Gentle Awakenings

The more you begin to become familiar with the filters through which you view all of your experiences, the more you may begin to wonder what is true and what is not.  You also begin to see the filters through which others judge not only themselves but others too.  When you gain this tiny little bit of understanding, the tiny cracks in your heart that created these filters through which you often mistakenly view your worlds opens wider.  They open wider and more light floods in leaving with you ever greater and ever expanding compassion for your self and the journey you have made and others as well.  You may come to a point where your every motivation, interaction, desire and even dreams begin to slowly disappear like morning mist as the sunrises.  As the bright golden light of a brand new day dawns you care less about the things that seemed to matter so much before.  Even love transforms and changes into something much more universal and less possessive.

These moments are precious few.  They can be so bewildering but take heart.  During these times, great transformation is at hand and you will be surrounded with what I’ll simply call the magic of re-creation and your life begins to unfold anew.  Curiosity more than caution are like the rose colored lenses you may newly view the world.  Your understanding may bring little wistful bouts of deflation or concern.  Let it go.  Let it go and just breathe.  All will be revealed in very good time and in the mean-time, you will have much to discover as the years of fears embedded within your consciousness begins to shift and change.  It is painfully beautiful, infinitely peaceful and epic  You will begin to catch the tiniest glimpse of the Source of true love.  You will begin to understand that truth is never dictated by a wounded ego but the things that trigger you most in the behavior you think unsavory in others, the ones  that when you observe really seems to get your goat –- Those are messages from your psyche to your waking conscious mind – “Look here love, there is something here for you, something long forgotten that needs your love, compassion and a new understanding.”

ly empowering.

If only our lives came with consciousness instruction books.  But they don’t and maybe that is okay.  The discovery at each junction, each cross roads, each mountain that seems beyond our ability to climb is simply delicious.  So, get lost in a blue sky, dream with the stars beaming their infinite seeming light, feel the energy of a tiny flower or blade of grass.  Sit under a tree with your back resting gently against it.  Listen there in silence for a few moments, not with your ears but the depths of your soul.  Whether you understand consciously or not makes no difference.  There is a part of you that truly knows how to listen in this way.  Although it may seem a fruitless endeavor, I assure you it isn’t.

Life is teaming with energy, love, and an infinite well of creativity from which we can redesign our lives with much more meaning.  Let go of the small stuff, the tiny judgments of not good enough, unworthy, and the parts that want to disappear in shame for some silly little thing whose consequence you didn’t have the capability to understand from your formative years.  Reach into the heart of your soul and do so patiently until you begin to feel the truth of you and then the understanding of the truth of others and how they have chosen to paint their lives.  This understanding, this expanded interactive view of your life and the lives of others will give you pause to forgive and let go more and more of the things that never really mattered.  Then and only then will you finally be free to focus on that myriad of unique and special and intricately beautiful aspects of life designed just for you.  Freedom, blessings and infinite love for your journey beautiful dreamers.  Higher love and understanding is here.  It’s here.

Unfathomable Truth

It seems that no matter what statement you make, even if you are expounding upon your most profound discovery on this Earth, there will be those who can argue against it and undo all of your glorious thoughts.  What does this mean?  How can it be that no matter how much thought we put into something, someone else can always find fault with it and see your beautiful creation as an ugly and twisted abomination you should be ashamed of? Okay, well that was a bit harshly worded but do you get the point?  You can’t even take in the tiniest glimpse of well intended posts on social media without seeing simple statements or even people torn to shreds or, if nothing less, your grammar will be ripped apart if fault cannot be found in the words you use.

I’ve been quiet for a while now.  Quietly observing as life flows beautifully and perfectly into time and space and I’ve been on to something for quite a while now.  It isn’t some wholly miraculous discovery and even if it were, I wouldn’t post about that.  This, this is something so much simpler.  We have great minds amongst us that have already so generously explained the thoughts I’m thinking and in fact, I owe them a debt of immense gratitude for pointing the way to discerning the truth, the way to pull back the dark curtain of frustration and disdain or awe and surprise as I witness all of the interactions in my life.  It’s simply this:  We cannot perceive truth, no matter what we go through, grow through or experience.  We just can’t. The reason we can’t has as much to do with environmental psychology  (nurture) and those things we were spiritually born to do as well as the filters through which we view life as has been passed along to us through the genes of our ancestors (nature).

