia.com — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 23:38:35 GMT

CLICK BELOW FOR A POCKET FULL OF FUN

http://www.2000greetings.com/gecko.swf

Re: Dancing at Dryad's bedside

http://organicjenjen.gaia.com — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 17:48:32 GMT

Just sending positive and healing vibes. Hope you feel better soon.

Re: Dancing at Dryad's bedside

http://friendsofabc.gaia.com — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 23:38:53 GMT

Winnie, I would like to sing this to you, for once you are better you will be able to do this.

Everybody was kung fu fighting,
dodododo do do do dooo

Those cats were fast as lightning,
dodo dodo, dodo do do do,

In fact it was a little bit frightning,
dodododo do do do dooo

But they fought with expert timing,
dodo dodo, dodo do do do,

But I'm a not violent person so instead here is a different version,

Everybody was having fun, food fighting,
dodododo do do do dooo

Those cats were fast as lightning,
dodo dodo, dodo do do do,

In fact it was a little bit frightning,
dodododo do do do dooo

But they threw with expert timing,
dodo dodo, dodo do do do,

get better soon, we're all here for you

Re: Dancing at Dryad's bedside

http://Libuska.gaia.com — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 21:10:17 GMT

Once again, I did'nt knew it, though I knew it... Winnie darling, you are allways on my mind and blessings (I know you know you are), and I'm joining the shower so you can really be very better
Love You
Irene

Re: Dancing at Dryad's bedside

http://ambersbug.gaia.com — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 21:37:05 GMT

How's the big toe doing today, Winnie? Are the ends of your hair getting along well enough?! What about your thumbnails? Are they up and about and dancin'?

As you once emailed to me the parts that didn't hurt so I'd have something positive to think about, I'm sending you a wish for plenty of Niap rather then Pain, and a very gentle hug from one hospital procedure junkie to another! ~grin~

The Schmee Iguana is grinning at you from my profile page!

Amber

Re: Dancing at Dryad's bedside

http://medkimbugwe.gaia.com — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:38:00 GMT

Winnie, I would like to sing for you the very first song I recorded in my singing life...but have put some modifications to give you healing! Flying You've got wings you can fly Like the Sun you can shine You are a Goddess And can heal your life The Universe has conspired To make you refreshed I see a power inside of you Reconstructing your body You've got wings you can fly Like the sun you can shine I know you already discovered you I know you already know you I know you already love you I know there's strength in you You've got wings you can fly Like the sun you can shine You've got wings you can fly Like the sun you can shine You are a Goddess And can heal your life! All my love medi!

Re: Dancing at Dryad's bedside

http://medkimbugwe.gaia.com — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 09:34:52 GMT

Re: Dancing at Dryad's bedside

http://elisaspot.gaia.com — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 17:22:23 GMT

MOMMMMMMMMMIEEEEEEEEE

COME VISIT MY CULT OF PEE!!!

claps gleefully

Re: Dancing at Dryad's bedside

http://housedraconis.gaia.com — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 13:55:51 GMT

Sweet Winnie,

I am thinking of you today and always. I hope your recovery is swift and you are back to play in the playground sooner than you expect. Much love and hugs and healing light heading your way.

Re: Dancing at Dryad's bedside

http://ayla.gaia.com — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 16:33:29 GMT

Hello Sweet Winne ~ Thinking of you today and everyday! Loving you even more than I'm thinking of you and that's BIG!

Re: Dancing at Dryad's bedside

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 19:35:21 GMT

Welcome back! Accept it, you are loved ; )

Blessings go out to you. sherri

Re: Dancing at Dryad's bedside

http://LightDancing.gaia.com — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 17:26:55 GMT

Dearest Friends ~

Once more I am overwhelmed, dumbfounded, flabbergasted and bowled over. (Aren’t those an incredible bunch of silly words? I would like to paint them all having a parade.) To say I can’t believe what you have done for me here sounds pretty lame, I ought to be able to believe it by now, but every time I come here I am still amazed, humbled and full of awe. I have been in to read it several times - doing better with receptive than expressive right now.

