Celebrating the wonders of all things natural!

Posts tagged ‘awareness’

Cosmic Rainbow Connections & Grateful Miracles

Sometimes plans don’t turn out the way you expected, and sometimes miracles happen, and we’re surprised.

Such was the case on last weekend’s trip to take my kids to the Fare Thee Well Grateful Dead 50th Anniversary concerts in Santa Clara. First change was kids turned to kid as my son announced he couldn’t go b/c of work, and b/c he didn’t want to listen to a bunch of old people playing music. Since he’s 17, I obliged and left him home.

My 14-year-old daughter and I made it to the concert with time to spare, after a grueling drive and battling with parking and coordination issues. On the drive up I felt so much excitement about the idea that popped into my mind to give someone a “miracle” with my extra ticket that I’d bought for my son. Selling the ticket didn’t fill me with the joy thinking about giving a miracle did. So we stood outside the entrance as people milled around and I looked for someone who needed a ticket. For anyone who doesn’t know, at every Grateful Dead show, people walk around holding one finger in the air saying, “I need a miracle,” which translates to a free ticket into the show.

A couple walked by me pushing a stroller with two young kids, and, oh my G! “Trinity?” I said to the guy with the long beard and soulful eyes. How amazed was I to see my old friend from Kauai, with his wife, Mary Martha, and 2 kids! I hadn’t seen him in probably 15 years, and there he was, beard, family and all! Talk about cosmic connections…

Soon after, a cute young girl with dark hair walked up with her finger in the air. I made eye contact with her and handed her the ticket. Perfect timing. We walked in to the tune of Uncle John’s Band. “Wo, oh, what I want to know, is are you kind?”

Hundreds of roses were set inside the entrance, so we gathered some. Wending our way to our section through the dancing crowds, a girl said to me, “My name is Rose.” Of course, I gave her a rose.

As my daughter and I made it to our seats and sat down at long last, we listened to the music, which I realized the next night, seemed more of a warm up jam to the familiar songs we know and love. I was run down, sick with a bad cold and just basically exhausted. My daughter had a headache, said the guitar was too loud and was giving her a headache and there was too much smoke. Feeling a little low about the scene, all of a sudden, I looked toward the sky. A beautiful, brilliant and vibrantly colored rainbow arched across the sky above the stadium. rainbow

As more and more people began to notice it, the cheering reached a crescendo and the spirit and energy I remember from that crowd rekindled.

What a feeling of joy and elation that filled the air, and all of our hearts, as that rainbow, amazingly, surprisingly appeared to grace our gathering of almost 65,000 loving souls. Miracles abound, and in the words of my favorite band, “I need a miracle everyday!”

It was the epic beauty of nature that evening that stole the show and won our hearts, uniting us with nature’s awe-inspiring spirit, through the rainbow connection and a light-filled sunset. This is truth, beauty and love.

On the drive home, a patch of rainbow appeared in the wide open sky above us. “Mom,” said my daughter, abruptly and a little too loudly, as she was listening to her own music with her headphones on. “Is it just me seeing it, or is that a little rainbow?” I joyfully saw it too, and it seemed to expand as I drove along the open road. It stayed above us for a couple hours, to my joy and amazement, giving me comfort and connecting me to the cosmic mystery in a colorful, peaceful and miraculous way that I could not have planned if I tried. So Grateful.

sunsetroses

Advertisement

Category:

appreciation, attention, awareness, belief, collective consciousness, connection, cosmic, energy, frequency, healing, hidden messages, Joy, magic, music, nature, peace, potential, power, rainbows, self-realization, serenity, spirit, sunsets, synchronicity, wake up, wholeness, wonders

Tagged with:

Living Choices

Choices. We make them everyday:

  • Go to school or sleep in
  • Brush your teeth or don’t
  • Work on your project or play on the computer
  • Be on time for the carpool or dilly dally
  • Do yoga or have a beer

And while the consequences of our choices range in intensity, from missing a day of school to getting a cavity or failing math, our decisions impact our lives and the lives of others in more ways than we know.

 “In every moment you make high vibrational choices,

you are supporting our collective consciousness.”

I came across this truth in something I read in passing a few months ago, and it struck me as being so profound, I needed to write it down and display the message to keep reminding me.

I strive to make the right choices when faced with several options, but sometimes (more times than I’d like to acknowledge), I realize in retrospect that I wish I’d made different choices, and I regret it. Despite wanting to live my life with “No Regrets,” the consequences of my decisions often cause me pain or sadness.

Sparking this pondering about choices is a recent decision I made that turned out so wrong. I’ve felt so mad at myself and wished I had followed my heart instead of listened to advice of an outside party.

So a couple days ago while walking my dog I noticed something moving on the ground in the dirt by a bush. It caught my eye and on a closer look, I saw it was a tiny baby bird! Oh my God! I couldn’t believe it. What do I do? Then, as I was kneeling next to it, I saw a second baby bird, moving around on the ground next to it! Another one! I thought about what to do. There was no nest around, and it seemed these birds had fallen from the tree.

