2006 front drive with sheep. Photo taken by Michael Taylor, local Kentucky Artist

Sheep are animals that come with all sorts of connotations, assumptions and stereotypes. They are used the world over for a huge amount of products for peoples comfort and consumption. They naturally produce amazing fibre with incredible qualities. I often feel sad at how disposable animals are to people. We do not often truly appreciate the gifts we are given.

I have often heard the phrase ‘sheep are dumb’. I cannot agree and having lived on a sheep property for some years now I can say with certainty that sheep are not dumb. I can also say for certain that sheep reflect the people who ‘own’ them, use them, or who look after them – perfectly – may I be so bold as to say they resemble society at large in many ways.

Sheep have been part of Pete’s life since he arrived on the planet, his parents had sheep on their farm and then he decided to make a business out of sheep, selling wool and raising lambs & sheep for meat production. Sheep have also been part of mine too – in that I had a sheepskin to sleep on from the time I was born & was eating various parts of sheep from around 3 years old, I also wore woollen jumpers, leggings, singlets and pretty much everything wool for much of my life, I love wool. I have also ‘lived off’ sheep – financially the sale of them, and eating them, for the years I have lived in Australia.

Sheep have contributed to our income, supported our life style, run the property financially, provided us with food – meat – until a few years ago, given their wool for profit and basically we have used sheep to exist in this world in more than a few ways.

2014 Sheep in the yards

We value domesticated animals above all other animals, because they provide for us financially.

We have noticed the competition this sets up between species and how it influences how we think and feel about different animal species, labelling some ‘pests’ and doing our utmost to eradicate them (imagine the projections they receive, is it a wonder many species become aggressive or completely decline?). Our feelings of more importance, love and care for domesticated animals effects how different species interact with each other (we – humans – are the common denominator and as we experiment & make some change, discover more about where our soul’s are out of harmony with love, we are noticing animal behaviour and interactions changing also).

We have experienced attack on the ‘favoured’ animals – the sheep – and we have experienced interesting things happening with the sheep and non domesticated animals as we work through some of the imbalances we have in regards to our love and care of all creatures. For example the animals used to exist entirely separately, now there is more intermingling. Kangaroos used to bolt as soon as they got whiff of us, now they will more often stay and observe us before bounding away, sometimes only raising their heads before getting on with grazing or sun baking, there is still ways to go, but we are noticing differences in the environment around us.

I haven’t blogged much about sheep and I think at first it was due to not seeing how much they contributed to our lives, taking them for granted, and then because I felt ashamed when I decided to go vegan at how unethical I was, at how blatantly I was using them and was continuing to support the meat industry when we needed money and no one wanted to buy sheep to re-stock, only for meat production. There are some hyporcritical aspects here.

It has taken approximately four years for us to get to a point where we no longer desire to use sheep anymore. Four years to face up to our lack of ethics and see some of the results and consequences of this. This year we are selling the flock, hopefully entirely to people who want to grow wool and continue the beautiful fibre that the sheep Pete has selected produce, it is beautiful and so soft. 

2014 shearing: Kids in the wool

2014 sheep freshly shorn – Thanks Sheepies!

For more awesome information on animals and Creating Loving Eco Systems press on the link.

I would like to share some things I have noticed about sheep:

• Sheep are so domesticated (thousands of years of domestication) that they pretty much do as man dictates because man has created them that way. They have been bred so they will not fight, are not aggressive, can be man handled and easily manipulated to do what man wants.
• Some people seem to like exerting power over sheep rather than treating them lovingly (not all, but I have noticed many people take their feelings out upon sheep – animals in general – rather than feeling their feelings without harming another creature). They manhandle them and take their aggressiveness and frustration out on sheep which I find ironic as they are really being aggressive and angry to a very docile animal that if you treated it lovingly and kindly would probably do what you wanted it to without any fuss. But people seem to feel that they need to force and ‘make’ sheep do what they want. I feel sad about the treatment of sheep. (In using the term ‘man’ I am using it to indicate both genders male and female).
• Sheep are collective consciousness animals as far as I can gather. When following a flock being mustered, I have noticed that the sheep at the back seem to know what the sheep at the front are doing. If one sheep has a feeling, all the sheep the will know that feeling and often react to it also.

2014 Sheep muster

• If you can get just one sheep to go through a gate, into a pen, over a river, ALL the sheep will follow. But it needs one brave one to go first else all of them will wait.
• Sheep can swim. Not marathons, but they can swim.

