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gratitude Tag

Sun in Libra September 23rd

dreamcatcher-1030769_1280“Be glad. Be good. Be brave,” wrote Eleanor Emily Hodgman Porter in her best-selling novel, Pollyanna. The year was 1913. This simple statement resonated in the matrix of the Collective Consciousness as the dark war clouds blotted the sun over the Balkans and young men were soon to drown in their blood in the trenches of World War 1. Ninety-nine years later, we continue to enlist in our private battles for survival—financially, emotionally, or spiritually. When everything around us seems to be falling apart, this steadfast statement bids us first and foremost, to be grateful. To conduct our lives with integrity and valour. The fortitude and unwavering optimism of eleven-year-old Pollyanna offered the comfort of hot-buttered toast and a cup of sweet tea at a point of impact in western civilization when there was no going back. When to be glad, good, and brave, was one constant beacon amidst cataclysmic change.

So often we hit a wall. Collide with an immovable force that profoundly alters the trajectory of our life: the accident, the lawyer’s letter, the termination of our employment, the conversation with our doctor that leaves us hemorrhaging hope. We stand at the door unopened. We tremble; we know with every fibre of our being that there will be no going back. When we cross this threshold, this crossing will reverberate across future decades of our lives – and the lives of those we love so fiercely. When we take those fateful steps, we feel in the deep silence of our heart, that we have to choose: to be angry, bitter, desperately powerless to change or control what has gone before. Physicist Stephen Hawking who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in his twenties believes. He once told the New York Times, “my expectations were reduced to zero when I was twenty-one. Everything since then has been a bonus.”

73859.ngsversion.1466467572965.adapt.1190.1The Sun moves into the sign of Libra on September 23rd, marking the Autumn or the Spring Equinox. The turning of the Great Wheel of the Year. The Scales of Balance are poised. Compromise or polarisation. Quiet desperation or the grace to remember that this is precisely what we have come here to do. In scales of Libra we hold the tension of opposites. Light and shadow. The paradox of our humanness in the eye of the storm.

Rivers Dark 3Richard Tarnas, author of Cosmos and Psyche, writes, “Our time is pervaded by a great paradox. On the one hand, we see signs of an unprecedented level of engaged global awareness, moral sensitivity to the human and non-human community, psychological self-awareness, and spiritually informed philosophical pluralism. On the other hand, we confront the most critical, and in some respects catastrophic, state of the Earth in human history. Both these conditions have emerged directly from the modern age, whose light and shadow consequences now affect every part of the planet.”

63782.ngsversion.1467253445414.adapt.1190.1Pollyanna is a virtuoso at making deliciously sweet lemonade from the tart lemons in her life. She adroitly gathers comfort and joy from the shards of pain and misfortune. And she is skilled at playing The Glad Game. The rules are simple: find something to be glad about in every circumstance of your life. She’s a waltzing in the moonlight Libran as she gazes about her, finding beauty in the world she sees.

Our evolutionary challenge this month is inner serenity and a selective, deliberate focus on those things that are right in the world and in our relationships. Lévy-Bruhl and, later, Jung, wrote of the Participation Mystique. That mystical participation that can manifest in situations and material things in our lives. That sense of wonder and magic that is inherent in small children and has been codified as The Law of Attraction. We are required to “always look on the bright side of life” as we bravely embrace the contradictions, the baffling complexity, and buckle up for those roller coaster rides that leave us whip-lashed, aching and bruised.

Happiness, and her twin sister, Joy, dance in Gratitude, in the “little things that are the hinges of the universe” according to newspaper columnist and novelist, Fanny Fern. Gratitude is a spoonful of sugar to crankiness. Gratitude is like a garden. It requires careful tending if we want it to flourish. It may require gentle coaxing back into bloom after a storm or the cruel crush of frost. It certainly takes a good sprinkling of imagination and a stir of magic to feel it sometimes, and yet like the fairies that sit on our garden wall and fly about our heads as we water the rose bushes, it is always there if we look. If we believe.

