Laurie Story V Living Spiritual Literacy
Spiritual Literacy: Transformational Thoughts & Tools To Free Your Spirit
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9/22/23 September Structure, Chaos and Balance in the Equinox Circle

Namaste Bright Spot of Beauty in the Circle! A Blessed, Balanced Equinox to You!

In what is hopefully a positive transformation, the promised Sacred Sunday posts of September went into renegotiation. I will return on Sacred Sunday, 10/1/23! There is a bit more on that below in the 'Entropy and Evolution' section.
For NOW, let's focus on the turn of the wheel at hand! Equinox!
I am joining you in the Equinox Spirit of Balance. This post comes in sacred circle awareness celebration of the Tao of dark and light, day and night, yes and no, fast and slow, male and female energies, structured and chaotic synergies. Here, we are embracing the fall season and Mabon. Let's sing it!

As we embrace this time of balance ~ equal light and dark ~ and prepare ourselves for winter or summer depending on where we are on the globe, nature invites us to clean, take stock, prepare for the new season ahead. All in good balance, right?!
Here are a few Equinox activities that can bring harmony and balance:

1. Clean house! This can include everything from a light dust to washing windows and reorganizing closets to moving furniture and re-hanging pitures!

It is a perfect time to clean; spring cleaning and fall cleaning are a natural rhythm for many of us. As part of the dusting off process, purging of excess is always good. Use it or lose it! For some of us abundant collectors, this can be quite a time! As I was just walking again, 6 months ago, for spring cleaning, I have been going after the corners this fall like never before. Coming up on 5 years in this playhouse and there is no spot safe from the sweep, much less the overhaul! Like so much of life, a certain chaos of cleaning can happen. In my case, this week, I kinda went off the rails with some deep clean renovation work around the playhouse The vlog takes you into some of the deep dives though the vlog itself was definitely a chaotic journey in process all week long. Enter at your own risk!

2. Reset your altar(s) with seasonal remembrances and inspirations. Bring nature or nature remembrances in to amplify the energies. Center in the light of the candle's flame allowing it to ignite more illumination in knowing your inner light's glow.


Here is our nature altar and prayer from today's Equinox walk with friend Jessie!

3. Use fall leaves and acorns for release and stocking up! In this ETV Transformational Tools segment, I do this process if you want to travel through the deets with me. Yet, let me just give you the overview as invitation and you can do this process in any way that works for you!

Fall leaves represent release. What do you want to let go of in your life? Can you use leaves as a representation of these things? Write them on the leaves and 'leaf' them around where you can see them, burn them, or anything else that calls you deeper as reminders and remembrances into your letting go process.

Squirrels are busy hiding acorns this time of year. They stash them away for cold, bleak winter days. What would you like to stockpile for any dark days or moments ahead? Think of as many heart smilers as you can. You can even just make a list and remember where to look for it when you need a smile to balance out any sadness, grumpies, etc. Making art or something visual to hang around or put in a pretty box you can pull out are great ways to do this. What can you use to remind you of all that makes your heart smile and brings light to any darkness, warmth to any cold?

Entropy and Evolution

Nature is always in entropy and evolution. Thereby, so are we! The breakdown or decay of entropy is part of our aging process and what can be termed as chaotic in terms of personal or collective changes in our structures. Many factors can be seen as unstable yet we know that in divine order, all IS in order even when it is in breakdown mode. Sometimes this is readily seen on the physical plane yet it also lives and sometimes reins in the mental or emotional bodies.

My son, Jeremiah, first taught me about entropy many years ago. This year, after graduating college, he has been travelling Central America alone, though definitely with Spirit, pictured here after a 10 day silent retreat high atop a mountain in Peru. His adventure has been one of divine order and evolution.
The entropy moments have been managed masterfully; Jeremiah is not only intelligent smart, he is heart smart, able to navigate for his highest and best.

For my part, I have long been struggling with my life's work in terms of what is doable for 1 person and how much sense it makes to keep creating work that goes unseen, much less paid. If I allow 'common sense' to have its way with me, I would never create another thing, ever again! For better or for worse, I do not choose common and do choose the spiritual senses that say, just create! That's who you are and always will be, yippee, skippee! Trust, flow, create! Allow entropy, trust evolution and transformation! So! I am calendarizing the rest of the year with the life's work I am still vowing to rectify. Though, continuing to show up lately has been a challenge to say the least, I am continuing to commit. And recommit. And recommit. Until entropy and/or evolution whisper me and my co-creative energies elsewhere in the circle of creation.

