Category Archives: nature

Cabella river wonderworld

“But what should we do about it all?”

Celebrating the 98th Birthday of my spiritual Mother today 🌹
https://shrimataji.org

There are two main reasons for the present Chaos,
in which all corruptions are being exposed:

For all good people to turn to their
Spirit for ultimate fulfillment;

And for already balanced, sensitive and dynamic persons to develop their
power of Witnessing.
Simple.
Keep your mind clear and your
heart brimming with love.

208 years, Husarentempel in the Vienna Woods (from 1813)

the Austrian Saugstads out and about exploring our neighbourhood again! 🦌🏔🔭🌞

Behold! Oh, Ancient Castle in our backyard ⚔️


(my pre-birthday hike)

 

(we ended up walking down the mountain in the night!!!)

the true Thanksgiving Day: Earth Day 2020

Thanks Mom (Mom Earth) 🌳💗🌎

SELF-ISOLATION/RECREATION, DAY 5

“When the going gets tough, the tough get going!”

(the wife will find plenty for me to do at home!)

an Austrian-Italian wedding!

NON-

STOP

FUN!

sunshine, beauty and friends!

when the Italians get dancing!

Traun Lake!

the Canadian Ice Cream Inspector hard at work!

what we happened to get as the last available hotel room in the whole area – the one guarded by ancient asian angels!

the romantic Spitz Villa in Traunkirchen

homestead upgrades

New photovoltaic sun energy system:

https://www.facebook.com/edward.saugstad/media_set?set=a.10156583248401545&type=3

and, new larch steps to the creek:

https://www.facebook.com/edward.saugstad/media_set?set=a.10156583277136545&type=3

 

(Going up fast – looks like it’ll get above 2000 watts electricity production this morning! ⚡️Ω)

winter’s last rain

all things green sprout suddenly after the last winter rain, here on the threshold to Narnia …

improv in the ancient Italian valley

cool the rising hate-wave

“There is no time to lose. The Mother Earth, Her heavens, and Her water kingdoms are in great peril and suffering grievously. The hate wave from the collective ego is increasing at an alarming rate, and threatens to suffocate all sweetness and beauty in the three worlds. You must set out at once. Everything depends upon the success of your mission!”
(from page 42 of “Oakee Doakee and the Hate Wave” 2008 by Sir Ed Word)

http://SirEdWord.com

hate wave

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any chance of going back?

any chance of going back?

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elegant power

elegant power!

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Spring has finally SPRUNG!

The Amost Amazing Flying Carpenter

Ganesha revisited

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My wife, perhaps a little bit like the great Goddess of old, spends her peaceful days and nights breathing life into simple clay.

Here we are sharing some of that Sweetness.

May the Earth forever smile in Her abundant Innocence.

 

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http://www.brigittesaugstad.com/html/werke2engl.html

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The Rising Son

One night along the road of life
Just as the burden of my strife
Became a load too hard to bear
There came a boon to ease my care.

It came to me upon a dream
When the pressing darkness seemed
To severe my last grasp on hope,
Leaving me in doubt to grope.

This boon appeared as a white dove
Shining light from far above,
But as it flew to where I lay
I saw only a hill of clay.

As I watched this smooth round mound
I heard a sweet and soothing sound,
And as my mood slowly improved
The living mound began to move.

A child’s body, clothed in flowers,
Radiating super powers,
Grew as if through divine charms,
With two stout legs and four strong arms.

Then to my rising surprise
There appeared two smiling eyes
And, dignified and radiant,
The head of a young elephant.

Now feeling light and filled with joy
I asked this handsome ele-boy,
“What has brought You down to Earth
With Your gifts of love and mirth?”

At first He simply read my soul
Until His gaze had made me whole.
And then He stirred and, playfully,
Crossed His legs and spoke to me:

“I have not come down to you.
If you move your point of view
You will see I’m always here,
In each heart that’s true and clear.”

Then, just as my senses cleared,
All around me I could hear
That healing angelic sound
That rose up richly from the ground.

Soon it filled my every cell
From a deep eternal well.
Finally I was at home
In the bright, primordial Om.

