Let’s be Guardians of Our Earth

Happy Earth Day 2024!

Can you see yourself as a Guardian of our Earth who assists in its healing and its peacemaking?  You do not have to wait till Earth Day to connect to Mother Earth and make your commitment to assist our planet and humanity today.  Let us make our world a greener and more balanced, peaceful place to live.  I can make a difference each day and so can you.

You may wonder what you can do to assist our planet and humanity.  Here are some powerful steps to get you started:

1. Visualize each day how you would like your world to be.

2. Put all your energy into positive good thoughts and let negative thoughts fall away.  Positive thoughts attract positive happenings and positive energies.  Your thoughts and actions are important to all of us.

3. Feel your peace within and know that this is the truth.

4. Extend that peace to all you meet by viewing each person, plant and animal as a Beloved one who deeply connects with you.

5. Send thoughts, prayers of love and peace to all by expanding your prayers to include everything on our planet.

6. Feel the love in your heart touching the hearts of everyone, every thing on the planet.

Remember your feelings create your manifestations.  As you integrate into your life the actions that will assist all humanity, you will begin to feel a beautiful connection to all, a natural connection that blossoms and expands through love. Your daily life will transform immediately if you take these six steps. Begin within yourself to feel the connection with the earth and spread that love to others. 

On this day, think about conscious actions you can take in your life to become a Guardian of our Earth

– take the bus to work

– compost your garbage

– use less water or grow a vegetable garden or begin a community garden

-pick up trash in your neighborhood

– turn off your lights that you are not using

There are many ways to improve the quality of our Earth. Make a list with your children and family. Share it with you friends. What are you going to do to show how much you care?

Thank you for being a Guardian of our Earth. Let us be so thankful for our beautiful planet!

“Look deep into nature, then you will understand everything better.” Albert Einstein

Peacefully Jane

Jane Rosalea Brown, BA, CSW

Peaceful Way Meditation Blog

Author, In Silence, Discovering Self through Meditation

Author Name: Jane Rosalea Booth

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A time of Awakening! Spring 2024

Vernal Equinox

springtime

rest is over

new beginnings

Just saying the word “spring” warms my heart! It’s still cold here in Meaford,-2C with a strong north wind…brrr! Today, March 19^th and 20^th, 2024 brings us the Vernal/Spring Equinox. It is the time when the sun crosses the plane of the earth’s equator, making day and night approximately equal length all over the earth. It means our days will be warming and our earth will soon be ready for planting here in the Northern Hemisphere. And our season of Spring begins!

Today is a good time to give thanks for the past winter season with its season of quiet hibernation, a time of reflection, a time for us to see wonder of snowflakes, each unique and beautiful. Together they provided the earth’s blanket. Thank you for the blessings of winter.

Now, we begin to feel our energies stirring and rising with our hope of warmer days, the return of birds, the birthing of animals, the spring rains, the green shoots pushing through the wet earth…quite a wondrous and magical event is our springtime. A few birds were singing this morning here in Meaford even as it is snowing! They know it’s an exciting time.

We all need this nourishment of spring birthing. I want to soak it up! The world is so upside down with war, separation, grief and fear. But thankfully, nature reveals to us a different picture with each of its seasons. I especially love how spring shows us new life after a cold winter. It lifts our hopes! We can plant new seeds, find new ways of being and evolving in a peaceful way. We need these loving energies of spring to heal through forgiveness and to return to love.

The Spring Equinox reveals to us the balance of night and day. What a reminder to create balance in our lives! When we create an holistic balance of body-mind-spirit, light flows into our heart and it opens to bloom with the energies of springtime. We move into harmony with nature…

Awaken! Lets step into the spring! How can we create more balance and harmony in our lives? What ‘newness’ can you create for yourself and others to lift your energies, to birth a new idea, to enjoy the freshness of spring? This is the time to awaken our creative consciousness!

cluster of blossoms

call to the awakening

new birth peeks out

Spring blessings and Happy Spring Equinox! May your day be full of love and joy!

