Welcome. Camber's comments touched and graced me. He took the time to support me, my voice. Thanks Camber (http://thinkfabulous.com). I wondered when a big chunk of my former blog disappeared: Why? Was it maybe because I could be more honest, go more deeply into the experience this next time I re-created it? Did it have too much ego - can an "I" tell of feeling spiritually stopped in its tracks and taken on an inner journey without it sounding like the I did something - without ego in it inadvertently. Or was almost half that blog (sad face) deleted because I just need to remember to save event hough it auto saves?
Honestly, I was reading a book, it happened to be by Baha'u'llah, and I was holding it, and I felt that I was holding love. The author, and the other authors of books (and blogs, etc...) that totally inspire and uplift and give you hope, sacrificed to give this to us, out of love. I realized God/Creator is not historical but present. I thought of people in history who gave their lives for truth. And inside I inched a bit more towards faith. A little more. A little more. It was OK. I didn't collapse or die out of going out of my consciousness comfort zone.
I breathed into my heart, which like the body, has its own stiffness in places from events that haven't been let go of or loved. I breathed into it. A little stiffness is OK. (I learned about breathing into your heart in a workshop called Open Your Heart originated by Robbie Gass back East. It is just breathing deeply imaigning your breath going into your heart. You can feel the holding in the breath, too). And my internal became a place with an understanding all its own. In my previous post that disappeared I said it was a book without words - a mystery.
But my day has been powered by this stoplight of inspiration, from morning getting lost on the 10, meeting cousins from out of town at the Disney Concert Hall (brought back a huge leaf that I'm pressing from the gardens with the purple beaded flowers) to celebrating birthday with Jackie and her husband Tim seeing "Iron Man" to dropping daughter with her friends in Long Beach and picking her up. It is so delightful to be inwardly happy and you smile at people at the Disney Hall and they smile back, and everyone's with you, the parking lot Hispanic woman who has the sweetest smile, the cousins, and I even noticed in walking how my ego wasn't in it - I wasn't trying to overtake my cousins (I didn't realize that previously my walk would reflect my stance in the world)- my ego wasn't trying to prove itself, and it was a joy. And I didn't need to check my e-mail or my boards I write on because of was Creator sufficed. And this was opposite of the day before with me crying and craving being seen and loved, so I really appreciate it via contrast. I had everything inside and more.
Thanks so much for stopping by.
Here is a journal question if you want one: What lessons are the people in my life offering me? Are any themes rising and falling? What boundary can I set to learn?
Who have helped open my heart...and my thanks to them.
Immerse yourself in inspiration if you like, you fountains of love, Claudia Penofgold9@sbcglobal.net
Friday, June 13, 2008
ThePOWERofPRAYERFULNESS
Hi. I am psychic... I bet your name starts with.....a consonant...or a vowel...and you came here to read something uplifting. Thank you for coming. Oh, I see you are a person with beauty and aspiration towards your highest good and the good of others. Am I correct? That will be $100. Just kidding. Welcome. It is a good day.
It is Jackie's birthday and she is a very good person. She is the type of person who listens to the radio and is feeling so bad for the people in the stories that she thinks about what she could do for those people. Is she like you in that way? Happy birthday Jackie!
I am psychic. I can read myself. Yesterday my book was empty and I was desperate for someone to see me or hear me or love me or hug me or get me, or say my name lovingly. I cried, I wrote on a board for widows asking for hi's and hugs. Frankly, and I'll only tell you this, I hadn't done my making love with the higher Forces - I hadn't done my journaling to get everything out, all the frayed edges and the rotting and mouldering thoughts. All the yearnings and the smiles when I'd seen what I had achieved lately, and discerned where I was going. I was in the hole. I was a bagel without a center, like unto many bagels.
I hadn't read spiritual writings or imbibed their fresh bread smells. I hadn't reflected on them and I hadn't been transmuted by them. And I hadn't meditated and had that bonding, that bonding with "my" Spirit.