“Wow! How could I’ve been so near
But never feel Your Presence here?”
I asked, ecstatic by the Force
That now flowed from endless Source.

As this cool, enlightening Breeze
Dissolved my fears and doubts with ease,
I looked up and noticed that
My new Friend had donned a hat …

No, not hat, a shimmering crown,
Which shone its light now all around —
And I saw that He now grew
Making every being new.

As He expanded like a cloud
I felt proud to be allowed
To see His great magnificence
Fill the world with innocence.

Tears of gratitude I cried,
As I stood and faced the skies.
If we could all just look within
We would never fall again.

~E.E. Saugstad 2011

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welcome to our little oasis!

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Click on the image to enter …

Gmunden Gallery-1.

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sometimes I wish I could just hug whoever made this wonderful world

part and party of the whole

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This is already a year old, but some occasions can just keep on giving you something, no matter how far back in time they lie …

~click on this Party Tree~

~then click on the audio file~

~then click on the slideshow~

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natural working-holiday therapy in rural Italy – part 2

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Two Years Later …

~click the photo to see the progress~

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unleash the creativity (see the essence)

    “I am an artist and last Friday, after my meditation in the morning, I went down to Greenwich Village (NYC). As I was walking along the street I slowed down to pay attention to the trees, to see the change of colors that come with the Fall.
    I looked across the street at a couple of older and taller trees and had a very exiting experience, an experience I had never had before. I looked at one tree and as I took it in, it felt like I could feel its very being, I could feel its soul. Then I looked at a second tree, at first not fully believing what just happened. Again, the same experience.
    I knew at that moment that something profound had happened to me. As though what I’d been used to seeing was now revealed as something two dimensional and now I can see in three dimensional. But that’s hardly adequate as a description, the reality of what I experienced is beyond that. 

    There’s a way of relating to space and form that comes with my new practice of Sahaja Meditation.

    Meditating helped me to get my mind clear of things that did not need to be there. So I am open to get new experiences, and to get back to creativity.”

    ~Rina
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natural working-holiday therapy in rural Italy

Okay, not everyone can make this kind of rejuvenating getaway (it helps if you have some building skills and personal means of transportation) but if you ever get a chance, try something like this. A couple of weeks ago I loaded the car with tools, screws, brackets and wooden posts, and drove over to northern Italy to help someone build some steps … think of them as steps to a peaceful, stress-free state – that’s what you get from sleeping under the stars and doing woodwork in the late-spring sunshine by an ancient riverbed near the Mediterranean Sea. The steps actually expanded into a beautiful, split-level terrace, that good folks from all over the world will enjoy for years to come.

Ahhhh.
Gelato anyone?

😉

(click on the sunny Italian postcard to visit the ‘site’)
(a ‘Ganesha’ statue in nearby Genova by my artistic wife)
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festival of Light on the ‘spiritual Ganges of Europe’

Here’s my short film on the first annual Culture of the Spirit festival, where East meets West in a beautiful, rural river valley in Italy.

It’s been found that pure, absolute Spirit is in essence joy and love, that brings a rewarding sense of clarity to ones perception. This phenomena was felt by the hundreds of visitors and participants at this event, brought on by the subtle beauty and light of the performances and exhibitions, and intensified by the simultaneous collective experience.

A science presentation revealed that distant cells communicate with one another, and that this process may happen through the medium of light. If we are all ascending into a new, more transparent and joyful state of awareness, this may indicate that we are to be increasingly empowered to communicate by means of the light in and around us.

Could there be anything more beautiful and fulfilling than discovering whole new ways of sharing creative love on unlimited, powerful wavelengths, and perhaps to find our dormant brain functions spring to life with undreamed of comprehension of playful reality? We may have yet to discover what it actually means to be fully functional human beings. Even our genes, which are changed by mundane experiences and passed on to future generations, can now be constructively altered for our optimum spiritual growth by connecting ourselves to the deepest Vibrations, from which all life emerges.

This meditative weekend generated unique inspiration that brings the promise of great things to come.

