The Question Of Love

The question is not whether he loves me enough. The question is whether I am prepared to love him the way he deserves to be loved. The question is whether I have poured enough love into my own heart, my own being to be filled to overflowing. It is the overflow, the more-love-than-I can-possibly-use-for-myself that will create the lake of love for him to swim in.

The question is not whether she loves you enough. The question is whether you have done everything you possibly can to deserve her love. Her love is a gift. Her love is a grail. Her love is the jeweled chalice that receives the purified elixir of the heart in touch with itself. The heart that knows love starts at its own center and ripples outward. The heart that honors itself first, knowing from experience how best to honor another heart with love.

The question is never whether the love without is enough. It is always whether the love within is enough. If it is, if there is love to spare and share and fill the lake, there is no question.

Praise Be

If something or someone is stagnant, if fatigue or inertia or indecision have a hold, if movement is needed for well being and nothing has come to start the flow or end the flow, praise that something or someone. Praise it out loud. Praise her out loud. Praise him out loud. Offer up a hand or a lift by finding something good, anything good, about the circumstances or person in question. Declare that goodness out loud. Declare it like life itself depends on it. Because life itself just might.

Speaking something positive, with sincerity, changes the atmosphere surrounding a stagnant situation. It shines a light in the darkness, eases fears and relaxes a closed heart. If a plant is suffering, tell it how beautiful it is. Kiss it when no one is looking. If a woman is depressed, tell her how much she is needed. Tell her specifically why you love her. If a man is dying, tell him everything you know about his value and his valor and his contributions to the world. Ease him back into life or release him from life with praise.

Everyone and everything is hard-wired to respond to the energy of love. All situations are made better when love is let loose through words of praise, when recognition of value and worth are declared. We all need that caress, that life-affirming hug, of knowing we make a difference. Knowing we matter. To someone or something.

Let's not be stingy with praise. Let's look around, see where the lights are low and offer up spoken words of love. They cost nothing, but their value is priceless. Let's initiate positive flow, let's dare to make each other feel valued, let's light the world with our words.

Be praise and praise be.

Small Is Big

Most days I wish to help make a big difference in the world. A difference in the level of peace. A difference in the level of girls who feel good about their bodies and themselves. A difference in the level of depression swirling throughout the world. A difference that swings the pendulum to the positive. But most days, I don't make a big difference, a big impact, on things that are important to me. Some days, my impact is small. Some days, it doesn't register at all. Some days I have to let the world take care of itself.

If, however, I were to string together all my small efforts and acted-upon intentions, I would see the impact is bigger than I realize. Small and fairly steady efforts add up. Over the coarse of a lifetime, acts of kindness and compassion and help offered create a wake of goodness and positive energy that the world can't help but bathe in. God willing, my life isn't even half over, so let me consider the wake I can create with continued, small efforts in the direction my heart leads.

In a sense, making only one big difference, one star-spangled crowning glory moment in my life would serve the world less than a small, but steady pace of difference-making effort. So let me not be discouraged if I have yet to see the vast field of daffodils that prove my efforts have bloomed. Let me keep planting my singular efforts when the time and energy and muse direct me. A difference will be made at the rate it is supposed to be made. Patience and time and willingness will yield the field of golden blooms, will yield the wake of beauty.

Small efforts matter. Small gestures matter. Small is how big is created.

The Prayer Box

Words have power.

Prayers have power.

Invoke the help of the Universe

by placing your written prayers

and requests in the prayer box.

Place the box in a sacred spot

and allow your words to aid and heal.

The prayer box helps bring your prayers to fruition.

And so my little dream of having an online outlet to sell my inspirational art moves forward. My Etsy store is now open: http://www.graciel.etsy.com/. For those of you not yet familiar with Etsy, it is the place to buy and sell all things hand made. Wonderful, beautiful, unusual offerings from artists and craftspeople all over the world. Unlike eBay, it is not an auction format. Prices are set by the artists. My buying experiences on Etsy have been nothing but flawless. It is a pristinely run site. Now, fingers crossed, my selling experiences will be the same.

