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There is a debate in America about a Victory Garden at the White House.
Roger Doiron, founder of Kitchen Gardeners International has started a campaign to encourage the next President of the United States to grow a vegetable garden on the First Lawn.
This is not such a new idea; early presidents planted their own gardens as a matter of practicality.
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 John harvesting abundance.
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War gardens were encouraged during the First World War to combat potential food shortages and victory gardens sprouted up during the Second World War in response to food rationing and fuel shortages.
In 1943 Eleanor Roosevelt planted a victory garden in front of the White House to inspire millions of Americans to follow suit despite the opposition from the official Agriculture Department who deemed it unpatriotic.
By the time the war ended in 1945, 40 percent of all produce in the US was grown at home.
Could I say that her perseverance paid off and that she saved a lot of Americans from feeling lack, fear and helplessness.
In hard times she encouraged Americans to do something differently and with that encouragement she gave them power and nourishment for the body, soul and mind.
When you see a woman with a piece of green stuck in her teeth, can you resist to check yours?
The same goes for when I see women act in a certain way.
I immediately see myself reflected and think “Oh no!”
It happened last week.
I saw unnecessary sacrifice and it triggered my buttons hugely.
How many of us are doing this and how much do we wreak havoc with it?
In these difficult times when wars are raging and money worries drive people spare, people want to do something.
They protest, they have angry shouting matches and wind themselves up.
They create aggression as a response to bad circumstances.
Ignoring seems callous but fighting aggression with angry talk is not me.
So I ignore the urge to do something too until through my questioning I came upon Joe Vitale explaining Ho’oponopono.
It fitted beautifully with my understanding that when I desire a different world I have to act differently.
This is Joe’s story;
“Two years ago, I heard about a therapist in Hawaii who cured a complete ward of criminally insane patients–without ever seeing any of them. The psychologist would study an inmate’s chart and then look within himself to see how he created that person’s illness. As he improved himself, the patient improved.
“When I first heard this story, I thought it was an urban legend. How could anyone feel that responsible for other people’s deeds, how could anybody heal others by healing himself?
“Yet I couldn’t let it leave my mind.
I had always understood “total responsibility” to mean that I am responsible for what I think and do.
Beyond that, it’s out of my hands. I think that most people think of total responsibility that way.
We’re responsible for what we do, not what anyone else does–but that’s not so and I found out more when I met him.
How would it be adopting out your son, knowing that you will never know him?
How would it be having kept your adoption a dark secret and then having a doctor ask you if you have had a pregnancy before?
How will life be with these dark secrets?
That zest for life, that full on going for what you want, what a sight to see, go one year old go, you don’t have long before it is beaten out of you and you no longer are alive.
This weekend a one year old birthday girl saw her chance and grabbed a handful of her pretty chocolate birthday cake.
She then wailed loudly when she wasn’t allowed anymore, at least not in that way.
Her wailing was a sight to see, a lost art for most of us.
She however got the attention she wanted and her cake too.
Ever wonder why there are glass ceilings for women, why we have different insurance policies, why men barge ahead and make decisions after having tried to get an answer out of us and maybe that is why there still isn’t world peace . . . .
On my questioning quest I had Humberto Maturana’s theories explained.
Humberto Maturana explains legitimacy in a very interesting way and his explanation sheds a lot of light on how *being legitimate* effects how we act to others, how others act toward us and how violence and wars can exist.
Practical as I am, I love these explanations that give you a great insight and then I am interested in how legitimacy effects my daily life.
You might have guessed that I have discovered that it impacts hugely, because I am writing about it right now.
It never stops; my learning that is.
Before I talked about how hard it is to learn to say ‘No’, now I can begin to work on the word ‘Yes’.
I never really thought I had trouble with that ‘Yes’ word, who in their right mind would.
But of course you will find that women will have a problem with the ‘yes’ word, at least I have and I qualify as a woman.
As one of my themes for 2009 is collaboration and communication, it is a big help for everyone , especially for partners in the domestic collaboration scene to know the meaning and use of the word ‘yes’ and ‘no’.
To prove my point here are some observations and corrections that I made.
2009, what will you bring and 2008 what have you brought?
Let’s start with what 2008 has brought.
In December 2007 I sat on our beautiful beach on the Coromandel and declared that I wanted to eat flowers and live in a beautiful garden, a real Garden of Eden surrounded by bush and nature, inspired by the Ringing Cedar Books.
I even drew a picture.
John and I desired an online business that would allow us to live away from the city.
In the beginning of 2008 I had no idea how this was going to unfold.
I had no idea where to start looking and no idea how it all would work out.
And WOW . . . it happened as many of you would have read 
Here we are in our amazing garden eating as many ‘flowers’ as we can handle and steadily developing an online business.
How is that to see desire and intent unfold, just like that !
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