HAPPY BIRTHDAY to KAREN, world’s greatest best friend, yes, forever!
I love you!
KLARITY is a good name for my business,
as I am in the business of learning,
and so my clarity is a very special brand all my own,
due to the deep questions I do my best to live into that inspire exquisite if not colorful learning.
Here’s a little laugh, a huge relief, and a lesson learned by everyone I know, or spoke with this week, & myself.
My friends in NYC, Lee & Rick, used to announce my every arrival with a simple phrase that always got me smiling:
“The Bear is back and she’s better than ever!” This weekend, the bear is resting and that’s a good thing. I got a little too close to Heaven this week, nothing serious, but seriously funny since I lived!
It was a Monday afternoon when I settled down to my computer at work with my birthday-gifted-golden glass goblet.
As I had just parked my car in the usual spot, near a huge flowering tree, I picked one fuchsia-streaked white plumeria blossom; it seemed the perfect compliment to my tall glass of water. I let it rest, floating in the glass for hours before I decided to take a sip.
Revelation. Perfection. My elegant glass was filled with an astonishing perfumed delight. Could I have discovered something sweetly overlooked and elevating? How could I be the only one to reveal such a blissful beverage? Indeed!
I quickly stepped into my co-workers space to share the wealth. Guaranteeing I had no germs, I insisted he take a teeny sip.
Sip, he did. Divine, we agreed. He was out sick the whole next day. Since he also lived, we can laugh as we ask, ‘Coincidence?’
Now, it is Sunday, and although the day is bright, the birds are singing easily, and the roof is going on my new kitchen, I am resting. This is not usual. This is the result of that darn plumeria.
I woke up hung over last Tuesday morning, but from what?
I went to bed kind of late for me, stayed up playing my guitar, so I thought, ‘ok, I am simply tired.’ But on Wednesday, I woke up feeling very hungover again, even after 10 hours of sleep. Something was way off, but work called and I had to get there. I got ready in slow motion, trooper that I am.
About mid-day Wednesday, I was puzzled. I had lost my glow, my pep, and my joie de vie. All went right out the window! But where? I asked myself, ‘What have I done differently the past three days?’
As the question merged with an answer and a tinge of horror, a new question emerged from my hazy brain. I had just walked from parking my car, and I had a plumeria blossom in my hand again, as I noticed the white sap. Could plumeria be related to oleander? I grew up with huge oleander trees in my backyard in California, and was very familiar with the warnings; do not put it in your mouth, it is highly poisonous, deadly. Beware of oleander. Kids died from using branches to roast hot dogs. I heard a friend had put a branch in her mouth during a camping trip, and made a move like a Spanish Tango dancer with the branch between her teeth, and her body collapsed and fell over like a dead tree. Cha cha,… THUD!
I ran to my computer and yes, plumeria, it said, is related to oleander and it is highly toxic, and…hello clarity.
2010; someday, I will blog again.
For now, I am making KLARITY POE pods, 3-7 minute videos
(KLARITY POE pods can be found on Current TV & Facebook & YouTube, etc…).
I am singing and writing songs with Harriet Schock’s class on Song crafting, and especially loving my GER LYONS family,
practicing NVC aka Compassionate Communication, and writing for ERGObaby, the best baby carrier ever!!
I am here, loving life, sending you high blessings for your inner peace all over the world.
love, & the art, music and home designed with permaculture = peace, Claire
My wish has always been the same, always always “Peace on Earth.”
I like the way my consciousness has shifted and metamorphosized in preparation of this global gift being realized.
My wish went big when I realized that having my own needs met didn’t do it for me.
When I wished for things, they always came.
When I wanted, I always got whatever it was.
Then I looked around, listened to the news, listened to my friends, and something felt icky.
I wanted Peace and Pleasureful wishes granted for everyone. Nothing less would do.
My view has been very wide, and global for a long time. Now it is getting personal while integrating locally and globally.
In June 2008, I came to San Francisco to complete my Masters of Science degree Orientation in Integratvie EcoSocial Design, with Gaia University.
This is my opportunity to express the story and songs I have been living and breathing for years in my travels and work as a Permaculture Design Artist. In the past 2 years, something has become clear to me. I see and know peace is not only possible, it is prevailing everywhere, even now. Where one would question this statement, one is looking at appearances.
I am starting to get that much of my life, I have looked more deeply into the potential of appearances.
I have seen the Spirit that unites us. Nature taught me this. Nature really is the nurturing, loving Mother of my whole life. Nature is the wisdom behind Permaculture.
It is my wish to see a Permaculture Design fulfilled across our planet.
Geoff Lawton is already doing a great job, as is our global family, where they are living in harmony with all life and nature as friend and ally.
