Hitting the Road …

This was Torin’s first time to be outside sitting on the ground. He is not pleased. 😊 

Soon I will be traveling to Colorado to meet my grand baby! I love visiting with my son and his wife, so this will be extra special having their new addition there, too. My writings will be sporadic for the next two weeks. Please know you are in my heart…

“Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children.” Kahlil Gibran

Happiness is Love. Full Stop.

Eureka Women - photo credit, Richard Quick

Arthur C Brooks has spent decades studying happiness. We all know that things which bring us pleasure in our early years are not necessarily what nurtures us in our later ones. In his recent book, “From Strength to Strength: Finding Success, Happiness, and Deep Purpose in the Second Half of Life”, this columnist for The Atlantic reports, “Those who are unhappiest later in life are often the strivers on a continual quest for money, power, pleasure, and prestige.” Mr. Brooks also teaches a class on happiness at Harvard Business School. He tells us what most of us already know: “The world gives you a bogus formula for happiness. No 1: Use people. No. 2: Love things. No 3: Worship yourself. And it actually seems right because it’s so close to the truth. It just mixes up the nouns and the verbs. The right formula, based on all of the best neuroscience, clinical, and social scientific research, is simply: Use things, love people, and worship the divine. You can boil down all of the studies of happiness to five words. Those words are: Happiness is love. Full stop.” 

"Happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love. It is unselfish; therefore it cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to share it."

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 57:18-21

“Happy dreams come true, not because they are dreams, but only because they are happy. And so they must be loving. Their message is, ‘Thy Will be done,’and not, ‘I want it otherwise.’” A Course in Miracles Text Page 223

Reflections of Truth

unknown photographer 

Many, perhaps most, self-help books concentrate on how to change behaviors. The two disciplines I study focus on how to rid ourselves of barriers in our thoughts which keep us from being our true selves. What if everything we deem to be wrong about ourselves would simply melt away if we actually knew that we are the image and likeness of our Source? Mary Baker Eddy defines God as Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love. We are the reflection of these words. And they are capitalized because the same words with a small letter at the beginning would simply be the ego’s creations, mortal mind’s confusing interpretations  — of which there are many! When I notice myself falling into the little letter mode of thought, I try not to berate myself, but simply turn thought to a higher level than where the world continually encourages it to be. Let’s be gentle with our corrections, just as Love is. 

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all of the barriers within yourself that you have built against it. It is not necessary to seek for what is true, but it IS necessary to seek for what is false."

A Course in Miracles, Text, page 338

“Correct material belief by spiritual understanding and Spirit will form you anew." 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health 425:24

Grief Without Suffering

 

Photo credit: Blake Lasater 

My thoughts turn to a family friend from long ago. She was a wonderful, spiritually-aware person who showed me the truth in Workbook Lesson #248 from A Course in Miracles: “Whatever suffers is not part of me”. Over the course of a year, this friend’s husband passed on, her daughter was in a car accident which left her in a coma for months before she died, and her house burned down. While I know she felt grief, I'm not sure there was despair. She always had a twinkle in her eye and a generous heart. When she herself passed on some 20 years later, I am told she went with a smile on her face. I often think of her. "Whatever suffers is not a part of me" is not a heartless statement. It doesn't deny the feelings we have, nor does it bring a hardness which excludes emotion. On the contrary! It's a pure Love which allows us to face hard times with a firm understanding of the beauty of Truth. After walking through the grief, we're free to see that nothing can touch our true Self or change the reality of Love. My heart is with everyone in the midst of grief today. Namaste …

"If grief causes suffering, convince the sufferer that affliction is often the source of joy, and that he should rejoice always in ever-present Love." Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 377:3

Cosmic Time

We all have experienced the relativity of time passing. Time spent in the dentist’s chair passes much slower than time laughing and talking to friends! Years ago, it seemed we had sped up time with all of the rushing about we do. Even youngsters think time  passes quickly. Then the pandemic came and time took on a whole new persona, don’t you think? It seems to be both slow and fast at the same time! I can’t tell you if something happened a couple of months ago or last year — unless there is a definitive event involved. When we were told that big cosmic changes were on the way, I don’t think anyone could have predicted the world we are now experiencing. And individually we are feeling both torn and united. We have loved ones dying, being hospitalized, breaking bones, losing their homes, losing their minds. And somehow there seems to be greater clarity than ever. It’s an impossible thing for me to define, but we need to talk to each other when we become afraid. Love is stronger than fear, and we only need a reminder of that to bring us back to true reality. Namaste, dear friends …