Meet you next summer in the Borbera Valley, the ‘Ganges of Europe’!

Note: Hold your hands open, palms up, while watching this film, and see what you feel.

(Hint: A cool breeze would be ideal – to actually feel Light!)

(p.s.~ Some of the artworks seen are from my wife! … Ceramic sculptures …)

http://brigittesaugstad.com

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the healing of the Mother

Earth heart

Our Earth has a heart that beats and loves.

It’s time to find that rthymn inside ourselves and reciprocate Her love.

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never a dulllll moment

After arriving back over in Vancouver for a summer holiday, many new amazing things started falling into place….

The fun started with a spontaneous boat ride to the beautiful island resort where I spent my childhood summers. With a couple of brothers and my wife and son, we visited Buccaneer Bay (its real name!) for my first time in thirty-five years. (Captain McTaggart, one of the Greenpeace pioneers, also spent holidays there with his family in their cottage. Celebrities parked their yachts in the bay on their cruises along the coast. The Canadian Prime Minister stopped in once, and we saw John Wayne and his family another time!) It was the first place that I experienced joy. It happened when I was about twelve while climbing the small mountain there, Spyglass Hill, and seeing the breath-taking view of forests, islands and heaven-blue ocean, skies and mountains stretching out to all horizons. I would often take my sleeping-bag down to the white, sandy beach at night and fall asleep in the peaceful solitude, watching the endless, timeless starry heavens. The place hadn’t changed. There were still the same cottages, trees (quite a bit bigger now!), mossy bluffs and fresh, salty breezes – and still no electricity or modern conveniences! We knocked on our old neighbour’s door and found that most of their family was there, including new grandchildren and great-grandchildren. As one of the Hendersons remarked, it was a ‘blast from the past’ meeting again after so long.

During our outing, I happened to mention something to one of my brothers about our childhood and the two sisters and the brother that we never met, as our father had left his first wife and kids to marry our mom, who then gave birth to us. To my great surprise, he told me that two of Dad’s first offspring had managed to contact him a few years back. After discovering the name and hometown of one, I wasted no time in contacting her. She was so thrilled to get a call from me, that she couldn’t sleep the whole night as she had waited her whole life to meet us. We had agreed to meet the following weekend. My wife, Brigitte, and I spent the night in the home of my lost sister and her husband (who is part native Canadian, the great-grandson of a First Nation chief). By the time we left the next day, it felt like a half century of healing had taken place, as the joy and vibrations were very strong. We also spoke on the phone to my other missing siblings, and we’ve planned to get together soon for a big reunion. (As it turns out, my other sister breeds horses, and one of them was in China recently participating in the Olympics!)

We then had a great time the following two days as guests of the local Hindu Temple, which held a festive open-house. A dear friend and professional singer from India, who recently settled in Victoria, was invited to sing. The audience loved him. We also presented a small introduction to Sahaja Yoga, which was also very much appreciated by all.

Along the merry way, I made a point of distributing copies of my new children’s books to families that we passed on planes, ferries and other public places (as well as among our old friends at Buccaneer Bay, feeling somehow that I was sending redeeming vibrations back into my sometimes scary and tragic childhood). The stories, full of loving vibes, are created to help lift the reader toward self-realization. Surprisingly, many adults have also reported getting special, uplifting feelings from these fictional adventures! I hope those hundred or so books – and the many more that may eventually make their ways into the lives and hearts of good souls everywhere – will help in some small way to water the roots of enlightenment in the coming generation.

(p.s. – Did you know that the largest octopuses in the world live in the waters between Vancouver and Victoria, and that you can see whales, dolphins and seals almost every day there? Did you know there are magnificent, natural guardians watching over Vancouver, two mountain peaks with the shapes of lions, as well as the huge rain-forest city park with the shape of an elephant’s – Ganesha’s? – head?)

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To enjoy a few of these magical moments, click on the cruise ship …

sail away into life ...

the next generation

A little girl from my hometown spills her heart to the United Nations

the calm before the storm

We get a great variety of small birds here in our corner of the Vienna Woods, but this morning brought an eerie stillness. Just one tiny fellow made his way nervously through the garden, birdiegrabbing a quick last meal before the storm hits.