2013 sheep crossing Spring Creek

• Sheep give birth seemingly effortlessly and have amazing breathing technique (some have complications, but seem to have less when they have less interference from people). I did some lessons with them when I was pregnant because I was amazed at how simple and fearless the birthing process was for them. I learnt that the body is designed to have babies and will do so without you ‘doing’ anything, if you let it do it’s thing. If you have fear then the body will reflect that and shut down, feel the fear and the body naturally does what it needs to do.
• Sheep move in circles. They will move in circles as a form or protection as well as when uncertain what to do and they will also walk in circles when they are blind.
• Sheep eat in the moonlight.
• Sheep stand still to conserve energy, they don’t move much when it is hot and look for shade.

2014 Sheep keeping cool in heat of the day

• They pant when hot.
• Sheep are inquisitive. I watched one in the shed the other day sniff the conveyer belt, lick the air with her tongue, tentatively touch the conveyer and then step on and sit back to see what would happen next. It was just like watching a dog check something out for the first time.
• Dog’s are scary when they nip and or bark all the time and fear is a recipe for chaos and disaster.
• Sheep can be really hurt, e.g. have their uterus hanging out – prolapsed, a broken leg, ruptured cancers, been attacked by dogs with half their backsides hanging off and yet they still walk as best they can. They are distressed, but when Michael, Susan and Pete put them to sleep (psychic anesthesia) and operate on them, they seem to trust that they will be taken care of. When the surgery is complete they wake up and walk away on their own accord, as best they can with the injuries they have.

2014 sheep under psychic anesthesia while having a broken leg set

2014 Sheep snout, sheep under psychic anesthesia while having a broken leg set

• Sheep don’t need to be mulsed, ever. People choose to do this to sheep.
• Sheep can have tails that are usable so they don’t need to be cut off. This will take time for the likes of merino sheep for example as they have been bred for wool and to be big and heavy so it might take a couple of years to breed in the genetics to change the tails, but it is possible.

2014 Sheep lifting it’s tail. An experiment we began where all sheep would be able to keep their tails

2014 Sheep lifting it’s tail. An experiment we began where all sheep would be able to keep their tails

• Sheep reflect the people who own them and work with them. Sheep can literally walk themselves to where ever you desire them to go if you leave the gates open. Whether they do or do not is based on your soul and the attractions you create. An example: Pete has told me that lambs can be ‘difficult’ getting into a shed. They don’t always know where to go, they haven’t experienced it before and they can have reservations about various aspects of the process. It is interesting when Pete is calm and un-expectant how many times the lambs have literally taken minutes to all walk themselves into the yards and shed without any problems what so ever.
• It is also interesting when Pete has some anger or frustration, fears or other un expressed emotions how chaotic and messy the process is, it can take hours. The dog gets in the way rather than helping, the sheep miss the gates and split into more than one mob,heading in different directions. And we thought sheep were dumb, smile. This doesn’t just happen to Pete, this happens to the guys who work here and to anyone who does the muster. If Pete and I go out together then all sorts of things have happened – especially if I am not doing what I am supposed to be doing, or I am afraid of getting it wrong, it totally goes wrong,  we have also had ‘perfect’ runs into the yards in my limited mustering experiences.
• When sheep are unwell or the season is hard, they have the ability to drop their wool so that their energy can go into healing themselves or just conserving energy if they are not getting much nutrition/feed in a ‘hard’ season.
• Sheep, when they are little particularly, are playful, fun and funny to watch. In the evenings lambs congregate together, they meet up and play, they chase, jump and run about madly. The mothers follow behind bleating and trying to ‘organise’ which never goes in their favour – that could also just be a reflection of me with the lambs at our place, smile.
• Adult sheep also leap and can jump really high.
• There are a number of rams who have literally jumped over the yard rails and shearing shed gates.
• Sheep are community animals, they like to hang out with each other in groups. There are leaders and those that come up behind. They look out for each other. They will ram you – excuse the pun – if they feel threatened or afraid, but that is rare and they will do their utmost to get away from you first!
• It is amazing walking through a mob of sheep as they will all move away from you, it is like a sea dividing before you. Also a state of distrust and fear of humans – understandable in my experience.
• They have soft silky noses and make the baaaa ing sound by sticking their tongues out.
• There are so many other cool things about sheep, if you have the opportunity I suggest going and hanging out with them for a while and getting to know them, give them some credit and love for all the amazing things they do, and the next time you think of them being ‘dumb’ remember they have been ‘dumbed down’ by humans and reflect us perfectly.
• I like sheep. I am in awe at their uniqueness. (Also reflecting on what a ‘user’ I am, and what I am prepared to do for financial security.)

