Find Religion

Every baby is Jesus’ perfection trying to be seen and acknowledged and reborn again and again. We can see it if we have the eyes, heart & hormones of a mother, or a vivid enough imagination that could imagine such as so. The love of a mother and the power a mother feels as she nourishes & sustains life, gives birth and continues to sustain that life with milk made from her own body, is the key, integral relationship in any human life. This is an act  so full of dynamism that any peace loving culture should rely on breastfeeding as a great beginning to creating happy, well-adjusted people thru out the world as a whole today. Lack of bonding as we can sometimes see in bottle fed babies, who miss out on the breast and the close mother/child bond, creates a population that is more enamored by the achieving of material gains then relating on a heart & soul human level with other human beings.  As we can see in the world today these shifted values have altered the path the world is on to a degree that has bred and nurtured people who are hell bent on greed, war, destruction and other traits that come from the damaged, improperly nurtured psyche.

Mary didn’t milk any of the barn animals for milk for baby Jesus. She nourished Him with milk from her own body. This act is a woman’s sacred art and has shaped futures of children from the beginning of time. Making milk for an infant can be a joy and a pleasure. It is certainly a lot of work for the body. Milk holds everything, every nutrient and satisfaction for a child; mind, body & soul. The act of breastfeeding instills innately the preciousness and value and worthiness of taking the best care, time & energy with your child. The care that come thru breastfeeding plays a role in the formation of every relationship thereafter. Ecological breastfeeding-when the breast is given on demand, without the use of bottles or pacifiers, can also suppress fertility, as the body adjusts so beautifully to accommodate the mother’s & child’s needs.

Any act such as breastfeeding which requires such devotion & sacrifice on a person’s part automatically makes the act a sacred one. Any sacred act infuses the preciousness and worth that we as a society lack in today. We wouldn’t have 1/2 the wars & murder or even depression, suicide or basic dissatisfaction with life if we had just given our children their birthright; our milk. Or more accurately-their milk. And she gives until it hurts. As they need. To establish their selves as such to value all life around us. This is one of the fatal flaws we make as humanity in not being absolutely blessed and supportive of the breastfeeding mother. It is a wound in the psyche that can not be healed or filled with any other outside resources and have the same impact it has when given from the source.

Breastfeeding stimulates important nurturing hormones called prolactin & oxytocin which induce feelings of contentment & satisfaction in not only the mother & child but also in anyone who even witnesses the act of breastfeeding! These are the same hormones that are produced when an orgasm is achieved.

We were created for ecstasy & bliss! Our whole system supports this but cultural & societal norms have altered this natural path & disrupted the core of the essence of our being.

Breastfeeding also reduces the likelihood of a woman getting breast cancer.

Support your hardworking mothers!

As soon as I get caught up with my own life drama, I get a call from my oldest & dear friend. She informed me that the breast cancer we thought her sister had fought has now returned to her brain and spine causing an extremely painful tumor to be growing in her spinal column between two discs, crushing them with the unrelenting growth of cancer cells out of control. She had a difficult and risky surgery to remove the tumor and replace the discs with prosthetic ones.  The brain cancer will be treated with direct radiation to the brain and chemotherapy. We are really hoping they find the right toxic cocktail to curtail the growth of the cells that don’t know when to stop. They say the prognosis is good. She will have to take a chemo pill the rest of her life, but she is expected to live. She has certainly lived thru a lot.
This really puts the messy house, pouring rain, leaky roof & a myriad of trivial & technical problems in my life into perspective for me. I’m just glad I have a pot to catch the leaky drip with. The dripping, wet sound passes the time on it’s own measure, random and unrelenting; “ting/splash, ting/ting/splash, ting/donk/splash”. I listen for the wisdom in the sound. The sound surrounds me like vibration emitting a secret code. The dink/drip/ting code, like some foreign heart or drumbeat, saying, “Pace yourself!, as long as you are moving, even if plodding, you are making progress. Even the tallest mountains sprung up only inches a year at a time”. The vibe is right. It continues, “The ocean is composed of many, many, many drops of water making the huge expanse of watery terrain that sustains innumerable amounts of life”. The rivers & lakes are coming to me, a drop at a time, thru the leak in the roof. I shall add some salt, make a sandwich and put a shell to my ear to hear the sound and have a picnic by the sea.

