The Perfect Training Track

Today after  I returned from my Yoga class, I thought it was a perfect day to begin my training. The sun was bright and encouraged cheerfulness. The gentle breezes and cool air felt crisp, enhanced by a wondrous blue sky with just a few white clouds sifting by.

The training track I am speaking of is the road that loops around our neighborhood, where new homes are still being built. It is a perfect one-half mile from my driveway, around the loop, back to my driveway again. It also has gentle inclines on the two longest sides of the race-tracked pattern of the road (however we drive at neighborhood speeds).

I kept my aged and scuffed walker shoes on in which I have walked many US miles   and also miles in Italy and France back in the year 2000. Heading out the door,  I feel certain I am once again about to establish a regular walking exercise that has fallen by the wayside and met with great resistance to beginning again.

I looked up in the skies as I heard the faint sounds of jets streaming by in the distant heights. It has been a long time since I have been a jet passenger for either business or pleasure.

And this brings me to what I am training for. On Saturday night, February 16, my good friend of over 45 years called me from her home in Florida. She asked me, “Would you go to Switzerland with me if I pay your way?”

Yes, that is what she asked me.

I have been speechless a few times in my life. That night I was speechless, minus one word:

Yes!

We are leaving together from Newark New Jersey on July 3 and embarking on a wondrous 12 day bus and hiking tour of the Swiss Alps, touching Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland and the tiny country of Liechtenstein.

I know there will be many breathtaking experiences throughout the whole trip but I am particularly looking forward to the Salzburg highlight!

“Discover Salzburg, a city boasting magnificent Baroque architecture and intensive cultural traditions that took off with the career of its most famous resident, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, on a guided walking tour this morning. You’ll see the iconic composer’s birthplace and other local treasures, followed by lunch on your own and free time to explore the sights as you wish. This afternoon, travel to Salzkammergut, a region of peaceful lakes and craggy peaks that you might well recognize from film locations used in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s The Sound of Music.”

And I am kind of hoping our bus doesn’t take this route!

My training track doesn’t have that many bends in it.

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I Have Something to Tell You

This happened in the early morning hours of Friday, Feb. 22, 2013

“I have something to tell you, stay there a minute.” This is what Tom said to me this morning when he got up. I was sitting in my “quiet chair” with early morning prayer and meditation.  I stayed where I was.

He returned and sat down in his lounger chair and told me the following:

“Last night I got up around 2:00 o’clock AM. As I turned to come around the bed to head into the bathroom, I noticed a bright light near the door of the bedroom. I turned to look at it and I saw a white form just leaving the room. I only saw the back of her. My first thought was, angel.

I walked to the doorway and looked down the hallway that opens to the kitchen area. I saw two of these white forms standing and conversing with one another. They had white/tannish flowing garments. I could not see where they ended at the floor.  I watched them. I could not hear them. I felt very peaceful.

I had to go to the bathroom so I did and when I returned, they were not there. I still felt the peace and returned to bed and went back to sleep.”

Tom is healing from the first of three scheduled skin cancer surgeries. I had given him Reiki  healing/love energies as he fell asleep last night. The heat coming from his body was quite intense as I held my hands softly above his head and drew the Reiki healing symbols onto him. He fell asleep quite easily and was not in pain.

My guidance tells me Tom saw his healers. He said he knew them to be feminine, but doesn’t know how he knew. He has Archangel Raphael, the healing angel Icon above his workspace since his back surgery a couple years ago, when the green Raphael Energy flooded him with an instant turn-around from a crisis situation in the hospital.

So I have been conversing with my angel guides on a regular basis now for a couple of years. I write what I hear as my guidance in my journals. I sense their loving and guiding presence around and within me. And when I say “they” and “their” I mean only ONE — for that is all there is,  ONE.   In fact, the name I’ve been given to converse with is…..WHO —  Whole and Holy One.

This year, I have opened to not only hearing and writing and sensing my guide, but I have told my guide I Am ready to see it.

And WHO sees his guide(s)? Tom, of course. He has that type of accepting spirit. I read, and meditate and think, and “do”,  all of which has some merit. But I know that I need more of a “Mary” consciousness than a  busy “Martha” (but bless her abundantly for I love her biblical activity and understand where she’s coming from). At least my hallway was neat for the angels to converse in!

Then I remember an angel correspondence I wrote down and posted in Napkinwriter and went back to look for it. This was posted one and one-half years before last night’s experience.

I am glad with joy! In the year of 2013- My Intention Mandala Year of Joy and Fun!

Angels in a Doorway

August 25, 2011 by napkinwriter | Edit

Angels Doorway – Flickr PhotoShare

A Message from the Angels

By Susan H. Hajec

Dedicated to Margo & Janet

In an open doorway, there is a space.
It is the space between
where you are
and where
you are going.

