Astrology "To believe, or Not to believe"

Honestly, I think astrology is completely misunderstood and has been for god only knows how long. I do know though, that at one point in history it was used as a normal tool to help decipher the best times for certain actions to be taken. The media has turned astrology into some gossip magazine parlor game thingamajig where you make yourself believe what you are reading is true if you are a believe, and you deny everything you read about yourself if you are a skeptic. A lot of people have a hard time believing in something they know nothing about which makes total sense and then there are the ones who just believe anything someone says because...well I don't really know why to be honest!
Personally I have been interested in astrology since I was a preteen! Someone a little older than me had Linda Goodman's "Love Sign's" book and I started reading it. I could not believe this woman could possibly be writing so intimately about the person I was. How is this possible? Now you may think I was a gullible young kid who wanted to believe everything but that is the furthest from the truth! I was actually a very perceptive kid who wanted to know why my step mother was so mean, and why my mom reacted the way she did, and I wanted to know why I had all these feelings that I had inside. I wasn't just going to take life lying down I wanted to understand it and I wanted to fix it and make it better. Later I learned it was my Scorpio rising that made me feel this deep need to regenerate and transform, but needless to say I was interested for all the right reasons a person should be interested in astrology. I did not want to know my fate. I did not want to predict the day I was going to fall in love and get married. I wanted to know why people acted the way they acted and understand where they were coming from. I wanted to know the psychology behind people.
I am now a whopping 40 years old and feel like I am still 13! Well sometimes I feel 40 but that's just my hips whining!
Because of astrology I have learned the true meaning of compassion. As I have grown and lived through many horrible experiences, as we all have, instead of sitting there and taking a beating I delved into each situation with a fine tooth comb and I dealt with it! I analyzed it and I dissected it. Once I knew why things happened the way they did I was able to accept it and move on. For example my parents. Everyone always blames their parents for the way they turn out. I learned, through astrology, and through some wonderfully blunt Scorpio's in my life, that parents are people too. They are just like you and me. They were our age once. I put myself in my parents shoes and imagined me them at my age. It was a major reality check. So my parents made mistakes. What a coincidence so do I! Because of my parents mistakes I had a choice. I could blame them and just be the product of their creation or I could take responsibility for my own actions and grow as a person. I chose the latter of the two.
My father is not currently a part of my life by his own choice. I am sure my step mother had a lot, if not everything to do with it, but I personally am not hurt by the situation. My father was raised by his father and siblings because his mother died when he was 5 years old. My father's moon sign is Pisces. He is a coward. He can't help it. Well he can but at least I understand why he behaves the way he does. I do not think he goes about his life trying to find a way to hurt me or whatever I just think he is a coward and selfish man. On that note I have a deep compassion for him. He is the way he is and it is part of the divine plan. The only thing I have control over is me and my own actions. It's a waste to blame my actions on anyone else.
Back to astrology though. I just want to bring this article to a close by saying that astrology is just a tool. There is still free will. But astrology is a wonderful way to find things inside yourself that maybe you have been scared to look at and take responsibility for. If you want to find a path within astrology is a great tour guide! If you want to stand in someone else's shoes for a minute astrology is capable of giving you a sneak peak. But if you are thinking astrology is going to tell you who, when, and where you are going to get married and if you are ever going to win the lottery than you are looking at it all wrong. Astrology can give you insight to the times these things are possible but all in all you have free will and you can make or break any situation.
If you have any desire into learning more about yourself with astrology I will gladly give you a free natal chart with interpretation. I want to share with you the gift of insight. I'd love for you to really understand what astrology can do for you and forget about what the media has turned it into.
In the comment section below do one of two things. Leave me your birth day, birth time, and birth location along with your email address and I will forward you your free natal birth chart wheel and interpretation. If you do not want to leave your birth information you may merely leave your email address and I will contact requesting it. If you have any other comments or questions please feel free to express it! Even if it opposes anything I have said in this article.
I accept donations if you request any other type of chart to be drawn. I do all relationship charts as well as Solar Return charts so you have some insight into your year ahead.

That Which Never Dies?

I woke up and was wondering what it was I needed to write about today when I was shown a very unique riddle.

"Before life disappears, use the opportunity to find that which never dies."

