My Cousin Gary

One of the greatest joys from my childhood were days spent with my cousins from Houston. All boys from oldest to youngest: Michael, Gary, Steven and Byron. Gary and I were the same age, and we always had such fun together. There are so many wonderful memories I carry in my heart of those childhood days. I don't have many photos of Gary when we were little because my Dad loved to take movies with the old camera. I do have lots of film footage of us at the lake enjoying the water on summer days.

My earliest memory of us together was when they had come up from Houston for a visit and we packed up my Dad's truck with all the things we would need to stay at our cabin for the week. The boys and I climbed in the back of the pickup (an old 55 Chevy truck) and we bounced our way out RM2222 to RM620, then from 620 to Commanche Rd, just East of Mansfield Dam. (Later this road would be the one that led to Hippie Hollow). Around some more curves and we would come to our Cabin on Lake Travis.We would hike the cedar covered hills, go on down to Windy Point to swim, and try to fish once in a while. At the end of the day we would look for lightening bugs or find the big dipper on those beautiful clear Texas nights. We all got to sleep out on the porch because there were lots of bunk beds out there due to my parents owning the cabin with two other families, and sometimes we would have about 15 kids total enjoying the summer nights.

I remember one summer Lake Travis water level was SO low that we could walk across the whole Lake. We thought that was just be best! We found tons of fresh water mussels, and we loved to break them open to see the beautiful colors of the shell inside. Those weeks spent at the Lake were perfect.

The postcard

As we grew a little older we went with Cecil, RoseEdna and the boys to different State Parks around Texas. One of them that stands out for me is Garner State Park. We had such a great time there. We stayed in cabins and cooked on the grill each night. There were paddle boats and a little dam that we could walk over and jump into the water below. We even went horseback riding, and later that year someone sent us a post card from Garner State Park which had all of us lined up on our horses riding through a stream. I still have that postcard.

I have a very vivid memory of a time when Gary, Byron and I had walked up to the 7-11 to get some ice cream, and when we came out of the store, there were two boys from the area across Braker Lane that housed quite a few people on limited income. They made some remark about me, and Gary and Byron told them to shut up and not talk about their cousin like that. (One of the reasons I loved the Pearson boys SO much was they were like wonderful protective brothers over me). Well, these boys didn't like what Gary and Byron had said, so one of them pulled out a knife, at which point we began to run as fast as we could home. Thank goodness we knew all the shortcuts through yards so we got away from the boys, but all of us were pretty scared.

One summer we went camping at Lake Summerville, and Gary taught me to play pool. We practiced so much that I became quite good at it, so it became a routine for us to challenge other boys to a game of pool. The boys would bet on who would win, and pretty much everyone bet against us because a girl was on the team. We always won, and it was truly one of the finest moments of my young teenage years. Me, a girl beat the boys, and Gary and I would just laugh and laugh. He helped instill in me a confidence that I had never had before.

There was another time we were camping at Lake Summerville and hanging out at the marina, putting money in the jukebox, playing 'Sitting on the Dock of the Bay', the summer of 1968, when Gary and I were 13. Some older guys (they had just returned from basic training before being shipped to Vietnam) were driving around in a brand new Barracuda, and we got to talking to them and Gary talked them into taking us all for a ride after our parents were asleep. We talked our parents into letting us sleep in the back of the truck in sleeping bags, so once we were sure they were asleep, we ran down the road to meet up with the guys. I got to ride in the front seat, in between the two guys (of course the gear shift was in the middle too), so really I was sitting on the lap of the soldier riding in the front passenger seat. We had so much fun just driving around feeling all that teenage excitement of doing something totally incognito. We got back to camp around 4 in the morning, just in time for the fishermen to begin to stir.

When I started high school that Fall I met a new girl in town who was from Houston. She was living with her brother and his family, while her parents remained back in Houston. I went with her to spend Thanksgiving with her parents, and while I was there I met a boy...my very first official going steady boyfriend. Chris Paxton. He played in a band and really was a nice guy. BUT, and here is the big BUT...I went back to visit for Valentine's of 1969, and I stayed at the Pearson's. There was a Valentine's dance at some dance club where we met up with Chris. Gary let me know by the end of the night that he had decided that Chris was not good enough for me. Since I trusted my bestest cousin in the whole world, I broke up with Chris when I got back home. After all long distance romances do not go anywhere I told him.

