Where our money has gone:

Brick for bears:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5MowZd_rMDw

Dollars for collars:
http://dollarsforcollars.org.au/

If you feel that there is a cause in need, please feel free to share and we will choose a cause to best support for the month.

Love ICWC & CBD
xx

(Please note this is an updated version of “searching in the flames”. I hope you enjoy it none the less.

By Sarah Liddle

Was it a mistake?

The climb, the blood, the sweat, the sacrifices and the tears that you have made?

Was it a mistake to chase after something so real, so abundant but so soul destroying?

To give up something so eternal for a life of lies, to loose yourself in the search for more, better, best, only to get carried away by the winds of the physical world?

It is never a mistake to search for what one truly wants. It was never a mistake to look under the rock, shoot for the moon or look for those things, people, places and spaces that excited you most. However, wants change, people change, we come to realize that the luscious flavour, which was delectably tantalizing are not so appetizing to the stomach or satisfying to the eyes.

Yet why do we still choose those flavours that are mildly amusing but hardly satisfying to the deep hunger of the soul?  Why did we just switch of and talk ourselves in believing that its all okay, we still like the things, people and places. We can easily fool ourselves in thinking that the souls needs don’t really matter. That happiness is what ever we decide it to be. But happiness is not a decision for our minds to make; it is a decision deep inherent within our soul.

In order to know the dwellings within that give rise to total fulfillment one must search.

Search regardless of where you stand, whether you are engulfed in a world less than perfect, search.

Search for those things that drive you mad with joy.

Search for what makes your soul inherently happy.

The world is filled with people that give up, roll over and play dead the mystery, magic and joy of a life well above that of the average person. Life is simply beautiful and rich with wondrous adventures, people and places to explore. Yet most never search in the flames. The heat destroys even the most avid lover of warmth. For the intensity is so hot it burns.

However if we learn that we should search where the flames lay, we will see the flame is not something that will harm us but help us. It is the light shining from the candle when the power is out, it is the toasting of a marsh mellow on an open fire and it is the warmth that lights the hearth of the home.

We must be aware but we must also preserve our ideals.

We need to search, seek and sometimes stumble upon our true selves. We may not even know we are here, as it feels so natural and authentic. You are without thinking. Your heart will break many times over; you will give in, give up and move out of many selves. Before realizing that no one self is who you are, you are not the self. You are the awareness surrounding the selves.

If your thinking is negative and life consuming, you will create that energy field within your body and without your awareness it will be the field that surrounds you. You will attract it to you, even though this is not you.

If you must hit ground zero, and go through to the very bottom that you can possibly go. Make sure you use it constructively. Stay there for a while, just long enough to see why the road took you there, the choices you made, and the rest just remember it. Here wisdom can be found.

Is it, was it, could it… of all been a mistake?

The climb, the blood, the sweat, the sacrifices and the tears that you have made?

Was it a mistake to chase after something so real, so abundant but so soul destroying?

To give up something so eternal for a life of lies, to loose yourself in the search for more, better, best. To get carried away by the winds of the physical world.

There are no such things as mistakes.

It is never a mistake to search for what one truly wants. It was never a mistake to look under the rock, shoot for the moon or look for those things that most excited you. But wants change, people change, we come to realize that a flavour which appeared delicious, is not so satisfying as it appealed to your eyes.

Yet we still chase those flavours that are mildly amusing but hardly satisfying to the deep hunger of the soul. We can easily fool ourselves in thinking that the souls needs don’t really matter. That happiness is what ever we decide it to be. But happiness is not a decision for our minds to make; it is a decision deep inherent within our soul.

In order to know the dwellings within that give rise to total fulfilment one must search.

Search regardless of where you stand, whether you are engulfed in a world less than perfect, search.

Search for those things that drive you mad with joy.

Search!

We live as if life is endless, it is only when someone passes away, or we have life threatening accident do we realize that life marries death in the cycle of life.

To truly love our lives, and ourselves we must realize that it is through the good, the bad and the ugly that we must embrace our vision with faith and trust.

To love ourselves in our worst is to show our true character, the hero can love himself at his best but the real hero’s are those that love themselves and others when they are knocked down. It is at these times here on earth that we must learn to stand in our power and not be afraid, not want to run, or not want to deny it. But we accept it for what it is. Not what judgement or thought makes out of it, but what it really is. The energetic feeling that it turns our mind, body and emotions into.

It is only when we really stand in and embrace our fear can we transcend it. By transcending fear we create a new space for ourselves to step into and grow from. We create a spiritual platform that is higher and stronger than where we were before. We can stand higher and see further, the air is fresher and the grass greener. We step up to a new platform and our life instantly changes. Those negative things that once were attracted to us are no longer, we move higher and forward faster because those negative emotions are not weighing us down anymore.

When we live from a place without fear we live from a place of soul. In this place we embody three unique attributes that we would have otherwise not been granted.

We embody:

1)    Receptivity – We can receive information from a number of sources and act on the information that we are given more gracefully and easily.