I truly had to ponder this. All I had to go on was the few brief sentences that lead up to the puzzling question. It said, 

"Remember, each moment, what you are accumulating--is it going to be taken away by death? Then it is not worth bothering about. If it is not going to be taken away by death, then even life can be sacrificed for it--because one day or another life is going to disappear."

I sat puzzled and pondered this for sometime before moving on and reading the story that followed.

A woman's husband died. She was young, had only one child. She wanted to commit sati, she wanted to jump in the funeral pyre with her husband, but this small child prevented her. She had to live for this small child. 
But then the small child died; now it was too much. She went almost insane, asking people, "Is there any physician anywhere who can make my child alive again? I was living only for him, now my whole life is simply dark." It happened that Buddha was coming to the town, so people said, "You take the child to Buddha. Tell him that you were living for this child, and the child has died, and ask him, 'You are such a great enlightened person, call him back to life! Have mercy on me!'" 
So she went to Buddha. She put the dead body of the child at Buddha's feet and she said, "Call him back to life. You know all the secrets of life, you have attained to the ultimate peak of existence. Can't you do a small miracle for a poor woman?"
Buddha said, "I will do it, but there is a condition." 
She said, "I will fulfill any condition." 
Buddha said, "The condition is, you go around the town and from a house where nobody has ever died, bring a few mustard seeds." 
The woman could not understand the strategy. She went to one house, and they said, "A few mustard seeds? We can bring a few bullock carts full of mustard seeds if Buddha can bring your son back to life. But we have seen so many deaths in our family...." It was a small village, and she went to every house. Everybody was ready: "How many seeds do you want?" But the condition was impossible because they had all seen so many deaths in their families.... 
By the evening she understood that whoever is born is going to die, so what is the point of getting the child back again? "He will die again. It is better for you yourself to seek the eternal, which is never born and never dies." She came back, empty-handed. 
Buddha asked, "Where are the mustard seeds?" She laughed. In the morning she had come crying; now she laughed, and she said, "You tricked me! Everybody who is born is going to die. There is no family in the whole world where nobody has died. So I don't want my son to be brought again back to life--what is the point? Forget about the child. Initiate me into the art of meditation so that I can go into the land, the space of immortality, where birth and death have never happened." 
This I call an authentic miracle: cutting the problem from the very roots. 

Still puzzled I read it over and over again. I get the point that death is inevitable. I get the point that we will all die someday and we need not be attached. But what does it mean "to find what never dies"? In my mind all I hear in silence...and then enlightenment came.

No-thingness
Buddha has chosen one of the really very potential words - shunyata. The English word, the English equivalent, "nothingness", is not such a beautiful word. That's why I would like to make it "no-thingness" - because the nothing is not just nothing, it is all. It is vibrant with all possibilities. It is potential, absolute potential. It is unmanifest yet, but it contains all. 
In the beginning is nature, in the end is nature, so why in the middle do you make so much fuss? Why, in the middle, becoming so worried, so anxious, so ambitious - why create such despair? Nothingness to nothingness is the whole journey.
Being "in the gap" can be disorienting and even scary. Nothing to hold on to, no sense of direction, not even a hint of what choices and possibilities might lie ahead. But it was just this state of pure potential that existed before the universe was created. Relax  into this no-thingness...fall into this silence between the words...watch this gap between the outgoing and incoming breath. And treasure each empty moment of the experience and something sacred will be born...something that will never die.   

NO-THINGNESS

(resources for this blog came from Osho.com)

