Balance and Beauty

Yesterday, I received an unexpected and welcome phone call from a friend asking if I wanted to go hiking north of Carefree. With a blue sky and temps in the upper seventies, I set my work aside and put on my hiking shoes.

This time of year is especially beautiful and, because of winter rains, the wildflowers are blooming almost everywhere you look. Delicate orange poppies cover the desert mountains and butterflies and bees are out in force admiring and pollinating the lovely blossoms.

The hiking trail led us to the top of a mountain where Indian ruins remain. The view was spectacular and it is not hard to imagine these people from not so long ago enjoying the same scenery: the valley below, the distant mountain ranges, the unusual rock formations and the red tail hawks circling above. There is a particular stillness at this elevation that adds to the majesty.

I am so grateful to live in a place where I can put down my work and so quickly be in this environment. The balance between work and play, between activity and stillness, and between close up and far away is so easily created.

Happiness

Purring would seem to be, in her case, an automatic safety valve device for dealing with happiness overflow. Monica Edwards

Friendship

What is a friend? A single soul dwelling in two bodies. Aristotle

Do it!

If you hear a voice within you say 'you cannot paint,' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced. Vincent Van Gogh

Slow down

It is important from time to time to slow down, to go away by yourself, and simply be.

Eileen Caddy

Color

As the sun colors flowers, so does art color life. John Lubbock

Opening up

We cannot discover new oceans unless we have the courage to lose sight of the shore.
Andre Gide

I was thinking of the above quote this morning because I am in the midst of a part of my life, self-induced, where I have no idea what the next part of my life will look like. I'm not even exactly sure what the next few weeks will produce! I am living in a friend's home for six weeks until my next furnished rental is available in the middle of April. I'll have that place until sometime in November.

At a time in my life when many people are settled in their lives and ways, I have thrown open a big wide open net. I love Arizona, my new home and am happy with my choice to be here. And, I am looking forward to what this time in my life produces -- what ever that may be.

In the meantime, I am presenting astrology lectures: one for a fantastic organization here in AZ called Spirit of the Senses (http://www.spiritofthesenses.org/) and another for UAC, the international astrology conference taking place in Denver in May (http://www.uacastrology.com/), which is going to be the biggest meeting of astrologers and students of astrology in years.

I am also back into giving my Receive courses (http://www.receiveandmanifest.com/) and working, once again, on my manuscript.

So, life is good. And I have definitely let go of the shore.

Life

is not a race.

Possibilities

In the sky
an infinitude of hope,
a canvas of glory
all possibilities mine.
Neroli Lambent

Hope

Hope is that thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops... at all.

Emily Dickinson

Fly

Aerodynamically the bumblebee shouldn't be able to fly, but the bumblebee doesn't know that so it goes on flying anyway. Mary Kay Ash

Unconditional

My goal in life is to be as good of a person as my dog already thinks I am.

Author Unknown

I took this photo when I was in Redmond, Washington last May. This woman and her dog were looking out over a beautiful lake that had ducks and turtles as well as eagles flying overhead.

I was thinking about my dog this morning. Joline, an Australian Shepard, died many years ago but I still think about her and miss her. There is simply nothing like a relationship with a dog as anyone who has ever had one knows.

I found the above quote in quotegarden.com, a good place to find quotes, when I went looking for a quote that captured this special relationship.

What would it be like to live in the world with the enthusiasm and love that a dog so naturally possesses? Living in the present is so dog-like perhaps all seekers should give themselves an assignment of observing and playing with dogs.

Today I am going to be on the lookout for dogs and spend time watching them. If I am lucky, I'll get the chance to pet one.

Togetherness

No man is an island, entire of itself;

every man is a piece of the continent.

John Donne

Perception

It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see.

Henry David Thoreau

Joy

People from a planet without flowers would think we must be mad with joy the whole time to have such things about us.

Iris Murdoch

Journey

Going through my books last night I found a book of poems by one of my favorite poets, Mary Oliver. If you are unfamiliar with her, gift yourself with one of her many books of poems. Below is one of my favorites.

The Journey

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
though their melancholy
was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.

Mary Oliver

Commitment

At the moment of commitment,

the universe conspires to assist you.

Goethe

Experiment

I have a habit of taking photos of a section, piece or part of something that catches my interest when I go somewhere and then I don't end up with photos that really show where I've been. The above photo is from my recent trip to Tuscon. Not that you can tell :-)

When my mom was visiting recently, we went to see a high school friend of hers, Patricia. Patricia's home is spectacular. Her husband Kim has a cactus garden with cactus from all over the world. Quite beautiful.

