Early Christians took over Jewish ideas of angels. In the early stage, the Christian concept of an angel shifted between the angel as a messenger of God and a manifestation of God himself. Later came identification of individual angelic messengers: (Raphael, Gabriel, Michael, and Uriel). Then, in the space of little more than two centuries (from the third to the fifth) the image of angels took on definite characteristics both in theology and in art.^[6]

By the late fourth century, the Church Fathers agreed that there were different categories of angels, with appropriate missions and activities assigned to them. Some theologians had proposed that Jesus was not divine but on the level of immaterial beings subordinate to the Trinity. The resolution of this Trinitarian dispute included the development of doctrine about angels.^[7]

The angels are represented throughout the Christian Bible as a body of spiritual beings intermediate between God and men: "You have made him (man) a little less than the angels..." (Psalms 8:4,5). They, equally with man, are created beings; "praise ye Him, all His angels: praise ye Him, all His hosts... for He spoke and they were made. He commanded and they were created..." (Psalms 148:2-5; Colossians 1:16). The Fourth Lateran Council (1215) declared that the angels were created beings. The Council's decree Firmiter credimus (issued against the Albigenses) declared both that angels were created and that men were created after them

text from Wikipedia
image Tai
March 09

As people alive today, we must consider future generations:  a clean environment is a human right like any other.  It is therefore part of our responsibility toward others to ensure that the world we pass on is as healthy, if not healthier, than we found it.

CRUCIFIXION

It may comfort you to know that every one of you who undergoes some experience involving pain and anguish, and which might be described as crucifixion, is doing something for the whole world;  for anyone who meets such testings of the soul in the same resolute and tranquil spirit (in however small degree), as did the Master Jesus, is helping to quicken the vibrations of the whole earth.

5TH PRINCIPLE

I WILL BE STILL ON A DAILY BASIS.  INVESTING IN HAPPINESS AND INNER JOY.....

Remember that meditation is a state of "non-doing", which is subtly different from a state of doing nothing.  It is not about suppression, or passivity.  When your mind is busy, you spend your life copying others, you are not natural, and you aren't really doing anything.  Your life force is scattered in all directions.

When you are empty, on the other hand, your mind is open and it is at these times that you are most receptive...

image - Tai

You are standing like a tree.  You are like an elm growing.  You feel everything happening within your entire body, from your roots deep in the soil, to the tiniest leaf reaching out into the air.  You can hear yourself moving inside.  You are growing, listening silently to your entire body inhaling and exhaling.

A living tree breathes with its entire body.  Every cell of every leaf is breathing.  Deep in the earth, the roots are breathing too.  As you stand, you do the same.  Open every pore of your body - along your arms, down your back and legs, from the soles of your feet to the top of your head.  Feel the lovely breeze entering inside you at every conceivable point of your being.  And as you exhale, let the warm current ride out again from every extremity.

You stand surrounded, like a tree, by sound.  All noise within is stilled.  Sounds come to you, as if from miles around.  Birds call from distant tree tops.  An engine starts up somewhere far away.  Here and there you hear a footfall and a man and woman with a child.  Nearby you hear the early morning drone of a insect.  The air around you is alive.  Can you hear the dew drops falling in the grass?

You stand seeing a tree in the distance.  There is nothing but empty space between the tree and you.  You are both silent.  Your eyes are completely at peace and a faint smile is all you sense.  Your body is asleep.  Your mind is alert....

continued tomorrow .......
from the book "The Way of Energy" - Master Lam Kam Chuen

A distant wind is stirring in the air.  It starts to play across your body like a flag unfurling in a breeze.  The driving air is irresistible;  the flag is flying with it.  All seems to be in motion, but neither sky nor flag has moved.

A fish is turning in the stream.  Its weight is in the water;  the fish itself is still.  Like you, it rests inside the current.  Its body curves a little and it sways.  It does not matter that the wind has made the surface rough.

