Lord I'm Grateful

First of all I found this beautiful Etsy shop by a woman called Flor Larios....here is a link and some photos from her Flickr and her shop.

Valentine's Cards!

Isn't her work so lovely?

For the past two days I have been yuckily sick......mainly a ton of horrific sneezing, stuffed up face, and some chest congestion. To top it off I've been sleeping terribly. I have been waking in the night (past two nights) like three times and staying up for an hour or so, trying to breathe through my nose (nearly impossible) and worrying my head off about ........ EVERYTHING.

One thing I inherited from BOTH sides of my family, no thank you, is the ability to worry EXCESSIVELY. About really minute but real things in my life. And that's what I did in the night last night, I awoke ...probably around 6 am....and lay there worrying about some of the most random or improbable stuff! I couldn't get back to sleep. My mind covered things like: school starting Tuesday (and books costing hundreds of dollars), whether my Photoshop teacher would let me use my own computer instead of the "required" Mac Lab (which is all the way in Sacramento) and if he didn't whether I should drop the class this semester or not, the fact that at any moment our landlord could tell us we have to move out (TOTALLY UNFOUNDED!!! SO STUPID and NOT gonna happen), never being able to start a web design career because I procrastinate too much, wondering if certain people hate me because I lost touch with them (totally random from years ago!), remembering DVDs I borrowed from someone that I still have and need to return, things I needed to tell Art to buy on his way home from Nevada City the next day (which I promptly forgot, dang!), becoming a scientist next month when it comes to actually nailing down my cycle and when I ovulate, wondering if my student grant/loan would make it in time for my trip next week.....and OH the list went on.

When I finally fell asleep again it was clearly without anything peaceful on my mind. And I ended up having a terrifying and horrendous nightmare! It included ALL of my worst recent fears and then some. It started with someone stealing my new Macbook Pro and replacing it with an old broken Ibook....and it got worse from there, complete with being attacked (and actually feeling pain) by a "Freddy" type character from Nightmare on Elm Street (I've never even seen it!) and Art and I realizing that we could no longer live in our house because he knew where we lived. It all sounds trite now, but it was a terrifying place to be. I awoke calmly, but with a very fearful heavy foreign feeling that was pushing me to go back to sleep. But I knew the dream would continue, as has happened in the past. Nightmares are extremely rare for me thank God, but when they do come that tends to be the case, and I DID NOT want this horrible dream to take over again.

So I decided to look up "reasons for nightmares" on Google on my iPhone, as I figured I could defeat the dream if I overanalyzed and picked it apart. I found some pretty common-sense answers that didn't tell me anything I didn't already know and I still felt heavy and strange, so I decided to bring a little spirituality into it. I did sort of feel a darkness in my head and I wanted to bring in some peace and light. Even after a half hour of lying there that heavy feeling would not go away.


(Tangent) Though the word doesn't quite sound right to me, due to the damage that has been done in the past, I am, I suppose, a mystical sort of Christian. I prefer to use terms that involve less prompting for problematic discussions with my friends, as many of them think of the Inquisition, their own unhappy parents, an unconscious super-consumerist, environmentally damaging way of life, pushiness, or even the promotion of hatred ("Jesus Hates Gays" signs) when they think of Christianity. So I lean toward addressing the issue by explaining my spirituality as "I like what Jesus taught.....alot", or "I believe in God- be it called also the Great Spirit or the Beloved or Heavenly Father/Mother " or "I am a follower of Jesus", because I tend to agree that many "Christians" represent a super-American very UN-Christlike version of living life. Massive air-conditioned homes, constant grouchy ungratefulness (um hello how can you say you believe in and love God if you HATE LIVING the life-legend that was the whole idea of God?), 2-5 SUVs in the driveway, greed and control-freakishness, a disregard for the needy, an unconsciousness of other peoples or countries, and even judgement and disdain for those other people and places. It's NOTHING like what I am (I hope) or what I aspire to be. In fact I hope to live quite the opposite..... But I did come to feel this way about the teachings of true love by Jesus through a certain progress in my life that transpired by what-seemed-like-magic and no conversation is going to make me feel any differently. It's just what I believe and I honestly can't even help it. It's just where my life has led me, and believe me, it was NOT an overnight process. Major events took place to lead me to it. I don't go to church, I participate in many things that lots of Christians would not approve of (mainly a bit of gambling, rambling around on road trips, and drinking) and I have almost zero friends who believe the same thing as me. Nevertheless the things I believe ring true in my heart of hearts. It can be difficult never being around fellow believers, but I just don't want to pretend to be something I am not in a church around people who I feel are judging me for being raggedy, poor, and having a variety of friends. So for now I'm just doing what I can to have spirituality and gratefulness to God in my soul daily and to share that with my Arthie, who thankfully believes like I do. I do have an idea that Catholicism is a bit more of my kind of thing than the uber-modern Christian pop culture churches around here, but I have yet to even have been to a Midnight Mass. I wish there were a true-love church with lots of singing for poor creative artist types who have old cars and love being alive! I always feel so small and weird in the midst of wealthy older people, maybe that's my own issue. But I also love all my friends so much, their beliefs spiritually matter so much less to me than their sweet golden hearts do. That's all that matters to me, careful love and the way one spreads it to others and makes a contagious goodness catch fire.

SOOOO- back to original topic- to rid myself of my nightmarish feeling I started to speak out loud in a little whisper, asking God, or the Great Spirit in Everything, for a little peace and started thinking of all the things I am grateful for. Once I got started on my thankfulness, the list went on and on. It was the exact opposite of my worrying spell. Instead of thinking that things would be taken away from me, I started thanking the universe for everything I have right now. Which is so much. I may not own my home or have a fancy couch or a new car but I have the most amazing friends that have blown my mind with their creativity and kindness, the nicest family and so does Art, both of us are healthy and strong and we have our beloved cats and goldfish and pond snails and this beautiful forest around us and this amazing cabin house that shelters us and we are so close to so much beautiful wilderness, the ocean and desert just a stone's throw.....after a few minutes of focusing on such goodness I realized that the heavy fearful feeling was gone and everything seemed good again. I believe our attitudes and state of minds attract similar energies to us and I have believed this for long enough that once my mind was focused on all the tremendous beauty of being alive I knew I had nothing to fear. Nothing at all but goodness was around me.

And I went back to sleep and had sweet dreams.

The Desiderata is so beautiful and wise, I love reading it.

I love the lamb art.

A real photo of a unicorn!