Be a Bringer of Light!

The Holiday Season has been upon most of us.
No matter what spirituality or religion we practice, the common theme is LIGHT!
A time of reflection, a time of celebration and a time of healing!
Healing?  Yes, healing.
At Holiday time, we become most aware of what healing wants to happen, because we become most aware of what stresses us...
Is it the shopping, the food, the family, the gifts (giving and/or receiving)? Something else? Do you know?
Where does your heart falter.....what are you feeling.......?
Are you filled with joy? Or dread? Or something in between?
Honor all of it and use it as an opportunity to look deeper inside yourself and take ownership.
This will help you get clear on what you REALLY want to do!

A friend of mine was totally stressed about the Holidays and the shopping for gifts.
I invited her to only buy gifts that are infused with her love and joy, for otherwise the gifts are poisoned. Sound harsh?
Well, just take a moment and think about it.....

What do you want your gifts to be about?  What do YOU want to be about this season?
Let yourself choose to bring the sacred in and to everything!
Forgetting it harms not only YOU, but everyone and everything around you.
Be a bringer of LIGHT!
Do whatever you need to do to be that LIGHT!

The answers for this is already within you!
That is my prayer treatment for myself and all those I love and serve this Holiday Season.
And if you are reading this, this is TRUE for YOU!

Have a Sacred One! Know you are loved!

DWELLING IN GRATITUDE........

Today I dwell in gratitude.  I walk my life path giving thanks every opportunity I have.
I am privileged to live this life, it is a gift from God within.
Being thankful for this gift, becomes my silent prayer.
Knowing that God is at the Source of everything, God must be before me, behind me and beside me.
I am never alone.
So walking my path with gratitude, my path then is paved with gratitude and this makes my path more filled with ease, grace and joy.
Practicing gratitude sets the Creative Process in motion.
As within, so without means that the Creative Process manifest for me where my attention is.
Because my attention is in gratitude, what is created for me is MORE to be grateful for.
Welcoming all the blessings, I release this word of gratitude, opening myself to all the good the Universe has in store for me. And I LOVE surprises!
And So It Is!

Having to Surrender.......

Once a month, I spend time with a group of men in prison and we meditate together.
It's an amazing experience for me.
They are incarcerated for many different reasons I don't really know of and it matters not to me!
I see their beautiful souls and create a space for them to see their own.

Some know of meditation, some have practiced it and some have never heard of it.
They mostly come to have something to do, to pass the time and some really want to feel more peaceful inside.
I share different ways to meditate, sometimes we watch a video, we talk and we practice.
They seem very grateful and are willing to bring this new way of being into their day to day life.
I can see the resistance sometimes, but that is true of most beginners of meditation.

This experience reminds me again of my own beginning practice that felt like torment.  Sitting still, quieting my mind seemed impossible to me many years ago, now I hunger for it.

One of the men made a very powerful statement the other day.
I brought a provocative idea into their midst. We are all imprisoned somehow!  True freedom is found within!
They seemed interested.
At the end of our time together one of the men spoke up very clearly.
He told us that he knows he is in jail, but he also knows that there is a part of him that isn't and he wants to get to that part!
There was a silence, something happened.  I think the others really heard it.

So, all that's next then is to surrender.
Maybe in prison it is easier, there is nothing else to do...............

A Hunger for Silence.........

All of a sudden I thought: MY BLOG!  It's been over 2 months I have posted anything new. OMG!
There is so much to do, see, feel, read, etc. etc. etc.....
Time seems to fly (and maybe it does!)
And what do I have to say?  What do I have to say that anyone wants to read among infinite blogdom? Why bother?
Well, if what I have to say touches one person, then I have served.....
So here it goes!

Live more simply! Life is too sweet to miss any of the joys! And true sorrows!

I have had some amazing experiences in the last two months (it actually feels more like 2 years in some ways) and I have learned so much!
The greatest gift in my learning has been to cherish the moment.  Yes, that one: the cliché!
AND............ not really a cliché!
No one I know has truly mastered living in the moment completely!