Melody Beattie believes,“Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.”

Gratitude, like Love, is a choice. It’s an inside job. If we feel like Cinderella, no pumpkin carriage, no diamond tiara, glass slipper, or handsome Prince will make us authentically, radiantly happy. If we play the Glad Game, and cheat because we don’t truly believe, we can’t evoke the magic. We cannot fake it ’til we make it. We cannot buy, Botox, or bargain our way to Gratitude and contentment. We cannot pretend to be Little Miss Sunshine if we feel like The Snow Queen.

Gratitude must become habitual for the magic to work.

So, observe those wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings. Give thanks that the silver white winters will melt into springs … And hold steady in these challenging times. Encourage ourselves and each other to keep moving, keep focused, as new life emerges from the dead leaves of change. 71645.ngsversion.1467253694265.adapt.1190.1

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Daisies of the Galaxy

“Be glad. Be good. Be brave.” Wrote Eleanor Emily Hodgman Porter in her best-selling novel, Pollyanna. The year was 1913. This simple statement resonated in the matrix of the Collective Consciousness as the dark war clouds blotted the sun over the Balkans and young men were soon to drown in their blood in the trenches of World War 1. Ninety-nine years later, we continue to enlist in our private battles for survival – financially, emotionally, or spiritually. When everything around us seems to be falling apart, this steadfast statement bids us first and foremost, to be grateful. To conduct our lives with integrity and valour. The fortitude and unwavering optimism of eleven-year-old Pollyanna offered the comfort of hot-buttered toast and a cup of sweet tea at a point of impact in western civilization when there was no going back. When to be glad, good, and brave, was one constant beacon amidst cataclysmic change.

So often we hit a wall. Collide with an immovable force that profoundly alters the trajectory of our life: the accident, the lawyer’s letter, the termination of  our employment, the conversation with our doctor that leaves us haemorrhaging  hope. We stand at the door unopened. We tremble; we know with every fibre of our being that there will be no going back. When we cross this threshold, this crossing will reverberate across future decades of our lives – and the lives of those we love so fiercely. When we take those fateful steps, we feel in the deep silence of our heart, that we have to choose: to be angry, bitter, desperately powerless to change or control what has gone before. Or to be glad, good, and very brave. Pollyanna is a virtuoso at making deliciously sweet lemonade from the tart lemons in her life. She adroitly gathers comfort and joy from the shards of pain and misfortune. And she is skilled at playing The Glad Game. The rules are simple: find something to be glad about in every circumstance of your life.

Happiness, and her twin sister, Joy, dance in Gratitude, in the “little things that are the hinges of the universe” according to newspaper columnist and novelist, Fanny Fern. Gratitude is a spoonful of sugar to crankiness. Gratitude is like a garden. It requires careful tending if we want it to flourish. It may require gentle coaxing back into bloom after a storm or the cruel crush of frost. It certainly takes a good sprinkling of imagination and a stir of magic to feel it sometimes, and yet like the fairies that sit on our garden wall and fly about our heads as we water the rose bushes, it is always there if we look. If we believe.

Melody Beattie believes.  Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity.”

Physicist Stephen Hawking who was diagnosed with motor neurone disease in his twenties believes. He once told the New York Times, “my expectations were reduced to zero when I was twenty-one. Everything since then has been a bonus.”

Gratitude, like Love, is a choice. It’s an inside job. If we feel like Cinderella, no pumpkin carriage, no diamond tiara, glass slipper, or handsome Prince will make us authentically, radiantly happy. If we play the Glad Game, and cheat because we don’t truly — in our authentic truthful hearts — believe, but go through the motions, we cannot evoke the magic. We cannot fake it ’til we make it. We cannot buy, Botox, or bargain our way to Gratitude and contentment. We cannot pretend to be Little Miss Sunshine if we feel like The Snow Queen.

