ArtSpirit7

Navigating the Times and Skills

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There’s no magic bullet, flip the switch and things will be as they were before. We’re hearing those words often.

I think about hairdressers and other people who need to be very close to a person in order to do their work. How will they get back to what they do?

Now more than ever, are you discovering how to do a lot of things at home?

How to Cut Your Own or Anybody Else's Hair by Bob BentMy mother cut my hair when I was growing up; I occasionally got my hair cut by a hairdresser. I was delighted to find the book How to Cut Your Own or Anybody Else’s Hair, by Bob Bent.

It was a lot of fun cutting my own hair some of the time in college, and cutting friends’ hair too.

Cutting the back area is usually the hardest part that good mirror configurations can help with.

Though the book’s out of print, I see there’s a Dummies book on haircutting on Amazon.

Of course, you can find a lot of helpful videos on YouTube.

Look after your own hair, and others’ hair, when you can, in these days of sheltering at home.

By the way, Harvard University is offering 67 free courses during the quarantine. Check it out by clicking here.

Sending healing thoughts and wishing you well with the skills you’re developing in this unusual time.

A Healing Technique for the World

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Wanted to pass this along from the Foundation For Mind-Being Research, thoughts on healing in this time of COVID-19. If you don’t have time to read this you can skip to the end for a quick summary. Stay healthy!

The World Healing Technique
by Owen Waters

Try the World Healing Technique now and see what a difference it makes to your spiritual life (both immediately and as a delayed reaction) in the following days. There’s nothing quite as uplifting as starting your day by sending healing energy to the world. It brightens your day and makes it feel good to be alive.

Sit upright, preferably with your hands resting in your lap, palms facing upwards. Breathe rhythmically and evenly. Close your eyes and turn away from your everyday thoughts by letting your attention focus on your breath. Whenever you notice your thoughts wandering, peacefully turn away from those thoughts, which can always be dealt with later, and return to focusing on your breath.

Recognize your spiritual nature. Know that you are a spiritual being living in a physical world and ask God or the universal Spirit for the life energy that you are about to use. Give gratitude to the Creator for universal life energy, for everything that you love about your life, and for existence itself. This connection to higher consciousness will amplify your efforts many times.

Take several breaths. With each in-breath, visualize life energy coming into your body, building into a vibrant white light within you and charging every cell of your being with its life-giving energy.

First, visualize the positive change that you want to bring into being in the world. Even though you are healing something that you perceive as negative, it is important to focus, instead, on the desired positive outcome. If you send energy to something negative, you will amplify its power. By sending energy conditioned for a positive outcome, you make that form of healing possible.

For example, in your mind’s eye, instead of a world suffering from strife, visualize the people of the world at peace. When you think of world peace, what is the first symbol that springs to mind – a crowd of happy children, a world without borders? Use that symbol, or, if pictures don’t easily come to mind, simply use the words, world peace, as the focus for your intention.

Or, in the case of a flu pandemic, see the world filled with people who are vibrant in their good health, smiling and breathing freely in the open air.

Or, instead of seeing spiritual ignorance and the suffering that it prolongs, visualize people who are becoming enlightened by spiritual understanding. Use the first picture that comes to mind or the words, world enlightenment.

Or, as yet another example, instead of seeing people displaced and distraught from a recent catastrophe, you could see aid workers being successful in their efforts to bring relief and medical assistance to those people, or use the words, energy to the aid workers.

Now, we’re ready to use the inbreath-outbreath cycle to transmit healing energy for the specified purpose. With every inbreath, see your lungs being filled with the vibrant white light of universal life energy. With every outbreath, send the power of this love and light out to humanity. Direct it as a beam of brilliant white light from your heart chakra out into the world, holding the intention of healing. You can enhance the effect even more by sending energy out from the palms of your hands as well as from your heart.

Perform this as a series of inbreaths and outbreaths for as long as you wish, then relax and spend some time in the afterglow of a spiritual mission well accomplished.

These are the days of action, and that means service to others. Even better, your service to others also helps you in your own spiritual enlightenment. Action and reaction are opposite and equal.

Every time you send your light out into the world, you take another step forward towards your own enlightenment.

The World Healing Technique in Summary
Sit upright with your eyes closed.
Make a spiritual connection, one which includes gratitude for life.
Intend world healing by visualizing the desired positive outcome.
Breathe in life energy with each inbreath.
On each outbreath, repeat your intention and send a beam of white light from your heart to your intended destination.

https://www.spiritualdynamics.net/articles/world-healing/

Happy New Ears!

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Reflecting on “You are an artist of the spirit,” quote from Don Miguel Ruiz, photo by Mary Gow

Whenever I go to East West Books I’m blown away by the number of card decks for personal growth. One in particular I bought several years ago still sits on my bookshelf.

One card in the deck echoes the name of my blog.

It says “You are an artist of the spirit,” written by Don Miguel Ruiz in a deck of cards based on his book by the same name, “The Mastery of Love.”

Ruiz writes further, on the other side of the card:

“Find yourself and express
yourself in your own particular
way. Express your love openly.
Life is nothing but a dream, and
if you create your life with
love, your dream becomes a
masterpiece of art.”

He is also the author of a book that I love to reread as often as possible, “The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom (A Toltec Wisdom Book).” I cannot recommend it enough for the new year or any year, any day, any moment you need inspiration.

I hope this new year also helps you hear with new ears, if you’re tired of what you’ve been hearing, that is. Wishing you and yours peace, joy and love this year and always.

Mary

p.s. The image is a pond with a reflection of a mountain that’s behind it. A flittering of light buds from a tree had blown onto the pond. The rock is resolute, and everything else, elusive.