THANK YOU, CORRINE RICCIARDI, FOR REACHING OUT TO HELP AND FOR YOUR SUPPORT FOR NEIGHBORCARE.
	WHY I DO THIS: Participating in my community has always been important. The one-on-one opportunity to give is very heart warming for me.

Dear neighborcare friends: Whether or not you live on or near the Blue Hill, Maine peninsula, or far from it, please think of yourself as part of NEIGHBORCARE. Often people so kindly say thank you for NEIGHBORCARE—perhaps they speak of NATURE like this when they talk of being "out in nature" as if they were not of it, as much of nature as the deer and the squirrel. If we, no matter where on earth we live, aren’t NEIGHBORCARE, then who are we? We’re all pressed in some way by GREAT EQUALIZERS—illness, death of loved ones, financial challenges, work disappointments, relationship trials—these can feel like tidal waves. Yet knowing that everyone suffers to a greater or lesser degree can turn our sight away from ourselves, for a time, to see the us in everyone and the everyone in us. Holding this picture, whomever we come across—whether person, plant or creature—we respond, not dutifully, but with knowing, giving heart and doing all, even though at that moment we may be receiving not one obvious drop of sweetness in return.

NEIGHBORCARE NEWS We still need neighborcare carpenters/handypeople! Some to do small jobs. Some to do ramps! neighborcare provides materials. (You can reach me at maggiesdavis@gmail.com) Thanks to those already on our list. You are gold.

COME LIFT YOUR HEART I received the following true account in an email sent to me by neighborcare volunteer Nancy Hill, of Stonington. With Nancy’s permission I am please to share it (minus Nancy’s salutation). I was gifted the most moving experience this week.  Dan, one of my scallop divers, developed pancreatic cancer.  I'd been visiting him in Orono, trying to give his amazingly devoted love, David, some respite.  David called Monday morn to say that Dan expected to die Tuesday, and would I come spend the night. In his last couple days, Dan had us call his many friends. I would guess that at least fifty came in and out. Dan demanded a toll of a kiss from each. His forehead looked like a herd of tiny deer had run across it with all the lip marks. Everyone had their goodbye—Dan asked us each to build a monument in our hearts for him.  His humor never wavered and he was absolutely clear to the end. I slept with him the night before and read to him from the Tibetan Book of Living and Dying.....exercises for dying. When Dan left, 8:30 Tuesday night, the house vibrated with him for quite a while. I feel with certainty that my own vibration was changed at that moment. It was so beautiful.  David and I cleaned and swaddled the body. Dan’s last word for quite a while was 'gigabites', a reference to his assertion that there aren't enough gigabites in the world to hold the love he shared with David. Just before he went he said 'now gas for me'—he repeated it a couple times. At first we thought he needed more oxygen, but he had to explain that he meant as in 'diving gas'. He had told us earlier how lovely it would be to dive and not have to worry about the tanks, just dive freely and never have to surface. So finally he had all the gas he needed and died a couple minutes later.
    The week before, a family came to visit him.  The woman was seven months pregnant.  We propped Dan's boney body against her belly and the baby repeatedly kicked for Dan to feel.  The woman’s seven-year-old son was also there, understandably nervous seeing Dan so ill.  Dan asked him what would be the first thing his baby sister would do when she was born.  Cry, of course—everyone else would be rejoicing and the baby would cry.  Dan said that when it came to be his time to die, everyone would be crying, except Dan himself who would be celebrating. 

"I am an emissary of Light NOW, and I claim the world that was intended for us from the beginning of time. I claim peace this moment, and I feel its presence in the life of all beings everywhere. I acknowledge that God’s Light shines through me now, and I use that Light to heal and bless, allowing a New world to be made manifest. I do this because it is in my power to do so, given to me by God. Peace prevails NOW because we claim that it is so." —The Beloved Community

NO DEGREES OF SEPARATION Doctor, you say there are no haloes/around the streetlights in Paris/and what I see is an aberration/caused by old age, an affliction./I tell you it has taken me all my life/to arrive at the vision of gas lamps as angels,/to soften and blur and finally banish/the edges you regret I don't see,/to learn that the line I called the horizon/does not exist and sky and water,/so long apart, are the same state of being./Fifty-four years before I could see/Rouen cathedral is built/of parallel shafts of sun,/and now you want to restore/my youthful errors: fixed/notions of top and bottom,/the illusion of three-dimensional space,/wisteria separate/from the bridge it covers./What can I say to convince you/the Houses of Parliament dissolves/night after night to become/the fluid dream of the Thames?/I will not return to a universe/of objects that don't know each other,/as if islands were not the lost children/of one great continent. The world/is flux, and light becomes what it touches,/becomes water, lilies on water,/above and below water,/becomes lilac and mauve and yellow/and white and cerulean lamps,/small fists passing sunlight/so quickly to one another/that it would take long, streaming hair/inside my brush to catch it./To paint the speed of light!/Our weighted shapes, these verticals,/burn to mix with air/and change our bones, skin, clothes/to gases. Doctor,/if only you could see/how heaven pulls earth into its arms/and how infinitely the heart expands/to claim this world, blue vapor without end. —Lisel Mueller /"Monet Refuses the Operation"

FOR THOSE WHO CANNOT SPEAK At the polls, this fall, please take a stand against bear baiting in Maine.

