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New Thought Families Invitation: Abundant Fun - God Rocks!
October 23, 2007 |
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What Does Halloween Mean?
Namaste Beloveds,
Happy Autumn! Happy, Happy Halloween! A holiday of fun, merriment, and a myriad of meanings. The origin of Halloween is with the Celtic people and the "Samhain" Festival marking the end of summer; a celebration of harvest at a time where it was perceived that the veil between the living and the dead was the thinnest. From the Religious Tolerance website: "Samhain was a fire festival. Sacred bonfires were lit on the tops of hills in honor of the Gods. The townspeople would take an ember from the bonfire to their home and re-light the fire in their family hearth. The ember would usually be carried in a holder - often a turnip or gourd. They felt nervous about walking home in the dark; they were afraid of evil spirits. So they dressed up in costumes and carved scary faces in their ember holders." For an awesome look at the celebration of this day, check out how world religions have honored it through the centuries: http://www.religioustolerance.org/hallo_cu.htm
We will be playing with our own version of these traditions at our God Rocks! Costume Party this Saturday 10/27 from 1:00-5:00 at LifeWorks, 3009 F St., Sacramento. You are invited to come dressed as you are or how you could be! When inviting one young friend last Sunday at Spiritual Life Center, he said, "I'll come as Freddie Kruger." I said, "No! It's a God Rocks party!" He said, "I don't really do the God thing. I do Buddha or the Hindu way." I replied, "Perfect! It's the same Spirit. Just pretend you're going to a party at Buddha's house." With that said, come dressed as you will ... but just come! I'll have some extra wings you can wear if you're so inclined. "Clothes make a statement. Costumes tell a story." ~Mason Cooley Join us for fun & fellowship as we play and pray as connected community. We'll have snacks, crafts, games like apple bobbing (read up on that tradition at Religious Tolerance!). We'll have a sacred share, prayer, care circle at 4:00 honoring the living, the dead, and the infinite. There's a backyard, room to run and heart space for everyone of all ages! Join us! Bring your friends! "There can be no vulnerability without risk; there can be no community without vulnerability; there can be no peace, and ultimately no life, without community." ~M. Scott Peck
Join our God Rocks Costume Party!
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God Rocks!
"It's an ABUNDANT month at New Thought Families, with exciting new developments on site and loading soon so stay fine tuned. There are some great photos from our Feather's Retreat and we have an inspirational Love In Action page featuring 2 of our Feathers Retreat families at an abundant October event. See them at: http://www.newthoughtfamilies.com/People/Jacob.html
You can also hear samples of all 24 tracks from our new Christmas CD: The 12 Thoughts Of Christmas: Traditional Tunes Sung With Transformational Thoughts Gift yourselves and your friends with this abundantly joyous voice of Christmas! Stock up for stockings now! http://www.newthoughtfamilies.com/12ChristmasCD.html
Life is an abundant Gift! Thank you God! (Buddha, Allah, Goddess, Rama, Great Spirit, etc., etc., etc.,) YOU ROCK! Namaste to each of you and in that Spirit that is the abundant truth of you, know that you rock too!
Visit our CD pg. and Divine Order your New Thought Christmas CDs now!
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New Thought Families Newsletter: The Dance Of Abundance
Issue #13 Second Sunday, October 07, 2007 |
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 The Dance Of Abundance
Namaste Beloveds!