Today, God bless me, and you, and the other guy and gal, I did journal. I asked myself: What are your needs and how can you fill them with ease and trust? What is in your heart? What else do you want to say?
{The rest of this post somehow got deleted - will complete it later, including my thanks to Camber Hill for encouragement to be my unique self) Have a delight-ing day, Claudia
It is Jackie's birthday and she is a very good person. She is the type of person who listens to the radio and is feeling so bad for the people in the stories that she thinks about what she could do for those people. Is she like you in that way? Happy birthday Jackie!
I am psychic. I can read myself. Yesterday my book was empty and I was desperate for someone to see me or hear me or love me or hug me or get me, or say my name lovingly. I cried, I wrote on a board for widows asking for hi's and hugs. Frankly, and I'll only tell you this, I hadn't done my making love with the higher Forces - I hadn't done my journaling to get everything out, all the frayed edges and the rotting and mouldering thoughts. All the yearnings and the smiles when I'd seen what I had achieved lately, and discerned where I was going. I was in the hole. I was a bagel without a center, like unto many bagels.
I hadn't read spiritual writings or imbibed their fresh bread smells. I hadn't reflected on them and I hadn't been transmuted by them. And I hadn't meditated and had that bonding, that bonding with "my" Spirit.
Today, God bless me, and you, and the other guy and gal, I did journal. I asked myself: What are your needs and how can you fill them with ease and trust? What is in your heart? What else do you want to say?
{The rest of this post somehow got deleted - will complete it later, including my thanks to Camber Hill for encouragement to be my unique self) Have a delight-ing day, Claudia
Monday, June 9, 2008
FaultsOrWounds
I think that prayer and meditation is something like making love. First the foundation is the relationship with the good communication. For me this comes from the openness of journaling, where my feelings crawl out from denial, hiding, or half-hiding, and reveal themselves. I use journal pages I've calligraphed, and made into journals, and they remind me of what is calling for attention from my body, mind, emotions and Spirit (and anywhere else - image is jelly fish oozling through a tank in an aquarium). [For info on buying journals contact me at Penofgold9@sbcglobal.net, put Journal in subject line]. Here I also get in touch with gratitude, and honoring myself for the efforts I've been making. (This has been paying off - last night in my dreams again I heard a message that was positive that I imagine was from me to me, or from someone to me - I'll take it).
Then, on a good day when I don't turn on the Internet immediately, I read. I believe we are part of a Universal Mind, and others have traveled some interesting, inspiring places in it. I sign up for a cruise: today I went on the ship Sacred Moments. There, on the calendar page for June 9 I came across a quote I was wanting to find as recently as yesterday. It is from Sophy Burnham (http://www.sophyburnham.com/):
I have learned in recent years that my faults, the defects that keep me from creating the work I want to do, are not flaws or failures. They are wounds. The merest shift in the word shifts attitude. As failure, flaws, defects, I want to crush them underfood, smash their noses in, impale their heads upon a pike and mount it on the tower wall. But this is my very soul I am impaling there, the essence of my heart. Block, the inability to proceed, signals not a defect but a wound exposed; and curiously in our wounds lie our divinity...healing comes from tenderness. Embrace the wounds, wash them, bandage them with loving care...
That was an h'ors d'oevre. I was touched by the synchronicity of life bringing me a quote I'd been wanting to find. Next I read today from Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah. Baha'ullah was a mystic who was imprisoned and exiled for 40 years for his teaching about the oneness of humankind and eliminating all prejudices. But his writings are full of Spirit, they are like energy efficient 15 billion watt bulbs. I didn't even know from Spirit until I read Baha'ullah. (Here is recent NPR story on national elections of Baha'i Faith inspired by Baha'u'llah: http://chicagopublicradio.org/Content.aspx?audioID=24887
If you follow a spiritual path, whether Buddhism or Judaism or Christianity or Hinduism or Islam or another faith or follow a teacher or guru or believe in the Higher Self or Yourself, you know what it is to be mystically inspired, and you have books that inspire you in this way. The analogy here is to slow touch, where you are able to savor the moments, in this case, what you are reading. You are as receptive as you can be at that moment, opening up your view of the world to another's as much as you can manage at that moment.
