We are almost there

Hang on, guys...we are almost there

So much has happened to us in so many ways just in the last few months and weeks that it is almost impossible for a whole lot of us to really think and more, to believe that indeed, we are almost there. We are almost "pau hana" with this weirdness and this craziness where things that make sense also do not make any sense at all. In the time that has passed, and it has been a lot longer than any one of us realizes it has been, we have changed a whole lot. Where it was that we had massive misunderstanding, while we still have a little confusion, and where it is that we seem to believe that what we have in front of us will not budge, it is budging and is doing so at a terrific speed. While our intentions are what they are, were what they were, became what they would, we did not see one thing, and that one thing is that we have made it as far as we have, and in that time we have found out a few things about who we each are in a Spiritually personal way.

A Spiritually Personal Way

There are things that happen in our lives that, when they happen, we are at a loss for words because what has happened is either too much and too painful for us to think about, or, conversely, it is so great that we cannot begin to think of it not being the reality that we have brought to ourselves. We are either worried that what we did is bringing the "other than good" to our awareness and that we did something wrong and so now God is punishing us, or, we are not wanting the beauty that has come to our lives to not be real and not be ours and not be all we want to believe it is and know that it is that we cannot look at it to believe that it is ours. I promise you - whatever it is that you are seeing and experiencing right now is the truth of you, is a lesson and a reward all at one time, and that it is your Kuleana, no, not only to learn from it, but more, to embrace it and to know it and love it and feel it and most of all, to trust it.

The way that we have all been taught is right and good is to not let our guard down, to be vigilant in sniffing out those who cannot be trusted and to avoid the things that hurt. This has robbed us all of the ability that we all have to being able to just Know who it is that we can trust, to know who is just like us in ways that we never thought about, to know, for sure, that we are whole, that we are the essence of our own Perfect Love.
We have been called upon by the Cosmos to give to the world, but in that giving we were not privy to much else than that giving, and in that giving we learned, or at least most of us did, that when we were doing this, we were learning. We were learning what it means to be the ultimate sacrifice, and we were learning our own limitations, and we were living in the energy that was ours alone and we were finding out that who we are is limitless.

We have always known that what we are meant to do is somewhere in between where we left off about five or six years ago, and where it is that we are headed is right there in front of us, but like the carrot on the stick and the horse which chases it we thought that it would be just that easy - we thought and believed that Spirit was finally going to just give us our way. When it was that we had to accept that no, this time will not be any different than was any other, we behaved like petulant children. We had tantrums, and we cried, and we lashed out and we whined about what we do not have. We looked at what we do have and eventually realized that it was us who brought to our lives, and that it was the moment in which we felt most vulnerable that we were at our very strongest. And this was not something that we wanted, at least not in the form that it came to us, but that more than anything else, was something that was well needed and well deserved by us.

Good or Other Than Good, Me, You - WE created it and brought it into reality

I am fond of saying it - and I am about to say it again...I said it, so deal with it. We brought everything to our lives that we see in them. Where we know that we have changes to make, we learned what they were through the trials and tests that came our way. When we looked to the sky, hands up like we were being held at gunpoint by our very own energy, and asked "Why me, God?" we got our answers, and our answers didn't look like our egos wanted them to. Our answers came to us in the manner that is one more thing to deal with, and our answers came in the form of a person who we loved and who did us wrong, and our answers became the lesson that we needed to get to the answer that we wanted. Our answers were never cut and dry and no way were they anything that we did not have to work toward getting to.

We create all that is in our lives. I have said it, written it, intuited it...it is the truth, and I like the truth, because the truth is that what we see is only our version of it. Where it is that we might think that someone else has it better, there is yet one other person on this planet who sees what you have, even though you refuse to see it yourself, and thinks that you have the world and more. We have been taught our whole lives to love the tangible things, even though those things cannot love us right back. We have been taught that if something has a price tag, that it has value, but no one ever said that with time things lose value, but that people and Love and Spirit never do. The thing that the entirety of us is up against is NOT who we are now, but what was, and those who are still living in what was are the ones who continue to permeate the world with the bigness that was when instead the bigness that we need right now from EVERYONE is NOT how many more toys any one person has more than another person, but really and only, how much of a material loss will we endure when it comes to the idea of having to choose - Spirit, or Material things?

Spirit - or Material Things?

Now is the time when the question of what it was that you really were asking for comes full force into play, because right now we are all able to see the wounds and right now we are able to feel the pain from the past and the present and we are worried for the future without a good enough reason to be OTHER than where we have been and what we have experienced and what we know is our truth.

If you thought that the material things in your life would make things better and make them stay that way, by now I am sure that you know otherwise. I am sure that you know that it is not now nor has it ever been anything in the material realm but that what you see and sense and know in this awareness is the absolute show of what is going on inside. Where it is that many have felt like they had accomplished something because they had....HAD...a lot of nice things and had...HAD a lot of great people in their lives the truth is that while those things were nice and while those things were the things that you thought would be the Soul's response to a request, the truth is that no, the things that came to you were the beginning of the learning, of the learning to live without them and the learning to be with only you and your soul.

