Life Coach: Spirit, Body and Mind » inspiration

God’s Creation: The Grand Canyon

Margo — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 16:39:52 +0000

As mentioned in my posting Traveling- Las Vegas & Sedona on 22 August, Rich and I took a day trip to visit the south rim of the Grand Canyon. I was very excited to make this trip because when I was a young girl growing up in England, many of my friends wanted to go America. There were those who were enthralled at the thought of visiting New York City, others who wanted to see the White House and the nation’s capital, and yet others who were attracted to the bright lights of Las Vegas or Hollywood.

But my only desire re-the USA was to see the Grand Canyon. I had seen it in a couple of movies, read about it here and there, and I believe I saw it featured in a National Geographic article at least 40 years ago. (I know, I’m dating myself here!!). From those experiences I knew it was something hugely majestic, but I had not retained much descriptive detail about it from them. So this trip was almost like visiting it with no pre-information about it at all.

As we approached the area of the Grand Canyon, I remember being somewhat puzzled, or maybe perplexed would be a better word. I think I expected the landscape to begin to change dramatically to prepare me for what I was about to see. But everything was amazingly “normal”, fairly flat country with quite a few trees. We entered the visitors center, acquired our tickets, and watched a great informative documentary.

Even as I watched the movie I wasn’t particularly struck by anything special, and we headed out afterward on the road that led into the National Park in Arizona where the south rim is located. Again, I was puzzled/perplexed because the countryside did not change. I’m not quite sure what I was expecting and I was quite surprised when we eventually saw the sign for the first “viewing zone”. We parked and I got out of the car and looked around. Nothing, just the road we had been travelling and a line of trees. But the arrows pointed toward the trees, so off we went.

I don’t think it would have mattered if I had seen a thousand photographs or hundreds of movies, nothing would have prepared me for my first view of the Canyon. As I passed through the trees and stepped out the other side, my jaw dropped, my mouth gaped. I was absolutely speechless. My eyes tried to come to grips with what I was seeing and I was somewhat aware that my mind was scrambling for words to describe it. Some of the words that came to mind were: spectacular, majestic, awesome, awe-inspiring, amazing, stunning.

But even as I tried to put the words together in my head, I realized that none of them would do justice to the landscape unfolding in front of my eyes. I was aware of tears welling up inside me. I felt completely choked up with emotion, my heart was racing and my breathing had definitely quickened. It felt like my soul was seeing a touch of home, and in that moment I knew that one word, and only one word, could describe the view that lay before me – God. I could imagine Him during the days of creation, eyeing this particular piece of the earth and, feeling the inspiration, reaching His hand down and slicing a two hundred and eighty mile long wavy line through the State of Arizona.

Just as words do not do justice to the majesty, the size, the total “stunningness” of the Grand Canyon, so too pictures cannot capture it’s breathtaking awesomeness. But I am including a couple that my husband took as we went from viewing point to viewing point along the south rim. The picture of the raven is included for a couple of reasons. My adopted Native American name is Raven Woman. When we first got out of our car at the condo we stayed at in Sedona, a raven flew onto the roof, and every viewing spot in the Grand Canyon had several ravens hopping around. I felt especially welcomed in both places.

As I stared at this miracle of God and nature, once again I found myself thinking of the first pioneers, those courageous men and women who set out from the eastern settlements of America to explore what lay beyond their known territories. I tried to imagine a lonely cowboy riding across new and unexplored country, galloping along on his horse and coming through the tree line to approach the edge of the canyon. I’m sure he must have experienced feelings similar to those I described above.

For those of you who are interested, here are a few facts about the Grand Canyon. Even as I write them I find them hard to digest and fully take in. The Canyon is nearly two hundred and eighty miles long, reaching from Marble Canyon near the Utah-Arizona border to Grand Wash Cliffs in Mojave County near the Nevada-Arizona border. In some places it is eighteen miles wide – yes, eighteen miles!! And it reaches depths of up to one mile. At the south rim the width of the chasm is about ten miles.

All I can say is, if there is nothing else that you do, no specific location that you have a desire to see in the USA, plan to go to the Grand Canyon. I do not think you will be disappointed and I am sure you will be at least a little bit changed afterward. Happy trails!

