Namaste Meditative Minds & Brave Hearts ~ Circle of Life Alive & Bright! Glad Greetings this Mindful Monday! We are celebrating Spring ~ Equinox 3/19, Easter 3/31, Palm Sunday hailing Holy Week and dad’s 2 year departure date anniversary, 3/24. Whew! No wonder this post took me more than a minute. I vlogged and blogged most of this on the 24th yet it took well into the 25th to get here. So! It’s here and NOW so let’s hop to it! Thank you, thank you for joining me; let’s be wHOLY centered in this celebration circle of Life!
On this 2 year anniversary date of my dear ‘ol dad’s departure, I am SO reminded to keep finishing what I start and to commit and re-commit to all I choose to do as me, Laurie Story V. May my life be an incarnation celebration for the Love that created me, expressing as me ~ may my humaness be Love blessed, yes expressed!
And so it is that the Circle of Life and Love bring us to this moment; the top of Holy Week, Spring/Autumn, Birth/Death, Seeds, Gold, Rainbows, Bunnies, oh my! Let’s Play & Pray in this 3/24/24 reverent & playful Vlog:
This vlog is a voluminous 24 minutes on the 24th day and year. So! If you just need a blessedly brief spring salutation invitation, got you clovered, click this one!
The egg altar in the video above joins many other spring invitations here. My home has been enJOYing some Spirit Rising UPliftment this month including a visit from Mr. and Mrs Clover who came to visit on Equinox! Their video is linking this week with more Om Home invitations on our Leaping Literacy Library Spring page.
There are SO many Spring invitations hopping about here at home and in the Leaping Literacy Library. Our daily Play & Pray video calendar, Planting Seeds has us planting Love, Hope, Joy, Surrender … oohh, let’s DO today’s Reverence:
There are SO many ways to be reverent for this gift of life. Always centered in awareness and nurtured with gratitude, reverence provides us a good compass for our heart and soul. As I discuss in the vlog, our inner GPS< Grace Positioning System, is always a wise whisper away to bring us back to the center essence of our egg, ourselves embodied as that Love blessed, yes expressed.
Rabbit is center stage this week with lots of celebrations @ famlit.tv and here with other spotlighted spring things on our New Thought Families Mindful Multimedia page including the Spring Celebration Om HomETV show.
If you shared the 24/24/24 vlog with me, yippee skippee! If you want to hear some of those songs, yippee skippee x3! Ostara, Daddy’s Song, and Pot of Gold are linked below on the Site Blog! From the bottom of my egg to yours, thank you for singing along in the musical rainbow of my heart & soul song!
And! Before we go, let us send 1 breath of peaceful love into the world ~ aho!
Sent with the breath of this month’s full moon! (In this time zone, 3/25, 3:00 a.m.) Picture taken 3/24, 9:00 p.m.
Wherever you are, this holy moment in the Circle, I wish you Joyful Peace & Passionate Purpose that you are able to experience with reverence & express with happiness. Yippee Skippee! We truly be Love blessed, yes expressed! Namaste, Love!
Namaste Zealous Yes for Life!
Thank you for your journey here today, it is a gift to share a moment of the path with you in this way. My own journey has me in a bit of family swirl, honoring the passing of Jeremiah’s nana and my place as co-executrix of her estate. Death is one of the great markers of life; time expressed as yes, hopefully with zealousness!
I and Leaping Literacy Library often return to Zeal in October. Perhaps it is the zeal of fall leaves in their blaze of glory splendor. Zeal is like bright color. Zeal is a dance that often swirls and twirls yet in a dedicated direction in keeping with the energy of YES!Over the years, I have written a lot about zeal here in this blog space. There are 4 posts from October 2013 including a Zealous Yesness Test.
Our daily Play & Pray Calendar at New Thought Families this month is revisiting Zeal where Unity co-founder Charles Fillmore’s famous quote from his 94th year reminds us daily, “I fairly sizzle with zeal and enthusiasm, and do the things that ought to be done by me.” I have been breathing this resolve daily even as I reckon with what exact things ought to be done by me. I have found that whatever gets done and especially what doesn’t get done by me, is best served when I revere it with divine order gratitude. Today’s Calendar Play Invitation is to pretend to be a fall tree dropping leaves of zealous gratitude everywhere you go, ” …Think grateful thoughts, speak grateful words … let them fall around your mind and on others you come into contact with. Let your grateful leaves swirl a divine dance everywhere falling into perfect places & spaces! “
This week, we put the spotlight on Zeal for all of Leaping Literacy Library on the Free Shelf with some archives on practicing zeal at home as well as singing and reading with the oh so zippy letter Z! ZAP!
So! Zealous breath of yes! Before we zip line out, let’s have a seat and another moment of heart to heart. The change of the seasons always brings a highlighted opportunity to change our lives, to change ourselves. I do like the Zealous Yesness Test because I believe we are here to live as Love expressed with a zealous YES! And all too often, life and reality as we know it takes us in a different direction. Our energy gets depleted, away goes the sizzle. Our dreams get sidetracked, away goes the zeal appeal of daily life. We begin saying yes to what really should be no. My tree of life has been whispering for some time a recipe for regaining my zeal and realigning with my dreams; put me first, body, mind, Spirit and then say yes to my callings and say no more often to everyone else’s. Yet! This last chunk of days with major power outages affecting me and the elders at home as well as this trip East remind me how fast I can be plunked into re-prioritization mode. I realize in the midst of it, my continued commitment to the recipe for me to stay in the way of Zealousness and Yesness! With leaves swirling a graceful, colorful life celebration of gratitude in my mind and heart, it is a comforting place to root and to return again and again through family blusterings and the winds of change. Like fall leaves, there are many moments in this circle of life that take us into radiant color, letting go, returning to the earth, rising to green again in spring. Whatever your mind and heart are experiencing in this now moment, may you be blessed with a zealous breath of YES. Yes to go on. Yes to realign if needed. Yes to celebrate the perfection of who you are and how you are in this right now moment. You are indeed a perfect breath of our Creator’s zealous YES!