Frankly, at some point, I often find myself saying inside something like Amen, but in me it comes out: Holy Shit! It is as if I get something that I didn't quite understand before, and I have to let go of some previous view of myself and the world to embrace it. It is like the imact - meteor hits earth. What I read this morning that impacted me had to do with that our connection with the Creator, the favor we receive in communing, has nothing to do with our own merit. I started to feel like everything I had and was was from the Creator.
After that reflection I wrote:
O Grace, thank you
O Benediction, thank you
O Guidance, Light,
Help, thank you
Everything
I owe to you,
Even my
ego
which
surrenders
before
its
Source
Maybe the Holy Shit is the orgasm.
Or maybe the orgasm lasts all day or as long as you hope it can because you are making love with life and the people you see in your day from a new vantage point.
And then there is being quiet and letting in understandings, or praying for direction for the day and listening, and, on a good day remembering to listen on how to be of service. I think going to clean my house is my next item on being of service today. I suppose quiet time could be compared to the bond with a partner (or oneself) after making love. As one woman I know referred to making love with her husband, it helps us "be in the same camp."
Have a wonderful day. Please comment because I want to see if putting myself out on a limb is reaching anyone putting themselves out on their limbs, too. Or if it helps motivate you to reach out from your favorite limb. Thanks. Camber from Think Fabulous (www.thinkfabulous.com) and I talked yesterday about saying what is really authentic and how that is so much more connecting with people. So this is my experiment.
Have a wonderful day of embracing those wounds when one rears its head. It is fabulous to have an embracing relationship within oneself. And to make love with the Creator through reading, prayer and reflection.
Claudia
Then, on a good day when I don't turn on the Internet immediately, I read. I believe we are part of a Universal Mind, and others have traveled some interesting, inspiring places in it. I sign up for a cruise: today I went on the ship Sacred Moments. There, on the calendar page for June 9 I came across a quote I was wanting to find as recently as yesterday. It is from Sophy Burnham (http://www.sophyburnham.com/):
I have learned in recent years that my faults, the defects that keep me from creating the work I want to do, are not flaws or failures. They are wounds. The merest shift in the word shifts attitude. As failure, flaws, defects, I want to crush them underfood, smash their noses in, impale their heads upon a pike and mount it on the tower wall. But this is my very soul I am impaling there, the essence of my heart. Block, the inability to proceed, signals not a defect but a wound exposed; and curiously in our wounds lie our divinity...healing comes from tenderness. Embrace the wounds, wash them, bandage them with loving care...
That was an h'ors d'oevre. I was touched by the synchronicity of life bringing me a quote I'd been wanting to find. Next I read today from Gleanings from the Writings of Baha'u'llah. Baha'ullah was a mystic who was imprisoned and exiled for 40 years for his teaching about the oneness of humankind and eliminating all prejudices. But his writings are full of Spirit, they are like energy efficient 15 billion watt bulbs. I didn't even know from Spirit until I read Baha'ullah. (Here is recent NPR story on national elections of Baha'i Faith inspired by Baha'u'llah: http://chicagopublicradio.org/Content.aspx?audioID=24887
If you follow a spiritual path, whether Buddhism or Judaism or Christianity or Hinduism or Islam or another faith or follow a teacher or guru or believe in the Higher Self or Yourself, you know what it is to be mystically inspired, and you have books that inspire you in this way. The analogy here is to slow touch, where you are able to savor the moments, in this case, what you are reading. You are as receptive as you can be at that moment, opening up your view of the world to another's as much as you can manage at that moment.
