A Pocket Full Of Miracles

Are you in a dark place? Are you feeling like a victim to your circumstances? Are you emotionally fumbling? Do you feel your life has nothing miraculous in it? Everyone goes through rough times and everyone has times where they feel abandoned spiritually, losing hope through times of lacking faith. None of us are alone when it comes to experiencing the despair of darkness. Finding hope and faith can be difficult at these times but not impossible to obtain or regain.

I have found counting blessings not at night (as the song goes) but in the morning helps me frame my mental attitude for the day. Another is my mantra "I am blessed." You see over time you will feel blessed. Wish someone a blessed day and you will get a smile. Blessings are easy to give so why not give yourself as many as you can? Before we can see our blessings however, we may have to do some math.

There are 186,000 seconds in a day. This means on a given day if we have food on the table, no matter how meager, we have 186,000 blessings or miracles. Now if you add having a roof over your head your miracles for that day have now doubled to 372,000 miracles. It is all a matter of perspective. If you have active children add 186,000 miracles to each one. Is at least one parent alive? If so add another 186,000 miracles to your day. If you recovering from illness you are fortunate to be around to do so. True there may be really serious problems you are facing but if you are not consumed today by them, you have just found more moments of miracles.

The power to undergo our hardships gracefully is a matter of perspective and having faith and spirituality basically in tact. The next time you feel overwhelmed by your situation stop and do the math. Cate

Please take a moment to watch my book trailer. As Allie begins her journey of healing she encounters miracles of her own...

Why?

Her Godmother is a story that adults who have had an alcoholic parent can also relate to. Allie is a young girl whose father is an alcoholic whose drinking and irresponsibility result in the break up of her parents. While her mother makes plans to relocate, Allie stays with her godmother who helps her find her own path to healing. Allie's stumbling blocks to moving forward are guilt because she could not help her father and the question "Why?" With her godmother's help Allie comes to terms with this question but for those of us whose childhood is more than a glance behind us we may still have many questions about the turns life can take.

Why, for example, did my mother have to have that debilitating stroke when I was nine. Why did she have to lose her speech and why was my childhood markedly different than other children as a result?

Why did a parent die of cancer? Why was a brother a drug addict? What do some families seem to have more than their share of loss, heartache and suffering? Why did my mother-in-law's father and young brother have to go to Auschwitz?

Why do some people seem to be successes at what they do and others always failing no matter how hard they try? Of course failure is a subjective word for failing is all in the mind as I have often written. But for now, let the standard definition suffice.

The magic I describe in Her Godmother is real magic to me because I live my life with non-traditional Pagan beliefs and so all that is in Her Godmother is authentic. But, that is only part of what I believe. I believe we in essence spiritual. Energy that is "recycled" into lifetime after lifetime. But in each lifetime perhaps we were not "perfect" and left a lot to be desired in terms of compassion or other dubious acts.

Many have heard the term Karma. I do not believe Karma is a punishment for past life deeds necessarily. I do believe that karma can also be a choice to experience often extremely unpleasant things to exercise our spiritual muscle life after life until we have experienced enough wisdom to come back and empower the world we inhabit or to remain spirit.

Choice. We choose those we will call family and friend. We choose our positive experiences and those experiences that will truly test our mettle. And, it is not that we have to be gracious about how we get through our heartaches but that we merely get through it.

There are tools in life to help us along the way: that marvelous friend I spoke with yesterday and shared here, a special pet that was more than a pet, a teacher that instilled confidence and yes, the magic of a rainbow or a squirrel tapping at the window!

Whatever we have been through or those around us for that matter, we owe it to ourselves and each other to carry the banner of those we have lost in a place that we can look up to becuase no matter what they may have gone through, they would want us to move forward and strive to be as happy as we can.

There is nothing wrong with finally letting go of the guilt, of the why? There is only the challenge of learning how....

For more of my articles on 'life", you can find me on SelfGrowth.com

To see my book trailer for Her Godmother:

A Talk With An Old Friend

I had a nice talk with a dear friend of mine today. We go 'way back to our younger days of going to discos and clubs and making candlelit dinners for ourselves just because we deserved it! We dyed each other's hair, made homemade face creams, did facials while listening to music and gossiping. Her apartment was my haven during a time is of severe grief in which I suffered a severe nervous breakdown. The truth is I owe her my life for she was my "mother hen".

