emotions

You are not a stone

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Dearest ones, with this voice I desire to convince you to heal yourselves from the inside out; to do the excavation, the clearing of blocked feelings, the forgiving of those who have harmed you so you can find and know clarity, peace, and connection with the web of life.

 

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Stones

It is not necessary to hold on to hurt or the energy of painful emotions – to become a living stone.

Feelings are vibrations – frequencies of energy that emanate from you and influence all living things near you. It is no small thing when you begin to heal yourself, for in doing so the web in which we are all connected and intertwined is made stronger, more vibrant, more beautiful like a rich fabric of many exquisite colors and patterns.

Every particle in the universe senses your vibrations. You matter! How you feel matters! As you heal, as you feel better, everything around you – all living beings respond to your new found clarity and elevated mood.  Give yourself and the earth the gifts of forgiveness, inner peace and clarity!

Your body is not a stone. It is an amazing system made of energy. Energy is meant to move, to shift and evolve.

When you decide to allow the flow, you will feel the difference after the energy begins to move and emotions have been transmuted and released. You will no longer feel like a silent and heavy stone. You may feel like dancing!

Lazy day of letting go

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Have a lazy summer day.

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Summer grasses

Let the breeze shimmer your leaves. Rest with trust in your roots and the earth that supports you.

You can afford a day of rest, of letting go… Letting your mind be clear and blank… settling in to your body, feeling the ripples of thought and feeling that come and go. Now going deeper and feeling the blood coursing through you, the weight of muscle, the bone and skin, the breath as it expands your lungs and ribs, your eyes fluttering beneath their lids…

Let your tense muscles relax. It’s OK to let parts of you be soft and relaxed on your lazy summer day. It’s OK to do nothing but breathe and let your heart beat, your eyes blink, to feel the life course through your body.

Now, just for today, lose the agenda, the to do list, the killer instinct, the high heels, the dress for success, the act you feel you must put on. (Is this you?) Who invented suits and ties? Why?

You are so much more than what you do! Get to know yourself beneath the persona, the snappy business attire, the synthetic rules someone has imposed upon you, your place as a cog in the “system”.

Who are you really?

Delight and feeling

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Life is a delight for the senses.

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Playing with bubbles

Feel the flow of the life force in your bodies, your roots your leaves and stems, and in each cell that dances the dance of life with every other cell of your being.

To be in a body of any kind is to be one with all that is, to accept your reserved and special place in the tapestry of life on this earth.

You are meant to feel!!!  You are meant to adjust your actions thoughts and words when your feelings don’t feel good, until they feel better. Yes, read that again. Adjust actions, thoughts and words until you feel better! You are meant to feel good! Delight is the free flow of life-force through you.

Do you feel depressed and wish to feel happier? What words do you speak to yourself in the silence of your own mind? Words that soothe, or words that inflame? Do your thoughts match your desires? Do they match your dreams? Your incongruent energy sends a weak signal, diffuse and faltering to the web of all things. When thought, word, action, and desire align, you create your life without effort with a light a happy heart!

Let yourself feel. Let yourself enjoy.  Let yourself have. Let yourself be. Let yourself play with nothing to fuel you but pure feeling, and pure fun! If you resist your fun, your play, you resist life itself! Let your feeling delight and inspire you.

Sky-mind

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One time the two-legged one went on a plane trip during a late winter storm. On the ground dense clouds blanketed the sky and high winds blew icy shards of snow. Within minutes after taking off, the plane broke through the cloud layer to an ocean of sunlight and crystal clear air.

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Late winter storm clouds

My dears, do you ever simply relax into the blue sky of your mind? It lies beyond the clouds, the storms and turbulence of your habitual thoughts and worries; the ever whirling tapes that continue to play and rewind, play and rewind.

This ocean of light is always available to you. Know it and trust that no matter how bleak the storm you can find the clarity and light that lies above and beyond it.

This light is the backdrop, the foundation of all that is. This is the still quiet sky-mind. It is beyond language, beyond thought, beyond feeling. It is simply the basis of your being.

Find this place within yourself in meditation. If meditation makes you crazy, focus on your breathing. Begin easily, focusing on your breath for five seconds, then build up to 10, 15, 30 seconds. Soon you will be able to let your attention rest on your breath for minutes at a time. As you take in and release air, know that you are one with all living things on this planet.

If your attention is hijacked by feelings or thoughts acknowledge them like clouds rolling across a blue sky and return to your breath. Your thoughts and feelings are not you, do not define you, but are simply moving energy. Like every storm they will pass and the sky will clear.

 

Rushing

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What are you missing?

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New oak leaves

 

Why must you try to get 5 things done in an hour, rushing here and there in your shiny heat reflecting air polluting cars? As you rush do you notice the red cardinal zooming past the budding maple tree? Do you see the delicate blossoms of bleeding heart that will fade and go to seed soon, not to reappear for another 12 months? Do you hear the age old call of the mourning dove? Do you know one is nesting in your eaves?

Do you gaze at the sky, the dramatic mountainous clouds piling up in the west as you buy a ready made meal made not with love and care, but additives and an eye for the cheapest ingredients? Do you put this in your body? Do you taste and savor the real food the earth has provided for you today?

