Hello friends,

It's been a long time coming and has taken some patience and hard work, but I've finally gotten the overall online network nearly paying for itself. I will have ongoing work to do for the sites hosted on the network and I won't be making any money for that work -- at least for now. (I do hope that eventually I'll design and host enough sites to earn a little money for my efforts.)

But the final piece of the basic effort -- to keep Conscious Evolution online, together with Layla's site and Firesong's gypsyheart email ... and to cover the server costs by expanding my website creation and hosting efforts to some worthy organizations interested in paying monthly for online services -- has finally just about come to fruition.

I have very much appreciated all the members who contributed financially in the time since Gregory's passing, which enabled me to keep my own losses on the network to about $1,000. I would have been simply unable to sustain more than that, and I frankly don't know how Greg managed not to just pull the plug all those years without the kind of financial constributions I got from you all.

What I need to ask for now is a little bit more, but also I think pretty manageable. If there are a dozen members, each willing to contribute $25 per year, I could feel comfortable declaring the site and the network essentially out of the woods for the foreseeable future.

I see it working like this. Member A signs up for May, Member B for June, Member C for July, etc. And when that month rolls around, you contribute your $25 through PayPal or by mail, and that's it for the year. If we can cover each month that way, so that I reliably know that amount will be there to add to the amounts I'll be receiving from the other arrangements I've set up, then we'll be good to go and we won't have to fill any more stockings on Accounting pages or anything.

So if any of you feel moved to help out in that way to keep the Home Base solvent, please email me at WriteOn@consciousevolution.com with your preferred month, or you can sign on to this message if you prefer, and we'll be all set.

I just renewed the domain name for another year, so I think we can plan on sticking around.

Love,
Maria

Good stuff to hear, Maria

Much gratitude for all of your efforts...and your brainstorming sounds very feasible, reasonable and overall just cool, fine by me, count me in.

Ditto hear.

Thank you, Lisa and Charles, you are wonderful. And Charles, I got your email. Let me get through this next 10 days until school lets out and then I'll write back!

Maria

Maria,
I would be more than happy to help out as well.
Bren~

Thanks, Bren.

This is nice. Kel~ said she's in, too. Everyone's being very flexible as to which month, as well. And since I actually owe Kel~ from a co-op purchase I haven't passed through to her yet, let's do it this way at this point:

Kel has sponsored May
Charles sponsors June
Lisa Bluedove sponsors July
Bren sponsors August

... and we'll hope for / look for eight more Knowflakes to take September through April, each to contribute $25 just one time per year. There are some countries, like India, where sending money out of the country is hugely difficult, so we really can't ask that of those members, but I think we'll probably manage to find our complete complement of 12 out of the US, UK, Canada and Oz, where it's not so tough to manage.

Many thanks again,
Maria

I'll grab a month too. Sept. if it's still available.

LOve&LIght,
Stephanie

Thank you, Princess Pisces. September it is!

I'm there too, Maria....albiet I didn't see this till now...

Love,
Ginny

Thank you, Ginny! So, will October work for you? I absolutely love your starcatchers picture. Probably the cutest use of the Smiley Guys I've ever seen.

Maria

Does October work for me????

You betcha!



(lookin' for a chance to use the smilie.....glad you liked the other one....)

LOve,
Ginny/Rainbow

Hi dear friends,

It's been so long! I'm so happy to see activity here - I remember being here several months ago when there were many difficulites coming up and was worried that things might dissipate...not so!!!!

Maria - you're a Goddess! What a relief it is to know you have worked out how keep conev sustaining itself finacially. I feel terrible for not having shared nearly any of that burden with you. I would very much like to contribute more regularly now -(for one, I'm a little more financially stable than I have been over the last couple years with all the uprooting and such), and you've been so kind to keep my site hanging on to the server all this time. Give me a month, too! But also please send your mailing address to me again, as I feel more comfortable sending you a check to help cover a little of your losses.

I have some other news as well. One of the reasons I was drawn into coming here tonight. Fran has sold off gypsyheart - unfortunetly she chose not to inform us of this until the deal had finalized. It is a very sad loss for us. But, the only good part may be that it will help to strengthen our spiritual connection with Dad in the face of losing whatever was physically left - including a family tie with Fran. I want to believe she did this so deceptively for some reason other than desperate self-interest - I know how difficult things have been for her up there alone. But it is hard and I don't think Dad would have wanted it to go down this way.