Peacefully, Jane

Jane Rosalea Brown, BA, CSW

Peaceful Way Meditation Blog

Author, In Silence, Discovering Self through Meditation

Author Name: Jane Rosalea Booth

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Paul Anka’s New Year Eve’s song

Welcome to 2024!

I loved all the New Year Wishes from my friends and family. New Year’s Eve was quiet for us. We had a seafood dinner and then settled in for the evening to watch New Year’s Eve tv programs. What I loved best was Paul Anka, in Times Square, NY, singing “My Way” that he changed to “Our Way” to encourage peace and love. Then he sang “Imagine” by John Lennon. It was lovely and encouraging to have hope for our future. Paul Anka was a teenage idol of mine!

So on this New Year’s Day, I am so grateful for my dear family and friends who fill my life everyday with love and compassion so “we can live as ONE”.

I began to take acrylic painting lessons last September. Creating something new is a wonderful way to heal and to lift our spirit! That is why I love to create a Peaceful Way Gathering for Women each year. I love our Sacred Circle where we create a beautiful, heartfelt mandala! We begin with bowls of natural items and each person helps to create our ‘wheel of wholeness and harmony”. As we sit around our mandala we share our inner most thoughts, pray and meditate, dance and sing. Then understanding, laughter, sometimes tears, compassion and love always flows.

I know that there are millions of creative, loving people in the world who will create a better world for us to live in harmony. I believe this is possible…light and love always outshines darkness.

I thank all those who come to my blog and wish you a Very Happy New Year 2024 filled with good health, happiness and peace. May we who follow ‘a peaceful way’ keep on our journey, supporting one another and creating peace and love in our own families and communities in ‘your way’!

Happy New Year everyone.

Peacefully, Jane

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Meditation, a refuge, a sacred way

Meditation…a time within my heart…has always been my refuge. As I meditate, I embark on a journey that takes me within to listen to what I call my “soul self” and where I often view a beautiful place, often a garden. In this ‘garden’ I feel safe and protected. As I listen, I begin to feel an intimate relationship. I feel a spiritual presence, a connection, a sacred moment. It is a wondrous experience that is difficult to describe, but it always calms me and gives me a place to release my fears…and fill my heart with hope.

This spiritual practice of meditation gives me a refuge in darken times. It is helping me now. I hold deep gratitude for the ‘Spirit’ that flows through me and all life. In this way, my life becomes sacred and I evolve, create and love more deeply. In this way, I can bring peace to myself and my family.

Yet, each day our news is filled with news of war, destruction with families and children suffering. My heart aches and I try to comfort my friends who have family and friends in the Middle East.

My prayers and love are with those who are suffering through so much loss and devastation. Only love, forgiveness and compassion will heal, but now anger and rage is flowing. Hopefully, there are billions of loving people in the world that will support families as they rebuild and move on to create a better, peaceful life….that is the vision I hold for them in my heart.

The Persian poet Hafiz says “Now is the time to know”.

Now is the time to know
That all that you do is sacred.
Now, why not consider
A lasting truce with yourself and God?

“Now is the time to understand
That all your ideas of right and wrong
Were just a child’s training wheels
To be laid aside
When you can finally live
with veracity and love.

Now is the time for the world to know
That every thought and action is sacred.
That this is the time
For you to compute the impossibility
That there is anything
But Grace.

Now is the season to know
That everything you do
Is Sacred”

Hafiz (1325 –1389)  Persian Mystical Poet.

May the presence of ‘sacredness’…a spirit of love…that unites and flows through the hearts of all beings bring hope and comfort today. May we return to love.

Peacefully Jane

Jane Rosalea Brown, BA, CSW

Peaceful Way Meditation Blog

Author, In Silence, Discovering Self through Meditation

Author Name: Jane Rosalea Booth

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Moving into aging…a new way of life

Aging and death always seem to be topics that we choose to avoid. In 2016, I took a course called ‘Conscious Aging” and I shared it with others. I realized that to have healthy and happy elder years that my ideas and thoughts about aging and death needed to change. I realized that just as when I was young, I needed to create happy moments in my life and accept what I can and cannot do. I had to look at what had value and meaning to me. I took these thoughts into my meditations and found deeper understanding.

