Merry Christmas on a very cold Dec 25 here in 2017, St Louis Park Minnesota 3 below zero F---sitting in meditation and contemplation, after completing the Bon Tibetan practices of the 9 Breathings of Purification and the 5 Tsa Lung exercises as instructed by Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche along with Marcy V---thinking about the indigenous traditions spirit has led me to learn about over the years --and the peace that passes all understanding, that I have gained through working the 12 steps in a good way---as the Promises Say in AA '
1. If we are painstaking about this phase of our development, we will be amazed
before we are half way through. 2.We are going to know a new freedom and a new happiness.
3.We will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.
4. We will comprehend the word serenity and we will know peace.
5.No matter how far down the scale we have gone, we will see how our experience
can benefit others. 6. That feeling of uselessness and self-pity will disappear.
7.We will lose interest in selfish things and gain interest in our fellows.
8. Self-seeking will slip away.
9. Our whole attitude and outlook upon life will change.
10. Fear of people and of economic insecurity will leave us.
11.We will intuitively know how to handle situations which used to baffle us.
12. We will suddenly realize that God is doing for us what we could not do for
ourselves Are these extravagant promises? We think not. They are being fulfilled among us
-sometimes quickly, sometimes slowly. They will always materialize if we work for them.
Alcoholics Anonymous p83-84
Grateful to have found encouragement from my Foster nephew Bobbie to attend a week long Spring Meditation at Serenity Ridge VA, led by TWR, with support of his sangha, including Marcy Vaughn of Bon Philadelphia ----Here is a link for starting a meditation practice and is free!! modeling generosity of spirit https://www.ligminchalearning.com/
Dec 2017 Reflections on Libby and Professor Bill Muir -----Two of my Coyote Teachers
One of my favorite images of "the professor" William "Bill" Muir, PhD, U of Wisconsin, who served as my advisor in the biology dept at Carleton College, Northfield MN, supporting my graduation with a BA in biology and education in 1969 ---this is taken at the family cabin, not sure of the phtographer, at Highland Lake near Marcell MN north of Grand Rapids Itasca country - FYI he went totally blind from his diabetes in 1968 --
I was reminded of his special impact on my life, as his widow, Libby AKA Elizabeth Ann Townsend Muir,, "passed away peacefully in Grand Rapids, MN on December 7, 2017, 15 days after her 88
th birthday" online obit ---Libby and Bill married in June of 1952, and moved to Madison, WI, where
he was a PhD student in the Department of Plant Pathology at UW. She
worked as a Research Assistant in the same department. Two of their
daughters, Patricia Muir (husband Bruce McCune) and Cynthia Muir Kuhns
(husband Mick Kuhns)
, were born in Madison. The family
moved to Northfield, MN in 1957, when Bill accepted a faculty position
in the Biology Department at Carleton College. Two more children,
Margaret Muir Marshall (husband Bill Marshall) and William Ralph Muir
(husband Bob Wright) were born in short succession after their arrival
in Northfield.-------Bill, became totally blind by 1968.
Her life then changed drastically, as she became what she referred to as
“a seeing eye wife.” She worked with him around the clock to enable him
to keep teaching at Carleton, helping him to do all that was required
of a faculty member. She accepted this change with courage and grace, as
did he. Shortly before Bill became totally
blind, they bought property on a lake in Itasca County, MN, and that
property and the cabin they built and re-built there, using only hand
tools, has been a primary gathering place for their family ever since.
They went to the cabin year round, often snowshoeing in the last mile,
often in the dark, Libby leading Bill. They and their children lived at
that cabin during an entire fall and winter, while Bill was on
sabbatical. Life there was hard – no electricity or running water, and
wood for heat– but Libby loved the time there.In 1971, they began teaching Botany at
the Associated College of the Midwest’s wilderness field station on
Basswood Lake, and they, with their children, spent that and several
following summers there.-------
Bill died unexpectedly in 1985, and
Libby, who had basically given her life to help him, was suddenly on her
own. She rose to that occasion as well. She became active in various
volunteer efforts, including leading Bible study at the men’s
penitentiary in Faribault, MN and serving as a volunteer reader for the
MN Radio Talking Book, a service for the visually impaired, for many
years. She received a Rice County Outstanding Senior Citizen of the Year
award in 2003. She continued to spend time at their cabin and traveled
often to visit her children.
She accepted with grace the changes
that came with age – she sold her home of 50 years in Northfield and
moved to Grand Rapids, MN, where her daughter, Peggy, and family live.
Her new home in Grand Rapids wasn’t ready by the time she sold her
Northfield home, so she lived for two months alone in the autumn at her
cabin. She voluntarily gave up driving, and moved from her new Grand
Rapids home to an assisted living facility there, again graciously
recognizing her increasing limitations." The Muir family has had a special place in my heart for a long time ---Bill and Libby's kindness was a big part of my choosing to major in biology over geology (my first advisor was Eiler Hendrickson a geologist ---and I have discovered I am a true pejuta wichasa, plant man, during my 30 + years learning about D/Lakhota spirituality on my Zuya, life's journey
The professor, Bill Muir, digging out dirt by hand, when I came to support the cabin renovations in the late 1960's I captured this image with Highland Lake in the background
Billy Muir in the yellow shirt putting a tarp on the trailer with Libby his mom, with the cabin in the background on Highland Lake by Tom Weaver- When I enrolled at the U of Minnesota Med School in the fall of 1969, my love of nature, and connecting with the plants especially, stayed with me ---while completing the basic science curriculum there, I often studied in Diehl Hall Library where I met the retired Owen Wangensteen MD, who as a retired famous surgeon, had a passion for the history of medicine --fortunately for me, the hermetically sealed collectors books included many botanical volumes with beautiful plants and colors ---a great place to study ethnobotany and how plants influenced medicine ---I wandered over to the school of pharmacy and met John Staba who was the last of the pharmacognosists it seems - from the U of M archive "
