spiritual healing

Pay attention

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Pay attention to the here and now, for life does not happen inside your head.

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Spring ephemeral – Jack in the pulpit

 

Life does not happen on the TV, on your “smart” phone,  or in your computer. It unspools from your heart, that rhythm instrument each of you humans possess, but sometimes forget. It arises from the feelings and emotions of your body. That is life! Feel it! Be one with it!

Attune your life to the rhythms of your body– the heart and breath, your earth, your sun and moon, our seasons. So many clues exist to help you order your waking and sleeping, your eating, your quiet and active times with perfect balance and health.

Yet you allow the gadget called the clock to order your day. You march to its beat, you obey it’s dictates. You have given it power to tell you when to sit, and when to move, when to eat when to sleep. Your body is not consulted. And your health declines.

You allow the big box with moving images and the shiny hand held blinking things to arrest your attention, to take you away from your power and flow, to distract you from your life’s purpose and the precious days and nights that make up your lifespan.

Someday, as it must, your lifespan will come to a close. Will you mourn those precious moments you spent in your head, ignoring the here and now, the countless hours on your “smart” shiny thing, the days and weeks mesmerized by the moving talking images that you will forget in a moment when the power is switched off?  You yourself are ephemeral, your body will not last.  How do you choose to spend your time?

Back away from the devices. Pay attention to your body, to nature, to your feelings.  And live.

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.

Falling seeds

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‘Tis the season for the seeds of silver maple to whirl in great masses to the earth. Each seed contains the promise of countless groves. It has been so since time began.

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Silver maple helicopter seeds

The seed swells, and tiny roots begin reaching down into the soil, pulled by the magnetic core of the earth, reaching, finding sustenance. The new shiny leaves and slender stem bend toward the sun, unrolling, soaking in life giving light. Reaching for life, stretching both down and up, rooting and reaching. Each seed a promise, the imprint of a million generations.

You plant seeds as well. Your words and actions are seeds. Your caring or turning away are seeds, your belief in the power of good or the existence of evil are seeds, your judgment or acceptance are seeds, your love or indifference are seeds and surely many of the them will grow.

What legacy do you wish to sow? Do you want the seedlings of doubt and despair growing in the hearts and minds of your family, or the legacy of love and joy and fun?

Plant your garden with each thought, word, and action. What will you sow?

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.

 

Be like water

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Flow

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Creek in spring – Canadian geese

Water flows without thought, without worry, without a plan. That is the nature of water, to flow where gravity pulls, to the measureless ocean, the infinity of water where all drops all flows, all streams, all rivers become one; where all merge into one incredible power.

Do you know the power that surges in yourself when you feel the oneness with all that is? The truth that you are inseparable from source is your power.

You are not alone– not a tiny weak thing that must scrape by and compete with other separate beings. We together, all living things are one organism woven together at an invisible level through the fabric of existence.  Let us learn once again to live in harmony and flow!

When you close your eyes and allow yourself to expand into the light as you meditate, you get a small taste of your oneness with all things. Once you know this, my dear, you will never un-know this fundamental truth.

To be alive!

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To be alive! My sweet tiny spring leaves unrolling to the soft sunlight. I feel as you must when you dance with joy! To bury your nose in the blossoms of apple, honey suckle and tulip. The energy of life rises gloriously within me and all living things, enthralling us all with the energy of procreation and life on this earth!

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Bleeding heart blossoms

You humans can dance. Whey do you insist on sitting still? You can sing gloriously. Why do you sit mute in front of glowing blue screens? You can love with your entire hearts . Why give only half? Why turn away and close off your glorious loving energy that is like a light house beacon that can fill the universe if given the chance?

You can create such magnificent art and music and design, and plans. Why suppress your creative power, and settle for less than your full potential?

Your power does not lie in controlling others or fame and fortune. It does not lie in a tough demeanor. It lies at the very heart of you.  Which do you choose -the heart that lives a half life, closed off from hurt and feeling, or the heart that chooses to face fears and step into the unknown and live fully and deeply, true to the person you came here to be?

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.

Spirit helpers

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Grandmother Cottonwood, evening sunlight

You, sweet ones, are surrounded , guided and supported by the web of all that is. Every point is connected to every other point. In this way the fabric of life is woven. I must reveal that this fabric of interconnected energy extends beyond what you can sense with your body into a realm beyond matter, beyond what you call life.

Everything is first spirit, non-material. Don’t bother to conduct experiments. You will not find this energy fabric with your senses, only with your heart.  You must experience it there to know it.

All that is encompasses the beings of light and energy you call spirit. (There is so much more to existence than you are taught in school. You are now attending GCW university where the secrets they withheld from you in school are now revealed.)

The advice, guidance, and help of a non sentient being, or spirit helper, whatever form your mind invents for them, (ancestor, animal, angel…) is freely offered. They are the intermediaries for the wisdom of all that is to be transmitted to you and through you for the highest good. Only for good.

Contact your helpers by sincerely asking to communicate, dropping your ego and skepticism, expecting answers, and following the guidance you receive. It may be slight at first, as you fine tune your connection and your listening skills. Stay with it.  Your life will blossom as the spring flowers blossom after a rain shower.

Open your heart and mind to the richness and love and compassion that lies beyond physical form.

Commitment

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Grandmother Cottonwood, evening sunlight

Sending down roots is making a commitment to life! I commit to this life, to this place and time, for the seasons, years and decades I’m blessed to live. My roots reach deep and wide. My roots and presence are my pledge of participation and involvement in the here and now – in the life of our beloved earth.

I take what I need from the earth and the atmosphere. I feed and sustain myself and allow the development and unfolding of my being from a tiny seed. I do not need to give myself permission to take the sustenance I need. My existence is permission enough. I am here to expand into my life’s design and purpose.

If a choice was possible, I would choose once again to be what I am now. I am blessed in this life to send my roots deeply into the soil and raise my branches and leaves, to scatter my seeds proudly.

In my home, a wooded margin at the head of a grassy flood plain, I make a commitment to live with my whole being, my entire spirit, to send my roots deeper and wider each year so I might know my part in this exquisite web of life and add my unique tone to the harmony of all that is.