More than anything these days, I’m loving the changes… the New.  Choosing the paths not taken before, mistakes unmade.  There is always a way.  Choose the best way available to you.Similar Posts:

• Who Settles For Bad Fruit?
• How Was Your Day?
• Thanks With A Side Of Gratitude
• The Lord’s Prayer by Anastasia
• Starting Your Day

I’ve since come to learn that gratitude is something to be felt everyday, and in fact it is the first step towards making any kind of changes in your life.  You must be grateful for where you are and where you’ve come from, both what you would consider the good and the bad.  If you can’t be grateful for something in your life, I’d wager that it’s because you haven’t taken responsibility for it.  Perhaps this Thanksgiving you can take a look at your life and be thankful for all of it.

What I’m Thankful For:

My Earthly Mother, my Heavenly Father, a family that is unusual and strange and full of love for each other, a mother who’s always blindly believed in me, a father who did his best, even if it still wasn’t quite good enough, he was a much better father than his own father was to him.

For sunlight warming the skin, the breeze for blowing, the trees for showing me how to stand tall and strong even in the fiercest winds.  For the songs I hear in my head that come to me from somewhere I call Magical, for the stories whispered in my ear of fantastical places and people. For friends and people of character, may there be more in the world.

For a great relationship and a horrible break-up that taught me how to love, honor, and trust myself, and for the Pain that finally taught me that I didn’t want to be motivated by pain anymore.

For two cats, Calvin and Izzy, who daily teach me patience and that if you want to be petted than put yourself right up against someone and rub

For a band that I love and love to be in, who daily teach me patience and that if you want to be petted than put yourself right up against someone and rub!!!

For a God who remains known and unknown, and the Universe that continually reveals one mystery after the next.

Most of all, I’m extremely grateful for Life.  For the fact that I’m here, that I exist, that I experience.  I’m thankful for Love and her still small voice never forcing, never controlling, always free.

This is the short list, and tomorrow (or later today I suppose) when the sun comes up I will wake and smile and feel Gratitude, and with my actions, may I give thanks.

Happy Thanksgiving!Similar Posts:

• The Lord’s Prayer by Anastasia
• The Fear Of God
• Overcoming Emotional Pain
• Releasing Pain
• Life Is Too Short

If we wish to reach into the heavens, we must reach just as far below.  If we are not rooted deeply in the natural, it stands to reason that we will not grow to great heights in the spiritual.  At least not without the risk of being knocked down by the first wind to blow.  Notice how the deeply rooted trees dance and delight in the winds and storms that blow their way.

How many people do you know that delight when something shakes their world up?  How many people do you know that are so heavenly minded that they are no earthly good?  And vice versa?  We are here in this life for a reason, and it’s not just for whatever happens after this life.  Don’t miss out on the opportunity to be a part of this world, to change it and shape it and create it to be more beautiful then when you first arrived.

Grow up — learn, create, love, and dream.  And grow down — connect to the planet and people you live with.  Be a part of this earth.  So many of us spend so much of our time wishing we were somewhere else.  I know in the past I’ve been one of these people.   Spending so much time living for a future life that isn’t here yet.  It’s premature thinking.  I wasted a lot of time not enjoying the life I have because I was so busy chasing one that didn’t exist yet.

It’s a common occurrence, especially in America.  We want the end product now, and we rush through the process often times overlooking safety measures and checks and balances as we speed head long into a canyon.

I think you’ll find that if you take the time to send down your roots, your life will be much fuller, more enjoyable, and you’ll be able to reach farther into the heavens then you ever thought possible.  Take a lesson from the trees:  In order to go up, you must first go down.Similar Posts:

• In A Perfect World
• Where We Live
• Seasons
• Think About It
• Viva La Resolution!

Get out of the rat race, the matrix. You’re more than just a consumer who spends their life as a slave to consumerism, only to bring more consumers into the world. Be rich, be poor, be whatever you want to be, but do it freely. Open your eyes children. Stop taking shit from all these people who have no idea what the F@%! they’re talking about. Make your own mistakes. Don’t live on borrowed wisdom, for it isn’t wisdom at all until you’ve experienced it. Live free, Children of Earth, Children of God.Similar Posts:

• Renewable Energy
• Think About It Part 2
• Don’t Get Drowned Out
• In A Perfect World
• Who Settles For Bad Fruit?

