Ask, and you will receive...

Ask, and you will receive; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened.

Jesus(gratefulness.org)

 

Confusion into Clarity by Gratitude

"So often we are so focused on acquiring and attaining things– that we lose sight of the wealth of love and positive energy that we already have in life. Gratitude helps you find the path of your purpose from a place of appreciation, instead of longing." CafeTruth

 

Nothing within me can separate me from the Love of God

What is important in life?

 

Sequence of events this beautiful morning.

 

Preparing for an estate sale (the best things in life are not things), I broke a handsome antique mirror

.

"Nothing within me can separate me from the Love of God." (my morning mantra)

 

Picking up chards, I cut my finger.

 

"Nothing within me can separate me from the Love of God."

(I am so grateful for this perfect mantra!)

 

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy and peace. --Galatians 5:22

Thank you Spirit!

 

 

 

J. sent "Sometimes in spite of it all, no matter how evolved we may think we are, life throws us a curve, one that we were not expecting, and in the end, it is not our self who saves us, but the love, kindness and understanding from another soul who has chosen to walk with us on this journey, for even just a little while, so that the burden can be lighter, another being who has agreed to remind us of who we really are, when the pain and tears have blinded us from that truth." ~Veronica Hay

Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.

    Dennis Waitley(gratefulness.org)

Ron: I would rather be happy than right! (or both right and happy if possible lol)

Evelyn Leonard Wright

9:40pm May 30

Yep...I used to be a slicer and dicer, just to prove how correct I was...and truly hurt many folks...learned to just state my Truth and let it be...doesn't really matter if you win the argument or not...you just state your position and move forward...If the other person refuses to move forward and continues to argue with you, I'd take a good long look at that relationship and what it truly means to you...agreeing to disagree is an extremely sublime state to aspire to! ♥

Plan to Make the Rest of your Life the Best of your Life

You put out some delicious meals CafeTruth, thanks!

"Choose what state to cultivate to bring more happiness to your world. The next time you have a negative feeling say to yourself ‘I can now choose which state to be in’.’ I can look at this all and watch it dissolve’. ‘I can reinforce the state of happiness inside me’. This is a practice, start now. Rewire your brain."

The 6th Sense - Never lose it!

There is a sixth sense, the natural religious sense, the sense of wonder.

D.H. Lawrence(gratefulness.org)

 

 

 

Letting Go Now

Remember the story about the monk holding on for dear life on a little limb on a cliff like this, and it breaks, as he was falling he sees a delicious berry on the cliff, so he picks it and enjoys it while falling...that is being here now!

 

Deeply Heads Over Heals in Love

A Happy Memorial Day For Sure

Good time rowing today in my classic handcrafted Carolina Bateau. This boat is what they used to use for fishing around here - no plastic or engines back then. With me are the delightful sisters Amber and Jamie daughters of Lydia Porter, who got to go out on the boat later. And then we were invited to delicious barbecue picnic by fishermen nearby! A great memorial day with Jeanne too!



Suddenly Your Blessings Burn in Me

How many gifts and graces You have given me! How many favors You have fed me from your hand! I look for your love in all directions, then suddenly its blessing burns in me.

Rabia Al-Adawiyya
translated by Andrew Harvey(gratefulness.org)

When I count my blessings, I count you twice.

Irish Proverb(gratefulness.org)

 

My Dear Brothers Death in Viet Nam (Happy Memorial Day)

              We were at war but it was not called that.  Most citizens of this country did not understand why we were in Viet Nam, despite all the slick political slogans.  Three straight assassinations of our beloved (by most citizens) leaders shocked us into complacency or reaction.  I was in the Army because of the former - just too afraid and confused to say no!  My brother was already flying copters over there.  They could not send me because of "no two brothers at the same time" law.  I was sent to Alaska instead.
             
                 In late 1968, I was finishing a half year of service in the medical corps. in Alaska.  Nixon, who had was elected largely because of campaign promise of a “secret plan to get us out of Nam.”  Then when elected, he talked about needing “honorable peace” before we withdrew.  Barry, my brother had refused to fly "gun ships" helicopters anymore. He wrote me that he had “nothing against the Vietnamess people, and most of them wanted us out of there (sound familiar?).  He would only fly "medivacs" and teach new pilots how to fly them.  He had less than a month to go and out of the thirteen month duty, the chopper pilots were supposed to not have to fly combat the last month.  He was pressed into duty anyway and with only two weeks left, he flew into a "booby trap".  He came home in a body bag.  My beloved brother Barry was dead!  I was confused, angry, afraid and filled with pain. Later, found out it was called grief and survivors' guilt.

