Creativity

More about living in the present

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Please do not cling to the past with all its delights and pleasures. Remember them fondly. Your job is to create new delights and pleasures in your now and be fully present as they unfold.

Step into your now! This is where your power lies!

Painted Lady butterfly on zinnia

You have come this far in life, balancing on the knife edge of each moment as it comes, lasts, passes into the next and the next.

Remember this: Worry keeps you distracted from your present. Fear of the future keeps you powerless to make needed changes to your life. Guilt keeps you stuck in the past.

Take pleasure in your now. Pay attention: masses of sun colored daylilies, a dramatic sky, your life giving breath as you inhale and exhale, your feet supporting your body so beautifully, your arms swinging in rhythm as you walk, shifting patterns of leafy shade on the grass, the summer landscape…an evening thunder storm…

Wild Lobelia

Make the most of your precious time, your precious life, your present moments. Live them fully!

More about Potential

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There is great potential here on this planet!

Your thoughts, words, actions, and beliefs have very real consequences and effects that will manifest in your life in some way. This is power! Use it wisely!

When you emanate fear, fear returns to you. It is all you see. When you radiate love, love is reflected back to you. Your life is rich in love. When you hate and seek to tear down and destroy others, this energy will return to you in some way. You will feel the harmful effects.

Pay attention to the energy you put out into the world.

Cottonwood seed pods

When anyone is left behind or treated as less than others, less deserving, other, unworthy, this energy reverberates through the web of life and diminishes those who do the diminishing.

When you plant seeds of harmony with your eyes open, your ears unstopped, your heart tuned to love, harmony will be restored to the web of life. This means to you and your family. It means every living being will benefit from your integrity.

You have the potential to heal, to harm, to tear or to restore. Every thought, word and action of yours has significance in the world you wish to create for yourself and all others.

Beautiful spider web

Your thoughts, words, and actions are filaments in the web of life. You weave the web thread by thread.

Up your game!

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There is no need to reinvent your particular wheel. Build on what you know, your successes, your creative spirit, your inventiveness. Own your skills, your talents, your gifts.

As a young person you aspired to develop and learn and hone your talents. You did so with focus practice, flow, after much study and work .

This is the foundation your build upon now as you go to the next level of creativity, wisdom, and action. If you are still young, you are building your foundation, brick by brick with your focus, your curiosity, your sense of discovery, your passion, your interests.

Grandmother Cottonwood

Because of conditions on this Earth right now, the next phase of your life requires you to up your game, be fully present, build on everything you know.

You are asked to work in partnership with source, to open up never before thought of ideas, insights, inspirations, innovations to solve the challenges of your place and time in your particular area of knowledge and interest.

When you work in partnership with spirit, your human talents intelligence and intuition combined with the vast wisdom of Source create an amazing synergy – a better safer healthier more peaceful planet for all beings.

It is time to up your game, to gather your courage, to step into the light.

Take a Memory Tour

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Dear ones, are you confined, quarantined right now? Only your body is required to be at home.

Use your senses to take a tour of your favorite places in your imagination. In this way, you can take a virtual visit to your family members, remember the loved places you knew as a child, to go back in time, or visit the future.

In your mind’s eye find yourself at the place of your choosing. See the details as you approach your Grandparents’ home once more, or that small lake cottage, the town you grew up in… your childhood friends in their homes… the life you want to live when the pandemic has died down…

Here we’ve chosen a tour of Betty’s Grandpa and Grandma’s farm to get you started.

Now I approach my Grandparents’ house from so long ago, letting the details emerge… The flower boxes, colorful and spicy scented petunias, the deeply colored coleus, asphalt siding meant to look like bricks, large trees shading lush uncut grass, wildflowers along the dusty gravel road, old red barn and outbuildings with white trim… the metal pump with the cold smooth handle…

Now I call up and feel once again the texture of the gravel lane under my feet, the worn paint and sharp snap of the screen door as it closes, the heat and glow and wood-burning smell of the pot belly stove, the beloved old dog with her doggy scent and thick fur greeting you with smiles, her wet doggy kisses… Grandma’s bottle green tightly woven upholstery in the living room,

The heavenly scent and taste of thick milk gravy on beef, the sweet-tart and delicious raspberry pie, steaming from the oven, the canned peaches floating in their cream colored bowls with lavender and blue pine cone decoration…Fire crackling in the stove, the voices of those loved ones now gone, Grandpa’s aftershave…

Coyotes yipping after dark beyond the hills, hens clucking, streams of milk hitting the bucket at milking time, the sweet smells of cow manure and fresh hay, the milk separator whirring, the cream can filling…

Cars crunching on gravel, dust flying up behind them, shared songs at dusk on the front porch, simple harmonica tunes, voices joining together in familiar tunes, wooden floors creaking at bedtime….

Taking a memory tour is another way for you to spend an hour or two during this stay at home time – You can call up those sensory details of seeing, touching, hearing, tasting, and smelling that help you remember the beautiful places the people and times of your life.

Find your own memories, take a turn around the places you loved, going slowly, letting the details emerge. Revisit your children, friends, or grandchildren if you can’t see them right now.

