The Positive Physical Vibration

Times have been tumultuous in the household with personal clashes due to egos, monetary challenges and, the latest, the loss of my wife's dog.

The loss was unexpected. In fact, my wife just had her bred. She spoke with the original dog breeder, who agreed that the dog, a shih tzu, was ready to breed. They were speculating on a litter of 3 to 6 puppies and deciding on what should happen to the puppies after their weening.

For her part, the dog went to the breeders, was introduced to her breeding partner and was successfully impregnated. Upon her return home, she wasn't feeling well, which was attributed to doggy morning sickness. She wagged her tail, but she moped around a lot. The kids did what they could to play with her and give her some human interaction and there were times when she responded. More often, though, she would wag her tail and seem interested, but couldn't summon the strength to play for long periods of time.

Today, my wife took her to the vet who explained that they were going to have to give her fluids and see if she would respond to that. Soon after the received the fluids, she went into some sort of pancreatic shock which spelled the beginning of the end. She died a short time later.

To say that my wife was broken up would be an incredible understatement. She finished her day at work somehow and got herself home, after which she wept nearly non-stop until she finally succumbed to sleep. The kids were upset and spent time in open weeping as well.

During this time, my cat Blanca went around to each crying person and spent time near them. When she could, she climbed up to them and began a routine where she marches on them with her front paws. I've been told that this is to show affection because this is something kittens do with their mothers when they are nursing. With my son, in particular, when he was laying down to go to sleep for the night, she climbed on his back and did her marching routine (which we have nicknamed "making muffins"). During that time, she was purring loudly; louder than she does when I'm petting her.

That's when it dawned on me that my cat, unfettered by a human ego, was trying to pass on positive vibrations to the grieving members of my family. Oh, I'm sure the argument will be made that I am anthropomorphizing my cat to an unbelievable degree, but the logic seems to work. Trying to cheer up people who are feeling down is something Blanca has done ever since we became her owners. Is it such a stretch to draw the conclusion that she is using her positive vibrations for the benefit of the family?

I like to think so.

The General and the Spin

The presidential campaign remains a study in contrasts. Yes, that's stating the obvious as you hear people claim the conservative mantle while spitting out the term "liberal" as if it is a vile epithet. You hear those whose views are liberal avoid that word because it has been turned into a curse at some point in the last 30 years.

The "vast right wing conspiracy" accuses the "liberal media" of bias and vice versa. Is there true objectivity in the campaign or in the reporting of the campaign? Why are some of those media not even trying?

I have said that this will never be a political blog and I will stick with that. But the uproar surrounding Colin Powell's endorsement of Barack Obama has moved me to write this post. You see, General Powell was well respected by the power elite up until Sunday morning when he appeared on Meet The Press and was asked about the presidential election and what was his opinion about endorsing one candidate over the other.

The General's statement was measured and well reasoned and made perfect sense for him as he stated his case, while he respects the Republican candidate John McCain, he has decided that the candidate that he would support is the Democrat Barack Obama. Being a Republican, the former Secretary of State had to agonize over what he was saying.

The backlash was immediate and filled with venom and hatred. Read the following transcript from conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh:

"Secretary Powell says his endorsement is not about
race," Limbaugh wrote. "OK, fine. I am now researching his past
endorsements to see if I can find all the inexperienced, very liberal,
white candidates he has endorsed. I’ll let you know what I come up with.

"I was also unaware of his dislike for John Roberts, Clarence
Thomas, Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy and Antonin Scalia. I guess he
also regrets Reagan and Bush making him a four-star and secretary of
state and appointing his son to head the FCC. Yes, let’s hear it for
transformational figures." (source )

Why would the spin on this be so vitriolic? General Powell just spoke his heart. If he was speaking from his conscious being, why would that be attacked with such venom? And is Limbaugh's attack from his conscious being or from his ego? His radio show tends to raise the rabble and seek the most evil bottom line in the egoic. He turned a thought out response to a question into race baiting to play on some people's hatred of a small aspect of a person's overall being. It's free speech, but is it responsible?

This is an important election, so whoever you support, please vote. But vote from your own being, not from the egoic hate-speech of talk show hosts who are hired to cause a ruckus without thinking about the repercussions of their poison-speak.

Abraham Looks at the Financial Meltdown

Thanks to Jeannette Maw at Good Vibe Blog for writing about this. I felt it important enough to pass along to you.

The Dream Council

In the last few days, I've become interested in dream interpretation. It started with a conversation with a local teacher of metaphysics. She was knowledgeable and helpful with the questions I asked regarding the Law of Attraction and the Power of Now. Our interpretations matched for the most part, then the conversation steered into a direction in which I had no reference point: dreams.

For the better part of the last 10 years, and maybe longer than that, I have rarely been able to recall my dreams. If I had to tie it to a particular instance, I would have to say it was when I stopped journaling my dreams. Back in the days when I was writing fiction, I used a dream journal to get some ideas from my subconscious. At that time, I thought of the subconscious as merely a wellspring of ideas that could get my writing career started.

