I had my grandkids over the other day.  They are pretty good kids.  The 11 & 13 year olds love to tussel and pick at each other and that wears me down.  The four year old is constant motion and that wears me down.  I usually rest the entire day after they've been over.  I live a quiet calm life and their level of activity is more than I'm used to.  I try to have crafts of projects of some sort for them so that they feel like their visit was more than just hanging around and watching TV, but rather special because we've connected in and worked together.  That's really the fun part for me!  They seem to enjoy it as well.  They like feeling special.

This last visit, the boys got into Phil's sports car in the garage and pretend drove it.  It rolled back and the garage door has black marks from the bumper.  It rolled back further after we opened the garage door to drive the other car in and it's a good thing Phil noticed before we closed the garage door!  It would have been crunched as the door closed!

Both Phil and I remember "driving" our grandparents tractors and stuff, so we know they were just having fun.  He'll have to have a chat with them so they don't take it out of gear or take the brake off next time.  He often works when the kids come over, so he doesn't get to take them out for a drive in the car.  They would LOVE that!  He has to make sure it's running right before he takes it out, so hopefully he can do so soon.  I think it would be GREAT if he could pick the kids up after school in it.  They'd be thrilled!  The problem being that only one kid can ride in it at a time - only two seater.  I think he could pick one up, go back for the 2nd one, take 2nd one for a ride, then take first one back out for a ride.  What fun for young boys!  I may have to "remind" Phil to do that as he gets caught up in work and doesn't make time to take the car out much anyway.  Fun for all of them!

The little one, Jaelyn was fun, too.  She sat me down and painted my fingernails.  Bless her heart, it was a gloppy mess, but she really did a great job for a four year old!  I only had polish on my right hand as she got distracted and never got back to the other one.  I left it on as long as I could 'cause it was so sweet!  I have some old polish that's gloppy enough for her to use, so I'll have to get that to her next time I see her.

I think grandkids are God's gift to us for not strangling our young.  With grandkids, we can fill 'em full of sugar and junk food, let 'em get really dirty, wild 'em up with silliness and then drop them off for their parents to deal with.  Sweet revenge!  Not that I would do such a thing!

As parents, we are busy trying to make them be good.  As grandparents, we want them to be happy and have fun.  I think God is a wonderful combination of those aspects.  Love sprinkled with boundaries, encouragement, joy and abundance.  God looks at us with the tenderness of a grandparent and the undying protection and selfless care of a parent.  How cool is that!

I attended a class reunion this last weekend.  We all turn 60 this year, so the gathering was entitled "30 . . . A Second Time"

Pretty funny.  We are all just as goofy and childlike as were were at 18 when we graduated, we are just doing it in older bodies!!  I have to admit that had really had to push myself to be open and friendly.  I am so shy by nature that it takes every ounce of energy that I have to reach out and talk to people and initialize conversation.  I look like I'm relaxed, but it's really hard. 

Conversation is an art form.  Some of us have it by nature, some of us learn early from our parents and other adults, and some of us figure it out somewhere along the way, while others just never learn to step into that mode.  I'd like to be like the latter group, but I always thought people who laughed and interacted with others seemed to have more fun, so I push myself to join in.  The rewards are many.  Not only did I get to speak to people I didn't really know in High School, I also reaquatined myself with people that I barely knew back then.  I also won a door prize.  Three actually.  One prize for being the first to sign up . . . it was really because I didn't want to forget!!! so I didn't dare put it off!  The other was a drawing for a dinner out.  Then another dinner out.  Phil turned in one of the dinners 'cause it was just rude to keep it. 

All in all it was great fun to step out of my fearful nature and step into a role of allowing myself to be joyful and playful.  I had more energy the following day.  I think we lock up a storehouse of energy when we allow fear to keep us in check.  By letting go of that fear, the energy was available for use the next day. 

