Like silence after noise, or cool, clear water on a hot, stuffy day, Emptiness cleans out the messy mind and charges up the batteries of Spiritual Energy. Many people are afraid of Emptiness, however, because it reminds them of Loneliness
~ Benjamin Hoff
Photo by Grady
Seeking Solitude is a deliberate choice. Find a space or place to recharge your energy. Uplift your mind, body and spirit. Reawaken familiar yearnings. Find a place within where thoughts are free to stay. Or, go wherever one’s spirit desires. A flight of fancy, a soaring of the imagination. All this and more is possible when in quiet solitude. Look within to find your passion then paint your life in vibrant colors. Find your bliss; where heart dances to love’s sweet melody, where spirit gambols in delight.
Time doesn’t stop or give warning. It simply ticks along, marking time, ignoring humanity ~ Amy Harmon
Photo by Grady
Some people mark time with Tattoos while others mark time with an Anniversary or by collecting Photographs and recording them in albums or picture frames. Life Cycles are another way to mark time. In life, we set out personal guidelines with a mind to succeed, but often we are just setting ourselves up to fail. With Life Cycles it is almost as if we give our power to emotional burdens and past failures, whereas if we choose to live by a set of Virtues, we can take back our power and manage our lives with mindful intention. We can choose to just exist, or we can take responsibility for our lives by consciously creating our life conditions and by growing through our life experiences. We can choose to override past emotionally driven Life Events or Cycles and replace them with consciously driven Life Virtues.
Choose your Virtues and then live them…
I chose Feathers to mark my time. They symbolize honor, strength, and freedom. By adding Virtues; Love (Orange), Balance (Green), Courage (Red), Passion (Purple), Loyalty (Blue), Wisdom (Yellow) with the final, almost ethereal, Feather (Black and White) symbolizing Endings and New Beginnings. These Feathers, gracing my wall, are there as a reminder of past Life Events and lessons learned. They are also there to inspire me to greater heights as I continue my Life Journey ~ Grady
Take a look at some of the beautiful Medicine Feather Bundles and Beaded Hat Bands here:Johnny Blackbird
The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Photo by Grady
Sometimes we feel more comfortable securing ourselves within our innermost thoughts. All our emotions, mostly negative, are locked away in the darkest recesses of our minds. We have a padlock for each hurt, grudge, failure; each personal inadequacy. Sadly, with each padlock we take away our sense of purpose, our strength of spirit, our personal power. Therefore, it is imperative that we find a way to free ourselves of these inhibitions. We need to focus on Spirit, on Passion. We need to focus on Purpose. The unlocking of Purpose is essential to our health, to our happiness, to our physical and spiritual growth.
We need to smash the locks that hold us hostage. We need to break out of our self-made prisons and walk free, with Purpose and Meaning.
You’ve been kidding yourself about yourself for so long, you’re someone else. Your you is just a fragile fabrication. Every morning, you have to wake up, assemble this busy, dissembling monster, and get him or her on his or her feet again for another round of fantasy ― David Guterson
Photo by Grady
We are all storytellers. All invested in creating the fabric of our lives by weaving threads to suit our needs and enhance our life experiences. Our Quilt of Life is stitched together in a patchwork of stories. Some truths, but mostly myths. We each create our own personal myths and like myths, our stories contain both good and bad characters that help us or hold us back. People we can blame for our sadly lacking lives or those who motivate and inspire us. We also have the power to rewrite our own history. These fragments of life experiences are woven into our thoughts, desires, passions; our very life force. The social media effect makes it very easy to portray ourselves in a good light. To live our lives in a faux roseate glow. So it is imperative that we don’t lose sight of our Authentic Self.
A rose of iron is strong and everlasting and exquisitely beautiful in its monochromatic hue. It does not have the drama of color, sweet romance in its scent or the sensual allure of a real rose. Both are beautiful in their own way. Neither trying to be more or less of the other. It is how we connect our external reality to our internal reality.
Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world ~ Harriet Tubman
photo by Grady
Whenever we daydream we are able to lose ourselves in a flow of conscious thought. During these seemingly timeless moments, we are able to slow ourselves down enough so as to reach that place of absolute calm. That place where we are able to do anything and go anywhere simply through power of thought. Daydreams take us to a place where we are able to escape the outer world and at the same time we are free to explore our inner sanctuary. For when we daydream, we strengthen our creativity and our well-being. We allow ourselves to be transported to places where ideas take form and fire our passion.
And when we give flight to our daydreams we give spirit a chance to soar.
Imagination doesn’t always mean looking outside of the box, but taking a closed box and seeing a different world from within it ~ Lionel Suggs
photo by Grady
Our Spirit, the very essence of it, gives us our passion. Spirit also gives us our imagination. We need to look deep inside of us, so that we may see, feel and live our lives in a better, loving and more mindful way. Don’t lose sight of Spiritual Imagination, it sets our passions afire. It makes everything and anything possible.
By closing our eyes, we can open up a wondrous world within and just like that, we can breathe life into and make iron birds take wing, leaving a trail of luminous stardust swirls and whorls behind them.
You don’t need to be the tide to rise and fall, you don’t have to be a wave to touch the shore; just be a little sand-grain and feel them all― Munia Khan
photo by Grady
Beneath the apparent calm, is an undercurrent of wild passion in each of us. Like the waves in the sea, love has a tendency to ebb and flow. There will always be highs and lows in our relationships. The highs, when love fulfills our heart’s desire followed by a natural wane of emotional disconnect. Try to get to that place where you can ride the tide. To rise and fall in harmony with each other. To love and be loved.
At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person. Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us ~ Albert Schweitzer
photo by Grady
It doesn’t happen very often, if ever, that someone comes along and rekindles that
spark of life energy within us. Especially when we have lived a full life and get to
a point where we feel that perhaps we have experienced all that we deserve in this
illusion called ‘Life’. So, when that someone appears, seemingly out of nowhere,
and shakes things up a bit. Embrace and Engage.
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