Why does this matter?  Well, in a way it doesn’t matter at all.  We have the free will to choose how we will perceive even the tiniest words we hear, or read.  It doesn’t even matter how those words were strung together, it doesn’t even matter who brought the words to life, you will perceive them as the filters embedded within the very heart of you dictates.  You can listen to anything you want to and see all the horrors and possible ugliness or you can listen and see all the beauty and goodness.  It is a choice.  You can argue that point and it won’t change the truth of it.  You can argue that feelings are true but even then, you’d have to get into mind numbing explanations and hair splitting over the true definition of feeling versus emotion.  You can check out with “it is what it is” sort of thinking and move on.  You’d get no judgment from me there.  I think, however, once you truly grasp the essence of this understanding, your life will change.  You may lose the need to argue, to be right or to be best because you’d know all are doing the best within the beautiful creation of their lives.  We can judge something ugly when we are not in a good place.  We can judge something beautiful when we are in a good place.  Does either place matter?  Is either place real?  At least at a certain level, I don’t think so.

I’ve tired of words so much, I can’t write like I used to.  I just don’t feel the need to explain how to do things, how to be right or how to save the world.  I no longer feel it needs saving and that statement may net me some discouraging responses but it is still my perception and no matter how right you may believe you are, how loudly you expound upon the lies I’m telling myself, you cannot change my experience.  You do not have that power over me.  But, I have the power to change my own experiences, perceptions, thoughts, judgments and to at least begin to understand what isn’t the truth.  Is it true that short or bluntly worded email I just received proves I’m worthy of disrespect?  Is it true the fact that this person or that person hasn’t reached out to me means I’m not important to them any more?  Is it true that if someone doesn’t do what I want them to do, behave as if I think they should behave or that they didn’t take my side that I am unworthy of love or stupid?  Maybe.  If, I choose to see it that way, that will be my experience and that is how I will line up my emotions if I choose to expend energy on that.  I can choose to experience so many hurtful things if I put my mind to it and I have a fantastic imagination!  I can also choose to experience peace, joy and happiness without depending upon another soul on this Earth to give me that.  I can experience respect by respecting myself, respecting nature, and others. I can experience love if I simply love myself, with my faults, and even my beliefs.  I can experience gratitude if I appreciate the creativity of the minds and hearts all around me whether or not their thoughts and feeling align with my own.

It took me so long to learn these things.  I like to live and let live but not when it comes to my beliefs, whether long held or newly acquired.  My beliefs are nothing but a collection of my experiences filtered through environmental psychology and those things I have the aptitude to see and feel exactly as I do, wrong or right.  I don’t put too much stock into my beliefs any more because I didn’t necessarily form them from a position of truth from the deepest part of the witnessing-life-me.  So, I’m open to having my beliefs challenged but I won’t argue.  You can point to each one of my beliefs and tear them apart, you can tear me apart and even if I struggle with the pain of that momentarily, I will always recover and come back to a neutral state of observance, understanding and compassion.  If I can know and understand my filters and perceptions, then you must know that I see straight through to the very heart of yours.  Any praise or insult, I can see the source of and none of it has anything to do with me.

It’s funny and most often, amazing to me how we are all shrouded with this collection of environmental psychology, genetic predisposition and spiritual perception.  These things form the mask that is how we present ourselves to the world (or who we might think we that we are).  But that isn’t the truth of us.  What is the truth of you without the use of your words or the words of others defining you?  Ask yourselves this with an earnest openness and you will discover something beautiful, well, hopefully.  And, should you discover it hold on to your hat because whoa!  You’ll start to see it in everyone else.  I hope it makes you smile like it did me.  I hope it brings you greater love and acceptance as it did me.

I don’t want to argue, I don’t want to fight, I don’t want to run from or ignore conflict.  But, when I experience it and see it, I no longer react to the superficial nature of it - at least, not for long.  Rather, I see it and its source, understand it from a place there are no words to describe and I stand in complete awe and appreciation for existence…every beings’ efforts to walk through this life.  It isn’t easy and it is imperfectly perfect.  To me, simply put -beautiful.  Blessings of beautiful discoveries to all of the amazing creators we walk through this life with.  May you seek and find the most authentically, life-witnessing-you!

