(Note: This story is adapted from another story you all may have seen previously. I changed it to match my own beliefs based upon my own life experiences.)
Occasionally, a neighbor would be watching through his living room window near the end of the afternoon. One day, he noticed his friend next door walk up to a tall tree in his own front yard and set down his briefcase. He would stood before the tree and appeared to remove something from around his shoulders – it was as if he was taking off an invisible cloak – and gently hang it on a low branch. After that, he would spread his arms slightly out to his sides with his palms upturned, and spend about a minute in that position. Then he would pick up his briefcase and walk into the house.
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Starting your spiritual journey?
Think of yourself like a glass of water where mud (your “stuff”) has settled to the bottom. Things seem to be relatively clear when you begin your journey, but then you begin to do the spiritual work. This is like pouring clear spring water into your glass. So what happens? Well, naturally the act of pouring water into your glass stirs up the mud that had once upon a time settled to the bottom because you had chosen not to, or were unable to, deal with it.
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I am so excited! I was thinking about the Vision Board (or Treasure Map, or Visual Explorer) I wanted to create. It dawned upon me that instead of going driving around to find old magazines, or worse yet, buy magazines, that I could just take advantage of the free images provided on Google Images. I could just print those out and paste them to a poster board.
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I was reading from my Foundations Class materials through Creative Living Fellowship when I came upon a revelation about meditation, and by default, about spirituality in general. In one of the articles I read, the writer, Rev. Marlene Oaks, argues that a light switch works for everyone the same way, “…but they really do respond more favorably to those who understand them.”
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For personal reasons, I am going to back off of writing for a while. I assure you it is all good. I need to focus on some other things for a while. I may post every once in a while, but it will be relatively infrequently. I know that some day I will get back to writing more frequently again. Stay tuned! The blog will still be here.
I recommend subscribing to my RSS feed to view my blogs rather than just checking every once in a while. My RSS feed subscription link is in the bar at the bottom of your screen – it looks like a one-quarter, all-black rainbow.
… you know that I have hit a bump in the road.
I think I have gotten over the bump. We’ll see. Of course, all bumps in the road will eventually lead to other bumps in the road – that is assuming you stay on the road. It is one of the things that you come to expect is a natural by-product of driving!
Sometimes I just don’t like writing at these times. Inevitably, I turn a corner, and everything is all better again! Going to my church every Sunday helps, too! I am looking forward to starting my Foundations class at Creative Living Fellowship. I have canceled on it twice in the past due to work commitments, but I am committed to following through this time!
Part of the reason I am beyond the “bump” is because of a workshop I attended today. I will have more on that later.
Namaste
Through the years, I’d been involved in a few social networking sites. Among them was Yahoo Groups which was great while the group I was with was active. Soon, the activity level dropped, and it was just a matter of time before I lost interest. I’d tried classmates.com for a short time – but it just wasn’t worth the money as no one else was paying for it, nor were they very active. Myspace.com just seemed to be a total waste of time to me. I joined Facebook because my Mom needed some help uploading pictures to her Facebook page, and I saw that it seemed like a great way for me to look at the pictures she posted. In turn, I thought I could post some pictures of my own. It wasn’t until shortly after I joined that I started connecting with old classmates and friends that I really began to see the benefits of this site.
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Over the past couple of months, I have questioned what my purpose was in writing this blog. When I was playing and writing about poker, I had a pretty decent following of around 50-100 visitors per day. With this blog, I have found that I average about 3-5 visitors per day. That is quite a difference! It was enough to make me wonder, “Why am I doing this?”
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A few months back, shortly after I started messing around with Facebook, I connected with an acquaintance from elementary school. In an email to him, I essentially apologized for being a bully when I was in elementary school. When I was in elementary school, I have it seared in my brain that I was a bad kid because I took care of my problems with my fists. If someone made fun of me too much, I hit him. Well, his reply hit me like a ton of bricks. He said, “That’s strange, I don’t remember you that way at all. I remember you being one of the nicest guys in our class.”
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When I was playing poker, I used to joke that, “Poker is my wife… I mean my life.” Little did I realize the truth I spoke. Have you ever heard the term, “I trade you very much?” as opposed to “I love you very much?” I don’t know if he is the originator of the term, but I think the first time I heard it was from Greg Baer’s book “Real Love.” Admittedly, I have never finished the book, but after attending my first Real Love meeting, I have moved it to the top of my reading list. I have moved more than 15 times since 2000, so I have basically stopped unpacking my boxes (I know I am all over the place in this first paragraph – it will all come together!). After I got back from my meeting, I looked at the stack of boxes I have in the garage of the home where I rent a room. I knew that somewhere in those boxes, I would find the book I’d started, but never finished. I spotted a box that I knew had some of my books and opened it. “Real Love” was right on top! It was like it knew I was going to be needing it.
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