Your boat is on the waves.  The tide is strong:  it pulls and twists the boat from side to side.  You stand within it, riding in the surge.  You tremble for a moment, but you do not leave the boat.  You know the water knows its way.

The wind is rising and the storm clouds threaten rain.  You stand among the trees, like them, unmoved.  They all have stood in sun and shade.  Their roots have been both dry and wet.  Now rain and wind will fill the sky.  The trees, like you, have no wish to escape.  Like you, they stand prepared to feel the deepest movements of the earth.

text - "The Way of Energy"
Master Lam Kam Chuen

In many traditions the night sky is seen as a map beyond the earth to realms of deep wisdom.  Somewhere in the sky is your star, the place that is your spiritual home.  Finding this place will enhance your intuition which comes from the third eye chakra.  Light a candle if you wish.  Sit quietly and relax....

Visualise a night sky, deep purple-blue, scattered with millions of diamond-bright

stars.  Feel a cool sense of peace as you contemplate the infinite space.  Let your


third eye chakra be calm, open, receptive.  As your vision travels over the image of

the sky, there is one star that draws you.  Focus on this point of light and see it grow

as if you are moving towards it.  Notice what kind of star it is, the colour it radiates,

whether it has rings.  However it appears, it is a heavenly beacon that only you

recognise.  Sit and be with your star, noticing what information, impresssions or

feelings arise.  Breathe, and stretch your feet and hands to bring your awareness

back to earth.


text from "Chakra Therapy" - Jennie Harding

Love is like a butterfly
As soft and gentle as a sign
The multicoloured moods of love
are like its satin wings
Love makes your heart feel strange inside
It flutters like soft wings in flight
Love is like a butterfly, a rare and gentle thing

I feel it when you're with me
It happens when you kiss me
That rare and gentle feeling
that I feel inside
Your touch is soft and gentle
Your kiss is warm and tender
Whenever I am with you I think of butterflies

Love is like a bag of butterflies
The multicoloured moods of love
are like its satin wings
Love makes your heart feel strange inside
It flutters like soft wings in flight
Love is like a butterfly a rare and gentle thing

Your laughter brings me sunshine
Everyday is springtime
And I am only happy
when you are by my side
How precious is this love we share
How very precious, sweet and rare
Together we belong like daffodils and butterflies

Love is like a butterfly
As soft and gentle as a sigh
The multicolour moods of love
are like its satin wings
Love makes your heart feel strange inside
It flutters like soft wings in flight
Love is like a butterfly, a rare and gentle thing
Love is like a butterfly, a rare and gentle thing....


I kept singing this song yesterday after watching Akbar's film clip.....there are lots of youtubes of the song by Dolly Parton

Get comfortable and go quiet in the way that works best for you...

Begin to turn your awareness down into the body.  Have a warm and affectionate attitude towards your internal organs.  Feel a gentle warmth running through your stomach and inside your chest.

When you are ready, turn your attention to any part of your body that attracts your attention.  If there is no area in particular that you are drawn to, focus on one of your fingers.  Take the focus into the skin of a fingertip and imagine that you are like a very powerful microscope, looking closer and closer and closer...

Finally you are looking at just one atom.  It is a dancing, spinning cosmos of particles and waves, and accompanying it is an elemental who holds its perfect pattern and bridges it into being.  Greet the tiny deva.  Contemplate its beauty and its work.

When you feel like it, bring your attention away from that single atom and become aware of the millions of atoms that make up your entire body.  Notice how your whole body is a shimmering system of these atoms.

The entire system has a single deva who is its companion and holds the blueprint of perfect physical health for you.  This being is sometimes called the Body Elemental.  Greet it affectionately.  Contemplate its beauty and its work.

Then, in your own time, take your awareness into any aspect, any organ, of your body - a lung, the bone marrow, the skeleton, a particular bone, the circulatory system, the endocrine system, the immune system - and become aware that this aspect too has its own devic companion and living blueprint.  Greet it affectionately.  Contemplate its beauty and its work.

Over a period of time, repeat this exercise many times, becoming familiar with your physical body, its different parts and its elementals.

