As we head into the New Year I’d like to pass on this information that came to me during my last meditation session.

“We are all charged with healing ourselves and others.  The past is over.  There’s only the NOW…which will affect and can change the future for better or for worse.”

“Is my healing through my blog or through my photography?”

“Healing is showing others the beauty around them and the beauty in themselves.  You can do this through your photography and through your blog.  In your photographs people can see the radiance coming through the smiles and eyes of your subjects.  They can see the beauty of your still lives and this will trigger beautiful feelings inside of them.  It can help the healing process begin.  It can motivate people to pursue the creation of their own acts of beauty.  It is contagious.  Don’t you ever underestimate the power of the written word or of a photograph.  You go Girl.  Fill those portfolios.  Name some of your photographs.  Get some of them in your blogs.  It’s one of your creative outlets.  That’s a big hint Girl!  Take out your old SRL camera sometime…take out your digital camera and start shooting those pictures.  Get all of those cool journals you’ve been buying out of the closets where they are hiding and use them.   Leave one in your car…one at your desk…one at work…one where you meditate.  Fill them up with ideas…write..write…write.  Clear the clutter in your house and clear the clutter in your brain.  Get your ideas out and share them with others.  Get your photographs out and share them with others.  You never know whose heart you are going to touch.  It’s time we all tried to positively affect the future.  It’s the New Year.  Get going.  Make a difference.”

I found this quote in Bob Brezsny’s Free-Will Astrology column and I totally loved it.  I can totally relate to this message.  The mundane can bore me.  My brain tells me on one hand to seek comfort and perfection but my soul knows that to have the most fun I need to step way out of these boundaries.  So then, why is it so hard to be spontaneous?  I need to listen to my intuition more…trust the universe…follow my path…express myself…tap into my innate curiosity about life…drop the fear…and yes…have fun.

Don’t wait until everything is perfect for you to move ahead, take chances, create, get intimate, expand your horizons and really live your life.

Stop thinking you need better craft supplies before you start creating…start with what you’ve got.

Stop worrying about whether your house is completely clean before you can entertain guests.  Experience the intimacy of interesting conversations amongst the clutter…try it…it may be fun.

Stop worrying that you aren’t the best fencer in your class…just keep practicing those advances, retreats and lunges…laugh when you make a mistake and compliment yourself when you score a hit.  Enjoy the leaning process and remind yourself…”Aller Anfang ist Schwer” (Every Beginning is Difficult – Goethe)

Don’t worry if you aren’t as good as a native speaker of a Foreign Language that you are studying.  Try and use the language whenever you can.  Who cares if you make a mistake.  Just give it your best shot, laugh, learn and have fun. 

Life is short…you can’t keep putting off these creative experiences.  Step out, loosen the coils, expand yourself, take risks, get out of your normal routine…and see what happens.

What do you put off because the circumstances are not “exactly perfect” in your eyes?  What are you dying to do?  What piques your curiosity?

Make a list and then take one item at a time and just do it.  I don’t even think that you  need to analyze why you might have a fear or why you’ve been putting it off.  Just do it and see what happens.  Let go of the idea of perfectionism…it can be a deterrent to forward progress.  And if you are an Aries…the horoscope states this as well…”You may be tempted to get involved with things that are too easy for you.”   Get out of your comfort zone.  You will find more comfort in what  you may currently perceive as “discomfort.”   Focus on adventure and courageousness.  That should be your mantra.  Enjoy the ride.    

Check out Rob Brezsny’s web-site… freewillastrology.com

Here’s my recipe for Chocolate Chip Cookies: 

Mix together with an electric mixer then set aside:  (Organic ingredients if possible)

2 eggs

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup packed brown sugar

2 teaspoons vanilla

1/2 cup salted butter (softened)

1/2 cup olive oil

In a second bowl mix these dry ingredients with a spoon:

1 cup of rolled oats

1 cup of rice flour

1 1/2 cups of whole wheat pastry flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

When mixed well, add to the wet mixture and mix once again with the hand mixer until all the the dry ingredients are mixed in. 

Mix in 10-12  ounces of semi-sweet chocolate morsels.

Refrigerate for one hour.

Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees.

Spoon the cookies onto stainless steel cookie sheets, approximately 16 cookies per sheet.  Bake for 10-12 minutes.  Put 2 sheets in the oven at once.  After 6 minutes switch the positions of the sheets on the racks for more even cooking.  After 9 minutes take the sheets out of the oven, push in the sides of the dough to create crevices and a more appealing appearance.  Slide the cookies back into the oven until the 12 minute period is over.  Remove the cookies from the cookie sheets.  Cool the cookies on metal cooling racks!  Makes 64 delicious cookies!  Mmm!