2014 shearing: Kids in the wool

2014 Super fine fleece – raw product

Note: These are Eloisa’s thoughts on sheep

Re-blogged from Notes Along The Way – Mary Magdalene

Press on above italicized title to take you to original on Mary’s blog.

Mary wrote a fabulous post in her July update today on relationships and I felt it was super exciting, has so much in it to aspire to and gives some great self reflection material! (I just cut and pasted the bit on relationships, not the entire post).

Totally inspiring in regards to making positive change and growing our souls in Love. Also how wonderful to have positive, real life examples of real relationships based on Love, Truth and Humility! Thank you dear friend for sharing!!

Thank you also to Mary and Jesus for being so wonderfully open and being examples of Love in action and what it means to really live The Way! For sharing about ‘how it really is’, ‘what it really means to work through issues’ and not just fake that everything is okay!

I am so grateful for you both!

Hope anyone who reads this enjoys it as much as I did!

For the original version go to the following link:

http://mary.divinetruth.com/2015/08/04/reflections-on-relationships-july-newsletter/

Choosing Our Relationships

Images and words by Mary Magdalene

As I mentioned in our last newsletter we welcomed many Millers (Jesus’ family) to our home early on in July. They stayed with us for a little under a week and there were some interesting discussions had. It became really clear early on that the other Miller’s desires (apart from those of Tristan) were in line with a lot of small talk and façade and there were definite attempts to control what topics of conversation were allowed. While Jesus and I are happy to chat about what people have been up to, what environmental projects we have going on, and even topics like politics, travel, weather and current events, there are times when we, through the simple expression of being ourselves, bring up issues like emotions, and past family events.

Our guests weren’t happy with that and so in the end at our request they, with the exception of Tristan, left our company a few days early. While I had some personal emotions to feel about their desire to control us and attack Jesus, Jesus and I had some great discussions after this all happened.

We decided that we only want personal relationships with people who:

• value and embrace humility
• desire truth and
• want to love

People who don’t value or want truth live in façade. These people, through their resistance to truth, also exert severe pressure on the people around them to not be truthful about who they are, what they want, and attempt to force people to accept everyone’s façade.

People who don’t want to be humble towards their feelings and who don’t want to love are going to punish the people around them for their unresolved issues, live in addiction and not be concerned about treating others with a lack of consideration, respect or love.

Our desire to only form close relationships with people who have the three qualities I listed above applies irrespective of whether a person is a blood relative, their partner or an old friend. Worldly expectations – familial or otherwise – no longer apply.

Conversely any person, whoever they are or how I meet them, if they are someone who is humble, who speaks truthfully and desires to love then I’m interested to get to know them. They don’t have to share my belief about God, the Universe or even who we are. If someone has those three qualities then, in the context of a relationship, they can be trusted to treat me well or at least work things out without the need for condescension, attack or bullying.

Jesus once talked to me about some of the states we can live in when it comes to expression of self.

One is that we ‘give ourselves away’. When we give ourselves away, we relinquish our personal desires and aspirations in favour of what other people want, we alter our personality to suit our environment and we are compliant to the whims and wishes of others.

Another state is that we ‘be ourselves’. In this state we are real and open about who we are, what we want and what we feel. We don’t force ourselves, or our beliefs upon others but we don’t hide these things either. Being ourselves means giving up our façade and simply expressing our nature through our actions and in our interactions. To be ourselves at all times, with everyone, is loving.

A third state is ‘sharing ourselves’. When we share ourselves we go beyond just ‘being ourself’. Sharing ourselves means desiring and allowing ourselves to be known, sharing what we deeply feel and desire. We can share ourselves in loving, though different ways, through soulmate relationships and friendships.

We are always going to end up in pain if we choose to share, or try to share, ourselves with people who don’t want to know us and who do not love or desire to love us. In other words attempting to share ourselves with someone who can’t be trusted to love us is not taking good care of ourselves. Equally attempting to share ourselves with someone who clearly doesn’t want to know us is only going to lead to disappointment and this kind of desire is usually led by addiction. However, choosing to share ourselves with people who do love us and care about our welfare is very rewarding and encourages growth.

While being ourselves all the time is loving, to be selective and discerning about who we choose to share ourselves with is also a sign of love and development.

So, I have been reflecting on and feeling about these three states of being myself for some time. Having Jesus’ family gathering was a great way to bring a lot of things into clear focus for me. In the wake of it all I’m excited to be even more clear and assertive in my desire to only share myself with those who love, or who aspire to love through being humble and embracing truth.