But, I don't want to burden you all here with that. In many ways, I know he thought of this place as his home also, and I will do whatever I can now and in the future to help it stay intact.

Bless you all. Love ,
Layla

'Ria sweetheart...put me down for November.......unless you need something sooner?????

oh wait......it's June......



Is it now already?????

ok....ummm..November good?????

Layla honey.....I can understand how much that bothers you....my sis and I struggled with what to keep...what to give....what to sell.....

And what it came down to was simply survival.

We inherited a fair amount of property...and the family business......but I tell you what......the guy that kept it all moving and updated and repaired.....see, he died.

And we do not know how to roof and do electrical and plumbing...and and and and and all the many many things that have come about needing attention.

We stretched out our debt load as far as we dared and then damn near lost it all to back taxes.

Just this past March 1......we squeaked it out and banked next years.....and only missed losing the whole damn estate by one month.

54 years in business and we almost blew it.....

It costs a lot to die, Layla.

We sold my Daddy's beloved private air strip...something he worked for and sacrificed for years to have......we sold the Model A....that was my great Aunt and Uncles wedding car.......it's been in the family since 1929.

we cried......we cried a lot.....it was very very hard.....

But, you know,....Dad would not have wanted us to lose it to the state......he did'nt leave us a gold mine....but he DID leave us the ways and means to survive ....and to pay bills while we struggled with the changing of the guard.

We did exactly what he would have done if he had found himself in our position....we liquidated whatever we did not need to survive.

I'm not a pilot....and Daddy has his own wings now.

The Model A had sat there for too too many years.....that car has such a soul...you could feel her ache to be back on the road.

My friend Kenny helped me get her running again....and he took me for one last ride...I cried myself silly....but she felt SO good rolling down the road....so HAPPY to be driving again....I knew then that we were doing the right thing.

She lives with a collector in Florida now.....and when she left here she was riding high on the top row of a huge high tech flat bed truck.....oh she looked so proud!!! A view she had never seen and the first time she had ever left the state.

It was so sad...and don't you for a moment think that I did not feel like I was selling Daddy out on some level....I did.

But what got me over it was one of my cousins calling me to say she'd heard we'd sold the Model A......

Woman has not spoken to me since Mom died......man, she petted my fur backwards with that one.

Maybe she should have paid my freakin taxes if she wanted to keep the car in the family.

I did what dad would have done.....

Dad can see that car and love that car if he wants to.....

But I could not even start it.

I'm sure your family has not disintigrated like mine did...and I'm sure none of your family members showed up at the funeral asking if Greg left them anything......my case is extreme.

But still.....Greg might have been sorry that Fran had to sell off Gypsy, but maybe he would have been sorrier if she lost the house or something????

Maybe...just maybe, he helped bring the sale about to help Fran out.

The way we 'accidentally' met the collector from the other side of the country was NO accident.

Daddy put that car where she needed to be.

I don't know all the details of your situation, I am just trying to present another side here. But there might be more to this than the surface appearance of deception.

I felt no need whatsoever to contact anyone in the family about the little car.

Hell, her Mom had a heart attack and she did'nt bother to call us.

You move on when people die.....you do what you have to do and you move on.

And for us it came down to being homeless and unemployed....or to sell something that meant a great deal to him when he was in a human body....something we could not care for...or pay for.

(((HUG))) but I know it hurts......it feels like bits of him are being wiped out little by little.....

But they really are'nt.

Your father touched SO many people...and changed SO many lives......his written words are with you forever, as they are for many of us....but you, my lucky little lady, have the added blessing of being able to Hear him say those words in your head.
You know how he'd say it.....and where he'd be all Northwestern, and where that New Orleans drawl would slide in sideways.

Somewhere in this, there is a blessing......you just might not see it right now.

You are all still grieving....it's hardly been any time at all.....it still feels like last week....and then so much has happened, at the same time it feels like a lifetime.

It'll be ok.....everyone has to go thru this in their own way.

Grief is very personal.

I hope maybe that helps a little bit.

Dani

Hello, dear Layla,

It's so good to see you again. Thank you so much for what you do to keep us together too, fellow goddess.

I'm really sorry to hear about the Gypsyheart property. I know that has to hurt. It must have been very difficult for Fran as well. I'm sure she would have preferred to stay there if she could have managed, and as you said, it must have been hard for her there alone.