I think, perhaps, that part of my utter awe has to do with the fact that for much of my life I have moved so often. When you know you are only going to be somewhere for a short period of time, you learn to stop looking for connections, knowing how hard it is to have them broken. I think perhaps the sense of “community” is, indeed, out there in the real world somewhere, I just haven’t found it. With an illness and occupation that have kept me in rather than sending me out, I have found what community I have through this little box on my desk. I have been involved in several groups, etc. on the net and have quite a few wonderful friends. However, I have never found the sense of community and care that I have found here. I have come to this “community” and found people to talk to, to play with, to listen to me, to learn from. In this last year I have also had this community caring for me in such a way that it truly is almost beyond my belief. The first time around blew me away, but I have needed your help and received it again and again, each time with every bit of the authentic concern, love and care that was there the first time. There are words of love and blessing, incredible healing images and poems. The amazing thing is every one of them, every word, has physical being because it was put there with the intent of care, with the intent to heal. To heal my body, ease my mind, comfort my soul. It may have been put there by someone on the other side of the world. Some of them by people I don’t even “know” here. It doesn’t matter - the care is there. I can feel it. That, I would have a hard time explaining to most of the world. I “feel it” as a warmth in my heart and a joy in my mind, but it is more than that. I can feel it in my body. It is much like feeling the color in chakra meditation, but it isn’t color, it is something else. I don’t know what. I don’t care what. Like much else, it does not have to be in a box or have a name to exist.

This may sound goofy, but I have been doing a meditation with the things written here - and the last two times as well. It just happened the first time and it felt so good that I just kept doing it. I pull them up on the screen and put my hands flat about ½ inch away from the monitors face. Sometimes I close my eyes. Sometimes I read again or look at the image. After a moment I bring my hands back to my body and put them where it feels like they should go . . . against my cheeks, the back of my head, my chest, my legs, my lower back, one hand against the other arm which is still trying to heal. I feel static electricity. If I put my hand on to my head it lifts my hair. Most people would ‘believe’ that, because they could see it. But it is so much more than that. How do you explain something like this? I feel a little weird explaining it to you, and I know you will understand. Energy. Healing. Prayer. Force. Questioning. Stream. Invocation. Calling. Spirits. Asking. Mind. Transmission. Giving. Open. Flowing. Physical. Spiritual. Knowing. Receiving.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Than are dreamt of in your philosophy. (Hamlet I, v)

One of my favorite quotes.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. To all of you. For those of you that are working together with the blessing shower - I want you to know that I am joining you at as well as several times during the day. It is a marvelous thing. I have never really thought about it before, but when I am meditating I am always ‘doing’ something. I think of it as something that I am going to go ‘do.’ I use a mantra or a visual focus or an inner focus or breath, I am moving energy, clearing blockages. Even though it is refreshing and renewing there are a lot of times that it is hard to get yourself there. I notice on people’s goals that a great number of people write “meditate everyday’ or ‘meditate consistently.’ I think it is more difficult than anyone - who hasn’t done it - would ever think. The point is, it is something that I have to ‘do.’ Quite often I it is really like work. The concept of the Healing Shower, or Grace Shower is that it is always there for me - and that is the way I feel. I don’t have to “do” anything, but be there. I often end up doing progressive relaxation, but I don’t even do that on purpose, it just happens. I guess you wouldn’t even say, “I end up doing progressive relaxation”, but “I get progressively relaxed.” It is a bit like the old saying, “What would you like to make for dinner?” “Reservations.” I have that same feeling, everything is delicious when someone else cooked it. And I don’t have to do the dishes either. It is utterly a gift and I am receiving it that way.

Like many other people, I have trouble taking and receiving. I am good at giving, but have not been as skilled at receiving. Before my latest splat, I spend quite a lot of time making a . . . somethingorother (alternatively called a whateveritis.) I don’t know what to call it. A gigantic, slightly mad, WAY-over-the-top Thank-You-Card. I wanted to much to say ‘thank you’ for all that you have given me and the two little words didn’t seem enough. What I discovered was that nothing is enough. I couldn’t make anything or do anything that was enough to let you know what this has meant.

I have come to the conclusion - with the help of some very wise, incredibly caring friends - that what I can do to thank you, is to heal. So that is where my energy is going now. I go to the Grace Shower and I receive, humbly and simply, with a great deal of thankfulness.

I have several “singing in the rain” stories, but I am under a self imposed word limit. If you haven’t read my work or received one of my notorious e-mail’s, you probably think this is long. It is not. I am trying to conserve energy and hopefully learn new ways to do things that are more productive. So! Here is a wrap up.

