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Thursday, August 28, 2014

A New Day

I am incredibly grateful for new days. No matter how bizarre yesterday was, today is a new day. It has never been lived before. I get to come to it with all the creativity and vigor of my soul and make it the best day I can.


Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Paying It Back - Gratitude

This week the prayer on my website is about gratitude for the gift of life and all that includes. I am thinking a lot about gratitude today, triggered partially by the quote from Matthew Fox's book, "Creativity" that I read early this morning and put on my website a few minutes ago.

We have come to realize that all this glory of which we are a part - time and space, light and dark, creation and its fourteen-billion-year history, earth and its wonders, nature and its magnificent imagination and artistry, our own species and its accomplishments for good and ill, our families, our loved ones, and lovers - is a gift. A gift implies a Gift-giver.
--- Matthew Fox, "Creativity"

However, I was thinking about this yesterday too in that I was thinking about how grateful I am for friendship that steps up and truly offers help. I was thinking about the safety net of friendship that overrides the throes of attacks from the powers that be. And I was thinking about others who may not have friends such as ours and so have no net when the valleys of life overtake.

Once we get to the other side of our current challenge, we want to do meaningful and helpful things for others. One that I am working on clarifying is how to help others caught in a strange valley without seemingly much help. I ask myself: how do I find those who have no net and are trying so hard to get out; how do I help them without offending them; can I set up a grant program; what God could I do to repay what our friend has done for us by doing so for others?

Oh how grateful I am. How blessed I am. Lead me to be an avenue of blessing to others. Inspire in me ideas that make a difference. Lead me to find the way to pay back what has been given to us by helping others.

Thursday, August 21, 2014

P.S.

Happy birthday dear daddy. In 1907 you entered life on earth. In 1999, you exited. 

Thank you for all you taught me by your example of integrity, patience, and humor.

Until we meet again,
Your daughter sends her love through the dimensions

Non-Graduates

It occurred to me this morning, as I listened to the news "out of the corner of my ear," that there are a great number of people NOT learning how to love unconditionally and NOT fulfilling their divine purpose for coming to earth. Sadly, they will have to say "No" when faced with the final questions upon leaving behind this life.

It appears to me that increasing numbers of people are wandering around earth with no thinking skills developed. They simply respond to situations as they are told to respond, absolving themselves of responsibility because, after all some "important" person told them to act in such a way.

We watched a PBS show this week that explored the mentality of pre-WWII Japanese. Men still living reported that they would do anything for the Emperor - kill, rape, torture or whatever was asked or implied. Today Islamic terrorists are beheading, raping, killing and torturing in the manner of the 7th century because someone has riled them up and told them it is god's will. People are marching in streets, burning and stealing, pillaging as if they were Roman soldiers of 2,000 years ago, all because someone told them partial stories and turned them loose, vindicated to destroy because "leaders" told them it was acceptable. I am sure I don't need to go on. There are hundreds of examples right this very minute.

There is a missing component. Critical thinking skills are absent. Logic is non-existent. Let's say we agree that God is Love - and so, we as His/Her children are to be as loving as we possibly can. But someone tells us that it is loving to destroy people who don't agree with our beliefs, and we just say, "oh, okay, let's kill." A thinking person might say instead, "Wait a minute. If God is Love and wants us to love too, in what way could this actually be called love? Maybe this person is mistaken or even has ulterior motives."

So often, what people in mass are led to do has nothing whatsoever to do with Truth. It usually has to do with the leaders' power struggle, control dramas, greed, lust, distorted understanding or some such.

In order for us to be able to "graduate" earth, we somehow, someway have to find a way to THINK and act in accordance with High Spiritual Truths and turn away from the emotions incited by people who want to control us to their ends.

Lord, I am here before You this day asking for Guidance and Wisdom. Teach me to think clearly and understand in the way You would have me understand. Set me free from the forces of darkness and lead me into Your Light.

Sunday, August 17, 2014

Making A Different Choice

This morning I awoke with thoughts about how life might have been if I had done things differently, made different choices, moved to different places, and on an on. I have come to understand that most people have moments like that too.

The "answer" that came to me follows.

Life is in many ways a school for the soul, tailormade to assist the spiritual core of each person to develop, awaken and rise up to be all it can be. Around each bend in the path is another special lesson, just what is needed.

So, even with a different choice, the lesson would be there clothed differently, but the same in essence. The locale could have been different, the characters in the story could have different names and faces, but the basic story would be the same or very similar. We are to learn what we need to learn. Just as in 10th grade we are to study world history, there are certain requirements for us who have come to earth. We have some similarites in our lessons, as we are all asked to learn how to love. And we have some unique lessons for each of us. We can observe the patterns of our life's lessons and begin to discern what it is that we are to learn and master while here.

