(Photos by Microsoft Clipart) ~~ How many of you have walked along a path in the park or through the woods and felt the energy of nature. The aliveness of life is fresh and soothing as you hear the birds singing and smell the earth as you put one foot in front of the other. And then…there are the trees standing tall with light streaming down through their branches.

I love trees no matter what size, no matter what type. It always gives me a twinge whenever I hear someone having to clear their land and cut down trees. A part of me aches for the trees. I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because they are rooted and cannot run for their lives.

I read this beautiful little book by Kent Nerburn called, Small Graces: The Quiet Gifts of Everyday Life. In it he talks about making friends with trees no matter where he lives. He finds we have so much in common with them. Here is what he says,

“They have their feet on the ground, their heads in the sky. They respond to the movement of the wind, the changes of the season. They have moods, aridities, joys. They like company.

In their scale they are perhaps our most intimate companions; their lives are understandable in years, not aeons; their size in feet, not miles. We can watch them grow, give forth their fruit, send forth their young. We can touch them without feeling alien, or as if we are violating their wildness. We sense their private courage.”

I’m a tree hugger. I remember one time, when I was working as a loan officer for mortgages, I would walk around my neighborhood getting to know my neighbors and leaving a door hanger with a little gift and postcard soliciting my services. I called it my walk-abouts. Because we live in the mountains you don’t see all the homes tucked away down a lonesome lane or up a long, wooded driveway passing by in a car as you do when you’re on foot.

So, I picked this asphalt driveway. It looked nice with an open gate and a stone entryway. I started walking, and then hiked as this driveway turned into a road and took many twists and turns taking me up higher through trees and rock outcroppings. I had walked in almost a mile when the road opened up to valleys all around and more trees and I could see below to the highway. It was beautiful but I was wondering where this road was leading me.

As I continued walking, I came upon this strangely shaped tree just off the asphalt. It almost looked like an adult pine tree shaped similar to a bonsai and, as I approached, it seemed to call to me. I stood and admired it and it communed with me without words. I put my arms around it and hugged it and felt its strength and “private courage” as Kent Nerburn said in the passage above.

I continued on and at the end the road turned into a circle drive with a beautiful log home rising up like The Ponderosa with its separate mother-in-law home to the side and an outdoor, colored rubber basketball court against the huge outcroppings. I thought I’d come upon a mansion. No one was home and their Rottweiler guard dog was a little suspicious of me.

I left my door hanger while keeping an eye on their dog and made my way back down the road happy with my adventure and over taken with the majestic beauty before my eyes. I greeted the uniquely shaped tree in passing on my way down and thanked it for the energy it shared with me that day.

I’d often contemplated what they might have thought, if they had security cameras, seeing this “crazy” lady walking up their road, hugging a tree, talking to their dog and leaving a door hanger. Not long after that I no longer worked in the mortgage industry and they closed their gates and I honored that. What a shame that door closed.

At least I know of a beautiful home not far from mine that is embraced with a curiously wonderful tree that I might have an occasion to see again on some other opportunity, perhaps on another adventure.

If you get a chance – hug a tree. You might be surprised by their warmth and energy and willingness to commune and share secrets – captured by their private courage.

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I think I’m writing this tonight more because I need to hear it for myself….Don’t give up. It has a warm, encouraging sound to it full of hope and support as well as strength and empowerment. I think we all need to hear these words from time to time, especially when we’re weary from the challenges.

“Most of the important things in the world have been accomplished by people who have kept on trying when there seemed to be no hope at all.”

Photo by Microsoft Office Clipart

(Holy Bible KJV Matthew 6:25 and 27-29)~~ Jesus said:

“Therefore I say unto you, “Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment?”

“Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?”

“And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin;”

“And yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.”

That has always been such a beautiful passage to me, “Consider the lilies of the field how they grow…”, one which helps me to remember to surrender those things which I have no control over, to be thankful with what I’ve been blessed and to use the gifts I’ve been given to shine light where ever I can.

It’s important to remember the things that count when you need a lift, when you need to hear the words, “Don’t give up”, because you are loved. “You are loved!” I feel loved and I am encouraged when I hear these words. I hope you are too.

(Photo by Microsoft Office Clipart) ~~ I have heard this preached, discussed, sung and written about down through the years. This truth is put right out there and yet I don’t think we have really grasped it yet, at least in the depth that’s needed in the world today. Not yet..but it’s beginning. We’re awakening.