Do you pause to greet each person you meet? Or do you hurry past them as if they were a manikin in a store window while staring at your blinking shiny object? That is obviously more fascinating than your spouse or child or neighbor or your own ideas and thoughts.

You are missing your life! You are AWOL, locked up in some prison, not even realizing that enormity of what you are missing!

Slow down! Pay attention to the life, the people around you, the earth at your feet, the sensory delights of each day! Come back out of your trance and inhabit your body once again. You were given this life. It is not too late to live fully!

Rededication

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Jack in the pulpit

We (GCW and Betty) rededicate ourselves to bringing forth messages of nature’s wisdom and loving words of spiritual healing to those who are ready for them. Grandmother Cottonwood authors and transmits the feelings, impressions, images, and information. Betty receives the information and puts it into a form others of her kind can understand.

GCW speaks: My dears, this is first and foremost about love, the framework, the foundation of all that is. I wish to communicate to you the vast incalculable web of love that is woven around and throughout all existence. You are each and every one an integral part of this web. There is no separation, no complete severing of any particle in the universe.

The only separation, if you experience it, exists in your mind and heart. If you think you are separate, if you feel that you have been cast into infinite darkness, you are living in illusion – in your head.

My desire is for you to know the oneness of all things for then you will begin to care for each other with love, not obligation. You will care for the earth with appreciation and partnership, not dominance and destruction. You will care for yourselves with heart expanding joy, and in the joy and appreciation and love you will be made whole and all that surrounds you healed.

When you are love, the reflection you see in the mirror is love. If your reflection is less than love, seek to release the illusions you have taken as beliefs. These beliefs may seem true, but they harm you and do not serve you.

Wake up to the love at your center! Live it!

The heart

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Self expression!

The human heart radiates such love when healthy and thriving. And when the heart is broken, such pain and confusion, such hurt, radiates to those nearby.

Do you transmit love or hurt with the powerful energy of your heart? If hurt, find a way to heal and clear and forgive and move on. Then you can one again feel light and joyful, living in the flow of grace, your default state of being.

Guilt and fear and hurt weigh you down as surely as if you were carrying an armload of rocks. Why do that to your precious self? Why carry a useless burden that only holds you back?

I’m telling you, you can let it go. You can release the dead wight of blame and unexpressed emotion. But you must have the courage to forgive, to  feel deeply and fully and to express what you feel in ways that honor you and those around you.

Heal your heart and you heal your life.

Grief

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GCW speaks of injury, loss, and grief

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Have you seen? I have lost many branches in my long life, The dead sumps and scars are here to be seen, the bark still protruding where it once protected a dear limb, now white and rotting on the earth at my roots.

Have you lost something precious, someone dear? Does your heart grieve? All living things know loss. Sickness and health. Injury and healing. Having and losing. Grasping and letting go. Falling and rising again, perhaps to a new reality you didn’t ask for and don’t want.

Can you sit and breathe through the tears? That is enough for now, simply sit and feel and breathe, even though your tears may fall. Can you love yourself, the part of you that feels what all others who have walked this earth have felt? Can you simply love yourself as you sit and breathe and feel?

For love heals. The breath heals. Feeling heals. Tears heal.

Expect nothing. Simply sit and feel and breathe. Like waves on the shore – in and out in and out, the rhythm of life.

Do you hide?

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Do you hide your light under a bushel?

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Foggy winter day

As a child, the one who speaks and writes for me heard these words often: “Do not hide your light under a bushel.”

She did not know what the words meant, and hid her light, because it felt safer to be invisible than shine in the magnitude of light and delight her spirit knew.

She hid under an upturned basket in the dark and comfort of silence, reining in her light, her life force, her gifts. A few air holes kept her alive, a little light shown in, a little light shone out. As an adult, she learned that her hiding place was really a death-trap for her soul, and took steps to emerge.

Do you allow you light to shine with its full brilliance and magnificence? Your light is integral to the web of all existence. Know this!  If you hide and cover up, there is a dark spot, a weakness, a smudge in the great web of light – all that is.

Take your rightful place in this life you’ve chosen!  Finally allow yourself to be all you’ve come here to be, radiating the full spectrum of light, illuminating this earth and all who live here .

Fear of moving forward

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GCW speaks of moving past your fears:

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Winter sunshine and shadow

Do you feel stuck in the mud, glued to the spot, relegated to the shadows? Is taking action painful? Do you allow yourself to be distracted by shiny blinking things, physical pain, TV sitcoms, murder mysteries? Do you worry about things that will never come to pass in this world or the next?

If you look in the mirror and see a body and a familiar face looking back at you; if you reach out and touch yourself and feel warm skin and a pulse; if you take sweet air into your lungs and breathe; if you exist in this place and time in a human body, you are meant to take action when inspired. You are meant to move forward into the unknown when called, and fearlessly reinvent yourself in each moment.

You are meant to dissolve the invisible barriers that keep you small. You dissolve unfounded fears by shining a light on them, loving them and moving forward past the doubt, the heaviness in your chest, into what you know in your gut is right for you.

You do this in response to your heart’s desires, the driving force behind all existence. You are spirit and body, and the heart is your navigator. You must get out of your chair, out of your head, and into the place where magic meets the material world. Surrender to your heart. You know it is where your true wisdom lies.

Tap in to the powerful energy of your heart. Listen for guidance. Act!