I am living in the Bay area, connecting and interconnecting, writing, and exploring bringing a cohesive design to all life here. It is going very well. Life loves life. All I do is share Clarity.
In the time I have been here, 4,000 organic veggies have taken root planted on San Francisco’s City Hall lawn, Kat Steele of The Urban Permaculture Guild, has invited me to see the Frida Kalo exhibit at The SFMOMA ands we heard Fritz Haeg share his slideshow of lawns transformed to Victory gardens across the U.S, and we all laughed with him that these are supported as art projects. All is beautifully documented in “Edible Estates; Attack on the Front Lawn.” Yes, I bought the book.
I have been to an all-night, camp-out, sleep-over at The Exploratorium to watch the Total Solar Eclipse. The art, dance and cultural events going on all night were amazing.
Daily Acts is a group creating and hosting tours and workshops that unite us all in the conversation and in action. I toured The Occidental Arts and Ecology Center, and took the Brock Walk with Brock Dolman, only to be lit again by his profound mastery of all things common sense and watershed-related! Lori Grace took me as her guest to OAEC and to see the Sebastopol City Hall lawn transformed into native grasses and sheet mulch on a hot and sunny day. (Thank you Trathen Heckman, Rick Taylor, and Ellen for all your work on these and more!)
Now I write, cook, dance, hang at all 4 Cafe Gratitudes, and go to church on Sundays at The East Bay Church of Religious Science, when I am not teaching my neighbor kids yoga or going to the mountains with them for hiking up shady oak-lined trails. They had never heard of yoga and had never been hiking before. Life is good. All is well.
Being the change, being really clear, Claire of KLARITY.org …from Oakland, California…for today.
18 years of visioning, seeking, finding, loving the mystery and the clarity along my way.
Always MY WAY.
Now MY WAY is yielding to the present, and not so much roller-dozer-ing to realize peace on earth.
I wandered wondering where it was. That was a question only I could answer. Even though I could have said ‘WITHIN,’
I needed to go around the world to find the safety to go within. Others had done it. I had witnessed many brave Souls who stood for truth and there I saw my way. I remembered my way.
Now, I realize Peace is prevailing wherever human Beings are Being in harmony with nature.
Now, 2008, Spring brings growth, newness, sprouts really.=====what will they be?
Growing my Authentic Beingness from shadows of yesterday’s imposing illusions===
I find something new. Watching the world awaken to a sunrise of possibilities, I want to rest, take a breath…
Then do my Heart of Yoga on the beach again at 7am,
visit Sacred Maliko Gulch and
walk the labyrinth again amidst the playful children, graceful kukui trees & silence-speaking orchids,
talk with friends in heart-to-heart conversations about their own discoveries today;
life is so rich.
Paint a rooster again, and picnic by the 13 horses standing in the cool shade under the grandfather tree on Baldwin Avenue, eating my homemade koala chocolates with Reishi mushrooms that open my Heart some more!
A new Earth is rising from the pond scum of humanity’s evolutionary wanderings,
rich, fertile, deep good scum feeds the flowering, and
a blossom ascends as many-petaled as a lotus, and as majestic.
Vibrant life, rallying for the sun’s rays.
Are we becoming aware we are a Human Family, or is it just me?
And now my bearthday. Today. A Taurus Dragon. A Heart with wings. I’m free.
I am 44.
I feel as if a losing war’s been won for me…
Thank you very much to those who have shown me their way so I could find the peaceful
pleasure in mine.
The HOW-TO offered by Linda Buzzell-Saltzman, member of The Santa Barbara Permaculture Network,
author, Eco-Psychotherapist, and co-founder of The Santa Barbara Organic Gardening Club:
Good for you! Here are a few things I’ve learned the hard way.
Don’t eliminate the lawn all at once unless it’s very small.
With a hose, lay out a shape (something nice and flowing looks good) that leaves some lawn in the middle.
Then cut out the sod between that hose and the driveway/sidewalks. Usually it will roll up like carpet if you have a good shovel. Then next year you can take out the remaining lawn in you like.
In the meantime, stick a bird bath or bird feeder in the middle of the lawn and you’ll look “designed,” which is important for a front yard if you don’t want the neighbors to complain.
Now that we’re getting the rains, it’s a good time to go scouting for stones, which tend to wash down into roads,
where the city or roads people will at length be required to haul them away, so you’re actually helping by removing them.
This gives you good raw material to build up the sides of raised beds if you like, to create terraces, or just to mark paths or the border between the lawn and your veggie/flower garden.
Another items that washes up this time of year (literally) is driftwood, which you can also use for raised beds if you like, but of course it deteriorates with time and may contain some salt.
Manure is available from many local horse farms.
Mulch is available from tree trimming companies (saves them from hauling it to the dump).
Barrels are actually pretty cheap – under 15 for a pretty big one.
