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.   

January 15, 2013...

January 15, 2013.  Well we made it through 2012 and look around... I don’t see any peace on earth.  The wars are just as bad, the murders are still happening, and, Oh, the weather...  The snowstorms are getting bad enough that the weather channel is naming them like we humans have named the hurricanes for how long now?  The weather is crazy...  See this new age was all a bunch of baloney...
Are you thinking this way?  Have you ever planted seeds... Crops, flowers, vegetables?
After you worked the ground, dug the hole, planted the seeds, tapped the dirt over them and watered them... Did you go out the next morning and expect to see your crops, a flower, a vegetable ready for the dinner table?  No, of course not.  After you have prepared the ground and planted the seeds it takes time for the plants to grow, and even then you have to protect the plants, keep them watered, tended them to keep the weeds from taking over.
Just because you don’t see the wondrous world without war, the golden age of healing, doesn’t mean it’s not there.   It is there being birthed, being grown, being nurtured .  Be of good heart... know the new world is coming... closer and closer then ever...  Keep on keeping on....

Are you a hummingbird person?

This morning a hummingbird came to the fuchsia plant hanging on my balcony and methodically took a drink from every flower on the plant.   Those little guys are such a joy.  I have, perhaps, adopted the totem meanings for myself but it feels good to see them and who knows, maybe they are bringing me a message of joy. 
http://www.hummingbirdworld.com/h/totem.htm  has a nice summary of the different thought on the totem meaning of hummingbirds.   This is a very small part of what the site has to say; “There is something inside the soul of all of us that wants to soar through sunbeams, then dance midair in a delicate mist, then take a simple bath on a leaf.There is something in our souls that wants to hover at beautiful moments in our lives, making them freeze in time. There is something in us that wants to fly backwards.... Some of us are just hummingbird people.”
I think that part that says 'hover at the beautiful moments in our lives, making them freeze in time' is what my photography is all about... 
Are you a hummingbird person?

Take Wing...

Where do you live?
In a state of love?

How do you live?
In a state of Joy?

If you are Earthbound
Grasp onto some courage

and take wing

You Can Have an Affect...

You are experiencing pain.  You are depressed.  You are feeling as though you are so stressed you could just scream.  These are all energies, negative energies that feed on themselves.  Sometimes a chemical can help, a pain pill, an antidepressant, a tranquilizer.   Sometimes it seems that these chemicals are the only things that help.  But the power of being positive can really make a big difference.   Also you can use use these techniques along with medication. 
You find yourself wallowing in a negative emotion.   Reach for a bit of joy.   Think about a child, a pet, an experience that has given you joy.   Read something that makes you smile.   You can see for yourself what this will do for yourself and your feelings.   When you enter a dark room and turn on a light... the darkness disappears.  When you laugh you cannot won’t feel depressed or anxious...  So look for the joy, look for a place of love, change your energy.  This is a way you can have an affect on the way you feel. 

Choose Awareness...

Choose Awareness, Love, Joy, Forgiveness, Compassion.  Without awareness you may have been chosen by negativity, anxiety, worry, guilt, shame and fear.  And what I mean by ‘you may have been chosen’ is that often we were influenced even as a small child by the negative emotions of our family, church, and others of influence close to us.   Without knowing it we have been living under that influence.  Choose awareness and start living...  truly living...

Maybe the Search is Not Your Thing...

Maybe the search for spiritual information and truth is not your thing but you might consider at least trying to increase your life happiness, peace and joy.  You will be so much happier and it will leave an impression on the planet and on others, especially those close to you.  If a teacher or religion does not promote peace and love I would think twice about following that teacher or religion.   And even if you aren’t in an avid search for spiritual truths, maybe the one closest to you or a child close to you might be the searching one or is to become one.   Always keep in mind how what you do and believe affects those around you and the planet.  

So Much Would Begin To Shift...

We humans seem to be quite attached to our drama and our negativity and yet so much would begin to shift for us if we were only to start making an effort to live from a place of love and joy.  One of the most effective ways to start living in love and joy is to begin a serious search for spiritual reality beyond what most of us know.   What is accepted for religious and even spiritual experience and practice in this time is for the most part basic elementary school.   Middle school, high school, and college level and higher spiritual information is so amazing.  Its like a medical degree instead of 5th grade biology.   And amazingly enough, the search itself is loving and joyful.  So you don’t have to wait to start living from a place of love and joy.

The Key to Joy...

In my search I am led from one bit of information to another. My hope is that by sharing some of what I find another can find that next bit of information that is looking for them.   These are quotes from Power vs. Force by David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D.
"The key to Joy is unconditional kindness to all life, including one's own, which we refer to as compassion.  Without compassion, little of any significance is ever accomplished in human endeavor."    Page 73
"Numerous bestselling books have told us that to love is to live healthily-but love of our fellow man can ensue only when we stop condemning, fearing, and hating each other."  page 220
"Relatively few people are genuinely committed to peace as a realisitic goal, for in their private lives, most people prefer being "right" at whatever cost to their relationships or themselves.  A self-justified personality is the real enemy of peace."  Page 221

My Joys are Simple Joys...

My joys are simple joys
share them with me
the joy of a happy lover
the joy of my canine companion sniffing and walking and owning his little world
the joy of a tree

My joys are simple joys
share them with me
the joy of the yellow bird feeding at my window
the joy of the chirp of the chickadee dee dee
the joy of sweet sunshine

My joys are simple joys
share them with me
the joy of a song sungfelt and heartfelt
the joy of a book or story that takes me away, that takes me home
the joy of a visually ecstatic scene

My joys are simple joys
share them with me
share them with me

Raising Your Energy Vibration...

