Pray For ?

 

The poster says,” Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a difficult one.”

-Bruce Lee

This past year, many of my friends and family have had huge challenges to face.  Sometimes it was financial, sometimes health, and sometimes unbelievable storms that wrecked things. 

The poster talks about praying for strength.  I think that this year - 2025 - we all will need extraordinary strength to deal with all of the events that will transpire.  Some may not touch us directly, however, everything touches us indirectly. 

Today, I wish you strength and peace and hope.

Judy

A Ritual For New Year’s Eve 2023

For those of you that have asked questions about how to set your intentions for the new year, I would like to share a beautiful ritual that one of my friends sent to me several years ago. 

I do not use this at New Years, however, this ritual is certainly right for that purpose.   I do use it to set intentions for any time.  It is powerful to use this ritual with the New Moon.

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This is the initial technique - Setting Your Intentions for 2023 or any other time:

You start by asking yourself 4 questions...

1. What do I want this year in my personal life
2. What do I want this year for my financial life
3. What do I want this year for my business life
4. What do I want this year for my spiritual life

Then you write your answers. I feel into my body to identify in my heart what I am being drawn to create from the year. The MOST IMPORTANT part is to write it as if it has already happened.

As an example / template, here is an excerpt in part of what Maureen Collins (an artist) wrote for the category of business:

I am so grateful that this year became such an amazing journey of openness and discovery in my business, as it moved into the corporate world and lecture stage larger than ever before. I was able to deliver my shared vision via “What If? The Movie” through divine energy to hundreds of thousands of souls that were not only open to the information but contributed to the content collectively... AND they further delivered it to many more through word of mouth. This wisdom known to us all was a huge success with so many experiencing heart felt shifts and changes through the material offered by many like-minded souls. It became a place of safety and conversation for all who viewed it, and grew to include new audiences of those opening to the materials being offered by me and other contributors. The opportunity for the community to converse with one another about their own positive belief and pattern changes was a blessing and a joy to my heart, showing me the possibilities for all communities of the world. I loved watching and hearing the shifts and changes clients and friends and family were experiencing as they also awakened to how amazing and powerful they truly are, and reveled in the moments they shared with others in the community ...which triggered more openings and shifts and more sharing and so on. What fun... and so effortless and flowing... I felt like a kid again with all the discoveries...

You get the idea... write it as if it has already happened AND makes sure you include how you "felt" when it happened. Do this for each of the categories (there may be some overlap but the categories are designed to allow for specifics in those four areas of your life). This is a POWERFUL exercise that almost acts as plan for the year but flows through and creates a vibrational resonance with what you are desiring. You can do this over the next couple of days... I promise you it will really make a lovely impact. Then print it out post a couple of copies in places you will regularly see them to remind you what you are creating.

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Ritual:  Burn and Release from Maureen Collins…

On a sheet of paper, I write out all of the things from the current year that I've outgrown, no longer want in my life,  no longer work for me, and anything else I feel I want to shed and leave behind.  On a separate piece of paper, I write all of the things I can think of and feel that I want to grow and expand in the new year.  I then burn each paper in separate dishes or shells, making sure all pieces are turned to ashes.  Then, when cooled, I put them into separate envelopes or containers (film canister, Ziploc baggie, etc.) and mark "to shed" and "to grow" on the container.   Around 5 minutes before midnight, I start visualizing all the things on the "to shed" list, and see them slip away, see them blown away and washed away, out of my energy field, out of my life and  out of my reality.  I go out side and pour the "to shed" ashes into my hand and let the wind scatter the ashes away and release them and all they re present, as the old year fades away.

After midnight, after blessing the new year, with the second container  "to grow",  I visualize all of these goals, desires, etc. coming to fruition, to this level of reality.  I bring that envelope down to the garden, and with a stick dig a small hole, then plant these ashes in the earth, near a tree or in a special place, (for those in apartments, I encourage them to use their favorite houseplant).  The ashes are a reminder of the life cycle, the power of nature and the honoring of Mother Earth, that these seeds of hopes and dreams are nurtured into reality, in the coming year.   This is a ritual that I've shared with many people, and even had a group in Ireland do it one New Years!  You may want to try this and tweak it and do it a way that suits you.

Happy New Year and many blessings! 

Judy

Happy Halloween 2023

 This picture is from Microsoft Clip Art

 

 

The information in this article comes from The Information about Ireland Site Newsletter, The Newsletter for people interested in Ireland (http://www.ireland-information.com).  We thank them for putting out such detailed information to share with all of us.

 The Celts celebrated Halloween as Samhain, "All Hallowtide"  (the "Feast of the Dead," when the dead revisited the mortal world. The celebration marked the end of summer and the start of the winter months, and 1 November began the Celtic New Year.  