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Musings: Endings And Beginnings

Margo — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 20:38:05 +0000

It seems very fitting to be coming back/starting back into my writing on the first day of the first month of the New Year. Yes, it really has been since 1 December 2010 that I last wrote. I really wanted to write yesterday. It was warm enough in the lanai, after a bit of a lie-in, to do my quiet time outside for the first time in a month. Florida, the “Sunshine State”, has been rather stubborn in following last winter’s cold trend. Actually the whole country has been ridiculously frigid for the month of December, with crazy storms and blizzards throwing themselves all over the States.

But, joy of joy, when I came outside at about 9am yesterday the temperature was already at almost 60F degrees. So I put on my new purple, fleecy house- jacket that “Santa Richard” brought me and enjoyed my first quiet time in the lanai for a month. The air was tepid, but warmed up by the minute and I was pulled in so many different directions all at once.

I wanted to just sit and savor the glory of the Lord, breathe in His precious air and all the various perfumes of the outside. I wanted to do my meditational readings and engage in my intimate time with God. I also wanted to write and get out the words that had been hiding in my heart and mind over the past few weeks. And I also wanted to let the world know why I had not written during this period – or at least give them my version, which may or may not be the “reason” but perhaps an “excuse”. Who knows what goes on at subliminal levels in my brain!

I did do my readings and spent some quiet time with God. I did enjoy just sitting there and breathing and watching the myriad tiny birds fluttering round the feeders and hopping through the grass below. I even saw a couple of butterflies and I surely heard at least two, although I think there were more, hawks screeching loudly as they swooped back and forth through the pine wood out back. A blue jay was also jump-dropping from branch to branch in one of the pine trees (I’m not sure how else to describe the strange way Blue Jays have of starting on an upper branch and then dropping-jumping-flying-flopping down from one level to another until they drop out of sight behind the fence line).

I did not get my lap-top out to the lanai however, because Richard and I had a planned date/appointment to go and have brunch together and then do some post-Christmas bargain shopping. Part of me was a little irritated because this was the first time I had felt driven to write in so long. But I enjoy my dates with Richard when we can manage them so the irritation was minimal and quickly disappeared as we enjoyed some time together, and we did find some good bargains. What was even better was that it wasn’t just “acquiring more stuff”. We found some things that we needed or had been looking for and we saved some big bucks.

So, why haven’t I been writing? It’s rather a mish-mash of things, so here goes. The day after Thanksgiving, while we were still enjoying our week in Orlando, Rich and I went bowling at the Boardwalk near Sanford. At some point I was getting ready to unleash a strike (I like to think it would have been a strike!!). I made my run up to the line, planted my left foot to bowl and as I did that something just “torqued” in my upper outer left thigh. I dropped the ball as I gasped in pain then, in a moment, it suddenly didn’t seem so bad. However, it was. A few steps later a flash pain ran up my thigh. And so it went on and off over the next day as we prepared to return home. Thank God for Tylenol Extra Strength!!

When we got home I was able to treat it with different things that I had on hand. I also had a massage booked with Michael and he worked his usual skillful magic and, fortunately, within eight to ten days it was healed. Unfortunately, about 6 days later I noticed my right knee was sore and within 24 hours I was limping quite badly. I did all the things I had done with my thigh two weeks earlier hoping for the same results. Alas, a week later the situation had not improved so I went to the doctor. Happily, after testing it in every direction, he informed me that “the knee was not compromised” and sprained right tendons were diagnosed and I was sent home to “rice” (rest, ice, compress, and elevate) and given an anti-inflammatory to take for 3 weeks.

Now we’re talking about the two weeks leading up to Christmas here. With all there was to prepare for (I had seven people coming on Christmas Day) I was supposed to “rest and elevate”? Well, the anti-inflammatory partly took care of that because it rendered me pretty useless within half an hour of taking the dose (thank God I was taking it in the evening), and although I was not left with “hangover” symptoms the following morning, after a few days I noticed that the overall effect was one of “sludge-in-my-veins”. Add to this the fact that our normally mild Florida temperatures were dipping dangerously close to freezing several nights in a row and not getting much higher in the day time, and I was ready for total hibernation!!

