Valentine Shine!

Namaste Divine Shine Valentines!
I greet you in Love this Valentine’s eve turned day ~ Happy Valentine’s Day! We have lots of Valentine & heart celebrations @ famlit.tv and here on our New Thought Families Mindful Multimedia page including the Divine Shine Valentine Om HomETV show. Our February Heart of Love video calendar is playing to remind us daily to be home in the heart of Love. My mind and heart are stayed on the freedom of big Love; the ‘Always Love’ referred to by Earnest Holmes that I put into song some time back and return to often, especially on Valentine’s Day. For while the holiday is indeed a celebration of couples and romantic love, it is a spotlight on Love itself, what it means and what it brings. And what we bring to it. I embrace it as a joyful holy day even though I am not coupled.
I did an active meditation on the word Valentine as Love in action:

It is fully explained in the Valentine vlog @ New Thought Families if you want to spend some heart shine time with me. You can also do your own heart exploration meditation with these words or whatever words, concepts, visions, come to you.

However you celebrate Love on this and every day, may you know yourself in the heart of it. Thank you for your divine shine, visionary Valentine! Namaste, Love!

October Circle of Mystery

Namaste Mystery’s Love Expressed,
I welcome you and your wise heart of reflection, here on this 1st day of October or in whatever divine appointment moment of this connection. We now join in the circle of the changing season, the heightened awareness sitting between illumination and darkness, oneness, ancestors, birth, death & rebirth, the balance of all in the circle, and the discerning wisdom of the witch. Witch, of course, meaning wise one in touch with the wisdom of the earth and all creation in the circle. I center in my inner witchy wisdom in today’s vlog:

Yes, the season of the witch is upon us! And it is high time we honor the truth of the witch as wise woman. As I sang in the vlog, we do indeed welcome the wisdom! Here are the lyrics and Mp3 Song (download!) of the Welcome Wisdom song found on my Timeless Spirit A-Z CD. On the recording, I am singing and playing with extra cool guitar added by the CD’s young and talented producer Cameron Lawson. Also, on the site in music video honoring all the wise women past, present, and future.

While we all have powerful inner wisdom, we don’t always tap into it. In fact, all too often we forget it is there and/or we really only turn inward for guidance when we are feeling lost or in pain. More often, we seek our answers from anyone else besides ourselves and our higher guidance. From this naturally human place of conditioning, we may consider The Mystery as a puzzle to be solved or perhaps never understood. While there are aspects of the mystery beyond our comprehension, we have an ongoing invitation into being with this divine flow of inspiration and supportive co-creation.

If you have been a visitor to this New Thought Families’ website anytime since its’ inception in 2007, you most likely encountered the anonymous audio, eventually turned video, of The Mystery. It is an endearing, simple, and profound invitation to BE the Mystery and to live full, free, and happy! After all these years, it still speaks to my heart and I hope it does to yours as well:

rom this place of being the mystery, all the imperfections melt into unconditional Love. My ever lovin’ looooooooong list as usual got partly done for this 1st of the month and on a later timeline than what I had planned. I had some intense tangos with the dance of resistence this week as well as the OMG overwhelm yet I made new inroads in my Library work and my inner playground of who I be. Definitely messy and I choose to embrace the chaos of creativity with the compassion of divinity. I choose to see, know, and affirm my progress even if it is less than what I had hoped to be sharing in this meoment. No need for the blah blah deets because I am living my divinely expressed Mystery ~ choosing to experience this life as full, free, and happy! I will share the part of the calendarization that is done that shows the themes of our explorations this month.

There is rotating content spotlighted on our multimedia page currently featuring the Om HomETV show The Mystery and the full segment with Feature Creature Teacher Cat. We are revisiting the brief daily invitations to play and pray with the Mystery in everyday ways on our October calendar!

For you, the wise one reading this, here’s an extra invitation for you:
Watch the flow of the Mystery in and through you and all you do.
What makes you feel free, full, and happy?
How can you realign with this consciousness when you or anyone else would act in ways that would have you forget the Mystery? Finally, can you simply just BE in the Mystery allowing for all that is there in any given moment?! Blessed BE!
Namaste, Love!

Yes To Darkness Yields Light

Namaste Shining Stars!
I greet you in the light and the dark at this darkest time of year all aglow with twinkling Christmas …The darkness can provide a perfect backdrop for the light; a place where dreams can take root and grow. It can be the needed space of gestation or restoration. A place we can easily say yes to.

The painful darkness of our shadows is fearful space where we may hurt ourselves and others. It is a place we resist even though we know what we resist, persists.

Saying yes to pain can be a useful way to move through it. Key word, MOVE! Have you ever known someone(s) addicted to pain? We are addictive by nature and negativity has a particularly enticing vibration that hooks individuals, families, communities, nations. Energy work is a key way to release negativity from our bodies, minds, Spirits and we also can use our consciousness to see the story we are living in.Ultimately it is our choice, moment by moment, day by day, year by year, and lifetime by lifetimes, just who and what we say YES to! Who and what is that for you?

Of course, everything we say yes to naturally means we are saying no to other things. This season is an invitation to the deep hope, peace, Love & Joy found in the Advent flames yet it is also a time easy to overcommit and feel depleted rather than inspired. The tender heartedness of this time of year often brings sadness rather than joy, darkness rather than light. When we sit still long enough to soothe our longing hearts with tenderness, there are gifts in both the dark and the light waiting for us. What darkness can you yield? What light?

Here is my December vlog that speaks perfectly imperfectly to my darkness and light in changing homes this season. It speaks to divine order and the ultimate Light Of Love that lives in all of us … as us!

