Rhapsody by the Sea

The sound of the surf rushing in and gifting me with hundreds of shells at my feet; the salty caresses of the breeze on my skin; the laughter and shouts of other beach-goers; the kiss of the late afternoon sun; all these greeted me when, finally, we arrived at Captiva Island on the west coast of Florida.

The earlier storm, which gratefully, we missed, left the water rather rough but that did not discourage our rapid entry into the waves, splashing and frolicking like kids.

My puppy, Rhapsody, actually a puppy in size only, was introduced to the ocean. A dachshund, by breed and temperament, naturally abhors the water. At home, it takes much difficulty to coach her out of doors to use the bathroom if she detects the slightest amount of moisture on the driveway. So I was quite sure she would rapidly retreat from the very wet waves that every few moments threatened to overtake her. Though she certainly didn’t plunge into the surf and was quite cautious, she was also quite curious, carefully checking out each wave. She chased some sea birds and as she became acquainted with this new experience, she pondered the wisdom of proceeding down crab holes. All in all, she seemed to enjoy herself.

My companion and I relished the beautiful sunset, always a marvel, that orange ball dropping silently into the sea. Good food, pleasant conversation and a warm connection was a perfect ending to our first day but also a lovely prelude to the beginning of our mini vacation.

The next day dawned bright and beautiful. We walked across the street to the Gulf with a cooler full of water and other munchies and settled in for the day. My fair skin did not appreciate my lack of attention and as we floated for hours in the warm aqua water, I managed to burn myself nearly senseless. Too late, I applied sunscreen and donned a long sleeve shirt. But I know I’d do it all over again. The call of the sea is too compelling.

In addition to burning my skin practically off, a quick run across the hot sand scorched the bottoms of my poor little feet…compelling or not, I will NOT do that again. Flip-flops are my new best friend.

The next afternoon, we enjoyed a parasail ride. This was something I had wanted to do ever since I arrived in FL nearly 26 yrs ago. Finally I got to go. What an incredible experience! Sitting on the back of the boat, strapped into a harness, the boat took off and as the wind caught in the parachute, we were pulled off the boat and into the wind! Amazing! Exhilarating! Riding approximately 60 ft above the sea, we looked down and saw stingrays, dolphins, sharks, and a sea turtle or two. WOW! I would do it again and again, it was wonderful.

But as the saying goes “all good things must come to an end”, and so it did. But still my gratitude runs deep for the time spent in quiet solitude, enjoying God’s lovely gifts of nature with my companion, Sandy, who made it all possible.

I AM Discovering the Power Within

In Discover the Power Within You, page 37, Eric Butterworth spoke to my heart when he said “…disturbing as the idea may seem, God is dead to you, if you are asleep to the activity of the Presence in you…If you are unaware of the greater dimension of your nature, then it doesn’t exist as far as you are concerned.” When I wake up, open up, I suddenly come alive to the ‘within’ of me, the depths of me and then Presence is very real – not as a separate entity but as the Is-ness of who I really am.

Sometimes difficult people and circumstances have entered my life to open me up wider and wider to Christ consciousness. Rather than run from the discomfort or attempt to eliminate the pain, I try to embrace it with open arms, seeking the learning. These people or circumstances are merely tools. Much like a car is relevant to move me from point A to point B, so difficult circumstances are present to move me from victim-like whining to the radiant glory being that I am.

This is not to say that pain and suffering, loss and devastation are always used to advance me but merely that those are the tools most likely to get and keep my attention. Are there those among us that need not experience the level of discomfort that I require?

I’ve learned that there is a more direct route, a better path, one not strewn with splintery planks and rusty nails. Conscious opening up is a gentler, kinder way. Though pain may be involved, the pain comes from a slow realization of my own erroneous thinking rather than messy life circumstances. Opening up to God who loves me and doesn’t wish ill on me (yet will allow it should that be my path choice) fills me with light and brings to my attention God’s all pervading goodness manifest in every aspect of my being. I need look nowhere else to find the solution to all my problems. Every answer is available to me but I must be open to receive. Like a screw top lid on a jar or doors on a kitchen cabinet, I open my mind and open my heart to listen with every fiber of my being. In the stillness, answers emerge, little by little, or all at once. Meditation prepares the way, sweeps out the cobwebs and makes ready the receptors.

More and more, as I open in awareness, I am experiencing the oneness I am with Spirit and the oneness I am with everything and everyone. This is magnificent.

Have a Glorious Day

Linda

Prosperity (con't) - Part 2

After my little gold PT Cruiser, crushed and maimed, was towed to the body shop, I received a rental car to use until the damage could be assessed and, hopefully, repaired. (Prosperity – Insurance covers rentals).

By mid-week I received the not-so-great-news that my insurance company was writing my car off as a complete and total loss. By now I had come to a place of peace and acceptance on this. I knew without a doubt that God had my back on this and I had an inner knowing (also known as intuition) that the scenario might pan out like this. I had begun to think about what I wanted to replace the Pt Cruiser. Certainly not another PT Cruiser! If going a max speed of 12 MPH could total a vehicle, I sure didn’t want another. I thought of the ramifications of traveling at say 40 or 50 MPH – my conclusions were not pretty. Nope, I wanted something sturdier. Like a small pick-up truck. Color – red!

