Review of Feng Shui Simply

Cheryl Grace did an excellent job of creating an in-depth look at Feng Shui. While she lays out the principals commonly found in most books on the topic, she goes one step further to create a guide for fine-tuning one’s internal environment.

As the author begins to convey the principals of design that work with the location and orientation of the home, placement of furniture and use of color, artwork and accessories to create a harmonious environment, she goes on to provide the additional practices to aid and support this ancient art. As she notes, most of the focus of Feng Shui lies in external changes to the environment. She became more excited by working with the unseen world, the world of energy, using the tools of intuition and intention, according to the text. 

Ms. Grace utilized the traditional Bagua as a starting point for inner growth by association the qualities of inner life that she found to associate with each point on the map. For example, for Health & Family she connected with the inner qualities of discernment and forgiveness; for Helpful People and Travel, patience and an open mind.

The author brings attention to her work with the I Ching and its wisdom on the subject of transformation, which happens, as she states, when the truth resonates so strongly on the inside that the outside shifts on its own. Finally she sets out five steps, including listening deeply, seizing the moment and graciously receiving what you ask for, to help you reach your potential. She asks the questions that will enable you to find your personal truth in every area of your life.

This is a very well rounded, informative book on Feng Shui that considers the art in combination with various other helpful arts, practices and questions to consider, enabling the reader to create the life they most want.

I did receive a free copy of this book from Hay House Publishing in order to write this review. However, I received no monetary compensation and was not obligated to make it a positive review. I was simply asked to give my honest opinion and this is it.

Healing Inguinal hernia with Alternatives to Western Allopathic Surgical Procedures

I received my results from the CT scan. My doctor wants me to go to surgeon, who will probably start by prescribing a Colonoscopy. I like my doc, he's a sweet guy and he probably knows me well enough by now to understand that while I do want his opinion, in the final analysis I'll do what I think is best. 

Now, my research has begun. I'm finding great but limited, information available, on those have healed this issue with Reiki, Yoga, EFT, nutrition, meditation, exercise. I'll be documenting my process on my blog. Hope y'all find it as interesting as I do. I know all the fear-factor tricks that western-medical-science believes in will be used against me. However, many of the believers have the same problem return or come back in a different form because they haven't solved the underlying problem. This is my journey. Wish me well~

Here is a link I found this morning - I'll continue to post links to blogs of those who have documented their process.
http://falconblanco.com/health/hernia.htm

I care

If you’ve ever been in any kind of a therapy situation, you know the value of the ‘right’ question. I was asked one of those yesterday. I heard it coming as I was talking with a new friend and was invited to ask any questions that I had. My initial response was to reply that this wasn’t a job interview and I didn’t have a prepared list of questions, although I had recently had this assignment in a class situation and did have a few ready. I asked, “What are your goals?” knowing that as the response came, the question would likely be turned back on me. Although I was listening to the answer I was being given, my mind considered what I would reply… I planned something along the lines of the web work that I most enjoy. However, when the question came, these words fell out of my mouth: “To run a non-profit”.

Oh my, who planted those words in my mouth? Those of you who know me well will know my response is God’s plan for me. I guess maybe it is. My mind flashed back to spring and summer of 2009 as the most important thing on my mind was establishing AgeOut.org, a non-profit organization for teens who age-out of Foster Care. What happened? I wondered.

Life itself, or God as I choose to believe, needed me to physically change locations. By the end of that summer, the organization was not first and foremost on my mind, rather moving was. The next year propelled me from the east side of the state to the west. On the surface I had my reasons, blah, blah, blah. I also found another organization with the same focus, just not all my ideas. My idea was on hold until I determined whether it would be better to just support them with their organization.

This morning I have a glimmer of a reason. Complex, coincidentally, all those coincidences where God chooses to remain anonymous, but I choose to think of as Miracles. Going back into the business plan, I remembered, Western Michigan University is the location of several organizations that had sparked my interest because of their focus on teens facing homelessness based on their looming 18th birthday.

In Kalamazoo, Mich., Western Michigan University began a scholarship program last September for 51 students leaving foster care without support. Using a grant from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, it offers free tuition, academic help and year-round housing. Foster-care teens become homeless and often hopeless, however help is available if they know about it.

Surprise, surprise, I have ‘another’ reason to go to Kalamazoo this week. I think I’ll stop by WMU and see who I might meet.

I smile as I see God’s handiwork as it all comes together.

Craigslist Boot Camp

To everyone who may not know about Craigslist Foundation, let me start by saying that Craigslist is one of the very few, probably the only, Websites on the Internet that attracted millions of visitors to its site during 2008, while its founder managed to refrain from selling out to the billions of dollars available from the sea of investors that endeavor to make money from an Internet audience. Some may think of that element of big business as unscrupulous.

Craigslist postings are free to millions of everyday people without cost and to professional headhunters and apartment rental agencies, for a fee. Craigslist uses these dollars to support the site, creating a common good for all of us. The income received over the necessary expense of running the site is used to good purpose.

Craigslist Foundation is the non-profit organizational business model that operates the popular Website and utilizes part of that money to operate an annual Boot Camp in San Francisco.

The purpose of the Boot Camp is to connect the nonprofit community with their peers, potential supporters and resources to help the sector work more effectively. It empowers nonprofit leaders to get the resources they need to help effect change. The Boot Camp itself does not result in any economic profit to the Foundation.

