Perhaps if you've subscribed or you follow several blogs, podcasts, streaming vids, video blogs and so on - basically some sort of product put out there to the world by regular people, who express their views and opinions without being centrally edited by some Bureau or Corporation - you may have noticed how there are here and there moments when they - thought you love them and follow them gladly - become heavy. Here and there there might come up a comment - very personal - that might make you uncomfortable regardless of the fact that it might touch a matter concerning you, or simply because the way it was put, the tone, the general conversation where it came up made you feel it was a bit too loaded. You know this feeling when you are reading or listening or watching someone and you've get this feeling that tells you that this is going too much. Too much criticism, too much of the same type of attacks, too much on the same line of commenting about something, too much delving into their own little world of something, too much on this or that topic. As audience, you might feel a bit stupid putting up a complaint about the matter, as you can nearly see or here are you are replied "don't like it? don't follow it", and well, that's an option indeed.
Through my listening to podcasts - some of which have really made me think about starting my own - as well as through the feed of posts from the blogs I follow, time and again I have come across these heavy opinions, and thus I pull away from them, seek to go out somewhere under the big sky where the wind blows and lighten up my heart. I might be a bit simple minded for some, but I believe in energy, in people being moved and living through and by their bio-energy. This energy that runs inside us, around us, from us and towards us is variable, and slight modifications on it might affect the way we feel.
For the skeptic, it's kinda like with any machine or equipment: if the energy that goes into it isn't right, the given equipment will work differently. Of course, nowadays you can get an adapter that makes sure the 110v using machine doesn't get toasted with the 220v, or vice-versa. However we - people - don't really have an adapter attached. Not that we really need it, as we ourselves can tune and clean and make the energy that flows around us proper. In a way it's a matter of what you let in, but also, about how you deal with what has come into you. Now, you'll gonna like what comes next. One of the best, most wonderful energy cleansers I have found is relaxing.
Relaxing, on the other hand, doesn't mean necesarily, to make plans and spend a small fortune on a big name hotel or a Caribbean Cruise, get into a fight with Human Resources and you boss to give you some days of vacations, and then be treated with all sorts of expensive spa stuff to "make you feel good". Relax means relax. Spend absolutely nothing. Let's start cleaning your energy from the negative vibes money problems put on it. Spend absolutely nothing. Grab a small piece of paper and fold an origami something or fold a plane and let it fly. Take a handful of clips and chain them together. Try folding a heart out of one, or unfold it unto a straight wire and then bend it into a spiral. Stand up and walk slowly for another fill of coffee. Don't take the elevator, take the stairs and take your time. Concentrate on long breaths with each step. Slow and easy. Pick a flower from the street (if it's allowed) and place it in that water bottle you were about to discard.
Repurpose, rethink, and let go, donate, discard all those things that no longer have a place in your life. Pay attention to all those things around you that don't demand a dime from you, which you can turn into something beautiful, things that can add value and smiles to your life.
This past weekend my boyfriend and I went to the Caribbean shore. For us here is rather simple, we only have to hop into Sookie (my car) and drive some 4-to-6 hours depending on how many turns we'll do and the average IQ levels ruling the driving on the road ^_^ and there we are. Does it has a cost? Yep, well it does. Cost on gas and on food, maybe even lodging, but it's a simple matter we can arrange right now. Down there we went on some of my favorite beaches - it was his first time, so before that moment he didn't have a chance to pick a favorite beach - and one of them has black sand. I filled up a plastic bottle we had handy with it, and now I'm thinking about the uses I can give to it. With perfectly good, beautiful black sand I can very well fill bottles and and make some lovely decorative things that will make me happy while making as well as while watching, but I was thinking that I could also build a small wooden box with some wood scraps we have at the house - and the help of my dad and boyfriend - and make my own, very unique Zen Garden. It's a chance I have here, but just as I can make something like that - and I wasn't even thinking about a Zen Garden! - the world around you is filled with lots and lots of opportunities to relax, disconect and let your energy get clean, full and flow good through you.
What can you do? Plant a small plant in the yoghurt cup you were about to throw away or the mug that got chipped or broken. Don't worry if the damage is big, glue it up, try punching a hole on the bottom of it with and plant some seeds or a small plant (there are ways to do so, often suggesting drilling, but I imagine that if you go at it very carefully with a nail and a hammer, hitting gently and then grinding the nail on the spot as if you were trying to drill it in, it could work). Fill with the residuals of the hole puncher (all those little confetti-like round pieces of paper) the bottle of Starbucks coffee you were thinking about to throw away? Make a candle holder out of the baby food container, or make it into a little pot of coins, where you just drop your spare change.