We are made up of the tangible, but we live in the intangible nature of the things that we most dwell on and think about. We can feel the hurts that are given to us by anyone, and it is ours to fish through in the most tangible sort of way, but the reality is that our feelings, our thoughts, our moods, our everything, is in the intangible world. The intangible world scares people who have never had to deal with their own thoughts by means and measure of that which is tangible. This is where most addiction comes from, the idea that there is a tangible way to deal with the intangible world, and we would only be partially correct because we are the tangible nature of our own intangible world. We are the ones who bring the tangible to the intangible. We are who is responsible for the way that we think, feel and do things, and we are, that is, a lot of us are not, capable of dealing with the intangible things that affected others by what we needed and expected from and by them in the tangible world.

The tangible world has many people still believing that the things that we can see, feel and touch are what matter the most, but that is not the truth. The truth is that without what we are thinking, there is no tangible world and there is no judgment to be made on said tangibility because without our manifesting those things into the present we would not know what it is like to feel the way that we do about a thing that has materialized for us. Whether we want to believe it or not, we are who makes or breaks our lives, our hurts, our fears, our awareness, and it is not okay that we take it upon ourselves to tell other people how it is that THEY are the ones who brought this, that and the other to our lives. No, no, no...you see, when we see what we don't want, don't like, don't understand in our lives, we are more inclined to place responsibility of that weight of that knowing on the person who is representing that part of us and our thoughts, and it is SO not theirs that we see them as the thing to be blamed when in reality, we brought them to us.

We brought them to us in the form of asking Spirit to please teach us who we are. We brought our learning to ourselves, and well...what have we learned?

Seriously...ask yourself that question....what is it that you so dearly wanted to experience in your life and from that experience, what was it that you learned and what is it that stays with you now that you cannot stray from because you know, too, that it was the Soul's wish that you learn those things?

What is it, dearest darling Lovely Ones, that you called into being from your own intangible Greatness?

I Love You All
ROX

It is all in the past...

Sometimes, we don't understand our place, but I promise, it is not in the past.

While visiting with family yesterday, and in that time spent with those people I learned something about the nature of the past, and the nature of the past is that it has a grip like a vice if we let it stay that way. Yet, sometimes, even when we let it go, we find out that it is not our tightened fist keeping us saddled to times we don't emotionally need to be learning from anymore. Most of the time it is ourselves who keep us there, but sometimes, it is because we are stuck to a past unwillingly, and we remain there not on our own accord but instead, remain there in sacrifice to the thing that we would rather not do. Normally we won't do something in order to make things right for someone else. Yet there are some of us on the planet (where are all my Pisces', all my Cancers? Where you all at?) for whom self-sacrifice is part of our make up, and for the life of us we cannot help ourselves. We cannot help not wanting other people to have to go without, even if it means that we have to deal with a perceived loss.

Sacrifice is nothing to a lot of people, and lots of the times, we are sacrificing not for another reason than that we do not want someone else to hurt, and in that thought energy, we are more inclined to not hurt other people because we ourselves do not want to suffer the pain of having known that we hurt another person by our not sacrificing for them what we would not expect someone else to do. This is not to say that we do not do things for other people just because we want to, but more often than not we sacrifice for other people because we do not want to feel guilty for their hurt. Their hurt, unless we purposely hurt someone out of spite, is not our responsibility. Their hurt is theirs, and our hurt should not spawn from the sacrifices that are made on behalf of someone else each and every time we sacrifice. When that happens, we find ourselves confused, resentful, and not much fun at all.

Most of the time the hurts that are within us and placed there by other people are there because we expect that other people will understand our position about things. When we are less that willing to be truthful about how we feel about a thing, instantly we become part of the problem that we each have with letting go of the past. The thing about the past is that it is gone. The thing about the past is that whatever is there can no longer affect us unless we invite it in to do that. The thing about the past is that it happened, that we cannot change it, it is gone, and more than that, the thing about the past that not a lot of  us are willing to accept as the truth is that the past, the distant path especially, has no control over us. That's right - what has happened, happened, and what has happened, cannot not un-happen.

The past is the greatest reference collection that we have, because it is within our recollection that we find little snippets of where in our lives we learned our most important lessons. When we hang onto material things from the past, things that remind us of places, things, and mostly people and a time in our lives where there was not this great big hole called "personal losses," and worse than that, when we are allowing others to hang on to these things all in the name of keeping peace that is not really there because we are roiling from it all, we are to blame, and we are to blame for our hurt because we are not willing to give someone else a smaller and temporary hurt in exchange for the one that we know IS going to happen in but a matter of time. The hurt that will happen is not only theirs, but is ours, too, the moment that we choose to sacrifice what we know is best for all involved rather than giving in to not have to hurt someone who we know does not deserve the hurt right now. But this is when we have to think to ourselves that it is better that they hurt now for a moment than to have the entire group of souls hurting over the actions not taken.

The Collection of Memories that have no control over us

We bristle when we are trying to let go of the past, and it is like this NOT because we find that back there in the past we are more able to deal with things but because back there, for some people, it was nicer because we were not alone or we were able to deal with things when it seemed like things were better. The Now is when we need to be fully present and aware, and the Now is the most important time in our lives because the Now is right now. Too many of us relive the energies of the past and it is not on our own accord but is brought to us by people who, even as we care about them and they care about us, are finding it more important to hang on to the things that were rather than clearing out that mess to make way for a new and better way of being and doing and living our lives. Often times it is because we don't want to hurt another person by making them see that they cannot hang on to what is no longer there, that they cannot start to believe that other people will be the ones who hang on to their past memories for them, and it is not right that anyone would think that what we hang on to is somehow meant to have the same energy for another person.