© 2018 Jaie Hart

Leaving the Nest

I had occasion to watch a humming bird building a nest.  Every day, piece by piece, she created the nest.  It was perfectly protected in of all places, a huge thorny rose bush outside in my back garden.  Every day Ms. Humming bird flitted in, wings beating wildly, to add one tiny little piece of string, of fluff or a twig.  Then one day, she stopped building and then left a tiny little bluish white egg.  A day or so later, she added another.  Not so much flitting did she do after that.  You could frequently find her sitting on her nest wondering about how close you were going to get before she flitted off to safety.

I kept my distance and just observed the progress.  After what seemed like a few weeks, I saw something white on the outside of the nest.  It was a tiny little egg fragment.  Inside were suddenly

two tiny little humming bird babies.  Mama humming bird came by often and fed her little babies.  The babies grew.  They grew and they grew until you could easily see two little yellowish beaks peeking above the top of the nest.  Mama humming bird fed and fed and fed them until one day, you could clearly see two very big humming bird babies sitting in the nest with barely any room to exist.

Those days seemed like they went on for years with the babies getting bigger and bigger still.  One day, I noticed that the babies barely fit inside the nest.  Soon, they would begin to heed the call for flight.  I was so excited hoping I'd catch a glimpse of their flight.  I came home from work one day and one of the little babies was in fact outside the nest but sadly, she had fallen chest first into a very large thorn just above the nest.  The other baby was out and hiding somewhere else in the rose bush safely.  I continued to watch while keeping my distance.

The next morning as I was loading my car up for work, I noticed that the remaining baby bird (I called her Tweety, the other was Sweet Pea) had flown into the garage and sat shivering on the little rug in front of my dryer.  I was concerned about her but she seemed very healthy and I thought it best to let nature takes its course.  I knew she'd figure out how to fly out whether I worried about her or not.  When I came home from work that night, the little baby bird was no longer in the garage.  I couldn't see her anywhere.  For a day or two, she kept herself hidden.  Then, finally, I saw her perched on the line between the garage and my house that holds up a small awning.  She was so big that I worried she'd never be able to get her little wings to give her any lift.  She'd fly about for a little bit but she stayed right where she was most of the time.  Mama bird would flit in, feed her and then zoom off again.  Another mama humming bird with a baby came by and perched right next to her.  Tweety just watched them as they landed, took off, flew around her and then sped off.

For days Tweety just sat on that line holding on seemingly fearful of flight.  Mama kept feeding her and she stayed a big very healthy oversized humming bird for about a week.  Then, mama stopped feeding her.  Tweety stayed perched on the line,  only occasionally flying an inch or two as the wind made holding the line a little more difficult.  I noticed without mama feeding her she was growing thinner.   One day as I was walking to the garage, I noticed that Tweety was quite thin, very much less baby sparrow looking and much more humming bird looking. 

When I came home from work, she was gone.  It's been a week now and I've not seen her sit perched on the line.  I've not seen mama bird or any other humming bird perched on my patio.  I see and hear them as they whiz by though.  I was a little sad at the thought of Tweety leaving the nest but I was glad though too.  She made it.  She's off on her little nature-ific adventure.  With her gone, we finally removed the dead baby bird and I felt sad for that too.  But life is funny like that.  Mama humming bird laid two eggs and one lived on to expand the humming bird population.  I said a prayer of gratitude and took, for myself, a little lesson in life.  If you're a parent, you'll get it too.  If you stop feeding them, they'll seek to fly in search of food and shelter.  It is what they are called to do.  And after that, the only nest you'll need is one for yourself and you'll continue on as nature calls you to do.

© 2018 Jaie Hart (Photo and Words)

Ever-present Ever-presence

I’ve had dreams where I wander into situations that in waking life would be down right terrifying.  In the dream state, I just am.  There is no fear or thinking.  There is just moving through whatever scene I happen to be in.  Sometimes, I become aware in these dreams and I become curious about my lack of fear and my ability to just be solely focused taking part in whatever role I’m playing.  The sun is often shining and there is a sense of infinity about the presence that just is not perturbed in any way by the scene.

As I think about it honestly, I walk into many of the scenes of my life and play the roles that I play, not with a sense of indifference but with a wholeness and sense of ever-present-ness.  I can’t explain it.  There is a part of me that plays witness to all that I perceive.  It is a quiet and powerful part of me that is unruffled by the trials and tribulations of the ego.  It is non-competitive but just present.  It is this part of me that has allowed me to face some harrowing ordeals in my present-waking life.  It is that part of me that stands in the storm thinking, “okay, so this is a storm.”