“The miracle minimizes the need for time. In the longitudinal or horizontal plane the recognition of the equality of the members of the Sonship appears to involve almost endless time. However, the miracle entails a sudden shift from horizontal to vertical perception. This introduces an interval from which the giver and receiver both emerge farther along in time than they would otherwise have been. The miracle thus has the unique property of abolishing time to the extent that it renders the interval of time it spans unnecessary. There is no relationship between the time a miracle takes and the time it covers. The miracle substitutes for learning that might have taken thousands of years. It does so by the underlying recognition of perfect equality of giver and receiver on which the miracle rests. The miracle shortens time by collapsing it, thus eliminating certain intervals within it. ¹It does this, however, within the larger temporal sequence.” A Course in Miracles - T-1.II.6:1-10 

“You may know when first Truth leads by the fewness and faithfulness of its followers. Thus it is that the march of time bears onward freedom’s banner. The powers of this world will fight, and will command their sentinels not to let truth pass the guard until it subscribes to their systems, but Science, heeding not the pointed bayonet, marches on. There is always some tumult, but there is a rallying to truth’s standard.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 7

Passing By The Thoughts Of The World

Kailey on the John Muir Trail

Having fallen asleep on the couch at 7 p.m. and waking up six hours later, this is the first thing I happened to read. I like the way it sounds and feels …

“Doing those deeply unfashionable things—slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting—is a radical act now, but it is essential. This is a crossroads we all know, a moment when you need to shed a skin. If you do, you’ll expose all those painful nerve endings and feel so raw that you’ll need to take care of yourself for a while. If you don’t, then that skin will harden around you.” 

Katherine May - Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, 2020.

“If you are doing the exercises correctly, you should experience some sense of relaxation, and even a feeling that you are approaching, if not actually entering into light. Try to think of light, formless and without limit, as you pass by the thoughts of this world. And do not forget that they cannot hold you to the world unless you give them the power to do so.” A Course in Miracles W-44.10:1-3 

A World Blessed With Peace

 

Let it go. Just breathe. We hear these instructions when learning how to break the hold of distress and open ourselves to peace. It took me years to realize that someone or something wasn't "making" me upset, it was my perception and interpretation and reaction to things which caused these feelings. Even with this realization, it's sometimes difficult to avoid being caught up in the craziness of the world. When I find myself becoming agitated about anything, I will remind myself to "let all the world be blessed with peace through us." After all, I can't change anything but my own self, and how wonderful that it’s the most important thing for me to do!

"Peace be to me, the holy Son of God. Peace to my brother, who is one with me. Let all the world be blessed with peace through us."

A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson #360

"Let us learn of the real and eternal, and prepare for the reign of Spirit, the kingdom of heaven,—the reign and rule of universal harmony, which cannot be lost nor remain forever unseen." 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 208:20-24

Keep On Keeping On

 “Listen to the mustn'ts, child. Listen to the don'ts. Listen to the shouldn'ts, the impossibles, the won'ts. Listen to the never haves, then listen close to me... 

Anything can happen, child. Anything can be.” 

Shel Silverstein

"Love inspires, illumines, designates, and leads the way. Right motives give pinions to thought, and strength and freedom to speech and action.” 

Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 454:18

A Song of Gratitude

 

The resilience of life is astounding. I’ve watched a beloved friend go into an angry depression after the death of her 30-year-old son. When the isolation of the pandemic arrived, she became agoraphobic and started drinking every day. This went on until she was nearly dead and ended up in the hospital and rehab for two months. After coming back home and getting stronger, she was ready to return to the humanitarian practices she had always excelled at doing. And then the house/apartment where she lived burned and she was left with no possessions, not even her beloved cats. Now, almost a month later she has moved into a sweet little place in the woods of Eureka proper, happily planning her future. She hopes to help with homeless cats and people lost in alcoholism. Gratitude is what has brought her through these last three years of personal hell. Every little kindness offered by others, every beautiful flower springing from the bare earth, the moon, the stars, friendship — she is grateful. Namaste, dear Friends …

"Gratitude is much more than a verbal expression of thanks. Action expresses more gratitude than speech." Mary Baker Eddy -Science & Health Page 3:25-26

“What is Heaven but a song of gratitude and love and praise by everything created to the Source of its creation?”A Course in Miracles - T-26.IV.3:5

With Love, To Lin Wellford

Lin Wellford and her rock paintings

 