Frankly, at some point, I often find myself saying inside something like Amen, but in me it comes out: Holy Shit! It is as if I get something that I didn't quite understand before, and I have to let go of some previous view of myself and the world to embrace it. It is like the imact - meteor hits earth. What I read this morning that impacted me had to do with that our connection with the Creator, the favor we receive in communing, has nothing to do with our own merit. I started to feel like everything I had and was was from the Creator.
After that reflection I wrote:
O Grace, thank you
O Benediction, thank you
O Guidance, Light,
Help, thank you
Everything
I owe to you,
Even my
ego
which
surrenders
before
its
Source
Maybe the Holy Shit is the orgasm.
Or maybe the orgasm lasts all day or as long as you hope it can because you are making love with life and the people you see in your day from a new vantage point.
And then there is being quiet and letting in understandings, or praying for direction for the day and listening, and, on a good day remembering to listen on how to be of service. I think going to clean my house is my next item on being of service today. I suppose quiet time could be compared to the bond with a partner (or oneself) after making love. As one woman I know referred to making love with her husband, it helps us "be in the same camp."
Have a wonderful day. Please comment because I want to see if putting myself out on a limb is reaching anyone putting themselves out on their limbs, too. Or if it helps motivate you to reach out from your favorite limb. Thanks. Camber from Think Fabulous (www.thinkfabulous.com) and I talked yesterday about saying what is really authentic and how that is so much more connecting with people. So this is my experiment.
Have a wonderful day of embracing those wounds when one rears its head. It is fabulous to have an embracing relationship within oneself. And to make love with the Creator through reading, prayer and reflection.
Claudia
Sunday, June 8, 2008
WhatTheCreatorBrought
me...
a refridgerator from a woman who was big and generous; it was $100 and will be delivered, and her husband whose name is the same name as my husband's (John, which is always sensitive to hear. John died two years ago). John will take away the old one, and...the woman Michelle received bags of clothes I'd been meaning to take to Good Will. It was a kind of confirmation because I'm trying to pull things together on the practical plane because I'm at a crossroads - could move to N. California or ?? visit China?? go somewhere a job is offered where there is a good school for daughter, and I'm readying my life pile by pile (and there are many...oh so many), and garbage can of grasses and branches by garbage can of grasses and branches (hired someone to help clean yards yesterday). How can I say that just looking at Michelle and us catching eyes was like a heart to heart match, like playing jacks when you catch the ball and pick up the right number of jacks but with another person.
a good conversation on the phone with a relative who I got serious about forgiving while I was praying this morning. I mean I'd thought we might never bridge the distance - that she had done the unforgiveable. I saw, a bit grudgingly, that we both have different needs. This happened after I opened a book to a section about forgiveness (Sacred Moments http://www.virtuesproject.com/index.php and it asked something like: What do you need to let go to forgive? My answer was: Let go of being right.
a fabulous conversation at Trader Joes http://www.traderjoes.com/with Camber of Think Fabulous (www.thinkfabulous.com). In our conversation I was reminded that putting the honest feelings in my blog or any writing makes it way more interesting. I've held back some on this blog (http://AffirmationBank.blogspot.com)
groceries - including frozen berries and mango pieces I drink in smoothies, and tahini spread, and organic oranges.
a note from someone I met on OK cupid - someone who lives a few states over but still wants to chat as friends!
the writing of some new affirmations:
I am open to the best direction for my family - one fulfilling, satisfying, helping our growth on all levels and allowing maximum service for what we can offer in our lfe mandala now. This or something more inspired.
I take time to tend the plants of my deepest dreams.
I can, w/effort, follow a wonderful path and schedule times and enjoy making plans for creative dreams to manifest of writing, theater, teaching, etc...
I am refining my focus so my energy can manifest.
My eyes are open and hands ready to do what needs to be done to open doors for financial stabiity and prosperity in our lives.
