Wishes and blessings

It is that time of year when I spend a lot of time reflecting on what I wish for others. So here goes; I wish you all a happy day whatever you are celebrating whether it is Christmas or some other festival.

I wish you peace and joy;

I wish you the joy of sharing with your friends and family;

I wish you the joy of giving and the joy of receiving;

I wish you the gift of compassion and understanding;

I wish you the joy of counting your blessings;

I wish you the joy of helping others who are less fortunate;

I wish you the gift of strength to follow your truth and your path;

I wish you the gift of strength to stand up for your beliefs;

I wish you the gift of positivity;

May you be strong in adversity, healthy in body, mind and spirit, caring and loving to others, follow your dreams and be happy.

 

Solstice thoughts

The Winter Solstice is an important event for me. It is the time when I know that the days will soon lengthen again and the Spring will soon be here. I find the short days at this time of the year hard to deal with. I need lots of light in my life and SAD lamps help but are not quite the same as being outside in the light.

The Solstice also gives me hope. I can see that the wheel of the year carries on whatever else is going on in the world. It gives me a solid foundation enabling me to deal with change and change there is going to be very soon. I suspect it will be drastic change too but this foundation that I feel through the turning of the wheel will help me to deal with changes.

It is good to know that whatever we do to our planet she continues to turn and the seasons come and go although maybe not quite the same because of climate change, but they do come and go. This keeps me grounded if you like while everything else changes around me.

After over seventy years on this planet I have learned to deal with changes as there have been rather a lot of them so it is good to feel the turning of the wheel of the year and to work with it as well. I wonder how many more changes I will see during the rest of my life.

Random Sunday thoughts

Having written this blog for several years now I try not to duplicate themes I have written about before. Sometimes this happens but I try to avoid it. This morning several thoughts crossed my mind, each one could be a theme for a blog post but I felt that several such thoughts might make it more interesting.

Squirrels came into my thoughts this last couple of weeks. I live in a small Victorian style terraced house with a small back yard and a tiny garden. There is a rose tree though and it has lots of rosehips still on it and on the ground. One day I spotted a grey squirrel on my gate obviously having fed as he was washing his face. He has visited several times now and I have purchased a feed box for him and some special food. Many people consider grey squirrels to be vermin but a couple of days ago I read a different view about them while browsing the internet. This view was that they helped us to plant trees. They bury nuts to save for later but often forget where they are so the nuts just grow into trees eventually.

My second random thought this morning was about joy. Yesterday I received a Christmas card in the post. The picture on the front of the card is of a sunset, snowy ground and a tree with bare branches silhouetted against the setting sun. It is a stunningly beautiful photo and gives me much joy. I can see lots of sunsets here if I go and stand in the street where there is open space with lots of trees around so I get silhouettes of them there too.

My third random thought is about helping others. In my street many people go out to work although there are some of a similar age to me. Last week the parcel delivery man was busy and I seemed to be the only one still at home. So I took in parcels for other people who came to collect them later on. This of course also expanded my knowledge of my neighbours who I had not yet met. One of these has a large ginger cat who sits in the window swiping at passersby making them jump. He is quite a character. But it is good to help others and get to know them too.

So three random thoughts for you. What do you think about squirrels, sunsets and helping others?

This squirrel was sitting in the park by the Museum earlier this year.

 

 

Reality or Illusion

Recently there has been a lot of talk about Fake News. But all news media reports are often not true or only partially true as they miss out important facts about what they are reporting. Live news reports have a time limit and the person doing the report has to choose which bits to keep in and what to leave out. This often gives a distorted view of what is actually going on.

So what about the reality of all this? According to one dictionary definition, reality is the state of things as they actually exist. We all know about our own reality, the things we do, what we see around us in our daily lives, etc., but we rely on the media to tell us what is happening elsewhere and to tell it as it is not what they think it is. The media is often used to persuade us to see things differently, to not see the reality but to see the illusion they are sharing with us. The dictionary definition of illusion is a deceptive idea or impression, a false idea or belief.

Over the last year or so we have seen false ideas and many false impressions of what is going on in the world. Look at Brexit, the US Presidential election, the war in Syria and the issue at Standing Rock for starters. How can we decide what the reality is in those areas? This is difficult if we know nobody personally who can tell us. But then we all have a different perception of what we see so what is the reality of these situations? Is it what we see or hear from others or what we are told in the media?

I currently see two world situations where I am concerned that the truth is not being told and that we are given false ideas of what is going on. One of these is Syria and the other is Standing Rock. I am lucky that I have what I call a ‘gut conviction’ of what is the truth and what is an illusion but it is still hard to know what is the reality and what is media hype. It seems as if the whole world media want us to believe things are different from what they really are and I wonder who is paying them to do this. For me it is all about being controlled by people who don’t want us to see the truth, the reality of our world or they would lose their power.

I will stop here as I am sure that many of my readers will have lots to say about this. I look forward to reading your comments.