And it worked. I had a few things published based on my dream journal and had tons more just sitting there waiting to be written that I never got around to. There is a tinge of regret there thinking that I should have pursued those writings because I have since lost those journals. However there is larger feeling of loss I get from not having those journals: what was I trying to say to myself?

In the conversations with the metaphysics teacher, she mentioned that dreams are trying to tell you something. What were my dreams trying to tell me then and what would that guidance lead to now? It would be interesting to see where my mind was then and where it is presently, now that I have begun this journey into beingness.

Those dream journals were quite full, too, because of my obstructive sleep apnea. Suffering from that condition all those years and not admitting it to myself, I had become quite comfortable with waking up all the time at night. I had justified it to myself (at the time, my ego) as a means to continue to fill up my dream journals. Obstructive sleep apnea, for the record, is a condition in which you stop breathing at night because there is tissue in your breathing passages that close down and do not allow air to flow. You wake up briefly because your brain senses an emergency, but you don't wake up fully so you never know you were awake, but your body never fully rests either. And about once an hour, because my body never entered rest mode, I'd have to get up to visit the bathroom and I took that time to journal before dropping off again.

Now that my from of sleep apnea is treated (there are others) with a CPAP machine (I can go into detail on that in another post), I don't wake up until my alarm goes off because I'm getting real sleep. However my friend did give me a strategy that I can use to start to recall my dreams by just saying to myself before bed that I will remember my dreams. It won't automatically enable me to remember my dreams from the entire night just yet, but this morning I did get up and remember that in my last dream before waking, it involved the slogan "winners never cheat" and Yeardly Smith (actress and the voice of Lisa Simpson) was smiling at me.

I don't know if that's enough to interpret, but it's a start.

The Chopping Block Comes to Town

Have I ever mentioned on this blog that I feel blessed every day? This is one of those days that justifies that feeling, particularly in the wake of bad news at work.

This morning we were informed that 8 of our friends and coworkers were being laid off due to "budgetary considerations." The people being eliminated were not being let go for cause, that is, they weren't in trouble and being punished. The state of the economy has made it such that in order for the company to continue, those positions and salary were being eliminated.

The big boss was emotional all day because he was to be the man to carry out the orders from the corporate office. His emotions were evident as the firings took place and then the clean up afterward. You could feel his compassion as he went about doing what he was ordered to do. Over the years, I have come to know my boss as a spiritual man who tends to see the positive in everything and everyone. He has bent over backward to maintain people by finding ways to cut other budget areas. In fact, he told me later that he found the alternative ways to cut the budget and the company said, "we need that and more." The more was people.

I was spared the chopping block and for that I am grateful. As I am sitting here in the aftermath of seeing co-workers and friends clear out their offices and their desks, I am reminded that the Law of Attraction was moving the Universe for me during this time. My day job is something I enjoy immensely. I have always manifested doing this, even when I didn't know that's what I was doing. I have never blocked this blessing and I will continue in that posture because of the great joy and fulfillment it provides as well as the service to the community.

Am I sad for the people that lost their positions and their livelihoods? Absolutely. Some of them create such good feelings in general that I have used that energy to bolster my own in times when I have ebbed. I will miss them in that capacity, but they will still be friends and I am blessed to have them in my circle, or in 2008 tech parlance, my faves.

And I will continue to be grateful and express those feelings of gratitude to the Universe. By doing that, perhaps I can help my friends manifest the next step in their existence. I have taken advantage of their positive energy. I hope I can return the favor.

Staying Up When the Dow is Down

Have you invested in the stock market? If so, it's has been difficult to watch the ups and downs with the Dow Jones average falling another nearly 400 points. What can you do in the face of the looming economic crisis. All the experts are predicting recession at the very least and there are some talking about Great Depression II. What are we to do?

If you following the Law of Attraction, you already have a portion of the answer. The hardest part is to keep the real feelings of gratitude continuing to vibrate through you. As we know, gratitude is the highest vibrational frequency in the Universe and you can continue to use that to make your future what you want it to be. Now, should the Law be used for something as ultimately trivial as wealth acquisition? No. If that was the case, we'd all be lottery winners by now. However, we can choose to manifest a solution to the world financial crisis to minimize the effect on the planet. We can prevent a catastrophic collapse that would affect millions, or more likely billions, of people.

But there is something else that can be done that might help you on a personal level. If you invest in the market, research the companies that you own stock in. Most investment brokers take you through the numbers of companies without looking at what the company does, how they treat their employees and customers, what their environmental impact is and many other factors that may be important to you.

Now that a good deal of stocks are down, maybe this is the time to decide that you are going to buy shares in companies that match your core values. This is not a financial blog so I'm not offering financial advice, but my wife and I are taking this time to re-evaluate where our money is going. It's not a lot, but we want to make sure we're supporting the right things. We've already sold off 3 companies that have a reckless disregard for the environment which is something that is personally important to us. Clean, renewable energy is another hot button for us so we're currently finding ways to put money into a company or two that is working in that direction.

Think about the things that are important to you? Are there places to put your money that will also take that money away from the companies that are harmful to your values? Perhaps now is the time. And if a few of us becomes a significant number, those ideas that are important have a chance to succeed and flourish.

Besides, manifesting world stability, I think, is a worthy goal.