Gratitude

Greetings in Gratitude!

With limited time this morning, I offer this observation: Over the years I have learned to be grateful for so many things and to build gratitude into my days, observing the things I used to take for granted and embracing them in heartfelt admiration. This week gratitude is even bigger than usual.

Nothing obvious has changed, but gratitude is in the air. I love simple things and this of grand proportions. I love my morning coffee. I love that my patio doors are stripped of winter plastic to allow in the changing light of Spring (and grateful I had the plastic as we endured our long winter). The sun flowing into my apartment this morning fills me with gratitude for its warmth and the 60 degree temperatures it promises for the coming week. Fellow residents are expressing gratitude as I meet them in the elevator, in the halls, for the lovely promises of Spring. People smile more. We have survived, and after all we only had snow and cold, not earthquakes and tsunamis.

Over the past weekend I was grateful for a group of men who are practicing their dance/stomp routines in our parking lot. Men. Dancing. Their deep, resonant voices calling out their stomp lyrics, happily cheering one another on as they nail it. They may have thought me odd, a gray-haired white woman cheering from my 4th floor deck, but we connected, and I am grateful.

I'm off with Mom to her doctor's appointment this morning, and this evening to Shannon's school concert. So I have gratitude for family, for caring and for celebration of what it means to be part of a thriving collective.

I offer my gratitude for all of you who care and contribute and connect. There is joy in this sharing.

Breathing in Gratitude,

I am Phyllis, still Becoming

To Manage Our Humanity

Greetings this Sunday Morning!

Earth changes are so obvious that even those who have scoffed at "New Age" philosophies are paying attention. Apocalyptic prophets are increasing on the other side of the issue, so maybe it's time to chat about it here for any of you who are wondering what is going on and what we can expect. And time for me to take a fresh look as well.

Thanks to this question from a client yesterday, I reviewed what we have heard over the past 30 years regarding what Earth changes we could expect. Archangel Michael's predictions of increasing earthquake activity and weather events are here and now and multiplying. The "axis shift" is in process; the earthquake in Japan moved Earth's axis 6 inches. That may not sound like a lot, but it's not the first shift, and they will continue. We were told our technology would be challenged. Did we consider that it might include nuclear facilities? This has only deepened our uneasiness - and brought us closer together, dissolving "borders, boundaries and barriers to create a human community."

We are learning "to manage our humanity." What an amazing thought. I suppose we have been on this mission all along, but I never really stopped to consider it in this light. Our journey on Earth has always been intended to learn ourselves and to learn to love ourselves along the way. And we have so much help.

We contemplate what has real meaning to us when we face tragedy. We reevaluate and focus on people instead of things. Our values change when our foundations are shaken. All of this and more result from increasing Earth changes.

We are amazingly resilient. "Hope springs eternal," is a phrase often used to express how resilient we are. Going within, breathing deeply and affirming our flexibility and hope carries us through change. Creating such respite time in direct proportion to the severity of changes not only increases our hopefulness but provides for Earth as well. We are not accidental tourists on this fine planet, we are of it, created from its substance. We are Earth thinking itself. We are its consciousness.

Mother Earth is in labor. To understand the scope of Earth's labor and birthing, we are asked to look at a human mother giving birth and multiply that impact by the size of our planet. We can understand that as the pelvic bones of a mother shift, so do the plates of the Earth. As a mother's water breaks, so do the tsunamis break on our shores. As all the processes of human birth are considered in proportion to Earth's volume we can feel closer to Earth and less threatened by it.

We are sacred beings with a purpose, created here by our own will and determination to ride the tides of these changes, contributing as we are inspired and playing our parts as best we can. Asking for help from all of those who love us, invisible but so present, lifts us up and insures we manage our humanity with all grace possible. I am grateful every day to know this.

Breathing with you,

I am Phyllis, still Becoming