The "Night Blooming Jasmine" in Your Heart

The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear.

Baba Ram Dass
                                    



On a dark, moonlit night most of natures's floral offerings excuse themselves from the diligence of the day and nod off to silent slumber, releasing their daytime rigors and replenishing their energies in anticipation of the first break of dawn.  But there are several verdant beauties that choose to blossom instead in the velvety night, stirring under the exquisite luminescence of Mother Moon.

Casablanca Lilies, Moonflowers, Cereus and Night Blooming Jasmine are some of these nocturnal angels.  And, it seems, in choosing the blackness of the evening boulevard, they display to us a special wisdom in their enterprise.  These moonflowers, cereus, lilies, these jasmine choose the quiet of the night as their daily point of departure. 

They do not engage with the clamor and bustle of the day.  Rather, they await the peace and tranquility of the night tide and, in this gentle ambiance, they quietly attune themselves to the senses and sounds surrounding them...

the whisper of the wind,
the hooting owl,
flitting fireflies, 
wandering spiders. 

They feel the majesty of the moon sailing in the sky. 

Intuitively, they embrace the knowledge and wisdom which are crossing their paths rather than attempting to dispense it themselves. 
As always, Nature continues to gift us with metaphors of a life well-lived.  Is there a "night blooming jasmine" in your heart waiting to guide you to the beauty and knowledge and wisdom you have been too busy to see?


The quieter you become the more you are able to hear.




                                                                                     Marie Helena
                                               


image from pinterest.com

Dreaming

The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend.

                 Henri Bergson





Quantum physics tells us that our consciousness constructs what it is we see before us.   Therefore, what we are willing to conceive of and entertain is what we will experience.


Do you wish to stand before a landscape of beauty and vibrance? 
Do you wish to see individuals generously sending and receiving love in every moment? 
Do you wish to sense Divine intelligence treasuring all of creation?


What are you prepared to comprehend?


Is it the gift we have been given to live in this magical playground on earth?  
Is it the exquisite design of nature and all of her inhabitants? 

Is it the beauty of every human heart which has the potential to see the world through eyes of love and feel the happiness this brings?



Can you still dream your child-self's dream of being loved so deeply and so dearly that everything you encounter and experience is a gift for your journey?  


                                                                                               Marie Helena 


image from jefusion.com

Beautiful Dreamer

 

Success is the ability to go from one failure to another with no loss of enthusiasm.

             Winston Churchill






Our boy Winston has an epic concept there...ardent, passionate, towering, rhapsodic energy that completely sustains itself as we move in life from one adventure to the next.  No matter the quest.  Irrespective of the outcome.  With no expectations.

ONLY the exuberance of the tinkering and imagining of our intellect. 
ONLY the pleasure of our senses dreaming the possibility and then experiencing its manifestation. 
ONLY the heart deciding to embrace, decline or defer what has revealed itself in the process.   
ONLY the stray, crucial threads emerging which lead us to our next, personally satisfying cutting edge conception.


ONLY THAT.


After writing this description of the JOY of the JOURNEY I'm ready to don a cape and fly off on yet another adventure for who does not want to play the detective, the dreamer, the magician!  The ever fervent seeker of how things mysteriously circle back to us for our pleasure when we have consciously let them roam free to find their connections in the corridors of our heart!


The SECRET to sustaining the life force which always embraces the excitement, the joy AND the  turbulence and tumult of the journey is the knowledge that we exist for the purpose of EXPLORING this magical playground designed to provide us with whatever we can dream.


Beautiful dreamer, wake unto thee!
Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee!*


                                                                                                    Marie Helena 




*lyrics from Beautiful Dreamer by Stephen Foster


top image from quoteko.com
bottom image from favim.com 

HeartSounds

image of Andrea Bocellil from sonbab.deviantart.com 
Andrea Bocelli by sonbab

The Voice of an Angel...Andrea Bocelli...
  my go-to place for heart connection!