The human body is, of course, not just a physical vehicle.  Vitality or prana moves around and through it, and there are also the whirlpools of energy, the centres known in Ayurvedic medicine as chakras.  There are seven major chakras, located between the base of the spine and the top of the head.  Each chakra is a spinning centre of emotion and mental energy which anchor down into the physical body.

Book - "Working with Angels, Fairies and Nature Spirits"
by William Bloom PhD

It's time to leap into the air, letting the earth turn beneath you and discover where you come down again.  Reasonable risks are okay.  Even unreasonable risks are probably okay.  Use your head and look before you leap, of course, but do so understanding that the actual jump is likely to be very rewarding.  No guarantees, but then there never really are anyway, no matter how pretty the paper they may seem to be printed on and the scroll-work around the edge.

In a reading, the presence of That Gnome tells us that the forces of chaos are at work.  Things may not be as they seem, and this may very well be a good thing.  Look for the unexpected, find the opportunity in it and go for it.  He says that no matter how confused things may seem, there is a way to make them better - but it is a creative way, one you haven't tried before.  He says, "Think amazing new thoughts!"

 The Faeries Oracle - Brian Froud - text Jessica Macbeth

Get comfortable and go quiet in the way that works best for you.

Begin to turn your awareness down into your body.  Have a warm and affectionate attitude towards your internal organs.  Feel a gentle warmth running through your stomach and inside your chest.

Gradually allow yourself to become aware of the energy that is running and circulating through your body.  It runs beneath the skin, deep into the bone marrow and out into your wider energy field.  Affectionately greet this energy system and become aware of the spirit who holds its perfect pattern.

Gratefully acknowledge this spirit.  Sit quietly and notice what you feel and any thoughts.

Then, when you are ready, gradually turn your attention to the energy of your emotions.  This too is all around and through you.  Notice its different characteristics, its range of moods.  Greet it affectionately and become aware of the spirit who holds its perfect pattern.  Gratefully acknowledge this spirit.  Sit quietly and notice what you feel and any thoughts.

Again, when you are ready, gradually turn your attention to the energy of your mental body.  This too is all around and through you. Notice its different characteristics, its range of ideas and attitudes.  Greet it affectionately and become aware of the spirit who holds its perfect pattern.  Gratefully acknowledge this spirit.  Sit quietly and notice what you feel and any thoughts.

Then, when you are ready, gradually turn your attention to the chakras that run up your body.  The base of your spine.  Around the sexual organs.  The solar plexus.  The throat.  The brow.  The crown.  Be aware of all seven of them as a complete system and that each of them is also unique.  Be aware that there is an elemental who works with each chakra and with the whole system.

Depending on how you feel and where your focus goes most easily, greet and gratefully acknowledge the presence of the elemental of each chakra.  Focus on one in particular, or give attention in a flow to each one.

Again, do this exercise as often as you want to increase your intimacy, awareness and relationship with your energy body and its elemental beings.  If focusing on all the different parts in one session is too much, just choose particular areas of interest.

"Working with Angels, Fairies and Nature Spirits"
William Bloom PhD

image - "Just after Sunrise"
taken 16th April 09

The Cobra is an excellent posture for opening the heart chakra.  The curving of the spine pushes out the chest, re-energizing the location of the heart centre.  This posture can also tone the abdominal area and re-energize the entire spinal column.  Remember not to push yourself too far, especially if your are prone to back problems.

1   Lie face down on the floor with your legs together and your arms bent with your hands flat on the floor at shoulder level.  Rest your forehead on the floor and breathe regularly for a moment.

2   Inhale, slowly lifting the forehead off the floor, and raise your chest as high as it will go, while keeping your elbows bent.  Your arms will hold you steady.  Keep your legs close together to maximixe the stretch.  Breathe in and out three times.