Pointing Fingers

As we grow up and become adults we move past the "know it all" stage and stop rebelling against the world and move into the "reflection" stage when we try to figure out who we are. A lot of times when we are at this stage we do a lot of blaming. We realize that we are angry because our mother was too controlling or we tend to get into fights because our father solved everything with hitting us. Maybe if our mother had given us a little more freedom while we were growing up we wouldn't be so angry and take things out on other people or we would have better relationships with our boss. Maybe we wouldn't feel the need to throw punches when we feel someone deserves it if our father hadn't hit us every time we pissed him off. Maybe. Maybe you wouldn't be this way if our parents had made different decisions but they did.
At one time our parents were the same age as us. They too had parents and they too grew to live life from the way they were molded. Oh so maybe it's not fully your parents fault maybe its your grand parents fault or your great great grand parents fault? Our parents, our grand parents, our great grand parents are all people too just like me and you. You know how you have issues with controlling your temper and do things you do not mean around your children or say mean things to your friends that you never meant to say. Yep, just like your parents. Basically we need to learn to take responsibility for our own actions and not blame our parents. For myself personally I have my own mommy and daddy issues. We all do. I remember being small and thinking I do not want to be like that when I grow up. I will not be like that with my kids when I grow up. It's mean. I remember when I was upset and laying on  my bed all I wanted was for my mom to come in and rub my back and tell me it was going to be ok like the mom on The Brady bunch. How come my mom wasn't like that? Now I am a grown adult. I have three beautiful foster children and guess what?! They piss me off sometimes. So what do I do? I still find myself raising my voice. I still find myself being in automatic mode just like my parents. But the difference is I do not sit back and blame my parents when I act this way. Instead responsibility for my actions and I go back and I sit down and talk with them. I stopped the cycle. I am role modeling for my kids so that when they grow up they can learn to take responsibility for their own actions as well. When I speak to them I am honest with them, sometimes even when a parent normally would be, but I do so to show them how to be authentic. We all make mistakes. It is our human nature. Instead of pointing fingers and making everything someone else's fault we need to take responsibility for our own actions. We very well may have been influenced by someone else when we did something we later regretted but we are our own person and nobody "MAKES" us do anything we made the choice we made ourselves do it.
All in all, as the saying goes, when you point a finger at someone you have three more pointing back at yourself. Cheesy I know, but it's true. On that note I suppose we all just need to stop and become more aware of what we are thinking, saying, and doing when we are reflecting because we are not being honest with ourselves when we are pointing fingers. It's our own fault no one else's.

Sometimes You Just Need To Water The Grass

I woke up this morning to a news segment about how thousands of American's are upset about the re-election of President Obama. Normally I do not like to give energy to these types of issues and just have compassion and allow them to play out but this inspired me to share my views on people who think the grass is greener on the other side.
My personal theory is that the grass is not always greener on the other side sometimes you just need to water and cut your lawn in order for it to be the shade you like. Basically when you think the going is tough and you look for an escape all you are doing is trading one issue for another. Your problem will not go away. You will have to care for the grass no  matter where you go so if something isn't working at home take the time to fix it before trying to escape it.
I know it is easier said than done. Whatever your own personal issue is you just want to get away from it and move on but think about it this way if something has not gone away than you haven't done something you needed to do. Things do not just stick around they are there for a reason. For example let's say you are in an abusive relationship and your partner feels the need to take their anger out on you. Instead of standing up for yourself you deal with it. You may even have unconscious thoughts of feeling like you deserve it. Maybe you feel you invoke these behaviors in this person and its your fault. Hmmm is this something you have always had to deal with? Did your parents take their anger out on you as well? So you decide enough is enough and you just disappear so that your partner has no way of finding you. You can't take it anymore and you feel there is no other way out but to run away. A month later you meet the partner of your dreams. A year later you are living together and a month after that the fights start again but this time it is worse and your new partner takes it a step further and physically hurts you. This is what I mean by watering your grass before looking for new fields. If you had dealt with the issue at hand the first time you may be in a better place. I do not mean stick around and necessarily make it work with the other partner but you solved nothing by just running away. What ever the core issue was that disrupted the last relationship it is the same core issue you that you carry away with you. Maybe if you had taken the time to delve into your pain and seen that the issue really lies with your own self worth you would have been able to heal and not repeat the patterns.
This is just a common example of most issue we go through in life and those issues usually have to do with something we have not watered and cut away. We all have childhood issues. All of us. They stick with us and most of the time we do not even realize they are still there but they show up loud and clear in our everyday relationships including work and school relationships.
So the point of this blog is take care of your own grass before venturing off into other fields. Those fields may have burs and weeds that do not sit too well with you and all you had to was water and cut your own grass and life would have become your own beautiful meadow.

Thankful For Unknown Memories...