May your journey be filled with zealousness and yesness. Namaste Love!
Happy June! Happy Summer! Happy Strawberry Moon! Happy Longest Day Solstice! Happy Father’s Day Monday! General greetings of happy to shiny you and yours.
To all the fathers, I hope your day of honoring yesterday made you feel appreciated and celebrated.
For all of us nurturing the masculine energy in whatever ways we do, the Solstice sunshine illuminates and energizes the divine get it done energy. Father Sky beckons us to reach high with action, strength, perseverance. The longest day (or night) has us reaching for the light seeing our lives more clearly and hopefully holding ourselves and each other more dearly.
For some of us, fathers and the divine masculine offer an opportunity for forgiveness. The sins/mistakes of the fathers and the patriarchy can provide an ongoing opportunity to practice acceptance, forgiveness, unconditional Love. In this spiritual practice is the inherent gift of grace. When we allow ourselves to surrender into unconditional Love and the freedom of forgiveness, we also allow the flow of grace.
Our New Thought Families June Play & Pray Calendar is centered in grace and in the sea! The life giving oceans are such wondrous examples of our Creator’s infinity of divinity. Unfortunately, they also provide a rather horrifying look at the results of humanity’s disregard for keeping our nest clean. In the midst of too many extreme examples of plastic and trash in the seas, there is a wonderful, get it done company started by ‘2 surfer dudes’ and they are hand by hand cleaning beaches and seas worldwide ~ check out 4ocean! Thank you Alex and Andrew and all the hands you employ!
Our seas and this planet are so incredibly full of wonders like the ‘plant seahorse’ above and below. Of course, the seahorse is the ultimate dad for carrying the eggs and birthing the babies. Each of us, are also ultimate expressions of our Creators Love with daily opportunities to serve with our hearts, hands, feet, minds ~ putting Love into action! No matter what our surroundings or various camouflage exteriors, we are Love expressed ever called to expansion. How are you expanding in the summer sizzle and shine of your divine design?! For my part, much is under way. The new CD, We Are Called, still on the way. Our June release ‘may’ be an early July sing thing. Stay fine tuned for that celebration! Our non-profit, Creative Spirit Families has been awarded a grant through the State Library for a Student Author Program that begins in July. We have other new programing in development as well as our summer Creativity Camps. Our Leaping Literacy Membership Library website is poised for some major renovations which will hopefully flow with ease and grace providing all of that and more for our Marvelous Members in the end. For now, our Leaping Literacy Library Free Shelf is, as always, fully stocked with songs, videos, and Laurie StorEBooks. We are celebrating music, dad, and da LIGHT! EnJOY!
Whatever co-creations your shining self is in service to this Solstice week, may you align to see clearly and dearly the divine design of your shine! Namaste Bright Light Love!
Namaste Centered Seedlings Of Divine Love Expressed To Bless This World! Fortitude! I greet you this mindful moment with the moxy and pluck of fortitude. This energy is spoken and celebrated on today’sNew Thought Families Daily Play & Pray Calendaras we plant seeds of Fortitude there. I am breathing into this intention with the action of being here now, choosing to align with fierce fortitude in the face of my own fears triggered by all the outside & inside voices that insidiously whisper, “Failure.”Fortitude moves us powerfully forward in the face of any fearful facets that show up around us with the gift of triggering those within us. FEAR! There are so many deets of my recent days, a few almost cartoon real life moments that I could relate here … you know the ones where you later think, ‘Did she really say that’?! And oops, did I really manage ease and grace in that moment and still react later against myself with abuse? Wow. And! What I want to express in this seed moment, is that Love always reigns supreme in face of and in spite of the fear~ in whatever timeframe we can re-align with Love’s grace, it patiently awaits!It can take some fortitude to re-align! In the hope of further freeing us from the stories that can hold us hostage, I hold the hand of fear now and turn us both towards beauty. I say yay for the renewal of springtime begin again! Available year round of course. Here, the hills are currently greening and the flowers budding reminding us of eternal renewal. I have been listening to the wonderful Lisa Nichols on YouTube and I love her philosophy that you get a 1000 do overs and when you get to 999, you hit reset! There are so many ways we can put compassion into action! Divine Order! Let’s bring compassion to the fear and cries for Love in this right now moment. Let’s affirm divine order ALWAYS and in ALL WAYS! Let us affirm that even when we consciously or unconsciously hurt each other, everyone is always doing their straight up best. Some days our best is better than other days. Yet no one wakes up in the morning and sets an intention to do harm to themselves or another. Hopefully we awake in gratitude and the intention to do our best with zest. We begin again, shaking off the cold and reaching for the light. Miracle Mindedness! What miracle would you like to celebrate right here and right now? The miracle of you? The gift of reset, try again and begin again, any day, every day? Any moment?!Whatever manifest miracle comes to mind, hold it in your heart now. In the circle of time, I am here to celebrate it with you ~ woo hoo! Trust in the goodness of Grace and your ability to allow it in and through you now. Affirm, Miracle Minded, Open Hearted, Yes Blessed Expressed I Am!From this week’s Leaping Literacy Free Shelf, here is the song, Glorious Grace. “Grace is good flowing, glowing every place!” Sign In/Upfor free if the song andour other green offeringscall to your heart this week. Irrespective, let’s be complete for now on the joyous, hopeful note thatLove’s grace awaits your open heart and miracle minded consciousness.
May we bathe in this goodness and enJOY Love’s grace!Namaste, Love!
Happy Mother’s Day Monday! I return to this sacred cyber space after what seems like a lifetime away … March and April mark the only months since February 2011, that I have not been here to express. You have been missed! And whether or not, you have noticed or missed me or this space, thank you so much for being here … here and now.