She hasn't changed much through the years either. She is as youthful as ever and no, I will NOT say her age other than she is a Michelle Pfeiffer look alike. My daughter and her son are both grown and, true to the type of mothers we were (for better or worse), they each as the saying goes march to their own drums. In my daughter's case, she makes her own drums!

Life gave each of us hardships that we wondered how we endured, we each lost beloveds and today, as in my younger days, I listened to her wisdom. We were talking about the whys of life. Why does one person suffer recurring bouts of cancer while another cannot survive one. Why do some people's lives seem only peppered with sorrow while others meet sorrow on their journey over and over again.

She said, "We will go crazy if we analyze why this and why that. Sometimes we have to accept that this is how life is." (She is a hospice Christian Chaplain and sees death and dying everyday) Recently she helped an elderly friend get into a nursing home near her home so she can look over her. She, like I, wonder (or perhaps fear) what our old age will be like. "I look at Betty (our friend) and realize that time is too short to waste on worrying. This is the time for laughter and to not let anything bother you. We each have to find a way to just accept and not waste our lives in worry and fear and death will come for all of us anyway. I want to just live my life to the fullest.

I, like so many other people, sometimes languish in the shadow of past memories. Beyond nostalgia, it is a place of loss and missed opportunities. Recently I went through a period of mourning my losses over the years and those who have read my writings know they have been many. The hardest part of moving forward from personal loss is the guilt of moving forward. It is as if moving forward is somehow a betrayal, somehow we feel deep down inside that it is wrong to stop grieving. But we never stop grieving. It just takes on a different persona in the guise of "adjusting". There is nothing wrong with moments of sadness for what was or what wasn't. The problem becomes how can we move forward joyfully?

I began to work myself through this period by getting up very early every morning and having my coffee and barn chores done early. I began exercising more and redecorated the living room with my husband. These are all steps to moving forward when stuck in a mental space we want to get out of.

Talking to old friends who knew you way back when one week you were a blond, the next a red head helps too. Remembering the fun reignites the feeling and the brain cannot tell a real experience from a remembered or imagined one so recalling laughter uplifts in the present which is another step in moving forward.

We had our conversation much earlier in the day and when I hung up I had no idea our heart to heart would become my blog today. Writers are funny that way. It can be a picture or a song or a cow that brings forth some tidbit of writing but today it was reconnecting with a dear friend.

We spoke of getting together with the gaggle of gals we used to hang out with in a hotel room with booze, pajamas and food and just laughing about the old days. Oh, and we won't cook our meal. We've earned the right to be served!

Moving forward is what I wrote about today. You have read the blog already. In Her Godmother, the main character struggles to move forward while having to face her father's alcoholism. Her Godmother shows how there is everyday magic that can heal. Life is the same way. Sometimes the magic in a talk with an old friend...

HER GODMOTHER BOOK TRAILER

Mirror, Mirror

We in spiritual circles sometimes talk about "mirroring". What we mean by this is that someone or circumstances reflect who we really are by how we react to these situations. If, for example, we are impatient with someone who has a short temper there is a strong possibility that we, ourselves, may tend to have short fuses. In other words we experience irritation at the very trait we have in which case this "mirror" enables us to look at ourselves.

Mirrors such as these take all forms. This past 4th of July weekend I became really angry at a neighbor across the road. Mind you in all the years that we have been neighbors we have only ever exchanged a hello when we see each other. I am a funny person this way. If I feel cool toward someone when I meet them I listen to my intuition. My choosing not be friendly is usually just a preference to not allow someone in to my personal space and life. But I wander...

In actuality I have never been annoyed with these neighbors until this past 4th. I happened to look across my driveway to see that there, in view of the road was the Confederate flag. I became furious! How dare they put up that flag instead of the US flag! I know my history and intellectually know that today, many New Southerners consider this flag a symbol of a failed attempted to become their own nation. Sound familiar? But to me this more prominently represents a time in which people were considered property with no rights and who often suffered horrible abuses. I am of mixed heritage. My father was Irish-English but my mother was Puerto Rican of Taino, Spanish and African heritage. In fact, my own great grandmother had been taken from her African homeland by a Spaniard and brought to Puerto Rico against her will so the issue of slavery is one that is in my family history.