I don't remember exactly which summer it was that I flew to Houston and spent a couple of weeks with my cousins, but we spent a lot of time going to ride motorcycles on a corner lot not far from their house. Gary taught me how to ride, and we would go round and round and round the track for hours.

We just had the best times together Gary and I.

As we grew into young adults (me with a baby at 16, married at 18) we grew apart and didn't see a lot of each other. I remember the family reunions at Zilker Park, I remember him living with my mom...his Aunt Midge, for a while in Austin.

Byron, Shannon, Kimberly, Shan, Me, Wanda, Gary

The last time I saw Gary was at my mom's Memorial service in February 1998. He was the same wild and crazy Gary I had known from our youth. He had not lost any gusto for life, and he was living his life to the fullest, always on the edge. I loved him for that.

The last memory I have of Gary was when he called me in September of 1998 to see how I was doing. He had met Marty at my Mom's memorial service and knew that we had just moved to Iowa, taking our first paramedic jobs there. I told him I was doing OK, still missing Mom, and wishing that somehow I could have known what it was that she could never forgive me and my Dad for. I told Gary that I thought it had to do with my Dad siding with me about not getting an abortion when I was pregnant with Shan. Gary told me the truth. I could always count on him to do that...he was always truthful with me. He told me that the reason my Mom stayed so upset with me and at times expressed hatred for me, was that she believed that my Dad and I had been having an affair and Shan was my Dad's child. She had told Gary this when he was living with her. He also told me that she had told her whole family this untruth.

For the first time in 27 years I had the answer to why Mom always held herself at arms length with me. I knew why my 'family' had all deserted me, they believed what Mom told them. I told Gary that I was so very grateful for his telling me the truth, for it made so many things clear to me.

We spoke a few other times after that, then we drifted apart. Actually I lost his phone number when he moved and was afraid to call Cecil and RoseEdna to get it. I knew that they believed my Mom's story. So I just let go.

About a month ago I began to have dreams about Gary, he was always holding out his hand and getting me to try something different. I saw us riding what looked to me to be a Harley. I was on the back holding on  and we were both laughing like we did when we were children. He stopped to let me off, and drove off waving goodbye. It was in January that I got a response from RoseEdna on Facebook (I had found Cecil's page over a year ago, and had written him after my stroke, to get my affairs in order, all my relations in order in case I had another bigger stroke). So, it wasn't until the end of January when I found out that Gary had died in a motorcycle accident riding his Harley.

I am grateful to have had the most wonderful cousin a girl could have ever had. I am eternally grateful for his being the Light that shed truth on my relationship with my Mom. And I am SO grateful that He rode by here in early January to take me for a dream ride and to say, 'Good-bye'.

Gary, may you always be riding your Harley through the roads in Heaven. Give my Mom and Dad a huge hug from me.

Patience with My Brain

Today I have spent the morning going through files and trying to get everything organized. In doing so, I am reminded ever so 'right in my face' that my brain does not work like it did before the stroke. I have in one form or fashion kept writings, poems I have found along the way, things from my years with hospice, things from seminary all filed away in folders, yet there is no sense to how I just stuck papers into the various folders. As I sort through them all, and try to put them into some categorized order I have papers all over the desk and my brain seems to be as jumbled as the papers are. I can make no sense of any of it.

I must be very patient with myself. It is almost noon, I have not even gotten dresses, haven't done my pilates, I am out of my normal routine and it shakes, rattles and rolls my brain into a mass of firing nodes.

Pre stroke I could have had all this sorting done in no time, labeling the folders and putting them away into the filing cabinet. I could keep up with the piles of papers and the mess on the desk with ease and joy (I love organization). Yet, here I sit, typing on my blog, just to give my brain a break from thinking what to do.