As the ominous wind begins to rise, we’re once again reminded of the delicate balance that exists between us and our perishable environment. Throughout this day, as blasted trees sever human power lines, and roofs are torn from human homes, we can look ahead and worry; or we can look within and change.

My young son mentioned yesterday, how dramatically the world is splitting between the very positive and the very negative. On the one hand, people are religiously killing themselves, children, and even the Earth, as if life no longer has value – and the corrupt just keep getting more selfish and powerful; and on the other hand, universal cooperation, communication and understanding is at a record high. If we could just go a little bit deeper into the vast reservoir of wisdom inside ourselves, the benefits would spill out into this life that we know and love. We give our children presents on religious holidays and birthdays, but do we give them that basic requirement – the obvious – a safe future on an abundant planet?

Climate is a reflection of our collective, inner state. It’s time to tidy up in there.

wireless mouse

wireless mouse

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if you’re not having fun, you may have a short-circuit somewhere in your inner-net*. . . .

One Family

Hum-dee-dum, tra-la, tra-la . . .
Now, where were we – oh, my gosh! Is it so late already? Almost eight years passed the twentieth century? How time does fly when you’re having fun.

When I was young, I earnestly believed that a pandemic of fun could save mankind. Funny – now that I think of it – I still do, although my outlook has become somewhat more refined. The youthful images of reckless abandon have been replaced by a majestic movie in which every person shines with a child’s countenance, bubbling with the champagne of wise innocence. In this age of global communication and friendship across all borders (let’s just ignore the racists, fundamentalists, fed-up-ists, megamerger-swallowtheworld-industrialist-capitalists and political-power-activists for the moment) we find the ideal setting for the kindergarten birthday party utopia, where care is no longer an ulcer-giving demon in the back of the mind, but a magical, benevolent whim that spontaneously brings luck to others. By ‘fun’, I’m of course referring to the stuff that shines from the pearl of joy, not its wannabe, temporary copy that sometimes emits from the fickle happiness/unhappiness coin. (More on that somewhere below: Just scroll down this site to investigate.)

Mount Saugstad (2908 meters)

Things were a lot different back in the days of my great-grandfather, Reverend Christian Saugstad. Not only were those guys bereft of Internet, I don’t think even fun had been invented yet! Imagine leading your followers over one-and-a-half thousand rugged miles to a new, puritan home in the wilderness (from Minnesota to British Columbia). That was hard work back in 1894; no jumbojet-getaway! But I’m sure they experienced something resembling fun after the men spent the first fall and winter on the freezing coast chopping trees, shoveling snow and building log cabins, and then all their wives and children ferried up from the capital in the spring thaw. Well, I guess if reincarnation is the norm, we all bin there; dun that. I ain’t sayin’ that the plastic smell of computers is more inspiring to collective understanding and integration than a five hundred year old cedar rainforest, but the invention of mass-communication terminals and networks have brought us a long way in appreciating each other. Old Rev. C. didn’t even want his people to marry non-Norwegians, not to mention Muslims, Hindus or Jews (although they did somehow manage to get in among the more enlightened aboriginals). first Bella Coola settlersHis son, my grandfather the sea captain, was more evolved in this respect. He brought home his bride from Devon after WW1, Norwegian or no. Why, she wasn’t even a conformed Christian. Surviving witnesses in the old Vancouver neighbourhood may still recall the public argument she had one day across the picket fence with Mr. Bible-Thumper next door, insisting that reincarnation of human beings is a natural and inevitable process (“and-you-can-jolly-well-put-that-in-your-pipe-and-smoke-it!”). And that was well before the New Age Revolution began in the sixties. Um . . . Grandma’s reincarnation> Devon> Sea captain> Indians> the old Rev.> . . . ah, yes – the Internet: It’s obvious to me, after twenty-five years of daily personal subjective, and international objective experience in Sahaja Yoga, that this new level of global communication is a result of an accelerated inner process of collective consciousness. Naturally, these deep, evolutionary, spiritually powerful, expanding awareness thingies do tend to find ways of manifesting appropriate tools, so it’s no wonder that super-fast, super-portable, super-affordable gadgets and systems have sprouted into common use for the greater goodness of getting everyone universally chummy. I’m also convinced (und ich wuerde meinen rechten Arm darauf verwetten) that as soon as all this evil and bullying and perversion and smug complacency has been played out, that wave of – yes, in your face – LOVE is going to wash over the stage, and we’ll be in for one hell-of-a (oops), I mean, one wonderful show!
You may sayyy I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one . . . And whatever desire you hold on to, is the direction you move toward. It seems we’re shifting into a whole new mode*.