I am a firm believer that pain is a tool that guides us to a place of being where we can no longer experience it.  It is a strong stimulus pushing us upward on our journey of spiritual and physical evolution.  The old Chinese saying goes, “Pain is inevitable.  Suffering is optional.”   While pain can be healing, sometimes we get stuck there when it is no longer useful to us.  We can become addicted to the feeling of a bad memory, the rush of the chemically depressing cocktail that our brain puts out when we think a certain way.  In this case we are no longer in pain, but in suffering.  Suffering is a choice that we can make at every opportunity.  Have you ever noticed how some people around you seem to always be caught up in some kind of drama?  Their car breaks down, they got in a fight with their spouse, the waiter brought them the wrong meal, the dry cleaners lost their clothes.  It all comes back to how you want to look at the glass, whether half full or half empty.  Lately, with great success, I have been welcoming the pain when it comes.  Not seeking it out mind you, but not resisting it when it cannot be resisted.  Then once the pain is accepted, I give myself permission to enjoy it.  This works especially well with painful or negative emotions.  Don’t fight against them, just enjoy them to no end.  The funniest thing happens;  before you know it, there is a smile on your face and you’re no longer in a bad mood, or angry, or hurt.  The next time you’re in a funk, try to really enjoy it.  See what happens and let me know about it.Similar Posts:

• Overcoming Emotional Pain
• Get Rid Of Pain In Your Life
• Renewable Energy
• In A Perfect World
• Juice Feast Day 3

It always amazes me how much we’ve lost as a species, that our ancestors knew.  Somehow, without this internet and computer and thousands of scientists, and physicists, and calculations, people knew that we exist within God.  Look more closely at what Paul said, “In Him we live,” — I don’t know about you, but I tend to think that I live in my body, my mind, my thoughts… I live in a planet called Earth, in a solar system, in a galaxy, in a universe.  All of these things are God, and I live in Him.  I move in Him.  I have my being, in Him.  The Earth, and the environment, these are parts of God’s physical body, and we deny this at great peril to ourselves.

In the book of John, it says that, “everything was made in Him.  Without Him, nothing was made that has been made.”

I find it interesting that we separate ourselves from physical contact with the Earth as much as possible.  We see it as icky, and dirty, and unclean.  We build quarantined rooms with absolutely no trace of a natural environment, and this is how we are introduced into the world.  We are birthed already disconnected from the touch of God.  We are usually conceived unconnected to God.  We live cut off from God, and we die quickly and experience much pain because of it.

And yes, your house is a part of the Earth, but touching someone through a winter coat and touching someone’s skin directly… well do I need to spell out the difference in connection and relations?

Is it any wonder that Nature is out of balance?  That We are out of balance?

“In Him we live, and move, and have, our Being.” –  Something to think about the next time you step out your door.Similar Posts:

• Seasons
• Growing Up and Down
• An End To Slavery
• Acceptance Vs. Judgment
• I Have A Dream

You can’t always choose what mood you’re going to wake up in, but you can choose how you start your day. The energy that you start your day with, whether positive or negative carries through and overshadows your entire 24-hour experience. Don’t leave that energy up to chance. Develop a habit of starting your day the same way. Do things that start your day right and put you in a great mood.

The first thing I like to do when I wake up, even as I’m reaching over to turn off the alarm, is smile. Why smile? Because even if you’ve had the worst dreams imaginable, smiling causes your body chemistry to begin to alter. Don’t believe me? Try keeping a smile on your face for 60 seconds and see if your mood doesn’t improve.

Next, drink a liter of the best water you can get your hands on. If you can’t get the best water ever, then squeeze a lemon into it and drink the entire glass. Why? You lose a lot of water when you sleep. Your body is detoxifying and it is important to re-hydrate when you wake. It will also get your insides moving again.

After this, wake your body up fully with some stretching or yoga or physical activity of some kind. It doesn’t have to be a full on workout, just get the blood flowing and the muscles warmed up.

With a fully awake body, you now have a great place to focus on the rest of your day. Pray, meditate, or think about what the rest of your day will consist of. Get into a state of peace, joy, and love. See yourself doing the things you have to do today with love in your heart and a smile on your face. Then you are ready to have some breakfast and begin your day.

Try it out. Make up your own routine. I promise you, the better you start your days, the better the rest of your days will be.Similar Posts:

• Releasing Pain
• Resting The Right Way
• Renewable Energy
• 10 Easy Ways To Go Green Today
• The Laws Of Motion

In our modern technocracy, we’ve removed ourselves as much as possible from living out among the changing seasons that the Creation holds for us.  We wall ourselves away in boxes that are temperature regulated, light controlled, terrain un-changing.  We’ve grown to dislike and detest any change in our “comfort” level. It’s very easy for us to be un-aware of the seasons in our own lives.

The world we live on adheres to cycles of birth, growth, death, and decay.  Nature has its seasons of Spring, Summer, Fall, and Winter.  Our lives replicate this same pattern on the large scale (of our bodies) and the small scale (of our day to day lives).