When a dear friend passes on, we feel a void. It’s as though the world is off balance without their physical presence on it. Lin Wellford was a friend to many, an adamant advocate for nature and wildlife, an exquisite artist, a fine human being.  I share with you excerpts from a note she wrote me last year, when my life partner died. By sharing our memories, the world comes into balance again. You are loved sweet Friend …

“I know you are well prepared to traverse the experience of sudden loss. Beliefs are so powerful and comforting and necessary. Having dealt now twice with the unexpected death of a loved one, I've grappled with the little memories and expectations of a future that must be gently laid aside. It's a major housekeeping task, in my mind not unlike the work of labor to bring another soul into life. Only harder in some ways because of all the history, good and not-so-good, the miles traveled, the moments shared. It feels to me like each small thing that pops up must be felt and honored and then cauterized the way a wound needs tending.  It's wearying work because it comes and goes and what may set off a 'grief storm' is hard to anticipate.

Thank you for guiding me towards ACIM, which is now part of my lifelong journey and something I am forever grateful for. I know you will make your way through this experience, that you are well loved and comforted by a huge and varied community.  Just wanted to tell you I am among that network of people who care about you and are sending peace and energy for the days ahead.” Lin 

“When your body and your ego and your dreams are gone, you will know that you will last forever. Perhaps you think this is accomplished through death, but nothing is accomplished through death, because death is nothing. Everything is accomplished through life, and life is of the mind and in the mind. The body neither lives nor dies, because it cannot contain you who are life. A Course in Miracles - The Lessons of Love

“If the belief in death were obliterated, and the understanding obtained that there is no death, this would be a ‘tree of life,’ known by its fruits. Man should renew his energies and endeavors, and see the folly of hypocrisy, while also learning the necessity of working out his own salvation.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 426:12-16

Withhold No Blessing

Photo Credit: Blake Lasater

Do you ever feel guilty about feeling good? I don’t usually, but recently I had a moment of regret for being happy and contented. A number of us had enjoyed an hour of musical meditation and then went out to lunch at a wonderful restaurant. On the way back to my cozy, safe home, probably to take a nap, I suddenly thought about the people of Ukraine and their frightening plight. Quickly I corrected this useless thought, realizing that it makes no difference how bad I feel, it’s not going to help anyone. It may remind me to help my neighbor, to do everything I can to extend Love to the world, but my guilt will not improve any situation. This realization helps me extend Love  and healing to everyone, knowing that my happiness and contentment allows me to do this. I pray that we may love so passionately that it spreads exponentially all over the world!

“He will withhold no blessing from it, nor limit it in any way. He will join to it all the power that God has given Him, to make each little gift of love a source of healing for everyone. Each little gift you offer to your brother lights up the world. Be not concerned with darkness; look away from it and toward your brother. And let the darkness be dispelled by Him Who knows the light, and lays it gently in each quiet smile of faith and confidence with which you bless your brother.” A Course in Miracles - T-22.VI.9:7-11 

This Need Not Be

Unknown photographer

 Dogfish by Mary Oliver (an excerpt)

You don’t want to hear the story

Of my life, and anyway

I don’t want to tell it, I want to listen

To the enormous waterfalls of the sun.

And anyway it’s the same old story – – –

A few people just trying,

One way or another,

To survive.

Mostly, I want to be kind.

And nobody, of course, is kind,

Or mean,

For a simple reason.

And nobody gets out of it, having to

Swim through the fires to stay in

This world.”

“If you cannot hear the Voice for God, it is because you do not choose to listen.” A Course in Miracles T-4.IV.1:1 

Renewal, Resurrection, Spring

 

Unknown photographer

Spring by Mary Oliver 

“Somewhere

a black bear

has just risen from sleep

and is staring

down the mountain.

All night

in the brisk and shallow restlessness

of early spring

I think of her,

her four black fists

flicking the gravel,

her tongue

like a red fire

touching the grass,

the cold water.

There is only one question:

how to love this world.

I think of her

rising

like a black and leafy ledge

to sharpen her claws against

the silence

of the trees.

Whatever else

my life is

with its poems

and its music

and its glass cities,

it is also this dazzling darkness

coming

down the mountain,

breathing and tasting;

all day I think of her -—

her white teeth,

her wordlessness,

her perfect love.”