It just amazes me how one tiny 1mm infarct can have this much affect on me. It gives me a greater compassion for people with major strokes and traumas to the brain. I cannot even fathom how much time and energy they put in to recover from such things. Some people never recover. They live out the rest of their lives in bed, or wheelchair, in a nursing home or other care facility because the demands of their care are too much for family to handle. And yes, I do believe that even the best of families eventually reach a place where they have no choice but to place their loved one in a care facility. Private 24 hour a day care is expensive and in the times we live in most caregivers cannot give up their jobs to stay home with their loved one.

So, sometimes there does creep into my brain the thought that someday, should I experience a major stroke, that I might end up in a care home also.

With that thought, I will go back to sorting papers and making some sense out of all of this mess I have created.

Little Girl Crushed

In the telling of my story I promised myself that I would be totally honest, which in the past has gotten me into immense trouble, yet, I continue to be very open and honest about my life. Many people like to hide their past, pretend it didn't happen, or live in the past, as if they are reliving each hurt done to them on a never ending merry go round for pain and disappointment. I think that maybe I decided I would not live on the merry go round because that is where my Mom chose to live out her life. She remembered in vivid detail everything that anyone had done to her that caused her to suffer, and she would relive those moments over and over again. Sadly Mom never learned the freedom that comes with forgiveness.One of her famous sayings was, "I can forgive, but I will never forget." Because the memories brought her such anguish, she lived her life out being angry and bitter at those who wronged her.

So I continue my story as a young girl adopted into this dysfunctional situation. I learned at a very early age that I was adopted. Although my Dad's family totally accepted me as 'family', Mother's side was divided on whether I was truly family or not. There were cousins who told me at every family reunion until I was grown, that really I was not part of the family because blood was true family. There were cousins and Aunts and Uncles who never treated me with anything but acceptance and love, and whenever family reunion time came around I would try to stay beside them. Our reunions were always at Zilker Park, in Austin. Us kids would ride the train, and swim in the pool. I don't think I have ever swam in water as cold as in that pool. It was created from natural springs and it was freezing!

I keep faltering here with the right words to explain the darkness which crept into my little girl world. The darkness which stole my innocence from me when I was in the care of my mother's sister. I long to focus on the joys I find in those early years, and yet to be complete in my story I must tell what happened. I have written in depth the truth of those years in a story entitled "The Cavern". It is very explicit in describing the sexual abuse I experienced and was the tool I used to bring about much healing to little 'Charlotte Jean'. So, I have no desire to repeat here the happenings of those hot, humid Texas nights. I will just say that for months, if not years, I endured being molested by one of my female cousins. To this day, if I close my eyes, and picture the curtains blowing gently in the heated breeze, I can smell the interior of the room and feel the rabid fear begin to take hold. From those nights I grew into a adult terrified of the night. It has only been since Marty and I have been together that the night fears have faded and I am at peace with being alone.

I never told my Mom what was taking place because this was, after all, her family. Plus I loved my cousin. I admired her. She was older than I was and I remember watching her put on her makeup to go to school, or out on a date, and she would put lipstick on me. I loved to play cheerleader with her pompoms and she would teach me the cheers and we would laugh until our stomachs hurt. I felt loved. To say that seems like such a contradiction, but I was so hungry for someone to love me, that I mistook her affections for me as real love.

Many years later I was able to talk with my Mom about the abuse. She responded very casually by telling me that her older sister's daughter had been molested by the same cousin, and Mom had known about that before she allowed me to be babysat by this Aunt and my cousin. I asked her why she let me go, and she said she thought that my cousin had outgrown her tendencies to molest. I was stunned to say the least, that Mom was 1) so naive; 2) so nonchalant about the whole thing. It was then that she shared her own experience of childhood molestation and told me that she just didn't think about it. That was how she had tried to cope for about 65 years. It was after this talk with her that it became so apparent to me that my mother's side of the family was filled with incest and sexual abuse. Thank goodness that by the time I had this talk with Mom, I had worked through all the anger and hurt, and had come to a place of not blaming. All I felt was this tremendous sadness for my Mom's stolen innocence, and for the brokenness of so many of her family. It gave me understanding of so many of Mom's behaviors over the years, and I saw her as a frail little girl, just like me, who had been abused.

