Brotherhood and Healing

My two words for the day are “brotherhood” and “healing”.  My first thought was, “Wow, that is a far-out combination!”  Then I realized that the only way to heal is to incorporate the concept of “brotherhood” into our lives.   Brotherhood means “the belief that all people should act with warmth and equality toward one another, regardless of differences in race, creed, nationality, etc.”.  This definition comes from dictionary.reference.com.

Brotherhood is hard for most of us to incorporate into our lives because we believe that most people have one of these attributes: they should listen to us, but don’t; they aren’t as smart as us; they are worthless; they are lazy; they are losers; they are control freaks; and, they are too much trouble.  That is quite a list of judgements that we have about people. 

I realize that my big task is to look at my life and who I work with, and accept them as is, in brotherhood, so that I can speed up any self healing that I have left to do.  As well, I need to work with the people that Creator puts in my path so that I can see what lessons I need to learn.  Learning brings a great peace to our lives.  This makes me think about a slide that a friend sent me.  Here it is.  I wonder if it is also saying that we have a chance to clear Karma with that person.

I will continue to mull over this idea of Brotherhood and healing, and work to walk this talk.

Many Blessings,

Judy

The Meditating Monk and Fear

 Picture of Buddha comes from an email so origin is not known.

One of the hardest things that I have found is the process of letting go of fear.  From the time that we are very young, we are conditioned to the idea of fear, and that we must fear anything that is different or unknown.  Perhaps, because of that conditioning, I have gone out of my way to meet, head on, what it is I fear.  I often wondered if I just had a streak of recklessness in me –which was the consensus of my parents – or whether I was legitimately moving forward on my journey.  

This train of thought has been a source of many meditations and contemplations for me.  I wonder if I am able to overcome all fear.  Then I remembered the teaching about the spider.   

I went through my notes, and found that I actually wrote about this  last year – April 13th.  Here is the story.

A Tibetan story tells of a meditation student who, while meditating in his room, believed he saw a spider descending in front of him. Each day the menacing creature returned, growing larger and larger each time. So frightened was the student, that he went to his teacher to report his dilemma. He said he planned to place a knife in his lap during meditation, so when the spider appeared he would kill it. The teacher advised him against this plan. Instead, he suggested, bring a piece of chalk to meditation, and when the spider appeared, mark an "X" on its belly. Then report back.

The student returned to his meditation. When the spider again appeared, he resisted the urge to attack it, and instead did just what the master suggested. When he later reported back to the master, the teacher told him to lift up his shirt and look at his own belly. There was the "X".

Because this is coming up for me again, in the spring, almost a year later, I feel that I need to do some karma clearing around belief systems connected to fear.  

I am off to do that now.   Have a wonderful day!

Many blessings,

Judy

Rosemary Footbath to Treat Feet Abused from Marching or Long Walks

After Marching - Rosemary Footbath

"Rosemary in bloom" - from Wikipedia

I love using Rosemary in cooking, especially with wild meat such as venison.  However, I was blown away when I was reading how our Ancestors treated badly mistreated feet after days of marching  - they used a ROSEMARY FOOTBATH.

The recipe for this is quite simple:

1 handful of rosemary (1/2 cup)    1 cup boiling water

Add rosemary to boiling water to make an infusion.  Let sit for 25 minutes.  Strain the rosemary out of the water, and add the strained water to a tub of lukewarm water.  Soak feet for at least 15 minutes.  Do this twice per week to alleviate sweaty feet and the resulting blisters.  This also kills the bacteria that cause sweaty feet.

Let me know how this recipe works for you!

Many blessings,

Judy