“My resurrection comes again each time I lead a brother safely to the place at which the journey ends and is forgot. I am renewed each time a brother learns there is a way from misery and pain. I am reborn each time a brother’s mind turns to the light in him and looks for me. I have forgotten no one. Help me now to lead you back to where the journey was begun, to make another choice with me.” 

A Course in Miracles w-rV.in.7:1-5

Choose Again

Akseli Gallen-Kallela - Spring Night, 1914.

 “The chief beauty about time

is that you cannot waste it in advance.

The next year, the next day, the next hour are lying ready for you,

as perfect, as unspoiled,

as if you had never wasted or misapplied

a single moment in all your life.

You can turn over a new leaf every hour

if you choose.”

Arnold Bennett

“In every difficulty, all distress, and each perplexity Christ calls to you and gently says, “My brother, choose again.”

A Course in Miracles T-31.VIII.3.2

Here and Now

Grant Haffner - Into the night, 1978.

 “It is easy to mourn the lives we aren't living. Easy to wish we'd developed other talents, said yes to different offers. Easy to wish we'd worked harder, loved better, handled our finances more astutely, been more popular, stayed in the band, gone to Australia, said yes to the coffee or done more bloody yoga.

It takes no effort to miss the friends we didn't make and the work we didn't do the people we didn't do and the people we didn't marry and the children we didn't have. It is not difficult to see yourself through the lens of other people, and to wish you were all the different kaleidoscopic versions of you they wanted you to be. It is easy to regret, and keep regretting, ad infinitum, until our time runs out.

But it is not lives we regret not living that are the real problem. It is the regret itself. It's the regret that makes us shrivel and wither and feel like our own and other people's worst enemy.

We can't tell if any of those other versions would of been better or worse. Those lives are happening, it is true, but you are happening as well, and that is the happening we have to focus on.”

Matt Haig - The Midnight Library, 2020.

Do Atheists Pray?

A friend brought me an interesting question, which I’d never heard before. He said one of his friends had asked him to pray for them, that they had an incurable disease and they wanted his prayers. He explained to the person that he was an atheist and he couldn’t do that. They begged him to do so anyway. He called me wanting to know what to do, mainly wondering what to say to them in order to not hurt their feelings by refusing. I assured him it wasn’t necessary to believe in a big guy in the sky which would grant favor if he asked; that it was perfectly acceptable to tell his friend he would send good thoughts to the universe, or something along those lines. Anything which expresses love is a gift, and one which may be given in a multitude of ways. Honestly expressing love to those in need is a gift which circulates freely to them, back to us, and out to everywhere!

“Truth has no consciousness of error. Love has no sense of hatred. Life has no partnership with death. Truth, Life, and Love are a law of annihilation to everything unlike themselves, because they declare nothing except God.” Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 243:25-29

Ketanji Brown Jackson

 Ketanji Brown Jackson

A short 60 years ago black women were not allowed the most basic of rights in this country, including the right to vote. Today we witnessed an historic happening when Ketanji Brown Jackson was confirmed to the highest court in our nation. To see a black woman nominated and voted into this position is, to me, a sign of hope. I am grateful …

“Out of the huts of history’s shame

I rise

Up from a past that’s rooted in pain

I rise

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide,

Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear

I rise

Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear

I rise

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,

I am the dream and the hope of the slave.

I rise

I rise

I rise.”

~ Excerpt from Dr. Maya Angelou’s~ ~ STILL I RISE

"Legally to abolish unpaid servitude in the United States was hard; but the abolition of mental slavery is a more difficult task. The despotic tendencies, inherent in mortal mind and always germinating in new forms of tyranny, must be rooted out through the action of the divine Mind." Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 22

Peace is the Path

 

Photo credit: Aaron Springston

Few of us have no regrets when we look back on our lives. Sometimes it's tempting to replay instances in our minds and think of ways we could have done things differently. Thich Nhat Hanh was a Vietnamese man who lost his family during the war in the 60s. He spent his life practicing peace and showing others how to do the same. He helped American Vietnam veterans forgive themselves. He told them that no matter how badly they felt, it would never bring back the lives that were lost, but that there are many ways in which to help people today, right here and now. He showed us how to be the Love which we are. Peace Is the Path, he told us. I want to follow that Path, without looking back.

"Love inspires, illumines, designates, and leads the way. Right motives give pinions to thought, and strength and freedom to speech and action. Love is priestess at the altar of Truth. Wait patiently for divine Love to move upon the waters of mortal mind, and form the perfect concept. Patience must 'have her perfect work.'" Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 454:18-24

Happiness in This World

artist ~ Claudia Tremblay

 “She was damn happy to be alive.

