The first day of school our professor introduced himself and challenged us to get to know someone we didn't already know. I stood up to look around when a gentle hand touched my shoulder.
I turned around to find a wrinkled, little old lady beaming up at me with a smile that lit up her entire being.
She said, "Hi, beautiful. My name is Rose. I'm eighty-seven years old. Can I give you a hug?"
I laughed and enthusiastically responded, "Of course you may!" and she gave me a giant squeeze.
"Why are you in college at such a young innocent age?" I asked.
She jokingly replied, "I'm here to meet a rich husband, get married, and have a couple of kids..."
"No, seriously," I asked. I was curious what may have motivated her to be taking on this challenge at her age.
"I always dreamed of having a college education and now I'm getting one!" she told me.
After class we walked to the student union building and shared a chocolate milkshake.
We became instant friends. Every day for the next three months we would leave class together and talk nonstop. I was always mesmerized listening to this "time machine" as she shared her wisdom and experience with me.
Over the course of the year, Rose became a campus icon and she easily made friends wherever she went. She loved to dress up and she reveled in the attention bestowed upon her from other students. She was living it up.
At the end of the semester we invited Rose to speak at our football banquet. I'll never forget what she taught us. She was introduced and stepped up to the podium. As she began to deliver her prepared speech, she dropped her three by five inch cards on the floor.
Frustrated and a little embarrassed she leaned into the microphone and simply said, "I'm sorry I'm so jittery. I gave up beer for lent and this whiskey is killing me! I'll never get my speech back in order so let me just tell you what I know."
As we laughed she cleared her throat and began, "We do not stop playing because we are old; we grow old because we stop playing.
There are only four secrets to staying young, being happy, and achieving success. You have to laugh and find humor every day. You have to have a dream. When you lose your dreams, you die.
We have so many people who are walking around who are dead and don't even know it!
There is a huge difference between growing older and growing up.
If you are nineteen years old and lie in bed for one full year and don't do one productive thing, you will turn twenty years old. If I am eighty-seven years old and stay in bed for a year and never do anything I will turn eighty-eight.
Anybody can grow older. That doesn't take any talent or ability. The idea is to grow up by always finding opportunity for change. Have no regrets.
The elderly usually don't have regrets for what we did, but rather for things we did not do. The only people who fear death are those with regrets."
She concluded her speech by courageously singing "The Rose".
She challenged each of us to study the lyrics and live them out in our daily lives. At the year's end, Rose finished the college degree she had begun all those years ago.
One week after graduation Rose died peacefully in her sleep.
Over two thousand college students attended her funeral in tribute to the wonderful woman who taught by example that it's never too late to be all you can possibly be.
These words have been passed along in loving memory of ROSE. REMEMBER, GROWING OLDER IS MANDATORY. GROWING UP IS OPTIONAL. We make a Living by what we get, we make a Life by what we give.
The Universe promises a safe landing, not a calm passage. If the Universe brings it to you, the Universe will bring you through it. (If you don't think so, look out your window when you wake in the morning and think about it.)
Author Unknown.
1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk.
2. When you lose, don't lose the lesson.
3. Follow the three R's:
Respect for self,
Respect for others, and
Responsibility for all your actions.
4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck.
5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
6. Don't let a little dispute injure a great relationship.
7. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it.
8. Spend some time alone every day.
9. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values.
10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
11. Live a good, honorable life so when you get older and think back you can enjoy it again.
12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for your life.
13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation, not the past.
14. Share your knowledge. It is a way to achieve immortality.
15. Be gentle with the earth.
16. Once a year, go some place you've never been before.
17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which you love each other more than you need each other.
18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.
19. Approach love and cooking with reckless abandon.
A friend that is an outstanding spiritual teacher and metaphysical writer was waiting to board a plane. She had a spiritual book in her lap and was very intent upon what she was reading until she felt summoned by Spirit to look up. When she did, she saw such a strange sight she had to try to keep from staring.
Humped over in a wheelchair she saw an elderly man. He was skin and bones, dressed in clothes that obviously fit when he was at least twenty pounds heavier. His knees protruded from his trousers, and his shoulders looked like the coat hanger was still in his shirt. His hands looked like tangled masses of veins and bones.