Greetings in the Spirit of abundance! Just to be on the same page ... here's a few definitions of abundance: 1. A great or plentiful amount. 2. Fullness to overflowing: "My thoughts ... are from the abundance of my heart." - Thomas De Quincy 3. Affluence; wealth 4. Chemistry The amount of an isotope of an element that exists in nature, usually expressed as a percentage of the total amount of all isotopes of the element." - Online Dictionary Now I don't know anything about chemistry but I can get behind the percentage of the total ... Oneness! I only know slightly more about wealth than chemistry except to say that even though I am in the middle of a fairly intense financially healing process right now, we have so many abundant, material blessings, you know, the basics, house, car, food, dentistry ... all of which take money and so I say Thank You God and thank you creditors. You see, I live the first 2 definitions pretty well - my life is full to overflowing with great and plentiful amounts of love, beauty, inspiration, passion, creativity ... and in the areas of my life where I am experiencing the opposite of abundance - lack - I am applying an abundance of hope, faith, vision and promise. "Expect your every need to be met. Expect the answer to every problem, expect abundance on every level." -Eileen Caddy Oh how I love this old new thought thought! And yes, I have been stung by expectation many times. Who hasn't? I think where expectation bites though is in the specifics. If you expect to be fed without attachment to what kind of food, you can rejoice at whatever is upon your table. Blessedly, we do live in an abundant land with lots of food choices and probably anyone reading this is not hungry in this moment for lack of the availability of food. You may be emotionally or spiritually hungry but those too can be fed with the expectation Cady speaks of. God is a good God, there is no lack of food or sustenance of any kind ... seek and expect and we shall find. Abundance is ours. Always. Ever since I was a kid I've had this picture in my mind of this flock of birds circled around on the ground joyfully eating bread crumbs, broken up hamburger and hot dog buns. They are eating and chattering, rejoicing and dancing. So happy are they to be recieving their blessing of this bread, they dance. They are doing a... bun... dance! Yippee! Now, if you asked God for a meal and you were given a bun, would you still dance? Could you still dance? Gratitude. A much simpler concept ... it's the one lined up for Thanksgiving November and I genuinely look forward to it. Prayer was our September theme and it too is such a natural for me currently carried forward in our Faith In Action book group at the Spiritual Life Center as we study the power of mantras to quiet and calm the mind. I could have easily chosen another theme for October but I wanted to stay true to the plan formed this summer. Abundance ... well, I found myself say more than once this week, "Given my financial/marital states, who am I to talk of abundance?" But over and over again, I returned to the same place of wisdom and loving center ... I am abundant. I live abundantly. The areas of lack in my life are simply invitations for healing and willingness to receive the abundance that is the truth of me. And I am a student ... always learning more about myself, my gremlins, learning more about life, love, Spirit - Mother/Father/God ... learning about health, wealth, truth, abundance and so much more. I have learned that the more I gratefully embrace what I have, the more I am open to receive. Jeremiah says abundance is when "something is overflowed." Every day, my heart overflows with love for him. Children, in their exurberant, zealous acceptance of life are great teachers of abundance. The nature of them mirrors the nature of God and life itself ... fullness to overflowing..So let's feel it... let's feel overflowed, grab a bun (bread!), call the birds and dance, dance, dance!
"Life is a field of unlimited possibilities.."- Deepak Chopra. |
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Adding Up What Counts 
"Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted."- Albert Einstein.
There are some well known statistics that bear repeating here: 1% of the population holds the wealth of the world, 90% live in constant financial struggle often without enough to live on while another 9% is somewhere in between. Certainly, abundance can be considered money & wealth and it is surely one definition of it. Christine Breese of the University Of Metaphysical Sciences provides the above statistics in a lengthy article where she raises some very interesting points including: " Even the richest of the rich who think that they are "abundant" are actually exhibiting scarcity beliefs with the hoarding of great wealth, rather than belief in abundance. Those who are millionaires believe they are abundant, but they are not. They are hoarding because they do not trust the flow of abundance to always continue, and therefore feel they have to save a lot of money "for a rainy day" when the universe stops flowing. This is not abundance at all!" Christine's article is online and linked below. In my continuing meditation and exploration of prosperity and abundance in all forms, I tried to make a checklist to count what counts for me and it came to this:
Spend time wisely; love completely, laugh whole heartedly, listen intently, learn openly, look deeply, live fully- gratefully, beautifully, prayerfully, joyfully, peacefully.
Abundantly!
Yes, there is a poem coming on and we'll end this newsletter with it ...!!! And I can also say that keeping a gratitude list or journal everyday is another great way to be aware and acountable to what counts for you.
Read Christine Breese & her Money Metaphysics! |
Circle Up - Calendar Connections!
New Thought Families continue to circle up to play & pray!
2008 Feather's Family Retreat date still pending;
check out some pictures & 2007 Feather's Follow up
on site!
http://www.newthoughtfamilies.com/Camp/FeathersFollowUp.html
Thanks to Shawn Murphy, we return to Sacramento Lifeworks!
3009 F St., Sacramento A Place where Joy lives!!
We will circle up at Lifeworks on 10/27 & 12/8.
 October 27, 2007 1:00-5:00 p.m.
Free To Be Abundant Me: A God Rocks Stone Soup Costume Party!
Come as you are or dream you can be!
Friends * Fellowship * Snacks * Crafts * Costumes * Play *
2
:00 Optional Spiritual Cinema
4:00 Sharing Circle including Heart Opening Activity & Singing
 12/8 1:00-5:00 Celebrating Christmas Light
includes Circle of Singing New Thought Christmas Carols
Celebrating Christmas Light: Holiday Party!
Come and shine your light!
Friends * Fellowship * Snacks * Crafts * Costumes * Play *
2 :00 Optional Spiritual Cinema and/or "Elf"
4:00 Sharing Circle including candle lighting &
singing New Thought Christmas Carols
12 Thoughts Christmas Concert at East West Books
on December 15 at 2:00.
