Tag Archives: Richard Bach

The Blue Feather

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Hi Folks:

A number of years ago when I was going through a dark period in my life, it seemed like every time I went outside I’d find a feather on the ground, waiting for me, usually with 10-15 feet of whatever doorway I had just left. To me to it was a quiet nudge from the Universe, a sense of letting me know I was loved and cared for no matter what experience I was choosing in the moment.

Well, last week I was going through a very strange day and on my way home from the grocery store I found this Macaw feather lying on the ground by the sidewalk. Now, some people might have found that strange – it’s not moulting season, after all – but to me it was a reminder of that earlier time, and I smiled.

It wasn’t until the next morning that I realized it was a blue feather, and I thought, “Couldn’t they have just put up a sign that read, ‘Don Shimoda was here?'”

Blue Feather

Hugs,
M&M

P.S. If you’re looking for a blue feather yourself, you might want to drop by our friend Kristen’s site: Blue Feather

 

New Beginnings… and Old Memories…

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Hi Folks:

It’s now closing in on the end of January, so if you’re still maintaining your New Year’s resolutions, my congratulations to you!  It may be sheer coincidence that Remembrance Day and New Year’s Day fall so closely together on the calendar but our memories of the past and our dreams of the future always seem bound together.  It may be true that (as espoused by George Santayana), “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”  It’s also true that much of how we see ourselves today is based on and built out of who we have believed ourselves to be and that person no longer exists.  It’s not just that your body is continuously refreshing itself – building new cells and removing old ones.  Our thoughts, ideas, understandings – in some ways the essence of who we are – is also different… unless of course we hang on tight to the past memories of who we used to be.  Memories can be pleasant or painful and there are varying degrees of both, but there’s one thing memories rarely are, and that’s an accurate recollection of the past as it happened.  My grandmother was a very wise woman with a Grade 5 education, and one of her sayings was, “No matter how thin the paper, there are two sides to every page.”  In some cases there are many more than two sides to an issue, more than two sides to a memory, but the point is made. Continue Reading →

This May Be Wrong

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Hi Folks:

This post is based on two events from yesterday, but before I get to them I should provide a little history…

The last time I was in school was a little over twenty years ago, and one Sunday afternoon when I was studying I had a woman who was a representative of a local religious organization stop by my door.  She wanted to discuss her faith, and perhaps because I wanted to take a break from studying or perhaps because it was a sunny Sunday afternoon, I said, “Okay.”  So we stood and talked for about an hour and a half.  However, for everything that she offered from her system of beliefs, I countered with a different viewpoint from another Way.  She’d suggest something from the book she had with her, and I’d offer something to the effect of, “Yes, but the Buddhists believe…”  or “the Bible says…” or “in Taoist philosophy it is said…” or “in Native Spirituality they believe…” or, well, you get the idea.  We went back and forth like this as I said for about an hour and a half until finally I said, “I’ll be the first one to admit that I don’t have all the answers; I’m still a student.”  Her response to this was, “Well, I’ve found mine.” but I countered that with, “No, you think you have; you’ve stopped looking.”  At that point she left. Continue Reading →

Being Free…

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Hi Folks:

Just a quick thought…

In his book “Illusions: The Adventures of a Relucant Messiah“, Richard Bach wrote:

“In order to live free and happily, you must sacrifice boredom. It is not always an easy sacrifice.”

It’s a very good book, BTW.  Anyway, it’s his quote and I’m not going to change it, but it seems to me that ‘boredom’ doesn’t always look like boredom.  Sometimes it comes dressed in different clothes, like adversity, pain, loss, poverty, illness, depression or loneliness…

So, rather than providing my answers to this question (although I probably have, somewhere in the ‘Mike’s Writings‘ section of our blog), I thought I’d ask you instead.  Do you want to live free and happily?  In order to do so, what must you sacrifice?  As Bashar would ask, “Are you willing to believe it’s that easy?” (not “Do you believe it’s that easy?” but “Are you willing to believe it’s that easy?“)

Those who guide me once said, “The only thing we’ve ever asked you to change is your perspective.“

Love,
Mike.

He Says, She Says… ‘Insights’ from the Celestine Prophecy

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Hello, Dear Reader:

When James Redfield’s book ‘The Celestine Prophecy‘ came out in in the early 1990s, we bought two copies of it and read them avidly.  The ideas contained within the book added nicely to the stores of knowledge we already had.  Time went by like it always does, and over the years the ‘insights’ from that book were overlaid and integrated with that received from other sources.  We heard a few years ago that a movie had been made from the book, but we never saw it.

A week ago we were at the local library getting some children’s books for visiting family and we came across the DVD version of the movie ‘by chance’.  Intrigued, we checked it out and took it home to watch it.  The movie matched the book fairly well (at least in our memories), but coming across those ideas again sparked new thoughts for both of us.  So, without further ado we thought we’d make this week’s ‘He Says, She Says…‘ post, “‘Insights’ from the Celestine Prophecy“.

