Horizons Magazine
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JULY 2004
Uncluttering; organizing the work area. Stop whining; vibrational matching;
meditation to alleviate fear; out of body exercises; we survive the change
called death.
Hello and welcome to the July issue of Horizons Magazine. In July, we observe
Independence Day and celebrate our freedom as a nation. Each July, I choose
something I'd like to be personally free from and all year I work toward that. Last
July I decided I wanted to be free from clutter and I can now honestly say that I
am! My house, my office, my closets, my garage, my attic, my shed, all purged of whatever I don't need or can't use. The last holdout was my makeup drawer. You know, gals, you all have one: a drawer full of makeup you've had since you were about 15. I had some Yardley lip gloss circa 1971 that I'd never been able to part with; a lot of bright colors from the deco and disco eras; dozens of iridescent eye shadow and lip pencils; and blushes and bronzers of every hue.
My buddies are laughing right now, because they know me as keeping a kinda natural look. But whether we wear it or not, most of us have a lot of unused makeup that is taking up good space in a drawer we could use for other stuff. How can we free up the energy for our new face while we've still got the remnants of our old face stuck away in storage? But getting rid of it is a whole other thing, isn't it? My best motivating factor was wanting to clear off the top of my vanity, and to do that, I needed a giant drawer to put everything in. How convenient that there is a giant drawer right under the vanity top! I didn't bat an eyelash. After glancing to make sure nothing needed to be salvaged, out it went. All it took was for me to want the drawer for something else more than I wanted to keep my old, sentimental makeup. What Michael Beckwith calls being pulled by vision. Or, to paraphrase Anais Nin, "the risk to remain tight in a bud is more painful than the risk it takes to blossom." Change takes motivation. We're often pushed by pain until we begin to be pulled by vision. All too often, we stay in the same circumstances until something propels us out of it.
A giant job I did was to unclutter my work area. Like many writers, I have dozens of writing projects lying around in various stages of completion, and I had a dozen baskets on a large tabletop, each filled with ideas for new projects or class outlines, etc. I went to Office Depot and bought 200 sheet protectors and placed each "project" in a sheet protector, then put them all in two large binders. BIG space saver, plus now it's easier to find everything when I'm ready for it.
When I can walk into a work area that is organized, it feels inviting and makes me want to sit down and begin being creative. It's all too easy to let a small stack of clutter snowball over an entire workspace, then I feel motivated to do nothing except push papers around and complain about being overwhelmed with work. It's too easy to get stuck in that pattern. I've got friends and clients who tell me how stuck in a rut they are, how nothing is changing for them, how they don't believe they create their own reality because everything always remains the same. It's not that they are stuck, it's just that they are creating the same reality over and over anew every day, by continuing to think the same thoughts they've always thought. When friends ask how they are, they still respond, "It could be better. Summer is the slow time for business, you know. We can't afford to take a vacation this year, gas prices are through the roof. It's too hot to stay in Florida, yet the air conditioning will cost us as much as gas would, so we're stuck either way."
Well, maybe you're stuck because you keep telling everyone how hard a time you think you're having. I am not a fan of the Florida heat and humidity, but I'm thrilled I get to live in a state that others pay to vacation in. Sure, without air conditioning my electricity bill runs about $60 a month and with it, it's $100-$150, but that's a small price to pay for being comfortable. I can either think, "Darn, my bill has doubled!" or I can think, "$2 a day to be as comfortable as I want, you can't beat that." It's all about perception. You can think of your life as beset with problems, or you can think of your life as a series of projects; as one challenging adventure after another. The only thing that has to change is your perception.
I love watching the Universe at work! I've come to recognize that every person that makes it into my personal space is on their way to the next stage of fulfilling their goals and dreams, so it's always exciting to see who's next, and what form the interaction will take. I feel lucky and blessed to get to see so many friends on this fun part of their journey, where things start to really take off for them, where things begin to really come together.
I know that - whoever it is - we must be vibrationally in tune, otherwise we wouldn't be coming into personal contact with each other. I'm someone who really loves my life. I'm someone who wakes up excited about what I'll be doing each day. I am very motivated and have a strong sense of mission. I make good money and have plenty of time to play. I get to meet exciting people who stimulate thought, inspiring me to continually improve my life and upgrade my circumstances. Not a bad thing to be vibrationally in tune with, huh?
So, by the laws of physics, whatever new person I find myself sharing physical space with and personally interacting with, that means they have just begun to vibrate where I am. I find I'm often the first step to them into their new life, out of their old one. It's like I get them first and get to explain the process they're going through. Some of them know they're on a journey, and some of them don't, until I point it out. Sometimes I can make them aware of opportunities they might not be noticing. Sometimes I help them direct their focus. Sometimes I just give them a vocabulary to reframe the life they've been living. Sometimes all I give is a quiet space in a setting that allows them to dream and envision.
This month, two new friends have made their way into my realm, one to help me stay clean and organized, and another to handle sales for Horizons. I'm looking forward to doing lots of fun projects and making lots of dollars with each of them. I know I won't have either of them for long, before they are on their way to their next good thing, but that's what being a bridge is all about. And I'm always delighted to help friends get from where they are to where they want to be.
And speaking of that, a group of us are going up to The Center at Rose Creek (see ad page 18) in Franklin, NC on Friday July 23 and staying thru the weekend. We're going up to informally brainstorm about "taking the next step, getting to the next level" of where we want to be in our personal or professional visions. There will be no fee as this is not an official retreat; the only cost will be lodging and food, which will be $65 per day at The Center. You're invited to join us, we'll have a few hours of brainstorming each day and evening, as well as have free time to hike or wander or just hang out. If you're interested, call JoAnn Meeks directly at 828-369-8811 to make arrangements.
I've been having some extremely good meditation sessions lately. Like everything else in life, there is an ebb and flow to my meditation practice. Sometimes I feel I am just sitting and putting my time in, yet not making any progress. Sometimes I feel totally in the slot and am aware of response and guidance. I've become aware over the years how important it is to sit whether I feel it is "working" or not. Sitting daily for meditation allows me to separate my consciousness from my physical body on a regular basis. The more I practice separating my consciousness from my physical body via meditation, the less fear of "dying" I have. The less fear of dying I have, the more I see things from the higher perspective and the more I recognize how powerful we really are as human beings.
I've done a lot of out of body exercises in the past, so it's pretty easy for me to envision my existence apart from my physical body. I think that when we die, we're just one moment here and in the next moment we blink ourselves into another existence, kind of like going to sleep in our bed and then waking up in a freer arena where travel and creation happen at the speed of thought. That's what I believe meditation helps prepare us for. A few friends this year have made their transition and, of them, the two that meditated told me they had very little, if any, fear of death. There was rather a hopeful curiosity about the process, but not a fear. In my work as a psychic medium, I've been comforted to learn that we survive in consciousness after the change called death. I've come to believe that once this is understood and experienced, the fear of death is removed, and we are free to begin to live more fully, in every moment, now.
Enjoy our offering this month. Hari Om.