The strangest part of him was his hair and nails. Stringy, gray hair hung well over his shoulders and down part of his back. His fingernails were long and clean but strangely out of place on an old man.
Beth looked down at her book as fast as she could, discomfort burning in her face and tried to imagine what his story might be. She found herself wondering if she had just had a Howard Hughes sighting but, then, she remembered that he is dead. So this man in the airport...an impersonator maybe? Was a camera on us somewhere, she wondered. There she sat; trying to concentrate on her book to keep from being concerned about a thin slice of humanity served on a wheelchair only a few seats from her. All the while, her heart was growing more and more overwhelmed with a feeling for him. Curiosity is a heap more comfortable than true concern, but suddenly Beth was awash with aching emotion for this bizarre looking man.
She had worked with Spirit long enough to see the handwriting on the wall. Beth had learned that when she began to feel what the universe feels, something contrary to her natural feelings, something dramatic is bound to happen...and it may be embarrassing. She immediately began to resist and started arguing with Spirit in her mind. "Oh, no, Spirit, please, no" she thought, but asked , "What are you calling me to do"?
The words were so clear, her heart leapt into her throat, and her thoughts spun like a top. Spirit said simply, "I want you to brush his hair". Beth said to Spirit, "I don't have a hair brush. It's in my suitcase on the plane. How am I supposed to brush his hair without a hair brush?" However, she stumbled over to the wheelchair thinking she could use one herself. She knelt down in front of the man and asked as demurely as possible, "Sir, may I have the pleasure of brushing your hair? He looked back at her and said, "What did you say?" She repeated, "May I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?" To which he responded in volume ten, "Little lady, if you expect me to hear you, you're going to have to talk louder than that." At this point, Beth took a deep breath and blurted out, 'SIR, MAY I HAVE THE PLEASURE OF BRUSHING YOUR HAIR?"
At this point every eye in the place darted right at her. She was the only thing in the room looking more peculiar than old Mr. Long Locks. Face crimson and forehead breaking out in a sweat, Beth watched him look at her with absolute shock on his face, and say "If you really want to." Are you kidding? Of course, she didn't want to, but Spirit didn't seem interested in her personal preference right about then and pressed on her heart until she could utter the words, "Yes, sir, I would be pleased but I have one little problem. I don't have a hair brush." "I have one in my bag," he responded.
Beth went around to the back of that wheelchair and got on her hands and knees and unzipped the stranger's old carry-on, hardly believing what she was doing. She stood up and started brushing the old man's hair. It was perfectly clean, but it was tangled and matted so she started brushing at the very bottom of the strands remembering to take her time not to pull.
She says that a miraculous thing happened to her when she started to brush his hair. Everyone else in the room disappeared. There was no one alive for those moments except the old man and herself. She brushed and brushed and brushed until every tangle was out of his hair. Beth reports that she has never felt that kind of love for another soul in her entire life. She believes with all her heart that for those few minutes she felt a total release of human negativity. Finally, the elderly man's hair was as soft and smooth as an infant's.
She slipped the brush back in the bag and went around the chair to face him. Beth got down on her knees and said, "Sir, do you know Spirit?" He said "Yes, I've known the Divine since I married my bride. She wouldn't marry me until I understood the Sacred Energy of the Universe". He said, "You see, the problem is, I haven't seen my bride in months. I've had open heart surgery and she's been too ill to come and see me. I was sitting here thinking to myself, what a mess I must be for my bride."
Only Spirit knows how often we're allowed to be a part of a divine moment when we're completely unaware of the significance. This, on the other hand, was one of those rare encounters when Beth knew the Universe had intervened and allowed her a glimpse.
Their time came to board and they were not on the same plane. Beth felt deeply ashamed of how she'd felt earlier and would have been proud to have accompanied him on that aircraft.
She still had a few minutes, and as she gathered her things to board, the airline hostess returned from the corridor, tears streaming down her cheeks. She said, "That old man's sitting on the plane, sobbing. Why did you do that? What made you do that?" Beth said, "Spirit can be the bossiest thing!"
She learned a lot that day. Spirit knows if you're exhaused, hungry, serving in the wrong place or it is time to move on but you feel too responsible to budge. The Universe knows if you're hurting, feeling rejected or if you're sick or drowning under a wave of temptation or if you just need your hair brushed. The Divine sees you as an individual. Tell Spirit what you need.