I am gratefully here this mindful Monday moment in May …Â Here in gratitude for life’s garden ever growing gracefully on. For the essence of creation, co-creation, and motherhood, I offer this song …
Yes, our Earth Mama is always singing Love’s song and my own mama sang so sweetly to me from birth. I passed that sharing of song onto my son. As he prepares to leave for college, the song plays on in our hearts as I am comforted by the divine knowing that the song of Love does indeed sing on and on.Grace flows through us, as us, if we allow it!As I prepare the heart of my home for the ’empty nest’, I reach through moments of deep grief with faith for the fullness of grace. All of life goes and grows at the pace of grace. Yet! We can experience something so different when we are out of balance, stressed, and out of sync with the gratitude of how we are blessed. It basically comes down to saying a grateful YES in every breath! Allowing this transition of my son’s departure sometimes feels anything but graceful. Like an unwanted divorce, I am gifted the opportunity of renewal and new beginnings … whether I fully embrace it or not! And! My son and I are doing the natural dance of tense tango at times as we navigate his departure. You know, me the mama still wanting to control and fix things, he the 18 year old man cub saying “I got this, back off.” We are actually more good and loving than not yet the tension can surface in its capacity to facilitate the leaving and weirdly, perhaps, alleviate the grieving. You know, if our children were the same sweet 7 year olds, we would never want them to go and they would never want to leave! Evolution demands something different. The same pattern is playing out with the elders I care for. As they slowly die and I devote time and energy to their journey, I know that I will miss them less when they are gone. When a soul lets go of a vibrant, active body and life, we feel shock and can miss them greatly. When a soul plays out their lifetime in a body and Spirit less and less engaged and capable, (for me) it becomes so much easier to let go and bless them on their way.
Evolution is to let go of what was so we are better able to embrace what is!The other piece of family life that is coming to completion with the help of angels and ancestors is the cleaning out and selling of the old family store and stocks. In the spring of 2015, I posted pictures and commentary of some of that journey, the storyline runs through 50 or more years, and generations. The most beautiful, divine order piece of the story is that the old store and home is being purchased by a dear man who will restore it back … he’s keeping the old animal heads and even vowing to re-paint the family name on the window! This will be such a gift to the community as well as the family. I am in awe of the divine order grace. I will save the majority of the wrap up for another day yet suffice it to say, this marvelous May, our ancestors are being set freer on their way! And me too! This summer, I will be turning back to some intended work to add interesting, inspirational Vintage Voices to the Leaping Literacy Library!
Memorable Musings! These handwritten newspapers from the 1930’s tell quite a story of yesteryear ~ including my dad cleaning 400 rabbits coups for his Uncle Al for $1.50 per week!
The Leaping Literacy Library! As reported, we are replaying our ABC’s for Humanity from 2016 this 2018 calendar year on our daily Play & Pray Calendar. My efforts to change the Free Shelfevery 2 weeks in keeping with the letters has fallen somewhat short. Hence our May Shelf is holding I J K! Yay ~ let’s play!
Though I have allowed a pull in too many (see, I am not enough!) directions, my heart and life path remain dedicated to the realms of imagination and literacy!
As part of my life’s work, I continue to chip away at new and revised Laurie StorEBooksfor the Leaping Literacy Library. Here is the revised King Of Ing which so makes my heart sing! I hope it will help your heart at least hum as well!
King Of Ing Laurie StorEBook Runs 4:57 Password: KILLLShi
So much to ing this spring! Yes I am creatively and spiritually blessed even with the life stress! At times, life has been more than overwhelming in terms of keeping up with Jeremiah, dad & the elders, ancestor treasure business resolving, my work at Spiritual Life Center and me staying true to me and to my work life callings. As I align with the shine of my divine design, I know JOY is a worthy barometer!
I have given notice at Spirtual Life Center that I cannot continue in the capacity I was hired and have been serving this last year. Being even a part time Youth & Families Director has pulled me too far away from my work here at Creative Spirit Families. This summer, I will be a consultant for SLC, putting in place the power points, materials and resources for the program yet only facilitating it myself, 1 Sunday a month instead of every Sunday. The Center is partnering with us this year for our annual Feathers Of Freedom Family Camp ~ woo hoo! ~ You join us too?! ~ And!  I will continue to shape monthly offerings for the program found on their Youth & Families page. Here is May’s video:
So! Life gracefully grows on! What have I learned and what have I deepened this ing spring? If I do not put me, my dreams, my soul callings 1st, no one else will! And in fact, others will increasingly demand my attention, care, time, talent, treasure. I am the co-creator who draws the boundaries ~ or not! I tend to put everyone else first as so many women and mothers do. Why? Low self esteem? Ingrained servitude? Cultural should? In the reflection gifts of the pond, I am reminded that young children are some of our best teachers of how to be on the spiritual path. In fact, they openly show us what being connected to the divine looks like. They are the inspiration for master teachings:
Be here now
Follow your heart
See the world for it’s divine essence through incredulous wonderment
As children of the Creator, we are all children and we all seek: Time, Attention, Love. We want to be seen and heard, encouraged and supported.
And in the midst of all the ways we triumph and fail … again and again … We are ever called to carry on with TLC and kindness for ourselves and all our kindred connections!
Wherever and however you are this mindful May moment (or any magical moment you happen by this sacred, cyber space), my ultimate wish for you and all living beings is that we allow grace to guide our hearts and homes … ever freeing us to Carry Kindness and Live Love! Thank you again for being here. Namaste, Love!
Namaste this Equinox & Rosh Hashanah New Year Day!
In the Jewish New Year tradition, the ram’s horn is blown and apples are dipped in honey to intend and affirm a sweet life. In the Wicca celebration of Equinox, here it is the first day of fall with a Mabon harvest celebration and on the other side of the world, Ostara shines the birth of spring. This is the day of equal dark and light when the sun is directly above the equator, a balance point marking the turning of the wheel. From our New Thought Families Inspiration & Calendar pages, this marking of time has other cultural and religious manifestations and celebrations including these:
ShintoShuki-sorei-sai
A memorial service similar to the March equinox service (Shunki-sorei-sai), this day is marked by the cleaning and purification of gravesites and the reverence of ancestors as kami, or divine spirits.
