My Mother holds a near and dear place in my heart.  This Chapter is to honour all Mothers.  Without our mothers we would not be here nor would we be who we are or where we are on our journey,

My mom has passed.  We had our moments but loved each other dearly. When I moved out of the family home and moved onwards in my journey we continued to talk almost every day and visited often.

My mom helped create certain foundational principles that I carry with me to this day.  Everyday, on the way out the door to go here or there, she would hug me and kiss me and let me know she loved me and would tell me to “Be Good”.

I have always tried to be good.  My truth about good and bad may shift over time but I have always tried to live my life, to the best of my ability as good.  This is a value founding stone for me.

Thank-you Mom.  I am still missing you.  Happy Mothers’s day!

In my purple peril, somewhere along the way, I decided not to worry about the past or future but to stay in the present.

The past is finished. Hind sight is 20-20. Terms like could have, should have, would have are just ways to hang on to things that are not there.  They emphasize judgements around failure and success. In reality my past has taught me many lessons and helped make me who I am today.  The past is peppered with some good and some bad, but seasoned perfectly for me!

The future is not here yet.  Why worry or anticipate things that are not real?  I am preparing myself for the future but I am open to the possibility of what may manifest.

In the here and now I can live my life fully.  When I stay present, there are no fears or worries.  I live in full appreciation of all the wonders offered – sounds of the birds, rustle of the breeze through the trees bringing refreshing coolness and carrying spring aromas, scents of hyacinths by the door, feel of the beautiful crystals I am working with, taste of a smooth sip of water, rubbing the silky ears of a dogs, the companionship and conversation with a good friend, and all of the other moment by moment blessings.  In this moment is when I can hear my muses.  I am open to receive any inspirations that come to me and in the moment share these inspirations with others.  I appreciate every breath and with my mind, body, spirit centred and calm I can enjoy this state of living meditation.

Comprehending the expression of “Those who live in glass houses, should not throw stones” became glaringly clear in my travels.

I found my judgements of others along the way were the stones I would throw at them.  I sometimes lost the compassion towards my fellow travellers.  I found it was important to understand that each traveller had a public face and a private face.  The private face is where they held their personal challenges, sorrows and issues.

The old crabby traveller was the one who just had to deal with splitting from their partner. The over zealous, over cheerful traveller hid tombs of sorrow from an abusive home life. The traveller who always wore the funky, frumpy outfits had just lost their home to fire.  The over dramatic, attention seeking traveller just found out they had a short time left on this planet.

I am turning over a new leaf and when I catch the flitter of a judgemental thought, I gently cleanse and re- invent the thought. Hanging those cleansed thoughts out to dry like a load of freshly washed laundry laundry and creating a breeze of positive change.

Just like the scent of fresh laundry, this breeze of compassion carries forward and spreads, bringing positive, healing energy into the world.

My stones are being transformed into a stunningly beautiful rock garden and I am throwing less and less hurtful projectiles out into the world.

It will take practice and persistence, but I know it will make my journey more successful and powerful.

Time to shift from floating along with the masses to doing my own thing.  How to move myself from this massive stream into my one stream.  This task seemed insurmountable at first.  Little by little I found ways to move to the edges of the stream and from there grabbed small toes holds to make my way to the surface an the banks.

Step by step I pulled myself out of the stream and back onto my own path.

I now had a vast pool of knowledge to draw upon and could now travel my own path with more agility, creativity and confidence.

Where there is a will there is a way!

I have discovered that sometimes you need to pick your battles. Over the course of my travels when you need to make a decision, deal with an issue or risk, you need to weigh your options.  Sometimes it is better to go with the flow and sometimes it is not.

In the situation I was in I jumped into the mainstream to see where it would take me.  To discover what the norm was, to see what options or ideas I could discover while flowing with the masses.  I have found the experience to be somewhat relaxing yet stimulating.

Like and like together can generate the exploration of new possibilities.   It certainly opened new doors and chapters in my life.  Helped me learn more about myself and this world we flow in!

In this neutral grey space I would discover the colour and passions of my life!

Strolling forward I noticed that my waist band was a bit frumpy.  Gravity was making a grab and trying to pull me to earth and leave behind some exposures.

I found a piece of string and tried to rig up a correction.  It did not work too well.

As it turned out that duct tape might not be the solution to everything after all.

What I needed to find was some elastic.  I am sure that in my past life I must have had such supplies. Surely I would not have wasted them and thrown them away.  It seems like elastic would be a staple in my world.

I did not really like turning back,  but I would move forward more effectively if I was comfortable.

I entered the dwelling I started in and YES there were appropriate materials.  I pieced myself back together.  In thinking about my upcoming journey, and what other essentials I might need, I pulled together a small back pack.

Now I could once again move forward and know I had covered the bare essentials and provided myself with some supplies for contingency.

A secured waist provided excellent coverage and comfort and all from wee scraps that could easily have become deserted or discarded.

Waste not want not was a valuable lesson for me to tuck into my repertoire!

What next?  Not feeling particularly confident or happy, I knew I needed to get moving in some sort of direction.

I pasted a smile on my face, straightened my back, pulled back my shoulders, took a deep breath and started to move forward.  I began to climb out of the basement and  darkness.  As I climbed it became brighter, easier, I could start to see shapes out of the shadows.

My attitude started to match my posture and I found myself humming a wee tune.

I learned a bit more about me – I love music and writing.  Something to incorporate in my identity search.

This turned out to be more than an identity search but a journey of self actualization.