With Rhyme Or Reason

Have you ever had inspiration hit while sleeping? You wake up with the answer to a problem, or an idea or vision. I think it happens because the creative force of our subconscious mind is in the driving seat instead of our logical mind. This happened to me this morning. I was semi awake and then lil Jasmine woke up for a feed. It was about 6.00 am. Once I had settled her I realised I had these words in my head. This has happened to me before. Sometimes I act on the inspiration, although sadly there have been other times when I have gone back to sleep and the idea has evaporated.

Well this morning I paid attention and got up to write the words down. The subject is one that has been on my mind lately. Loss, dying and impermanence affect us all eventually. While losing people in our life is always difficult, there are times when it seems tragically unjust. All I can do is trust that there is some Divine plan behind it all that takes people, seemingly before their time. How important it is to show those we love how much they mean to us, when we can, for none of us know when our or their time will come to leave this sphere of existence.

These are the words that came to me this morning:

In the Sound

My voice will still speak out to you
In the sound of the rustling of the leaves
Please know that I am happy now
Even now while everybody grieves

I know that you feel guilty, angry and sad
For my passing, for my loss
I did not intend to leave you, but
It was my time to move across

My voice will still call out to you
In the sound of the waves upon the seas
It is my wish that that you remember me
Not as I passed, but as I was, I ask you please

My eyes still look out at you from
The photos that mark our love
Please trust these same eyes
Now watch over you, from above

My voice will still comfort you
In the sound carried on the breeze
Although I can not touch you
I still hold you, to comfort and to ease

Letting go is hard to do, but
Know that it’s each hearts goal
To learn that nothing lasts forever
Except love and our eternal soul

My voice will still guide you
In the sound and colours of your dreams
In the fabric of your inner life
I am part of the thread that holds the seams

Remember me and speak to me,
For I am always here,
Even though now I am gone
Just know, that I am always near

My voice will still laugh with you
In the sound of birds flying overhead
I may not walk among you
But know that my spirit is not dead

Life has its changing seasons and
We all must leave this place
When our time has come
There are no exceptions in this case

My voice will still converse with you
In the sound of the stillness of your mind
I have no pain; I feel only peace and joy
I’ve come home to the love we all must find

Just know that when it is your turn
We’ll embrace; I will be waiting here for you
In this place of light & beauty
The place you’ll remember you always knew

My voice will still be there for you
In the sound of the beating of your heart
While your memories hold me
We are together, never apart

Creating Space

It's that time of year again, when I feel the urge to do a "spring clean". (Yes I do know that it is nearly autumn.) I always see spring and autumn as seasons of transition. I love all of the seasons, but I feel the need to cleanse my home and my life generally at this time of year, as if to prepare for the coming winter months. Incidentally my most successful detoxes have usually been in September.

For me spring cleaning is a permanently on-going process, a way of life and a state of mind, but there are times when I am more focused on creating space than usual. Clutter clearing never seems to be finished! Really I aspire to a minimalist lifestyle, with no clutter anywhere and discreet storage everywhere, where the eyesight flows along clear surfaces and while I believe this is achievable (hopefully) stuff just seems to accumulate, especially paper clutter. Whenever I feel a little sluggish or bogged down or as if the energy in my life and environment doesn't seem to be flowing smoothly, a good clutter clear feels so good!

I view clutter clearing and spring cleaning holistically. Something that works on all levels, body mind and spirit. I tackle my home, I try to clear out my physical system by eating healing foods and I try to clear the junk from my mind too. I try to create sacred space within my home and revitalise all aspects of my life. Due to the interconnectedness of all things, I also believe that the external environment is merely a physical expression of the internal environment, so that by clearing out that cupboard under the stairs, your wardrobe, the kitchen drawer, you really are cleaning your body, mind and spirit too! Working externally affects the internal condition, just as inner work affects the external condition.

