Do you want to get your Dreams into reality? What is stopping you?  On Indie Spirit we are taking dreams into BEING. Classic discusses taking his passion on the road with the Abolitionist Tour and how you too can make your dreams become. Join us for meditation, even more laughs and of course fantastic Indie Music. Thurs 11 am EST on Blogtalk Radio

Do you have a Holiday Hangover?  Are you stressed-out and overwhelmed with Hanukah, Christmas and New Year’s coming up fast?  Stop and join us on Indie Spirit as we laugh, meditate and discover common sense solutions to life’s ups and downs.  Don’t miss out on the Moon/Energy Report – New Moon on the 5^th and Mercury is going retrograde soon…Indie Spirit Radio Show @ Thursday, 11 am EST.

Almost every morning I pull three cards from my Goddess Divination deck.  I like to see whose energy is around and it opens another pathway to peace.  I really use it as daily guidance and support.

This morning I pulled Abundantia, a favorite, along with Kuan Yin and Mary Magdalene.  I was surprised – abundance coupled with love and stillness.  Abundance and stillness?  I always think of abundance as action, not stillness.  Something has to be off – I pull another card – Sige, quiet time.  I laugh out loud, ok, Spirit I hear you – love, stillness and abundance.

I sit down and look around at where I am at this moment.  I am sitting in the life I created from deep within.  We’ve just moved back home to Vermont to a gorgeous home on the lake.  It’s stupid – fantastic.  Beyond expectation.  I look at the fire I lit early this morning in the sitting room fireplace.  I feel it nourish my soul.  I’m so tired and I can just lay my head down on the sofa…I do. 

I smile from deep within – love, abundance and stillness.  Right here, right now, no far off place, but here today.  Grace surrounds me and I sit sink deeply into peace…

Sure, at first glance it would seem these two women have very little in common, but let’s look again: both were too young when one afternoon their lives changed forever; both were strong & independent; and both were fiercely loyal. 

Scarlett was my first hero.  I read Gone With the Wind probably six times before I was eighteen.  I loved that Scarlett was tough as nails all the while looking gorgeous and batting her eyelashes.  I instantly connected to her love of the land – her red earth…Obviously the Irish thing was a huge pull, but I loved that Scarlett grew-up too.  Her heart and its wantings changed with time and age.

Like Scarlett, I didn’t appreciate the value of female friendships until after I had had children – women were always competition before. Take Melanie – she was no simpering fool although she often appeared helpless due to her poor health, but time and time again she supported Scarlett when no other would.  In contrast Ashley appeared to be noble, forthright and strong, but really he was just an anchor to the past instead of the rock Scarlett first perceived him to be.  Melanie was the rock…and Scarlett.

Scarlett would do anything, say anything to protect her beloved Tara and what was hers.  Of course there were costs in this.  Things were sticky – to save Tara and give her family a home, she married her sister’s fiancée.  She stole him really, all while penniless and gorgeous in her new green, velvet dress, a.k.a. the parlor drapes.  How could you not love her???

Mother Mary wasn’t so easy for me to attach to initially.  First off – the story of a virgin birth, can we say tramp?  Cover-up?  It took me years to allow the possibility of this story – the leap of faith.  I had to come to understand the teachings and environment of these stories.  I discovered there was much more space in the details of the events. 

As you may know Jesus was a Jew and his story was originally told by spoken word through his disciples – something akin to a Rabbi.  Well, one forgets that the Rabbi told stories and allegories to teach their followers – the details were shifted a bit to keep the story interesting and connect to audience they spoke before.  They were, in many cases, the entertainment of the day.

For example, Jesus was forever going off for 40 days – to the desert, in isolation, whatever, but did he go off for forty days?  Back then, when someone said, “forty days,” it just meant a long time.  The audience then knew this; however it is us, the exact interpreters that need things to be black and white.  This taught me about flexible thinking…but I digress, back to Mary. 

Mary has always challenged me not only by the virgin birth, but also, how could she just stand there during the crucifixion of Jesus?  How could she not shout out, “Stop, stop, take me.  Take me, please, please, take me…”  What kind of mother was she???

It took me years to discover she was exactly the kind of mother I strive to be everyday.  She supported her son and the decisions he made for his life because she trusted him…and God.  This was Jesus’ life and she stood by, faithfully until the end. 

How could she deny the truth of what Jesus predicted to unfold?  Hadn’t she also heard Gabriel announce her own difficult path?  How many called her a tramp as she walked by? Perhaps her village shunned her…but she accepted her path and held fast to her own truth.  How could her child do less when so called?  And again, where else would Mary be, but at Jesus’ feet as he shouted out his last? 