Ya, it’s a loooooooooooong one with a few pictures thrown in. Still in a spin yet inviting all to come on in with a darkness yeeesss of the Solstice:Our Leaping Literacy Free Shelf is a zealous yippee of Letters Y & Z as we end the re-run year for humanity:

With 2019 around the corner, I am in a deep dive of discernment for both the live and online offerings. I am using the flashlight of my heart to decipher fear from Love in the darkness allowing me to show up happy and free living life vibrantly!

Whatever is a-swirl for you in this season’s dark and light, I wish you all the best in knowing you are blessed, living your story with a zealous YES! Namaste, Love.

Wounded Explorations

Namaste Wondrous Exploration of Humanity!

I greet you with the hope of restoration and well being … with the AHmazing resilience that is the human Spirit that lives, and moves and breathes through each of us and all of us. The above picture is from today’s daily Play & Pray Calendar at New Thought Families. It reads:

Play:
Play doctor today! Tend to any and all wounds you feel in your body, mind, Spirit by identifying them … with bandaids! Put bandaids on yourself or your teddy bear or a piece of paper with a picture that represents you. Tend to your wounds by seeing that they are there, putting a bandaid on them, put a smiley face on the bandaid, and zap all the spots with all the Love & light you can to bring wellness! You can also do this for the wounds of loved ones you know or for those hurting in this world you’ve never met. Zap out lots of loving healing and wellness!

Pray:
Play Thank You Mother/Father Creator for the wonder of restorative wellness & healing happening now in my body, mind, and Spirit. I align with the divine shine of my design to allow Your light of Love to heal any wound within me and restore wellness and wellbeing. I send this healing light out to all beings now. I pray that everywhere there is pain and wounding of any kind, Your Love is there in restorative wonderment! We are all truly well with Your Love!

This message speaks to where I am today … torn up body and rattled Spirit from my move into the new home. Despite my previous work, it turned into a bit of chaotic ninja packing at the end facilitated by some wonderful helping angels with skin on! Thank you all! I am indeed infinitely blessed. And! It will be a long Christmas season of opening boxes and bags in surprise of some of what was last minute packed.

Truth is, this expanded move has so far to be so much more ~ and somewhat different ~ than what I’d expected. Yet! As all of life does, it is perfectly showing me much of which is easily forgotten. Nothing like going deep into the cupboards and closets! Inevitably, I found low lying layers of shame which no doubt added to the physical pain in my poor body temple.

And guilt! As I was moving this RIDICULOUS amount of accumulation, the CA wildfires destroyed so many homes ~ the whole town of Paradise. Some folks did not make it out.  They burned in their cars trying to make it through a wall of flames and some died in their homes in what was a mighty fire storm that gave no time or chance to flee. Therein, the ones who lots their homes and all their possessions are the lucky ones. And as this was (is) going on, I was literally beating myself up at least physically to move all my massive amount of ‘treasure’. I do intend to find ways to give my excess to those in need.

As discussed here some weeks ago in Vibrational Vision,, the vibrational scale of consciousness bottoms out with guilt and shame so it behooves us to always reach higher! Though I do feel zapped and exhausted, I also feel infinitely blessed and welcoming to this expansion I said yes to. Perhaps we will explore more deets here in the coming weeks! For now, I continue to move forward ~ using ho’oponopono daily as we explored in the Utterly Fearless Universal Love post here 1 month ago.

As I embrace my 56th birthday this weekend, I continue to return to Love for myself and the existence I have chosen to express. I close with another prayer of compassion for this latest group of fire victims in my home state of CA as well as all beings on this planet who suffer greatly.

Holy Creator of all that is, we align with you now knowing the infinity of divinity is in all of life in every moment. We see, know, affirm and confirm the divine order of all, for all. May all the wounded ones in this world suffering in so many deep ways, be held up by Your Love through angels of all kinds. May all beings be compassionately blessed with help to have all needs met. May the peace that passeth understanding prevail as we each and all live the Love You created us of. And so it can be. And so it is!

Thank you for being here and for continuing to do what is yours to do, to align with the shine of your own divine design … to live fully, loving, protecting, nurturing this gift of life for ourselves and all others. Keep reaching high and allowing your heart to fly free! Namaste, Love.

Vibrant Vision

Namaste Transformational Thought of Vibrant Vibration!
I greet you in the name of small, mighty power … a thought, a smile, a laugh. In the myriad of moments that make up our days and our lives, may we remember the potency in each of them like a delicate violet. Violets are tiny flowers with a potent smell. I used to sit among them as a child imagining and sensing the fairies that lived in their midst. The smell of them collectively packed a powerful punch that could transport me into realms of possibility and potentiality. Vision is made up of such tiny thoughts and moments easily forgotten in the expanse of volume that fills our lives individually and collectively.

So with a deep breath of quiet, I pause here in another week of troubling national and global news. I send a prayer out for all the senseless suffering … to Pittsburg for the lives lost, massacred by a madman at the Tree Of Life synagogue, to the thousands of families seeking asylum and refuge here, to all those working to get out the vote in our midterm elections, to the known and unknown people and causes that don’t make the headlines, I send prayers now. I send a wave of violet medicine; potent smell, color and delicate beauty of goodness. Emerson said, “The earth laughs in flowers.” Laughter is known to be the best medicine and I just heard a definition of laughter as “the tangible evidence of hope.”

As I sort and pack up my life to move down the street into my next co-creation, I am surrounded by the piles of overwhelm that is the flipside of my abundance. As I prioritize and calendarize, some things fall off the list and others are done not as I would like or as I had envisioned. With that concept in mind, I offer you Happy Halloween greetings from the Leaping Literacy Library Free Shelf:
From the Library Free Shelf & archives, here is a sentiment for the day with bones, brought to you by a me I barely recognize! This Vimeo video password is: SMHBones

And so it is we can honor life by embracing this moment, this day, this life. We can allow grace and goodness into our awareness and into our existence, flowing freely through our hands, feet, thoughts, words. We can bring hope to ourselves, each other, this world, with something as simple as laughter. Let us heal ourselves and this world each monumental, mindful moment… As my song sings, “The world is changed small after small.” Namaste, Love!