Pour yourself a cup of tea.  Sit with a few warm cookies and imagine that the Dalai Lama is there with you.  Experience the peace.

Sometimes I visualize myself floating in a large scallop shaped shell.  I think the idea of floating effortless is showing me that it’s not a fight to forgive or to set your negative emotions free…it’s your natural state…float…clear…expand…enjoy…dip your foot or hands into the water…PLAY.  Sit and imagine yourself floating…feel the ebbing of the water, the sun on your face, the feeling of letting go of everything, just BE.

Sometimes I visualize the creek where my siblings and I would play when we were young…behind our summer cabin near Allegheny State Park…rainbows reflecting off sparkling shallow waters, mossy rocks that felt like velvet to our bare feet creating paths of stepping stones…downed tree trunks crossing the creek for us to climb on and hang off of…so alive with life…dragonflies, small fish and tadpoles…moving and staying still…hidden from the rest of the world.  I see the rainbows reflected off the moving water…the tiny waterfalls.  I pick a color and take it into my essence.  I become that color…it is alive…dancing in the air.  I become part of nature…part of the stream life around me.  What is this color teaching me?  Showing me about myself?  About life?  What message does it have for me?  I can leave it at that or continue the meditation with any other rainbow colors that catch my fancy…drawing on the messages and emotions presented throughout the day.  I am at peace.

First I pray to the Archangels Raphael and Raziel…the Archangels of healing.  I say three times “Archangel Raphael, Arhcangel Raziel…hear my prayer.”  As I say each line I imagine the beautiful white healing light from these angels is running through me. 

Then I say this affirmation, “I let go into the pool of forgiveness and become once again the ever shining light of love that I am.”  As I say the first part I imagine myself descending into the water…arms extended up…slipping downward into a silvery pool of deep water…I glide past sparkling pieces of turquoise sea glass, pretty shards of pottery, long, flowing strands of seaweed…the sunlight glistening through the water.  I slip down, down, down to the depths…into the depths of my subconscious.  I forgive those around me that I need to forgive and let go of any negative emotions that I may be holding on to from the present and from the past and most of all, I forgive myself for judging myself to harshly, for holding on to fear and not accepting love, for feeling guilty about expressing my emotions.  I bask in the beauty of what I see and for the moment…all that matters is just being.  I then see myself being raised out the the lake…arms extended and I shoot upwards.  At this point I am saying the second part of the affirmation.  I see myself high up in the sky.  As I bring my arms in a semi-circle downward…crystals appear…always different…depending on the day.  It is the light of the universe, the God force of the universe shining on me.  Most of the time I see white light, sometimes it is blue, sometimes green, sometimes other colors.  Sometimes the light is centered over my head , sometimes I visualize many crystals following the curve of my arms as they create an arc.  Sometimes I see a big crystal heart.  I have even visualized myself holding my child self, my inner child…in the pose of a Madonna and child…basking in the light that surrounds us….connecting me to the free spirited child that I still am.  I imagine this light surrounding me, protecting me, connecting me to God, bringing me peace and strength, connecting me to who I truly am.  I finish the affirmation…”I accept myself.  With this prayer I am healed.”   

Finally, I align my chakras…the seven energy vortexes of the Vedic seers of the Hindu tradition.  On a simple level, the chakras are seen as spinning wheels and when they are functioning correctly, we feel both physically and spiritually balanced.  Here is a web-site where you can see where each chakra resides: www.whats-your-sign.com/chakra-symbols.html  Also, the book entitled  “Healing with Crystals and Chakra Energies” by Sue and Simon Lilly has excellent in depth explanations and exercises related to healing through the chakras.  I have developed my own chakra meditation.  This is how it works.  I start with the red or root chakra and visually send the energy in the form of red light up to my head, through all of my body parts and then back down.  I see myself basking in the red light of the primal life force of this chakra.  Next I move to the orange or creative chakra, then the yellow or vitality chakra, the green or heart chakra, the light blue of the throat or creative expression/communication chakra, the indigo or intuition chakra and then the violet or connection to the universe chakra as I call it.  When I visualize the light blue chakra,  I usually chant the word blue as I send the light blue energy through my body.  I let the sound reverberate throughout my being.  This chakra is related to the thyroid and as I have a thyroid imbalance, I feel that this is the chakra that I need to work on the most…finding my voice, my own form of expression and spreading my ideas without FEAR.  Some days I chant the colors of all the chakras.  The indigo chakra is the one which often flows the easiest for me…it is the easiest for me to visualize.  I have been told that I have had past lives as a priestess…maybe there’s a connection.  As I visualize each color passing through me, I  become that color and take it into my essence.  I am that color, it is alive within me. I see what emotions and images it conjures up.  I ask myself what it is trying to teach me.  I return to these thoughts and emotions during the day.   Finally, I visualize a beam of white light, the presence of all the chakra colors, coming from a few feet above my head and shooting through my body, protecting me, connecting me to the God force, the life force.  This light, this force goes through me, touching all parts of me and then comes out my feet, going several feet into the ground…grounding me.  I am now ready to start my day…and remember that I am both a being of the sky and of the earth, full of the life force, full of the love of the Universe.  I am reminded that this love, this energy was not intended to stay in me.  I need to complete the process, to be a part of the continuum, and to pass on what I have received to others.

