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My friend called me yesterday. It was a pleasant surprise since we do not communicate very often. Every once in a while we check in on each other to make sure that all is well and life continues to be bearable, even if not great. We knew each other from our university days when everything was everything and our friendship had withstood the test of many years. In order to protect the innocent, I am going to call him Warren, (actually Warren is his given name, so I guess he’s no innocent). So why did he call me? He was checking up on my emotional and mental well-being after reading a few of my blog stories. I gave a full belly laugh. It was the best laugh I had that day.

“So are you going through a phase or something?” Warren asked with concern in his voice. “You are writing about spirituality and things, …..so you okay nah*? You don’t sound like the person I know.”

I giggled. I remembered the person he knew. But that was so long ago. Are we to remain the same? What does that say about our growth and expansion?

“No, it is not a phase and I have never been better,” I assured him.

His voice remained somewhat doubtful but as our conversation progressed, he became less anxious and more relaxed. I assumed he had made the decision that I was A-OK. Well, I am A, B, and C OK. I have never been more OK in my life. I feel happy and contented, blessed, and fulfilled. I discovered the secret of being.

I am sure many of you can relate to this story. When we start on our path of awakening to who we really and why we came into this physical space at this time and in this place, a light goes on inside it and it shines so brightly that it gets noticed. It reminds me of a firefly. Have you ever seen a firefly’s light when it is pitch black? It cannot be hidden and so it draws other fireflies to it. So too does the light that emanates from us. It shines through what we do and what we say. It shows up in our words and our art. It manifests in our love and appreciation. It illuminates our world and that of others around us.

Those who knew us well and see the change may get concerned. Those who knew us not and see us are curiously drawn to whatever it is. You will hear the questions and see the stares.

So you okay, nah*?





* nah or nuh, colloquial expression used in the Caribbean to mean ‘or not’.

I went to my garden early this morning. I was hoping to pick my salad greens and bush tea leaves while the droplets from the early morning rain were still on the plants. It was supposed to be a quick pick and go. Today was Saturday and there was a lot of not to do. I did not see any monkeys in the nearby trees so I guessed they had beaten me to the ripe sugar apple and almost ripe avocado I was looking at from the evening before. I shrugged. So what? I will get another time.

Anyway, I remembered I had to check on a new Flamboyant tree that my friend had planted for me yesterday. He had built a sturdy pen around it to keep out some goats that nearby. I was pleased knowing that my plant would someday grow into a beautiful flowering tree. As I neared the spot I saw a couple of butterflies busy looking for the best plant to lay their eggs on. As I walked closer, my eyes widened in amazement, it was like an entire field of butterflies had landed on the nearby flowering weeds. They rose like a cloud, fluttering, and dancing when they realized my presence. I felt a part of it all, the beginning and the end, the now and the then. It was beautiful.

Some time ago I wrote about finding magic in the mundane.
This was magic.

Ode to the hummingbird — A poem


I watch you flit from flower to flower
I time your appearance by the morning sunlight.
You’re small in body,
But immense in majesty.
Your brilliantly lit plume
Of shades of blue
Sits atop your tiny head,
Fiercely Defiant.
As if to say, I have dominion over all I survey.
You say, flower be blessed by my presence.
I watch you and I learn that smallness is mental.

The soul and the spirit,
Willpower and self-confidence,
Determination and intuitiveness,
Persistence and perseverance,
Translates into a bigness
That cannot be defined or diminished
By the small physical space I occupy in the here and now.

And so I declare,
Life be blessed.
Universe be blessed.
All humanity be blessed
By my presence.

I spent part of my morning decluttering my tiny house. I had been thinking about it for a while but did not get around to it until a mouse decided to nibble through one of my window sieves and come inside in search of food. I was most annoyed. Now I had to repair a screen, find the mouse and check all the other windows to make sure their screens were intact. 
What botheration for a Sunday morning! 

So to kill two birds with one stone, I took the opportunity to begin the process of getting rid of stuff not used in a long time. I threw away old papers and books, old office supplies, old handbags, and shoes, and a few other items the memories of which I preferred not to entertain. I cleared out those spaces that did nothing more than took up space. It was cathartic. Though I did not finish the process on that day, I still felt like a burden was lifted from my shoulders just by this single dump fest.

