Choices
What is happening in your life is reflective of choices you have made. Each second that you breathe is abundant with choice which may be consious or unconsious. We may believe that all our choices are conscious ones but like the bulk of an iceberg hidden under the water most choices are hidden from our own selves. When these choices show up in our living experience, we then believe that life is happening to us rather than knowing that we have made a decision that constructs our life. We are the creators of our lived experience and mostly live ignorant of the power we possess to design our lives.Just because we were previously unaware does not mean that we have to live with what we have previously created. In this moment we can make a new choice which will redesign our life. Just as popular renovation shows take an old home and remodel it to become a new showplace, we have the power to take our life experience and redesign it. Rather than be off put by the way your life has turned out, admire yourself for what you have done. Tell yourself if you are dissatisfied with something you have created it is only a thought and a choice away. It can be changed.Your life mirrors back to you what your choices have been and if you want something different for yourself you need only make an intention to choose differently.
We want to argue with this. I didn’t do this. I didn’t want this. I am not in control of this situation or this outcome but it can only be changed when you accept responsibility for it. There is no need to beat yourself up for not knowing your own power. Now that you do, you can examine your consious thoughts, seek out your unconcious ones and choose a new path and direction.

The moon is covered by the clouds.
Alone in the darkness,I wait.
What am I waiting for?
I am waiting for You,
to hear You whisper,
to feel You with me,
To feel encompassed by your Love.
To be showered with your Light
Safe,secure in your embrace.

To know that I am not alone,
That you have not left me berefit.
It has been too long
When are you coming?

The night is long and lonely.
I pass the time, the clock ticks,the moments turn into hours
And still you have not come.
You are all I need,all I want.
When will you come? I am waiting.

An aboriginal prayer
Here I stand before you Creator
I am Happy
I can ask you for nothing
Because you have already given me all.

All HAS been given to me. I open my heart in gratitude. I may not always understand the gifts you give to me each day. I may not recognize them as they are given. I may wish for the gifts of others and I may pass mine them by, thinking them unworthy of my attention.
But in sober moments, opening myself, I find you revealed in every sense, I knowing that you are always present, accompanying me in my blindness and my deafness, loving me always.
Thank you.

When comes the Rain
This was a storm with flashes of lightening making the sky glow, loud shots of thunder rattling windows and shaking the earth, throbbing wind assaulting the trees. Tears dropping from the sky. Massive and copious, the earth is sobbing. Rain turned to snow- heavily weighted snow bending the trees to the ground, snapping branches ,covering every thing with a pristine white shield. What once was green and flowering is now barren landscape.
In the aftermath, it was a changed world. Branches laid here and there, willows bent to the ground, ponds of water created where none had been before. Quiet-no birds singing. A silent pause. The gap.
And then, in the clearest of blue skies the sun shines and its warmth takes away the chill from the earth. Snow melts. The birds twitter, the trees lift their branches from the ground slowly but surely. The world’s peaceful hum resumes and it goes on as if there was no storm.

This is life, the story of our days. Storms in our life come as surely as the storms from the sky. They arrive- roaring, blowing and bending. All is grey,dark and frightening. Darkness enfolds us. We don’t know how bad it will be or whether it will end. People get broken. We change. The world changes. There will always be storms of change but be mindful that they do come to an end.
Watch for the covering, listen to the silence, enter the gap. The world will go on, the sun will shine. We will sing again.

I Am Love.

The intake of breath is love; the outlet of breath is love.

Love is in each moment.

Love is in each being: animate and inanimate.

In the expanding of the universe, in the  unending cycles of the earth, all is love.

In the shining of the light is love, in depths of darkness is love.

We swim as a fish in an ocean of love, unknowing.

Surrounded by love, engulfed in love, being love; yet we feel bereft.

Seeking love, yearning for love, wanting  to be loved,  wanting to love.

Love is all there is; nothing exists except love.

In this one small sentence is the answer to all that you seek.

I Am Love.

Who has seen the wind -neither you or I. Yet when the wind blows throughout the tops of the trees you see the effects visibly in the stirring of the trees. Sometimes it bends them so hard you think that they will break. Sometimes one topples but usually the wind lasts only for a while and then calm, quietness and peace return. Even the roughest storm eventually ends and the trees stand tall.
Emotions are as the winds; they rip through our interior being threatening to blow us down with their intensity. Filled with angst whether it be from anger, frustration, sadness or simply overwhelm we feel threatened and respond as if we are in grave danger-we ferociously fight back; we dissolve into tears, or we try to run away from them -we retreat to our beds and pull the covers over our heads.
Rarely do we remember that feelings are temporary nor do we examine the messages that our emotions deliver. We do not simply allow ourselves to experience them to the depths.
Although the wind can be terrifying it has a purpose. The world would not survive without winds. Our emotional states also have a purpose. They are there to inform us, an internal GPS system providing direction and guidance. We need to listen to them- what is the message that they are carrying for us? At our center is peace, quietness and calm and emotions are as simple as the waves on the ocean; as we let them roll through we discover they cannot overcome the quiet center within.
Let the winds of emotion pass over around and through. We can examine the message that the emotion brings by being open to and feeling it as deeply as we can. We can question it- what is it that you are trying to tell me? As we take from them the messages they deliver we can continue to rest in that centered place within. We are always safe there and we can always stand tall.