BuddhistOhigon
A celebration of the equinox that is of particular importance to Japanese, Korean, and Tibetan Buddhists. Â During this festival, the six Paramitas [virtues] are emphasized: generosity, morality, wisdom, honesty, endeavor, and patience.
Native AmericanAutumn Feast
A day to honor the harvest end and the coming and going of the seasons, including prayers, songs, and the telling of tribal stories.Â
Ritual and holi-days are ways we can re-align with the shine of our divine design. Even just taking a bird’s eye view like this of traditions that belong to others can help to inspire us. We all share the same sky and this equal time of sun and moon so it is an optimal time … to look at time. And BALANCE! And choices. Who do we give our time, talent, and treasure to? What energies are we feeding?For those of us who celebrate the New Year on January 1st, there are 100 days left now in this 2017! Those of us who live mindfully, awake and aware, this blessing of balance and the turning of the wheel is an opportunity to re-evaluate and intend for that sweet life. Sometimes this means making needed adjustments. Revisit the resolutions, if you made them. For those, like me, who do a lot, always good to take a grateful stock of what is & what has been, as well as what’s ahead. As parents, of children, (and some of us) of our own parents, milestones and markers are based on them and their lives. Tonight, my 17 year old Jeremiah is in the homecoming court at school. We are in the midst of college application preparations and Jeremiah is taking a crazy load of courses + drama and band. I am that mom helping with all of it as I also do for my parents, especially my dad, as well as tend to many of the facets of work that call to me, in part preparing for the big job of mom that comes with the child support paycheck to be past me in the circle of time. To that aim, our new Creative Spirit Families local studio began it’s first Creativity Classes & ChildSing this week, YAY! And! I have gotten back to my list of new alliteration titles that inadvertently got put on hold. Yay for Letter T!I am also in the midst of digitizing a re-illustration of a vintage Laurie Story about Hazel the tree to be shared at Spiritual Life Center this Sunday and onto the Free Shelf of the Leaping Literacy Library for the last week of September!Getting back to my Laurie StorEBooks needed to happen though, admittedly, juggling all that I do can be physically exhausting. For all of us, in this abundant culture, our fast paced lives compounded by the stresses of our global family, can really be all too much. Sooooooooooo … balance beckons! Doing what we can for our loved ones, our global family, and our own heart’s desires is a balancing act. We pray for so many devastated by hurricane, fire, earthquake. We give financially or otherwise if possible. There’s the other insanities of humanity playing out through world leaders, rebels causing genocide, hundreds of thousands of new refugees just in the last few weeks … whoa! BREATHE! BALANCE! As my Mabon song sings, “We rest in the dark, we renew in the light …”
Somehow … we find our balance in the turning of the wheel. For each of us, it is different. As Abraham Hicks and others teach, our feelings are a compass. Generally, when we feel stressed, we are out of balance. We either:
Think something or someone should be different than they are.
Think the way the situation is dictates what or how we are.
Think we do not have the power to change it.
We are well served to bring Byron Katie’s ‘The Work’ to any or all of those thoughts beginning with the question, “Is it true?”
In taking on the new studio, I have had to re-align with the pace of grace and the art of allowance. As a spiritual being, this is the only way to do so much and still be … Truly, “It is not I but the Spirit within me that doeth the work.” Of course, there have been many moments of messiness yet the more I allow grace, the more I am gratefully and abundantly flowing! In this balance of do and be, I am living my best me! At Spiritual Life Center last Sunday, our celebration of oak trees looked at how oaks, like no other tree allow insects of all kinds to breed upon them. Some of the oak balls or galls come from wasps laying their eggs in the bark. The tree forms the gall to protect itself and in turn protects the eggs. A beautiful blesson of oneness! For our art trees, we had puzzle pieces and the little turning of the wheel pastas to add ~ all of our beautiful children created very different, gorgeous trees.
And so it is that we create from the balanced blessings of our lives; integrating all we can of the good and the bad, the dark and the light, the sweetness and the bitterness, all found on the wheel. Here’s hoping that each of us and all of us are able to keep coming into the allowance of grace so we may indeed live the highest heart of humanity ~ no matter what the calamity! Namaste, Love!
Namaste Mindful, Mystical Manifestations of The Mystery!
In the Circle of Time, I greet you with a smile of Love and well wishes for a bright, bountiful, and beautiful New Year!
With 2017 well under way, I am reaching out today with various video messages you can choose to peruse ~ or not! In the sea of offerings that call to our minds, hearts, and souls, we definitely have to choose only those that serve us best! ‘The Mystery’ linked above and hereremains some of the best advice I know in choosing how we can live a meaningful life ~ basically by choosing to be happy and be with the ‘Mystery’ every day ~ of any year, any life!
So! How are you living your ‘Mystery’ this new year? This new moment of being? You are HERE! And I, for one, am grateful. For all my intentions of being here in this blog space to ceremoniously ring in the new year, it is simply here and now that I am showing up with scattered greetings of epiphany, burning bowl and the shine of solstice shadows. The following 3 videos came about on December 21st, December 31st, and January 6th. I suppose the way any ‘real’ person shares such things is in real time like on FaceBook. Somehow, I save things for this space because it feels more sacred and sanctified. And yes, we get to make it all up, whatever meaning we assign to whatever we do … for who … when!
This Epiphany videoshares my intention/resolution to DIGin this 2017 as a disciple as well as a new song, “Free To Leave” that sings to the spiritual parenting journey I have been on with my son, my father, and myself. My big epiphany of 2017: Just keep showing up however you are called! DIG in and do it! Be a devoted disciple to the divine callings of your heart with discipline. Not too sexy or exciting yet the discipline will allow me more structure and ultimately more freedom! Too much freedom can lead to chaos. And in my case, the lack of structure and devotion to my own callings in the wake of serving everyone else led to some extreme end of the year exhaustion I am just now recovering from! Inward Investments invite innate inspirations! Intuition! Imagination! I am a disciple of these! And in being a devotee of this infinity of divinity, I gratefully live in the glow of grace. Gratitude garners grace! So it is that I am a disciple of my divinity infinitely inspired by intuition ad imagination as I gratefully grow in grace!
