The PeaceWithin

Anyone who has ever followed my blog or knows me well understands my idea of peace. While I continue to envision and pray for universal peace, I know that true peace can only be found within each soul individually. Every one of us is responsible for finding that place which  we can retreat to for solace, comfort and the assurance that all will be well in our souls.

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For those who accept the idea that our lives are guided by a higher power, Peace then comes in that knowledge and acceptance, each finding their own way of communion with Spirit. What name this guiding force is called matters not. If universal naming were important we would all be in trouble here.

What matters most is that every living thing find a common pulse, that place in which we all become one, even for a moment. Call it prayer, meditation, communion or simply quieting the mind from the constant chatter that we have come to know as commonplace in our lives.

The peace I find comes in the shade of the Creator’s Love, this beautiful spinning orb of rock, water, gases and cellular magnificence we call Earth..and home. I spent my Thanksgiving breathing, relaxing and being. I spent yesterday reveling in our home and its inhabitants. This is my church and these are my fellow worshippers. We are thankful for our breath and what each if us knows as perfection in life. The genuine moments of peace that sustain us through hardship and loss. These are the gifts, the treasure, the cool shade of a Love that knows no limit.

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Snowy egret in Canaveral Seashore National Reserve
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We take wing when fear consumes us. Or we trust in Spirit and wait
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Can you hear them whispering?
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I missed seeing my hawk friends so often

 

 

It is a good thing to find joy wherever you may be. It is another to be in a place where joy bombards you from all directions. For me that place is within the living world.

May you find a reason to be thankful in every day.

This post is brought to you by Linda Hill’s #SoCS prompt.

If our walk made you thirsty, head on over to Dan’s place. They are serving up cold ones in spite of the impending snow predictions. 😉

Angels I Have Known

There are times I feel as though I have been to the summit of Life’s perfection and others when I swear I have plummeted to the bowels of its darkest pit. My heart knows the truth, however, which is that this life has been so blessed. I have known great sorrows and tremendous joys in these nearly 60 years. Did you hear me say that? 60, as in 6-0. Six decades, 3,120 weeks, some 21,900 days. I won’t count the moments because the only moment that counts is this one. But you get the point.

The one certainty in all of my life has been the presence of a power that has guided, protected and comforted me. For the sake of commonality I like to think of them as angels, angels being in this instance those souls working under the guidance of Love. Sometimes we pray for help and angels appear, but more often than not these entities have shown up in my life when I least expected and sometimes did not even realize until they had passed through.

I want to spend some of the last months of my 6th decade remembering and honoring those precious Warriors of Light, the gentle spirits who watched over, patiently encouraged and guided me, laughed and cried with me, and saved me from my most fearful shadow monsters.

I have had Debbie on my mind these last weeks, missing her voice, her gentle unassuming wisdom and total non judgmental love. We met online through a spiritual web site. Both of us had lost very dear loved ones and although we shared similar religious histories, we both had come to a greater understanding of the Creator’s presence in our lives. From the first email she sent to me privately in 1999 until the day she passed away in 2016, I felt as though we were soul mates and had known one another long before we came intto this life. In a friendship that spanned over 15 years, we only shared actual physical space on three occasions, but we communicated nearly every day during most of those years which included hours of heartfelt phone sessions. She and her husband were angels to me and my family. I still can’t believe she is no longer here with us, but her presence and influence was so profound that I always feel her with me.

Many rungs on my ladder upward to higher understanding were reached because she helped me up.  And held me up. That’s what loving friends do. They don’t ask why you are angry, don’t try to reason things out and fix them for you, or set limits on their support. Friends just say, “I’m sorry you are in pain. Do you need anything from me?” That kind of friendship is so hard to come by, but I have been so blessed in my life to know many of these people, some related and others related through spirit.

Debbie liked to say that Life was a school where we all come to learn and to earn our wings and graduate. I believe the wings that carried her into this world were even more magnifcient when they carried her home.

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What I wouldn’t give for one more hour with you, my dear friend. You introduced me to so many beautiful things. A Course in Miracles, The Four Agreements, Enya, Sarah Brightman, Josh Groban, Elizabeth Kubler Ross, my favorite Chandrika soap, the lovely Naples beaches, sharing food all around the table with family-and to think we met because of Bruce Moen and his Afterlife Knowledge site. Not surprisingly, my Angel of a husband found that site for me due to my continued struggle over losing my Mom 16 years earlier and being unable to make peace with the loss. I hope you found each other over there. You and she have so much in common.

This one is for you, dear friend.

Thank you for helping me to accept that I am as God created me. I will never forget.

