Color Splash!

Courtesy of Kodak Moment of the Month for March 2012

These are some of the winners of this month's Kodak Moment.  I just love all the color!  Clockwise from top left...a sunny spot in Provincetown, the Color Run in Vegas, a Medieval wall in France, and a stunning view of Venice.  My favorite is the building in France, I love the contrast of the red umbrella against the yellow walls, and the arched windows are so beautiful...along with the sunny blue sky.

Happy colorful spring!

Well Within

"I imagine a deep well within me; a rich, fertile, sanctified landscape at the center of my being that is untouched by the traumas and dramas of my surface existence, an inner stream of wellness, the source of my life force and vitality, a portal into my eternal nature...a locus of knowing that gets it already and understands full well I am on a wild joy ride... the place from which I have come, the place from which I emerge into the world and through which I make my returns momentarily, daily, and at the end of life. I anchor myself here. When my outer life is particularly stormy or disorienting, or I feel any disturbance whatsoever, I know to reestablish my connection to my well within. It reassures me to make this contact. I am reminded of the ultimate truth; that I am infinitely safe beyond any real need for safety, and that I am here for the full experience of life; the love, the joy, the sorrow...I am well within when I am connected to this well within me. My awareness of the full dimension of my nature moves to the forefront of my consciousness. I am aware of my origins, aware of my ultimate nature, I am aware of what an amazing landscape this outer universe is, teeming with richness and variety. I am aware that on this joy ride, I get to choose to place my focus anywhere I want, to choose what I will give my life force to and what I will let go to seed within me and what I want to flower. I have learned that what I focus on is what grows around me, and that focus by focus, thought by thought, emotion by emotion, I create the characters, story lines and conditions of my life."    ~ Amy McTear

Just what I needed today.  Thank you, Amy.

Photo courtesy of Amy McTear

Amma's New Year Message

"Give up all the clouds in your heart from 2011 and have the courage of a lion and a lioness for the year 2012".

Om Sarveshaam Swastir Bhavatu 

Sarveshaam Shantir Bhavatu

Sarveshaam Poornam Bhavatu
Sarveshaam Mangalam Bhavatu

Sarve Bhavantu Sukhinah
Sarve Santu Niraamayaah

Sarve Bhadraani Pashyantu
Maakaschit Duhkha Bhaagbhavet

Auspiciousness (swasti) be unto all;

peace (shanti) be unto all;

fullness (poornam) be unto all;
prosperity (mangalam) be unto all.

May all be happy! (sukhinah)
May all be free from disabilities! (niraamayaah)

May all look (pashyantu)to the good of others!
May none suffer from sorrow! (duhkha)

 

 

My Sweet Children,

Shanti or Eternal peace is the ultimate principle that governs your life. Peace is the fruit of life. Peace comes out of calmness and the inner world. So child, search within.

Peace be to the East of Mother Earth.

Peace be to the West of Mother Earth.
Peace be to the North of Mother Earth.
Peace be to the South of Mother Earth.
Peace be above Worlds.
Peace be below Worlds.

Peace be to all creatures on this beautiful and great Mother Earth for a Happy New Year 2012.

My Children, I love you so much from the bottom of my heart.

Your Amma,

Karunamayi

 

 

Lokah Samastah Sukhino Bhavantu

May all beings in all the beautiful realms be happy

Om Shantih Shantih Shantihi

May all beings everywhere be peaceful
  

 

 

 

 

All words and images courtesy of Amma Sri Karunamayi

Joy and Peace for the New Year

Courtesy of "The Daily Mutts"

Wishing all my dear ones a bazillion blessings for good health, joy, peace and equanimity this 2012...and I'm sending you much love and gratitude for your love and support all year through.  Happy New Year!!  Love, love and more love, kajal

PS ~ Ram Dass and Eckhart Tolle would get a kick out of this, don't you think?  :)

Almost There, And a Surprise For My (Yoga) Sister

I know I haven't written much in awhile, and I could probably write pages and pages about what has been going on for the past two months.  I really would rather not though.  I am so very blessed that once I got through a few days of antibiotics (see post from back in November), I finally felt the sensation of truly breathing.  Really, really breathing with no coughing, nothing to cough up (sorry, I know, ick) and no wheezing. 

What happened after that though, was pretty bad.  After being on prednisone for so long, and being on (way too much) anti-anxiety meds to tolerate it...I went through a really bad withdrawal from both as I tapered them down.  I was barely functional.  I'm not completely there yet, and am still having some trouble (and I'm still very weak and it's going to take some time to get my strength back) but I can say...I'm breathing!  And I drove for the first time last week, since September.  And I saw my oncologist at SK on Tuesday...and we are not replacing the Arimidex with another drug.  After we talked about what has happened to me, she told me that she thought that what I needed to cure this cancer was the surgery, and that she didn't think "that we would be hearing from this again".  That was such a relief to hear, because I was prepared to say, "You cannot pay me a million dollars to take one of those medicines again.  Seriously, you cannot.".