2)    Tenacity – We can ride through negative and challenging times, in fact we can use our receptivity to turn those challenging times into thriving times. We are more able to cope with stress and pressure and our health also does not need to suffer.

3)    Patience – We rejoice in pure unconditional love for ourselves and others, we know that this love is lifetime value and that it is not surface love but deep long term love we continually give to ourselves and all others without expectation. We have patience now and for the future.

To really feel past your fear you are now feeling past the ego, you are peeling past those layers that have keep you trapped from really being all you can be. Listen to the voice of a person and you will instantly know whether you hear fear or soul. The voice does not lie to how a person feels inside and what state they are predominantly in. Listen to another and you feel what they are feeling through their voice. Are they talking with haste, and nervousness, do their eyes look left or right? Where is this person right now, are there here with you or are they some place else. Don’t judge for where ever they are, it is obviously where they need to be on their spiritual path. Practise patience and unconditional love whilst showing the way, by being the way for them to see, for them hear.

Listen to another, listen to their voice, one level down from this you will see which state they are in. But most importantly listen without judgement.

Be patient when you do need to act, take the time to map out your course of action for when you do need to act. Take the time to map out what you need to do, and who you need to become. Make this daily practise. When situations arise you will see that it is latent in your mind the person you desire to become, when those situations appropriate of action arise you will know that now is the time to act. Your higher self will tell you, take the chance today because tomorrow it will be gone.

Now you can act from a transformational state instead of a feared state.

Don’t think that those things that are making you live in fear lie outside of yourself, they do not. They are inside, in every cell of your body, creating a destructive force that may lead to illness, chronic fatigue and stress. Don’t project to the world (whether consciously or unconsciously) the hurt you feel inside. Be conscious, be in the now and you should transform the pain.

The pain, the love, the hurt, the anguish and the fear or all passing states, every emotion is temporary. Hence the word e-motion. Remember the famous quote “This too shall pass”.  So the point is not to beat yourself up if you are feeling down one day. The point is that you nourish your soul self no matter how you feel, you offer yourself the love that you truly deserve but have walked past giving yourself it. This is the entire point of a loving relationship; the purpose is to help your beloved by nourishing, growing, and assisting them in their transformational process.

By changing the ingrained beliefs held in our pain body, those that we have inflicted onto ourselves early in life and built upon throughout the years we stop the self-destructive cycle. We keep the pain in the soul and the body alive by buying into the beliefs that others have inflicted upon us. To banish those beliefs and release the pain in our bodies and souls we need to find yourself through rational thinking and soul searching. One must also find a nourishing partner and comfortable place to belong without judgement or expectation.

Always go within before going without. Whenever you want to achieve, grow, nurture or sustain something in your life first learn to go within to see what place you are coming from before taking any action.

Listen to your feelings, listen to your thoughts. They will tell you what energy you are acting from. Learn to listen to your inner judgement, and then once decided you’re your thoughts are clear and emotions pure, act. Act with commitment from your soul. Take action with embodiment of the three soul attributes: tenacity, receptivity, and patience for the person that you are transforming into is not a person that acts in fear or anger. You are becoming a person of soul and depth now, stand still, listen and feel it, before you take inspirational action.

I fell into a hole

But could barely know

The value that lie in the depth

Of the dark, damp and deadening place

I wake to see

The hole was not so far from home

And see that even though I lye

In the dark damp deadening place

That there too I find new beginnings

To endings that once lay undone

So I sit in the dark still

Seeing new horizons through the darkness

Feeling new love through my heart

With hope for a new start

At something I feel I got terribly wrong

I wait, I wonder, how long must I sit?

How long ought I mull?

Maybe 1, 2 or 3?

I am yet to know

While the processing maybe long

The journey is short

And the destination shorter still

So I find myself thinking which part of my life am I at

Now that I find myself at the start

The start of something surreal

The start of something so true

The start of something all the same

A place as scary as the hole I will see

When I eventually make my way

And venture into a new destination

But for now I sit

Silently pondering

Purposefully finding

My feet, my strength and my own inner beauty

To carry on at a pace that perfects me

To not work at a pace perfected for me

For this life is mine

And I devote to you

But at what cost?

Now I am willing to give

Something murmuring inside me

I am willing to give

What I have sacrificed in replace of a human existence

Now, What you strive for, is what I strive for

I am willing to give you

What I have failed to give myself

The gift of seeing in the dark.

You are, at this moment, standing, right in the middle of your own “acres of diamonds.” – Earl Nightingale

The best six doctors anywhere 
And no one can deny it 
Are sunshine, water, rest, and air
Exercise and diet.
These six will gladly you attend
If only you are willing 
Your mind they’ll ease
Your will they’ll mend
And charge you not a shilling.

Nursery rhyme quoted by – Wayne Fields, What the River Knows, 1990

The part can never be well unless the whole is well.
- Plato

Just because you’re not sick doesn’t mean you’re healthy.
- Author Unknown



It is not what happens to you in life that matters, it is what you do about it
– Author unknown
(Personal favourite of mine)

And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
- Anais Nin