Vibrational Vision

Namaste Visionary Vibration of Vitality!

This transformational Tuesday is a vibration celebration! It is all too easy to forget about vibrational energy even though it is running 24/7 co-creating our lives consciously or unconsciously. Vibration is measured by some like Dr. David Hawkins Scale of Consciousness. On Hawkins scale, 0-1000, 500 is unconditional Love which is a high(est) state to attain to for most. 1000 is pure enlightenment. At the bottom of Hawkins’ vibrational scale of consciousness is shame.

Most of us live in certain flux of emotional isness using our transformational tools to bring us into more alignment with our highest and best (feeling) selves. The lower frequencies like guilt and grief simply don’t feel good and make for a negative experience of life. The more fear based our lives, communities, nations, the further from Love and living in higher consciousness we are. Vibrate HIGH! Because we operate so much of the time in a relative unconscious state, listening to high, vibrational frequencies is one of the best ways I have found to live more Love. YouTube has a plethora of these frequencies for free from peeps like Elke Neher and channels like Meditative Mind and ZenLifeRelax who has one of my favorite Love frequencies played here:

I love the power of these frequencies to bring us home to Love. As vibrational beings, we naturally align with vibration so as the Obamas always said, “Go high!”

In bringing our consciousness higher, visioning is a powerful tool that helps us see our way open up. When we act on those higher callings, we are voicing our vision in the ways we show up.The picture above is a vulture from today’s Play & Pray Calendar at New Thought Families:
The Play Invitation reads:
Visit your inner vulture today to voice your vision! Vultures are birds that clean up messes that many other animals will not touch. Vultures often eat animals that have died and are just laying on the ground or road. In this way, vultures help with the full circle of life. So! Look around your own life and deep in your heart for anything that needs cleaning up or needs to be brought full circle. Find creative ways to voice the vision of what you find … words, song, art, dance, or any other expressions. How will you voice the vision that calls loudest to you?!

Shout out to the vulture! And! Case in point that in the full circle of life and vibration, clean up and rev up go with the territory!

My own home front is full of mess as I prepare to move. I am faced with the too muchness that is me and has become my state of ‘stuff’. I am constantly reframing instead of blaming and shaming myself for the accumulation. It is actually a sacred time of re-evaluation and VISIONING where I am headed with all this stuff and why I collected it in the first place! I am letting my inner vulture have a good time with the clean up 🙂 !

Though there is strong argument against, I am simultaneously doing at least a bit of this in my online world of the Leaping Literacy Library as I try to prioritize some time and offerings. I’m not so much for traditional Halloween yet am offering some different takes on it with special daily bonus giveaways on the Free Shelf. Today’s special was all about the mystery. I pulled a Mel & Nell Laurie StorEBook out of the long ago archives regarding history as a mystery … told by ‘they’, ‘who are they’?! The ABC Mystery is AHmazing alliteration and the Spirit inspiration celebration I have loved for so many years, The Mystery … playing here and now!:

Whatever media or other experiences you bring in, moment by moment, day by day, they will surely have an effect on your vibrational field. We are made beautifully with an inner GPS to ever guide us home to Love. Remember, whatever you feel, you are vibrating and radiating into the world. So keep visioning, seeing, being the Love or above of beautiful you and attract the same mirrored back to you! Namaste, vibrational, vibrant voice of Love!

September Remembered In Sacred Reverence

Namaste Sacred Expression Love!

As September takes her last summery breaths, I greet you in the heart of home, the heart of Love, the depth of heart that holds the sacred center we all share. Ah, September, a month often so full of new beginnings and endings … harvest, and the new school year, the final surrender of summer and the fall leaves beckoning to release what no longer serves us. Equinox balance is bringing shorter days and longer nights as winter whispers her approach (on this side of the planet!). My personal and our collective experiences this season provide a plethora of potent material we could open up to this mindful moment, yet in the swirl of possibilities, let’s sit still …

There is a timeless truth … in the stillness our Creator awaits to meet us in unconditional Love. The September interfaith calendar has also been full this month. Of all of those remembrances, I’d like to pause on forgiveness. The 23rd was Ksamavani, the Jain Universal Festival of Forgiveness. In the Jewish tradition, Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the year was celebrated this year on September 19th. This day of atonement ( at one ment) clears the heart and home in preparation of Sukkot, the time of grateful blessings and happy home. In many ways, what we allow to stay in the * inn * of our hearts, is indeed what constitutes home!

There are many ways to shine the light on our hearts, our homes. Sitting in the silence, in an embrace of remembrance and forgiveness can be a great gateway into more freedom and happiness. The Jewish Sukkot is a week long celebration (Sept. 23-30 ‘18) where the 40 years of living in the desert is remembered; God gave the people shade, shelter, food in the desert. Sukkah is an outside ‘house’ where each family lives for a week, remembering their blessings, sharing them with others, and being happy! Equinox times of the year, September and March always invite us towards balance. Cleaning our homes (the physical home and the heart home) do indeed help us restore peace, harmony, balance within ourselves, our families, our homes and communities. Jeremiah left home for college this month and there is a new home being built next door with new property lines being drawn expanding ‘their side’ of the space. Both of these things have been so huge for me that I will be speaking to them in the weeks to come with some tender tidbits on Transformational Tuesdays. For now, I will say Jeremiah leaving home was so much harder than I thought it would be, I’ve had to keep forgiving myself for not being as ‘ready’ as I thought. Truth is, you can only prepare so much and then it just is. For the neighbors, I’ve had to forgive all the ‘not in my yard’ feelings and thoughts. Our national dramas have left many of us re-visiting traumas ~ in particular, so many of us women (and men?!) who have been sexually assaulted have had the opportunity to remember and forgive. This last week when the brave Dr. Ford stepped forward, I remembered the trial I was ‘on’ as a 17 year old rape victim. Even though the man had stuck a gun to my head, raped and beat me up, the woman judge still allowed them to question me, “What were you wearing?” I had to answer. Objection! What was I wearing? The man put a gun to my head! The truth of that ‘Me Too’ story is that he was the easist one to forgive over the years. While the court questioned me, I didn’t question myself. There is, of course, SO much more that could be said ~ about all of it!

