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November 26, 2005
Thankful
It’s Thanksgiving, a time to be thankful for all that we have and to appreciate the abundance of life all around us. It’s also a time to give thanks to some of the people who have helped us throughout our lives. Today I would like to remember a woman who was the source for my love of reading.
Mrs. Evelyn Ball was the school librarian at my Junior High School, One afternoon when I was in 7th grade I was in the library looking for something to read. At the time I was only interested in horses and science fiction but couldn’t find anything that looked good to me. Mrs. Ball pointed to Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women and suggested I give it a try. After reading about Jo and the girls and boys for several books we moved on to Jack London and The Call of the Wild and our friendship grew from there. So today I would like to thank you, Mrs. Ball, wherever you may be, for leading me to literature and the love of good books.
Posted by Linda Dalton at 09:50 AM | Comments (0)
November 12, 2005
Holidays
I love this time of year! Between Halloween and the New Year we all have a chance to reflect, renew and rebuild. There is something about the energy in the air as people prepare Thanksgiving dinners, light Hanukah candles and start Christmas shopping. It’s a time for friends and family and connecting to what is important in life. And it is a time to pay our respects to all of the people and events that have led us to this point in our lives.
It is also a time for traditions – keeping old ones and creating new ones. Holiday traditions don’t have to condemn us to the ghosts of the past (with apologies to Dickens.) They are living, fluid concepts that can grow as we do, encompassing all of our spiritual progress. We can pay respectful homage to mom’s turkey dinner and grandma’s manger scene while we add our own personal touches to the season, creating new patterns that will become tradition for our children and their children.
My daughter became interested in ancient Celtic and Wiccan traditions, which led us to incorporate a Yule Log into our holiday celebrations, while my son has taken over the job of handing out presents on Christmas morning. And we joyfully share our holidays with in-laws, aunts, uncles, cousins, girlfriends, girlfriend’s families, an ex-husband, his wife and all of her family as well. It is a time for generosity of spirit and a respect for all of mankind.
Posted by Linda Dalton at 12:43 AM | Comments (0)
November 04, 2005
Emotions
I was recently asked about the emotional aspect involved with developing your psychic side.
Often when you start developing your spiritual side, not only can you pick up the emotions of others, but the connection with higher energies can leave you weeping as well - and you can find yourself crying at the most inopportune occasions. Like in the middle of your child's school play or anytime you hear your national anthem, or anyone else's national anthem, or at the Hallmark commercials on TV. I can be a real basket case myself and it's taken me many years of practice to keep my tear ducts under a modicum of control.
There are a few things you can do to curb this tendency. The first thing I find useful is an actual physical exercise to stop your tears. As you begin to tear up, start blinking rapidly and take in a few deep, calming breaths. This seems to help regulate that emotional spike and keep your tears from flowing over.
The second thing you can do is to set up an alternate release response by creating a place of calm and peace in your mind. Practice imagining a scene that makes you feel relaxed - a Zen garden, an open meadow, a flowing stream - anything that makes you feel peaceful. This does not have to be anything elaborate, in fact the simpler the better. When you start to feel emotional and you don't want to let it all flow just bring this image to mind and let yourself feel that calming influence.
And although it can create embarrassing situations when you start connecting with the pure emotion going on around us, know that you are indeed stretching your psychic and spiritual experiences when you begin to feel in this way.
Posted by Linda Dalton at 08:36 AM | Comments (1)