Talk To Your Animals

The End of the World is Nigh!!!!

2012-01-14T09:41:00.001+13:00

and I nearly missed it! At the rate time is flying by the end will have come and gone unnoticed LOL.

Can't believe I haven't posted since September (I blame FaceBook! You post things there and think you've told the world LOL)

So... I quit night shift, tried 4 different types of sleeping pills before the last lot actually worked at resetting the poor old body's clock and sleep is all A-OK again (bliss!)

We had a late start to Spring and we've had a wet summer so far, poor old world is trying to turn itself over and upsetting the weather patterns somewhat! Got some hay cut and dragged off the paddock 2 days before Christmas which we spent in Christchurch with my dear friend/sister, Lisa which was lovely. Home so Bruce could get to work over in Nelson clearing some slips after the deluge they had over there, and Marcus was with Pete so I got a weeks holiday to myself, got quite used to sleeping in!!! Alas Marcus was back before that habit became ingrained LOL.

Took both Mac and Smokey to our dressage comp in December, the 1st and last one for them for the year! Both were very good boys for not having been ridden diddly squat :o) Have since been gearing them up with a few more rides for a bit of fitness work so I can get them out and about to some Trail Rides, next one is next weekend! So their feet have just been trimmed, the grass is being rationed even more (fat little piglets they are!) and I'm aiming to take Mac, but we'll see on the day (if it's blowing like a you know what, it'll be Smokey going LOL.

Roger has gone to the neighbours place to be a paddock mate for her horse which is lovely, he doesn't have to be stripped grazed there, and gets more attention there than he did here so he's as happy as a pig in mud :o)

Took Mac up the road for a short road ride last weekend, traffic really doesn't impress the stress freak, but it was dead quiet on Sunday so we went out for a change, he decided the little wooden bridge on the road to the school had a troll living under it, but eventually he knew I was just going to keep nagging till he did it so he gave in. Took us 20 mins to get the the end of our one way trip and 7 mins to get home LOL. He decided his beautiful big power trot was called for to get home and that was it! Smokey was next and it was his 1st ever proper road ride (outside of the 300 metres to the end of our dead end road) and he was a complete star :o) Didn't set a foot wrong. Stopped at the bridge, had a sniff at the wood and then tip toed across it. Had horses screaming at him from both sides of the road and he behaved beautifully. Always very proud of my wee Kai.

So that's a quick catch up! Still working driving trucks, still doing communication, still busy busy.

Oh! And reading The Law of Attraction by Abraham-Hicks, very good book, very good at the explanations of how we attract what we think about and how sometimes when we try so hard to attract something it doesn't work... Love the way they talk about the "Inner being" being your GPS by way of emotions.... if you are feeling a negative emotion, you are negatively attracting and out of synch with the Source, if you are feeling a positive emotion you are positively attracting and in synch, pay attention to the feelings you feel!

Spring already!

2011-09-11T01:51:00.000+12:00

Wow this year is flying by! Sad to say my nightshift musings are coming to an end (altho they've been sadly lacking of late anyway!) Unfortunately since the beginning of the year my sleeping patterns altered from a sleep anywhere and for a looooooong time to just can't sleep! This has been steadily getting worse and altho I thought I was coping "OK" with being tired thru the week I obviously wasn't, the stress built up internally till my heart started playing up merry hell and I started having mini meltdowns and of course in the midst of all this I'm telling myself "I can't sleep!!!!" so it's been compounding and a vicious circle. Bruce put his foot down the other day after I confessed at the dinner table just exactly how bad the stress was and said the night shifts had to go.... only a compounding issue, not the cause but it's bad enough I actually agreed with him, so this is my last night shift! I also chucked in collecting eggs at the free range farm about 3-4 weeks ago now (can't believe I did that for 2 yrs!) so my weekends will be my own again!!! And it shouldn't take me till Friday each week to try to repay at least part of the sleep debt so I'll have more energy for the communication work that is picking back up again :o)

Auckland was quiet at the expo for me, but it was lovely as usual to catch up with friends and family and just talk to like minded people at the expo. Had a couple of enquiries at the expo about doing workshops, so I might look at putting one or two together, if anyone is interested in details or attendance etc feel free to email me or connect here or on FaceBook etc.

And with the weekends free and energy to spare I'll be back on those horses again! Smokey and Mac have only been ridden once or twice since about February and I must confess Mac was a perfect angel to get on after that length of time off! A pleasant surprise, so we may actually get back to some animal updates too!

Of course I haven't stopped musing some things (and have beaten myself up just lately for having done all this musing to still let this lack of sleep thing affect me like it has, I should know better!) and along the lines of the last post about how can God be the Song if we are not the Singer... I just had a thought a day or two ago, that it is thru us and our beliefs and fears that God the Infinite can actually experience what it is to be 'finite' or have an end... even if it's not true, if an atheist, for example, believes that death is the complete end and nothing exists afterwards, then it is thru that belief, those thoughts, the possible fears, and the visualisation of the nothing afterwards that 'God' can get an inkling of what is may be to cease to be... Just a pondering :o)

So that's my quick catch up, enjoy your spring for those of you on this side of the world, I guess the leaves are turning and looking fantastic for those of you who are approaching hibernation time too :o)

Enjoy the world of colours and change!

Pet Expo in Auckland Next Weekend!

2011-08-17T13:07:00.002+12:00

Wow! I can't believe it's been a year already! Time to head up to Auckland for the Pet Expo again!

Will be manning a stand with the lovely Jeanne Northwood from Energyworks and will be stealing some more of her great lotions and potions!

I'll have some discounted vouchers for consultations and some Himalayan Crystal Salt there and will be available for consults or one on one communication workshops on the Monday and Tuesday (29th and 30th August) so feel free to make contact if you need me for anything, otherwise it'll be fantastic to meet anyone who feels so inclined at the Expo on the weekend. Was pleasantly surprised after attending the last one, so make sure you come along and check out all the different clubs, animals, and products on offer!

If you are not the singer, how can God be the song?

2011-07-11T04:30:00.003+12:00

driving to work tonight I was, as I seem to be doing a lot lately, thinking about how precious this physical body is... I was singing away at the top of my lungs (probably very badly!) to October Project and thinking that once we are dead and have left this form I would no longer be able to sing, or even "hear" a song. I thought I would have the memory of that song and singing it, but another thought overrode that, I would BE the song, but I would no longer be the singer. That gave rise to something I've mentioned before and think often enough, that without us being aware of the Creator, without us being SELF aware, then in reality God as "God" doesn't exist. Creation becomes aware of itself thru US being aware of it. It is by us observing God in a flower, a bird, a loved one or anything else you can see it in, that God becomes aware of itself as God. So if we are not the singer, how can God be the song? The song cannot exist in thought alone, it would be just a thought, it requires sound, music, a singer before it is a 'song', thus God requires us to be aware before it is the Creator... Quite a responsibility really, and yet quite an ego boosting one too LOL, after all, animals cannot reflect God to itself because they are not 'self aware' the same way we are. Many of them see themselves as part of the One, but they see ONLY that which gives rise to no sense of awareness of 'more'. We because of our ego have a sense of separateness that enables us to see ourselves as different to other things, therefore easier to see the Creator in other things, which is what, as I see it, gives us the specific type of awareness that God needs in order to see itself.

hmmmmm tired tonight (shattered last night!) and I get the feeling if I try to explain it any clearer I'm going to make it murkier, so I shall leave that train of thought there.

Last night actually, I did an email to the Beloved about my views on Life, excuse the last paragraph, it was after all a personal email to Bruce, but it is how I see Life, and I might as well share since you're subjected to everything else I think anyway LOL.

Life

The journey that is Life. From birth to death, and from being dead to being alive. A journey of self discovery, an exploration, unmapped, unknown with the potential therefore to be nothing less than exciting.

Life. Physical, short and precious. Full. Of whatever you choose. Actions, reactions, consequences of actions. Dreams, fears, disappointments, contentment, boredom or excitement. But always full.

A journey walked with others, sometimes many, sometimes few, but never in isolation.

Life. A physical manifestion drawing us out of the Whole, leaving us with no memory of the One Life, but the possibility of rediscovering that anew with every passing moment of time.

Life, where time passes and we watch form decay. Life, where we are subject to the Laws of Science. Life, with all our perceived constraints within it.

The playground of Life, the school of 'hard knocks', where we learn by physical expression the Laws of Cause and Effect, the Laws of Cumulative Effect, where we live under and subject to Laws.

Life, blink and you may miss it, cry too long and you'll never see it clearly, stare it in the eye and ride it like a rollercoaster, it may scream around corners terrifying you at the thought of a derailment but after all it's up and downs you know it's going to end and you can get off the ride.

Life, able to be shared, uniquely able to be seen from anothers perspective, while walking your own path.

I love my life, the warmth of sun on my skin, the feel of rain wetting and chilling me, the touch of a loved one, the responsibilities of loving and being loved. The stresses and the challenges, the joys and the laughter. The salty taste of tears and the comfort of arms around me. I love the bite of tiredness, and the blissful sleep that reminds me of a small death. I love the sound of thunder, observing the living, the movement, the breathing, dynamic even when still. I love the feeling of Nature, from the hardest rock, to the roughest tree, to the fluidity of water, to the suppleness of skin. I love the solidity of the manufactured, not a 'living' cell in it, but it's vibrancy is unsurpassed.

I love my life and all the lives it has touched. Adults and children, animal and human, all from the same Source, brushing against me and bringing learning and expansion, bringing challenges and frustration, bringing love and Love. Some barely meeting before disappearing into their own uncharted territory, others sharing a more parallel journey of discovery, delighting in sharing observations and experiences, learning with and from each other. Never in isolation.

I love the journey of my life and I am ever grateful for the company found along the way. I am blessed to be walking beside you in your journey, to be close enough to hold hands, to be seeing so many things through your eyes, of experiencing more than just my own life. Aware enough, alive enough, to see the One when I see You. Aware enough, dying enough, to look with wonder at our forms and treasure them, to experience them, to burn into the fabric of the Whole the memory of the look, the sound, the touch of these bodies and all the carnal experiences they allow. Precious, fleeting, never to be repeated, no other body will feel your skin like I do, no other eyes will see you like I do, no other heart will love you quite like I do, this experience, this expansion of the One, is something unique to you and I, and I thank you, I thank Life, I thank the Whole for that, and I hop on this rollercoaster and I hold on tight, and although sometimes I may shut my eyes, I know that I'm safe and having the ride of my Life, and I Love it!

Discussing Death with Karma...

2011-06-19T23:40:00.002+12:00

So lets muse on death and what it means to me, and there will be things I will put to Karma now too, and get her new perspective on... to make it simple I'll put Karma in quotation marks so we know what is her and what is me :)

Death, the final frontier! LOL. Well, perhaps not even the 'final' frontier, just what we would consider final since we don't really remember where we've come from, and that this form is a temporary experience for us.

What is it most of us are scared of when we think of death? Is it the ceasing to exist? Is it not being able to interact with loved ones? Is it the pain that is expected to go with it? For me, to be honest there are 2 aspects that cause me just a little concern, that is the pain (having suffered heart attacks before, I know death may NOT be quick or painless, and that sucks!) or the pain/discomfort that would come with an illness like cancer for example. I'm not as staunch as I like to think I am with pain!!! But apart from that it would be the guilt of leaving my loved ones without me, when I perceive they may not be ready to do that, ie Marcus being only 5 yrs old, the animals needing to be looked after and not knowing who would be able to do that satisfactarily, heck, even Bruce since we've only just gotten together and I know how cheated I would feel if he was removed from my life! So those little things stop me longing to 'go home' too much just yet, and yet since I've realised that we don't really have to 'go' anyway to be One with the Creator I've sometimes found myself longing for the formless again. In fact I must confess most recently when talking with Karma in the shower, I found myself asking/telling her to take me home with her... lets face it, some things would be a heck of a lot easier without all this material rubbish to deal with huh? Without ego, without money or lack of, or illness, or anything else... it would be quite blissful to be returned to Love and just be able to watch and Love from outside of the material world we are in right now. It was only telling her that then, that made me aware I may well be manifesting something lovely like cancer to do that for me, so decided I'd quit it LOL.

So there are a couple of wee fears in there too, but in reality I have this longing to go home that certainly stops me fearing what happens after death. I guess in that respect I am very lucky to have been able to talk to my animals so soon after death, to KNOW, without a shadow of a doubt that not only do they still exist, not only that they are OK, but that they are more than OK, they are not lost to us at all, they have not 'moved on' just shifted their vibration to a more pure one, vibrating at such a frequency we now have trouble seeing them, as we are so used to viewing the sluggish vibrating energy that we live in, appearing to be so solid, so 'real' when in reality we are just the slowest form of energy around LOL.

"I was scared of being 'taken away' like Tai was. Of not wanting to leave everyone but not being able to stop it happening, of it being out of my control. I was scared of showing pain in case you took it all away from me. I didn't want to go, I had jobs to do, a family to raise. I had learned to live with my pain, but when the new pain came, when it was going to be here for a while, when it made some other pains worse, it was too much. It became enough that I shed the fears, the pain became bigger than the fears, in the end the fears became the least important part. When I let my fears go Tai was able to come in, and when he came in there could be no fear. Tai was Love, whole and complete and just there, not waiting for me, but waiting with me."

Is that why death sometimes brings such pain and suffering with it? To bring us finally to the point where we so want to be rid of that we release our fears of death? Perhaps that is one of the reasons, I'm pretty sure another reason is to help the family come to the point of wanting to release their loved one from their suffering too, so that relief is there rather than such a raw grief.

Then on the flip side of that is death as the great escape right? I guess if I look honestly at the sometimes longing I have to go home, I can recognise that there. What I think I have found with Bruce is something so precious, so much potential if we don't let ego sabotage it, that I have this terrible fear of ego doing just that. Of us allowing what is there to be polluted, to be dragged down from Love to something so much less, to see that happen..... well, that is just plain scary! To be able to say, I had that, I tasted that, so much more than so many find in their lifetime, that is good! Lets quit now, before we cock it all up (oh my, my fear of failure is a shocker isn't it?!) guess I still have plenty of work to do on ego! LOL, my musings always allow me to see something in myself I hadn't quite recognised fully before! OK OK, I have my homework sorted, lets move on :)

So what is death actually like?

"All of a sudden I was weightless. Like a magnet had lost it's power and I was no longer 'held' there. In that respect looking back it was like I had been trapped in the body and was no longer trapped. When I shed the body I shed the body associated emotions with it, I stepped out of pain, out of fear, out of the wants, out of the discomforts, and into more 'pure' emotions. Emotions that are not burdened by physicality, emotions like Joy, serenity, not of awe for something but of being Awe and at that point of Joyful Love."

I ask Karma what it was like at that point to return to the Whole like that and she shuts me straight down LOL. She wasn't 'returning' at all, she had never not been part of that, so I will have to find a way to reword it, perhaps what was it like to be AWARE of being the Whole suddenly, from feeling separate prior... what was it like to lose the sense of separation?

"it was lost as soon as I left the body, it was like one of those body thoughts, like pain, that was left behind as I left the body."

Was that sense of separation then, for you too, like ego and if so, does that mean ego, or the sense of identity is lost when we leave our body?

"Identity is not fully the same as ego. You are your body but you are more than your body too. Identity is ego, but it is also more than ego. Ego belongs to the physical, and like leaving your body behind but not losing any of what you are, your identity is still whole even while it sheds the ego. Ego is the denseness, the slow vibration, it is physicality, it can be shed while taking from it the kernel of pure vibrational energy that is it's core."

What is ego then Karm?

"Ego is Self that we haven't been able to maintain at a high enough vibration. It slipped to match the slower vibration of the physical and became stuck in the physical, it can of course be lifted again as can your bodies vibration. The easiest way is to maintain small vibrational lifts. To swing from high to low does nothing, but to lift it slightly and HOLD that lift then anchors it at the new level, so you can lift it again, and again... change one thought pattern, one 'belief' at a time, anchor that firmly, push for too much too early and you will lose the lot and slump back to the lower vibration with a new belief of failing... baby steps."

I bring up with her while we are chatting others being there to meet her etc and she says that there weren't there to meet her but they'd never not been there. I tell her I understand but it's hard to word it well, so I ask "what about JoeJoe?" (my old Long Coat Shepherd who is now a guide for me and who has said he will always be 'within' me.) She simply replied "he was never NOT there." and I guess that's it isn't it, I have this feeling that he is 'within me' so he is there and not somewhere else, however being infinite he is of course everywhere, just that he knows I will recognise him best (and keep me looking within for answers) if we used that analogy for me. That's leads on to the whole infinite then being within me, blah blah blah, round and round in circles with the head trying to analyse what it can't! So lets leave that part there LOL.

I ask Karma if there is anything she would like to say to anyone who may read this about death... "don't be afraid of the pain. As soon as it is done the pain is not only finished but it no longer exists, like taking off a heavy overcoat, once it is taken off, the weight of it no longer affects you, and once you no longer have that pain, it is like you never had it, you remember the pain, but the memory is not physical, you do not re hurt when you remember it. All that is physical is left behind including the dense, slow vibrational physical 'memories' or emotions. You know what you went thru but it is now just something you experienced, not pain, not negative, you do not hurt anymore. Remember you are never alone, but after you take off the overcoat, after you shed your body you realise the truth of that completely, you 'see' with more than your physical eyes."

Thank you my darling girl, I can sense Tai "waiting" for her patiently, they still have much dancing to do!

Go dance you young Lovers, we'll talk again xxxx

Musings on Death...

2011-06-18T23:48:00.006+12:00

Last weekend I didn't really have any abstract things to muse on and had thought about musing on death and that's as far as it got, just the heading LOL (I was tired!) but this weekend it is now a very relevant topic... Karma my 9yr old Ridgeback/Lab cross pinched a nerve in her back sometime over Monday night (probably slipping down the stairs in the middle of the night) and paralysed her back end (minus her tail!) unfortunately it locked her bladder shut too so she was unable to pee. My local vets said there wasn't anything they could really do for her and sent us home with some painkillers (at this stage it wasn't known if she was able to pee or not.) The next day still no pee in sight so I rang a vet centre in Nelson who do acupuncture too and took her across there on Wednesday. She was very sore when they tried to put the needles in and getting pretty stressed by now. I left her there to have another treatment on Friday morning, I'd go across Friday afternoon and she'd have another treatment Saturday before coming home with me and see how she was going as the lovely Tommy Berhens the horse chiropractor is coming to town next weekend, so if we could get her thru till then to see him, it may be an easy fix!

So she had a day of rest on Thursday in Nelson at the vets, with just the catheter to be done to empty her bladder out and they were topping her up with some good painkillers. Pete was going to head across on Friday morning to be with her during her 2nd acupuncture treatment (in case she was still worried about it) since work was slow for him... On Thursday night in the shower (my contemplation place remember? LOL) I had a talk to Karma and got from her that she was ready to go. At 9yrs old she was a bit of a lame old cripple with arthritis everywhere, 2 bung cruciates, a bung front elbow and various other lumps and bumps appearing, and she was enjoying being pain free and wanted to continue to be pain free... Now this little girl used to be terrified of dying after watching her beloved Tai (the Great Dane) be put down at home in front of her and the others, and he was scared. So she's always been a staunch wee girl about her pain, not wanting to show it or complain about it in case she was put down too! But now, finally she was ready, so I told Pete that Friday would be a good chance for him to say his goodbyes etc which thankfully he was able to do.

I got over there just before closing on Friday evening and had a quick 10 min chat with her to confirm what I'd gotten previously, had a quick cuddle and had to leave for them to shut. Bruce and I headed back in the morning with the plan then that Karma wouldn't have her last acupuncture but would be put to sleep instead. So we had lots of cuddles and chats, and more cuddles, and photos and more cuddles and then she had a sleep on my lap and then it was time to farewell my Beautiful Lady.

Those bloody needles they use are always far too big and it hurt her as it always seems too, I HATE that part, but then she went to sleep in my arms as I told her what a good job she'd done over the years, how proud I was of her and how much she was loved until long after she stopped breathing...

Now here's the lovely part... first of all, on Thursday (in the shower) I'd felt Tai the Great Dane with her, now Tai was a fantastic dog, noble like a typical Dane, but a big sooky lala and a real clown who liked to just race around the paddock like a lean mean racing sardine, he was my boy :) But the 'presence' of Tai that I felt was so much more than that... there was none of that playfulness but rather a very noble, calm and confident presence that just oozed power, it honestly felt GOD like rather than dog like!!! and it wouldn't take a shape it was just an energy there, almost like a cloud... so after Karma had let go of her body I checked for her and Tai and in my minds eye I saw these 2 'clouds' of energy having met and spiraling up into the air around each other, like a tornado, and within that spiraling energy was the most joyous feeling of reconnection like two lovers meeting in a dance, it was beautiful to 'see' them together again...

When I said to her that we would take her body home to put with Tai under the pear tree she said it didn't matter, she understood now :) but it is important for other members of the family, wee Marcus included, to be able to say goodbye, so home she came with me to be buried in the morning with Pete and Marcus there. Now when I've spoken to Karma since, she is just like Tai!!! Gone is the bossy, maternal little Karma dog, and instead I am talking to a 'Lady', gracious, serene and again oozing that 'power' that I felt with Tai, just like a Goddess, so my Lord and Lady, my God and Goddess are together again in spirit, no more separation, and I am happy that she is not only OK but that she is more than OK. I'll have to add a photo when I get home, altho I did get some up on Facebook before I had to come to work...lets see if I remember how to do the link!

Karma

and I shall attempt to do my musings on death later, or tomorrow night if I run out of time, with Karma's help :)

Karma enjoying a massage with Bruce

Smiley Girl :)

Karma and Marcus Just a week ago

My Beautiful Lady

Musings on Expectations

2011-05-29T03:30:00.003+12:00

I had chosen this topic already although I hadn't made it here to start on it and then saw this video clip and it seemed to fit right in there! Certainly gets the point across clearly and concisely anyway, check it out :o)

So what happens when we have expectations? How often is the pictured outcome different to reality? How does that affect us? Generally speaking somehow it never quite lives up to our expectations does it, somehow it's always a bit of an anti climax and we then feel let down, or cheated in some respect. Easy to then let the ego step in further and we can feel like a victim, never getting what we want or deserve, always missing out, always failing and yet we've missed the somewhat incredible steps we've walked on the journey to that point. Eyes focused on the finish line we miss out on seeing the wonderful scenery around us as we race on. We are future focused to supply something we don't have right now and not honouring what we do have, wishing it away... Expectations involving other people is especially dangerous, after all, our desired outcome is one out of pretty much an infinite number of possible outcomes and none of them are in our control! So are we going to end up disappointed in some way? Generally yes!

Can we instead enjoy and participate fully in the journey itself? Sure we may have an idea of where we'd like to end up, but if we participate completely in each step of the journey the destination is no longer vital for our happiness or contentment, instead it becomes a secondary thing and thus we are more adaptable about where that finish line actually is and what the prize at the end may be. We roll with the punches better, we don't fall over as much and are hurt a lot less, and consequently we find our journey becomes a lot smoother anyway.

Enjoy every step of the journey, each one is precious and will have something to teach you if you want to be taught. The journey is so short anyway, before you know it it will be over, appreciate every second of it, Love as much as you can with all that you are, be compassionate to all around you, each of us is in the middle of our own journey and some of those steps are hard to take. Remove the expectations before they are allowed to remove your enjoyment, if you can't remove them, remember to learn from the disappointment that will inevitibly come from having them. Find your happiness in the journey :o)

Musings on Contentment and Appreciation

2011-05-22T23:27:00.004+12:00

Two in one tonight since I didn't do any last night and these two certainly blend in together I think...

I think these two things are vital in your attitudes to help to combat that ego too, to be thankful for what you DO have and to be content with what you already have, stops you longing for more in a way that would only focus you on what you lack. Sure you can be content and appreciative and still aim to do better in whatever area of your life, be it spiritual or physical, but to have those attitudes in your heart and mind will help keep the dissatisfaction that the ego tries to sabotage us with at bay.

A couple of things about these things is I guess it's easy to have these attitudes when things are going smoothly isn't it, harder to keep hold of when you're facing some challenges, however although it should be easy to do when things are going well, how many of us actually stop for more than 5 mins to appreciate what you have, or what you've just obtained? Often the thrill of obtaining whatever it may be brings in a very thankful attitude for all of an hour, a day, a week, but there is not a lasting contentment with that, all too soon we take the aquisition for granted, we get blase about our attitudes and the appreciation is soon lost under the chase for the next aquisition. I think you have to learn to be content with what you have, at ALL times... after all, what you have right "now" is all you have, if you are not content with what you have you are not honouring the Now as ET would say, you are at odds with what is at this present moment... That is of course, not to say that you can't have goals of things you would still like or things you are still aiming for, but you need to appreciate what you DO have.

Murat Yagan, Elder of Kebzeh, says much the same thing, and it follows that whole "abundance" thing I talked about earlier... Be content with what you have, know that you have what you need at the time, AND (not 'but' as but has a negative connotation) that you can do better. Appreciating what you have doesn't stop you aiming to have more but it will aid you to be happy with what you have right now and if you can't find a contentment and happiness with where you are or what you have right now, what is the point of life???

