”Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” – Marcel Proust
Today I want to say thank you to all the people in my life who have helped me to become the person I am today; for you have tended my garden well and helped to prune and weed out the things that no longer serve my better good. Where would we be without the people in our lives who help us grow and become the beautiful blossom we are called to be?
I was going to wait to post this on another day, but it’s not really up to me but in the plan of Gods guidance. My reading today started with these three words, ”I Am Love, ” and since this posting is about love, it seemed this was all the prompting I needed to share it with you.
I shared at various times about how when my children were little, I prayed for patience, and this woman told me that when you pray for patience, God gives you lots of opportunities to practice it. I’ve learned to apply this same analogy to all the things I pray for and right now I’m learning that all those years I simply prayed to be loved my cup is overflowing with it now. I don’t want any of it to spill away.
The lesson with love is that you can’t hold onto it. Like a flowing river, it needs an open path to drift smoothly along the journey of our life so it can touch those we cross paths with along the way. The practice is in the many different ways I can give it away. Sometimes it’s as simple as smiling at a passing stranger or sharing the words of love that are placed upon my own heart. Love, who could ask for a thing more?
This morning as I tuned into the Today show Al Roker made the most torturous looking face
when reminded that today is the beginning of the 2020 presidential election. I turned it off feeling the same unpleasant feelings that Al’s face portrayed.
Sitting in the quiet with my cup of coffee felt as blinding as the sunlight did after all this ran.
It felt like a much needed rude awakening, and I went into prayer:
”Hi God! It’s me! Do you remember me? Cause I was kind of hoping you could remind me who I am and what I’m here for.”
”Hi Connie! It’s God! Can you hear me cause I’ve been trying to get your attention but you’ve been kind of preoccupied lately.
-I’ve been trying to tell you to untether yourself from fear.
-To speak your truth, than let it go.
-That there is always hope as long as you’re living.
-To respect the uniqueness of each individual because as different as I created you each to be there is purpose in what each soul has to offer.
-Be mindful of what you think, say, do and eat.
-Remember the gifts I give you are the same I give everyone else freedom, choice and above all else love.
-Who you are is an expression of that from which you were created.
-Your soul’s purpose is to experience life right where you are and to be a living expression of that truth from which you come.
-Finally stop making things harder than they actually are, let go and let yourself…be.”
–
It’s funny how Facebook or the Blogs we read can be like your day. You can choose to see the good-life giving things, that add substance to your life. Or the ignorant, hateful, angry things that destroy and choke the life out of us.
We can’t see in the darkness without a sliver of light. That sliver is our hope, and it grows brighter the closer we walk toward it.
Today I choose to see something better in all I do say, hear and see.
I hope and pray at the end of the day we can all say, I saw that silver of hope in something. Maybe even share with each other what you saw.
Peace and wonderful blessings today!❤️
I had one of those days when it seemed like it lasted a lifetime. I kept looking at the clock thinking it had to be later then what it was. Don’t you love when that happens?
It was like I was in touch with everything that was happening. I realized that my practice of mindfulness is beginning to be a part of me without having to make a conscious effort. There was a combination of different things from a breakthrough in my story, to an interesting analogy on life I read. A beautiful Jacquie Lawson animated e-cards from a friend to welcoming in this first day of spring, and I watched as the dead of winter began to awaken, and slowly bloomed into a colorful spring. And as much as I’m anxious for warm weather to get here, I also enjoyed watching the beauty of winters last hurrah as the snow fell gentle outside my window. Then I turned the news on, you know, just checking in on what’s happening in the world. Another school shooting. One a little too close for comfort not far from the one my granddaughter goes to. I had a choose, I could get caught up in the ugliness of humanity or turn it off and try to get back to the good place my day started off with. I turned it off and checked in with some of my friends of Facebook. There it was all I needed to see to get me on the right track again. A quote that a friend posted on Facebook, “To all the people who are loving and kind to me. Thank you for the Sunshine you bring into my life.” Reminding us how powerful and life changing a simple thing like kindness can be. Then my mantra of the day came into play, “My struggle has end, I’m in harmony with my soul.”
There is not only an infectious love fever going around this time of year with Valentine Day on the horizon, but spring fever is in the air as well. They both involve one big symptom, LOVE, and with all the flu and viruses going around this is one feverish infection I don’t mind catching.
While the Valentine cards we get in the mail will come and go, the gardening magazines and seed catalog’s will give us something longer lasting to read through, plan with, and dream about. We could all use a few dreams of sunshine and warmer weather about now, don’t you agree?
It was my Dad who taught me the love of gardening, but it was a special friend who taught me how the love of gardening could be compared to friendship. In a card she sent me many years ago she wrote that, “Friends are like flowers in the garden of life.” She taught me that our friendships need the same care and nurturing that our gardens do if we want them to continue blooming.
Every year at this time I think of her as my garden magazine’s and seed catalogs come in the mail. It’s a time not only to plan my gardens, but also to check-in with how well I’ve been nurturing and tending my friendships.
