Music Between the Notes

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(Photos by Microsoft Clipart) ~~ We just started to get a rain shower tonight. What a wonderful break to have rain instead of snow.

As I sit listening to the patter of drops pondering what to write, I think of the beauty and wonder of this world and how most of the time we’re unconscious and miss so much of it. Just a little thing like a gentle rain can remind us to stop and listen to life that is going on all around and within us.

We miss it because we’re looking only with our eyes and ears and if it’s not obvious we move on. The essence – life – is the pause of your breath before you exhale, the feel of the air and expansion of the sky as you step outside, the sound of your heartbeat and the music between the notes.

Herein lies the key to a New World. The changes you’ve been believing in and praying for is already in our midst and in our presence if we would only look and listen with our soul eyes instead of our physical eyes.

Moment-to-moment and hour-by-hour, we can learn to be aware of the unseen and unspoken nuances around us and bring them into whatever we’re doing at the time allowing that energy to flow through us.

As Eckhart Tolle quotes from Hafiz, a 14th century Persian poet and Sufi master, as translated by Daniel Ladinsky in The Gift:

“I am a hole in a flute that the Christ’s breath moves through. Listen to this music.”

The answers we are looking for cannot be found in thought or form. We can’t use the same physical eyes and ears to understand. It’s as if we have to put that aside and listen as the animals listen. They are in tune with the energies and unseen forces of life and nature. That’s why they knew to move to higher ground when the tsunami hit in 2004.

Listening to the gentle rain connects me to the whole and I feel complete. For a little time, I’m conscious and sense the awesomeness of life. Sweet.

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One Hundred Posts

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(Pictures by Microsoft Clipart) ~~ Woohoo! This is my 100th post. I’m dancing around happy – ecstatic of this accomplishment, for me. You have to understand that this is the last thing I ever imagined I would do is write.

As a child growing up, I didn’t like to read. My father read all the time to the point it became a pet peeve to me. It would be nice outside and he would sit there with his nose in a book. I thought it was the biggest waste of time.

In school, when book reports were due, I would read a few chapters in the beginning, middle and end and look at the front and back inlays for a summary of the book and write my report. Then, I would pray there would be no test or called upon for questions and answers. It worked some times but most often it didn’t.

Then, I married and, guess what, my husband loved to read and more than my father. So, it was then that I thought I’d better get serious and read a book or two. It was a slow go and over the years I developed a love for reading. In fact, my husband has his bookcase with his favorite books and I have mine. I’ve actually filled up a bookcase with my favorite books. Now, I love to read and look forward to quiet times on the weekend, when the weather is stormy, curled up with a good book.

I have a lot of ground to make up for all those lost years but the books are not going anywhere. In fact, with this discovery of writing, I may one day add my own contribution to the volumes already published. I never knew you could write and feel so fulfilled and amazed as the story unfolds. It’s like something talks through you and words pour out on the screen. When I’m finished, I’m in wonder as to where it came from.

So, in light from where I’ve come, what I’ve learned in the process and what I have accomplished, I thank you for coming along on this journey with me, reading and sharing your thoughts and wisdom.

I INVITE YOU TO JOIN ME IN THIS CELEBRATION OF MY 100TH POST

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Irish Blessing

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I went to a memorial service today in honor of a dear friend who had passed away last week. It was a celebration, actually, and as I sat there and listened to the stories told of his life I wondered what he was doing and what it was like where he was now on his continued journey in a different form.

He was a prayerful man, and in the service they shared this Irish Blessing and it was as if I could hear him imparting this message to each one of us with love.

Credits to Ellie112001 – An Irish Blessing – on YouTube

The rhythms of life are sure and true and there comes a time when our lives blend more with the spiritual than the physical and we find ourselves at a juncture to where we cross over. It’s a mystery – one that most fear.

It’s comforting to think that life doesn’t end when we die. It just picks up and continues in a different dimension invisible to our eyes still connecting us in some way. Just as Emily Dickinson said as quoted from Dr. Wayne Dyer in Wisdom Of The Ages:

THE SINGLE HOUND
This quiet dust was gentlemen and ladies,
And lads and girls;
Was laughter and ability and sighing,
And frocks and curls.
This passive place a summer’s nimble mansion,
Where bloom and bees
Fulfill’d their oriental circuit,
Then ceased, like these.

Everything changes in the world of form and that includes us. Part of the suffering comes from wanting to hold onto what we have and the people we love but it’s not designed that way. So, in time we learn to let go and bless the moments, things and people that come in and out of our lives. We learn to be present.