(Stay tuned for further fun ‘n’ fascinating features . . .)

Now, I really must get back to my wood chopping. (I do find it fun!)

our Austrian blackberries

(And I truly do admire the seeking spirit of my fore-fathers/mothers, including my own parents, whose appetites for shared goodness and truth, in times of such pervading spiritual darkness, have been encouraging.)

out back in the Vienna Woods

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~click on the gigantic stump to experience more~BellaCoola 1800s.

when common sense becomes uncommon

Ganesha’s Innocent Eye

In the morning I was down near the creek. I suddenly heard a deep, dangerous sound like a thunder clap rising out of the earth. I stood still and peered in the direction from which it came. As I watched, just eight or nine meters upstream from where I stood, rooted to the spot, an eighty year old cherry tree cracked in the middle of its wide trunk, and came ripping and crashing down onto my bank of the small river. Then all was silent and sunny again. Although it was rather a sad and shocking sight to see this old, proud member of the forest lying there, fatally broken, never to enjoy the water in her roots and sun and birds in her branches again, I understood that nature had run her course and that the saplings sprouting out of the rich earth nearby would rise up to take her place.

The same is true in the world of humans. It’s not a shame to pass away and be born again as something higher – someone richer in love and Gentle Roseexperience – but it is regrettable to shatter one’s inner foundations through frivolous free will, thereby scarring the face of future possibilities.

I recently read a reader’s short statement in a city newspaper, written by a simple, sensible woman, pleading for a move to balanced sexual relations between human beings in our modern society. It was a refreshing plea. We tend to be a society of addicts. Whatever feels good is used and abused to extremes until – like a drug whose effects we numb to, forcing us to take more to feel it – it dominates our senses and our true freedom. I imagine that this concerned citizen caught a distinct glimpse of this break down of common sense, and wondered why two people united in mutual, collectively sanctioned love, could not share this sacred and magical experience privately, without hearing and seeing the topic advertised around every corner like a circus event. Not all that is natural and personal should be hung out on your front door. There is sublime dignity, and there are deep, natural guidelines to a thriving existence, rooted inside each of us.

brokenBack in the early twentieth century, someone* came up with an absurd, twisted theory about sexual feelings between children and their parents (recently exposed as being unfounded) and certain followers of this concept, certain of their cause in making sex an open forum (in effect, watering down the potency of this special, intimate act) shouted from the roof tops that, because there are the nazi-like, or old-fashioned minded who try to repress us in our natural expression, we must run full speed in the other direction to avoid disaster. The individual and collective damage done in such a misguided venture is mostly subtle, but there appear obvious signs of weakness and decline which we tend to ignore. We, as a race, are very slow learners.

It’s time to adjust to the center and rebuild our inner foundations. The experiences of the left and the right extremes are sensational, but not sustainable, and certainly not constructive in the long term. Maybe we’re conditioned now by politics, believing that the ‘center‘ represents a sterile, diplomatic void where nothing concrete can be achieved. The inner center is actually the source of power and creativity. It is the eternal present, abundant in joy and resonant experience. It is built into our subtle beings, and easily accessible through spontaneous self-realization. There springs the love and innocence that make sex, and all other tender exchanges in a dedicated relationship, fulfilling.

Okay, we’ve tried all the cheap extremes. Now let’s get to the potent essence.

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(*One of his students, Carl Jung, went on to discover more realistic and helpful facts about the human psyche.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5drUNviakdk

fallen

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