The whole pace of my life slowed to a snail’s pace. What does this have to do with not writing, you may ask? Well, what little useful time I had available (read – time that I was really awake and one hundred percent brain alive!) needed to be dedicated to the things that were necessary to be done to get through each day and handle the plans that were in place. The freezing cold saps me of all energy and desire to do just about anything other than curl up on the couch and stay warm, plus it tends to numb any inspiration and seems to send the Muse running to warmer climates. Every once in a while a small creative idea would do its utmost to bubble to the surface and I would even find myself thinking that my lap-top must be feeling totally abandoned. But the anti-inflammatory and the couch won that battle every time

My knee is still bothering me. In fact I went back to the doctor last Monday and I have an order to get a CAT scan this coming week and I’m also waiting for a call from the physiotherapist. Because I have a little arthritis in some of my fingers and the physical feeling in my knee joint is similar to that in my finger joints, I personally think arthritis is the culprit and not sprained tendons. But we’ll see.

In the meantime, Mother Nature has decided to be kind to me and has served up some warmer temperatures. Today is as warm as yesterday. It is 3pm and I’m sitting in my lanai dressed in jeans and a tank top and I’m aware that my whole inside – heart, body, soul, and mind – is revved up on a different level. I feel lighter and happier than I have in the last month. Muse has been tapping on my door since yesterday and today my schedule is such that I can let her out to play.

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Shared Wisdom: A Found Treasure

Margo — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 20:41:00 +0000

I love finding treasure. It might be that I put on a jacket that I haven’t worn in a long time and there in the pocket I find a five dollar bill. Or perhaps I decide to clean out a closet or a drawer and there, caught up in all the stuff, I find a piece of jewelry that I thought I had lost.

I sit at my computer desk two or three times a day almost every day. I have had this desk for a few years now. It’s a typical computer desk with the working area and then a series of cubby holes and shelves set at eye level. Sitting there yesterday I noticed a little wad of papers tucked into one of the shelves. I pulled them out and, voila – treasure!! Here is what I found.

“Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn’t be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn’t know that so it goes on flying anyway.” (Mary Kay Ash, founder of Mary Kay Cosmetics)

“If I had my life to start over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall.” (Nadine Stair, poet)

“After all these years, I am still involved in the process of self-discovery. It’s better to explore life and make mistakes than to play it safe. Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life.” (Sophia Loren, Italian actor)

“Getting married is easy. Staying married is more difficult. Staying happily married for a lifetime should rank among the fine arts.” (Roberta Flack, singer and song writer)

“You can take no credit for beauty at sixteen. But if you are beautiful at sixty, it will be your soul’s own doing.” (Marie Stopes, writer and scientist)

“If you find it in your heart to care for somebody else, you will have succeeded.” (Maya Angelou, author and inspirational speaker)

Notice that all those little gems come from women – great women!! But, I have to be honest, some of those pieces of paper carried men’s names too! Here are a few more treasures.

“To know what is right and not do it is the worst cowardice.” (Confucious, ancient eastern philosopher)

“In the depth of winter, I finally learned that there was within me an invincible summer.” (Albert Camus, philosopher)

“Start by doing the necessary, then what’s possible, and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” (St. Francis)

“The world is a dangerous place, not because of those who do evil, but because of those who look on and do nothing.” (Albert Einstein, physicist, philosopher, author)

And here is one final piece of wisdom that unfortunately carried no author’s name.

“Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here we might as well dance. Every morning when I open my eyes, I tell myself that it is special. Every day, every minute, every breath truly is a gift from God.” (Anonymous)

Amen!!

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The Garden: An Inspiration

Margo — Sun, 13 Jun 2010 13:00:00 +0000

Those of you who know me through my writing know that I love gardening. This love of gardening comes partly from my historic/geographic gene pool – I’m a Brit and we’re almost all gardening mad! The other part is still from my gene pool but from a more intimate and personal section – the family. Both my parents loved the garden, but my Dad had an absolute passion for his garden.

I’m not a very organized gardener as I’ve already mentioned in other postings. I’m not a very organized anything because I’m a real “fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kinda gal”. My garden is a veritable hodge-podge of flowers and plants and I’m never quite sure what’s going to pop up where. I throw seeds all over the place and plant bulbs here and there, then I sit back and wait for the wonder of nature.

I love the growing process. Taking a seed and watching it peep up through the soil with it’s first tip of green is a most exciting adventure for me. It fascinates me that from that tiny little thing a whole flower or plant or bush or even a tree can come forth.

Sometimes I stand in my back yard with a seed in my hand and I look at everything that’s growing around me, and I am in absolute awe as I think it all started with a few seeds. The hand of God is most definitely present in such a miracle.