We know that it is time to stop holding on to things when we start feeling the detriments that we thought we were done with because time has passed. The reality is that the moment that we were able to get over the idea that we were hurt or made angry was also the moment that we were able to let it all go. Problem is, no one told us this. No one told us that we could get over a thing simply by electing to no longer hurt or to no longer be affected by it. No one told us that when the people who someone else hangs to the material memory of also silently, through the things that they taught us as children, that it is time for us to take the reigns and be the ones to sacrifice the idea that they will be angry with us, that we will have hurt them, and it is all so that in the long run, we do not have to hurt or to go through the pain of their being angry that while we did not want to hurt them now and let it be short term and that allowing them to hurt later and larger and perhaps for many years.

When we are more willing save someone from being angry with us by our actions right now, we are operating from a place of fear. It is not the fear of anything in particular, but more is the fear of letting them down and their hurting by what we have done, and most of the time what we are planning to do is not from a vindictive place, and neither from a place where we intend on hurting someone else, but is rather from a place where we are trying to save them from longer and permanent hurt in the future. When we do things that we know are good for the people who are the closest to us and we have a hard choice to make, it is at that time that we need to look at what might happen if we do not opt for the fast and vaccination-to-a-baby minute of pain that we will suffer, versus the long run where everyone suffers from our inaction. Sometimes, copping to our not wanting to be involved is not the answer, and sometimes when we opt to do nothing at all it is worse than doing the wrong thing.

At least if we do something, and it is seemingly the 'wrong' thing, we are more compelled to continue failing each time we try until we find an agreeable solution. But if we do nothing, and allow things to remain the same, we make it so that the madness continues and when the madness continues we find ourselves in an endless circle of the thought that we should have changed things a long time ago. Don't do this to yourself, and don't do this to your loved ones, and don't do this to your own piece of mind, and don't do this to the people with whom you share your own awareness. Yes, the energies from the things which we allow to remain the same extend to the rest of the world and loans to the bigger energy. When we think about a thing in a negative manner, and we want to have the positive outcome there is an imbalance that happens that allows the thing that we don't want to remain with us.

Think about yourself the next time you are seeing that someone else needs your help. Yes, I said that right. When you are thinking about someone else needing your help versus you thinking that you want to make them happy no matter what, and even if it means that you have to allow them to continue their madness, no matter if that madness is a collection of thoughts and memories, or if that collection is a literal collection that brings to life the reality that is within, and that reality affects everyone who sees it, it is time then that we have to think about what is best for the person with whom we are contending the changes that they may not like and that we know is the right one to make, even though it is one that we know they will not like.

I promise, once you choose that, and once you do what is best for all as a whole, you will notice, too, that those who you cared about to the point of their detriment - they will see it as beneficial, too. You just have to trust them enough to trust that you have their best interests at heart.

With that much said...

I Love You All !!
ROX

Meditation is not one size fits all

You do not need to do things that are not according to who you are when you are meditating

A very dear friend of mine this morning posted to her Facebook wall that she did not know how to or rather, could not, meditate. And it was not for anything other than that she thought, because of her Sun Sign, that she was not able to stop her mind fast enough to get it done. Of course, it was within minutes that she posted something else that spoke the truth of her, and that truth of her is that indeed she knows that she CAN meditate.

When I read it I was a little amused by her thought, because I know this person well enough to know that she has great powers of concentration, and one has to have that power, and in her case it is because I also know that people with musical ability, namely those who sing, have to be able to concentrate their energies in one direction and toward one goal, and that one goal can be varied and can be in the form of singing in front of an audience, to recording an album, to rehearsal - no matter what, just as much as the instrumentalists in a musical ensemble have to focus, so, too, does the lead singer. Just like singing, or playing a musical instrument, or anything, really, which requires talent, heart and soul, a quieted mind and focus are what are needed for meditation.

A Quiet mind is not what you think it is

Because I know that I have the propensity toward having very, very scattered thoughts, I know, too, what it is to have to stop the mind chatter, to have to focus on one thing, and in my case, always that one thing is about how to contact "The Realm," also and better known as "The Astral Plane." In order to do that, it is required of a person to be able to focus their thoughts, their energies, their everything, at that moment, NOT toward an end result but toward the moment's energies, and at that time, for anyone, the moment's energies are all about being able to focus. This is what is meditation. Meditation, to a lot of people, seems like some weird, tree-hugger type activity that only people who know what the benefits of wheat germ milkshakes are all about (ewwwwww...I prefer chocolate, thank you much). This is not correct. While it is that many, many people do indeed meditate in the way that we see as typical, the truth is that anything that requires our focus, and anything that requires our energies toward gaining that focus - THAT is what is meditation.

By "a quiet mind," I mean that the chattering and the blah blah blah that is the conversation in our heads all the time is what we need. Now, yes, of course, having NO mental chatter is great, but it takes time, practice and focus. Meditation is about streamlining one's focus so that what it is that we require to have what we desire in life, be it an answer, a situation, even a miracle...meditation serves us with the ability to focus, not on the thing itself, but our thoughts about the thing that we are focused on. Once it is that we can focus on a thing, we find that it was because we were able to focus, NOT on the outcome, but on the things that were the energies that would help us get to that particular outcome or something better than what we have in our minds.

