Fun sayings, postive affirmations and powerful quotes:

All loss is gain. Since I have become so near-sighted I see no dust or squalor, and therefore conceive of myself as living in splendor.

~Alice James (1848-1892)
American diarist



At the end, it means more than religion to have had a happy childhood.
Memory of it serves to hold off pain and fear; it is an unfailing resource.

~Helen Hooven Santmyer
20th century American writer

I like living. I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly,

acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all

I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand

thing.

~Agatha Christie(1890-1976)
English writer





This is one of my favorite positive affirmations statements:

Every religion on the planet has told us to have FAITH. Faith is when you cannot see how, but you absolutely know that the moment you have the dream it is given to you, and all you have to do is relax and allow the Universe to magnetize you to your dream and your dream to you.

~Rhonda Byrne
Creator of “The Secret”




Here is an excerpt from Deepak Chopra M.D. book,
Creating Affluence~Wealth Consciousness in the Field of all Possibilities

“D” stands for the law of demand and supply. Whatever service we are here to give, there is a demand for it. Ask yourself, “How may I serve?” and “How can I help?” The answers are within you. When you find those answers, you will also see and know that there is a demand

for your service.
“D” also stands for dharma. Each of us has a dharma, a purpose in life. When we are in dharma, we enjoy and love our work.




Noah St. John Ph.D, inventor of Afformations® and author
of The Secret Code of Success, shares some thoughts;

All suffering is caused by attachment. All feelings of less-than are caused by comparison. The only way we can feel less-than is to compare ourselves to someone else. Suffering occurs when we are attached to things that are transient - namely all things in the physical world. STOP comparing yourself to others. START comparing your current self to your past self. Are you progressing? Moving forward?
Are you a better person than you were a year ago, two years ago, three years ago? What have you learned in the last year about yourself, your friends, humanity, life on Earth? Are you bringing more value to the world? Are you allowing yourself to prosper as you add value to others? At the end of your life, you won’t be asked if you made as much money as someone else. You’ll be asked if you did the best you could with what you were given-if you became the person you were meant to be, and shared your blessings with the world.



~

This is a powerful afformation to try on: "why do I have faith in myself?"

~


Have a beautiful day,



Photo: 'birdum' PKM


Joy,


Rena

www.talktotheurtle.com

Feng Shui Fashion and Chopra

Every once in a while I will drop in on the alumni conference calls hosted by The Western School of Feng Shui. Just recently the one that aired was hosted by Western School founder Terah Collins and her guest Evana Maggiore. Evana is a 1996 graduate of The Western School of Feng Shui, I graduated four years later in 2000.
Evana’s Fashion Feng Shui book titled Dressing the Whole Person was written in 1998 and our school was promoting her book when I attended there so I bought an autographed copy for myself.

Terah and Evana have co-inspired and co-mentored each other crisscrossing their inspirations for all these years. These are two extremely accomplished women and it was really lovely to hear the exchange and their support for each other in the Feng Shui call. It was also great to hear Evana explain the concept of her first book and her subsequent books on Fashion Feng Shui. The Boston Globe recently listed Evana on the top 100 best-dressed Bostonian list, with the added acknowledgement of dressing with intention.

This is a snapshot of her book; Evana has taken body shapes, hair color, eye color, skin color and created elemental archetypes. Each of these archetypes is supported by colors, styles, shapes and fabrics. If you visit her website there are several areas to read and get the general idea of her concept. It is actually quite cool.
Visit fashionfengshui.com to find your own body type archetype and your complimentary elements translated into fashion and style.

In their conversation about dressing with intention Terah asked Evana about her writing some new material and Evana mentioned that she was planning on taking her water element clothes (creative, flowing, diaphanous) with her to Puerto Rico where Deepak Chopra was hosting a retreat. This caught my attention because a friend of mine has been talking about taking this retreat with Dr. Chopra that is inspired by his book The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire.

I stepped up and bought his book for $16.50 and I am half way through reading it. Yes I realize it is not Puerto Rico and I certainly do not get the honor of meeting Dr. Chopra but I will at least be able to understand where my friend wants to go, literally and psychologically.
If you were around last year when I read Eat, Pray, Love, you will remember it takes me a while to get through a book these days. What is most fascinating about Dr. Chopra’s book is that he refers to "desires and Archetypes" and dedicates a chapter to it.

Here is a small excerpt from the book -The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire;

