Best Moment Award

Awarding the people who live in the moment,
The noble who write and capture the best in life,
The bold who reminded us what really mattered –
Savoring the experience of quality time.

RULES:

Winners re-post this completely with their acceptance speech. This could be written or video recorded.

Winners have the privilege of awarding the next awardees! The re-post should include a NEW set of people/blogs worthy of the award, and winners notify them the great news.

RESOURCES:

• What makes a good acceptance speech?
  • Gratitude. Thank the people who helped you along the way
  • Humor. Keep us entertained and smiling
  • Inspiration. Make your story touch our lives
• Get an idea from the great acceptance speeches, compiled in MomentMatters.com/Speech
• Display the award’s badge on your blog/website, downloadable in MomentMatters.com/Award

ACCEPTANCE SPEECH

I suspect that my friend at www.peacelovegreatcountrymusic.com must have known that my grandfather was born in West Virginia and could make a mandolin by hand.  Or perhaps she heard that I’ve got a Porter Waggoner station on my Pandora.  Or maybe she even saw the Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton anthologies on my bookshelf.  Whatever the reason, this dear soul has nominated me for the Best Moment Award, and for that I thank her!  Please help me thank her by stopping by her blog.  She is a wealth of information about great music!

Back in 2007, I had an idea for a book.  And so I began learning, studying, and researching everything I could about my topic and about the publishing industry.  Along the way, I read somewhere that “real” authors have blogs and websites, so I created this site in hopes of being such an author.  It’s been a wonderful experience so far, and I am truly looking forward to writing more and to discovering other great blogs on WordPress.

Thank you so much, PLGCM!  Thank you, WordPress!  Thank you, readers!

And finally. . . my nominees for the Best Moment Award. . . .

THE WINNERS OF THE BEST MOMENT AWARD:

www. applesandanarchy.com

http://www.gallivance.net

http://www.happsters.com

http://www.itstartedwithaquote.wordpress.com

http://www.karenswritingblog.wordpress.com

http://www.sethsnap.com

http://www.theverybesttop10.com

 

Friday Fun with Captions

Happy Friday, writers!  Time to get out your pencils!  Today’s Friday Fun assignment is to come up with a caption for this photo:

 

Your Caption Here!

Spirit Beings

In my own spiritual philosophy, I view the Great Spirit (or whatever you would like to call the Divine, God, the Universe) as impersonal and without judgment.  It just IS.  I also believe that this spiritual force is balanced by the physical force of the Earth.  Gotta have yin AND yang, after all.

Now, it makes sense to me that out of the Great Spirit came the Earth and Nature, and THOSE are the forces that are personal.  Through Nature, we can learn and understand, even if in some limited way, about the Great Spirit.

Animism–the belief that natural objects such as trees and animals have spirits–has always made sense to me.  After all, why should we humans be the only spiritual beings having a physical experience?

Perhaps it’s my willingness to believe that all beings have spirit, but I also believe that there are many forms that spirit can take.  Faeries, the Elementals, the devas….. well, why not??

Nearly every culture in the world shares a belief in the existence of spirit beings like faeries and such.  There are many theories about their origin:  fallen angels, former deities, spirits of the dead.  As Francis Melville says in The Book of Faeries, ” Faeries are part of the great mystery of life, and to believe in them is more enchanting and satisfying than to dismiss them for lack of hard evidence.”

What do you think?  Are there elves and sylphs and gnomes running about?  Do all things have spirit?  More on this topic later. . . .

 

Approaching Fear

Someone once said, “Panic at the thought of doing a thing is a challenge to do it.”  I believe that fear, like any other emotion, is a messenger.  Our feelings and reactions are there to help us understand ourselves.

Now, I know that many people view their emotions as a guide:  I’m scared, so RUN!  My heart flutters, so he must be THE ONE!  But I’ve found that method often brings trouble.  Leaping before looking can lead to a concussion.  I’ve come to realize–for myself, anyway–that emotions are just messages from my unconscious.  These messages often need to be deciphered, but the task of unraveling the code brings the enlightenment.

Astrology can be helpful in putting together all the emotion puzzle pieces.  Fear and anger are two of the more challenging emotions to figure out, I think.  So we can look at Chiron and Mars in a natal chart to help us understand.

Astronomically speaking, Chiron is an asteroid, but it is officially designated as a planetoid.  It was discovered in 1977.  Astrologically speaking, Chiron is the “wounded healer” of the chart.  It tells where we have been wounded spiritually and where we feel “unhealable.”    By studying our own Chiron, we learn to work through our fears and our pain; in this way, we become spiritually transformed.

Mars, the Roman god of war, gives his name to the fiery red planet that symbolizes our aggression, our anger, and our will.  In karmic terms, Mars in a chart can symbolize where we’ve taken bold actions in past lives and thus hurt ourselves or others.  It can help us understand our fears and phobias in this way.  By working through these past conflicts, we can be free to let go of fears and anger in this life.

How do you deal with anger and fear?  What would happen if you stepped back from your feelings and viewed them as messengers, as puzzle pieces to a larger picture?  Could you interpret the symbols and move forward?