And I'll be honest...I got a little emotional talking to her about how I lost another year of my life.  And she knows I don't get emotional easily, through everything last year, breast cancer and a 10+ hour surgery, I stayed strong.  She knows I'm not the whining/complaining type.  So when I got a little emotional as I told her about it all, she knew I wasn't being a drama queen.  And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with getting emotional.  It just takes alot for me to get there, personally.

So since I've been off the meds, I can feel them slowly coming out of my system.  My hands aren't shaking as much.  I got a message from a very special customer, asking if I felt well enough to create a few wrist malas for her.  As I read it, I was thinking, well that's a good question.  I looked down at my hands, and well, they weren't shaking very much, so I said yes.  I didn't think I was ready to knot a full mala, but felt I could manage wrist malas.  And then I started to look through my stones to find just the right ones for her...and that's when I started to feel it.  Creative juices running through my veins again!  Oh that felt soooo good. 

It took me a little while to finish them (she wanted four), but once I was done, I felt I had been given that little bit of a "nudge" I needed to start creating again.  Slowly, I did some repairs I had promised long ago.  Each wrist mala I finished felt like such a triumph.  So I have to send out a special thank you to Niki, even though she has heard my thank you's already.  She gave me that push I needed.

Then one day I felt I was ready.  One of my beautiful yoga sisters had left with me, some time ago, a full mala that had broken and needed to be re-strung.  We had planned to maybe change out some of the stones, so it had sat in my mala making cabinet, very patiently.  I think there is another reason why it needed to wait for awhile...it had been created originally not by me, but by our former yoga teacher.  I'll just say she's not our teacher any longer, not for three years, but there was a real challenge for my sisters and I in removing ourselves from a hurtful situation.  So I think that when I say that one day I felt I was ready, it was not only ready to start knotting, but also ready to re-create something beautiful from what once was broken.

So, my beautiful sister Kathleen, here is your surprise...

Rose Quartz and Silver for Kathleen

It did take me awhile, and sometimes my fingers wouldn't cooperate, or I would get tired and I would need to stop.  But I finished it today and I feel I have cleared more than one obstacle, which feels beyond amazing.

I am so happy to say that many mala combinations have started to flow through my head, saying "make me, make me, make me!  I need to come into creation!"

It will be slow moving at first, I know.  Right now I am just so happy to give Kathleen her (newly) knotted mala.  It wasn't knotted before, now it's knotted and is a full blown Kajal creation...knots and tassel and all.

And I can breathe!
   

Spiritual Food For The Whole Year

Today is the auspicious celebration of the birth of Christ.  To celebrate, plant one seed of virtue, and do the things that help to awaken the Christ consciousness within you.  Let this one-day celebration be spiritual food for the whole year.

     ~ Yogi Amrit Desai (Gurudev)

Gurudev blessing, courtesy of The Amrit Yoga Institute

Restored

After another day long campout at Panera on Tuesday, as we hesitantly decided to start packing things up to return to our cold and dark apartment, I suddenly had this distinct feeling that I should call our home number.  I had been doing this every once in awhile, to see if the phone would ring instead of go straight to voicemail...what I thought was a sure sign that our power was still out.  And yes, every time it would go straight to voicemail.  But this time felt different.  So as Eric started shutting down his work on his laptop, I dialed home.  Lo and behold...ringing!!  The phone was definitely ringing, the normal number of rings and then to voicemail.  You can bet we started moving a lot more quickly then, straight out the door and straight home with bated breath.  And what did we find...warmth and light.  The electricity must have come back on at least an hour or so before, it was so nice and warm...and also to our amazement, our cable had been turned back on too!  As Eric set off to start a cleanup (that is still not complete) of the disaster that had taken over our home, I quickly called family and friends to share the good news...

And then I went to bed.

Prednisone, antibiotics, coughing, wheezing, no electricity for four days (cold!)...I just collapsed, completely collapsed.

I started to come to a little bit today, and even did a little dusting and straightening which is so sorely needed around here.  I haven't been able to do very much of anything since this whole respiratory problem started months and months ago.

But I am going to share what I think may be some good news...and I'm almost afraid to say it.  I think the antibiotics, along with the prednisone, have started to work.  That is all I'm going to say for now, just that there seems to be a clearing going on.  So I'm sending a giant thank you hug to all who answered my call for healing light, and the return of electricity to our home...one has definitely been restored, and the other is looking like a good, good possibilty...