Happy Chrismaka

I bought myself this gift for Christmas this year. I always end up buying myself at least a couple of things –when you’re a shopaholic going holiday shopping is very problematic—kind of like being on a strict diet and then going into Dunkin Donuts for coffee; what’s the chances you’re not going to break down and buy a donut??? During my holiday shopping, I often end up doing one for them, one for me, which means for every gift I buy, I get something for myself which is a bad situation, considering the budget I’ve been on for the last three years. I was doing pretty well this year and then I saw this. After much deliberation, I decided to buy it because a). I have been looking for a lotus necklace for a long time, and b). I love the symbolism of it. The lotus is considered a sacred symbol in both Hinduism and Buddhism. It grows in dirty, muddy water and yet blossoms as a pure, uncontaminated flower. So the mud and impurities feed the flower below the surface and this beautiful fragrant flower floats on top of the dirty water.

To say that I am a big fan of transforming the negative into something positive would be an understatement. I believe wholeheartedly that every soul is striving toward health and wholeness and that everything that happens in our lives is in service to that.
I believe that everything happens for a reason and that reason is to bring us to a more evolved place in ourselves. This principle runs rampant through the universe and yet, it isn’t always in operation in people’s lives because they are often too busy being upset about the negative that they can’t see past it to the gift. The gift requires work though, and many people have neither the desire nor the energy for such things. It’s too bad because that’s where the magic is—inside the difficulty, disguised as hardship.

I love this quote from A Bag of Tools by R.L. Sharpe:

Each is given a bag of tools,
A shapeless mass,
A book of rules;
And each must make,
Ere life is flown,
A stumbling-block or
a stepping stone.

I wish you, my dear readers, a transformative holiday season where the difficulties and hardships be they emotional, physical or otherwise end up being nothing more than fertilizer for your dreams and highest aspirations.

Affliction comes to us, not to make us sad but sober;
Not to make us sorry but wise- Henry Ward Beecher