A quiet mind is a mind that has been quieted from all of the daily stuff that should not be permanently there, and is replaced by thoughts that are focused. The only way to train one's self toward this ability is to practice. Practicing is not something that we human beings like doing much, but when we can focus on the bettering of our own abilities, no matter what they are, or the bettering of who we are as a person, we find that once we have that focus which comes with our ability to quiet the extraneous thoughts caused by the nuttiness of everyday life and can quiet our minds to focus only on the thing at hand, life gets strangely beautiful.

I say it becomes strangely beautiful because the things that used to crowd our thoughts have been replaced by useful thoughts, nourishing thoughts, thoughts which are Divinely Focused and thoughts that are streamlined and thoughts which become a means to an end. The end is not only a materially realized end, but more than that, the end is more like our being proven as able to focus our Selves toward an energy that is helpful to our growth as Souls. As souls we are meant to be here to open ourselves up to others, to be able to see in them, ourselves, and are meant to carry out a mission and live through to our purpose. In order to do that, though, we have to have streamlined, positive thoughts. When we carry all these crazy thoughts and these limiting energies we find ourselves running around in circles. It is not until we have learned to quiet our chattering mind that this becomes a reality for anyone.

True, there are a lot of people who can and do meditate in the fashion that we all know as being meditation. Yet, there are people who are too fiery, who cannot keep still even when they are sleeping, and who need activity in order to clear their minds of the chattering that goes on there. Some people actually do well when the mind is actively becoming quiet, meaning that they know that the reason that they are in activity IS because that is how they do not realize that they are meditating. There are some who are reading this who are going to vehemently disagree with this, and to those people I must pose the question of who it is that made them the person who Spirit placed in charged of what is the "right" way to calm the Spirit and quiet the mind. Some people cannot cope with the quiet of an empty house, and those people are the very ones who will turn their stereo up as loud as it can go, something harsh and heavy pouring out of the speakers, and there they are, eyes closed, not bothered by the ear-shattering collision of screeching guitars mixed with a gravel-like voice. In fact, for those people, this is the only way that they can connect with their inner selves and to tell someone else that they are not meditating right is not even anywhere near cool. (To tell someone else that since it is not the way that you would do it is about as egotistical and arrogant as it gets because you have not yet mastered the way that you actually will flourish with meditation, and so now you have to tell other people that since it is not your way, it is the wrong way...shame on you, by the way...)

Your way, my way, their way, this way, that way...no way is there only one way...

Just like no two people are going to like everything the same, not one of us has the same level or skill to meditate as some others might. I know that I have a very active mind, that as a public speaker I am given to the idea that communication is the key to everything in our lives, and with that thought, I know that I am the only person who could possibly also know that in order to prepare for such a "gig" that I have to do what is right for me and that there is not another person whose method will help me. In that same light, my musical pals meditate in ways that are conducive to their own growth and their own skill level and their own comfort level. One musical friend goes to the gym and this is what he calls his meditation, and it totally fits who he is. Another friend, she takes off her shoes, walks barefoot in the grass, near water, usually, and then goes home and takes a seasalt or herbal bath, and it fits who she is. Yet, another friend gets his mind going and even though he is a musician, it is not just his music which connects him to his higher self, but also his ability to paint. Another friend is a mechanic, and his meditation time is simply sitting in front of the television with a beer, the remote, and his dog....and another friend who bartends finds that her own meditative thoughts arise when she is reading a book or practicing her Tarot cards.

And me?

I write. Sometimes, I draw. MANY MORE TIMES THAN NOT, I will dance hula, barefoot beneath the wide full moon, mp3 loud, like a Hawaiian Hula band, and dance until Great Spirit tells me that I am Pau Hana with it for the night, and yes, of course, I also meditate in the way that is most normally seen by the rest of the world, with candles burning, Power Objects in front of me, at least the ones which are applicable to the meditative prayers at hand...and all of it is right. Not one thing that I do in order to quiet the mind and organize the thoughts and streamline the focus and redirect the energy is wrong. There is no wrong way to meditate.

Meditation is yours, is as personal as your beliefs. If I were to sit here and tell people that they are not doing theirs the way that I do mine and that they should try it my way, I would be wrong, just like it is wrong when people force feed others their own Truths about belief...but that is another blog post for another time.

Meditation and focus and all of those things which require a quieted mind are all private and are just like that one thing that we each have within us that sets us apart from the rest of the crowd. Meditation is not different. Meditation is not "one om fits all," and meditation takes a bit of a creative nature about us, because it takes a creative person to be able to get into one's own mind and tell the chattering 13 year olds who are just boisterously excited to settle down and get their homework done...

...so yeah...settle down and get that homework done, everyone...and yes, it is just that easy. Quiet the mind from the chattering garbage and find out that really, it is but a matter of what suits you and NOT what you see that seems to be the perfect fit for everyone.

I Love You All !
ROX

To learn more about the area's ONLY Healing with Hula program, "Na Hula O Ka Wahine'ui," please visit The Sisterhood of the Soul's website at www.mapu70.wix.com/sisterhoodofthesoul. 