Lévy-Bruhl and, later, Jung, wrote of the Participation mystique.  That mystical participation that can manifest in situations and material things in our lives. That sense of wonder and magic that is inherent in small children and has been codified as The Law of Attraction. We are required to “always look on the bright side of life” as we bravely embrace the contradictions, the baffling complexity, and buckle up for those roller coaster rides that leave us whip-lashed, aching and bruised. Says Neale Donald Walsch, “gratitude in advance is the most powerful creative force in the universe. Most people do not know this, yet it is true. Expressing Thankfulness in advance is the way of all Masters. So do not wait for a thing to happen and then give thanks. Give thanks before it happens, and watch energies swirl!”

Gratitude must become habitual for the magic to work. Author Sarah Ban Breathnach invites us to write down five simple things we appreciate each day. “Things like my morning coffee, the beauty of my mountain home, the music of the songbirds sharing my backyard, the health to enjoy this day, and the freedom to do what I love…. You simply will not be the same person two months from now after consciously giving thanks each day for the abundance that exists in your life. And you will have set in motion an ancient spiritual law: the more you have and are grateful for, the more will be given you.” 

So observe those wild geese that fly with the moon on their wings. Give thanks that the silver white winters will melt into springs … And like Maria, in the Sound of Music, simply  remember your favourite things … “when the dog bites. When the bee stings. When I’m feeling sad. I simply remember my favourite things… and then I don’t feel…so bad.” 

Eels – Daisies of the Galaxy

Take heart my little friend
And push back your seat
Soon we’ll be far away
Far from the street
Where you learned how to be
Not what you are…

I’ll pick some daisies
From the flower bed
Of the galaxy theatre
While you clear your head
I thought some daisies
Might cheer you up..

Firelight  and Kingfisher by artist Molly Brett

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A New Day Has Come

Hush now. See the Light in the sky.  A new day has come. The year is re-born.

The life-giving Sun stands still today, this day of the Capricorn Solstice – midwinter in the northern hemisphere, as the Sun lies low over the horizon. Here, in the south, at approximately 7:30am on December 22nd the Sun at its brilliant zenith, big blue skies, the brilliance of midsummer.

At the Solstice, the sun literally stands still. There is no movement. Our life-giving Star rests. Ancient stones placed on sacred sites now swathed in myth and mystery, still stand as silent sentinels to the pathway of the new born Sun, signifying survival in the famine months of the cruel winter. The Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year was celebrated by ancient cultures. In more recent history, the ancient Greeks made merry on Lenaia; in ancient Rome, Bacchus the god of wine was honoured and, later, the Romans overturned social conventions at the festival of Saturnalia (the feast of Saturn, god of agriculture) a time of excess and merry making.  

New beginnings… beneath the Victorian trappings and commercialism of Christmas, the glitter of lights in celebration of Diwali and Hannukah, what we are all celebrating is the re-birth of Light, of a new day, the risen christ consciousness within us all.

“Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence…” *   Many of us are efforting, pushing on beyond exhaustion, as this calendar year scurries to an end. Adrenal fatigue, crankiness, a frozen sea of aloneness amidst the frenetic agitation of the supermarkets and striving of the shopping malls. Family gatherings trigger explosive arguments as septic tensions ooze beneath the tinsel and baubles of festive cheer. The spectre of loneliness shadows the conviviality of office parties, with dinner for one on Christmas day.  And yet, the celestial symbolism of astrology brings glad tidings. Jupiter, “benefic” planet of expansion and largesse, turns direct on Christmas Day, with the Capricorn New Moon on Christmas Eve, a lunation heralding a symbolic new beginning, as she marries the New Sun.Capricorn is an earth sign, so use the energy of the element of earth to ground new seeds of hopes, dreams, and intentions for the coming year. Place Hope and Faith at the centrepiece of your festive table. Bow your head to your heart this new day. Pause. Sit quietly and allow the soul to enter in its dappled brilliance. Sup on Gratitude for the year gone by. Raise your glass to Hope, on this New Day. “With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NaGLVS5b_ZY

Celine Dion, A New Day Has Come

Desiderata

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

Max Ehrmann.


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