Beth got on her own flight, sobs choking her throat, wondering how many opportunities just like that one she had missed along the way...all because she didn't want people to think she was strange. She realized Spirit didn't send her to that old man. The Universe sent that old man to her.
A monkey wanted to get the milk out of a coconut and one monkey accidentally bashed the coconut with a rock and soon all the monkeys were drinking milk from coconuts on that island. However, before long the monkeys on another island started doing the same thing without any communication with the former monkeys on the other island. This is how spiritual collectivism works. Thoughts are energy and we are all a part of this collectivism.
As a result, I'm taking calls today after all! We aren't supposed to get any more snow this weekend so my plans for Sunday are still on "go" and I won't be available for calls after today until Monday.
The snow is really gorgeous but since I live in the mountains and I'm phobic when it comes to driving in snow I just enjoy the beauty on "snow days". Anyway, it's straight downhill to the road and I don't want to go snow sledding in my car!
Wishing you much magic,
Sage
The holiday season is truly here and I find myself being pulled in many directions in order to honor those that have brought so much joy to my life throughout the past year(s). As a result, my usual schedule on Keen is being disrupted, again. I apologize for any inconvenience to my clients as I won't be available to take your calls on Saturday or Sunday. However, I will resume my regular schedule of 6:oo am MST until 2:00 pm MST on Monday, December 17th.
Wishing you a most blessed weekend,
Sage
I won't be taking calls Thursday, December 13th but you can reach me from 6:00am until 2:00pm MST on Friday.
Brightest blessings for a magical day,
Sage
I will regret missing your calls today but will be available, as usual, tomorrow (Saturday, December 1st).
I wish you a most magical day with many, many blessings,
Sage
How you know when you have inner peace in your life...
- You begin to draw emotional boundaries which negative/toxic people cannot cross.
- You stop giving your power, time, money, body and sanity away to people and conditions that can steal your joy and your purpose.
- You begin to simplify your life.
- You begin to value quiet time.
- You don't feel insecure if you are alone.
- You begin to trust yourself more.
- Your choices in food, fun, family and friends change for the better.
- You sleep better because you let go of worry.
- You spend time with the prople and activities that bring out your best.
- You don't spend a lot of energy trying to rescue or fix other people.
- You change what you can and what cannot be changed, "it is what it is".
- Life lessons learned help you to bounce back with more resiliency after setbacks, disappointments or loss.
- You focus less on the mess and stress and have more gratitude for your blessings and success.
- You are liberated from shame, anger, fear and guilt.
I feel so fortunate to have such abundance in my life. My little Jack Russell Terrier, Elizabeth, brings me constant joy with all her little kisses, precious ways and endless patience. The hummingbirds stop by every year on their migration south and bring sheer delight. The mountains where I live are a treasure trove constantly furnishing me with eye candy and the smell of pinon and the wonder of what will happen next. Will the bear appear on my portico again and in his clumsiness knock over something else? Or, will it be a mountain lion that I will see next prancing down the little private lane in front of my house as if he/she owns the world? However, the reason I'm really writing this is to express my gratitude to my many wonderful clients on Keen who in great part make this all possible. I love hearing from you and catching up on all the issues that are important to you and your life. Often I commiserate with you while other times we laugh and everything in between but what remains constant is our mutual respect and the energy flowing between us. Our bond is special because spirit brings those that I can help the most and I am grateful to each and everyone of you. Please accept my most heartfelt thanks. Much love and many blessings...
When we can say to someone that has hurt us "thank you for giving me that experience" we feel "true forgiveness". We only need to say this silently to ourselves (not to them) because what is important is that we know that we forgive them.
I have let go of how I thought I would accomplish ____________ and I'm just following the path of my inspiration knowing it will lead me to perfection.
The "goal of the ego" is to leave big footprints...the bigger the better. However, the journey is the real goal. To me, the smaller the footprints I leave behind, the more successful I will judge my life.
We look at life as "the miracle" but the miracle is really death.
One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, "My son, the battle is between 'two wolves' inside us all."
One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority and ego.
The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: "Which wolf wins?"
The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."