    After finishing my time, going back to school, and learning how to cruise - I sailed away in reaction. I had been let go of my hospital lab job, because I refused to cut my beard off.  A year later, most of the doctors. who had claimed that my beard could spread germs, had beards. Possibly, besides becoming politically correct, as a result of sailing away with the most beautiful woman working there.  Morever, it was Watergate time, and I did not want to hear, see or read about any political stuff.  I was sick and tired still full of pain and anger.  After cruising for a few months, I came back for oral surgery after seeing a sign on Crooked Island saying "Dentist - licensed to pull teeth only."   After surgery, I was sitting at a 7-11 waiting for a ride.  I was looking at a newspaper for the first time in six months.  Shockingly to me, the headline stated "President Ford".  I missed the whole transition and was relieved that I had. 

    What I have found out over the years is that our country is not perfect by any means, but our founding fathers had the best idea for a government that has ever been carried out and that starts with the "Declaration for Independence."  We are a rare country in that we have freedom of religion - a separation of church and state.  In my cruising around the world (most of it anyway), I have found almost all governments are much infested with the reigning religion making it hard on nonbelievers.

 

    I think spiritual freedom is the only true freedom anyway, so I thank the Lord that I have the free will to choose to live in this beloved United States of America or elsewhere.  I choose freedom to sail and worship the way I want to!  My wish is that Sept. 11 has united us and given us the wisdom to really honor that freedom of religion for everybody!  Thomas Kinkade stayed up all night sketching the flag and New York City in the background after Sept. 11 and came up with LIGHT OF FREEDOM. Another master artist, Cao Yong, a refugee from China, went into seclusion for 2 months after Sept. 11, and painted a similar theme called FREEDOM.  After being jailed for painting “religious” subjects, Cao really appreciates our wonderful liberty.  Both Kinkade and Cao were inspired to paint magnificent canvases.

          Sailing around really helped, but watching a two hour documentary on Hitler, our freedom really “came home” to me.

Thank God , we have two strong but very different political parties. Unfortunately, the right has gone too extremely partisan as Bob Dole talked about today.

Although the truth is more likely in the middle of both of them, at least, in this country, we have a choice.  Just like God has given us a free will, so has our country for the most part.  Beware of any politician trying to take away any of our precious liberty. Just as a bird (Eagle here) as to have balanced right and left wings to fly so does our country need that balance between conservatism and liberalism.  Possibly, even more important is that an Eagle have a strong body (the middle, centrists, independents, & moderates) to support the wings.

          Creating this article and the collages is good therapy. I recommend creative work/play as a way of healing from guilt and survivors guilt. Don’t worry about the outcome, just do it for your own sake. And maybe it can even help someone else eventually? Without helping your own healing, you probably will not help anyone else.
 
Deep Sorrow can lead to Deep Joy
Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.
Rumi

Greater Awareness, Greater Expression of Gratitude

As I express my gratitude, I become more deeply aware of it. And the greater my awareness, the greater my need to express it.

 

David Steindl-Rast(gratefulness.org)
Friends of Silence newsletter, December

 

     

 

Space in Love (love the distances between you)

Once the realization is accepted that even between the closest human beings infinite distances continue, a wonderful living side by side can grow, if they succeed in loving the distance between them which makes it possible for each to see the other whole against the sky.
                                                                                                               Rainer Maria Rilke

 

Love Unconditional Love, thanks, this Rilke reminds me of Gibran's Love each other, but do not make a bond of love, let it be like a moving sea between the shores of your souls. Great truth for me, as I think ''controlling manipulations'' take the ''unconditional'' out of love. Do you agree?

 

Valerie Stiehl LOVE SPEAKS FOR ITSELF. IT DOES NOT BIND . IT ALLOWS THERE TO BE TIME AND SPACE. TRULY LOVING FROM THE RECESSES OF THE HEART AND SOUL DOES NOT NEED TO POSSESS. LOVE IS THE MOST POWERFUL EMOTION ON THE UNIVERSE. BLESSINGS AND LOVE.

 

"A great relationship is about two things: First, appreciating the similarities and second...respecting the differences" - thanks to Elena Salvador and Positive Inspirational Quotes!

