November Holidays

Blue skies, the sun warming the fall air and time goes backward.
The weekend was lazy, feeling the need to integrate so much.
I started GaiaDesign.us as a way to start the journey towards oneself.

Integration, being the integrator, creating and designing systems based on
the golden seed and following that nourishing act of growth till evey child on the planet is fully, totally and completely empowered to be the individual unique genius we were born as.....a system that integrates every genius into a sharing, caring, cooperative network, an organic changing process of transcending and unfolding "sabeve," THE GAME.

Emilee was home from Scattergood to experience The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Matt has been with friends all weekend and Makiah and his buddy Chris and I went swimming. Shari is busy planning next weekend and Thansgivivg trips.

Integrating and being present with each and every breath. I am raking and mowing the yard. Eating. While planting the seed. Seeing peace city, feeling the ultimate design
within singing and dancing my moments through the here and now...of being fearless.

Ghosts and Goblins

The ghosts and the goblins came and scared all the fear out of me.....

Now what?

Boo!

Seven times Seven

Seems I grew up with only seven colors in my coloring box. When I created my first Masterpiece while living near the summit of Mt Soledady,in Lajolla California many many years ago.....my seven volumes of illuminated manuscripts, Testament of Will, were based on the seven energy centers of the chakra system....seems that shortly there after i did a search on seven and was educated on the many planetary and universal meanings ....and now I met you and you have it in the DETAILS of your life....total, full and complete is how I know seven...the integration of the heart of reality integrated with the heart of your dreams. Best of luck! Remember the Happy Hands, Happy Feet routine.....keeps it all balanced and connected in times of trouble. Or too much bliss.

Makiah is Darth Vader tomorrow. Hope the universe is ready for his arrival.

7 7 7 so many 7's

Over the weekend Sharon took the kids shopping for some long over due clothing. Her successful trip for them also rewarded me with a new shirt. It simply said "America" with the # "77" below it. I am tough to shop for because I don't like wearing or advertising brands. This shirt was plain, simple, Patriotic and generic enough for me.....so I wore it. What was it though? Was it the "class of 77" or did it represent flight 77 on 911? Was it just a someones marketing brand, or just a cool shirt that people might ask "what does 77 stand for?" Something was strange. I don't know why but all of a sudden I found myself seeing a lot of # 7's everywhere I looked. I found myself liking my new shirt and liking the number 7. For the next couple of days all I could think about was how the number 7 was so inter tangled with my life. Coincidence? Luck? I don't know for sure. Here are just a few:

• July, the 7th month is special to me because of Independence Day and my Anniversary.


• Bogart (my 127 Chocolate Lab) was born on 7/7


• In 1970 I was 7 and 7 years after that I "had" my first girl and 7 years after that I got married on 7/27, 30 days after my birthday on 6/27 and just before Sharon's birthday on the 7th.


• My first car was a 77 Buick Le Sabre which I drove for 7 years while trying to convince Sharon to marry me. (God Bless the 7 foot long back seat!)


• In 1987 we started trying to have kids. 7 years and $70,000 later Tyler was born on the 27th


• On a hot day in the 7th month, July, after 7 minutes and a $7.oo bottle of wine - Devin was consummated. (I am no doubt exaggerating about the 7 minutes)


• In 1997 Cailin came into this world.


• I have moved 7 times and have had 7 different phone numbers, still order a 7 and 7 on occasion, and recently sold our 7 series BMW after being in the shop no less than 7 times


• We found a new house we want to move to - in a neighborhood called 7 Meadows
• 77 or the "spoon" is still my favorite way to fall asleep at night.

I have never been superstitious, yet I believe in self-made luck. I don't gamble yet I know that hitting 777 on the slots is a good thing. I don't believe in astrology yet I enjoy in a curious way reading my horoscope everyday (almost). I don't have a favorite color or a favorite singer/artist, a favorite car, or a favorite movie. I really don't believe in too much when it comes to being lucky as I believe that the law of attraction is the only controlled energy one will ever need. But do I now have a favorite number? A lucky #?

I am convinced that 2007 will have been my most memorable year - ever. I have met some great people and have about 777 things on my wish list that I believe will ALL come true!

my children have blessed me 7,777,777 times.....

