Meditation isn’t always done in yoga pants sitting cross legged in front of pictures and statues, burning incense. Sometimes it’s done with a fishing pole in hand, or a beer. Sometimes it’s really what’s going on when your family thinks you are sound asleep in front of the tv. Our thoughts are important and our minds are powerful. Once you begin to understand WHY you think as you think and why you believe as you do, once you understand why you are triggered by some people, circumstances and events, then you’ve opened the door to your own power. Then you begin seeing with new eyes. When you see with new eyes, you’ll see no problems without solutions and you’ll see opportunity everywhere.

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A monk decides to meditate alone, away from his monastery. He takes his boat out to the middle of the lake, moors it there, closes his eyes and begins his meditation. After a few hours of undisturbed silence, he suddenly feels the bump of another boat colliding with his own. With eyes still closed, he senses his anger rising, and by the time he opens his eyes, he is ready to scream at the boatman who dared disturb his meditation. But when he opens his eyes, he sees it’s an empty boat that had probably got untethered and floated to the middle of the lake. At that moment, the monk achieves self-realization, and understands that the anger is within him; it merely needs the bump of an external object to provoke it out of him. From then on, whenever he comes across someone who irritates him or provokes him to anger, he reminds himself, “The other person is merely an empty boat. The anger is within me.”
Ancient Parable

When I get ticked by news headlines, I know whatever triggers me to negative emotion shows me where I have an issue to work on. I would use every time I got triggered as an opportunity to go into meditation and ask what about it bothers me. What belief do I hold that is being challenged, what expectation do I have that is not being met? What do I think should be done instead and why? That’s what I ask myself when I get ticked by news headlines. Now I use the trigger to deepen my practice and understand my connection. When I understand my connection, I know my power. When I know my power, news headlines don’t trigger me.

They’ve been doing the carpal dance!

Finally, the January magazine has been sent to the printer! In November and December, because of Thanksgiving and Christmas I need to get my magazine job to the printer a week early. That means doing the issues back to back. This time was really a trip because my carpal tunnel acted up on both hands and I gave myself tennis elbow to boot with all the scrolling and mousing. Since the week of final layout I spend 10  to 14 hours at the computer, I knew to take frequent breaks when my hands began acting up. As soon as I settled into the routine of working a few hours and taking a break when it began to hurt, icing it for 20 minutes, keeping it elevated and then wrapping it. When it really hurts, I have been using DMSO with aloe in roll on form, but the pain isn’t really enough to take something for, it’s more of a discomfort and inconvenience. Now that the crunch is officially over (YAY!) the carpal will settle right down.   Continue reading →

December 25th — it’s not just for Christians.  The actual birthday of Jesus was forgotten by the early Christian movement. In those days, various groups celebrated his birth on January 6, April 21 and May 1st. By the 4th century, the church selected the approximate time of the winter solstice as the date to recognize Jesus’ birth.  The winter solstice occurs about December 21 each year. It is the day of the year when the night is longest and the daytime shortest. Using the crude instruments available, ancient astronomers were able to detect by December 25 of each year that the daytime had become noticeably longer.  This date was chosen, and remains, the traditional date for followers of many different Pagan religions to celebrate the rebirth of the sun. Following the solstice, each succeeding day has slightly more sunlight than the previous day. It was seen as a promise that warmth would return once more to the earth. Numerous pre-Christian Pagan religions honored their gods’ birth or rebirth on or about that day. Their deities were typically called: Son of Man, Light of the World, Sun of Righteousness, Bridegroom, and Savior.  Some examples are:    Continue reading →

I just learned that my beautiful friend and the Horizons Magazine astrologer for 19 years, Barbara Lee passed unexpectedly.  Just yesterday she posted on Facebook, “Yep!! Just 3 years ago today I moved to vancouver wa!! Wanted to own my own home and work at a chiropractic office and be booked solid with a editing list!! Yes it all happened!! What’s next??”

She was a bright shining star who will be missed. Her horoscopes were the monthly highlight of the magazine. We’ll meet again, my friend.

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Dawn’s Enchanted Garden is proud to announce the release of Dawn’s new book: The Enchanted Garden: a Spiritual Herbal. This book is dense with information on spiritual herbalism. In addition, it is approachable and well-written, making the wealth of information it provides easily available to the average reader.  There are short introductory chapters setting out the author’s approach to spiritual herbalism, but the bulk of the book is an alphabetical listing of each herb, giving the common names, Latin names, astrological association, description, parts used, folklore and history, spiritual uses, a case study, deity, angel, and spirit associations, a meditation, and a spell. For each herb there is, therefore, a case study, a meditation, and a spell. That’s a wealth of practical information unequalled in any other similar text.   Continue reading →