 

Sorrow to Joy

Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place. It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow. Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their place.

Rumi

OK, so I have been having a lot of ''sorrow'' lately too, however it has been a kind of ''sweet-sour''  type, and Rumi appears to have nailed it with his wise words yet again. Ah, to be a poet like him, peace Ronnie!

MIriam StJohn Love this. So amazing that you can so definitively qualify your "sorrow" as a "sweet-sour" gentle type. Maybe it does not quite reach the level of sorrow, hence your quotation marks. Could it be more melancholy?

 

Ron Alexander MIriam StJohn, actually, it was amazingly deep sorrow - felt like the "Grief of the World", however I think I am ready to take it on, and know "this too shall pass", and as Rumi says "it prepares me for joy", as the deeper I go in my meditations, the more bliss I feel - timeless Eternal Joy! Thanks for checking in though!

 

MIriam StJohn Okay. But I got a foreboding feeling when I read "however I think I am ready to take it on," and with that thought you might like to seek consultation on whether you should "take it on" or "take it in." The other day, I went "taking on" something too, thinking I was strong enough, and it wasn't nice. In prayer, the Holy Spirit said to me: "Why do you go down into those dark places?" The words "go down" really stuck with me. But I was be way off-base in your situation. If so, forgive me. :-)

 

Ron Alexander When you go on ten day silent meditation retreats, everything comes up- all the demons and I have been three times, and still meditate an hour or more

everyday. Buddha did teach that pain is inevitable, however suffering is optional. He taught us how to get out of suffering by facing it head - on and learning the truth of impermanence, and that compassion (starting with one's self and spreading out) leads to happiness! Jesus gave us the three love "commandments" to get out of suffering. "Love God with all your heart", "Love your neighbor as thyself" (starting with yourself), and the hardest probably "Love your enemy" (especially the one within, I say). Thanks for more thoughtful feedback MIriam StJohn!

MIriam StJohn Thank you, too! I see you know what you are doing, so I need not be concerned. :-)

Ron Alexander Ah, that is so affirmative MIriam StJohn! I do appreciate your sweet affirmation! It would have been better to leave "gentle" out in opening statement!

 

Ron Alexander MIriam StJohn- one big grief I am working on is Memorial Day - Brother Barry killed in VietNam flying medevac helicopter. I was in army at same time as a medic, and not there because he was- toxic grief and survivors guilt - still not completely over it. Also, I work with vets with PTSD, and you should hear some of their stories - really sad and worse than their physical injuries. Anyway, so more grief than usual and this too shall pass....Thank Goodness!

 

Thank GOODNESS

I know that the Power of Good is an underlying Principle of the Universe, and that it is a manifestation of God. I know that God is All-Good.  I know that Good underlies all manifestation of thought and form, because is harmony, complete balance. Good is at the root of all manisfestation, regardless of its seeming absence.  Ernest Holmes

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Unexpected Creativity Mystery

With the word creative we stand under a mystery. And from time to time that mystery, as if it were a sun, sends down upon one head or another, a sudden shaft of light -- by grace, one feels, rather than deserving, for it always is something given, free, unsought, unexpected.

Pamela Travers
Creators on Creating(gratefulness.org)

 

Never Too Late

Thanks Rewiring the Soul, Gabriella Kortsch Phd, l can testify to that it is never too late. I just saw a photo of a famous writer who I have had contact with since he was in an adjoining college in 1967. He is a year younger but looks year...s older (like I did last year, before I turned to veggie juicing, yoga, more meditation and gentle aerobics.) Bless his heart, l feel like getting in touch with him and see if he is open to learning how I have rejuvenated?



Deep Peace to You

I Am the Universe in Action

 

Affirmation of the day: I AM empowered by the knowing that I AM the Universe in action. And so it is!


Artwork by: Janosh

Raven Singing Drums

 

Singing Drum
In the rising dawn
ravens gathered
... landed for centuries
on the candle flame tree limbs of creation

their nests a sacred mantra,
their voices calling
seven seeds of mystery,
their molted black wing feathers
discovered, only by a few

sometimes
their group laughter
could be heard
chasing a great horned owl
across the tamarack marsh

 

in the winter
they would dance
in the silent snow

some say raven
taught woodpecker
how to create
the Singing Drum.