All too often I’ve spent my time, fighting to stay in one season for too long.  I’ve forced creation/work, when I should have been resting, or I’ve slept the day away when I should have been creating/working.  Learning to live in balance and harmony is a challenging thing in the world we live in.

There is no concrete solution to creating balance in your life.  It’s something that is unique to you alone.  What creates balance in my life, will not necessarily be the solution in your life.  Just as the length of seasons varies in different parts of the world, so your own needs will vary from mine.  What is interesting to me is that all of creation is guided in the right moment to undergo the change needed at any given time.  Imagine if the winter didn’t know when to end it’s bitter cold, or the summer when to cease it’s fire and burning.  There are parts of the world where we can see the effects of this.  The ice caps, the deserts, both extremes are examples of what happens in our own lives when we don’t allow the natural flow of seasons to occur.  We become stressed.  Life is still present, but the existence is harsh and mostly unpleasant.

For everything under the sun, there is a season…  What are the seasons of your life?

Lately my life has been undergoing the transition from sleep to awakening, or from rest to plowing… working the soil to be ready for planting.  After sowing, a period of rest will occur in which the seeds will begin to grow.  The seeds will only grow if the work I have done has created the needed conditions for birth.  Those conditions will only be created if I have rested properly to have the energy to create them.

Perhaps you are in Winter (the season where no work takes place, and you begin to dream), some will be in Spring (the season where you sow the seeds of your dream), some will be in Summer (the season where you tend your creation and help it grow), and finally some will be in Autumn (the season where you reap the benefits or consequences of your work).

The benefit you have over nature, is you are the only force in control of your seasons.  You can begin again any time you wish.  For some their lesson will be to nurse their garden/life/dream back to health/success.  Others will need to wipe the slate clean and begin back at the Winter/Resting/Dreaming stage.  Some will need to learn that there is a time to cease working and enter into rest, some will need to get off their ass and begin taking action.

How do you know when you are in the correct season in your life?  When you feel at peace, when you feel like you’re living your life’s purpose, when things seem to click and just fall into place, all these are good indications that you are in the proper season.

Most people will spend most of their time in the dreaming/working stage until they learn to create the right conditions for their dream to grow into reality, but once a seed/dream starts growing, it grows all on its own.

Whatever season you may be in, love your way into the next one!

Have a great day and tend to your Garden Similar Posts:

• Resting The Right Way
• Where We Live
• An End To Slavery
• In A Perfect World
• How Championships Are Won

An abundant source of energy is a must-have to live an enjoyable life and to contribute to the joy of others.  When you’re tired, you become more easily irritated and stressed out, which leads to poor relationships and poor health.  Left unchecked, it’s all too easy to end up asking what went wrong, with the pieces of what used to be your life scattered all around you.  Beside all that, let’s just face it — being run down Sucks!

So what are some ways that you can protect your energy levels?

1.  No more coffee.  The same goes for energy drinks.  99% of so called energy drinks aren’t actually giving your body energy, they are just stimulating your nervous system.  The end result is usually that your body becomes more stressed out and unbalanced and tired.  You can’t drug your way out of a problem that is caused by drugs.

2.  Eat raw fruits and vegetables.  An overwhelming amount of our energy is spent just digesting the cooked foods that we eat.  There is a reason you get sleepy and sluggish after you eat a meal.  It’s because your body is summoning all available energy to digest the substances you’ve just put into it.  Raw food has enzymes in it that help your stomach digest it, thus giving you more energy, not taking energy away.  As a plus, you’ll get much more nutrients from raw food, so you won’t have to eat as many calories, and eating less will give you more available energy and extend your life as well.

3.  Get more sleep.  This is kind of obvious, but all too often we just medicate our way through this with our coffee and red bulls.  When you are tired, sleep.  If for some reason, you can’t, see above and below.

4.  Avoid negativity.  This includes negative people.  There are some people, you might even call them your friends, that all they do is suck the life energy out of you.  They constantly complain and whine about every little thing.  You might even be one of those people.  All of this negativity zaps your energy faster than running a marathon.  Don’t believe me?  Try avoiding these people for a week and see how you feel.  You don’t have to be snotty about it, but whenever they open their mouths and what they’re saying isn’t positive, just be somewhere else instead.  If you’re the negative person, then try avoiding you!  Every time you say or think something negative, be somewhere else instead

5.  Exercise.  This seems counter-intuitive, but I promise you it works like magic.  The more active you are, the more energy you have available and the better you will sleep at night (thus giving you more energy again).  I always hear on this one:  “I just don’t have time to go to the gym or workout.”  Blah, blah, blah.  First of all, I wouldn’t recommend you ever go to the gym to workout, especially when you could do it for free and get some fresh air while you’re at it.  Secondly, you have just as much time as everyone else in the world.  Stop making excuses, you poor little victim, you. ;(  (Please read number 4 again, if this victim is you).