Fourth Little Bird

So, after a week of feeling the tension of the world increasing to mind numbing levels, I got the sweetest video yesterday morning from my grandson’s Mom. It is dark due to their being under a blanket. (It isn’t your eyesight failing!)

 

The Fourth Little Bird says, “Every little thing is gonna’ be alright.” He was born on Earth Day, so I trust his intuition.  I think Bob would have enjoyed his rendition.

 

 

As I was sitting outdoors yesterday three crows flew overhead and landed in a nearby tree, one of them squawking away. They stayed the entire time I was outdoors too. In many ancient legends crows have specific  duties and connotations. I read up on the various prospects and my favorite about three crows is that big, exciting change and transformation is coming. It didn’t hit me until later in the morning that they arrived a short while after I got the Three Little Birds video. It played in my head all day.

 

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Messengers from the dead?
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Three Little Birds
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Or Wise Council?

Happy Sunday.

Oh,  we went to a really cool music venue last evening, had good food, drinks and listened to an awesome Blues band. I’d say that was a good start to new adventures…

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Even got to see a lovely sunset!
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Except for the Big Giant Head I like this shot.

Go out and make some magic. This is my message to you…

Constant

I’m sorry about not delivering a #Free48 post today and I promise to catch up. The truth is I didn’t sleep well last night. I have several family members and dear friends who are struggling with health issues and they are weighing heavily on my heart.

I dreamed of one friend , a silly sort of dream, that I will try to unravel on my own; but at some point I was shown yellow roses. I know I receive all kinds of dream messages and this one was clear. Since the little birds decided to get up at 4 am and serenade me, I thought of one of my favorite hymns, one that always gave me peace and hope.

It was also one of my mother’s very favorites. This is for anyone out there who feels alone and is struggling with pain or sorrow. You are never, ever alone. Just reach out with your heart.

 

 

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One of my little friends. She may not be a sparrow, but she seems pretty confident that someone is taking care of things.

 

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Rose, yellow The yellow rose is the omen of connection and friendship between people and you….

We all need to love one another, no matter the time, distance or energy that passes  between us.  Have a beautiful, healing week everyone. Pass it on.

Hugs!

The Pooh in You

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How many times have I had this thought? How many times have I felt even smaller than my physical stature and emotionally ill equipped to compete in a world so driven by extreme emotion and knee jerk reaction? How many times do I compare myself to others so that I can look down on myself before anyone else does?

It took a lifetime to realize the true source of my misery. Some kind folks used to tell me, “Don’t let them steal your joy.” It made sense but still left me in the role of the victim. And how could I stop them? They were so much more confident than me-no one dared make them feel ‘less-than’. It was as if I had a neon bullseye attached to my heart that flashed out to the world, “Free shots, bring your really big guns!” So many days I have felt like a gunslinger, just waiting for the next rebel to call me out for a duel to the death.

Make no mistake. I was by no means a helpless rabbit. No, no, I am a Cancer on the astrological chart; and what Cancer does when cornered is pull out the really big claws. My fight or flight instinct has always been well honed, and I have been victorious over the long arm of evil doing on many occasions. I have to say that it was never gratifying because for we home bodied crabs,  a broken relationship is always a loss, a failure, and somehow all our fault. 

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Along the path I have walked, I have been blessed with angels and guides, coming in all forms, including those not so palatable ones; for I know that life lessons are manifest in all that we experience. Once I began to understand that what triggered me most negatively in others was often something I feared was within me, my ability to deal with these issues changed. When we accept negative aspects within ourselves and treat ourselves with love, compassion and forgiveness, we soon realize how very small the things that once loomed large and menacing over our relationships truly are.

When we accept that the sum of ourselves is made up of many different aspects, both positive and negative, we can then close the gap of separation that keeps us so often at odds with our outer world.

This way of being is not to be confused with passivity, for such a path dictates that we accept all wounds, absorb all negative energy and never fight back-all in the name of being peaceful. I believe it is possible to be at peace within while having a warrior spirit that is ready to defend and protect ourselves when necessary.