Creating space allows Divine providence to act more effectively in your life. Divine Providence is where what you need comes to you when you need it. For example, the other day I was generously given a hoover by a neighbour who was buying a new one. Now I already have a vacuum cleaner, so I didn't really need one but this was a Dyson, so looked nicer and newer than my vacuum cleaner which has probably seen better days and was already quite old when it was given to me (although it has always worked perfectly)! At this point I did think "oh no two hoovers, more clutter!". A couple of days later my partner, who is a builder, was working in a lady's house and she a room full of stuff she wanted to get rid of, including a computer. Now my own computer's memory was choc-a-block and I really needed a bigger hard drive, so I was very happy when my partner came home with a computer with a slightly bigger hard drive / memory than mine! I transferred my stuff on to the new(er) one and cleaned up my one. I was able to give the old computer to my friend who didn't have one (as she says, bringing her out of the dark ages) and amazingly it turned out that the lady who had kindly given me her computer.......needed a hoover! Its amazing how things work out! Thats what I call Divine providence in action! I needed a computer with more memory and the Law of Attraction set to work and hey presto! I got exactly what I needed and a lovely new vacuum cleaner too! Not only did I get what I needed but I was able to act as an agent of Divine Providence and pass on to others what they needed. Isn't life amazing?

So over the next few days I shall be clearing out, tidying up, cleaning, shredding, chucking, recycling, deleting (musn't forget the computer) filing, pruning, re-organising and cleansing. All of this is in an effort to create space. Space allows the brain to think more freely, energy to flow, the body to move. Space in your home allows the energy to move and to shift things in your life. Who knows what amazng things will happen as a result!

Not enough Hours In The Day

I don't know about you, but maintaining self discipline, motivation and time management is difficult for me. In my professional life,these are issues that I have under control and can even excel in, being a very goal orientated person, but in my personal life it is a very different story, especially since I made the decision to look after my daughter full-time.

No matter what I am doing, I can't help feeling that I am supposed to be doing something else. If am am writing on the computer, I feel I should be playing with my little one, If I am playing with her, I feel I should be doing some housework, If I am cleaning up I think that perhaps I should take the opportunity for a bit of me time, If I am getting a little me time I think I should really be giving my partner some attention, and so on and so on. The fact that Jasmine feels I should be focused solely on her 100% of the time doesn't make this any easier. Prioritising is a little bit of a problem lately!

The funny thing is, I thought that by taking work out of the equation, for now at least, my life would get simpler. I now realise that your working life provides a structure for your life, perhaps because at times it seems to leave little room for anything else. I might feel I spread myself a little too thinly between various commitments and priorities now, but before I gave approximately 80% of my time and attention to work and very little was left for anything else. I didn't have time to question how my time was divided or to doubt myself, because there was no time!

I have discovered how little of myself I was able to give to my partner, family, friends, neighbours, community activities and other interests. Obviously Jasmine gets the bulk of my attention and my day is structured around her needs, such as her nap time, meal times, bed times and her routines, but I am able to focus on aspects of my life that were neglected before.

No matter what your situation, when it comes to how you divide your time, focus and priorities, compromises need to be made. Unfortunately I spend too much of my time, questioning myself, berating myself, doubting my capabilities to get things done and feeling as though I should be doing better. What a waste!

Ultimately every second, of our lives is a precious gift, and our lives are limited. No-one is given an exact timetable for our lives and so much of what we take for granted can be taken away at a moments notice. Our Life-Time is a limited resource and all of it, the good, bad, happy and sad needs to be valued for the learning experience that it is.

So my priority as of today is to stop wasting time worrying about what I should be doing with my time! So I might not get everything done, my home may not always be tidy, people may feel I don't give them as much of my time as they would like, I may not always write this blog regularly, but I will know that I am doing my best and that that is enough. I don't have time for regrets but I do have time to enjoy and value my life and the people and experiences in it!

I Haven't Abandoned My Blog !

It has been a few days since my last blog entry. Now I have been known to have problems with self discipline and while I am good at starting a new project, I am not always very good at maintaining or finishing them. But to be fair I have had my reasons for tardy blogging!

I have been concentrating my efforts of the last week on the Starlight Intuitions Forum. There have been quite a few changes.

For a start I have combined forces with Louise of TACRA which was formerly known as the "Tarot & Angel Card Readers Alliance" and is now known as the Tarot, Angel & Clairvoyants Resources Association. The site originally sold readings (I myself was a TACRA Reader) and had its own forum. I was also a moderator on the TACRA forum for a while.

Shortly after I had set up Starlight Intuitions Forum & Blog I finally had the chance to talk to my friend Louise. I discovered that Louise had taken some time out from the site and really wanted to move in a new direction, but wasn't quite sure of the specifics, and she hadn't decided what she wanted to do with the TACRA Forum. I felt I had the time to devote to a forum in addition to this blog. A solution was born.