* * *
and...especially the Creator, also known as IS (Incomparable Sweetness), The Great Spirit, "the unknowable essence", "the central orb of the universe" brought me some reading and prayer this morning. It took me inside to that place where I would like to figure out God, and that frustration of not being able to, and then some extending of of surrender to the God that infuses creativity and arts into our lifestream. The light having thus been turned on inside for my day, I felt I was giving out beaming vibes and people responded well to me. I even ran and danced in Trader Joes when I felt to (got warmed up at my 5 Rhythms class yesterday (SpiritWeaves.com http://www.spiritweaves.com/).
Now need to clean my house and fridge in preparation for the new working fridge coming tonight with my hands that I said were ready to put in the effort! I think I'm learning something in my older age - something about the gift of taking things a bit more slowly and looking at them up close.
I am open to a fabulous date, or even some going out with a friend. It's about time. May we be purple and green and loved and happy and thankful.">
a refridgerator from a woman who was big and generous; it was $100 and will be delivered, and her husband whose name is the same name as my husband's (John, which is always sensitive to hear. John died two years ago). John will take away the old one, and...the woman Michelle received bags of clothes I'd been meaning to take to Good Will. It was a kind of confirmation because I'm trying to pull things together on the practical plane because I'm at a crossroads - could move to N. California or ?? visit China?? go somewhere a job is offered where there is a good school for daughter, and I'm readying my life pile by pile (and there are many...oh so many), and garbage can of grasses and branches by garbage can of grasses and branches (hired someone to help clean yards yesterday). How can I say that just looking at Michelle and us catching eyes was like a heart to heart match, like playing jacks when you catch the ball and pick up the right number of jacks but with another person.
a good conversation on the phone with a relative who I got serious about forgiving while I was praying this morning. I mean I'd thought we might never bridge the distance - that she had done the unforgiveable. I saw, a bit grudgingly, that we both have different needs. This happened after I opened a book to a section about forgiveness (Sacred Moments http://www.virtuesproject.com/index.php and it asked something like: What do you need to let go to forgive? My answer was: Let go of being right.
a fabulous conversation at Trader Joes http://www.traderjoes.com/with Camber of Think Fabulous (www.thinkfabulous.com). In our conversation I was reminded that putting the honest feelings in my blog or any writing makes it way more interesting. I've held back some on this blog (http://AffirmationBank.blogspot.com)
groceries - including frozen berries and mango pieces I drink in smoothies, and tahini spread, and organic oranges.
a note from someone I met on OK cupid - someone who lives a few states over but still wants to chat as friends!
the writing of some new affirmations:
I am open to the best direction for my family - one fulfilling, satisfying, helping our growth on all levels and allowing maximum service for what we can offer in our lfe mandala now. This or something more inspired.
I take time to tend the plants of my deepest dreams.
I can, w/effort, follow a wonderful path and schedule times and enjoy making plans for creative dreams to manifest of writing, theater, teaching, etc...
I am refining my focus so my energy can manifest.
My eyes are open and hands ready to do what needs to be done to open doors for financial stabiity and prosperity in our lives.
* * *
and...especially the Creator, also known as IS (Incomparable Sweetness), The Great Spirit, "the unknowable essence", "the central orb of the universe" brought me some reading and prayer this morning. It took me inside to that place where I would like to figure out God, and that frustration of not being able to, and then some extending of of surrender to the God that infuses creativity and arts into our lifestream. The light having thus been turned on inside for my day, I felt I was giving out beaming vibes and people responded well to me. I even ran and danced in Trader Joes when I felt to (got warmed up at my 5 Rhythms class yesterday (SpiritWeaves.com http://www.spiritweaves.com/).
Now need to clean my house and fridge in preparation for the new working fridge coming tonight with my hands that I said were ready to put in the effort! I think I'm learning something in my older age - something about the gift of taking things a bit more slowly and looking at them up close.
I am open to a fabulous date, or even some going out with a friend. It's about time. May we be purple and green and loved and happy and thankful.">
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