Life is a gift, an experience, and a total wonder! I still have lots of questions about the universe and what’s it all about,, but I have learned one thing…love works. If things are not going well in my relationships, I know I have to love more fully…perhaps that is all I need to know. Love, love and more love…not always easy, but forgiveness and letting go of old baggage, love and compassion for myself and others works. Love shifts the energy around me and gratitude fills my heart.

Love these word from Sister Joan Chittister~

ADVICE FROM SISTER JOAN

“Why does the thought of getting older bother one?  That is the sign that we are ready now for a whole new kind of life.  We know that we have begun to move from one stage of life to another.  The only thing we fail to realize is that it is up to us to create it….  It is the age of coming to understand what kind of person we have become over the years.  It is the period in which we stop blaming others for who we are and decide who we want to be now.  It is the time for determining what we really believe and why.

Now can begin to spend our lives on something beside ourselves… There is a great gift in teaching the generation after us not only how to live but also how to die… First, of course, we must have the courage to strike out, to refuse to quit prematurely, to develop the wisdom and live the values ourselves…”

From Sister Joan Chittister, Welcome to the Wisdom of the World

“I have become older and, cherishing what I have learned,
I have become younger.“
~ Mary Oliver ~

Peacefully Jane

Jane Rosalea Brown, BA, CSW

Peaceful Way Meditation Blog

Author, In Silence, Discovering Self through Meditation

Author Name: Jane Rosalea Booth

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Create a new shelter for yourself

OLD AGE: A NEW SHELTER FOR YOURSELF

“The amazing thing about the human soul and the human spirit is it is never in a state of non-experience.  There is something going on all the time.  Even when you are sleeping. There are rivers of dream-thought flowing through the earth of your body, bringing up all types of mythic, archetypal stuff, some of which belongs to you, a lot of which belongs to the clay and a lot of which belongs to the race… So in old age, time slows a bit, the outer draw to activity recedes, and you have time for the more contemplative side of things…. You have a chance then to decipher what has happened to you, to see the hidden depths of experiences that have occurred in your life.  You really have a chance to weave a new shelter for yourself.”

-John O’Donohue, Walking in Wonder

Aging continues to fascinate me! It really can be a time to ‘weave a new shelter for yourself”. ..a place of comfort and peace…a place that always contains something new and magical with unknown wonders.

In my aging shelter, I am not as busy as I used to be, but days seem to go quickly…maybe too quickly. I try to accomplish a few ‘tasks’ each day. But I spend a lot of time reading, writing, meditating, preparing for my fall women’s gathering and being outside for walks. Now warmer days are here, I am in my garden that is like a shelter me or a secret garden. It is a place I can go to be alone, listen to the birds, watch the robins and sometimes a Flicker visits…a nice place to meditate!

John O’Donohue reminds us to create a shelter to create a new way of living as we age. I love his use of the word ‘weave’ because as we age we can ‘weave’ in new ways of living and still bring with us the thoughts full of our memories or hobbies that bring us joy…a weaving of old and new. We can bring our heart love into our shelter and gratitude for having these elder years. Yes,the physical challenges are present, but we can keep in good health by exercising and having a good diet. We can accept what we can and cannot do. We can always do the most important thing in life…we can live with an open and accessible heart…we can share our love…

For those of you who are younger, you can create a shelter where you can consciously create the life you want and share your talents and gifts. It is up to you what and whom you want in your shelter so you can have more love and joy. I think we have many shelters, big and small, as we age. It may be a physical shelter like a garden or room, or a mindful creative shelter or a heart shelter filled within filled with what you value and love. We need them to nourish ourselves so we stay healthy and well.

Enjoy weaving your shelter with things you love!

