October 26, 2009

TODAY'S TUNE [ON/OFF]

"Rainbow/Wonderful World"
"A Voice of Hawai'i"
Learn More HERE

If the song doesn't play, simply:
ENTER HERE to open a media window.

Fascinating Facts...
First There Was the
Feast of Samhain

Yes You Can!...
Pay More Attention to
the Knocks, Bumps
& Whooshes

Just for YOU...
Treats & Announcements

Online All the Time...
Computer Tips, Travel Guides, Books, Quotes, Music & More

BE the World
You Want to See!

"After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with color, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked — as I am surprisingly often — why I bother to get up in the mornings." ~Richard Dawkins, British Author

~ Chelle Thompson, Editor

GO HERE TO FIND OUT HOW
... you can help people all around the world without a bit of risk to yourself!

From the Inside Out
OUR TRUE NATURE

Throughout the ages settings of great beauty and the depths of the wilderness have been the contexts in which significant realizations have occurred.

St. Francis, in a far cry from the conventional image of a pious nature-loving saint, was actually a passionate practitioner of the use of wilderness to transform consciousness. His numerous forty-day fasts were nearly all in remote wilderness locations: mountaintops and islands.

The prophet Mohammed established his fundamental relationship with the inner world on a desert mountain, wrapped by starlight and the crystalline purity of a desert night wind.

The Buddha explored the vast intricacies of his inner being in remote forest settings. A much-overlooked participant in his enlightenment experience was the tree he sat beneath as he anchored himself into eternity. Much of humanity has, in their own ways, stepped out into nature and come back restored, renewed, and realigned.

Florence Nightingale received the calling for her life work in a garden. Carl Jung credits hours of contemplation as a child upon a rock in his back yard to the capacity he was to have later in life for delving deeply into the psyche.

Thomas Jefferson, recovering from severe migraines that would debilitate him for weeks, would ride his favorite horse to a distant waterfall to find healing and the strength to help steer the founding of a nation.

Why does a walk in nature provide such deep restoration? We are a species in the process of becoming natural. Finding our true nature, so that we can take up our place in the great dance of the cosmos, is the fundamental act of our lives. Go to a Zen temple or a Christian monastery, and you will see an architecture of simple forms repeating themselves. The temple of nature has its own architecture of elegant repetition. This repetition of basic form reinforces the direct experience of underlying patterning. When we awaken to such patterning we can rest some of the struggles and conflicts that live within us. The same patterning that flows through a forest, meadow, or mountainside lives deeply within our psyches.

As conscious beings we are both a part of the external nature we experience through our senses and the more subtle realms of nature that are emanations of pure consciousness. All philosophy and essential religious experience emanates from a direct perception of the depth and beauty of nature. For in the end nature does not stop at the tip of a leaf or a leap of a salmon. The flow of nature rises, in elegantly apportioned vibrational levels, from the solidity of stone to the force of pure truth.

A walk in nature can help bring about one of the most essential acts a human being can perform: the stilling of the mind. For when the cacophony of disturbances, reactions, and self-talk subsides, like a windswept sea suddenly finding calm, the lens of our lives becomes a still, pure crystalline window for the cosmos to experience itself through. A walk in the natural world, with conscious mindfulness, can help bathe the senses in the implicate ordering of existence. Such a direct and immediate reminder does much to help steer us back to the center of ourselves.

An often-asked question in these times of enormous global change is: “What can I do to make a difference?” When we answer the call of evolution by unfolding our inherent capacities, we have taken an act that has far-ranging results.

For when we begin to liberate the divine potential within ourselves, we begin to contribute to the world. The contributions we make from a state of inner stillness, in which Guidance becomes tangible, will have an unerring exactness and precision that can help alleviate even the most powerful difficulties in the world. If there is any doubt about this process, consider what Gandhi was able to accomplish.

~ By David La Chapelle, environmental writer and a regular contributor to
the Institute of Noetic Sciences Magazine. He has been a Healer for 25 years,
taught at the Naropa Institute, and has led countless training, retreat,
and Wilderness Quest groups. He lives in Juneau, Alaska.

*Other Stories & More*

*READ OUR CORRESPONDING ARTICLE: "ECOTHERAPY: Slowing Down to Nature's Pace" Meaningful Life Answers & Encouragement Blogboard

Fascinating Facts
FIRST THERE WAS THE FEAST OF SAMHAIN...

