New Beginnings… and Old Memories…

Hi Folks:

It’s now closing in on the end of January, so if you’re still maintaining your New Year’s resolutions, my congratulations to you!  It may be sheer coincidence that Remembrance Day and New Year’s Day fall so closely together on the calendar but our memories of the past and our dreams of the future always seem bound together.  It may be true that (as espoused by George Santayana), “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  It’s also true that much of how we see ourselves today is based on and built out of who we have believed ourselves to be and that person no longer exists.  It’s not just that your body is continuously refreshing itself – building new cells and removing old ones.  Our thoughts, ideas, understandings – in some ways the essence of who we are – is also different… unless of course we hang on tight to the past memories of who we used to be.  Memories can be pleasant or painful and there are varying degrees of both, but there’s one thing memories rarely are, and that’s an accurate recollection of the past as it happened.  My grandmother was a very wise woman with a Grade 5 education, and one of her sayings was, “No matter how thin the paper, there are two sides to every page.”  In some cases there are many more than two sides to an issue, more than two sides to a memory, but the point is made. Continue Reading →

Serious Play

Hi Folks:

I put this post in the ‘Spirituality’ section of our blog for two reasons: first because I think play is a wonderful spiritual exercise, and second because it gave me the opportunity to include a couple of great quotes on the subject. The first is from Seth:

“I communicate with your dimension, for example, not by willing myself to your level of reality, but by imagining myself there. All of my deaths would have been adventures had I realized what I know now. On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough.” ~ Seth Speaks, session 518.

Continue Reading →

He Says, She Says… Moving Day

Hello, Dear Reader:

Things have been a little quiet lately here in our little corner of the ‘net, but since we have three or four blog posts to do, let’s see if we can’t change that!  This ‘He Says, She Says…‘ post is going to be primarily a ‘He Says’, but as always Marcia gets the final edit.  I have an idea for this blog post but  I’m  having a little difficulty forming words around it; be patient and we’ll get there.

As the old saying goes, “You won’t recognize the house when you come to visit; we’ve moved.”  Actually Sunday and Monday were primarily occupied in getting our ‘stuff’ over to the new house.  Moving is nothing new for Marcia and me; so far, in the years we’ve been a couple we’ve occupied 17 different homes – together or separately.  Last summer the folks at Victoria’s Boulevard magazine asked people to submit entries of 300 words or less on the subject of ‘home’; I wrote in and told them that Marcia would say I couldn’t write anything in 300 words to save my life, but the concept of ‘home’ has been an interesting one for us.  We’ve each been planning to come here to Victoria for quite a number of years, even before we met, and we’re rather liking the idea that we don’t plan to move again.  The editors at Boulevard were kind enough to include my letter (edited for length!) in their recent 2010 Home Design Annual. Continue Reading →

He Says, She Says… Releasing Historical Patterns

Hello, Dear Reader:

One of the Energy Medicine Cards, revealed at a crossroads in Marcia’s work day recently:

RELEASING:

Examine your beliefs. Assess your emotions. Wherever there is historical pattern, be willing to throw it out and see anew.

~ Energy Medicine Cards

It is with the prompting of this simple suggestion that our topic was chosen …

Read on…

Follow these links to read what He Says/She Says: Marcia’s View / Mike’s View

He Says, She Says… When Dreams Do NOT Come True

Hello, Dear Reader:

A desire arose within Marcia four weeks ago. An ad appeared in the employment section of the local newspaper requesting applications for a position Marcia had both the skill and the passion to tackle. She felt it a perfect job fit and a truly outstanding role. Thoughts of moving into this role had her excited! The added advantage of a more remunerative wage than her current position offered, plus medical benefits and other perks had her submitting her revised resume with a very wisely worded, professional cover letter.

She got an interview. In fact, she was the first to be interviewed by a 3-person panel. It went outstandingly well. Marcia felt she set the bar high for all other candidates being considered. As she had been taught and because it felt right, she then sent an e-mail to all 3 interviewers the day after the interview to thank them for their time, their expressed interest and the pleasure and privilege it was for her to have shared with them and learned from them during the process.

Due to a large number of qualified candidates and a week’s unavoidable absence by one of the interviewers, there was a two week wait to hear the results. By the  Thursday of the second week, Marcia thought (at Mike’s wise suggestion) to send a  “Thanks for taking the time to interview me, I’m still interested …” e-mail to each of the 3 interviewers. She was in the midst of composing this e-mail when the telephone rang. Continue Reading →

He Says, She Says… Are You a Seeker or a Finder?

Hello, Dear Reader:

Happy Monday!

This week’s ‘He Says, She Says…‘ post was inspired by a quote we came across recently from Andrew Cohen, who is the Founder and Editor in Chief of EnlightenNext:

Are You a Seeker or a Finder?

“Are you a seeker or a finder? This is a very important question. If you are on a spiritual path, have you found what you are looking for? Or are you still searching? If you are doing a spiritual practice, are you doing it to reach a goal or are you doing it just because you think it’s a good thing to be doing? Or are you doing spiritual practice from another position altogether—the position of being a finder? Being a finder means you are one of those rare individuals who has unequivocally found what they are looking for, and are now doing spiritual practice only because they want to continue to develop.” ~ Andrew Cohen

NB: This is only the opening paragraph of a longer article.  You can read the full post here.

