Welcome April Blossoms of Beauty and Bravery! As we near the end of April, May Transformations are beckoning! There are so many April celebrations that are near and dear to my heart, I had to speak to them before month’s end! Even though the bigger, better spotlights I woulda, coulda, shoulda given the following didn’t happen, we can still take a mindful moment of honoring and recognition. Let me first recognize you with gratitude for being here and honoring us with your time, heart, and mind. Thank you for being here!
April! The month that is often a menopausal one for our Mother with her warm flashes and surprise storms. April is the time of recognition of our mother with Earth Day/Month. Of course, Earth Day every day of the year yet April 22 is a longstanding calendarization for our attention. We love you mama earth! We have this and other earth songs featured on our ETV Music Video page.
April is also the official month to celebrate Young Children and Libraries; 2 cornerstones of our work/play at Leaping Literacy Online Library!
Much as I thought I would leverage these celebrations this month with progress in the Library and new production work, my main focus was inward yet again. I came face to face with an ongoing health challenge that actually has its roots in another April occasion ~ today is the 42nd year anniversary of breaking my neck. The vlog below speaks to the journey. Some of the metaphysical nuggets are letting go of ‘old fixes’ and employing new opportunities, releasing resistance, allowing alchemy, transcendence, and evolution, trusting transformation. I still struggle with the volume of me expressing concisely! I did this April vlog twice and while the 2nd time conceivably is more organized and concise, it is just as long and in fact, a bit longer than the 1st! The 1st one was full of tears and led me to some places I needed to go to gain the clarity for the 2nd one 🙂 I spent time producing the 1st one and had vowed to put it out so in a game time decision, I am posting both onsite in the quiet vlog space. If you are going to invest the time, I highly recommend the 2nd one over the 1st. Yet, in the spirit of birth and death, i did post both, at least for now. So goes the journey of messy me trusting the divinity of alchemy!
There are MANY celebrations, every month and every DAY! In the April Vlog 2, I celebrate some of them noted TODAY from the fun website https://www.holidaycalendar.io whereby they give all the history and significance of each day’s celebration/honoring. Apparently, anyone can start a Day with a little momentum! April 28th is noted for many things including Biological Clock Day, Clean Comendy Day, National Super Hero Day, Pet Parent Day, Stop Food Waste Day, Great Poetry Reading Day and more! I read from the great Unity poet James Dillet Freeman in Vlog 2 as a nod to another of today’s celebrations, ‘Pay It Forward Day’. Poets indeed pay it forward sometimes for generations with the power of their words!
There is an infinity of ways we can focus and show up any moment, day, month. There are so many celebrations, honorings, ponderings we can give our time, heart, and mind to. By following our heart and natural curiosity, we are aligniung with our soul purpose in being here, in this incarnation and lifetime. With our own unique gifts and skills, we are here to serve each other and our own soul’s purpose in choosing to be here now.
There is much to say about where Leaping Literacy Library is now and is going yet I will be ok, this anniversary day with just being messy me, showing up as me ~ the light of divinity mirroring the same in YOU! Free from needing to be anything more. My latest song is on the site Blog page, Be Free. As I root in the call of prayer (James Dillet Freeman) and the sense of what free is for me, I allow this moment’s April alchemy to be enough. Just right. As is. Divine perfection expertly evolving through transformation. That is a celebration! Thanks for being with me and your own divine alchemy. Namaste, Love!
I greet you with gratitude and a prayerful, playful attitude of embracing this messy life! I join you in sending a prayer for divine order restitution to Maui and all other places in this world where people are both suffering and banding together to help.
In the sea of infinite possibilities, how does this divine timing moment find you? Hopefully you are able to see yourself and your life with the heart of compassionate Love and the clarity of infinite possibilities!
In the all too often chaotic collective we are one with, it can be a tall order to live with such clarity and positivity. I just posted the vlog below that speaks to alchemy, divinity, and divine order. I speak to you from my heart on the front porch with some playful sea friends, ukulele, and song. If you are called, come on over, take a deep dive ~ and sing along!