We are to make the highest decisions that we possibly can, coming from a place of gratitude for the gift of this life and for the opportunity to be here on earth and develop spiritually. As we do, we refine our journey and eventually can awaken to spiritual realms and the true mystical nature of all that is.

If we make sloppy, lazy, out of tune decisions, our bends in the path become more frequent and the lessons harsher. We become tone deaf to the celestial music and blind to the obvious guidance shouting at us. It is harder for the spiritual core to respond because the shell becomes hardened by the lack of respect for what this life journey truly is

We do not have to be perfect. Just do our best. Be sincere. Be grateful. Shine our lights to the best of our abilities. From this position, we do receive the music and the guidance.

When we finally leave here, we can graduate. We can say "Yes, I did what I came to earth to do, and I learned how to LOVE, unconditionall Love."

Thursday, August 7, 2014

The Wound Heals - That's the Nature of Wounds

From "Creativity" by Matthew Fox
Otto Rank said: In man, identification aims at re-establishing a lost identity: Not an identity which was lost once and for all, ... but an identity with the cosmic process, which has to be surrounded and continuously re-established in the course of self-development. Rank calls this loss of cosmic union and "original wound," and I believe this term is far more accurate than the "original sin" term that certain theological traditions have oversold to us. We inherit a wound, not a sin. We do sin; we inherit wounds... The Christ story is a story of the wound being healed... If creativity is of our origin and if evolution is continuous, then creativity is of our original nature, and when we give birth to the Buddha nature just as, in the Christian story, we give birth to the Christ when we give birth. Here we tap into the Spirit that desires to co-create with us. Thus the "original wound" is healed once and for all.

It seems to me the topic of wounding is coming up regularly recently in various things I read, from Richard Rohr to Matthew Fox. I was intrigued to read Rohr's ideas about how failing/falling leads to springing upward ever higher and more consciously. I am thrilled to read Fox's thoughts on creativity, being a life-long lover of creativity. 

The thought of the original wound brings new clarity to the human situation in many ways. Eckhart's seed breaking open has long spoken to me. To grow, expand, express and become what is encoded within, the wound must open the shell. The assumption is also that deep wounds, dealt with, open the way for more meaningful contributions and inspired creativity.

The reason the shell must be wounded is that the creative gift each brings to earth must come out and be given. God has given us life, and our gift in return is to give the creative gift we came to express.

I know that I am most happy when I am engrossed, indeed lost, in some creative endeavor, be it quilting, sewing, painting, writing, cooking, etc. I feel the flow of something greater as something new comes through me to form as a quilt or a book or a brand new recipe or some other thing. I did not intend it. It took on a life of its own. It came through me.

My humor says God must have sent me with a ton of gifts to give because with all the wounding I've experienced I am basically now a sieve. I sometimes cry out for the wounding to end, enough! But from my family of origin to the government, wounding has been an experience that stalks me and so far has not ended.

I ask what more am I to give? I come willing to the task. Show me, Lord. Open the path You would have me walk. But, could You please stop with the wounding?!! :)

Monday, August 4, 2014

I'm Back

It has been some time since I felt led to share here. My life has been in a strange stage of flux, some of it frozen and all of it downright odd.

As a person who has been effective at problem-solving, I find this new and (hopefully) temporary situation way outside of my wheelhouse. It is bigger than me, and seemingly beyond my reach. Since November of last year, nothing has been usual.

It seems bureaucracy rules in ways I had never imagined. The tentacles of reach are astounding. Once something enters the world of bureaucracy, even if illegally thrown into it, the unwinding of it is a maze beyond human comprehension.

Illegally targeted for illegal reasons, assured by the highest and best that this is so, yet the getting untangled seems nigh unto impossible.

I feel like Job in the Bible but in the nightmare of this modern era with its multitude of connections and secret links. Disillusionment comes at so many levels. What I believed about our government is gone. A retired person with no great wealth is not beneath their radar. Nothing is safe. I am not safe from their tentacles.

Lessons for my journey maybe: patience, overcoming of terror, rising up to be a warrior?

Today it occurs to me to cease the grieving of these months and to rise up to be a warrior. Warriors get knocked down, but get up. Warriors get wounded, but patch up and heal. Stiff upper lip and all that. They may appear at first glance to be bigger, but God is actually bigger - should I say Infinite!!!

I still don't know what to do. I do know that there is a way, somehow, and God knows what it is. 

Show me God the way out of the corner the world has placed around us. Melt the frozen good that wants to come to us as much as we want it to come. Lead us out of the valley to the table You have prepared for us.