During the eighth century, the Catholic Church designated the first day of November as "All Saints Day" ("All Hallows'" -- a day of commemoration for those Saints that did not have a specific day of remembrance. The night before was known as "All Hallows Eve," which, over time, became known as Halloween.

Here are the most notable Irish Halloween Traditions:  

Colcannon for Dinner:  Boiled Potato, Curly Kale (a cabbage) and raw Onions are provided as the traditional Irish Halloween dinner. Clean coins are wrapped in baking paper and placed in the potato for children to find and keep.

The Barnbrack Cake:  The traditional Halloween cake in Ireland is the barnbrack,  which is a fruit bread. Each member of the family gets a slice. Great interest is taken in the outcome as there is a piece of rag, a coin and a ring in each cake. If you get the rag then your financial future is doubtful. If you get the coin then you can look forward to a prosperous year. Getting the ring is a sure sign of impending romance or continued happiness.

The Ivy Leaf:   Each member of the family places a perfect ivy leaf into a cup of water and it is then left undisturbed overnight. If, in the morning, a leaf is still perfect and has not developed any spots then the person who placed the leaf in the cup can be sure of 12 months health until the following Halloween. If not. . . .

The Pumpkin:  Carving Pumpkins dates back to the eighteenth century and to an Irish blacksmith named Jack who colluded with the Devil and was denied entry to Heaven. He was condemned to wander the earth but asked the Devil for some  light. He was given a burning coal ember, which he placed inside a turnip that he had gouged out.  Thus, the tradition of Jack O'Lanterns was born -- the bearer being the wandering blacksmith -- a damned soul. Villagers in Ireland hoped that the lantern in their window would keep the wanderer away. When the Irish emigrated in their millions to America, there was not a great supply of turnips so pumpkins were used instead.

Happy Hallowe'en!

Blessings,

Judy

Danger For The People

Rain is the first image

Fish is the second image 

(figure from The Ancestors’ Path by John Lavinnder)

When I asked what was important for me to share with the world today, the above sequence came up in “The Ancestors’ Path.  I pondered the teaching.  The Season reflected is “winter”.  The direction is “north”, and the moon phase is “waxing or growing” with the intent that people understand and are motivated.

The translation of this is that some rain is good for the Earth.  Too much rain, and the people and the land suffer.  The underlying message is that bad leaders make life difficult, and war like.  In fact, on message says that “unscrupulous leaders use war to cover bad leadership.”  Those of us that live in North America have seen a lot of bad leadership over the last decade.  We see it in our government and in our corporations.  We see it in the way large pharmaceuticals and automotive companies control government, and work with government to take away some of the freedoms of people.  We see it in how the financial businesses gouge people for interest and user fees.  There is not any reciprocity.  That means that all of the inequities must end… they are pouring down on us, and we are drowning.

The action plan for this path is “escape from tyranny”, or “take a risk that moves you beyond the control of others”.  

My wish for each of us is that we become free from unrelenting financial burdens created by bending the truth, and by the masking of outcomes… for example, how mortgages are sold.

May each of us move to independence in thought and action,

Many blessings,

Judy

Finding Peace When The Day Is Stressful

 

This picture is of Fish Creek in the summer in Fish Creek Provincial Park.

Many folks carry a lot of stress around with them…from work, from family, from financial worries or health worries.  When stress is building up, even those things that are usually seen as “normal” add to the stress. 

I worked with a teacher for two years in the early 2000’s. One of his best lessons for me was to teach me to deal with stress by finding peace.  He would lead me through meditation to different places to see where I felt the most comfortable….a beach on the ocean, a lake where animals come to drink, a mountain ledge easily accessible, a cloud, beneath a tree, and we tried different trees, on a rock, up a tree, by a creek, in a forest glade, by a waterfall, in the middle of a meadow, and even on a monastery.  Each meditation relaxed me and gave me shades of peace.  The place where I felt the most peace was by running/moving water with a forest close by. 

For years, as I felt stress, I closed my eyes and went to that place where the water was running with the forest in the background.  As time passed, the vision of the place changed.  Sometimes it was an ocean with waves rolling up on the shore and the forest in the background. Sometimes it was a large lake that was mirror still with a forest growing almost to the water’s edge.  The vision slowed my thoughts, cooled anger and frustration, and relaxed my muscles, especially in my shoulders.  

In the beginning, it would take up to 25 minutes to get peace.  If it was a tough day, then it took longer.  Eventually I could find peace in two to three minutes, and what a difference it made to my work performance!  

The lessons that my teacher taught me about finding peace in a stressful day are:

• In meditation, people will tell you to go to your comfortable or safe space.  One does not know what that space is until all the options are explored.
• Finding one’s peaceful, safe place is a process and the safe place may change over time.
• There is not a magic time that it takes everyone to get to their peaceful place.
• Like many actions, getting to the peaceful place takes a lot of practice.
• Arriving at the peaceful, blissful state is worth the work.

Blessings.

Judy