June 26th, 2016: Joy Guides

This morning I woke up, and chose a book from the many that I had borrowed at the Library yesterday.  It didn't work, so I chose another.  These first two are going back, I think.  They were written in first person, and the lead character was chattering on...my ears felt assaulted...the person would stop talking when I stopped reading - but would begin the incessant chatter once I started reading again.  Mismatch.  Both will be going back today or tomorrow.

I pulled three cards from a deck that I use to support centering and focus in my life.  The first card suggests an attitude or frame of mind with which to approach an issue, the second points to a way to shift the present energy towards a higher level, and the third suggests what I may be overlooking.  Here's what I drew:

 The first is attending to my physical body.  Duh.  No Brainer.  I have not been nurturing my body - even driving it like a slave master.  This truly does point to the attitude with which I need to move forward.  I am grateful - again - to be reminded of the obvious.

 The second is a "note to self" - a reminder that all of us - me, included -  are children of Spirit, and that "Any self-rejection and self-criticism" I may feel are "wounds inflicted" on me by an "unconscious world."  They are not a part of me, and not part of my Spirit. 

 



 The last brought a query: it represents what I may be overlooking.  Basically, it states that I need to get ready for the party, as all of my efforts have paid off.  I can call it "luck," but it is also due to my hard work over a long time span.



My first thought was, "How can it get any better?"  I have had difficulty getting to my Grief (yes, capital "G") because of the many gifts I seem to have received this past year.  When I reflect back on where I was a year ago January, and where I am now, I can only say that I am astounded and blessed.

And, when I stop to pause, even this Grief is a gift because - in the midst of all of my life's new changes - I am finally "getting to" the things that were important to me in La Crosse...the things that bore me up amid the other necessities that needed doing...and were, at the risk of being a little sappy, the gems that shone in the darkness.  All of those things deserve my attention, now.  


                         This really is "Good Grief." 

                      The very BEST kind of Grief....

I am blessed to have so many things to grieve, and honoring my grief is the very best way to honor those things which are no longer near - Mom inlcuded, with her lack of physical presence felt as strongly and as as poignantly as the good things in La Crosse.

Today, the tears started with a post on Fb.  A former student lost her dear pet Hedgehog - to cancer, she believes.  I met that hedgehog.  She brought him for a surprise visit - a "therapy hedgehog" - for one of the children in our UW-L Peds Play Lab.  He was wonderful.  I ached for her loss. I remember that visit - and it brought me joy.  

So, once again, there is never really only this or that emotion...one or the other...black or white...but those wonderful shades of gray wherein - truly - all of the colors lie.

"If there is any secret to this life I live, this is it: The sound of what cannot be seen sings within everything that can...there is nothing more to it than that."