Today's Messages about Faith and Passion

As I was having a telephone conversation with a friend this morning we both realized that we were powerful and successful women and yet, both in our 40s, we too are at a place in life where we ask ourselves "what's next?" It's not that we're bored, on the contrary, we have so many talents, dreams and capabilities that we feel flooded with ideas that we want to bring to the world. The question is, where to start?

Do you ever feel like you have so much to offer, that if each of your ideas were a tree that you could plant an entire forest in no time?

After I hung up the phone I played with my "cards" and asked the "other side" to help with some direction. Here is what I picked:

"Expect a Miracle. Have faith that your prayers have been heard and are being answered. Faith is the light that illuminates your pathway. Without faith, the future looks very frightening. That's why it's essential for you to take whatever steps are necessary to keep your mind and heart filled with faith. Please don't give up hope on yourself or other people. Keep the candle of faith burning within your soul, as that one small inkling of hope can eradicate the darkness of despair. Be the light that eliminates someone else's gloomy hopelessness as well. For as you make others stronger, it strengthens not only yourself but the entire world."

The second message I received was about passion:

"Trust and follow your renewed passion in your life and career. Playing it safe can lead to staleness and depression. You've asked for more happiness and definite direction. I've lit the flame of passion in your heart to lead and guide you. It's safe for you to take risks and follow your heart's desire. Ask me to be your partner along your path of passion, to guide and nurture you. When you feel a strong knowingness, alongside a burning passion, pay attention, as this is my way of giving you information about your next step."

I hope this encourages you to have faith and back up this faith by the steps you take. After all, faith without deeds is dead. And remember that love doesn't come to you from your horizon, but spreads out from within you to the horizons and far beyond!

Our Journey called Life

I had walked this path so many times, and have learned so much along the way, yet never was I open to receiving as many blessings as I did this last time I walked this path. Nature is one of my greatest teachers, always has been, and I hope that you can grow and feeling blessings through my eyes and my sharing.

I parked my car where I always park it, along Indian Valley, where I realized lesson 1: whatever grounds I'm about to walk on is indeed filled with wisdom, age old sage energy and sacredness.

This time, however, my car was the only one there; it must have been because it was raining; when I realized lesson 2: when it's "ugly" outside people don't want to come out.

I got out of the car and stepped onto the gravel road when the most amazing smells hit my nose and my entire being. I was overwhelmed with smells of rain, various kinds of trees, horses, flowers, and all kinds of other smells, when I realized lesson 3: when it gets "ugly" is when our senses are especially receptive to our surroundings (provided we have the courage to open our eyes and are willing to "get wet").

Feeling especially blessed being on my hike alone and in solitude I realized lesson 4: it's good to be out in solitude and alone to soak in all Mother Nature has to offer.

As I came up to the first fork in the road I realized that I had a choice to take the first right or I could walk on a little and take the second right. Both paths eventually connected and looped around to come down to the main path where I was standing. The major difference was that the first path would go up a very steep hill that most people avoid. Taking the second path up the hill would offer me a longer trip up hill but not even remotely as steep. However, because the two paths connect I would then have to come down this very steep hill. I had a choice to make, which is when I learned lesson 5: all paths in life are just detours and will eventually lead us back to our main path. And lesson 6 was right around the corner: if we knew how steep our detour paths were, would we still take them? Which one would I take, the steep one or the longer but less steep one?

I decided to take the steep one. I wanted to feel my heart pump today and I knew that if there was anyone else out today in this rain, I would certainly not encounter anyone on this steep path. I longed for solitude!

The path is steep and windy and my heart is pumping and my lungs are burning. Every bend leaves hope to be the last turn before the path has got to flatten out (please!). And so I learned lesson 7: just because your path seems too steep, too burdensome, too lonely, and getting you out of breath too fast, doesn't mean you should stop and turn around when the going gets tough. Hang in there, even if the path around the bend doesn't flatten out right away.

At one point the path had gotten so steep that too much rain had carried away good chunks of the road and it was easy to visualize how gushing water took loads of dirt with it downhill. And I learned lesson 8: your path can be forever marked with ridges by the gunk that comes washing down towards us. Don't give up, keep going.

Finally I arrive at the top of the ridge where the path flattens out and I learn lesson 9: it's good to feel my body and heart pumping and my being so alive, I made it to the top! It's time for just a little reflection.

I look around and suddenly see the most amazing gifts. Lesson 10: When the going gets tough don't stop; stop when you've arrived at the top, to take a breather, to take inventory, to enjoy your success!

Lesson 11 was here as well: what gorgeous views when you've hiked a mountain that took your breath away. What beautiful life up here that remains untouched and yet Mother Nature feverishly works with all she has to bring balance to her backyard.