During this season of giving I can’t help but feel the pain of the millions of people who all they want are things money cannot buy. Like peace and hope. Or love and joy. What is the value of these things? What does hope look like? What does peace look like? Hope, to me, looks like the eyelashes of a tiny baby that rests on a silky cheek. Peace looks like the wind that raises the birds in the sky; elusive & fleeting. Love looks like a smile, open and friendly, ready to be generous and maybe even share a laugh. Joy looks like the fertile earth that has been dug up by the leaping paws of a happy dog, that has unearthed the earth itself with galloping strides of joyful bursting forth in energetic delight.

What do your wishes and hopes look like? Are they asking you to notice them, like the blossom of a flower, who tries so hard to get noticed, touched, smelled and appreciated? Breathe life into your dreams so they can come to fruition. Keep them alive anyway you can. Write and plan your dreams. Now is the time to access and reassess everything you have in your life . Conscientious people live the life that they want. Instead of life having you; you have the life you want. By accessing your life, your choices for the coming new year you can get rid of what no longer serves you, be it a bad habit or stressful unfulfiling work. Try to use your eyes that can see things like hope in the eyelashes of a child. This will create a balance of creative and pragmatic energies that will serve you well for the coming new year ahead. I wish you many blessings of all the good things in life that hold the true meaning of the season. All the things that money cannot buy have the most value. May you be showered with all the good things in life! And don’t forget, the best things in life aren’t things.

As soon as I get embroiled in all the great things the season has to bring, reality kicks in and so does the fear and loathing. A dear friend of ours has found lumps in his throat and neck and we are very concerned for his well being. Of course the first thing that pops into mind is cancer. It’s just like an automatic reaction. When I was a kid the worst thing in the world was cancer. This was before we seen what aids and other incurable disease could do.

So the season is now fraught with fear of disease, tests, scans and needles and waiting for results.  The worst part is the waiting. Time goes into a bubble warp and twists and turns and drags it’s feet when you are in waiting. Time has no friend like the good news we hope to hear from this uncertain place in time. One of the worst parts is that he doesn’t have insurance and has put this off for months and months now. That precious time can make the difference between stage III or IV cancer and have a huge impact of his rate of cure. I am ashamed of a country as rich and powerful as ours who has nothing better to give it’s own people than a war hell bent and built on lies, and lack of the most basic care that every human needs and should be entitled to as our birthright as proper medical care. What is this country coming to? We are endangering human life as we natter on about health care solutions. The solution lay in giving. Give until it hurts. Then maybe the people who are really hurting can get some care and relief.

Hold on to your loved ones tightly! Nothing is guaranteed. We can be grateful we get to see the sunrise of a new day. What will we do with this new day? My hope for you is to be able to linger in the beauty of all that surrounds you be it people or nature that you love. Indulge your senses. The time to live is now! Nothing is certain and anything can happen. It feels like flying by the seat of your pants. It can make you uncomfortable, but the ride is fun and the view is great. Enjoy the view in your life today. If there is no focus on illness or disease or despair, then rejoice for your good fortune.

Santa’s reindeer most probably evolved from Herne, the Celtic Horned God. Eight reindeer pull Santa’s sleigh, representative of the eight solar sabbats. In British lore, the stag is one of the five oldest and wisest animals in the world, embodying dignity, power and integrity. From their late Autumn dramatic rutting displays, stags represented strength, sexuality and fertility. As evidenced by multiple prehistoric excavations of stag antler ritual costumes, the wearing of stag antlers in folk dance recreated the sacred male shaman figure called Lord of the Wild Hunt, Cernunnos, or Herne the Hunter, among others–he who travels between worlds, escorting animal spirits to the afterlife and sparking wisdom and fertility in this world. Likewise, the stag’s branching antlers echo the growth of vegetation. In America, the stag represents male ideals: the ability to “walk one’s talk,” and powerfully, peacefully blend stewardship and care of the tribe with sexual and spiritual integrity.
In Northern European myth, the Mother Goddess lives in a cave, gives birth to the sun child, and can shape shift into a white hind, or doe. Therefore, the white hind was magical, to be protected and never hunted. In myth, graceful running women of the forest–who were actually magical white hinds–brought instant old age or death to hunters who chased them.
To the Celts, all deer were especially symbolic of nurturing, gentle and loving femaleness. White deer hide was used to make tribal women’s clothing. White deer called “faery cattle” were commonly believed to offer milk to fairies. In Britain amongst the Druids, some men experienced life-transforming epiphanies from spiritual visions or visitations by white hinds, balancing and healing their inner feminine energy. In Europe white hinds truly exist, and are many shades of warm white cream-colors, with pale lashes–otherworldly in their peaceful and modest behavior. To many Native American tribes, deer are models of the graceful and patient mother who exhibits unconditional love and healthy, integrated female energy.