You can make what I'd like to call "hope bottles" or "memory bottles". Take an empty bottle or jar - transparent if possible - of any shape or material that you like or you can put your hands on. Don't look down on plastic, as plastic - as a matter of fact - can be cut, bent and shaped any way you want, so it has it's own advantages in face of glass. Fill it - though not entirely! - with the pebbles and shells you brought from your latest trip to the sea, or the pebbles from the river, bits of bark fom the trees you collected at the woods. These bottles of memory hold in there those vacations for you, in a small way that also keep them from gathering dust or getting deteriorated. If you have no such "organic" material, nobody said you can't stick in the bottle your old museum tickets, or Disney tickets, the keychains you bought, some pictures if the bottle is more of a jar, napkins, the remaining tabs of those fabulous teas you tasted, a piece of lace, the earring that lost it's pair on that trip, you name it. I bet those neon bars that you have to break to make glow would look amazing in a jar full of other memorabilia, and nobody else would have another like that!
A hope bottle, is a bottle or a jar filled with things that lift your spirit. A bit of sand or dirt to keep you grounded, and a piece of paper with a Psalm or a quotation from the Qur'an, Torah or the Holy Scriptures of your religion if that works for you (it does for me), or simply the word Hope, Joy, Energy, Harmony, Peace, a quotation you like the best, or the drawing or representation of it. The sign of peace, the right of your religion, a picture you like, or a small, smooth pebble to represent endurance and strength, a feather to represent lightness of heart and spirit, always ready to fly on the wings of hope and dreams, a bow made of lace or yarn to remind you of fate and how things have plenty of time in life to be solved. If you have access to beans or rice, or any grain that hasn't been precooked or isn't canned, then how about you grab some small pebbles (those from the road are fine), well washed!, place them on the bottom of the bottle, put on it about an inch of dirt from the local garden, the park... just try not to loot from the office pot plants!, and then plant your grain? (The pebbles will drain the excess water, so that the roots of your plant don't rot.)
I guess my Pagan friends will say I'm near to recommend you a "mojo bag", or in this case a "mojo bottle", but how about making a bottle of jar that contains all those things you like? I'd rather call it a "Hope/Spirit Bottle". Maybe a small piece of paper with that word, quotation, verse, poem, picture you like the most or represents that what you would like to achieve or invite into your life. Peace, hope, happiness... you name it. Add those little things that make you you, and the little things you like or you'd like. Coins for money, a small pencil - those maybe too small to write with - for studies, for creativity energy, for fluency to communicate, for letting your artistic mojo flow... to add color to your life, to make plans come up... whatever you feel, whatever the pencil may mean for you, if it talks to you, if it has place in your jar, put it in! Glitter if you like a bit of faery, fantasy, joy and fluffly to it. Place a small candle, maybe a votive candle, or a small piece left, perhaps tie a small ribbon around it, or soften in a little and stick some shells or glitter - if you are into it - sand, small pieces of orange peels, pistachio shells... anything you thing would look good on it, if you'd like to represent that hope with the candle, or light in your life with the candle, or the warmth of home, love, friends, with that candle. Feathers if that suits you, perhaps to represent freedom, or air to breath, dreams to follow, impuse to get going, an incetive, a reminder to aim higher. A wrapper of your favorite candy to keep a reminder of the sweet, good things of life.
The point of it, is not to follow a rulebook about what means what, what to add, what to leave out. The point is to go on what you feel, what you believe, what things mean to You and You alone, and make it in a way that's pretty for you. Put on the lid ig you like, put on a cork if you like and you have one that fits, or over it with a piece of cloth, maybe with an old handkerchief, or even a piece of paper you can draw on, and secure it with a rubber band, like the ones used to hold the morning paper rolled up.
It's fun and relaxing doing it, and the point is not to spend a dime, use only the things around you! And then, as you look at it, you'll remember, remember the good energy at doing it, and it will make you feel that great again - hopefully.
Sometimes take a moment to breath, to relax, even if it's just a tiny one, and smile, do something free that makes you happy and see life in it's better light.
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