spiritual

“The dangers of life are infinite, and among them is safety.” 
– Goethe 

I hope you’re old enough to remember having an Etch a Sketch.
If not, get off my blog!
Because none of my ancient references will make any sense to you
unless you’re an anthropologist studying the 20th century.
I remember when telephones were attached by wires to the wall,
TV was in black and white,
and there was no Internet! Gasp!

Anyway…an Etch a Sketch is a prehistoric toy, about the size of an iPad.
You turn two knobs at the bottom to “draw” with black lines
and you shake it to erase the screen in order to start over.

I found it profoundly frustrating because it only draws in straight lines and right angles.
At least for me.
I have seen that some people were able to draw the Mona Lisa.
I’m still sure somehow, they cheated.

The analogy I’m trying to make here, is that after many years of turning the knobs
and through a series of straight lines and right angles, I got my little black and white picture just so. Then…

Someone Shook The Etch a Sketch!!!
And my masterpiece is gone, for good!

Actually, it seems someone has shaken the global, maybe even cosmic
Etch a Sketch, and we all get a “do over”!

Now, that feels better to some than others.
We all get really invested in all the time and energy our black and white
masterpieces required of us!
We were able to overcome the frustration at only using straight lines,
and right angles.
We lowered our expectations a bit.
Maybe WE were not the ones that could draw the Mona Lisa, and that was…okay.

But after the shock of the shake ;-). Heehee
I think everyone, myself included, has started to embrace the empty slate.

I for one, am going to take my time.
I’m going to read the instructions for once,
and learn to draw circles, and loopty loops, and set the thing on COLOR!

I doubt I’ll be able to draw a Mona Lisa, but that’s alright,
I want my masterpiece to wear glitter and false eyelashes,
And a real smile!

How about you? What are you going to draw now that you get a “do over”?
XoxJanet

Instead of a problem that needs a solution,
I’m changing my approach.

I now want to summon the Universe to help with 
A question that seeks an answer or
A desire to be fulfilled.
That is how I choose to steer my life!

Because really, doesn’t the Universe just need a break from all the heavy lifting?
It must get SO old always being called at the eleventh hour to put out my fires!
And don’t sit there in your smug and insinuate that I’m the only one!
Ha! You rapscallions!

You must agree that it is long past time to graduate from the status of 
Universal troublemakers, creating problems that propel us to move from point A to point B.

Instead, I’m leaning more toward Universal creator, 
Someone who comes up with a series of juicy “what if’s”? for the Universe to ponder.
The brushstrokes are broader,
There’s still forward movement,
Life’s much more interesting, 
Nixing the drama,
There’s a lot less crash and burn.

The ultimate will be Universal dreamer.
I’ll dial up a desire, and BAM!
Like a genie from the bottle,
The Universe appears!
My wish is their command!

As the process is refining itself, 
So am I.
Fewer nights of worry and woe,
Many more days of yeah!! and whoa!!

You did not come to this Earth now to just pay bills, follow rules, watch your body age, and live a random life. You came here to fulfill a purpose, to live your life alive, to view all your changes as sacred meaningful soul passages

From Leo at perspectives From the Sky blog

Here are just a few of the things I’m grateful for,thankful for and appreciate!

My health 
My hubby (he’s a saint)
I’m at a quandary here, I don’t want to put my beloved dog before 
my husband, or after my family…she IS family, so..
My family (which includes my dog)
My amazing friends
My friend Eva’s inspirational recovery
The fact that I live in Los Angeles California, USA.
The fact that I can write this blog without fear of reprisals or repercussions (except maybe occasional embarrassment)
Chocolate ( I know it’s high on the list, don’t judge)!
Our motorcycle trips
Singing
The smell of Christmas trees
Driftwood
Laughing, love humor, love to laugh
Airplane travel, all travel really
Red nail polish, well…all nail polish
Mascara and lipstick while I’m at it ( still judging)?
Movies ( I love the surround sound and the big screen)
Rainy days
The color blue
Peanut butter (chunky of course)!
Lazy Sunday afternoons reading
My garden (nature in general)
White twinkle lights
The smell in the house on Thanksgiving!

Let me hear some of yours!

Happy Thanksgiving!
XoxJanet

I’m beginning to realize that all these posts on forgiveness are going to come in handy for the upcoming holidays and their familial entanglements.
Thanksgiving in the US can be brutal because of all the Norman Rockwellian
expectations.
Unfortunately, what we imagine as warm and fuzzy, can quickly turn cold and prickly.