Just go outside and look at nature, breathe with it and see how it just “IS.”   

And so we are as well – we just don’t know it.

“Est-ce qu’on peut exister longtemps suspendu dans le vide  Dans le vertige continu, cet arret sur image?”  (Can one exist for a long time suspended in a vacuum  In the continued dizziness, this freeze frame?)

I think that sometimes our life can seem like a vacuum in the sense that we are not really in it all the way – not trying to squeeze the most out of every moment – we put our life into the freeze frame mode – we get stuck in the motions of our daily routine that we feel obligated to complete before we can really live - putting activities and emotions on hold for another day, another time when we’re not too busy or when we have nothing else to do.  We have to learn to put these invigorating and stirring activities first so we can expand ourselves…connect ourselves with our creative, emotional, fun loving, alive selves…NOW…why wait?

• eat more pie for breakfast
• buy a brightly colored piece of funky furniture or paint one yourself
• tell someone that you care about them
• be spontaneous
• stay up all night and watch movies
• learn a new craft or a new language
• taking a fencing class
• start your own blog
• send someone an unexpected package
• connect with a friend from your past
• do some housework that you’ve been wanted to see finished by yourself and enjoy the process
• watch a concert DVD while preparing dinner
• have your tarot cards read
• dig fossils
• visit garage sales
• light candles
• run around in the rain
• read a play out loud
• talk to someone new or ask something new to someone you already know
• say yes instead of no
• order something frivolous from eBay
• eat Red Vines licorice
• ask more questions
• support a local business
• donate some food to your local food pantry
• volunteer
• go to a hockey game

We all have a life…we just need to get into it.  In a dream…my grandfather told me that heaven/the other side was so quiet.  So that leads me to believe that we really need to make some noise on Earth.  We have to use all of our senses here on Earth that God gave us in order to fully appreciate all that surrounds us and all of the opportunities with which we are presented .

Make your list…what rocks your world?  What are you dying to try?  How can you have the most fun on any given day?

You have emotions…use them all.  Why do you think you have them?  You have senses.  Use them all.  Why do you think you were given them?

Step out of the void and into the fullness of life.  Enjoy the process.

P.S.  Francis Cabrel is a wonderful French singer.  Check him out on the Web.  franciscabrel.com

I’m sitting outside at the round white plastic table with the red, white and blue starred cotton tablecloth on the wrap-around porch that we painted a fresh shiny white in early July…listening to the birds, seeing beautiful black-eyed Susan bushes poking through the porch rungs and spying a huge spider web on the clematis trellis…just taking it all in…barefoot on the concrete porch floor…sipping coffee in the late morning.  I feel grateful to be sitting here, experiencing this peace and calm at this moment of my life…grateful for my supporting family…for the great energy connections that exist between all of us and the universe…grateful that we have found each other in this life…grateful for the opportunities I’ve had this summer to travel, to have my allergies discovered and cleared, grateful to have developed relationships with friends and deepening ties with family, that I found quiet times to write in my journal and developed the discipline to do so.  I am even grateful for the piles of mail and papers strewn across my desk because they are all connections to new and exciting possibilities.  I am not feeling saddened or anxious as summer draws to a close and my vacation ends.  I am looking forward to the next phase…to what comes next.  New challenges, new chances to grow…wow…just saw a downy woodpecker…new chances to find peace within, to get rid of ego, to share what I know and have learned, to heal and be healed.  As I write this…a big bumblebee is circling around my head…the circle of life.  I can hear the woodpecker pecking, here comes a yellow jacket, I hear the footsteps of the kids next door running up and down their driveway.  While I sip my coffee with cream…a mourning  dove begins to coo.  Bright red cherry tomatoes and bright, shiny, red hot peppers on the vine glisten in the sun…ready to eat…sun-ripened…the best kind of produce…grown with love at home.