Gardening brings me great joy and I consider it to be wonderful therapy for the soul. Gardening takes me out of myself and is one of the few activities through which I feel a real connection with God. Gardening makes my heart happy.

But today I realized another benefit that comes from my hard work out there in the garden. Of late my husband has started taking series of photos of my garden. At first he was taking general all-around shots so that we could share them with the rest of the family that is flung around the world.

More recently he began taking close-ups of single blooms and flowers. Such works of art each and every one in itself. He also took one set that was all leaves and they turned out to be very interesting and beautiful. But here’s the kicker.

Richard is also this “computer geekie/techie guy”. He works a lot with Windows 7 and it allows him to create themes. These are a series of images that you can put together as desktop wallpaper. Well he has taken my garden as his inspiration for creating beautiful themes that are available for free download if you work with Windows 7.

If you’re a garden fanatic and you’d like to check out more shots of my garden, you can visit our Summer Garden shots album. I hope you get as much enjoyment from this as I do.

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Musings: Unblocking Again

Margo — Fri, 14 May 2010 02:05:38 +0000

I have been in a “dry spell” again:-(. And yet I have so much I want to write about. So many things running around my head. But it all seems stuck inside and I haven’t been able to release it. It is so frustrating. So let me start somewhere and see if I can unblock something.

So much has happened in my life in the last couple of months. Oh nothing monumental or earth-shattering – just life. But it has been so much more than the various bouts of sickness that I have had to contend with. Towards the end of February we had an amazing Lenten Mission at our church. A man fired with the Holy Spirit, Fr. Jim Curtin from Wisconsin, came and woke up a new spirit in our parish. I will eventually write a full posting about that.

One morning in March (fortunately in one of my healthy periods!!), my husband suddenly experienced chest pains and was hospitalized. I discovered through that experience that I have a weird way of dealing with unexpected shocking news when it involves my loved ones. That’s another posting too.

Easter and the celebration of the risen Lord came around again. With each year I become more and more aware of the passing of the seasons and the special church and State feast days and festivals. And each one seems to come around faster and faster. I am sure that this has something to do with what happens internally to us as we get older. Food for another posting.

At the end of March we had the joy of a fleeting visit from my eldest son Marco. He was flown from Naples, Italy to DC for a conference. That was a chance not to pass up and so he came a couple of days early and we flew him down to Florida so we could snatch some time with him. It was a happy time, yet tinged with sadness: his ten year relationship with the love of his life is seemingly at an end. The culprit? Words – those said in anger and those left unsaid. I know in my heart that I can write something about that.

And then came my birthday. Thank God by then I was done with being sick and I was able to celebrate with joy. Dinner with friends one day. Lunch with “the girls” another day. Cards and telephone calls from family across the sea as well as those close by. And wonderful gifts that showed just how much people cared. Beautiful flowers from my husband.

Celebration followed celebration as Mother’s Day came just a week after my birthday. What a day of bitter-sweet emotions. Mother’s Day this year occurred on the fourteenth anniversary of the passing of my own mother. I miss her so much. I still have times when I want to telephone her to share a special moment. I often think how she would have enjoyed a visit to my home here in America.

Again I received calls from my sons overseas. My husband showered me with more flowers and a lovely card. And of course my “baby”, my beautiful daughter Melissa, also telephoned. I was out in the garden and had just seen three butterflies in quick succession. They are my special connection to my mother but almost always cause the tears to flow.

I shared my memory of my mother with Melissa and we both cried some together. Between the tears she said, “I wish I could spend the day with you Mum”. But we both know that while she makes the choices that she makes today, that cannot be possible. And my heart is broken all over again. Sometimes being a mother just plains sucks!!

In the last few days I have realized that much of this being blocked, of my inability to write, is connected to this particular heartbreak. I have to put so much energy into staying upbeat, into not walking around looking miserable, that I have no energy left for play dates with my internal Muse. By the end of the day it leaves me totally exhausted physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

So now I have to figure out a way to break through this situation so that I can reclaim my inspiration, my time with the Muse. Perhaps I have taken a small step in this direction this week. I have found a support group that may help me to walk through the difficulty in my relationship with my daughter. Then I hope to free myself and my energy and move back into daily regular writing.

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Musings: Back Again!

