Fun Stuff

FWD: Mike: I remember one time i came to your place, your dad was working on his car. He started telling me about the "technical" things he was fixing on it. Then I think he noticed the "I-really-don't-understand-a-thing about-cars"/deer in the headllights look in my eyes (not that I didn't want to converse with him! Just didn't know about car repair). He then told me you were in the house. He was a nice fella!

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Creative Vision Board

Creative Vision Board




Posted: 20 Jul 2011 08:05 AM PDT



We've all heard of vision boards that map out the life we want - but have you ever created a Creative Vision Board? It's super for those who rely on their creativity to put food on their table.



This is as simple as pie :)







1.Take whiteboard or at least some sort of sturdy backing to use (i.e. cardboard, construction paper taped together).

2.Close your eyes and imagine what your creativity will bring to you. Happiness? Security? A new car? New home? Vacation? Recording contract? Book deal? Movie being filmed? Be specific. This are ONLY the direct results of what will happen if you are using your creativity to it's highest level. NOT what you want your whole life to be.

3.Now that you are focused on what your creativity will bring, find or draw the PICTURES that will convey it and post them on your board along with any WORDS that help form images.

4.Post your Creative Vision Board in your creative space.

Update as needed!

Emerging Courageous from the OM

Emerging Courageous


Walking through Your Fear



Frequently, in walking through our fear, we discover that the strength of our fright was out of sync with reality.





The situations, activities, and individuals that frighten us remain static. Their relative intensity does not change. Fear, on the other hand, self-magnifies. It is when you are afraid and envisioning all that might go wrong that the energy underlying your fear grows. A tiny flicker of anxiety can easily develop into a terror that manifests itself physically and eventually paralyzes you into inaction. Though frequently, in walking through that fear, we discover that the strength of our fright was out of synch with reality. And we learn that doing what frightens us can lead to great blessings. Confronting your trepidation head-on will help you accept that few frightening scenarios will ever live up to the negative disasters that we sometimes play out in our minds.



Though fear is literally an evolutionary gift meant to sharpen your senses and energize you during times of great stress, it can nonetheless become a barrier that prevents you from fulfilling your potential by causing you to miss out on rewarding, life-changing experiences. During the period before you face your fear, you may have to deal with a barrage of negative thoughts and emotions. Walking through it, whether your fear is public speaking, taking part in an activity that makes you nervous, or asserting yourself when the odds are against you, may be equally as difficult. But once you have emerged unscathed on the other side, which you will, you will likely wonder why you assumed the worst in the first place. As you spend time worrying about what might happen, it’s good to know that your fear probably won’t happen at all. It may feel like a great weight has been lifted from your shoulders, and you will likely feel a sense of passionate pride. Walking through your fear can! mean taking risks and can require both practice and patience. Since it is challenging to act when you are gripped with fear, start small.



Each step you take into fear will strengthen you and help you confront future fears with poise, courage, and confidence. You will also find that when you are willing to stare your fear in the face, the universe will always offer you some form of aid or support. When you see the heights of accomplishment and personal evolution you can attain when you walk through your fears, your faith in yourself will grow, allowing your next step to be easier.

Crystal Vision dreams by DS

The dream I told you about, during which Len and I met and put the Fur Family together in their quartz home, has stayed with me even after I awoke and wrote about it. The process of recording the dream, and relaying it to you, further cemented the experience.




The expression, "I can't get it out of head" comes to mind. This is true of the dream, but it's not the complete story. There is much more than having it in my head. It is also in my feelings. It really was more an emotional , heart-filled experience than a mental one.



Since I can't get it out of my head, my intellect has tried to make sense of the dream. So I have been thinking about what it could mean. I came up with a lot of impressions. And yet, it is the feelings that are more prominent.



While thinking about the dream, I tried to interpret it on a rational level. But it is the intuitive feelings that tell me the most, not the thoughts. Still, both are at play and interconnected.



First, I started to interpret the symbolism. Some things jumped out at me immediately, others were slower to come to view.



I thought about the obvious theme of the Nativity. The dream centered around the Christmas story. The placement of the Little Fur Family in the "quartz home", mirrors the placement of baby Jesus in the manger with Mary and Joseph next to him.



The Christmas tree-like lights glowed around and down from the quartz womb, soft and warm inside, after it was placed on the mountain. I feel this as the Christ Light, or Source Light, which is joyfully shining for me, too. I just need to look up to the mountain to see it.



I began to see the quartz I'd carved out in a more Earthly manner. Quartz is a stone found on Earth, often a clear stone, which allows us to see into another dimension while still feeling it's density. Sometimes quartz is opaque, blocking the radiant light one can see through a clear quartz. Yet, that light is still there. It is we who block ourselves from seeing it.