But maybe some folks on this list will have stuff to give you.
(You can always put an ad on The MPN when requesting what you need or have to share. mpn@klarity.org)
Happy Gardening!
Moving on to a new year, cherishing the whispers of “Merry Christmas” still ringing in my ears.
2007 was a time of awakening, like a really loud not-so-pleasant alarm when you really would like about three more hours of good solid shut-eye! Some of the world continued in its patterns of hitting the snooze button, attempting to perpetuate business-as-usual, but no…the truth is being seen and going back to sleep is not an option.
At least that was my experience.
My dear friend of 16 years, Jonni, visited for three weeks from NYC and reminded me what it is to have a close friend here in person. Her presence really gave my Spirit new life. What a comforting feeling to enjoy Maui with her through new eyes on the beaches and in Hana, or just hanging out at home. She brought her talent as a director to our filming Maui and Permaculture for Current TV and our own projects.
I made four trips to Los Angeles from my home on Maui,
My two cats, my 14-yr-old girl-dog and I moved into a luxurious Bali Bungalow called the “Crystal Cottage” on Maui’s North Shore. With the guidance of Marian Scott, we have just finished the 13-acre Permaculture Design map for the land here with its lush wild grasses, coconut trees, bananas, papayas, & solar and rainwater catchment already in place. There are 2 homes on the land, mine and the land owners, so we’ve included 2 food forests and an orchard, ponds, and the zones are outlined for future implementation step-by-step.
In Los Angeles, I drove the Biodiesel shuttle for Topanga Earth Day,
stepped in as Photographer for Santa Monica Earth Day at the 3rd St. Promenade,
drove a Biobeetle rental car and loved every minute,
gave an hour and a half presentation on Permaculture Design and showed slideshows of examples from around the world to The Four Seasons Beverly Hills, to 14 Dept. heads and their General Manager.
I went to Agape International Spiritual Center in Culver City (www.agapelive.com), every chance I got!!
Such a beautiful group of inspired Souls and a message and singing that invites fulfillment!
The Maui Permaculture Network kept growing with functional art and garden workshops, and events, a Stone Soup party and we had fun creating a clubhouse at the local Postal Plus in Paia on Saturdays. Talk Story Circles brought fresh ideas for a local food coop, and a local currency for Maui. Maui Community College had a series of speakers on sustainability, and I gave a class on Permaculture Design and other eco-clarity ideas I have found in my travels. In August, 26 people came for the KLARITY Permaculture Around The World slideshow at Hale Akua Shangri La and I returned there six months later to serve in the kitchen for The Ram Dass retreat for 95 participants.
This gave me an opportunity to share in the talks by Dr. Reverend Michael Bernard Beckwith, and his amazing, talented, angel of a wife, singer/songwriter/Agape International Choir Director, Dr. Rickie Byars-Beckwith. They were treasures to hear and to sing along with. Their message was so easy to embrace and melt into. “Life is good!!” We laughed a lot, and sang some more. There were sweet readings from Dr. Howard Thurman, and thoughtful stories to ponder. My heart heard the alarm go off and jumped out of bed for this, day after day, at 5am!!
The Ram Dass retreat included yoga with Mark Whitwell every morning, 2 hours with The Beckwiths, and a session with Ram Dass in the afternoons. The food was an artistic and Soul-nourishing gift from all accounts (Thank you Cindy and Lamertia!)
It was an uplifting week like nothing else. Ram Dass had us swimming, or rather, dogpaddling in the pool with him the last day and that’s where he fielded questions for his last session of the retreat! He just seemed to float, no struggle. There must be something to this. Be Here NOW!! All week, the message was clear, Love is right here, right now. I felt it!
2007 was a bold year for discernment of how to proceed in a new way. To facilitate a big jump in my own evolution, I have made a commitment to my well being that is deepening every day.
This includes:
* …Savoring Mark Whitwell’s book YOGA OF HEART, and practicing what I learned in his simple simple class.
I am giving Yoga of Heart a chance to penetrate my life, my breath, my body and my relationships, firstly with myself.
* …Three months on the Body Ecology Diet to restore the most brilliant inner ecology and support my highest vibration of Love.
No sugar of any kind and lots of really delicious raw and basic whole foods…and coconut kefir, that’s fermented coconut water that tastes like champagne but better!
* …Permaculture Designing, Art & Writing stories & songs that illuminate my passions as they lead me to peace within, on Maui, and on earth!
* …Opening to what is emerging, a new world, aligned with nature’s wisdom;
my own Open Heart connected and growing within our global family.
2008, a new year, a beautiful new clarity.
May blessings pour into your life like the rain here in Huelo, steadily, with sunrise rainbows and
spontaneous sunshine-filled blue skies too.
Sending love in waves that ripple to
where you are, Claire