When I can recognize this state of presence, I’m not caught up in the drama of life.  I can watch it not as a non-participant unattached and in woeful psychological denial, but as a participant fully present with infinite-seeming awareness that is pointedly focused.  In this place of presence, there is no fear and no anxiety.  There is no desire, there is no second guessing or worry about good enough or not good enough.  There is scene and role.  There is motion and sensing.  There is action but also-always extreme presence.

If I think about it too much, I begin to worry that maybe I’m doing this wrong, maybe I should be upset or I should fight back or well, whatever the normal human mind tries to come up with in judgment.  I observe this part of me too and another part of me knows just to witness those thoughts without sinking into them.  Maybe nothing surprises me any more?  Maybe I’ve seen so much that I just don’t react the same way any more?  Maybe, just maybe, I’m doing it right after all.?!  With such thoughts the witness in me stays ever-present, ever-neutral without a single ounce of judgment.  It is a magnanimous feeling place – it’s is like the perfect supportive character within.  It is wholly unconditionally present.  Curious maybe?  Knowing, a bit, maybe?  Caring some, yes, certainly.  But, never does that place within me succumb to egotistical emotion.

These facets I observe - the anxious and worried me, the fearful me, the confident me, the questioning me, the faithful and loyal me, the helping me…all of these facets are present in every moment.  It is just that in some moments the different facets take in and refract the light.  I still revel in the colors of the sunrise, a starry sky, a baby’s cry or the purr of a kitten.  A ways now past mid point in my life and all of those scenes and facets expressed, I’m comfortable in my own skin, no matter its present state…aging, battle scared and still supporting me.

Life is so funny.  It is truly like a dream and we can dive into the deep end of it and learn to swim.  We can flail at the surface or sink deep with that scary lack-of-oxygen feeling.  We can let go, relax into the flow of it all and just watch what unfolds and accept what comes.  We can fight, seek to control scenes and other actors or we can just see, experience and feel for the energy vibrating constantly beneath the superficial emotion of it all.  The TV can’t really tell us what our lives should be like, nor can our parents, friends or adversaries.  Your life is your dream and however you dream it is perfect in this much bigger sense.  There is a long game at play here and when you realize that and tap into the energy of that, you actually have more freedom to move from dreamscape to dreamscape enjoying the show for what it truly is so-to-speak.  Life is amazing and so very truly so.  I’m grateful for every experience in this life with the good actors and bad actors as judged by my ego.  My former selves did their parts perfectly with no need to worry or regret how their roles were played.  Well played self.  You’ve had a marvelous life of experiencing perception and finding beauty along the way.  It’s time for more coffee and to better appreciate this newly rising sun.  May your wanderings be fruitful and ultimately, enjoyable.  Bless.

© 2018 Jaie Hart (Photo and Words)

Visions and Dreams, Courage and Opportunity

June gloom sky, cool sea breeze, and warm coffee in hand as I contemplate my day.  Weighing heavy in the background of my thoughts is change and a new direction that has presented itself.  I love how that happens in life.  You can go for long stretches of the same thing day in and day out and just when the sameness seems to be bringing you to the breaking point of either boredom or frustration, something on the horizon shifts and changes.  You can shy away from the opportunity that presents itself and just go on keeping everything the same.  Or, or, or…you can stand up tall knowing that the potential change on the horizon could be that very thing you have waited for, prayed and hoped for.

I like change and it is a very necessary part of life but boy are those steps to rise up to meet it seemingly steep.  I say seemingly for a reason for the challenge is almost always a mental exercise, at least in the beginning.  So, I smile here in the low light of early morning letting my imagination run with it, see it and feel it.  What does it feel like?  How will it work?  What exactly will it take to see this change through?  Well, courage for one.  Okay, fine.  I’ve got that.  I’ve been a single parent for the better part of my adult life.  Obviously, there is courage.  What else?  Fearlessness and tenacity to stand up to the occasion.  Well, my life experience has well prepared me to meet fear, see through it and walk the path any way.  What else?  Logistics?  Oh yes, that.  Well, that is the part where I know the Universe must step in and align the stars a bit.  For that part, I will have to have patience.  Again, single mom for many years - I do think I have a lot of patience.

