City Mouse to Country Mouse (Again)

Already I can feel the difference.  I can feel my chest beginning to relax.  It’s almost as if the shields that I didn’t even know were there are starting to come down.  I’m in a little town.  By “little”, I mean no stop lights.  Not one.

There’s still a lot to do before I am settled in, but I can tell you it feels better every day.  There are some tradeoffs for this kind of peace.  Instead of 4 miles from the nearest organic food source, I am now 34 miles from organic food.  But that’s why God made freezers.

Here, I will have the opportunity to buy a membership in Community Supported Agriculture program which will give me pretty much  unlimited vegetables for the summer. I also want to experiment with a small square foot garden out  in back of the house just to brush up on my veggie growing skills. It’s my intention to consume larger quantities of fresh vegetables and this is definitely the time of year to cultivate (no pun intended) that habit.

There are some stark differences between my last place and this town that were apparent right away as I went about my errand-running today. I needed to procure a new post box, get the utilities turned on, establish garbage service, all that stuff. Pay this deposit and that activation fee. Oh, and do a quick load of laundry because I left my aging washer/dryer in the grateful hands of a young man just setting up house. Spirit guided, so there you go.

The laundromat isn’t that far from the house, and is virtually empty in the middle of the day in the middle of the week. I may just coast along until the weather gets really bad without a set. The walk would do me good, and I can take a book along to read while I wait for the clothes to get clean.

As I walked around town, strangers spoke to me as if they knew me. They smiled. They bantered. They looked me in the eye when I talked to them. If they passed me on the street, for the most part they said ‘hello’. I’ve not been here long, but it feels like forever.

The street is quiet at night. No barking dogs to keep me awake. No deep subwoofers thumping and waking me from a sound sleep. The birds congregate on the wires in back of the house and begin their chorus of chirping just before the sun comes up.

I am playing country music on my car radio because it just seems to fit. I haven’t listened to country music in almost a decade. I have lived in small towns before this one, but none like this one. I cannot yet put my finger on it, but this  time it’s different. I’ll keep you posted.

I know home can be anywhere, and I have been willing to follow where ever it was Spirit led me, but I am grateful that I was led here, now. It’s going to take me awhile to break the habit of feeling I need to build a fortress around myself in order to feel safe.

And did I mention there’s no traffic? Well, some, but not near the volume I’ve had to plow through in the big city. No story on the news every few nights about a shooting or a kidnapping or a break-in or worse. I will say I have noticed a lot of flyers about domestic violence, though. All is not Heaven in this paradise. I am sure life is hard here, but I also have a strong sense that people help one another out.

I know my neighbors have certainly been there for me since I got here, but that is another story for another day. For now, I’m going to enjoy making this adjustment. I can’t wait to see what happens to the Spirit work I do once the stress moves out of my energy field. Maybe there will be more writing on IntheCompanyofAngels. I have felt them over the past few weeks, but they have just been patiently waiting for the right time to come forward again.

To change one’s life: 1. Start immediately. 2. Do it flamboyantly. 3. No exceptions. ~William James

All original material posted to this site (c) 2013, Julie Marie. All rights reserved.

Photo credit: Wikipedia

Retreat Is Possible Anywhere, Any Time

My In-Home Retreat Experience

This was an interesting few days for me.  I’d wanted to go on retreat for months, but hadn’t been able to make room in my schedule to give myself that gift of peace and silence.  Recently, with all the preparations completed for my three-day retreat, it got canceled by Spirit at the last moment.

Morning Coffee – 10/31/12

Take a Moment to Remember

As you sip this morning’s cup, take a moment to remember your loved ones who have crossed. Love is the bridge that connects us all, whether we are together here or waiting on the other side of the Great Divide.

We have one thing in common as a species, we remember our ancestors, our loved ones in unique and beautiful ways. Some cultures have an intimate, ongoing relationship with their loved ones. In other places, it is a time like this (November 1st is All Saints Day or the Day of the Dead) when the memories of those we loved come most frequently to mind.

When I look up at the stars at night, I remember those who are no longer with me. The twinkling lights are comforting, and remind me of the billions of lights that have burned brightly here and that now illuminate another realm so beautifully.

Take a moment to acknowledge those who have gone before you. Perhaps they did not live the kind of life you would have wanted them to live, but they lived the life they chose for themselves. We cannot comprehend the purpose of someone else’ experience. We can only remember they were humans, and they struggled just like we do.

Godspeed to all of them. May they find peace. May we find peace as well.

Life is a dream from which we all must wake before we can dream again. ~ Robert Jordan

All original material posted to this site is (c) 2012, Julie Marie. All rights reserved.

Everything Is Perfect, Especially When It Looks Like It’s Not

The Message for Today

Getting started right.

I often wonder when this happens, who it is that needs to hear the words that are being ‘spoken’ through my fingertips. I was in the kitchen making my breakfast, and feeling pretty proud of myself because I was almost done with the post for today.

As I stirred, chopped, and assembled, I contemplated how to conclude the piece.  And then I realized Spirit was trying to get my attention.  Oh, heavy sigh.  That usually means there’s going to be a slight change in plans.  Well, I promised long ago that if they could put me in the position to deliver a message when needed, I would do so. So the post that was almost done will be saved for another day.

A Non-Traditional Mother’s Day Post

On Giving Birth

Newborn child, seconds after birth. The umbilical cord has not yet been cut. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I was planning in my mind to write about the children we bear and how they are our greatest teachers, but when I sat down here, the whole concept of the process of giving birth would not stop nibbling at the edges of my consciousness.  The more I contemplated it, the more interested I became in where it was leading me.

The process of giving birth is about so much more than birthing a human being.

Change Is Coming, Change Is Here

I Can Feel It, I Just Can’t Put My Finger on What “It” Is

An anxious person (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I’ve been talking to a lot of people lately who have a sense of anxiety that is sort of dancing around the edges of their awareness.  They can feel it, but are not able to point to a definite source for their discomfort, their restlessness, their unease.

And there doesn’t seem to be anything to do to calm this feeling of unease, either.  This same amorphous sense of disquiet was prevalent in the weeks and months leading up to the Banda Ache event as well as the tragedy at One World Trade.

There are often individuals that have such prescient feelings before smaller disasters (and I am not here implying that any disaster is small), such as airline crashes or pile-ups on the interstate.  This larger, more diffuse (as in throughout the mass consciousness) anxiety seems to occur only before an event that will have an impact on the masses of humanity.