The Wheel of the Year is often symbolized by the wreath. Its circle has no beginning and no end, illustrating that everything in its time comes back to its point of origin and travels onward, over and over again. Scandinavians began the tradition of hanging the wreath at Yule, the beginning of their new year, to commemorate new beginnings in the cycle of life. Today in rural Germany, a giant wreath, known as St. Catherine’s Wheel, is a holdover from another pagan custom which involved sympathetic magick to lure the sun’s warmth back to the earth. A giant four-spoked wheel with an effigy of a person bound to it, is lighted on fire and rolled down a hill. The effigy probably hearkens back to a time when human sacrifices were made in plea to the sun. In some traditions, Yule was a more important holiday for honoring the Sun God than Midsummer. In Winter, Mother Earth was cold and barren without the fertilizing power of Father Sun

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Mistletoe was also known as the golden bough and was held sacred by both the Celtic Druids and the Norse. Mistletoe was used by the Druid priesthood in a very special ceremony held around this time. Five days after the New Moon following winter solstice. The Druid priests would cut mistletoe from a holy oak tree with a golden sickle. The branches had to be caught before they touched the ground.
Celts believed this parasitic plant held the soul of the host tree. The priest then divided the branches into many sprigs and distributed them to the people, who hung them over doorways as protection against thunder, lightning and other evils. The folklore, and the magical powers of this plant, blossomed over the centuries.  A sprig placed in a baby’s cradle would protect the child from faeries. Giving a sprig to the first cow calving after New Year would protect the entire herd. Now for the kissing part. Although many sources say that kissing under the mistletoe is a purely English custom, there’s another, more charming explanation for its origin that extends back into Norse mythology. It’s the story of a loving, if overprotective, mother.
The Norse god Balder was the best loved of all the gods. His mother was Frigga, goddess of love and beauty. She loved her son so much that she wanted to make sure no harm would come to him. So she went through the world, securing promises from everything that sprang from the four elements–fire, water, air, and earth–that they would not harm her beloved Balder. Leave it to Loki, a sly, trickster spirit, to find the loophole. The loophole was mistletoe. He made an arrow from its wood. To make the prank even nastier, he took the arrow to Hoder, Balder’s brother, who was blind. Guiding Holder’s hand, Loki directed the arrow at Balder’s heart, and he fell dead.
Frigga’s tears became the mistletoe’s white berries. In the version of the story with a happy ending, Balder is restored to life, and Frigga is so grateful that she reverses the reputation of the offending plant, making it a symbol of love and promising to bestow a kiss upon anyone who passes under it.
Balder is sometimes seen as the sacrificed and resurrected god, who is restored to his people after the Battle of Ragnarok.

The Oak King

The Wiccan God is the Lord of the Greenwood, consort to the Lady of the Greenwood. Known also as Cernunnos, the Green Man, Herne the Hunter, and Lord of the Wild Hunt, he is a god of fertility, growth, death, and rebirth.
Two God-themes figure predominantly in Wiccan Sabbats: the Sun-God theme and that of the Holly King and Oak King.
The Sun-God rules the seasons. At Yule, he is the new babe, the embodiment of innocence and joy. He represents the infancy of the returning light. At Imolg, his growth is celebrated, as the days are growing longer and light stronger. At Ostara, he is a green, flourishing youth whose eye is taken by the Maiden Goddess. On Beltane, he is the young man in love who takes the Goddess as his bride. Their consummated marriage is celebrated with maypoles and bonfires. At Midsummer, he consumates his marriage in a union so complete that it becomes a death. He is mourned at Lammas, and at Mabon, he sleeps in the womb of the Goddess. At Samhain, he waits in the Shining Land to be reborn.
The symbolism of the Horned God is also played out the theme of the Holly King and Oak King. The Horned God is the Holly King and the Oak King, two twin gods seen as one complete entity. Each of the twin gods rule for half of a year, fights for the favor of the Goddess, and dies. But the defeated twin is not truly dead, he merely withdraws for six months, some say to Caer Arianrhod, the Castle of the ever-turning Silver Wheel, which is also known as the Wheel of the Stars. This is the enchanted realm of the Goddess Arianrhod where the god must wait and learn before being born again. Arianrhod means “silver wheel” and the castle is the Aurora Borealis. She is the goddess of the astral skies and there she rules as goddess of reincarnation.
The golden Oak King, who is the light twin, rules from midwinter to midsummer. The darksome Holly King rules the dark half of the year from Midsummer to Midwinter.