Our Creative Spirit Families’ ‘For Humanity’ year did indeed make it’s way co-creating A-Z in 2016. This co-creator rolled over into 2017 with extra ZZZZZZZZZZs to catch up and replenish in the Circle Of Time!
Ultimately, especially this time of year, we can look to our dreams for the solutions and resolutions we seek for our happiness. Yet, we all have failed resolutions. In fact, the odds are with us that by year’s end we will find ourselves in a similar place in the circle from where we started. YET! As spiritual beings on this human path, we have SO many transformational tools to transform our dreams into realities. Habits can be shifted and changed to support us. Being mindful and proactive in releasing the old and embracing the new is one that comes up this time of year. Setting intentions, using a burning bowl for release and centering into what we are embracing is a ritual that serves us on holy days, calendar milestones, and ANY time the energies beckon! From the small to the tall, there are always milestones along our path …
Breathe deep in blessed, bountiful, beautiful balance! Affirm change with any and every mindful breath … releasing the old and embracing the new!
Our year always ends and begins with Folk Music Camp; a few hundred of us sing, ring, play, dance out the old and in the new. This was my 25th+ year and Jeremiah’s 17th (counting in utero) so quite the long standing tradition. This was the first time in all those years, I didn’t have kids for a youth chorus. the tradition started when I first joined because there were SO many kids and a need. For the last bunch of years, the kids have been few and the need diminished. This was the year to let it go. So I released that and many other things with some tears and a beautiful burning bowl ceremony with some lovely ladies who joined me. Rather than do it alone, I invited others on the workshop board and The Invitation was beautifully met as shared in this brief Camp video:
Shining our light and living our dreams is not about being shadow free but rather a continuous process of bringing our light to the shadows. And! If you’re anything like me, taking the time to shine the light in celebration of all that HAS changed, HAS gone right, HAS manifested is paramount! We can always take time to honor what has come to be! Like water over stone, we are constantly evolving and changing … With each turn of the wheel, we are always in a different place on the circle.
At Camp, I had a little workshop to sing the 36 A-Z Short Spirit Songs created in 2016. I am excited and delighted to be resolved in producing those songs in CD and digital release this year ~ whoopee! I also published in the Leaping Literacy Library, 44 new alliteration titles in 2016! You can get online pictorial & audio samples of any or all of them here:
So my 2017 is still working on the missing letters and a WHOLE lot more as a disciplined disciple of my muse. One day, one page, one title at a time … at the pace of grace … from my winter zzzzzzzz slumber of rejuvenation ~ resolved not to repeat the exhaustion of 2016! Our January Jubilee Free Shelf is stocked and we are smiling on the New Thought Families daily Play and Pray Calendar!
Whatever mix of new and old you are in this mindful moment, may you breathe in ease and grace in the circle of time knowing that you, and all of life are absolutely fine and divine. And yes, absolutely, continue to release, embrace, and SHINE! “Let the cracks allow more light to shine through your heart.” Thank you, thank you, for the infinity of divinity that is the smiling you. Namaste, Love!
Thanks for joining me here; let’s begin with a group hug! From the depths of shadow, let us align with full moon light reminding us of the Love we are. Deep breath. When we are stressed individually, collectively ~ both! ~ shadows, aka dark side, sabotage, negative patterns can grow incrementally feeding on the energy. Are you wrestling with shadows or rising up to shine? Most likely, some of both? My shadows and risings are showing up here after at least a week of repeated attempts as I show up over and over … overthinking, overeating, overdoing, overwhelming! Yes, I have been sitting in extras with some of my shadows as I navigate the intense energy that has been of late for most of us here in the States. Ultimately, I also believe in divine order and the omnipresent good that is always speaking to our hearts. The personal & collective shadows are just the things to call us home to the best of ourselves.
What a wild couple of weeks it has been since the last voting voices blog post here … today, as we honor the whimsical, wise Letter W in keeping with our alphabetic year, we will also speak to the current climate still swirling since our U.S. election. The discussion here includes the usual spiritual living applications mixed with history, the Electoral College, witches, wounds, words, grace, gratitude, ThanksLiving … weaving it all through Spirit & shadows! There are 3 new songs embedded in this post ~ woo hoo! And I know, I know, overwhelm, whew! 😦 Deep breath … and full permission to skim through this absurdly long offering to whatever part(s) serves you!
Perhaps the volume of what I am sharing is best said in this brand new song that speaks to the shadows and how we are called to shine through them ~ indeed, rise above them:
Shadows tall and long are all around.
Even ones you love have let you down. Feelin’ dismayed, betrayed, broken apart …
Let the cracks allow more light to shine through your heart! (Chorus)
How deep is your shadow today? Do you feel ancestors alive in your DNA? Painful blame, shame, name casting games … Justice grows and knows how to chase all our shadows away! So rise up and shine! Darkness is at the door.
Answer with your light; shine brighter than ever before! Shine the light that seeds your soul! Shine the Love that makes you whole.
Shine the Love …Â that shortens your shadow … Shorten your shadow … Shine brighter than ever before!