Vote Yes On Question 2. "A kidnapped public resource on leased land being fed millions of pounds of junk food for three months is what is now passing for hunting in a great state whose true traditions lie steeped in actual hunting heritage. Maine's heritage is hunting, not baiting, and the management therein was just fine until the money moved in." Oregon and Washington "passed this same referendum 10 and 8 years ago, respectively. Their bear kills via fair chase are the same as they were when baiting was still legal, and their populations are being successfully managed minus the doomsday predictions by their knowledgeable ‘experts’." —Cecil Gray, Master Maine Guide By alerting friends and family, you’re helping even more.

If you love the planet, you will change the priorities of your life and work every day to save it. —Helen Caldicott

FROM THE KITCHEN Air-popped popcorn tossed with Bragg’s aminos, nutritional yeast, flaxseed oil, dulse and garlic flakes, plus hot sauce if you’d like. May sound strange, but I’ve received rave reviews. Nearly a meal in itself . . .

LIVING QUESTIONS "If we are not fully present and not alive, either for our loved ones or ourselves, where are we? We are running, running, running, even during our sleep. We run because our fear of losing everything is chasing us."—Thich Nhat Hanh

Stand with truth, not facts. Look ahead, not back. Care compassionately, not self-righteously. Rise above; don’t be swamped. If you have little to give, give to those who have less. See love coming at you from every living thing, then send it everywhere! Rejoice for others if they have what you yearn for; you will always be happy.

TIP Wood countertops in our cabin house dry out easily in winter due to heat from our woodstove. To dust/clean them, I combine olive oil, white vinegar, and not-too-much-water—to which a couple of drops of environmentally-kind detergent has been added—then wipe with a clean rag.

FOR THE SAKE OF ALL OF US Patently, we are in the midst of a critical period where the light energies are in direct contest with the dark forces—not only on the national and international scene, but within our own natures. Unless we begin now, individually and collectively, to rely on our own inner strength, we will have little to draw upon in future crises. This isn't the time to lean on great leaders; it isn't the time to wait for a messenger... It seems to me that every human being has within him the power to do what is required: privately and unnoticed to follow the lead of his higher self. But we have to persevere in this practice; above all, we have to trust unreservedly in the potency of our inner light to illumine our lives. If each one of us steadfastly heeds its guidance, in time we will be come an embodiment of compassion, understanding, knowledge, and helpfulness—and yet, paradoxically, we will have achieved the greatest boon of all, we will have become as "nothing in the eyes of the world." In this manner will we strengthen the light-impulses that are gaining in number and momentum, and by so much fortify the compassionate labors of those who work unceasingly for all nations and for the unborn and who are, even now, readying the way for the dawn of a brighter age. —To Light a Thousand Lamps by Grace Knoche

OPPORTUNITIES GONE BY "Human longings are perversely obstinate; and to the person whose mouth is longing for a peach, it is of no use to offer even the largest vegetable marrow (no source)." For about two years, off and on, I visited a woman in the Penobscot nursing home who was confined to a wheelchair. Every visit, I brought her and her roommate treats and meals and, sometimes, little presents. Looking back, I know I neglected giving my friend the gift she truly wanted, which was to be driven around the corner to have a good look at the new fire station recently built—this, not quite visible from her window. We had talked about going, but she was not someone who coaxed or urged, but rather demured saying the outing would be too much trouble. I didn’t follow through, and a few months later she was gone. The week before my mother died, when she too, was in a wheelchair, she mentioned in passing she’d like to go outside—this, after months of resisting when I offered to take her. Well, I was busy, and there would be steps to negotiate and someone I must call to help me. Or perhaps I told myself my mother didn’t really want to go (though who was I to say what she was thinking). In any case, my mother died soon after. Please give the people you love and care for their peaches.

FROM THE NOT-A-DOCTOR "A preliminary trial found that rinsing the mouth with 1 tablespoon (15 ml)of a diluted tea tree oil solution four times daily effectively treated thrush (oral yeast infections) in AIDS patients. Solutions containing no more than 5% should be used orally and should never be swallowed." (From my experience, also effective for removing nail fungus.) Go to this url to learn of excellent thrush cures with grapefruit seed extract: http://drjaygordon.com/bf/thrush.htm

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maggie davis
207.266.7673
PO Box 370, Blue Hill, ME 04614-0370
e-mail: maggiesdavis@gmail.com



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