The original Southern Plantation Preacher Lady, Rev. Vel-Danielle Gambrell and her Kindred Souls of the South's Facebook page can be visited and "liked" by going to www.facebook.com/KindredSoulsOfTheSouth

For information or to set an appointment with either Rev. Roxanne Cottell or Rev. Vel-Danielle Gambrell please send an email to either of them here in facebook by going to:

Rev. Vel-Danielle Gambrell  : facebook.com/spiritfish

Rev. Roxanne K. Cottell : facebook.com/reverendroxie

To contact Rev. Roxanne Cottell (Reverend Roxie) please send an email to reverendroxie22@gmail.com

The Divine Nature of Forgiveness

There is no time limit for forgiving others

I will admit to being one of those people who used to like to hang it over someone's head when they would do something that would need a measure of forgiveness from me rather than what I gave them, which normally was a good, loud and ugly earful of the transgressions they'd made against me. And always...always always always there was some sort of ...drama...to it all, and for the life of me I cannot, at least not now and while glancing back to those days, figure out why I was not more forgiving toward them. After all, they are only as human as I am, and because of this it made them and makes anyone prone to blatantly foolish acts of ridiculousness as well as well un-thought out pieces of verbiage that would be better suited to the wall of a men's bathroom stall in a public restroom.

Had I known then what I now know well and practice, or at least try to practice, is that the act of forgiving others is a far easier one than is the thought in my head, at least, that there is a prize to be had at the end of the mental and emotional word brawl that I am well known for having found myself in, many times, again and again, and the only person who ended up hurt or angry or whatever, normally, at least in the long run, was me. Yes, while it might have been that I was attacked first, it didn't mean, never meant, will not ever mean, that I have to retaliate the way I used to. In order for people to know what is the reality of forgiving someone else, there first needs to be a transgression, and there is no where that is written that we need to have that sort of drama in our lives. And yes, this I know very well because, truthfully, I am a recovering drama addict, and I make no bones about admitting it, and more, I am not ashamed of having been that way.

I am not ashamed of, at times, having had the option to tell the truth, albeit in the manner I told it, and I am not ashamed of having had the very nerve to do so. I am also not ashamed, at least anymore, for behaving like a pompous idiot at those times, and I will not lie to you and tell you that I did not enjoy being the big mouthed intellectual mixed with a dash of peppery rocker chick because the truth is that I enjoyed it as much as I enjoy drinking too many beers with my best friends when the time calls for it. I will not tell you that I did not enjoy hurting the people who I hurt, because at the time I thought that it was okay to do that because well, "it's the internet."

Yet, here I am, years later, and while I might have enjoyed all the foolishness that comes with victory through the hurting of other people, what I did not enjoy was the reputation that I had gained as "the shark" of all sharks, and while, at the time, I might have enjoyed that very intimidating thought, what I did not enjoy was the idea, eventually, that the way that I won, while even as I was right, was through one-upping someone else, normally a total stranger, and I can only imagine who else. I will not sit here telling anyone that I am proud of having been the bringer of the clue that I felt others needed by me to tell them that they were not all the intellectual beacon they told people they were. I will not tell anyone that I stayed in that arrogance that told me that it was okay to use my big giant brain to belittle others. I will not tell people that these days, while I enjoyed those things, that I did not know the truth, because the truth is that even then, while I enjoyed it and while on the top of things I told people that it was okay because this is the internet, the reality is that as time wore on, I knew I was wrong. That was the hardest part - not knowing that I was wrong, but knowing that I used my gifts to hurt other people so that I would feel like I had somehow won something.

The only thing I won was the scorn of other people. There are a few people on the planet who know me by my writing, and there are more who, through my writing, know me personally and are some of the closest friends I have, and these are the people who, back then, will tell you that yes, there were times that I said so many awful things, things that would make the Devil cry with shame, there were more times that I felt dirty and horrid because then, like now, I knew how powerful words were. I knew then what I have always known, that words have the power to affect people in both good and bad ways, and that when they are my words, and when I am the one who is spouting them, that I do not like being the one who brings shame to people, but rather and only, hope.

The Beauty of Forgiving Other People

There are people who are reading this who know that these days, I am very inclined to forgive other people for the things they say that hurt, for the actions they take which seem, at the time, to take something away from me, but in reality and instead, that hurt and that energy gives me the option to deal with things from a new place - a place called "Forgiveness."

It is not a foreign place, at least not for me, but for many people it is a place never ventured, because if they go there, that means that somehow, they were wrong. The only time that we are wrong when we know that we need to forgive or need to be forgiven is to not realize that this is what needs doing. When we choose to hurt others intentionally we set ourselves up to also hurt. There is no time that is ever a good time to hurt people, but unlike hurting people, always is the best time to forgive.

When we can find it within ourselves to get past our arrogance, to get past and through to the part of us that cries when we hurt and more when we hurt other people, and we can see to it that we know that we are not always right, and when we can bother ourselves with the idea that we are human and that we will make human being type mistakes, even the ones we make knowingly, this is a very Divinely Energetic moment for us. It is in these moments where we can come to terms with ourselves, and we can see, finally, the reality and more than that, the beauty of who we are. It comes at a time when we least expect, the ability to truly forgive others. It is not something that does not take practice, and eventually, one day, you become a pro at it. I know this. I did. I know that one day I woke up and my Soul was just there for me to see and to recognize and to see it in the beauty that was the light of forgiveness was the most illuminating thing in the world.