I have arrived at an emotional place where I accept that my world truly is one where I create the environment I exist within. When I feel a soul vampire (yes, they do exist but are not so honest as to be easily recognized) honing in on me, I shut down my own emotional response system and begin calling light energy to surround me and fill the space between us. I refuse to acknowledge the attack, turn away from my own need to defend, and soon they just stop. The first time this happened was so miraculous I wanted to shout to the world. Now, the greater question for me as the deep thinker that I am is:

Am I truly shutting them down defensively or is my refusal to recognize the attack making it not exist at all? Either way, my walk has become more peaceful because I made an adjustment to that advice given me so long ago. No longer do I say, “Don’t let them steal your joy.” Instead I have taken ownership of my well-being. Now I say,

“Don’t give your joy away.” No one can steal anything from you emotionally which you do not allow or give of your own free will. The devil can’t ‘make you do it’ and the Creator is not a Geni who grants wishes to the blessed and chaste few. Life is directed by the positive flow of The Creator, and when we are in sync with that fllow, our lives work-through good times and bad. We are spiritual beings in a world held together by extreme energy. Sometimes these things blend and excite for a beautiful existence while at others they clash to create storms that often devastate. Science and spirituality coexisting since the dawn of time. Perhaps they are one and the same.

Ask the ‘lesser’ creations….

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They go with the flow. They live to exist and exist because they are about the business of living. When one bird is aggressive, the other sits by until the he leaves. If the timid bird is hungry enough, she fights back, getting what she needs. I’ve never seen one off alone crying for lost bird seed, though. There really is more than enough of everything to go around.

I may not be able to change the world, but I can definitely change my way of being in it. If one is to believe in the Butterfly Effect theory, perhaps this is enough to effect some kind of positive change. And that is always a good thing.

I hope you all have a beautiful week. And if you have a chance, grab this little gem of a book. Be like Pooh. Because being a bear in the Hundred Acre Wood is a very zen thing. 😘

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My latest project in the works.

Shines to Bless…#SoCS #JusJoJan

There is nothing to do for introduction but to share with you the exact instructions for our SoCS prompt from Linda Hill. Each week we get a pompt from Linda to write a post on Saturday. This one was challening and I quote:

Your prompt for #JusJoJan and Stream of Consciousness Saturday is as follows: read closely. When you’re ready to sit down and write your post, look to the publication (book, newspaper, permission slip from your kid’s teacher, whatever you find) closest to you, and base your post on the sixth, seventh, and eighth word from the beginning of the page. Enjoy!”

Wow! So glad I wasn’t cooking or reading the newspaper or…

As it happens I already had a post in mind for today so I happened to have a book sitting nearby. The words that qualify are “shines to bless”. The book? A Wanderer in the Spirit Land, a fairly old publication, dating back to 1901, with a transcriber’s preface dating 1896.

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This ia a favorite book of mine and the entire sentence from above reads, “Oh star of hope that shines to bless the Wanderer through life’s wilderness! Angels of Love-are ye come to lead the weary Wanderer home?”

I find it ironic that anything metaphysically inclined has now come to be called ‘New Age’ when, in fact, there has been awareness of the metaphysical since ancient times, perhaps even more respect for its role in existence being understood and accepted in those days. The difference, I suppose, in modern times is the social acceptance of such ideas. And a lot less witch burnings. 😏

The primary reason I love this book is the basic concept that a man who has lived less than a chaste and benevolent life, turning his back on his one true love to wheel and deal in monetary gain to the ends of deeply sinning against God and humanity, finds himself in hell-but not a religious hell. That would be too simple. This hell is one that takes time to sink in for it is not a lot different from his life. This hell I can envision, as each entering there is made to exist among others such as themselves. If a thief, among theives, if a murderer, always running from murderers, etc.  To exist in a place where there is no chance of salvation or redemption, playing out scenarios wherein one is the victim of their own sins over and over would indeed be hell to me.

Our dark hero, Franchezzo, has gone to such a place, resigning himself to his fate until a lifeline as in a faraway dream is extended. His true love prays for his soul, he can see her, and his heart is broken for what he is putting her through. He never stopped loving her though his heart had become embedded in stone in later life.

( I somehow feel the idea for Ebenezer Scrooge came from this book)

So Franchezzo seeks out a way to ascend the deepest bowels of hell, rung by painful rung, only so that he may relieve her pain over his soul’s demise. The ensuing tale is reminiscent of Dante’s Inferno and the moden day movie What Dreams May Come, with Robin Williams. It is possibly one of the most heartbreaking yet profoundly beautiful films I have ever seen in terms of personal love and sacrifice, of hope and salvation.

 

 

In the film Chris descends to hell to save Annie who has committed the grave sin of suicide, but he too is eventually drawn into her nightmare and decides to stay with her there rather than live throughout eternity without her. This final act of love awakens her soul to the truth of unconditional love and they are thus saved from Annie’s hell.

I believe in a higher power that only knows love for its children and that whatever it takes to bring them home is what It would want. I also believe we have beings on Earth that deliver messages from the spirit world if only we can still our hearts and minds enough to see and hear them.

“Be still and listen, sayeth the Lord…”

 

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Wishing you all a beautiful weekend filled with miracles and light.