There was so much pain that lived in her family members. One cousin married a pedophile, he was caught taking photos of her own younger sister. Another cousin committed suicide. One cousin was an alcoholic/drug abuser for many years. One cousin beat his sons with a razor strap..which I witnessed on numerous occasions. And the list could go on and on. I look at each one of them NOW, and I hear the deepest, darkest painful cries of their own wounded spirits, and it just crushes me. I pray that as the years have grown on, that each soul has found healing and forgiveness to bring wholeness and peace to their lives.

It is my hope and prayer that each one of us who experienced the loss of our innocence be totally healed in body, mind and spirit.

I hold the deepest love and gratitude to each person who helped me through, to my angels, to my spirit guides, and also to myself. I would not have made it through to this place of peace if it were not for you.

Namaste'

Little Girl Lost

My fondest memories of my childhood were days I spent with my Dad. I don't remember much about being with Mom, only brief glimpses of her sitting at the kitchen table smoking a cigarette, her hair always in an immaculate coif. She took great pride in her looks, and her weight. I can also see her standing with her hand on her hip wagging her index finger at me telling me to go pick a switch from the peach tree. If I got the wrong size then she would go pick one a whole lot bigger, so I learned quickly to pick the right size. The switch of course was to punish me for something I had done 'wrong'. But that is for another day's telling.

Right now I want to look at the early years when Daddy would take me to work with him on Saturday mornings. He would give me a hammer and some nails, and would let me hammer the nails into any piece of wood I wanted too. I wonder how many houses that he built in Austin have those hidden little nails standing at attention behind wallboard. I liked to go to work with Daddy because I thought it was just the most wonderful thing to have a Daddy who could build a house from the bottom up. Daddy owned his own contractor's business, City Builders, and he had two partners. They did not believe in unions. They were experienced house builders who could pour foundations, frame it up, put the windows in, put the roof on, do the electrical and plumbing, put in the cabinets and flooring, do all the drywall work and they even did brick work on some houses. My Dad built the house that I grew up in at 700 Sandpiper (now changed to 704 Sandpiper), just on the outskirts of Austin on I35. It used to be a beautiful red brick house with green trim, but the company that bought the property when Mom died painted the brink a gray color. Poor beautiful red bricks.

Other than building houses and doing some remodeling work, Daddy loved spending time fishing and working with amateur radio. He would take me fishing about once a month, and now I realize that he had to be the most patient of men, for my line would get snagged repeatedly and he would reel his line in and come rescue mine. Needless to say we didn't catch a lot when I went with him.

I loved being with my Dad. To this day when Marty is working on some remodeling project around the house, and he smells of sawdust and sweat, I am instantly transported back in time when I would run out to meet Daddy when he drove in from work. He always smelled so good....sawdust!

Those early years came to a close very abruptly when I was about 4 or 5 years old. I never understood why, but my Mom would no longer let me go with Daddy. And once my Mom made up her mind about something, there was no changing it. I spent the next 23 years not being able to have a normal father/daughter relationship. I did not realize it until the weeks before she died when she was able to share with me but she had been molested when she was a little girl. She never did tell me by whom, but her fear of leaving me alone with my Dad seems to tell her story. She was molested by her own father at the early age of 4.

What my Mom didn't realize was that when she stopped us from spending time alone, it opened a hole in my little girl heart. I felt lost and alone. Through the years that came and went, Daddy and I learned to adjust to mother's needs. We spent time watching TV together, when she was present. We would work on his HAM radio in the garage, with the door open from the den to garage so she could always hear us and see us. When I got older, and was not living at home, we had to make sure that if we had phone conversations, Mom was on the other phone listening, or we had to tell her of what we spoke about if she wasn't home. It was a very dysfunctional home, but it was home.

One of the things that Daddy and I did that was just for the two of us was this: we would have a bowl of ice cream almost every night while watching TV. That is why I went from this:

to This:

And so, my battle with weight began.

And my self esteem spiraled down.