She didn’t have millions in the bank.

She wasn’t at the top of the

corporate ladder and still her deepest

dreams ... though she pursued them

hadn’t yet come true. But still 

she was damn happy to be alive.

She had people to love; a roof over her head;

she had all the essentials for living;

water, gas electricity, food;

she could appreciate the flowers blooming,

the sun beaming and the skies blessing.

She had good books to read. 

She spoke to the moon at night.

She often had a good sing in the shower.

And she lived her life with a touch of her own style.

The world’s mindless noise went quiet at the 

sight of her relentless joy.”

~ S.C. Lourie

“The Holy Spirit begins by perceiving you as perfect. Knowing this perfection is shared He recognizes it in others, thus strengthening it in both. Instead of anger this arouses love for both, because it establishes inclusion. Perceiving equality, the Holy Spirit perceives equal needs. This invites Atonement automatically, because Atonement is the one need in this world that is universal. To perceive yourself this way is the only way in which you can find happiness in the world. That is because it is the acknowledgment that you are not in this world, for the world is unhappy.” 

A Course in Miracles T-6.II.5:1-7

I Will Receive Whatever I Request

Photo from unknown source

I am remembering a meeting in which a woman confided a situation of abuse from her childhood. Some of the people in the metaphysical meeting we were attending insisted that she had chosen this scenario, whether to rectify something from a "past life" or for some other reason. This woman became very upset to think that a little girl would be tortured and want such a thing. A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson #339 iterates that no one desires pain, but often we are confused about what we would want. Without going into the possibility of past lives, or reincarnation and retribution, I remind myself that all I want is One Thing. My only desire is to know God, and everything else will be attained without my delineation of what that is. I also remind myself not to judge others in any way, as we are all on an individual path. That's what it's all about. We are the experience of God, and there are no outlines as to what that means. Go in peace. Live in truth. Namaste …

A Course in Miracles Workbook Lesson #339 "I will receive whatever I request."

"Faith is higher and more spiritual than belief. It is a chrysalis state of human thought, in which spiritual evidence, contradicting the testimony of material sense, begins to appear, and Truth, the ever-present, is becoming understood." Mary Baker Eddy - Science & Health Page 297:20-24

Every Thought is Important

 "When we think of communication, we usually see it as being between two people, between two bodies. One form of communication is to feel somebody’s touch, hug, or caress. Another form of communication is sitting together having a cup of tea or coffee and a very intimate talk about your deepest thoughts and feelings. But even when the other person is not with you, you can communicate. Your thoughts are powerful, and anytime you think of another person, you communicate. It’s like prayer. I sometimes tell people who have someone who’s not around anymore, ‘Well, you might as well keep talking to them because they are still there. You just can’t see them, but they are still there.”’And if you have attack thoughts toward somebody, you will see that person as the thoughts you have about them. It may feel like a very foreign idea, but it is within your own thinking that you have all of your relationships and your communications. This is why you need to take great care of what you think and be aware of what kind of relationship you have with your thoughts." 

✨ David Hoffmeister ✨ 

♥️🕊♥️ 

This quote was taken from the book “This Moment is Your Miracle”. You can find this book and many others at https://buff.ly/2vzIiMI 😍 Enjoy! ✨🙏🏽🥰

I Want to Be Kind

 

Art from Judy Clement Wall

 

Light, Joy, and Peace

My son and grandson, screen shot during FaceTime

There has been a large increase in so-called hate groups in the world. A man named Tony McAleer describes himself as being beaten and bullied as a child; bitter and isolated as a teenager. He became involved in one of these groups while seeking a connection with others. To quote him: "When you're starving and somebody keeps feeding you what you think are your favorite foods, even though it's junk food, there's going to be a while where you're not going to get up from the table." He continued to practice violence and anger until after the birth of his daughter. He said that was the first time in his life he had felt connected to another human being, and he started to want to change. He has now organized a group called "Life After Hate" and is helping others to build relationships with people. He says if we are to counter these groups, we must get to a place where empathy outweighs fear. That is what we are realizing through these studies, too. "Light and joy and peace abide in me" -- and in everyone!

“Light is a symbol of Mind, of Life, Truth, and Love, and not a vitalizing property of matter. Science reveals only one Mind, and this one shining by its own light and governing the universe, including man, in perfect harmony.." Mary Baker Eddy- Science & Health Page 510:27-1