Holly King

From the Celtic tradition, we get a pair of ancient pagan images who fight for supremacy at Yule. The Holly King and the Oak King are probably constructs of the Druids to whom these two trees were highly sacred. The Oak King kills the Holly King at Yule. The Oak King then reigns until Midsummer when the two battle again, this time with the Holly King as the victor. The Holly King, who has evolved into the present day Santa Claus, wears red, dons a sprig of holly in his hat, and drives a team of eight, (total number of solar sabbats) deer, an animal sacred to the Celtic Gods. Holly and mistletoe are traditional to the season through commemoration of the battle. The holly was hung in honor of the Holly King; the mistletoe in honor of the Oak King.
The Oak King and Holly King are mortal enemies at Midsummer and Yule, but they are two sides of a whole, and neither could exist without the other.

Thanksgiving this year is bittersweet. We had the loss of several friends this year leaving loving spouses behind to continue on. My heart goes out to these friends and comrades in life that have lost the most significant person in their worlds. I am thankful that I have not only my memory but my husband’s & children’s memories of cherished vacations & holidays. I can’t imagine the loss it must be to lose someone who is the other half of all your struggles and triumphs in life! What a bleak place to be!

This Thanksgiving I am going to hold my kids longer and tighter and gaze into my husband’s eyes deeply, and treasure the simple pleasure of our company, our traditions and our ongoing love. It is these simple things that bring me joy, gratitude and fulfillment. I wish you and yours a day full of love, tenderness, thoughfullness, gratitude and a whole cornucopia of the things that truly fill and sustain our lives.

The most famous of all effigy mounds is the Great Serpent Mound in Adams County, Ohio. It spans 1,330 feet in length along its coils and averaging three feet in height.
Atop a plateau overlooking the Brush Creek Valley, Serpent Mound is the largest and finest serpent effigy in the United States. Nearly a quarter of a mile long, Serpent Mound apparently represents an uncoiling serpent. The construction of effigy mounds was a regional cultural phenomenon. Mounds of earth in the shapes of birds, bear, deer, bison, lynx, turtle, panther or water spirit are the most common images.
In the late nineteenth-century Harvard University archaeologist Frederic Ward Putnam excavated Serpent Mound and attributed it’s creation of the to the builders of the two nearby burial mounds, which he also excavated. We now refer to this culture as the Adena (800 BC-AD 100). A third burial mound at the park and a village site near the effigy’s tail belong to the Fort Ancient culture (AD 1000-1550).
A more recent excavation of Serpent Mound revealed wood charcoal that could be radiocarbon dated. Test results show that the charcoal dates to the Fort Ancient culture. This new evidence of the serpent’s creators links the effigy to the elliptical mound and the village rather than the conical burial mounds.
The head of the serpent is aligned to the summer solstice sunset and the coils also may point to the winter solstice sunrise and the equinox sunrise. Today, visitors may walk along a footpath surrounding the serpent and experience the mystery and power of this monumental effigy. A public park for more than a century, Serpent Mound attracts visitors from all over the world. The museum contains exhibits on the effigy mound and the geology of the surrounding area.

Visit the National Parks Service website for tourist and other information.

http://www.nps.gov/efmo/index.htm

The Effigy Mound Culture extends from Dubuque, Iowa, north into southeast Minnesota, across southern Wisconsin from the Mississippi to Lake Michigan, and along the Wisconsin-Illinois boundary. The counties of Dubuque, Clayton, and Allamakee contain almost all the effigy mounds found in Iowa

This is a description from wikipedia that I thought is an interesting read. Enjoy.

Goddess worship is a general description for the veneration of a female deity or deities. Many New Age Goddess devotees prefer the term goddess spirituality, avoiding the term “worship” for a faith that does not distance the Divine into a remote, hierarchical separation. Goddess veneration may be also used instead of “worship”, as it can imply respect and intimacy without undue deference. In such contexts, “spirituality” is often preferred to “religion” because major organised religions have not recognized the concept of a goddess, or goddesses, with the notable exception of Hinduism.