Appreciating anything, just helps keep that ego at bay. It's not all about being thankful for something to the point of "I'm so lucky I have this in my life" or thinking about how much harder than someone else you worked to get something, it's about honouring that thing, or that person, or that attitude... of realising that with that in your life, your life is 'more', your life is enriched because of it, and by being thankful for that enrichment, it is being thankful for what it has given you right now, not for what you think you can get from it in the future. I guess that's where the contentment comes in too. You are not looking for what you might get from it as a future thing where you are setting it up for a possible failure and yourself for disappointment if it then doesn't happen, you are content with the gift it has brought you at this present moment AND you look forward to having that contentment in the future too.

It is us and only us who controls our attitudes, sure others can influence us but only if we allow them too, whether that allowance is given unconsciously due to the fact we are just not aware how much control our 'mind' or ego has taken over our thoughts and we allow ourselves to be buffetted by others negativity etc, or whether we consciously put ourselves into situations to build ourselves up by putting ourselves into circumstances where we are around others with the 'energy' we want... Groups, individuals, whatever, the energy that helps lift our own, that feel good factor that we want to rub off on us, but unconsciously or consciously only WE control our own internal dialogues and consequently our feelings and emotions, so it is up to us to find contentment and appreciation for what we have in our lives right now.

Do you see the negatives first? Or the positives? Do you grab a negative of "...but! I have this health issue!" or do you bring in appreciation for the support group of family or friends that are around you? Do you grab a negative of "...but! money is short and I can't afford ...." or are you content with what you DO have right now, a roof over your head, food on your table and Love of those close to you? EVERYONE faces challenges in this life, if you can keep an appreciation in focus, if you can find even a tiny contentment in where you are at, those challenges will be perceived as less consuming for a start and often will smooth themselves out quite considerably in external ways too. Keep a positive mental attitude that is NOT just ego based and see how the Universe starts aligning with you and not against you!

"every moment is made glorious by the light of Love."
~ Rumi

Musings on an Ego that Sabotages Us

2011-05-16T00:28:00.007+12:00

Lets think about this ego some more... everything you hear about it or read about it etc, it is talked about as if it is the enemy. It is at odds with the Universe, it is fear based not Love based, it appears to be an out of control, negative, entity that we think is us.

But WHY does it sabotage us in what we want? I mean to say, how did this thing that is apparently not us, take over, make us want more than we can have, make us want what we don't have, and when we get it it makes sure that any pleasure we get from it is short lived, going so far as to cause us to break a relationship that could well have been the right one...

How did the ego get this strong? And why does it fear what it gets when it wanted it in the first place? This has puzzled me since I've been hearing more and more about it...

Perhaps it is simply here so that we can learn how to tranform it... Kebzeh talks about the ego as "our greatest treasure" to be transformed by Love. You cannot rid yourself of it and to try will give you vinegar, but to transform it with Love you will get sweeter and sweeter wine. Makes sense. ET talks about it as the mind. You still need it, but it is a tool to be picked up and put back down when not needed so that it is not constantly "chattering" in your head and in control. So understood that we cannot get rid of it, and for me, knowing it is our sense of individuality for 'afterwards' I wouldn't want to get rid of it, so now onto the 'why?' part of the pondering.

Perhaps it is always looking for the transformation we need to apply to it through the Love aspect... ego seems to always want more, when it gets what it wants it is never satisfied for long. More money, more possesions, a better job for more security, a better relationship, someone who 'gets us', someone who can accept us as we are even though we can't accept them, there is always something missing from what we get that the ego keeps searching for more. Perhaps, just perhaps what it is seeking it will only find when we have actually learned to live beyond ego and yet it fears us doing that too! It tries to make all manner of excuses to keep us from finding that 'God' Love that would enable it to be fulfilled, if indeed that is a reason.

We are here in reality to experience "more." As Jesus said (the only times in the Bible he actually said what his purpose here was) "I have come that you may have life and have it more abundantly." So he came that we may be lead to having more but in a complete and healthy way, rather than ego or fear based.

ET has also said, NOT wanting what 'is' is a contraction of yourself, which goes to follow the same type of reasoning as both Jesus and ET, that to want 'more' but in a non fear based way is actually an expansion of yourself. And here ego can be a valuable tool if used as a 'tool.' Ego is that 'drive' that we have, sure for some people ego can also be a fear of failure hinderance, but it is that burning desire to obtain more, so if directed correctly it could be used as that 'push' to expand ourselves right? If transformed through Love to be working for us rather than just rampaging out of control, it would be helping the expansion of the Energy of the Creator to expand as we ourselves expand.

So that makes sense to me I guess, (gotta love typing this stuff out because in the 2 days thinking about it, that really hadn't presented itself to me LOL) so now where did the fear factor come into it? All the spiritual teachers, the authors, the whoever, talk about ego being fear based, being a negativity based thing, so when or where did this negativity come into it? Obviously if it is transformed by Love it is lacking Love right? If it is fear based or negative based, then it is lacking the opposite which is the 'positive' of Love, so how did it lose "Love" like that? Or was that sense of self, that sense of separation that it is all about, the key to that part? In order to separate from the whole you almost have to be the opposite don't you... a bit like the yin yang symbol, together it makes the whole but within that whole there are the separate pieces and they are opposite to each other and yet containing a part of each other. Is it then, that when we were exploring that sense of self so completely that we expanded THAT lack of Love aspect? And in the exploration and fun we had with that sense of self that we pulled away from the Whole and the Ego continued to grow in its 'opposite' aspect until we identified with it so completely it became 'us.'

I don't know! Suppose it could be, it all makes sense to me at least LOL, others might think completely differently! Just been wondering how the ego got to be like it is, no one seems to have answered that :o)

So it can of course be healed with Love, it can of course be brought back under control, not by contracting it - by trying to shrink it, but instead by expanding OURSELVES through Love to once again be bigger than it, so it again works for us and not against us.

Feel free to give your thoughts, would be interested to hear what others think about this!

Ancient Wisdoms...

2011-05-15T16:29:00.002+12:00

He who knows the ways of beasts and birds.
Who can distinguish them by song and cry,
Who knows the bright quicksilver life in streams,
The courses that the stars take through the sky,
May never have laid hands to books,
Yet he is sharing wisdom with infinity...
He who works with sensitive deft hands
At any woodcraft, will absorb the rain,
The sunlight and the starlight and the dew
That entered in the making of its grain;
He should grow tall and straight and clean and good
Who daily breathes the essences of wood.
He who finds companionship in rocks,
And comfort in the touch of vine and leaf,
Who climbs a hill for joy, and shouts a song,
Who loves the feel of wind, will know no grief;
No loneliness that ever grows too great;
For he will never be desolate...
He shares, who is companioned long with these,
All ancient wisdoms and philosophies.

Old Welsh Prose

and by special request

2011-05-09T02:28:00.004+12:00

a story...

When is Love Wrong?

I won this round. This time I got my way! After all, last couple of times I gave in and you won, so it's only fair that it's my turn this time round! After all a loving relationship is all about compromise isn't it!

We give and we take and we maintain a harmonious balance, we agree, we disagree, but heck at least we communicate! Sometimes I'm right and you're wrong, sometimes (not often) it's the other way round.

We're doing everything right and better still we still love each other.

So why then do I see cracks appearing around me? Why do I feel like I'm in a condemned building? Fighting to save my home but all I have is a hammer and a nail and I just know it's not going to work.

After all, we're doing everything right!

The cracks widen, the structure is trembling and I feel as insecure as I possibly could in this shaky building, but still I'm fighting to fix things, with a hammer, and one nail at a time, I will not quit!

Before my eyes my home is collapsing, like slow motion, walls that kept me safe and secure, a ceiling that sheltered me, this house of love is falling away, leaving me vulnerable and shaken to the core. All my compromises lie broken at my feet, all the communication shattered around me, all the rights and wrongs scattering like dust on the wind.

What was so wrong with my love that is could not stand the test of time? What is left to me now?

I feel the warmth of the sun shining down on my head, I hear the breeze whispering in my ear, I see beyond the walls of my heart. I recognise Love and in that Love I find there is no right or wrong. It's not that there is no room for judgements, it's that there is no NEED for judgements.

There was no room in my home, inside those walls, for a lot of things, but here with no boundaries, with nothing but Love there is no limit.

I do not need to be right, I do not need you to be wrong, I do not need to compromise because there is no compromise. This Love just is.... it is perfection, it is understanding, it is respect and compassion, it is ego less and all encompassing and it has no walls and no end.

Musings on Wisdom

2011-05-09T00:48:00.004+12:00

The teacher who is indeed wise does not bid you to enter the house of his wisdom but rather leads you to the threshold of your mind.
~ Kahlil Gibran

Wisdom as far as common sense is pretty universal right? But a wisdom gained from personal experiences is just that, personal. In that respect Kahlil Gibran has hit the nail on the head, each person must find it for their self, and although external circumstances may shape things, that wisdom is found within, because the answers are found within yourself. And wisdom is all about growth. As Tryon Edwards said "He that never changes his opinions, never corrects his mistakes, and will never be wiser on the morrow than he is today."

Wisdom is being open to all things, wisdom to me is humility too, not too often you see a wise proud man! Wisdom encapsulating the 'enlightment' part of it's definition is just that, enlightenment, freedom from mind, or perhaps rather, the freedom to use mind not be used by it. The Master not the slave.

To me, the wise man has simplified. He knows he is nothing, and lives like nothing is All there is. Out of all the knowledge he has he has extracted the valuable core.

Of course the other wisdom, the intellectual wisdom seems to pale in comparison, with no depth or substance. I like this quote, "Most of our pocket wisdom is conceived for the use of mediocre people, to discourage them from ambitious attempts, and generally console them in their mediocrity." Robert Louis Stevenson. That quote reminds me of the movie The Matrix, give them just enough to stop them seeking more, just enough to satisfy the drive for knowledge which will hush that underlying drive for freedom.

Those that have read much, and speak more are quite obvious aren't they? You probably all know one or know of more... the ones who are always trying to be more than someone else with the knowledge they can spout forth, all ego driven, no substance to it, knowledge without real wisdom, book learnt without experience to back it up.

The truly wise are secure in that wisdom, they have no need to throw it at people, but will always share that wisdom when actually asked, knowing that answering one well conceived question may lead that person to the threshhold of their own mind.

Alex Noble says it well, "If I have been of service, if I have glimpsed more of the nature and essence of ultimate good, if I am inspired to reach wider horizons of thought and action, if I am at peace with myself, it has been a successful day."

oh and this quote I just found... this dude and I are on the same wavelength but he expresses it so concisely and much more elegantly than I do!

The great teachings unanimously emphasize that all the peace, wisdom, and joy in the universe are already within us; we don't have to gain, develop, or attain them. We're like a child standing in a beautiful park with his eyes shut tight. We don't need to imagine trees, flowers, deer, birds, and sky; we merely need to open our eyes and realize what is already here, who we really are -- as soon as we quit pretending we're small or unholy.
~ Bo Lozoff

:o)

The Path of the Spiritual Warrior

2011-05-08T06:44:00.003+12:00

A very good book I got lent to me, A Return to Love by Marianne Williamson. It is Marianne's reflections on the principals of A Course in Miracles... Found a piece in here just now that I like and it is true! When you start on this road to self discovery, things CAN seem to get uglier for you before it gets better, been there done that :o)

(This is actually in the section about relationships)

"Real relationships demand honest communication, and no matter how painful, no matter how frightening. A Course in Miracles says that miracles arise from total communication given and received.

When you ask God to heal your life, He shines a very bright light on everything you need to look at. You end up seeing things about yourself that maybe you'd rather not see. We have a lot of armor that has accumulated in front of our hearts - a lot of fear self-righteously masquerading as something else. As anyone who has ever been in serious psychotherapy is well aware, the process of personal growth isn't always easy. We must face our own ugliness. We often must become painfully aware of the unworkability of a pattern before we're willing to give it up. It often seems, in fact, that our lives get worse rather than better when we begin to work deeply on ourselves. Life doesn't actually get worse; it's just that we feel our own transgressions more because we're no longer anesthetized by unconsciousness. We're no longer distanced, through denial, or dissociation, from our own experience. We're starting to see the truth about the games we play.

This process can be so painful that we are tempted to go backwards. It takes courage - this is often called the path of the spiritual warrior - to endure the sharp pains of self-discovery rather than choose to take the dull pain of unconsciousness that would last the rest of our lives... ...we have to look ego right in the eye before we have the power to relinquish it."

I guess I had forgotten in part, how painful and confusing that part of the process can be, just because I assume people have done it already makes ME the one that is wrong not the person in the arena, fighting for their life...

I will always appreciate a gladiator who goes into the fight with everything they have, those gladiators in my life should really know that... they have a cheerleader in the stands rooting for them to win and come out unscathed...

"The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust, and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who at best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement; who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly." ~ Theodore Roosevelt.

Musings on Reflections

2011-05-08T05:01:00.003+12:00

Having some 'fun' on Trade Me tonight with a rather zealous young man of the Catholic faith. Unfortunately he is judgemental, accusatory and therefore he tends to rub people up the wrong way.... yeah OK, that is an understatement and a half, he's a right royal, loud mouthed, pain in the butt! But still he very firmly believes what he believes! What was amusing was that everything he accused someone of being was EXACTLY what he was doing to them in that very post! It was such a case of him looking at a mirror (or rather, seeing a reflection of himself in someone else) I confess I was rather amused by it. This of course got me thinking about the whole mirroring thing, the relections of ourselves we see in others, the saying "you teach best what you most need to learn" etc and the whole reflection of God part.

Using others, or even animals, as a mirror to ourselves can be a bit of a wake up call! It can show not a very pretty picture at times, but a relatively honest way of doing things... What bugs you most about someone? That is likely to be your issue too! Altho of course, don't be fooled, the polar opposite can actually be the same "issue", don't think you've gotten off that lightly! It's a bit like the bible quote, "And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?" Matthew 7:3. (yeah OK, I chucked that up to the young buck on Trade Me too, didn't help, I'm just satan quoting things I don't know about!) but it's true in this respect, we see the tiniest flaw in another but we don't see the glaringly obvious in ourselves.

So people or animals... both very honest reflections of ourselves if we have to courage to look into those mirrors with eyes open!

Of course outside of that aspect we are also a reflection of God, and better we are a reflector of God. I touched on this in an earlier post, the fact that without us to reflect God, it would be a nameless, voiceless energy force. It's a bit like that zen saying, if a tree falls in a forest with no one there to hear it, does it make a sound? Common sense says "of course it does!" but if no ear witnesses that sound, does that sound exist? (We are talking in more of a philosophical thing hear than a purely physical thing!) Like ET says, if everything in the world was blue, blue wouldn't exist... it needs something that is NOT blue for "blue" to be blue. So it is with God, without us to witness that God Force in creation, it would be but an energy, with us witnessing it, it is more than that. And we can only truly witness it because we are self aware (God bless the ego!) Animals are more in tune with the Source right? To them "we are One" is the obvious truth, so for THEM, the whole world is blue, they have nothing to compare the One too because that is all they see, therefore, God as the Whole, experiences what they experience but is not self aware through them. Because we see ourselves as separate, as an individual part of that Whole we can make the comparison, we can "see" God and when WE see God, God sees Itself through our eyes and is self aware just as we are. When that happens of course we both expand.

Two good and short quotes by Rumi on mirrors...

"If you are irritated by every rub, how will you be polished?"

"Criticism polishes my mirror"

Don't be afraid to be a mirror, but allow yourself to reflect the softer, Loving side of people too, do not be a judgemental, egoic mirror seeking to teach people a lesson by only reflecting their negatives, and don't be afraid to use others as your mirror. Look honestly and make your choice to do something about what you see there if necessary. Growth and change are not bad thnigs! And always strive to be the most complete reflection and reflector of God, anything less would be the 'sin' of separation.

Musings on Freedom

2011-05-08T03:27:00.005+12:00

When I think of freedom I automatically think of "getting free" which makes me picture a prisoner of some sort, and yet more often than not freedom comes from a shift in perception, than a physical release doesn't it?

Most of what traps us is in our own heads, and if it 'traps' us then it is perceived as a negative thing and if you've been following along my musings, we should all know by now, a negative thing is ego based right? So without going back over what ego is (a post back in April if you missed it and care to read my nocturnal musings on it) lets look more at the freedom from it aspect.

When you think of freedom in your life what do you think of? Financial freedom, stemming from a lack? Freedom from a relationship? Ego sabotaged that too? Freedom from a health issue? Freedom from responsibilties? For me, personally, right now, today, I'd have to say the freedom I want is to be loved as wholly as I can be loved, and even that just took me 5 mins to think of LOL. You see, to all extents and purposes I feel free! Sure day to day life can say "where is the money to pay the bills?" it can say "you can't go anywhere else you have a trillion animals you are responsible for." But whatever that day to day life says to me, I chose, I had the freedom of making that decision and I decided. If I discover it's a wrong decision later I have the freedom of making a new choice later, but the freedom is making your choices, the dizzying thought that no one else can make those choices for you unless you hand them that power, and even that is a choice you made and one that can be re chosen later if necessary. What makes this type of thing a freedom rather than a normal day to day life? The fact that we live ruled by ego and it's fears. The fears of making a bad choice, of being stuck with a bad choice, of that choice causing pain, whether it be to yourself or another. Fear of then being trapped, fear of losing ourselves and our wants and desires through a choice or lack of one. All fears of future events that may or may not happen. This freedom from these fears SHOULD be normal for us, but sadly we are generally stuck right in the middle of them and see being free of them as something outside of the norm, something considered by some as almost miraculous!

So the common sense question would be how do we find our freedom from those fears right? By recognising it as ego! So simple! You are not your ego, you are not your fears, your doubts or your pain. You are the being that sees these things, you are the one who listens to the voice, but you are NOT the voice!

Ego doesn't want you to have freedom! If you have freedom, you have no need to listen to its rants, it's ideas, it's insecurities. If you have freedom you have peace and confidence and dare I say it, the all elusive happiness! How long does ego let you be happy for before it does something, anything to sabotage that? I'm gonna do some musings on WHY ego sabotages us like that I think, why when it craves happiness and love and security but it ruins that when we finally find it? We know it does it, look back on your life and I'm sure any one of us could pick at least 10 BIG things in your life where you can say it was ruined because of a fear of some sort, but why? Silly little ego, the things it says it wants most it is most scared of getting!

So freedom is what that good old Love vibration called God gives us... the freedom to make a choice, right or wrong, good or bad, doesn't matter, that's all mind made perceptions anyway, but we are free to choose. If we choose a way that takes us away from harmony with the Whole, they will offer us the choice again, perhaps not in exactly the same form, but it's offered nonetheless. Part of what I used to calling 'passing the tests'. The tests are put in front of you, if you make the wrong choice and fail the test, you will have to sit it again. Does that mean you ultimately have no freedom? That you must choose 'correctly' or be doomed to repeat situations? If you want to look at it like that then I guess you could be right, you have trapped yourself again! If you want to see the ultimate freedom is being in synch with the universe then those tests are just stepping stones to getting to the best possible place to be eh! You can still make your choices! You know what the results will be.... move on and grow, or repeat... the choice is still yours, you are still free to repeat if you like doing that LOL.

Freedom is a state of mind.

Freedom is being free from comparisons, judgements and fears.

Freedom is being liberated from the control of the ego.

That freedom is worth fighting for!

Happy Mothers Day

2011-05-08T00:26:00.003+12:00

on behalf of all your fur babies who will wanting to say it to you!!!

May your special day leave you feeling blessed and appreciated and very very loved.

I will be remembering tomorrow that the drool leaving snail trails on my clothes is being put there because they want to be close to me, that the lack of personal space I'm given is because they are continuously trying to say "I love being with you!" that the hair and dust bunnies and the work it causes me is a small price to pay for the unconditional, undying love they give me... God bless the babies, each and every one :o)

An Early Musing on Reality

2011-05-07T14:12:00.005+12:00

Early because my house is empty and quiet and I need a distraction...

What is real? What is illusion? Can an illusion be real?

I was just talking about this with a very dear friend and it's interesting to see how understandings on something can differ so much according to an individuals perspective.

To me it's very simple, everything is real, even a supposed illusion. If it exists it is "real" even if it exists for a finite time. Just because in a hundred years I no longer exist in form doesn't mean I'm not "real." I look at it very simplistically (being complicated is far too hard, I do like simple it appeals to my lazy nature ;o) if everything is "God" and God is infinite then EVERYTHING MUST be real. The base energy of everything be it a fridge, a person, a planet, space, or the unmanifested energy beyond all of that is Ultimately all the same energy. All vibrating at different frequencies, but not different energy, therefore it stands to reason that if you consider this creative force - God - to be real then everything must be real. Just because energy frequencies change, giving rise to some aspects of the manifestation of that energy being limited in 'time' (the illusion here!) doesn't make that form un-real.

I know some teachers, point to this world of form being almost an illusion, and that only the infinite Awareness is real, but I do think they are talking in very simplistic terms to get a very valid point across. To stop us identifying ONLY with the forms around us, to get us out of mind (ego) identification, and that is a valid concept as a pointer to the bigger picture. The same way some teachers point to the fact that ego is not real either, just an 'off' energy vibration, the thing is, it IS an energy vibration, and being anything at all, it is therefore a part of "God" and as real as anything else. Sure the energy frequency can be altered! No arguments there, sure it can be transformed by subjecting it to the higher frequency of Love, but no matter how it appears right now, it exists! Therefore it is real!

Is this hand I look at real? Does it touch and feel? If I cut it will it bleed? This hand is very real, right Now, in this form it is in and being observed in.

Is it illusion? What is an illusion? One definition is "a false appearance or deceptive impression of reality: the mirror gives an illusion of depth."

In that case, for the majority of people on this planet I guess those teachers talking about the world of form being illusion, are correct! For those locked in identification with mind, in identification with form, then yes, it is a false appearance of reality. Reality is this AND MORE!!! If you cannot see the more and think this is all there is, then yes, it's deceptive and a false impression of Reality, however if you KNOW the truth, if you understand with more than just your mind that we ARE the infinite Source then no, it's not an illusion at all, it's just a part of the Whole truth!

Ah bugger, that's only taken 1/2 an hour of musing and I have too much spare time ahead of me... lets see what else I can come up with to add on here...

Are You Real?

Are you a dream? Will you have slipped away in a fog of memory when I wake? Are you illusion, pretending to be here with me now but in reality you are elsewhere? Can I be close to you when we are apart? Are you Real?

Is what I feel for you love? Is the wanting I feel real? Is it an illusion when I think of you as a gift of God?

What is real? This Love? These feelings? This touch?
Is it illusion? These doubts? These thoughts? The loneliness when you are still beside me?

I ask Myself and out of the Stillness I am answered... Nothing but Love is Real, and All is Love. Why do you doubt what is Real? Why do you doubt Love? Why do you withhold the ecstasy, the expansion and the truth of Love from yourself? I created you as perfect, I created you from Love, you are nothing less and can be nothing more, I Am you and I Am Love and you are blessed by Me as Me. LOVE and Love more, without fear, with abandon, without hesitation, with Me. Love will never leave you, your Love is infinite. Our Love does not depend on anything else to Be, it is complete and it is Real. Your fears are illusion, your fears cannot be realised, you can never lose Love, you can never lose the Loved, you will never be alone, we are One, you and he and I, we are the same, never hold back, never try to be less, never fear loss, loss is illusion, I Am infinite and Love is infinite and eternal, never to be lost, but often to be found. Put down your fears, put down your doubts and Love as I Am Love, completely and fully.

God and I

2011-05-06T06:25:00.002+12:00

well, we had a good wee chat last night. The shower is my contemplation space and while I was soaking away my cares I started exploring how I saw the Awareness. (God is much shorter to type, so for the sake of describing the Creative energy, I'm just going to use God in a very non typically religious way ;o) I was for example able to see it in the water, I was able to see it in the glass shower doors and then I stopped to think that it was also in the air that filled the gap between the two things, and that of course, it was in me too. That sense of self put up a bit of a token resistance here, it tried to insert a gap between everything else and 'me' but of course what was the gap? God! My skin wasn't a barrier, it was God too, took a minute or so to work through each resistance the mind brought up, acknowledging each thing it wanted to use as a separation as God anyway. Once that was done it was all different, realising even my ego, my protesting, sense of self was part of that all pervading Energy, no gap between it and God, I gave it back to God, I surrendered it (again!) to the Whole and then finally I saw things as God sees them through my eyes, when God is allowed to observe it's creations through a self aware being, I know I'll never be able to explain it well enough that you can even glimpse what it was like, but I (God) fell in Love with the shower, the water, the heat, the shower wall and me within that, it felt like a little kid had been let into a candy shop and this time instead of God watching 'me' play in this realm of form, I watched God play and it was liberating and blissful and something incredible.

I'm sure considering I surrendered ego to Myself, I'll have to do it a few times till I figure out how this all works better LOL, but that sense of freedom, that depth of Love, so so incredible, once experienced there really is no going back.

'Die before you die' they say and realise there is no fear, no separation... I think I've died and gone to heaven :o)

A Light in the Darkness

2011-05-05T07:23:00.003+12:00

All in front is darkness.
Fears are alive,
The incessant voice in my head
Feeding pictures of horrors
and dangers ahead.
Fears that have me rooted to the spot.
Thoughts tumbling over each other
My mind is urging me to run
"Run! Turn and run!"
That is the voice of survival!
That is a voice to heed!
But before I can act on it
I feel a presence behind me
So horrified that I freeze.
Mind and body completely still
and in that stillness I realise
my eyes are firmly shut!
I open them, slowly, carefully
and in front of me I see the darkness
of my own shadow.
Turning slowly around
I see the Source
of Light that created that shadow,
a shadow that only exists because
I had turned my back on the Light.
And in that moment, out of the Stillness
I realise darkness is never as deep,
Never as horrifying as that which we see
when our eyes are closed.