Feeling the Fun, Feeling the Gold

What Fun! We were all packed in the Honda heading North for the UNI Football Game while listening to the Iowa Hawkeyes going for a two over time win over Michigan State. Since,Coach Kirk is the highest paid state employee I always love to see a win and feel the happiness of a STATE smiling, and the satisfaction of knowing we are all getting our monies worth of educational "bang for the buck." #1 UNI played the penguins from Ohio, although UNI was behind 13-O most of the game, I knew that penguins beating the pathers was a long shot....and the purple and gold scored with seconds left to bring the sell out crowd into blissful happiness....Shari didn't wear her old white cheer leading outfit but she did her best at leading the cheers, while trying to keep Makiah and Matthew feed. Why is it that at sporting events kids eating everything is a must. Popcorn, pretzels, hot dogs,large mountain dews, they ate the game away. A really fun time!!!

I was then dropped off to volunteer for the JenniferAzzi.com motivational talk at the Cedar Falls Holiday Inn. What Fun!! Especially seeing everyone of the eighty some people in the audience handle and feel the Olympic Gold Medal that Jennifer passed around the room. Her message was all heart and vision, stories and question and answers. Denny Duggan the high school girls basketball coach from Hudson, Iowa was sponsoring her visit to Iowa. He and his family were the treat of the evening for me. True inspiration. Denny's daughter Angela and husband Todd look like they lived in Lajolla, youthful, healthy, fashionable...and they appeared to be very young...with seven children! I am staying in contact with them I really hope to discover there secret. They claimed it was USANA ESSENTIALS, but it was a Usana Event...so I'm going for the heart of the matter. Seven kids; healthy, happy, fashionable and the most beautiful attitudes. Was this Iowa or heaven or what? I had the Olympic Gold Medal in hand and meditated on what hard work was within the medal...nothing, I felt nothing to my surprise. And the Design didn't really look aesthetically pleasing either. Some desire Gold Medals, some gold apples, some goldenseeds, life was so much fun this weekend.

Feeling the Education

Makiah's ear was checked out by the doctor and assisting Doctor Bob. A small cut on the inner ear, no ear infection. Makiah was pleading "pain, pain, pain" till the verdict was in. The pain went away immediately, and any hope of staying home from school also was erased from his plotting intentional genius self. So, I dropped him off at Washington Elementary School and rushed home to get ready for my outing.

It has been at least a decade since I got a massage. And I love massages! One of my top priority gifts to myself is to be able to afford a wake-up massage every morning then a trip to the spa retreat outside my bedroom door. So, I have been working on the SageHouse.org website and met Tracy Thoreson who is a massage therapist, who wanted her own web site to link to SageHouse.org and with everyone else who might desire her healing genius touch. I can truly say she is amazing! How lucky can I be? She was born and raised in Mt Vernon, went to the local college for music, switched to the University of Iowa for theater, then decided to study massage in San Diego, went on to learn every healing technique not known by most Iowans via New York, Canyon Ranch and Austrailia ...and here I am lucky enough not only that she found her way back home to Iowa, but that I was in need of her healing touch and I was available to be healed. Wow! It was heavenly, what a golden touch. She has definitely been educated into her passion. Iowa could really be heaven, if only the natives who left and learned, returned to the state to be recognized and appreciated for what amazing treasures they truly are...Iowa would be more like a state growing corn with pure gold kernels rather than growing corn to run our cars, ethanolsucks.us.

To be touched, rubbed, healed via someone how is a master at so many diverse modalities of healing, she is THE ROSE...I'm blessed she found her way back home.

No history here, before 1840. No field trips into the old battle grounds. We do have the Meskwaki Indian Casino in Tama. The Ioway and Hohokoms before that, but something to be taught and shared in schools?...no bus rides going there.

Today, is Saturday...the FUN DAY! Nick, Emilee, Matthew, Makiah, Shari and I are heading north to see the #1 UNI Panthers play "whomever"...Shari was a UNI Cheerleader so I'm sure she will be in rare and true to form today.

Then Makiah and I volunteered to sell books for Jennifer Azzi, talking on reseting your life.....what do you do post Olympic Gold?
Post Heroine of the sport, post this post that....looking forward to all THE FUN!!!

ps.Maybe your boys should consider playing for the Iowa Hawkeyes, the team needs them NOW! Maybe they could learn what real Iowa battles are about. Face to face combat in the drenches of "Playing THE GAME!"

Education? Today I....

chaperoned 534 7th graders to a historical ranch thats purpose was to teach the history of its land. We went from Nativity styled tent to tent starting in the early 1700's and ended up in 1920.