“The Purpose of Archetypes”
"These days, we tend to seek symbolic archetypes in celebrities, but we need to nurture a full expression of the archetypes in ourselves. They are part of what creates us. This is the stuff our dreams are made of. This is the stuff of mythology, of campfire stories, of legends. This is what inspires great movies. In Star Wars Luke Skywalker is the expression of the archetype of the eternal adventurer, willing to take risks to explore the unknown. Princess Leia is like Artemis, the independent huntress, the protector. Yoda is the wise seer, the keeper of powerful knowledge who is connected to the non-local intelligence. These are figures of our collective imagination, ancient archetypes in futuristic form.
Archetypes are vital to understanding and defining who we are, individual expressions of a collective consciousness. Mythology is the wellspring of our civilization. One of the consequences of depriving people of mythology is that they join street gangs. Why? Because gangs have a leader, they have rituals, they have initiation rites - the stuff of mythology. Our children are joining gangs in search of a mythical experience. Whenever somebody does anything remarkable - when astronauts walk on the moon, when a pilot embarks on the first solo flight across the Atlantic - these are mythical quests, Jason in search of the Golden Fleece, Icarus soaring in his wings of feathers and wax. From Persephone’s abduction by Pluto to Orpheus seeking his bride among the shades of Hades, to Apollo, and all the stories of Celtic mythology-this is the deepest wellspring of civilization and identity.
Gangs and movies and soap operas and celebrities are seductive precisely because they strike this mythic chord. But they are second-class substitutes for mythology. Real archetypes are enacted by people like Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., Rosa Parks, anyone who reaches beyond daily life into the realm of the wondrous. They are able to achieve greatness because they tapped into the collective consciousness, which gave them the ability to see several event lines simultaneously and predict the future based on choices in the moment. In Sanskrit, these are referred to as 'siddhis', which means supernormal powers - extrasensory perception, synchronicity, telepathy-all products of the non-local domain. These are the powers that bloom as myth.”

~

O.K. I know this is deep stuff - down right Jungian. However, I saw the thread that united dressing with intention by understanding the Feng Shui elemental archetypes created by Evana Maggiore along with Dr. Chopra encouraging us to emulate the positive roles in archetypes that we have a connection to.

In a separate talk Dr. Chopra offered the following thoughts: “Unconsciously we are creating the same energy patterns. An average person thinks about sixty thousand thoughts a day. Unfortunately 95% of the thoughts you have today are the same ones you had yesterday. You keep creating the energy patterns that give rise to the same physical expression of the body.”



Knowledge is empowerment. What you focus on grows……



Have a beautiful day,



Photo: 'big picture' PKM


Joy,


Rena


www.talktotheturtle.com

Valentines day card with a lucky charm

I was in the local drug store, if that is what you can really call them these days. I mean there is a pharmacy in the store, but you can also buy assorted groceries, makeup, a DVD player with a 7” screen, and all-occasion cards. I went to purchase some Valentines Day cards, and in the group of my prized collection was a card with a lucky charm on the front and when you opened it, music blared out a love song and I just howled with laughter. It was the best of the bunch.

I really had a lot of fun choosing the cards that collectively put together some loving thoughts that I was sure would create a smile – if just for a moment-in some very dear friends and loved ones' lives. I also picked up a few sundries as well and made my way to the line-up at the checkout counter. I felt good.

The place was packed, you know how that goes - one time you are in the store and nobody is there, and at other times it seems like everyone had the same idea at exactly the same time that they needed something and today was that kind of day. The check out guy yelled an offering that people who were not buying cigarettes or lotto tickets were invited to go to the makeup counter to purchase their goods.

I looked around. There were two lines and not one person moved. I thought to myself, are all these people smokers and gamblers? I also made a note to myself that the Friday lotto was two days away, and I had plenty of time to gamble for my own winning ticket. Tonight I was savouring my Valentines cards and wanted to get home to write in them and mail them off.

Wow, I thought - I guess I will take my armful of goods to the makeup counter then.

The makeup counter was twenty feet away from the line, and you could see it clearly. a I skipped right over and placed my bounty of love on the counter, and smiled at the girl behind the counter.

“Hi there” I said.

She smiled back at me and replied, “are you the next person in the line?" I squinted my eyes, while thinking to myself and turning my head all in one poetic motion, I asked myself the obvious question: was there someone standing behind me? Was I so caught up in buying my Valentine's cards that I cut someone off at the register?

I turned my head around to look behind me, and there was nobody there. I was the only person standing at the counter.

I looked back at the clerk, and said:“theres nobody here but me." She glared back at me and quipped, “What’s your point?" “Are you the next person in line?" I tilted my head sideways, feeling like I was in a Saturday Night live skit, but I was the only one invited to watch the insanity of this special moment. I didn’t say anything.
The clerk rang me through, scrutinized my card which seemed like forever – and as I tried to say thank you, she threw in a “yeah you have a nice day too."

That moment kind of shadowed my Valentine's card writing party. You all know there's really just as much fun in the giving as in the receiving - maybe more actually. That situation got me thinking about all the people in the world that are challenged with unhappy days.
We all have them and for some the chaos can be more overwhelming than we can imagine.
A few days later I was offered a wonderful gem, a true nugget of wisdom from Oprah Winfrey on her show. This invited me to reflect on how love and forgiveness are so intertwined.

This is what Oprah said; “Forgiveness is giving up all hope that the past could have been any different”.

I took this statement myself and applied it to every single hurt I could remember, and said Oprah's forgiveness (or loving phrase I refer to it now) statement for each one that came up. I had a really remarkably peaceful, freeing experience using this application and I wanted to share it. It is really coming from a place of deep love and acceptance and I just wanted to say thanks Oprah! I get it. Thank you very much for showing us how to let go.

As a final Valentine's well wish, since I cannot put a card on this posting I have grouped together some of my favorite good news sites for you to treat yourself to a happy Valentine's thought for yourself.



- greatnewsnetwork.org

- positivenewsus.org

- gimundo.com

- goodnewsdaily.com

- happynews.com




Happy Valentines Day! Some bunny loves you…..


Have a beautiful day,


Joy,


Photo: 'here in the now' PKM


Rena

www.talktotheturtle.com