The Cosmos

2011-05-04T18:36:00.002+12:00

The Cosmos
(a complete, orderly, harmonious system)

How does a cosmos appear to you?
Do you see it's order in a well kept house or the aesthetically pleasing clean lines of a skyscraper?
Do you see it's harmony in a structured society or a set or laws to keep order?
Do you see it's perfection in the uniform blades of a freshly mown lawn, or a landscaped garden?
Do you cling to a man made Cosmos that enhances your feelings of control and security?
Can you see it's order in a field of wild flowers, colours splattered like a child's finger painting?
Can you see it's harmony in both a drought and a flood? In the destruction and cleansing they bring?
Can you see it's perfection in the new life growing from the rotting tree in a forest growing wherever their seed fell seemingly random and chaotic?
Can you open the box you've put the universe into and see a cosmos in whatever your eye falls on?
Creation is perfect, Creation is harmonious, Creation is complete, Creation is all there is.
The earth moves around the sun, people are born and people die, the tides sweep in and they flow back out.
Where our limited eye sees chaos, Creation sees perfection, expansion and contraction, as is the natural order.
Whether your mind is expanding or contracting, it doesn't matter, it is still of the cosmos, a perfect, whole, harmonious cosmos.
Rejoice!

How to Live ... According to Me :o)

2011-05-04T07:29:00.002+12:00

Question anything, seek your own understanding and your own answers, you are not reinventing the wheel you are seeking your own propulsion system!

Don't accept what others tell you blindly, things must make sense to you personally with depth or they will not stand up in times of crisis.

Remember a crisis is just a time of learning! Accept what is happening right now, if you fight against it you will simply get a sore head from bashing it against that brick wall. The Universe is bigger than you, it knows more than you, it WILL unfold as it should, go with the flow!

Pain will happen! Misery however is optional.

You may be broke, this is a temporary situation... Being poor is a state of mind, choose your thoughts and words carefully!

Positive or negative, flip sides of the same coin, but when you can see one side in fullness, the other side is not seen, if you are sick of being negative, turn the coin over and be positive, it is that simple.

If you're into balance, set that coin spinning on its edge and watch the two sides merge!

Find your balance! Know your capabilities and then stretch them. Like a muscle that will atrophy with disuse, your comfort zone if not stretched will atrophy and become smaller and smaller until it becomes your jail cell.

Recognise that the door is always open, if it doesn't look open to you, try the handle, it is always unlocked, don't believe only what your eyes see in front of you, reach out and touch things, push and prod them, see how things work, then you can make them work for you.

Give yourself 100% to your work, whether it be something you love or a means to an end, you are there so make the most of it! Take pride in yourself and what you do.

Don't be scared to pat yourself on the back! Most other people are so wrapped up in their own circumstances they pay no attention to what is going on around them, so you may not get a "well done" from anyone else. If you deserve it, take it! If you don't deserve it, earn it first.

Remember to share the feel good factor, remember everyone around you is the centre of their own universe, introduce them to a larger universe by inserting some feel good factor into theirs. It will help them look up and out.

If you can't Love everyone around you, remember instead that they too are struggling with that. If you can't Love them, empathise with them. You are in the same world, facing the same challenges, swimming in the same tide.

If you can't Love yourself, Love someone else until you can.

If you can't Love yourself or anyone else, get a dog.

If you have any questions no one can answer for you, ask yourself, you'd be surprised at just how wise you can be.

Remember to LIVE!!! No matter what your beliefs, this life is pretty much all we remember, so live it up! Don't sweat the small stuff, don't sweat the big stuff, just live as if this is your last day on earth.

Have no regrets, make peace with your past, act in the present, and always look forward to possibilities of the future.

But remember, the future will not save you from present unhappiness, only you can do that RIGHT NOW!

Now is all you have. Now you can either bask in Joy, Peace and Love and be happy, or you can truly FEEL any other emotion. Don't dwell on why you feel it, it's either from the past, or a fear of the future, but examine the feeling of the sorrow, the anger, the jealousy, LOOK at that feeling and realise it is not truly you, but a reaction to an experience.

WHO You are is a particle of Light, a Spark of the Eternal, you are NOT pain, or sorrow, you are not anger or hate, you simply experience these feelings as part of your learning here.

Let yourself be more than your emotions.

Let yourself Live.

I actually wrote this back in February and basically straight afterwards had a full on battle with ego over some things, even I was challenged to follow my own advice!!!! But we got back there and into balance again LOL.

Music not Musings!

2011-05-03T11:13:00.006+12:00

I must confess since I've been trying to live beyond ego and in Love I really hate listening to a lot of love songs on the radio (well, not hate, but you get the picture) it's all about shallow love lost and blah blah blah, and hard to find something worthwhile listening too... but October Project are great, have loved them for years and been listening to them a lot at the moment :o) Have just heard they are in the throws of recording a new album too (without Mary Fahl the lead vocalist) but the same song writers and other singers etc. Should be good stuff, can't wait!

Read through these lyrics and tell me they're not talking about spiritual stuff here :o)

Now I Lay Me Down...

out of the silence
Into the blue
You finally remember where you've been
You finally remember who you are
And you remember the light

Out of the spirit
Into the flesh
The animal heartbeat in the chest
The naked desire
The appetite
But you remember the light

Now I lay me down
To dream
Out of the fire
Into the night
Communion of body into smoke
Human and sacred
The sacrifice
You will remember the light

Now I lay me down
To dream
Now I lay me down
To dream of light

One Dream...

In this dream of life and death
I know so much I will forget
I know your body and your breath
I know your rhythm and your touch
I want you here
I want so much
I fear too much

Far too human to let go
I fight the river and the flow
I fight the love and the fear

I do not want to leave you here
In one body you appear
In this dream

I dream
And I still want so much
To touch the inside

I dream
And I still want to stay
Inside this dream with you

Now I know
That every dream begins with you
And ends in time
Now I know
That maybe I am too alive

If I could speak in tongues of flame
I'd burn forever with your name
And take it with me through all time
I would remember who you are
In every life I'd touch your heart
In every dream

I dream
And I want so much
To touch the inside

I dream
And I still want to stay
Inside this dream with you...

and here they are :o)

If I Could...

If I could
I would always tell the truth
I would always love you
From the heart

If I could
I would take you in my arms
Take you inside
Into my heart

If I could
I would be the place you turn
When you're feeling lonely
Or afraid

I would shine
Like a lantern in the dark
Take you inside
Into my heart

When you feel as if
You don't know who you are
I'll remind you with my love

If I could
I would always keep you safe
Take you inside
Into my heart

When you feel as if
You simply can't go on
I'll remind you that you're strong

If I could
I would love you as you are
Take you inside
Into my heart
Into my arms
Into my life.

Who Am I?

2011-05-02T19:37:00.003+12:00

Asked some friends for a few more topics to blurb on about and have got some interesting ones! Well, interesting to me LOL. This one is one that could be so many answers on so many levels and I know I tend to be long winded anyway, so I'll TRY to keep this as concise as possible!

Wow, how this answer has changed over the years! How it's changed just in the last couple of months!

Who am I? I'm Kelley-Anne. Born and bred in New Zealand. Raised Catholic, married at 19, was a mechanic, a cop, married again at 33, a mum and now all sorts of things including an Animal Communicator.

That's just a teeny part of my background that makes up who or what I am, all those past experiences shaping me, moulding my outlooks, my beliefs, strengthening parts of me, weakening others, leading me down certain paths and keeping me away from others. Although there were some problem areas in my past, I have always looked for positives from them, I learned how to look for lessons, find the gifts and say thank you for whatever was chucked at me. I started recognising things with hindsight which I was aware of enough that when the shit hits the fan in situations I'm IN I can start looking for reasons and if they remain unseen, I can at least look for the gifts so I don't get dragged into the negativity the same anymore.

All that was happening along side of the questioning "why are we here?" "What is real?" "What IS God?" and so that personal growth came along side tearing apart my beliefs, re evaluating them and making them fit me personally. I needed answers that the Catholic Church couldn't give me to my satisfaction, so I decided what it was I believed and what I didn't and it brought me comfort and peace, and like I said to a mate... "who cares if it's wrong? I won't know till after I'm dead anyway and even if it's wrong then it did it's job NOW, and that's what I needed."

Then I found some people who backed up what I believed anyway! That was nice to know people who could get books published and were "well known" thought the same sort of thing that I did!

The years tick on by, times of stagnation, times of preparation, and then times of big change and each bit I look back on from the vantage point of now and can see how it all fits together like a ladder to bring to me this point right here, right now, and dang, but this is an incredible point to be at! What I believed I'm now 'experiencing' this is what I've been aching for for years!

So in the deepest sense of "who" I am, I've never changed, I'm energy vibrating at a particular frequency giving the illusion of solid matter, I have a sense of self and an awareness of that which is "more" than just what we can see. I am a child of "God" (is as good a word as any!) and as a part of that Creation, I am made up of that infinite energy source, so although it seems an incredibly simplistic thing to say, I have come to know I Am God.

Who I am is God, who I am is also Kelley-Anne, the witness to God. Without us witnessing God, God would very simply be 'energy', with us witnessing God, with us reflecting God, we and God are both more than that, we are consciousness, awareness and Love.

God sees through our eyes... when we look around us and see 'things' God sees 'things'. When we look around us with the knowledge that whatever our eye sets upon we are looking at a part of ourselves, a part of God, God becomes self aware, God sees itself and God is then God, not just an electromagnetic energy that fluked creation by the nature of the energy it is.

Who am I? I am you, I am the word you read, the breath you take, I Am :o)

Not really a musing at all ...

2011-05-02T06:55:00.002+12:00

saw a lovely clip on you-tube last night put up by someone who has done a lot of video's to Rumi's poetry... this one was a clip about kisses... snippets of lots of different poetry etc, was very cool, thought I'd do something about that sort of thing myself and as it was a busy night at work tonight and not much spare time it's lucky it's short to boot LOL

When you are in the embrace, become the embrace, Become the kiss ~ Osho

The world is born when 2 people kiss ~ Octavio Paz

Lovers meet under a starry sky,
coming together to create one soul
Passions igniting, blood burning,
as their lips meet, their bodies share secrets
The self melts away and is replaced with Self
Neither knowing where they stop and the other begins.
As the Love vibrations merge and magnify
It ripples out into the Universe
and in their Loving God quivers in rapture.

And just because this song popped into my head while thinking about it yesterday :o)
The Power of Love - Frankie Goes to Hollywood

This time we go sublime
Lovers entwine devine devine
Love is danger, Love is pleasure
Love is pure, the only treasure

I'm so in love with you
purge the soul
make love your goal.

the power of love
a force from above
cleaning my soul.

Musings on Space

2011-04-30T23:15:00.007+12:00

Well 'space' was the first topic to come up, 'surrender' was a close follower and while watching Jet Li in 'Hero' tonight, the scene in which the 2 love birds Broken Sword and Flying Snow fight and Broken Sword drops his sword at the last moment at which point of course he is stabbed by Flying Snow... She says to him "why didn't you fend off my sword?" and he replies "so that you'd believe me." Of course what followed when she knelt behind him after he had died and told him she was taking him home now and pushed the sword right through him and into her was even sadder *sob* but rolling with the "S" words it brought up 'sacrifice'.... All of which are applicable and relevant to me right now. Who knows how long each one will end up, so I may break it into 3 different posts, lets see how fast I can type, only got 8 hours in a shift! LOL (luckily the post time of these posts goes off the start time and not the finish time hehehe)

Space, the final frontier... Eckhart Tolle talks about Space as being that in which other things exist, or the space that allows something to Be... A nice way to describe it, the space which allows something to Be. Of course generally when we think of space it conjures up thoughts of emptiness doesn't it, so giving someone space means giving them an empty place, but when you consider that space, in the context of something which allows something to Be, you would have to be talking about unmanifested Energy, or God, at which point Space becomes nothing but Love, and Love is anything but empty, but Love will always give you space in which you can Be...

My God, but when I look at what I've learnt in the last 4 mths I think it's more than I've learned in my entire life to this point, those stepping stones in life are just always there at the right time in the right place huh? Who knows where you'll find the next one, hidden in the mists of time, but hell you're always thankful for the ones behind you, and the one you're jumping on right now, well, I guess, that one is the single most important one since you're balancing on it LOL. The things I believed before, I now KNOW to be true. I know of the interconnectedness of all things, I know how to still the mind enough to recognise the ego, heck just today, I heard it SHOUTING at me, like a completely different person in my head, "ARE YOU CRAZY??? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!!!" LOL, I know what that Space is, that Space is within me too, I can take refuge in that Space, that Love, I can turn to that when I feel puny and like I'm sinking, and that Spaciousness just lets me Be, and the Love lets me have Peace, and the ego finds it harder and harder to be heard. I've also learned how hard it can be to make space for someone in your life, and yet in other respects, how completely easy it is. Perhaps it's as simple as having learnt to recognise Space that it seems natural to try to ensure there is some there, maybe it's just all about timing LOL. Certainly opening your life to make room for someone else is a beautiful thing to do, it sort of reminds you that you are not a 'whole' on your own, everything is connected.

So I guess I've given myself space to just Be, and I've learned how to do that for others too... I've learned what unconditional Love is.... sucky to the ego at times, but it's all that is left when you strip the ego away, no conditions, no expectations, just a plain and simple I Love You no matter what and the Space in which that Love exists. I guess that Space, that Love, that's home... I've been led home and for that I'm eternally grateful, home is, afterall, where the heart is.

Surrender! (heck these aren't taking long at all!!!) I have a tattoo on my wrist in Chinese calligraphy that in it's most simple translation equates I guess to "surrender". Hadn't actually thought of it as that before, but when I was thinking about what surrender means, then I guess it does in fact mean that. How can you fight what is??? You can't!!! What is, IS, and it's going to be that no matter what you do, so why would you cause yourself pain or anguish or anger and hatred about something that very simply is??? Surrender to what Is, surrender to the Love in which that which Is is found! Labeling it good or bad, right or wrong, will do nothing to alter what is, only how you perceive it to be, I prefer the least painful perceptions thanks!!! I've had enough pain and suffering to last me a lifetime! Now I like to alter my perceptions, it may not be what I would choose for myself if I could control things, but heck it is what is in front of me, so accept it, accept what surrounds that situation as that which is within me too... accept the fact that all is connected, surrender to that and make your peace with what Is. As ET would say "anything else is insanity".

It makes me feel a bit like someone working a 12 step program, but where I've always believed God helps those who help themselves, I understand now that while that is true, there are things you CAN surrender - control, ego, fear based things. The universe is unfolding as it should, you can bash your head against the brick wall trying to stop it, or you can yield to it, surrender to it, go with it and who knows, maybe you'll find out that what the universe had planned for you far exceeded what you'd hoped for anyway!

And that brings us to the last of the three... Sacrifice, the surrendering of something for the sake of something else.

Life is so short, so precious, this experience of 'form' so vibrant so 'alive' that it seems like a crime to waste any part of it, but sometimes for the Peace of another you need to make a sacrifice.

A lot of parents or even animal owners say it's easy eh... I'd lay down my life for my children or animals, and yes, when we see a threat to the safety or well being of a loved one it's a pretty easy call to make! When you love them enough that you put them first without thought of return or reward knowing you are saving them from a physical harm. Is it harder to contemplate when there is no physical harm being threatened? Hell yes! Particularly when we are asked to be the sacrifice right? Far too easy for the ego to fall into victim mode and make a story out of the situation that you can then identify with... Poor me! But how can you do anything but what is asked if Love is involved?! How can you not want what is best for the other person, how can you not willingly sacrifice whatever is asked of you? Like a lamb being led to slaughter, there is no real choice in it, you surrender to it because you see the truth of it. In doing it for their sake you are doing it for yours. Having discovered the Love that we are, how can you contemplate withholding that from another? No conditions means freeing them to do what they want to do whether we like it or agree with it or not, it means Loving them enough to allow them to Be. Funnily enough when you get to that point you realise it doesn't cost you anything, any sacrifice for another doesn't take that Love away from you, that Love you have for them doesn't depend on being reciprocated, and that Love will not be diminished unless you (your ego) allows it to be.

Sure, we can make a story out of it, something to identify with, something to give us the right to feel hurt or the bigger person, or whatever, heck, we sacrificed our happiness for them, or our love for them, but if we can tell a story honestly, if we can do it from total Love, we can say we sacrificed our ego for them... I reckon we are the winners then! :o)

Everything comes with a gift in it's hand for us, it is up to us to identify that and take hold of it... Appreciate the gifts you receive and Love those who have sacrificed things of their own that we may get them, whether they are aware of the sacrifice or not.

Lots and lots of learning, lots and lots of making sure I stay in Love, I guess while I may want things to be different, I can't complain when I keep finding gifts can I?!

I hope you all can find Peace and Love, that you can all recognise that you have within you the space to Be, and that you can surrender your ego's to the God/Love that you are.

Musings on Real Love

2011-04-25T23:27:00.013+12:00

What is "love" to you personally? According to Richard Bach Love is the most mangled word aside from God, and I must say I have to agree with him! Both words should be a signpost to something that in reality cannot be explained by words, but the words now are cheap and nasty, thrown around so often without thought that they mean nothing compared to what they COULD mean!

I guess that has a lot to do with us being such a verbal species doesn't it... we have to be able to explain something to someone else, and if they don't get what we mean, if their level of understanding is not equal to our own, we have to dilute what we want to say until they can grasp the concept at least enough to participate in what we are talking about. We also learn to say without feeling... how often do we say "I love you" to someone or something and not FEEL what we say? We pay lip service only. I've noticed this a lot when talking to animals about how their owners feel about them. The owner could say it 10 times a day, but if it is lip service only what is it the animal "hears"? Nothing! FEEL it and let them hear it through that energy.

The word love now has 3 very different levels of meaning, the first two based very much in the realm of ego... the love of the lovable, love of something because you get something from that, and lastly the Unconditional Love, worthy of it's very own capital letters!

on page 3 of 17 on one site I went to and searched "love quotes" I finally found something talking about more than an egoic love and it's by my beloved Rumi the sufi poet...

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it" - Rumi

And there lies a huge truth and even more, and more again hidden in the layers you could stip away of that one sentence.

Ego has constructed many barriers against Love, for the Unconditional Love denies ego of it's sense of self. That Love is infinite and eternal and that Love is WHAT WE ARE! Don't seek it outside of yourself, don't seek it in someone else, just remove the barriers of your ego, remove your fears, your doubts, remove your thoughts that say anything but, shut the ego up and FEEL it for yourself. That Love that allows everything to simply BE as it is, that Love that expects nothing, demands nothing, doesn't judge and doesn't label. Can you do that? To anything? Can you Love yourself like that? Do you place expectations on yourself and others? Then it's not unconditional is it...

Do you love beautiful things? Or do you Love things and they are then beautiful in the light of that Love?

Do you love another person because their love for you gives you value? Or do you Love yourself, perceived flaws and all and then have the freedom to extend that Love to another?

Do you put conditions on your love? I will love you if.... I will love you because... Find something innocent, find something pure, a new born baby, a puppy, a flower open to the sun, a bird in flight, just look at it, feel the awe, feel the joy, feel the Love, there is no "I love you because..." there is only I Love you. In things of innocence, in pure things, the Love that is manifested in form, that is in everything we see or touch is mirrored back so perfectly. If you quiet the mind, remove all labels it wants to put on things, you will feel it ripple through your heart and soul, you will feel it disturb the mind, for a split second you will be lost for words, there you have touched the Love that is already within you. There in that moment you have rediscovered the Love that is your birth right, the Love that is your greatest gift to yourself and the world.

You have that Love already, you don't need to seek it, you ARE that Love already, you just need to learn to recognise it again, in yourself, in others, in 'things'. Everything is perfect just as it is, nothing needs to be changed or added. Nothing needs to be altered or adjusted, whatever it is you are perceiving IS that Love already, that perfect, omnipotent Love. It will be that whether you love it or not, whether it satisfies your expectations or not. It IS that Love already, not judged, complete, unconditional, as are you...

How do you truly explain the lack of demand this Love has, how can you truly explain the freedom finding this Love gives you? So hard, and so the word is already mangled and mutilated, but the truth of it is there no matter what.

You ARE unconditional Love, whether you feel it or recognise it or not. Do not seek it, it's like looking everywhere but at a mirror to find yourself, but learn to still the judgmental mind, learn to quiet the ego and rediscover that Real Love for yourself! Live in that Love and allow yourself to be a mirror that others are able to look at and are able to feel 'special', whole, invaluable and perfect just as they are.

My Love...

I sought you, My Love, for many years, despairing of ever finding you.
I sought you in many lands, knowing you had to be somewhere.
I sought you in many faces, praying I would recognise you.
I sought you, My Love, because I knew you were my One and only.
I sought you because I needed your Love.
I sought you because I knew only you could save me.

I confess I became disillusioned after time
I confess I became disenchanted as I toiled through deserts
I confess I became disheartened when the faces I looked into were empty of you
I confess I became discouraged and vowed to seek you no more in despair.

It was then, when I stopped looking, I found you.
It was then, when I was still that I saw you.
It was then, when I was quiet that I heard you.
It was then, when I had no expectations that I felt your Love.

Now I know My Love
Now I know your name
Now I know your face
Now I know I Am in Love.

"Throughout our lives we long to love ourselves more deeply and to feel connected with others. Instead, we often contract, fear intimacy, and suffer a bewildering sense of separation. We crave love, and yet we are lonely. Our delusion of being separate from one another, of being apart from all that is around us, gives rise to all of this pain."
~ Sharon Salzberg

Musings on Heroes

2011-04-25T02:32:00.005+12:00

Hero -
noun, plural -roes;
1. a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities.
2. a person who, in the opinion of others, has heroic qualities or has performed a heroic act and is regarded as a model or ideal: He was a local hero when he saved the drowning child.
3. the principal male character in a story, play, film, etc.
4. Classical Mythology .
a. a being of godlike prowess and beneficence who often came to be honored as a divinity.
b. (in the Homeric period) a warrior-chieftain of special strength, courage, or ability.
c. (in later antiquity) an immortal being; demigod.

We spend our whole life watching them fly across a screen, with super powers, always "more" than we are, always there in the nick of time to catch us as we fall, to save us from the evil villian, but really, what is a hero?

A hero to me is the one who lets you fall, the one who is there beside you as you go splat, the one who knows that your biggest gains will be from picking yourself up again. To me a hero is one who will open your eyes to the fact there is no evil villian but the one your own fears have made. Now THAT in todays society is a brave act! In our society at the moment we like to play the blame game don't we... There is no taking responsibility for our own actions any more we blame everyone else for our shortcomings, from our parents to teachers, to government, employers, even the non performing hero is likely to be turned into a zero if he doesn't live up to our 'save us from having to take any responsibility' games we play.

How many of us would even recognise a Hero that is saving us only from ourselves? How firmly are our blinkers on to the fact that we are the villian, our own worst enemy that we are wanting to be saved from? And if a true superman existed to save us in the nick of time, how long would it be before we blamed him when he couldn't get there in time to save us from the position we had put ourselves in simply because we were now prepared to take stupid risks knowing someone would get our asses out of the fire before it was all too late? How long would it be before our lack of true gratitude, our lack of true respect due to the lack of responsibility we should be taking, would turn that hero against those he was trying to save? How long before that crutch, became a wheelchair, became a coffin?

Lets face it, while we can blame someone else for our failings we will continue to die a little, we certainly won't be Living, Loving or growing!

So where is the hero that risks disdain, abuse and contempt in order to help you learn? He is the one who is there DESPITE the disdain, abuse and contempt you heap upon him, the one who will ensure you DO get up again after hitting the deck, even if it means kicking your butt until you get up yourself! The true hero is the one who comes from a place of real Love, who knows what you actually NEED better than you do and will help you get through it, maybe battered, maybe bruised, but wiser, more complete as a person, and perhaps, just maybe, ready to be a hero yourself...

So come on, hands up.... who wants that job? There is no wonder there is a lack of heroes out there huh? Takes a special type of someone to put up with all we heap upon them and still come back for more!

To my heroes.... I thank you from the bottom of my heart xxxx

Musings on Inspiration

2011-04-24T23:28:00.009+12:00

World English Dictionary
inspiration (ˌɪnspɪˈreɪʃən)

— n
1. stimulation or arousal of the mind, feelings, etc, to special or unusual activity or creativity
2. the state or quality of being so stimulated or aroused
3. someone or something that causes this state
4. an idea or action resulting from such a state

from L. inspiratus , pp. of inspirare "inspire, inflame, blow into," from in- "in" + spirare "to breathe".

I have been wanting to write a bit lately but I get stuck for topics, I tend to try them on for size and then reject them or get stuck on them, so much easier if someone just gives me a topic and I'll make something fit or get inspired LOL. I was given a list of 5 or so 'topics' and one of them was "inspire"... I was intrigued as to where this might start and finish so thought I'd ponder it on a night shift and explore it.

What or who inspires me and what is the inspiration for? Heck going off that definition, inspiration for me would cover doing housework, LOL, that's an unusual activity for me, but I guess that in itself is actually quite fitting because I HAVE found myself inspired to do some lately!

