If you feel the joy of life flowing, share it with all that surrounds you. Pour out your reserve of joy by giving blessing to whoever you meet. Today I blessed a house by painting one of its ceilings. Who can you bless throughout your day?
Westacre Day minus 13
So much got done today. Hilde stripped some last bits of wallpaper, added some more sound insulation to the partition between the bathroom and the kitchen, and painted the walls and ceiling in the new porch. Having plaster means we can start decorating at long last.
Alex’s greatest achievement is levelling the floor in the en suite. We’ve been talking about that all year, and finally it’s done. The floor levelling compound looks like something unspeakable and brown, but it does settle level.
Roger spent most of the day in the loft, making space for new loft insulation to go in week after next.
I have always tended to push away difficult feelings. The consequences are many. The tension in my body is always with me. Yet I know the answer to this. Pushing away what is difficult shuts me down, body and soul. The more I do it, the less I am able to deeply feel even the joys of life. What I need to do is find the courage to face life, all of it, and journey deeply into every feeling.
Westacre Day minus 14
Hilde went back to Roger’s bungalow for the first time in nearly two weeks and was very pleased with the change. The plasterer has done miracles, and it now is finally beginning to look like a place where a person could live. Onwards and upwards!
Everything you do is a pathway into the here and now, into living fully conscious of the presence of the sacred. All you have to do is become aware of your senses and follow where they lead.
Westacre Day minus 15
Hilde did another day’s work in the office and got flowers from a grateful tutor. Before driving back to Westacre, Alex had another stab at fixing the toilet cistern (he never gives up, even when he says he will). Meanwhile, in the bungalow, the plasterers are nearly finished.
This January, why not start the year with an empty jar and fill it with notes about good things that happen. Then, on New Years Eve, empty it and see what awesome stuff happened that year. Good way to keep things in perspective! ~Krystal~
(from my friend Lucya’s Facebook wall)
Do you ever feel like your life is spread around a hundred different things? Like your soul is divided into many little bits, scattered to the four winds?
When many demands are made on our energy and our attention, we need to bring ourselves back to our centre, to the sacred here and now.
Just sit still for a while. Perhaps light a candle to focus your attention. Then actually call the scattered parts of you back to yourself. The bit that is worrying about a family member. The bit that is still thinking about work. The bit that is fretting about something in the future. Call them to yourself. Visualise these bits of you joining you in the light of the candle flame.
Feel your power grow as you gather yourself together. Breathe with it for a while. When you are ready, you can blow out your candle and give your full soul attention to just one thing. The thing that is here and now.
Westacre Day minus 17
Alex was at home in Harrow today, and did domestic things like having another go at fixing the toilet cistern (it didn’t work and he’s now officially given up), doing some washing and cooking Hilde some dinner when she came home from work.
Hilde was working at City Lit, making decisions about the programme in 2013-2014, long after she’ll have left.
Meanwhile, in the bungalow, the electrician has placed some new sockets and the plasterer has tidied up some walls and ceilings. It will look different when we get back there.