Presence Behind My Christmas Experience

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MESSAGE from Mano:

I have told Barbara she did not need to write a blog this month since half of December is already gone. That was just the spur that got her moving to find something she really wanted to say. 

RESPONSE from Barbara:

Christmas focus starts for me the first of December. I have always put my tree and house decorations up at that time so I can enjoy it and all of the Christmas decorations the whole month while I wrap packages, bake cookies, create silk screened Christmas cards, then address and send them. 

Amity Cottage became totally transformed preparing for Christmas. Large gold stars hanging from the windows on the porch.  Imitation, but real-looking ivy tied with red ribbons over the kitchen and around the windows. More red ribbons on door knobs and holding up imitation, but real-looking pine boughs around the fireplace. In the past the Christmas tree was filled with small gnomes, dolls, toys, red Christmas balls, gold bows, and paper doves with flying wings. Christmas decorations were a big deal for me.

Now my first year at Amity Lodge is still a big deal for me but fits into the category of Elegant Simplicity. A large Christmas tree of white lights and close to 100 little gnomes and gnome faces with tall hat, big nose, and large white beard. The house Gnomes are proud that they are the feature of this season. We all are grateful that while all of the other Christmas decorations went up in flames, The Raphael print of Mother and Child that has been the center of our Christmas focus since Peter was 1 year old was in the studio and did not burn.

For the first time in the 9 years of my Blog Writing Career I was unsure what to write and not ready to send out the Blog on the 1^st of the month.

I am ready now to share a blog that I wrote and Mary Jane posted in October 2013. Her 9^th blog, PRESENCE BEHIND PRODUCTS. 

Mano just spoke to me in a ‘teasing’ manner saying that my sharing in my RESPONSE FROM BARBARA, telling about my Christmas focus starting at the first of the month, was actually sharing how for me the PRESENCE BEHIND MY CHRISTMAS EXPERIENCE starts December 1 and builds throughout the month until the 25^th. The week after Christmas I move into a deep inner space reviewing past journals, preparing for the New Year to unfold.

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PRESENCE BEHIND PRODUCTS

Blog #115

by Mary Jane Di Piero
Originally presented on October 23, 2013 as Blog #9

These were Barbara’s “waking thoughts” on September 11, 2013, and I am so happy to turn this blog over to her directly:

I have concern that humanity seems to be very disconnected from nature. People think that their life needs are supplied by Wal-Mart, Costco, Safeway, Rite Aid, and Best Buy. I saw this innocence and ignorance played out in my own life when, years ago—before I entered my spiritual path and conscious eating—my little daughter was so surprised to learn that lemonade came from real lemons and not out of a can from the freezer. 

Everything, absolutely everything, every product in our house, everything that makes up our life, first came from the earth. Food, clothing, cars, houses, telephones, iPods, computers—earth supplied it all. 

One step further, even among those who do recognize that all products and produce come from resources within the earth, few realize that those products and produce are governed by intelligent beings known as elementals. 

Everything is composed of the four elements: earth, air, fire, and water, with some acknowledgement of a fifth non-physical element called ether. What many do not know is that each element is made up of living intelligent beings. 

It is my understanding that these elemental beings within earth, air, fire, and water mostly inhabit bodies made of small points of etheric light. When they wish they can take on a body still made of ether, but in a physical form. These forms can look like pictures I have seen of gnomes, elves, fairies, water or fire spirits. 

Children under school age whose senses remain open and innocent and have not been programmed, and adults who have psychic or second sight, have often seen elementals in these forms. The drawings and stories in fairy tales and folklore tell of these intelligent nature spirits. 

In earlier times, in rural areas where uneducated peasants depended on nature for their survival, these people of simple intelligence often saw and interacted with the elementals. Every country in the world has stories of these elemental earth nature beings. 

My friend, Brother Phillip, a gardener on a Vedanta Center in Southern California, had a special relationship with the elemental of one particular plant. Every time he walked by, the plant would reach out and touch him. 

One day I walked to the Amphitheater, touching each plant as I walked saying, hello, I love you, thank you, you are beautiful. After the seven- minute walk my heart was filled with love and I was giddy with joy from the experience of interacting with the elementals of the plants along the walk. 

Knowledge of the reality of these elemental beings is mostly lost in today’s fast-paced supermarket and mall consciousness. These nature beings need people to know of their existence, to speak to them, love and appreciate them. They need human interaction.