I am sitting here on this early Saturday morning in the cold stages of Arizona's fall season and trying to think about what I should share with the world today and all I can think about is how good the season shift feels and how happy I am to have my family all around me. I guess November really does invoke a "Thankful" feeling to the season. I wonder what it is. Is it the crisp in the air? Maybe it is the kids wrapped all cozy in their feetzie pajamas cuddled in their blankets watch Saturday morning cartoons. It could be the way my 9 month old is shining so bright. I am not sure but I feel really good and I feel a great appreciation for being here in the now.
This morning I jumped in the car to go to the local QT and grab a energy drink and a coffee for my beautiful partner and the air was so crisp from the first fallen rain of the season. I started to feel so nostalgic and happy that the seasons shifted over night. The I started to have the same odd desires I have ever holiday season. When the seasons shift I have this uncontrollable desire to cuddle up in warm clothes and take my family to the city. By city I mean San Francisco or New York. I desire being warm in the cold and seeing the holiday lights and eating in authentic twenties style restaurants. I want to go window shopping and suck in the feelings in the air. The thing is if you know me you know I'm not a big city person. I don't care for crowds the traffic is just not my thing. So where does this uncanny feeling come into play. To me it feels like a memory that plays over and over like a record every year when the season hits. Could it be a memory? Maybe one not of this life or dimension? It's so real that I when I look deep into the feelings I get I explore all the things that feel good to me and it starts to get vivid. Holiday music, smells, cold brisk air, the city, old restaurants, shopping, being cozy, loved ones. I never get any specifics and it tugs at me and all I want to do is indulge in the sensations. There must be more to it than just a change of seasons. Or not. All I know is that today I have a great appreciation for life and I am going to do my best to help others feel the good feelings too!
Today I am thankful for my loved ones and the change of the seasons!
What are you thankful for? I'd love to hear how you are feeling as the season shifts!

We Are All Catalysts...

Have you ever heard someone say, "Oh don't worry he was just a catalyst for you to get where you are today."? What doe that really mean? I play it over in my head and think maybe I need to define the word catalyst.

cat·a·lyst nounA person or thing that precipitates an event or change.

So if a catalyst is a person or thing that precipitates an event or change wouldn't that be what we are constantly doing to one another. Every action causes an equal and opposite reaction. Change. With change being the only thing we can truly depend on in the world I would clearly say we invoke constant change within one another. On that note if we are constantly invoking change upon one another how can any one thing be right and any one thing be wrong? Even if we provoke a change we did not intend we still provoked it and it changed. Is that wrong? Whenever I bring up the theory there is no such thing as right and wrong I always get someone saying to me something like, "Ok then. Say someone brutally murdered your entire family. You are telling me that was not wrong?". I am telling you that it is an awful thing that will probably traumatize me but that it happened because it was inevitable. It was not wrong but it feels wrong because I love my family and it must have been a horrific last moment in their life. It hurts, it tears me apart, I will never forget it. All those emotions are reactions to the change the murder imposed upon me. That person was a catalyst. 
It's a challenging perspective to swallow but it was an incident that caused an equal and opposite reaction. Change. It was going to happen therefore it was supposed to happen. How can I say it was going to happen? It was going to happen because there was a uncountable number of series of events that played out prior to the horrific murder. All the things that transpired prior to the moment the person went insane lead up to it happening and it was inevitable.
So how are we supposed to go about life knowing that everything is inevitable? Why even try? Why even make a decision? What's the point of living? Because the choices you make are all part of the plan. In the plan I mean you are part of the chain reactions that play out in front of you. Without you numerous things would not happen as they should. Or let's just say you give up and you choose to leave this world and not be a part of this plan. Once again you were a catalyst and you choosing to leave this world because you do not like the way it works only created a series of events that would go on without you here. Personally I'd rather just stay here and make a difference. If my actions are going to go on and on I need to become aware of what they are. WHAT? Wait, I need to become aware of what they are. I need to become aware. I need to wake up! Now I know why I need to wake up! All my unconscious actions, all my unconscious reactions, all my sleepy moments caused things to happen and I wasn't even aware of it! Now that is something to seriously reflect over! I think I am going to go and wake up so that when I am of the world I will be a little more aware of how I am affecting it. Oh but wait! I just thought of something! If I am aware of what my actions are wouldn't I be a catalyst for positive change? Wouldn't my actions be a small ripple into making the world a peaceful better place? Wait! Does that mean I really can save the world?!
YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Emptiness In My Hand...

On my own personal path to self transformation I came across a very enlightening story of a nun who she herself became enlightened. Here is the short story of Chiyono the nun.