Shine more … explore the shadows ….  How long and deep … your light … your shadow …
Hear the song here:
Waking Wounded
The volume of voices we spoke of last time has been turned up with many engaged in a war of words crisscrossing the world wide web and the concrete streets themselves. America is experiencing some of the biggest birthing pains we’ve felt in a while … maybe since 1968?! This election and the president elect have given rise to a wealth of voices spewing intolerance and hate. It’s as if the sleeping giant was awakened with voices ringing out in every corner. Of course, there are so many examples out there that I will not feed energy to by repeating them here. The spotlight is on the shadows so we can see better who stands where. Families refusing to sit together at Thanksgiving, FaceBook friends unfriending each other are some of the more benign yet prevalent fallout. The clock seems to have been turned back as a backlash against the inevitable global family we be with all people treated fairly; freedom and justice for all! Ultimately, it is all a cry for Love and healing. So many of us felt truly heartbroken at what seems to be a victory for racism, misogyny & demagoguery. I have been experiencing heartbreak yet at the same time the incredible rising that is the formidable human Spirit. Yes, the good is always present and Love always prevails. We are all of us the walking wounded and all capable of and willing for wellness. The pain body shadow we all carry is like much of our lives, largely unconscious. We carry the pain of our ancestors, as well as the sins of our fathers. The word sin is an archery term that means to miss the mark, to make a mistake. As human beings, we certainly all make mistakes individually and collectively. We all have the scars of oppression. Our souls remember it all. One of the reasons I kept crying and feeling betrayed was the shadow of my own sexual abuses and harassments that had been green lighted in this campaign. So many men ~ and women! ~ were willing to accept Trump’s behavior and “locker room” talk. Indeed, they gave him their vote for the highest office in the land with a willingness to turn away from that and all of his other hurtful, hateful talk and bullying demonstrations. At the least, we have all seen manners were given a backseat when the biggest bully on the playground was elected to the highest office in the land. And again! Coming out of the shadows into the light, is part of transformation! One of the positives that has arisen is the willingness to be a warrior or warrioress for any of the disenfranchised people the Trump campaign targeted. Included in the positive stirrings are personal calls to action for so many of us along with the expanded education and awareness of the election process itself. Voter fraud and suppression are real and being investigated in many states. Hillary Rodham Clinton won the popular vote and the % numbers continue to rise. In case you don’t know (I didn’t!), our President will be elected on December 19th. I am among millions with the hope that history will once again be made that day.
Electoral College
The President has not been elected yet. This will happen with the Electoral College Votes due on December 19th. If you have been wondering how it works when someone like Clinton (or Gore) win the popular vote but lose the Election, that’s due to the Electoral College. That is also how a race with so many millions of voters is called within hours while weeks later, votes are still being counted.
There are indeed some great YouTube videos explaining the Electoral College ~ and more being made by the day! Here are 2 by a sharp lawyer, CPG Grey  who describes everything in detail. In this 1st one, he talks about the December vote starting around 3:00 min.
As spiritual beings having a physical experience, is it wise to be caught up in all the workings of government and social injustices? As someone who lived in a spiritual bubble for a long time, and still do to an extent ~ it is much easier to be at peace and joyful in living when you look the other way or la la la it away out of earshot. Yet! We belong to each other. To fully take care of each other, it requires speaking up and acting as necessary. We must always figure out what’s ours to do ~ I didn’t start or run the petition above but I am choosing to share it. Like everything else, there are layers to this. The hope of a different outcome (however small) helped me move on from heartbreak into action. Truthfully, Jeremiah showed me videos about the Electoral college earlier this year and I remarked how messed up it was but did not engage with any amount of passion or action ~ until now.
What? When? Where? Why?
Many on this New Thought path say to just ignore and rise above it all. We each must decide for ourselves. At one point Jeremiah said, “Mom, you function much better in your bubble.” My teenage son had never seen me so sad and undone. I explained to him that I feel called to balance being aware of (some of) the unfair without allowing it to tear me apart. I am called to speak up and do what I can while also being in joyful ThanksLiving as much as I can. I have been wearing feathers in my hair as I affirm, “I stand with you Standing Rock”. As told last post, I hold the wise buffalo energy for the water protectors as I can from where I am.
I spent some blessed birthday beach time this week for a much needed heart re-set!
Witches Were Wise Ones
Also mentioned in the last post, and saved for this W discussion, the week before Halloween, I was part of a church service about witches with an interfaith minister friend.  Most of us have no clue about the true history of what a witch is, what really happened with witch trials, etc. It is explained beautifully and succinctly here:
From Kate Marks in Circle Of Song: It is important for us to reclaim the word witch; to associate it with true wisdom, positive power and healing. Witch originally comes from the Celtic word Wicca. It means the wise one, the one who practices the craft of the wise. Witches (predominately women) worshipped nature and the Goddess. With the rise of Christianity, especially in Europe, witches came to be seen as heretics, as a threat to the power of the church and the growing patriarchy, many were persecuted and murdered. The height of the witch hunts occurred from the 14th to the 18th centuries, killing between nine and eleven million people. It was not until 1951 that the last anti-witch law in England was repealed.
Part of what happened in this unprecedented election, was that for the first time a woman ran for President. The unconscious shadow was not ready to accept this possibility. It is still widely held at least in the subconscious ~ that a woman should not have this kind of power. The media ran story after story about how untrustworthy she was and people believed it all though it was mostly speculation ~ some see it as a witch hunt. Obviously, we all see the world and have our truth the way we do ~ I’m pointing here to some of the subconscious programing that makes up our truth. I have been reminded of Mary Magdalene who is disputed throughout Christianity for who she was and who she was to Jesus; Prostitute? Disciple? Bride of Christ? Ultimately her message is about unconditional Love; showing up as you are in all your good despite what others think of you or say about you. I believe that Hillary Rodham Clinton is a very wise and strong woman who does indeed live by the beautiful Methodist creed her mother taught her, ‘Do all the good you can, for all the people you can, in all the ways you can, as long as ever you can.’ She will keep doing that good ~ as will we all!
So! Spiritual teachings! In the church service I led Bonnie Lockhart’s wonderful “Who Were The Witches” song as part of our education. I led a meditation speaking the words of the new song of mine that follows here. The calling of this song is to holy restitution ~ as we know that we are all in the circle of persecution as both persecutor & victim … at different points in our lifetime(s).  Song MP3 and lyrics are here:
Chorus:
Fires are burning, yearning for justice. Our hearts are timeless flames of forgiveness. We’re all in the circle of persecution. We meet in the center … now … for holy restitution.
