I tried to go to bed early last night. But got up in the dark except for the Medicine Wheel light. No glasses and this is what came out.
When you are all alone on a cold, dark night with a list of "to dos" a mile long. The wind is whistling around the house and the heater keeps coming on. You know you have decisions still to make and not sure what to do. Sleep won't come to a weary mind and you're not sure where to turn. You try to quiet your mind and find some peace late at night. Knowing tomorrow it starts again.
So this morning I draw this card.

So I need to follow my own advice to others. Get balanced, from that place make your decisions. Try to keep it in the flow of that energy you have found in yourself. Do your best that's all you can do.

Here it is again for the last 2 days I have drawn this card. I have been "dueling" with my inner critic over different things. But have come back to tell it we have to be "courageous with our vulnerability". Put what ever it is we are wanting to create out there. If it is wonderful for you personally, it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. As long as it doesn't negatively impact someone else it is in divine order. When I say courage that is what it takes to be truly vulnerable. But that is how truly magical things can happen. For me these days it has to be about the magic.

Back again. I shared this on facebook this AM
Two doves sitting outside my window on a pecan tree limb. They have connection no words necessary. No talking only feeling each other wing to wing, spirit to spirit. They say doves mate for life and usually when you see one you see two together. When I see only one I wonder what it's story is. Lost mate to a hunter, predator or just age and life. Does the dove remaining live it's life in solitude after having been so close to it's mate? Does it have "feelings" of loneliness, emptiness? Or does it just realize an absence of the other. Wow! all that from just seeing two doves sitting outside my window on a pecan tree limb.

Card I drew this morning. Had been getting the Mesa card for several days.

So now I am to look at something different. And this is what has come with the card and subsequent walk to the  barn. I drew the card that says "look for beauty every where". That is what I try to do. I am trying to find my place within the mystery. We are creating everyday minute by minute the reality of our lives. What we make of it is up to us. As I draw on the Divine Feminine and the Cosmic Divine help me to continue to see the beauty and not the desolation that so often creeps in. Hawk (must be a female hawk though I feel Jim's spirit so close at times) also comes more and more as a visionary and messenger. Direct path channel to hidden wisdoms and insights. It's further power is represented by the color red of it's tail-base chakra "Serpent Power". The Hawk spirit has "the ability to pierce the veil that separates falsehood from truth-the intense gaze that can leave those who might find themselves the object of such a gaze squirming under the penetrating stare". Again Jim he had "the look".  Hawk sees "the bigger picture" the human counterpart is a "believer in all things happen for a reason".  This awareness of the -Big Picture- will assist both themselves and those whom they share their gift of keen insight with through many a difficult time.

From Journal December 23, 2011
For a week before the December ceremony I smoked my pipe of prayers and I have been guided to continue to send my prayers of hope, gratitude, intentions and even pain out to the Universe with the smoke from the pipe. I have come to a place of peace and forgiveness and especially love. The physical act has become a spiritual transition to another place of calm, a place of purpose that transmutes the pain and grief to one of peace, love and hope. It has taken the fire of anger and changed it to the light of knowing. Grandfather Spider came down by my chair on a quiet thread to tell me that everything would be OK. Hawk sang that I would come to understand. I am not one to analyze each part or happening, I am just to know. This is my purpose.

As I walked back to the house from feeding my cats I saw the stone. You have to understand that most of the stones in my driveway are from recycled concrete and other stuff. So no real wild stone here. But one thing is very true there are truly spiritual stones there. Some times they call to me to pick them up and give them a home. My 8 year old granddaughter is really good at this. I digress. I pick up the stone realizing that it had been calling to me for some days. It is creamy color smooth and elongated. It's face it is slightly shaped like a heart. I had been thinking of Jim when I looked down and saw it again. So in is now on the side table with many other stones and findings than have come to me here. When I got back to the house I drew a card from the Inca Healing Cards. And when you look at it and read it know that instead of ever seeing any thing negative in a stone look for the positive. But I get what it is trying to say to us. We do create our own reality.

I attended a Global Prayer Circle last night. People from 14 states and 5 countries were there. Very simple we all gathered on phone, Internet or skype and visualized light and love being sent to all parts of the world and to people, animals, plants and water. Very powerful to know that others are trying to make a difference. We all can without loud proclamations or grand gesters. So I would hope that all people send and receive this light and love.

From the Illuminated Rumi
One Song
Come!
Let us choose one another as Companions.
Let us sit at one anothers feet.
Come a little closer now,
So that we may see each other's faces.
Inside we share so may secrets.
Do not believe we are simply what these eyes can see.
Now we are music together,
Sharing one cup and an armful of roses.

Open up and be vulnerable. It will move us forward to courage compasion and connection. Have the courage to be imperfect. Compassion being kind to oneself. Connect to our authenticity.
If we let ourselves be seen, love with a whole heart, practice gratitude and joy, we will realize the phrase, "I am enough".

From my journal of December 17, 2011
The Sun comes up over Dream Mountain.
I tried to sing a sad song, but had forgotten the words.
So sang a Healing Song to take the pain away;
From a Heart place of Simplistic Song.
One that doesn't always follow the rules, working through a dark place to one of renewal.
The words came while walking through a dense cloud of grief.
But the Sun comes up over Dream Mountain, and the Healing Song is Sung.

When I am in Song my thoughts are Prayers.
When I am not, thoughts seem to be condemnations mostly of myself.

The card for the day. I have been mulling trying to decide if I should start a circle of people who would like to become "Land Stars". This is the card I drew.

Hatun Chaska

As above, so below, beloved one. The stars above reflect the 'Land Stars' that we are, here to illuminate these times with love, appreciation and respect for all life. Allow these sacred Star Beings to inspire you to ask, "How and where am I shining my light? Who am I supporting and who is supporting me in this sacred business of being radiant?" The guides say that the world is to be brought back into balance by small circles of light. Gather with fellow 'Land Stars'. Offer ceremonies of Light and shine on!

All most a year.

It had been 8 months at my last posting of my husband's death. And now it is almost a year (October 19) since I lost my best friend. I have tried in various ways to grieve to rearrange my life to make every thing fit and make sense. Not sure it every will. I journal, tried facebook, doesn't work. So I will keep looking keep trying to make sense of it all. I feel as though I am disappearing, become someone else. Don't want to whine, but not sure anyone else notices or cares. So what the hell, another Wild Turkey and all is well.

From Grief to Joy

When someone that we love dearly passes over, it does not help at that moment to know that is is appropriate. For when the moment occurs, the hurt is there, and at that moment no amount of astral wisdom will replace the welling up of emotion.

So it is appropriate to mourn.

But it is also a window of opportunity, even at our lowest ebb to discover a path to quickened enlightenment, a search for peace that would never have happened except for the gift of that person.

So sorrow can be transmuted to joy and healing, a new enlightenment. Paraphrased from Kryon