Metaphysical

The Package Arrived — It’s Books!

/ still a dreamer

Surprise! It’s books! Hardcover, too!

With the annual Hunterdon County Library Book Sale just around the corner, (details here, if you want to go – you won’t be sorry), and with a decent size stash still waiting to be read, I almost … that’s almost, but not totally … don’t feel entitled to purchase brand new books. But alas, it is one of two indulgences I’ve allowed myself in this life, (the other being music), and so the books arrived. If you are reading this post currently, you will see them to the right. If you visit this blog regularly, you will note there are always two books there – one a novel, be it adult, YA or MG, and the other a book of an enlightening, metaphysical/spiritual nature. And so goes my reading. Picture books go too fast to even warrant a spot, but I may write about them here.

How to Save A Life kept popping up at me from different places and sounded terrific, so I got it. More on that when I read it. And then, while flipping channels last week, I came to a halt on Wayne Dyer and a PBS special, Wishes Fulfilled, also the title of the book. He is so on the money, and who doesn’t want their highest good manifested? So I’m starting on that, too.

But first, a word on Click. While waiting for said package to arrive, I felt drawn to read this again. It is a continuing story told chapter by chapter by different authors from the USA and the UK, each highly accomplished. It’s a great concept with each new chapter a revelation that could only result in the story being told this way. It starts off with Linda Sue Park, and then continues Chapter 2* with David Almond, one of my favorite authors. His chapter was so amazing and magical, I could have stopped right there. But I’m more than halfway through and want to enjoy the rest before I start my new choice.

In addition to these wonderful authors bringing the tale of Grandpa Gee, photographer and worldwide traveler, his family and those he encounters in his journeys to life, they have also contributed their book sale proceeds from Click to Amnesty International to save a few lives themselves.

*Here is a quote from Chapter 2 of Click by David Almond:

“I’m Annie Lumsden, and I live with my mum in a house above the jetsam line on Stupor Beach. I’m thirteen years old and growing fast. I have hair that drifts like seaweed when I swim. I have eyes that shine like rock pools. My ears are like scallop shells. The ripples on my skin are like the ripples on the sand when the tide has turned back again. At night I gleam and glow like sea beneath the stars and moon. Thoughts dart and dance inside like little minnows in the shallows. They race and flash like mackerel farther out. My wonderings roll in the deep like sails. Dreams dive each night into the dark like dolphins do and break out happy and free into the morning light. These are the things I know about myself and that I see when I look in the rock pools at myself.”    — David Almond

Accepting Now

/ still a dreamer

I’m always a big fan of good quotes, and this one came up on my metaphysical flip calendar on Friday.

“You cannot live on earth and avoid lessons;  but you can learn them easily and with joy rather than struggle.”  – Sanaya Roman and Duane Packer.

I’m thinking that learning them easily and with joy IS a big lesson no? I’ve been observing and talking to others and thinking about my own experiences, and realizing how much of our stress and anxiety is attached to outcomes, i.e. our having a lot invested in our own expectations coming to pass. Sometimes our expectations are based on “reality” and are reasonable. But sometimes they’re really what we want to happen. Or not to happen. In the latter two cases, the result is the same; we are not living in the present world of possibilities or accepting what is and we become messy balls of anxiety.

So in accepting the not-knowing, it might seem like we’re spending our lives walking on a tightrope of uncertainty, and in a way, I suppose we are.  But if we believe that there is a reason why things happen, whether we can see it or not, that there may be a bigger picture that we don’t know about, or a lesson we have yet to discern, then the tightrope has an infinite safety net. We’re really always OK. It’s our own attachment to outcomes that prevents us from walking that sparkling tightrope called life with confidence and perfect balance. And leaping with joy. Yes!

Accepting Now and being grateful for all we have in this moment, can bring us joy and help us learn our lessons without struggle. It can be a challenge. I’m right on the journey’s path with the rest of you, trying to grasp the lesson a little better,  on a deeper level each time, and coming back to joy. Happy travels.

No Coincidences – the Komodo Dragon Comes Home

/ still a dreamer

Here you see something I’ve wanted for quite some time … a handsomely carved Komodo dragon. I spotted him probably two years ago in one of my favorite stores, Two Buttons in Frenchtown. At the time, they had one that was probably 5′ long. I really wanted that one, but didn’t dare look at the price tag. Each time I’ve been in the store, I’ve been powerfully drawn to one of these Komodo dragons.  They are hand-carved by an artist in Bali, (I believe), and each is unique. I would hold one, or several in turn, in my hands, feeling a connection I cannot explain.

On the occasion of my birthday this past summer, I was given a check. I was asked to please spend it on something that I really wanted, something special. My immediate thought was of the dragon. And yet I have dallied, contemplating all the things I really need and should do with that money. Do you ever find yourself doing this? You are invited to do something or buy something that is unequivocally a treat for yourself, but instead you spend it on something practical, or wrangle endlessly with yourself over it? Like I have. You know, we really need to be good to ourselves, kind to ourselves, to believe that we are deserving of all that is good.

So about a week ago, doing some Christmas shopping in Two Buttons with a friend, I picked up a Komodo dragon, as I had so many times before. He had a different attitude in his posture than I had previously seen. He seemed reflective. And as I held him, once again considering my still unspent birthday money, one of my very favorite Christmas songs played through the store, John Lennon’s So This Is Christmas. And I knew that that Komodo dragon was meant to be mine.

