Into the Storm "Reprint"

A few years ago I made a ring for a dear friend before he went to the Philippines on a mission trip and when he returned I noticed he was't wearing the ring. Curious I asked him about it. He said that it had fallen off into the sea during a storm.

Interested in hearing more I asked him how that happened. He told me that he was out fishing with the fisherman in their canoes from the village he was staying at when they realized that a storm was quickly rolling over the horizon. His first thought was that they could out paddle the storm and make it to the shore since he could see the shore line from where they were. Instead the fisherman pulled in their nets and began to paddle towards the storm. Surprised he very quickly let them know that they were going the wrong way.  That was when the leader of the group piped up and said that they were too far form the shore to make it before it hit and the only way they had a chance was to paddle into the storm.

My friend who I would describe as a brave man told me that on that particular day he was tested and wasn't really sure that they would make it at all. There they were in handmade canoes paddling up and down the big waves moving through the ocean traveling through the storm itself. All he could do was to hang on and pray as the fisherman continued to paddle never skipping a beat. It was somewhere in the middle of it all that the ring slipped off his finger and was swallowed up by the ocean.

In what seemed like many hours he began to notice that waves got smaller and the wind and darkness fell away.  Looking up he could feel the calmness setting all around the canoes with an understanding that they had made it. They were safe and no one was lost. As they sat there in the water watching the storm behind them they saw it spreading over where the beach and main land was located.  He said it was a sight to behold as darkness moved through that space. Then it dawned on him that they owed their lives to the leader who made the choice that day to paddle into the storm instead of trying to out run it. Sometime afterwards he looked down at his hands and noticed that the ring was gone but knew that when he returned I would make him another one. I of course was very honored to make him a ring and happy to have my friend back with us safe and sound.

As I move through storms in my own life his story has stuck with me over the years.  Looking at different experiences I see situations where we all may want to run the other way or avoid something at all cost but in the end it always catches up with us, creating more chaos than just facing it. No one ever said that life was easy. And I see too that not only do the storms in our lives make us who we are but they allow us to look back with a knowing that we have really accomplished something once we reach the other side. It is in those moments that we know that we have truly lived our lives to the fullest.

Photographs by Ana

The Art of Learning

One of the statements that I often hear is how people can be disappointed with themselves and some of the choices that they make in life. What comes to mind when I hear this is how amazing it is to just be alive and be able to experience life. Often we judge ourselves by trying to keep up with our own expectations and beliefs only to abandon ourselves forgetting how incredible it is that we learn by our mistakes.

What I want to point out is so often we repeat that same lesson over and over not realizing that each time we come out of the experience a little more wiser. I think what we forget is that it takes time to perfect anything that we do and even though patience is not always a virtue we have the opportunity to expand our awareness in understanding how things really work.

Sure we allow ourselves the grace to learn a new language making mistakes that other people laugh at or even frown at. We give ourselves permission to make mistakes when we learn how to drive a car or lean a new software. What is important to remember is that it takes time and practice to make any art or skill perfect. Isn't that why we are all here?

Photographs by Ana

Completion of the Self

A interesting energy pattern that is important to be aware of is the idea that when we feel empty we need other people in our lives to complete us. This is not true as we all are created as whole and to look to someone else to complete us would only be highly disappointing.

One of the greatest connections in relationships is the reflection of ourselves that we see through the eyes of other people. Like a mirror we see what we want to be, our short comings, and also our highest potential of who we are. For some when they see this reflection they can make the mistake of thinking they need the other person in completing themselves only to find that that path leads to giving away their  power or creating a situation of trying to recreate the feelings in the relationship that makes them feel whole. What we learn is that if we are not making others responsible for our own happiness and our lives then we step into our own personal power of recognizing that we are connected and complete.

All we have to remember is that our connection is really about knowing that we are always plugged into what we know otherwise as Source, God, Creator, or Universal Mind which makes us complete in expanding our awareness of who we really are.

Photograph by Steve

Conscious Creating

We are born into this world to be conscious creators. The only thing is that many of us go into, as my father used to describe, a state of sleep walking, Often we can become bored or get stuck in our normal routines in our lives switching ourselves onto autopilot, not realizing that we have given a great deal of ourselves away in the process of falling into a causality of circumstance.

In this state we forget how to connect our heart centers to our desires and the war within ourselves is the pulling and pushing of the life and things we want only to come to the very end with regret as it seemed to somehow elude us. As conscious creators we have to wake up and become more aware of our dreams when the energy burns deep within our heart centers. This recognition alone is the catalyst that starts the engine when we apply our focus to casting our vision.

Then as we start the process we must send the energy from our heart centers of having the experience in gratitude for not only the things we have but also for the things we see ahead of us as this lays the foundation in the direction we want to go in. It is when we become congruent in our minds and hearts that we have the ability to move into creating a new energy in ourselves that attracts what we see to us like a magnet.

 What is important to know is that we have the ability to be or do anything we want in this lifetime but we must remember that energy follows thought and therefore we must put our fears and doubts aside if we want to change the equation. Again reminding us that if we want to succeed we have to fully conscious of our thoughts.

Photograph by Steve Noyce - Stonehenge