- mokasiya alan

artist: thomas kingsburySee More

Big Hearts Better than Big Weapons

Love All

Love all that has been created by God, both the whole and every grain of sand. Love every leaf and every ray of light. Love the beasts and the birds, love the plants, love every separate fragment. If you love each separate fragment, you will understand the mystery of the whole resting in God.

Fyodor Dostoevsky(gratefulness.org)

Awake to Oneness

Joy is the realization of our oneness, the oneness of our soul with supreme love. Rabindranath Tagore (1861-1941)

Wisdom Grows from the Roots of Compassion

                   And as Siddhartha said we need to start with our self. Thanks Rewiring the Soul

Ron Alexander Does compassion lead to wisdom?

 

Ron Alexander Jeeni Zucchini: Probably... one good thing leads to another. Virtue is its own reward...

Richard Kent Matthews In fact, compassion leads to wisdom faster than the other way around, I would venture to guess. Wisdom comes from practice. At least that's what the wise say...

Ron Alexander Robyn Summers-Shelley: I believe the more we get knocked down Ron Alexander, the harder we climb, and feel compassion for others battling lifes challenges.

Spirit Forever Remains

I am part of the Eastern Wolf Clan Of the Cherokee Nation. Awrooo! D.C. — with Wolf Lacey.

Be. Be your own teacher

"One foot in the grave and one foot on the Dance Floor" - Power of Vegie Juices

I am going through great healing with juicing esp. Veggies thanks for the list Jeeni Zucchini

Foods You Should Eat Everyday

Juicing Vegetables

Ryan Nalls Grapefruit for breakfast . Salad for lunch for the tomatos, avocado, hemp seeds, spinach, cucumbers and peppers. A juice with Kale and garlic completes this list!

 

 

Ron Alexander Kale has become my fav. green leafy vegie! Dark emerald green juice emanates, and pulp I enjoy mixed in salad at lunch.

I am so grateful for my rejuvenated Mind/Body - more stamina, endurance, energy, power - getting much more done everyday with more clarity and mindfulness!

 

Jeeni Zucchini Sounds great, Capt! I need to juice more...

 

Ron Alexander And organic carrots mixed in make all these much more palatable to me! Oh, Jeeni Zucchini, I located a good juicer called Fusion that is a step above Braggs and not commercially priced.

 

Lyn Roberts My daily juice (all organic) Collards, kale, carrots, beets, celery, turmeric root, ginger root....... at times, chard (or virtually any greens), parsley, broccoli, cucumber,and so on......

 

Ron Alexander Thanks Lyn Roberts, I also use other greens regularly like chard, cabbage, broccoli, and ginger with occasional cucumber, parsley, spinach and others. I have fruit in AM but usually whole fruits mixed with oatmeal and other cereals sometimes. and some almonds, raisins, blueberries, with occasional Mango juice. I get my orange juice sucking then eating a navel orange. And love bananas but have to be ripe! Remember Dr. Bernard "Jennings" - in 70 and 80's he taught us not to eat anything that wasn't ready to drop off tree.

 

Lyn Roberts Same path. I minimize grains...no gluten....and dairy. Occasional free-range eggs or wild caught fish plus seeds and nuts, no refined carbohydrates. two pieces of organic fruit a day. Organic lemon juice in pure water throughout the day. Attitude of gratitude for return of good health...from "one foot in the grave" to one foot on the dance floor.....Paleo bread from Julian Bakery is handy for the rare sandwich....high protein, low carbs.....no grain (coconut and almond flours

 

 

Ron Alexander Great info! Lyn Roberts Just made dinner - my juice only meal of organic kale, broccoli, ginger (be careful), few big cabbage leafs, lots of organic carrots, after drinking lemon water all day. POWERFUL for 2 dinners for about $8.00!

 

Jeeni Zucchini I just pulled together today's smoothie ingredients - cilantro, avocado, celery, cucumber, tomato, lemon and turmeric... actually, I make this one often. Its a favorite!

 

Jeanne P. wrote: We alternate between smoothies and juices throughout the week. Some are veggie and some are fruit. Last evening, a veggie smoothie, was cucumber, kale, carrots, with one spear of pineapple and a tiny amount of ginger. Some ginger is more potent than others, I have found. Start with a small amount of yours and taste as you proceed. The fruit smoothie was: strawberry, blueberry, pineapple, carrot, cucumber. Last week for a late night smoothie, I pulled frozen leaf spinach, frozen strawberries, mango and carrot together for a delish one!