What will the new season bring I wonder?  I go inside and find my copy of Animal Speak by Ted Andrews.  I find the page about woodpeckers to see what message this beautiful bird brought to me this day. 

“Sometimes the woodpecker will show up to stimulate new rhythms.  Rhythm is a powerful means of affecting the physical energies.  Sometimes it is easy to get so wrapped up in our daily mental and spiritual activities that we neglect the physical.  This can be when the woodpecker shows up.  It may also reflect a need to drum some new changes and rhythms into your life.”  “The black and white reflects the need to see issues and aspects of life clearly.  It reflects that things are fairly clear if we look closely.”  “The red reflects a stimulation and wakening of new mental faculties.”  “It (the woodpecker) flies in a manner and rhythm unique to itself.  All of this serves to emphasize the fact that it will become increasingly important for you to follow your own unique rhythms and flight.  Do what works for you in the manner best for you.  When the woodpecker comes into your life, it indicates that the foundation is there.  It is now safe to follow your own rhythms.”

It’s time for me to celebrate my uniqueness..to find my own path…to be myself…to find my own rhythm…to realize that my foundation is solid…that I am safe.  It’s time to fly!

For me, it has been the summer of…

• collecting sea glass on the shores of Lake Erie
• reading outside by the light of the campfire
• picking blueberries
• eating home made pie for breakfast
• watering the New Guinea impatiens every morning
• blogging
• listening to band concerts in the park
• playing putt-putt golf
• eating organic produce
• dog sitting
• drinking my morning coffee on the front porch while listening to the song of the morning birds
• getting together with old friends, reminiscing about old memories and creating new ones
• listening to exotic Arabic music, eating scrumptious Lebanese food and connecting to my roots at the annual Lebanese Festival
• reading magazines with a bowl of popcorn nearby
• checking out garage sales for interesting items
• family picnics
• Fourth of July fireworks
• watching the local AAA Baseball Team play outdoors at dusk
• staying up late and sleeping in
• family dinners around the kitchen table, graduation parties and a special trip to my favorite French restaurant
• going antique shopping
• picking fresh produce from the garden
• basking in the myriad colors of flowers all around…purple cone flowers, bright yellow black-eyed susans, multi-colored gladiolas,  pink spotted lilies, white Queen Ann’s lace, and red, soft yellow and salmon colored rose bushes among them
• watching the cardinals and the rose breasted grosbeak at the bird feeder
• meditating, writing, creating

And I still have one more month of vacation to savor!

In my home I have many reminders of the many religious traditions of the world that are important to me.  I have statues of the Virgin Mary.  I wear a Miraculous medal around my neck.  I light candles to Our Lady of Fatima.  Mary has brought many healing messages to me over the years and has brought me peace.  These items remind me to continue meditating and praying to Mary…and to pass her messages on to others.  I have Maronite and Roman Catholic crosses hanging on walls and a statue of the Infant of Prague.  These help me focus of the power of pure love and forgiveness that Jesus taught and lived by.  There is a blue batik wall hanging of the Buddha and a framed postcard of the Dalai Lama with a yellow compassion bracelet from the Inter-Faith service that he presided over draped over one corner.  These help me to remember the practices of mindful breathing and compassion towards others.  I have crystals which help remind me to meditate and balance my chakras and that my energy once focused can help heal myself and others, Tarot cards which can help focus my thoughts and give my day direction  and religious medals of Joan of Arc, Jesus, and Mary Magdalene which remind me of the courage it takes to pursue one’s religious beliefs.   I pray to them all/use them as a source of guidance at different times and have received healing messages from all of them in prayer and in meditation.  They each represent a different aspect of me…of my psyche…and they come to me at different times of need.  They are all helping me on the journey to know myself…to love myself…so I can practice as Jesus Christ says..and “love my neighbor as I love myself,”  unconditionally.

 In stating one’s religious/spiritual views…it is often easier to say what one is against in an organized religion than what one is for.  It takes more commitment to say what you believe in…a more proactive stance,  whereas simply saying what you find distasteful or are against is more re-active.  Answering these questions can help you define yourself as an alive, spiritual being…and can become the focal point for interesting discussions.

• Who do you pray to?
• What do you pray about?
• Why do you pray?
• How do you practice your spirituality?
• Is one religion enough to contain you?
• Is it possible for you to be eclectic in your religious practice?
• Do you believe in researching religious/spiritual ideas or do you always go from your gut?  Or is it a combination of the two?
• Will you always think the same way?
• Who are your religious heroes?
• Can morality exist without religion?
• Is religion “moral”?
• What are you for and what are you against?
• Is it enough just to be?
• Can you state what you believe in one sentence or would it take a novel…or a lifetime?