You can also tour your future and re-imagine what your life can be, what you want it to be when you are able to move freely once again.

A memory tour will help you remember the preciousness and beauty of life here on our beloved planet.

Your Inner Fire

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Can you locate your inner fire? When you are able to quiet your mind and bring awareness to your body and subtle energy, pay attention to your spirit, where the elements of passion and light and life intersect to fuel your existence at this time and in this place.

Male cardinal in thicket

Is your fire burning strong and steady and bright? Does it need an infusion of fuel, is it dimming and cooling? Your fuel is that which gives you purpose. Your fuel sparks your creativity and ignites your passion for life.

Pay attention to your body – when you feel a dimming or a sense of hollowness or emptiness, you are growing cooler – when you feel a brightening, an energizing effect, a renewed focus, you are getting warmer. Ask for more of that, do more of whatever it is that engages your being.

Living with a great creative fire and passion within you will raise your vibrations, will improve your outlook, make life flow more easily, light the way forward.

Don’t compare your inner life with others. Go inward and get to know yourself, know what makes you want to get up in the morning and live. Do what brings you life, what feeds your spirit even if others scoff or scold.

(Your wise inner self will never ask you harm, disrespect, or diminish yourself or others in any way. Find a therapist trusted friend or healer if you are having these thoughts).

Male cardinal in bare tree

If you are temporarily blocked from your life’s work during this shutdown, plan, dream, sketch and write out ideas, draw in inspiration from all around you. Let spirit guide you.

Let your work change, evolve, and grow stronger adapting to the new realities of our world in this moment of crisis. Find new ways to fuel your inner fire if the old ways are no longer viable.

Let change make you stronger, more resilient, more creative, flexible and adaptable. You are alive, you are here in this time, in this place, you are meant to be here!

Let your inner fire burn brightly to fuel your life with purpose.

4 Ways to Raise Your Vibrations

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Dear Friends, to raise your thoughts and feelings from fear, anxiety, and worry to a calmer more peaceful place, a frequency of being that supports health and wholeness, raise your vibrations.

Some ideas to help you raise your vibrations in the time of the novel corona virus…

Reframe your thoughts

Tune your awareness to the content of your thoughts. If they are consistently negative anxious and worried, search for and find new thoughts that are a little more positive but that you can still believe. “I am safe in this moment.” “I will find a way to get through this”… “I am a survivor”…

Do this daily as you find yourself thinking thoughts that diminish and bring you down. Notice what you are thinking, then use your creative powers to put in place more loving and uplifting thoughts about the conditions of your life right now.

Release stuck emotions

Blocked emotions that can’t flow sit in your body mind and spirit like lead weights, holding you back. What feelings are you blocking from your awareness as you put one foot in front of the other to get through each day?

To clear the stuck emotions and raise your vibrations, you must tap into their powerful energy and let them flow. Yes, this can be scary. Yes, you will need a quiet time and space to do this. But you will be stronger for this practice and feel lighter.

Sit with the emotions that hold you back, feel them in your body. Let the tears flow, the sobs shake your body, whatever is needed to clear and release them. Experience the waves of feeling building, coming up and peaking, then changing and dissolving.

Let your emotions be what they are. As you feel and process them, the emotions will dissipate and you will feel lighter. If you hesitate, try to witness this release from the observer standpoint, as though you are sitting with and comforting a beloved friend .

Release tension in your body

Pay attention to sensations of your body in the here and now. Where do you carry tension? Where is your body relaxed? Do you notice pain, aches, tingling, lightness, heaviness? Pay attention to the sensations you feel with focus and compassion.

With pain or other sensations you want to escape from or block, try to focus on them until the feelings dissipate or change. Breathe deeply. Send love and compassion to those places in your body that need attention and care.

Tune into Spirit

Tap into your wise self, the larger part of you that knows the truth, lives in the moment, knows no fear, your indestructible spirit that transcends lifetimes, journeys with you through trials, times of danger, famine, disease, drought, that has been your guiding light from the beginning of time, that knows your purpose.

You can do this through intention or meditation, writing, creative projects, reading inspirational texts, doing shamanic journeys, praying, visualizing….

Gather your courage! Keep at your chosen practices with stamina and endurance. You are worth it! Try to do a little each day, a peeling back of inner layers of blocked energy and storm clouds that obscure your light and keep your vibrations low.

You can reclaim your inner light step by step, you can raise your vibrations and feel better.

When you plant a seed

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When you plant a seed you trust in the web of life. You open yourself to the mystery of creation, the alchemy of earth, air, light and water. You affirm life.

When you plant a seed, you stand in the present moment with hopes, dreams and a vision for your future, a knowing of the world you wish to create.

Ornamental grass in autumn

When you plant a seed, you work in partnership with all that is, with the spirits of nature. You become an integral component in the web of creation, a facilitator of life on Earth.

When you plant a seed, you trust in the future and surrender to divine timing, knowing that germination will occur exactly when seed, earth, air, sunlight, and water come into the proper balance and proportion.

You set the process into motion and surrender to the mystery. In this way, you release control and allow the miracle to unfold.