I continue walking on level ground surely expecting the path to go downhill soon. But oh not so fast - another hill ahead of me. And I learn lesson 12: just when you think you've made it to the top and it surely must get easier now is when life throws you one last hike up hill. Go for it, don't get frustrated.

As I continue walking up the hill I count my blessings and look forward to making my final ascent. And when I get there the path narrows and suddenly a puddle covers the entire path. And I learn lesson 13: Just because you're on the top doesn't mean it's all smooth sailing. You have a choice to walk through puddles, go around them or hop over them (or you could return down the hill because you're too scared to get dirty).

Finally arriving at the top I find a post with a sign that says: "Restoration Area - Please keep out." And I realize lesson 14: When you're exhausted do give yourself rest and "keep out" from areas in your soul that need rejuvenating, restoration and rest. Do not force yourself to do anything that doesn't feel right. Give yourself a chance to grow.

On my path down the mountain the path becomes windy and narrow with many rocks, bolders and trees roots blocking a smooth path. And I learn lesson 15: Just because you think you're on an easier path now doesn't mean you don't have to watch where you're going. Road blocks and obstacles will accompany going both up and down hill.

I stop next to a beautiful Manzanita tree and realize that it's skin was peeling and I learn lesson 16: Not only snakes shed their skin, even trees shed their skin; so what makes me think that I don't need to transform and shed "old skin" too?

I come around a bend and realize that a small bridge had been built to get over the creek that flows underneath it. And I learn lesson 17: Even if you're on an easy path sometimes your path gets blocked by another force wanting to block your downward road. Build a bridge and continue on your own path, don't get side tracked and don't let yourself get turned around or pushed off your path.

A little ways down I realize that park rangers had come in to fix a section of the path by inserting small tree trunks every few yards to keep the path from flooding downhill during a storm. They filled the section between the trunks with new dirty that now was wet and heavy from the rain. As I walked over the dirt the mud stuck to my shoes making it very difficult to walk because my feet became so heavy. Not only was the mud full of clay, but it was also slippery (see the clay on my shoes in the picture?). And I learned lesson 18: Just because someone rebuilds a path to make it easier doesn't mean it will be easier for you to walk your path. Circumstances (in this case the rain) may make it more difficult, and that's okay. Keep on walking!

I come around the next turn and realize that the most beautiful little creek was directly crossing the path. And I learned lesson 19: I could walk through the water and get my feet wet, I could try to hop over the stones or take a huge leap trying to avoid the water. Or I could do what I opted to do; bend down and stick my hand in the water while saying a prayer for the water to carry my unconditional love to the rest of the planet. Surely all rivers flow into the sea and then back to the mountain tops, and so my prayer would certainly affect all beings. So when you're feeling down, say a prayer for others and ask it to be returned to you a thousand fold. It felt blissful to feel the water rush around my fingers - what joy!

And just as I hop over the rocks I hear an intense buzzing sound up above me. Looking up I see a hole inside a tree about 5 yards above me, and hundreds of buzzing yellow jackets surrounding the hole. And I learned lesson 20: Just because I'm the only human being in the forest doesn't mean life isn't everwhere - we just tend to miss it and think we're the only ones when we keep ourselves from enjoying all life everywhere.

I say a prayer of gratitude for the buzzing sound they make and for getting my attention in this way and walk on.

As I walk down the hill I see all kinds of gifts, dead trees that broke off during a storm that now seem to grow branches and leafs again. Broken down trunks that are full of fungus featuring all kinds of different colors and serving as food for insects and life everywhere. Simply beautiful. And I learn lesson 21: Art doesn't have to be hung in my living room as a permanent fixture, nature features art that is most colorful, moving and passing, inspiring and yet never dull or boring.

And even further down I see these two trees that seem to lean to the side at similar angles. It's as if they're a couple and they hold each other's space by pointing in the right direction while staying close. And I learn lesson 22: it's okay not to stand erect at all times, someone will lean with you when you don't have the strength to stand up straight.

Moving down the path even more I come to a part of the path where the path becomes about one foot wide, and on top comes this massive tree root and right behind it is this newly "planted" pile of horse manure and I learn lesson 23: not only can your path feel tight so you need to lift up your feet to move forward, but someone may put some "shit" in your path that you don't like. Hop across and move on anyway.

And just when I feel like life's lesson must come to an end for this journey Life suprises me with the most peculiar tree trunk I had seen. It was as if the tree had been blasted with bullets and the trunk seemed to have these large "holes." And I learned lesson 24: even trees get wounds and they too know how to heal themselves, slowly and over time. Don't rush your healing process, allow yourself to heal and move on, trusting that Mother Nature knows what she is doing.

