Cosmic Gratuity

Right now, at this moment in time, I want y o u to know that I am thanking y o u for taking time to read m y words. I want to publicly thank God and the Universe for all things wonderful in my life. Most importantly for my soul mate, my family and friends, my beautiful sugar gliders, my yoga practice and my health. Life is truly beautiful and I am happy that I am fortunate enough to s e e that and to be able to share it with you all!


Tanti grazi a tutti. 


Namaste.

Effervescent Living

The beauty that resides within you, the beauty that radiates throughout the entirety of this universe is the most powerful force in existence. It always has been and always will be. Allow this beauty to flow freely through you. With the love in your heart, you are as beautiful as the sun. You are as beautiful as the moon on a starry night. You are as beautiful as the scent of rain after a storm. You are life. Smile. Recognize your beauty. All things are possible through love.

Within, not without.

Take a moment to think about your worries. Are they worth worrying over? Will they even matter 10 years from now? Chances are my friend, that all of your worries are minute. If you need to make a change, introspect. You have all of the answers to your questions. Search within, not without. Remember you can do all things with just a pinch of hope and a heart of love. Honor yourself. Honor the divinity within you. Recognize these things and you will be perpetually successful.

Namaste.

Astral Travel

Begin by breathing at a natural, comfortable tempo. Inhaling deeply and then exhaling. You are feeling your body drift away. Your head becomes heavy, your shoulders release, the tension in your arms and legs release. You become weightless and you are coming into full relaxation. 


Keeping your eyes closed, become comfortable within your being. Become one with your essence. You may begin to feel tingling sensations, numbness or vibrating. Each response is natural, just allow your self to be. 


I n h a l i n g, e x h a l i n g. I n h a l i n g, e x h a l i n g. 


You begin to feel your body rushing up through the top of your head, your soul is traveling at speeds you cannot comprehend. And then you are out. Out of your body, out of your mind. You are you. You are just riding this wavelength in your purest form. 


You can fly.


 Imagine and it will become.




 The i d e a is. 


Love,


Vanessa

Forever and for always.

As we take each step
remember we are not alone 
For God has followed each of us
Whatever sorrows, whatever troubles life may bring
remember they too will lead you and teach you 
It is through our struggles we find comfort 
In knowing that we can depend on ourselves
One other than God
So, at the end of each day, you can always count 
on two friends
To be there for you
forever and for always.

The blind fold

Many of us live our lives with a blind fold on, not knowing truly where we are headed.We are blinded because of the limitations we have placed upon ourselves or allowing others to place limitations on us. Blinded by the mundane routines of daily life. Sometimes we just need God and the Universe to take our hand and lead us as we watch our lives unfold in front of us. Let life happen. You will be pleased with your final outcome.

Transformative Breath

Inhale deeply
slowly exhale
Focusing on your breath
Keeping your mind clear
Witness to the beauty of the sky
Imagine you are laying in a steady stream
The trickling of water
Cool rush beneath your neck
Down your back 
Between your fingers, your toes
Radiating
Cleansing your body
Delivering tranquility, peace of mind
Soul transcending the body
Becoming one.

Love is our Greatest Benefactor

Aristophane's Speech from Plato's Symposium Translated by Benjamin Jowett
Aristophanes professed to open another vein of discourse; he had a mind to praise Love in another way, unlike that of either Pausanias or Eryximachus. Mankind, he said, judging by their neglect of him, have never, as I think, at all understood the power of Love. For if they had understood him they would surely have built noble temples and altars, and offered solemn sacrifices in his honour; but this is not done, and most certainly ought to be done: since of all the gods he is the best friend of men, the helper and the healer of the ills which are the great impediment to the happiness of the race. I will try to describe his power to you, and you shall teach the rest of the world what I am teaching you.In the first place, let me treat of the nature of man and what has happened to it. The original human nature was not like the present, but different. The sexes were not two as they are now, but originally three in number; there was man, woman, and the union of the two, of which the name survives but nothing else. Once it was a distinct kind, with a bodily shape and a name of its own, constituted by the union of the male and the female: but now only the word 'androgynous' is preserved, and that as a term of reproach.

