‘Tis St. Patrick’s Day, to be sure, to be sure and here’s An Irish Blessing, to warm the cockles of your heart ~
“May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
May the rains fall soft upon your fields,
And, until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of His hand”.
Happy St. Patrick’s Day and may the luck of the Irish be with you through all the days of your life. xxx
QuinnCreative and I have engaged in a comment chat recently, discussing the spiritual nature of the area around Tucson, Arizona.
Time stands still for me when reading Quinn’s stories. My son nearly missed the school bus a couple of mornings ago, as I had become so enthralled in reading Quinn’s blog posts!
When Quinn made mention of the Australian Aborigines in her post “Dreaming Your Life Awake”, I simply had to mention my Magical Mountain, which I admire daily from the back of my home.
The Aboriginal name for my Magical Mountain is “Wollumbin”. The European name, given to the mountain by Captain James Cook in 1770 is “Mount Warning”.
Regular visitors will no doubt remember my waxing lyrical over the mountain on many occasions. I find myself staring at the mountain regularly, in an almost hypnotic state.
The closer I drive towards the mountain, the stronger I feel the “pull” towards it, as the folds within the rocky face of the mountain and the gigantic trees become clearer and clearer.
The “feel” of Mount Warning is both hypnotic and tranquil. I’m sure that the spirits of the local Aboriginals smile upon those who admire their “Wollumbin”.
Quinn asked for a list of posts I have written on Mount Warning. I discovered five posts in total, although two of those posts are mostly about landmarks in my area, named by Captain James Cook.
Here’s a list of links to the five posts ~
Thank you, Quinn, for giving me the opportunity to show off the beautiful area where I live yet again. I constantly complain about the humidity during the summer months ( sorry, patient readers!) but apart from the heat, we really do have the most magical scenery.
There are quite a few links here to explore, so grab a cuppa, sit back, relax, and explore a part of my world!
This weekend I’ve been having a wonderful time with WordPress, adding here, changing there, reading up on this, that and the other.
I’ve even started up a brand new blog, something that I’ve been contemplating doing for most of this year. Well, yesterday, I finally had all of the details worked out and began to put my thoughts into action.
The end result, (even though this is just the beginning!) is “A Sense of Spirit”. I do hope you will take a look at what I’ve got there so far.
It may or may not be your cup of tea and it can’t hurt to take a look, now can it?
I really like the design and colours in my new website. It feels right for what it is, and for what it is to become, with time.
WordPress is a fantastic site for setting up blogs, both free and self-hosted. I’ve finally got my head around the different WordPress sites too ~
WordPress.com is where you set up a free blog, such as “asenseofspirit. wordpress.com”, which is hosted by WordPress and has the word WordPress in the web address, and…
WordPress.org is for the self-hosted blog sites, (where you choose your own domain name and it doesn’t include the word WordPress) an example of where you are now, here at www.HomeLifeOnline.com
There has been many a time when I have been completely stumped by WordPress’s instructions, on how to set all of the aspects of a blog in place. They can, at times, be just downright vague with their information! Still and all, WordPress is my first choice for setting up a blog.
Don’t forget to have a look around at “A Sense of Spirit” and let me know what you think.
Today’s photo credit goes to “Yours Truly”. It was taken many years ago, in our back garden, when we lived in Sydney and is my first two babies. It is one of my favourite photos of them and I have used it today, for my first photo on my first post, at “A Sense of Spirit”.
“Questions are guaranteed in life; answers aren’t”.
Why is it that I can write a post perfectly in my mind, when access to pen and paper or computer is impossible, yet I will sit, hours later, in front of the computer screen and the words escape me?
Gone. No clues remaining. Not even a hint of those fly-away words.
And why are there periods of time in my life when I’m completely solid and unswayable on a subject, yet at other times I fuss and bother over “nothing” questions?
Perhaps it’s all the fault of my Libran personality. Librans are said to be just a tad (ha!) indecisive.
But wait, I’m not even a Libran! I’m Taurus! Taurus, with Libra moon and Libra ascendant.