The nun Chiyono studied for years, but was unable to find enlightenment. One night, she was carrying an old pail filled with water. As she was walking along, she was watching the full moon reflected in the pail of water. Suddenly, the bamboo strips that held the pail together broke, and the pail fell apart. The water rushed out; the moon's reflection disappeared--and Chiyono became enlightened. She wrote this verse:  
This way and that way I tried to keep the pail together, hoping the weak bamboo would never break. Suddenly the bottom fell out. No more water; no more moon in the water--emptiness in my hand. 

Enlightenment is not really that hard to reach. Life is not really complicated. Our problems are not hard to solve and life does not have to be stricken with pain. We choose for it to be hard, complicated, and stricken with pain because we live from the mind and the ego. Why did Chiyono become enlightened when her pail of water broke? Shouldn't she be angered that now she has to go all the way back home with no water and who knows how challenging it will be for her to get a new pail. Maybe she will go days without water! Honestly Chiyono did not seem to really worry about all that.

Chiyono realized when her pail broke that she had did everything in her power to keep her pail from breaking yet it was inevitable that it was going to break. What she is realizing is that bad things are going to happen. Change is inevitable and we can not fight against it. We must live in the flow of life. We must look at the obvious and then we must realize there is nothing we can do about it but except it and have faith. 

More than likely most people will not attain the same level of enlightenment that Chiyono did but that is only because they are not open to it. Chiyono gave up a life as a princess. She was very beautiful but she refused to marry anybody. She went to be a nun but none of the monks would except her because she was too beautiful and they feared she would lead the other monks into temptation. So what did she do she burned her face and went back and because she was unrecognizable only then was she able to become a nun. Now I am not saying go out and distort yourself in order to give your life to enlightenment, but what I am saying is Chiyono did what she needed to in search of it. She allowed herself to be open to it and she made a conscious effort to lead a life in search of it. So on that note most will not reach the same level of enlightenment merely because they have not made the conscious decision to do so. More than likely people are comfortable in their misery and only understand how to learn in life from pain. But I will say it one last time. 

"Enlightenment is not really that hard to reach. Life is not really complicated. Our problems are not hard to solve and life does not have to be stricken with pain. We choose for it to be hard, complicated, and stricken with pain because we live from the mind and the ego."

                                                                                    ~Lori Marie

(The excerpt in this blog was taken from Osho's story "Chiyono and her bucket of water") 

Are Humans Capable Of Being Authentic?

We struggle through this existence called life and are forced through challenge after challenge only to find ourselves back at the same spot in the maze we were before. So what are we doing wrong as a species? Why are we so barbaric, mean, and selfish? Are humans built capable of being authentic? When you turn on the radio and listen to the lyrics to some of these rap songs kids worship, and then turn on the television and to the local and national news to see constant greed and devastation, or when you walk down your own street scared for your life or your children's lives it really makes you wonder how it is possible for humans to be authentic beings. I'm shaking my head while I am sitting here thinking about the bigger picture but the point is I am sitting here "thinking" about it when instead I should be here doing something about it.
Yes, humans are quite capable of being authentic human beings. Look at your children so young and innocent. Oh! So your thinking of how your children are brats. Ummm they evolved into that roll. Look at what they see on a daily basis, who they interact with, what is on the radio and television. Take that all away and do you still have a brat? Oh wait did you eliminate yourself? As parent's we are often the main reason our children are brats. We live in a society full of brats. So once again the question comes up are humans capable of being authentic. Yes, but it starts with you. You were once a baby so innocent and sweet. Life tainted you just like life taints us all. We need to seriously let go of the conditioning we have went through, that we constantly go through and learn to be our true authentic selves. We need to not care what others think. We need to not care where we fit in with society. We need to not fear. Fear. Wait could that be the root of this all. We are a species that wants to survive but we fear....what? What is it we are really fearing? Well when we narrow it down to the lowest common denominator I think we fear not surviving. We fear death. Babies need nurturing to survive. They may grow and expand but ultimately they will not survive without love. They are born love, they are love, they are divinity in its purest form and all they want to do is be loved. To survive. Adults only want to be loved to survive. Fear. Fear keeps us from being loved. Fear keeps us from surviving. Fear is the culprit. How can we conquer fear? I mean it's everywhere! You can't do anything without it being right in your face! No wonder we have a society on drugs, looking to drugs, and trying to survive on drugs!
So now that we know the problem we can begin to solve it. Wait. You do not need to solve the world's problems. No need to rant and rave and scream and yell to get others to change. You need to change. You need to eliminate the fear. How awful can death really be? We fear death because we do not know how to live without our ego but really it can't be any worse than here. We fear the unknown but if we could embrace it within ourselves and face one small fear a day we are one step closer to being our authentic selves.
If we are to survive we must be responsible for our own survival. We must have compassion for others on their path of survival, compassion meaning a deep awareness of the suffering without the need to relieve it and having an appreciation for its value, and change only ourselves. Magically though, if we change ourselves those around us begin to change. It is inevitable. I mean look at how we are as a species now. We're a wreck! But if one person at a time begins to conquer their own fears than one person at a time others will do the same and grow and heal. Survive. The goal to save the world is to save yourself! Love thyself and heal the world.
The goal for today is to find one fear and let it go. Look at it to the depths of its core and ask yourself what is the worst that can happen. Hmmmmmm death? Peel off the layers of fear and find you. Just for today. And maybe tomorrow you will want to do it again.