We decided to operate as sister sites. We would move the forum membership to Starlight Intuitions, keep the old forum accessible as an archive and link to Louise's new and improved website. In turn Louise would link to Starlight Intuitions.

It's funny what happens in certain relationships. It is a though some people come in to your lives at specific time in order to help, inspire or work with you to further your goals and if you are lucky you can do the same for them. I would say Louise and I have that kind of friendship.

So for the past week I have been busy transferring the TACRA members to Starlight Intuitions, adding the new members email addresses to the email listing, writing a "Welcome Email", and sending it to all new members and placing links on the log & Forum to the TACRA sites.

I have also been making other improvements to the site. I have updated the calender to show lunar and solar astrological information, multi-faith holy days and celebrations and birthdays of esteemed individuals. There are now links to Jonathon Cainer's daily horoscopes for each sign. I have been adding and improving, tweaking and re-vamping. I hope you will notice a difference.

Anyway I just wanted to let you know that I have incorporated all the planned changes and seem to be back on top of things (for now at least) and normal service will now resume on this blog.

The one negative of this hive of activity, other than putting this blog on the back burner is that I felt I didn't give my friends and family as much of my time as I would have liked to! Last night having completed most of the planned tasks on the forum I was watching a drama programme. One of the characters was talking of the importance of enjoying the moment, of not saving things for a special occasion and putting things off till later, once you have got everything done!

Now this isn't exactly a new concept to me, but one I sometimes need reminding of! It is so easy to put things off, to wait until later, to fill your time with being busy. So just so you know, if I don't blog for a little while I am either busy, or I am busy not being busy and making time for the little things!

The Purpose of My Shadow Self

I don't know if you are anything like me in this respect, but I can't seem to stop beating myself up. Guilt is my biggest self inflicted weapon; guilt that I am not a good daughter, sister, mother, partner, friend, neighbour etc, because of all the things I felt I should have said or done but didn't, or things I said or did, but shouldn't have, as well as things I haven't finished or have put off or never got round to starting, oh and all the things I forgot. Phew, what a number I do on myself!

Now, I do know about self worth. Despite the paragraph above, believe me, I have worked on myself and I am more confident, self loving and content than I have ever been.......but it is such an addictive pattern, I can still slip into that thought stream without realising for a while. So am I really an undeserving, unworthy failure? No! But I am a perfectionist, and that is the real root of this problem.

My perfectionism isn't competitive, at least not with other people, just myself, instead, like many people on a journey of self discovery and spirituality, I want to reveal the "real" me, to peel away the layers and become as close to that divine seed which is in all of us as I can. While that is a worthy aim, nobody's perfect, and trying to achieve that goal can have a negative impact too. There is nothing wrong with not being a perfect enlightened human being, because lets face it, who do you know that is?

The thing about trying to eradicate such tendencies is that we are then left incomplete and we deny ourselves self acceptance. We have a dark side. To try to rid ourselves of it is to deny its gifts and to avoid the lessons that that part of us has to teach. If we had no dark side how would we be able to empathise with the battles and struggles others face? Without the dark how would we recognise the light?

We live an existence of duality. We incarnate into a world of complementary but opposing opposites. We have the core of divinity within us, our guiding light, but we also have freewill, the freedom to make mistakes. Our world is one of night and day, hot and cold, good and bad, but lets not forget twilight, dusk, tepid and all the other shades of grey. It is because we have the ability to make mistakes that we have the ability to learn. Without these lessons, mistakes, our dark side, how could we ever seek to become "enlightened?

The problem with doubt, guilt or anger or other similar mindsets is that your feelings, thoughts, images and resulting actions, moment to moment are what shape your future. You always get more of what you focus on, starting now! For example the more I feel guilty about something, the more the Universe will throw up situations to allow me to feel bad about myself and so it goes on in an ever increasing circle.

The most important step is to recognise your train of thought and the feeling behind it. Then ask your self what is the gift this emotion offers me? If you feel guilty, are you being shown how you would prefer to be, how you would have wanted to do things differently? Did you not follow your intuition. Forgive your self and make amends if that is what is required. Run through your head, visualise how you would like things to have gone instead and resolve to do it differently next time. Then let it go! If you feel angry is it an ego thing, or is your anger justified? Did you express it in the wrong way or did you not express it at all? Are you now smouldering with resentment and confusion? Remember anger can be a hugely destructive force, but anger has its gift. Justified anger can be the impetus for change. Even peaceful protest such as that utilised by Martin Luther King and Gandhi were sparked by justified anger against oppression and exploitation that lead these great leaders to "fight" for change albeit with no violence.

