BRIGHTEN YOUR DAY

During your day, see if you can remember to pause, take a breath, and notice what your mind is thinking and how you are feeling.  If your thoughts are dark or despairing, consciously brighten your day. Consciously examine your thoughts and shift your thinking in a more positive direction. Shift your body too. Jump up and down. Take some deep breaths. Run around the block. Or just stand straighter with your shoulders back and relaxed. Change your body and your mental state changes. You will start thinking differently about yourself and everyone around you. Stand and breathe as if you are on top of the world, even if you feel on the bottom. Pretend.  Pretending is the same as the actual experience because the brain doesn't know the difference between real and pretend.

CATHEDRAL OF NATURE

Have you read the June Message on my website?

FROM RUTH

Hi Everyone, Ruth had trouble posting for some reason and asked me to post this for her. So here it is! Enjoy! I love it when you all share poetry, and I love this clear and simple poem by Ruth.

Dear classmates, This is what I wrote a few days ago, as I woke up in the morning. Now I would like to share it with you. Greetings from Switzerland, Ruth

The Goddess
The Goddess in you radiates with beauty, inner peace, and strength.
She waits patiently for you discover her, trust her.
Gently, but with perseverance, she reminds you of your own strength, brings you into your inner peace, and is simply here.
Reassuring and reliable she is simply the Goddess in you. 
Not more and not less.

TRANSFORMATION

Hello Dear Students, This new page design is a reminder that your are growing and transforming just like the tiny seeds, flowers, and vines, the leaves on the trees, the birds that nest there, the swallows coming home to Capistrano (which is near here!) and spring becoming summer. You are part of nature, like a flower in a field. You are growing towards the Light, until finally you become One with that light. The more you show up for yourself, the more the angels show up for you.

Angel Evening, June 2, 2011

Hello Dear Students, This is a letter I am sending to the participants of the Angel Evening that was held here last night. I am including it because some of you participated, and because whatever the angels say is always meaningful to all of us. This is one reason we can grow and learn from the angel readings I offer each person in a seminar.

Dear Incredible Beings,

Thank you SO much for adding your energy to the Angel Evening and making it special for everyone. I appreciate how open and trusting all of you were. You could have been anywhere, and you chose to work on yourself.

You took another step towards Truth and Truth now takes two steps towards you. You immersed yourself in the energy of the angels. This has definite results! So be as kind, gentle, and loving with yourself as possible, especially during the next days.

Often following such an immersion in light, it is common to experience a let down. If this happens to you, please understand that it is just the ego attacking to stay safe. Just go about your life, without giving the down mood much energy. It WANTS to fill you with negative thoughts. This is what egos do best. Ignore those thoughts. They are not who you are!

Inner transformation is not easy, or everyone would do it. And we know everyone does not do it.

In order to grow a beautiful garden, the soil must be dug up and fertilized (organically, of course!) and seeds must be planted, tended, watered. They must develop tiny roots that sink into mother earth as they reach towards the light of the sun.

Think of yourself as that tiny seed. Never lose faith in the Light, even when you are too deep in the earth to see it. The angels are with you. The angels are always with you. They are with you now, as you read these words. The angels see your light and hold you in that light, even when you forget it. This is what angels do best.

So be kind, loving, and gentle with yourself as transformation takes place within you. Be especially receptive and open to intuition the next days, as you may experience more insights, more growth, and possibly more emotional upheaval. This is normal and natural after such an angel evening that penetrates the delicate layers of the ego to reach the heart.

As Ina saw in the meditation, guardian angels are powerful beings who come in many forms. Angels are focused on burning away the impurities that keep us small, insecure, and afraid, so that we can align with the only power there is, until finally we understand that the light we grow towards is our very self. THAT is your true nature.

Again thank you for showing up. For yourself. The angels thank you also. You will feel their presence in very real ways in the next days and weeks.

DEALING WITH "CRISIS"

When you take one step towards Truth, Truth takes two steps towards you. Life is just happening. Events are just happening. They have no meaning, other than the meaning you give them. When you are afraid, angry, tense, nervous, agitated, controlling, ask yourself -- who or what am I making my higher power?

ARE YOU COMING?

AN ANGEL EVENING & AN ANGEL WEEKEND

ANGEL READING

Dear Students,

In seminars, I give each person a reading, and everyone gets to listen to these readings and learn and grow from what they hear. Here is something I just wrote to someone, after giving her a verbal angel reading. I am posting it here because its message is relevant to all of us. Take what you can from it, to uplift and enlighten your own life.

ANGELS, ANIMALS, AND NATURE

Dear Students, I am posting today an email I sent to a client (not a student of the school) who lives in another country. She consulted me because her cat, Goldie, has been missing. This is the written response that came to me from the angels. I thought you might like to read it. I have changed her name and the name of her cat, for anonymity.  There is a deep message here from the angels about animals and nature and the role humans ought to play. I hope you enjoy this and learn something from it. I know that some of you are deep lovers of nature and animals, and this message might be especially relevant to your heart.

Showing up for yourself

Hi Students, here is another inspirational note I received with a student's payment. 

