My New Year's Wish For You

In 2008, I wish for you the awareness of Love with all 5 senses.

I wish for you the sound of love in voices that call your name. Listen closely. The human voice is one of the greatest conductors of God's purest Being, God's embracing vibration. Listen with your heart. Speak with your heart. Use sound to soothe and bless and uplift the world of everyone you meet. Turn down the discord, turn up the Love.

I wish for you new eyes to see the beauty in yourself. Love is beauty, beauty is love. When you see and acknowledge the beauty within yourself, you see the beauty more clearly in those around you.

I wish for you the life-altering therapy of loving touch. Nothing is more healing than the human hand. Your hand, when offered gently to another, is a conduit for God's love. If you have no hands, know your lips are also gateways to healing. Open your arms. Pucker up. Give and receive. Be touched by love.

I wish for you the discernment to taste only food that was prepared with love. You know when a meal or a cookie has been made with love, the flavor is just that much richer, that much sweeter, that much more healthy for your system. The only meal plan that heals and balances the human body is food infused with the love and positive intentions of its creator. Whether the cook or baker is known or unknown, Love's vibration can be tasted. Eliminate uncaring food. Be healed and slimmed by the flavor of love.

I wish for you good scents. Whatever tickles your nose with pleasure, whatever fragrance makes you swoon, love is the mixer of that fine elixir. Body fluids mixed in the act of love, cinnamon bread fresh from the oven, lilies and lavender and rosemary and thyme, kittens and babies and sweet spring soil. Fill your lungs with saturated love.

Love is all around you. Hear it. See it. Touch it. Taste it. Breath it in. In 2008, I wish for you to come to your senses.



{http://thefirstmorning.wordpress.com/2007/12/28/new-year-promises-to-myself/ For more new year's wishes about the power of the senses, visit my favorite preacher.}

The Masked Bandit

Yesterday, at 7:06am, I was driving to work on Route 5. The sun had yet to rise. Traffic was not an issue. My mind was reviewing the morning's dream. Two points of light in the middle of the road, low to the ground, snapped me out of my lazy review. Animal eyes, yellow-green in my headlights, were moving back and forth. The size and shape of the shadow in the road told me it was a raccoon. A raccoon in trouble.

As I slowed down, I saw the raccoon was writhing on it's back, trying to right itself with flailing forelegs. I sucked in my breath, hard, and spewed out expletives. The bandit was suffering. And there was nothing for me to do. Had the eyes belonged to a cat, I would have been out of my car in flash, scooping it up. But raccoons carry rabies, and I am not equipped to end an animal's life, so I drove on.

I detest suffering. It hurts my heart. And so I began to pray. I asked all Universal agents at large to attend to the bandit in the road. I asked for its highest, most gentle good to be done. I asked for its ability to crawl off the road or its swift death. Whichever was more merciful. I prayed all the way to work, knowing it was the best I could do, then I turned my attention away.

After a short work day and completed errands, I drove home along Route 5. I had to see what mercy had delivered. There, straddling yellow lines in the middle, was my bandit. Flat on its back, forelegs stretched up to its head, belly exposed to the afternoon light. I stopped my car. When traffic had cleared, I walked to the yellow lines and said, "I'm here now. I came back to help". And with that, I picked it up by its tail and walked it over the side of the road. It was not quite stiff when I laid it down on winter grass under a tree. It's teeth and paws were covered in blood, but it had not been crushed. Nor would it be. I covered it with branches that arcked over its belly and told it it's life was a gift and a blessing to this planet. I told it suffering was done and peace was all it would know. I said, "bless you, little one" and walked away.

In exchange for honoring its death, the raccoon spoke to me as I drove home. It told me that its medicine, its symbolic energy, was that of the mask. The mask has many applications for transformations, healings and rituals. All for positive purposes. But in my case, the mask was inhibiting. In my case, the mask I wear is hiding my true self. And without living my truth for all to see, the bandit told me I would never know the happiness I longed for. I would never know the full joy of expressing my life's purpose. The bandit told me I am half way between 2 lives. I am on the yellow lines and now is the time for me to make the choice. Remove the mask and walk proudly to the other side of the life I was born to live, or stay stuck in the middle, still wearing the mask of the life I have outgrown.

Today, I am holding the mask in my hands. Tomorrow, with the help of a raccoon spirit, I hope to leave the mask on winter grass under a tree.

My Christmas Wish For You

This Christmas, if you have lost someone dear to your heart, I wish for you 3 moments of peace amid the sadness. Just 3 small moments where the pain recedes and the presence of your loved one is palpable in the glow of white lights.

This Christmas, if you are alone, I wish for you the knowledge that God is always with you. Stillness and candle flame and a quiet mind will invoke for you whispers in your heart that confirm your worth and love-ability. Be still until you hear "I love you, Child" at the very edges of your awareness. Know you are never truly alone.

This Christmas, if you spend it with family, forgive everyone their foibles and dare to see them as individual human beings doing their best to live a valued life. Just one day of removing judgements and "shoulds" and expectations, just one short day of seeing them exactly as they are, will produce miracles. In you.

This Christmas, if you receive everything on your list, or you receive nothing on your list, or you had no list to begin with, I wish for you the most over-looked and critical gift that exists. Your breath. And its continued flow. Without your breath and the life-animating force it carries, you would have no lists to enjoy or aspire to or choose to never write.

