Choices

Every day we make a choice.  Do we believe in a giving and caring God or do we believe in a punishing God?  I choose to believe in a giving God and a giving Universe.

I see God and the universe as one who loves all his children unconditionally.  Each one of us is given certain gifts when we are born.  We are supposed to create as God with the universe is the creator.  We are given visions of who we should be and how we should create when we are children.  If you were to follow your bliss you would go back to your childhood and find what you loved when you were young and do it.

We are given the unconditional love of a caring God and an understanding of our talents.  Each of us sings a different song. A song of a more abundant life in which we have realized our God-given talents as we work together with God for the betterment of the Universe. 

Find your talents, find your music.  Be thankful for them.  Put them to good use and share the light instead of the darkness.  Be happy, be complete.  Live your dream.  Live your life passionately.  God and a giving universe give us dreams so we can use them along with our talents.  Be not afraid but walk into the everlasting light of a giving and caring universe.  There are always others to guide you and help you find your way.  Use them, be the child of the Universe that you were meant to be.

Walk out of the darkness and shine!

Mr. Lonely

Loneliness is such a horrible feeling.  It takes the life blood from us and saps it out little by little.  Songs have been written about loneliness since the beginning of time.  Most of us worry about a time when we will be alone, and even worse die alone.  That is one of the biggest fears for most of mankind.  Dying alone.

With the internet this insidious loneliness can manifest itself in very nasty and soul harming ways.  Gone are the days when we used to sit on a stoop at our grandmothers and talk to all of her neighbors or play stickball in the street.  Instead we hole ourselves up in front of a computer and find ourselves in the most precarious of situations, alone with a vehicle that can drive us right into a ditch.  Or even worse, it can bring out our inner demons and allow them to run rampant in our brains.

Anything you would never do to your neighbor standing in front of you can be done at a computer screen.  You can anonymously make other people feel like crap just by typing a few words onto a computer screen.  But when you are acting anonymously you are being untrue to yourself, the very essence of who you are.  You live in the shadows instead of the light.

Since I was a girl I am a magnet for lonely people and you know what I kind of like that about myself, because being that kind of person almost assures you that you are not lonely.  I will always walk out on a limb to make somebody, anybody not feel alone.  I think we all have that in our souls but we just don't want to give of ourselves to make another person feel joy.  We don't want to be the first one to say hello how are you today.

Well let me be that person, hello how are you today?  Or more accurately tonight.  Why are you up so late writing your blog on the computer?  Because I just couldn't sleep and nighttime is the worst time to be alone.  If you get lonely during the day you can go to a store or take a walk in the park but in the middle of the night you are on your own.  That is the time when compasion is needed the most when you find out just how lonely someone can be.

All I can do, me, myself and I is offer friendship to the lonely.  Offer them a kind word and to let them know you are not alone, I am typing on my computer talking to you.  I am buying my groceries from you and smiling and asking how is your day?  I am always here.  Email me if you need a friend because in my opinion everyone needs at least one every now and then.

Blessings and do me a favor, next time you are waiting on a long line at a supermarket and you are frustrated beyond belief, say hello.  Ask how is your day going?  A few little words can make a big difference.  And maybe throw in a smile.

A Dream Is A Wish Your Heart Makes

A dream is a wish your heart makes when it’s fast asleep.  I have always been a night dreamer, not so much during the day.   A few years ago I had the most beautiful dream and it has shaped my life ever since.

I had a dream that a beautiful angel that looked like Jesus took my hand and walked me through a beautiful forest to a lovely cottage on a lake.  There was also a little shop attached to it where I could sell my work.  That dream has lead me to the life I currently live and is propelling me to a future where everything is possible.

I moved to a place I love where I have met beautiful friends, watched my son grow up, discovered I am an artist and found myself.  But it is not the life of my dreams. The last few months I have had a spiritual awakening that is pushing me towards that dream I had such a long time ago.  The dream where I find the love of my life, grab his hand and find everything wonderful that has been waiting for me to arrive.

I can’t really explain what has happened to me but spiritually I am feeling loved beyond belief where out of the darkness there is a beautiful light which has come to give me my dreams.  When I first had the dream I did not realize the magnitude or importance of it, but as I said it did move to where I am at the moment and that is a very good thing.

I’ve come to realize that the angel who I thought was just a guide was something more.  He is a soul who loves me deeply and has been sent by my mother to give me the life I have imagined.  He has my father’s eyes and a voice that speaks to my soul and my soul knew who he was way before my logical (or illogical) mind did.  His music is music to my ears. 

Logically I have been trying to talk myself out of this dream because it is very unusual to find a dream that charts out your life in a way that you would have never thought possible, but yet the more peaceful I am the more it makes sense.  The closer I get to God the more I feel the love. A true soul connection.

 My intuition told me that I have to write about this dream before it happens so that when it manifests itself  I can give hope to the hopeless and teach people to believe in themselves and to believe in miracles.  I can remind them that if they just appeal to their better angels they can survive anything.