God Speaks No Words But You Can Hear Him Clearly

Shhhhhh I can't hear you when you're talking.....

I had a grand epiphany one day while listening to a random radio show interview. It made so much sense. The speaker was basically saying that language is what screws everything up. If we did not have language and we lived with the silence God speaks nothing would be as it is today. Without language we would not have liars, we would not have manipulation, we would not have any form of miscommunication or misunderstandings, we would love our leaders and not feel tricked or cheated ever. How could this be? What is this God language? It's silence.

You know how when you are sitting there and you hear someone say to you that they love you but when turn off your ears you feel they are not telling you the truth. Intentions speak louder than words. Emotions, feeling, vibes, energy, or whatever you want to call it is merely silence the language of God. You can hear much clearer if you were in silence why do you think you can't concentrate when there is chaos all around you? It's the noise that keeps you from thinking clearly. What about all that noise in your head? Where did it come from why is it there? It may have something to do with the television, or the radio, or that fact that you just do not know what to do if there wasn't noise. How many of you can honestly say you can sit in a quiet room with nothing on your mind for more than five minutes? Not very many. But I promise you that if you were to switch from noise to silence everything in life would become crystal clear. Things would just naturally begin to make sense. God speaks so loudly to us when there is no noise. When you are out camping or hiking in nature don't you have a overwhelming peaceful feeling? Why do you think that is? Could it be because nature speaks the language of God? When I am with my infant at home I feel more comfortable sitting with her and not saying anything, not needing to say a word, just sitting with her on my lap knowing she knows exactly what I am trying to say.

If you desire true answers in life with no interruptions, no lies, no manipulations, or miscommunications than try a day in nature or a quiet room. Make it a new habit and watch as you and God, you and silence, you and the divinity within us all begin to connect and you being to have a clarity you never knew was available to you before.

Shhhhh........

Einstein, Carlin, and Rumi all Rolled Into One!!!

I think God is Einstein, George Carlin, and Rumi all rolled into one! Well not literally because I don't really believe in one supreme being but if I did that is definitely who I'd think him to be! Einstein may have figured out some very important stuff about gravity and what not but his most inspiring wisdom came out in his personal quotes about people and life.

If our parents raised us to look up to Einstein instead of turning on Saturday morning cartoons and shoving candy cereal down our throats we'd be a much less dysfunctional society. And forget needing to go to church when you had guys like George Carlin to look up to. I saw the man perform in Vegas one time. I sat in the back with my friends and we were laughing our asses off all while having mini epiphanies over the stuff he was saying! Yet no one was laughing. I think the republican convention was in town that day! We made sure we laughed and cheered louder so he felt supported. It takes a big man to feel confident enough to get up on stage and speak your truth. If more people had the inner security to speak their truth in the face of adversity we would be a much more authentic society.

Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, a.k.a. Rumi, now he was one mystic to look up to. Rumi knew just what to say, how to say, and made you think and feel it all at the same time. The first time I read a Rumi poem I read it over and over and suddenly BAM! It hit me! He made poetic sense in the most spiritual romantic loving blunt way a person could.

I could quote Rumi all day long! "Out beyond the field of wrong doing and right doing...there is a field...I will meet you there!" Needless to say if you take the genius common sense wit from Einstein, the sarcastic blunt truth spoken from George Carlin, and the poetic mystical Rumi and rolled them all into one you would have the equivalent of a God! Shoot I'd even vote him for president!