Authors inspire me, and a couple in particular inspire me to LIVE... Eckhart Tolle would have to be an obvious one lately, Murat Yagan of the Kebzeh tradition another, and Richard Bach (author of Illusions, one of my all time favourite books!) would be a third. They all certainly inflame me, certainly stimulate me, and arouse in me the NEED to do this, the NEED to move on, to overcome the obstacles, to be more, to break free from the illusions of ego and not only find the truth, but to LIVE that truth. Not only do they inspire but of course by way of the books, they guide too, they don't just light you on fire and that's it, you're on your own, but you are guided through to an outcome of that particular desire, which is fine by me, I'd rather recreate myself than the wheel and find my creativity there.

How do they inspire? I guess so much is dependent on where you are in your journey. I must confess timing appears to have much to do with it, something read once years ago meant nothing compared to what it means now. I guess you have to be in the right place at the right time, and perhaps then the inspiration will come, in reality, from anywhere anyway! For me, with these guys, I was very ready to move on with working on myself, and all three are so different in styles, but I guess all three of them were recognised as telling the 'truth' as I believe it. Something about each of them, just touched the core of me and screamed "this is it!!! Listen up!!!" Each of them makes me want to push the limitations I've place on myself, each of them makes me want to be the 'more' we are all capable of being when we realise the truth of what we are.

That of course then sets me on a path of development that allows me to find inspiration in all sorts of other places. A chance quote read on FaceBook, a belief in me that someone important to me has, I am inspired to be 'more' do 'more' and I do believe so far, that this being 'more' has as little ego in it as I'm capable of getting right now, particularly when it is to do with a belief or expectation that someone else may have of you. A fine line being walked there and you have to be aware as much as you can that it's being attempted or done for the right reasons, and I know if the changes or creativity I'm being inspired to do are to be lasting it has to be for the right reasons, it has to be done for me first and foremost.

Working on from there of course, all the above things have led me to exploring the Force, the Awareness, the Creator, recognising it in things, in people, conversing with it and feeling not only what it is, but what I am! So now my inspiration is that Awareness that I can find in the keyboard of the computer I'm typing on, it was felt in the river, the trees, the birds when we stopped at a river today driving home, it is found in a loved one by my side. It is felt as Peace in my soul, it is seen in the depth everything gains, it is acknowledged as the lack of separation between everything, it is inspiring because I want that all the time!

I really don't want the insecurities of ego, I really don't want to the pain that thinking from ego brings, I don't want to live in fear, I don't want to doubt myself and others, I don't want a fear of the future, I want that Peace in my heart, I want that Love in my life, I want to know that nothing matters enough in this world of form to disrupt those things. I want to be able to allow others to BE, I want to be able to allow MYSELF to be, I want these things to be unshakeable, so I use whatever inspiration I can at the time, whichever one resonates most strongly at the time, to secure that Peace and that Love, and I try to remember to be gentle with myself... I'll slip up at times, ego will interfere, it may cause me to doubt any number of things, but it finds it harder and harder to do so, particularly with the things I've found to be true through experience now. It can't make me doubt the Peace and true Love that I've experienced, although it may try to make me doubt I deserve that, it can certainly try to make me fear a future without that, but then that stems from a whole 'nother story so lets just leave it with saying, I'm more and more onto that ego!

So that is what inspiration is for me right now, I'm sure as my journey progresses that will change. All pretty selfish stuff LOL, but hey, can't even serve as a good example if I can't at least get that stuff right first right? Let alone create something others will appreciate!

Happy Easter!

2011-04-24T22:13:00.002+12:00

hope you've all had a fantastic weekend so far, have just gotten home from visiting Christchurch for a couple of days. You know those days you literally just want to crawl into bed? Yeah well that's me right now, and just about to head off to work for the night shift. I guess I'll rely on doing some musings shortly to help keep me awake and bring me some sanity, but right now, really wishing I could just crawl into bed and hide from the world!

Hope you all enjoy your family time, and those here in NZ give some time to remember our Soldiers past and present on ANZAC Day on Monday.

Keep all that chocolate away from the furry crew, they really do NOT need it!!!

Musings on what God would say...

2011-04-18T00:32:00.002+12:00

I thought tonight I would do it a little differently :o) I had thought of a topic while in the shower tonight but promptly forgot it again so have gone with this instead... a conversation between the Creator in whatever form it takes for you and a Human Being in the grips of ego...

God Says...

"Why do you break My heart?"

"It is not me doing anything to you, I have my own problems!"

"Why do you bring Me such pain?"

"I'm not doing anything to you! I have enough pain of my own!! What makes you think I would want to pass that on?"

"Why do you continue to hurt Me so?"

"Why do you say such things? I've told you it's not me, I don't know what you're talking about!"

"You have taken things that are not rightfully yours and now you hold on more tightly to them than what is yours by right. What is worse is that you don't even truly want what you have taken and yet now it is in your possession you cling to it as if to stop the owner returning and reclaiming what is theirs!"

"You have me all wrong, I would take nothing from someone else, I would do nothing to cause them pain, my intentions are good, why do you accuse me of this?!"

"You have picked up fear, you are holding tightly to insecurities, you have clothed yourself in anger, sadness and pain, be aware these are not yours, you have no right to these, let them go! Put them down! Claim no ownership of them!

"You turn to Me with these things and you place the blame for them at My feet, you say it's not your fault, you deny responsibility for picking them up, yet no one gave them to you! No one said to you 'here take these, I have crafted them specifically for you,' no one offered them to you as gifts, and yet you have them in your possession!

"You say you do not cause Me pain, you say you do not break My heart and yet you do these things to yourself with your ill gotten gains. Do you not see we are the same? Do you not see My Light within you? Do you not realise you are a part of Me? As you hurt yourself with your fears, you twist a knife in My side. As you blame everything and everyone else for your state of Being, My Being shudders under the onslaught of your violence. As you hold on to the pain of your Unconsciousness your heart bleeds and Mine breaks for the suffering you cause yourself, for what you do to yourself you do to Me.

"You say you would never hurt anyone and that your intentions are good and yet you bully yourself, you have no tolerance for yourself, you judge and condem yourself and your own actions or lack thereof. You are never good enough, you never have enough, you ridicule your own dreams and bemoan your lack, and with all of this you slap Me in the face and you tell Me I Am not enough for you.

"Like a willful child seeking attention, you cause yourself pain, and cry out for help as you turn away from that help. You say it is not you doing it and yet the part of you doing this is of you and you are of Me and thus we are One and now I must watch you suffering, and now I must feel your pain. Because you are the most precious of my Love I gave you the greatest gift of all, I gave you Will, and now I must watch you use that as you claim ownership of these things as if a common thief.

"They are not gifts for you! Put them down! Use my gift of Will to choose to return these things to their rightful heir, use the power of your Will to recognise what it is you have done and rectify this. Take off the mantle of pain you wear like a fine robe, take off the crown of unconsciousness, put down the sorrow, the anger, the jealousy. Let go of the fear, the despair, the anxiety!"

"I didn't know! I didn't see! Where shall I leave these things? Who do I return them to? You know I don't want them if they are not rightfully mine! But what is truly mine? What will I have left if I give them away? "

"Lay them at my feet for they are Mine. You have separated them out from the Whole, experienced them and now they get returned to Me. There is no requirement for you to take possession of them again, but my loved one, due to your Will, I know sometimes you will be a thief in the night and want to claim these things again for yourself. And you will hurt yourself, and you will hurt Me and when you've had enough of that pain, of that self destruction, I will again tell you to return them to their owner, and in that moment again before releasing them, you'll again ask, 'what will I have left if I give them away?' and I will tell you that you already have everything you desire and you always will. If you desire it you have Love, if you desire it you have Peace. If you desire it you have Joy. If you desire it you have dissatisfaction. If you desire it you have pain. If you desire it you have loss. I have already given you Everything, should you desire it, it is Yours, and All I have ever given you is Love..."

Nothing that comes and goes is you.
"I'm bored." Who knows this?
"I'm angry, sad, afraid." Who knows this?
You are the knowing, not the condition that is known.
~ Eckhart Tolle

Musings on Forms and the Formless

2011-04-17T01:01:00.001+12:00

or the Manifested and the Unmanifested :)

Have had a great start to the weekend, with plenty of Eckhart Tolle, plenty of acceptance, a little kink in the serenity so I had to decide, was I going to say something about it, or accept it.... I decided what I wanted to know lay within the realms of ego so decided I was not going to ask it at all, it was not ultimately important and then had it answered a couple of hours later anyway LOL. I also had a couple of epiphanies (I like that word!) The first one came about with a what may need a little back ground explanation... The person who I have been working the Eckhart Tolle stuff with (let's call him Bruce to protect his identity - oh hang on, his name IS Bruce LOL) has since I found my acceptance been losing his own peacefulness (timing is always great for these things eh, I REALLY needed to have found my Peace for this, just as he still needed his while I was doing battle with my pain body ego prior!) It has been noticeable to me, and I've just been keeping myself centered and tried to be encouraging with the Tolle stuff without antagonising etc, knowing he'd find his way out the other end just like I did.... however while he was living more in the realms of the "mind" or ego it had been really hard for me to sense that "Awareness" or God in him, which prior I'd been able to recognise so easily! So anyway, the last few days, I'd been aware of the shift back in him to that more centeredness which I must say was a relief LOL and this morning I was trying to sense that Awareness again. I started with it in myself, pretty easy, took it then to outside of myself, pretty easy, and then pushed it that little bit further to find it in Bruce and all of a sudden it was all linked together!!! There was no separation between us or what was between us by way of space, it was one of those "OOOOOH! WOW!" moments, unfortunately the "OOOOOH!" distracted me from what I had sensed and it dropped away again, but it was really incredible for that brief moment of time! No separation.... all One... to believe that is one thing, but to experience it is a whole 'nother thing!

So having lost that Oneness aspect of it but still sensing that Force within myself I asked where it was in Bruce, why I couldn't find it as easily in him when he was caught up in his own mind, and it answered that is WAS Bruce... I guess I'd been thinking of any of us as "Godly" when we were conscious and living egoless and as "human" when we were caught up in ego and mind... I'd put an additional separation and judgment in there and was reminded that that Intelligence that is the Creator and Creation IS that creation! Not just a part of it, but it IS our personalities and our ego's as well, not just the "best bits" of us! A silly thing to have to be reminded of I guess, but a good reminder! And of course helpful in being able to find/recognise that Force that I was trying to sense in others.

Later watching some ET (Eckhart Tolle is just too long to type out every time!) DVD he was talking about time and how fleeting it is. How if we could watch a sped up recording of anything for 3000 yrs we'd see how even the most solid thing in this world of form decays and simply crumbles away and how this should help remind us not to identify with the world of form (as in be ruled by it and identify so completely with it and 'Time'). However I got something else out of that.... much like the young cat I reported about 6 mths ago and his take of ego being for the purpose of giving us some separation so we didn't lose ourselves in the "whole" again later, I got from this "forms" being temporary compared to the Source that is the formless, that we are here, manifested in form to experience what the unmanifested cannot... The God Force, the Energy that is both Creator and Created, is infinite and thus I guess, in majority it is unmanifested (non physical) energy.... a non physical energy has nothing to 'sense' does it? And yet here we are, experiencing a purely physical dimension, experiencing touch, taste, sight and sound, all of which can ONLY be experienced by this Source through us! Each sense is precious, and more precious because time is so fleeting... once we return to the Source Energy, we will no longer have the capacity to touch, to feel a loved ones face, to see them with eyes, to hear their voice with ears. Oh yes, we'll KNOW it, as the Source KNOWS it, but it knows it without having experienced it like we can as a manifested individual. It only knows it through us! How precious a gift, be have this tiny piece of time and form to do with what we will.... to experience what we can particularly in a physical sense... to the unmanifested Love is all that there is, to us there is Love coupled with touch, with sight, with pride, with lust, with all manner of things that only WE can bring into the equation, what a gift for us, what a gift we are to the Source.

Everything in our world is so temporary and so very very precious and yet the loss of it is nothing to be mourned, it will not cease to exist afterwards, it is not reliant on our memories, it is and will always be a part of the Creation and the Creator, an experience of expansion, glorious and vital and oh so important! Pay attention to what your senses give you, pay attention to what your eye falls on, what your ears hear. Pay attention to what your skin feels and to what you taste, let it be a miracle even if it's just once in a while, the experience of our physical senses is as I see it a vital part of what we can give to the Whole, of our gift back to the Creative Energy, something it cannot have without us being present, and something it receives so much more if we are AWARE when we are experiencing it...

Can you tell that really struck a chord with me today? LOL

So a wonderful start to the weekend, I love learning new things, I don't care if that is ego based LOL, I love it! That new knowledge, that new awareness, the newness to experiences it brings. I hope you guys can find some 'newness' too, to "see the world thru a childs eyes" as some famous person once said LOL.

Musings on the Ego...

2011-04-11T00:26:00.005+12:00

It's always interesting how well timed signposts are in appearing if we are aware of them...

Here I am quite happy with how my acceptance learning is going, and in the space of a phone call I become aware just how much ego is still involved and how there are still little things the acceptance isn't 'honest' in yet... Nice thing is I have become aware of it without feeling a negative attachment to it, so I can now add that to the list of things to be 'conscious' about to ensure that I catch the ego before it does its little digs, before it makes its oh so subtle judgments, so all good! Onwards and upwards and glad to know I'm not the only one going to benefit from me becoming aware of this!

So rolling on from there I guess tonight will see me musing about ego and how I notice mine, how I deal with mine when I'm aware of it or made aware of it and how crafty I've noticed it can be trying to slide on in there!

Ego! Gotta love it! It gives us our identity, it ensures we have enough individuality that once we return to the Source, to 'God' that we aren't simply swallowed by the infiniteness of it, but are able to maintain that separate, or individual consciousness within that.... through our experiences, our learning, our personalities, our egos we are able to keep that sense of 'self' once we are returned to the Whole. That's my take on it anyway! So in that respect it's all good! I know I'm a part of the whole, a part of the infinite but the ego in me is more than happy to hear that all that I go through here, all that I "am" here won't just disappear once it's finished, I won't be a single drop of water, swallowed in the infinite ocean and diluted until you can't find that one drop again afterwards, I'll be a single drop that is aware it is a drop in an ocean and thus hold itself as complete within the completeness!

However what was to serve a purpose AFTER this life, has taken us over in this life, what should be a valuable tool, so that we can experience a sense of self outside of the all encompassing Source, has mutated somewhat through our own allowance of it to a wee monster who does not want to give up that individuality again! Ego is fear of being swallowed by the whole and losing its sense of self, so it fights, sometimes tooth and nail to maintain it's sense of individuality... if you're Aquarius like me you can see it in the contrary nature, where we will take the opposite stance to anyone, no matter whether it is what we believe or not, just to be different LOL.

Ego is the "I'm right and I'm different to you so you must be wrong", ego is the "I'm better and bigger and stronger than you, because then YOU might get swallowed by the ocean, but I'll have a chance of surviving", ego is fear.

Now Eckhart Tolle has a fantastically simple way of dealing with the ego and that is to simply be aware of it, to watch it. Of course you have to recognise it first right? To start with it's pretty simple to recognise, you'll be stunned once you start looking at how UNsubtle it is! But once you become more aware of it, once you start taming it, you may be quite surprised at what a fast learner it is! It becomes very subtle, it sneaks in under the disguise of a motive of Love until somehow your attention is brought to the fact that the motive of Love has a judgment attached, or a slightly superior attitude, or a gloating, or any other number of emotions that when stripped back bring it back to an ego based "I will survive" type of emotion. Sneaky little buggers they are!

So tonight I was made aware of my more subtle ego still playing its games, which is lovely because now I'm aware, I can watch it again, observe it and settle it back down like a fussing baby when it should be sleeping!

It is very much easiest when starting out to think of the ego as a separate identity, then you don't get pulled into the guilt or the blame game, where you judge yourself for 'not knowing better' for failing to recognise it etc etc, all just more ego based pain/fear based stuff.

I guess for me personally it helps to work on leaving judgments behind when I remind myself that 'God', the infinite Source of everything is a very pure, very unconditional, very neutral Love. That Love that will sit back and let you make your own mistakes, it will not try to protect, it will not judge, but it simply allows you to be, and that includes making and learning from our 'mistakes'. So if EVERYTHING is made up completely and utterly from the energy that is Love, then nothing can be judged as bad or wrong can it! It may be vibrating at a different frequency, we may perceive it as a negative for whatever reason, but ultimately it is a manifested form of Love, so it cannot possibly be "bad". That would go for the ego too then right? The ego is not bad. The ego is not out to get us or those around us, the ego is simply a form of Love that is vibrating at a slightly different frequency now, and is out of synch. Much like the Laws of Gravity, a bigger object with attract a smaller object, subjecting a little Love to a BIGGER Love will bring that little Love up in frequency until it is back in synch, so we subject the ego to the light of Awareness, the presense of Love, to 'God' if you can accept that term. We watch it, without judging, we simply observe it and observe in it the Awareness, the Love. Like alchemy it transmutes from a base metal, from a common sludge, to the purest gold, more precious than anything, bringing great value and worth with it. The Ego is a part of who and what we are, we don't want to cast it out, we don't want to destroy it! It is us! But we want to make a fine wine from it instead of it being the vinegar it is when it tries to process itself without Love.

So my ego tonight was found to be a judgmental one and on more than one level! My ego wanted someone to have reasons for doing something that fitted MY perception of what was 'right', I was judging not only them (or rather wanting to not be able to judge them because they conformed to what I wanted!) but I was judging MY reasons as the best ones, lets face it, I am of course, always right!!! (Aquarius remember?! LOL) I now have to consciously be aware of the ego, because although the reasons behind it are ultimately seen (by me!) as good ones, wanting someone to be the best they can be, they are still judging and setting people up for failure, and setting myself up to be disallusioned when they can't live up to my expectations! I, without ego, can and will accept their reasons as THEIR reasons, I accept their journey as not identical to mine even though they may be similar, I accept that I can control only one thing and that is myself and my thoughts and my Love, and that when I can control that there is no NEED to control anything else, all else is free to 'be'... so I turn my awareness to the voice in my head, the one that justifies, the one that makes excuses, the one that tries to place blame, the voice that is fear and pain based, and I watch that voice, I watch it with Love, that is the "me" part of the "I Am", that needy little voice is the Kelley-Anne part of this Being, and with a bit of careful observation, and with a lot of awareness, that part of me will be serene, that part of me will be at Peace, that part of me will be Love with a sense of self and will no longer be able to or try to hurt others or myself to protect it's identity.

I have no doubt my ego hasn't finished teaching me yet, I get the feeling we're not quite out of the common sludge stage just yet! But we are progressing, I am no longer unconsciously letting it run my life and cause me the pain and misery it has in the past. I'm no longer unconsciously letting it sabotage myself or those that I love, I no longer honour the ego by buying into the past or the future... all I truly have is right now, this very moment, and I will honour that as the only truth I have. What I say right NOW makes a difference, what I do right NOW is important, because anything else is pure illusion, is simply either no longer exists or has not yet existed! It is all illusion outside of this one glorious moment, each Now contains within it the infinite, each Now has the potential to be ANYTHING, do you honour that potential or wish it away for the illusion of a future or a memory of the past and buy into the ego....?

Musings on Acceptance...

2011-04-10T18:13:00.002+12:00

A quiet nightshift is a good time to contemplate things, or just get going in the Now and NOT think... I find I usually do a long winded email that is definitely a contemplation thing so thought I'd actually jot down some thoughts as just that this time, rather than directing them at a particular person for a particular reason. Problem is what to muse over! So many topics, so few hours and still work to be done, so lets pick a relatively simple one... Acceptance...

I guess to me acceptance is just letting something "be" and to be honest it is a pretty new lesson learnt or being learnt for me. Funny though, I can't actually pinpoint what if anything stirred up that learning! However I do know I've gone from impatient, fighting what is happening, worrying, living in fear of an unknown future, made even more precarious because someone else is involved and we all know you can't control someone else, feeling like I was going mad, in the grips of ego, pain body and god knows what else, to like having a switch flicked, and simply flipping over to accepting what will be will be, accepting that I can't control time, others, and to a huge extent what happens around me, the only given is I can control what happens within me. I can control MY attitudes, I can control my reactions, my actions, my thoughts and my feelings. And although I use the word "control" here, I haven't had to 'control' anything, that acceptance has come so peacefully, there is nothing left to control. Things may still be uncertain, but it no longer matters. In fact I feel rather neutral about everything, there are no highs or lows, no real good or bad, everything just 'is'. To be honest it feels so neutral I get the feeling I'm either missing something or not doing it right! LOL. Having said that it is a lot nicer to live daily here than with the pain body and ego that was in control only a matter of a couple of weeks ago!

I'm not sure if internally I could describe it as being at "peace", there is still enough uncertainty around things that although it doesn't really bring me disquiet, it lurks. At times I feel like I am about to get nervous butterflies, I realise that and realise it's the uncertainty factor, so ego and a fear of the future. As I realise this it dissolves away again to this very neutral state of acceptance again, which although lovely feels like there is something missing. I'm expecting acceptance to come with a positive 'emotion' rather than a lack of any emotion I suppose, but hey! Early days and I'm sure if I stop and examine what is going on inside the Peace and Joy are still there, like the sun behind the clouds, it's just that I'm not recognising them at the moment.

So the lack of 'positives' aside, this feeling has given me a lot of freedom! Every moment is participated in. I may prefer to be in bed and sound asleep, but I'm not and that NOT being where I'd prefer doesn't bring me any negative feelings or thoughts at all. I'm here, I'll make the most of it. I'll enjoy the music playing in the restaurant, enjoy some time to contemplate, I'll get my work done and be ready to greet the new morning with a tired smile.

Funny thing is I keep expecting this feeling to fade, to disappear, that the impatience, and negatives will make there way back in, so far so good, they haven't! I guess being aware of what I've found serves very simply to keep it in place. If I hadn't recognised what it was perhaps the ego and pain body would have had an easier time sliding back in past it, but that awareness, that recognition of it serves to keep my attention on it and it holds in place that much stronger.

It's funny how others perceive things though. I had a comment made to me today (after no sleep last night) that I will think my judgments are OK when they're not due to the lack of sleep. I had to stop and examine what I thought of that for a second, and realised very calmly that no, I'm quite aware that I'm sleep deprived, quite aware of what that means in terms of driving, working, functioning, but that there is nothing I can do about it and I will continue to function until it can be rectified. It did make me aware that the acceptance I have found is far reaching. I took nothing personal from the implication that my ego would convince me I was 10 foot tall and bullet proof. I took no offence at an imagined slight (which, heck a month ago, if I was sleep deprived I sure would have!) I was simply aware that others perceived me differently to how things actually were. Judgments... I guess that's it isn't it... with acceptance there are no judgments, not for anyone else and not for yourself. Oh sure, I catch myself thinking a half formed thought that is ego laiden, but I am tending to catch them before they are completely formed, or thought about, or spoken out loud, or acted on, and hey presto, just like that as soon as they are observed for what they are (ego!) they just dissolve away again!

Amazing how simply it works, but what triggered it?! I do pride myself on "learning" but this almost feels like someone helped me cheat and get the answer without figuring out how to get there! Not that I'm complaining, just somehow feels like I've taken a short cut! I guess in reality there is no reason why I can't work backwards, from this state of being and do my learning that way, besides I still need to dig into it and find the positives rather than abide in this neutrality, which is sure helping and serving a purpose, but it does feel like something is missing.... or is that just a trick of ego too? "There must be something better than this!" ego, never satisfied LOL. Actually having reread this I can pinpoint when it happened, and it was actually a time when I described it as having "the rose coloured glasses taken off" in relation to how I perceived someone else. Oh, I know in truth what they are, they are God! I know in truth too, that although I can see that God Force in them so strongly that they are still human, still have ego involved, still learning their own lessons just as I am mine, but I really SAW it a couple of weeks ago, and at the time a couple of things said I allowed to hurt me, but when I sat down on a night shift and did my contemplation email and examined what had happened and how that made me feel etc, I realised then that everything had changed, like with a snap of the fingers, in the process of examining it within me and typing it out to share it, that switch was somehow flicked.

I guess I'm happy to report that there have been little tests for this acceptance too, just little day to day things, conversations, situations, sleep deprivation LOL. Nothing has been able to ruffle my feathers, nothing has caused me fear or anger, rather I can look at it all very impartially and realise what I can or want to contribute and then put it forward if it is warranted. I feel very zen like :o)

One thing it does make me very aware of is just how many judgments are made by others, nearly everything we say or do is some type of judgment, either that someone else is wrong, or if agreeing with us, then right, either way it is judgment which of course occurs because we see ourselves as separate from that which is around us. But that is a whole different topic perhaps for tomorrow night. Although I could quite happily disappear off onto tangent after tangent I have to abide by clock time and do some work too! Although it is exciting to just get out what is in my head, to examine it, to perhaps learn something more about it just by the act of observing it enough to describe it, I do run the risk of getting carried away by it and ignoring my other responsibilities.

So for now, I will accept I should save this and go and do some of my duties and if I have time later, perhaps a tangent can be entertained then.

Before I go though, I have just found a couple of quotes on Acceptance that ring true and one of them perhaps describes what I think I'm feeling! "Serenity comes when you trade expectations for acceptance" (Unknown author) and that I guess is it! Serenity, no desire to change anything, 'Unaffected by disturbance; calm and unruffled' that is a good adjective I think for how I feel :o) The other quote is "The first step toward change is awareness. The second step is acceptance." by Nathaniel Branden, and this too is true from what I've noticed in myself... once the awareness or recognition of something is there the battle is won.