One day, I woke up, in many more ways than only one, and realized that the most loving thing that I could do for me was also the most beautiful thing that I could do for others as well. I realized that if I expected to be any kind of right-minded individual at all, that I needed to learn to "get over it" and that I needed to practice the ancient Hawai'ian art of ho'oponopono, "to make right," to forgive. I needed to become the entirety of the Whole in terms of "All Things Roxanne," and once I got hold of the emotions that I had held on to for so, so long and saw that they were detrimental to everything and everyone - namely me - I learned to let things go. I had to. I had to do it because no one else was going to do it for me, and given my life'a Path as a Healer and Spiritualist, I had to learn to hurt, but only for a moment, because it is in that moment when we are more inclined to let things go once it is that we can be released, not from anything other than our own grip on things that we feel are ours to hang tight on to.

We can only do so much with our time in this lifetime, and there are only so many chances that we will get at forgiveness, and only so many times where we will see the lesson as just that - a lesson, and not as some other person's "thing" in life to make us hurt. It is not someone else who makes us hurt. Only we can make us hurt. Only we can hang on to things that other people did to us that makes us nutty and angry, and only we can think what we will of someone else's baggage and only we can ever know what it is like to hurt like we do, and only we can know, too, what it will take to get over it all.

And all of it, the part that matters the most, no matter what, is called Forgiveness...To forgive others is to give our own selves freedom that not a lot else can!

I Love You All!
ROX

To learn more about the area's ONLY Healing with Hula program, "Na Hula O Ka Wahine'ui," please visit The Sisterhood of the Soul's website at www.mapu70.wix.com/sisterhoodofthesoul. 

The original Southern Plantation Preacher Lady, Rev. Vel-Danielle Gambrell and her Kindred Souls of the South's Facebook page can be visited and "liked" by going to www.facebook.com/KindredSoulsOfTheSouth

For information or to set an appointment with either Rev. Roxanne Cottell or Rev. Vel-Danielle Gambrell please send an email to either of them here in facebook by going to:

Rev. Vel-Danielle Gambrell  : facebook.com/spiritfish

Rev. Roxanne K. Cottell : facebook.com/reverendroxie

To contact Rev. Roxanne Cottell (Reverend Roxie) please send an email to reverendroxie22@gmail.com

Please visit RandyJayBraun.com today !

Itchy twitchy icky nasty but all needed...

That tension you are feeling right now...

Yes. Yes, you are feeling some planetary pull right now, and yes, you are irritated and you are weepy and you are a bag full of mixed emotions. Even those who live their lives from the Soul, out, are feeling what is collectively the very energy of the moment. And the energy of the moment is erratic. There are those of us who know all about this madness, and others of us who greet this maddening energetic mix of "I Love You/I want you to cease to be, " and "come here, no get away."

I promise, while it might seem a bit on the deep end of the pool and while it is that one moment you are grandly in Love with Life and all its inhabitants, and the next minute you wish there were no laws regarding hunting other humans for sport (you know it is true, some of you), the truth is that this is normal. The truth is that we are at this moment flushing out all the Soul's toxins because very dearly it is that time, right now, in the Now, that change is happening.

Your whiny demeanor followed by your "kick you in your okole" demeanor and then which is followed by laughing like a loon and then the next minute you are thinking that you are the very loonies that Pink Floyd talks about in the song Brain Damage...all meant. That's right, I said it, and you can either deal with it or cry about it or whatever, because no matter what, this is normal and you are just fine and safe in the arms of the Cosmos.

The tension you are feeling at the moment is called Growth, can be thought as being evolution, change, growing pains, whatever, and no matter how much any one of us wants to avoid it, it is here, it is real, and a lot of people are stuck in the middle of their own version of it. For some of us it is in the manner that is those in our lives who can be thought of as our "elders," while for others it is that group of people who are Hanai to us, who were our students at one time, and who we consider as being family, mostly in a parental type way, and many of us are just as confused as we have ever been. There are some of us who are physically ill right now and that is on a wide scale, ranging from mild to life-threatening, and there are those of us displaying attitudes which are so not the norm for who we usually are.

Yes, we are all mightily uncomfortable, and yes, we are all very excited. Yes, we are all sad, on the one end, and on the other end, we are happy as larks. We are all in this madness called evolution together, and the only way that we are going to get through it is also together, with each other and with the truth that is the idea that we are going to be just fine, no matter what happens. Some of us are sensing things we do not recognize and this is okay, and others of us cannot understand why it is that every time we think about a person, we are, at the next moment, dancing gleefully to a song that both we and the other person in our thoughts both love and for whom that song holds much meaning. There are some of us who already knew all about this thing called "The Shift," and even though we are terribly uncomfortable, ready to rip the head off of those who we are most in contention with at the moment, even though we might not know why, we knew a long time ago that this, The Shift, was going to come on a whole lot more intensely than we imagined it would, but none the less, we are fine. We are okay because we know that soon enough, it will - the entirety of Life on Earth - balance out in the most magnificent way that it can.

We are all learning patience, and acceptance, mainly of the things that we cannot change. We are learning to be with one another without judgment, not only of each other, but more, ourselves. We are learning the meaning of Aloha (Love) as well as learning to use those things and ways of being which we have always known all the way to the very cellular level of us. We are learning what we need to do so that we can also know who we are in relation to one another. We are learning those lessons which we did not want to learn in the past, and we are reliving days gone by, not only for the lesson involved, but more, just because for some of us, what was happening twenty years or so ago, those things still are very much in play for us, and all we needed was that simple little reminder that yes, this is who we are and who we have always been.