Margo — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 19:10:34 +0000

I am so tired of being sick this Spring. It seems as though I have been dealing with unhealthy demons since about 20 February. First my really bad upper respiratory deal that knocked me out for two to three weeks. Then, after just one week of feeling good I was plagued by a bad cold/allergies (I never did decide which it was). That dragged on for more than three weeks before I was hit by the gastric flu bug. I am so ready to be done with all this and be truly healthy for the rest of this year!!

What really annoys the heck out of me is that sickness robs me not just of health on all levels, but also of time. Oh I know I still live each minute that God gives me. I don’t lose effective time. What I lose is the time I would normally put in to all the various activities that make up the flesh of my life.

My garden lies in wait to be ministered to. Outdoor projects for which I had a planned scheduled have to go on hold. The weeds begin to sprout profusely in the flower beds, and just the pure unadulterated pleasure of being out there working in the dirt has to be postponed while viral bugs have their with my body.

My writing is forced on to a back burner. No matter which part of my body is physically under attack, the Muse withdraws and hides. My head seems full of fuzz and leaves no room for inspiration. My arms and hands are sluggish, ravaged by fevers or infections or plain old weakness, and consequently they have no strength to fly over the keyboard in creativity.

My craft room sits in silence full of its colorful cardstock and inks, ribbons and stamps, glitter and glue and various findings. But nothing there is able to penetrate the general sense of dis-ease that pervades my body, heart, mind and soul. Not even a fast-finished product can elevate me from the murky depths that sickness produces within me. The Muse avoids temptation!

And my wonderful husband patiently tends me, doing everything he can to alleviate the grayness that insidiously surrounds me. And even there I feel robbed because I have no energy, nor am I in any kind of mood, to actively participate in our relationship. And that is a loss in and of itself.

There is nothing I can do about this state of affairs. Bugs and viruses for the most part have to be given their time. I can only languish and try to be as positive as possible. I practice patience and humility in accepting the situation for what it is. But my inner child grows pouty, wants to go out and play, and longs for the company of Muse.

I have been very careful this week in my return to health. No rushing out and doing everything it once. This is difficult for me because I have a tendency to want to make up for lost time, to catch up. But one thing I have learned: time once past can never be “caught up”.

Today I have done a little in the garden: prepared and planted up three raised beds with spring onions, Web’s lettuce, and chard. In another small flower bed I sewed seeds that I hope will bring a small wild profusion of blooms later in the summer. I finished all that I had hoped to achieve before the rains came.

And now I sit in my lanai and listen to the thunder rolling in the distance. One particular roll sounded rather like a Harley and for a moment I was amused as I pictured God in black leather Chaps and a ponytail rumbling across the skies on a sleek chrome machine! And, joy oh joy, my Muse is back and here we go dancing across the keyboard in a game of catch-me-if-you-can.Along the same lines:

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Musing: The Muse Has Been Gone – Again!

Margo — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 19:03:36 +0000

So I have been in a Muse-less slump again. Inspiration has not been my companion, days have passed and my fingers have not felt the urge to run eagerly across the keyboard of my computer. There has been no “de-pression” and I have not sighed deeply, mournfully, every time I walked past lap-top.

I no longer struggle with feeling inadequate or as if I “should” be writing, no matter what. I am totally comfortable with the fact that there are periods when inspiration pours down on me and through me like the waters in a continuously gushing fountain. And there are other times when I seem to be walking through an arid desert. But at least I know that the oasis is just a little way across the dunes and I have learned to be patient until it comes into sight. I refuse to accept mirages as excuses just to get on the computer.

At the moment I am on vacation with my husband in Orlando, Florida. It’s become a yearly tradition for us now during the Thanksgiving week. We have a small time-share and we come away from our “normal” routine and just relax together. But that in and of itself always brings some small rearranging within myself. It’s that “change” thing again.

I have to adjust to not having “my stuff” around me, although, not hindered by luggage restriction (we drive here), we do our best to bring whatever we want to have with us. This includes lap-tops, games (in my husband’s case), books (that’s me), and I lug everything I need to do my yearly Christmas mail drop.

I have hundreds of cards, stamps, address labels, silver and gold gel pens, purple pens, etc and while Rich plays games or does his geekie stuff on his Net-book, I attack my list of approximately two hundred friends around the world. Being in the military you either choose not to make friends because you’re constantly moving, or you make lots of friends and stay in touch. I fall into this second category.

