Awakening Self Blog

What is Love?

For several weeks, I’ve been contemplating the nature of many things in the universe, including the nature of the Divine. I believe and feel that God is the source of love, and indeed is the energy of Love itself.

But in further exploring this idea, I realized that I needed to more deeply understand what I felt about the Divine. If God is Love, then what is Love? Because we all have different experiences and interpretations of love, it may cloud our true understanding of what that Infinite Consciousness or Intelligence is. We must come to a clear understanding of what Love is in order to understand God.

3 Good Things

Aarrrrgh. There it goes again. You know, that voice that gets after you for yelling at your kids, or leaving the laundry piled on the couch for a week, or wonders if you had offended someone – weeks after you did it. Yeah, that voice.

When it arises, it seems to get front and center, doesn’t it? It just takes over whatever you were thinking about, and suddenly, like bad news on TV, it makes headlines in your thoughts. On CNN they play the disaster over and over again on the screen, and you play out what you did “wrong” just as relentlessly.

It’s as if nothing else matters in that moment except feeling guilt or shame about whatever it was you think you did wrong or didn’t do well enough. A negative thought comes up, and for some reason, it’s much more compelling than the positive ones.

Steps to Santosha

We all have times when we’re faced with fears or challenges. It’s part of life.

But sometimes those challenges seem overwhelming. Our minds blow them up into crises, replaying the many terrifying, possible scenarios over and over again in our minds, until we become agitated, anxious, or immobilized.

Are any of those scenarios actually happening? Chances are pretty good that they aren’t. But our bodies do not know the difference. When the mind creates images and thoughts that are fearful, our bodies react with the same chemicals that are produced when we are faced with a true threat to our life.

Which means that we are creating unnecessary stress and trauma in our minds, with little or no basis in reality. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Love the Wind!

I admit it, I’m not fond of cold wind. It aggravates me and sometimes even causes me to feel light-headed, off balance, and disturbed. So whenever there’s a cold wind (which there often is when I pick my daughter up from school), I tend to get a bit whiny and complain.

But I thought about it – the wind is important! Without the wind, we wouldn’t have fresh air. No rainstorms would travel through. Pollen and seeds often wouldn’t find new places to plant themselves and grow. And how would you fly a kite?

Ode to Lokin

For the last year, I had the honor of knowing a very special being – a horse named Lokin. He was large, white with some small grey speckles, a strong build and yet unassuming. Lokin was part of a herd that I was able to visit a few times a month and get to know. This week, I learned of his passing due to a neurological condition. My heart is heavy and sad with missing him.

Lokin was (and still is in spirit) a being that I considered a friend. He had some very special qualities that touched my heart deeply, and I am grieving his loss. This post is in memory of Lokin.

Lokin, from the day I met you, you taught me generosity.

Never was there a day that I came to visit that you did not welcome me in, include me in the herd. You showed me how to love and accept unconditionally.

Sacred Sudoku

I happen to be a fan of Sudoku. I’ve always loved logic puzzles, and when I discovered Sudoku about 10 years ago, I was hooked. The essence of the game is that you have numbers 1-9 to fill in to the squares, without repeating any of them in any row, column, or 9-square section.