From the time the insurance company told me of their decision, I had four more days with the rental and then I had to return it. Yet I had to wait for the settlement check from them before I could look for another car because whatever monies they gave me was all I had. Note the time lapse here – no more rental AND no money. YIKES!

Oh, you of little faith…

Happily, the check I received was twice what I imagined I would get, not a windfall but a workable amount. (PROSPERITY)

My son, Chris, was leaving the county for 8 days and graciously allowed me to borrow his vehicle while he was gone as long as it was returned precisely on the day he returned because he would need it immediately. PERFECT PROSPERITY! That took care of my immediate need.

The money arrived in my account on a Wednesday. I was going out of town the next day (Thursday)to fulfill a commitment I had made months prior and then return on the same Sunday that my son was returning and would be wanting his vehicle back. I would, on that very day, be vehicle-less. YIKES!

Except…

A co-worker had a nephew who was selling his little pick-up truck. A Ford Ranger. Can you guess the color? Yup - R E D!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (PROSPERITY)

I got back into town on Sunday, early afternoon, and by late afternoon, my little red pick up truck was sitting in my driveway. (PERFECTLY PERFECT PROSPERITY)

I was able to purchase it, get some work done on it and buy a used washing machine (mine had died a week or two prior).

Oh…and by the way…I tithed on that insurance check…no hesitation or regrets. I wrote that check, as I write all my tithe checks, with joy and gratitude.

Wouldn’t you?

Peace and Love

Linda

Prosperity - Part 1

I recently completed a class offered by my church entitled “The 4T Prosperity Program”. I was excited about this class, assuming from the name that the focus would be mainly around the energy of bringing in more of the “green stuff”. Being a BIG FAN of the green stuff, I was all over that idea!

Within the first 15 min of the very first class, it was clear I had been badly mistaken about the whole “green stuff” idea – the focus on the class was actually to change consciousness which didn’t ring the way I had hoped it would but I did want to work on my consciousness otherwise I wouldn’t have chosen this church to attend. And besides, I was there and thought I might as well follow through and see what might happen.

The class itself cost $50 which I had to pay in installments and one of the main commitments of the class was to tithe. Now this idea scared me half to death. Though I had tithed in the past, I mostly felt that tithing applied more to other people than to me, after all, in the past I had given enormously of my time and talents so I figured God would cut me some slack in the tithing department. Besides that, this was most definitely NOT a good time to give away any of my money. I didn’t feel I had enough of it to spare, even for God. So I cried as I drove home that night, but then decided, “What the heck, it’s only 12 weeks, that’s 6 paychecks, I can do anything for 6 weeks.”

Almost immediately stuff started happening…and from the initial appearance, this “stuff” was not good stuff.

My plumbing, which has been an on again/off again problem in this nearly 65 year old house, began acting up. And by that terminology I am being literal as in not going down but indeed coming up. I called my plumber, “Billy the Plumber” but he was unable to get to me immediately. With gratitude I write here that I do have another bathroom which was not affected from the “obstruction” so I used that one until Billy could finally schedule a visit.

His visit was scheduled on a beautiful Saturday afternoon nearly two weeks later. I planned to run an errand or two in the morning and had just settled myself in my little gold PT Cruiser, pulled out of the driveway and drove three doors down to the stop sign when suddenly CRASH KABOOM, I smashed into another car. This was my fault completely having failed to stop at this stop sign where I had been stopping for 13 years! Why? I don’t know. Distracted by a garage sale on the corner, perhaps? So the cops come, I’m crying hysterically, got a $164 ticket but worse was that my little gold car was crumbled, undriveable – and I couldn’t have been going more that 12-15 MPH.

Billy the Plumber arrives later that afternoon and begins working on my clogged plumbing, commiserating with me sympathetically about the car (which a neighbor had already proclaimed “totaled” to which I cried even harder and louder with that bit of info knowing I had no way to buy another car) and the ticket blah blah blah.

Anyway, Billy works and works on my plumbing, unable to get the crap moving, muttering about how it was REALLY “ jammed-up” in there. I stopped him after about an hour and said, “How much have we spent so far because I have $100 and that is it. That’s all I’ve got. For real.”

He graciously said, “Nothing yet, I haven’t got you unplugged yet.” I was so grateful but as the minutes turned to hours, I knew he couldn’t do all that work for $100. And still the pipes were clogged. I walked around the outside of the house and the inside, visualizing light moving through the piping, opening up the way. While I was inside, he began packing up all his stuff. I figured he had given up. It was a hopeless case. And I literally had NO money for a more extreme method of unclogging. I asked him what should I do next and he looked at me quizzically, “We got it all moving again, you’re good to go! I about fainted with relief.

So the next big question. How much? Because he had worked non-stop for 3 1/2 hrs, it had to be an enormous charge, right? Billy the Very Fine and Bestest Plumber In All The World said.”$100”. Can you feel the energy around this? WOW was I blessed. Thank you God! Thank you God! Thank you God!