So for part of each day I have been writing inside cards, addressing envelopes, attaching stamps and applying Christmas stickers. The weather has not been wonderful so I have only been to the pool twice in four days. But because I have to be outside, my Christmas card project takes place on the balcony overlooking the pool.

When I’m not card writing, I bring my current book out and read with the noise of the pool’s waterfall in the background. The resort is full at the moment and is hosting quite a few families so I am grateful that the overall peacefulness is not broken by shouts and screams and general noise created by many people gathered within a restricted area. I am mostly just grateful to God that we are able to do something like this given today’s economic climate.

Today must have been “breakthrough” day, although I think it started yesterday evening but we had plans to go out. When I got up this morning, I knew I was going to write: wasn’t sure quite what about, but that is often the case. The subject matter was not fully formed in my mind but there was a bubbling sensation in my heart and soul and I knew I needed to sit at my lap-top.

I think that God must have arranged the weather to accommodate this plan too. We had actually thought of going to the Holy Land exhibit today but, upon seeing the steady rain and the general all-over grayness of the day, we changed our minds and chose to “stay home”. I have to admit there was an internal, silent sigh of gratitude and my eyes went straight to my lap-top.

So here I am, words running from my brain, through my fingers, over the keyboard, and onto the screen. It just never ceases to amaze me watching and reading the end result of this process. I hope you, the reader, can share and appreciate the joy that my writing brings to me. Already there are thoughts running around in my head about the great murder mystery dinner theater we enjoyed on Monday evening. Then last night we got to experience the incredible Blue Man Group and I have so much to say about that.

We have been to see the awesome actress Sandra Bullock putting in the performance of a lifetime in Blind Side, and we also visited the quaintly interesting and somewhat Europeanized town of Winter Park. Even our weekly attendance at Mass on Sunday was in the very beautiful and unique “shrine church” of Mary, Queen of the Universe. But these will all be inspiration for other postings. The Muse has been most generous in her gifts again!

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Shared Wisdom: More Quotations

Margo — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 18:00:00 +0000

I always enjoy sharing some of my favorite quotations. They are usually words that have helped me through a situation or two. Sometimes they have presented themselves as words of comfort and encouragement, sometimes as words of inspiration. Frequently they have improved my understanding of a particular set of circumstances. More often that not they have been “light bulb” words; words that have given me that “ah-ha” moment.

No matter what the moment may have been, these words have been important enough to me to have caused me to write them down for future reference. I hope you may find some gems of wisdom among the following quotations that will enlighten your heart and your day.

You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give. (Kahlil Gibran)
Let him who is without sin cast the first stone. (Jesus Christ)
Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy. (Thich Nhat Hanh)
Faith is a desperate dive out of the sinking boat of human effort and a prayer that God will be there to pull us out of the water. (Max Lucado)
Give thanks for unknown blessings already on their way. (American Indian Proverb)
As long as you keep a person down, some part of you has to be down there to hold him down, so it means you cannot soar as you otherwise might. (Marian Anderson)
If you love yourself, you love everybody else as you do yourself. As long as you love another person less than you love yourself, you will not really succeed in loving yourself, but if you love all alike, including yourself, you will love them as one person and that person is both God and man. Thus he is a great and righteous person who, loving himself, loves all others equally. (Meister Eckhart)
Happiness is a perfume you cannot pour on others without getting a few drops on yourself. (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
Encouragement is awesome. It has the capacity .. to actually change the course of another human being’s day, week, or life. (Charles Swindoll)
I have found that when I am willing to trust and follow my energy it leads me into relationships with people from whom I have the most to learn……. I don’t need to enter or stay in a relationship that is not good for me, but if I choose to leave I can still acknowledge the gift and the teaching I received. (Shakti Gawain)
One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words. (Goethe)
Death seems so wrong, dear Lord
Couldn’t You have remedied it?
Have you forgotten, dear child?
There is Easter!! (Ruth Harms Calkin)
The uncertainties of the present always give way to the enchanted possibilities of the future. (Gelsey Kirkland)
If you can’t feed a hundred people, then just feed one. (Mother Teresa)
Isn’t it splendid to think of all the things there are to find out about? It just makes me feel glad to be alive – it’s such an interesting world. It wouldn’t be half so interesting if we knew all about everything. (Lucy Maud Montgomery)

And one final quotation to carry with you through the day, which also links with the posting I did yesterday Self Nurturing- Program Yourself Positive.

Human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives. (William James)

Have a wonderful and blessed day!

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