Family Trees

One of the things that I have noticed as I have been working with people over the years, is that people are proud of their family trees.  Not the “son of a son” type family tree, but the big old trees in their yards or on their acreages.  These trees have stories of time and family involvement.  

Let me give you a “for instance”.  We have an apple tree in our yard that is now nineteen years old.  Her name is BJ.  She is our family tree.   She is now quite large and shields our yard from the folks across the back fence.

  

 

This is a picture of BJ in bloom taken in late May of 2009 

 

 

When my husband and I married, our neighbours gave us a gift certificate as a wedding gift.  We bought an apple tree and named her with the initials from our neighbours.  That was in 2004.  She was hardly a twig!  We have nurtured her, fed her, sang to her, and babied her. The second year, she had five apples. Since then, she has always produced apples, although we have lost many of them to heavy hail storms.

BJ is a living record of our life together.  Our Ancestors understood the importance of being able to have visible legacy, such as a tree or a grove, that they could point to and show that the family not only honoured Mother Nature and the Green God, but that the tree or grove was distinctive, and honoured the family.  

Here is another story of a family tree or set of trees.  The summer that I was nine, my parents had forty small maple trees shipped to the farm.  My Dad said that they were needed to create a wind break along our quarter of a mile lane and some of them would shade the garden and protect it from the wind.  The trees did not seem much taller than me.  They grew quickly and sturdily, and, by the time I left home, the maple grove was fully grown.  Every time I returned to the farm, the grove was a touch point for me.

I have heard the stories of many family trees.  Trees planted for each child born into the family.  Trees planted to honour the passing of a family member.  Trees planted when the family moved to a different house and yard.  Trees planted when someone graduated either school, college/university, or in a trade.  One of our neighbours has a yard full of cherry trees and apple trees as they planted a tree when each of their four children were born.

Perhaps it is time to think about planting a family tree.

Many blessings,

Judy 

July 1 2023

                                               Picture is from Kelvern Celtic Society page

Our Ancestors had stories and ceremonies for every month of the year.  July rolls around and people talk about how Julius Caesar created the Western world calendar in about 45 B.C.  July is named after him.   

The patron Goddess of July is the Goddess, Athena.  She has many aspects – Warrior goddess, goddess of wisdom, goddess of goodness, goddess of common sense.  Most of us know her as a Greek goddess, however, she has roots in African and Celtic belief systems.

Some of the things to know about July from an ancestral belief system are:

• the gemstone for July is a ruby
• July is about prospering, enjoying and attuning with nature
• in Europe, sometimes called the month of the barley harvest
• days grow shorter as a sign of reversal
• the strongest healing properties in July are prevention and protection
• the tree of July is the oak tree

Happy July 1! 

Many blessings,

Judy

The Beauty of Silence

Picture from Markelt.wordpress.com

Have you ever felt over whelmed by all the noise in the world around you?  Whether you work in an office or in a mall, or even in your home, all kinds of noises grace your waking and sleeping moments.  WE are so accustomed to noise from our furnaces, air conditioners, children, vehicles, dogs, cats, pets, houses, and so on, that we really do not know what the sound of silence is like.

During this time, as our lives begin to change, and we must deal with our “stuff”, silence will be required.  When we hear noises, we allow our egos to distract us because we really do not want to do this work – it is hard and painful and rakes up stuff we would like to leave in the closet.  Yet, in the silence, we can pull out the images of our past and look at them objectively, without hearing that running commentary in our heads.  Yes, you can tell your Ego to go and sit on your left shoulder for the next one half hour as you quietly reconstruct sad or angry images into images that are positive, and present a level of growth that you have not remembered up to this time.

In the silence, you will hear the voice of the Angels, coaxing you along the discovery of the depths of wisdom and compassion that you were unaware of – compassion that comes from the heart and the mind.  You will have the realization that the person who seemed to cause you pain was totally unaware of their effect.  Even more surprising, in silence, you get a look at the person’s background, and you see that they are so uninformed and so uneducated that they simply had no other way of knowing how to act.  

In the silence, however, you realize that you can always choose your response to a situation.  You can choose to be angry or, as my young friend says, “conflictful”.  Or, you can choose a moment of silence to compose yourself, and to respond with silence, recognizing that all is well. 

Choose to experience silence today.

Many blessings,

Judy

Get a Grip!

Picture of person roping a heart from http://eruke.files.wordpress.com

I had a moment of clarity this morning as I walked the trail in the park with my dog.  My mind was racing with all the things that I had to do, and I was thinking about a client.  I began to imagine her getting ill and me feeling sad.  I noticed that my emotions were going into a tailspin, and my thoughts were getting increasingly dark.  I heard a voice say, “Get a grip!”