My quest with this blog has been to offer up hope and love and positive words to any and all who shared a few moments of their time with me. My quest with my art is the same. To offer up hope and love and something positive that can be held in the hands. Because I believe so strongly in the power of the spoken and written word, because I know from experience that prayers and affirmations work, Prayer Boxes are a first, natural, creative melding with my blog.

Each Prayer Box is one-of-a- kind. Some of my own blog posts appear as background layers to my original photographs, altered though they might be. Butterflies are common, as they help give wings to the prayers held in the box. And each box has a small rose quartz heart glued inside. Rose quartz is known at the love stone. It's presence ensures all prayers are infused with the energy of love.

My own prayer box has held my wishes and requests since the first of this year. I have it placed under a lamp so my prayers are lit whenever possible. Already, prayers are being answered. Already, my dreams have more focus.

And so dear Universe, take this offering of hope and love and let it serve the highest possible good for any and all who believe in the sacred power of prayer.

The Sweet Threshold Of Spring

The transition from winter to spring can sometimes be slow here in Western New York. Bare trees, bare earth, clouds, and a chill in the air that prevents the storage of mittens wears thin. The soul aches for color. But just when limits are reached and the lack of sunshine begins to call in the question of sanity, time tips the scales and sweetness slips in. Tiny blossoms burst through damp earth and reassure the soul monochromatic times are passing. Lavender is arriving. Yellow is arriving. Pink and white and fresh, spring green are arriving.

And so it is with our lives. Just when we think we can handle no more, when the chaos and depression and colorless days have threatened to shut us down, sweetness slips in and carries us over the threshold to a new season. Often the sweetness is small, easily overlooked, barely visible in all the mud. But it comes.

It comes. It comes. It comes. Look to the earth. Look to the sky. Look to the hands and smiles nearby. Spring comes. Outside and inside. It comes.

The Pause

Every once in awhile, life takes a pause. The ebb and the flow suspend themselves. Clocks stop ticking. Mind chatter stops racing into the future and backpedaling into the past. Anchors are dropped. Shoulders are dropped. Stillness settles at the surface.

There is very little doing and much more being. Decisions are put aside. Obligations are put aside. Issues and events and very important happenings register a flat line on the interest monitor. It is quiet inside the pause. Unriled inside the pause. Passionless and open inside the pause. Observation without judgement is a prime activity. Effortless release is another.

Inside the pause there is light. Not a bright light that shines on anything particular, but a light with soft edges that calms and soothes and echoes the freshness of dawn. A light that assures the safety in stillness and the wisdom in stillness. A light that assures the path remains visible.

If the pause is given its full measure, if fears are quelled and stillness is allowed to ripen, if being becomes the primary activity in doing, balance, strength and clarity of mind are the succulent fruits of the harvest.

3 Cups Of Tea

Simply put, this is the most important book of our times. Read it. Absorb its message. Pass it on. This is the story of an American man, Greg Mortenson, who, since the early 1990's, has selflessly worked to build 55 schools in the remotest parts of Pakistan and Afghanistan. His schools promote education and literacy, especially for girls, in an area of the world that has been an easy target for the brainwashing tactics of militant extremists. The key to dowsing the flames of terrorism is the education of children. The key to promoting peace on a world wide scale is the education of girls.

If we Americans are to effectively decrease our own angst and feelings of insecurity on the world stage, fighting terrorism from a military standpoint is not the final answer. As Greg Mortenson demonstrates with his blood, sweat and tears, the most effective means to ensure our security is to build relationships with other cultures and offer up the death of ignorance through education.

One student at a time, one school at a time, one consistently paid teacher at a time, the world will enlighten itself. Stop watching the flame-fanning news and read Three Cups Of Tea. It will give you hope. It will give you answers. It will give you ways to contribute and make a difference in the quest for world peace.