The hearing this week showed a compelling testimony by a woman reliving trauma and a somewhat unhinged testimony of a judge not telling the truth. And! Just the latest installment of the craziness. The hard truth and actual good news about all of the political and national chaos is that our collective shadows are being illuminated … and thereby we are invited to clean up our hearts and homes. We CAN rise above all this and I believe, we will. We are!

Yes, it can be exhausting. Yes, it can be disheartening. Yet forgiveness is part of the path forward. Forgiveness is a spiritual practice that never ends! Some things we can forgive more easily than others. Some things ‘stay’ forgiven while others, just don’t. We just forgive as often as we need to. We know we need to through the GPS of our heart and soul saying it is so. We feel and know this GPS best in the stillness.

At this year’s Feathers Of Freedom Camp, the Forgiveness Footpath ended with this:

You know, like “This is the song that never ends …!” I was alone at Camp recently, the place closed up for winter. I went on the Forgiveness Footpath remembering in my mind’s eye the invitations. I forgave. I cried. I forgave some more. At the end of the path, the sign above was still there. Whaaat?! I had already been to the camp once before with lost and found and didn’t even realize the sign was missing! It was a beautiful remembrance of divine order as well as the ongoing need to engage in forgiveness as an ongoing spiritual practice.

Spirit is always issuing invitations to sacred awareness, to holy living, to coming home to our own hearts. The more we can free the debri, the more our heart eyes can see the smiling sacred everywhere!

The place that can be hardest for me to see the sacred is inside myself. I am usually the hardest one I have to forgive too! Curious how that works. Even on my spiritual high road, I can still wrestle with the little me who is never good enough. It is not a battle, just a journey.

I do battle sometimes with decisions of time and energy … I have wanted to get back into weekly blogging all year yet the reality has been more like monthly. So! I am stepping into Transformational Tuesdays for the rest of 2018 ~ vowing to speak to transformational tools in short, succinct ways. I hope that by being in service to this persistent calling, I can be in service to you!

Today’s Transformation Invitation:

Ask your heart what it would like to let go of … anything there asking for forgiveness? Sit with it. Feel it. If nothing readily comes, take the invitation into your day, your week, and be ready when it appears to meet and greet it. Sit with it in the silence. Then use words, written, spoken, sung … I forgive you. I accept you. I thank you.

Deeper Invitation ~ Practice Radical Forgiveness:

As I have blogged here many times, the work of Colin Tipping’s Radical Forgiveness is where the empowered heart is called to go. Essentially, we step through release and forgiveness to a place of gratitude for our soul’s journey and all those who have played a part in it. Visit Tipping’s website for this FREE Transformational Tool!

So! My September silence has led to this super long post and I want to wrap it up with Creative Spirit Families’ invitations! I am hosting an event tomorrow … outlined below, join us in person or in Spirit!

There’s the ever present Leaping Literacy Library Free Shelf and the New Thought Families Daily Play and Pray Calendar. These are always online even if I don’t make it ‘here’ on time! 🙂

And! That new CD! I would have been ‘here’ sooner yet vowed to get the new CD onsite first. You can go HERE to HEAR samples of the 37 songs WITH LYRICS! And an opportunity to purchase the CD should you be so inclined. Not a convincing appeal I suppose in and of itself. Yet! The songs ARE HERE and I hope you CAN HEAR that they are designed to help you align with your divine shine and raise your vibration in Spirit celebration!

Last Minute Invitation to a Local Celebration!
Come out and play in a fall harvest celebration, fine freedom feathered friends! Let us gather and be nurtured in the heart centered home of nature! Creative Spirit Families is hosting a Fall Fun PlayShop at Piccolo Pastures in Elk Grove THIS Sunday, September 30th from 2:00-5:00. All (ages) are welcome!

Rev Karene and Big Don Piccolo have invited us to their farm to visit with them and with white donkeys, Duke & Dutch, Tina the emu, miniature horses, Harry & George as well as a gaggle of geese, chickens, goats, and the peacocks! Peacock is our Feature Creature Teacher who we will learn from as well as play with their fabulous feathers! Peacock reminds us of many things, including to dream! The beautiful feathers of the peacock juxtaposed to their loud, squawking voice, gives us lots of food for thought and heart invitations for deeper understanding. In addition to the animals and crafts, we will sing, drum and snack, walk and pray the labyrinths, visit and share hugs in our loving, playful Circle Of Love. Let’s meet to open up & create more heart and home for ourselves, our families, community! Feathers of faith filled Heart freely flying out to our world family!

The September Free Shelf in our Leaping Literacy Library is still stocked for a few more days before we embrace T, U, October & Halloween. The Free Shelf can be accessed through Creative Spirit Families.

So divine expression of sacred goodness, thank you so much for being here as part of this September remembrance and forgiveness celebration! May you stand tall, and stand strong as we journey along. Blessed be! Namaste, Love!

Zealous Yes: Love Expressed

Namaste Zealous Breath Of Love & Life Expressed!

