Making Major Changes On Still Mountain In This Time Of Heat Waves and Climate Crisis
How we are dealing with living through the hottest days ever recorded on Planet Earth
THE DAWNING LIGHT Volume 7, Number 322 Friday July 7, 2023
Still Mountain Chronicles Section , Number 22
Photo Credit: Pixabay
How we are dealing with living through the hottest days ever recorded on planet earth
HOT DAYS AND HEAT WAVES
It is early morning here on Still Mountain, and I am aboard my tiny house at my desk which overlooks the fields that surround our sanctuary.
Outside, a bit of coolness still lingers from the night, but the heat of the coming day is already building up steadily.
The outdoor thermometer ‘s big dial is climbing through the numbers, from the 60’s up and up towards the peak, which will be somewhere between 95- and 100-degrees Fahrenheit by mid-day.
We are in the midst of a heat wave.
Image Credit: Pixabay “42 degrees Celsius=107.6 degrees Fahrenheit”
OUR PLANET SAW ITS HOTTEST DAY ON RECORD THIS WEEK
I am aware that on Monday and Tuesday we reached the highest daily temperatures ever recorded in the worldwide average for planet earth. Here is the link to an excellent article about this:“The Planet Saw Its Hottest Day On Record This Week”
We were fortunate for most of June when, while most of the US was baking in record high temperatures and heat waves which drove the month to being the hottest June on record by a large margin, we were enjoying perfect cool blue sky days. The nights were cold enough then that I had to run the furnace to keep warm. For more about this here is a link to a story about it:
“Last Month Was The Planet’s Hottest June On Record By A Huge Margin”
I am aware that climate scientists are sounding the alarm. They are saying that with the El Nino kicking in out in the Pacific, which is warming the ocean waters to unprecedented high temperatures, that even higher records will be set as the summer advances.
This is not comforting information, but it is not news to me.
Our situation with climate change, that is now going over a cliff and already affecting everyone and every living being on earth, is something I have seen in vision and heard about in my own inner guidance for most of my life.
We are now living through times of dramatic changes that none of us wanted to happen, many of us did not believe would happen and that many still deny is happening.
IF THERE IS ANY GOOD NEWS…
If there is any good news in this situation, is that humanity as a whole seems to be waking up to the terrible peril that an increasingly overheated world represents for all of us.
We are all becoming aware that the thoughtless activities of our species in spewing all that Carbon Dioxide into the atmosphere has now created a credible and very real threat to our continued survival.
Only after becoming aware of any problem and studying it so we understand it’s causes and implications can we take intelligent steps to deal with it.
I remain hopeful that we are in that stage and that like so many times before, humanity will come together to deal with the causes of this crisis so that the direst potential is averted and we take the steps together as a species for saving ourselves and future generations.
This is not something we can ignore that will magically go away.
This is the consequence of our persisting in doing the very things we all know are toxic, harmful and creating conditions that may very well kill us off… and which have been proven by scientists to be caused by our own behaviors and misuse of resources.
As Greta Thunberg said recently “The climate crisis is already a matter of life or death for countless people.”
Photo Credit: Pixabay
HOW THE HEAT WAVE IS AFFECTING OUR LIVES ON STILL MOUNTAIN
But to bring it back down to how the climate affects us personally and our lives on Still Mountain—
As the temperature climbs through the day, it won't be long before it will be too hot to be outside, or for me to be aboard this tiny house.
I have moved off the ship into our vast meditation center building. I return here only after the night is late enough to have cooled down Still Mountain to sleep in my bed, which by then is caressed by cool breezes and the full moon’s light.
But in the fullness of day, it becomes like an oven aboard. This house does have air conditioning but I would have to run it 10 hours a day, which would put our power bill into the stratosphere, so that is not an option.