Not 5 minutes after finishing the book, I went to the 3 Cups of Tea website, http://www.ikat.org/ , and made the largest single donation I have ever felt compelled to make. This was the comment I made that went along with my contribution:

"Just this moment, I finished your book. My face is still wet from tears of joy and gratitude. The empowerment of girls and women as the key to world peace is uppermost in my heart. Please use what little I can offer today in the best manner for the highest possible good.
Blessings and continued protection in this most important mission, Graciel of Buffalo, NY."

Let's reduce our own ignorance and learn about other cultures and their needs. Let's follow the example of one extraordinary man in any way we can. Singular help matters. Singular efforts count. Singular efforts multiplied will change the world.

Three Cups Of Tea: Read it. Absorb it. Pass it on.

Ancient Wisdom

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe,

deserve your love and affection.”

~Buddha

A Student Again

The older I get, the less I know. The less I am sure of. The less I understand. I used to know everything, or darn close to it. But here in the outer fringes of my early forties, I am forced to rethink the known world. And admit that it will take more than my sparse lifetime to know even the smallest of important things.

The more open my mind becomes, the more fears I conquer, the more there is to understand. The more that gets revealed in the crystal clear light of day. The more I see the world is too complex to fathom.

So let me be a student again. Let me approach people and things and circumstances with freshness and openness and a willingness to learn. Instead of thinking I have any answers. Instead of presuming or stereotyping or seeing only 2 of 4 sides.

Let me learn about love. Let me learn about joy. Let me learn of the value of service to others. Let me remember wonder. And surprise. And the yelping laughter from tickle-fights. Let me know nothing to experience everything.

Birth and Movement

Nature called to me and said, "Daughter, come into the snow and let me tell you of spring". I followed the voice of my abiding Mother, for she alone has the power to smote shadows from my heart. She led me to the horse farm in the middle of town and showed me the birth of power. There I found, to my utter joy, a pint-sized Arabian horse, newly born and scampering beside its mother. Nature said to me, "A new journey awaits you. One that brings freedom and power and contentment. See the great spirit inside that little horse. Kick up your heels and free your own spirit".

From the farm I was led to the swamp. Wings were everywhere. Wave after wave of migrating Canada geese flew over me. Strings and ragged Vs of feathers flecked the sky. Thousands and thousands of honking birds, each announcing itself, came to rest in a field of last year's corn. It was a joyful noise. Nature said to me,"You are about to break free of old childhood restraints and begin to come into your own. Be open. Look to new possibilities. The next spiritual quest is upon you. Ready your wings for migration".

From the swamp I was led to a barn. The wood was old and the roof was gone, but it served as the backdrop to an aerial mating dance. More sure than the sighting of a robin, the return of the turkey vulture is the true harbinger of spring. And so they danced on air, swirling around each other, wings wide open. Nature said to me, "The vulture is more than it appears to be, and so are you. The shadows over your heart were temporary and necessary for a higher purpose has been at work. Welcome rebirth and ready yourself to join the dance".

Nature said to me,"Daughter, do not look at the crusted snow. It's time is passing quickly. Birth and movement is all around you. Your spring is already here".

{ The first 3 photos are mine, taken with my low budget, no-telephoto-lens camera. The vulture photo is a stock image.}

The Field Of Happiness

There is no happiness but that which I create for myself. There is no happiness that some one can bring to me that will last. I must lay happiness down at my own feet. I must embed it in my own heart. I must build that foundation for myself. If it is not built with my own toil and blood and beautiful thoughts, it is merely a foundation of shifting sand, sure to turn quick or blow grit in my eyes. Happiness is the work and the making and the choice of my own.

Having forgotten this wisdom, I find myself in an empty field, late winter snowflakes showering down. It is not where I thought I would be. It is not what I thought I asked for, wished for, or visualized. But here I am. Less than warm, empty hands, blue mist shrouding my brain.