Halloween Around the World? LEARN MORE HERE

Yes You Can!
PAY MORE ATTENTION TO THE KNOCKS, BUMPS & WHOOSHES!

Halloween brings to light our memories and our apprehensions and enlivens our imagination. Each year we honestly portray ourselves as something other than who we are, and venture out into the night fearlessly asking for what we want from strangers and friends. The chant, “Trick or Treat!” resounds on neighborhood streets, with a telltale confidence that our abundant rewards, sweet and freely given, fill the largest container we dare to hold. Life, too, offers us the opportunity to boldly request our desires from others as well as the Universe. Just as our expectations of creepy “things that go bump in the night” sometimes come to fruition at Halloween, other evidence of things outside of ourselves interjecting with our humanity, finds its way into our daily experience. Knock-Knock! More than just a childhood formulaic riddle, spirit knocking on the door of our consciousness forces us to awaken to new possibilities. My friend Ann’s condo, replete with sounds and noises from unearthly visitors, resonates with a loud knock, or rap on her wooden front door. The wooden door is closed and behind a locked metal security door so no one can make contact with the wood, yet the sounds echo throughout her living room – loud enough that her neighbors hear it, too! Ann gave up going to the door to see her anxious caller because after dozens of times, she found no one there. Spirit knocks on our door, too. Many times Spirit is there asking for an invitation to enter our lives, yet finds us not home to answer. Over and over, we hear the call to a greater life, and either ignore it or find we cannot face the greatness it offers. We must prepare ourselves equally to knock on the door of opportunity and to answer the call when opportunity beckons us. Take the initiative to dare for a great life and you may just receive a “treat!” you weren’t expecting! Bump! From fender benders, to bumper cars, we often equate a bump with a collision in transportation. We’ve all heard the “bumps in the night” which startle us from sleep yet we dismiss such noises as the house settling or our pets rousting about. Bumping into unseen forces, we sometimes feel a hovering entity or looming feeling surrounding us, daring to collide with our circumventing comfort zone. With our bodies as vehicles transporting us on the planet, collisions occur naturally with others and with Spirit around us. Nothing to fear, these gentle bumps into our beingness serve to remind us and alert us of the awakened world in which we roam. Like the bumper in a pinball machine, Life stands there, solid and immovable, waiting for us to bump into it. We dart off in a different direction, most times not due to any epiphany of understanding, rather from the shock of the bump itself – the bump we created. When Life or Spirit bumps into us, it renders a touching reminder for us to awaken to the events and emotions around us while we make our way on the planet. From the premonitory diversion to avoid an accident, to the gentle nudge into something better, Life reminds us of the power of the Infinite as a gentle teacher. Whoosh! The older we grow, the quicker time passes. Our perception and vantage point change as time reflects against the accumulation of our experience. Time, as we interpret it through man-made dials and clocks, remains constant and some say, circular or infinite. Unseen thoughts, entities and even energies wrap around us, check us out, and whisk away – in an instant. The indescribable feeling of déjà vu, or the instinctive choices we make, represents our higher selves responding to Life. When life streaks by us in our unaware state of the daily banal, we waste precious time in the coma of disengagement. Awaken from the sleep of drudgery and live the life you want to live! Too often we “wake up” and we find our children getting married – wondering where did their childhood go? Could twenty years pass without your conscious awareness of it? Worse yet – did those years whoosh by without our enjoyment and fulfillment of precious moments? Halloween reminds us to step outside of our normal persona to experience something new. With the eerie knocks, bumps and whooshes, we attract that which we fear but know is real. It’s easy to blame playful ghosts for the pranks they often wield on us, when our true fears lie within us – and we’re too afraid to face them. As nurturer of our spirits and benevolent guide, Life knocks on the door of our consciousness offering us a deeper existence, bumps into us and diverts us onto a higher path and whooshes by us reminding us that it’s never too late to wake up! ~Taking a quiet sideways glance at life, Marlene Buffa offers insight through her words from experiences. A student of new-thought teachings, Marlene finds practical spirituality around every corner and seeks wisdom through observation of life’s inter-relationships. Sometimes playful, sometimes poignant, always thought-provoking, her writing inspires readers in meaningful ways. www.WordsOfMind.com

Just for YOU
TREATS & ANNOUNCEMENTS

RECOMMENDED GOODIES