Recognise your negative emotions, try to discern the gift, let it go, and then act upon your revelation. Recognise the darkness in others and try to maintain love and patience with them, for just like we all share the same light so too do we share the same darkness. Their journey is the same as your journey,its just that we are all at different points on the path. Use your darkness to let your light shine ever brighter. Embrace your dark side and love yourself, all of yourself.

Divine Inspiration

It's taken me a long time to write todays blog entry. I sat and pondered. While I did all the other things that make up the bulk of my day I considered what I might write. Usually an idea pops into my head spontaneously, and I think "eureka" that's what I'll write about today. But that didn't happen today. I waited, in the hope that something would happen, or an inspiration would present itself, or a chance conversation might provide that last little jigsaw piece that would put my day into context. When it didn't come I avoided it. Then I tried again. I thought it through and I considered possible topics I could write about, running through them in my head, but they just weren't right. I got in my own way.

So I decided to just sit in front of my keyboard and just write my truth, what that truth consists of, for me, here and now. That is what this is. I had tried so hard to "produce" an idea that I forgot that the words are simply an expression of an inspiration. That inspiration might come through me and take on the flavour of my personality, but I don't create the inspiration, It comes unbidden from a higher source, the Source!

Obviously there are many different opinions as to the source of inspiration, the Divine, the subconscious, the Higher Self, spirit guides and so on. I don't feel the need to pin it down and rationalise it. I just feel I need to appreciate two things.

That inspiration comes from a higher place

&

the importance of not getting in my own way.

How often have you tried so hard to make something work, to achieve an specified outcome, that you have made a complete mess of it? I know I have more times than I can count! The thing is that creating an outcome needs inspiration, positive focus, and action. Desperation will not help! Frustration and impatience only hold you back. When you try so hard to engineer things to follow a particular pattern you get in the way of the flow.

If you can, focus on your desired outcome, in a positive and relaxed way, and trust that it will manifest. Trust that the inspiration you need for any given task will come. Trust that events will conspire to help you, so long as you don't worry too much about "how". Thats the essence of the saying "let go and let God". Trust in your source, whatever that means to you personally, to guide you and it will happen, regardless of what "it" might be. Keep it simple, when the inspiration comes act on it. Oh and try not to over analyse it, looking for all the reasons why it won't work! Faith and inspiration go hand in hand.

Today, I had forgotten all of this. When I remembered, I sat here in front of my keyboard with no ideas but with faith and trust and my focus on a desired outcome without asking "how" and this blog entry is the result of my getting out of my own way.

Be Careful What You Wish For.......

I don't know how it is with you. But I have to guard my thoughts very carefully! I am a great believer in the concept of self creation, that we create our own reality, the events in our lives, by our actions, words, beliefs, thoughts, feelings and intentions and that these transmit a frequency that boomerangs back to us. As in "as we give, so shall we recieve!".

Take relationships. It is our core beliefs about the men or about women and our sense of self worth that attract to us an exact match for those beliefs. Anyway I'm getting a little off track. My demonstration of this principle this morning was on a much smaller scale but no less exact for that.

I was in that sleepy semi-conscious state in the early morning, probably about 5-ish having given little one a feed, and I was thinking about my daughter and taking her to the park later today. This stream of thought lead to a bit of regret and a little guilty feeling, that perhaps , in the setting up of this blog and the forum that I had neglected her a little and I needed to spend more time with her today. I thought maybe I should have a TV free/computer free day (obviously once I had done my blog entry, "The Daily Card" for the forum, replied to any comments, posts or emails etc). I resolved to definately take lil Jasmine to the playpark.

My partner, bless him gets up at 7.30am when I have given Jasmine some more milk and he looks after her till about 8.30 so that I can catch up on a little sleep, woke me up to tell me that most of the channels had been removed from our TV service. The broadband was gone too. I spent the next 30 - 45 minutes trying to sort out the mistake my cable company had made. Now, I got it resolved thankfully, or I wouldn't be able to post this blog entry, but what an example of the Law of Attraction in action!

So whatever you do, be careful what you wish for and what emotions you are giving out, because the Universe/Divine Creator/God/Goddess/Powers That Be/Fill in The Blank, does enjoy a little joke! I'm going to keep this entry short and sweet....We're off to the park!