And so, I have a choice. Remain suspended and cold, or look closely at the beauty of the field I stand in. Stop looking beyond or behind this field and see where my feet are standing now. Lay happiness down in the snow-covered grass. Take my empty hands and press them together over my heart. Embed love and prayers. For me. I have the choice to stand in my field, dissolving blue mist and snow with beautiful thoughts, with happy thoughts, knowing spring will come.

International Women's Day

Have no doubt. Have no fear. You are exactly where you are meant to be. Right now. You are the energy of Love made manifest. Exactly where you are is where your love is needed most. When your love is needed elsewhere, you will move to that space. Body, mind, heart or soul. But right now, your love, your goodness, is best served up in the company you are keeping and the places you occupy.

If you feel stuck, if you have doubts, if fear is a silent companion, serve up your love and your goodness to yourself. Right where you are. Dare to put yourself first in the company you keep and the places you occupy. Dare to fill your own well before you attend to anyone else's. Fill it with creativity or a neglected book or a walk in the park. Fill it with tea and silence. Fill it friends and flea markets. Fill it with whatever brings you joy.

A woman filled with joy, a woman who serves up love to herself first, is a woman in charge. Of herself, of her dreams, of her life. A woman in charge is a powerful force for good. A woman in charge is able to offer her love and wisdom where God has planted her. She is also able to know clearly when she needs to pull up her roots and plant herself in new earth.

No doubts. No fears. The road is clear. Put yourself first. Love yourself first. Fill your well to overflowing and let the joy you create lift the company you keep and the places you occupy. Let it lift your dreams until they become your life.

A Message From A Friend

This picture and this note appeared in my email today. Sent by my dear friend, Mr. E. Such sage advise from the woodpecker family must be passed on. If her message resonates, I invite you to join me in doing what makes you most happy.


"I was awakened today by an odd sound I haven't heard in a very very long time. It took me 3 tries to get it right. At first I thought of a tree frog singing its nightly song, but then I remembered that we don't have Arctic frogs here. I soon realized that it was Your Friend outside my window. I actually see her nearly every day. She is very friendly and doesn't mind me coming closer to watch, or all the birds fluttering around her. She is in her own little world, going about her business oblivious to the rest of the world.

For whatever reason, she wanted me to tell you that you should do the same.

Do what makes you happy and don't be distracted by those around you. "

Little Things

I'm a big fan of little things. Little gestures. Little kindnesses. Little gifts of the heart. Big gestures certainly have their time and place and needfulness, but it's the little offerings that speak to me at full volume. That widen my smile. That supply more oxygen on the in-breath and keep love flowing.

The other night, amid a simple gathering of 6 friends and myself, I was filled to the brim with little gestures and gifts. David, a master bread maker who uses only organic ingredients, served his artisan Kalamata olive loaf. Warm. I swooned at the first bite. It was the singular best bread I had ever eaten. Smeared with soft cheeses, it almost liquefied me off my chair. While I was swooning and chewing, David was in his kitchen making homemade gourmet pizzas. Naturally, anyone whose art is bread making has a pizza oven in their garage. The caramelized onion and goat cheese wedge I devoured defied proper adulation. All I could come up with between bites was, "oh, my God". Then Sue, the Confection Contessa, served up her from-scratch chocolate cupcakes and it was all over for me. They were heaven in a pastel paper wrapper.

Other recent kindnesses include a Buddha head that showed up between my doors one snowy day and has since become the favorite in my collection. A pack of Wizard of Oz bookmarks in my mailbox. A link to a Yvonne Elliman video on YouTube. A response to a comment I left on a blog.
All little things. All sent with love. All potent.

There is an energy of love that permeates this planet. It is available to all at all times. The quickest way to access this energy, to feel it and to pass it on is through little gestures. Little impulses and little offerings to others that originate in the human heart. It will be the little things, given in love, that will save us all. No matter how little we may have at any given moment, there is still a little thing we can offer. A hug, a compliment, a note, a phone call, a slice of warm bread. Little things add up. Little things count. Little things can make the difference between hope and despair. Between a quality life and a life all but lost.