Happy Birthday to ME

So, today is my extra special Life birthday because it occurs on 1/11/11. Yep. January 11, 2011. Plus this is the year I turn 56, which 5 plus 6 equals 11. So I am anticipating some awesome things to happen this year. I took this photo at 1:11 pm (I already saw 1:11 am) when we were headed down to Phoenix to see our daughter Sarah and go out to the movies and dinner.

I am ready for whatever this year brings.....Universe? Bring it on!

And So the Story Begins

So, 56 years ago today at 2:05 p.m., in a small hospital in Georgetown, Texas, I was born. But there is a wee bit more to the story than that, of course.

The woman giving birth to me was my birth mother, Rachel Teague. She was a young woman, single with one son already, and she could not afford to take care of me. She told me that my birth father's name was William "Red" Lawson, who was in the military at the time, either stationed at Bergstrom Air Force Base or Camp Mabry. She never told me which one. At any rate, he left Austin without even knowing of my existence.

I must digress here and say that there is still a little more to the story, and as my husband likes to believe, I just may well be kin to Elvis Presley. You see, there was a time when Elvis was in Austin, Texas, traveling in his pink Cadillac. Rachel and a friend of hers went on a double date with Elvis and a friend of his. They had quite the time dancing in Austin and various honky tonks, and driving around the Austin area with the top down enjoying the atmosphere of the 1954 era. I will let you be the judge as to weather Elvis plus Rachel could equal Charlotte!

 I did find another interesting photo of Elvis when he was a baby himself, along with his parents and a baby girl who looks suspiciously like me when I turned one year old. I do believe Mr. Presley's ears have been passed on to the young girl. Hmmmm....very interesting.

Sticking to the facts of my birth, via Rachel, and the information that my birth father's nickname was 'Red' (and 100% Irish), and seeing as I was born with a little tuft of red hair meself, I do believe that I am the DNA product of Rachel and Red.
Since Red was no where to be found, and since her parents were the very strict religious type, her father being an Assembly of God preacher in Austin, she decided it best to give me up for adoption. She found Hunter and Clarine Degress through a mutual friend in the Sheriff's office, who knew that they had helped another girl 'in trouble' and found a home for her baby. Hunter and Clarine knew that my adoptive parents had been wanting a baby for the past 14 years. Hunter had been my Dad's best friend from his childhood days up until Dad died in 1984. So, they set it all up that Rachel would be taken care of, all expenses paid, and when I was born, I would go home with a new set of parents.

Waiting in the hospital to take me home were my new parents: Robert Eugene Bryan and Mildred Lucille Pearson Bryan. My birth grandmother Susie Teague Mooney was there also and she held me before I was taken home by the Bryan's. That incident angered my Mom very much because she had specific instructions that Rachel nor any of her family were to see me or hold me after I was born. One she found out that Nanny (my birth grandmother) had held me, she did everything in her power to get them to release me to go home, and after speaking with my pediatrician, Dr. Clifford Thorne, I was released to go home...at 8 hours old.

I have some old movie footage of Mom and Dad coming out of the little hospital in Georgetown, along with Clarine and Hunter, coming down the steps of what looks more like a house than a hospital. I did forget to mention that Mom did not want me born in Austin, so that the birth announcement would not come out in the paper. Hence, being born in Georgetown, which back then was very far from Austin.

I arrived home to 5102 Woodview, Austin, Texas...ready to be loved by my new family.

This is the Year of Music

For quite a few years now I begin the New Year by finding it's name. This year began it's dawn as beautiful music woke me from my sleep. Over the next few days my world seemed to be filled with song, and I felt compelled to sort through all the CD's we have, and of course, putting them in alphabetical order! I even went through the songs I have on my computer and put them in order. (Aha..there's one lesson...music has order to it.) My heart soared as I decided that this would indeed be the Year of Music. From time to time I will be posting songs which have surfaced, wanting to be heard..to make the list so to speak, of the music that will guide me through this year. I hope you will enjoy them as much as I will.