In the middle of cold winter, it has been unusually warm. Snow and ice have been melting, trickling away in rivulets, we have enjoyed warm no jacket necessary days. We are caught thinking that it is spring. There is a patch of green, yes green grass showing through the surrounding snow. It feels good.
Then today we are cocooned in ice fog; the weather is changing once more. Cold air pockets and breezy wind cause teeth to chatter and bodies to shiver. We are disheartened, blue because the cold has returned.
There are times in life when it feels like spring- our step is light, our burdens do not encumber us and we have hope for better days. But just as quickly, someone’s word or a chance happening as simple as a change in the weather, can change our outlook, take us off course and plunge us into the chilly waters of despair.
In reality, nothing has changed except our thinking about what is happening.
Our thinking about our experience is creating our feelings about our experience. We think that warmth is preferable to cold, we think that spring is somehow better than winter. We believe that what is outside can affect and change what is on the inside.
This is backwards- what is on the inside can change what we experience on the outside. Choosing our response on the inside can change our feelings and our experience just as quickly as the weather can change. We need to ask ourselves “what do I want to experience”. Make a decision to experience it.
Watch for the change in the weather. Smile. Life is just that simple.

The sky is colored in greys and frost. Everywhere is buried under mounds of snow and people moods are as variable as the sky colors. We see a bull moose with 10 point horns suspended in motion, motionless: waiting, waiting-his visible breaths punctuating the cold frosty air, watching us to see what it is that we will do next as we watch him to see what he will do next. We stare at him -he stares at us. Nothing moves. There is a hush- the momentary suspension of breathing , the gap between what is to come, what has already been.
The present in this space seems suspended too- a serene sense of expectancy as we wait together for the next moment to arrive. A pause—a recognition that we are connected to each other and to our surroundings as a fractal picture frozen in time. As if in a imaginary picture frame, are we being observed — frozen in this setting, watching us while we are watching the moose. And beyond that and beyond that…
And then we breathe and we drive on….the sky colored in greys and frosts but sharper, more clearly defined and we give thanks that we are here now and able to see such magnificance, our moods shifted to gratitude and joy.

I forget myself when I forget you and plunge ahead into living as if you did not exist.
My life becomes hard and I become unreasonable.
I suffer when I do not remember that you are with me.

I am thankful that you call me back when I lose myself,
and that I find myself again when I talk with you.
I am thankful.
I find myself in the many things you have given me.
I am thankful.
I thank you for this body and for this life.
I thank you for the people who surround me, showing me your qualities and your kindnesses.
I am thankful.
I thank you for the angels who whisper your love for me endlessly , ever and ever. I am thankful.
I thank you for inspirations filling my mind, calling my soul to hear and respond. I am thankful.
My soul fills with gratitude. I am overwhelmed by your generosity towards me. Endlessly present, always with me, I am thankful.

Breathe in and breathe out. In and out. In and out.
You are connected to all that is. In the fall garden, death is apparent. Red and yellow leaves light brightly on the ground while mulching themselves into the living earth. They sink into the welcoming arms of the soil and wait silently to be created anew in the spring as new life emerges. Change is stirring. Fall winds blow everything hither and yon, moving stuff from its accustomed place to new spots. Nothing is as it was. The world is laid bare and seems destitute.The sun is gone, the skies remain grey with hints of fog. A theatrical scene is set: feelings of waiting and expectation arise simultaneously. Something is about to happen. A sense of anticipation, a sense of the unknown. Waiting..
Suddenly, you can see things that were hidden before. Becoming quiet, breathing in and breathing out, you can feel your bond with all that is. Beyond the visual, if you listen carefully, you can hear the sound of the universe–a quiet steady hum, a harmonious synchronization of energy permeating everywhere and through everything- ground, trees, air. Pulsing with your breath, you can feel the hum of unseen energy coursing through you, filling all your spaces.
In and out. In and out. You are a part of the invisible that lives and breathes as you. Life is living itself as you, through you. You are cycling through periods of rest and renewal, life and growth. Settling into the hidden energy, just as the leaf settles into the soil, you experience yourself coming home -content to wait for the spring.