BUILDING MY CABIN
New Mexico was sort of our training ground for getting us into the frame of mind for what we wanted to do in Arkansas. In New Mexico the hippies had adobe models for building their homes, but in Nogo, like I said, we were freer in building our houses. I had never built anything before, hence some of what I built was pretty primitive and basic, but worked. At least when I, with some help from Eloise and Lance, built my cabin, no one could tell me it didn’t meet community standar…
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Added by Sh'mal Ellenberg on December 11, 2009 at 3:24pm —
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Dear Friend,
Somehow a top official from CropLife -- the powerful chemical industry
trade group that went after Michelle Obama's organic garden -- has been
nominated to serve as America's chief agricultural negotiator for
international trade. If confirmed by the Senate, Isi Siddiqui, who has
spent the last several years of his career fighting various restrictions
and bans on environmentally hazardous pesticides, would bring that
inappropriately aggressive stance on broadening pesticide use to t…
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Added by Sh'mal Ellenberg on December 3, 2009 at 2:00pm —
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The Teachings of the Sufi Masters
There must be an acceleration of a shift in consciousness so humans have a greater understanding of each of their roles on this planet. On the material plane there are so many areas of concern that each of us must be aware of. They all can be dealt with if the shift in consciousness takes place along with each of us doing our share in spreading the material plane work along with the cosmic work.
Acknowledging that our breath is a universal breath, connected wit…
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Added by Sh'mal Ellenberg on November 6, 2009 at 7:29pm —
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NEW MEXICO
A NEW BEGINNING
In the winter of 1970 a group of strangers migrated from cities to the Santa Fe Community School in Santa Fe, New Mexico where this odyssey began. If there can be a beginning for anything that happens in life, since now I know: Life is a smooth if sometimes irregular and uncertain ongoing creation story, from the big bang to this moment. We each brought with something with us that became a part of the whole.
Like a spark of spirit.
A simple spark inside that was being…
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Added by Sh'mal Ellenberg on November 6, 2009 at 7:26pm —
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THE AUSTIN WOMEN
Then “The Women” came. Some of us knew them from Austin. Not me, they weren’t my friends, but they were coming.
A collective of lesbians,
Came in pairs,
Small groups,
Left, came again.
We helped them look for their own land,
Bottom land, down by a river, beautiful place,
With very difficult access. They bought it ─ I think,
Who can remember?
But never lived there.
In the meantime they were there,
With us,
But on their own.
Really there, living in the “monks cabin.”
An old log ca…
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Added by Sh'mal Ellenberg on September 28, 2009 at 10:28pm —
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GANJA BOOGIE BAND
I was driving my VW van, my seven year old son, Miguel, in the back, as our small, slow moving caravan of school bus, VW beetle and truck, labored up the dusty, dirt, Brown Mountain road to Nogo, Arkansas after a circuitous route, from Santa Fe, New Mexico to Austin, where others joined us to commence our adventure. This was the early contingent of sixteen hippies going to live on 40 acres on the edge of the national forest.
I remember questioning, wondering, my uncertainty a…
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Added by Sh'mal Ellenberg on August 18, 2009 at 11:00pm —
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NATIVE HIPPIE WHEAT
By
Sh’mal Ellenberg
“Grow wheat?
Kenge, what do you mean, grow wheat?”
“We can grow wheat,” he tells me. “I know we can grow wheat.”
Lance and Kenge were confident, convincing,
While I wondered, “What do they know?”
To plant: we ordered 100 pounds of organic wheat from the co-op.
Till it comes,
In the meantime,
We will prepare.
We organized a six person shit shoveling team.
Early one morning, put together some food,
Rolled a few Js,
Pitch forks, shovels, wheelbarrow on…
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Added by Sh'mal Ellenberg on August 8, 2009 at 2:42pm —
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Bob Sh’mal Ellenberg
11319 8th Ave. NE #106
Seattle, Wa. 98125
shmal8@yahoo.com
ALONE
There was a time in my life when nothing stopped me from being with any woman who was willing to give herself to me. It was gratifying to be self-indulging. Something to do with, “As we have received, so shall we share.” I wanted to be as high on that feeling of giving as well as being on the receiving end. I tried to make it all fair.
I didn’t know I had this quality in me that women would en…
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Added by Sh'mal Ellenberg on June 11, 2009 at 4:40pm —
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CRISS CROSSED CIRCUITS
My brain. My poor brain. Why is it suffering so? What’s been going on inside of it now that they have opened it up and done something to it to keep it working? Damn, how am I supposed to keep going when they do all these weird things to it? It’s keeping me alive; but what’s the point? I have to go anyway, but they felt they had to do what they were trained to do; cutting into it and then cutting again into it. I know I’m fading, fading away, deeper and deeper into some o…
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Added by Sh'mal Ellenberg on May 22, 2009 at 2:47pm —
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'I found it synchronistic or apropos, that the same week there was publicity about bacon becoming the new food ingredient in many foods. there is an alert for swine flu. Pigs, maybe we kill to many pigs, eat to many pigs; If anyone visits a pig farm, they would never ear pig again. It's totally inhumane treatment. Now what, a potential pandemic of swine flu. Seems like a karmic payback to humanity for mistreating what many say is a smart animal. Maybe they are and we aren't. Sh'mal
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Added by Sh'mal Ellenberg on April 25, 2009 at 10:47pm —
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Bob Sh’mal Ellenberg
11329 8th Ave. NE Apt 106
Seattle, Wa 98125
Sh’mal@zoobird
HESTER’S LAST SMILE
AND CAN OF ROLLING TOBACCO
In the nursing home where I work people dying is going on regularly; it’s nothing new to me, but now people are being admitted, in their forties and fifties, who are terminally ill with one critical illnesses or another. All are destitute; that’s why they’re in the nursing home where work, because we’ll take in America’s poorest of the poor. Don’t ge…
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Added by Sh'mal Ellenberg on April 16, 2009 at 2:11pm —
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A CLOSE ENCOUNTER WITH CHARLIE MANSON
While my 12 year-old son and I were waiting for our flight from Miami to Los Angeles I was browsing a magazine rack and came across a article about Charlie Manson and his perennial parole problems. My mind immediately flew to that ominous afternoon I spent at his Topanga Canyon commune outside of Los Angeles. The picture, indelibly imprinted on my consciousness, of Manson jumping back into an attack mode crouch, his fists clenched, wanting to fight me.