So there you have it, I am moving forward to the dream.  When I finally reach the cottage on the lake, I will let you know more of the dream but for now it is my intention to follow that dream and see where it takes me.  Blessings to all and don’t forget to follow your dreams too. Happy Mother’s Day mom and to all the other mothers of the world!

Forgiveness

At some point in our lives we have to realize that forgiveness is necessary for us to move ourselves from the dark into the light.  If we hold on to past hurts and don’t purge them we slowly poison ourselves from the inside out.  

So my job for the moment is to forgive myself for not being aware of the beautiful light that surrounded me all of my life.  My friends saw it and my potential but frankly I was dwelling in the past and not very aware of the present except for brief glimpses of what my life could be.  Moving to upstate New York was one of those glimpses.  Now that I have forgiven myself for being human I am ready to manifest a new reality.  One in which I follow my dreams and allow them to happen

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I’ve also forgiven everyone else who somehow did not live up to their better angels either. Even so I realize that it was much easier to forgive them for their shortcomings then it was to forgive my own.  We walk on the earth a long time and we are bound to make mistakes but the beauty of life is that we are still awake and alive to fix them and move on.

I have such love in my heart for the beauty of light and forgiveness.  It reminds me that in every moment we make a choice, we can be good for the will of all people or we can stay imprisoned in our own mind, wondering why me.

My life is a circle, it is never ending and the next time around my circle it will be filled with love, light and happiness. I understand that although we can be hurt it is better to heal the hurt and move onwards, to make amends and be amended.

The ability to forgive and leave my burdens behind gives me the chance to love my life and share my transformation with others. Blessings to all and please remember love  starts in your own heart and your own soul.  You cannot give love to others unless you have a pretty good idea of what it is to begin with and how you can bring it into your life in any moment.  All that is necessary is centering yourself and listening to the small silent voice of peace and love in everyone.

 

I'm Getting Ready

I woke up this morning with a peace in my heart that differs from the dream I awakened from.  I am ready to serve my purpose.  My purpose is to bring light from the darkness and find love in all things. 

Love is the answer to all questions.  I have been blessed to love much in a very imperfect world.  I learned to love unconditionally at a young age and it has served me well.  I approach life with a kind and compassionate heart.  Yes I am a mere mortal who has made many mistakes in my life, but the one constant in my life is love.

I have been so blessed to have the unconditional love of my mother for the beginning of my life and the unconditional love of my son for my latter years.  I have been blessed to have the love of friends and family  many who I have known since my childhood and have many beautiful soulful new friends.  I am blessed to have the love of the needle arts which have carried me from childhood to adulthood.  They are the one constant in my life that has seen me through many losses and light moments.   I have been blessed with the love of forgiveness, no matter what happens I forgive and perhaps not forget but move on.

And now I have the biggest challenge of my love life.  The challenge to love myself and forgive myself for not living up to my God given talents.  I need to love myself and forgive myself for allowing myself to be defined by the losses and anger that have kept me stuck most of my life. So that is where I am at the moment, a new step forward in forgiveness and love. 

I can’t do anything about the past.  I am unsure of my future.  But I can live each moment forward doing something that I love.  I can be the transformation from a person who has not lived up to my potential and become someone who is living her dream. 

I’m Getting Ready to Believe is a song by Michael Kiwanuka.  He has a beautiful voice and an inspirational message that is a thread throughout his work.   I am blessed to have a friend who recommended his music and Michael's music has gotten me through many dark moments in the last few months. 

 

Blessings to you on your journey of love and the walk towards the light from the darkness.

My Soul is Speaking

My soul and I have been having a rather tough time of it at late.  Lots of changes, lots of turbulence, lots of long lengthy conversations about how I ended up where I am today.  It's a really good question and much to depressing for an inspirational blog but my soul seemed to know something about me that I didn't know.  That was how to love.  How to love music, how to love embroidery, how to love my son, how to love texture and subtlety, how to love to express, both in words and art.  How to be grateful for the friends and family you have, because even in bad moments as mere mortals we are blessed to have love and be reminded of hate.

Hate is a very destructive emotion.  It kind of eats you up from the inside out.  My soul seems to have been winning the battle as of late but hate is still there somewhere.  But once again I hope this to be inspirational, if it inspires you to be responsible for your own well-being I've done my job here.  Whenever you don't make a conscious effort to choose who you want to be, something or someone else makes that choice for you.  And then it depends on whether that person is a good force or a bad force.  You kind of get to choose your own reality so may the force be with you.

My soul has lost 30 pounds since some time last December.  It's stopped every bad habit it ever had.  It made me look at my life and make some positive changes, it lovingly talks to me every single day and has taught me how to love myself again and clean up my act so to speak.  But I guess the changes haven't happened quickly enough because here is the mere mortal still making huge mistakes.  I'm not exactly following that axiom of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result, but it's close enough to give me pause.