Gosh the tangent of separateness could really just be called Ego couldn't it, and that is a mighty big tangent and my brain is getting more and more fuzzy so instead I'm going to muse simply on some of the things I can sense the "Awareness" or God Force in most easily.

Funnily enough I can sense it most easily in things that aren't 'living', a desk, a truck, a road, anything inanimate because it is easy to send a little psychic tap root out and feel for that something 'extra' by way of a consciousness. If I do it to trees, plants, animals or people, I get their own personality most strongly, and it is harder to push that out of the way to get the other consciousness there. What amuses me (and possibly vice versa!) is that when I sense that awareness, that consciousness it always seems to be smiling or very nearly laughing at me!

When sensing that awareness or presence in things it is as if I've gone from watching TV to watching a 3D movie, as soon as it it perceived everything gains a depth that wasn't there previously, as if it stands out more, is more solid and "real" than previously. Very interesting to see how it is perceived.

WOW! Where did the last 3 months go?!

2011-04-10T17:52:00.004+12:00

Time sure does fly when you are busy! So much has happened in the last 3 months, a quick over view just to catch you up and then on with the show!

Pete and I have separated, Marcus and I are still living on the property with the critters, Marcus will be 5 in 10 days time and then off to school, so I've been sourcing "work" to help pay the bills and getting ready to try to take on a mortgage to buy Pete out of the property... So I'm now doing Saturday and Sunday night shifts at a flash Hotel in town as a "Night Manager" certainly cuts into the weekend but it was very handy as Pete is having Marcus every weekend anyway and those 2 nights with collecting the eggs on the weekend is covering the bills OK.

Then I decided to go truck driving! So have done the first truck licence to drive up to 18 ton trucks, done the forklift, wheels, tracks and rollers so I can play on the machinery too, can do the next truck licence after the 18th May (so I can play on the 6 and 8 wheelers etc) and then 3 mths after that I can do the trailers licence too. I rocked on up to the local Transport company that I've had do a bit of work for me so they knew my face, asked if I could just hang out and work with the guys there and learn what I needed to learn while Marcus was just around the corner at kindy, they were fantastic enough to say yes, sent me out on my own in the truck on the 3rd day and are now paying me too, beautiful people! Go Renwick Transport Ltd! LOL. So I'm having a ball driving the trucks etc, Marcus gets to come with me some afternoons after I pick him up from kindy, he waves furiously at all the other trucks we see trying to get them all to wave back LOL. A bit short of hours at the moment, it's grape harvest time so they have a few extra drivers around and it sort of cuts into the hours I could work, but once Marcus is at school and I have the next licence I should be in a much better place to put the hours in and get the hours work that I need to be able to chuck the night shift in!

I have been actively working Eckhart Tolle's stuff and although there have been some hiccups along the way, I am learning so much and really am thrilled to bits with where my learning is right now.

The person I was discussing all the Power of Now stuff with has been a "complication" albeit a lovely one as things have developed there and I seem to have bounced from a rather empty marriage into a very full on relationship and we don't even live in the same town, can be a bit hard, but that too has forced me into some full on learning and working the Power of Now stuff so I can stay centered and grounded and all the rest of it.

Thankfully the communication work has been reasonably quiet because I've been EXHAUSTED!!!! Although I have a couple here that I need to get done NOW, although of course after only 4 hours sleep in the last 2 1/2 days it just doesn't end up happening! I refuse to short change the animals I talk to and their people by only giving it 1/2 my attention, but I must get to bed on Monday at the same time as Marcus (6pm LOL) and catch up so I can get these babies done!

So everything has changed and is still changing and life can feel a tad surreal right now.

Because the communication work has been a little quiet and I've been actively applying Eckhart Tolle's teachings I've been "communicating" more with that Presence or God Force as I've been doing it and learning to release the ego etc and last night on night shift I decided to make use of some of my time there and examine some different things that I'm working thru and just jot them down.... so for lack of anywhere else to put these musings I'm going to throw them in the blog!

And a Happy New year!

2011-01-03T12:00:00.002+13:00

Christmas has been and gone, the tree packed up for another year, the New Year was seen in only in my dreams as I was sound asleep by then (got to make the most of the sleep, it just ain't a happening thing these days!) In fact last night by 2am I'd all but given up on the sleep thing happening and dragged a duvet out onto the balcony off the bedroom, planted the pillow on the deck and snuggled up under an exquisite star filled sky, my God, what a sight it was! By nearly 5am after almost dozing a couple of times it started getting a bit chillier so I went back inside and got maybe an hours sleep. If you're going to go without sleep a scene like that above your head makes liking awake enjoyable anyway!

Smokey has come back in from his holiday and is still my sweet wee boy who when frisky his little sewing machine trot just get faster and faster, he is just too cute!

Mac is doing well with everything too, still loving having him 'back' as such. He is my angel.

The dogs are all good altho Karma's limp has gotten worse in her front leg which really isn't good because it had no reason to get worse. She is 8 1/2 now, seems like just yesterday she was a wee 5mth old pup we saved from getting shot, I guess she is getting old! I may do the x-ray thing to see what is showing up in there...

Have really enjoyed reading both A New Earth and Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, truly enlightening books and what a difference they've made in my life in the space of a few weeks, have met a wonderful new friend thru the books too and it's great bouncing ideas and concepts off each other, huge changes in my 'inner space' going on right now and it's very exciting! Massive energy shifts (which really isn't helping the sleep thing!)

And that's about it!

Hope you and your families are enjoying the holiday season and that the weather is being kind to you where ever you live!

Merry Christmas to all

2010-12-23T17:46:00.002+13:00

Wow, where has this year gone? It's flown by and only speeding faster and faster, so Christmas is suddenly upon us and next it'll be 2011 :o)

Next whale watch attempt is going to be for my birthday too, fingers crossed they'll make an appearance for us end of January!

Heading to Christchurch for Christmas, I know the family will be very conscious of Mum being absent but with 4 rowdy boys running around full on all day I'm sure everyone will be distracted just a bit from the sadness which is good :o)

Pete and Marcus are going to stay down an extra couple of days to keep Dad company for just a while longer and then they'll come home on the train. Can't wait to go and pick them up and hear all about the trip up and the tunnels from Marcus, he just loves the trains and tunnels around Kaikoura.

I'm working my way through a couple of Eckhart Tolle books right now, have devoured A New Earth and onto it a 2nd time and getting started on the Power of Now too. I love the way he writes, sets it all out very simply and the 'gap in the thoughts' were you can sense a background awareness is exactly like sensing animals when talking to them, except the Awareness/Consciousness (God) doesn't have a personality like the animals do. Very good author if anyone is looking for some holiday reading :o)

Anyway, would just like to take this opportunity to wish you all a very Merry Christmas, a wonderful New Year and some incredible bonding times with your loved ones (animal and not!)

From my tribe to yours, Merry Christmas :o)

catch up time, you first, then me ;o)

2010-12-09T16:46:00.004+13:00

Been pretty full on here for the last couple of weeks, a good steady workload to keep me occupied at night is great, some fantastic updates from owners of cats, dogs and horses which is lovely as I know they're all working in a better partnership to get those results :o)

A couple of new additions here, bet you can't guess ;o) Yeah OK the mad chook lady has been collecting again. A beautiful picked on baby who was getting a hiding to the point of her comb being pecked too came and made herself known to me by jumping on me. I made sure she had a feed of pellets and water and tried to take notes of what she looked like so I could keep an eye on her in the shed in future. I got up to shift and she came running after me, being attacked by everything she went past on the way. This happened the entire 3/4 hour I was in the shed. I popped her up on the feeder out of the way while I took the cart and eggs outside to the quad bike and then I went back to get her, she was gone!!!!! I looked everywhere! Disappeared into thin air! I thought to myself that she was not meant to be and went back to the quad bike and Marcus and there she was! Sitting up on the cart waiting for me! I got her home and asked Marcus what he thought her name might be, he said "I think she's Mary"... now Mary is the first ever chook who I was going to take home when the shed was due to "go" unfortunately she died in a 2 week period I was away and only 2 weeks before I could have brought her home with me :o( Broke my heart! Mary would follow me around the shed too and jump on me if another chook came to close to her, jumped onto me head once, I laughed so hard she nearly fell off again! Well this Mary is the same and when I checked with her if she would like Mary as a name she was more than happy with it :o)

28th of November and I found an injured young one, maybe only 8 mths old or there abouts. She'd been scalped, the skin stripped right away showing all the flesh from just behind her comb and bigger than a $2 coin. Her face was swollen and her eyes looked like little beady things (more than normal! LOL) trying to peer out of the swelling. She also had a big hole in her neck about the same size but thankfully all I could see there was blood not a gaping hole like in her head! Anyway I put her in a quiet place on her own and told the owner he'd need to do the deed to her. I came back the next day and he'd forgotten!!! Poor wee darling! However the head wound had dried and the skin had stuck back to the flesh rather than sliding around when she moved, and the swelling on one side had gone down ever do slightly, so I got her some food and water and she ate and drank, so I thought what the hell and told the boss I'd take her home and try to keep the flies away from her!!!

So, she came home on the Monday afternoon. On Tuesday my Father in Law in Christchurch rang to say Petes mum was in hospital and the Doctors had said she had from 2 days to 2 weeks (she had cancer) so Pete was going to head down on Wednesday and Marcus and I would follow on Friday as we were supposed to head down for the weekend anyway. Tuesday morning and dad rings saying the family has been called into the hospital as the time is close! I rang Pete and he headed straight down, just the clothes he was in and Marcus and I would follow on Wednesday morning after sorting out someone to look after the animals.

Mum died at 11.10pm on the Tuesday night, Pete had got there at about 2pm so he was able to be with her and dad when she passed very very peacefully :o)

Now of course I had a scalped chicken to deal with too! I couldn't leave her here so she came with us! Stayed in Dad's fly free laundry and got her head bioptron'd and sprayed daily with colloidal silver, she was a very good girl and altho she talks to you, she is a very quiet talker.

We came home Sunday and she and Mary now share a chook pen all by themselves. Mary is scared of Felicity (Little Flick after the fire engine in the old kids radio story, she loves that song) and Little Flick is not interested in harassing Mary. I think they'll be best buddies very soon :o)

It was Little Flicks first night out of the cage last night and I went out just as it was getting dark to make sure she knew where she could sleep. A hedgehog came under the fence into the pen and Little Flick took the 3 steps needed to have a look at it, it waltzed right up to her legs and stuck his nose into the feathers, not sure if he had a nibble or not, but Flick squawked and jumped away and he followed! They did this about 5 times, hedgie following Flick and going in for a love bite hehehe. I had to nudge him out the way with my foot to get him to leave her alone as he was ignoring my growling and clapping of hands, hope it isn't sick as it was very pale coloured too!

Had to put the girls up on top of Flicks cage in case he came over to eat their pellet and nibbled their toes while he was at it LOL.

Came home from Christchurch after 5 days away and Mac's a bit hoppy, nearly foundered the podge! So I've pulled him out of the dressage on Sunday, mentally he's still not quite right on the mounting part (showed this at a lesson yesterday!) so better to give him the time he needs than rush it and blow it.

He and Smokey got their teeth done today, as suspected Smokey REALLY needed his to be done! Unfortunately the usual dentist we get couldn't come up from Christchurch till after Christmas (and who knew WHEN after Christmas) so I booked in with another one coming up from Christchurch..... I should have asked the price first! Oh My God!!!! That was an expensive exercise! hey, good job but still it wasn't worth what I had to pay for it! Not a pleasant surprise this close to Christmas but at least the boys are done and happy I suppose!

And now of course I'm still playing catch up after being away with work! Never mind, nearly caught up!

There you go! All caught up you are, and I'm nearly caught up and Christmas is just around the corner! EEK!!!!

On a plus side, after Christmas Smokey will be coming back into work! YAY!!!

Interesting shift from animals to Earth...

2010-11-23T15:39:00.003+13:00

it seems to be that I'm getting surrounded by clips and reminders about the planet as a whole rather than just animals. Probably started with the subconscious shift from land to sea while thinking about the whales and suddenly I'm more "aware" of things to do with the planet around me.

These have all been shared on the FaceBook page but I have found them important enough to me that I'll share them here too... they are long clips as far as you tube clips go and I know that will put most people off, it certainly put me off when I first got emailed the link to the movie "Home" about a year ago, but after I'd watched the 24 min clip of Kiesha talking about the changes the planet is undergoing, and having a chat myself with the whales consciousness and then the planet, I found that link for the "Home" movie pop up in front of me again and watched it.... WOW!!!! What a great movie, I'm actually watching it again today, the camera work is absolutely AMAZING, the message is timely and although it starts out being one of those heart breaking "what the hell can we do about it?!" things, the movie actually finishes outlining how we as countries and governments ARE changing things for the positive, which makes the whole movie extra special :o)

So, here are the 2 links, again I know most of you won't watch them due to the length of them, but if you're ready to engage with Mother Earth I'm sure you'll find yourself just clicking on them and loving them too :o)

Kiesha from the Tribe of Many Colours speaks in Zurich

"Home" a movie by Yann Arthus-Bertrand

and lastly some "thoughts" I had while driving to Christchurch on Friday just past...

the day I was supposed to be first going to go and see the whales, my oldest bitch Karma asked as I was leaving if I would ask the whales to send her some healing, struck me as odd, but I said OK to her and off I went. Of course the whales weren't about so we didn't go out and when I got home I got a "well?????" as I got in with her. Told her we didn't get to see any.

I'd watched that 20 min clip talking about what we've done to the planet and how it's affecting different species around the world, and of course it mentions the Gulf Oil Spill too... Now ages ago straight after the CHCH earthquake as I was sending some energy to Mother Earth in the Christchurch area it was sucked like a vortex into the Gulf of Mexico instead, like a bottomless pit, didn't think much of it, obviously mother earth decided that was much more necessary for her, so be it.

So today as I got down towards Kaikoura I thought I'd just see what I could pick up from any whale consciousness down there. I simply asked whey they were not around when we'd wanted to see them. Who knows what gave this back to me but I got them out in deep waters doing healing (now I'd never thought of whales as healers before, dolphins yes, but not whales, until Karma had asked for some from them!) and when I asked what for I got the Gulf of Mexico. Got closer in to Kaikoura and looked at the mountains thinking how little we could guess was going wrong around the planet looking at the beauty she still contains on the surface and I did as was asked in that clip. I sent Mother Love and Love for healing. As I was doing this (and you have to remember my head doesn't shut up so I chatter incessantly!) I asked about the earthquakes. Certainly unusual for us as a country to have them ongoing like they are, so I simply asked why they were happening, and I got back quite simply "to move the plates". So of course I asked why they needed to move? and got back the Gulf of Mexico again.

Would love to know a couple of things..... firstly are the whales being seen LESS since the Gulf of Mexico due to them being out deeper doing the healing? and secondly what is happening with the plates here after the quakes, movement, directions etc and how that may (if it is!) be linked to the plates around the Gulf of Mexico.

Was interesting anyway, and a good little bonding session with old Mother Earth :o)

Well the Whales have got Stage Friight!

2010-11-14T08:08:00.002+13:00

Last Saturday was canceled due to rough weather, so we rebooked for Sunday, Sunday's weather was PERFECT, calm seas and not a whale in sight. They didn't even send the boats out as the spotters couldn't find anything, so rebooked AGAIN for today and there are gale force winds and no whales seen at all yesterday so boats canceled again!

I know I need to learn patience but COME ON!!!! LOL

Birthdays and Whale Watching...

2010-11-04T21:17:00.003+13:00

November seems to be a month of birthdays! Happy Birthday to my little bro living in the USA, a friend just turned 40 two days ago and another turns 50 in 2 days time. For her 50th birthday Lisa wanted to go whale watching in Kaikoura, so we are off there on Saturday!!!

As a kid I used to dream about swimming with whales and saving them after they were harpooned (I think that started after I saw a TV doco saying the whales would drown after being harpooned) so I would get to them, get them up to the surface, remove the harpoon and we'd swim away, needless to say I have a lingering love for whales so am really looking forward to it! I'll report back with what they have to say and some photos after Saturday!

In the meantime Guy Fawks is upon us, we are very lucky to live rurally so we don't have a big fire works issue, just enough in the township to ensure we all, animals and people, have something to go oooooh and aaaaaah over.

If you have animals fearful of them, just explain what they are, how they work, and that we let them off as a celebration and it's a happy event. The horses and dogs listen here, the goats don't, they just blast around the paddock (good for the fatties to be honest!) and eventually go and hide in the implement shed LOL. I have noticed Leo has actually been 'fearful' of a few gunshots heard here over the last week, that is a new behaviour for him, so I'll have a wee chat to him when they start up and we'll sit down and watch them (if it's not raining!)

So enjoy the fire works if you have them, keep your animals safe and have fun!

A Young Cats Take on Life...

2010-11-04T20:58:00.007+13:00

I had the opportunity to talk with a young cat last week, he's not even a year old yet and yet his take on things is very deep and wise and he was very happy to share... so here is some of what I got from him for his mum...

What is his take on life? it is there one moment at a time. I ask him as a cat, how he thinks we people should live, he says we should take things more lightly, the only thing that is really important is each other, and we should be more aware of others and enjoy our contact with them. I ask him then about the other cats who don't always understand the Laughing Buddha (a nickname I gave the boy after seeing the first photo of him lying on his back, eyes squeezed shut and mouth open, grinning (probably mid sneeze LOL) and he liked it) and related that back to people...so what should we do when there are people who just don't understand us or vice versa... he shows me you blowing them a kiss and turning away - send them love and move on. I ask him, what about when we're tired and just don't feel like laughing? He says then you are to receive the love and he inserts himself in the picture, he will laugh for you and will wrap you in love until you find your own again.

So now putting some heavier stuff on the young fella, I ask him why we are all here... and he says a life is going to happen a soul has to fill it, that we see what is about to live and we choose which one we want to be, I ask why and he indicates that it would be a waste of opportunity, a waste of the complexity of the chemical things happening to allow 'life' if they (the souls/spirit etc) ignored it and didn't participate, like it is their responsibility to enable it to reach it's full potential, to realise all the possibilities, hard to explain properly, haven't had one put it across from that perspective before. The bio-chemical part of expansion or creation is 'ripe' to happen, but without the soul it is not complete, so the spirits responsibility (and opportunity) is to complete that process by participating in it.

I ask him what is the purpose of the separation of spirit, of it being split to be contained in a physical body like it is and he gives "identity", self awareness I guess, which is funny because all the books and quotes are of "One-ness" of us remembering or recognising that we are all part of the "One", all part of the same energy, all part of "God", and that we should see past our individuality and be aware we are all part of the same thing, and yet he is saying the whole reason we are here in these bodies is so that we can get/obtain/hold on to a sense of individuality, a sense of "self" which we don't have if we remain 'energy' and simply a spark of energy within the Energy... so that is interesting to hear (and I guess it does make sense that we could do both, just seems like it shouldn't be such a battle to recognise that "One-ness" when we only incarnated to find a sense of Self LOL.)

Pretty deep for a young fella huh?

and because that was getting too long...

2010-10-14T17:03:00.003+13:00

This is about Smokey going jumping on Sunday!

He had 3 classes, one show hunter, and 2 show jumping. Unfortunately it had been indicated that the show hunter would be on after lunch due to the rings, but due to lack of entries the rings were different to what the schedule said and show hunter started in the morning so it was pretty good timing I wandered over to see what they were up to, to find them putting the jumps up for the warmup round of my class!!! EEK!!!

I raced off to saddle him up, he wasn't plaited, he didn't get a warm up round (BIG mistake!) and wasn't warmed up well, well all the disorganisation showed and we were eliminated by jump #2 (oops!) but after jump #2 he continued on and did them all.

Another hour or so later and it was show jumping time, 60cm first and he had a clear round and came 2nd (it was a small class, but still, he did well!) Then the 70cm round where the wall came in and he did well right up to there! One refusal at the wall and 2 time faults and that was it, we were 4th and there were only ribbons to 3rd, collective "aaaaaaw" (silly Smokey LOL). By the end of that round he was sooooooo ready to finish, we'd been there over 7 hours already and he was mentally had it. But it was our first time out doing 'proper' show jumping and I'm still proud of the wee boy, considering the Show Hunter thing was my fault.

Here are some stills I got off the video's of the rounds...

3rd time lucky on this jump in the show hunter round!
and the wall cost us a placing too with one refusal at it...

Insecure dogs and horses

2010-10-14T16:24:00.004+13:00

If you're on Face Book you may feel like adding your ideas about Animals NOT living in the "Now"

Have just been talking to the most beautiful, loving, soft natured dog who has some obsessive compulsive behaviours, a low self image, basically he feels/thinks he doesn't have the right to be happy, he fears being left. Have given his a few pep talks spread over a few days, linked him back into the Universal Energy or God Force, reminding him what his potential truly is. Unfortunately I just don't know whether that will be enough to get him through when the compulsions hit him, so have recommended some emotional type energy healing for him, fingers crossed that, combined with what mum will be putting in place emotionally for him, may get him through. On my 3rd or 4th link in with him, I got snuggled, he got right into my neck and face area and just snuggled in there for cuddles, sweet boy even told me he loved me, how's that for a softy?! Absolutely adorable troubled boy, am hoping it all helps enough he can stay healthy and have a chance to allow himself to be loved instead of just loving everyone else...

On a personal note I'm flying high! After 10 mths of Mac not being ridden, he now has been! TWICE! Go my gorgeous Maccy Boy! (and go me! I don't bounce like I did as a kid, and everytime I get dumped in the last 6 yrs I've ended up in hospital, probably why Mac has actually gone 10 mths since the last one!) But we were both ready, the first mounting session was a lesson in town with my instructor who is Mac's security blanket (and mine in a way because I know she can cope with whatever happens even if it is me crapping off hahahaha). The lesson came the day after some fantastic groundwork, but the fantastic groundwork followed me having to have an emotionally charged talk with him, letting him feel just how much I love him. Altho he's never shown it he has gotten a little insecure since I've been riding Smokey so much as he did before Smokey even arrived. I was so excited about all the things I'd be able to do with Smokey that I simply can't with Mac (like ride him bareback, and take off a jacket while I'm on him!) that Mac got rather depressed that he wasn't able to give me everything I wanted. Now the insecurities were back and everytime I tried to tell him (when ever I do anything with him!) how much I loved him I would find my mind drifting to Smokey, and I'd feel guilty and pull it back to Mac. It happened so often I thought I was starting to love Smokey more than Mac!!!

When I told him all the soft mushy stuff before our groundwork it felt like just words, there was no emotional connection with him, and quite suddenly my thoughts went to Smokey and a doubt came in. That's as well as I can explain it. Mac only comes to me in feelings, no words, no images, just straight emotion, can be REALLY tricky getting specific answers to anything from him by the way, and yet he'll "talk" to others LOL (I say it's because we're soooooooo connected ;o) Anyway this doubt came in as I thought of Smokey and eureka! I got it! Basically Mac was saying "Are you sure? I don't think you do" and inserting Smokey in there instead, aaaaaaaaaaw, my staunch as, dominant ass of a sensitive horse was thinking I didn't love him anymore! And it was HIM who kept making me think of Smokey, it wasn't ME! (Gawd, see how much they are always in our heads causing us havoc?!) So I told my boy the truth... I told him just what he means to me, just how much I love him, he brought tears to my eyes, but he let me back in and accepted all I was saying and hey presto, that emotional connection was back, it'd been HIM blocking that too!

We also had a little chat about letting go of past issues, that his past is just the first rung on a ladder that brought us together, that that ladder and his journey up it was infinitely precious because of where he has ended up, that his journey up that ladder has been a blessed journey and that I'm eternally grateful that he decided to take that journey. We had a lovely groundwork session, relaxed, calm, focussed on me completely (not a small thing since I'd put the other 2 out of the arena and into the back yard for more grass and Mac was 100% certain when I caught him he was going there too! hahaha!) My Maccy Boy was back with me.

So the next day was our lesson and he stood like a rock, it was like we'd gone back in time to last October before everything happened and just picked up where we left off.

And the next day we got back on at home, all by ourselves! I must confess I was nervous, for my ADHD boy who needs his routines, although we'd been doing ground work in the arena he's never been ridden in there before and the wind had flicked round to a sou'east which he hates more than the usual nor'west which he also hates, how dare the wind change direction?! But again, he stood like a rock and after 15 mins of walk and trot he decided he'd finished and stopped dead! He's never done that before (tried it at the lesson to when I was just finishing off with some mount-walk off-dismount)

So very proud of him, and very proud of myself getting over my lack of faith in my boy (cause lets face it, altho falling doesn't hurt, landing on the deck sure does!) but we're FINALLY all go again!

Spring is busy time!

2010-10-05T14:01:00.003+13:00

Have caught up on work after that flu (phew!) and although I was only away in Auckland for a week it feels like it's been forever since I did anything! Had dressage on Smokes the weekend I got back, small classes (unregistered) but he got a 1st and two 2nds over the 2 days (nothing to skite about the marks were crap LOL) Mac was supposed to have his lesson today which would have seen us back on him, but the toad has put his back out under the saddle. I was brushing him a couple of days ago ready to do some more groundwork and the rubber curry comb along his spine nearly had him drop to his knees! I think I'll have to have a good chat to him about releasing some worries of being ridden again! Chiropractor is in town on Friday thankfully! Smokey has a jumping lesson on Thursday, chiro on Friday and Show Jumping and Show Hunter on Sunday :o) and Mac's lesson has been rebooked for NEXT Tuesday! Can't wait to get back on him!