Let's keep love flowing. Let's give and receive little kindnesses. Often. Daily. Willingly.

Live Here Now

I am not looking for an escape from this life. I am not looking for a way out. I am looking for a way in. I am looking for a way to feel more of life. To taste more of life. To ingest it and revel in the experience that only birth on earth can bring. Stress and angst and fevered insistence on perfection keep me ungrounded, rootless and tumbling with every breeze that blows. I am kept in the past and the future when I tumble with the breeze, when what I am looking for is to live here now.

My answers for the way in, my answers for living in the now are found in simple, accessible avenues. Nature is my first and favored way in. Nothing has taught me more about peace and strength and acceptance of the way things unfold than trees and birds and flowers and stars. Nature is every spiritual text, every true word of every spiritual text playing itself out in living color. Right before my eyes and ears. If I am lost, I willingly throw myself into nature's embrace and suddenly, I am found. Feathers and petals and bark have saved me from the jagged edges of my past and the fear-filled illusions of my future. Because there is no where to be in nature, but the grounded, sane-filled present moment.

Another of my ways into the goodness of life is the recently adopted practice of yoga. Nothing has put me more in touch with the beauty and natural peace of my body than this physical practice. My body, having its own separate intelligence from my narrow mind, craves the stretches and movement. It craves the attention and love. It craves uncritical connection to my mind and spirit. Yoga is the bridge for that harrowing gap. It stimulates peace and love and acceptance between all 3 aspects of my being.

More favored ways into life include the words and advice of Eckhart Tolle, Marianne Wiliamson and Deepak Chopra. Writing, expressing myself creatively and listening to soothing music. Prayer, meditation and giving. All are avenues to ground me and root me. All offer the way into life, my life, especially as an ensemble.

What I get out of this collective of accessible practices is this: I get more moments of clear thinking. I get higher levels of acceptance of the way things are. I get more courage to change. To grow. To risk. I get more awareness of what myself and others need. I get more love. More peace. More stability. I get a reprieve from the drain of the past and the future. I get to embrace the wonders and opportunities of my life. This life. I get to live here now.

The Sacred Within

In my search for the sacred, I have come gently to the understanding, that what I have been searching for lies within. There is no recognizing the sacred without until it is first recognized within. It takes a willing surrender and a mind exhausted of fighting itself to slip past the gates of reason and glide into the presence of grace.

It can happen as a torrent of tears winds itself down and there is nothing left but the rhythm of the breath. In that space of emptiness and freshness, a presence can be felt. It is calm and soft and speaks in whispers, if at all. It's vibration is familiar. It feels like home. It is the soul having risen to the surface. And it feels nothing less than sacred.

This presence, this grace, this feather-light fullness is safety and ecstasy all at once. It is perfection and love and unshattering peace. It sustains everything. It is everything. It is ever present.

To feel this peace, this love, this ultimate safety, if only for a moment, is to be changed forever. Because once it is felt, it can be recognized again. Once the sacred is understood to dwell within, it suddenly appears without. In all of God's creations. If it suddenly disappears without, it is because it has been forgotten within. How we feel about ourselves is how we feel about the world and everything in it. If we know we carry the sacred with us, the sacred appears everywhere we go and in everyone we meet.

We are each of us sacred. We are each of us filled with grace and the spark of God. Let's be open to the awareness of that soft presence within. The love and the safety we each struggle to find without is at home within our surrendered minds and ready hearts. It is at home within our sacred selves.

{This glorious photo of honoring the sacred is from the incomparable website:

http://www.ashesandsnow.org/}

The Embrace Of Suffering

Everyone suffers. Some more loudly than others. Some more often than others. Some have made it a way of life and frankly, seem to thrive on it. Suffering seems to be an endless quality of humanity. A quality that makes us uncomfortable even when we are not the ones who suffer. Since happiness is not possible in every moment of a life, suffering, in its infinite manifestations, would serve us best if it was embraced.