Whether it’s the love of your honey, family, friends or the things you enjoy doing where there is love everything in life blossoms .
This is dedicated to you my dear friend…Denise.
I am learning that being a member of my family is similar to being in a group, a pack or a tribe. I know there is something different about us, I mean after all I’m a dog. I notice though that they are different from each other too. So that makes me feel like I fit right in. I’ve begun to feel what they feel, and their feelings have become my feelings too. If they get scared about something like thunder and lightning then that makes me believe there is something to fear about it even if I don’t know why. If they like someone a lot, then I like them too, and sometimes I go overboard showing it. I don’t know why I do that either, but love makes me feel that way. The worst thing about being a member of a group is when they go off, and do things without me. I feel the saddest then, and even cry sometimes when they leave. But I notice that sometimes they leave each other behind or they go in different directions. The best thing though about being a part of a family is that they always come back. That the love we have for each other never leaves us even when one of us is gone. Yes, there doesn’t seem to be anything stronger then tribal love. It’s the very glue that holds us together, and I’m a lucky dog indeed to be a part of it.
I was sharing with a friend the other day how uninspired I’ve been feeling lately with my writing. These times of disarray, fear and anger going on in our country, and the world, feel awful familiar to me. It brings me back to the 60’s a time when my own life was turned upside down…let alone what was going in our country at the time. No wonder I can’t get inspired, the feeling paralyses me like it did back then when all I wanted to do was roll up into a ball and disappear. I remember my Dad telling that life is like a pendulum swinging back and forth between the good and the bad times. That every generation has its own painful experiences to go through and overcome.
I’ve always wanted to help others. To make people feel more hopeful, but sometimes even the flower girl runs out of flowers to offer, and she just needs to have one offered back to her so she can remember how good it feels to receive. So, as I pray for guidance I come across a fable in one of my daily readings, and I receive the flower that it has to offer me. Today I pass it onto you with a hopeful heart that you can find some peace in the midst of these stormy days.
*There was a king who offered a prize for the person who could paint the best picture of peace. There were two finalists. One drew a picture of peaceful mountains, fluffy clouds and a calm lake. The other drew a picture of an angry sky, lightning and a rushing waterfall. Behind the waterfall was a tiny bush growing from a crack in a rock, and there sat a mother bird in her nest in perfect calm. The king chose the second picture, because, as the anonymous author described, “Peace doesn’t mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of these things and still be calm in your heart.”
*Science of Mind Magazine daily reading Sunday August 20, 2017 by Rev. Ron Fox
I have lots of doggy friends of different sizes and colors. One of my very first friends was a Great Dane I meet at my people training class. He was as big as a horse with black and white patches like a cow. Then there’s my neighbors Lulu, Phin, Teddy and Gracie. I don’t know all the different nationalities of my neighbors. Lulu is very big and white, Phin is medium size and black, Teddy is small but not as small as me. He’s kind of funny looking with tight curly hair and a mixture of gray, silver, black, white, brown all over. Then there’s Gracie who is just a little bigger than me, I think, it’s hard to tell because she has lots of thick reddish brown fluffy fur. I also have lots of family doggies to play with. Hunter is a big German Shepard. When he barks it scares me but his bark is louder than his gentle personality. I have a lot of fun playing with Stella. She’s medium big and as black as night. I like nibbling on her long skinny legs. It makes her dance. Some of my doggy friends are pure bread like me, but the others are a mixture of all kinds of breeds, but none of us seem to notice or care. Each butt smells different it’s true, but on the inside the dog god made us all the same.
Hot dang I’m glad I’m a dog, a lucky dog at that indeed, for I was born to love and be loved…
…Weren’t we all?
Lately my head’s been spinning with all the things I want to do. It makes me feel exited to be alive, but often one thing after another pulls me in a different direction. As I’m distracted from what it is I wanted to be doing, I find myself sorting through some old paper work throwing this and that away. I find some notes I wrote down from the book “Tuesday’s with Morrie.” It’s Morrie’s theory on the tensions of opposites. He says, “like a rubber band life pulls us back and forth. It pulls us in one direction that we think we want to go. Then it pulls us in another direction of what we think we have to do.”
Wow! That’s exactly the way it feels to me.
Morrie goes on to say, “it becomes like a wrestling match.” When asked who wins in the end, he says, “love always wins.” However, he goes on to say, “when you can’t see it yet, maybe it’s because the game isn’t over yet.”
So I’m thinking, what’s love got to do with it? Then I realized many of the things that are getting in my way are simple distractions I create myself. That’s where the real wresting match begins, and that’s not loving myself very much. All the other things that seem like have-to’s have actually been opportunities for me to love others. So, in the end, Morrie’s right, love really does have everything to do with it.
God always find a way to show us what we need to hear when we need to hear it, and today I found his message from an old scrap of paper I wrote a long time ago. Amazing!