Italian tenor and singer/songwriter Andrea Bocelli is a very important part of my morning ritual.  I am not by nature a morning dove...rather a night blooming jasmine.  But when this jasmine awakens to (very slowly) acclimate to the morning, Bocelli's music is what begins the process of my energizing.

I've been listening to and loving Bocelli for quite some time.  His voice connects with my soul and though I studied a little Italian in preparation for a beautiful encounter with Firenze several years ago, the fact is I do not understand what this impressive tenor is singing.

And it makes no difference to me because it is ONLY the words I do not understand. 

The FEELINGS expressed by his beautiful voice ARE  the MESSAGE and they SPEAK to me.  And they do MORE than that...they vibrate with the sweep of my heart.


And I am mesmerized by this vibration...it SUSTAINS me.   This impulse tells me it is my HEART that is designed to direct the music of my life...not my intellect (though I dearly love to exercise it).     

I believe this is true of everyone.

In some individuals the heart may be sleeping...hibernating...because of unhealed pain, protecting itself from life's countless and often unpredictable adventures.  But the desire to FEEL is a human need we all share.

And the OPPORTUNITY to feel and to have the feeling RECOGNIZED is a Gift of Life.

The Divine Universe is unendingly creative in the way it sends its messages to us. Just this morning I realized I had received another tapping of this awareness a few days ago when I attended a planning meeting in Florida with David Webber, Chief Operating Officer of Practice Technology, Inc., who commented to me that he always reads his email for the FEELING of the writer, not for the words. 

It is not the words of Andrea Bocelli that affect me so profoundly.  It is the WAY he sings those lyrics.  And it is not the words of an email that David Webber "hears"...it is the message of a heart.


Is your heart vibrating with emotion?  Have you given yourself permission to feel this primal longing?  And do you "hear" the HeartSounds of everyone around you?


                                                                                                         Marie Helena 

Infrastructure

Close your eyes for a moment, and imagine how you would relate to the rest of the world if  LOVE was always moving through you.

                  Don Miguel Ruiz
 


The sun, the rain and the soil nurture seeds which have been planted, gracing them with the life force to bloom into brilliant blossoms. 

Propellers of planes in motion engage the natural laws of the universe, lifting and moving massive machinery effortlessly through the air.

The waves of our oceans methodically surge and swell, laying their burdens thankfully upon the sandy shore. 



We, also, are gifted with a spiritual infrastructure which has the authority to inspire, nurture, empower and sustain us as we traverse our lives.   It is Love which is our sun, our power.  It is Love that provides the wind beneath our wings. 
 It is Love whose rhythm moves us elegantly through our journey, aligning us with the Truth of the Universe and gifting us with the grace of surrender.

We do not need to engage in the weariness of "trying to make things happen", only 
a tapping in to the force which has created life itself.



                                                                                                   Marie Helena

                                                         

image from sitsshow.blogspot.com

The Amusement Park

By the time we leave our childhood behind and get on with issues of the "adult" world most of us have managed a trip or two to the glorious island of escape called
The Amusement Park. 


There we stuffed our faces with cotton candy while we waited in line to take our seats on VERY scary and unpredictable rides.  And why did we do this?  Because it was FUN! We screamed our hearts out and then turned around and doubled back for more.


Maybe we loved these "wild rides" so much because there is something in our makeup that loves the unknown... mercurial adventures, precarious positions, challenging perspectives.


Which brings me in a roundabout way to an interesting occurrence I had just this week. 

While sitting in morning meditation a few days ago I experienced a very unusual stream of imagery.  I often have images popping up during meditation and, in fact, they routinely do,  but this meditation scenario was the most delightful I have ever encountered.


Several Disney characters were whirling inside a powerful vortex, riding it downward at a very fast speed having the time of their life and shouting "Whee!".  


When they reached the bottom (as they all invariably did), they were bounced back up to the top and were each affectionately catapulted into a bed floating in space.  They were tucked into warm covers and were soothed, comforted and rewarded from their madcap adventure by having a nice, long rest.