As I sat down later in the evening with some tea and a wandering mind, I got to thinking, "what was the real benefit of the mouse invasion? What was the lesson to be learned and shared?" 

So now I ask, "what will be your mouse? What is going to have to be that trigger to get you to clear out the dark spaces in your life?"

Is that space your job?
Your partner?
Your friends?
Your childhood pain and trauma?
Your past mistakes?
Your lack mentality?
The list never ends. 

Let us graciously thank the mouse that moved in. It taking up residence was the catalyst that encouraged us to enter those spaces, to clear out the rubble, making room for our lighter, brighter, newly decluttered life. 



p.s. I caught the mouse two days later by way of a glue trap!

There are many times in our lives when we have to take two steps backward to move forward. These steps sometimes allow for healing from whatever trauma that resulted in us wanting to take that forward step in the first place.

A case in point is me. I have been trying to get over a breakup for a while now. It is not that I have not been trying but you see this thing called love, it has no respect for person, place, or thing. It will creep up on you like a thief in a cemetery and before you know it, you are shouting from the rooftop and singing at the moon, “love, love, beautiful love.”
in my case, the love grew, blossomed, and then expired, leaving me with a broken heart and shattered emotions. For a while, I refused to acknowledge that the last note of the song was sung. The choir had removed their robes and left the chapel.

I see you nodding your head in commiseration. You feel me. You understand. You have also done the heartbreak thing. You gave and received your fair share.
And like me, you decide to take the step forward into a new life, a new you, a new forever. But before you did, you paused, looked over your shoulder, and took two steps back. Not far back enough to go begging your former lover for redemption but far back enough to relive the bittersweet memories of the relationship.

You may have returned to your favourite restaurant or hiking trail.
You may have re-watched your favourite movies and cried long tears.
You may have relived the feel of her lips on yours.

It is all fine, all good.

Take the backward steps you need but use them as the accelerator for your onward, forward motion.

It has been raining basically non-stop for three days now. The weather report explained that a tropical wave was passing. It was not the wave that you grab a surfboard for, it was the kind that we usually welcome because it brings much-needed rain for many of our drought thirsty islands. Climate Change has done a number on us. A few years ago, for the first time in my island’s history, we had to put a water rationing programme in place. Many of us were shocked, taken off-guard. We always thought that we had water in abundant supply. Our Amerindian name is Liamuiga, if you please, which means ‘fertile land’. There were always deep, fertile soil to cultivate and regular rain to water our crops. We were blessed on this tiny island. Indeed, we were.

We have been having less and less rain and when it does fall, it comes with such intensity that in many cases, the end result is flooding in some areas and landslides in others. At one point, a multi-million-dollar house slipped along a steep slope causing enough damage to the property to make the insurer's eyes water.

So, as I sit at my bedroom window in the dark, watching the rain fall, the Christmas palms swaying gently in the breeze, the blossoms of the ubiquitous yellow bell shrub dancing and bobbing to the sound of the raindrops, I felt a peace, a calm that I ought not to be feeling given the chaos that seems to be unfolding around us. But it was there nevertheless. It was a deep-seated feeling of well-being and gratitude and a belief that things are unfolding as they should.

The Universe never makes mistakes. When we are faced with troubles, there is a lesson there for growth. When we are faced with moments of joy, there is a lesson there for thanksgiving. We take life as it comes, the good times, the bad times, and those times in between.

We show gratitude.
We accept our blessing with grace.
We say thanks for the rain.

The Universe always answers our questions whenever we ask. The key is in being able to detect when an answer comes. I think this the part that has been difficult for many of us. We are not good readers of the signs and synchronicities, so with heads looking up towards the sky, we wait for the sound of trumpets, the heavens to open, and for abundance to pour down on us like confetti. It does not work like that. Universal Forces are not on show; they are not here for our entertainment. They speak to us softly, while quietly leading us along the path to where we need to go but we have to be ready to hear.