Pay attention to what comes to you
when you open this door
with the space between
you
and your future.

We are in that space
as your guides
and as your direction.
We are your angels.

So there is no need to fear
when you make your choices
from the love and light
that are in this doorway.

We are willing to pull you
or push you through the appearance
of obstacles or a harsh wind.

In this doorway you can create
a new now
filled with what is attracting you.
It takes only your decision.

There is no need
to hurry, dear one,
no need to rush.

Just be in the quiet
in the space
in the open door

between you
and your future.
We are here!
And in a millisecond
of the time it takes you to decide,
we will make it happen!

Again, do not be afraid.
It feels like you are lost
but you are not.
You are just in the space

in the open door
immersed in possibility and potential.

When what you have enjoyed
has come to an end,
it is your turn

to choose once again
what comes next
in the open door
where you can create
and just be.

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A Valentine for Tom

 

Inspired from the Lyrics of Through the Years:

Dear Tom,

It is true that I find it hard to remember when you weren’t here (in my life)
It is true you were who I’d been looking for all along.

I also can’t imagine anything the two of us can’t do.
But we found a few.
We slipped through.

The sweetest days I’ve found
So many of them have been with you.

I cannot say I’ve never been afraid
But, its true I love the life we’ve made.

And I’m so glad we’ve stayed
Right here together,
Even as that’s covered a lot
of places to stay.

We’ve made our home
inside each other’s heart.
We’ve never been apart
through all these years.

I can’t imagine loving someone so
But through the years it seems
I love you more and more.

And through the years
when everything went wrong
it made our love so strong
that we knew that we belonged
right here together.

I cannot say I never was afraid
That would not be true.
And when I had my doubts
that things would all work out
how is it that I knew
right here with you
the strength would sure come through
for us to work things out
and learn what love’s about….

through the years.

I know how much I have. Happy Valentine’s Day.
Love to you always and in all ways.

sue

 

 

 

 

 

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Fits Like a……Sock made with Love

My hands get cold when I become frightened or nervous. My feet get cold in the winter. And they stay cold, it seems.

I am at home a good part of the day and so I have the luxury of not having to wear shoes often. I like that. Maybe it is my  twelve years lived in Lexington Kentucky that sways my yearning toward bare-footedness.

Then also, it could be the sweet childhood memories I can conjure up of times my brothers and I romped and rolled around in the long, green grass on the front yard of my grandfather’s Wisconsin farm.

It could be the aging process adds something toward the yearning of soft, “free” feet not hemmed in by ill-fitting leather or canvass that scrunches the sole and pinches the toe. (I think it also hampers the soul within).

I try to buy correct-fitting shoes. But I have come to suspect that shoe stores have a secret marketing technology that they do not share with the unsuspecting public. I think they have a “magic floor” that I dutifully walk up and down, discerning that at last, “Yes this is the pair that fits perfectly, doesn’t hurt in any place, and looks good on my foot.” This is the pair for me.

Somehow, that same pair of shoes begins hurting on my feet within the exact week I brought my favored purchase home. That is why I have more shoes in my closet than I really want to have. I do not have a fetish to buy massive amounts of shoes. It does not excite me beyond reason to find my way to the mall for yet another pair of shoes.

I’d be satisfied with one casual pair to wear with knits and jeans, one dress pair that looks good with skirt or dress slacks, tennis shoes and gym/and walking shoes. That’s not asking much. But I have a few more than that because…..well, most just begin to hurt after awhile and I hold onto the fantasy that the next pair will be perfectly pleasing.

So in the meantime, I go shoeless a lot. In the winter, that means my feet are often cold. Until recently.

My good friend, Agnes, brought me two pair of personally knitted wool socks. If I could wear them outdoors, I would. Those socks are perfect partners to my feet. They hug them and follow every contour of my foot and toes. They are warm and I am mesmerized by the knitted patterns into both pairs.

They are an easy meditation in themselves and often in my resting position  in my favorite chair with feet up, I enter easily into that quiet, sacred place within, feeling the comfort and warmth in my feet streaming all the way up to my heart.

They don’t fit like a glove. They fit like a pair of socks made with love.

That, to me, is a perfect fit!

Amen. Praying Feet.

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Take One and Call Me in the Morning

I’ve made a few big changes over the past year. One of them is that I am sleeping much better than I have in a long time. After an exhaustive search of why I was getting up so many, many times during the night for a bathroom trip, my specialist referred me to another specialist….. a sleep doctor.

I guess I should have started there first but who knew? After strengthening muscles that were already strengthened through my Poolates and Yoga practice, after searching kidneys and bladder for what seems to be non-existent problems, being referred to a sleep specialist seemed to be the next right step.

