Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Grateful





The gift of this day
evokes in me a sense of
profound gratitude.

For many of us, this time of year represents an escalated surge of activities.  We’re traveling, visiting, sprucing up, shopping for food and gifts and cooking up all of our special recipes in anticipation of Thanksgiving.  As I prepare for my observance of this holiday with my own precious family and friends, I feel a sense of overwhelming gratitude.


I am so thankful.


Yet I can’t help but to think about all of the families and individuals who are struggling.   The soup lines here in Philly are getting longer and longer. Men. Women. Children. Standing in line for hours just to get a plate of food to eat. And the homeless situation just breaks my heart.


I feel a sense of sorrow for those in the midst of burying loved ones in a season so often associated with joy. And my sympathy also goes out to those among us who are observing Thanksgiving for the first time since the loss of a close loved-one. So as you gather for your merrymaking, and toast the season, please don’t forget to say a prayer and extend a kind gesture for those who are going through.


Asante Sana
Peace and Blessings Always

Sunday, November 17, 2013

You Are What You Think






Change your thinking and
get the meaningful results
you want out of life


I wasn’t always so happy and positive and full of gratitude like I am now.
Some years back, I was stuck. My house was under construction and so was I. The room where I typically cloistered myself to write was being renovated following the ceiling caving in, following the roof leaking, following any number of financial and emotional disasters. My discipline, my schedule, my commitment to my art had seriously faltered. I needed to write but there were a litany of excuses.

Constantly blaming. Overwhelmed. Ashamed. Exhausted. I felt like a worthless piece of crap. I kept re-living past hurts. Eventually I became the poster child for abuse, depression, victimization. Time after time, I slowly climbed my way up out of the hole, only to slip back down, down, down. Then one year, as my birthday approached, my sister Esther gave me this beautiful painting of an angel. It just struck all the right notes with me.

“Hmmmmm. Where am I going to put it?" I wondered.

Shortly after that, my dear friend Joyce called:  “Mama Pheralyn, what do you really want for your birthday?”

It only took me a few seconds to reply:  “I want my writing studio set up so I can get on with some of these projects I’ve started.”

“So what’s holding your back? I thought the guys were finished putting up the drywall and didn’t Malik paint the room?”

“Yeah, but now I’m going to make that room my bedroom, my Zen temple.”

“And?”

“I have to get new bedroom furniture. Plus I’ll need a new sofa and living room furniture because I’m setting up my new writing studio as a magic room where I can just let my creativity flow, so I’m taking the sofa and the love seat out of the living room and putting them in my writing room. So when I get the new furniture, then I can switch the rooms around.”

 “That sounds absolutely ridiculous.”

(Joyce never was one to mince her words.)

“What’s stopping you from moving around the furniture you already have?”

(The idea had never occurred to me.)  “You know Joyce, that just might work.”
Within a few days I had the guys come over and tackle the massive job of moving furniture up and down three flights of stairs. The result is the room I’m writing in right now:  my ‘magic room, where I can just let my creativity flow.’

Every time I sit at my desk, just to my left is the painting of ‘my angel.’ The manifestation of creating my magic room by moving around what I already owned clearly demonstrates the power of thought patterns. Flip the coin and lack turns into luck. Once you are willing to change the way you think, you allow miracles to happen in an instant.

Remember: You are what you think

Change your thinking and
get the meaningful results
you want out of life.

Asante Sana
Peace and Blessings Always