All Hallows Eve October 31 2016

 

All Hallow's Eve is the night before All Saints Day.  Over the years, the name has been shortened to Hallowe'en (from Hallow Even).

In Northern Europe, Samhain starts on October 31 and ends on November 1. This was the time of the season designated to honor the bountiful harvest, and to ask for a kind winter.  It was also a time to honor the Ancestors' spirits for helping to create the abundance in the family.

Since the celebration started on the 31st by our current calendar, this is the time that the Ancestor Spirits started to come into this plane.  Since some spirits can come in with ANGER because of what the family has done, or by what was done to them, we have the tradition of creepy, scary spirits.  Where the family has treated the Ancestors with COMPASSION, love, and where they have communicated with the Ancestors with prayers and offerings, the spirits come in as benevolent.

The idea of scary faces on pumpkins was to scare off the spirits that were roaming the Earth that were not related to you, and who may do harm. 

Tonight is a good night to remember the Ancestors with kindness and honor them.

Namaste.

Spirit Animal - Mountain Sheep

The Mountain Sheep move through the fresh snow, looking for food.  The mountain air is chilly and the temperature is dropping.

Mountain Sheep says that their life is a lesson for all beings.

• Stay strong and fit so that you can manage the challenges that come at you as we sheep need to manage in the mountains.
• Keep your diet simple so that it is always easy to find food to eat.  The higher the altitude, the less food is available. 
• As your vibration changes, eat accordingly.  Do not eat what others eat, for it can make you ill.
• Stay with your herd for there is safety in the community.  Alone you will be hunted and will fall.

Namaste.

Angels Speak - The Task of Creating

Creating is something that we all do everyday.  However, we do not think about it very much.  When we cook ourselves and our family a breakfast, we are creating.  When we move through the day, we are creating.  We are creating our life.

If free will did not exist, we would not be able to create with love and abandonment.  We would not be able to bring in new colours, thoughts, feelings, into what we do every day. 

For many, the act of creating something is a form of meditation.  The act takes you outside of yesterday and tomorrow and puts you right in the present.  In this space, you are connected to all that is, including deep love that runs through the Universe.  This love that is has no judgements; it is unconditional.  It gives us the space to do our life purpose of creating our life.

We are responsible for our life.

Namaste.

Buddha Speaks - Start Your Day With Mindfulness Meditation

 

One of the tools that we can use to get us through a tough day at work is meditation.  I was lucky to find a very simple mindfulness meditation site, noted below, at Wiley Press Dummies' site. 

http://www.dummies.com/religion/spirituality/start-workday-mindfulness-meditation/

I know that many of you will not click to go to another site because of fear of viruses or other stealth bots.  So, I have put the entire meditation below.

How to Start Your Workday with Mindfulness Meditation

Here’s a meditation you can do at your desk or workstation to help begin the day right. (Of course, if you can do a little mindfulness meditation before you leave home, you can get a jump on handling your stress.) Hold off on checking your emails or consulting your to-do list. Instead, set aside five minutes or so to ground yourself in the present moment and tune into your sensations.

1. Begin by closing your eyes and taking three or four deep breaths through your nose.
   Inhale deeply, and allow the exhalation to be as long as your body naturally wants it to be.
2. Rest your attention on the coming and going of your breath.
   Let go of controlling your breathing and allow it to settle into a natural rhythm. Be aware of the sensations at your nostrils as you inhale and exhale. Alternatively, you can notice the sensations of the rising and falling of your chest and belly as you breathe. If you find it helpful, you can say the words inhale and exhale silently to yourself with each in-breath and out-breath.
3. As thoughts and feelings wash over you, keep coming back to the breath.
   Despite what you may have read or heard, meditation is not about trying to stop your thoughts and feelings, but about allowing your thoughts (and feelings) to come and go without getting lost in them — and, when you do find that you’re lost, coming back to the breath.
4. If possible, notice which thoughts keep recurring and which thoughts are the most stressful and upsetting.
   Again, no need to stop the thoughts. Just notice, and allow plenty of space for them to pass through without judgment or resistance. Practice noticing thoughts and coming back to the breath for five minutes or as long as you like.
5. Deliberately turn your attention to your most pressing concerns at work.
   After you’ve spent some time noticing thoughts and being aware of your breath, you can experiment with welcoming the thoughts, plans, ideas, and feelings that cause you the most stress at work. Play the edge between getting caught up in them and stepping back from them and returning to your breath. Notice whether they lose some of their stressful charge.
6. Let go of your meditation and turn your attention to the job at hand.
   Notice whether you feel any different than you ordinarily do at the start of the workday. Are you more centered? Do you feel more spacious and less contracted? When you find your head filling with stressful thoughts again, you can pause and be aware of your breathing for a cycle or two. Or you can set an alarm that goes off every hour to remind yourself to return to your breath.

Namaste

Nature Speaks - About Patience

What do we know of patience?  Well, as humans, not much.  We are impatient creatures.   We want everything now.  We want everyone to move as fast as we do, or faster.  We do not want to creep along like a snail or a tortoise.  We want to gallop like the horse and jet like the eagle.

The definition of patience is "the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset" according to Google Search.  Nature tolerates droughts, pestilence, floods, freezing, snow, interference by man, and setbacks from animals.  Then, everything carries on.

Patience, then, is accepting, instead of expecting.

Namaste.

Nature Speaks - Take Time To Enjoy

Nature gives us so many beautiful moments.  Many of these moments go unnoticed.  We have become so driven to "do" that we are not remembering how to "be". 

The greatest gift of Nature is teaching us how to be – to be ourselves with out changing anything to please others or to conform to someone's idea of rightness, beauty, goodness, etc.

Nature does not live in the past.  Nature is always in the present.  This is why specific moments of beauty are unique, and will not be repeated.  Yes, an event may be similar.

What is a lovely moment?  It will be different for all of us.  Here is a short list of what different people consider a lovely moment.

• New leaves unfurling in the spring
• The birth of a baby animal or bird
• Northern lights
• Sunrise in the mountains
• The sun sparkling on a river
• The inflow of waves from the ocean
• A bird singing in a tree
• Seeing a butterfly on a flower
• Watching wild flowers sway in the wind
• Seeing leaves turn from green to gold

Namaste