Dogs are good, chooks are good and laying up a storm. Another shed is due to go any time now (well not "due" to go but a glut of free range eggs has seen the distributor telling all egg farmers to cull numbers! So my favourite shed might be going early! NOOOOOOOOOO!!!!) Have about 20 sorted for a couple of horsey girls when it's time, hoping others will want some too as they're great gentle girls!

Marcus is learning stuff daily, today he drew a clock and numbered it and then put the hands at some significant times (like 3 o'clock for afternoon tea, 4 o'clock for cookie time etc LOL). He's a smart wee cookie! Don't know what he's going to do at school next year, he's doing it all now!

Nothing exciting to pass on work wise, nice to have people getting back to me afterwards confirming things though :o)

Pet and Animal Expo and the Flu!

2010-09-24T09:05:00.004+12:00

crikey, without having gone to the Dr to get it confirmed I'm 99.9% positive the child and I ended up with Swine Flu and it sat me on my butt for about 2 weeks!!!

Actually I don't ever recall having a flu quite like that one even as a kid! But it has finally passed and the cough that preceded it is pretty much gone too (who would get the "100 day cough" and swine flu together?! Well, we don't do things by halves around here LOL)

So Marcus and I got up to Auckland where my mum looked after us and I had nana naps every day, and loved the fact I didn't have to go out and feed animals twice a day! Pet Expo rolled around on the weekend and I was actually feeling quite a bit better on the Saturday, although that damn cough was still doubling me over and my ribs are still buggered from all of that.

Expo from a stand holders perspective was good! A lot of people and a lot of people stopping to talk with us :o) A few comments about not enough freebies to be found (really the only freebies were from the feed people, not a lot of other stands had freebies they could offer!) something to consider for next year though, maybe some free little magnets or something! The Himalayan Crystal Salt sold really well as did Jeanne's Bach Flower Remedies.

Had a play with some rats there from the Ratty Club (quite like those intelligent little critters!)

Was nice to see the Ultra K9 dog food represented there (I'm the Marlborough distributor for that, good food!) and lovely to see Mirijana there with all the Bioptrons. Such a lovely helpful lady who sat me down and turned 3 bioptrons on me as I stopped to say hi, it was bliss :o)

So a good weekend was had but it was lovely to get home again too. Mac SCREAMED his welcome home to me and continued screaming until I went down there and gave him more grass to shut him up LOL.

Smokey has dressage this weekend after 2 weeks off, lucky he's such a good boy huh?!

Here are a couple of photos of the stand at the Expo...

My Main Man Mac

2010-08-29T21:24:00.003+12:00

has been on the back burner for a while hasn't he?! 2 mths of very wet weather meant he didn't even get much groundwork, but I've pulled him out of the paddock lately and we're getting some groundwork under his belt again. He had one wee instance of testing who was boss, (gosh I love that dork!) but he's settled into the groundwork again well, still worried when I get into a position to mount him (not that I'm going to, just setting him up for success as he needs to have done, and desensitizing him again as it's being mounted that is his "issue") so still a bit of work to do but I am missing riding him, and he is finally getting bored in the paddock (he obviously needed a bit of a holiday!) I have promised him I'll take him jumping again too :o) He is looking forward to being ridden again, but he worries, about hurting me, about his reactions that he can't stop, of course that worry of his tenses him up and takes him that much closer to that breaking point where brain shuts down and he just reacts, so a bit of a catch 22 with him at times, but we'll get there again and soon! Before all that spring grass kicks in too much!

I just found a photo of him very recently uploaded onto our local photographers site when I was spotting the trail ride photo's of Smokey, so had to get it!

This was Mac at our 2009 winter dressage, he was doing level 3. What a handsome devil he is!

Pet Expo in Auckland is Drawing Close!

2010-08-29T19:27:00.002+12:00

Just a reminder to all Aucklander's I'll be at the Pet Expo on the 18th and 19th of September. It runs from 10am-5pm Sat and Sunday at the Nth Shore Event Centre.

Adults entry is $10, Children under 5 are free.

I'll be at a stand with Jeanne Northwood from Energy Works, an energy healer, and Niki Wright-Jackman will be spending a wee bit of time with us too, Niki has just recently started up communicating with cats and is doing some great work with them :o)

I will have 'Pet Expo Specials' on vouchers for consultations and Himalayan Crystal Salt.

I will be there for the week leading up to the Expo too and available to do some consultations while I'm there.

Well Smokey has been busy!

2010-08-29T18:26:00.005+12:00

Since the last post (gosh that was a while ago, where has the time gone?!) Smokes has done another Show Hunter day and his first competitive trail ride.
Show Hunter first :o) I thought the heights were 55cm, 65cm etc, but got there and found out it's 50, 60, 70cm etc so since Smokey hadn't seen ANY jumps since the ODE over a month prior I thought we'd just do the 50 and 60cm rounds (he'd done 65cm at the ODE) so entered him for those and decided to let him choose if he wanted to pick up a canter into the jumps etc (last lesson before the ODE was all just trot approaches) and he did a very nice 50cm round. The 60cm round unfortunately I was distracted by asking hubby to keep photographing the rider following me, turned away from him and lined up and jumped the last jump as jump #1 so was eliminated. He was jumping VERY nicely and I asked two of the organisers on the side line if they thought he looked like he'd do the 70cm OK (he was clearing everything with plenty of room!) and they were very much in agreeance that he'd do it no problems so we entered the 70cm round too. A little off in some of the striding for them, but cleared them all no hesitation at all, very very happy with the boy! And he won the 50cm round! Go Smokester!

Here is the only still photo I have of him jumping 70cm and it had to be taken off a vid clip as hubby had the camera on video mode by accident LOL. All the rest of the photos were completely mistimed and he didn't actually have the video camera running :o(

It's the first jump. The Flying Smokey LOL, a little out on the striding!
Last weekend was his first trail ride, just a 15km ride, he had a starting heart rate of 32, we had to push the end of the ride a little more than we wanted to make the time so his finish rate was 51, and final heart rate was 37. We came in 30 seconds under time and Smokey won!!! Was a GREAT ride, we had a gallop through the vineyard, and just had a ball. Very proud of his attitude throughout the entire ride :o)

oh yeah, the finish line!!!!
something about seeing Tracey the photographer there was obviously hilarious!
tidy your hair up there Smokey, the camera is out!aaaaaaaaw, I'm as proud as you are my wee dude, I luff you!
and here is the video of Smokey's winning round at Show Hunter :o) Jumps look so weeny!

It is so nice to see respect develop

2010-08-11T22:04:00.007+12:00

Marcus now not only respects the dogs (altho he still delights in making Phoenix move because he knows she will) but he (apparently) now Loves the dogs too. He's always loved the chickens, "hey girls, hey cutie, I love you, thanks for the eggs, how are you?" etc etc non stop LOL, but the dogs is a new thing, because they've been here longer than he has and inside with him a lot of the time, the young child who had no siblings delighted in harassing them just to get a rise from them. However now he treats them more like he does the chickens which is so lovely to see. Zak the baby lover has been waiting a looooooooooong time for this and will now accept touching and cuddles from Marcus without the warning growls :o)

and just because Leo would be so embarrassed by this one hehehe

And a lovely farm ride with Smokey today, a solid 3 hours, up hill and down dale, in fact up so many steep hills all in one go he gave up and had to walk half of them poor poppet, when I even said to him "come on we'll do a trot up here" his breathing would get so laboured just thinking about a trot I'd give up and tell him to just keep walking! Still by the time we got back 3 hours later, he was recovered and enjoyed a cruisey canter along the nice flat raceway...

Me and my shadow...

Oh! and an update on a tree!

2010-08-02T21:05:00.005+12:00

Talking about plants "talking" elsewhere and it reminded me!

I was up picking up horse poo the other day, up around the gum tree I'd transplanted up by the roadside. It was a year or 2 old when I asked hubby to dig it out from where it was so I could shift it (property plan had changed a little!) Pete dug it up but busted the roots up pretty well, knocking off the tap root, figured it wouldn't live so chucked it in the garage to take to the dump. I rescued it and transplanted it to where another baby gum tree had been planted and then pulled out and chewed up by Mac!

I asked the tree what it wanted/needed in order to keep living... it had been scared of being eaten like the last one so all it wanted was me to promise to keep it safe from the horses. I put a drum over it and then taped that corner off completely so the horses couldn't reach it at all. It was touch and go for a while, leaves dried up and went brownish, took it some water over summer, gave it some energy "healing" when I was up there in that first wee while, and gave it lots of pep talks.

That was perhaps 2 yrs ago now. The drum came off it last year and when I was up there the other day I untaped the corner. The horses now wouldn't be able to reach the top branches/leaves anyway and now it's not so teeny it won't taste good. I just checked in with it, not to ask it anything in particular, just to feel it, and make sure it wasn't screaming in fear with the horse eating the grass around it, and it felt like an adolescent!

Really strange to feel that young maturity there, where it had been nothing but fear and pain when I first spoke with it :o)

Is it Spring already?!

2010-08-02T16:47:00.004+12:00

We've been having glorious days, frosty starts but warming up to T-shirt weather, the promise of Spring just around the corner is in the nesting birds (love the sound of Magpies calling!)

My mini arena (square pen LOL) has the crusher dust spread in it, just need to string line the tyres around the sides and fill them all with poo and rocks (good way to get rid of both!) so they don't walk off across the paddock but Smokey and I have been using it last week getting ready for Dressage yesterday.

He is feeling a wee bit insecure about his floating at the moment and is happy to follow me on but not keen on self loading, but we'll get it back again. He's been very smoochy in the paddock for the last week or so too, and a bit of a spring in his step when being ridden. Warmed him up at the dressage yesterday and he was lovely :o) Soft contact, forward, not Olympic standard by any means, but a step up on how he has been going so very happy with him.

He got a 61.53% in his first test which put him 5th, and a 60% in his 2nd test (another 5th!) and I was very happy particularly as the 2nd test (1.6) is pretty much a level 2 test and had HEAPS of canter in it which Smokes needs a lot of work on yet! AND they were decent size classes so he was in the top 3rd for both tests :o) Of course to top off the day it was the guys official birthday so Smokey was celebrating his "official" 5th birthday.

It was a rainy windy day and I was rapt with his work and attitudes, very very proud mummy :o)To top off a lovely day when I got home and checked the chickens I had 12 eggs from 15 girls to greet me, the most ever! You go Girls!!!! (what the heck am I going to do with all these eggs?! Any bright spark got some good ideas for someone who hates the kitchen, cooking and baking! LOL)

Now need to get another jumping lesson or 2 in as we have another Show Hunter on the 15th, see if we can canter a round this time instead of trot it LOL.

Smokey goes Eventing

2010-07-19T10:01:00.002+12:00

The day dawned cloudy!!! Which was just perfect because it meant there would be no slipping and sliding on frosty ground! :o)

Smokey didn't want to head off in the dark so he delayed departure by refusing to go on the float LOL. In fairness he has a brand spanking new canvas cover, that I'd thought to leave on him for the trip as it was still a bit chilly, but the cover scratching along the side of the float was enough to put him right off! Marcus up the front of the float with a carrot was in the end enough to prompt him (with cover off) to enter the float and off we went.

Thankfully after a hurried gearing up and getting changed we had enough time to warm up for the dressage (his first time on an arena set up on grass with chains) and he did a nicely average test and got a 67% (which gave us a start score for the day of 33)

Onto the Show Jumping which was only 65cm, but somehow managed to look big by the time I was ready to go in and the nerves were EXTREME! A couple of "eek" moments, but no stops, altho he dropped one rail, and tackled the Toyota sponsored wall like he'd seen it a thousand times before so I was very happy with him. He was even wanting to pick up a canter a couple of strides out so he's ready to start cantering some jumps now.

3 hours break until Cross Country time gave him plenty of time to have the breakfast grass he'd missed hehehe. Pete and Marcus and my horsey groupy Lisa arrived in time for the X-country and we were first out on the course! Smokey was already Tired with a capital T... not physically, he was rearing to go, but he objected to a few of the early things I asked of him (including not wanting to go down a slippery hill, and a refusal at the 2nd jump) and altho he didn't stop, he was still objecting at jump #5. After a good canter up a hill he was going more forward and the 2nd horse caught up to us so we let her slip in ahead of us and Smokey followed her down a wee drop and then she pounded off ahead and we settled back into our a lot slower rhythm LOL.

So those last 3 jumps were very settled and no objections and he hit the home flags having done all I'd asked of him and pretty much without having gotten a sweat up :o)

It was a huge day for the wee fella, and a big ask for the amount of riding and preparation we've done, so I'm very proud of him.

1 rail SJ, 2 stops in XC and a ton of time faults, but he was my wee dude. And he managed to get 2 ribbons!!! A first in the Combined Training part of the day (just Dressage and SJ) as the other person got eliminated in the SJ (a top show and dressage horse might I add!) and she didn't do the XC so we were it and we didn't manage to eliminate ourselves so I feel we actually earned that red ribbon, no matter how many faults we stacked up!!!

Tired boy then couldn't eat all his dinner at the float and Pete and Marcus were going to take him home for me so I could steward a XC jump for the rest of the day, so a bit more 'persuasion' was required to get him on the float to go home, but on he eventually went and they all got home safe and sound :o)

Our lovely neighbour came over on Saturday too with his digger and shifted my pile of crusher dust that was still dumped in the grass and finished spreading all the rest for me (God bless the man, you should see my blister, cracked, oozing hands after doing 2 piles with a shovel!) so no excuses now eh?! Smokey WILL be prepared for his next day out! (Dressage in 2 weeks time LOL)

And Mac will have somewhere to get his brain back into work mode and I'll have a potentially soft landing place for when I get back on him hehehehe.

And best of all.... another frost this morning, with a gloriously sunny day! The weather gods played the game for us on the weekend, gotta love 'em!

Sunshine and Jumping

2010-07-14T20:17:00.003+12:00

what more could you ask for in the middle of winter if you ride horses?! ;o)

We have had NO rain during July yet, the ground has dried out, the frosts have hit and beautiful sunny, and semi warm days, lovely!

Smokey has had dressage day, a cross country training day, and has his first One Day Event on this Sunday (lets hope for NO frost that day or we'll be sliding out of the dressage arena and skipping the show jumping!)
His dressage was good, he got 5th in both tests and happy with his work.
His cross country training day was a blast, he had a ball, we jumped mostly the 55-65cm stuff but picked and chose and did some of the 75-85cm stuff too and he was great. He was unsure of a few of them and just needed to be able to put a nose to them and then it was all go.

Ditches (empty) and water will be somethingn we need to work on however, he indicated a wee bit of a dislike to those, a bush pony who doesn't like getting his feet wet! Who'd have thought it LOL.
So an early start on Sunday for his ODE, and really really hoping it's not frosty, I don't want to have to pull out of any of it for safety sake!
He just got a new cover bought for him today and looks fab in his burgandy gear (will pop a pic of him at the dressage up :o)

Chickens are all great and healthy (touch wood!) dogs are good, have new beds getting sorted and last bits for them should be ready tomorrow (the bean bag and massive soft toy horse they had claimed as theirs all disintigrated and went to the dump and Karma didn't appreciate nothing warm UNDER her in front of the fire, poor shivering little girl, so new beds sorted :o)

Work has slowed down a little which is allowing me a bit of a break so appreciating that too while I have it :o)

As time goes on and I see how fragile life can be

2010-06-26T17:31:00.002+12:00

for the chickens I'm getting more and more sucked in by the wee darlings.
Another shed is due to go in 2 weeks at the free range farm, this shed has had others added to them from the last shed to go to boost numbers up but production has taken a nose dive and breaking even isn't good enough so they are going early (nice in one way, one less shed to go into for a couple of months till the babies are up and running) but so sad :o( Any I can't spread the word about and get rehomed will be composted! Some of the girls have survived the shift from the last shed AND the moult they have already gone through (or are in the middle of for a lot right now) and are looking beautiful with feathers having come through again and they'll get turned into compost :o(

I hate it!!!! I want to save all the most scraggly, skinniest, baldest babies and give them a chance to live like a hen should, but I have no room! I also want to save the ones that have survived the shift and the moult (big things on their own to get through in sheds like that!) and are looking beautiful again so that suffering wasn't in vain! But I have 12 here already (10 was supposed to be my limit but hey, when they need you they need you!) I'm already eyeing up the "orchard" (was a HUGE horse yard I never used so planted fruit trees in) to chicken mesh and turn into a 2nd chook pen so I can have another 10 (or 12)

If I could find buyers for all the eggs they should be able to almost pay for their own food once they're up and running again...

Someone please tell me to be sensible and leave them be and just have my one crew!!!

OK, Feedback....

2010-06-13T19:48:00.003+12:00

Like the new look? Or return to the way it was? No comments and I'll gather it doesn't matter one way or another LOL.

It has been WET and COLD!

No riding for weeks! Been tired too, going to bed very early which is unusual, but am finally rid of the sore throat that's been bugging me for over a week :o)

Dozer the bull mastiff has just had another hot spot (wet eczema) flare up after Leo punctured his neck AGAIN! and Karma washed it beyond clean AGAIN! but yay! Got it under control and dried up without the vet visit or steroids or antibugs! 2 washes in copper sulphate, and daily washing with the Himalayan Crystal Salt and it's dried up, WOOHOOO!

Fantastic timing, I read about using tea and asprin to dry it out too, a wholistic vet sent out a newsletter with this in it just a couple of days ago, brew a cup of strong black tea, add an asprin and hold a cloth soaked in it on the site for 5 mins, then wipe over 4 times a day with apple cider vinegar (the same as the salt) so something I might try next time Leo plays too hard!

Communication wise not a lot that is new to report, tips are still getting put up on the FaceBook page for anyone interested.

A busy May YAY!

2010-05-23T16:38:00.003+12:00

Thanks to the wonderful people and their support this month I've said I'll definitely do a Silver Sponsorship for the Kai's, save one life, and I hear at the last hour the applications came rolling in and they have about 80 confirmed homes for some horses and a record number of 2-4yr old's being sought by people, fantastic!!!

Smokey did his dressage, his first test was the best, we entered at A, we exited at A :o)
.... at a canter!!!! Little sausage came round off his 20 metre circle at A and zip, out we went! however I was happy with the test and only wish the judges had actually kept up with the marking and comments as the big elimination was actually very early in the test!
2nd test was rather crappy, he was tired and fighting and not wanting to canter and we came last there :o( However again, his manners there for the day were great, and although disappointed, was still happy with him....

We snuck in a jumping lesson ready for the Show Hunter outing we were going to have last weekend, but the chiro was in town on the Friday and Smokey was out down by his bum so would have missed the Show Hunter anyway, luckily for us in more way's than one, it was a rather wet weekend and the competition was actually postponed until this weekend, so we didn't miss it after all!
So we went and did that this morning, a practice round and 1 round at 50 cms, he did very well considering we're still just doing trot approaches right now :o) Doubt we would have been placed (left to come home before it all finished) but very happy with him, not even a hint of him wanting to stop :o)

More rain forcast for the next few days, good if the temps hold up just a little while longer to get that grass growing! And I'm setting out tyres for a partial arena in the paddock. Only 20m squared at the moment, a full size arena would take a whole months worth of grass for my boys, can't afford to get rid of that much grass! But it'll mean I have some where to school some circles at least in the middle of winter without fear of slipping over or chopping up their precious grass :o) All the tyre shops are gagging to get rid of their old tyres so using them will make that part free at least.

Chooks are all great, yesterday was 10 eggs from 11 girls so production is picking up again :o) Dogs are good, Leo is finally maturing, still a hyperactive noonah but he's turning into a very likable mummy's boy :o) Zak the old dude is 12 now and still as fit as a fiddle, my beautiful old boy. Marcus has started morning kindy 3 days a week YAY! and the martial arts clubs are expanding well for Pete, so all ticking along well here :o)

May is upon us... So it's all about the Kai's

2010-05-01T18:37:00.005+12:00

just a reminder that 25% of all consults this month goes the the KWHWT (Kai Trust) to help sponsor a horse or 2 from the muster this month, perhaps the last muster of it's kind if the contraception trials work out, peoples last chance perhaps to get a horse straight from the wild!!!!

If you can help by taking a horse, or sponsoring one, or even just a $20 donation, I urge you to do it, these sweet ponies never asked to be mustered and slaughtered, they never asked to be ripped away from their families, their babies, their home and be trucked off to yards and people or death. We have taken it upon ourselves to "manage" these dear horses and kill off those not "wanted"... my darling Smokey was supposed to be one of those unwanted ones. Smokey, my gentle, sweet, giving young boy should be dead.... please help us save another Smokey, to give another young one a chance at life....

Again, the Kai Trust on facebook Facebook

Their website www.kaimanawa.homestead.com

Or of course, to make a donation at the same time as a consult, email me (email is all through the website)

And talking about Kai's, Kaimanawa Disciple (yep, that's Smokey :o) is doing his first level 1 dressage tests tomorrow, wish us luck!

Marcus is now 4 yrs old!!!

2010-04-24T19:01:00.003+12:00

He had his birthday on Tuesday and unfortunately I spent a lot of the day trying to sort out Amanda the chook I'd rescued starving to death, she came through the moult and had a beautiful new coat of feathers but had gone off colour for about a week, having just lost Becky to having been off colour, I grabbed her out of one shelter and was instantly covered in mites, oh my god, it was gross she was COVERED in them! I doused her with sulphur powder and then some surface fly spray to top her off (she wasn't going to be grooming herself so figured that was safe) and put her in the dog crate on her own. A couple of hours later she was on her side. Mites were just everywhere! Syringed some food and water down her and a couple of hours later she died. Unfortunately stupid stupid me syringed her to damn hard and I drowned her, evidenced when she died and exhaled egg and water :o(

I had her inside with me by then and was just plugging in the bioptron (have heard green light helps with fleas etc) but never got a chance to test it.

So now I need to find out where the mites are!!! have the powder to treat the girls even though I've checked another 3 of them over and found nothing, maybe Amanda took them all with her!

So it was a very sad day for me my poor girl died by my hand after she'd come back from the edge already...

But Marcus loved his day anyway, had chocolate cake with candles in it, he hates cake but loved the candles part and Pete and I loved the cake so all good!

Smokey has another dressage competition next weekend, two level 1 tests to do this time so worked on his canter tonight, not too bad once he stopped being frisky LOL.

And lo and behold while collecting eggs today I found a dwarf chook!!! She must be about a year old now and it's the first time I've ever seen her! I asked the boss about her and he only saw her for the first time about a month ago so I asked if I could have her, her face is just so "pretty". Everything on her is just small, although some of the photo's of her trying to look out the top of the nesting box when I lifted the lid makes her neck look like a giraffe! Amazing how they can stretch!

So here is Pet, the newest addition to the mad chook lady's flock LOL

Busy busy... and it's nearly muster time again!!!

2010-04-24T14:31:00.003+12:00

have a fair bit of work at the moment which is of course great, hopefully it will continue as May is the month I give 25% of all consults to the Kaimanawa Wild Horse Welfare Trust for use at muster time. The are taking the numbers down to 300 (from 500) and it was a big muster last year and this year 150 will be coming out to get it down to the 300. Unfortunately we're STILL in the middle of a drought and as of a few days ago they had only 11 horses placed and the muster is at the end of May, not looking good! The KWHWT is committed to saving ALL foals and yearlings at their own cost if necessary (will handle them and then find homes for then in the following months) but it basically means anything older than 1yr old will be going to the works and slaughtered....

So..... I know not all of you followers are Kiwi's but for those that are it is time to spread the word, these are GREAT ponies, most of them are worth their weight in gold once started.

Check out the KWHWT website for application details and more KWHWT inc or their FaceBook page Kai Trust on FaceBook

If you can't take a horse there are sponsorship deals where you can sponsor a horse, have naming rights, photo's etc, if you can't afford that then even $20 from 10-15 people each will save a horses life so PLEASE if you can help in ANY way, now is the time...

If you're thinking about a consult but have no spare money after that rest assured 25% of your consults booked in May will be going to these guys too :o)

Smokey's First Dressage Competition

2010-04-13T09:36:00.005+12:00

aaaaaw another Smokey post! He is maturing mentally really well by the way, still asks for his "treats" when we get to the float (usually has all the gear in it so just tie up to that) but he's certainly no longer a baby, he's a really lovely young man now! Coming up the 2 yr anniversary of him being mustered from the wild too :o)

Anyway, we headed off to his first ridden show (he'd been to one inhand show about a year ago) and had only entered him in the morning's training test (no canter).

Was talking too much by the float and a little late getting on him so he only got 5 mins warm up! Naughty me! There was a dog show going on next door to the arena by a partly finished fence that was distracting for all, and stupid me learnt the wrong test so we got a course error pretty much as soon as it started!

BUT, apart from MY mistakes, he was lovely, did a reasonable test for 5 mins warmup, and did another 5 mins of work after we came out of the arena that was just LOVELY work, he stayed tied up to the float while I went and helped score some papers etc and was just impeccably behaved. My wee dude :o)

So, here he is!!! Starting from first hopped on (and some distracted tension) to the end of the test.... (we came 6th out of 10 even with our course error so happy with that!)