I love a challenge, the right kind, the good kind and for the opportunity to do something new, change something in this path of a lot of silence and stillness.  I’ve grown so comfortable with the sameness, the quiet and stillness.  It intrigues me, this opportunity that has seemingly-randomly presented itself.  I think I will meet it.  I think I will heed the call and take each step and remind myself to stay in a perpetual state of curiosity, with courage, tenacity, fearlessness and patience.  This could be something really awesome or it could be the stepping stone towards a completely unknown journey.  Who knows?  But, I know the path of my life up until now.  I see destiny as that tiny little light at the far end of the tunnel I seem to have found myself in.  I am ready to embrace new thoughts, new ideas and to explore the base of my own creativity and strength.

I have started over and over and over again in my life, each time in a new way and for different reasons but never really a reason that I chose out of the purity of silence and peace.  Perhaps manifesting from this state will challenge me in a whole new way.  My faith in my own ability rarely waivers as I am time tested in walking my own path so far.  In a vision not long ago during a meditation, I was shown 3 images:  That of a knight from times of old.  The knight was standing tall, courageous and victorious.  Then there was a giant of a man, very strong and full of muscles and confidence.  Finally, there was before me an old white bearded, robed and hooded man.  His very existence exuded time tested wisdom with a little (or a lot) of mystery.  When I asked why I was being show these three archetypes, my guide said, these are really obvious symbols you already know the answer to.  I then thought, Courage, Strength and Wisdom were attributes I needed to learn to embody better than I have.  My guide nodded. 

This was just a month or so ago before I had any inkling of the potential change coming my way.  I don’t want to make too much of it at this point because, well, it is somewhat of a private journey for now but the guidance I was given prepared me for this.  Can I embody, Courage, Strength and Wisdom as I walk this part of the path?  I think that I can and along with that, I also have faith in myself to meet the journey well prepared, open and curious too.  Life changes can be scary sometimes but good things are often disguised within the heart of change.  This, I have learned.  I’m grateful to have learned.  That vision held some other gifts too, one’s I’ve not yet been able to fully consider.  There were 3 more symbols presented:  A crystal stone that had a rose quartz pink and orchid-like lavender colored light all around it.  The color was incredibly soothing and energizing.  The second was a bundle of Juniper branches.  The final item was a book with blank pages and a pen.  I’m thinking these are also related to the journey that has presented itself to me.   A healing journey and a return to my natural state of curiosity and exploring through the written word or, perhaps, a cross roads in my life in which the next steps are blank…new opportunity and a time to choose my direction with intention.

I love meditative visions.  Like dreams, they can give us symbolic and even actual guidance.  If it feels right and in good alignment with the core of my being, I pay attention and in that, have never been lead astray.  So, now, I take a step, a breath and smile at the unfolding of another beautiful day on Earth.

© 2018 Jaie Hart (photos and words)

Grace and Grattitude and Life

I wonder about the world today.  Two famous suicides this week and CDC statistics not looking good for us humans trying to make a life here on planet Earth, it seems.  And that is just it, “It seems.”   I haven’t been engaging my brain much of late, except for the necessities of work and family.  I can’t help but think about the future sometimes and how on Earth I can even remotely consider achieving my goals.  Some days it seems I’m running out of time, or there are too many steps here in order for me to get there.  So, I let all of those thoughts go and take a breath in the present moment where there is nothing but life and breath.  In those moments, there is nothing but what is.  There is this quiet and peaceful place or beingness, just observing all around me...birds still singing, sirens still blazing and my thoughts just flow.

I don’t have any answers for the world at large about anything.  I don’t have any bright advice that might save this world.  For starters, it isn’t my job and no, I am not apathetic.  I care a great deal but I tend to focus on that which I can influence, affect or change.  But lately, it doesn’t seem like I can change anything.  There is always one thing I can change and that is me, my thoughts, what I choose to perceive or entertain.  This world can be so dark and heavy sometimes but I just can’t align with only that or carry the emotion of that.  Even in this world when life seems so very pointless, there is a little spark inside of me that says, “just keep going, you can’t see the future, you don’t know what is around the next bend or at the top of the next hill you are about to climb.”  Thank God for that little voice. Were it not there, leading me and guiding me, I might have joined the 30% who gave up or gave in many times along this road of life.  My heart goes out to them (those who decided to leave) and to their family and friends.  I feel such a sense of sadness when I think of those who have packed it all in and just bailed out.  I get it.  I understand and I hold no judgment for them.  Only compassion.