Hugs,
M&M

Follow these links to read what He Says/She Says: Marcia’s View / Mike’s View

He Says, She Says… Letting Go

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Hello, Dear Reader:

Mike received an e-mail from a friend yesterday with the following quote from Bashar:

“Healing is allowing, not making, not trying, not forcing: it is allowing. Just let go, relax the expectations. Relax the resistance and you automatically glide smoothly back to centre.”

If you’ve read our other blog posts recently you’ll know that we’ve both been uncovering and recovering from our own challenges.  With that in mind we thought we’d make the topic of this week’s ‘He Says, She Says…‘ post, “Letting Go“.

Hugs,
M&M

Follow these links to read what He Says/She Says: Marcia’s View / Mike’s View

He Says, She Says… Free?

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Hello, Dear Reader:

What does the word ‘free’ mean to you?  Is it a word that implies value, such as ‘freedom’, or ‘free will’, or is it something that denotes no value, as in ‘Free to Good Home’?  The word freedom itself can mean freedom from something like oppression, or it can mean having freedom of expression.  Or, as in the immortal words of Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster, is ‘Freedom just another word for nothing left to lose’?  The word ‘free’ seems to have many contradictions, and so for this week’s ‘He Says, She Says…‘ post we thought we’d address when something is ‘Free?‘

Hugs,
M&M

Follow these links to read what He Says/She Says: Marcia’s View / Mike’s View

He Says, She Says… Embracing Perfection

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Hello, Dear Reader:

What does it mean to be ‘perfect’?  To some this appellation implies a ‘best possible’, whether it be a perfect day, a perfect moment, a perfect meal…  To others perfection can only be a goal, something that can never be achieved or attained.  As such there are those who would suggest we not even try.  In his book ‘The Bridge Across Forever‘, author Richard Bach described his search and failure to find what he considered to be the ‘perfect woman’.  He eventually came to realize that his goal was an impossible dream, that his perfect woman was, in his words, ‘a peacock’.  When he surrendered this dream he found instead the love of his life, Leslie Parrish. Continue Reading →

Marcia’s Meanderings – The Mundane

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This is the task you have chosen. To live the magical in the world of the mundane.

You know in your hearts that you are unwilling to succumb to the mundane. You know in your hearts that you have chosen this challenge because you needed to restore your faith in yourselves, and in the never ending creative process from which you spring. For you could not, through your rational mind, endeavor to accomplish any of the things which you hold important – you could not write, you could not sing, you could not paint, and you certainly could not create your reality.

~ Conscious Creation

Hello Dear Ones!

Have you ever watched an 87 year old man slide a light bulb into one of his socks till it fills out the tip of the sock where his toes would nestle and where a gaping hole can be seen? With wool thread – not necessarily the same colour as his sock – a sewing needle and the light bulb as the base for his endeavours, he proceeds to weave back and forth. His patient and persistent process results in a neat, fully functional and hardly visible patch of ‘cloth’ occupying the vacant space where once a toenail had pierced through. He has just extended the life of his sock.

Observing this process, you experience a sense of calm – both within the man as he works diligently, and within yourself as the observer. Similar mundane processes can be seen in many day-to-day activities: a woman spends several hours ironing and neatly hanging and folding clothes; a construction worker methodically ties the laces on his work books; a small child with two Dinky cars and a patch of floor keeps him/herself amused for more than an hour.

It is more likely that you can see the magical potential in the child’s behaviour than in the other options described above. After all, we tell ourselves, children have amazing imaginations! What about adults? Do we have fabulous imaginations as well? Do you? Continue Reading →

Marcia’s Meanderings – Writer’s Block?

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Hello Dear Ones!

Ever have a day when your mind wanders when you should be focusing? I’ve been sitting here at the computer for a few hours now. Rather than writing this post, I’ve been playing scrabble games with my sisters on Facebook. When I had done all 23 games we share and with none left to do, I added new games. When I tired of that, I went to websites I’ve not looked at for a while.  When all of those had been checked with nothing found there to inspire me as to any specific topic to write here, I went on to something else.  Between all these different ‘things’ I was doing, I’d check back in to see if I had received any new e-mails and tweets.

What I wanted to do was to find something cool to discuss here in my Marcia’s Meanderings. Something creative and uplifting for your enjoyment or your consideration at least. Because this is a creative exercise/endeavour for me, I thought maybe writing some micropoetry for Twitter would help liven up my creative juices. I couldn’t even come up with a single haiku or senryu (definition & some of my own examples) or tanka (example) or even a basic four line poem! Now that is very rare for me! Continue Reading →