Tag Archive | religion

Thank you for the Blessings

Many Thanks and Blessings

A Special Gift

Families all over the world are struggling in these hard economic times. People give up little things in order to make ends meet. As things continue, they find themselves giving up even more and still it’s not enough.

Nearly everyone has been touched in some way in these hard times. Some more than others. Some have lost so much that they find something in their life to hold on to that gives them the strength to get them through.

What that thing is will be different for each person. For some it’s their children or a beloved pet. For others it’s a decadent pleasure, maybe the ability to have a bottle of coke at lunch or that special cup of coffee in the morning. Continue reading →

Sunday Homily: Look In A Mirror

Oct6

What you don’t like about someone else,
Look In A Mirror.

What Encounters Teach Us

Everyone one of us has had moments during a week, or in a single day when we feel like we’re wearing a sign around our neck that says “Piss me off”. Comments from complete strangers that push a button and cause us to feel hurt, attacked or self-conscious about something. And it could be about anything, even things that don’t even make sense later on.

Sometimes we say wave a hand and tell ourselves we’re being overly sensitive. Sometimes we actually let the comments get under our skin and truly get angry. Other times we pretend we didn’t hear the comment, ignore it, but play it over and over in our head.

As one of my very wise Shamanistic teachers once told me “It’s not all about you. You’re learning to be a Shaman, stop crying about your little hurt feelings and use your head and your heart to help those who are coming to you and screaming for compassion”. Yeah I didn’t like that comment much when he said it to me, but I’ve come to understand what he meant.

I’ve also learned that this perspective isn’t only for the “ministers” in the world. It’s for everyone walking a spiritual path. And maybe even those who aren’t. Continue reading →

Animal Sign

Sep26

When Animals Cross Your Path

Everyone has had an experience where an animal has crossed our path in the physical world and we wondered if it means something. How many times have you asked, or been asked, wonder what that wolf, deer, squirrel is trying to tell me?

Nearly all Shamanistic societies believe animals in the physical and spiritual worlds come to us for our own good to deliver messages.

When animals cross our path in the physical world they maybe bringing a warning or a message as guidance. They’re a “here in the now” kind of message that impacts our physical world.

But depending on the animal, they can cross their influence of meaning between the physical and spiritual worlds. Perhaps we’re not being as perceptive as we should be or we maybe we need to pay attention to a message from spirit that affects our physical choices. Listening to our gut feelings is an important part of living in balance and nature is all about balance. Continue reading →

Merry Mabon – The Feast of Avalon

Sep20

Celebrating The Fall Equinox

Mabon (May-bawn) is also known as the Feast of Avalon, the Festival of the Wine and the Festival of the Apple Harvest.

This year the Equinox will fall on Sunday, September 22, 2013 at 4:44 PM EDT.

On the equinox, night and day are nearly exactly the same length – 12 hours – all over the world. This is the reason it’s called an “equinox”, derived from Latin, meaning “equal night”.

Today we have better methods and tools to measure astrological events. So we know that this initial accepted idea of equal hours isn’t necessarily true. In reality equinoxes don’t have exactly 12 hours of daylight. But let’s not mess the holiday with that. It’s tradition! Continue reading →

The Full Moon By Name

Sep19

“Merlin In The Moon” by Springwolf 🐾

Have you ever wondered what’s behind the name of a Full Moon? Every month the moon graces Mother Earth with her bright Full phase. And occasionally she’ll pop in a second full phase in a single month too.

We know those occasional double full moons in a single month as a Blue Moon. But every full moon has its own name as well. You may have seen some people refer to the September’s full moon as the Harvest Moon, or the Fruit Moon. You might have even seen it called the Corn Moon. So which is it?

Well, it’s all of them really. As with most things, there isn’t a single definitive set of names to correspond to the full moon world wide. There are many.

Ages ago, cultures around the world kept track of the seasons by giving distinctive names to each recurring full moon. So there are a multitude of corresponding names to each Full moon of a single month. Continue reading →

It’s Friday The 13th & It Was A Good Day

Sep13

I’d Like To Say – Thanks For The Visit

I logged onto my blog this morning to a nice and interesting notice. Well at least it was interesting to me. There’s been “A Spike in your stats”.

I’m honored and thrilled that so many folks around the world have come to visit Springwolf Reflections to learn about The History of Friday The 13th – A Good Day For Pagans.