Goddess worship can be conservative, supporting male dominance, state control, and empire building; or it can be feminist, challenging those all patriarchal traditions. It can and usually does support women’s ancient, natural spiritual authority. In Western society goddess worship has developed into a distinct culture since the mid-19th century. Goddess worship is not necessarily feminist, though in Western societies the feminist version is probably the most articulate.

Modern day Goddess temples and churches in many forms are currently in operation all over the world. Some are small circles in (usually) women’s homes, and some are larger, federally registered non-profit churches that offer Sunday services like many other “traditional” churches. The first such modern church generally recognized is The Goddess Temple of Orange County, in Irvine, California. Usually, the services in such circles and churches is eclectic, and emphasizes a spirit of sharing of wisdom, rather than a leader lecturing a passive congregation.

Some goddess circles/churches/temples are “woman only” and others serve mixed groups. Women-only groups generally prefer to celebrate the Goddess in woman-only space for many reasons: 1) women hold a different frequency from men; 2) women cannot heal together from the ills of patriarchy while under the “male gaze.” 3) goddess celebration is usually and naturally woman-centered, and the “blood mysteries” of females is an essential part of this form of spirituality; men, with different bodies, cannot truly share in this form of spirituality, so dependent upon “body knowing”.

Pagan and Neopagan religions or denominations generally recognise goddess worship as one of their few areas of consensus. However, not all goddess worship is Pagan. More Christians are recognizing the Mary’s as goddesses, both Mary, the mother of Jesus, and Mary Magdalene. The Jewish faith recognizes “Shekhinah.”

The female deity may be referred to in all inclusive terms, such as “The Great Goddess” or “Queen of Heaven”, or she may be referred to in more specific terms: Kali, Isis, or Kwan Yin. Frequently, because of her many names, she is known as “She of Ten Thousand Names.”

Some authors, the most notable of whom is Marija Gimbutas, believe goddess worship started in prehistoric times. They believe that artifacts from that period, such as the “Venus of Willendorf”, may be representations of power goddesses]]. However, it is difficult to prove the role of these artifacts conclusively as evidence surrounding their place in their society is scanty. Male scholars including Peter Ucko have asserted that the figurines in question were territorial markers, toys, sex aids, sex education models, and images of priestesses rather than goddesses. Those who hold, as Gimbutas did, that these ancient images are of the Female Divine believe that archaeology is a patriarchal and male-dominated field, which tends to belittle and trivialize what was an ancient, worldwide general religion honoring the Female Principle.

Those who are of Goddess Spirituality generally believe that Goddess religion is the root of all other religions, since cave paintings and etchings from the Paleolithic Era seem to support the notion that Goddess worship/veneration began at that time in human history. At 30,000 years old, these markings, such as those found at Lascaux, France, are clearly evidence of a form of female oriented worship/celebration much older than all modern day religions, and philosophies such as Buddhism, most of which are less than two to three thousand years old.

Trees are the highest form of plant life. They connect humans to the mysteries of life, divinity and transformation. Even their appearance is a lesson in rebirth, renewal and regeneration. In Northern Europe there are designated wish trees. They are successors to ancient pagan tree shrines where people once appealed to the spirit beings connected to the trees for help in solving problems. Today’s wish trees are often adorned with ribbons & offerings.
Spiritual insight can  be achieved through close contact with trees. Many inspirations are born while beneath the limbs of a tree. A consistent belief among some cultures are that a deva or tree spirit, is connected to each tree. Large or old trees are thought to be homes to wise beings. To American Indians, certain trees were allies to whom they could go for help during difficult times.

Trees try so hard to get our attention! Stretching out their limbs and dropping leaves, whistling the wind, hoping we will listen. They are shelter from the sun and from the world. They house and feed insect life, squirrels and birds. They give us the fruit and nuts that make life so wonderful & delightful  with their variety, textures and tastes.

Take time to talk to trees. They are good listeners. Be sure and listen when you ask a question. and trust what you hear.

Tirawa Atius is the great eternal God who created all things. He supplies the needs of all creatures and living things including the rock people, the four legged creatures and the creepy crawlers. He created the Path of the Departing Spirits, known to the White Man as the Milky Way. East of the Path is the Male Principle, the Morning Star. To the west is the Female Principle, the Evening Star. All that has ever happened and will ever happen has been ordained by Tirawa. The stars are his servants. From the east the Morning Star began to pursue Evening Star in order to make love to her, but she continued to elude him. She put hindrances in his path, but continued to beckon him all the while. Why? Because it was not yet time to make living things on the earth; and females always tease and flirt with males, as well as demand tests to prove men’s character.