In the second place, the primeval man was round, his back and sides forming a circle; and he had four hands and the same number of feet, one head with two faces, looking opposite ways, set on a round neck and precisely alike; also four ears, two privy members, and the remainder to correspond. He could walk upright as men now do, backwards or forwards as he pleased, and he could also roll over and over at a great pace, turning on his four hands and four feet, eight in all, like tumblers going over and over with their legs in the air; this was when he wanted to run fast.
Now the sexes were three, and such as I have described them; because the sun, moon, and earth are three; and the man was originally the child of the sun, the woman of the earth, and the man-woman of the moon, which is made up of sun and earth, and they were all round and moved round and round because they resembled their parents. Terrible was their might and strength, and the thoughts of their hearts were great, and they made an attack upon the gods; of them is told the tale of Otys and Ephialtes who, as Homer says, attempted to scale heaven, and would have laid hands upon the gods.
Doubt reigned in the celestial councils. Should they kill them and annihilate the race with thunderbolts, as they had done the giants, then there would be an end of the sacrifices and worship which men offered to them; but, on the other hand, the gods could not suffer their insolence to be unrestrained. At last, after a good deal of reflection, Zeus discovered a way.
He said: 'Methinks I have a plan which will enfeeble their strength and so extinguish their turbulence; men shall continue to exist, but I will cut them in two and then they will be diminished in strength and increased in numbers; this will have the advantage of making them more profitable to us. They shall walk upright on two legs, and if they continue insolent and will not be quiet, I will split them again and they shall hop about on a single leg.'
He spoke and cut men in two, like a sorb-apple which is halved for pickling, or as you might divide an egg with a hair; and as he cut them one after another, he bade Apollo give the face and the half of the neck a turn in order that man might contemplate the section of himself: he would thus learn a lesson of humility. Apollo was also bidden to heal their wounds and compose their forms. So he gave a turn to the face and pulled the skin from the sides all over that which in our language is called the belly, like the purses which draw tight, and he made one mouth at the centre, which he fastened in a knot (the same which is called the navel); he also moulded the breast and took out most of the wrinkles, much as a shoemaker might smooth leather upon a last; he left a few, however, in the region of the belly and navel, as a memorial of the primeval state.
After the division the two parts of man, each desiring his other half, came together, and throwing their arms about one another, entwined in mutual embraces, longing to grow into one, they began to die from hunger and self-neglect, because they did not like to do anything apart; and when one of the halves died and the other survived, the survivor sought another mate, man or woman as we call them,--being the sections of entire men or women,--and clung to that.
Thus they were being destroyed, when Zeus in pity invented a new plan: he turned the parts of generation round to the front, for this had not been always their position, and they sowed the seed no longer as hitherto like grasshoppers in the ground, but in one another; and after the transposition the male generated in the female in order that by the mutual embraces of man and woman they might breed, and the race might continue; or if man came to man they might be satisfied, and rest, and go their ways to the business of life. So ancient is the desire of one another which is implanted in us, reuniting our original nature, seeking to make one of two, and to heal the state of man.
Each of us when separated, having one side only, like a flat fish, is but the tally-half of a man, and he is always looking for his other half. Men who are a section of that double nature which was once called androgynous are lovers of women; adulterers are generally of this breed, and also adulterous women who lust after men. The women who are a section of the woman do not care for men, but have female attachments; the female companions are of this sort. But they who are a section of the male follow the male, and while they are young, being slices of the original man, they have affection for men and embrace them, and these are the best of boys and youths, because they have the most manly nature.
Some indeed assert that they are shameless, but this is not true; for they do not act thus from any want of shame, but because they are valiant and manly, and have a manly countenance, and they embrace that which is like them. And these when they grow up become our statesmen, and these only, which is a great proof of the truth of what I am saying. When they reach manhood they are lovers of youth, and are not naturally inclined to marry or beget children,--if at all, they do so only in obedience to custom; but they are satisfied if they may be allowed to live with one another unwedded;
And such a nature is prone to love and ready to return love, always embracing that which is akin to him. And when one of them meets with his other half, the actual half of himself, whether he be a lover of youth or a lover of another sort, the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not be out of the other's sight, as I may say, even for a moment: these are the people who pass their whole lives together, and yet they could not explain what they desire of one another. For the intense yearning which each of them has towards the other does not appear to be the desire of lover's intercourse, but of something else which the soul of either evidently desires and cannot tell, and of which she has only a dark and doubtful presentiment.
Suppose Hephaestus, with his instruments, to come to the pair who are lying side by side and to say to them, 'What do you mortals want of one another?'
They would be unable to explain. And suppose further, that when he saw their perplexity he said: 'Do you desire to be wholly one; always day and night in one another's company? for if this is what you desire, I am ready to melt and fuse you together, so that being two you shall become one, and while you live live a common life as if you were a single man, and after your death in the world below still be one departed soul, instead of two--I ask whether this is what you lovingly desire and whether you are satisfied to attain this?'--
There is not a man of them who when he heard the proposal would deny or would not acknowledge that this meeting and melting into one another, this becoming one instead of two, was the very expression of his ancient need.
And the reason is that human nature was originally one and we were a whole, and the desire and pursuit of the whole is called love. There was a time, I say, when we were one, but now because of the wickedness of mankind God has dispersed us, as the Arcadians were dispersed into villages by the Lacedaemonians. And if we are not obedient to the gods, there is a danger that we shall be split up again and go about in basso-relievo, like the profile figures showing only one half the nose which are sculptured on monuments, and that we shall be like tallies. Wherefore let us exhort all men to piety in all things, that we may avoid evil and obtain the good, taking Love for our leader and commander.
Let no one oppose him--he is the enemy of the gods who opposes him. For if we are friends of God and at peace with him we shall find our own true loves, which rarely happens in this world at present. I am serious, and therefore I must beg Eryximachus not to make fun or to find any allusion in what I am saying to Pausanias and Agathon, who, as I suspect, are both of the manly nature, and belong to the class which I have been describing. But my words have a wider application--they include men and women everywhere; and I believe that if our loves were perfectly accomplished, and each one returning to his primeval nature had his original true love, then our race would be happy. And if this would be best of all, the best in the next degree must in present circumstances be the nearest approach to such a union; and that will be the attainment of a congenial love.
Wherefore, if we would praise him who has given to us the benefit, we must praise the god Love, who is our greatest benefactor, both leading us in this life back to our own nature, and giving us high hopes for the future, for he promises that if we are pious, he will restore us to our original state, and heal us and make us happy and blessed.
This, Eryximachus, is my discourse of love, which, although different to yours, I must beg you to leave unassailed by the shafts of your ridicule, in order that each may have his turn; each, or rather either, for Agathon and Socrates are the only ones left.