(See 12 Thoughts below!)
We are setting up more events so stay fine tuned!
More details on our Circle Up Calendar! |
12 Thoughts Of Christmas
 Sing this to the tune of "The First Noel":
"On this Noel, the angels do say, gather together in Oneness and pray ... " - Lyrics, "On This Noel" - Laurie Story
We are finishing our CD this week!
The 12 Thoughts Of Christmas: Traditional Tunes sung with Transformational Thoughts
This gift has been a journey of discovery, trust, and affirmation of Divine Order. I'm still breathing through completion and will disclose the delicate details next month!
All I can say in the moment is thank you, thank you, thank you God, thank you Angels and thank you David Tralle of the Center for Music Medicine (.org) and Unity Center Of Davis - David's music brings these songs CHRISTMAS ALIVE!
Visit our CD pg. and Divine Order yours now !
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 Web Site Abundantly Growing!
"Abundance is, in large part, an attitude."- Sue Patton Thoele
Our New Thought Families web site is featuring abundance this month with several pages giving attention to food, money, fun, and featuring the photography of a wonderful artist friend, Michel Kotski. His photos are the first and last in this newsletter and we have a whole page with some of his images and more loading. We had some great Prayer Videos last month and hope to get some new ones up this month as well. We also added to the Prayer video page this amazingly beautiful KidSpeak file called "The Mystery" and it is a mystery where it came from!! Technology and the internet are most amazing in their abundance! And the videos can be great fun .... look at UTube! And look at us! We've come a long way since that first newsletter last October! We've linked up this first year of newsletters telling of growth, site launch and development, vision, questions, dreams ... I continue to hold the vision for New Thought Families and our web site to grow as an inspirational place to play and pray. As part of that vision, I am still holding - no allowing- space for any and all of you to contribute your voices in whatever form that calls to you ... audio, video, picture, words. Share your abundance with us!
"Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into." -Wayne Dyer
Upcoming Monthly Themes:
October - Abundance, November - Gratitude, December - Joy
(And yes, December remains as my absolute deadline for Joy Boy to debut!!!)
www.newthoughtfamilies.com is an inspirational SPIRIT place to play and pray and celebrate life's goodness with childlike passion, fun, wonder, and reverence.
Join us at New Thought Families! |
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A Bun Dance For You!
 "Live your life as though there is great joy to be experienced... an abundance of goodness in each person you come in contact with, and the knowledge that you have enough inner wisdom to answer the mysteries that challenge you." -Meladee McCarty
In this, our moment of connection, I am openly allowing (rather than holding) for your greatest abundance. May you have buns to dance with! That's bread, remember, and remember when they called money, bread, mmmm... I see you and feel you joyously dancing ... even if you're surrounded in crumbs, may you dance with the birds, freedom in your wings, a song in your heart, anwering the calling you've heard ... your own dance of abundance!
Abundance by Laurie Story Vela
When this physical form ceases to be, this is the inventory
I imagine the Great Spirit, my Creator, will take of me
to see if I truly lived wisely and abundantly :
Was I kind more often than not? Did I remember more often than I forgot?
Just how did I spend my time? Did I nurture my connection to the divine?
Did I love fully and dearly?
Did I communicate my heart's desires clearly?
Just how did I follow my heart in what I gave and how I did my part ...
Did I notice and thank the beauty that was always surrounding me?
Was I open enough to fully receive? Did I feel the Angels and believe?
Just how did I say yes to the myriad of miracles with which I was blessed?
Did I embrace the gift I was given to live? Was I quick to comfort & forgive?
Just how did I treat this sacred treasure? Did I share lots of joyful pleasure?
Abundantly loved, I imagine a warm smile at this time of measure ....
not because I will score high points in large amount
but simply because every bit of it counts ...
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Click Here to Subscribe!
Archived Newsletters for New Thought Families:
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October 07:
10/7 The Dance Of Abundance
10/23 Invitation -
Abundant Fun: God Rocks! |
September 07:
9/9 Let Go & Pray
9/23 Post Card - In Equal Balance: Equinox Blessings!
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August 07:
8/6 Post Card - Trust Seeds Faith
8/12 Living Trust In August
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June 07:
6/10 Calling Father Christmas
6/21 Post Card - Shining Stillness |
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February 07:
2/04 Season Of Love
2/14 Post Card - Rejoice In Love |
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December 06:
12/08 Life's A Gift
12/24 Post Card - A Merry Moment |
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© 2007 Laurie
Story Vela, M.A. & New Thought Families
All Rights Reserved For Sharing & Caring
storylaurie@lauriestories.com 1-800-ABC-4974
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