I continue to breathe in the reverence of divine order’s perfection in an ongoing process that says clean up, show up, listen up, and Love UP!
Yes, I am still breathing through my Spirit blow hole this Sacred Sunday and diving into the wondrous world of whales! Some of the serious work play I mentioned last Sacred Sunday with Feature Creature Teachers Whale, Narwhal, Dolphin ~ ALL whales ~ remains in process and not yet launched. I did finish and publish the new Laurie StorEBook Nana Narwhal’s Knitting @ Laurie’s Stories if you want to read/see it in ETV. This was no small feat! Woo hoo! Still fully honoring that, it is, indeed complete. It’s been on the (loooong) list since 2016!
I have had another round of clarity on how my vision is SO much faster than the flow of daily human energy. And! What a wonder my existing energies ARE with all I AM able to do! And oh how the gremlin part of me wants to say “See, I told you that you can’t, you’re not enough!” Ya, that old habitual look at the impossibilities instead of seeing with positivity the infinite possibilities ~ with joy and gratitude! I am seeing with increasing clarity the need of continual alchemy between my visionary divinity and human reality. As I surmise and alchemize, I feel the crabbies as they reappear and retreat, tempering it all with compassionate, unconditional Love as I keep affirming divine order and choosing positivity. I sing my song!:
I possess positivity for infinite possibilities. I am positive all is possible! While some practice practicalities, I prescribe to positivity. Potentiality of prayer persists inside my heart. And! I positively do my part. I prepare. I pray. I proclaim. I play! And I persistently practice presence to potentiality and possibilities every day! Positivity of possibilities, positivity of possibilities… It’s all possible … I’m positive.
I sing this song in the beginning and end of this Week’s Sacred Sunday vlog @ New Thought Families:
Irrespective of you sharing the vlog experience, I offer you 3 alchemical activities with questions for this week should they resonate as something that could benefit you and your soul’s journey:
1. Ask the eyes of your heart to see the divine order of your lifetime. As you look back and look forward, what is a thread of alchemy that runs through your tapestry? This will be a predominent theme (s). (For me, spirituality and creativity.)
2. Wherever you need to see the divine order of this theme in your life, put it in the center of any situation, past, present, future. You can ask, “How did this, or will this (ex. creativity) help me live my soul’s purpose?”
3. Say a prayer or otherwise center in the Divine, Source by any name. You may want to do this with angels, angel cards or other tools you relate to. Ask to see a missing piece to a question or life challenge where you need clarity. If you get an immediate answer, great! Live with it, and allow it to keep expanding. If no answer readily appears, trust that the clarity is coming and release it. Choose a grateful affirmation you can employ going forward to remind yourself that it is done. Ex. : “Thank you Holy Creator for helping me see with more clarity.” I say with certainty, your allowance of divinity will bring you more clarity! Blessed Be!
I wish you the best in whatever your quest and in always knowing you are blessed!
Namaste Glorious Glimpses of the Heart Of Humanity Reclaimed, Reawakened, Reunited with the One Heart that created us all!
Traveling with my teenage man cub across the desert and at the Parliament was quality time truly at the center of this mother’s heart.
We returned safely home last night from our time at the Parliament Of World Religions which wraps up today. The first Parliament Of World Religions was held in 1893 in Chicago; the 2nd 100 years later in 1993 also in Chicago, then in 1999 it was held in Cape Town, South Africa, on to Barcelona, Spain in 2004, Melbourne, Australia in 2009 and now Salt Lake City in 2015. We had a great adventure in attending and also in the honor of presenting as part of a huge gathering of religions and hearts from all over the planet. The Parliament’s 2015 theme was “Reclaiming The Heart Of Humanity.”
The Dalai Lama was scheduled but had to cancel due to health concerns. He had a special recorded message for us …yes, it is in our hands!
