The True Story of Ooodee

Written by Laurie on January 28th, 2009
Painting copyright Stephen Message used with permission from the artist

Painting copyright Stephen Message used with permission of artist

I love nature–it gives me great joy.  I find that in nature, things that trouble me disappear in the wind like wisps of clouds.

In 1985 my daughters and I lived in a town called Mariposa, California, just south of Yosemite National Park. We moved onto 13 acres of raw Sierra Nevada land, without running water or electricity. For the first three years we lived in a Columbia, a 30-foot travel trailer built in the late 70’s. My girls were stacked into the hallway on bunks I had made out of two by fours.

Electricity came two years after our move there and water six years later. Yes, in the middle of America, we lived a dichotomy – a paradoxical life – if you will.

A friend ran into some people in the central valley that uncovered a Barn Owl’s nest in their attic and unfortunately the mother never came back. We obtained one of these small birds.

We Named Him Ooodee

When I first saw Ooodee – his head balding from the loss of his down, he reminded me of a half-blown dandelion. His temporary home was a box on our small kitchen table and every time you walked by he would lie back on his elbows, claws out and hiss at you like a dragon.

We fed him raw meat but learned quickly that he needed huge doses of calcium or the complete carcass of a mouse or a bird. An owl, being a predator, and like all birds (and snakes), swallows its food whole. A few days after having eaten the carcass and after full digestion he will regurgitate up a round ball. All of the things not consumable by the bird are there, talons, beaks, whatever. It’s just under the size of a golf ball and actually very clean and somewhat dry.

This is the way a bird gets its calcium, without which would cause his wings to break during flight.

As Ooodee grew he became a loving member of the family. He would flutter inside our little trailer and live at the bottom of the wood stove in a cubby hole. This little place never got too hot or cold and served as his home, much like a hole in a tree. When it came time for him to fly, he would fly to and fro within the trailer. Because of his acute hearing and radar like capabilities, he always managed to keep within a foot of the ceiling.

He Practiced His Talons On My Youngest Daughter’s Bunk

I remember thinking that as I watched Ooodee perched on my daughter’s finger that he was a glorious animal indeed. Each ear was placed off-angle to the other and white downy-soft feathers formed a dish around his face, acting like a receiver for the sound. As I looked at him I realized why Native Americans wore headdresses.

As he got older he would fly into the hall and grab the wool blanket covering my daughter in her top bunk, he would hang on with all his might and flap his wings, in practice of catching prey.  My youngest daughter remembers him fondly, “I remember that owl…” she says as she frowns.

I remember the first time we took him outdoors, realizing that we needed to train him for flying outside and for eventual release. He flew at our height level and landed in some Manzanita bushes crying shisssssst shisssst (which is a noise they make). He cried for our help in removing him. He got stuck on all the sticky berries.

He Only Flew Five Feet Off The Ground

At first, I never realized why he only flew at about 5 feet off the ground, he was a bird – he knows how to fly.

Then I realized. Ooodee is like us. Like us he lived in a “box.” That box had a ceiling that was no higher than 6 feet at the most.

Like us he became conditioned by his experience. He began to believe that when he flew, there was a ceiling and like us he was a limited being.

I remember the day he first discovered there was no ceiling. His cries of utter joy as he circled higher and higher and higher will stay with me the rest of the days of my life.

I don’t know how high he flew; I only heard the joy in his cry as he got further and further away.

I don’t know where Ooodee is now, but I’ve heard stories of him from time to time and I can’t help but think how much like us he really is.

Boxes of Our Own Making

We too live in boxes of our own making. Our core belief structures formed in childhood from whatever traumas and circumstances we experienced served us then but serve us no longer.

Are you one of those people who fly 5 feet off the ground because you’re sure the ceiling is still there?

Do something about your limitations. It’s time to master yourself.

Wishing them away won’t work.

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The House Of My Dreams

Written by Laurie on January 28th, 2009

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“Real winners are ordinary people with extraordinary determination” – Anonymous

Born into a swimming family near the smell of the sea in San Diego, California, rich in life and experiences; we were poor in money and things. As the eldest daughter of 4 children, we grew up on the dreams of the movies as my mother swam in two Esther Williams’ films as one of the ‘aqua maids’ at the tender ages of 16 and 19.