I am just Oh So Proud of my wee Kaimanawa

2010-04-05T15:28:00.002+12:00

I could rave about him all day every day!!!! No doubt everyone everywhere would get sick of hearing it but he is just so wonderful!!!! We did a lot of canter work at our lesson on Friday, we even went overtime to try to get the breakthrough but he was just too tired and it was too much. So he's had a couple of days off and jumped on him today, a nice gentle warm up working all the cricks out of muscles for him and then into canter, about 15 seconds into that first canter and wham bam thank you ma'am he softened, rounded and his balance was 100% better than it has been. Did another 3 canters in total and finished, what a short but great ride :o)

I don't think he ever wanted to be a wee dressage horse but he's shaping up nicely :o)

Mac on the other hand is as frustrating as hell, it's like a roller coaster ride with him. He was so great on Wednesday I could have jumped on him, today he didn't even want me catching him! So FRUSTRATING! Still, he did get caught, and we did get some ground work done and he certainly earned that feed he got! Brat!

Chooks are still alive and kicking, one of the scrawny girls got stuck (upside down I might add) between one of the dog shelters and the fence (they are in the unused dogs pen!) Was fun and games to get her out, but she hadn't been there long and was OK :o) All the older girls are pretty good with them, not going out of their way to harass them which is great (and expected! I tell all the new comers my girls are lovely, gentle girls, I expect them to live up to that!)

Don't forget to check out FaceBook page - Talk To Your Animals for discussions, communication tips and all those quick day to day updates :o)

Love Hearing Good Feedback!

2010-04-04T18:14:00.003+12:00

Who doesn't?! But it's so rewarding to hear of the animals who having shared what they needed to share, then modify their behaviour after it's explained to them why it would be preferred if they did. They are smart little guys who know they've been heard and know they can relax again.

Unfortunately there are those around who even if the message has been passed they know the situation won't change and it's a little harder to convince them they should still alter their behaviour, particularly if they feel what they are warning their family about is dangerous :o( I feel for them because they put an awful lot of stress on themselves trying to pass these warnings on...

On a more personal note tried to rescue another couple of sick chooks a week ago but they only lasted 1 day max, but died peacefully in their sleep without being pecked to death so I'm OK with that. Unfortunately I lost one of my girls too a couple of days later. She was into her moult and had been "off" for weeks and not eating much, but she had just given up and got too weak and died unharassed too and had lots of cuddles before she went (probably hated that but couldn't really complain LOL)

Have 4 more here today as one of the other sheds "goes" next Saturday. Two are girls I would have removed from the shed anyway as they'd have been dead by tomorrow the way the others were ripping into them, both skin and bone, but both still have a spark in the eye so hopefully will pull through. A bigger girl who has no tail and was just terrified of any other chook (all the "no tails" are picked on something chronic!) She was so terrified of being hurt she tried to take a chunk out of me after I nabbed her and then tried to escaped the box every time it was opened! Silly chook, still she was straight into the free range thing when we got home and happy to be ignored for the most part by my girls.

Lastly is Angel who made herself known to me yesterday and was just identifiable enough that I thought I should be OK trying to find her again today. Got the eggs done, got the 3 other girls sorted and went back into the shed for a quick look to see if I could find her. Within 4 steps into the shed there she was spotted and she turned to the feeder and started eating (permission for me to grab her without her stressing about it) and no room in the box so she was carried home.

She is a big healthy girl, lots of meat on her so she's done well at the farm, but is gentle enough (not a bully) and gentle with me and when put down in with my girls it was like she'd never been anywhere else. Just getting dark now so I'll zip out and make sure they're all in bed somewhere :o) (there weren't all sorted but are now, Angel has found her way straight to the nesting boxes and the other 3 are huddled in the same place as a photo I took a couple of hours earlier will show.

Mac is getting ready to be ridden again, touch wood, no pain issues for a while now, no trying to avoid being touched, and he is now watching me intently every time I ride Smokey, so a lesson booked for him just over a week away and Smokey's first dressage next weekend, can't wait, I am just soooooooo proud of the wee dude! Here he is at our lesson with Saskia a couple of days ago, just about to breakthrough with his canter work and then it'll be full steam ahead!

It was a hard lesson for both of us, both absolutely SOAKED with sweat (it was a hot day!) and he sure thought he deserved Saskia's lunch she was about to start!

Home Sweet Home :o)

2010-03-23T12:31:00.009+13:00

Was a fantastic time in the Nth Island, caught up with friends, family, met new people, met some wonderful and cheeky animals. Had a great day at the Kaimanawa Range Trip, apparently we didn't see as many horses around as other years (Army was doing exercises in the Valley they are usually seen in) but those we did see kept us company for a good distance, racing along side the bus something they don't usually do (a little encouragement at the beginning and a lot of flattery helped hehehe). A beautiful piece of "desert", some lovely land in there! Very worthwhile trip to do!

this is where we stopped for lunch, the horses obviously spend a bit of time in here amongst the trees as there was poop around :o)

Got a feel for where some horses were and it felt like some off to the left and forward of the hut so asked if they could come down towards the Valley floor (where the Army was). We headed out in the bus after lunch and saw these 3, a young foal ...

We also stopped at the yards and saw where Smokey made his break for freedom... the yard on the right was where he should have been and they went to the works, the yard on the left was where he ended up with the babies to be rehomed, and the gate he barged thru to earn his freedom :o)

Autumn here Again Already?!

2010-03-10T19:22:00.003+13:00

A nip to the air in the mornings, getting dark earlier at night, but still glorious hot sunny days :o)

We're heading up to the Nth Island on Friday, looking forward to meeting some people I've previously done some work for, will be nice to put faces to names and meet some more of their babies in person :o)

I'll miss my babies though, it's 10 days! Ah well, we'll all appreciate each other when we get home I suppose!

Smokey is going to have his first dressage competition on April 11th :o) Mac will sit that one out, by the time we get home and I get back on him again he'll have a week or 2 of work under his belt after nearly 4 months off and for level 3 he needs just a little bit more work than that!

Dogs are good, chickens are cute and good, Marcus is nearly 4 eek!!!

Finally emailed the Kebzeh foundation again in relation to doing their course, looked at when I was last enquiring and it was 2 1/2 yrs ago!!! Where has time gone?! Will be interesting to find out where expanding the energy work in that direction will take me :o)

Long, but nice :o)

2010-03-02T20:51:00.001+13:00

The Invitation
By Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for,
And if you dare to dream of meeting
Your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
For love, for your dream,
For the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon.
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow,
If you have been opened by life's betrayals,
Or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain,
Mine or your own,
Without moving
To hide it or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy,
Mine or your own,
If you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
Without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself,
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.
I want to know if you can be faithless and therefore be trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see beauty
Even when it is not pretty every day,
And if you can source your own life
From its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure,
Yours and mine,
And still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the full moon,
"Yes!"

It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair,
Weary and bruised to the bone,
And do what needs to be done for the children.

It doesn't interest me who you are, how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
In the center of the fire with me
And not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
From the inside
When all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
With yourself,
And if you truly like the company you keep
In the empty moments.

what a relief!

2010-02-24T16:30:00.002+13:00

Didn't realise quite how much it was weighing on me until he's fixed and NOW I get a tension headache LOL.

Mac got to finally see the chiropractor today, 4 mths after banging himself up, his poll was out, under his saddle was out (and very reactive to that point!) and back by his tail.

Hugest thanks to Jeanne Northwood from Energy Works and to Kimberley Harrison-Jones a Bowen practitioner in Marlborough and Wellington for working on him in the meantime. Aunty Jeanne will do a last wee clean up on him now he's "fixed" and a week or so of groundwork and we should be ready to rock again, actually fixed this time! (fingers crossed!) So his headaches should be finished and my smoochy boy should be back full time instead of part time :o)

Poor wee angel, he is so staunch with pain, this stuff must have been hurting him SO much :o(

Amanda the chook is settling in with the other girls, still skinny but her new feathers are already poking thru!

Panda didn't make it, but she died with company but in peace and had lots of love before she went.

Smokey had another lesson with Saskia Ostermeier today, not the best work he's ever done but great that he shows his evasions to her because she can teach ME what I need to do. Another lesson tomorrow morning for him too...

Pete had his birthday on the weekend and it was the perfect excuse to give him some more stuff for the bathroom hehehe. Will get the house finished eventually, Christmas, Birthdays and Fathers Day are the perfect time to get Pete something for the house that he then has to finish. So the bathroom is nearly done, new big mirror meant he had to finish plastering, new towel rails meant the tiles get finished, then he did the coving and hey presto not much to go!

Now to get onto sorting travel for the Nth Island trip next month! Wellington 12th March, Auckland 15th March for a week, and then heading south again, so anyone wanting any in person consults contact me and we can sort dates and times. Anyone not in Auckland or Wellington but on the path North or South, give me a yell, we should be able to sort something out for you.

email is KA@talktoyouranimals.co.nz links to that are right through the website :o)

2 new additions...

2010-02-15T22:51:00.002+13:00

luckily the owner of the free range farm wasn't home over the weekend and the person looking after the farm doesn't do neck wringing so these 2 girls have come home with me.

Chicken #1 is Amanda (or Mandy as Marcus calls her) she could stand and walk about 3 steps before having to sit back down on her "heels". She was being attacked mercilessly by the others, and when put outside the paddock in some green grass she got stuck into the grass so obviously hungry as. Got her home and she drank so much I thought she would pop. Then got stuck into some wheat and little bits of apple I put out, then cleaned up an egg. Cleaned up 2 eggs the next day and more wheat. Is bright eyed but still very weak in the legs, when she stands up she stands up very straight and tall and when she walks she tends to stand on her own feet. Pretty sure she should come thru OK.

Chook #2, called Panda by Marcus to go with Manda. She was found on the Sunday, being left alone at the time and huddled under a ramp leading up to a nesting box. Eyes stuck shut, right leg she won't stand on and is very sore. I actually thought she'd be dead within 10 mins of putting her in the trailer while I collected the eggs but lo and behold she lived, and is still alive altho it is a case of "just" at the moment.

She too is starving, drank like a horse when she got home, pecked at a bit of wheat in a manner that actually showed her hunger, but not too interested in the egg yolk (unusual!) and not interested in anything else. Started off this morning with more to drink and a little peck at the wheat but not interested in much at all this afternoon :o(

Still hanging in there however...

Both girls are recuperating in the dogs crate (first time the dogs crate has ever been used to be honest!) Fingers crossed for Panda, I think it'll be a while before either of them is ready to meet the other girls...

Smokey's Lesson With Saskia on YouTube

2010-01-28T00:01:00.002+13:00

hacked and edited and shortened to 10 mins! Smokey learning about "contact"

busy busy

2010-01-27T09:04:00.002+13:00

Had a friend from Italy who is doing Animal Communication turn up on Friday, was lovely to see her again! Daniela arrived in time to come to Smokey's lesson with Saskia on Saturday and share my birthday with me on Sunday (she gives GREAT Shiatsu massages!) She came to see Mac's Bowen session Sunday morning with us (his TMJ (jaw) session) and thankfully he is a LOT happier now in the paddock with being touched! YAY!!! We had dinner with a friend in town and then we put Daniela on Smokey for a quick ride before taking her to Kaikoura on Monday. Dear wee Smokey.... I had given Daniela instructions of what to do in the "worst case scenario" leave his head alone, don't try to stop him, just hold onto the saddle until he stops (lets face it, he's not dirty, but even he might think the other horses are appealing if a beginner rider doesn't enforce the way he should be going! He was a little worried when she first got on him but settled nicely, we took the lead off and Daniela even had a trot on her own!!! She then had an unplanned canter on her own too LOL, she was trotting nicely but not turning back towards me and hey presto he was aiming up the paddock! The very sensible lady did exactly what I said, didn't bother trying to pull him up (the sure fire way for a beginner to lose centre of gravity and topple off LOL) but just held onto the saddle till he stopped up by the fence.

When they finished Smokey was told he'd better apologise (for which he could really see no reason to!) and when he was not forthcoming I told him naughty boys do not get carrots and if he can't apologise he wouldn't get any. He was then told that apologies came complete with cuddles and he instantly stepped forward to give Daniela a cuddle (although he was intercepted by Marcus who grabbed a cuddle off him first hehehe)

So it was a lovely weekend, Smokey had a FANTASTIC lesson with Saskia, Mac seems to be on the mend, oh and I got a birthday message from the dogs!

Daniela was sitting in my chair on Saturday night and says "what do you want Zak?" I look around and she says to me "what does he want?" I ask him and he indicates he wants to talk to her so she gets out her notebook and starts having a chat with him.

The next day in the birthday card I got from her (which she felt compelled to buy in Italy before she came to NZ and didn't even know my birthday was coming up!) was a message from the dogs for my birthday that Zak had had to pass on because he was the eldest.... how sweet was that!?! :o)

So I'm still trying to butcher Smokey's lesson enough to get 1/2 an hour into 10 mins and then that will get linked up there, and need to get back and do some work!

The Little Jumping Bean

2010-01-18T08:16:00.007+13:00

got to go x-country yesterday. One wee jump with a steering issue hehehe but he took it all in his stride (apart from the mistrides and the crashing of the jump!) I know the tyre jump doesn't look it, but it is still 2 tyres high, just took the middle one out for a bit of encouragement for him to start with, I thought 3 tyres high might have prompted a stop!

Blogger take sooooooo long to upload vids and these were going on FaceBook too so I you tubed them.... so here is a link to one of them, if you then browse "more from The T2YA" you'll be taken to the others.

Smokey Jumping

and here is Marcus getting a lift back to the yards :o)

Marcus hitching a ride

Mac had his 2nd session of Bowen yesterday, Smokey will be taking his spot with a lesson with Saskia Ostermeier next weekend since Mac is still out of action, so that will be exciting!

The chooks are good, Spooky Lee is very UNspooky and all her feathers have grown back on her back now! YAY!!!

Daniela a lady from Rome I met up with when she came traveling last year is back in NZ at the moment and will be popping in for a couple of days again in the next week sometime YAY!!!! She is a communicator too and so lovely, will be great to catch up again :o)

Don't forget our FaceBook page Talk To Your Animals on Face Book Face Book seems to be a lot more interactive so if you're signed up over there already it's an easy place to discuss, contribute and follow!

Mac gets some body work, Smokey goes jumping!

2010-01-10T13:37:00.007+13:00

We went to Kimberley's place today to ride in her flash new arena!!! She is also an EMRT (Bowen) technician so Mac came along for the ride and to get a treatment... Looks like he has a TMJ issue which would explain the not wanting his usual head cuddles! Poor possum is staunch with pain too, so it must be bad!!!

Smokey got shown around the arena, a cavaletti dragged in (more our size than the jumps Kimberley does!) and he was led over it once each way then I jumped on and we did some trotting poles and then over the wee cavaletti. I had to put it up to it's highest height because he would only trot over it any lower!

Kim then came out and manned the camera for me (gotta love a good neighbour!) and got some posey shots and then some action shots :o)

And an action shot... crappy riding on my part but really conscious of not interfering with his mouth in case he fell on his face or wanted to look LOL (yeah, that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it!)

and then a couple of movies, the last of which I was NOT expecting a canter and a big launch at it as you may be able to tell by the laughter that follows!!! (and the picture the blog has decided to put as the freeze frame! LOL)

He was fantastic and he always makes me so proud of him! Go the little Kai!!!

Smokey has his day out :o)

2010-01-04T10:13:00.003+13:00

It was a 5 hr ride through some magnificent farmland with spectacular scenery and I didn't listen to the little voice that had said the night before "wonder if the camera battery needs charging" so sadly the lack of photos is due to my inability to heed that little voice LOL. However there was someone else there with a camera who got some good shots and fingers crossed she'll remember to email them through!

Smokey was happy as larry bringing up the rear and apart from stubbornly refusing to shut a gate for me (grrrr) he didn't set a foot wrong all day. He was really feeling the gravel on the way home though the poor mite, although once he hit grass again thankfully he wasn't sore at all and happy to trot out catch up and overtake everyone so we could clown around about being in front once in the ride (this was 5 mins from home again hehehe)

We stopped for a picnic lunch about 1/2 way and the horses grazed or stood tied to fences and trees while we nattered and ate. It was great! There were 10 of us and all the horses were very well behaved, quite a few 4 yr olds there.

Once stopped for lunch Smokey had his bridle off and could eat, he had his apple and 1/2 of my apricots the little rat! He wasn't supposed to like them!

I like the more submissive animals, they can be so uncomplicated!

Mac is still fighting his demons in relation to me falling off back in November, fighting and losing I might add! He had another hissy fits 2 days ago and he and I parted company AGAIN! What made it worse however was that I had Pete there holding the reins and he STILL spazzed out. There is something going on there that I'm missing, as soon as I get some work out the way I'm going to have to sit down and see if I can get the missing link with him.... very very frustrating as he is the love of my life and he will pull away from even having cuddles in the paddock which is just not him :o( We'll figure it out I'm sure!

All the Animals are so Good!

2010-01-01T22:12:00.003+13:00

Smokey has energy to burn, his little sewing machine trot is going for it when we're riding LOL. He even wanted to play in the paddock the other day, so we had some chasing games (an adaptation of this, his game with Marcus who always has an apple core when we go out to see him)

The chickens are fantastic and all still laying an egg each a day :o) My most hen pecked girl is finally hanging out with the other girls now, eating from the same hand, sharing the same nesting box and is now roosting for the night in the new mobile coop (the only one using it!) Really happy with them all but especially my Spooky (aka Lee) AND her feathers are all growing back already! She now has feathers on her back YAY!!! No more sunburn!

Happy New Year to you all...

2009-12-31T22:17:00.002+13:00

Full on time of year isn't it.... Christmas has zoomed on by and all of a sudden we're on the threshhold of 2010.

I mentioned it to the horses tonight after riding Smokey and while picking up poo... of course as quick as the words were coming out of my mouth I was thinking "it's just another day" and the horses serenely munched on their hay wondering what I was on about. Why is there all this hype for a New Year, the year is going to bring joys and sorrows, love and heartbreak, summer and winter, just like every other year... what you choose to do with those things will make it a "good year" or not.

Like I say to a good friend of mine, any negative can be made a positive, you may need to stand it on its head and turn it inside out but it can be done.... if you want to....

So, I hope everyone can find the silver lining to whatever 2010 throws at you! :o)

And remember it's better to aim at the moon and hit the lamp post than to aim at the lamp post and hit the gutter ;o)

Happy New Year and for 2010 make your answer to the question 'how are you?' be "Great! I woke up alive!" xxx

Communication at its finest

2009-12-23T11:27:00.002+13:00

and it's Marcus who is "hearing"... little blighter is always in my head!!! no sooner do I think something then he is 30 seconds later saying "I want......." I've got to stop planting seeds in his head, particularly when I'm hungry and craving junk food!

I can't believe it's Christmas time already! I've got hay cut in the paddock but not baled, we're heading off to Christchurch and the in-laws tomorrow, I'm sure I'll need another 2 bags of fruit flavoured candy canes before we go!

So although the Christmas pressure is on, most people should be enjoying a break from work at least, so from me and mine to you and yours, have a very merry Christmas, a lovely holiday break and an easy start to 2010. Stay safe, keep talking to your animals, may the Universe provide you with what you need and may you always have the knowledge that you have what you need to get through whatever it decides you need!

Merry Christmas :o)
xxxx

Phew! My Mac is Back!

2009-12-16T12:47:00.003+13:00

Had a lesson yesterday, my coach, Diane has long been both Mac and my security blanket, someone knowledgeable who knows both Mac and my self imposed limits LOL. Hubby is as unhorsey as they come and is useless at feeding out those calm confident vibes to Mac, so yesterdays lesson was the first time I'd been on Mac since my superhero impersonation where I believe I tried to fly :o)

I really do try to set the sensitive soul up for success because he is SOOOOOOO sensitive, so it was magnesium, a couple of sessions of groundwork and the first time getting back on in a setting he knows well and is comfortable in.

Of course as I knew he would be, he was fine, so we're away laughing again :o)

"The Girls" (chooks) are still putting out an egg each per day *eek* I'm sure I'll find someone to give them away to LOL. They are great and the spookiest one of all is now settling in in grand form and reminds me so much of Mary, the most cuddley, the most trusting (and this is a chook who I really couldn't get near prior to uplifting her!)

The dogs are good, Zak my darling old boy is and always has been mum's boy, the only time you realise he may have slowed down a tad (will be 12 in March) is when you see Leaping Leo streaking past him out in the paddock.

Karma still has lameness issues, and PeeWee's keeps flaring up after a hard run around in the paddock (soft girls letting the team down!)

Dozer is, well, Dozer hehehe, the strong silent type. And Leaping Leo is well, still mad as a hatter hehehe. Such a dominant boy, who has to throw it in everyone's face to prove it all the time. One on one he's such a honey, but with any of the others around he's an attention seeking goon :o)

The goats are finally moulting the winter coat out and expanding at an alarming rate! The all look pregnant (and they're NOT!) but that's a common look for them :o)

And the horses? All good. Hay is nearly ready to cut again. Marcus is a terrible 3 yr old (man the ATTITUDE on that kid is horrendous!!! I blame the Rasmussen genes, it cannot possibly be from his mother!) and Pete is busy making me a portable chicken coop for Xmas so I can wheel the girls around the paddock and set the chicken mesh up around them and their wee coop :o)

So there we are, all updated with what's happening here for now...

Hope everyone's plans for Xmas are sorted and the shopping nearly done.

Smokey hits the big league

2009-12-09T18:22:00.002+13:00

well, OK, a lesson with the big league anyway LOL.

He was great, clicked on pretty well to what Jody was wanting on the ground (uses Andrew McLean's methods) and then I jumped on him and we worked on putting his feet where we wanted them going around the arena (his first time in an arena, all scary stuff you know!)

Jody is lovely, very down to earth, very approachable, and fantastically open minded shown not just in her own training but in accepting what I do too :o)

She'll be back in town in March after Horse of the Year so I'll save up for that, and in the meantime yesterday I thought we'd better do a float session as a reminder ready for today, and decided to change his entire way of loading and get him self loading so I can do him on my own. Pete in the front with an enticing piece of carrot to help get him to leave my side and he was doing it like a pro. This morning was the same, but he had a wee mishap on the way to the lesson, got his bum stuck under the back bar till he freed himself, but was a very worried boy when we arrived wanting to come straight off! Unlucky for him he'd bent the back bar so it took me a minute to get it undone LOL.

Explained to him after the lesson that's why he needs to stand on his own 4 feet properly in the float and it won't happen if he stands nicely in there. A little procrastination but nothing worse than yesterday's practice session and on he went again. Very good wee man.

A quick catch up as work waits...

2009-12-06T20:31:00.002+13:00

The chooks have settled in fantastically and are just wonderful and gentle and friendly and these funny little birds I never even liked before have got a new fan in me :o) So curious!!!

Just bought a new helmet (eye is still wonky donk!) and jumped on Smokey after a month off and that long in spring grass (admittedly on rations) and he was great. Needed a wee session of ground work to alter his "I don't wanna be caught" attitude he'd developed, but as soon as he's getting regular attention again he's great.

He has his first ever lesson next week with Jody Hartstone who is visiting Blenheim so I'll let you know how it goes! Will be doing part of the lesson on ground work (Andrew McLeans methods) and part ridden.

They've all just been seen by the dentist who said Smokey is 4 and pretty much right on the button as he's about 6mths out from losing his 4 1/2yr caps. He was a very good boy :o)

Mac has been dumped onto some Alleviate for a couple of days as it's just been too wet to put a bowl of salt in the paddock for them and his attitude is softening again. I knew he was blaming me for things, but when the dentist turned up and Mac spazzed on him too and then wanted to know what I was punishing him for, I knew he wasn't in a good head space so roll out the Magnesium LOL.

Will be jumping on him end of next week and we'll be all guns blazing again :o)

Right off to talk to a horse...

Pets For Sale Joins the SPCA

2009-12-06T20:09:00.000+13:00

Pets For Sale - Lost & Found and Adopt Pets in New Zealand.

Wonky Donk Eyes

2009-12-01T15:46:00.003+13:00

Well here we are nearly a month after departing company from my "darling" (said very tongue in cheek for the first couple of weeks!) Mac and my eyes are still wonky! A visit to the eye specialist and he doesn't know what's going on either, so he'll review the CT scan from the hospital and see him again in a couple of weeks.

Mac was blaming ME for what happened and was pretty anti me for a week or 2 after the incident, a bit less grass has helped sort that attitude out quite well, but the eyes have actually slowed me down getting back on, and I'll still need to do some ground work with the frisky boys for a few days now before getting on anyway, so should be able to book a lesson for next week and tackle those "getting back on a psycho horse" nerves then LOL. I'll know if HE is going to be fine, but falling off hurts and I don't want MORE wonky eyes so have those subtle self doubt nerves hanging around. Will ride Smokey first and that'll help :o)

So eye specialist put some drops in the jammed open pupil and hey presto it certainly can close, so now I have these photos hehehehe, too funny really!

before a visit to the eye specialist...

after a visit to the eye specialist!

The chickens (6 girls) have settled in well and a friend took 4 too, so we've managed to save 10 out of over a thousand and give them an extended life :o) The girls are lovely and producing an egg a day each quite happily (we don't eat that many eggs!) I'm sure the dogs will love one each a week to help keep the numbers to use down!