I must admit I had to ask the math genius in my house to explain the numbers. I’m a visionary, not a calculus expert! He works with calculations all day, every day so he understood this right away. Continue reading →

Remembering Today

Sep11

Patriotic Wolf – Artist Unknown

September 11, 2001
Never Forget the Innocent, Never Forget the Brave, Never Forget Those We Lost

Today is the 12th Anniversary of 9/11. Twelve years ago today I was at work in Reston Virginia. Our building was on a single road business complex on the edge of town. Behind our building sat large homes with rolling hills, horse fields and lush yards. It was a beautiful and peaceful view. At the end of the road deeper into the complex we knew were government agency buildings.

Being a small office complex, people got to know each other during morning runs, lunch time walks, or the bi-weekly soccer games that seemed to gather in the large empty lot across the street from our building. We knew who the government people were, generally what they did and which agency they worked for. My company held two office buildings in the park and throughout my career I worked in both buildings.

In the late ’90s the agency building across the street from us had a bomb scare. It was in the dead of winter and exceedingly cold outside. My boss and I came off the elevator from a meeting upstairs and noticed all these people standing outside freezing to death. Continue reading →

Do Something & Share Your View

Sep9

Complaining on FB and Social Media Doesn’t Get It Done

Whatever your position is on Syria, make your voice count instead of merely talking about it on social media. You can share stories, post tweets, rant and rave on message boards. But those communications do nothing to express your view to your Congressional Representatives or the White House. Get involved and do something about how you feel so that it makes a difference.

You can make your view count by contacting your representatives in Congress. If you don’t know how to do that, you can email them through their contact forms.

To email the President you’ll need to fill out the White House Contact Form.

To find your Congressional representatives, go to their websites at:
Find your Senator at senate.gov,
Find Your Congress-member at house.gov

Both congressional sites allow you to find your representative through a search in the top right hand corner of the page of each site.

I’m against military action and I urge others to support diplomatic efforts be exhausted before any violent action take place. If you need an example of what to send, try this:

To The Honorable (enter their name here)

As a constituent, I am writing to let you know that I oppose any military action in Syria.

I realize in today’s world violence against citizens by its government must be addressed. But the moral response is not to meet violence with more violence. Creative diplomacy is the best way to respond to the alleged use of chemical weapons. I urge you to work for a ceasefire, to pressure Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, and Turkey, to halt the flow of weapons, and to pressure Russia and Iran to do the same.

Sincerely,
You name

I hope you’ll take time to get involved and make your voice heard.

You’re Never Alone

Sep5

Choosing Your Feelings

Ever hear that phrase “You’re born alone, you live alone, you die alone”? I’ve come to dislike that phrase. And I’ve come to realize how untrue it really is.

I’ll start with “You’re born alone.”
I’m a Mom of a beautiful, smart and thoughtful child (well he is most of the time). But I’m fairly sure I was there when he was born. Within seconds he was being held by his father, caressed by me and loved even before he entered this world and took his first breath.

With very few exceptions on this Earth, the very moment we feel the air on our body and fill our lungs, we are touched and cared for with kindness and love. So how did this concept develop that we’re born alone? Continue reading →

Looking With Better Eyes

Aug23

Eyes of the Hunter by Charles Alexander
The eyes have been altered from the original picture

How We See, Creates What We See

Last evening I received a comment on the Once In A Blue Moon post here on my blog.

Comment:
You have a nice picture of a wooden chalice BUT it has a picture of a trap[ped] demon on the outside of the chalice. If you don’t believe me then look at the chalice close up!

It’s been a year since that post was published and this is the first time someone has mentioned anything like this. I’d like to share some insight about this perspective and how we see the world through the lenses we create with the energy we establish around us.

I looked at the cup in question (posted below). I asked my husband and son to look at the cup without telling them about the comments posted on the article. Continue reading →

"Believe In Yourself, Even When No One Else Does."
~ Harvey McKay ~
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“Take a chance on faith. Not religion, but faith.
Not hope, but faith.
I don’t believe in hope. Hope is a beggar.
Hope walks through the fire and Faith leaps over it.”
~ Jim Carrey ☆ 2014
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“I describe myself as a simple Buddhist monk. No more, no less. And I am one of the seven billion human being. Basically we are the same… your emotion, my emotion, your mind, my mind.., same physical. So I always look [at it] that way. We are the same.”
~ Dalai Lama 2012 ~
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"Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”
~ Bruce Lee 1971