THAT WAS PROPERITY IN ACTION!

Stay tuned for more stories from these 12 weeks of classes. There’s a bunch.

Namaste,

Linda

I'm B - A - C - K

I took a hiatus from this blog months ago, expressing to you, patient readers, of the need to break for an imagined project of, what I then thought, was of great import and would consume my time.

It is certainty true that this latest leg of my journey is most definitely crucial, the pinnacle of import, but I have not been traveling in the direction in which I first embarked.

So I’m back again, for what that may be worth. I wish to share with you all of my discoveries, old and new. That of which I write is merely about one ordinary, yet at times, extraordinary life – mine. But it is my belief that my life is not much different from yours. Yes, our life experiences may vary but we are all connected, on a much more basic level than can be comprehended at first glance.

Read on in the coming days, weeks, months…I think I can help expose a glimpse of paradise to you, to all of us.

PEACE AND LOVE

Linda

Meet Me Later At The Clothesline

Hey Folks - Perhaps some of you have noticed I haven't been posting for awhile. I've got a couple important projects I'm currently working on which are prohibiting me from writing for this blog. I'll keep in touch and let you know what's up. In the meantime...just enjoy life, scatter joy, and remember...you are LOVED. Peace! Linda

Life Without Harley

October 2009 was a difficult month for me. First, I had a stroke of which I have previously written, and then a week later, to the day, I had to put my beloved boxer, Harley, to sleep.

I was introduced to my boxer boy when he was a four day old pup. At six weeks he came home to live with me and be my true love, canine love. I was re-modeling my house at the time and as I sat on the floor painting baseboards, he slept on my lap, wearing stripes of paint up and down his soft puppy body like a zebra. He rode in the car with me wherever I went, his nose print and boxer slobber coating the windows. He was my constant companion, the only constant in my ever-shifting world.

Harley was more kangaroo than dog, jumping straight up 6 ft into the air in his exuberance to go for a W A L K. When off leash he bounded like a gazelle, grace and beauty in every movement. He loved chasing lizards and was drawn to tall grasses where he pounced with his front paws, creating mayhem among the lizard population, thus enabling him to chase to his heart’s content.

He loved to be on the loose and running more than anything and so to this end he spent most of his waking hours trying to escape the confines of the house. Like an inmate, he moved from door to door, bumping each one with his nose to see if he could open it. It was many years before he stopped doing this but not before he got hit by a car, twice. During another escape episode, in his effort to avoid recapture he snagged a chicken bone he found in a neighbor’s yard and as I tried to coax him back to me, he inhaled, aspirating the bone down into his windpipe. This resulted in a $600 vet bill. The kids and I spent considerable time chasing him down, I in the car and they on foot.

I bought an RV in 2000 and took the kids on a trip across the country. Of course, Harley came with us. Every time we opened the door, we were on red alert to prevent his escape. We didn’t always succeed and there were times I was so frustrated with him I was ready to drive away and abandon him in that Oklahoma sunflower field or in that church parking lot. But, I didn’t, couldn’t…he was part of me and our family.

With all his escape antics, Harley had terrible separation anxiety. He cried, howled, whined and barked himself hoarse when left alone for any length of time. With his separation anxiety came a touchy tummy causing an almost daily episode of vomiting. Through the years I experimented with all kinds of food, but really, he was just a hot mess. But he was MY hot mess and had embedded himself deeply in my heart.

As most boxers, he viewed himself as a tiny little lapdog. He sat in front of me when I was comfy on the couch, his head on my knee, eyes beseeching me to allow him up. At the tiniest movement of my head, indicating permission, he was up, curling himself into a tight circle, pressing hard against me. The weight of this body was a lovely reassuring presence, a constant in my ever-shifting life.

I’m guessing that all his leaping and jumping may have been his undoing. I’d noticed a few days prior to my stroke that he wouldn’t eat. He seemed to want to eat but just wouldn’t. When I finally caught on and raised his food dish he seemed fine and happily ate those missed meals.

Then the stroke happened.

My family cared for him, took him to the vet, afraid to tell me of his poor condition which deteriorated rapidly while I was in the hospital. He was in excruciating pain, even the slightest movement of his head caused him to cry out. He lay on blankets and passed his urine and feces where he lay when he was able. He was fed soft food with a spoon and given water from a turkey baster.

I returned from the hospital after 4 days. Barely able to make the smallest decision, I was faced with the most difficult : to euthanize my darling boxer boy. Actually divine grace was freely bestowed upon me during this time. Since I was recovering from a major brain injury, I didn’t FULLY experience this horrendous loss as I might have.

The afternoon before his death, I wanted him moved outside to lay in the warmth of the sun where he loved life the best. My family carried him on his blankets, litter-style, into the late October sunlight. We lay in the sun together, my best buddy and I. Me, with my brain a mess, and him, with his old body failing him. I lay down beside him on the ground, sobbing into the soft brown hair of his neck, unabashedly, uncontrollably, inconsolably.

The next day, he was gone.

And God, do I miss that dog.