April 1 For Love and Fools

“Spring Palomino Colt” from Microsoft Clip Art    

                                                  This is what we call “April Fool’s Day”.  Yet, to our Ancestors, this was the day for “Love”.  Romans, Greeks, and Norse-Germanic traditions celebrated the goddesses of love, sexuality, orchards and growing things, and water.  

This day symbolically represented the day of planting. It was, therefore, necessary to have the Blessings of the Goddesses, for the second Universal Law is “all creation comes from the female”.  Women offered fires and incenses and wine to the Goddesses Aphrodite, Venus, Freya, and Hathor (Egyptian).  In return, the women wanted a blessing on love, family, birthing, and joy for the next part of their life.  In some cases, women might even court the man to let him know they were interested, and then drop him, so that he, in turn, would court her.  

It was this day that made fools out of lovers, and lovers out of strangers, for sometimes, the Goddess would sprinkle potions on the food and drink of the humans.  It was a day that nothing serious should happen except for the extolling of the virtues of one’s beloved.  

April is also the time of the pairing of birds (love birds is the nickname for this time of year), and the building of nests. Baby animals are either present or on their way.  This is the month of the “Budding Trees” Full Moon. Planting begins and is sometimes completed during the month.  

May your April bring newness to your life!

Blessings,

Judy

Buddha Says Pain Passes

You can’t go preventing pleasure and pain, you can’t keep the mind from labeling things and forming thoughts, but you can put these things to a new use. If the mind labels a pain, saying, 'I hurt,' you have to examine the label carefully, contemplate it until you see that it’s wrong: the pain isn’t really yours. It’s simply a sensation that arises and passes away, that’s all.

- Upasika Kee Nanayon, "Tough Teachings To Ease The Mind" 

I read this quote and thought about living in the present moment.  When a person is present, pain has a harder time being present.  It is like trying to have two beings inhabit the same space.  It is not possible.  Pain does pass.

Blessings,

Judy

Healing And Changing

This poster says:

When you can tell your story and it doesn’t make you cry, you know you have healed. -from NotSalmon.com

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March is a time of big change for us because we go into Spring after a challenging winter..    As Mother Earth changes, it is a time for us to look at change.  Maybe, this is the time for you to practice some self healing.

The world is shifting at an ever changing pace.  The fears that are surfacing and then come to pass, are fears:

• about loosing one's identity, 
• about poverty including lack of food and/or money, 
• about people having power over you
• about lack of control
• about loosing what one has
• about pain and illness
• about doing the wrong thing
• about dying

Many of these fears may be overcome by spending some time learning how to do some quick, self healing.

Note that the self healing that will be discussed over the next month does not replace medical doctor's advice, and these blogs should not be taken as medical advice.

What these blogs are intended to do is to provide some coping mechanisms for the turmoil and pains that one might feel in their daily life.

Blessings,

Judy