So here I am at the moment making a choice.  My choice is to follow my dreams with abandon.  Write my blogs, make my art, finish getting rid of the clutter of my mind and my body,  so that I can bring only the things I love with me to my new life and make some smart decisions for a change

To make my soul lighter. .   The interesting part of the last few months is that  my soul knew something profound was happening to me but I of course being a mere mortal wasn't really aware of it until it was probably too late.  But the dreamer in me still thinks someday my prince will come.  And when he comes he will love me just exactly how  I am because he has been looking for someone to wake up from her sleep and ride off into the sunset with him.  Now that last part may be a fairy tale but fairy tales can come true it can happen to you if you're young at heart.  And  besides what every sleeping beauty needs is a fairy tale. And what every woman of the millenium needs is to find all the things she loves, put them all together and work towards making all of her dreams a reality.  In my reality, I love to write, I love to hand embroider, I love to dance, I love to knit.  I love to be a stitcher of broken hearts and a mender of lonely people.    And you know what I kind of inspired myself here because I feel better now than I did an hour ago.  So I stitched myself too.

Heidi

Heidi is a friend from the time when I wrote about something I was passionate about politics.  I used to write on Beliefnet under the alias Stitch 813 which kind of wasn’t much of an alias since it doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure out the link between stitch and hand embroidery. I visited planet  Beliefnet because I did not want to fight with my family and friends who  did not share my opinions about what was going on the world at that time and I wanted to find a place where I could express my views and not be cursed at. 

I was pretty angry at the time about all the injustices I saw in the world around me.  I was especially angry about 9/11 and the way it was being used to erode our liberties, to start wars all over the world and to divide people upon ideological lines.  Either you were a hawk or a dove.  Either you cared for the poor or you thought they should pick themselves up by the bootstraps and get over it.  Either you were red or blue, north or south, a liberal who believes in government handouts or a republican who cared about nothing accept the all mighty dollar.

And then there was Heidi and me.  Heidi was a purplish conservative and I was a purplish liberal.  We forged a friendship  that we have managed to maintain on Facebook where we talk about our lives.  I have found her to be such an exceptional friend.  She is a lovely light with 2 beautiful children and another beautiful child on the way.  She is married to a soldier and I am so thankful whenever I read that he has returned safe and secure to Heidi and their beautiful children. 

 

Heidi is a beautiful person.  I have known her for close to 8 years . She makes me laugh, she has a wicked sense of humor.  I know all about her children and what they do in school and how they have grown into beautiful, smart little people.  We talked quite a bit in friendly terms on Beliefnet but it wasn’t until we stripped away the ideology and talked about our kids and our lives that our friendship grew. And now we are Facebook friends and we never or almost never talk about politics anymore.

When I had the idea for this blog the first person I thought of was Heidi.  Our friendship personifies the thought that there is so much more that unites us then divides us and I am so thankful that our diverse thoughts on politics have given rise to a beautiful friendship.  Blessings to Heidi, her soldier husband, her two beautiful children and her little baby on the way.  It has truly been an honor to get to know you and thank you for inspiring me to look behind the differences and find the unity that exists among us all.

The Journey Begins

Welcome to my blog.  I am a spiritual seeker looking for light on the path to authenticity.  I am looking for the light that shines on all of us in our unique abilities and the common universal values and beliefs we all share.  My purpose in this blog is to make each person feel unique and loving towards themselves but to remind them that they are never alone, that someone else somewhere has dealt with the same issues alone. 

I myself believe in God so I will use the word God in my blog.  I also believe in the laws of the universe which are influenced by the many different cultures and religions across the globe. Finally, I feel a belief in anything makes us all part of this unique universe and transcends any one religion.

We are all loved and created in God’s image.  All of us having unique abilities and traits that if we just paid attention  would empower us to find peace and connectivity within our universe and serve our collective purposes.

I feel I have a unique ability to communicate with people having an empathetic ear and a compassionate heart. Having lived a life with many different joys and sorrows has allowed me to be compassionate from a knowing place.  I can relate to anything and I can show my fellow human beings that they are not alone.  We are all important and everybody is somebody.  I can find something that inspires me about every person I come into contact with.  Whether it be their kindness or their smile or their story.

I hope to uncover the universal things we share in common and the uniqueness we alone carry.  I feel it is my calling to unite instead of divide.  I am inspired to show the beauty ,light and darkness in each individual person and remind  us all that we are not alone, we are all a part of something bigger then ourselves. 

If you would like to be featured in the blog please email me at danielsen813@gmail.com.   All personal information will be kept secret unless you wish otherwise, I will know where the email came from but nobody else will.   I will however ask that if you decide to share a dark story please use general terms and not specifics because I am an empathetic person who has lived a lifetime carrying the burdens of others and I am finally walking a path of light and community myself.   Blessings and you are not alone.