Welcome September 1 2023

Fall is one of my favourite times of the year.  For me, it is almost as though the smells change on September 1 and the weather changes at the same time.

I think of September more than March or April as the month of change.  It seems that most of my life, my career changes have happened in the fall, usually, sometime in September or early October.  

When I think of September, I think of abundance.  This is the time of pickling, and canning, and freezing all of the produce of the summer. 

I picture Mother Nature getting all of her charges in the Northern Hemisphere ready for bed.  Winter comes early in Alberta.  Already, there are new skiffs of snow up on the mountains.

The contradiction of autumn is that while we are finishing things off on one hand, it is a time of seeking renewal and many of us start new things – craft clubs, fitness programs, bowling, curling, hockey, and the list goes on.  

A resting time!  I see that, often, we use the fall to plan a rest from the activity of summer, and to get ready to vegetate through the coldest of the winter. 

I see the Elementals, the energy spirits in the park, change their behaviour from wild to more gentle as they prepare the park for winter.  

I think that the fall is a time of healing for nature and for humans.  I see us all come closer to that peacefulness of Oneness.  For, all of us are matter, and all of us are of the Earth.  

For me, September is a time of contemplating what will happen next.  I love the surprises that it brings.

Blessings,

Judy

Humour and Love

In my meditation this morning, the two words of the day are LOVE and HUMOUR.  At first, I had a difficult time putting the two thoughts together.  I don’t normally think of Love as funny.  Yet, on reflection, I realize that my three days with my sister and her family were filled with lots of love and much laughter (humour), because we found everything funny.  We were together and we felt that hint of invincibility that comes from being one family.  

I then thought back to the the last group meditation that we did several months ago and realized that the same feeling was there – Humour and Love  -  because we all enjoyed one another so much and we had the same, off beat, view of life.  We talked and laughed and shared.  

I bow to Creator/Great Spirit for once again being able to teach a wonderful lesson to me through the use of two words.  

This was a very healing lesson.

Blessings,

Judy

What Do You Do With Your Days?

 

“Every day that we wake up is a good day. Every breath that we take is filled with hope for a better day. Every word that we speak is a chance to change what is bad into something good.”
Walter Mosley

“Every day is different, and some days are better than others, but no matter how challenging the day, I get up and live it.”
Muhammad Ali

 Your imagination is your preview of life's coming attractions. --Albert Einstein

We have our days generally planned out for the week.  We want to make our days matter and we want to make sure that certain tasks get done.  Since we love the mountains, we go as often as we can because the mountains inspire us, heal us, and show us animals and trees and birds in new ways.

Each of us gets to choose how we spend our time.  How are you choosing to spend your day?

Blessings,

Judy

You Are A Guest!

 

This being human is a guest house. 
Every morning a new arrival. 

A joy, a depression, a meanness, 
some momentary awareness comes 
as an unexpected visitor. 

Welcome and entertain them all! 
                                      —Rumi 

Last night, I could not sleep!  I would close my eyes and get different thoughts and visions.  All of them were filled with information and insights.  The vision that stayed with me though, because it was so profound, was one that I call – You Are A Guest.

In this vision or dream, a beautiful lady is sitting across from me in a setting similar to a living room.  She is in a big chair and I am on a sofa, and a coffee table – round and about three feet across – sits between us.

She is telling me that she is disappointed in me.  She asked me to look after her house, and she comes home to find that it is completely messy.  She tells me that there are holes in the carpet, burn marks on the furniture and the floors, and that her water is not running full force.

I am stunned!  I have no recollection of house sitting.  I don’t believe that I have met her before, although she is lovely, and I don’t recognize the house.

She asks me if I would allow guests to behave like that in my home.  I reply that we don’t allow smoking in our house, and that none of our guests would behave like that anyway.  

She then asks me why I have not cleaned up before she returned home.  

I am sputtering for an answer when she says, “Never mind! I won’t ask you to do this again!”

Now I am really confused because I don’t remember her asking me in the first place. 

I decide that I must defend myself.  I begin saying that I have not been asked to look after her house, and then the scene changes.