Jeremiah was back at school at 7:00 a.m. this morning and me back on grandpa, groceries, life and laundry duty ~ with trying to do this blog and other work in between it all ~ ya, business as usual! Still, I am committed to the expanded heart just experienced and want to share a color packed photo smattering of what was an awe inspiring event; one that will take some time to assimilate and integrate. In fact, there was so much there, any one of us attendees could only experience a tiny fraction of it and yet, there is so much take away, it is almost easier to not do the work of integration. Except, of course, that’s not really a possibility giving the calling of our hearts that had us all there in attendance in the first place and all we couldn’t help but take in while there. Deep breath … of … zealous … YES!
The closing ceremony of the Women’s Inaugural just before the opening ceremony of the Parliament.
One of many captivating dancers … chanters, singers, speakers!
The ceremonies and plenaries we attended were bursting with powerful energies from those on the stage and those in the audience. I was trying to reach Jeremiah and found myself in the midst of this pulsating throng taking pictures of the opening ceremony procession; with the native drums on stage, Chief LookingHorse led the way for his people followed by many more leaders of other faith and cultural paths. As you can see from the audience pictures, we were indeed a very diverse gathering:
Chief Arvol LookingHorse in Procession
In between all the power packed huge gatherings, were hundreds of smaller sessions including our own. All that I attended had more empty seats than filled which made me (my ego) feel better that we had probably 20-30 present in our small ballroom for our In Our Hands PlayShop. Because the room had no tables for the hands on crafts I brought, I was Spirit led to lay them out down the center aisle and our playful participants for the most part readily took to the floor and created throughout our songs and invitations.
In Our Hands PlayShop at the Parliament
They came up with wonderful, colorful representations of their lives through their hands punctuated with words and thoughts in their art or in the little notebooks we had for them as we took some still moments to reflect. We had some group spoken, physical, and musical interaction and connection including a beautiful, hand in hand version of our song, Circle Of Love. Our small gathering was for the most part the joyous, play filled experience we planned for. We sang 11 of the 16 songs planned ~! Some of our peeps left their hand art behind and I found a little message that nearly broke my heart ~ I can only hope this lovely one doesn’t really feel this way herself ~ in one corner it said “Nobody Special” … in the other corner was drawn a little bug … I had passed out a plastic creepy crawly for each and we sang, If I Were A Bug as we were compassion in action for our earth from the smallest of creatures.I was able to be a helping angel for a new friend I met there ~ came to the ‘rescue’ with my laptop for her powerpoint presentation; Mangalam runs the children’s program at the biggest Hindu Temple in Melbourne, Austraila and she brought her adopted aunt, her ‘oldie’ to the Parliament, we are all pictured here.We made friends moment by moment in workshops and hallway encounters; so many delicious, serendipitous meetings, greetings, pictures and scriptures ~ religious displays of information, inspiration, and celebration:
Harmonious, Happy Hallway Moment!
A flowing flock of angels fluttered through!
Tibetan Monk’s Sand Mandala Creation
Artist Kelli Bickman with her mother and daughter and her 9 ft x 36 ft incredible Peace Banner!
Me jotting a heart note on Kelli’s Peace Banner.
I re-connected from afar with an old folkie friend/voice in Pat Humphrey ~ we unfortunately left the next morning so I couldn’t attend her full concert set ~ there were far too many things we couldn’t attend yet we floated in a sea of divine order divinity!
Pat Humphrey’s and Emma’s Revolution with a beautiful, local children’s choir on stage singing shalom, salam, peace ~ yes, we all sang along!
From the plethora of powerful voices we did hear, there were many transformational moments and a few surprises. I was excited to hear Karen Armstrong after reading some of her books. She deservedly won an award for founding The Charter Of Compassion. I ended up being in disagreement of her message … I think … it may be that she spoke an inconvenient truth I am not ready to embrace so I am sitting with it. Briefly paraphrased she said that if compassion had a feeling, it would be ‘disturbed’ and that she was often asked what a compassionate city would look like and her response is ‘uncomfortable’.
Karen Armstrong, founder of the Charter For Compassion.