If you have, share it with me, please!  I love the blessedness of it!
Living in the moment is not something that is ever complete and can always be experienced more deeply, more intimately.
I, for one, hunger for it.  And I hunger for stillness and silence more and more.  I can tell when I am not getting enough of it.  Like water.....
I get a bit cranky, tired......
Sometimes an hour fills that hunger and sometimes a day or more.
Surrendering to it and allowing myself to not only have that hunger but let it be filled and stilled is the greatest gift I can give myself (and therefore others).

So, during this Holiday weekend, take time to remember that we all need time for silence and stillness!
So, sit still & get quiet and just BE!  Fill up on what is given (Spirit in and as you knows what that is!!)
We need it more now than ever with so much stimulation, so much going on, so much to experience.......

May your roots grow deeper...........

Recently, we had a ferocious three-day rainstorm in our area with very high winds. It kind of came as a surprise to me, since I am not one who watches the news a whole lot.  Right next door to our Center (Center for Spiritual Living Morristown) three to four big trees came down, falling across the street.  I learned after the storm that due to the soft ground and the 8+inches of rain the trees were just plucked out of the ground. Power outages were common all over the tri-state area and flooding was rampant.  It was quite something to witness.  Mother Nature's fury at the cusp of Spring.

Watching the fallen trees everywhere reminded me of how important it is for us to be firmly and deeply rooted in the ground of our essential beingness.  The deeper our roots, the more solid we are standing in the ground of our Being.
So our spiritual practice invites us to go deeper and to be in constant communion with Spirit within.
Then when any "storm" comes, we are not so easily shaken or uprooted.

I invite you to set your intention TODAY to have your spiritual practice be around becoming more deeply rooted in Grace, in Love, in Truth and in Compassion.
Then notice how "high" you stand and how solid your are planted in Truth and how far your "branches" reach..........notice how the fragrance of your being infuses the world around you with love and light.

YOU ARE MAGNIFICENT!

Into the nothingness.........

At times, I feel nothing........ nothingness....I am empty....I am no one....I am not!
This is something that used to scare me, now I welcome it.
It feels free, it feels most open, it feels expansive.
It is like standing before a blank canvas.
It requires being fully present in the moment.
It requires an allowing.

So I welcome this experience and I let Spirit in me fill it.
It is a pregnant pause, that calls to me to surrender.
It invites going deeper, being still so something new can come.
An insight, a new idea, a new & more expansive sense of Self.

I know now that when it used to scare me, I was just afraid of the unknown.....
.......afraid of the vast mystery of it all.
Now I welcome it, for life IS a mystery.

What do we know?
What do we really know?

Nothing, for everything changes all the time.
The only "thing" that remains is our essence.
Our essence is so vast, it can never be fully known.
We can only experience more and more and more of it.

And in the nothingness, in the silence it becomes known, felt & seen.
And it is beyond magnificent.

I invite myself and YOU to step away from the surface of life,
Let go of any judging or qualifying and step into the mystery of nothingness, of allowing.
Open to something new being shown to you.
Something new that WANTS to be seen by you!

Savor it, take it all in, let it transform you...........

An Invitation: For Every Hour On The Hour.............

My heart opens wide and deep as I am steeped in the Truth of God being all there is.
God in everyone, everything, everywhere, all the time!
I am called to know this more powerfully today that ever before and I accept the call.
Blessings infuse me as I embody this Truth more and more each moment & each day.
I extend this Truth to all my brothers and sisters in the world that are suffering right now,
today especially to ALL the people of Haiti: those who have transitioned and those who are still with us.
And to those who are serving the recovery process in whatever way!
I step back from the world of appearance, the world of effect and I turn to the world of Cause -that which is changeless, that which is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-healing- and I remember that with God EVERYTHING & ANYTHING  is possible.
Today I am a channel for this Truth and I am guided in my contribution to the transformation at hand, trusting that whatever the guidance is, I am able to fulfill (no matter what it is!)
Gratefully, I stand in and as this Truth and I am at peace with who I am and what I have to give.
AND SO IT IS!!