The kids were bored. Why would they be interested in a musket, when they have access to AK-47's on PlayStation? Why would they care about Morse code when they all use email? How could a steer be worth more than a human being or better yet actually become a Big Mac? A Black Smith worked his iron as the 10 school buses idled their diesel engines yet their was no relationship or pattern or historical trace of connection made by any? Has the importance of history been lost? Was our educational system not doing a good enough job?

13 year old girls were walking around looking like they were 18. Other kids looked they should have been still in the 5th grade. Some boys had mustaches. Hip Huggers were in.....again?. The history teacher looked like a playboy centerfold. And she let EVERYONE know it. Boys and Girls flirting, petting, hugging, chasing, slapping, and positioning themselves for their future. I found myself back in 7th grade laughing, not having a care in the world, yet also remembering that 7th grade had its downside - being scared to go home after school - never wanting to disappoint my parents. Today I chaperoned walking around scared for another reason. My kid was growing up.

Were we being educated today?

YES! Absolutely YES!

Education is not about being taught what to know, but about how to live. Education is LIFE.

I picked up both my 7th and 8th grade boys today from football at 5:00. Devin was proudly telling Tyler how I was unlike all the other "Mom" chaperone's and that it was really cool that I gave out the answers to the assignment for the trip. That "everyone wanted to be in Dad's group". Tyler was sad though. He sheepishly informed me that he had only gotten a 78 on his Science test.

I smiled.

"WHATEVER" I said and asked "What do you guys want to do tonight?"

"Lets do something FUN Dad"

TGIF

positive memories are more powerful than any educational degree

Destiny or Luck

I don't remember being invited to any parties here in Mt Vernon, as a stay at home dad. Maybe I used up all my party hours years ago as a student at Cornell College. I remember those days of wondering why all my classmates seemed to party with such passion, purpose and with such heart. I was taking learning seriously, like all the riches of my future experiences would depend on it. A couple of years ago while on a solo drive across America, somewhere in the beautiful south eastern rolling hills of Wyoming was a lone billboard saying, "What is the purpose of education?"

No invites for morning coffee or afternoon lunch. No meeting with any bosses. No meetings with any fellow worker bees. MSNBC plays in the background reminding me of the choices of Regis and Kelly or another disaster happening somewhere. Today, it's the fires of Southern California. I see myself on Mt Soledad gazing down at the fires in Rancho Santa Fe, hoping the library survives. I love San Diego, loved my life there.

I am excited, I found a new stay at home dad to communicate with at my first online convention at eComXpo. I have great hopes of integrating and sharing our experiences, stories, and everything we own into incredible riches of seeing all our dreams manifesting. We both know we live in a castle and kingdom of amazing freedom and bliss at having the opportunity of sharing our time, our energy, our love with our children. But now I feel I have a real friend who understands my concern for seeing blood coming out of Makiah's right ear this morning and my excuse of having to leave this conversation to take my eight year old, special needs son to his new really sexy beautiful intelligent doctor.

Later Scott, my neighbor has a corvette too, mostly for parades. Have a most perfect day.

ps. I like the golden apples with bites taken. "What is the purpose of education, anyway?

Luck or Choice?

A typical scene.
Neighborhood party.
Me chatting with all of "their" wives.
My wife chatting with all of their husbands.
I understand who they are. They really still don't get me.
They feel safer talking to the "bread winner", as if it was really THAT that was bringing them together and as if it was really THAT that what was really keeping us apart.
Wishing it didn't have to be this way.
How can I change their perception? Or is the perception all mine?

Then it happens. Oh Boy......here he comes. Well dressed. Confident. Arrogant maybe? Polo Shirt. God he's got great hair. Did he just get back from playing golf? Why am I in a T-shirt, cut off shorts and sandals and he looks like he just jumped off the cover of GQ?
"How ya doin?" he asks, as if he really cared.
"Doing great, how about you?" ...hoping he wouldn't tell me about his new Corvette convertible.
"You know, I think you are so LUCKY that you get to stay at home with your kids - I'd do anything to have your job" At this point double-income Dave isn't even looking at me anymore. Is he actually checking out my wife? Or is it John's wife new boobs? Was he being sarcastic? Sincere? Degrading? Or would he REALLY want to do what I do? I ponder.
"Well", I say speaking to a slightly turned head, "it was a tough CHOICE we made but looking back we know we made the right one. She is much better at working and I am much better at raising the kids." "You should try it sometime?"
"Yeah right! And give up our lifestyle? We like things just the way they are."

I am lucky.
Being a stay at home Dad is the luckiest choice I ever made.