Peacefully,

Jane

Jane Rosalea Brown, BA, CSW

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Staying in Peace during Challenging Times

In 2004, I was ordained as a Minister of Spiritual Peacemaking in the Beloved Community, by founder James Twyman. I spent two years studying about how to create peace through religions, indigenous cultures, philosophers and spiritual new age authors, holistic energy work and so on. At that time, I was going through personal challenges in my relationships at work and at home. The biggest thing I learned was that if I wanted peace, I had to create peace. I had to be peace. Gandhi said, ‘if you want change, be the change’ and his words now had deeper meaning to me.

I began to feel more peaceful through my mindfulness and heart love meditations, through forgiveness of myself and others, and saying ‘Yes’ to peace and really meaning it! I began to see people and situations in a new light. This wasn’t an instant cure for all my problems, but it did help me when my business partner left, my boyfriend left and in 2007, I had breast cancer. But during this time, I was feeling more and more peaceful and while I healed from cancer, this inner peace, a place of love within, sustained me. I healed from cancer and have been well. There was more happiness…my boyfriend became my loving husband and my business partner is still a dear friend! I wrote my book “In Silence, Discovering Self through Meditation” and created Peaceful Way Women’s gatherings and met wonderful women who are still in my life today. Love and peace made this happen!

Choosing peace in your life may seem like an impossible task. It comes when you make an intention to be peaceful and calm when situations are difficult. It comes from knowing that ‘love is the answer’ to all problems. It comes from ‘seeing the beauty and blessings’ that nature provides for us each day. And feeling ‘a spiritual connection’, the great unknown mystery, an unexplainable loving feeling, that guides us to move more deeply into love and is always present.

Let us know peace.

For as long as the moon shall rise,

For as long as the rivers shall flow,

For as long as the sun shall shine,

For as long as the grass shall grow,

Let us know peace.

— Cheyenne Prayer

It is no longer good enough to cry peace, we must act peace, live peace and live in peace.

~Shenandoah Wisdom

May each of us, in our own way, create more peace in our lives each day.

See the beauty and stay in love,

Have a beautiful, peaceful day!

Jane

Jane Rosalea Brown, BA, CSW

Peaceful Way Meditation Blog

Author, In Silence, Discovering Self through Meditation

Author Name: Jane Rosalea Booth

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The sweetness of surrender…letting go

In these challenging days, we can spend a lot of time trying to understand what is happening within our families, communities and the world. Our fears and anxieties can build. Meditation can bring relief from our daily stresses, but sometimes it can be difficult to meditate and to find a place of stillness within. But I have found with the practice of focusing on my breathing…in and out…and gradually relaxing my mind and body, I begin to allow myself to move my thoughts into my heart. I like to put my hands over my heart. Our heart is a sacred space that invites us into its gentleness and love. Then I am ready to move more deeply into a place of ‘surrender’.

As you begin to relax with your eyes closed, you can visualize a place that you love…like a beach, park, garden, your room. Now gently begin to shift your thoughts away from your outer problems and allow a cozy, warm place to unfold within your heart’s consciousness. As your mind becomes quiet and your body relaxes, it will reflect this inner sanctuary.

This warm, loving feeling will comfort you as you allow yourself to be held and embraced within. Let go of trying to make things work. See yourself stretching out your hands and letting go of your worries…see them dissolving.

Now you can make room for what you truly wants to be created from within you…

Making space…releasing, surrendering our fears, opening our hearts…we begin to lift and see a new space…hope, love, new creations…

Remember we do not have to figure everything out or try to make others change. There is always the unknown in our lives….simply embrace the beauty of your true self…and miracles will begin to unfold…the universe responds, loves you, guides and embraces you!

So how do we surrender while we are meditating?

I like to begin with some mantras…words that I repeat several times.

As you begin to meditate say…

”I am revealed in surrender.” 

Surrender, I awaken to your calling in this moment

I surrender…

I release my old limitations and fears,

I feel them all, see them all, touch them all

I allow them all to be released through my heart

I awaken to the calling of my heart

I surrender,

I surrender to love within my sacred heart

And in the very core of my being

I am ready to act with love and compassion

I trust in the unfolding Universe

I am filled with gratitude,

love and trust…

I listen for guidance within my heart.