For all of the wise ones burned as false witness. For all of the witches, we beg your forgiveness. For all who’ve been enslaved. For all who are brave. We honor you now for the lives that you gave.
Chorus
We wipe all the tears cried in times of trial. We sift through the ashes of fearful denial. We won’t be afraid of all who are wise. For all who were denied, we bring justice to the lies.
Chorus
And so we go with the wisdom we know. In memory of the wise, Love won’t be denied. We honor the divine, in the circle of time. Â Chorus We are the center … NOW … of holy restitution.
And so it is that we can continue to expand the circles of time, within our own hearts and minds. We can be the holy restitution right here, right now. And we can reach back in the circle of time for all of the wounded ones in our ancestry … especially as the backlash reminds us to do so.
Working it out!Our Leaping Literacy Library alphabetic expressions have crossed into the Letter X, who, for our purposes is inseparable from silent e. We’re going to keep the W offerings on the Free Shelf and add the (e)X’s in there tomorrow! Beautiful UK mum and spiritual teacher/healer Kate Beddow has a wonderful adventure in the SoulPlay section ~ a full 30 minute video, Wishing In The Woods ~ woo hoo! One of the brand new alliterative Laurie StorEBooks is there too.  The work of Leaping Literacy Library & Creative Spirit Families is looking toward 2017 with expansions and perhaps a few omissions … Continue the daily Play & Pray Calendar after 8.5 years? Keep showing up to this blog after weekly or bi-weekly posts for nearly 6 years? For who? You?! Blessed to have so much freedom of decision and expression! Change is always an option for new good to rise up and shine from the shadows!
ThanksForgiving & ThanksLiving
So, since my processing and beach time bring this ridiculously long sharing up to a few days before our (U.S.) Thanksgiving, lets settle in the good grace of this holi-day and what it offers us before I close. In giving thanks, we are able to raise our vibration and appreciation for this sacred gift of life. We all have incredible blessings to be thankful for! In reaching for gratitude, we can invite our hearts to let go of whatever is in the way … practice some ThanksForgiving at the table as we allow all the judgments that keep us in our righteous anger to soften into compassion … Allow ourselves to let the grace of goodness bring us home into unconditional Love with the trust and knowing that the higher good is ~ always ~ unfolding. Living the art of ThanksLiving is to be in a grateful flow of appreciation for ALL that is! Look to our youngest teachers … very young children are in the joy and wonder of the now. They burst into anger or tears when they feel it and they just as quickly let it go to return to Love and joy. We ARE so blessed! Let’s sing it! Here’s one of the simple, alphabetic Short Spirit Songs of 2016:
Yes, we are blessed! Yes, we are blessed!
Blessings fill my life and we say yes, yes, yes! Yes, we are blessed! Yes, we are blessed!
We receive, We give thanks, We pass it on, We are blessed!
May your Thanksgiving be full of blessings, ThanksForgiving as needed and lots of ThanksLiving moments of Love, joy, and goodness. May all of our wistful wonderings and wonderful wishes find their truth in the shadows and in the light of Love that we are made of. The Light Of Love that is … always … Â and in all ways. Namaste, Love!
PS! 4th Song ~ For Humanity!
Our 2016 theme song got a bit of a tweak this week ~ check it out here! Thanks for singing … for humanity!
Yes, we are celebrating the Letter U with all the understanding and unconditional Love we can muster! First, as peace and all else begins with us, as in each of us, we celebrate what it is to be our unusual, unique selves. Some of us seem to thrive on being more unusual than usual and yet, if it’s one thing this path has taught me; being true to yourself (myself!) is the only way … even if and when you stick out like a unicorn …  or a sore thumb! The only way I have found to understand me, much less anyone else, is through the deep dive within … going under to understand. The place of darkness is also the place of light. Nurturing this underbelly of ourselves gives us more access to understanding, and ultimately, the Light within us and all around us.Under the umbrella of our inner Spirit is also the place where we meet up with the ultimate Source or server. Think of your brain like a computer often running old programs from the hurts of the heart … Like a computer we can update our programs, information, and even the access to our Server, aka Source. Unlike our computers that randomly update as they like, we can update at any moment with the universal Server simply by going into prayerful connection. And so it is we are called to unionize. First with ourselves and our Source … updating and upgrading regularly, daily. From this place of union down under, our unique umbrella of understanding grows allowing us to better understand others. Our current political climate is calling to us to unionize through raging polarization. We are all feeling it to varying degrees in our own families and communities as well as in all the angst in our world family. The humanitarian crisis of refugees has reached a staggering 65 million people displaced from their homes. Yet, in any given moment, we can harmonize and unionize through a heartfelt prayer.
In these turbulent, trying times, we are constantly being invited to walk our talk, live our prayer, and Love unconditionally, especially those we don’t understand. Here is a short vlog that speaks to this and also utilizes the ukulele with the new Letter U Spirit Short Song:
Being in my creativity keeps me tethered through all the uncertainties I continue to navigate with my parents, family, community, world family. I was blessed to attend the Children’s Music Network’s National Gatheringlast weekend and truly singing songs with good hearted people is sure to help heal the hurts of humanity! Did you know that this Saturday, October 22nd is World Singing Day?! Sing along, wherever you are! And! October 24th is Global Oneness Day~ join the chorus of positive voices speaking their YES for Love, light, and humanity in a unification celebration.
Ah, the raising of voices and vibrations with all the hope and goodness humanity has to offer. On the next V post, I will be speaking more about vibrations, music, and inviting YOU to sing our (2016 theme) song, “For Humanity” from your backyard.
In fact, this weekend, our daily Play & Pray Calendar as well as the Leaping Literacy Library Free Shelfare all turning to the visionary voice of Letter V:Whatever unicorn yearnings are stirring in you, may you honor all of your unique unusuality! And! May you find ways to unify with yourself and others with going under to understand, updating your Source connections, practicing unconditional Love, creating & honoring unions … singing, praying, uniting as One with the many good peeps around you. Namaste universally unified expressions of Love!
