The Message of Hummingbird...

The hummingbird is such a beautiful little flying flower that the message they bring is one of pure joy.  Just think what it would be like if our life consisted of being a most accomplished flyer, showing off our beauty and tasting sweetness all the time.   A lot of humans try for that don't they.  Hovering, flying backwards, performing amazing aerial stunts, and seeking sweet nectar for food and nourishment, that is the life of a hummingbird.   A very wise young man recently remarked how difficult it is to 'remember to be happy'.  If a hummingbird has crossed your path lately think a little about the joy in your life and think about how you can make it a little more joyful for yourself and someone else.  Often that is when we feel the most joy when we are making someone else happy. 
And let the beautiful little hummingbird remind you to remember to be happy.  Choosing happiness and joy is easy and simple.  We simply have to remember to do so.   

Seek Beauty...

Beauty is it's own reward and not difficult to find.  Seek beauty.   Walk in beauty...

Today some simple beauty...

Today I simply want to share with you some images I took yesterday of a deer in the city.  Deer have a beauty and gentleness that I love.   When you see a deer think of that gentle beauty.   Say thank you.     

Beauty touches us in the deepest parts of our psyche and soul.   Beauty puts in touch with that which is the best in us.
The Navajo have a curing ceremony which restores harmony in an individual by showing them the way to return to beauty.

The Navajo Beauty Way Ceremony

In beauty may I walk
All day long may I walk
Through the returning seasons may I walk
Beautifully I will possess again
Beautifully birds
Beautifully joyful birds
On the trail marked with pollen may I walk
With grasshoppers about my feet may I walk
With dew about my feet may I walk
With beauty may I walk
With beauty before me may I walk
With beauty behind me may I walk
With beauty above me may I walk
With beauty all around me may I walk
In old age, wandering on a trail of beauty, lively, may I walk
In old age, wandering on a trail of beauty, living again, may I walk
It is finished in beauty
It is finished in beauty
Anonymous (Navajo)

May you walk in beauty...

Take a Step into Your Future...

You may not aspire to spiritual mastery, whatever that might mean to you but do you know you can vastly improve your life by adopting some of the characteristics of mastery.  Some of these characteristics make a lot of sense just by themselves.  Some may not have occurred to you.  Masters are sensitive to beauty in all forms.  Masters are egoless and do not direct attention to themselves.  They have respect for Nature and all of its members.  Unconditional love is a characteristic of masters.  They radiate true wisdom.  A Master will not instill fear.  They are universal and non-sectarian.  The true Master is the embodiment of compassion.   Read and contemplate this list.  Look in a mirror.  Does any of it fit?  Spiritual mastery might fit you very well.   Don’t be afraid to take a step into your future...

The Nature of Things...

As we walked the board walk around the lake, my companion remarked to me something to the effect that you never see a sad or angry face on the people that we pass or that pass us when out enjoying nature.  I hadn’t thought about it really until he said something but I think there is something to it.  Whether out for a walk, a run, a bike ride, walking the dog, there is something about nature that soothes us and takes away for just a little while the cares of the world.  Often we are told by our therapists to get out into nature.   And nature is something we can enjoy whether we are with someone or by ourselves.   I believe these are the reasons that we have a tendency to create parks and green spaces in our city.   In her futuristic novel, THE FIFTH SACRED THING, Starhawk has created a San Francisco that has been turned into a park, a garden, and a farm all in one.  Streams meander through the neighborhoods.  It is a beautiful vision, that she contrasts with southern California, which has become a military industrial state that is smog, cement and metal.  
We all have our specialities.  I can see birds and recognize them.  My companion hears even the smallest birds beautiful song.  Another friend recognizes both small and large wildflowers and if she doesn’t know it, she works diligently to identify it.   Often people see a photograph I have taken of a bird, for example, and they ask about it, what it is and where I found such an exotic bird.  They are amazed when I tell them I took it in the park next to the area they live.   It took a photograph for them to notice something they have literally right in front of them.  
If you are troubled, if you simply have a stressful life you might look for a park or a green area to take a walk or go sit and listen for the birdsong or just think.   Take your children out and point things out to them.   Show them there is more to nature than chopping trees down or digging for oil.   Learn for yourself and then teach them what nature can do for them.  Actually the children these days just might teach us.  

If You Want to Look on God...

A look at nature is enough to see the Divinity in all things.   The diversity and beauty and even the raw ‘natural’ violence in nature are all part of creation.   And trees, plants, flowers... such diversity, old trees, tall beautiful trees, plants with healing properties, beautiful flowers...  We scream if we see a small mouse run across the floor but we use mice to test our medicines.   A tiny bird, the hummingbird, can hover, fly backwards and cross the entire Gulf of Mexico in one flight.   We gaze in awe at the beautiful bald eagle riding the thermals.   And have you ever wondered how the animals in Africa came to be?  Striped like the zebras, long necks of the giraffe, long trunks and gigantic ears and bodies of the elephants.    We haven’t even touched on sunsets and sunrises, beautiful clouds, views of the moon, eclipses...
If you want to look on God, take a look at nature...
If you want to look on God, look in the mirror...