Cat Stevens - Morning has broken

Morning has broken on this New Year of 2011

"I Grieve" by Peter Gabriel

I was happily getting ready for my daughter Sarah to get off work down in Phoenix and drive up to spend New Years Eve with me. I tried to get her to stay down in the valley and go out with her friends, yet she continued to say she just wanted to be here with her Mom. So I had made the snacks we usually ate when she used to live at home. All her favorites: Stew with Monkey Bread, Shrimp cocktail, chips and Velveeta cheese sauce, and hot spiced apple cider.



I was just about to put the bread in the oven when my phone rang. It was a message from Sarah, which I thought would be telling me she was on her way up the mountain. Instead the words "Mom, Ashley, Carlos sister just died. She got in a car accident." I instantly remembered that here I was in this intense grief journey myself, and now this. My precious daughter just lost one of her best friends. No details yet, but by the time she drove up the mountain I had found the news report from Maryland. One vehicle involved, no names released, but there were two young men who were flown to trauma centers.

Sarah came through the door, dropped her bags and we hugged. She cried. I cried. More loss.


We spent the evening laying on the couch, barely watching the movie we picked out...each lost in our own thoughts, yet being there for each other. I asked Sarah to tell me about Ashley...bringing out her happy memories of the two of them together. We laughed some. We cried some. All this loss.

We awoke at 12:10 with some beautiful music playing at the end of the movie we ere watching...we had slept through the New Year's arrival. We said, 'Happy New Year' and Sarah fell back asleep. I watched her sleeping for another hour, making sure she was sleeping soundly, my beautiful daughter...then I quietly added another log to the wood stove and went to bed.

Thinking about all the loss...all the loss.....and thanking God for strength, courage and peace that we would both need during these next weeks as we grieve.

Welcoming in 2011

As the last days of 2010 trickled by I experienced intense grief over so many losses this year. It was an interesting feeling, to allow myself to be enveloped in sadness and to be comfortable with wearing this garment of grief.

I found it interesting that as I prepare to lead the new grief group forming at church, that I would be entering this sacred ground to look at all the loss in my own life. It wasn't pretty. I cried. I held a few sorrow events in my honor. Mostly I just allowed the grief process to take it's own course, and I followed.

It seemed everywhere I turned, grief was there. I heard the song 'I Grieve' on the TV one night, and found it on You Tube afterwards and with soul wrenching cries, I let a lot of the held in emotions to breakthrough to the Light. It was there, as the light shone on these painful memories, lost relationships, loss of mind function, loss of job, loss of health, loss of the only person in Marty's family who loved me unconditionally from the first time I let her, and loss of Marty's Gram, who came to love the hugs I gave her when we would go visit. There was just so much loss, so many tears, so much pain held deep within my soul.

I also noticed that those with whom I shared this intense grief with were not very comfortable at all. They were used to seeing me smiling, happy, full of Light and Peace and Encouraging words for everyone. They did everything they could to cheer me up, to lighten the load, to make sure I had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year. I did finally pretend, for their sake, that I was just fine (and I was, even in the depths of grief), and Christmas was wonderful and we were anticipating having a Happy New Year.

Yet, underneath it all. I grieve. And all is well with my soul...just as it is.

Personalize funny videos and birthday eCards at JibJab!

I am Peace

It has been ages since I wrote last. As I sit here thinking about the reasons why, my mind wanders through all that has occurred in the past months, so much that it seems like a tornado has run its course through my brain, leaving in its wake bits and pieces that I must sort through, picking up what is important to keep, and throwing away the rest of it. 

Sometimes in our lives we enter a place of silence. A place where no matter what is going on in the world we see and experience in these bodies that our spirit inhabits, we are at a still point in the dance of life. Things happen around us and we remain still, observing the occurrences with eyes of peace, allowing everything to fall in its place, without us having to do anything. 

This still point is where I have resided these past months. No journaling has occurred. No need to record the events that continue to shape my life here on earth. I have been in a place where nothing on the outside truly matters, only that which is transpiring within my mind, within my soul, within my true self is important. Everything else has just fallen away to a place I no longer inhabit. In this process of being at the still point, I look around and see all the people who are in my life at this precise moment in time, and I have realized that my 'story' is indeed a tool which can be used to encourage others to also strive for peace and contentment, joy and gratitude for all that happens to them in the journey of their lives. 