I'm ready several books on happiness right now and I don't remember which one mentions that the Emotions are the powerhouse for our being.  When we spend all our time in our head - thinking, analyzing, calculating, we don't get access to that energy.  Of course we need to make decisions and consider our options and be wise . . . yet when we only rely upon that fuel. we don't have much energy for fun.  We can become in a state of "wonderment" (I wonder what will unfold today" rather than I've got to do this and that and the other thing. 

(I'll have to figure out which book and let you know.)  I didn't know what I thought about that concept, but the evidence is in!  Playing is good for the soul and good for the body.  I'll have to do more of that!

After services yesterday, I went home and cleaned the whole house.  It needed it and even though I was tired, it was good to have clean sheets and a lot less dog hair floating around.  Of course they are still shedding, so fluffs of hair are wafting around this morning, but for a few short hours it was really nice!

So, of course this begs the question of all of us running out of energy . . . is it old age?  Or is it that we don't play enough to grant us access to the store house of energy held within our emotional being?  Hmmm. 

photo by vampire black cat

Had an amazing experience today that I am excited to share with you. 

I have been doing some processing (breathing through) the ankle situation when I remembered more instances where I was held down by my ankles!!  Once when I had a wart removed from my heel (same place Dad dug out rocks), and when I was getting shots in the sole's of my feet when I had torn the fascia in the bottoms of my feet.  All of those proceedures were very painful.

I have been looking at Louise Hay's book, "You Can Heal Your Life" and discovering the emotional issues attached to the physical symptoms I've been having are all about relaxing into life, having fun, and experiencing the joy of living.  Over the years I have been pretty serious about getting the work done first -play later.  I overextend out of love for what I do and because of the deep need people have for what I can provide.

As I ponder this I realize that I am holding my own "feet to the fire" so to speak and have been unwilling to play.  Certainly, I laugh and have fun and am a joyful person in any circumstance.  But to really let go is foreign to me.  I was mentioning this to Phil on our walk this morning and he was expressing that he had tried to talk to me about it but I just didn't understand what he was talking about.  I confirmed that I DIDN'T understand and that the concept was foreign to me and I'm getting to learn a whole new way of being.

Just at that moment, a hawk flew overhead and circled above us for several minutes.  The dogs had to come back to see what was holding us up!  We stood there quite awhile as the hawk circled above.  Yes, it may have been hunting, but we were standing in grass, not in the field where mice live.  We gawked at the hawk as it circled above.

Finally, I got it!  I said to Phil that I get to learn how to live like the Hawk.  He is intensely hunting and is totally focused, yet he is doing it effortlessly!  He's allowing the air currents to support him and is gliding along easily.  I get to learn how to do that!

Just as I spoke those words, the Hawk turned and moved away from us.  it was truly profound and amazing!  I cannot express to you the feeling that created for me and for Phil.  (He felt the significance of that moment, too!)

I continue to breathe through this experience and am looking forward to what else may unfold!

I have a few minutes here to share more about the Presence Process with you.  First of all, The Presence Process is a book by Michael Brown.  The process itself is breathing in a way that becomes effortless and reconnects us to our childlike wonder, creativity and innocense bringing us into being present in our lives.  (Please read previous blog to catch up.)

I did a message for The Divine Fellowship over a year ago - probably closer to two years ago - regarding the Presence Process.  I found the CD of that service and did the process along with the CD.  As I was breathing, I had a huge flash on a situation that happened when I was a small child.  I know it was before kindergarten because we hadn't yet moved to the house we lived in when I went to school.  I was probably 3 or 4. 

Somehow, I had fallen or landed in gravel and got several chunks of sharp rock embedded into my right heel.  Don't remember how it happened.My folks didn't have money to take me to the doctor, so my dad held my feet down and dug the rocks out.  I remember being quite upset with the pain and being held down by my ankles.  The flash here was that I am currently addressing an issue with the lymphatic tissue around my ankles won't discharge fluid so they balloon up quite a bit.  As I remembered the childhood incident, my ankles burned and hurt - just like when they were squeezed so tightly when my dad was holding me still.  Just as I had that aha, I flashed on a past life of being held down by my ankles as well and my ankles felt a stinging a second time.