Take time in silence and listen within…

Bring those beautiful thoughts back into your daily life…

Peacefully, Jane

Jane Rosalea Brown, BA, CSW

Peaceful Way Meditation Blog

Author, In Silence, Discovering Self through Meditation

Author Name: Jane Rosalea Booth

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A New Moon Blessing for Equilibrium

John O’Donohue was an Irish poet, author and teacher of Celtic spirituality As we have just experienced the Vernal Equinox with equal amount of daylight and night, his blessing poem for Equilibrium is a lovely way to welcome our New Moon today. The New Moon a great time to set new intentions and to align yourself with the direction of your soul’s growth as we move into the freshness of Spring.

“For Equilibrium, a Blessing:
Like the joy of the sea coming home to shore,
May the relief of laughter rinse through your soul.

As the wind loves to call things to dance,
May your gravity by lightened by grace.

Like the dignity of moonlight restoring the earth,
May your thoughts incline with reverence and respect.

As water takes whatever shape it is in,
So free may you be about who you become.

As silence smiles on the other side of what’s said,
May your sense of irony bring perspective.

As time remains free of all that it frames,
May your mind stay clear of all it names.

May your prayer of listening deepen enough
to hear in the depths the laughter of god.”

― John O’Donohue,

From To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessings

Happy New Moon and Spring Blessings,

Peacefully, Jane

Jane Rosalea Brown, BA, CSW

Peaceful Way Meditation Blog

Author, In Silence, Discovering Self through Meditation

Author Name: Jane Rosalea Booth

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Meditation – Reawaken Your Spiritual Practices

This post has excerpts from Roger Gabriel’s Article “Reawaken Your Spiritual Practices” from Chopra Living newsletter. For the full article visit https://chopra.com/articles/reawaken-your-spiritual-practices

“For most of us, meditation is the most important part of our spiritual practice and should always be included daily. Using a personal mantra is a powerful tool for taking us on the path of self-realization but again, this can sometimes feel stale. If you’ve had a busy day, rather than taking it into your meditation, spend a few minutes doing some breathing exercises. Alternative nostril pranayama is excellent for settling and preparing the mind to go within. When you first close your eyes, take a moment to be aware of how your body feels. If there’s any tension or tightness, breathe into that area and use your breath to soften your body. Check in with your mind, your thoughts and emotions. If you find yourself overthinking, pause for a few seconds, take some deep breaths, consciously let go of anything that’s not important for the next thirty minutes. Start by thinking of something you’re grateful for. This automatically expands the heart center”…

…”There are many different styles of meditation so, if you really feel stuck with the one you are using, try another. However, it can be confusing to keep jumping from one style to another. Mantra meditation takes the awareness from activity to silence, reconnecting us with the field of infinite possibilities and our essence. Guided meditations help to restore balance to the mind, emotions or physical body. Regular mantra meditation will take care of everything but, if you have specific needs, including a guided meditation at a different time of the day, will often be helpful.

When doubts and uncertainties arise in your practice, always ask yourself if this is your higher self talking or your ego playing games. The ego loves to create boundaries and control everything, while our spiritual path takes us to the unbounded. Before making too many changes or adjustments ask your heart for guidance, listen to and trust your inner wisdom. Remember these wise words, it is impossible said pride, it’s risky said experience, it’s pointless said reason, give it a try whispered the heart.

While there will always be bumps in the road, whatever practices you choose to follow should be fun and bring you joy. This whole universe was created to be fun. Try not to take anything too seriously, especially your spiritual practices. In the words of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could. Some blunders and absurdities no doubt crept in, forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day. You shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense.”

Thank you Roger Gabriel

Sometimes we try too hard to meditate. I keep my meditation practice simple with gentle breathing, some sounds (play music,chant a mantra or a sound I hear within) and then bring light and love into my heart and allow myself to feel the sacredness within…

Peacefully, Jane

Jane Rosalea Brown, BA, CSW

Peaceful Way Meditation Blog

Author, In Silence, Discovering Self through Meditation

Author Name: Jane Rosalea Booth

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