Teary Moments

Links to childhood come from the oddest places. There are some foods that bring back a childhood memory, or a song or a word or a movie.

I was talking with a friend last night who mused about how she watched the old Haley Mills/Rosalind Russell movie, The Trouble With Angles. We are both Pagans so it is interesting how we will watch religious themed movies reminiscent of the faith of our youth even though we have walked from it.

We were both raised Catholic. There is nothing wrong with anyone who practices this faith. It is just that for us, our spiritual path took us elsewhere yet, I admitted to her how I love this movie too despite being as far away from the tenets of Catholicism.

She shared that at the end of the movie she felt foolish to admit she cried! I shared that I get misty eyed when I watch that movie too. So, the question for these two Pagans was why? Why would we cry? Why would we get misty eyed? It is very simple.

This is symbolic of a childhood lost during the process called life. It is also symbolic of so many things that happen in life that, as children, we could have never envisioned: the experience of the death of a dearly beloved, the disability of a parent, alcoholism in the family and so on.

Crying at a movie such as this brings waves of remembering the childhood faith that seemed somehow to insure nothing could go wrong because we just believed and we cry because we mourn that wonderful naiveté that is intrinsic with childhood. As we get older we seek to recreate this feeling as a tool toward success. We seek to find hope, trust and faith.

Many of us seek this reinstatement of the self through business and others, like myself seek spirituality first as the springboard of coping with past hurts and toward evolving into a mentally healthy person that can see and grasp success.

Regardless of what we may have achieved in our personal goals, there will be that word, song, movie and memory that can make us cry, make us grieve for what we perceived as lost forever. But reactions such as these can also mirror the work we have yet to do on ourselves as we travel the path to meeting our personal best.

Tears are healthy. They release toxicity from the body, mind and spirit so a few tears now and then regardless of the why is actually healthy and, in terms of self inventory tears can help us take the next step to personal healing.

I guess if we ever feel blocked in anyway watching a movie we know will stir our emotions just might help us discover what we need to work on in order to remove a temporary block.

In short the trouble was not with “Angles”, as far as my friend and I were concerned, perhaps the trouble was temporarily with us.

In HER GODMOTHER the troubled little girl that is the main character comes to terms with her heartache...

HER GODMOTHER BOOK TRAILER, produced by Valkyrie Publishing, theresachaze.com

A Walk In TheRain

As parts of the northeast face downpours of rain I empathize. In 2006 our area was devastated with a major flood and repairs in my county will never be completed in truth. Consequently, we watch weather very carefully here in upstate New York. As luck would have it I was in NYC when the flood hit and my husband was alone to face raging waters, the inability to get to the barn to check on the horses, then tracking them when they got out because the fence line broke and so on and so on. It was so bad there was no way to get home for over a week! As I write this Maine is getting ten inches of rain and I pray they will not suffer the several feet of water we all suffered that year of that flood.

Today I walked around the pond with my elder mare who I have been rehabilitating for some time now. Fear of losing her for quite a few years left me grateful that she is sound and out of her full retirement. She and I make a good pair...both arthritic going through our paces of being just plain strong and able to be come back queens.
The rain drizzled on us at first and then came down heavier but that was no problem as I have always enjoyed a walk in the rain. She, on the other hand, made faces at me as if to say "Are we done yet?" It was one of those times when the elements allow you to take stock of the moment and magically the moment is suspended as you watch not just a rain of water but a rain of autumn leaves falling as the wind loosens them from the trees. It is a suspended moment when everything just feels the way it is supposed to feel: right. It is a time to reflect that there should be no reason not to feel this mental calm all the time other than because...just because we let life get in the way.

Like so many, life has gotten in my way many times and frankly, there was nothing, absolutely nothing that could be done. Do not get me wrong I am a believer in reinvention. I have done it many times myself-recovering from illnesses and disabilities that would have just plain put others away for good. Over the years as I was forced to remake myself mentally, physically and creatively. As a result I developed Quantum Spirituality, The Science of Change. (You can find the link on my page.)