I’m going to write today about more information from Dr. Wayne Dyer’s book, THE POWER OF INTENTION.   He has a list of things one can do to raise your vibration and he in fact calls it “A Mini-Program for Raising Your Energy Vibrations.”  This is all good information and you can read more about it in his book or online.  The web address online is http://danberkovitz.com/the-power-of-intention-2/ .
Suggestions for raising your energy vibration:
 Become conscious of your thoughts.
 Make meditation a regular practice in your life.
 Become conscious of the foods you eat.
 Retreat from low-energy substances. 
 Become conscious of the energy level of the music you listen to. 
 Become aware of the energy levels of your home environment. 
 Reduce your exposure to the very low energy of commercial and cable television.
 Enhance your energy field with photographs.
 Become conscious of the energy levels of your acquaintances, friends, and extended family.
 Monitor your activities and where they take place.
 Extend acts of kindness, asking for nothing in return. 
 Be specific when you affirm your intentions to raise your energy level and create your desires. 
 As frequently as possible, hold thoughts of forgiveness in your mind. 

I decided to enclose this list after I read number 8.  ‘Enhance your energy field with photographs’.  You see, I do this with my own and others photographs, mostly of birds and animals, nature scenes.  My nature photographs are a joy to me.  And I get a shot of that joy when I see them.   Most of them I can remember where I was when I captured the image.  Carrying the camera has always been a fun thing and then when I get the chance to capture that beautiful bird, that animal, or the sweet face of a loved one, I feel fulfilled.  This is why I enjoy sharing my photographs.   Perhaps your vibration is raised some when you see the images I share.  I hope so.  

A Song of Love...

I love you
For all you are to me
I love you for your beauty
and for the joy you bring me
I love you for feeding me
for sustaining me
for surrounding me with your love
I love you just for being
Divine One,
Loved One,
Self
I love you

Selfhood...

An individual cannot reach their full potential without a strong sense of self. 
Getting a strong sense of self can be difficult because as children our sense of self is based on what we are taught, told and shown by parents, teachers, religious leaders, television and the environment around us.   Without proper guidance our entire sense of self is based on the ideas, opinions, and beliefs of others.  We grow up wondering who we are and feel defeated and without hope.   No matter your age you can develop your sense of self.   Start by taking an inventory.  Who are you?  What do you like?  What parts of your life give you joy and make you happy.  DON’T list your good and bad qualities.   List what you like, what you enjoy, what gives you joy.   Start looking at who YOU really are.    

Believe that you are a powerful child of Spirit.

Was he a wizard, a shaman, a simple hiker with a walking stick?  The man stood on the precipice looking out over a valley that seemed to go on forever.  He stood there a long time fighting with the demons in his mind that told him he was no good, nothing, and had accomplished nothing.  As the twilight deepened he cried out to God.  “Give me a sign, somehow let me know I am more than this mere worthless human.”
And he heard a reply.    “My child, strike your staff down on the rock and watch.  You will have your sign.”
Hardly believing that he had actually heard anything but the wind, he raised his hand, and brought the staff down on the rock, striking the tip hard on the rock shelf he stood on.
A bright shaft of light shot up out of the top of the staff and connected him to the sky.   But even as his own staff became a stream of light, suddenly, individual shafts of light began streaming up from the valley, as far as the eye could see.  Great columns of light filled the valley around and in front of him.  
“My child, do you see all the columns of light around you?   Those are the lights of all of the people that you have touched in one way or another.   Believe that you are a powerful child of Spirit.   Your intentions have been good and without knowing it you have spread much light in the world.    This then is my sign to you.  Your light is seen and known and has touched many.     No longer despair.”
Slowly the column of light from his staff faded and one by one the lights in the valley around faded, leaving a glow that filled the evening.   His heart filled with joy, the man lingered, savoring the feelings and the memory of those lights and knowing that when he returned to the valley he would be ready to go on.    

Think of the happy and the joyful instead of the worrisome.

Are you prone to worrying about the future?  In a place of free will the probabilities exist for the worry scenarios.   But in a place of free will the joy scenarios, the happy scenarios have their probabilities also.  You have heard, have you not, of a fairly widely used saying, Like attracts Like.  I haven’t researched to see if there is any scientific basis for it but it seems to work.  If there is fun and happiness in your life you really do seem to attract more of the same.  And it really seems to be true that if you have money you can attract more of it.  Like attracts like is one of the ways that the potentials work regarding the future.   It only seems logical then that one should concentrate on what seems like the positive potentials because the more one concentrates on these and the more people that concentrate on them the more likely you will attract those positive potentialities.  Remember the book, THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING?  And in a world of a lot of worriesome things our thinking about the happy and joyful things could be that light in the darkness that attracts enough happy and joyful scenarios that tips the scale.   You might think that this is all pretty obvious or maybe doesnt’t work but we have a tendency to get so caught up in the drama of our own lives or the drama we see on the evening news that we forget that our words and our thoughts set our emotional state.   As we think so we are.    So try not to put too much energy on the worriesome things.  Think of the happy and the joyful.  

My Beliefs and My Joy...

Today a couple of quotes that speak of my beliefs and my joy:
“Each of us is a spark of consciousness in a larger, unified Consciousness, a cell in the heart of one Divine Being.”    COURAGEOUS SOULS by Robert Schwartz

“We are in the NOW moment and we can reengineer whatever we find, now and in the years to come.  We do this by creating holons--situations where opposing forces agree to cooperate with each other for mutual benefit--for the highest good of all.  And we do this by finally recognizing we are all children from the same Source, headed in the same direction, participants in the same drama.
The only real issue is love.
The only real commandment is:  Do unto others as you would have them to unto you.”
BEYOND THE INDIGO CHILDREN by P.M.H. Atwater, L.H.D.