Cold Inside

Our festive fireplace

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas. This is my favourite time of year.

It’s cold outside. Everyone is bundled up in coats and scarves, mittens and hats, talking happily of Christmas presents and decorating and family travel plans. The tree is up, the lights are lit, the stockings are hung. There are candles on the mantle and there’s firewood in the hearth. Cheery holiday music greets us in our homes, in our cars, in the shops. The excitement hangs in the air, tangible and infectious. The smells of warm cocoa, spiced cider and cinnamon, mulled wine… fresh fir trees… fireplace smoke… cookies baking. We are surrounded by the magic of Lights, Warmth, and Love.

And yet.

It’s cold inside. The happiness of the season has not completely engulfed me this year as it has in previous years. The decorations are beautiful as always, the songs catchy and momentarily uplifting, but these outward images that usually hold magic for me are overshadowed by this cold dark depression harbored inside. Always trying to hitch a smile in place for everyone, and it’s become increasingly difficult. Instead of making ginger bread and planning winter gatherings, I want nothing more than to curl up in a ball and cry until there is nothing left of me but a puddle on the ground. Why? For so many reasons, some of which I’m not consciously aware of yet. And regardless of the questionable rationality of these reasons, the pain involved is very real. I hurt.

Image from Etsy.com

Not a pain that can be kissed away easily, but a pain that only those who suffer with depression can understand.

For now I am smiling through it all. Holding my head high and standing tall. Doing my part to make the house a warm and inviting place this Christmas, without bringing others down. Having conversations. Preparing meals. Going to work. Being the good wife, daughter, friend. But when the music stops and the guests leave, when the embers and laughter die down, I can set this cheerful mask aside and collapse from the enormous effort it takes to pretend.

The Solstice approaches, and a New Year will soon begin. Whatever changes come with it, I hope and pray that they will help me to heal and bring me peace.

Prayer in Flight

Mother Moon,
My Name is Sky
And I have always
Held You up
Now I ask
A favor of You:
To hold me up,
To wrap this plane
Gently
In Your Soft Light
And keep me safe.

~CLB 2010

September Promise

I love Autumn and desperately wish it would arrive faster. The air turning from sticky to crisp, the smell of pumpkin pies and spiced cider, and everywhere you look there are splashes of colour as the leaves take their annual bow. It is the precursor to Winter, which is my favourite time of year, and so for me, Autumn holds the beginning-seeds of that magical wonderous season.

But even as the calendar taunts me, and the humid Florida air clings to my skin, I see the first signs of the changing season: coloured leaves are dotting the near-by sandy forest trails. Hiking these trails regularly allows me to commune with nature and fills me with much-needed peace. But it also fascinates me, seeing the familiar scenery change as the wheel of the year turns. Always changing, in motion, and vibrantly alive.

Soon the sandy trails will be covered in leaves, and their brilliant colours will softly fade into the ground under foot. The summer wildflowers will soon fall away, and winter berries will grow in their place. The heat-loving critters will disappear into hiding just as the geese leave us for their long journey. As the temperature drops, I look forward to longer nature wanderings. How much nicer it is to stroll amongst God’s creation when I’m not burning with heat stroke!

This time of year, as we expectantly await Autumn and the many nature changes that accompany her, serves as a wonderful time to acknowledge the many transformations taking place in our own lives – big and small alike. To be thankful for the many blessings bestowed upon us, and cherish our own inner vibrant colours of promise.

Lines and Circles

Truth:

God is everything, everywhere, in everyone. All beings and non-beings, seen and unseen, are God-manifest, and therefore Divine, Perfect, Innately Good, and Capable of All Things of God’s Will.  We are One – eternally living in temporary illusions of dualism, so that We might come to know and experience all facets of self expression & emotion, every quality of the God-Source.

In this Truth:

I recognize that all things are worked for Good.

I acknowledge miracles and magic everywhere, in all things.

I no longer have anything to fear, not even death.

I am never alone.

There is beauty in chaos, in paradox. All experience is both linear and cyclical. The natural world around us reveals in many ways who we are, why we are, what has been, and what is to come. Signs and Symbols are everywhere. We need only to look for them.

For many, these concepts are foreign, or difficult to grasp. They believe it to be of the occult, heresy, from Satan. They have closed ears and closed eyes. They are asleep.

Heaven and Hell are real, but not in the way most understand. They are here, they are now, but not in the physical. Rather, they are higher and lower levels of consciousness.  The better we understand Love and Truth, and draw toward Source, the more we find Heaven Within. Conversely, moving away from Source, away from Love and Truth, the more we find Hell Within. Thus, it is Right-Thinking and Right-Doing that leads one to a state of Heaven.

Many have shown the Way: Christ, Buddha, Gandhi, Zoroaster, Baha’u’llah, and so on. Few have opened their eyes, and truly seen. Fortunately we have many incarnations, and therefore many opportunities to realize this Truth.

There are no barriers but the ones we create for ourselves. And most importantly, there is NO sin, only wrong-thinking.

My question is:

Now that Truth has made itself known in me, how do I proceed?

Stepping Off the Path

Today was an incredibly hot day, even for Florida’s standards. The humidity was so thick in the air that my hair frizzed in protest. And any sane person would have chosen to stay indoors on a day like this, in the cool air conditioning, with no protesting hair and no sweat beads on their brow.

It seems my sanity is in question.

Instead, I packed up a snack, dressed in comfortable workout clothes, donned my running shoes, grabbed the camera and my ipod, and headed off to a nearby park to hike the nature trails. It was absolutely gorgeous outside, despite the heat index, and I plugged along through the trees, snapping photographs of anything that caught my eye (which was quite a lot). It didn’t take long before I found myself stooping to take a macro-shot of a blooming flower, or a lone mushroom, or a cluster of bright purple berries with brilliant green vine-shoots looping around them. So much for power walking.

As I moved from one nature discovery to the next, a thought came to mind. Had I been too focused on the exercise aspect of this trip, I would have missed all of these incredible sights. I would have missed seeing the baby catfish in the creek, and the tree with knots that looked like a face. I would have passed by the beautiful moss-covered stones and the “fairy-step” mushrooms growing up the side of a giant oak. I wouldn’t have truly appreciated the way the sunlight filtered through the canopy above, and how the passing breeze rustling the leaves and grasses sounded like a great peaceful sigh.

Many of us go through life so focused on meeting a goal that we don’t see what we’re passing by. We continue on our chosen path and never stop to look around, to question and wonder and feel and see. Today’s nature hike was a wonderful reminder for me, when life gets in the way of living, to step off the path and marvel in the beauty surrounding us.