Thank you for being here this mindful moment; for saying yes to this breath, yes to this connection. In the midst of what seems a continuous swirl of suffering, injustice and instances of humanity at it’s most horriblest, let us persist in the ways we must resist and insist on experiencing glimpses of bliss despite our hurting hearts. Yes this last week has brought an array of madness moments building the momentum of the insanity of humanity with POTUS Trump actually throwing rolls of paper towels into the hands of devastated Americans in Puerto Rico and the Vegas shooter waging war on innocent civilians spraying a reign of terrifying bullets from on high. As we look on and then look away, we struggle inside and out with what to think, do, say. While some claim prayers are not enough, reaching for our holy Creator and the divinity, compassion, forgiveness inside us, is still some of the best of who we are divinely designed to be. Saying YES to reaching high is indeed, how we rise! And it can be SO challenging sometimes … I myself felt anger this week which is pretty rare for me. In our messy humanness, we feel and we deal. And we surrender, pray and reach high … and higher …

So what do we tell our children?

How can we best help our youngest navigate what we ourselves struggle with??!! The words of beloved Mr. Rogers ~ and his mother! ~ can help us all. Yes, we look for the helpers. Those are the ones that are embodying the highest in humanity. The ones called to rescue, resuscitate, renew … We tell our children to look for the helpers. We answer their questions and no more. We spare their innocence from more detail than they need; we shelter them from too many media images and messages. And we pray with our children ~ reaching on high to lift ourselves and others. We release the yuckies in healthy ways like sounding on our Leaping Literacy Free Shelf with SoulPlay Michelle Peticolas this month. We look for the good and focus there. We live the good we are blessed with, the best we can each day.

Reach High!

It is so ‘normal’ to feel sadness, anger, pain when our brothers and sisters are hurting. In today’s media age, we know so much (too much?!) in real time though of course there is always more we barely hear of (recent near genocide of Rowhingya Muslims). Most if not all of us are feeling degrees of overwhelm and it may seem somehow ‘wrong’ for us to feel good, feel joyful, much less passionate and zealous?! Let’s look deeper, shall we? If those of us who in this moment are safe, loved, surrounded by beauty & comfort are vibrating with sadness, anger or even rage and despair, who will lift humanity?! Think of it in Harry Potter terms; the Death Eaters could swallow one up, heart and soul yet be staved off with good, happy thoughts. We are not so different, friends. Though the level of chaos and darkness is seemingly growing, we must hold heart space of the highest order during these birthing pains of a more evolved, compassionate humankind. We are helpers. We are good. We are divinely designed to be a zealous YES of Love expressed!

No matter the personal or global deets of your days, say YES to your heart ~ listen and tap into … what makes your heart smile? What lights you up? What gives you a sizzling energy of YES ~?! THAT is ZEAL! Zeal is the energy of yes and pure potentiality!

 

For my part, I stay plenty busy being mighty mom and caretaking elders, especially my dad. These are jobs that can be exhausting and not always fulfilling. My most zealous yes is in creating ~

Above and below are ‘Peacock Cards’ I made for a spiritual literacy class this week ~ we circled up with peacock wisdom, made fruit peacock snacks and art and let this Creature Teacher speak to us of dreams. As you may or may not know, the regal beauty of the peacock embodies a wild voice ~ it kinda cries, squawks, laughs all at once! Like this pretty bird, we are all of it!
Circled up with the Peacock enlightenment!It can be so easy to ignore our hearts and live without zeal ~ seemingly saying no to our deepest desires simply by being too busy with the daily demands or by being engulfed in negativity by the gravity of current affairs. Again, I say, rise up against the ‘Death Eaters’ of insanity and gratefully embrace the goodness all around you and the goodness that is you. Reach into your Transformational Toolbox to let go of all the yuckies, surrender to your higher power and then start giving thanks for all you have and all you are. Reach high and feel the zeal ~ for your highest good and the highest good of all! Right action for what is yours to do will naturally follow your zealous YES!

Our October Leaping Literacy Library Free Shelf has a mix of home Zeal, Halloween, and a special SoulPlay PlayShop with Secrets of Life & Death’s Michelle Peticolas helping us release yuckies with sound. Great for all ages, release with us!My work/play of spiritual literacy has me developing new content for the Leaping Literacy Library as I play it out in the new Creative Spirit Families studio and at Spiritual Life Center on Sundays. Last Sunday, Squirrel was our Feature Creature Teacher. Squirrel works very hard, especially this time of year, gathering for the winter yet always seems to be at play. Rather than worrying about the approaching cold and scarcity, squirrel playfully gathers and stores with a seeming grateful joy.Life is good and the goodness of life is best felt when we stay grateful ~ and when we add some play into our work! When we look at life and death in the circle of time, we can see our lives for what we want them to be … productivity and potentiality played out passionately! Part of my calling keeps returning me to my long list of alliteration titles that are being completed in zig zag formation ~ given that last post, there were 2 new T titles and this time, the newest are from the outstanding letter O!

So! I will keep the words, Library, and live circles at play! And for my hurting brothers and sisters I will pray. With a bit of both play & pray in every breath, may we all, in our own ways, be a zealous YES of Love expressed! Namaste, Love!

Disciple Of The Divine: Voices, Vibrations, Valentines

Namaste Disciple of Love, Voice of the Divine, Vivacious, Visionary Valentine!

Hoping this finds you feeling more loved than lonely, more serene than unsettled, more blessed than stressed. I have been doing a dance of resistance and insistence all week as the alchemist empath I am (that I Am!) keeps finding more and more voices and choices I want to speak to in this anniversary blog. Our roots of Love and Spiritual Family Literacy celebrations began 10 years ago this week online  as the New Thought Families website and in this little blog here 6 years ago. So yes, this Love filled post is longer than long … feel free to scroll through for whatever will help you along in staying divinely strong!I continue devotion to giving spiritual choice and voice as Love expressed especially for children and families in daily Play & Pray, as well as reconstructing some old features and introducing some new ones including the little visual face lift here. So! This special edition post gives some attention to Black History, the Season Of Peace, some Peaceful Reconstructionists, the power of words, education, literacy, our current, constant callings to civil rights … And! The innocent inspirations of imagination with and for our children!