You are a sower of seeds of the plants that feed you, beautify your world, hold the soil across the earth, shade your gardens yards and homes, plants that clothe and shelter you, plants that make this world green and pleasant and clean the air…

Prairie grasses

You also sow seeds of energy and intention. Let the seeds of your intentions run to love and connection. Let them strengthen and unify and heal the web of life. Let your intentions bless this earth and all who dwell here.

You may not know where or how the seeds and intentions you sow will take root and grow.

It is enough to plant your seeds with a trusting and loving heart and allow the miracle you have envisioned to unfold in divine time.

Time for Spring Cleaning!

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Are you surrounded by an accumulation of too much stuff? Is your brain filled to bursting with too many thoughts, ideas, worries, fears, or emotional baggage?

It’s time to spring clean, time to release the old, the worn out, that which no longer floats your boat, makes you happy, gives you joy. That which holds you back in life.

Do you have the confidence to let go of objects that gather dust, furniture that over-stuffs your rooms, knick knacks and tchotchkes that came into your life for some reason years ago that you keep out of habit, things others chose for you, clothes that no longer reflect who you’ve become or who you are becoming?

Making room in your home will allow more flow in your life! Your space will breathe with more light and air and better energy movement.

Do you have the courage to face and heal the tired old habits of thought, the stale and possibly smelly emotions that keep you stuck, the fears that hold you back, the worries that muddy your precious days?

Clearing emotional baggage will help raise your frequency and assist in bringing clarity of purpose and more joy and creativity to your life.

De-clutter your mind and spirit, spring clean your soul and glow with clear energy, thoughts and actions that support who you’ve become, who you choose to be, who you wish to become.

You are the interior designer of your entire life! You get to choose what to think and feel, what to bring in to your physical presence, how you want spirit to express itself in your life.

Every design choice you make – what to keep, what to discard, what thoughts to entertain in your brain, what emotions to address – creates your life now!

Your sweet spot

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Your sweet spot is found at the intersection of you at your best and brightest and you carrying out your true life’s purpose.

Do you crave the sweetness of being in the flow of your life, feeling on top of the world, and doing your best work, letting it pour effortlessly from you?

Yellow swallowtail butterfly on bee balm

When in your sweet spot you are expanded, focused, in the flow without judgment doubt or fear. You may lose track of time or even forget you have a body momentarily. Time in your sweet spot is satisfying to your soul.

You have felt this, and you can feel this again. If you are doubtful, remember what you felt as a child laying on the Earth watching the clouds float by, playing with your beloved pet, laughing with a friend, finding shells and stones on a beach… A child’s true work is play!

Some call your sweet spot alignment with source, or connecting with divine light while in a body. The light fills you and calls you to your soul’s true purpose

Then life is sweet. It flows with an uncommon ease. All is accomplished with grace, without overthinking, striving, or pushing others out of the way to get ahead.

Unlike a craving for sweet foods like candy or honey, cookies or cake, time in your sweet spot has no side effects, causes no health problems. It’s like a sugar high, only good for you!

When you spend time in your sweet spot you feel wonderful and the Earth prospers! This is the true currency of life.

More on balance between head and heart

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Humans are designed to think, but also feel. Logic without feeling creates a coldness, a lack of human connection, a distance between people. Feeling without logic may ignore some important facts and cause mistakes.

Perhaps you’ve been rewarded for your thinking prowess with fellowships, awards, gold stars, summa cum laude diplomas for your walls. But, dear one, are you balanced between head and heart?

If you need lessons in feeling, you can get them from any healer, counselor, or young child. Lessons in thinking are everywhere in your schools and universities, even preschools, your libraries and courts, your businesses … you are overloaded with them.

Happy kid in fall

Find a balance!

Analyze but also simply allow what is to be without judgment. Take things apart to figure them out, but also see the whole. Seek understanding, but also allow yourself to surrender to the mystery.

If you feel you are unbalanced, you can remedy this by learning to pay attention to the ebb and flow or your thoughts as an observer, not taking them all seriously, and tuning more fully into the sensations of your magnificent body and the wisdom of your heart. Quiet your mind so you can hear the still wisdom of your heart below the attention seeking noise of your thoughts.

Let your mind rest at times, for overthinking and over analyzing can make you anxious, can create worry and fear, can cut you off from your body and suck the joy out of life.

Tune into the wisdom of your heart and let yourself be for an hour or two, a day, a weekend. Be mindful of your body. Feel the stretch of your muscles, follow your breath, your heartbeat, the rhythm of your walk.

No need to name the muscles, understand how the lungs work, break down the mechanics of your walk. Let yourself be free of these concepts for a little while while you enjoy the flow of life in a body on this Earth.

Know that your thoughts are not you. They come and go, they flow through your head, they flow out. New ones come in…. They come and go they flow through your head, they flow out.

You will know you are in balance when you can allow yourself to loosen up, have a little fun, play with the suds in the dishwater, let yourself dream, make a snow angel, climb a tree, wade in the creek, build a sand castle, lay under the stars, skip stones… then sit down and focus on your intellectual puzzles that fuel your passion and make life interesting!

Snow covered weed

To become the most effective human being you can be, learn to find a balance between thinking and feeling, head and heart.