And lastly "Talk To Your Animals" now has a facebook page. Facebook seems to be much more interactive than blogs so feel free to become a "fan" and join in :o)

Talk-To-Your-Animals on FaceBook

What a week....

2009-11-20T20:47:00.002+13:00

Auckland was great, Marcus is at a great age for nana to do things with, so we had train rides, and ferry rides and ate out so much I got used to it LOL. Slotted some work in there too and as always lovely to meet some new people and the 4 legged kids of theirs :o)

Caught up with a couple of friends and hey presto the week is up and it's time to head home again!

Arrive home and go straight out to collect eggs and check on Mary and the girls....

Mary is gone :o( colour me very blue indeed.... I KNEW I should have taken her earlier, I KNEW those survival traits I'd noticed in her were slipping, I KNEW she wanted met to take her the last time I saw her when the sweet scraggly darling accepted kisses on her tiny bald head and begged me to take her.... oh yes, beliefs aside, I'm beating myself up for that one! Poor sweet, darling little Mary who was something beyond a chicken and will never be forgotten. Gone completely, not noticed by anyone else, she would have been a tiny carcass removed from the shed while I was gone *sob*

So Sunday morning came and I needed to ride the horses before heading up to do eggs again, it was windy, the horses had gotten fat in a week and somehow I ended up in hospital, vowing and declaring my occupation on the ACC forms was Police hahahahaha. So what happened I'm not sure, it was straight after mounting as per Mac's usual, unfortunately Leo the wannabe Lion gave chase, Mac had probably already shut down (or he wouldn't have left me behind!) and ran around the house and INTO a shut gate, bending the gate (a new gate!) and popping the staple the catch hooks onto right out of the post. Leg thru his reins he's very lucky all he got was a little scrape on a fore leg (not even any blood!)

So Kelley-Anne has a CAT scan and a steroid shot for a swelling brain and left with instructions that are only vaguely remembered not to ride for 4 weeks (say what?! They want me to get ditched AGAIN?! I will be if I leave him that long!) and to come back if the pupils don't return to normal the next day... So no eggs to be collected that day by me! Altho we went straight there from hosptial to see if hope against hopes Mary had just been hiding somewhere the day before... alas, no such luck :o(

Here I am 5 days later pupils STILL uneven and Dr's stumped as to why LOL. One pupil is enlarged and locked like that, the other is reacting normally. Oh well, will just have to get a decent pair of sunnies for summer and look after them!

So having returned from a holiday where nothing was "normal" anyway heading into a week like that to be honest it's felt a bit surreal.

Eggs again this weekend (better do some work for the poor guys since they had to cover me last Sunday hehehe) and Sunday is the day I get to bring some of the girls home (if only you could have held on Mary!!!) So Penny is a definite as is another that is as yet unnamed... shall then put Mary to the task of chosing any others and sending them to me. I was going to limit it to Mary and 2 others so she wouldn't be picked on, but I reckon 5 or so now will be a good number until some more join them when the next shed is ready to go...

What to do for your Animals on Guy Fawkes???

2009-11-03T22:07:00.003+13:00

Go out and enjoy the show with them :o)

My goats are the only ones who pelt around the paddock before they take shelter in the implement shed but they need the exercise. The dogs couldn't care less, but then I couldn't care less either.

I go out to see the horses when they first start and remind them that fireworks for us are a celebration, a happy time we share with family and friends and admire the lights and the noise. So I stand out there and admire the lights and the noise with my family and friends (the 4 legged ones) until I'm bored and then I go back inside.

Make it a positive thing for them, explain what it is, so there is no unknown aspect to it for them, enjoy it with them and then leave them to it :o)

Animals "hear" what you are feeling the thinking, so don't worry about anything, or they pick up on that worry and then the strange noises and lights start and they go "oooooh that must be what she was worried about!!!!" and stress too... just enjoy the celebration and leave them enjoying it too :o)

Of course that doesn't mean you do NOTHING for an animal that does stress about them, you take your normal safety precautions! Common sense still exists so you use it :o) But by removing all stress from yourself you will remove a massive amount from your animals too.

Where has time gone???

2009-11-02T09:52:00.002+13:00

It's nearly Christmas already!!!

Marcus and I are off to Auckland this Saturday for a week, see nana, do a little work, catch up with some people, looking forward to it :o)

Mac had his dressage including his first ever musical (mine too!) Rather disappointed with the marking of it, but hey, that's life, I was very happy with his attitude over the weekend, full of energy but we weren't butting heads like we can hehehe and he loved "dancing" to the musical with me so that was cool.

I do think the 2nd lot of homeopathic drops are working too as we haven't had any butting heads sessions over things since the first lesson we had (4 days after the drops started) We even had 2 fantastic lessons last week with Saskia Ostermeier, with no tension from him and I'm feeling very confident we can get him TRULY to level 3 now I know how to sort out his strength (and weakness) issues LOL.

Smokey has had some more bareback riding and was a very good boy in the trot, brakes were still in place and all!! He also did his first gate yesterday when he headed out to ride down to the end of the road and was a great wee boy with me hanging off the side of him (it wasn't pretty by any stretch of the imagination but we did it!)

Am still helping out collecting free range eggs every 2nd weekend and have 3 wee girls ready to come home with me in a months time, however one of them (Mary) is beginning to worry me, she is/was a survivor, knew how to keep her head down and shut up when the attacks and bullying came, but has now started to squawk (calling me for help) and it draws attention to her. She is begging to come home with me every time I'm there, following me like a dog and asking to be picked up. Breaks my heart having to leave her there when I leave and then not seeing her for 2 weeks is torture! I don't even like chickens!!!!! hahahaha (note the hysterical note in that laughter!) My sweet tail-less Mary is just the sweetest, most gentle wee girl tho, I think she could win anyone over! She even decided my head looked like a safe place to perch when a bully started in on her at one of the nesting boxes I was emptying, I laughed so hard she nearly fell off!

She looks so tiny and mangy and horrible with no feathers, but she is absolutely beautiful :o)

Well since Smokey and Marcus are about the same age

2009-10-21T10:17:00.003+13:00

it's only right that Marcus is having some of his "firsts" around now too! Going to kindy and getting colds non-stop means he gets to do all the fun stuff kindy kids do like a TRIKE-ATHON! Raising money for some new playground equipment, so off we went to that last night, helmet borrowed from Liam next door (thanks Liam!) trike in tow...

He did well considering he was apparently tired and it was his dinner time LOL.

Proud mummy of the big boy (exactly 3 1/2 yesterday too :o)

Spring has Sprung...

2009-10-15T16:08:00.003+13:00

the grass is riz
I wonder where
them birdies is.

Ignore me, a poem I remember reading in the Grapevine many years ago!

Marcus has had one day back at kindy after the holidays and has ANOTHER cold!!!! Unbelievable! He's already on mutli-vits for kids and Vit C every day, anyone have any other ideas for him?!

Mac has another lot of homeopathic drops in the mail to us, ones that deal with issues with "change" so will report back after we've tried those at a lesson and dressage next weekend!

Smokey had our first bareback session flying solo today. First couple of times legs touched him and asked him to move on he thought they must mean backwards but by the end of 10 mins walking round he was accepting them doing all the normal things and was fine, dandy and his usual lovely self :o)

(does he look bum high to you guys?! I think he may be having another wee growth spurt!)

Spring is Back!

2009-10-11T15:27:00.003+13:00

Gosh I've been tired the last few days, but the cold weather has lifted and the sun was out and a glorious day and I got to head up for another ride with Pauline up the Valley further. Took Mac altho Smokey would have coped fine. Climbed up damn high! Stopped for some photos of the scenery with a bit of snow still showing on the hills but of course they look nothing like the panorama you actually "see"...

This is home, Wairau Valley.... the Wairau River running through it, left of the photo's is West, to the right is East and Blenheim....

My dear wee boy even let me take some photo's off him today so either he was very distracted by the views (and he was!) or the homeopathy has helped in little ways :o)

So, as a I matter of interest I gave homeopathy a try...

2009-10-06T16:53:00.003+13:00

having spoken to a friend at the last dressage they indicated they'd tried some homeopathy on their boy and had noticed the difference in stress levels in him etc. The lady they used is in Nelson so handy enough I decided to give her a ring and see what happened.

After lengthy discussion we decided to start with a remedy to help release the past abuse stuff and then see how much of his usual tension was linked to that as to whether he needed anything different.

He had his first drops on Friday and on Saturday I had an incredibly "soft" horse, very soft in the eye, still alert and interested in what was going on around him but very soft and smoochy. It was a pretty windy day too and Mac HATES the wind, but we had a split second of tension as the first 2 gusts hit and then he was fine and on a long rein even into a BIG gust head on (normal semi bolt material) and NO lifting of the head at all, so very soft and accepting.

Saturday night however brought a "I'm not sticking around" for his cover to be thrown on (another hate of his LOL) and for no good reason he took off from that. Another lovely soft and giving ride on Sunday and I thought we were full steam ahead, but at our lesson today, we had nothing but arguing the rotten darling! He just didn't want to soften, he didn't want to give or do as asked so obviously his stubborn streak is not abuse related hehehe (not that I thought it was!) Stubborn and contrary just like his mum damn him!

So will give a report to Vicki the homeopath and see what she recommends from here and just see how much relaxation for him we can pull out of a bottle (not much I reckon, the boy likes to make me work for what we get!)

Sunday resulted in a bareback session for Smokey too.... just right back to baby steps and a good few mounting and dismountings with hubby just standing at his head for a safety net for Smokey. Then a couple of walk arounds on just a 10 metre circle before another dismount and mount. As per everything else, he just took it in his stride :o) REALLY looking forward to doing heaps of bareback with him, I do miss that!

On a down side, Pete's mum has found out her cancer has not gone after chemo and radiation but has in fact spread, which has resulted in my "hold everything in" husband having anxiety attacks he thought were heart attacks, so working on helping him open up and deal with things. Mum in Law is waiting to hear what they'll do chemo wise for her but hopefully this time round we might actually have a shot at getting her to try some more natural help too, even if it's just in the form of vitamins/minerals etc to boost the system. Eating broccoli just isn't gonna cut it now!

a couple of websites of interest...

2009-09-29T19:25:00.003+13:00

great work by Rachael and Danny De Hek, the sites are incredible! Check them out people, have fun getting lost in there and looking around :o)

NZ Information Network yep, that's a listing of mine in there!

And their equestrian forum:

NZ's Equestrian Network

Great sites, great work guys and some good chatting going on there! Come on over and say hi anyone who is interested! A HUGE range of forums on the New Zealands Information Network too, German Shepherd Rescue have a forum in there for the dogs :o)

Auckland Visit 2nd Week of November

2009-09-29T09:26:00.002+13:00

yep, time to head north again. Will take the young fella up to see his Nana in Auckland so if anyone is wanting to book a consult while I'm there there will be limited availability. Also time (although limited too) to meet up for coffees etc so drop me an email if you'd like (email through the website :o)

Dressage Come and Gone again and now "Questions"...

2009-09-29T09:16:00.004+13:00

rotten scores but am very happy with Mac's attitude on the whole :o)

Was talking to someone there who is just trying some homeopathic drops on their pony as he gets a bit stressed at dressage and doesn't cope as well when the rider puts the pressure on (he is Open Medium!) and they said they noticed the difference in him over the weekend.

I've emailed the lady and will ring her tonight to discuss Mac and will give it a go....

Somehow it feels like cheating though! I would never consider taking Rescue Remedy, or a hipflask or anything else, to me that is removing your chance at learning, however I'm happy to take vitamins LOL. So is it cheating to give something like that to a horse to take the edge of the tension he puts on himself (or rather that I probably put on him) or is it doing a good thing and trying to remove the tension that I may have caused? My fault so mine to help solve? I don't know.....

It's not drugs, it's not even "herbal" it's simple homeopathy but I still feel like it's taking short cuts..... would love others feedback on this because I'm truly in a quandry about it!

Some videos of the boys :o)

2009-09-06T20:00:00.008+12:00

Much as I'd love to blame Pete for not zooming in, these were taken on the normal camera and if you zoom in they go all grainy so Pete's been told not to zoom for vids LOL.

Boring circles, but I'm proud of both my beautiful boys so here they are... complete with some dogs and goats thrown in for good measure :o)

and just because it's been a while

2009-09-06T19:08:00.004+12:00

and I use the need for them for the blog to get hubby to man the camera ;o) here are the boys in action today...

My Main Man Mac ...

and my Beloved Boy, Smokey...

I had been doing a pick a spot and ride to it on Mac, where I would look the completely other way (as much as possible) but hubby is a bit challenged with doing good vids and sad to say they really didn't turn out well. Came after talking about subtle body shifts with mum while riding and how even turning your head (the heaviest "limb" of your body) can alter your balance to shift your horse under you, so thought I'd DISprove that in relation to riding with the mind, by using opposite body position, looking away from the point etc and still have Mac go straight to it. Worked! Just the videos didn't LOL. Ah well he did get some nice trot circle vids of the boys so will load those up too :o)

Meant to be????

2009-09-01T14:28:00.003+12:00

Well I am a firm believer of "everything for a reason" and believe too that all the major stepping stones in our lives are preplanned and pretty much cannot be avoided, however how much do the little things affect us when they deviate from the "plan"?

huh?

LOL. I had the chance to talk with a cat just the other day, who had had a leg and a tail amputated. He wasn't really a happy boy but the loss of the mangled leg didn't worry him, but the loss of the tail upset him hugely! He was very much "the tail should still be here!" I sent him some energy for healing as was appropriate for him and funnily enough when I sent it to him this energy was going to the nonexistent tail!!! It didn't go to the missing leg, it's like it knew the leg was meant to go, but the tail should still have been there so the energy still went to the psychic tail if you like.

Was very strange! So had to give the boy a pep talk or 2 and remind him that we can't turn the clock back and bring his tail back for him and work thru a couple of things he was hanging onto around the whole accident and vet visits. Thankfully from the initial feedback from mum his mental attitude has relaxed and with some accupunture for some blockages and pain issues and the bioptron for an area he was licking raw he should come to terms with a slight deviation from his chosen path LOL.

We have spring rains happening which is just as well since they've said we may get droughts this summer, and Mac is going well, I'm still working hard on getting myself right, Smokey is a doll as per usual and Princess Roger is enjoying his new name (dear me!)

Dogs are good, child has his 4th cold, I've just had my back cracked after a weekend of agony and locked up muscles (till I remembered to use the bioptron on myself too!) and now feeling good :o)

Mark Todd comes back to haunt me...

2009-08-19T09:05:00.002+12:00

I remember as a young teen when Mark Todd was winning everything on wee Charisma (what a dude of a horse) Toddy would always praise the horse when anything went well, and always blamed himself if anything went wrong... Such a great and humble horseman, well FINALLY I'm reaching that point for myself.

FINALLY instead of thinking "but it must be Mac, I'm not doing anything wrong (or different)" I've put the magnifying glass on myself after reading Dancing With Horses by Klaus Hempfling and hey presto when mumma is straight, Mac is straight, when Mumma is right Mac is right. Poor old Mac, Mum's just been a crap rider up till now and he's been trying to compensate for my crap riding and getting told off for it (yeah yeah, some of us still don't listen well LOL) but I'm making it up to him now and it's never too late!

We're finally coming together not just in mind and spirit but finally in body too and it's a great feeling. After months and months of frustation and feeling like we're going backwards I finally feel like I can see where we're actually going and I'm gonna love every step of the journey!

It's not enough to just ride with the mind when the body is screaming something opposite, you must at least be neutral with the body if you want good results with the mind work LOL.

Mac my very patient teacher, the love of my life xxxx

Winter Dressage Series ends on a HIGH!

2009-08-07T10:58:00.004+12:00

and no I didn't win it, but Oh My God, what a warmup we had for the afternoon! The energy was literally zapping through us both, the work was just BRILLIANT (and I'm the first to say "that was crap" even when others think it was good) so Brilliant from me is really something, and the full on energy buzz up my back when he hit his perfection was literally such a buzz LOL. I'm still grinning just thinking about it. Of course by the time we got to the arena it'd pretty much gone out the window *sigh* but still we were the consistent ones over the series turning up and doing every test (and getting placed due to low entries hehehe) so we came home with the Elementary Champion Trophy and gorgeous rosette.

Have picked up and continuing reading Klaus Hempflings book Dancing with Horses and it's going into now how to get the collection and work out of them while riding (previously he was talking about all the groundwork as preparation) and it all makes a lot of sense and is actually the same body position as our martial arts uses so SHOULD be easily enough to transfer across to riding right????

hahaha

Jumped on Smokey yesterday and tried to put it into practice and he was great, his little sewing machine pony legs trot is actually surprisingly easy to sit too! And I could feel and follow easily the motion of his body. He was however frisky and it was a glorious (nearly) spring day and after 1/2 hour of trotting round he started head shaking! It appears he doesn't like sweat trickling down his face! He also thought the hose was going to eat him so hosing him off afterwards turned into a bit of a test for my temper and his stubborness! Got him in the end and once the water was on him (just like him backing away from people too!) he just stopped.

Oh and he got his front feet trimmed by the farrier on Monday!!! I kept telling him to trust the farrier, trust the farrier, it wasn't of course working, so I told him to trust ME, as I trust the farrier, that was acceptable to him and front feet got done and back feet picked up :o)

Mac's ride yesterday was a lot harder to get the feel of than Smokey! His trot is so big that I tend to just try to absorb it all with pelvis and spine together and don't let them work independantly of each other, but we got it several times so something to work on. I then took the stirrups away and actually crossed them in front of the saddle (first time for everything) and even had a wee trot like that with him tense but not going to explode on me :o)

Have also been a case study for a friend who is now doing her people Bowen certification and if I can now keep that pelvis moving and stretched hopefully I'll be a lot more even on the horses! Thanks Kimberley!

is it spring already?!

2009-07-26T19:49:00.003+12:00

what gorgeous weather we've had this weekend! Sadly my cold is STILL lingering, actually lingering probably isn't the right word as it hasn't gotten any better over the week! Marcus has caught it now too poor little sausage, and I'm very thankful for a lull in work right now!

Dragged myself outside yesterday afternoon and grabbed Smokey out for a ride. Still a bit slippery in the paddocks due to the good frosts we've been having, so after a wee trot out, I took him for a walk down the dead end road... led him first, then hopped on him down by the neighbours place and rode him back up. Stopped at a loooooong puddle at the road/grass edge and after a bit of coaxing he decided he knew I wanted him to go forward at it, but it didn't mean he had to get his feet feet so he jumped it! Our first jump hahaha.

He has another loose milk tooth too, directly above the bottom one he's recently lost, so will soon be down to one milk tooth top and bottom on that side and still 2 top and bottom on the near side.

Today Mac came out for a ride first, off we went down the road, then back up the road and up onto the Main Rd. Traffic was very light so he was pretty chilled out. Up past a 3 yr old slightly feral colt and then down a side road to do the wee wooden bridge. Mac has been over it before but not for about a year I suppose. He stopped, he went backwards, he said nah ah, until the 2 ponies on the other side of the bridge watching him were brought into the conversation. It went something like this...

"Wow, those 2 ponies aren't going to be hugely impressed by the big wimpy stallion Mac who's scared to go over the bridge are they?!" (Yes Mac thinks he's ALL that, particularly after just going past the feral boy) no sooner had I said that to him and urged him on and hey presto over the bridge he goes hahahaha.

Got him home and took Smokey out again. Down the road leading him (he has been rather upset but the horse who was currently in the yards beside the road when we've been down there a couple of weeks or so ago) couldn't have cared less today, so hopped on down the end of the road and road him back up. He grew about a hand as he stopped to look at the horse in the yards leaping around, but trundled on happily. Hooked on the lead rope when we got back to the gate and took Smokes the same route Mac had just been, just leading him out to see how he was in the traffic. All good, not a care in the world. No hesitation at the bridge, just followed me over it. So all in all, very cool, calm and collected!

And then did a very unofficial measuring of him with the new weight/height tape, and he is currently just under 14.1hh, so hopefully he'll grow just a little more yet!

Mac, when he could be convinced the tape wasn't about to eat him, is pretty much bang on 15hh which is what I thought he was. Will have to drag Roger out for a measure too!

And that's about it, hopefully I'll shake this cold soon!!! and not get any more for a year, that'd be nice too!

and what a lovely surpise! a day of firsts...

2009-07-19T19:06:00.007+12:00

it was gale force winds out there today and somehow I'm catching another cold! grrrr so it was going to be a lazy day of do nothing...... but!

Lunchtime and I got a phonecall from a 'neighbour' 10kms up the road asking if I wanted to go up for a ride. Well Maccy Boy LOATHES big winds so I jumped at the chance of saying "I'll bring Smokey!!!"

Off we went, got there and off the float, he was looking around but nothing too exciting. Then Brian on the tractor came past with a front full of hedge trimmings, aaaah no big deal. Saddle up and go up to the hitching area where Pauline and her young girl from next door are saddling up too. Smokey really wanted to say hi to the young guy (his age) still in the paddock but was very well behaved. Mounted up and away we went.

Thru a nice big stream, a bit of coaxing needed and he decided if he could drink it it must be OK to walk through hehehe. On off up into the forestry where we aimed up a hill and had our first canter! Trotted past a scary tree and another canter. Got to the top of the hill and there was another one! Another canter, another scary tree, another canter LOL. Up the top of that hill and he needed to catch his wind so the rest were walked up. On our way way we encountered a fallen tree that was supposed to be a jump test, but it turned into a "I can walk over that hairy tree mum it's OK". Up the top of all those hills it was time to head back down again, so a photo opportunity came up when Pauline hopped off (sorry Pauline it was on movie mode but it would have been a good photo!)

and we walked them all down the looooooong down hill (save the young ones withers). On the way down was another fallen down tree, which the short boy COULD have squished under with me but the other 2 hadn't had to do that so he decided he didn't have too, so we had to slide off the edge of the track and get around the end of it.

Down the bottom and another photo opportunity of me on the boy, and once we got him to stand still (I got on it must be time to go!!!) we got a few cute photo's shame they didn't really show off the countryside and the amazing views.

Then it was head for home. Back through the stream, and down towards the house and float and we took the chance to get him to walk over one of Paulines jumps that was on the ground. "No mum, it's scary, don't make me!" as he's trying to turn away from it, but hey presto, if I can turn hin back he has lost and has to do what's asked (how easy is that!?!) so he walked over that nicely too.

Then into the sheep yards for his dinner while I went in for a cuppa and here's Brian still hard at work on the tractor and Smokey all alone without mummy eating...... what a good boy.

So a FANTASTIC day and passed all the tests with flying colours and I am just so so SO proud of my wee boy :o)

Bowen for Karma in Christchurch

2009-07-19T19:01:00.002+12:00

was the aim of this last week. Marcus and I took a trip down on Tuesday since his tummy bug was well and truly over.

Karma got to meet Veronica and got a Bowen session on Wednesday and another one on Friday on the way back home.

Was lovely to meet Veronica myself and a very capable Bowen practitioner if anyone is wanting one in Canterbury!

Nice to catch up with old friends and to meet a couple of horsey people we haven't met before! Marcus was very well behaved and Karma Banana didn't dig up nana and granddads pristine lawn so all was good :o)

Home on Friday and on Saturday thought I'd better get on Smokey again. Had a nice wee ride on him and then took him for a walk down the road again (led not ridden) he was much better than the first time! Much more relaxed :o)

Play Time With Mac, lets push the communication!

2009-07-11T18:11:00.002+12:00

So I rode Smokey today, a nice little schooling session for him and walked over the trot poles there, we did some "pick a spot and ride to it" and the first 3 Smokey aimed too but didn't want to "touch" the spot till I told him he'd get a piece of apple or bread for each spot hit exactly. We got up to 7 before I thought I'd better pull the pin in case I didn't have enough treats there LOL. Once we finished it was Mac's turn and he was a funny boy and was in a playful mood. So after 15 boring mins of schooling I decided to do the point and shoot with him too, he too needed a little bribery to be bothered hitting the mark, then we both got bored with that and I said lets do some transitions the same way then, well he wasn't concentrating nearly enough and we ended up doing a lengthened trot right down the paddock me laughing my head off and him thinking he was so damn fine and funny! So gave up on that one and asked if he wanted to aim for some points again, he wanted to be more in control so we reversed the roles.... he was to pick a point, I would then see if I could get it from him and would then look away so I didn't influence where he went and he would walk to the point. We had a ball, out just a tad on a couple but all those trees in the wind break look the same to me LOL. Just a great fun, play session, was lovely!

Just what I needed!

2009-07-10T18:14:00.002+12:00

Marcus's tummy bug continued for a while! We've now been 36 hours since the last messy session so hopefully it's gone! So after having canceled our lesson on Tuesday for him, I booked it in for this morning and it was a good one! :o)

Went out this afternoon and thought I'd better do some work with Smokey so while the float was hooked up we did some float loading, then gear on and long reined him up the paddock and back at which point Pete arrived home from work so Marcus climbed the gate and went back inside and I decided to jump on the wee poppet. So, how long has it been? About a month? As expected, he was a star, didn't set a foot wrong, very willing, moving nicely, so finish and trim those long feet up!

Sooty the little black goat had a partial foot trim a week or so ago but was still walking like a cripple so caught the fat brat tonight (she HATES her feet being trimmed!) and did hers while I was in the foot trimming mood, no rot thankfully and pretty brutal with the trim so hopefully she'll feel happier in a day or 2 hehehe.

And now back into work, no sick child, no broken sleeps to change beds, we're away laughing again! :o)