The number ten has always had significance for human beings. This is because Evening Star placed ten obstacles in the way of her suitor. One of the hindrances was in the chaos beneath them. There was an endless sheet of water presided over by the Great Serpent. The Morning Star threw a ball of fire at the serpent, which caused the serpent to flee beneath the waves. As the fire hit the water, enough of the water dried up to reveal earth and rocks. From these materials, Morning Star threw a pebble into the sea of chaos and it became the earth.

When the earth was in its proper place, Tirawa appointed four lesser gods to administer it. They were East, West, North, and South. They joined hands at the edge of the great sea on earth and a land mass emerged.

Eventually, Morning Star caught up with Evening Star and made love with her. Soon Evening Star conceived a little daughter. When she gave birth to the little girl, she placed the child on a cloud and sent her to earth. High above the earth, Evening Star asked Morning Star to water her celestial garden. As a love gift, he made the first rain.

In the celestial gardens of Evening Star, there grew a great many plants, including Mother Maize, the greatest of food plants. Evening Star gave maize to her daughter as a gift to plant on the newly emerged earth. Soon the Sun and the Moon produced a son, who married the daughter of Evening Star and Morning Star. Daughter-of-Evening-and-Morning-Star and Son-of-Sun-and-Moon are the parents of all living human beings, as well as the first beings to cultivate maize.

Beautiful stories like these show us that we were created to enjoy a simple & wholesome life. That life is a blessing of love. All the earth’s delights are to be our wonder and joy.

Seeing the universe in a single stone or the rays of the sun in a flower’s face is the true magic. May you be one of the few blessed ones who still have the creativity and vision to evoke pleasure from the simplicity of the beauty around us.

White Buffalo Calf Woman is one of the most revered deities among the Native Americans in the United States. One of the gifts of White Buffalo Calf Woman was the suggestion that all children be taught to hold baby animals with love and caring, so that as they grow they will learn to love all the other babies of the world.

As the White Buffalo Calf Woman gave her instructions, the white buffalo calf that accompanied her rolled over four times, each time changing colors . . . once for each race, first white, then yellow, then red, the black, signifying that we are all members of the same family.
When White Buffalo Calf Woman arose she was once again the beautiful woman, cradling the sacred bundle in her arms.

Spending four days with the people, White Buffalo Calf Woman taught them sacred songs, dances, and ceremonies as well as the traditional ways.
She instructed them to be responsible caretakers of the land and to be always mindful that the children are the future of the people.

White Buffalo Calf Woman prophesied that the birth of a white buffalo calf would be a sign that it was near the time of her return. In 1994, a white buffalo calf was born on a farm in Wisconsin. . . the first white buffalo born in decades.

Some believe she was the fulfillment of the prophecy that the return of the White Buffalo Calf Woman will herald the advent of an age of peace and harmony.

Goddess Symbols of White Buffalo Calf Woman

General: White buffalo, peace-pipe, circle (hoop), and the numbers 4 and 7

Animals: Buffalo and bison, eagle, and hawk

Plants: Buttercup, pulsatilla (Pasque flower), and spruce

Perfumes/Scents: Sage, wisteria, tangerine, and rose geranium

Gems and Metals: Agate, rose quartz, gold , silver, and red clay

Colors: White, yellow, red, and black

…Our Daily Bread…

We are blessed, for we not only have bread to eat, but milk, meat,  fruit and drink. When I sit before a meal, even a simple peanut butter & jelly sandwich, I thank the wheat that waved in the wind, shining in the sun, taking up nutrients for my body to use. I thank the sugar cane and fruit of the vine for it’s flavor & sweetness. I thank the peanut, living underground, wrapped in the dust of our ancestors, growing so that my life may be sustained so I can bring truth to all. I thank the clouds that brought rain and the people who work hard to make everything come to fruition.

When we honor and acknowledge the gift, the beauty, the sacredness around us, it infuses our life with conscious gratitude that is a platform for compassion, openness and joy.  When we nourish our bodies it is important to be mindful of what crosses our lips. When we eat, it is not only for sustenance for life but for enjoyment of the gifts that this life gives us.

Be mindful tonight of the sources of your sustenance. Give thanks greatly so you can enjoy heartily that which you need so you can continue in your unique way, the gift that you have been bestowed. LIFE!