Tom Volkar of Delightful Work commented recently on one of my posts saying, “Forgiveness gets a lot easier for me when I remember that we are all one.” It made me think about oneness and what I have come to learn about it and wonder, “How much do I really feel and believe about this?”

To what extent can I believe we are all one? Forgiveness puts it on the line with this belief. Can you say it depends? I’ll believe we’re all one when the circumstance and situation is right. But that’s not how it works.

If you believe we’re all one with your child, mother, father or friend then we must also believe we are all one with the one who hurt you or deceived me….or the murderer or rapist. But what are we all one with?

We are all one with the life force that is in everyone – the essence. It’s what continues on after we die. It’s what is living through us right now. The only problem is that we’ve identified with form, this body, and what that does and how that acts. We are not one with what people say or do or how they act, we are one with the essence that is in them – in you and me.

My daughter and I were talking yesterday about what we’re learning from Eckhart Tolle’s book, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose (Oprah’s Book Club, Selection 61)(Paperback). Something she said in our discussion about ego and the pain people endure struck me and opened my understanding more on the depth with which we’re loved.

She had heard Tolle say from one of his lectures something like, “There is nothing in this world that can be done to you that can touch your essence.” Your Beingness is untouchable. It is that essence, that life force creation from God that resides in each of us that can never be touched. When I think about this, I feel the incredible love our Creator has for us in this given protection.

No matter what shape or form it shows up in your life and in your world, WE ARE ALL ONE connected to Life Force. It’s that part that bonds us together. When we remember to look for that in each other we will learn to forgive…we will begin to awaken and our world will be transformed.

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(Photo by Microsoft Office Clipart)~~ This is not the easiest topics to talk about. One, because we don’t think we have anything to forgive others about; and two, we just aren’t willing to be responsible for the parts we play.

It’s hard for the Little Soul to know and feel himself as Light and forgiveness when he is surrounded by Light and there’s no one in heaven to forgive.

Then a friend of the Little Soul’s appears to help. The Friendly Soul said he could give him someone to forgive. In the Little Soul’s next lifetime the Friendly Soul would do something for him to forgive. He would slow down his vibration and become dark and dense. He would do this for him because he loves him.

They both had come together many times before each bringing the other what they needed in the perfect moment to express and experience who they really are. Now, the Friendly Soul in this lifetime would be the ‘bad one’ so the Little Soul could experience himself as the One Who Forgives.

The Friendly Soul only asks one thing in return and that is for the Little Soul to remember who he is. For if the Little Soul forgets they both may not be able to remember for a long time Who They Both Really Are. The Little Soul promised and God said smiling, “Always remember, I have sent you nothing but angels.”

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(Photo by Microsoft Office Clipart) ~~ We all have them but where do they come from and where do we go when we’re dreaming? Do we leave our bodies and travel to places and dimensions only our spirits know of?

Where ever we are when we’re dreaming it seems so real – it’s like a fantasy. I think it was Rumi that wrote something like …. When he slept he dreamt he was a man dreaming he was a butterfly and when he awoke he didn’t know if he was a man dreaming he was a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming he was a man. What do you think? Have you had those dreams when you awoke it felt like you were still dreaming? It took you awhile to get grounded or back to Earth, so to speak.

Dreams sometimes give you a message. A long time ago in the late ‘70’s I had a vivid dream. I saw a distant newspaper spinning and coming towards me and when it got close it stopped spinning with bold headlines PLANE CRASH – NO SURVIVORS – AFL FOOTBALL TEAM. I sat straight up in bed and in my mind’s eye I could still see the headlines. When I closed my eyes I could still see them. I knew this team and it is a favorite one of mine. I was shaken. My husband woke up and I told him of the dream and we talked and he settled me down enough to get back to sleep but the next morning I couldn’t shake the urgency of the dream.

All I knew to do was pray….and pray more until there was peace. I knew the team would be leaving that week to prepare for a game that weekend and prayed and enlisted prayer chains to also pray. No plane crash ever happened, thank God, and I don’t know what it was about from this side of heaven. Maybe I’ll find out some day.

In his book, Wisdom Of The Ages, Dr. Wayne Dyer quotes from an intellectual spokesman for the English Romantic movement, Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834):

Something to think about – and dream about – sweet dreams.

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