Carrot Therapy
Oregon’s coastal mist rolls in, darkening the tree line. Shapes of Douglas fir, Sitka spruce and alder fade as rain pounds on the barn’s tin roof. Its another gray morning at Ocean Ridge Stables, where my neighbors have given me an open invitation to visit, pitch hay, muck the stalls or engage in any other desire of my heart.
The air is cold on my cheeks, reddening my hands. I zip my jacket, pulling the collar around my neck. It’s early, 6 a.m. Only the horses stir, assuming I’m the person who’ll dump grain into their buckets, throw sections of alfalfa into their stalls. But today, I’m not here to feed them, but to nourish myself.
All week, I've sandwiched my writing, early morning, late at night, around the twelve-hours each day of a care-giving job. Stressed and exhausted, I need to renew myself, not with a beach walk, a mountain hike, nor a hot bath or gardening but with carrot therapy—offering vegetable treats to these four-legged friends.
As I lift the metal lid on the feed barrel, the horses whinny and neigh, trying to get my attention. Feed me! Feed me! I scoop a handful of grain and carry a shoulder sack full of the sweet, orange roots from my garden. Strolling from stall to stall, I nod at Curly, Smokey, Tinker, Choctaw, Flower, Star and Woodchuck. The horses paw and stomp in their beds of straw.
Curly reaches toward me with his muzzle. Stretching his lips like a chimpanzee, he begs and I offer the grain. Choctaw, a colorful brown and white Appaloosa with black spots, whinnies with his head high. He’s looking for breakfast and snorts at the orange appetizer, but munches it down anyway. I run my cold hand down the warm hairs on his neck.
Offering carrots, I savor the musical crunch and chomp of each horse. Woodchuck, a coffee brown Arabian, stretches his neck toward me for another treat and I oblige. These animals have shown me a giving and receiving of sensual pleasure, similar to chemistry with the opposite sex. Their sounds, smells and textures satisfy a primal part of myself. Perhaps that’s because I was born in the Chinese year of the horse.
I delight in their neighing and the smells of hay. I love their warm breaths on my hand. In feeding them, my soul is
nourished, my body grounded. I return home, refreshed and present.
Fractal Time: the Secret of 2012 and a New World Age
By Gregg Braden, Hay House, Carlsbad, 2009
The winter solstice of December 12, 2012 brings planet Earth into an extraordinary alignment with the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Historically, ancient seers predicted this date as the end of one age and the birth of a new Eden. Our planet, in its solar system orbit, is at the end of two cycles, maybe more—the end of a galactic cycle and the end of a geologic cycle. [Drunvalo Melchizedek in
Serpent of Light, Beyond 2012 writes about the end of Earth’s Kundalini cycle in India and Tibet and its movement to the Andes in Peru.]
Since 1980, our planet has been experiencing end-time effects—natural disasters, hurricanes,
floods, droughts, tidal waves and fire. Braden compares where we are in our world cycle to past
cycles; the most recent geologic cycle was 1155 BC, the decline of Egypt.
Fractal Time
is rich with facts and information. The inside dust jacket states the essence of this book: "The key to our future lies in the wisdom of the past." Gregg Braden spent twenty years researching Mayan, Hopi and Tibetan wisdom as well as biblical and oral traditions. Multi-cultural wisdom, coupled with recent scientific findings, bring the author to the conclusion that 2012 may be a process rather than an event.Braden writes about two scientific discoveries that open the process of a new Eden. 1)Scientists have documented that the human heart generates a doughnut shaped magnetic field that is five thousand times stronger than the field of the human brain. 2) A Global Coherence Monitoring System senses changes in the earth’s magnetosphere. Two extraordinary changes in the Earth’s magnetic field were recorded on different days and different years – one on the day Princess Diana died and the other on 9/11, the terrorist attack on the twin towers in New York. Braden’s book states that . . ."strong collective emotion has a measurable impact on the earth’s geomagnetic field." [Pg. 195] Heart based living will have a direct effect on how six point five billion people
experience 2012.
Fractals are repeating patterns found in nature—the spirals in atoms, DNA, pea tendrils, sunflowers, whirlpools,
hurricanes and galaxies. Antarctic and Arctic ice samples also show patterns. Previous planetary cycles reveal both global warming and the melting of polar ice. Our planet is changing, and change is a catalyst for spiritual growth. Braden suggests that if we shift the way we experience our selves and our world by seeing 2012 as a window of possibility and a choice point, we can shift into an age of love and cooperation. The Hopi say, "When prayer and
meditation are used rather than relying on new inventions to create more imbalance, they [the people of Earth] will also find the true path." [Pg. 187] (Using heart, prayer and ceremony is also the message of Rainmaker’s Prayers, Align with Global Harmony.)
Through his book, Fractal Time, Gregg Braden offers us hope as well as a recipe for the future. By accessing the silent language of the heart, human beings can solve the problems of our changing planet. Imagine living, thinking and acting as a world-wide family.