I pray that our future spawns more real, authentic, motivational, inspirational, leaders our children can look up to! If we could strive to find our own inner wisdom like these men we'd have created heaven on earth! Now that is a healthy goal to reach for!

What Is The Cure For Loneliness?

As the winter months approach and the cold weather is upon us there is a natural desire for cozy comfort. It's chilly outside and the fireplace is blazing, you have the coziest blanket in the house wrapped around you, and a nice warm cup of hot cocoa but something is missing. You suddenly feel very lonely. The dreary weather brings you down lower and you decide to indulge in a book. When you tire of the book you realize that you are insanely bored and you feel even lonelier. So you call up some friends and ask them to go out. The evening is eventful you meet a lot of interesting people but when the night ends you head home and again you feel very lonely. Actually when you start thinking about it you were feeling lonely even when you were sitting at the table with your friends. Looking back you realize that you feel lonely all the time it doesn't matter who is around. It's time to suck it up and find a partner. Maybe a blind date or an internet dating site. You search the personals and you go on a few dates and you meet up with someone for coffee.
Wow you click! It's awesome! This person is good looking, has a great job, likes the same music you do, and even seems to care about their health. You decide to go on a few more dates and the honeymoon period begins. Life is Grand! Is this the cure for loneliness? You found someone else who was just as lonely as you and now you have each other and your sitting in front of the fireplace with your warm blanket and hot cup of cocoa and something is missing. You suddenly feel very lonely.
I read a story once about a hunter lost in the forest. He was lost for days and days and was becoming hungry and scared. All the hunter wanted was to find someone. After four days of being lost and having no food the hunter found someone and he became so ecstatic. The other guy asked why he was so excited and he told him that he was lost and all he prayed for was to find someone. Coincidentally the other guy was lost too and was hoping for days to find someone. Hmmmm sounds really familiar doesn't it? On that note I doubt that the cure for loneliness has anything to do with finding the perfect partner.
In truth the only real cure for loneliness is embracing it and realizing that we will always be alone. There is nothing wrong with being alone. When a person is alone they have no one else's drama or issues interfering with their life. A partner may seem to solve the problem but you will never get over loneliness until you are comfortable being alone. It's kind of like saying if you learn to like something it can not hurt you anymore. If you teach yourself how to do math it won't be painful to do it anymore. If you are scared to jump out of a plane and do it you no longer have the fear to jump out of the plane anymore.
Embrace the thing that scares you the most, that causes you the pain and suddenly you have the cure. It works with everything. It all depends on your own personal perspective. If you go into it by saying I am going to get over my issue of eating vegetables with the perspective that you are forcing yourself to do something you just do not want to do than you can pretty much be sure that you will have a life long hatred of vegetables. But if you go into it with the perspective that you wish you really liked vegetables more and you will do your best try a few everyday and not give up more likely you have cured your issue of not eating your veggies. Doesn't hurt to try? At least with the right perspective.
So how do you cure loneliness. Stop being lonely! Love the time you have with yourself. Let the anxiety of being alone go and enjoy it! Believe it or not it really will go away! Actually if you can embrace loneliness it will make being with another person much easier because if it doesn't work out you will not have the fear of being alone.

"Only those people who are capable of being alone are capable of love, of sharing, of going into the deepest core into the other person -- without possessing the other, without becoming dependent on the other, without creating "the other," reducing the other into a thing, and without becoming addicted with the other. They allow the other absolute freedom, because they know if the other leaves, they will be as happy as they are now. Their happiness cannot be taken by the other, because it is not given by the other." ~Osho

Wise men don't need advice. Fools won't take it.