It is the resistance to suffering that prolongs it. It is the resistance to the pain or the grief or the depression that allows it to endure. Suffering is meant to be a transition. A transition to a more refined state of self-understanding. We learn more about ourselves in a state of despair than we do when we are flying high. Or even coasting merrily along.

Suffering cracks open a doorway to our inner-most selves, the secret God-essence that few us take the time to acknowledge. Suffering is meant to cleanse and purify us. It is an alchemical process that refines our character and our soul. It leads us to an understanding of our greatest wants and needs and desires. But, because it is grossly uncomfortable, most of us seek to crush it down, drown it out, shop it, eat it and drink it into oblivion. We become addicted to the avoidance of suffering, and so it never ends.

Instead, if we could just summon the courage to sit with our pain, to acknowledge our pain, to feel it and allow it to burn, we would move beyond it at an astonishing rate. If we could just stop telling ourselves, "I shouldn't feel this way" or " I will appear weak before others if I allow myself to feel" or "oh my God, why did this happen to me?", if we could accept that we have the right to feel the pain and learn from it and use it to mold a stronger life, we would diminish our addictions and our forays into insanity. We would stop living a defensive life and start living a life that embraces. That partakes. That receives infinite bounty.

The courage to sit with, acknowledge, feel and burn the suffering comes from the breath. Next time we begin the cycle of suffering, if we could simply breathe loudly and rhythmically for 10 seconds, our suffering lessens. We consciously shift our whole selves out of the sting and at the same time allow ourselves to feel it more deeply. Breathe as loud as we can, and allow the breath to get us through it, because there is no getting around it. It is the attempt to get around it that impairs us.

Let's not avoid our suffering any longer. Let's be brave and feel our way through it. Let's use the simplest tool of the breath to aid us in our quest. Let's come out the other side more stable, more able and more compassionate towards ourselves. Let's give ourselves permission to feel and permission to heal.

Happy Valentine's Day

Nothing says "I love you" like a meat heart for your sweetheart.

Only $13.16. Such a deal.

Streams Of Living Water

" Set out now, while you're strong, on the heart's vast plain:

You'll never discover joy on the plain of the body.

The heart is the only house of safety, my friends:

It has fountains, and rose gardens within rose gardens.

Turn to the heart and go forward, travelers of the night;

there's where you'll find trees and streams of living water."

My favorite mystic poet, RUMI

Take One Small Step

Join me in taking one small step to realize a dream. Join me in extending one small effort in the direction of a more positive, fulfilling life. Stop looking at the enormity of what you have dreamed up for yourself and do one thing to invoke your vision. Do one thing to nab the attention of the Universe and let It know you are serious about manifesting this dream. Resist the temptation to sabotage yourself by focusing on three needful steps. Focus on one.

Prepare yourself.

Take the step.

One of my dreams, one of my visions for myself is to open a shop online. Something small and managable for myself in the midst of the life I have now. Something that reflects the qualities of this blog in a 3-dimensional form. Things to be welcomed into the home and heart that remind our souls of ever-present beauty and love. Things made by me.

Tonight, I cleared off my studio table and took one step towards realizing this dream. I prepared surfaces for paint. Yes, there are 239 other steps that must be taken to achieve the goal, but I set the intention. I put the energy out into the void. I demonstrated my willingness to help myself along, and now the Universe will respond.

The Universe will bring me snippets of inspiration, people who offer encouragement and the where-with-all to take the next step. Then the next after that. It is my responsibility to hold the vision of my dream, demonstrate willingness, and act. Even a small action makes a difference. It keeps the Universe engaged in helping me. It keeps the enegy alive.

So, let's not be daunted by how many steps it might really take to manifest a dream. Let's just take a step. Yes, it may take longer than we planned, than we seemingly have patience for. But in the end, life will begin again. And it will be sweeter and more fulfilling than if we had never dared to make our dream come true.