Even though everyone at the table is somehow related, dinner etiquette can morph
into a kind of blood sport. 
Back handed compliments and thinly veiled sarcasm abound, and it’s just not Thanksgiving, if somebody doesn’t cry.

Put tons of carbohydrates, lots of judgement, a dash of shame, with a pumpkin pie chaser and voila! 
Hilarity ensues!
NOT!

When you put together people that only sit in the same room once a year, there isn’t enough alcohol on the planet to keep you in “that loving place”.

It can turn into a real numb-fest.
The carbs numb you down,
The booze,
The sugar,
The football,
The sour cream onion dip,
Yes, you heard me!
It all numbs you down, so you can smile and remain polite,
making sure that everyone lives to see another holiday.

But let’s all remember that everyone has the highest of intentions
when they pull up the driveway.
And each year can be a fresh start.
When you make forgiveness the first course, 
knowing that everyone is just doing the best they can, 
it makes the rest of the day play out differently.

My family is loving, relatively sane, and really quite civil now.
I think that’s because we’re all so damn old!
The last time we served crazy for Thanksgiving was during the Reagan
administration.
Gone are the comments that are meant to be funny…but aren’t,
followed by that uncomfortable silence.

Still…let’s all practice forgiveness,
try to operate from the heart, remembering the true intention of this day.
Take a deep breath,
And listen with love as our well intentioned aunt tells us how much she dislikes our new haircut.

Happy Thanksgiving!
Xox Janet

I like the word appreciation over gratitude.
It’s cleaner,
It’s clearer,
It feels better to me.

Gratitude can still have the energy of overcoming something attached to it.
“God! I’m so grateful THAT is over”!

Thankfulness can carry a similar energy to gratitude.
“I’m so thankful to be done with THAT”!

Don’t get me wrong, reaching for gratitude and thankfulness,
can pull you up and out of the sticky tar of hate, fear and anxiety.
But I have found that through the years, as my gratitude journals
evolved, I could read back and feel in those words of gratitude, 
the wounds that had not healed, 
the fear that I was trying to banish.

It felt like gratitude and thankfulness were part of the healing
process, part of the energy working to sooth me.

Appreciation feels like the finish line.
It feels like the wind is at my back, the past is far behind me, and
I am reaching that line, having stopped to heal along the way with:
1) forgiveness
2 gratitude
3 thankfulness.

So…currently the clean air of appreciation stands waiting for me at the finish 
line, with a towel and some Gatorade.

Try it and see if you can feel the difference.
XoxJanet

http://daily.represent.us/matt-damon-blows-your-mind/

This got me thinking. Do we blindly continue to “follow the leader”?
History shows that allowing others, even if they are in a position of authority, to dictate our actions, can undermine a society.
It is the slow drip effect. It starts slowly, it is subtle, and most importantly, it doesn’t FEEL right.
What does YOUR heart say?

Your ability to lead a healthy and happy life depends more on your perception of the events that unfold around you than it does upon the actual events themselves.
– Christiane Northrup

“I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity.”
~Gilda Radner~

I LOVE that!! What a contradiction! Right?!!

In AA they call it letting go,
And letting God.

AMBIGUITY (noun)

the quality or state of having a veiled or uncertain meaning 
Synonyms ambiguity: ambiguousness, darkness, equivocalness, equivocation, inscrutability, inscrutableness, murkiness, mysteriousness, nebulosity, nebulousness, obliqueness, obliquity, opacity, opaqueness

Sounds scary, right?
But then you add the word…the perception of
Delicious

I saw this quote a couple of weeks ago and it’s been rolling around in my head.
What did she mean?

The lack of clarity about a situation does not necessarily mean it cannot be desirable.

Delicious Ambiguity means to Revel in the Unknown. What appears
ambiguious has many delicious things for life. Keep your eyes open,
Your MIND open, and things will reveal themselves.

Then I found this on the Web just the other day and it all started to make sense.
It’s a prayer of sorts that feels to me like it can help put us in a place of 
Delicious Ambiguity. 

I’m saying it every morning.
It goes like this:

Dear God, 
Put me in the right place even though I don’t know where it is. 
Dear God, when you do it, make it comfortable for me and help me to see the sense of it. 
Make it easy and bring me the right situations and synchronicities to put me in this place I don’t know about.

XoxJanet