The quartz I was carving was opaque, but when it was placed on the mountain, it shone with many colored lights, like Christmas tree lights. Christmas tree lights glow from all sides of the tree and through the branches. The different colors of the lights that make up the whole strand are separate, yet interconnected. It's the multitude of colors that blend together to make one rainbow-colored scene.



It was interesting to note, after I began thinking about the dream, that the Little Fur Child was placed in a pinewood crib. As some you know, Len had requested a "Green Burial". We had no idea what that was at the time of his funeral and burial. We soon learned "Green Burials" are natural burials, allowing the body to return to Earth, and in turn promote growth of wildflowers, which bring birds, insects, and other wildlife to the area. Len's body was placed in a pinewood coffin. Pinewood is biodegradable.



Len was buried in Belgium with one of his baby blankets, which he'd slept with every night since the day he was born. The blanket, his "sniffy", always comforted him. I had received the blankets (he had three of them) at a baby shower for Len. Every time I washed the blankets I would to put them next to Len's face so he could smell the freshly laundered scent, and I'd say "sniff this". When Len started to talk, one of the first things he named was his blankets. It's no surprise he chose the name "sniffy". When I think about this, I feel happy he could take a part of me with him everywhere, by cuddling his sniffy, whenever he needed the comfort of his mama.



At the time of Lens funeral, we, his family in the States, wanted badly to bury him here. Belgium law prohibits a body transfer out of Belgium, unless the body is embalmed. Meredith, his wife, wanted badly to honor Len's wishes and give him the Green Burial. We suggested a compromise; have his body cremated and brought over here. No, even though the body becomes ashes, it's just not the same, and not what Len wanted.



At first, I couldn't see why Meredith wouldn't comprise for the sake of his family members. Now, I am so happy that she did honor his wishes. We wanted him here for us, she wanted him there for him.



The theme of exchange could be seen through my memories of the "back and forth" placement of the tiger ornament on our Christmas tree. What I saw as ugly, Len saw as beautiful. He felt it was just as beautiful as the other ornaments and deserving of a place where it could be seen. The game we played in moving the ornament front to back and then back to front was actually fun. We would laugh about the tiger ornament. It was the one ornament that stood out among the rest. Even though I wanted in hidden, Len found fun and laughter in the movement of the tiger. Consequently, it made me (and Calvin) laugh, too. Certainly, neither Len, nor Calvin, nor I will ever forget the tiger ornament.



The different ways Len and I saw Reality was often one of disagreement and stubbornness. Both of us wanted the other to see the way he/she saw it. Neither wanted to meet in the middle and listen with an open heart. This was the essence of our estrangement; the estrangement that broke our hearts.



When Len passed on to the Light, our hearts were opened and healed. Now I feel nothing but his love, forgiveness and gratitude, which he in turn is feeling from me. Thus Len's words in his note, and his voice in the dream, "Thank you, Mama". I'm unable to grasp adequate words to express the gratitude I feel for the life I share(d) with Len. I am thankful for all he has taught and shown me while he was here, but I'm especially thankful for what he teaches and shows me now, after his passing.



Len allowed me to feel the special bond and deep love a mother has for her child, and to recognize the love her child feels for his mother. I feel this between Calvin and me as strongly as I feel it with Len. Len is showing me now it's a love that can never be broken, even if it appears to be broken.



The buzzing of the cicadas, from one tree to the other, symbolizes for me, the exchange between the realm of Heaven and Earth. Heaven and Earth are intrinsically connected as One through Love. Each is dependent on hearing from, and listening to, the other. We can never be separated. It's a lesson Len and I couldn't quite learn while he was still here.

Ah ha! Now I get it.

Ah ha! He mirrors my smile and says, I get it, too.



Furthermore, as I noted in my recollection of the dream, during their childhood, Len and Calvin delighted in removing and collecting the discarded shells of the cicadas clinging to the pine tree outside our house.



I remember Len, who knew so much about nature, and especially insects, telling me cicadas live underground as nymphs until they travel through a tunnel to the surface and emerge to climb a tree. Once on the tree, they molt, leaving their shell behind as they take on the adult form. We often had the thrill of watching this process. The emergence of the adult from the molt revealed a fragile, wet body, which quickly hardened. Then the cicada came to life, chirping, buzzing, and flying in the air.



It makes sense to me to see the correlation between the tunnel the cicada travels, through the dirt, in order to continue to change and grow as an insect, and the dark birth canal the human baby travels in order to continue to change and grow as an imperfect human reaching for perfection. When the time comes to leave the human body, the spirit travels through a tunnel of Light and arrives Home to change and grow in Perfect Love. It a learning process both in Heaven and on Earth.