The all encompassing feeling of this fantasy was one of fun and delight.  The Disney characters were All IN.  They had no question of their safety...of the road they were traveling or of the loving embrace (the comfortable, billowy beds) awaiting them at its completion.  The TRUST was implicit, palpable.  Its vibration provided a powerhouse of energy for this adorable and motley crew.


So, here's the thing.                                     

The vortex in my meditation feels like earth school.  We've all experienced the WILD rides of life when it took us some time to
B r e a t he, take it all in,  restore our equilibrium, gain perspective and choose our response, hopefully learning from the lessons being presented to us.


The Disney characters bouncing back up to the top and landing in a comfortable bed feels like a message that we are always looked after and deeply appreciated for our sojourn on this planet.

And the fact that the characters were all having such an exciting, fun time feels like guidance on how to look at earth school as an exercise in curiosity and wonderment because it's all an illusion.  Real as it may seem, earth school is the vortex playground for trying on various personas and life situations to see what we can make of them...and learn from them, all the while sending the vibrations of our new wisdom out for everyone to energetically tap into.

When WE (our Spirit Selves) watch the glorious adventures we have designed for ourselves as earth dwellers, the story of our lives becomes truly enchanting!




                                                                                              Marie Helena


roller coaster image from clipartist.info
Disney characters image from childcoloringpages.net
pillow image from wikihow.com


originally published November 15, 2013

The Chorus Line

           
                          

                                                     
                                                     Be mindful of your self-talk; 
                                             it's a conversation with the universe.

                                                           Brandon West



As a bevy of blue baby robins gathers outside the window for their early morning fraternizing and the sun streaks boldly in behind our bedroom curtains, the alarm persistently injects itself into our dream.  With a heavy sigh we clumsily sit up and place one sleepy foot in a slipper.  We begin to search plodingly for the other which has mysteriously slipped away.  "Here we go again," we mutter.  "Why does my day always start this way?"

Hmmmm.  Trouble already...and the day has just begun,  "Now what else will go wrong'" we might wonder.


But let's just imagine that same scene of our morning reveille played out with a few significant changes.


As a bevy of blue baby robins gathers outside the window for their early morning fraternizing and the sun streaks boldly in behind our bedroom curtains, the soft sounds of a ballad from our clock radio lead us gently from our dream-state into reality.  We take several relaxing breaths, s t r e t c h and slowly sit up, placing one sleepy foot into a slipper.  We smile contentedly at its warmth and search curiously for its mischievous mate.  "Now where are you hiding today?", we humorously chide.  "You guys are always up for a game of hide and seek."

Interestingly, how we choose to greet the day plays a very important role in what  happens next for us.  Turns out those first moments of the morning send an important message which helps determine what we will find unfolding.


Every thought we think, every feeling we feel, every word we utter is being delivered unfailingly and with distinct ceremony to the watchful and waiting Universe and whether that message is a "grumpy" alert or a ""fun and friendly"vibe, we are calling in our order for more of what we are already portraying so eloquently.


We always get more of what we passionately express, attracting vibes which match that resonance.


The key point here is our passion, those feelings of deep caring and emotion.  Are we choosing to invest our energy, to place our attention on what feels like it is not working well as compared to affirming the beauty and joy surrounding us?


And do we "see" what we expect to see because we have experienced it so many times before because of our mind-set?  And, if that is so, what kind of expectations do we hold?  Bruce Lipton, developmental biologist, tells us what we believe is what we will experience. 


So the question is what, exactly, is our Biology of Belief?  Are we choosing to emphasize, believe in, affirm what feels like dissonance, ignoring symmetry and beauty?  Has this choice become the author of everything we experience?

 
What if we "expected" delight...mischief...fun...beauty?  Would we find it?
Perhaps the robins outside our window are waiting for us to join The Chorus Line.


                                                                                                            Marie Helena



image from www.ethknits.co.uk
 VPCL703-Chorus-Line.jpg


originally published May 4, 2014