This…
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Added by Sh'mal Ellenberg on April 16, 2009 at 1:51pm —
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THE LEGACY OF ROSE PEARL
I’m always amazed, how after committing to an action out of love, we never know how the re-actions will reverberate through our life. This story is an instance of that reverberation.
Rose Pearl called me, reaching out by telephone, making a connection to tell me she was dying. She made it clear it wouldn’t be that very moment, but in the near future. Rose said she was calling because she needed some one to take care of her affairs after she passed on. Till that mo…
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Added by Sh'mal Ellenberg on April 15, 2009 at 9:37pm —
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Bob Sh’mal Ellenberg
725 NE 3rd St.
Gainesville, Fl. 32601
352-378-8735
cityofpeace@citizencircle.com
BEING ONE WITH THE OTHER
STORIES OF BEING WITH THE HOMELESS
Harry was on the ground half conscious with about 15 people, mostly men, uncomfortably standing around looking down at him; the Listerine bottle knocked over on the stone table, its distinct odor wafted around the immediate space, while a thin stream of blood seeped from the gash on his head after it bounced off the tabl…
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Added by Sh'mal Ellenberg on April 15, 2009 at 9:27pm —
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A MEETING ON THE TRAIN
There is always a potential romantic adventure, however slight and passing, when one is open and allowing life to unfold for us.
I watched attentively as a woman, one among many, but a particular woman, walked down the isle of the train I was on. I casually watched as she put her baggage on the overhead rack, with a sigh, signifying, “well, this is it, it’s all okay,” then sat across from where I was sitting on the Amtrak train from Buffalo to NYC. My male ego, or is it…
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Added by Sh'mal Ellenberg on April 14, 2009 at 11:05pm —
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In thinking about all the different areas that are being covered in Zoobird it came to mind that this web site, it is a web site? is adding a very important communication vehicle to our community. We have in Gainesville about as creative and aware group of interactors, motivators, and shakers, healers, hmm, what to call us? as any place on the planet. Now, that's a pretty outrageous statement, but after living here for the past 23 years, I can attest to what I know. Not trying to be cocky ego, j…
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Added by Sh'mal Ellenberg on November 21, 2008 at 1:01pm —
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Michael: Well, that's not entirely true. The man who I modeled Pepe on was a real live guy, who wasn't Native American, who was dying of a tumor and who I did bring out a six pack so we could know each other better. Eventually, Arupa and I brought him to the er where he was admitted, told in the er "you have cancer and it'll probably kill you." Nice huh. Anyway, a longer drama till he died in a nursing home where I used to work. I'll take a look, maybe I wrote his true story and will post it. Lo…
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Added by Sh'mal Ellenberg on November 11, 2008 at 1:48pm —
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A PATH IN THE WOODS
Pepe was almost always with a smile, a friendly hello, an ever present cigarette between his dirty and stained fingers with a beer in an insulated styrofoam jacket in his other hand, sitting on his swinging chaise lounge near his tents. Sitting firmly on his head was his felt western style hat, the brim curved above his ears with Spanish moss running around the raised brim, a small stuffed snoopy dog sitting on top with an American Flag on one side with a peace sign pa…
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Added by Sh'mal Ellenberg on November 9, 2008 at 2:57pm —
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Bob Sh’mal Ellenberg
11319 8th Ave. NE Apt. 106
Seattle, Wa. 98125
352-256-9279
shmal8@yahoo.com
word count 1482
BREATHING IN MT. RAINER
Harry was sitting on a bench near Puget Sound with a fixated stare 50-miles away at mammoth Mt. Rainer. He was feeling a connection, inwardly laughing, musing to himself: “we’re both part of the earth; she just happened to grow a bit larger than me.” He wondered if there was a way to make a tangible, feeling, connection, with something so immense. He thought…
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Added by Sh'mal Ellenberg on October 1, 2008 at 12:32am —
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Michael: I read the piece about reading spiritual books. I spent most of my reading life as an adult reading just that kind of book. All traditions. I joke to myself and others, that even though I've read and studied scores of these kind of books, I can't really give satisfactory explanations of much of what I've read. I had to conclude that it wasn't important to me to retain most of what I've read, but that something of the essence of what I read has become part of my being, consciousness, on…
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Added by Sh'mal Ellenberg on August 24, 2008 at 9:47pm —
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