Len, ever the teacher, the rabbi, has taught me about the nature of Love. As in the quartz home for the Fur Family, Len's home with his Earth family (including his family, friends, and lovers) provided love, warmth, shelter, and protection while he lived here with us. Len lived here until it was his time to return to the place of love, warmth, shelter, and protection in his Heavenly Home. Len now dwells with his Heavenly Father, Mother, Saints, Angels and Spirit Guides (some of them animal spirit guides). These include his family and friends and pets in Heaven and on Earth. They appear as bright lights, similar to Christmas tree lights. They surround and embrace us all with Love, even when we on Earth won't see or feel them. Len sees and feels them now.



Len sees and feels in Heaven, the Perfect Love he had searched for during his short life on Earth. He is sending me glimpses of that Perfect Love. I can see and remember, and best of all, feel it now, with a tearful expression of joy and gladness.



Len wants me to spread the words he is sending me; words he couldn't access, or let himself feel, while he was here with us. It's up to us to recognize them now. It's up to us to see and feel the lessons he has taught. If nothing else, appreciate what he has taught me. Sometimes it take a sudden and tragic event to teach us what we are here to learn.



It's all about LOVE.

We are all connected and here to teach and help each other on our journey.



There is so much more I am seeing, so much more Len is showing me. I'll write more soon.



Love to all of you,

Dana







Mama loves you, Len.

Butterfly Dream by DS

I awoke from a nap a little while ago. While napping, I had another vivid dream. I want to record it before I forget the details:




I had gone to a gathering of friends and family. I didn't recognize most of the people. Everyone was talking and laughing in the kitchen when I decide to go downstairs to the rec room.



I descended the carpeted stairs to a large bright room filled only with toys and a couch. How odd, nobody has come down here, I thought. Then I sat down on the couch.



As I sat on the couch, Jim (Len and Calvin's dad) sat down next to me. He held a bowl of soup. I had never eaten this kind of soup. I thought about asking him if I could taste the soup but didn't. Jim sat quietly eating the soup. We didn't say anything to each other. We just sat peacefully together.



Then Calvin joined us on the couch. He sat between Jim and me, right up against us. As the three of us leaned back, Jim put his arm around Calvin, and Calvin, in turn put his arm around me.



I said, "It feels strange to be here without Len. I miss him and feel sad a lot."

Calvin and Jim agreed.



Then I said, "I think about Len all the time. I do feel him around me all the time."



Jim and Calvin decided to go back upstairs to get something more to eat. I sat alone on the couch for a while longer.



Then I got up intending to go back upstairs, join them, and try some of the soup.



As I started toward the stairs I noticed a door off the rec room. I was very curious where that door led, but I didn't open the door. Instead I walked passed it.



As I rounded the corner, I saw on the other side of the door I'd passed, an open doorway to a small room with a lone chair inside. If I had taken the closed door I would have come into this room. The room was the size of a walk-in closet. Sunlight poured into the room through the open side. There was nothing in the room except the chair. I sat down on the chair, a chair with soft upholstery and pillows that cradled my body.



As I was sitting on the chair a young boy with blond hair ran down the stairs. He looked at me briefly while running into the rec room.



Shortly after that, a young girl with blond hair chased after the boy. She, too, looked at me as she ran by. The boy and girl were laughing and playing in the next room.



Suddenly, a monarch butterfly flew into the "walk-in closet". It flew around the room, like a moth is apt to do. It circled me, while I stayed seated quietly in the chair. It flew close enough for me to clearly see its bright orange and black patterned colors.



I thought, "How odd to have a butterfly inside the house. But it's so cool. Maybe if I sit quietly and put my hand out, I can get it to land on my hand the way Len could."



Finally, the butterfly did land on my hand. I was excited and called to the kids in the rec room to come quickly and quietly to see the butterfly. The kids were too wrapped up in whatever they were playing, so I sat by myself and admired the butterfly perched on my hand. I told it I was glad it had trusted me enough to land on my hand.



Then the butterfly flew up to my face and landed on my cheek. It fluttered against my cheek, like the butterfly kisses children give each other with their fluttering eye lashes.



Next thing I felt was the butterfly sitting on my shoulder. It had grown as big as a toy poodle and was leaning against my cheek. It was inanimate and as soft as a stuffed animal. Then the butterfly, while still retaining its new size, moved again. It closed up its wings and continued to rest on my shoulder against my cheek.



How strange, I thought. I must be dreaming. Up until that moment, I'd felt as awake as I do now. Of course, once I realized I'd been dreaming, I woke up.

Winter 10.11