Breathe deep the scents of the season. Breathe deep the love that time and space cannot erase. Breathe deep the God-force within and around you. Breathe deep the miracle of forgiveness. This Christmas, inhale love. Exhale peace.


{Ornament image is a stock photo}

Do Not Be Afraid

Do not be afraid to open your heart. Do not be afraid to give generously. Do not be afraid to go against the grain, live with abandon and march to your own drummer, even if it makes others uncomfortable. Their discomfort is not your responsibility. Nor is it yours to soothe by plucking the wings that seek to lift your heart into its own wild spaces.

Do not be afraid to live as God made you. You are sacred in Its eyes. You are perfect in Its heart. You are Its hoped for and longed for answer to Love. Love expressed without reservation. Love expressed with gust and glory and glee. Do not hold back. Do not shrink before opportunity. Breathe, center and walk boldly into your wild spaces. Fill them up with your one-and-onlyness. Share them with those able and willing to see clearly your truth and your shimmer. Encourage others to find their own wildness, their own open and generous love.

The world is waiting for you. God is supporting you. Do not be afraid. Do not be afraid.

Follow Your Dreams

I am not a plant person. My existing plants survive me. My neglect. My indifference. My poor choices for placement. The terror of feline teeth is a constant tremor rippling through the secret lives of my plants~ violets, spathes, ivy and lucky bamboo alike.

Then came my fascination with potted orchids. The purchase. The pleasure. The seemingly proper placement.

Then came the dream. 2 months ago, as my first potted orchid was at the height of its bloom, all 3 of my African violets, (the oldest of whom is 10, the youngest of whom is 5) came to me in an early morning dream. They pleaded with me to move them from the north window perch in my studio to the shelf in the living room that held the orchid. A north window as well.

Because I pay attention to my dreams, I moved the trio. Instantly, the atmosphere in my living room felt...happier. The spot on the floor beneath the north window became my new favorite place to read magazines, meditate and sip rose petal tea.

The blooms on the orchid waned and fell to the foot of its pot. But color was not lost. Beauty was not lost. The baton was simply being passed with each bloom that fell. It passed to the violets. And they responded. For the first time in their familial lives, all three of my violets began to bloom at the same time.

To encourage them, I have purchased a new orchid. Its blooms are unfurling like butterfly flags. But it's the wee velvet blooms that are singing to me and doing their part to hold happiness at a palpable level in my home. It's the wee velvet blooms that have brought me the most beauty, the beauty of truth which is this: If you follow your dreams, your life will blossom. Threefold.

Ode To Autumn

Autumn in Western New York state. My favorite time of year.

The Difficult, Wonderful Year

This has been a difficult year. Little deaths, shattered illusions, foibles played out in center stage. The known has become unknown, answers have dissolved into questions, colors have bled together and layered themselves into shades I don't recognize. There is the undercurrent of change in this difficult year, a sense of being prepared for something I can't quite put my finger on. But that something is looming with sweet-scented breath just outside my window. The window that has yet to open.

I know I will look back on this year with gratitude and see that it was filled with opportunities for grace, and that despite the angst and the emotional tumult, I took those opportunities and turned them into future splendor.

As this difficult, wonderful, purposeful year winds itself down into memory and dust, I am left with two phrases playing over and over in my wakeful mind: "Do not give up 20 feet from the finish line" and " If you focus your energy and attention on something beneficial long enough, it will bear fruit. Fruit that sweetens breath."

I will carry those phrases with me, pasted to a locket and held over my heart, as the last few weeks of the difficult year melt into new beginnings, and the latch on the window is finally released.

The Trinity

It comes down to this. Every human being~ young, old, and all ages in between~ wants 3 things. These 3 things are not found in holiday catalogs. They are not found on eBay. They are beyond the reach of the dollar, the yen and the euro. They are, quite frankly, priceless. They are needful. They can possibly make or break a life, depending on the circumstances at the time of the giving or withholding of these 3 things. The trinity is this: every human being wants to be appreciated. Every human being wants to be understood. Every human being wants to be loved.

We all seek these 3 forms of acceptance everywhere we go and in everything we do. This trinity, when felt and received, creates a stability and a support that allows us to relax and express our true God-given essences. When one or all aspects of the trinity is withheld, overlooked or deemed unimportant in the daily round of our lives, a film of sadness clings to our hearts. We cease to operate at our fullest potential. We are visited by depression and illness and general unease. We no longer shine.

But we forge ahead as best we can. We keep showing up... until one never-hoped-for day, when our wells are dry and dusty from lack of appreciation or understanding or love, we simply give up. Our souls lose the spark that fueled the fires of the Divine within. On that day, the day when a human spark becomes ash, angels weep.

There are alot of weeping angels right now. Deep pools of tears mark the critical point we are at in the tide of human development. We have choices to make. And they need to be made soon.

First and foremost, we must choose to appreciate ourselves,understand ourselves and give love to ourselves. If we know how to give to ourselves, we can easily give the same to others. We cannot give what we do not have within us. From this point, as our own wells fill, we can seek to understand other points of view. We can become aware enough to appreciate the smallest gestures from the people around us and we can voice our appreciation. We can offer love in simple ways~ a touch, a smile, a silent prayer for healing or well being.

It is up to us, individually and collectively, to keep the shine in humanity. It is up to us to stop breaking lives and start making lives better. How do we do this? We choose to tend to the trinity of human needs. We choose to acknowledge the gifts we each bring to the table. We choose to change our world through understanding, appreciation and love.



{The 3 lambs are a stock photo image}