What If You Woke Up One Day And Knew Exactly What The Entire Rest Of Your Life Was Meant To Be About?

Saint Francis will be my guide...

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.

Where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console;

to be understood as to understand;

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive;

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned;

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen 

Pugsley upon arrival, wearing his "Thundershirt" for anxiety,
which quickly came off and he hasn't had to wear it since. He
is snuggled here with his wee tiny sister Penny. Both had been
so terribly abused, and yet they are pure love, tender, and sweet
beyond words. I live in a sanctuary filled with angels, blessed
with God's grace, surrounded by angels everywhere, and spirits
of every size and shape bringing protection and joy and love, and
in the midst of it all here I am, blessed beyond measure, with
endless love to give. Charity begins at home. The love we are
all creating here we are sending out to each and every one of
you, every single day of our lives. When you take a breath in,
a deep, full, cleansing breath, on the inbreath feel a sweeping
of a warm, pure, pink light, warming you all the way down to
your toes and filling you with tremendous joy. Walk out into
the world lighter than air. Now remember you are never alone.
We are always there sending out love...

This is a terrible picture, all fuzzy-fied, but it was so precious and we couldn't get a good shot so I'm just sharing this with you so you can see how much fun we had. The two women who brought Pugsley yesterday also brought their 3 pugs so we had 7 running all over the yard and you never saw anything cuter in your life! When we came in we flopped on the couch and I was covered with little baked potato shaped hooligans! Ha ha ha!

There's a reason everybody calls me Mama Maitri!

And so I awakened this morning with a terrific JOLT! One of those that raises you up out of your chair so fast you hit your head on the ceiling and see stars. And though this has obviously been growing in me for sometime to come I knew then, as I know right now, with perfect clarity, exactly what I am supposed to do.

In 1999 I left a 25 year marriage to begin a spiritual journey that I would little understand, be devastated by, everything I thought I knew torn asunder, everything that held me up ripped out from under my feet, and I spent a dozen years in deep seclusion. Oddly, while it was very painful and frightening and confusing time, the seeds were planted for the life I was supposed to live, though it would be years before I could understand the meaning of it all. I had named my little cottage Dragonfly Cottage, both because the dragonfly had become my totem animal (In Native American spirituality he leads us out of the darkness and into the light, he is a sign of transformation.). Every place I have lived since in these tumultuous years of having to move, being more and more afraid, and not understanding how I could go on, I sat in the little cottage cottage I lived in in the mid-2000's.  I had come to the end. I could take no more. I was ready to leave this earth and the unrelenting pain and terror I felt every day of my life. But then.... Oh great mercy of God, then a miracle occurred. 

I sat quietly contemplating the way that I might exit the world. I worried about my children, my family, I didn't want to hurt anyone else but when the pain is so deep you can't see your way out, when you are broken down and never get any rest, finally you collapse into this darkness and see no other way out, and it was just at this exact point that, sitting in my little cottage, a miracle occurred. I saw a flash of gold out of the corner of my eye and saw the biggest dragonfly I had ever seen. Brilliant, iridescent gold, just huge. And he very calmly floated over to me and sat on my hand. He said, "No, it's not your time yet, we have much work to do," And he sat with me for the better part of 2 hours, just sitting peacefully, and I took lots of pictures. I have never seen a more beautiful dragonfly and I didn't know that such a one even existed, but here he is...

And when he was ready to go, when he had taught me that what I was considering doing was not only selfish, but was wasting my God given life, and that we all had lessons to learn and to share and love to give and a path to follow in our own lives. THIS, he told me, was our true path, the very act of finding it, and then to fight through all circumstances, doubts of others, self-doubt and just keep putting one foot in front of the other, no matter how many years it took, until the day that we woke up and said, "Yureka, that's IT!" (Or some words to that effect!) "It's time to get started!

Started, for me, has been the acknowledgement that that was true, even if I had no idea how it would come about. The process took 2 disastrous cross country moves, having dangerous encounters, meeting amazing teachers, and finally, the last years, finding these little pugs who are truly my angels and my teachers and the little loves that shore me up. They will be with me for the rest of my days.

This is only the beginning of this story, Part 1. But Part 2 will come in the next day or two and the plan that I have laid out in my mind is beginning to find shape and form and amazing clarity. Nothing I have done and learned will be wasted but it will take on a whole new shape than I have ever imagined.. It is thrilling, scary, but finally what of any real value ever takes all we can give and then some? My life will be changing rapidly (at a snail's pace...) over the next one to two years with much starting to happen very soon. I am to create a sanctuary, one of love, of healing, of hope, and of light. My writing, the garden, the pugs and the parrots and the wildlings, my healing practice and oh, so much more, are going to grow and fill this one little spot on the planet, and from this space all of my love, my dreams, my hopes, and the miracles that are always present around me will grow here, the one, true, final, always meant to be Dragonfly Cottage Sanctuary. I hope to see you here one day. Until then I will be doing healings for money and barter and accepting donations to get this place built and up and running. Perhaps one day I will become non-profit, but really, I prefer free will love donations for now. It feels gentler that way. 

Now I have pugs climbing all over me and I am getting many many kisses and giggling a lot so I better stop here. There are mountains of things to do and finally I realized that I can climb every one...

Oh, I love you all so dearly....