I have always been a poor listener and am just now developing my skills in improved listening. I am a talker. I talk a lot, too much. I think I was born talking. I remember my school reports always had ‘talks too much’ in the column for the teacher’s comments. Over time, I have come to realize is that to hear Universal Forces, I had to be silent, I could not be talking and listening at the same time. This type of multitasking proved ineffective. Now I realize that it is amazing when we do sit down to listen, the answers that are provided.

Let me tell you a story:

I have been trying to grow my online business for a while now. My hope is that most of the proceeds from sales of my products will support the work of Esoteric Garden’s and Lizzie’s Nest. My ultimate goal is to help persons to find themselves through food, meditation, and seeking spirituality and I do not want persons in need to have to pay for any of the services we provide, ergo our online store.

You know that you are on your path when things start happening for you as if someone was waving a magic wand and there has been some wand-waving for the past year or so as we attempted to get Lizzie’s nest off the ground. We have now reached the point of trying to generate more traffic to our site. I asked the Universe about it, I am no marketing expert, so how were we going to support our work?

The funny thing is that Divine Intelligence knows what we need even before we do and I have been noticing that guidance comes long before I actually see what is to be done about it. It’s like my actions are on delay. I ask. The answer comes. I look at the answer and exclaim, “what in goodness’ name is that?” I ask again. The answer comes again. I look at the answer again and say. “ahh, why didn’t you show me this before?” The Universe smiles.

This can and does happen to all of us but we have to be open to guidance. We have to be ready to act. We have to be brave and bold. We have to trust. We have to have faith and believe. We have to have that knowing that things are always working out for us.

We have to listen.

I learn a lot from my Gen X daughter. Every once in a while she comes up with a nugget of wisdom that makes me pause and reflect. She has been saying something for a while that surely reflects the thinking of persons her age and busy people in general. She would hit me with the: ‘ain’t nobody got time for that.’

And I agree with her especially when it comes to reading. As much as many of us enjoy reading, on a given day there can be so much material to consume in one’s news feed and reading list that ain’t nobody got time for long-drawn-out pieces that circle around the point like an airplane trying to land in a thick fog.

I confess that I would scroll through the articles in my reading list and check for two things, first the title, and then the reading time. If the headline grabs me and the length is 4 minutes or less, I take a read. If it is over my self-imposed time limit, then there must be something about that story that I really, really, well really, want to know about for me to click on it.

People, as interested as they might be in what you have to say, just do not have the time to wind their way through your musings as you take your dear time getting to the crux of the matter.

There is a saying that goes, ‘out of the mouths of babes and sucklings comes forth truth’, so if you are aspiring for your writings to be read by busy people, or even some lazy people, perhaps it's time to dial back on the musings and be more ruthless in the editing, ’cause ain’t nobody got time for that.

I wrote a few days ago about reacquainting myself with the love I had for jazz music. My Gen Xer heard what I was playing and asked, “What elevator music is that?” It was meant to be derisive, for, after all, it was not to her taste.
I simply responded, “what is elevator music to some, is stairway music to heaven for others.” She was not impressed by my smartness so it was a shrug and an eye-roll and she huffed away. Lucky me, I was back to my undisturbed happy space.

Have you identified your stairway to heaven? What do you do that puts you in that feel-good place? Because you know, once in that space, only good things can happen to you. There is no chance to experience negative emotions because you have, in that present moment, raised your vibrations so high to where neither thieves nor robbers can find and steal.
As you ride the elevator called life, what music is piping through your speakers?



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I meditate and then sit down to write my blog, whatever the message, that’s the message for that day. Most times the words come out quickly on the page. They flow and then end, all by themselves. I then leave them to gel a while I find something else to do. Sometime later I go back to the piece and by the time I edit and post, I would have forgotten almost everything.

For me, I almost never go back to blogs I have written. I do not feel the need but on the rare occasions that I do, I almost always ask myself, “Did I write that?”
There are times in life when we are guided to say and do things as if some force outside ourselves is controlling the action.

We deliver messages.
We share our life stories.
We expose our hurts and pains and healings.
We come into ourselves and discover our connection to that One Consciousness.
We do it through art, music, dance, speech, writings.

Some may call it our talent, I call it our tale.

We create,
We are part of a process that is not for us or by us but comes through us.