I believe, Mary knew the glory to be on the other side for Jesus.  You see, Mary knew magic and miracles every day – every time she saw Jesus’ smile she was reminded how real they truly are…

There you have it – Scarlett and Mary, my two heroines of tales gone by, who guide me each day to a brand new tomorrow, where possibilities unfold and magic is surely lurking just beyond…

Who are your heroes???

Here is the bitch of it: for all my understanding and faith in a higher power – life is still not fair sometimes. Negativity and depression beat a path to everyone’s door at some point – so tonight join us on Indie Spirit Blogtalk to learn tools to learn from and transcend negativity and depression.  Chat, laugh, meditate – feel BETTER.  Tonight 6 pm MST

Something akin to the hell found in the movie Groundhog Day.  Every day is spent making beds, cleaning bathrooms, freshening towels, vacuuming…I have either slipped into a twin 1950’s marriage or I am in fact in hell. 

More exciting than the hell of cleaning, is the buyers – who have discovered it’s a buyer’s market and some of whom would like to steal your home.  I never understood how the foreclosure market would negative affect the prices until now…

What I have discovered in the process of selling our home is responsibility.  Have you ever read the book, The Little Prince?  It is one of my favorite books because it speaks to the responsibility of taming or loving something.  Once something becomes yours, you are responsible for taking care of it.  If you can no longer take care of it, you must find a way for someone else to care for it.  That is our home.

If we were to accept one of these low-ball offers we would hurt the energy of our home.  Foreclosure houses tend not to have good energy – how could they?  Too much stress and anxiety locked inside.  Hence I have all these buyers wanting to buy my house at a foreclosure/avoid bankruptcy prices – they see it as the same house physically.  However they are not the same houses – you get what you pay for.  There are no deals, because you are buying a life.

Look at the history of a house – how many times has it flipped?  Foreclosure houses tend to flip a lot – the ‘deal’ the buyers got on the front end will be their problem on the other side.  It could be as simple as placement.  Is the house at the top/end of road?  Interestingly this is a horrible energy pattern – the energy of the road flows directly into the house constantly.  Hence the house/inhabitants can never get grounded enough to make it work…

Our house is a home.  It is energetically excellent with color, scent, layout, comfort and lush, abundant gardens.  It has been the support our family has needed to refresh, cradle and ultimately launch us into another adventure that is something akin to stepping into a fairy tale (more about that in a few weeks…) 

It was the same for the previous owners and I will not give this house less.  Our buyers are not looking for a steal, but a home that will cradle them.  In this safety, dreams unfold and manifest into reality.  Here in this house, our family began living an enchanted life, unbelievably blessed and magical truly (got the medical miracles and passport vacations to prove it!)  So we wait, knowing the new family is coming – we are just holding their place a little longer…Frankly I can’t wait to meet them, because I know what waits for them…peace, warmth, beauty, family, love, healing, laughter and abundance.  And so it is.

Looking for daily inspiration?  Join my Facebook page, The Indie Spirit, to connect to others and feel good.  Each week I co-host a radio show about all things Spirit with Jeff “Classic” Popka on http:www.blogtalkradio.com/indieonair.  It’s Thursday evening 6pm MST – we meditate, discuss, answer call-in questions – everything from matters of the heart to career guidance to connecting to peace.  Hope you can join us.

Each of us confronts stress every day, and how we choose to deal with this has a direct effect on our happiness and well-being.  Often our emotions cloud our ability to make good decisions and unwittingly we continue a negative pattern of stress-management.  Use these five easy suggestions to improve your capacity to handle the stressful events that come your way and begin living more contently today…

 1.       Breathe.  When stressful events occur, often our first response involves an involuntary level of panic; blood may rush to our faces, stomachs drop, breathing quickens…By stopping yourself and focusing your attention on three deep breaths, this allows all of your senses and self to become fully present in the situation.  From this present place, better decisions are made.  Clarity is achieved when you can detach from an emotional, automatic response and shift to a perspective of ration and reason.  

2.       Don’t blame – including yourself!  No matter how you slice it – here you are and there is something for you to learn right now – what is it?  Here’s a hint; it’s all about you.  How someone else is behaving may not be appropriate, but strip the extras away and it is still all about you.  Instead of pointing fingers at any one else or even yourself, what do you need to do right now?  What is your part and how can you make it better today?   (Warning: be careful not to fall into victim thinking – “I’m so bad” – that it keeps you from moving forward.  It’s not about blame, but opportunity.) 