Image Credit: Pixabay
THE HUGE MEDITATION CENTER BUILDING IS OUR COOL REFUGE
The building is so big that it stays cool while the rest of the world is sweltering. It’s 12 foot high ceilings and two large halls make a great buffer. The roof is pure white to reflect the sun’s rays and we have several big hurricane fans going all day in the attic to push the hot air out of the north and south gable vents.
I have moved my active writing studio back into “the Cave”, which is located on the north side of the building, so it is naturally shaded from direct sunlight.
This big room, which was originally built in 1906 to be a grand stage facing the vast hall, was used for a hundred years by performers of all kinds when our building was still used as the community center for all the homesteaders, farmers, ranchers and town residents.
Ani and I set up a writing studio for me in this former stage last summer during the heat waves happening then.
It was my primary place to work on writing until this past winter, when it was below freezing for so long that we had to abandon the building for the first time and lived exclusively in the warm safety of my tiny house.
Now the situation is reversed.
Photo Credit: Oixabay
HOW WE CRASH LANDED HERE AFTER LOSING OUR ORIGINAL STILL MOUNTAIN-
When we bought this property back in 1996, it had been abandoned for years, broken into by vandals, uncared for and unloved by anyone.
It was in terrible condition from abuse and neglect…half the floor in the “south end” had collapsed, while the roof was sagging so badly that it was near collapsing.
Over the years, I have often thought that I was crazy for buying it because of the huge effort and expense of saving it from utter ruin.
But at the time, we had lost the original Still Mountain property and were under deadline to leave all that we had built there behind.
When the owners of this place offered it to us for next to nothing, with no money down and no payments for a year it was a “any port in a storm” situation. This property offered us a refuge and a fresh beginning and it was either jump here to the safety of this property or become homeless.
Now, 27 years later, we have transformed this acre and huge building into our sanctuary and the home of Inner Resource Institute and Still Mountain Meditation Center with thousands of hours of blood, sweat and tears, repairing, remodeling and upgrading it very gradually whenever we have had money for the work.
So many milestones of our lives have been achieved here, including gaining “Non Profit Organization—Religious” in 2015, gaining US Citizenship for Ani in 2011, launching our Meditation Training Intensive course and hundreds of classes, events and programs and launching “The Dawning Light”…and so many other things along the way.
Photo Credit: Pixabay
I AM GRATEFUL FOR THIS REFUGE FROM RELENTLESS HEAT
During this relentless heat wave that is roasting the world outside, I am grateful that I have the “Cave” as my writing studio.
Fans are blowing cool air across my bare chest as I work at this large desk under a big window with its view of a blackberry hedge and the baby blue sky.
If I was outside, working in the hot sun, I know I would be in serious trouble within a few minutes, so I am quite content to stay inside, in “The Cave” where I am safe and cool, doing the work that is very dear to my heart…creating this issue of the “Dawning Light.”
I am aware that climate change and global warming is a runaway train with few people in its engine trying to stop or slow it.
As concerned as I am, as any thoughtful person paying attention would be, for our future and the terrible places this train seems to be going, I have to keep my attention here in this present moment.
Photo Credit: Pixabay
I BELIEVE THAT, EVEN THOUGH IT DOESN’T LOOK LIKE IT, OUR HIGHEST GOOD IS BEING WORKED OUT
I am not going to allow fears to destroy or warp my ability to have clarity, joy and compassion in the now.
I am praying that humanity wakes up and that we all work together to deal with all the threats that face us, while doing whatever I can in these flow of days to support and inspire this shift in consciousness.
I am not now, or ever will be ready to lose hope and believe in anything else other than that, somehow, our highest good is being worked out.
Meanwhile, we stay cool and keep on doing the work we are called to do. It is a good life!
Photo Credit: Pixabay
Calligraphy by Chinmayan
Image Credit: Still Mountain Meditation Center
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“Your greatest service to humanity is to attain your own Self Realization!” Ramana Maharshi
“When you change the way you think about things, and the things you think about change”
—Wayne Dwyer
“I see my life as an unfolding set of opportunities to awaken.” —Ram Das