If I were a totally, fully-fledged Taurus, I’d know, with total, absolute certainty, the answers to all of the so-called unanswerable questions. ‘Coz Taureans are unwavering and determined.
Aren’t they?
Which leads me to another question; why do I, the Taurus, find myself most compatible with Sagittarius personalities? And Aries?
Why have I spent my entire life being drawn to Virgo men, who annoy the life out of me with their finicky, perfectionist ways?
When I spend too much time at home, I can go stir-crazy, so I spend time out…and miss spending time at home. The weather is hot, so I wish it were cold again. After a few months of cold, I miss the warmth. But only sometimes!
Is everyone this indecisive? Do we all long for the opposite to what we have?
Are we ever satisfied with our lot in life? Does everyone ask these questions?
Some questions are so profound, they hurt. Questions such as why are there unsuspecting people in the world today, who are suffering due to the effects of an earth quake? Why them? What did they ever do to deserve this?
There are no answers to these questions that I’m aware of.
So, I avoid asking the questions. They’re too painful and serve no purpose to a single soul, either to the questioner or to those suffering.
There once was a time, a number of years ago now, when I had thought that helping another human being meant everything. Being only one person myself, I knew that help on a grand scale would be impossible for me to achieve, therefore setting my sights on helping those closest to me, in their times of need.
Little did I know back then that I was on the verge on learning one of life’s biggest lessons.
During a traumatic time of a friend’s life, one of unimaginable pain and heartbreak, I attempted to offer assistance, to smooth the road to recovery for a period of time by taking care of all of the mundane aspects of their life; the washing, ironing, cooking, cleaning, shopping; whilst she focussed all of her energy on recuperating from the upheaval which was present in her life.
Day after day she slept, while I took care of her life.
After two weeks of seeing not a single sign of progress, not a hint of resurrection to her own life, I sought help myself, in the form of a psychologist.
I asked the question, “Why won’t my friend at least attempt to help herself? I’ve taken all of her life’s mundane chores over myself, thinking it would help, but she’s making no progress at all. She sleeps all day, every day”.
The answer to my question was not what I had expected, nor was I prepared for. The psychologist, in his infinite wisdom, told me to stop helping. He told me to leave my friend to her own devises. He told me to turn my back and walk away!
Walking away was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do in my life. But after he explained to me why she wasn’t making any progress, I knew I had to. For her sake.
While I attended to all of my friend’s chores, she had no need to get up off her butt and take care of her own family, so she didn’t! When the help no longer existed, she was forced into action!
Not helping my friend was the kindest thing I could do for her.
What I have learned is that the questions will always exist, no matter what. Some questions have appropriate answers, some don’t. And some of the answers are not necessarily the answers we wish to hear.
There are times when questions can frustrate. And other times when we wish to help, but it’s impossible to do so. And no one can explain to us why.
It’s at these times that sending a prayer (if we are so inclined), or kind thoughts of well being to those in need, is the best help we can offer. So, that’s what we do. It all helps, somehow. Don’t ask why…
This past week has been a rather hectic one for me, with an abundance of work, mostly paper work, taking up most of my waking hours each day.
As a result I have missed out on posting anything here for quite a few days. I’ve even missed the WordPress Weekly Photo Challenge for last week!
Now, where in the rules does it say a photo can’t be posted a couple of days late?… No where?… That’s what I thought!
So here I am with my photo, which represents last week’s theme ~ “abundance”.
This photo was taken last year, when our garden produced a massive abundance of extremely tasty food; tomatoes, lemons, limes, mangoes, pecan nuts, chillies, and a number of my favourite herbs, including rosemary, basil, sage, parsley and thyme.
This time last year, the planets must have aligned perfectly, giving us a bumper crop of absolutely everything we grow! The right amount of rain and just enough sunshine, with the right amount of heat beating down upon the earth.
This summer, however, Mother Nature has not been quite so kind to us. Luckily, I have my photos from last year, showing my garden in all of its lush glory with an abundance of edibles, with which to reminisce, until the perfect weather conditions return again.
And the perfect weather conditions will return. Mother Nature is kind that way. 🙂
In My World 