I fumed! I was trying to think of something I could put up on my lawn to infuriate him in return. As a Pagan, I know the inequities suffered for these beliefs as well. But, the truth of the matter is I, as a Pagan, am judged by people of extreme persuasions and the violent hatred expressed towards Pagans is documented historically and still happens today. But, I am out of the broom closet so to speak and have blatant and ornate altars on my front porch which is visible to the road all year around. I am sure this irritates and even infuriates some people but I am expressing myself on my private property and this "self" expression is a right.

As a writer, no matter how loathsome someone may be, such as a Clan leader, I must respect his right to his opinion and to state it. For if one person loses the right of freedom of expression it is only a matter of time before we all do. So, here I was flaming mad about my neighbor forgetting at the time that he was expressing himself just as much as I do by my front porch altar displays.

My anger was my mirror in that I became acutely aware that weekend of exactly how sensitive I really am about certain philosophies, about the suffering the ancestor I never knew went through as a Black and as a woman. All of this came ripping up to the surface the moment I saw that flag. So, the real issue here is not political from a spiritual point of view although it certainly was part of it. The real issue is what I am angry about.

The purpose of a mirror is not to so much outwardly act as much as it is to become inwardly aware of powerful reactions and examine the usefulness of the emotions. The anger I felt was useless. It was not going to change his hanging his flag. As an artist I cannot refute his right to freedom of expression for here, at least for the time being, we are free to express ourselves as we please. The useful thing to do was the simplest of outcomes: realize there is anger under my cool surface and to work it out in time. Realization is the first step for if we are honest with ourselves, we are probably angry about a lot of things we simply have not looked at for a long,long time.

So, my "reflection" was of a side of my persona I needed to rediscover and come to terms with.

As for my neighbor--may he live in peace--until Halloween when my displays will be grander than ever before!!!!!



How about taking a journey where enchantment balms a hurting soul? Her Godmother is rich with everyday enchantments that heals the heart....

Click here to see the book trailer:

Finally! We here in upstate New York have a prediction of no rain for the next couple of days! There is a wonderful breeze coming through my window as I type and the sun is shining above in a clear, cloudless sky. More importantly, there is no humidity!

Amidst this blessing from Mother Goddess so much is happening and these happenings invade the tranquility of the day. There is more destabilization in the Middle East which may place us in yet another war, there are campaign spokesmen claiming on one side that American fears concerning the economy are "mental" recessions and, on the other side a prominent activist making derogatory remarks about his party's candidate albeit on the side while thinking taping had halted.

I don't think I need to go over all the issues that are at play during this election for it is obvious that this year's election will be the most historic probably since JFK.

What I do think needs to be said is that spirituality, which impacts on our lives on an individual basis, needs to concern itself with the things that matter within our immediate circle of family and friends, country and globally. What things are these? Everyone should have the hope of at least a promise of bettering one's circumstances. Everyone should TAKE FOR GRANTED that their children will not go hungry, be uneducated or suffer any type of "ism"-- racism, sexism and religious discrimination. Everyone should be able to receive medical care. We should all demand a world of reconciliation that is free from fear of any kind, including the continued natural disasters that can no longer be disassociated with global warming.

Look. I know everyone and every group has their "vested" interests and frankly, in their own way their rationalizations are not to totally rejected. Diplomacy is as tainted as the hallowed halls of Congress so as far as world leadership goes all of our futures may boil down to a poorly played game of chess...

All any of us can do is work toward integrating peace within our own lives and finding this peace in the everyday world around us as we wait and are hopefully praying for our global community. Yes, I said praying. To me it does not matter what you believe. Prayer, meditation is documented to heal and most of us do indeed believe in miracles! As a quantum metaphyisician, I also believe prayer and meditation does indeed impact on circumstances. For more on this, please visit my website quantumspirituality.tripod.com and peruse the free online newsletters you will find there.

In my newest book, Her Godmother, Allie comes to terms with her father's drinking and discovers a new path for herself through the power of everyday magic. We can do this for ourselves and play our own little part in spiritually impacting on our world one prayer at a time...