We are learning, once and for all, those things that our egos told us we already knew about or worse, did not need to know, and we are learning that we are not better than another, that we are not anything more than what Spirit has chosen for us to Be in this Lifetime, even if what we are meant to be is a good example. We are learning that we need each other, and we are learning that this body we live in is not the truth of us and that it is only the thing which would be most effective and helpful in our ability to do the work we came to this lifetime to do. We are being taught, we are being shown, and we are being stretched, and we are growing, and it is happening all at one time, all during this time called "Now." Now is when the choices that we make for whenever "then" is, and Now is the time that we know that we have. We know that we no longer have yesterday and that nothing can be done for what has passed. We cannot live back there, and the Now is showing us this. We know that we cannot depend on the outcome that we want in the future, that we can aim as high as we can for that manifestation of what we desire in our lives to be, but for the most part, we know that all we have is right this minute. And right this minute is the only time that we really have any control over.

Right this minute there are people who are angry that they cannot change the past, and right this minute there are people who are wrapping their entirety of being around an outcome that they see and want very badly...and right this minute, there are people who are, sadly, no longer caring about much, and it was all because they chose to regret what was and hoped too dearly for and are hoping to dearly for an outcome that they want and see but cannot be too sure of coming into Being.

Take heart, folks...while it is that Now might suck, the truth is that right Now is all we have, and in that manner, right Now is a beautiful thing indeed, and it is beautiful because regardless of all the things that make us different, knowing that ,collectively, Now is all we have is quite a powerful thought to think...

Imagine if we all took that one thought and just accepted it, collectively, the good that it would do for us all...

Think about it...

I Love You All !
ROX

To learn more about the area's ONLY Healing with Hula program, "Na Hula O Ka Wahine'ui," please visit The Sisterhood of the Soul's website at www.mapu70.wix.com/sisterhoodofthesoul. 

The original Southern Plantation Preacher Lady, Rev. Vel-Danielle Gambrell and her Kindred Souls of the South's Facebook page can be visited and "liked" by going to www.facebook.com/KindredSoulsOfTheSouth

For information or to set an appointment with either Rev. Roxanne Cottell or Rev. Vel-Danielle Gambrell please send an email to either of them here in facebook by going to:

Rev. Vel-Danielle Gambrell  : facebook.com/spiritfish

Rev. Roxanne K. Cottell : facebook.com/reverendroxie

To contact Rev. Roxanne Cottell (Reverend Roxie) please send an email to reverendroxie22@gmail.com

The Healer

 Heal...

"Can I have some remedy? Remedy for me, please?" (The Black Crowes, "Remedy")

I won't lie about it - it took me a LOT of years of heartache to know that I was well on the Path to the thing that I needed the most, which was my own healing. It was my own healing which prompted me to seek out the teachings of other healers, and it was my own Soul's ailment which make it so that at this time, a time at which, apparently, Spirit saw that I needed something to hang onto.

I needed something to hang onto that came from me but that did not involve an OB/GYN, and I needed something to call my own that came from me that only I knew and know about, and that is particular to me only. I needed to seek my own counsel, and I needed to know, for sure, that this - the Healer's Path - was the Path that I needed to seek out. So, I did.

I sought out the Path to becoming a Healer quite by accident. It came to me, not in a vision, but in the manner that is hands-on, much like a doctor. And by "hands on," I mean that I had to get my hands on situations that were in my life, that were invading me, invading who I truly Am, and were it not for a few caring individuals who saw this in me, I would not be the Healer I have become, thus far, and would not have the drive to continue on that Path to the Healer's Way of Life and of Living.

We all need a remedy of sorts, not only for our physical maladies, but for the maladies that make us cry and think that we are somehow weak. That we cry tells us that we are anything but weak, that we are strong in a way that not a lot of people are, and that most of all, we know that our soul has been insulted. We know when our souls have been insulted because we get the distinct feeling of disgust followed by anger. We get angry when people insult our intelligence, and in our souls we know when people are trying to pull a fast one on us. I know it. You know it. Don't do it because it is not worth it. It makes people angry and it causes them to not trust us. If you are not ready to trust someone else, most assuredly it will be when you are at your most rock-bottom that you will decide that the option to choose is the one that puts you into contact with someone like me...a weirdo...a Spiritualist...a Healer, if you will.

A Healer...

I did not decide to be this person. It was chosen for me a long time ago, long before I even knew it was what I would be and would Love so much to do. It takes a person who has been through a whole lot, who has had to choose to take the Path that is not so easy, the Path back to Wholeness and the Path that leads us right back to ourselves. I did not come to the conclusion very lightly and neither happily when it was decided, not by me, that my lot in life would be to serve others, not only others who ail, but others who need something done for them. This is what a healer does - we heal the holes in our lives, and then we go out into the world and teach others how to do the same thing.

We are all Healers. Some of us use music to heal others, while others of us are the sort who are healers disguised as MD's, Nurses, and health professionals, and yet others of us like me, who delve into the ugliness that resides in the bowels of the Soul and bring it to the surface so as to get a look at the monsters that have eaten away at the sanity within, the safety within, the Home, within. A Healer is not someone who wears a mask, literally or otherwise, and a healer is not a person who possesses anything different than anyone else does. A Healer is a person who is willing to prove to people that they were worth the time for Spirit to bring them into this lifetime, and through their birth, their mothers were able to do at least that one great act of otherworldliness, and through their birth, it may be that the act of bringing life into the world is the act of healing needed not only for her, but also, for that baby.