I decided I’d take the babies home and take care of them. They were stretching out their wings and opening their beaks, so they seemed strong, but not quite ready to fly. I carefully placed them on the “mutt mitt” I had in my purse, and carried them gingerly home, tugging on Ginger the whole way not to do her business as her bag was otherwise employed for now! photo 2

I got them home and my daughter and I found a shoebox, filled it with some grass and natural materials, and I cut down a small branch from our ficus tree that a hummingbird had made a nest in last Spring, but which was now empty. They were a little tight, but they fit comfortably in the nest! These precious little creatures were so tiny and vulnerable. I gave them a few drops of water using a q-tip, which they took, and I even felt their claws holding onto my hand when I had put them into the nest.

They seemed happy, and were resting nicely in the nest as I figured out what to do and how to take care of them. photo 1 I thought they might be hummingbirds, b/c of the green color on their back, but I couldn’t be sure. I called a vet, who referred me to another vet, the Conejo Valley Vet Hospital. The receptionist who answered was very helpful and advised me the best thing to do would be to put them back where I found them b/c the mother would care for them, even on the ground. “Don’t worry about your smell on them; the mother won’t care at all.”

Wanting to do the best thing for the birds, and thinking of their worried mama, I did what she told me and placed them back near where I’d discovered them, but closer to a tree where they wouldn’t be so out in the open. I prayed they’d be okay, and my daughter and I waited around to see if the mother would find them. She didn’t seem to fly right down to them, but there were lots of birds around, so we figured she’d locate them and they’d be taken care of.

You know how this ends, right? And I hate this part. When I went back to check on them the next morning, they were out of the nest and at first I didn’t see them, but then I noticed 2 small lumps swarming with black ants. How tragic. Pointless. Sad.

And to think I could have probably given them a chance, had I kept them and dropper fed them. Why oh why didn’t I follow my motherly instinct to care for these baby birds in need instead of following the advice of a third party over the phone?

I meant well. But I’m sorry little birdies. The next time I’m faced with a choice like this, I’ll know better what to do. Then, my learning may help another to live.

Category:

animals, attention, awareness, collective consciousness, connection, mindfulness, nature

Tagged with:

Energy Points

This thing called energy really is an amazing force. I’m a big believer in synchronicity and following the energy, which reinforce each other.

During a recent late night coughing spasm session with my sick-with-pneumonia child, I realized the power of energy medicine for healing our bodies. After trying everything, from prescription cough medicine to tea with honey and lemon and steam treatments, I sat on my son’s bed, exhausted, and watched his racking cough shake his body until he threw up.

I sighed in frustration and walked out of the room, straight to my book on Energy Medicine, by Donna Eden. I looked up coughing, then lungs and found an entry: lung sedation points. Okay.

I located the points shown in the diagram on my son’s hand, and held three of them for a minute or two. My son’s breathing calmed; he stopped coughing and fell asleep within 10 minutes. Overjoyed, I sent Donna Eden a blessing for publishing this book.

She’s made energy medicine accessible to anyone who can pick up a book and read. The concepts are easy, whether you understand how they work, you just follow the directions, in this case, holding your fingers on three places on the hand, and the lungs respond. There is science, of course, behind it, energetics, and nature. It’s amazing, and so powerful.

I’m discovering so much about energy and how it works in the body. And as it amazes me within, I’m also amazed how energy works outside the body. There is some natural force, and I don’t understand how it works, but I’ve experienced it often, always with a surge of delight and wonder, awe.

Having learned about energy medicine through Donna Eden’s book, I attended a weekend seminar with her and her husband, David Feinstein, at Esalen in Big Sur, California. I knew during the magical weekend that I wanted to learn so much more about energy and how it works as “medicine” for the body. The seminar ended on Sunday afternoon. I drove 4 hours back home, excited more than ever about energy medicine.

The next day I drove to Santa Barbara to do a little work and also shop with my daughter along Main Street. As we browsed through the gemstone rings in a jewelery store, a woman entered the store. “Excuse me?” she said, causing me to look up. As she asked for directions, I drew in a breath, excited!

“Oh my God! Donna!” It was Donna Eden, herself. In the flesh. I said hello and told her I’d just been at her Esalen conference the day before. We laughed at how funny it would be for us to meet up right then in Santa Barbara! She lived in Ashland, Oregon, and just happened to be shopping in Santa Barbara with her daughter.

So what does it mean? And how does it work? Energy knows. I just know that’s how it goes.

Category:

appreciation, attention, awareness, belief, C. G. Jung, collective consciousness, connection, energy, frequency, healing, health, hidden messages, human nature, Joy, magic, natural medicine, power, self-realization, synchronicity, wake up

Tagged with:

Forces of Nature ~ Reeling in the Real

I love Joseph Campbell, influencer of Star Wars’ George Lucas and a student of Carl Jung, he just has this incredible way of putting into words life’s many esoteric mysteries… and I love how the Universe once in a while “shows us the light in the strangest of places when we look at them right”…

As this angstful eclipse energy – and Mercury retrograde too – ramps up emotions so that they’re spinning intensely, keeping our balance while riding these waves of seismic activity is an art.