3   Slowly lower your arms so your upper body sinks back to the floor.  Relax for a few moments.  Feel the effects on your abdomen and chest.  Repeat the posture if you wish.  (it's good to build up slowly if  you haven't practised in a while).

from the book "Chakra Therapy"
Jennie Harding

This meditation can be done anywhere.  Just sit quietly and go into centered silence.  Be aware of the life and moving energy that is in and through your body.

Gradually extend your awareness to include a blade of grass.  The very fabric of the blade is made up of atoms, molecules and sparkling deva essence.  The blade as a whole has its own tiny grass elemental accompanying it.  Smile at it.  Greet it.  Notice how you feel and what your impressions are.

Widen your perspective now, so that you have awareness of a patch of grass.  This is a small ocean of green life, dancing with tiny deva life.  Greet it all.  Notice how you feel and what your impressions are.

Become aware now of the flowers and the smaller plants.  Be aware of their fairies and little spirits.  Greet them.  Be grateful for their presence.  Stay calm and allow impressions to come to you.

Move on now to larger plants and go through the same procedure.

Finally move on to the trees and go through the same process

Contemplate the whole experience.  Do you have any impressions of what you might do to cement the relationship?  Maybe make an offering...Do something special with plants...If you have an impression like that, commit yourself to doing it.  Finally give thanks and bring the exercise to an end.

Passage from Working with Angels, Fairies and Nature Spirits
by William Bloom PhD

image - my front lawn after rainfall

"He who is different from me does not impoverish me - he enriches me. Our unity is constituted in something higher than ourselves - in Man... For no man seeks to hear his own echo, or to find his reflection in the glass"

Antoine De Saint-Exupery - "Flight to Arras (Pilote De Guerre) 1942

Change is a constant factor in life.  It is, however, something we often find difficult.  We don't like things to change, we feel safer if we think things will not change, and we become upset or depressed when external factors show us that actually change is inevitable.

The natural world is a great teacher of change, and yet in the developed nations we are becoming increasingly cut off from it.  The cycles of the seasons and the way in which plants, birds and other creatures react to the environment are far distant from lives spent in buildings of concrete, steel, glass and plastic, or travelling in metal cars, trains or planes.  We think we can control all aspects of existence, and yet deep down many people feel empty, or even as though their lives are out of control.

We need to reconnect with the idea that energy, the dynamic force that creates the universe, is constantly in motion.  Stars, planets, even galaxies are born, rise to brilliance, fade or perhaps explode into particles that spin and begin to reform new systems - there is life, death and rebirth.  This idea is deeply embedded in the philosophy and spiritual beliefs in India.  We experience these cycles constantly throughout the journey of life in the physical plane, but we come from energy and eventually we will return to that state.

Through the chakra frequencies, we can experience the dynamism of universal energy in the body itself.  As we move from the inspirational level of the crown, to the intuitive knowing of the third eye, to the voice at the throat giving sound and meaning to ideas, to the feelings in the heart and the confidence in the solar plexus, to reach out to other people at the sacrum and take action at the root, we trigger new cycles of thoughts, feelings and actions - and so life moves forward...

from the book Chakra Therapy by Jennie Harding

Also known as May Eve, May Day, and Walpurgis Night, happens at the beginning of May.

It celebrates the height of Spring and the flowering of life. The Goddess manifests as the May Queen and Flora. The God emerges as the May King and Jack in the Green. The danced Maypole represents Their unity, with the pole itself being the God and the ribbons that encompass it, the Goddess.
Colors are the Rainbow spectrum. Beltane is a festival of flowers, fertility, sensuality, and delight.

Prepare a May basket by filling it with flowers and goodwill and then give it to someone in need of healing and caring, such as a shut-in or elderly friend. Form a wreath of freshly picked flowers, wear it in your hair, and feel yourself radiating joy and beauty. Dress in bright colors. Dance the Maypole and feel yourself balancing the Divine Female and Male within.

On May Eve, bless your garden in the old way by making love with your lover in it. Make a wish as you jump a bonfire or candle flame for good luck.
 
www.circlesanctuary.org
image - "Life Blossoms"