Learning about it when the deal was already done sounds like a painful shock, and I wish you didn't have to deal with that. But my guess is that it was difficult enough for her to do what she must have felt was necessary and that perhaps it would have been just too much to bear to discuss it ahead of time with the family and feel the burden of your wishing it wasn't so added to the mix. Of course, I'm only guessing, but I do know something about the kind of chronic health issue she has to deal with, and I know that sometimes because of the constant pain and fatigue, it can feel overwhelming just to try to do what needs doing, and the thought of more emotional stress seems like it would be beyond one's capacity to handle.

Love and hugs to you both.

I do feel realy confident now, with what is set up, that this online home will stay, and I can promise now that I will contact you if ever that looks like it would change in any major way.

Welcome home.

Love,
Maria

Hey there, Dani Banani,

Huggeroonies to you.

So, we're doing really well with the sponsorships. Connie wrote me in email to sign up too, so if Layla's OK with December (yikes, Christmas month!), Connie's down for January. So it looks like this:

May: Kelly (Veneo)
June: Charles (Chahldean)
July: Lisa (BlueDove)
August: Brenda (Chakrena)
September: Stephanie (HRH-FishAreFish)
October: Ginny (Rainbow)
November: Dani (searching)
December: Layla (Isis)
January: Connie (moonflower)
February: ?
March: ?
April: ?

In short, we rock!

My address:
Mary Barron
PO Box 239
Cripple Creek, CO 80813

(The post office and bank are used to the Maria variation too. So don't worry about that; either one works. )

Love,
Maria

*Group HUGS*

Hi there,

I know this is an old thread, but I have been thinking of you all and remembered this was my month to contribute, so I popped on to say hello! I just donated $100 through paypal, Maria, so I hope that helps. Thank you so much...for everything.

Sorry I trailed off here and didn't respond to your supportive messages here Dany and Maria. You guys are so kind-hearted. It was really, really hard losing gypsyheart. For me, it went deeper than just losing the property and not hearing about it until after. Fran actually lied and mislead us during the process as well, which hurt the most. I understand all your points here, and I know how difficult of a position Fran was in. I don't blame her for not having the strength to de direct with us. But we were very emotionally connected to the land, and had plans working to take on the responsiblity of it for her. She agreed to let us help her and told us she'd wait for us to arrive and at least give us a chance to come through with a solution before she made any final decisions, but then we found out on our own she had signed the deal behind our backs. A very bad deal. I was very, very angry with her for a long time - it really hurt that she cut us out of having any say in a big part of Dad's legacy. It hurt the way she did it, but I can understand her actions must have come from a place of desperation.

Anyway, I have been healing and trying to move towards forgiveness and compassion. I think it's what Dad wants. There's so much old unresolved pain between Fran and I as well, which is what really sparked my anger. In my dreams, where my psyche is expressing this rage, Dad has shown up in his classic mediator role and tried to help us resolve. So I am beginning the process, reaching out and I hope that the family ties will mend. I miss Dad so much, and this estrangement makes it so much worse. This time of year just brings it all back. You know?
I hope everyone here is thriving and doing well!
Much love ,
Layla

A hundred thank you's, dear Layla.

It is so good to hear how you and your dad are staying so close. I do wish you all comfort and blessings as you heal from the loss and hurt of being separated from Gypsyheart. And the way it happened. I'm sure it can't be easy to move toward reconciliation.



Love,
Maria

I understand your anger Layla.......it would have made me angry too, to be planning to help in some way and then just getting cut out of it.

And you are wise to realize that there are other feelings at play here too. It was the same for me.

I wish I had answers for you....I wish I could wave a magic wand and heal everything between you and Fran.

It's hard is'nt it, when the glue that held it all together moves on to another plane and leaves you with so many questions and precious few answers.

I hope and pray that as time goes by you will find the answers that you need.

Your Father loved you both so much and I have no doubt that he is working hard behind the scenes to help you and your whole family through this pain and grieving process.

One day at a time sweetheart. (((HUG)))

and btw......when you spelled my name 'Dany' instead of 'Dani'.....you gave me a hug from my Mom, because thats the way she always spelled it until I had a 13 year old temper tantrum.......you made me smile.

'Ria darling....watch for your Christmas card.......there's $$$$ in it!!!!



Dany

Hey all,

Wanted to let you know that another wonderful knowflake has covered the sponsorship for February-March-April 2007 in honor of Ginny Rainbow.

Thanks!

Maria

wow.

Thanks to the angel who gave in memory of Ginny.