APRIL MESSAGE 2009

SPRING FLOWERS

http://www.flowersofindia.net/catalog/slides/Night%20Blooming%20Jasmine.html

April showers bring May flowers, so the saying goes, and I wish you flowers everywhere, in your heart, in your hair, in your dreams, surrounding you with their scent and beauty.

In Los Angeles, where I live, (and where it seldom showers) the night blooming Jasmine make this a special time to go walking after dusk. The flowers are so small and their fragrance so enormous: nectar to the senses, saturating my being with the most blissful intoxication; I close my eyes, twirl and bathe in the beauty.

Nature is such a healing force.

Especially during this spring, you are encouraged to take time to be in nature, plant a garden, or just look at all the new life springing from the earth. A wonderful exercise is to visit the same place in nature regularly, get to know it, and watch how it changes. Or just make a tree your friend and visit it every day. When you really see, you will notice even the most subtle day-to-day differences. This will help to increase your own sensitivity and intuition.

Contemplate the changes you observe in nature.

When we are not attached to the way things "should" be (there "should" be sun, there "should" not be any snow) something marvelous happens; we truly begin to see the wonderful perfection of nature; this helps us to accept things as they are, including ourselves.

Sit or walk and contemplate the forest, a meadow, the sky, or a lake. See it as a work of art that is always changing, growing, and becoming. Leave the small world of your mind and let yourself meld into nature. Let yourself experience pure beingness, without attachments and critical judgments. Notice the way the flower grows on its fragile stem, so tiny in such a large world. Let yourself become the flower. Experience the essence of the flower. Let your world become that of the flower, simply growing and evolving into its perfect flower nature, existing in the Present Moment, unafraid, not thinking of the storm that might come or the long cold winter.

Or be a stream. Let your consciousness leave you and enter the stream. Experience yourself clear and light, flowing effortlessly over all the rocks and barriers on your path.

Or a tree, your branches reaching in ecstasy up to God, your roots singing into the earth.

Or a rock or a mountain soaking up the heat of the sun.

Or a desert stretching hot and dry into infinity.

Yes, nature is a great teacher.

In imagination you can travel everywhere you want to be. We often use our imagination for unimaginative things like remembering an unhappy past or a frightening future. Why not use imagination for useful things. You will be happier when you do. And so will the people around you. Just as people are pulled toward a warm spring day or a beautiful flower, so are they pulled to a sunny, happy nature.

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I invite you to enroll in The School of Being Happy Being You! A Compassionate, Practical, Down-to-earth School, which helps you live effectively in the NOW while aligning you with a greater world vision of peace, abundance, and compassion for all beings everywhere.