Benjamin Franklin may have been onto something when he said, "Wise men don't need advice. Fools won't take it". It is one thing to be confident in ones wisdom it's another to think one is so wise they have nothing left to learn. Friend, if you had nothing left to learn your energy would be vibrating so high you would not even need to be of this world anymore. So lets just say if your still here then you have lot's to learn!
The universe teaches us in every single thing that plays out in front of us. There are hidden messages in numbers, geometry, words spoken off in the distance, the birds singing, the annoying dog barking at the house next door. There is never a given moment when you can not walk away after something is brought to your awareness with out taking away more knowledge. But wait. You have constant opportunities to gain knowledge! Why can't you just go to the library and gain more knowledge? Maybe study all the famous guru's of the world or live under the word of God and the Bible? Surely you will be a wise man if you study the word of the wise. Right?
You are not a wise one until you let go of your ego, walk in with your wisdom with your bare feet, and live your wisdom and not push it upon others and even then you are never so wise that you can not gain more wisdom. As humans we use very little of our brains. If we have all this space available we must have plenty to learn! So the next time you think you are more right than the next person maybe you should stop and question your wisdom because yes you may possibly be correct in this situation but more than likely you still have plenty you can learn from it and it may just be that you merely need to learn to let go of your ego and open your mind. Wise men never shut the doors to their mind they keep it wide open allowing the old to leave when the new has arrived.
Albert Einstein is known to the world as a true genius but he understood that true knowledge did not come from books and studying he has been quotes as saying, "Education is what remains after one has forgotten what one has learned in school" and "A true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination". In order to be a truly wise man we must open our minds and let go of what we "know" and allow the space to be filled with what is waiting for us to learn! As you grow and learn be sure to keep the door wide open so that new ideas are free to enter as the old ones exit! An open mind is the key to a truly wise man!

Interact with Lori Marie by contacting her through www.WhtsUrSgn.com

Do Not Mistake Spiritualism for Escapism

Religion, spiritualism, drugs, alcohol, people, food, exercise or whatever your "thing" may be do not mistake them for your personal "crutch". Often we unconsciously turn to these things to fill a void within ourselves that we just can not pin point or to help us through a time when we feel lost and helpless. It's one thing to reach out for a helping hand now and again but its another to put all your weight into it and use it as a means to escape dealing with the real issue.
Religion is often looked up on as a safe place when you have no where else to go. God will always be there. Jesus saves us all! God forgives! Ask and you shall receive. But your trading one problem for another. We are dealt hard hands for a reason. Life forces us to see our flaws and the flaws of the world so that we are challenged to grow. You can not know your strength unless you are forced to lift the heavy weight with your own bare hands.
Spiritualism is not the same as religion. Spiritualism is for those who believe in more than just a God that will solve all our problems. With Spiritualism there is a sense of not belonging here when enlightenment has been reached or when a true sense of knowingness occurs. Some tend to reach further and further to things out of this world. A place they call home. A place not here on this planet. If this is true or not we were still born of this world with earthly human challenges for a reason. We still have dramas to play out if not for our consciousness than for the consciousness of others on this planet. When we choose escapism of any form we are not helping our planet evolve we are standing still. If you feel your religion gives you the answer that fits you than that is wonderful but when life deals you challenges and you see bad things happen all around you do not look to a God to solve your problems walk out your front door and make a difference.
If you feel this planet is not your home and choose to be lost in space in order to not deal with this worlds issues you need to rethink your theory and remember you chose to be here now in this time of great shifts. Escapism is just trading one thing for another and no solution ever occurs. It is not solving any problems. It is not helping humanity. It is not nurturing you. It is sweeping the pain under the carpet because you are to weak and feeble to deal with it all by yourself.
If you are reading this post take a few seconds and think about what your personal crutch may be. Has it solved all your worries and problems for you? When you pick up the phone or sit and talk with it does it give you the answers you are looking for? When the euphoric affect of it wears off has all the pain subsided and all your problems magically melted away? No? Why not? You mean they are still there? So what did you get out of it? You wasted precious time in your life. You extended the suffering and possibly complicated it and made it worse. All in all if you choose to get rid of your crutch or not it is all meant to be BUT if you are worried about pain and suffering wouldn't it be more pain free to deal with things and be done with it than sweeping it under the carpet only to be there nagging at you and never going away?

The simplest way to live life is to go with the flow and not fight life's challenges. Instead conquer them as they are handed to you. Face your problems head on and then go on to the next challenge. Master one thing before moving onto another. When you see problems that are not yours have compassion for them. Appreciate they are part of our planets evolution and needs to happen even if it hurts to witness it. Fight your own battles and send love and support to those who need it. Lose the escapism its just a dream that loses all meaning once you come back to reality. Spend some time reflecting on your escape route and ask yourself if you really need to be escaping of if you need to be fighting the battle in front of you.