3.       Ask for help/support.  If you are feeling stressed, sometimes one of the best things you can do is seek the counsel of a wise friend, therapist or spiritual advisor.  An outside perspective can illuminate personal blind spots that may be tripping you up over and over…

4.       Stay present and flexible – don’t spin out.  A thinking mind can be a dangerous thing – imagining the worst-case-scenarios can be almost intoxicating to obsess over, but stop yourself.  It is likely none of these worst-cases will come to pass and you have wasted all that time and energy as to be prepared – just in case the worst-case happens then you’ll know what to do…Stop.  These are future concerns, shift back to what can I do right now and keep your options open.  Rigid thinking of “if this happens, then…” traps you in repeating the same cycles over and over. 

5.       Focus on your desired outcome.  It is very easy to identify want you don’t want, but shift your focus to what you do want or how you would like your reality to be.  Whether you are having difficulty in a relationship, with money, family, it doesn’t matter – spend a few minutes each day thinking about how you would like your relationship to feel, or what it would feel like to have enough money, love…Your thoughts have power.  When you change your thoughts, you change your life – new doors open and opportunities appear…Try this for a week and watch the surprises bloom.

 Of course, the most essential tool and what frames all of these tips, is an unshakable sense of humor.  I am the first to say I have a gallows humor, but it has served me well to laugh at myself and the ridiculous situations I have found  myself  in at times – completely of my own making.  Just remember – if it doesn’t kill you, well then I guess you’re not dead…or the other answer, you GROW stronger. 

“Gentle” doesn’t come easily for me.  I was raised to work hard – achieve.  There isn’t a whole lot of room for ‘soft and gentle’ when you are in competition, even if the person you are competing against is yourself.   

I wonder though is this a part of our culture too?  A couple years ago as I was watching the Olympics with it’s random interviews of the athletes.  I was surprised when a ping-pong champion was asked, “Why hasn’t ping-pong taken off in the States?” 

“Well, Americans don’t like things to be soft.  They want to go outside for their sports.  Hard,” she said.  How right she was!

Maybe it’s because America began with immigrants trying to make a better life – as they still try today.  Competition is a naturally outcrop of this path.  Or maybe it’s because we have so much already, organized competition has to be hard.  Or maybe it’s because Americans are driven to get their slice of the pie…

My grandfather came over from Ireland when he was about twenty and he was hungry.  Hungry for food, hungry for money and safety, hungry for love, hungry for a place be.  Unfortunately, he stayed hungry his whole life and passed this hunger, this ‘not enough’ feeling onto his children, my mother.  She too passed this message onto me, and my other siblings through her own words and deeds. 

And here I am today with a choice, “Do I too pass this hunger onto my children?  Do I continue the cycle of ‘not enough’?”  Of course the answer is easy, no I won’t pass it along…but do I anyway?  Through my own thoughtless deeds and words?  Sometimes horribly, yes.

So today I am working on – gentle and being soft.  Not to hear words spoken to me through a filter of fear and pain, but through light.  To expect the best from everyone and not to take it personally if another does not want to behave from their highest self.  That is their problem, their journey – my focus is with self.  And with myself – I am gentle and soft.  So be it.

Recently a new door has appeared – an unexpected opportunity now lay on the horizon.  Unfortunately, at this moment, all we can do is wait – just staring at the door, trying to will it open with our desires…

I have never been good at waiting.  I am an action-oriented person, none of this “sitting around and waiting for life to tap me on the shoulder,” I’m already down the road.

Last night as we were walking the dog, my daughter asked me, “Mommy, when will this happen?”   I smiled and heard myself offer a very reasonable answer, “Sweets, only God knows that – we can only see in part.  All will be revealed in the right time.  Not to worry, everything is being taken care of.”  And like kids do – she bought it and shifted to a new topic.  Ummm, I think I’m supposed to learn something here.

When I am waiting, I try to distract myself with the knowledge that everything is happening in its right time.  I repeat over and over in my mind, “I can only see in part…”  The last time I used this mantra so fiercely was years ago when my son was suffering from multiple daily seizures and we couldn’t find any answers.  Interestingly, the healing happened months before the answers were revealed…So it’s good to notice this time we wait on our heart’s desires, instead of our worst fears…

I have come to believe in active waiting.  I like the old Arab saying, “Trust in God and tie up your horses,” because it implies a partnership with God and your future.  Discernment, sometimes you act and sometimes you wait – knowing the difference is the rub.

So today, we wait on the will of heaven, and pray for this or something better yet to be revealed.  So be it. 

article first published 8/08, waiting phase again.