So, for now, as I bid farewell to my dear friend likewise extending to him the Irish Blessing, I’m reminded of a passage written by Kent Nerburn in Simple Truths: Clear & Gentle Guidance on the Big Issues in Life (page 109):

“When we come to the end of our journey, and the issues that so concerned us recede from us like the day before the coming night, it will be these small touches – the child we have helped, the garden we have planted, the meal we have prepared when we were too weary to do so – that will become our legacy to the universe.”

“It is a small legacy, perhaps, but a legacy nonetheless. Somewhere, between a baby’s cry and the distant brightness of a star, the mystery was alive in us for a moment. It was our privilege to feel its presence, and to have the chance to pass it on.”

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Arbor Day – April 25th

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Today, at lunch time, I got out and took a walk around a park not far from work. If those old trees could talk, I wonder what stories they would tell of times past and the people they saw and the changes they bore.

It felt good to shed some of those winter garments and breathe in some fresh air. The trees are starting to bud and some of the crab apple trees are already in blossom dressed in pinks and whites. I caught a drift of the scent of those blossoms as I walked out of the building. Ahhhh.

(Photos by Microsoft Clipart) ~ What a beautiful time of the year, Spring, when everything begins to awaken from the long months of rest over the winter. The sky seems brighter and you can hear the birds chirping louder in the morning as if they’re calling up the sun. Earth shows its life force in the change of seasons – in Spring with endurance coming back from winter and vulnerability in the Fall when it gives in to dormancy and rest.

Arbor Day is officially recognized the last Friday in April and people all around celebrate by planting a tree.

I remember one year we got 10 free Colorado Spruce trees for becoming a member to the Arbor Day Foundation. We had 8 of them going strong until we had to transplant them. We had started them in the wrong place behind our shed and they were growing fast.

We only have 2 left after transplanting but they are doing well – about 2-1/2 feet tall. Not bad from small beginnings as a suckling in the Rocky Mountains. One day, I hope to see them grow tall enough to decorate for Christmas.

It makes me wonder – one group is encouraging the planting of trees while the other group is thinning forests and mitigating. I hope they all are in balance in what it is they’re promoting.

With all that humans have done to disrupt the natural cycles, it is all the more fitting for more of us to join in and give our support to turn things around and support Nature and this beautiful planet on which we live.

So, go plant a tree, rake up the grass, clean out the flower beds, get your hands dirty and smell the earth.

With Nature doing its job of stirring and waking up, the reflections of books read and lessons learned also begin to rise in my Spirit. I’m connected to the awakening process of this season and the stirrings within my soul. I’m excited for the new growth and fresh beginnings.

It’s a new season. Look all around, you can see the signs and you can also see the secret language within emerging in this new awakening.

Pat from the ol’ kitchen table

Solitude and Loneliness

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(Photo by Microsoft Clipart) ~~ These are two very different subjects yet somewhat related in the sense of our needs and awareness.

I thought about this when I read a passage from Kent Nerburn’s book entitled Simple Truths (pg. 57) where he says:

“Solitude is a condition of peace that stands in direct opposition to loneliness. Loneliness is like sitting in an empty room and being aware of the space around you. It is a condition of separateness. Solitude is becoming one with the space around you. It is a condition of union.”

It’s true. You can be in a crowded room and feel isolated, cut off, alone. Yet, you can be miles from civilization on a mountain top with only the trees, sky and wind as your companions and feel as if you’re one with all of life.

Why is that? How can we have such contrasting states of being? It’s not just different people experiencing solitude or loneliness but this contrast can appear within us at different times of our lives. What are we focusing on that gives us such peace or turmoil?

When we feel the world is unfair and not providing what we want, we put ourselves in a state of isolation and loneliness. It is not that the world is necessarily being unfair but it is that our understanding is only centered on self and we get fearful or uncomfortable when it’s not going our way. We are focusing only on the external and if it satisfies our needs or not. We want people, things, to fulfill us and they can’t. They aren’t designed to fulfill that longing and desire deep within.

On the other hand, solitude is the surrendering of self allowing the fullness of life to flow and be experienced. It is in this state where we find peace and fulfillment unlike anything a temporary external form could provide. It is in this peaceful place of the ebb and flow of life where we operate in handling the noise and endless chatter.

You don’t have to go to a mountain top to find solitude. We take it with us where ever we go – it is within us. There will always be countless errands to run and endless labors of life long after we’re gone. Accept the rhythms of life and when you need to take the time breathe in and feel peace and solitude right there with you – never to leave – and you won’t feel lonely.

As Nerburn goes onto say:

“Though this may sound mystical and abstract, the universe has an eternal hum that runs beyond our individual birth and death. It is a hum that is hard to hear through the louder and closer noise of our daily lives. .. It makes us part of something larger. In solitude alone do we become part of this great eternal sound.”

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