Welcome To the Cedar Grove

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

When you make the two one,
when you make the inner as outer
and the outer as inner-then
shall you enter the kingdom.
--Jesus

But the simplest and deepest way to make who we are at one with the world is through the kinship of gratitude. Nothing brings the words of spirit and earth together more quickly.

Saturday 26th
There are many things I'm thankful for. I spoke a little about this on actual Thanksgiving, but I'm going to go into more detail, both serious and light hearted here.

First of all, I am thankful for love. My guy is more than special, more than all the things a husband is supposed to be. Mir is romantic, protective, supportive, loving, all the things I could hope for. Her love is a true presence in my heart that keeps me sane, that warms me when I am cold, lifts me when I am down, guides me when I am lost. Even from such a distance, her love is what allows me to feel safe, wanted, needed and appreciated, from moment to moment, from the now into the future. I love her so much, that words cannot do justice to the power of our love in my life.

Linked with that, I'm thankful for the job I have... even though the experience of moving has been hard, has brought up challenges that I had not anticipated, I am thankful for those experiences, and for the ability – finally – to contribute to our future together... even for the simple ability to go out and buy groceries, other necessities... a gift.

I'm thankful for my family on both sides; my small family in England and my larger family in the USA. They too have been helpful and supportive. Things would have been a lot harder without them.

I'm thankful for my faith, and the guides that walk with me through my life's path. Though I have been neglectful of them, deep down my faith has not wavered, and all are still there for me, like warm arms waiting to welcome me back into the fold, and to continue with me along my way

I'm thankful for the friends I have, those I left behind at home, and those new friends I have made since coming here. Where the school did not do all that it could have to make the move here easy, those new friends took up the slack – helping me to find a place to live, helping me to become more acclimated in my new area. All my friends are friends to cherish.

I'm thankful for my health. It's not always perfect, but I'm well enough that I'm not limited by it, for its lack. I'm thankful for my gifts in writing, in imagination for both writing and when I read. I'm thankful for a love of music and the arts. I'm thankful for my courage in being able to do as I have done and take these opportunities that the Universe has placed in my lap.

Finally, on a more light-hearted note, I'm thankful that we thrashed the pants off of Duke and kept the Bell! Come on, it's UNC... thrashing Duke...! What's not to be thankful for. :D

From The Book of Awakening: Having the Life You Want by Being Present to the Life You Have.

It is the world that is enlightened
and we who are intermittent.

So we vacillate from the extraordinary to the ordinary, time and time again, and most of us blame the world.

I woke up this morning with an image in my head. It was a simple image, of two red roses in the darkness one above the other with a slight… diagonal – like… if you drew a line between the middle of the two roses, you'd get kind of \ angle, slightly less in fact. It was a haunting image, one that I wanted to create to use as a profile picture on Facebook from next weekend for a few days… with the coming of Samhain and the new year.

I don't have a camera, and even if I did, I'm not a terribly good photographer, and besides, where am I going to get roses to photograph at this time of the year. No, I would have to resort to stock copyright free images from the internet. When I'm looking for a picture or anything I tend to use Yahoo's search engine, so that's what I did… and believe me there are pages and pages of pictures of roses out there, some of them are extraordinarily beautiful, and some are just pictures of roses, and I don't know what it is that makes the difference. Maybe that's why I'm not such a good photographer, because I can't 'see' the spark that will make the difference between a good photograph, and an excellent one (when I'm taking them, I mean). I just snap away… impatient to capture the picture.

As far as us blaming the 'world' for our movement between ordinary and more than that, it's certainly a truism that environment plays a part in what we do, see, and hear… though I'd not say that we blame it of course, for not being better than we are… for not doing something in a more extra-ordinary manner – but it does play a part. For example: this afternoon I was watching the Carolina Game – which we lost, incidentally. To begin with I was watching on gametracker, which…. If you don't know what that is, it's kind of like an animated representation of the field with little peg men that move to show the progress of each play, (with little yellow flowers for flags). Now… watching in this fashion, I was thinking what an ordinary game it was – it was only when I watched the second half of the game with Mir, and could see the whole of the team, and everything, that I realised how 'extraordinary' the game actually was, (unfortunately, extraordinarily bad!) The difference was I could see everything, and not just, as on gametracker, the two (sometimes three) 'pegs' involved in the play. I could see the rush of the rest of the team, the confusion of the melee. The whole game came to life far more… and that's a product of being able to see the 'big picture.'

This of course puts the 'ball' (pun intended) firmly back in our court in respect of who, or what to 'blame' for our swing between extraordinary and ordinary – at least, I think so.

Sitting here right now enjoying the Carolina game online streaming by ESPN3. I only wish the Tarheels were doing better than they are.

My only beef is that it keeps crapping up and I have to keep reloading - and of course that's usually when something interesting happens. Still, it was worth it to see football again.

I /miss/ watching football.