I greet you with great gratitude and appreciation for you ~ and April, and alphabetic guidelines, for the Letter G ~ and H! ~ and for the grace filled growth of gratitude. In this week’s blog, we are further embracing G’s galore as we explore what it is to grow gratitude. From my blessed, safe, and beauty filled existence, I have 3 pictorial examples of how gratefulness can help garner more grace from experiences that otherwise lean towards doubt, grief, defeat, and fear. Though these stories are small, I hope they may serve you in some way ~ thank you for being here!
Birds and animals gratefully store away their acorn groceries for another day!
If you watched last week’s grace vlog, you caught a glimpse of the green glory that is surrounding our home this time of year. We are richly blessed with hills and fields of green, dotted with wonderful wildflowers. Right outside my (office) corner window is a dazzling dogwood tree. Even though this is the 5th spring bloom I have witnessed of this tree, I found myself giving into an annual doubt that the itty bitty buds couldn’t possibly yield big, beautiful blooms this year … I remember last year thinking my fabulous pink faced friend wouldn’t bloom because of the drought. With much more rain this year, how could I doubt? I dunno … I just did. I watched myself doubting and had conversations of faith. Surely our dogwood would absolutely sprout in grace …???!!! I have to say, I gave gratitude every day and affirmations of this beautiful life unfolding … as if I was gently scolding my inner doubts, that of course the buds would sprout. YES! Of course blessed! My little work corner is once more graced with glorious pink blooms galore! With pink triumphantly smiling and sprouting a go-go, how could I ever have been doubting my little buds would grow and glow?! So while I am graced in pink divine, how can I help but rhyme?! I have been co-creating more Laurie StorEBooks in keeping with my alphabetic calendar … still a bit late but loving how great it is to co-create! Now, in this next sharing example, you may easily miss the doubt, fear and defeat that threatened to be ample … Briefly put, I ran into more of the technical difficulties that seemingly can come from old software, no budget or supporting workforce, and a grim reaper that can rise up to shout how silly my ‘work’ is and to just GIVE UP already! Whoa. See how the energy just shifted … In the face of the details, I was able to stay my mind on the freedom of grace ~ firm faith in divine order. Everything turned out more than fine ~ I find these latest alliterative Laurie StorEBooks divine! You may remember seeing this title a few weeks back … but the diner was way too dingy … So technical difficulties aside … rah, rah, and TA DA!You can now find Dina Dimetrodon’s Dessert Dineron Kindle! You can also find Fiona Fay’s Family Flower Farmon our Kindle shelf!
So! I am ever so grateful for staying grateful … or at least faithful in these little big ways in my world this week. What I found is that appreciation is fed by gratitude and this leads to an inevitable altitude of Spirit! Being grateful and faithful has also been fed with large doses of allowance, acceptance, forgiveness and an intermingling of some big C’s ~ commitment and a much dreaded (by me!) C … compromise! In my alphabetic timeline, I seem to forever be behind … of course, this plays out elsewhere in my “never enough” existence! So! With great and grateful use of the spiritual tools, I am celebrating and adjusting as needed. I am working on “G” books and loving them even as I celebrate the “D” and “F” titles above. The Leaping Literacy Library shelves are slowly be transformed for the way better in how they look as well as what they house. (Patient blooms!) For New Thought Families, our daily Play & Pray Calendaris right on track ~ today, we technically are crossing over from G to H: As we continue to grow and hold hope for humanity, tomorrow marks our 100th “For Humanity” calendar day! We still have hope of sprinkling more narration voices onto our calendar pages ~ the lovely Ruth Humphrey’s narrates 3 days this coming week ~ yay! How about adding your voice? Contact us, ok?!The magic of technology could add your voice with ours! What do you say? I also want to say that the new Children’s Chants, A~G (11 of them!) are roughly recorded and in place for our Marvelous Members.
The final little pictorial story for grace filled gratitude comes from the calf who died on Good Friday at my dad’s ranch. Briefly told, the little calf got sick and kept taking herself into the pond. Her poor mama didn’t know what to do ~ except protect her from us ~ our good ranch neighbor who tried to help …Mama cow was having none of the cowboy’s tricks. She ended up on the other side of the pond which caused baby to swim across to her … The whole time, the rest of our little herd of 3 mamas and 3 babies were calling and calling …Simply put, shortly after crossing the pond, we watched the calf die. I had been praying to the helping angels and it seemed they answered with a hastened death. Since she was to go, and she was suffering, quicker is better. The other cows immediately stopped calling and went away. The mama stood grieving and as I turned away in sadness with our neighbor, I turned inwardly to gratitude. With a prayer of surrender similar to that of my ‘technical difficulty’ one, I affirmed divine order. The conversation that ensued, ended up bringing a huge shift in my dad and release for me. Sadly for my 90 year old dad, and in a blessed gift of grace for me, we will be letting the cows go later this year and our good neighbor will rent the fields for his cows grazing. Truly, divine order grace! Meanwhile, our grieving mama cow is most often found with the small herd but looking away from them. Here, another mama sits with her as she gazes into the flowing creek. Grief is real and deep for this mother and even though I can greet at least part of this situation with gratitude, I’m not sure how it soothes mama cow. I do believe she has grace. And in this and hopefully other moments, she has a friend. Sometimes, just to be gathered together is the greatest gift.Again, I thank you for being here and I do hope that you are able to garner gratitude for whatever gifts of grace you are facing. I really know how gratifying it is to affirm divine order when everything looks good and how challenging it is when things seem ‘wrong’. Yet I also have a deep appreciation of how gratitude grows the altitude of our well being on all levels … especially when we employ faith filled thankfulness for ALL. Truly, there is no spot where God is not and for that, I am forever grateful. Namaste, Love!
PlayShop THIS Sunday! SO grateful to be gathering!
New Thought Families 