One of the things I loved about their home was the use of color. Walls, inside and out, were painted with vivid blues, yellows, and even a deep purple. Having lived for the last twenty years on the east coast, where colors tend to be more muted and dark, it's fun to see how people in the southwest use color.

So, I guess the theme for today's posting, from close-up shots to different ways to use color, is about looking at the world in different, unexpected and sometimes surprising ways. I'm going to pay attention to this theme today and see where it leads me.

Gratitude

Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light.

Albert Schweitzer

Star Patterns

Last September I was in Carmel during the lunar eclipse. In the quiet early morning hours with camera pointed at the sky, I stood in a parking lot trying to capture the main event.

Since I was out there for a while, I had time to experiment and found that I could make letters out of the eclipsing moon and actually got a pretty good rendition of my initials: AVO. I call those photos my lunar letters and I was looking forward to getting more letters during this recent eclipse, but the sky was too cloudy.

Back in Carmel, I also pointed my camera toward the stars. Jupiter was particularly bright then with the star Antares just below, so I practiced making star pictures also. In the above photo Jupiter is the higher one with the white light; multi-colored Antares is below.

What I love about what this photo shows is that Jupiter is white because planets reflect the sun's light, having none of their own, while stars produce their own light, which is why Antares has so many colors. You can click on the photo to make the image bigger. During this recent lunar eclipse, the sky was too overcast to experiment making star patterns.

Today, I am going to remind myself to color and scribble outside of the lines and be open to life showing itself in unexpected ways.

Lunar eclipse

The night sky was overcast for much of the evening but I managed to get a couple of photos of the lunar eclipse. What an awesome sight. I hope you all saw it. There is nothing like a celestial event to put things in perspective. The sun, moon and stars were here before we were born and will be doing their sky dance long after we are gone.

Today I am going to remind myself of this, so I don't allow my emotions to convince me that something is more important than it really is.

Simplicity

Life is really simple, but we insist on making it complicated. Confucius

Last night I was reading Power vs. Force, David Hawkin's book. In his Introduction he states: To explain that which is "simple" can sometimes be almost impossible; yet if we can understand even one simple thing in depth, we'll have greatly expanded our capacity for comprehending the nature of the universe and of life itself.

I really related to this statement. When explaining the Receive courses, I always say: this is so simple, so counterintuitive -- yet this work with these simple, simple exercises shifts the way you are in your life. And as your inner landscape shifts, the outer follows as life continually rearranges itself around you. It's not about raising self esteem or increasing your self worth. There is impersonality to this, if that makes sense. One of the ways I describe this work is this: It's like putting the right key in the right lock. It's a universal mechanism where your opinion of yourself is simply not the point.

We can make things so complicated, so convoluted. Today, instead of running around on the hamster wheel in my mind, I am going to remind myself of the beauty, elegance and simplicity of life.

Nature

Just after finishing my five-week Receive course last Monday, my mom arrived from the east coast for a visit. I hope you have been enjoying the quotes and photos I have been posting.

Visitors give me a chance to get out of my regular schedule, which is a good interruption! Stepping back from daily routines, I have the time and room to evaluate my choices and to see if I want to make new ones.

The writer Stephen Covey talks about the importance of tending to the important and not just to the urgent. I have a saying: Are you running your schedule, or is your schedule running you?

I find myself thinking about that this morning and wanting to regroup and change the way I am spending my time.When I first moved to Arizona last May, I regularly spent time in nature. Lately, I have been staring at the computer screen more than I would prefer.

So, today I am going to make sure I get out of the house and receive the beautiful sights that are all around me: the desert mountains, the cactus and trees, and the endless Arizona sky.

Silence

It is only when we silent the blaring sounds of our daily existence that we can finally hear the whispers of truth that life reveals to us, as it stands knocking on the doorsteps of our hearts.

K.T. Jong

Energy

The visible world is the invisible organization of energy.

Heinz Pagels

Wait

There are occasions when you can hear the mysterious language of the Earth, in water, or coming through the trees, emanating from the mosses, seeping through the undercurrents of the soil; but you have to be willing to wait and receive. John Hay

Take a break!

My mom is visiting. I'm taking a break today!

Love

Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.

Thomas Merton

Where there is great love there are always miracles.

Willa Cather

In order to create there must be a dynamic force, and what force is more potent than love?

Igor Stravinsky

Happy Valentine's Day!

Kindness

Wherever there is a human being,

there is an opportunity for a kindness.

Seneca

Courage

It is never too late to be who you might have been. George Eliot

Dance

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room. Kurt Vonnegut