She takes me by the hand and walks me through charred forests and meadows.  She then walks me through deserts and drought land.  I see animals and people starving, dying, and dead.  We then move to places where water flows over the land, down streets and through houses.  And, we walk over mountain tops where the snow caps are clearly receding, based on the marks of where snow lay earlier.  The next stop is different places where open pit mining is happening – huge great holes in the earth.

The scene changes again, and I am back in the living room, sitting in a big, comfy chair, with a hot cup of tea in my hand.

The lady tells me that humans have been thoughtless guests in her home – the planet.  She asks me what she should do.  I tell her that most often, the landlord evicts abusive tenants.  They seldom get a second chance.  

She smiles and says that she has served her eviction notice.

I wake up, and wonder what is next for all of us.

Many blessings,

Judy

Don’t Lose Hope

 

I have friends that go through some major events and seem to give up hope.  How do I know?  When they would talk about life going forward, they would talk about how hope-less everything was.  They saw their world as bleak and unfriendly.

Being without hope puts a person out of balance, physically and mentally.  It is our nature to have hope, to be happy and even joyful.  It is our soul’s purpose to keep us on the path of hope for everything that we set out to do.

Blessings,

Judy

Why You Need To Be Kind

 We are all seeing a lot more stories being written about the kindness that people show to other people and to animals, especially ocean based animals.  Stories are being written about how being kind is the best way to get into heaven.  This means that kindness is the same as being good.

The best reason for being kind is that it is good for your soul!  Anytime that we do an act of kindness, and that we are selfless, our soul sings!  We feel better.  An act of kindness can pull us out of despondency or even depression.  Perhaps being kind should be a medical prescription that is handed out.   When we act kindly, it means that we are moving our energy to a new frequency.  The more that we do that, the better that we feel and the healthier that we are.  Being kind helps us find balance and return to a natural way of being.  Being kind is easier too, if you spend lots of time outdoors in Nature.

Kindness is learned by seeing examples.  I believe that it is also instinctual in us because you see very young children being kind to other children.  Meanness, bullying, and fighting behaviour can be learned. Many folks do learn how to get past this behaviour.  

Being kind does take time.  Perhaps you need to take some kindness time.

See the short listing of other posts on kindness.

Blessings,

Judy

https://www.lightstationwisdom.com/2022/11/feeling-kindness.html

https://www.lightstationwisdom.com/2022/12/trouble-sleeping-use-these-chants.html

https://www.lightstationwisdom.com/2022/10/loving-kindness-for-people.html

https://www.lightstationwisdom.com/2023/03/another-loving-kindness-version.html

https://www.lightstationwisdom.com/2023/04/lean-on-me.html

https://www.lightstationwisdom.com/2023/06/the-kindness-of-mallard-ducks.html

Change and Growth In Your Life

 Have you ever gotten a vehicle stuck in the snow or in the mud?  Do you remember how difficult it was to get out of being stuck, especially if you had to do it all by yourself?  Do you remember that often, you could not get un-stuck without calling for help from a tow truck driver or from others near by?  

To change the stuck in the snow situation, we had to change the thought that we could get un-stuck with no help.  Realizing that we were wrong and accepting that we were wrong is a big change.  It is also a metaphor for life where we have to move along and take responsibility for needing to change.

Too often, folks get stuck in a rut… a situation that is not healthy for them or for those around them.  Instead of making up their mind to change and grow, they instead play the victim and blame everyone and everything in their life for how stuck they are.

Very early in my spiritual journey, several of my teachers explained that each road block or stuck situation in my life was a chance to learn and to change.  Making that shift in my approach to life was a challenge because I was not raised that way.  Each time that I was feeling stuck, I had to learn to step back and to look at the lesson that the situation presented.  I learned so much!

I learned about setting boundaries, and about saying NO.  I learned about changing or releasing expectations.  I learned that people are exactly who they appear to be and not to have expectations about their behaviour.  I let relationships go.  I learned that when there are not any blocks to what I was doing, I was in the flow.  I was in balance. I learned to let people leave my life when they were trying to manipulate me, boss me around, or take advantage of me.  I learned over time how to be me.

Blessings,

Judy