So many struggle daily just to open their eyes in the morning, to breathe, to move and to exist.  I have no answers for them but I have love and I have compassion and if nothing else, I can try with all of my might to send that energy up and out for them, not to change them but just to surround them and let them know that at least energetically, they are not alone.  I think I’m becoming more of a realist these days; dealing only with what is directly before me.  Lofty dreams and ambitions are no longer my thing.  Making a difference in life for me is about those with whom I come into contact.  Can I be a good human in a moment, lend a hand, a meaningful thought or a smile?  That seems the most important thing for me today.  I smile at strangers and make eye contact whether or not I can do a single thing for them (including the scores of homeless I see routinely, daily now).  I can save none of them.  I can change not one thing about their experience other than to acknowledge them from one human being to another as if at least to say, “I see you and you matter, you are here, I feel you.”

I’m in a good place, really, having achieved a goal over the last decade and that was really to achieve peace.  Despite the thoughts I just laid out there, I am peaceful and calm.  I take in everything around me with a deep abiding appreciation for life on its terms, not mine. I watch the leaves sway in the trees, notice the colors, notice the art in motion, people moving, living and how amazing it is that things come and go in this world, or plane of existence.  Appreciation and gratitude can be such a balm to a weary soul.  There is grace to be found at the heart of every single experience we embrace if we but believe it will be there, it is always there and it will come to each and every one in a pure moment of readiness.  This, this is what keeps me moving in life.  The amazing awe and wonder not only for the existence in this moment but the moments to come.  Life is magical, terrifying, ugly and beautiful all at once.  It is incredibly chaotic sprinkled with moments of peace.  It is what it is.  I wish you great blessings of comfort, warmth and ultimate peace.  Be so very good to yourselves out there and try if you can not to get so caught up in the drama of life or the heavier emotions of your experience...like the seasons, these things always have a beginning and an end.  This thought or perspective, I realize,  is a tough one but certainly it is not an impossible one.  If you can, maybe try to believe or better, trust that deep within your souls somewhere is a spark, a beautiful spark of grace that will speak to you, guide and carry you each day of your life. 

Rest in peace Kate and Anthony and all of the rest of you beautiful human beings who tried with all of your might to make it here.  You will all be greatly missed.

© 2018 Jaie Hart (photos and words)

Happy Mother's Day and Some Thoughts to Share

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mothers out there whether you are a biological mother or one who has bravely taken on the roll to mother a child or maybe even the inner child of an adult.  At times motherhood will seem the greatest of thankless tasks.  It certainly has its own rewards but most days you’ll feel anything but rewarded.  Do it any way and give your all to that child in your care for one day that child will become a full-fledged adult and go out into the world and carve a path for him or herself.  Don’t you want that to be an amazing path that inspires others?! 

As a mother of 3 adult children and one running to get there, I have been through moments of great joy, endless nights of worrying whether I did this right or that right and always trying to keep my wits about me even tired, tried and completely spent so that I could create the best opportunities for each of them in my own way.  It wasn’t easy but it is worth it.  My kids may not be the best or the brightest from the perspective of others but they are something by far more important in my eyes.  They are good people and to me, they are absolutely the very best.  They have morals and values, they question the status quo, they stand up for themselves and for others and they follow their hearts as they carve their own paths in this life.  That!  That makes me a very proud mama.

I still work hard to see clearly, the grown persons that they are beyond the little chubby faces and hands wrapped up in a blanket snuggled close as I rocked them to sleep.  Do we ever lose that ability?  To see the tiny precious child we have wrapped in our arms?  You know, every person we meet was a child just like that.  I wonder what it might be like if every person we encountered, we could flash back to that moment they were a tiny, precious, swaddled and loved child?  Would we be able to treat everyone we meet as if they were our own child?  I mean from the perspective of love and respect just for having made it to adulthood here in this frame?  What if we could look at ourselves with that same love and respect each time we looked into the mirror, forgetting completely about the years of tears and environmental psychology?

It takes so very long for a human child to grow into adulthood, self-functioning and reliant.  Some do it so well and some, maybe, not at all but I think they are still deserving of the love and respect from some place within them, from some place within the heart of all of us.  The world is full of children, just at different ages and various stages of progression.  Can we not find a way to love something in them all?  If we take this further and remember the smaller children…they want what they want when they want it and can become very frustrating people to have to deal with!  But, we love them any way, no matter what they do and no matter how crazy they seemingly make us.  What if we could hold that perspective for all of humanity, the good, the bad and the ugly?