The fastest most effective exercises you can do are at home with no equipment.  That’s right!  You don’t need any equipment at all.  You remember what a push-up is right?  There are even a hundred different ways to do them, so you never have to get bored either.  Throw in some sit-ups, and some squats and you’ve just done a whole body workout in two and a half minutes (if you don’t break in between exercises).  That’s a commercial break.  Maybe you need a gentler work out?  You can do yoga, tai chi,  the five tibetan rites, ride a bike, or just go for a walk.  Don’t think about exercising, just do it.

Remember, if you’re ever going to take over the world, or the equivalent — raise your kids, then you need to have the instantly available energy to do it.  There is no quick fix for constant, steady energy, the only way to have it in your life is to live a lifestyle that cultivates it.  Dream that lifestyle, and then make it real.  You deserve it.Similar Posts:

• Starting Your Day
• Releasing Pain
• Don’t Make It, Earn It
• Life Is Too Short
• Viva La Resolution!

The world is perfect for us to grow.  We weren’t sent here to eek by or survive, that’s part of some people’s journey.  But we are here to grow and become greater than what we were before, just as a child grows to become like his parents.

Instead of seeing the things in your life that you don’t like, that you think of as imperfect, see them as opportunities to grow.  Perfect opportunities.  Even the withered arm on a crippled man is still a perfectly withered arm.  Even pain and suffering are perfect.  They exist for us because we have not been perfected yet, and they present the perfect opportunity to transcend them.  How to do that… well we’re all learning aren’t we?  I believe that once our hearts are perfected our world will be too.  As above, so below.  As within, so without.

Some people are so weighed down with trying to make it from day to day, or keeping up with the latest fashions, or making their car payments that they have never had that Matrix awakening moment where you realize that this world is not the only one, and indeed it’s a Contested World.  It’s our choice whether or not we want our world to be a paradise or a wasteland.  We happen to be at the tipping point one way or the other.

How much thought have you given to the world you are helping to create everyday?  What kind of world do you want your children to inherit?  Most importantly, what are you doing to create that world?  Becoming the most successful person in the world doesn’t mean a thing if you raped the planet to get there.  If your children have to grow up in an uglier world, what kind of parent are you?

Begin with imagining your Perfected World, what kind of place is it?  Where do people live?  What is their quality of life?  Is everyone equally happy, or is it an elitest world, where only the privledged have the opportunities to  pursue happiness?  Think about things like our food source… do we put toxic chemicals on our food in the future?  What about our houses?  What do they look like?  Do they get even larger and more separate from their environment, or do they merge together with it?  How about our jobs and school system?  Do we still work 50 hours a week at jobs that we hate?  Or do we get to enjoy our lives and work in the way that we choose?  What about money?  Do we still have currency, or do we invent something better?  Do we become more commercial, consuming more products, or do we have better things to do than watch TV and play video games and surf the internet?  How do we travel?  Do we ever solve the fossil fuel problem?  Do we go electric and solar, or do we invent some new technology?  Maybe we fly everywhere instead of drive?

Really think about it.  Talk about it with your friends, ask them what kind of world they would create for their children.

Then the fun part… The part that should put a smile on your face, or tell you that you need a new picture of the future, one in which you are smiling…  Now that you have a picture of where you are going, you can begin to break that down into small chunks.  Just like eating an apple, you can’t eat the whole thing at once, so you take small chunks of it and before you know it, you’ve accomplished your task.  In the beginning, this might look like eating low on the food chain (vegetarian), recycling, organic gardening in your yard (or even on the balcony of your apartment).  You might keep your old car a little longer so you can save up and buy a hybrid or wait for one of the new electric or hydrogen cars.  If you live in the city, maybe you bike to work, or walk a few times a week.  If you’re building a new house, maybe you build it off the grid, with solar and wind energy fueling your electric needs.  Maybe you avoid toxic chemicals in your household cleaners.  Maybe you petition your city to stop drugging your water supply with unnatural chemicals and pharmaceuticals.  Maybe you plant some trees on your birthday to counter how much paper products you use each year.

Each and every thing in this world is perfect for you, and with your growth, this perfect world becomes perfected.  Create beauty on the inside and beauty will manifest on the outside.

Think about it…Similar Posts:

• Growing Up and Down
• Seasons
• Peace On Earth
• Where We Live
• Time For A Change