This year Craigslist Foundation will operate its Boot Camp on June 20th in Berkeley, California. The very nominal fee for this one day event is $75. I want to go. I can pull together the $75.

Transportation, meals and housing will be a larger expense. I need some help with this aspect of attending.

My goal of creating a nonprofit venture to help an underrepresented and unsupported segment of our society, by creating a free social networking and informational source Website for them, while keeping it safe and private, is my goal for 2009-2010. If you would like to help me get to Boot Camp in Berkeley, CA this year, so that I might further educate myself on the process and connect with possible supporters to make it possible, I invite you to contribute to making this trip possible, either through the PayPal link that sits on the left border of this site or by publicizing the fund raising endeavor to those who might be able to contribute.

The Courage to be Successful

We often think of fear of failure as presenting the highest challenge to stepping off into a new venture, a new lifestyle, a new endeavor, but I think the other side of that coin is more prevalent for some of us.

Not that I haven’t enjoyed a modicum of success in this more-than-a-season lifetime I’ve been here, but not to the degree that I have a vision might be in the making.

I plan to graduate in a few weeks. I’ll be receiving a degree earned from an institution of higher learning, that only in the last few years became a reality that I had any thought or consideration might be one that I would enjoy.

Leaving high school earlier than graduation, I had visions for us of the marital bliss that I saw around me and a husband I thought was to be my permanent partner. He’d been my first boyfriend and as I continued down that path bearing two children by him, I assumed we would weather the storms and settle into a lifestyle similar to our parents. My innocence was probably typical of the age bracket.

Returning to high school night school a few years later and then classes at the community college to prepare myself for a career that would support raising my children by myself, I saw my highest future, sitting at a desk with a regular weekly salary and necessary benefits like insurance and sick pay.

That goal soon was overshadowed by that of a career in computer programming, and after struggling for a few years, was fairly easily reached. It was a little more challenging to achieve and required a move a thousand miles away from my family, friends and the place of my birth.

But, it too, was soon enough, filled with complacency and I yearned for a higher purpose.

Floundering through the creation of small, homegrown businesses and acquiring licenses to perform various and sundry practices, the plans weren’t mature and the addiction to the money provided by the corporate career, of too high a value.

This century and life itself provided an opportunity for me to leave the safety of a skill that came easily and naturally to me. I needed a new plan and a return to school was imminent.

That was 5 years ago and much has changed in that time. I’ve moved back to Michigan, quite unexpectedly, due to the death of my former husband and long time close, personal friend. I’ve all but abandoned any consideration that I will return to computer programming and corporate life. I’ve been educated.

I received a more than worthwhile education from Texas Woman’s University. My world view is larger and more in depth. I truly can see the big picture. I know how a lot of it works.

And now, I begin to see a keyhole, an opening in the universe, where I can insert the skills and knowledge that I’ve acquired over the years to an idea that has been calling for attention from within my psyche. As I write the business plan, I begin to see that it might really work. That’s the scary part.

This morning I have lots of work left to do on the assignments remaining for this semester. I really must put aside my thought of tomorrow and work on today. I will. I have the requisite self discipline, honed to an art form. I’ll eat, drink, breath and think about what’s in front of me today and I’ll get it done in a timely manner.

But tomorrow, tomorrow is right around the corner and I see the light starting to increase as I approach the end of this hall and soon will be able to round the corner, with full expectation of the light of God that is waiting for me.

I can do it. I know I can, I always have.

The Real Deal

I read my horoscope. I admit it. Just one though, Rob Brezsny’s Freewill Astrology.

While I was in Dallas, I got hooked on Rob’s read for my week. He posted in the Dallas Observer, one of those free alternative periodicals. Initially I read it just for entertainment purposes; he has a clever way with words. However, I soon noticed how right on he was, not necessarily for astrological life guidance; I mean, ~Come On~ but just his perspective on life.

When I stopped adding paper to my home and started being guided by the re-duce, re-use, re-cycle thought line and got more into internet feeds, I marked him as a favorite online.

It’s interesting though, I don’t necessarily think the answer is in the stars, but how timely and coincidental his recommendations are. I agree with his perspective and the suggestions would be appropriate for most weeks in my life. He just hits the target on the right week. How? I don’t know.

This week he says, “French President Sarkozy's best friend, advertising mogul Jacques Seguela, has an unusual way of measuring success. If you don't own a Rolex watch by the time you're 50, he says, you're a failure. I'm inclined to propose the opposite: If you do have a Rolex watch, no matter what age you are, you're probably a failure. To be attached to such a conspicuous status symbol is a sign that your values are dominated by the transitory trivialities of materialism. Where do you stand on the matter, Leo? It's a good time to think about it, because you're in a phase when clarifying your definitions of high achievement is important.” http://www.freewillastrology.com/horoscopes/leo.html

I’ll tell you where I stand on the matter. I think the advertising mogul referenced in the post is way off target for me. The timeliness of Rob’s advice however, in this season of my life, as I contemplate initiating a business plan that just might be very successful, is the reason I’m writing about Rob. I’m strongly considering a nonprofit organizational model.

Craigslist Foundation runs a Boot Camp every year out in San Francisco. This year it’s an opportunity, scheduled for June 20th , for participants to enjoy a time-out as they come together as part of a network of do-gooders from all over the globe, sharing and inspiring one another, while we learn a thing or two about running a socially responsible venture.

That idea about abandoning blogging for a few days didn’t last long, did it?