This is a very fundamental question, and sparked different ideas for both of us.  If you haven’t already, ask yourself: are you a Seeker or a Finder?

Hugs,
M&M

Follow these links to read what He Says/She Says: Marcia’s View / Mike’s View

He Says, She Says… Universal *Boinks*

Hello, Dear Reader:

Any fan of ‘The Three Stooges‘ knows that they had no difficulty getting their point across to each other.  We think they would have loved ‘Boinks‘!

For most of us, however, the Universe speaks in a much quieter voice.  There is a lovely Hindu poem, translated by Ravindra Kumar Karnani, that speaks well of this:

And A Meadow Lark Sang

The child whispered, “God, speak to me”
And a meadow lark sang.
The child did not hear.

So the child yelled, “God, speak to me!”
And the thunder rolled across the sky
But the child did not listen.

The child looked around and said,
“God let me see you” and a star shone brightly
But the child did not notice.

And the child shouted,
“God show me a miracle!”
And a life was born but the child did not know.

So the child cried out in despair,
“Touch me God, and let me know you are here!”
Whereupon God reached down
And touched the child.

But the child brushed the butterfly away
And walked away unknowingly.

For this week’s ‘He Says, She Says…‘ post we want to disuss the quiet voice that speaks to each of us from within.

Hugs,
M&M

Follow these links to read what He Says/She Says: Marcia’s View / Mike’s View

He Says, She Says… Basic Math

Hello, dear Reader!

Yes, we usually do our ‘He Says, She Says…‘ posts on Sundays, but last Sunday was our 95th Monthaversary of the day we were married, and yesterday would have been Mike’s sister’s birthday, so things kinda got pushed forward.  We were going to let it go until next Sunday, but Marcia’s current schedule gives her little free time for computer work and we didn’t want you to think we’d abandoned you entirely.  To that end, this is going to be primarily a ‘He Says’ post.  Marcia does reserve final editing rights, of course! Continue Reading →

He Says, She Says… Opposites

Hello, Dear Reader:

Our ‘He Says She Says…‘ post is a day later than normal this week, but we have friends in town and they get priority…

Our inspiration for this week’s post comes from a Seth quote:

“I am saying this as simply as possible. There are profound complications beneath my words, however. Opposites have validity only in your own system of reality. They are a part of your root assumptions, and so you must deal with them as such.

“They represent, however, deep unities that you do not understand. Your conception of good and evil results in large part from the kind of consciousness you have presently adopted. You do not perceive wholes, but portions. The conscious mind focuses with a quick, limited, but intense light, perceiving from a given field of reality only certain ‘stimuli.’ It then puts these stimuli together, forming the liaison of similarity. Anything that it does not accept as a portion of reality, it does not perceive.

“The effect of opposites results, then, from a lack of perception. Since you must operate within the world as you perceive it, then the opposites will appear to be conditions of existence. These elements have been isolated for a certain reason, however. You are being taught, and you are teaching yourselves to handle energy, to become conscious cocreators with All That Is, and one of the ‘stages of development’ or learning processes includes dealing with opposites as realities.

“In your terms, the ideas of good and evil help you recognize the sacredness of existence, the responsibility of consciousness. The ideas of opposites also are necessary guide lines for the developing ego. The inner self knows quite well the unity that exists.” ~ Seth Speaks, session 587.

So… Can opposites represent a form of unity, or are they, well, opposites?

Hugs,
M&M

Follow these links to read what He Says/She Says: Marcia’s View / Mike’s View

He Says, She Says… The Symbol Makers

Hello Dear Reader:

If we asked you to define a symbol, the thoughts that might come to mind could include a logo for a company, an ancient pictograph or drawing, a number, a character or some other idea, but the truth is that everything in our world is symbolic.  Take a word like ‘cup’, ‘tree’, ‘car’, ‘sky’ or ‘money’ for example.  All bring to mind specific shapes, colours and ideas, specific symbols of ideas.  Even ‘time’ has its own symbology, as we understand time by its passing.

Here’s a quote from Seth:

“Objects are the symbols.

“You usually think of them simply as realities. You think of thoughts, images, and dreams sometimes as being symbolic of other things, but the truth is that physical objects are themselves symbols. They are the exterior symbols that stand for inner experience.

“There are, therefore, mass physical symbols upon which you all agree, as well as private, personal symbols. The whole nature and structure of physical life as you know it, is a symbolic statement made by groups of entities who choose to work with physical symbolism. So the body is a symbol for what you are, or what you think you are—and these may be two different things indeed.

“Any physical ailment is symbolic of an inner reality or statement. Your entire life is a statement in physical terms, written upon time as you understand it.

“Once you understand the symbolic nature of physical reality, then you will no longer feel entrapped by it. You have formed the symbols, and therefore you can change them. You must learn, of course, what the various symbols mean in your own life, and how to translate their meaning.

“To do so, you must first of all remind yourself frequently that the physical condition is symbolic—not a permanent condition. Then you must look within yourself for the inner actuality represented by the symbol. This same process can be followed regardless of the nature of the problem, or of your challenge.” ~ Seth Speaks, session 594.

If everything in our world is symbolic – the very fabric of our reality composed of individual and joint symbols – who then are the symbol makers?

Hugs,
M&M

Follow these links to read what He Says/She Says: Marcia’s View / Mike’s View