All have gifts they bring to this awareness we all share.  I can appreciate that whether or not I agree with someone else’s behavior.  If I can look at every child and even the inner child of the adults I encounter as if he or she were my own, I could honor them at least with unconditional love or respect without sacrificing my own discernment as to whether or not I will participate along with them in anything I feel borders on the unsavory.  It feels to me that this perspective relieves me of my need to be better or best because we are all children dreaming this dream, learning to play nice in the sandbox who will one day grow up and look at the path that we have carved into this world.

I pray every day for my own children and the children of every mother who ever was and ever will be.  That prayer includes that each finds his or her own heart, that each finds a way to conquer the things they maybe should not have had to learn, that they embrace the paths towards awareness, self love, self-care and care for others they encounter on the path.  The ability to love with out fear is a challenge for many but as children, remember that we once loved without fear?  No matter what life has taught us in this regard we can RE-Remember what it was like, find that place again that truly unites us all and we can love the world and her children.  From this place of love, I greet this morning openly, aware, hopeful, filled with faith that the tiny fearless loving heart of every person on this planet will awaken.  Maybe they could find a place of gratitude for the life they were given and realize regardless of biology, they’ve had many mothers in their lifetime who have taught them amazing things that will influence their lives for the better.  There is that one person somewhere and some how who inspired in love and we knew that a part of our hearts remained alive and giving as a result.  I think there is a little mother within us all that guides us every day in our thoughts and good deeds great and small.  Cherish this not so very silent parent, this Source of our truest love.

Happy Mother’s Day.  I am grateful for all of you, for all that you do, for the hardships you master and the love you always find a way to give.

Copyright 2018, Jaie Hart (photo/words)

Day 1, Flow

Like many thousands across the globe, I woke up to a whole new year.  I wonder what it will bring but I won’t wonder too much.  I stopped making resolutions a long time ago.  Instead, I set goals and take steps to achieve them.  I don’t spend much time in review any more, I find living through some things once is more than enough.  I don’t take much time to sit in regret because I now trust myself more than any one and know that at any given moment in time, I did the absolute best that I could and things turned out exactly the way they were supposed to.

It has been so very quiet inside of my head for so long now.  It feels as if I were a ship with seas so quiet you could hear a pin drop.  No wind for my sails for a prolonged period gave me much time to just feel and be, rather than do and go.  I’ve not created much in a while, hardly a posting.  It troubled me briefly until I began to truly understand that it was not a lack in connection I suffered but a time of being fully connected to experiencing everything from an ever-expanding perspective and on each experiences’ own terms.

I won’t waste time in sorrow over anything in the last year that has come and gone.  All came perfectly; all went perfectly.  I do appreciate discovering lessons and I learned once again, my strength flourished in abundance in many appreciated and unexpected ways.  So, thank you Universe, Mother-Father God Goddess for the opportunity to be and breathe and exist here in this frame.

Life is fairly simple when we are not over-complicating it with expectation.  I spent the year living in a state of non-expectation.  I have to say, my last year went better than most I can remember.  I kept my consciousness close to the moment, mastered some fears and realized I had more I would contend with in time.  I discovered I had great love for many a thing and patience as vast as the Universe. 

I was tired at year’s end so took some time off for rest.  That was a very good decision, I think.  This next year will be very busy at work and I have new goals to work on for no other reason than to improve upon my surrounds and greater appreciation for being.  I’ll let go some more of the past that I’ve carried and embrace the empty spaces left behind with much love, wonder and excitement for life. 

So, another year on planet Earth is complete.  I hope to take the magic and wishes of the holidays with me through each day of this next year.  I’ve never really tried that before but it seems like this next year will need a little more magic than most and perhaps it’ll show us a bit of its own.  I smile at the thought and let it go with a warm and delicious sip of coffee on this cool, dark and quiet January 1.

I hope that you have a heart full of dreams, a mind filled with wonder and a sense of great peace about you every day of this next year.  Make it amazing with your ab-soul-ute best effort in every moment.  When this time next year comes around, you’ll be glad that you did for no other reason than a string of truly treasured experiences.

Wishing you great flows of beautiful energy, Blessings and much love.

Jaie 

(copyright 2018, Jaie Hart-photo and words)