So, my last words in this blog, where I spoke about 'story', have now come out into the Light, and I find that there is indeed a place for my 'story' to be shared. As I approach the end of another year, and the beginning of a new one, I am making space for my 'story' to unfold in the new year. As I write those words, fear rises up within me...can I really tell my story here for others to read? I feel pretty safe in that my blog does not have many followers and those who do happen to find themselves reading these pages...I will trust that Creator has brought them to these words for a purpose. 

If you have happened upon these pages, know that you have been drawn here by Spirit for a reason...it is up to you find out why. I watched the movie 'The Last Airbender' this week and gleaned a few words of wisdom from it. We each have come here for a reason...it is up to you to find out why. As I watched the movie, I began thinking about a time 20 years ago when a friend of mine asked me the question, "Do you think that you are special? That God gives you messages, and only speaks to you?" I tried to explain that it was (and still is) my belief that we are each special, unique and all have the ability to hear from God (no matter what name he/she is known by).

This answer did not go over very well with my friend, as she was trying to point out that I had delusions of grandeur in thinking that God could really speak to me. Back then, the words she used to make me see that I was wrong and delusional did serve to cause doubt to arise within my mind and I felt thoroughly chastised. 

Well, here it is 20 years later, and I am more convinced that we are all SPECIAL and we are all connected, not just to God, but we are connected by Spirit to one another.

Namaste '~The divine in me sees the divine in you. 

This is the highest form of acceptance and true love flowing between two people...to really 'See' them as the gift of who they are to the world. I will shout it to the mountains, to the streams, to the oceans, to the fields: YES, I DO BELIEVE I AM SPECIAL. YOU ARE SPECIAL. ALL OF US ARE SPECIAL. We each have a unique gift to share with the world, and it is up to us to find that gift of who we are and be bold enough to Be who we truly are. I am PEACE. Who are you?

The Synchronicity of Life

It has been a funny couple of days. Now, I can look at it and laugh, realizing that truly all things are in Divine Order.

Synchronicities are those times when things happen which we think have no significant meaning, yet they do. They are the times in which the divine touches our lives with direction and guidance.

For three days now I have been trying to post my paintings on deviantart.com with no success. I have to upload one at a time, and go through a huge process, taking much more time than I want to invest in putting them online so that my friends at Women Who Run With Wolves can view them. Especially since most of them are already on my Facebook site. But, some of the women don't have Facebook accounts, so I decided that I would open up another Ning account, only to find out that Ning will be charging for accounts beginning July 20. So, no Ning account. I am too cheap to pay for such things!

So, I ended up doing what I originally thought of and put all my paintings onto my Facebook site, and that is that. In the process what was the lesson? To just trust in my instincts to begin with. A very valuable lesson especially for women, for we have been given such a powerful instinctual nature, and we do need to learn to move through our lives listening to that still small voice inside guiding and directing us for our highest good.

Right now I am sitting in he office, surrounded by our dogs, listening to the sound of a jack hammer as Marty takes off all the old mortar in the main bath so that we can lay new tile. As I listen to the sound of all that old stuff being chiseled away, I am thinking that it is a very good image of all the old stuff that we as humans, carry around with us every day. Old memories, Old ways of thinking, Old ways of reacting, Old patterns, Old junk. It seems the older we get, the more like mortar those unneeded aspects become, until it truly takes a spiritual jack hammer to remove it all. So on a day when I am just simply 'being' I am faced with the mortar of my life, left stuck to me after having the outward masks I used to wear removed.
The mortar has to come off also...even if it hurts and is scary, leaving me feeling vulnerable and exposed. It has to come off so that I will be free to really 'BE' who I came here to be.

So, I lay here in the office and visualize the breaking away of the old...
and think about the synchronistic way that God works to get us right where we need to be...to we can grow and see ourselves as the Light and Love we truly are.

SO, my question for you today is "What synchronicities are happening in your life, guiding you to truth, peace, love and joy?"