     "I am loving your school. As the knowledge you are passing on becomes integrated into my heart and becomes wisdom (as you say) I am beginning to feel relief from my internal suffering.  I have been seeking relief for so many years and I am so happy and grateful to be finding it from your school."

      Dear Students, My experience here with all of you tells me that the more you show up for yourself, the more you benefit. Your lessons and your school will and do work for you--when you show up. The more you show up, the more you benefit. Showing up comes in many forms. Gratitude is showing up. Gratitude is incredibly healing, transforming and expansive. Reading at least some part of your lessons daily (I do) is showing up. Practicing your homework. Maybe taking some time to write spontaneously. Being in the great cathedral of nature. Watching your reactions. Being aware of the questions going on inside you--and looking to something higher than your mind for the answers.

                                    Reading your lessons allows you to recondition your mind. The more light you consciously allow into your mind, the more the darkness goes. The more you concentrate on waking up (reading your lessons, doing your homework, being aware of your reactions, watching your thoughts)--the more awake you become. Waking up does not happen over night. It is a gradual process, with many ups and downs along the way. But when you begin to realize it IS actually happening, there is great inner rejoicing. But don't take my word for it, try it for yourself. Do not blindly believe anything. Find out for yourself what is true. xoxox your loving teacher

Romantic love

Hello Dear Students, Today I am including a copy of a quick email I jotted down this morning for a client, since some of you may find it helpful. Her story is old. She is wanting more from a man then he is giving her. He "says" he loves her, but doesn't act the way she would like him to. So she is in pain. And doesn't know what to do. This is my quick reply to her.  

     Why not just bring the focus to yourself and increasing your own inner wisdom? You are far too focused on him. Watch yourself being focused on him, watch how it makes you feel, and gently return your energy to taking care of your own thoughts, feelings, emotions, and (re) actions. Tell yourself that for one week when you notice your thoughts about him causing you pain, you will consciously change the energy by surrounding him with light. And surround yourself with light also. Surround him with blue light and then white, and the same for yourself. Blue is protection--and white is expansive.

Happiness

What blocks happiness?

Today I received a payment from a student who always pays her tuition on time, without even a word from me. This was a very happy payment because she included a note that said, "I think the payments to you are the happiest ones!" I felt happy reading her words, grateful for her gratitude, but also because I know she is paying attention to her everyday life. She knows when payments are due. She is taking responsibility for her life, which is part of our spiritual path. Thank you, dear student! She also said the Open Classroom is her favorite place to visit early mornings! 

I also like coming to Your Open Classroom, especially when I find new messages. And her words make me want to write even more here, since I know there is an early morning visitor stopping by. So if you see more of me here, you can thank her. Gratitude is healing both to give and receive! And thank you to all of you who show up here and participate when you have the time. Speaking of happiness. Do you know one of the biggest blocks to happiness?

I'm Nobody! Who are you?

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us -- don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know.

How dreary to be somebody!
How public, like a frog
To tell your name the livelong day
To an admiring bog!

by Emily Dickinson

RESPONSE TO URSEL, JOHANNA, EVA, GABI

I tried to post this as a comment to the comments of the four students below on my post "The White Room" but the comment section wouldn't let me post such a long message! So I'm posting it as a post. If you haven't taken the time to find your own answer to the question of the white room, please do so, before you finish reading this post. Thank you! Hi Ursel, Johanna, Eva, and Gabi, Thank you for your responses. Since you have taken the time and are the first to post your responses and I have a little time this morning, I would like to answer each of you more deeply, intuitively, as I connect with the angelic energy that composes our school.

THE WHITE ROOM

Here is the message I emailed you all today. After you read and contemplate it, click to find out what it means. This is a test I was taught (along with others) when I was in graduate school, getting my training in clinical social work. It is  a simple and valid test of self-discovery.

Dearest Students,

You are in a white room. The walls, ceiling, and floor are white. There are no windows or doors. You do not know how you got into the room. You can see no way out of the room. Describe what you are doing in this room.

HAPPY PASSOVER

Passover began last week. These wonderful spring holy days can remind us that letting go of the old makes room for the new. Our old false nature must die and be replaced by a new nature -- the nature of Truth. 

MAY THE LIGHT ARISE AND AWAKEN WITHIN YOU!

Wishing you all a happy Easter in your heart and soul. We happen to have people of various religions and cultures and no religionhere in our school. Personally, I take whatever chance I can to celebrate life, to honor all the great teachers and saints of all paths. 

Happy Spring!

Happy Easter everyone! Or happy bunny day. Or happy springtime. Happy Passover! Happy Everything! 

I hope your world is turning green and warm and making you glad!

The Legend of the Dreamcatcher

"A spider was quietly spinning her web in her own space, beside the sleeping space of Nokomis, the grandmother. Each day, Nokomis watched the spider at work, quietly spinning away.  One day as she was watching, her grandson came in.  "Nokomis-iya!" he shouted, glancing at the spider. He stomped over to the spider, picked up a shoe, and went to hit it.

UNCLEAR POWER

I haven't done this before, but today I am adding the message I wrote for April on my website. I have written a monthly message going on 3 years for my website, The Clear and Simple Way, and so there are many past messages to read in the archives. This message is about dealing with the many catastrophic events that have taken place across the world in the last years.

April 2011 Monthly Message