And so it is I offer the following information and celebration through the latest perspiration in manifesting inspiration! AKA, putting hands to prayer!

Season of Peace

We have long participated in the Association for Global New Thought’s Season of Peace and Non-Violence. This is the 20th year for this grassroots effort celebrated in the 64 days marking the memorial anniversaries of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. The Season,  January 30th – April 4th, offers special programs and remembrances by many Unity, Church of Religious Science and other New Thought communities. As an independent artist and through New Thought Families, I have worked with youth in honoring ‘Peacemakers’ through drama, music, hands on “Peace Rocks’ and online, interactive ‘playsheets.’ The online offering of ‘Name That Peacemaker’ was first launched in 2010, and has been re-launched this month as ‘Peaceful Reconstructionists’.  Essentially, we honor great folk from history like Gandhi & Dr. King who peacefully reconstructed our society and world. Just because they acted peacefully, it doesn’t mean the process was peaceful ~ making waves usually isn’t ~ and it doesn’t mean they felt peaceful. Imagine yourself as Harriet Tubman on the Underground Railroad or Rosa Parks on the bus. We have a page on the website dedicated to each Reconstructionist and then interactive ‘playsheets’ online that help integrate the information and inspiration.

Black History: Truth Telling To Transform

The recent release of the movie, Hidden Figures tells of 3 black women who worked for NASA and were instrumental in putting a man on the moon. The systemic racism still inherent in our country has shifted enough that their story has now been told. YES! So many strong, truth telling voices of our ancestors and those still living yet perhaps their stories still not told! For instance, do you know Claudette Colvin? She was the first in Rosa’s movement who refused to give up her seat on the bus and the spirited teen, in fact, helped fuel Dr. King and Mrs. Parks. The true story is that Rosa Parks was not simply tired that day, though she had indeed had enough, the refusal to move and subsequent arrest were long in the making and young Claudette Colvin had a big part in it. “Truth is powerful and it prevails.” ~ Sojourner Truth

When new U.S. President Trump kicked off Black History Month on February 1st, he spoke of Frederick Douglass saying, ” … people will get to know him more and more …” And indeed they did ~ reportedly out googling him to the same day online birth announcement of Beyoncé! Yet, as Beyoncé wins her Grammys tonight and goes on to create a great buzz throughout her fan base ‘beehive’, let us continue to be inspired by the great abolitionist and early feminist of Frederick Douglass. He, along with Sojourner Truth  visited with Abe Lincoln during his presidency.

Oh the search for truth and reality has been more pronounced of late!  Yet, it remains paramount that we find the truth for ourselves and for our children. As spiritual parents and teachers, we must tell the truth to the best of our ability while allowing young children’s innocence to be protected. Though many aspects of our culture seemingly ignore it, our children deserve their innocence and the delights of imagination. Yet, we must also teach the truth including the continued revealing of so many hidden figures. Movies, stories, books, songs … this vast worldwide web, so many ways to tell the truth!

And! Remember, the power of words with your children as well as your inner child! Yes, in all the media and outside sources yet most importantly in the simple words we use with ourselves and each other. Be sure to express your divine shine, Valentine!

Children’s Books!

Though the storybooks of old were often (literally!) grim, many of the famous Grimms’ Fairy Tales like Rapunzel, Snow White & Cinderella continue to be spun and respun to this day. In response to civil injustice, many lesser known children’s books have been published and linger still in the web!

 The Gospel Of Slavery is an illustrated antislavery children’s alphabetary in verse, by Iron Gray (New York: T.W. Strong, 1864). Digitized by the Antislavery Literature Project, there is a sample page below. Visit their site and read all of The Gospel of Slavery!

 

L Stands for Liberty Know you the bell

That ’76 sounded so nobly and well?

Or know you that soon was developed a flaw,

By Freedom’s assertion of Slavery Law?

“Created all equal.” — ” Excepting the black,”

From States of the Union the answer came back.

Then cracked the big bell. Vainly chipped to the core,

No “compromise measures” its tone could restore,

And the prophecy stands, though the bell, in its fall,

Now silently hangs in Old Liberty Hall!

The bell referred to, cast in 1753, has on it the inscription, “Proclaim liberty throughout the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.”– Lev. xxv. 10. Was this a prophecy? That bell announced the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was afterwards cracked — I know not the date. Occasional use on national anniversaries increased the difficulty. Chipping, so as to separate the vibrating edges, failed to remedy the mischief. It now hangs in Independence Hall.

Just as I am reviewing and renewing the Peaceful Reconstructionists, I am also re-visiting …

KidSpeak!

Our children have a wealth of (spiritual) wisdom if only we let them speak and we truly listen!

In our traditional literacy sections of Leaping Literacy Library, the Laurie StorEBooks often focus on a repetition of a vowel sound. Yet, they can sometimes also speak to very big concepts as in the short I celebration, Skin. This one was (finally!) re-illustrated last week with huge gratitude to the free stock images ~ and generous photographers ~ at Pixabay. The video version is below and here at Vimeo! Skin features my Laurie Story ‘Mother Goose Rap’!

Laurie StorEBookTV: Skin

Our Leaping Literacy Library is well stocked with Laurie StorEBooks, songs, videos. Marvelous Members access all that’s there now and being added like our Reconstructionist scripts. Should you be interested in supporting us and utilizing all that’s there, sign up here and use this coupon code to save 40%: WeeFeeMe  There’s also a Free Sign Up there for our Free Shelf and lots in the Library and on the sites that you don’t need to sign up or log in for!So many ways to play and pray, sing and wing, read and feed … mind, body, Spirit!

Truth Telling Today!