Her stories of school with Elizabeth Taylor, lunches with Jimmy Durante and Frank Sinatra, poolside chats with Kate Hepburn, while my grandmother rubbed shoulders with Clark Gable, and met with Red Skelton, and her later stories of traveling Europe with Buster Crabbe’s famed Aqua Parade filled us with hopes that we too could someday live our dreams.

Besides my dream of writing and being a best-selling published author, my dream was to design and build my own home. As a young spiritual mother, I’d received a “prophecy” from some spiritual friends in the form of the words Mansa Neo, when translated means new house and lands of one who ministers.

I believed those words – and thought for sure that I would see the manifestation soon. At the tender age of 23 little did I know that I had more to learn!

Through a series of events and experiences where I learned about creating your own reality, the shadow self and the backside of the law of attraction through the next 19 years, by the time I reached 42, I still didn’t have my dream home and in fact, had moved back in with my mother feeling as if I were a failure.

Long used to the principles of the law of attraction and creating my own reality, I realized that maybe I’d held onto my dream of designing and building my own home for the wrong reasons. I gave it back to the Universe. When I did – I gave it up for good.

After two failed marriages and some brutal traumatic experiences (which I know I am the author of) I finally realized I had the control and decided to be happy and create a new life. I decided to love myself first and draw my soul-mate to me. I knew enough by now to know what I didn’t want so I created a list of the
attributes I desired of my soul mate and sent it off to the Universe on a wing and prayer and promptly forgot about it.

A few short months later while visiting my old and dear friend Timothy, a phone call came through from another old friend, Gordon. One thing led to another and after several visits and a few sailing adventures Gordon and I decided to move in together. I moved up to the Bay Area of Northern California and within two years we were married – he the soul-mate I’d called up from the Universe with a 93% accuracy rating of the qualities on my list and I his. He had done the same thing I had in sending his request to the Universe – only he voiced his request at about the same time I wrote mine.

Just two short years after that, we moved onto our new lands where we began the process of building (though my husband did most of the building as I still worked a 40-hr a week job) the new house of my dreams. The house I designed.

By the laws of the mundane world, we were sure to fail. We heard stories of people who divorced, went bankrupt and never finished their building. (And these were people who hired contractors to do everything!).

The journey of its creation is a law of attraction story itself as neither my husband nor I had any previous construction experience. We built it ourselves – with sub-contractors providing only the engineering, grading, foundation, trusses, sheetrock and carpet. We did everything else. Everything else.

We ignored all the dire warnings from well-intentioned friends; created our budgets, got our financing and were sure we were set to go. Being naïve, trusting the Universe and working on faith alone can have many blessings. We didn’t know then how big the house really was, how severely under funded we truly were and how the simple laws of physics were against us.

It took us three years to complete – is three stories tall – is engineered just this side of a commercial building and is worth well over a $1 million dollars as it sits on 10 acres in the Sierra Nevada just a red-tailed hawk’s flight from Lake Tahoe.

It is surrounded by decks on all sides, has a 180 degree clear view of eastern starlit and sunrise skies; a national forest mountain ridge that runs east to west on our south; hills and ridges topped with fragrant cedars, tall pines and towering oaks met by gold and green meadows visited by hawks, deer and wild turkeys with Canadian geese, herons, wild ducks and turtles swimming in our seasonal steam and pond.

We celebrated my 50th birthday in our new home created with the flow of the Universe. She is named Wildwind after the winds and wildflower breezes that blow through our little piece of heaven.

As I walk through her rooms, I feel the blessings of true abundance and prosperity and know that I am rich beyond my wildest dreams. Our house feels alive with the energy of our imaginings and in it I know anything that I can dream of is possible because we’ve already done the impossible.

Each board, each nail, each wall is built with the love of my husband and anyone with the least of sensitivities can feel it as they meander through her beautiful and many rooms.

He told me once that the only reason he agreed to build it (besides the challenge) was because he wanted to fulfill my dream.

He wanted me to know that there are good men in the world.

He wanted me to know how much he loved me.

I used to think that I had to win the lottery or have a best-selling book to have a home like Wildwind. (What does that say about the book?)

Now I know that the Universe and the law of attraction can work in very mysterious ways if we are open to receive. Sometimes going forward, means taking a few steps back.

Wildwind is my dreaming ground; she is woven from our love, our dreams and is our springboard into all of our new adventures.