Copper and the dust of day

Wind brushes the day anew
Sunset
Sunrise
Feelings of a place once known
Now is left barren
Copper rust and you
Longing to return 
when we were still alive

Selfishness never prevails

Sometimes we allow a convoluted perception of ourselves to get in the way of truly living a life that promotes well-being for everyone and not just for ourselves. There are billions of people in this world. Your actions will affect at least one other than yourself. We are not living in this world alone. We may be experiencing our own journey, our own wavelength but we are not alone. A whole is a sum of its parts. There is great significance for this. There is a divine reason we live here, experience here together. 


So what is the reasoning for your actions? 

How ARE you today?

Do not allow others to interfere with your own living. Do not allow others to offend you or hurt you. Inferiority is a choice, not a given. Not everything in life is going to be perfect. Get used to sitting in the discomfort and working through it, not against it. It is at these moments in life when you begin to learn who you truly are. 


You are you. You are capable of everything and anything you want to be. You have the power, the ball is always in your court. Make a decision for you, because of you, not for or because of someone else. The life we spend here is short. Make this one worthwhile. Get over the little things. Recognize that stubbornness never gets you anywhere. 


Reflect on this one. Are you proud of the decisions you have made today? Was it productive? Proactive? If you died tomorrow, would today have been worthwhile? Your breath is your life source, your prana. It connects this moment to the next and without it, you would cease to exist. Make each breath count. Breathe for today.