When a child is born, the mother is taken from the world of the maiden to the world of the Mother, and as such there are things that no longer apply to her, even though, paradoxically, they applied just a few hours ago. The act of birthing a child on its own is heroic, because many people die in childbirth. It is heroic because it is the death of one life to the birth of two brand new ones. The mother goes from the life of the maiden and through the death of same said maiden, and is, in one push, brought squarely and surely to the Path that is that of the Mother. For the mother, there is both a death and a birth, not only of her child, but of her self as mother.

We become healed through our actions that cause us to do things a different way, to think in a manner that is not the same as it was a little while ago. We heal ourselves through our own acts of redemption toward others and we give ourselves a brand new shot and becoming, everyday of our lives, this newly birthed creature whose Path is sure and strong. We learn through healing that other people are the catalyst to other, bigger things that we are all meant to learn, not because we have to, but because we are meant to. Being meant to means that there is a greater sense of need within while feeling like we have to do anything gives us a great weight to carry, a burden, if you will. And no one needs one more burden to shoulder.

We learn to heal ourselves, not with medicine that can be seen or smelled or felt, but with medicine which comes from within. We learn to heal ourselves so that we may, if we are so inclined to, go out into the wilderness that is our own, into the deep blackness that is the fear of the unknown, to heal others.

If we are so inclined to, we reach out and give of ourselves so that others might understand their own pain and to gain the ability to see with eyes that are not of this world and to gather strength to get past the monster that ate our lives, even if we allowed it. If we are so inclined, we take what has happened to us and we use it and bring to the rest of the world in the form of the words "I Love You" and we, through that one act of thoughtfulness, that one act of personal bravery, and through the sacrifice of our own Self for another person, while we remain to never-mind the idea that these people might not accept our gift of healing through the Soul...yet, still, we remain inclined...

I am so inclined...

I Love You All !
ROX

We Are All, in some way, Hanai

To be Hanai is the greatest form of Unconditional Love

I have many, many Hanai family members. My tribe is large, is a maddening mixture of many different cultures, beliefs, and filled with the richness that is other people. These other people know who they are, and these other people who do not share blood ties with me know that I love them, deeply, dearly and for real. Lots of us come from very damaged beginnings shared with various and very damaged people. This is the reason that most of us see our friends as our family, as our ohana, as our tribe.

To Hanai someone means to adopt them into your family. Being 'hanai' means that someone Loved you enough to call you one of their own, and while it is that my own Hanai Tribe is large and limitless, it does not mean that for each person with whom I share a bond does not get my full neither my undying attention. To be hanai means that even though we have lost someone or a few someones, whether that loss is the physical reality or is the reality caused by a division of thought and belief, it is never a problem to have the latter of the losses when we know that out there in the great big world there is a family for us, there is our own Tribe and our own Ohana. We all belong somewhere, and sometimes where we belong is not given to the whims of the biological and hereditary truth of us. Sometimes when we are small kids and we have been hurt by those who are meant to care for us, by those who shun our ability to Love them, and when we are, at that point, a lonely child, we find that there are our friends. These are the people who I have Hanai'd into my life, who I have turned into my family, and for whom there is not a lot I will not do if it is within my power to.

To Love someone so very much and to know them better than one does one's own blood relations is the most glorious of all Loves, because it means that someone decided a long time ago that they knew you and they loved you like you were one of their own. To care about another human being enough to call them your brother, call them your sister, your "calabash" cousin...all Hanai and all the gloriously and unconditionally energetically inclined Love that is the All we That We Are.

To Love a Person as entirely as one would one's own blood kin is to accept them into the Soul that is your collective, is the one that you are part of and the one that perhaps you were born into. I have many Hanai'd Children, and all of them knows that I have a special place for them in my heart and soul and life and Family. They know this absolutely. I have many Hanai'd Brothers, Sisters, Aunties and Uncles, Tutu Ladies, Tutu Papas, Cousins and the Like, and there contained within this very special, tiny little microcosm that is the sample for the entirety of the Whole of Us lies that which is the catalyst for that which we are All part of, That Which is Known simply as being "The One."

We are all, in one way or another, Hanai. There is a reason for those with whom we share a common special social spiritual bond - because we all need to be part of a Tribe, and we all need to know that somewhere on this planet there is a group of people who share a sameness of Love and that sameness of Love outweighs anything else, and in some cases, anything else includes sharing a sameness of heredity. Blood rarely matters. Only Love Matters. Only the Love that we have for one another matters. Only the idea that who we are is perfect in the imperfections that only we see. We only have each other, and that means that somehow, we are all Hanai to one another.

No matter who we are, or who they are, someone else on this planet is just like you, or they know that one day, you are going to evolve into Who you are meant to be. The only way that happens is that as readily as you accepted the fact that you have flaws, you must also and readily accept that you are Loved, dearly.If you are reading this, and it means anything at all to you, never worry that you do not have family, that you are not part of your own Tribe of Nations, that you are not part of your own bloodline's ability to find sameness rather than differences.

No matter where you are, someone Loves You. Someone, somewhere Hanai'd you...

And you know who you are where I am concerned...you know you are Hanai....you know you are my Tribe...

I Love You All !!
ROX