As I come back to the main trail I start heading back towards my car when I am blessed with even more lessons. I see footsteps of various kinds. First I see fresh horse shoes, then I see a dog's paw print, then I see a print from a bicycle tire and of course hiking shoes. And I learn another lesson, 25: I don't live on this planet alone and there are many creature walking my path with me...

Almost at the end of my path I see some commotion ahead of me and what looks like a bunch of birds turn out to be three squirrels having fun chasing each other and having fun eating nuts. I was sure that they would run up the tree as soon as I approached but life gave me an opportunity to be less than 3 yards away from them and I learned my final lesson 26: have fun, chase each other and let yourself be chased once in a while, eat good and let others get close to you, no matter how different they are than you...

With much love for your journeys all wonderful souls out there!

Note: The pictures on this post are from my actual hike taken that day.

Half Dead - Half Alive

About 9 months ago I met someone who had asked all his life for bliss and happiness. Having come to close to half a century old he had almost given up to ever finding bliss and happiness and had started to settle in to the mediocre, predictable life he had created. Suddenly he realized that he was given everything needed to live a blissful and happy life and at first tended to it like any farmer would tend to the fragile seeds he had just planted.

After a few months, however, he realized that he may not have the strength to continue taking care of his new crop. Living on bare and non-producing land had left him starving for love, bliss and happiness all his life, but suddenly having to tend to the protection of his newly planted crop seemed overwhelming. He doubted. He lost faith.

Before he returned to his old life I pointed out that the beautiful half-dead, half-alive oak tree in front of my house was here to remind him too that we can live seemingly alive on the outside, yet dying on the inside....

He chose to die, although not consciously, he nonetheless told the universe that what he had asked for, bliss and happiness, was really not the fruit he wanted to reap in this life time. Mediocrity, boredom and therefore death, however, was all he knew.

And so he returned (and with it to an early grave)...

As long as you live in this body you have a choice. And as long as you have a choice you can always choose to resurrect your Self, in spite of the previous choices you made, even if you chose death in the past.

Now go forth and choose life!

Goddess Guinevere - True Love

Hi Everyone, it's been a while since I've been posting here. I haven't gone anywhere, at least not physically...it's good to be back and post new lessons learned so you too can be nourished and grow.

I have for a long time already been holding "gatherings" each morning and before I retire each night. One of these "games" I play with our loving goddessess surrounding us at all times. Today's message comes from Guinevere. No one knows better how to deliver messages in our plain English language than Doreen Virtue. Here is Guinevere's message:

True Love:

"The romantic stirring in your heart have propelled the universe to deliver great love to you."

Meaning of this message: Your soulmate relationship is soon arriving...

The universe knows how ready I am!

What touched me and brought me to tears is Guinevere's story. This Celtic triple goddess has anciet roots preceding Arthurian times, when she was known as Gwenhwyfar. In her original form, her name meant "White One" or "White Phantom," and she was a powerful goddess invoked for both fertility and as a bridge to take the dead to the afterlife plane. During the times of Avalong, Glastonbury, and King Arthur, she became Guinevere. To become king, Arthur had to merge with, or marry, Gwenhwyfar, the goddess who ruled over the land. And so Gwenhwyfar became the astonishingly beauitful Guinevere, the queen bridge of the new King Arthur. Legend holds that her heart really belongd to Arthur's cousin, Lancelot, however, Today, she helps us ensure that we enter into partnership with our true love, and she assists in keeping that love alive.

The pictures here are samples of Guinevere with King Arthur and her with her love, Lancelot.

Think of Guinevere's sacrifice to have lived with a man she didn't love, King Arthur, while having to hold her love for her beloved Lancelot. Perhaps she did this for the greater good of the land and its people. In either case, think of the ultimate sacrifice she made: to become the goddess protecting each of our "halves" so only two twin souls can be reunited with each other (if they choose so). So no one has to "settle" for anyone "less than" our true love.

What ultimate sacrifice!

What I learned is that I have not only my ancestors, angels, fairies and others are here to help me (and you) along this journey of love, we also have powerful gods and goddesses who have died for this very cause and are forever roaming eternity paving our paths to help us reunite with true love.

Don't settle - hold out and work on yourself so you're truly READY for your beloved.

May God speed your paths...

More Love to Accompany You Today

Being deeply loved by someone gives you strength; loving someone deeply gives you courage.

Lao Tzu

Take away love and our earth is a tomb.

Robert Browning

The moment you have in your heart this extraordinary thing called love and feel the depth, the delight, the ecstasy of it, you will discover that for you the world is transformed.

Jiddu Krishnamurti

You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.

Andre Gide

True love is like thosts, which everyone talks about and few have seen.

Francois deLaRochefoucauld

I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can e no more hurt, only more love.

Mother Theresa

In order to succeed, your desire for success should be greater than your fear of failure.