During the drama we both fell ill with a throat, chest, and head flu. Neither of us has been that sick for years but gladly as we worked through things we got better again.

Our Soulmate Relationship

Jesus and I have also been working on some relationship issues that I feel really positive about.

I should probably say that we are always working on the betterment of our relationship but at the moment I feel that I am making some key shifts that will drastically improve our individual happiness and unity as a couple. This is where some of my long term resistance has been and it feels great to make some changes and feel the positive difference.

I am beginning to experience the difference between ‘working on emotions’ in order to ‘get through them’ or to ‘solve a problem’ and the true state of surrender.

As I start to understand and even experience the state of surrender it feels a lot like changing from a ‘thinking being’, governed by intellect and analysis, who sometimes has feelings, into being my feelings with thoughts, decisions and aspirations that stem from those feelings. It is the allowance and embrace of all of my emotions, all of the time. Not because it is the ‘right’ thing to do or because I want to ‘deal with something’ but because this is who I truly am – a feeling being, a soul with a body and mind. This is the Way that Jesus has been speaking about for so many years.

It still feels awkward to try and explain it but as nearly as I can put it right now; surrender is accepting the truth that God created me as an emotional being and my wanting to experience myself as such again.

I’ve fought this state for years and years and honestly I observe that almost everybody who hears Divine Truth does this. I’ve come to realise that I’ve been terrified of just how emotional I actually am and I perceived that others would judge and attack this in me. I’ve judged my surrendered state as being a ‘histrionic woman’ who won’t be taken seriously. Ironically I’ve been far closer to histrionics and melodrama in my resistive state than I ever will be in a surrendered state. In fact, surrender is the opposite of being dramatic, emotionally manipulative and over-the-top.

When I allow myself to surrender my passions and aspirations are impossible to ignore. Allowing more of my emotions, without being selective, I find that what I want to do and how I want to create is impossible to ignore. That feels great. I sometimes feel scared – how will others treat me when I embrace my love for God to its full degree? – but in this surrendered state even feeling that fear feels good. I find it ironic since I have been telling myself for years that connecting to myself will be traumatic, only leading me to be sad all the time and to realise that I am a terrible person. I couldn’t have been more wrong.

So, how does my working on all this relate to our soulmate relationship? Well, obviously my resistance to allowing all of myself all of the time has a huge impact on how Jesus and I can connect. It is impossible for us to be emotionally and physically intimate while I am resisting the experience and sharing of my true emotional self. But even more than that, my judgement of the surrendered state which has stunted my own soul growth has also had an impact on Jesus’ personal progression.

My judgement of surrender has caused me to judge Jesus in his surrendered state. I have attempted to control him, a lot of our life, our interactions with each other and with other people in an attempt to prevent my own emotions. I’ve also been quite needy and oppressive, wanting him to share my feelings, validate them, help me avoid ‘making mistakes’ in love and basically tried to consume our life with a focus on me and my resistance. Jesus in an open, emotional state triggers my own emotions which I have wanted to prevent. And I’ve also lived in fear of how both of us would be judged and viewed if we were in a sensitive, surrendered state with other people. I’ve been angry about surrender and withdrawn into my ‘numb’ state again and again in an attempt to avoid the situation. This would lead Jesus to feel that the situation was hopeless and he would have to ask me to either leave or to deal with my emotions.

I would then become all ‘goal orientated’ about ‘getting to’ my feelings which is a completely different thing to choosing to live my life as a feeling being. Because of my resistance, as much as we talked about surrender and the Way, I really didn’t get how wrong I was getting it. I would ‘try harder’ to feel rather than surrendering to feeling all the time.

I am pointing this out because I believe that there is a valuable lesson here. The truth is that a person who is only interested in preventing their own feelings (like I have been) also has no interest in the feelings of others and actively tries to prevent others from feeling their feelings. That’s the truth and that is what I and anyone who resists surrender will do automatically.

Because Jesus was already in the feeling state – he was a feeling being – when I met him it has been pretty exhausting for both of us living together. In effect I have been fighting my emotional self and fighting him on being himself every day. Whether voiced or not, there has been complete emotional disharmony between each half of our soul. There has been a difference in our states – one of us in a state of desire to live in the soul, the other in a state of desire to control the soul. Jesus has been trying to address this difference with me for the longest time and I’ve been trying to ignore it. I haven’t really wanted to understand it because it challenged my sense of control.