Wherever you are on your journey this equal day/night, may your entropy be filled with divinity ~ a divine shine aligned with order, always, and in all ways.
Blessed Be, Balanced Love Expressed!

9/10/23 September Glimpse Of Sacred Time & Service in the Circle

Namaste Sacred Awareness in the Circle! And a Sweet New Year to You!
Yes, the Jewish New Year begins this Friday beckoning a time to release and embrace a sweet new year. Below are some Leaping Literacy Library teachings and songs about Rosh Hashanah from guest Joanie Calem a few years back. Under those I have a few videos from 2 years ago that are reminding me of the ever present, omnipresent presence of hope and positivity in the circle of life and time. In some ways, they seem spot on for today. Kinda the good news and bad news. I also have blogs quoted and linked from 9 and 10 years ago with some of my same life laments & attempts. Sigh. I embrace myself & my phyche in the circle!

If you are intrigued, do peruse these snapshot invitations into oneness awareness', yet irrespective of visiting with me from the past, here are some mediation invitations to visit with YOU in the circle...

Are there patterns you have been aware of repeating for what may feel like too long? Can you love yourself deeply even and especially through any desire or need to transform them? Can you reside in divine order or at least a 'good enough' acceptance?

Can you see and appreciate the different facets of you that have changed despite the persistent pattern? Can you find a balance of oneness in all of it?

All of the above ponderings leave me with this look at oneness from the past. I am at one with this & with you in the circle. Thank you for joining me. Namaste, Love!

Love Expressed: Balance In Oneness

Posted on September 10, 2013 

Life is always expressing yesness ~in balance & oneness!

Namaste brave branches of the tree of Life!
May this moment find you in heart connection with all that is! As the seasonal wheel turns us back & forward towards Equinox, we look to the wisdom of balance. Yin & Yang, the Tao, dark & light, male & female, etc. all translated into decisions of time and calendarizing. When we prioritize something onto our calendar, I call that calendarizing. This is a continued process of balance for all of us between family, work, friends, community, and personal needs. Sometimes us (single) moms put our personal needs so far down on the list, we never quite get there. I am getting better at calendarizing me time but it is a dance. And there’s the dance of resistance which I still tango with all too often! So what about you? What are you calendarizing & how are you keeping it in balance?!

Still, I have found myself grieving life as we knew it as I embrace the circle of life & the man he is becoming. Herein lies the balance of oneness for as Spirit beings, we all embody all stages of our life here simultaneously!

Every stage of life ~ All One!

Our journey is further challenged these days by physically ailing elders.
I don’t have to agree or believe in the method, to be at one with the desired result of healing. Love expressed ~ every bit of it! Again, herein is the balance. We walk the fine line of choice everyday ~ what we choose for ourselves and how we choose to show up for others even, and especially when we don’t agree with their choices. This balance of oneness = unconditional Love.

Jeremiah & Grandpa Harry seeing eye to eye in Virginia City, NV

For this week’s Mindful Meditation Invitation, let us see how we can integrate the ‘bad’ & ‘good’ side of things for the highest good in oneness blessed. Further, can we see it all as one magical miracle?!
“There are two ways to live: you can live as if nothing is a miracle; you can live as if everything is a miracle.” – Albert Einstein

Called To Love

Posted on September 10, 2012 

Namaste Mindful Meditators!
In keeping with last week’s post, I am swimming in a wellspring of wisdom about work and Love, Love & work:
Love and work… work and love, that’s all there is. Sigmund Freud
Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. Confucius
https://newthoughtfamilies.wordpress.com/2012/09/10/called-to-love/
So, probably the biggest motivator here is to be more professional in my life callings. My work is play and I play at work. Yes, I am calling in more money and will dance the steps as required. I feel like I dodged a big bullet after interviewing for a job last week. Job, as in work for someone else for a limited amount of pay & lots of expectations on their part. The interview itself was great, I vowed to have fun with it & I had a great time! Though the position was advertised as part time, they let me know they really wanted full time and after the fun of the interview began to wane, I started feeling physically ill. It took a day or so to conclude there was no way I could take that job or any other that would so clearly stand in the way of my callings ~ my life’s work.