Campbell (and yoga) help me find that sweet spot, hidden in the barrels of the rolling waves, without being crushed when they crash, by shedding light on and making sense of our emotions to make it easier to understand and reflect on why they are what they are. In his “Reflections on the Art of Living: A Joseph Campbell Companion,” Campbell writes about a certain male fish that has a dark upper body and a light lower body, so that he is camouflaged and safe from danger when looking up or down at it. But… and here’s the good part:

 “When this particular fish is in love, his color shifts so that he’ll be visible. This puts him in danger, you see, and it seems to be symbolic of this love thing. You give up self-protection when this other comes along and you are seized with erotic compulsion.”

Despite the risks, fish do not control their natural instincts so that they can stay invisible and safe. No, without even thinking about it (probably), they change colors and take their chances.

While we humans can often learn some lessons from nature, we still get to decide if we’re going to go with the flow of our instincts or play it safe and resist these forces of nature.

While we never know where love will go, if we don’t try, we’ll never know (someone said; I’m saying it today, and others have said it before, like Smokey Robinson and The Miracles and, of course, the Jerry Garcia Band):

What are you fishing for? And, even more, when you catch it, can you reel it in and keep it real, without killing it?

Category:

animals, attention, awareness, belief, C. G. Jung, connection, energy, frequency, healing, hidden messages, human nature, Joy, magic, mindfulness, nature, self-realization

Tagged with:

Before & After

As we were cleaning up an area in our backyard for my daughter’s new bunny, I noticed there were several stepping stones buried in the grass. The area was overgrown, and I thought I might arrange the stepping stones in a mandala or something. I began to cut the long grass, and I was so surprised at what started to be revealed… at first I wasn’t sure, but as I worked more and more, clearing the area, I unearthed an amazingly awesome design.

 

This mandala had been here for more than a year, ever since we moved in, and we never noticed it because the grass was totally hiding it. And we never looked!!!

Just goes to show what wonderful surprises are right under our noses, if we just put in a little effort to notice and be aware of our surroundings and cut back the weeds (whatever form they are in), what a transformation can occur! I wonder what else I’ll unearth and discover in the next few weeks. I know I’ll be looking for those hidden treasures… Awe-some!!

 

 

Category:

appreciation, attention, awareness, hidden messages, mandalas, nature, potential, wonders

Tagged with:

Tuning In

On a recent visit to the California Academy of Science, I was amazed by the animals, not only because they are exotic, rare and beautiful, but because they seemed to be watching us as much as we were gazing at them.

They seemed to be interested in us too, which is surprising to me as I’d never noticed how the animals interacted with the people staring at them through the glass before. Looking at us, they seemed to communicate and pay attention, maybe even feeling awe at the beautiful humans looking at them.

 

 

I first had the thought when this ancient-looking eel noticed me staring intently at it and started coming out of his hole in the rock to get a better look, or allow me to see him (her?) better. He (feels like a him) came all the way out of his hole, then went back in and stuck his head out again.

 

 

Then the  frogs made direct eye contact.                   

 

 

As did the fish:

 

The rattlesnake was more active than any I’ve ever encountered (thank God glass separated us!). As we approached its enclosure, he came toward the glass and waved his head around in front of us! Wow! Very exciting to see the way snakes move quickly and how they are able to sling their triangle-shaped heads around.

 

Just when I thought I might be imagining all of these animals communicating with me, I stepped between a man and a gila monster to dodge the crowd. “Excuse me,” I said to the man, wearing a hat and holding a cane. “I didn’t mean to step in front of you.”

He smiled at me. “He’s looking at you,” he told me, pointing toward the gila monster who had walked across his habitat and was moving his head back and forth in my direction.  Confirmation by the man with the white hair and sweet smile.

“I know! I’m like, ‘wow, scary!'” Smiling too, I walked on, eager to communicate with each one of the creatures, wanting to see them all (much to my teenage son’s chagrin!).

Tuning in reveals even more of nature’s awes!

Category:

animals, appreciation, attention, awareness, collective consciousness, connection, energy, frequency, healing, hidden messages, human nature, magic, mindfulness, nature, potential, self-realization, serenity, spirit, telepathy, wake up, wholeness, wonders

Tagged with:

Looking at the “I”s in Nature’s Mandalas

Image

This is a beautiful succulent I saw staring at me as I was sitting serenely in nature at Rose Falls. I wouldn’t have noticed it because it was hidden under a rock, camouflaged. But because I sat quietly and took the time to relax and be still and become aware of my surroundings, I noticed it, and it noticed me. See the eye (I) in the middle?

Take time out to find hidden messages in nature’s mandalas by making time to breathe and be still.

Category:

serenity, Uncategorized

Tagged with: