Women Who Thrive, Change The World!

Archive for the ‘Be The Change’ Category

Soul Musings/Day 24: Conscious Language and Possibility

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Our words reveal our inner journey of life.  The more conscious we become of our speaking, the more consciousness itself becomes aware of what we are manifesting moment to moment. Once you wake up to your sovereignty over your thinking and speaking, you set yourself apart from the unconsciousness of culture.  People will notice you speak and act differently and want  to follow you. You model for your outer world the presence of presence itself. ” Patty Shull

 

Language is not only vital for communication and connection, but is pivotal to our ability to live fully congruent within our calling this lifetime, supporting effective action from emerging possibilities.

Many of us have had the experience of attempting to communicate when we are stressed or personally triggered (ego in charge) and everything “goes to hell” very quickly.

This language fortifies the “what about me” conversation and we find ourselves in the dumpster of right/wrong, good/bad while encouraging the “mired in ego” feeling of separateness.

On the other hand when we feel rested, relaxed and at peace within, this foundation of stillness brings thoughts and words that are clear and centered arising from a deeper part of us – our Being.

Some call this latter conversation “language of the heart”. These conversations deepen stillness, are connective and open spaces for possibility to emerge.

As the consciousness of our world shifts enough can’t be said about the vital importance of language and the conversations we engage in.

How our conversations feel in the body is key and will help to distinguish whether they are connective and congruent supporting effective action, or separate with a bottom line of ego enhancement cutting off possibility…..the choice is yours.

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RESOURCE:  Becoming Still Retreat (for info click here)

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Inspiring New Possibilities, Living From the Soul of Life While Co-creating Well Being of Body, Being, Heart and Planet….One Breath At A Time

Soul Musings is a 31-day practice for the month of December immersed in deep listening to what is emerging and unfolding day by day.  Eight sentences with occasional resources to explore more deeply.

Each post, invited by Soul, allows the words to emerge unscathed from prior planning, editing, or censorship.  Dwelling in uncertainty and dipping a toe into mystery this union of words is an attempt to resonate within an innate way of Being…. returning “home”.

To receive daily posts simply sign up for this blog and you will be notified through e-mail.  In addition there will be daily posts on the blogs below.  Thank you for being part of this practice with me!

Gaye Abbotthttp://www.GayeAbbott.com

OTHER BLOGS:

BreathingSpaces

NaturalWealthJournal

Breath-Book-coverW2(3)Give Us This Day Our Daily Breath Preview, Reviews and purchase links can be found here:

http://gayeabbott.com/books/

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Soul Musings/Day 23: A Much Greater Hunger

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I have been sitting with this quote for a bit assessing how it feels inside of me. Waiting for an expanded awareness to emerge in the space.

Mother Teresa was in service to many of those that had no one to care about them or for them. The pain of “no meaning” is striking for humans.

Humans, animals, plants, cells and atoms thrive and co-create when in the company of their own kind, in collaboration and cooperation on behalf of evolving life.

In the absence of the energy of love, compassion, kindness and caring our bodies simply waste, our psyches reverting to a poverty of the Soul.

As we near the end of the year your private “hunger project” may be to reach out to at least one person in loving attention and concern.

To feed their Soul.

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Inspiring New Possibilities, Living From the Soul of Life While Co-creating Well Being of Body, Being, Heart and Planet….One Breath At A Time

Soul Musings is a 31-day practice for the month of December immersed in deep listening to what is emerging and unfolding day by day.  Eight sentences with occasional resources to explore more deeply.

Each post, invited by Soul, allows the words to emerge unscathed from prior planning, editing, or censorship.  Dwelling in uncertainty and dipping a toe into mystery this union of words is an attempt to resonate within an innate way of Being…. returning “home”.

To receive daily posts simply sign up for this blog and you will be notified through e-mail.  In addition there will be daily posts on the blogs below.  Thank you for being part of this practice with me!

Gaye Abbotthttp://www.GayeAbbott.com

OTHER BLOGS:

BreathingSpaces

NaturalWealthJournal

Breath-Book-coverW2(3)Give Us This Day Our Daily Breath Preview, Reviews and purchase links can be found here:

http://gayeabbott.com/books/

Soul Musings/Day 17: Lit From Within

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Holding the families, children that have died and yes the perpetrators in Peshawar in a space of peace as I light candles this morning on their behalf.

Feeling helpless to remedy terrorism leaves us bereft as we reflect on what we can do to shift the pain and suffering of all concerned and effective actions we can take to heal this wound in our world.

The women in the video link below – Strength Within – have taken a pledge to heal themselves and pass that healing and wholeness on to others who may need it.

It may be that taking action from a place of commitment to wholeness of Being changes the landscape of violence within and is then passed to others through awareness and practice of this self-love.

Everyone has the same need, even if deep inside, to be loved and accepted, happy and healthy. Where is the opening for someone who is lost in the violence of terrorism?

It is not simple.

Yet it starts with you….

VIDEO: STRENGTH WITHIN

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NATURAL PASSAGES CONSULTINGphoto58

Inspiring New Possibilities, Living From the Soul of Life While Co-creating Well Being of Body, Being, Heart and Planet….One Breath At A Time

Soul Musings is a 31-day practice for the month of December immersed in deep listening to what is emerging and unfolding day by day.  Eight sentences with occasional resources to explore more deeply.

Each post, invited by Soul, allows the words to emerge unscathed from prior planning, editing, or censorship.  Dwelling in uncertainty and dipping a toe into mystery this union of words is an attempt to resonate within an innate way of Being…. returning “home”.

To receive daily posts simply sign up for this blog and you will be notified through e-mail.  In addition there will be daily posts on the blogs below.  Thank you for being part of this practice with me!

Gaye Abbotthttp://www.GayeAbbott.com

OTHER BLOGS:

BreathingSpaces

NaturalWealthJournal

Breath-Book-coverW2(3)Give Us This Day Our Daily Breath Preview, Reviews and purchase links can be found here:

http://gayeabbott.com/books/

Soul Musings/Day 7: I Am A Human Being

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I often wonder if we looked upon everyone as a valuable being what our world would be like.

Where would the acceptance, love, compassion and connection take us?

Taking a few moments to be curious and connect as I did with a man named Joseph a couple of years ago now.

Joseph stood on the meridian of a busy intersection with his sketch pad in hand asking if anyone might want to purchase one of his sketches.

Over many weeks I carried on conversations with Joseph for the few minutes that I waited at the light and begin to see the creativity that was yearning to be expressed in a man that had difficulty even walking the few steps up and down.

One day I decided to give him a “commission” in the form of a challenge which turned out to be a request for a self portrait.

He delivered that self portrait one day with a huge smile and a feeling of accomplishment.

The quick hug I gave him and the money that exchanged hands as I stepped out of the car while waiting in line for the light to change, altered both of our lives in a way that is still spilling out into the world…..
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NATURAL PASSAGES CONSULTINGphoto58

Inspiring New Possibilities, Living From the Soul of Life While Co-creating Well Being of Body, Being, Heart and Planet….One Breath At A Time

Soul Musings is a 31-day practice for the month of December immersed in deep listening to what is emerging and unfolding day by day.  Eight sentences with occasional resources to explore more deeply.

Each post, invited by Soul, allows the words to emerge unscathed from prior planning, editing, or censorship.  Dwelling in uncertainty and dipping a toe into mystery this union of words is an attempt to resonate within an innate way of Being…. returning “home”.

To receive daily posts simply sign up for this blog and you will be notified through e-mail.  In addition there will be daily posts on the blogs below.  Thank you for being part of this practice with me!

Gaye Abbotthttp://www.GayeAbbott.com

OTHER BLOGS:

BreathingSpaces

NaturalWealthJournal

Breath-Book-coverW2(3)Give Us This Day Our Daily Breath Preview, Reviews and purchase links can be found here:

http://gayeabbott.com/books/

Making A Difference As An Elder

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Jane Goodall is one of my favorite and inspirational women elders of this day and age.  She just turned 80 years old and is still traveling the world as a very powerful agent for positive change in the world.  In this last year I have had the honor of connecting with some very powerful women who are not only older than me, but in some cases decades older.

As I near the age of 66 in July there are moments when I wonder if I have the stamina, energy and yes courage to not walk in the footsteps of these amazing women, but instead create my own path, and as Jane says above “decide what difference I want to make”!  This question is most probably in many of your minds and hearts these days as our planet demands that we shift our consciousness and take actions from that place of deep listening and opening to new and authentic places within ourselves.

A couple of weeks ago now I was privileged to listen to Gladys McGarey, MD, MD(H) give an hour long talk  here in Austin, Texas filled with stories from her life and demonstrating to me that age only inspires a greater longing to be taking action and serving from that higher purpose that we came in with.  Dr. Gladys as she likes to be called was brought up in the Himalayas by American parents and climbed up 1000 feet everyday (from 6,000 to 7,000 feet) after school to be embraced by her amah and taken into her shawl where she was comforted after a challenging day at school (she was severely dyslexic).

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Gladys McGarey, MD, MD(H), age 93

From this start Dr. Gladys became the “Mother of Holistic Medicine” here in the United States and now has The Foundation for Living Medicine.  The new Living Medicine model recognizes the wholeness of life rather than the absence of disease.  Dr. Gladys states that life and love are the aspects that really do the healing.  She is still seeing patients and is the director of The Foundation for Living Medicine.  Dr. Gladys is 93 years old!!

As I watched her that evening speak of the concerns that she is most passionate about I saw a vital, alive, vibrant, intelligent, beautiful woman standing erect in her flowing clothing from India and not once taking a break in an entire hour of speaking.  The inspiration for me came not from her words, which were very wise indeed, but from her presence!

It is women like Dr. Gladys, Jane Goodall, Jean Houston, Barbara Marx Hubbard (whom I was privileged to study with for 6 months last year), Lynn Twist,  elder women in political, economic, creative and social change roles and the thousands of global “grandmothers” that are doing such important service in the world – who have found what making a difference is in their own unique ways.

There is an inquiry that I use in my breathing workshops often.  It asks, “if you were to live your life as you breathed, how would you want to be breathing?”  My answer of course is fully, naturally and authentically….which can be the foundation for every thought, word, movement, choice and action we take impacting the world around us.

What kind of difference do you want to make?

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photo(62)Gaye Abbott, RYT assists individuals to drop the layers that cover the natural innate blueprint we came in with and reveal, through a combination of evolutionary energy work, Jin Shin Jyutsu, Reiki and breath re-patterning, the larger purpose and co-creative expression that we are here for.

For those interested in receiving private sessions please contact Gaye at: JoyfulGaye@NaturalPassages.com.  Travel to your location in the U.S. or globally is available.  Please inquire.  Skype: gaye.abbott

OTHER BLOGS BY GAYE ABBOTT:
www.BreathingSpaces.net
www.NaturalWealthJournal.com

Breath-Book-coverW2(1)Give Us This Day Our Daily Breath Preview, Reviews and purchase links can be found here:

http://gayeabbott.com/books/

Assumptions About Women – Taking A Stand

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A few days ago I was kept awake off and on all night after reading the memoir – Unbowed – of Wangari Maathai, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and mother creator of The Green Belt Movement in Kenya, Africa.  Every time I awoke her persistence, commitment and passion for what she stood for was infiltrating into my being.

About six years ago now I missed seeing Wangari at a Global Healing Conference in Bali, Indonesia.  I remember clearly that I had been so excited that she was going to be with us as well as Desmond Tutu, Lynn Twist and other Nobel laureates.  Unfortunately, at the last minute she could not travel to Bali.  I felt a great loss.

I knew that she had passed on in 2011 but did not know why, so the day after this wakefulness happened I found out the cause of her death and the date.  She died on 9/25/2011 – the same day/evening that she visited me so intensely!!

She has re-entered my life through a global organization called TreeSisters – birthed into this world by Clare Dakin.  Clare follows in Wangari’s footsteps as she passionately upholds the importance of reforesting our planet – and by women!!  Part of membership in being a part of this planet Earth is to take a stand as Wangari, Clare, Lynn Twist (Pachamama Alliance), Jane Goodall , Barbara Marx Hubbard and so many other women are doing now as we experience environmental, social justice, economic and deep spiritual crises.

These imbalances have been co-created by splitting off from our true nature – the Earth.  We have forgotten our roles as stewards of the Earth and have become dis-eased in the process.  The rampant incidence of depression, anxiety, panic and other disease processes mirrors the very split from that which has given us life.  Natures cycles are women’s cycles!

We all know the assumptions that have been held in regards to women for so many centuries and now seems the time to upset the apple cart in regards to these very assumptions.  The one that has hurt us the most – and one which we have bought into – is “As a woman I am powerless”.  There were good reasons to think so down through the ages, but not now, not ever again.

Why do I say that?  Because not only are women waking up and coming out in our full embodied expressions, but we are standing with each other to facilitate the changes that so many of us are committed to on behalf of the well being of all life here.  We don’t have to step forward without fear, we simply need to be persistent and form alliances with others that are willing to bring their expression to the creative solutions and innovations.

As Wangari says in Unbowed: “What people see as fearlessness is really persistence.  Because I am focused on the solution, I don’t see danger.  Because I don’t see danger, I don’t allow the mind to imagine what might happen to me, which is my definition of fear.  If you don’t foresee the danger and see only the solution, then you can defy anyone and appear strong and fearless.” 

I love this quote as in her life she faced injury, life threats, imprisonment, gender discrimination, and great opposition from the political powers that were present as she was growing The Green Belt Movement.  Today this very movement has been responsible for 51 million trees being planted in Kenya and thousands of women finding their own power and purpose in life thus affecting the quality of life in her country.

She says about those that have walked by her side: “Throughout my life, I have never stopped to strategize about my next steps.  I often just keep walking along, through whichever door opens. I have been on a journey and this journey has never stopped.  When the journey is acknowledged and sustained by those I work with, they are a source of inspiration, energy, and encouragement.  They are the reasons I kept walking, and will keep walking, as long as my knees hold out.”

Now take some time to think about women that inspire you, whether they are present day or from the past. I have chosen those that are working on behalf of our environment and sustainable living and thriving, however yours may be from any walk of life or focus.  What qualities did/do they possess?  They may have been or are called “heretics” and if they are, take a very careful look at who is naming them.  Assumptions are dangerous and at the core are what got us to the place we are today tipping over into imbalances that will and are seriously affecting us all.

I say to each of you – take a stand!  At our core we all have the “stuff” that is needed to “take a stand” even if that is simply being absolutely true to our own unique expression and unfailingly trusting it.  We are all healers and creators.  Let us trust our soul, honor our spirit, open our heart, transform our mind and heal our bodies. ( Heart of the Healer by Don Oscar Miro-Quesada, Peruvian curandero).

Come into ritual space with each other and co-create Earth centered living from the heart ignited by soul and spirit….We can have a gentle birth to the next stage of evolution by accepting, trusting,  and stepping into the innate power that we have been given by simply being born a woman.  You are both the midwives and the ones that are giving birth!!

I Am

We Are

Here Now

One Within

The story of the hummingbird by Wangari Maathai:

Taking Root trailer – The story of Wangari Maathai and The Green Belt Movement

http://www.takingrootfilm.com/trailer.htme

AND ONE MORE TASTY GIFT!  GET UP AND DANCE!!  DON’T FORGET THE PASSION!!

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**NOTE: If you live in Austin, Texas or near by please join us for a showing of the film Taking Root on 10/27/13 co-sponsored by the local Sierra Club, global TreeSisters, and me – Natural Passages Consulting.  A representative from Pachamama Alliance will also be with us!!  Go to htt://www.GayeAbbott.com and click on the EVENTS tab.

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941546_10201139084457154_1085573193_nWEBSITE http://www.GayeAbbott.com

OTHER BLOGS BY GAYE ABBOTT:

www.BreathingSpaces.net
www.NaturalWealthJournal.com

Give Us This Day Our Daily Breath Preview, Reviews and purchase links can be found here:Breath-Book-coverW2(3)

www.GayeAbbott.com/books/

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Living From Oneness

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The essential issue we face in life is being connected – not being in control”  Margaret Wheatley

Isn’t it when we develop the capacity to meet whatever life serves up, to truly connect with the moment to moment experience of it, that we fall into allowing life to expand and enrich us?  Each of us knows what that feels like as women.  Whether it be giving birth to a child, preparing and serving food with love, standing on the front lines of something we strongly believe in and taking action, or even the simple act of breathing in the beauty of nature.

Our present global awakening is the first time in the history of humans that we are aware we can cause our own extinction.  Along with that come the opportunities to be part of the shift to change into sustainable systems that have interconnection and global well being at the forefront.

It is women who will contribute greatly to this global evolution bringing the feminine principles back into activation.  We shall also be partnered with the millions of men globally who will remember that it is not control and power that will sustain us, but instead collaboration, co-creation and cooperation.

317986_290213681073867_886206564_nAliveness is the sense of really being present; sensory awareness, emotional awareness, conscious awareness.  The more aliveness we can handle, the more available we are to the flow of life within us.” Victoria Castle from The Trance of Scarcity

It is when we remember and live from our oneness that we can enter into co-creation from a Source level.  What does that feel like and look like?  Here are some A,B,C’s…

*Absolute awareness and acceptance of our purpose in life

*Belonging – Remembering that we are born with an inseparable experience of innately belonging

*Collaboration and co-creation with others.  This is about connection – not having to do it alone! Courage!

*Daring – To be yourself outrageously and wildly.  There is no box!  This is all a creation from the river that flows within you connected with points in the evolutionary unified field.

Find yourself in all of this and don’t be afraid.  This evolution needs you as a embodied whole woman who does not ever need to stand alone.  Beautiful one you are always helped and supported by the unseen but tenderly felt sources of deep interconnection.  Remember….

Love After Love
The time will come 
when, with elation 
you will greet yourself arriving 
at your own door, in your own mirror 
and each will smile at the other’s welcome, 

and say, sit here. Eat. 
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
 Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart 
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you 

all your life, whom you ignored 
for another, who knows you by heart. 
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, 

the photographs, the desperate notes, 
peel your own image from the mirror. 
Sit. Feast on your life.

Derek Walcott

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941546_10201139084457154_1085573193_nOTHER BLOGS BY GAYE ABBOTT:

www.BreathingSpaces.net
www.NaturalWealthJournal.com

Give Us This Day Our Daily Breath Preview, Reviews and purchase links can be found here:Breath-Book-coverW2(3)
http://resonancewithlife.com/daily-breath-book/

Women As A Pathway To The Sacred

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This picture along with the words caught my attention.  There has been so much written about the Divine Feminine, Goddess traditions and women’s empowerment.  It is not my purpose here to delve into  these important and very extensive areas as this post would be very, very long!

However, I was taken by the simplicity and power of this picture as well as the words.  Masculine acknowledging feminine awareness which is different from his.  His understanding that women do have “another system of knowledge” that a man may not possess in the same way.  An honoring if you will, and an invitation to bring this understanding and intuitive wisdom to the “counsel table” for all to benefit from.

It is time that this honoring and acknowledgement take place once again.  Our global, national, community and family well being depends on it!  We as women also need to accept the gifts that we posses, and be willing to use them in powerful, insightful,  and compassionate ways

Below you will find a video done by the BBC that takes us on a journey into ancient times.  This video explores a little-known ‘golden age’ for women, when historical characters such as the Empress Theodora in Byzantium, Wu Zetien in China (the Empress who called herself Emperor), the early women of Islam (2 of Mohammed’s wives) and Anglo-Saxon Hilda of Whitby, used the power of ancient traditions and new ideas about religion and philosophy to wield influence in what appeared to be a man’s world.