Humans are Just Being Human...

Humans are just being human.  The human of old is going away but not without a fight.  What if?  There is no satan, that the only evil in the world is done by humans. 
What if?  The beautiful things in the world, expressions of love, expressions of beauty, are human generated?  What if?  War is on its way out.  What if?  You really have nothing to fear but yourself.  What if?  You really do have it in yourself to be more than you are, to have all your dreams, to create a world of peace for your children. 
What if?  There is no hell.  What if?  Death is only a portal back to the Creator and all of your friends in Spirit.  What if?  Humans are becoming more.  If there has been evil in the world there has also been good and beauty.   If there has been evil in the world you have the choice not to participate.  You have the choice to choose love over fear,  beauty over destruction.  After all humans are just being human. 

Today I am sharing with you the words of another.  These are words of the P'taah Morning Song. 
The morning song is found here on the P'taah website:  http://www.ptaah.com/page/page/4736851.htm
And here is a part of the morning song:
" From the God/ Goddess of my being
I give forth thanks
For the love that I am,
for the love in my life and the love that surrounds me,
thank you.
Thank you for the miracle of life that I am and
thank you for the miracle of life I see reflected all about me.
Thank you for the gift of life that I am.
Thank you for this perfect body, my health and well-being,
thank you.
Thank you for the abundance that I am and
thank you for the abundance I see reflected all about me...."

 This is approximately half of the morning song.  It is beautiful and the explanation of it on the P'taah website is also beautiful.  

May you walk in beauty......gratitude and abundance...

Rays of Light to Guide us Home....

The earth is beautiful.  That is a reason that I enjoy taking nature photographs even though I don’t feel I do it justice at all.  Moments in time, a constantly changing natural order, a symphony of color and sound and diversity....  Sometimes we humans do not add to the beauty or care for it and yet we are a part of it.  Our wars leave great bloody holes in the earth, sometimes literally, sometimes energetically.  Some times our love, however and to whomever we express, it adds to the overall beauty, and harmony.
When I left town this evening the sun was starting to set.  Constantly changing and yet sometimes the same, I followed those clouds and colors all the way home.   Pinks, Reds, oranges, peach colors, and in the middle of it there was a ray of light between earth and sky....  We need those rays of light, to guide us home, to direct us in our love. We need to be those rays of light for the earth and for each other.   

Acknowledging, Praising, Thanking...

 

There is an old hymn called “For the Beauty of the Earth”.  The first few lines of which read:
“For the beauty of the earth
For the glory of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies”
This was originally a poem written by then 29 yr old Folliott S. Pierpoint (1835-1917).  
Wikipedia reports that “he was mesmerized by the beauty of the countryside that surrounded him.”
I often feel that way.    It is one of the reasons I take nature photographs.   It is my belief that we enrich our planet and our world when we acknowledge and praise its beauty.  Even as we enrich our children when we acknowledge and praise them.   And our friends and family and others around us.   I often acknowledge the beauty around me and even thank our sweet mother earth for her beauty.   It is a simple thing, acknowledging and praising and thanking.   Simple but with an unfathomable effect on that which is praised.  
“For the beauty of the earth
For the glory of the skies,
For the love which from our birth
Over and around us lies”

Your song is not forever gone....

There is a song within your soul
That sings of God and Home
When you are born upon this earth you soon begin to lose your song. 
Yet sometimes we catch glimpses, hear bits and pieces on the wind. 
When we love someone we can hear it
When we love our pet and see it looking back at us with love in its eyes
When we see the beauty of a sunrise or sunset
Or hear the waves crashing upon the shore
Sometimes in the flash of a lightning storm
Or the paining hanging on the wall.
Fear not my beloved ones
Your song is not forever gone.
Is it there, in you, around you,
Waiting for you to recognize the God in your soul.
Then it plays for you again.  

Be....

You look around and see stagnation and decay.  People and institutions are falling apart.   You ask what can I do?   And there in that still small voice is the answer.  Be a light in the darkness.  Be a beautiful flower among stagnation and decay.  Your light, your beauty becomes grounded in the earth itself, it is there for all to see.  You will never know who and how many you have touched.   Be a light.   Be that beautiful flower.... Be.......

Today I walk in Beauty...

Today I walk in Beauty
Today I feel the sunshine in my soul.
Today I see the Creator in everything around me
Today I know that all is well.