So, I believe in overcoming but I also know what being in an iron box is like too. Today, there were no iron boxes other than the current preoccupation that had plagued me all week and I allowed it to take over for a bit--far longer than I should have for sure. But, isn't that always the case? After all we are human. We will have those triggers that challenge the space we have worked so hard to create.
But in this walk in the rain preoccupation was washed away and replaced with gratitude for where I really am--in the self manifested little farm that was first created with the daydreams of a little girl growing up in a poor ghetto long, long ago.

Rain is good. Rain is my friend.

Rain plays a pivotal role for the main character in my book, HER GODMOTHER. See the trailer:

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A Magical Day!

In Her Godmother, Allie learns to see the everyday magic around her on her path to healing. But there is also such a thing as magic everyday, any day. Magic is just the word I use to describe a miracle and, as I have written many times in the past, each day is filled with miracles. 186,000 to be exact. How do I come up with this number? Well, of course there will be concerns, worries, grief, loss and all those stressful things we experience as a matter of life but even though these things may be happening to us and I have had more than my share of all of these and more there are still "happenings" that are blessings or miracles or magical if you will.

For any given sorrow, there is a blessing. I have experienced the loss of many beloved people in a short period of time and grief was overwhelming but, I received so much love, companionship, counsel and wisdom from each and everyone of them that these things are the miracles I carry with me everyday. I have had near death experiences that left me blessed with a further understanding of life after life. I have suffered illnesses that were truly serious and debilitating and have overcome them all. As I write this I continue to heal myself from a serious central nervous system disease called RSD (Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy) that left me in agony for over seven years unable to dress myself without my husband's help. I was unable to write or type. An expert horsewoman, I had to give up my love which I have now regained!

Even during these times I would think of the miracles of each day. I often gave thanks for my daughter who is my life and best friend. I decided that each second of every day that she was okay that was my blessing,my miracle, my magic. There are 186,000 seconds in a day so just this one blessing gave me 186,000 blessings each day. Do you see where I am going with this? If you look at each and every thing that is going well in a day and count the seconds you will find you have much more than 186,000 each day! This is the magic of everyday that I choose to focus on.

If you have followed my blog you might remember reading my comments on my horse, Sassy. She had years of serious illnesses and at one point I thought I would have to put her down. She made it and I retired her. This year she started to show signs of her old self. I began a slow reconditioning program with her--my goal to just bareback her for long walks. This has been a slow process. After all she is, as of today, 29 years old and has been very arthritic.

Today is Labor Day and since I bought her on Labor Day I usually call this day her birthday. Today I took her out for one of our bareback rides and chose a different path that went up a gently sloping hill. Not sure how she would take this I was prepared to turn her around and just walk on the flats if necessary. Well, not only did she do this with ease when we got to the flats she began trotting! She hasn't been this energetic for years and she even wanted to run!

That she gave me this gift on her "birthday" did not escape me. You see I believe in messages, signals that come my way to keep me in faith and trust. And today was one of those times when I was told what you think may not be possible does not have to be the case. I know this from my mother who with over 17 heart attacks and even more strokes and Parkinson's lived to 93. Her whole life she never said never, that she was limited and although disabled she continued to walk, get herself to bingo and in general enjoy gossiping and causing me great worry when she would not call to let me know where she was...Each day of my mother's life was a testimony to miracles, to the magic of perseverance, of the will.

I struggle with bipolar disorder and there are days when it takes every fiber of my mind to make me determined not to give in. I also suffer from severe reactive hypoglycemia so there are days I fight overwhelming exhaustion as I try to balance my blood sugar levels. This morning was one of those mornings. Knowing how Sassy looks forward to going out I determined we would go out and if I felt too tired after a short bit we would come but I would give in.

Well, those few minutes became a magical ride with her the likes of which she and I have not experienced for years. Imagine if I had given in to my exhaustion this morning. Imagine the miracle I would have missed!

Today I had magic like I had not had with her in a long, long time. If there is magic once, there is magic always.

What would make you feel as if you tapped into magic? Think about it and just do it!

Her Godmother Book Trailer: Her Godmother--a tale of magic and miracles!