My adult mind knows that he was holding me down so as not to hurt me further than necessary.  The child experience didn't understand and locked that feeling into my ankles.  The past life experience had been replayed in this life so I could clear both experiences together.

How cool is that?!?  Certainly it's not fun to look at all that stuff, but to clear things that are hindering my spiritual journey is wonderful!

I have not had a chance to sit down and really process the experience out, but I have been breathing through it and bringing love and compassion to the experience.  I feel that once the energetic lock is released, my ankles and the lymphatic blockages can begin to heal.  Who knows how long it will take, I just know that I have a tremendous sense of freedom as I am facing the experience.

I'd like to make the message that I gave about the Presence Process available to you.  First, I will look into cleaning it up a bit as there are some moments of dead air and other clutter that can be cleaned up.  Once that's ready, I really hope you get a chance to give it a listen.  I'll keep you posted.

Also, on a personal level, I spent four hours at my husband's office today doing a workshop for them.  It was a reader's digest version of a 6 part workshop that I present.  It was kinda fun and I think it went over well.  I would have rather had a little longer to work with the material and the participants, but for the time we had, we got 'er done and I think it was helpful.  I have some fun processes that we were unable to do becauseof time constraints and that was unfortunate.  The workshop was about something that I'd had a vision about some 15 years ago, so it's really dear to my heart.  I hope I have more opportunities to share this information with others down the road.

Well, I'm worn out and would like to take a few minutes before I crash to prepare the last handout in another workshop I'm working on - Healing the Energetic Crystals Within the physical form.  We have been gifted with a host of energetic crystalline forms that absorb outside trauma's like a surge protector takes a power surge from harming our electronic equipment.  The latest visionary experience had to do with crystals that make up our energetic "Angel Wings."   I've been looking for some graphics of angel wings to show the location of these crystals and then to identify the energetic signature of the crystals.  I'm finding the graphics just don't do it for what I have in my head.  Maybe I'll have to learn to draw!  or find a willing artist!  So, I'm off to take another look through another batch of graphics.  Hopefully there is something in the next group!  I'll be doing a workshop in August to show how to repair and restore the crystalline energy that helps us soar!

Phil has been polishing my kitchen countertops in an effort to safe us from replacing them.  The one he's do so far looks great.  Don't know how they will maintain, but they sure look nice now!

In that process, everything had to come off the counter top.  Well, we've been really bad about just dropping things there and leaving them in a pile/heap/stash.  I am going through that junk to see what's there and try to figure out what to do with it.  I like the saying, "A place for everything in it's place" however, the secret is discovering where it belongs.  Some stuff what photos that go to the church, others were bits of paper, phone numbers notes that have long since lost their usefulness.  Wading through the stack, I found a copy of a service we did about two years ago in September or October.  It was a review and discussion of a book entitled The Presence Process.

Well, I have a zillion things to do, but for some reason I put that in the payer and was listening to it while I forged through the rest of the junk stuff.  It was good to listen to it as an outsider rather than the one delivering the message.  I laughed at Phil's jokes - again!  And I was able to really hear the information in a new way.  I don't have the opportunity right now to share all that with you, but to summarize it, by breathing in a continuous manner, we can reativate the inner creativity and innocense we owned as children.  (There's a lot more to it than that - that's the reader's digest version!)  Anyway, I stopped and did the meditation and was shocked to discover a link between some swelling in my legs and a childhood trauma! 

I've got some healing work to do and some compassion work to do, but I can tell you I was shocked and surprised at the information I received and I am really delighted that I found this information right now.  I must be ready to release it for good and am ready to apply a new light of compassion and love to that memory.  How exciting!

Hope to write more on this later!