This is a more pronounced effect than that of two people living together who are both resisting surrender. These two people are actually helping each other to avoid surrender and so there is no conflict between their states of being.

Jesus’ sensitivity to my judgement, along with my overt and covert attempts at outright control of him, has made it difficult for him to remain in his previously surrendered state. Because of the extreme amount of pressure I placed on Jesus to conform to my non-feeling state Jesus has found it extremely difficult to feel any emotion while in my company. This has meant us sleeping apart for very long periods throughout our entire relationship, the latest period being 18 months. For Jesus sleeping together has seemed impossible since it feels like there is a soul based argument going on 24×7.

As we continue to work through this issue Jesus has been reflecting on his invitation and allowance of me living with him, in a state so opposed to his own, for so long. He presumed that me saying that I wanted to progress meant that I was desiring to live The Way. When in fact, despite what I may have been telling myself, I have been in direct opposition to surrender.

I have wanted power and control over my emotions and the only way I was going to get that was to have power and control over my partner and to have him feed my addictions. My over riding projection has been ‘don’t do anything that will trigger my emotions’ because I believed that being an emotional being 100%of the time would remove my power and expose me to some sort of harm. In this state I turned every confrontation of my emotions into a competition or a power play. Any person in an unemotional state who wants to stay unemotional will always feel and behave this way. Judgement of and desiring to control our emotions makes us view open emotion and honesty in another as a threat to our value, worth and power.

The truth is that surrender feels like the opposite of powerlessness. It is the end to competition. In this state emotions don’t feel like a sign of weakness but a beautiful experience of self. There is no judgement of what is felt only aspiration to experience it. And through that experience we can heal.

This much is clear; for a loving relationship to survive both parties have to be feeling beings.

Jesus and I really want to talk about all of this in more detail in future presentations because this change in state is the key to living the Way and knowing God. Although Jesus has spoken about it many times before I notice that just about everyone who has heard Divine Truth is still struggling to even want to make this transition. So I feel that anything we can share that might encourage, inspire and assist people in this area is worthwhile.

Thank you again to everyone who has donated to us over the past month. I feel incredibly fortunate to be able to live my passion to share Divine Truth with the world and each of you help to make that possible.

I hope that you are all experiencing your own growth and changes and that life is rewarding for you.

Until next time, with deep love and gratitude,

Mary

Lizard, Reptile Heaven

This beautiful lizard found on the road was introduced to Reptile Heaven this morning.

As well as sighting more big lizards there are lots of skinks and smaller dudes around the place too.

In the image of the lizard below you can also see some stinging nettles in the background. These have just started coming up and were in the mulch we brought in. We will leave them to do their thing and suspect they will have a couple of cycles and then other plants will come up to do their healing in the soil. We will keep you posted with the cycles and findings from this fun experiment!

Lizard, Reptile Heaven

Below is an update of Reptile Heaven 11 months on from ‘Summerfest 2012 Project’. Press on link below to see before images click here. If you open the old post in a different window browser you can put them side by side and see the changes, it is pretty exciting what happens in 11 months!

Reptile Heaven, 11 months on, the top pond looking down

Reptile Heaven, 11 months on, reptile palace

Reptile Heaven, 11 months on, mid section, lots of weeds coming up to remedy the soil from the mulch that was brought in

Reptile Heaven, 11 months on, Mr Lizard

Peeking out from the logs, Mr Lizard a local resident enjoys reptile heaven’s habitat and housing opportunities

Reptile Heaven, 11 months on, fertility system, added green waste. Just keep on adding abundantly!

A red belly black snake and an eastern brown snake have been sighted in the garden near reptile heaven. This year there are many more snakes around. One was sited mid winter -at the Octoberfest site- sunning itself on the top of a living system. This we see is a great sign along with bigger lizards moving into the area (see image up top of this post).

Reptile Heaven, 11 months on, reptile home

Reptile Heaven, 11 months on, Lomandra grass

Reptile Heaven, 11 months on, The hedge that was dying is now flourishing with the mulch put next to it

This hedge was dying. Susan and Michael put a whole heap of matter on the top side and the hedge is flourishing and flowering this year attracting heaps of bees and spiders.

Spider

Reptile Heaven, 11 months on, big rock at bottom of RH

Reptile Heaven, 11 months on, Bottom Pond

We haven’t had much rain so the lower pond is fairly empty (see image below) but the lomandra is growing up nice and bushy and the wattles are going really well other than the ones snapped off and attacked by the deer.

Reptile Heaven, 11 months on, lower pond