* I am doing very well - considering. My goal is to someday be doing very well, without the ‘considering.’

* The injections in my back have helped a great deal. With the nerve pain dulled, the muscle pain is much easier to handle.

* I am vertical more and more, which is wonderful. I’ve started walking on the Nordic Track again. I was up to 20 minutes and had to go back to 5. Baby steps do move you forward in the end and if you slide back down the hill, you can turn around and start up again. Anyone want to help me rewrite the myth of Sisyphus?

* Next week I am going to Utah to visit my mother. My mother is a healer. 92 years old and A LOT healthier than I am. I go home and have her put her hands on me and it will get me up that hill faster. I want to be able to walk along the sand in August. Next year I will dance.

* Anyone who would like to receive a fantastic, authentic post card from Utah, send me your snail mail and you’ll get one! http://lightdancing.gaia.com/

* I am going to post my whateveritis before I leave for Logan. It is done and I might as well share it. I received a good lesson from it. The posting itself may be dicey, but I’m going to try.

* I have a fascinating new Chi and Incense going on. I can’t Log Out from Gaia. When I try to log out it sends me a note telling me there has been an error and just leaves me there, even if I turn off the machine. I have other things to worry about, but I thought it was interesting. Maybe when it says I am here and I am not . . . I am haunting . . . BroOOoohahahaslup.

* My Theme Song. I don't know how to embed it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm4iU0yx9GY

Re: Dancing at Dryad's bedside

http://armila.gaia.com — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 05:48:47 GMT

These faeries have come to make sure you have a restful sleep each time, without the pain and the tribulations.

Fairy Glitter

Re: Dancing at Dryad's bedside

http://kathysmith.gaia.com — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 21:49:32 GMT

& smile! :-)

♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥

We are all helping you build a life as if it were a work of art.

You are LOVED!!!!!!

Re: Dancing at Dryad's bedside

Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:57:38 GMT

The Chance to Love Everything

All summer I made friends
with the creatures nearby -
they flowed through the fields
and under the tent walls,
or padded through the door,
grinning through their many teeth,
looking for seeds,
suet, sugar; muttering and humming,
opening the breadbox, happiest when
there was milk and music. But once
in the night I heard a sound
outside the door, the canvas
bulged slightly - something
was pressing inward at eye level.
I watched, trembling, sure I had heard
the click of claws, the smack of lips
outside my gauzy house -
I imagined the red eyes,
the broad tongue, the enormous lap.
Would it be friendly too?
Fear defeated me. And yet,
not in faith and not in madness
but with the courage I thought
my dream deserved,
I stepped outside. It was gone.
Then I whirled at the sound of some
shambling tonnage.
Did I see a black haunch slipping
back through the trees? Did I see
the moonlight shining on it?
Did I actually reach out my arms
toward it, toward paradise falling, like
the fading of the dearest, wildest hope -
the dark heart of the story that is all
the reason for its telling?

Mary Oliver

(hi Winnie!!!! send us a sign! We love you!!!)

Re: Dancing at Dryad's bedside

http://jenagriffiths.gaia.com — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 12:42:26 GMT

I believe that our grace shower can reach all the places other showers can't reach
like the place below
love
j

RAIN ON THE PRISON'S ROOF

I heard that rain is beautiful in California?
Light shower in the spring sunshine,
The vineyards are so green ...
Do you remember the old rainy days of Vietnam?
The old Saigon rain, we shared the raincoat.
Hugging each other, walking through narrow streets of wet tamarind trees.
The steaming sweetsoup bowl warmed our hands.
I hoped the rain would not stop, so you would not go home.
The old Saigon rain, we shared the raincoat.
You were listening to the music, I was sensing the good smell from your hair.
It was just a light shower to cool off the night.
You. The rain. The music. How nice life was.
My dear, now it is the sad rain on the prison's roof.
It is downpouring, but the cell is still stuffy with body heat.
I wish it rained on my body.
Thinking of the old rainy days, I want to cry ...

Hoang Hai Ho
Cantho prison, 1981

Gaia: PLAY-POD! - *Winnie's Grace shower* - Dancing at Dryad's bedside

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Gaia: PLAY-POD! - Winnie's Grace shower - Dancing at Dryad's bedside