Women wielding their *power* in deepest human connection with/in the Divine.

We can gain understanding and inspiration from these women who were not willing to back down on using their innate sense of the much larger picture to create positive changes in a mostly male dominated world.   It was a pleasure to be introduced to these women who paved the way to the sacred of their times!

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WEBSITEwww.ResonanceWithLife.com

OTHER BLOGS BY GAYE ABBOTT:

www.BreathingSpaces.net
www.NaturalWealthJournal.com

Breath-Book-coverW2(3)Give Us This Day Our Daily Breath Preview, Reviews and purchase links can be found here:
http://resonancewithlife.com/daily-breath-book/

Feminine Values and Leadership

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
― Margaret Mead

The planet needs women now!  We are needed to step up and into our feminine values that are grounded and relational.  We are needed to let go of our fears and step into the power that being a woman innately gives us.  We bring life into this world and know how powerful it is to nurture that life and see it grow and change.

What greater undertaking than to give life back to this planet in the ways that align with our unique passions and interests.  There are many paths and projects to give our energy to.  Here is just one that I have joined out of a deep love for the trees that give us so much life and pleasure.  TreeSisters is a global network of women working together through feminine values and leadership to reforest the tropics.

Did you know that every 5th breath you take comes from the trees in the Amazon?  How much more life energy can be generated by helping to reforest this vital area rebuilding natures template for a healthy environment.  I invite you to watch this short film from TreeSisters and see if this is something that you want to become a part of.  If not this, then direct that passionate energy to where your heart tells you!

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WEBSITE:  www.ResonanceWithLife.com

OTHER BLOGS BY GAYE ABBOTT:

www.BreathingSpaces.net
www.NaturalWealthJournal.com

Give Us This Day Our Daily Breath Preview, Reviews and purchase links can be found here:
http://resonancewithlife.com/daily-breath-book/

The Love Ethic – Politics As A Spiritual Journey

“What we don’t engage we cannot transform.”  Marianne Williamson

Less than a week ago we had a national election in the United States.  As I saw it, as women and on behalf of the environment, we  potentially had a lot to lose.  This is why I was so stunned by some women I talked to that had decided not to even vote because it appeared they lacked the passion and motivation to really get involved in making an informed choice.

Some said that their vote wouldn’t count anyway because of our antiquated electoral college system, or even that they lived on the West Coast and it would already be decided before they could even vote.  There wasn’t even a thought about their own community issues and elected officials.  Has “politics” disillusioned us so much that we have become apathetic?

I have to admit that I have been one of those disillusioned ones and have left the arena of politics for others with a stronger stomach.  At the same time I  realize that this is avoidance which results in a lack of change or transformation to the very systems and beliefs that are making us unhappy and imbalanced.  As individuals, as communities, as countries, as a global society.

Many individuals feel that if you are following a spiritual path then politics is something to be avoided.  If Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and many others throughout our time here on Earth had thought that quite a lot of transformation and change would have been completely left undone.  The quote above by Marianne Williamson invites us to ENGAGE with what she calls the “love ethic” in all that we do on behalf of what is important to us.

If we really want a change to happen in our political systems,  a shift in how we steward this planet that shares it’s riches with us, a change to a peace ethic instead of war, or whatever else is vitally important to you, then we really DO need to become engaged and make it a part of our spiritual journey.

In other words “take a stand for another possibility”.  If we do not engage, transformation is truly not possible.  Women in particular have a lot of power to create change in this realm – change that is desperately needed.   This beautiful older woman in the picture above has taken a stand. Her bare feet upon the bark of a tree engaging with her own and nature’s life force on behalf of another possibility.   What is it that you want to take a stand for?  You are never too old…..your actions in whatever unique form DO make a difference!

 

WEBSITEwww.ResonanceWithLife.com

OTHER BLOGS BY GAYE ABBOTT:

www.BreathingSpaces.net
www.NaturalWealthJournal.com

Give Us This Day Our Daily Breath Preview, Reviews and purchase links can be found here:
http://resonancewithlife.com/daily-breath-book/

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