I am so grateful for great journalists that press on in doing their best to tell the truth. Our Peaceful Reconstructionist Ida B Wells used the power of the word in newspapers reaching many who back in the day had no other way. Unfortunately, one of Ida’s biggest cries was against lynchings and todays Black Lives Matter is not so different than that. The dizzying first 3 weeks of the new White House administration has millions of us praying up, standing up, speaking up for civil rights. “They can shut me up, but they can’t change the truth,” – U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren Forgive me, if you’re looking for something without politics; I can’t seem to ignore or be silenced by so much of what is happening and the abolitionists and Peaceful Reconstructionists featured in this post wouldn’t want me to! There is so much happening towards justice and injustice … I mostly want to just encourage us all to dig deep, find good journalists we trust for the truth and keep making informed, inspired decisions about what and how we share with our kids.

As much as you can, ask questions and get answers! Many of us knew instantly that the Travel/Muslim Ban was a racist wrong. We take heart in all those rallying for our brothers and sisters from the 7 banned countries. We sing with Woody Guthrie and all the folkies at airports singing, “This Land Is Your Land!” And! I was so informed and inspired by the wonderful podcast from This American Life that gives much explanation and real inspiration as well as sorrow inducing testimony from so many affected by the ban. Within the program, is information explaining how extensive the refugee vetting process is  ~ some have been in the process for nearly 10 years! Their time had come yet the ban got in the way. They were unable to board that final plane … and had no life left to turn back to. I hope with the judges stay, they have now been able to come after all?!  I read another first person account of implementing the vetting process and another first person account of being a refugee, now American citizen. The voices are out there, the choices are ours!

Senate Democrats have had battle after battle trying to block cabinet positions for the new administration ~ from the unqualified to the downright directly destructive. I won’t rehash the details here too much yet I applaud the efforts of Senator Warren and her colleagues to persist ~ as in the 24 hour round of speeches urging Republicans not to vote for Betsy DeVoss for Secretary of Education ~ a person who clearly has no knowledge of the public school system at best and believes it needs to go, at worst. At this and every juncture, I breathe deep into my belief of divine order … always and in all ways.

I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs. ~ Frederick Douglass

Our government’s decisions are having inevitable ripples into our homes and hearts and it should be so! We must be awake and aware and activated ~ if only, and perhaps especially in prayer! Prayer from the chair as well as with hands and feet! I know I am in daily energy re-management when I feel my heart breaking ~ like for the people of Standing Rock and the reinstatement of action on the Dakota Access pipeline. Josh Fox has a recent post on DAPL where he interviews Water protector and lawyer Chase Iron Eyes who said, “Something greater than ourselves has moved us and it started with prayer. That prayer came from human beings but it’s the natural elements in the universe that have their own spiritual authority. They’re older than us. Our stories, our cosmologies tell us this and kind of give us that center from which to find our place, you know.”

Vibrations To Align With the Divine!

So! I know a lot of us ~ especially those empathetic alchemist types like me! ~ can easily get into anger or despair over our current threats to humanity and the environment. Yet! There are many transformational tools we can employ to stay in line with our innate divine shine. And this higher vibration place is where we can certainly do the most good … as well as feel better than the lower vibrational, reactionary places so understandably prevalent. There are wonderful YouTube Channels dedicated to high vibrational music. So much gratitude for them! Here are a few of my faves:

Zen Life Relax

Power Thoughts Meditation Club

Elke Nehler & Freedom Consciousness

And! Love the archangel tracks from Well Being Academy! Just have the music on in the background of your day for positive results. Personally, I rarely use headphones yet always feel the benefits! This is a great way to bring harmony to yourself, your home, your family. Feel free to feel them on for size ~ trust what you feel with each and flow with the ones that feel best! Also watch for the reactions of others in your home ~ including pets! ~ and adjust accordingly.

 Vintage Voices ~Valentines!

Vintage Voices, for us, includes honoring some of the aforementioned  Reconstructionists with the online playsheet games for free, no log in, online usage. We are also putting some of the Reconstructionist drama scripts into publication; they will be available in the Library in the coming weeks. And! I have a large filing cabinet of vintage voices from the old family home and store I have worked on cleaning out ~ fruits of my labor and the upside to family hoarders?! I have been wanting to put these out ever since I laid eyes and hands on them!

Valentines from the 1920’s! These amazing beauties are multi-dimensional pop-up cards that are truly fun and gorgeous! Since you can’t tell from the pictures, I put a (rough) video together ~ with 20’s music! Yes, all the little cuties are fair skinned which, in light of today’s discussions makes me wonder … do Vintage Valentines that portray more of our citizenship exist?! Mmmm … Still and all, these Valentines are works of art and so it is a joy to share them in this video here and on Vimeo.

Thank you so much for sharing (some of) these choices and voices with me, Love! Namaste Divine Valentine!

Vibrant Voices Vibrate Vision

Namaste Visionary Voters ~Vibrational Voices Of Vision!
I greet you in gratitude for this moment of time in the Circle of Creation. With a vibrational remembrance of unconditional Love, let us breathe our divine essence now. Deep breath. Let us make space for the still small sacred voice within to be heard.In this week of Halloween, Samhain, All Saints and All Soul’s Days, Day of the Dead, and the last few days before our American election, there are indeed many voices swirling all around us and inside us. They all carry vibrations and as vibrational beings in a vibrational world, our emotional, physical, and spiritual bodies can’t help but respond. We are response able ~ and responsible for all of our reactions and vibrations even if they are all too often still playing out in our unconscious reality ~ you know, the one that shows up as THE reality?! And! We can, in every moment, choose to be and feel the GOOD VIBES of the ever present, omnipresent sacred in us and all around us!So! As awake and aware conscious beings on a spiritual path, we can name and claim the visions of our hearts as the reality we are shaping ~ for ourselves and others. The holy days of this week hold vibrant voices of the past that tell us much of what we do and how we do it ~ should we choose to listen! Briefly, the Pagan or Wiccan traditions embodied in Samhain, were, and are, all about honoring the turning of the seasons including the remembrance of our ancestors. Halloween precedes the Days of the Dead/Souls/Saints as part of this remembrance. I like to think of the playful dress up of Halloween as the dead’s way of reminding us to be anyone and everything we choose while we’re still alive in these bodies! If it’s one thing I have learned from all the elder care and in asking the ancestors and departed friends for guidance, it’s DON’T WAIT! (And ya, I still procrastinate! Been working on this post all week ~ in this space and in my head! ~) Visions are all too often extinguished out of fear! We do this to ourselves and to each other.  Again, in keeping with the holi-days of this week, did you know that the word witch simply means wise one?! When patriarchy and Christianity were on the rise, the wise women ~ witches ~ were such a threat that there was a holocaust killing between 9 and 11 million people. We will tend to this next time in more deserved detail ~ in the W post! ~ yet for this vibratory discussion of voices, let us stay awake and aware that society all too often silences the voices of the wise.