There are no coincidences.

And then this Saturday I met a longtime friend for breakfast. We hadn’t seen each other in a while, and she returned a book to me that I honestly had forgotten I’d lent her — Gratitude, A Way of Life by Louise Hay and other luminaries. It’s easy to forget sometimes how much we truly have to be grateful for, and I felt that this book returning to me after such a long time was also no coincidence. Perhaps I really needed to re-examine how much I have to be thankful for in my life. So I’ve decided to read one of the author’s essays on gratitude each day. We can never go wrong being thankful and making it a daily practice.

Most likely you have your own Komodo dragons appearing in your life. They are opportunities to be kind to yourself, to be thankful, to even find moments of peace. Take them.

Let there be peace on earth. And let it begin with me.       – Jill Jackson Miller

How Do We Know If They’re Meant to Be Ours?

/ still a dreamer / 2 Comments

Times come in our lives when we are ready to open our hearts and homes to a new animal. But how do we know which is the right one for us? The one that is truly meant to be ours?

A little over 13 years ago, one of my two pit bull terriers passed away from complications of cancer. She had been starved and brutally abused. She’d had a very high prey drive and was dog aggressive, but she thrived in my care, and in time, also did so with my other pit bull terrier, Chloe. Chloe was at the opposite end of the spectrum; she truly loved ALL animals. With Chloe then twelve years old, I wanted her to truly enjoy her golden years with me and without the competition of another dog. But I knew she’d love a cat, and I began my search.

Every day that I was at work in the large city shelter, I took my lunch time to look at the over 200 cats awaiting adoption, asking that I please be shown the cat that was meant for me. That cat wasn’t there. Or at least not yet. Not so coincidental to this story, by the way, was the fact that in the office adjacent to mine, worked a lovely man in his 60’s. He was about 5’4″, and his wife was about 4’11”. They were a petite and adorable couple, totally devoted to each other from the days of their young marriage. I told him how happy it made me to see a couple still so in love. He told me it was bashert, i.e., “meant to be” in Yiddish. What a perfect word, I thought, and how perfectly fitting for them. I, too, was on the lookout for bashert, but on a much smaller scale.

One day in early August, I needed to go into work on my day off. Traffic on my usual route was at a standstill, so I took the back way through the neighboring town. As I drove over the familiar railroad bridge, I passed what looked like a crumpled piece of paper, but intuitively I knew better. I backed up and spotted a 5 week old tuxedo kitten, waiting to be hit by a car or plunge to his death 100 feet below.

I managed to catch the terrified and elusive kitten, brought him to the medical department for a gentle baby bath for fleas, and then to my office. Too young for inoculations, he wouldn’t fare well in a shelter with so many animals, so I decided to foster him until he was stronger – in my office on workdays, otherwise, home with me. He was so tiny, I was afraid he’d got lost or stuck in the house, so I set him up in my bedroom in a large Great Dane crate, complete with bed, blanket, litter and food and water. He screamed bloody murder.

The next evening the same. I closed the bedroom door and let him out. He made a beeline for a comforting spot under my Chloe’s chin. Mom! For two more weeks I followed this routine, everyone suggesting I keep him. My reason for not wanting to do so was that everyone will adopt a kitten; I would take a middle age or senior cat, a bonded pair, a cat with feline leukemia, i.e., a hard-to-place cat. Someone would surely fall in love with him quickly.

Then it happened. I looked at this very verbal little pipsqueak of a kitten, nestled with his new adoring mom, and found myself saying things like, “Now appearing in the Shakespearean production of I Claudipuss ….” or coaxing him with Monsieur Claude, or “Where’s my Cloudy Paws?” You get the picture.

I had asked to be shown the cat that was meant to be mine, and it had nothing to do with what I thought I wanted, but everything to do with who needed me. And so we need to be open to our choices in animals. I do believe every animal that I have had was truly meant to be mine. Perhaps I saved his or her life, perhaps in some other way, she or he saved mine. Animals are our teachers and guides, and may come to us in the most unexpected species, breeds, time and manner. They may be brought to us, or we to them, but we must always listen to our hearts.

Today that teensy feral kitten is a long and lanky 16 pound cat with tuxedo markings, but with all the features of an Oriental breed – short, smooth coat, long face, body and tail, and oh, yes, the (sometimes very annoying) vocalizations. His names today are Claudie the Dog Boy, (for all the dog tricks he happily performs), Mr. Freshy McFresh Face, and just plain Claude or Claudie. But it was those first silly names that were the tip off,  (that and his instant attachment to Chloe), that he was meant to be mine, kitten or no.

It was simply bashert.

Enchanted

/ still a dreamer

Enchanted, entranced …. swept away … by such a lovely piece of music by Mike Rowland, who I am just now discovering. Entitled “Magic Moment,” the added visuals, (by truus 1949), are just that – simply magical, a reminder of such moments – so often in our lives and not noticed, or just a star’s breath ahead of us – and a reminder of how beautiful we actually are. Watch and summon your own true beauty. Feel the magic always in our lives if we just let ourselves be.