Everything stopped!  I felt peace and calmness around me.  I realized that getting a grip was not just getting a grip on one’s emotional state, it is also about getting a grip on one’s thoughts.  It is about getting a grip on going out into the future where things may happen and are unlikely to happen the way that we imagine them.

I had let myself run away with thoughts and emotions that had no basis in the present moment.  “Get a grip” means to come back to reality, and to the present.  It means still your thoughts, and still your mind. It means, take back your power!

Our thoughts, mind, and emotions sometimes seem like they are beyond our control.  To prove the point, here is a little exercise.  Try to stop your mind from thinking.  Now, read the phrase, “The Sounds of ……”.  Try it again.  Read this phrase, “Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's …”.  Our minds simply want to complete the phrase.

You see, our mind, which thinks all the time, really wants to be helpful.  Unfortunately, our mind has had little discipline to keep it working on positive, happy thoughts, so it simply turns to the the wave of information that it has the most on.  Most of the information that we take in from media is unhappy news or bad news.  So, our minds and thoughts automatically generate bad news scenarios.

The bad news scenario is what happened to me this morning.  Now, when I start the bad news thoughts, I say to myself, “Get a grip!”  It works!  You can change your thoughts.

Many blessings,

Judy

Which is the Dream?

I am fascinated by dreaming!  I have now taken several courses on dreaming and I have read about forty books on dreaming.  Shaman and medicine men/women believe that this world that we walk in is the dream, and that what we see in dream time is the reality.  Some of them base this belief on the fact that when several of us are in the same situation, for example, a conversation or argument, each of us will have a different view and memory of the incident.  However, if two of us have the same dream, and if we are both in it, our memories of the dream are usually the same.

The following story is quite thought provoking.  What do you think this story says?

 

This beautiful picture of dreaming is from creoleindc.typepad.com

Dreaming

The great Taoist master Chuang Tzu once dreamt that he was a butterfly fluttering here and there. In the dream he had no awareness of his individuality as a person. He was only a butterfly. Suddenly, he awoke and found himself laying there, a person once again. But then he thought to himself, "Was I before a man who dreamt about being a butterfly, or am I now a butterfly who dreams about being a man?"

Happy dreaming!

Many blessings,

Judy

A Story About Prosperity

  Picture of prosperity from www.deplicque.net

We all have different ideas of what prosperity is.  The www.thefreedictionary.com defines prosperity as “the condition of prospering; having good fortune”.  You see, I was writing a workshop on healing with different energies from trees, and several trees are associated with prosperity. Given that some of these powers were attributed to the trees by our Ancestors, I wanted to make sure that the definition of the word was the same.

I then came across a Zen Buddhism story that put everything that I know about prosperity, wealth, riches, and abundance into perspective.

I hope that you enjoy this story!

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A rich man asked a Zen master to write something down that could encourage the prosperity of his family for years to come. It would be something that the family could cherish for generations. On a large piece of paper, the master wrote, "Father dies, son dies, grandson dies."

The rich man became angry when he saw the master's work. "I asked you to write something down that could bring happiness and prosperity to my family. Why do you give me something depressing like this?"  

"If your son should die before you," the master answered, "this would bring unbearable grief to your family. If your grandson should die before your son, this also would bring great sorrow. If your family, generation after generation, disappears in the order I have described, it will be the natural course of life. This is true happiness and prosperity."

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Many blessings,

Judy 

Word of the Day is “Primal”

  Sea or Sky?

Picture from www.windows2universe.org

 

Today, in my meditation, the word “primal” kept coming up in the images that I saw and the words that I heard.  The images moved from pictures of forests and animals to caves and mountains, and then to oceans and skies, with a mix of people and birds and fish.  The movie in my meditation would have made Disney proud!  And, I heard the word “primal” in different voices, tones, and chants.

When I completed my meditation, I went and looked up the word at www.thefreedictionary.com because I wondered if I really understood what the word meant after the visions that I saw.  Here is the second meaning of the word.

primal - having existed from the beginning; in an earliest or original stage or state; "aboriginal forests"; "primal eras before the appearance of life on earth"; "the forest primeval"; "primordial matter"; "primordial forms of life"

I realized that the message that was in the meditation was that I needed to understand all that was primal – in me, around me, and that I really need to allow it to be part of me.  I realized too, that what we see as primal or not primal is simply a judgement, and that perhaps two primal things – like the clouds and the ocean in the picture above look exactly the same from a distance.  I think that sometimes we are too close to an object to see it as it really is.  I am learning that I am all that is primal.  The closer that I get to that feeling, the more alive (the more life) I seem to have, and my energy abounds.

I am sure that I do not understand everything that I saw in my vision.  I am still working with the idea that there are three primal colours, and all the rest of the colours are shades.  I have many images that I need to work with.

I am so grateful, however, that “primal” entered my life right now because I am looking at everything in its aspect of newness.

Have a primal week!

Many Blessings,

Judy