Memorial Majesty

Angels in my Hair by Lorna Byrne

I love this video so much because if you watch it clear through you see the ego in this gentleman just bursting out of him. Fear. Fear of the ego keeps him from hearing her. If he or the female host had read her book they would know the magnificence and know that Lorna is simply allowing the message of God and the angels to come through her. I find this video fascinating and heartwrenching. The fear that keeps us or tries to keep us from  knowing how much support and love we have with us all the time is intense. I urge you to read Lorna Byrne's two books, Angels in My Hair and Stairways to Heaven.

When the interviewer was grilling her over taking money for seeing people...in Angels in My Hair, she talks of how utterly poor they were once her husband became ill. So for someone to give her a cake or piece of meat must have been such a ransom of blessing at the time.

I love Lorna Byrne. I thank her for allowing this beautiful knowing to come through. I am stronger for it. I am changed. I know how much protection, love, and help we have 24/7. I shall never forget again.

One more time

Every day we decide what we want from life. We can live it with big gaping holes or we can live it whole and free. I choose the latter and spend my days aimed at this. I listen to everything, taking what I need, discarding what is not meant for me. Each day I awake I give thanks and request more. And when I do right by my body, mind, and soul, I get it. I am a living testament of how not to give up. Keep on! Keep on! Keep on!

Te amo

Until it's over and done....

I must have been 20. I was at a student journalism conference in Beaumont, Texas. We were at an awards dinner on the last night of the event and a slew of random photographs taken at the conference were being shown on a big screen.

I looked up and there was my face. The music cued to the photos was Kenny Loggins' "This is It." I sat there -  and did then as this song does for me now -  and woke to the idea that I am a writer - maybe not a journalist - but a writer, and the notion is not going to go away nor do I want it to depart.

It has been a struggle to internally embrace this as much as I say it out loud. But, being a writer, a communicator, is enmeshed in who I am and everything I represent. "The waiting is over" happened for me when my mother passed and the culmination of our lives together became apparent to me that my ability and faith as a writer is strong, capable, and intended.

Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald co-wrote this song, first as a love song, but at the same time when Loggins' father developed a severe heart problem and was giving up, Loggins knew the direction the song had to go.

I love how meaning is there for us to find like a brightly colored egg, hidden.We simply need to look and to enjoy the search, as freely as a child.

Two for One: The Spirituality of Discomfort

Yesterday, while leaving my ESL gig, I was trekking home when only a few buildings down the street in Harlem and a man stood inside a doorway with a bar of a scaffold above him. He was doing chin ups and it was dark. I watched him and walked on, but as soon as I crossed his path, he stopped, dropped to the sidewalk and said to me, "Do you have the time?"

I looked at the screen of my phone. It was straight up 6:00 pm, and when I told him, he said, "Thank you," and I moved on.

Later that evening, I thought about him. And I considered how the numbers 6:00 resonated with me, so I went to Doreen Virtue's Angels Book of Numbers and flipped to 600. "Give your worries and stress to God," it read. I sat on the edge of my bed and smiled and said a silent "thank you."

Whether the man doing chin ups had any relevance to it, did not matter. I simply knew it was time to drop my fears and to land feet first on the ground, solid and on purpose.

Take a Walk on the Child Side

Every tomorrow has two handles. We can take hold of it with the
handle of anxiety or the handle of faith.
-- Henry Ward Beecher

Oh how I wanted to post last night, but had to rest. This morning, I happily return to tell you about my walk on Monday. I'd been inside the apartment since Saturday, so it was time to get out and move my legs. Snow mixed with rain was expected last evening and the air was thick with cold.

First, I walked to the bank in my neighborhood. A very tall woman, possibly a man was inside opening the door for anyone needing to enter the 24-hour ATM section. I'd seen her before. She was hoping for any change those banking could give. I am tempted each time to tell her how that might not be the most opportune place to ask for money - as odd as it seems - because any cash withdrawn is at its minimum a $20 bill and as generous as I can be, have not risen to feeling comfortable handing that out, yet.

I have never given her money, and quite honestly, feel bad about it. And even more direct, I am judging her. She has an anger about her that tells me she knows she could manifest what she needs, yet there is a strong resistance. She is articulate and able. I want to tell her how talented I suspect she is, but I grow timid and simply tell her, "thank you" as she opens the bank door for me to leave. I want to tell her I know how she feels, but dependency never wins or provides what you think it will.

Next, I went to retrieve my laundry. Yes, at 55, I have stopped schlepping my laundry to the laundromat and physically washing and drying it. I drop it off and pick it up, happy as a pig in mud. It costs about $8 more than if I stayed and did it myself, but the freedom it provides is worth it. I began doing this when I had only one day off, and time on that free day became very important. It is a luxury, and one I value and choose to fold into my budget. I always tip, too.

Finally, I went to the grocery store and bought pie crust, cat food, and pasta sauce. I had baked three chicken cutlets the day before and planned to dice half and make a robust amount of chicken pot pie with lots of vegetables. Walking home, I swung my little bag of goods and felt the icy breeze. I was back in Michigan, walking on the thick ice of Lake Huron. Images of my youth are resurfacing and I eagerly welcome them. I know a rebirth is occurring inside me, and I am thankful.

This morning I awoke at 3:23 as I've been doing for the last few weeks before falling back asleep. I looked in Doreen Virtue's Angel Book of Numbers and turns out 323 is a message from the angels that my "childlike faith" is recognized by the ascended masters who are by my side to help me fulfill my dreams.

The cold air of yesterday invigorates me just as much as does today's and reminds me of the ever newness of life; to find my center, and to humbly carry on. Most of all, have the faith of a child and relax to the wonders of the awakening.

Light of Day: Brilliant

It is the combination of the pristine coldness matched with a blue sky filled morning that shows me the brilliance of the day. A thick-tailed squirrel sits on the ledge of my building. I can see him or her from the window inside my fire escape. "It's Scratchy!" I say to no one as I watch the squirrel vigorously scratch. Poor thing must have fleas or worse. I've seen that same squirrel ferociously scratching for a couple of years now. Or they all scratch, I think to myself. But it is the light reflected from the squirrel's dark eyes that I see. So much intense light on this winter morning. I see a gleam even in Scratchy's eyes. I only wish I had a photo, but gone is the squirrel, not touching the almonds I'd flung.