I’m not a really good biology or physiology student, but I have been reading up on personal stories and scientific studies about our ability to change neuropaths in our brain electrical circuits. And the doctors now seemed bent on getting my brain and my bladder to connect and communicate in better ways that it was doing, as in:

YOU DON’T REALLY HAVE TO GET UP SO MUCH!

Well, I was open to that. So that referral then led to a sleep apnea test. I do many things in my lifestyle and my nutrition program to enhance the health of my heart, and it is in good health. But I was shocked to find out that this sleep interruption was also presenting a formidable challenge to my heart health. So off I went in December to be wired up and masked up to see what was happening during my “sleep.”

The test showed that I wasn’t getting any sleep. I was in the severe apnea range with oxygen stoppages of 69 per hour.  In January, I was fitted with a light nose mask, tubed up to a humidifying air machine and I said my prayers and hopped in bed.

Other than feeling similar to an astronaut with air supply, it all started off and continued to be quite well. With none of the extra wires connected all over me like there were in the sleep lab, I was quickly more comfortable  than I thought I would be.  It wasn’t restrictive and I could turn over into the middle of the bed without feeling a tug to the machine.

And………………I did sleep “like a baby”. Right from the get-go! Slept right through the night. No extra trips. From putting my head down on the pillow, to lifting it off the pillow in the morning, I was in slumber land. It took only a short time to get there too. This continued through January.

When I went in for my 30 day checkup, the doctor associate was quite enthusiastic about my progress. I went from 69 oxygen interruptions to ZERO.  He did not expect that, but called me the new poster child of the sleep Apnea community.

So this is a big success and I am happier than the doc about it. I have worked hard to define the problem and correct it. And we’ve definitely hit on something here.

I’ve been preparing workshop content for my Souljourner at-Large business and one of the things I’m doing is taking “sleeping psalms” for a night program closure. I will advise participants to choose a psalm at random and take it to bed with them, read it before going to sleep, and then just “rest in the psalm.”

It’s a holistic approach to sleep problems.  Instead of taking pills,  “Take One Psalm at Night, and Call Me in the Morning.”

Here is an Rx that should last a little over two weeks.  Happy zzzzzzzzzzzz’s.

“Happy are those who… find joy in… the Lord. They are like trees that grow beside a stream, that bear fruit at the right time, and whose leave do not dry up. They succeed in everything they do.”
Psalm 1:  1-2

“”I will announce,” says the king, “what the Lord has declared. He said to me: ‘You are my daughter (son); today I have become your father. Ask and I will give…”
Psalm 2:   7-8

“You restore my courage. I call to the Lord for help and from his sacred hill, he answers me.”
Psalm 3:  3-4

“I lie down and sleep, and all night long the Lord protects me.”
Psalm 3:  5

“Be kind to me now and hear my prayer. (I) remember that the Lord has chosen (me) for his own, and he hears (me) when I call to him.”
Psalm 4: 1, 3

“When I lie down, I go to sleep in peace; You O Lord, keep me perfectly safe. I pray to you, O Lord; you hear my voice in the morning; at sunrise I offer my prayer and wait for your answer.”
Psalm 4: 8;  Psalm 5:  3

“But because of your great love I can come into your house…and bow down to you in reverence…Lead me to do your will; make your way plain for me to follow.”
Psalm 5:  7-8

“You bless those who obey you, Lord; your love protects (us) like a shield.

Psalm 5:  12

“I am worn out, O Lord; have pity on me! Give me strength; I am completely exhausted and my whole being is deeply troubled. How long, O Lord, will you wait to help me?..The Lord hears my weeping; he listens to me cry for help and answers my prayer.”
Psalm 6:  2,3;  9,10

“O Lord, (my) Lord, your greatness is seen in all the world! Your praise reaches up to the heavens; it is sung by children and babies.”
Psalm 8:  1-2

“When I look at the sky, which you have made, at the moon and the stars, which you set in their places—what are humans beings, that you think of them; mere mortals, that you care for them? Yet you made them inferior only to yourself; you crowned them with glory and honor. You appointed them rulers over everything you made; you place them over all creation: sheep and cattle, and the wild animals too; the birds and the fish and the creatures in the seas. O Lord, (my) Lord, your greatness is seen in all the world.”
Psalm 8; 1-9

“I will praise you, Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all the wonderful things you have done. I will sing with joy because of you. I will sing praise to you, Almighty God.”
Psalm 9: 1-2

“The Lord is a refuge for the oppressed, a place of safety in times of trouble. (I) who know you Lord, will trust you; you do not abandon anyone who comes to you.”
Psalm 9: 9-10

 

“God remembers those who suffer; he does not forget (my) cry…I rejoice because you help me.”
Psalm 9:  13:14
“Why are you so far away, O Lord? Why do you hide yourself…”
Psalm 10: 1

“But you do see; you take notice of trouble and suffering and are always ready to help. The helpless commit ourselves to you; you have always helped the needy.”

Psalm 10:  14

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