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Laughter – The Best Medicine

Written by Laurie on January 28th, 2009

If there’s one thing I have to admit about my mother is that she was always right about this: Laughter Is The Best Medicine.

If you can’t laugh about yourself and the things that happen to you – you’re headed for a heart attack or some other malady, it’s the way the body works. Laughter lightens the moment and strips away the seriousness that many of us approach life with; it releases the pain and chases away your personal rainstorms leaving a bright sunshiny day.

Scientists have also discovered that laughter strengthens your immune system and increases your cardiovascular flexibility (your blood vessels exercise through dilation).

According to Dr. Goodheart, the laughter doctor, laughter convulses your diaphragm, which in turn massages your internal organs. Massaged internal organs are happy internal organs and they cooperate by staying plump and juicy.

She says that laughter also causes you to gulp in large portions of air, oxygenating your blood. When that air is expelled, it’s been clocked at 70 miles an hour, providing the lungs with an excellent workout. By laughing, she says, you lose muscle control, which relaxes the skeletal system. According to Dr. Goodheart, four-year-olds laugh 500 times a day, while adults laugh a mere 15! She’s convinced that if we laugh as much as a four-year old, we’ve have the heart rate and blood pressure of that same child.

On top of all that, she continues, laughter causes the brain to produce hormones called beta endorphins which reduce pain and causes our adrenal glands to manufacture cortisol, which is a natural anti-inflammatory that’s wonderful for arthritis.

Laughter also provides a catharsis which means to purify or purge the emotions. It also brings about a spiritual renewal or release from tension. You notice how sometimes you’ll see a comedian on television, and while he may not be that funny, something just makes you laugh uproariously? Your body seems to know that it needs the chemicals that are released through laughter.

I’ve always felt better after a good belly laugh or two. For me that means some very large-sounding snorts and a few donkey brays thrown into the bargain. Some people won’t even go to the movie with me because when I start laughing I cannot stop. My daughters always used to go, Mom! as they slunk down into their seats trying not to be seen.

When someone’s laughing, others laugh along. It’s contagious. You can’t help it. Oftentimes in my movie-theater laughter excursions, I have motivated a whole theater-full of people laughing right along with me. All this during the credits! (John Belushi being escorted through the prison in the opening credit scenes of The Blues Brothers. If you notice very carefully, while walking he has his butt cheeks pressed ever so tightly together as he’s leaving the prison. It was a subtle physical comment that kept me laughing. The more people turned and looked at me, the harder I laughed! Finally, they just gave up and joined me!).

The Difference between Laughter, Humor, Teasing and Tickling

However, there is a difference between laughter, humor, teasing or tickling. Humor is your way of looking at the world, it’s an intellectual exercise. It’s your idea of what’s funny; it’s not the actual act of laughing.

Teasing and tickling are really a way of ridiculing someone. Tickling is something beyond someone’s control and is actually a physical invasion of sorts. Children laugh when you tickle them because the body works that way, but it’s actually a form of emotional ridicule that can result in very unpleasant feelings.

Teasing usually has an edge to it. People say they’re teasing, but essentially they are dead serious. I think teasing is a passive-aggressive way of hurting someone through the guise of humor. Teasing, according to Dr. Goodheart, “involves our having information about something that another person has very strong feelings about – usually painful feelings – and then bringing that information up without permission.” She also says that as people become very good friends they might give each other permission unconsciously to push each other’s buttons. Husbands, wives, lovers, and friends play with each other’s pain with permission. “When you tease without permission in order to trigger laughter, it’s very manipulative and controlling.”

All in all, when you’re feeling down and need a lift, try laughter. It may be hard at first, but just try laughing. Force yourself. Pretty soon, you’ll find yourself laughing at your own laughter and the looks you get from your family members. They’ll begin to wonder what’s so funny and the corners of their mouths will crinkle up in the beginning of a smile. Now you’re laughing because they give you these quizzical looks wondering what you’re laughing about.

Pretty soon, your laugh is real, your belly aches, the tears flow from your eyes, and the world takes on a different hue.

As for me when I laugh like this, I need Depends. I laugh so hard sometimes I wet my pants and that has nothing to do with my age.

I can still hear my friend’s mom yelling at me today nearly 38 years later (while grinning ear to ear) to get off her Brocade couch whenever I started laughing.

She knew what would happen.

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