When hundreds dressed in riot gear showed up at Standing Rock shooting rubber bullets and pepper spray at the ‘Water Protectors’, the buffalo came too ~ hundreds of them … in their earthly and divine wisdom, they came seemingly to protect the protectors.

Our Mother Earth has such wisdom for us and (too) many refuse to listen to her insistent, wise voice! Our indigenous people have always listened, and we in turn, as a society, don’t listen to them! Standing Rock is the current setting for one of the most profound spiritual uprisings and perhaps one of the biggest shifts of our time. Because of police violence that broke out there last week and has continued this week, more people are hearing about it though it seems to be still a trickle into mainstream news. In answer to my own heart hurting as this escalates, we have a page on the New Thought Families website with some videos about the big story and some of the smaller ones … some of the faces in the now 8,000 that have gathered, like the beautiful young woman, Sky Bird Black Owl who gave birth there. In case you need a short recap; Standing Rock is a native American reservation in North Dakota. The Great Sioux Nation retains this reservation in accordance with the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851. They started camping out the 1st of April (more than 7 months ago!) to protest the Dakota Access Pipeline project which threatens the drinking water for millions and has been tearing apart sacred burial grounds that should be protected under the treaty. More than 350 tribes of indigenous peoples have now come to Standing Rock to join the Water Protectors in their peaceful, prayerful protest of the ‘Black Snake’. They are unarmed. They are in constant prayer and ceremony. And they are being attacked even as the construction continues (though it is supposed to be on hold). The voice of big oil is drowning out the wise voices of our indigenous people. Part of the divine order yes in all of this is the joining in solidarity; some of the tribes praying together used to war with each other.  I pray for their safety, and for the sanity of humanity to once and for all stop this destruction. I also pray that we, as a nation, will hear their voices, vision, and vibrations for a more harmonious way to be in relationship with our Creator, our gorgeous earth home and with each other. Aho! May we all see in sweeping vistas of divinity … For Humanity!

And then of course there are all the prayerful whispers and angry shouts accompanying our upcoming elections. With a particular focus on our unprecedented Presidential race, my heart has also been hurting with what seems like so many around me in my rural town, and indeed in my own family who are voting for the man endorsed by the KKK. I voted this week already, had an emotional and cathartic phone conversation with a female family member followed by a long FaceBook post. So for now, I am back in divine order peace trusting the highest good is unfolding for all. I did vote for Hillary Rodham Clinton and I am praying for her and for all in this turbulent time. Our country and the world deserve a leader who listens as well as has a strong voice. In my prayers for humanity, I absolutely join with those at Standing Rock in hope that our government can and will listen to the wisdom of the people and of the buffalo ~ even over the roar of all the other accusations, name calling, and ugliness that has become this election. Perhaps more than ever, this is a vote of character over and above party & politics.

I Am Voting For Humanity!

You know ‘For Humanity’ as our Spiritual ABC Theme this year ~ little did I know where we all were headed … Glad Spirit did! Ultimately, as a species we are waking up into more and more of our truth as spiritual beings. We are having some pretty extreme birthing pains as evidenced in so many angry voices … voting and otherwise. Yet! Each voice, and each vote counts ~ yours, mine, every voice! Let us not lose faith or hope in humanity and our evolution ~ no matter what! And! Let’s join our voices together in solidarity and song! I wrote the For Humanity Song last January and when friend & SoulPlay Storyteller Ruth Humphreys ( & sometimes daily Play & Pray Calendar narrator!) interviewed me for her Live Your Childhood Dream web show , we thought of doing a compilation music video with faces and voices from all over … the world?! So! Before our bittersweet 2016 ends, here’s the song with your invitation to sing along! Our webpage has lyrics, chords, and a download of those + mp3 and this singing video + Ruth’s video with the backstory. Page is HERE! We are looking for as many participants as possible this month of November to sing some of the song on video and send it to us for a group compilation video to come out in December! The video below is just me singing it in my living room the other day ~ you can sing it anywhere too. I sang it lower for what will hopefully be a better key for you?! We would SO love YOUR voice singing along!

So, yes, our vivacious V’s are already making way for wonderful W on our daily Play & Pray Calendar at New Thought Families! Today, we are reverently connecting with water and I add here and now deep gratitude & protection for the Water protectors at Standing Rock. By the end of the weekend, W should be the new feature on our Leaping Literacy Library’s Free Shelf ~ so grab your V’s ~ including voicing your dreams with SoulPlay Visible Dreamer Jean Kathryn Carlson!

Thank you so much for being here in visionary vibration as we voice our vote for ourselves, each other, our planet home, and for Humanity! May you continue to envision vistas, voice your visions, and turn down the volume on all else when you need to. Let us be in faith filled ThanksLiving with the truth of the divine that is always giving us the free will blessing to co-create our highest and best! Namaste, Love!