While I get her meaning that in her estimation we have to feel disturbed or uncomfortable to be moved to action, I really do disagree. For me compassion in action is a natural outcome from living a mindful, sacred, aware existence. Even without the consciousness of it, people do want to help, it is a natural response and part of who we are as a species. And yes, there are a myriad of ways we are not living this … overwhelm for instance … as co-creators, we can go way over the top ~ I, and the Leaping Literacy Library are good examples of that ~ as was the Parliament event itself … yet we can adapt to how we are often ‘too much’, to how we here in the West have ‘too much’ in juxtaposition to so many on the planet … with deep breath simplicity. We can, in any breath, align with the shine of our divine design … in heart and mind … and focus on what it is for each of us to do … on any given day, in any given moment. I do believe we can act out of joy and Love rather than uncomfortable disturbance.
Jane Goodall embodied peace, power, poise, humility, and harmony.
While it was a thrill to hear people like Rev. Michael Beckwith & Mairead Maguire speak live, the highest speaker in my heart was Jane Goodall. I was, of course, excited that she was speaking but her presence was breath taking. When it was her turn to take the stage, she did not enter from backstage like all the others, she arose from the audience. She, like no other, truly embodied peace. She opened with the chimpanzee calls/language of how her chimpanzee family would know her. She told of some ways her own mother had shaped her by believing in and supporting her ‘crazy’ dream of living with animals in Africa. Her mother also did a remarkable thing post World War 2 when everyone’s fear of the Germans was so thick; Jane’s mother wanted her to know that the war was a terrible thing but Germans were not terrible people so she found a German family and sent Jane to live with them for a while. Wow! Jane Goodall’s Roots & Shoots organization to empower youth through social justice is definitely on my follow up list of inspiration & integration! There was so many whisperings, stirrings, and shoutings as a call to social justice that I am digesting with relish and the peaceful prayer of ‘How can I help? And what is mine to do?’ And even as I was stirred and sometimes ‘disturbed’, I was also SO blissed to be witness to so much beauty. The first day I set my intention to see beauty everywhere and I was quickly bursting ~ needing to add to my intention to allow the beauty in and through and to be a mirror of it for others! I also kept seeing people who looked so familiar, I could swear I knew them but we had never met. We did see a few beautiful faces from our old church, Spiritual Life Center and that was a fun, warm smile. We ate Langar … the ‘Open Kitchen’ free lunch served by the Sikhs as an amazing gift to anyone who wanted it. Though it was an astounding operation, I couldn’t help think of the harm all those styrofoam plates and plastic forks were doing every day as they got thrown ‘away’ … and as the refrain of Allan Boesak ‘s speech said, “We mustn’t be afraid to say it.”
Mountain Clouds ~ Mama Truth
And the truth is, especially when we travel, all the ‘disposables’ we are dealing with are not in keeping with tending to our Mother from the heart of humanity. So many of life’s gifts are indeed a double edged sword. Which is exactly why social justice is such an important part of reclaiming our humanity! For our part, we will continue our integration of informations and heart centered commitments. And! We offer some bravery, Love, and the SoulPlay awareness of the social justice goodness found on the Overground Railroad this week on the Leaping Literacy Free Shelf ~ enJOY!As we travelled home yesterday, I stopped at the Salt Flats. Jeremiah chose to stay in the car and sleep as I was amazed to see peeps walking and driving across the flats that seemed to be mostly salt, part water, and a mirror like something that seemed like ice but obviously wasn’t. I sifted through some of my own alchemy of Parliament, life, Laurie, and Leaping Literacy. And I picked up some trash.
It is always ours to do to walk our talk.
Choices are always in our hands.
The freedom of who we truly be is always a celebration!
Well, it is no wonder this epic event turned into an epic blog post! There were constant reminders to tweet and blog there at the Parliament but I was full up in the moment to moment as it was! So thanks for letting me begin to integrate here and now. I am ever grateful for you and your heart time shared here with me, thank you, thank you, thank you! Whatever alchemy you are in the middle of this blessed breath, may it be full of joyous and grateful allowance for all that is, and all that is to be. Whee! Namaste, Love!
New Thought Families 