Bill Cosby

Love Quotes - to Brighten Your Day

Love is the immortal flow of energy that nourishes, extends and preserves. Its eternal goal is life.

Smiley Blanton

The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.

Mother Theresa

We are all born for love. It is the principle of existence, and its only end.

Benjamin Disraeli

Where there is love there is life.

Mohandas Gandhi

Life without love is like a tree without blossoms or fruit.

Kahlil Gibran

And on a personal note I'd like to add that Love is Everything, the Beginning and the End, the Purpose of all Existence.

Falling Trees, Broken Hearts, Misconceptions and Moving On

A while back I had met a man whom I soon came to think of as my possible Twin Soul. It was out of this world how similar we were and yet how we satisfied both spectrums of the energetic pole. It was truly as if we were two halves joining back together. And please don't think that we're "halves" walking around, or that we're incomplete without another person. Not at all.

And yet in spite of our agreement that our relationship was one out of a billion, he chose someone else. Our light scared him so much that he didn't come through for us. It has taken me weeks now to "recover" and trying to wrap my head around what really happened, how anyone can possibly let such a whole relationship go and settle for mediocrity.

I went to the library for answers. I went there looking for something, but I didn't know what. I just knew I would get answers there. I came across an audio tape presentation from Caroline Myss called "Sacred Contracts." I had been "preaching" sacred agreements for decades, mostly to myself. It's as if we return to this plane with the people we have arrangements with to meet and go through various lessons in this life. It's an act of love really. And yet most of us scuff at the idea that we return with a person so they can hurt us and we in turn have to learn forgiveness. Yet that's exactly how it is.

Caroline Myss and her "Sacred Contracts" reminded me of this bigger picture and it helped me have compassion on the choices this man made. When I first realized that he didn't choose "us" I got angry and hurt and disappointed. I cried all day long, cried myself to sleep, wrote a lot and went on and on asking God for mercy. All day long I said: "Mercy, God, please have mercy on me and take this pain away."

I spent the second week learning from "Sacred Contracts" and slowly my feelings of anger turned into feelings of abandonment and victimhood. "Poor me, he left me, how could he throw such a beautiful thing away." I found wisdom in the woods, hiking and crying to God, hugging trees and getting mercy from the land that takes "abuse" every season out of the year.

I spent the third week practicing compassion and understanding while realizing that he did stick to our agreement, whatever this agreement was. It wasn't meant for him to choose me, or he would have. It was our agreement for him NOT to choose me so I could learn forgiveness and compassion, and so he perhaps could feel loss and learn how to take personal responsibility. Both of us learn the valuable lesson not to be victims but to realize that we're creators.

During my last hike in the woods a few days ago, I continued praying for him and myself, asking God to speak to me with his all-wise and compassionate all-knowing and all-seeing existence. I had taken this hike several times and knew the trails pretty good. This time it was different. It had rained the day before and it was a bit stormy. The trails were covered with fallen branches and dead wood all around me. I had to step over them constantly. I looked at the trees above me and the dead branches on the trails and all around me and suddenly it hit me like a brick wall...

We're like trees, we get planted and we grow and our roots get stronger and deeper as the years go on. Our leafs are like the people or the experiences that come and go in and out of our lives. The slightest wind, or at least Fall, will make them go away. Branches are part of the tree structure. They hold up the tree and make sure the tree's equilibrium remains balanced. The leafs of these trees had fallen way back in Fall, however, it's now March and the trees are getting ready to form new buds and new blossoms. BUT, and this is a big BUT, before this new growth can take place, the tree has to shake off its dead weight. The branches that no longer are able or capable of carrying leafs and thus buds. These branches would only draw nutrients from the tree that are better used by the branches that do hold buds and flowers. So nature has this built-in shedding process by sending rain and winds to get rid of dead material.

We too, as people, get involved in relationships, jobs and affairs of life that may be non-beneficial for our long term growth and well being. It may start out great, strong and lush looking, but as soon as life brings rain and wind, the branch cracks and falls off.

So rather than being sad at the loss, I now continue my lesson in realizing that just because this relationship with this man is not what it seemed, doesn't mean he was bad or the relationship was bad and therefore it is now "rotten" and had to die. Not at all. Because just like branches and leaves fall to the ground provide nourishment for life on earth, this relationship continues to do "its thing" inside of me and inside of him. In other words, just like a dead branch provides food for a termite and other beings, this seeming dead relationship now continues providing me with nourishment of lessons. Just like the branch only seems dead, what really happened is that it just grew too weak to remain connected to the overall tree. Relationships often become too weak, for whatever reason, and they "fall."

While I'm still hurting quite a bit about "what could have been" in this relationship, I'm also accepting that we must have had an amazing contract and we stuck to it. So one day when we're on the other side, we get to hug and give each other high fives for having helped each other with lessons that I could never have learned without him.