9/3/23 September Circles Of Sacredness: Time & Service

Namaste September Song,
I greet you late day this Sacred Sunday in the circle of time! I was, like so many other days and times, called to serve in several places in the circle of lifetime today. I sat down to do this blog and vlog this morning and realized Librarian me had not updated the ETV Vlog page, essentially all year. So I was in service to that! And then did the vlog and then onto my dad's ranch for some scheduled service there. I will return there tomorrow morning and I have returned here to the blog in this right now, divine timing moment. I have re-committed to being in service here each Sacred Sunday this September. I am in service to the One that calls me here, in the oneness of the circle's sacredness. There are so many ways to serve!

What does being in service mean to you? Service to yourself, family, community, in what ways do you serve? And in what ways are you served?! Wherever we place our hands, hearts, time, attention can be said to be what we are in service of. The blessings of our lives can be said to be the way that life and Love serves us.
Thank you for being here, in service to this moment of circle connection.

While our society frames our lives in a linear fashion, we are created and do indeed live in the circle. We will be exploring different faces of the circle this September beginning with the circles of time and money. Here are the lyrics and MP3 (download!) of the Circle of Time song found on my Circle Of One CD. Jeremiah and I are singing and drumming it with some extra drumbeats added by our CD producer Cameron Lawson.

Circle Of Time Mp3 Song!
© 2008 Laurie Story Vela

Standing on the mountaintop,
in the circle of time
heartbeats of my ancestors
are beating with mine
& the heartbeats of the children
who will be here soon
We are all one heartbeat
in the Sacred Mother’s womb

In the heartbeat of the circle,
oneness is the call
Heartbeats now and heartbeats then
beat with one and all
Here in the circle,
the sacred circle of time
There is just one heartbeat
beating with mine

One heartbeat, One circle, One time
One heartbeat, One circle, One time
The sacred circle of time
There is just one heartbeat
Standing on the mountaintop

Yes, oneness lives in the circle, We are at one with all of our lifetime(s), when we view it from the circle of time. As the song sings, we are home and at one with all our relations and generations with the one heartbeat. I sing some of this song in this week's vlog centered on service in the circle.

The vlog altar is filled with mermaids and seahorses in celebration of the final (for now!) and 7th show in the Sea Splash series of ETV shows that began last summer! It was a big birthing process in August to complete the series with the Whale Wonders Show followed by this one which included the 2 Laurie's StorEbooks I spoke of in last week's Mermaid vlog. Sometimes, what we consider going backwards, is really just bringing some aspect of the circle into more completion!

This Labor Day weekend is a great time to think about work and how we trade our time for money. Yes, we do need money in this society yet the work we do is so much about being in the circle of giving and receiving energy on many levels, money being just one aspect. My playmate, Rev Karene, aka Gramma K, enJOYs our time co-creating for ETV as does her hubby, covered in the picture below as he is voicing Wally, the pet walrus of the Sea Queen. Can elders play pretend? YES, it is fun for them! We all have an inner child who is not only willing to play but needs to play for our whole being health and vitality. We are ageless in the circle. Laughter and play have no age or time limit. We can always benefit from a good laugh or playtime in any way that makes our heart sing and feel alive! How do you like to play? What is fun for you? What makes you laugh? Can you give some time into being of service to that?!

Here I am playing with Feature Creature Teacher Seahorse who has AHmazing adaptations and life lessons!

There are many Seahorse takeaways from how slow they are & how they anchor to how they mate and do a connecting Love dance each morning. And YES, Seahorse is the only animal on the planet whereby the male/dad carries the babies (pregnant) and births them. We can be heartened by Seahorse to stay anchored in Love, go slow, at the pace of grace, focusing on our abilities and gifts vs. the challenges we all face. What gifts do you have that fuel your service in this life?

While I have a lifetime journey with working in service in return for little or no monetary pay, I am on purpose and in joy in serving these callings of my heart and soul. I am anchored in safe home and in Love! And! All is well, Spirit always has my back with wonderful home and a belly full of good food! I can and do choose to focus on my good! I am so blessed in Love!

If you so choose, to be in service to you, take some time to be with your gifts and/or some contemplative time to see who and what you serve and who and what serves you!

Thank you for being in the circle with me ~ I do consider we are in service to one another just by saying yes in this sacred moment!

And thank you for sharing some of my life's work here, irrespective of your choice to spend time further with ETV and my playful co-creations undersea!

More September sacred circle awareness moments to come. Namaste, Love!