I've certainly stumbled on more than my share of black bear this year. And I've written about quite a few of them. Here's yet one more muse with bear as the subject. So please “bear” with me. I don't make ‘em up, I just write ‘em as they happen.
You know about the Law of Attraction, Universal Law, Spiritual Law, Quantum Physics; that, what we focus on we create. With fear thoughts, we can manifest disasters right into existence and with energizing, exciting and playful thoughts we can also create that which we most desire.
On my September fishing trip to Northern Ontario, we had driven as far as we could and were standing by the train tracks in Hawk Junction, gear piled high, waiting for the train to take us farther north. Now Hawk Junction is not much of a town. There's the train station, a small convenience store and the very old Big Bear Hotel and Bar. The rest of the town is residential. So I was not surprised to see a small bear wandering back and forth across the tracks to the south of us and a much bigger bear doing the same to the north. There's not much in Hawk Junction to disturb them.
We were a party of four from Northern Michigan and somewhat used to bear. The other party of six waiting to catch the train and be dropped off at the same camp were, however, much more uncomfortable with these bear. Two men in that group were overly concerned and could not stop expressing their fearful thoughts about bear encounters. Even on the train ride up they were having disturbing conversations about bear attacks. The rest of us had pretty much a live and let live attitude about black bear.
And sure enough, as soon as we got to camp we were told by the owners that there had been two bear in and around camp all summer. That we just needed to look where we were going when walking around. Mike, one of the owners, said he saw them every day and enjoyed them. His wife, Hanna, said she did not mind knowing that the bear were there but she didn't care to see them. Consequently, she had not seen one all summer. ChiChi, the camp cat, wasn't talking. So we were 10 guests, two camp owners, one black cat and two black bear in camp all week.
Now here's what we each manifested. It was the last week of camp and Hanna never did see a bear. That made three full months without a sighting, even though these two black bear were practically living at camp. Her husband, Mike, continued to see them every day. Those of us who had little concern, got plenty of opportunity to see the bear and were not bothered by them. And what about the two guests who were fearful? They got their fish and gear messed with and had some frightful outhouse experiences. They blamed it on rogue black bear. I'm thinking it was much more about rogue, black thoughts.
"That the birds of worry and care fly over your head, this you cannot change, but that they build nests in your hair, this you can prevent." ~Chinese Proverb
I've been reading Lynn Grabhorn’s book, “Excuse Me, Your Life is Waiting” and I must admit I'm inspired. Grabhorn says “we create by feeling, not by thought.” And, “What we feel is what we get.” What we're “vibrating” out is an exact match to what we will attract in. If we are feeling good (she sometimes calls it “buzzing”) and attach a want to that feeling, we get what we want. Anyway, once you're in a place of “buzzing,” and knowing what you want, the next thing to do is follow what she calls a “hit,” the idea that comes in to your head to take an action, follow a path, make a change, do something, choose.
This is pretty contrary to the way we traditionally decide to handle a want. Big or small, we most often think about what we might want, weight the options, develop a plan and then move forward, carefully. Or, if the want is urgent, we start pushing and striving. Grabhorn calls this “Hi Ho Silvering.”
So during April, I've been playing with “buzzing,” “vibrating” and acting on “hits.” I’ll admit to you that I approached all of this with some skepticism. Believe me, the word “buzzing” alone is enough to put fear in the heart of a recovering adrenaline junkie. But it's spring and I'm in an experimental mood. And I'm not good at making decisions anyway.
It's mushroom season here in Northern Michigan, a time I look forward to all year. And it's also a time when the outdoor chores grow exponentially each day. About a week-and-a-half ago, I was raking the yard and “buzzing” like crazy just because it was a beautiful day, I was outside, and with each passing minute, the yard was looking pretty good. I moved to a patch of wet leaves and got triggered by the smell of musty earth to drop the rake and head for the woods to look for the elusive morel mushroom. Now, admittedly, this particular “hit” may have been genetic as much as anything else (I come from a long line of morel hunters). But I was feeling good prior to the idea and it felt like a hit to me. I’d been getting regular mushroom email reports from my buddies and had not heard much promising news. Someone had found two, someone knew someone who knew someone who had found 24. All pretty low counts to get me to stop doing those never-ending spring chores. Here's what I got from that hit. 227 morels (2 lbs.) in two-and-one-half hours. Not bad.
Now I'm intrigued enough with this attraction thing to take Grabhorn’s suggestion to start choosing one thing each day I can switch to when I recognized my thoughts are heading south or I'm just doing what she calls “flatlining.” I started practicing switching to feeling good at the drop of a hat.
As most of you know, I've been doing quite a bit of clutter clearing. A lot of what I'm clearing out has some value and so I decided to check out eBay and see what I could do with some of this stuff. As soon as I got on eBay, it became apparent that I’d need a digital camera. Oh, well. One of the links on eBay was to another web site called eappraisals. This site will look at a digital picture of your item and give you an idea of what it might be worth. When I got to eappraisals, one of those damn pop-up windows was in my face. I really hate them and always close them immediately. But this one was a chance to win a digital camera and I was feeling good enough to say, “why not?” I registered on the last day of the contest and about two days later I got an email saying that out of over 50,000 registrants, I’d won! Yikes! The last thing I won was a cake when I was ten.
Okay, I'm really interested in this “buzzing” thing now. 224 morels when I was feeling good anyway and then a digital camera when I had decided to incorporate good vibrations as regular routine in my day. But what about those times when I'm really down and need to turn it around. Can I do that?
I was having a particularly bad day last Monday. A few days before I had my feelings hurt, I snapped at a good friend and another friend had allowed me to carp and grouse about it for a few hours (not a favor according to Grabhorn). All in all, I was feeling pretty unlovable. “Okay, Deb, let's see you turn this one around.” I started to put myself into a feel-good place and immediately got a “hit” to go to the grocery store. Of all places! Those of you who know me know I HATE to shop and grocery shopping is the worst. My idea of shopping is to put anything I need on a list and let someone else do it. And there were really only three things on the list. But, I went. I got to the store, grabbed a cart and headed for the milk and orange juice. In front of the cooler, right in the way, were a man and his three-year-old son. Grumble, grumble. I decided to try to squeeze past them and only said, “Excuse me” because of the three-year-old. You know, polite example, blah, blah, blah. Well, as soon as I said it, he perked up and proceeded to tell me he had learned “excuse me” at school from his teacher. We actually had a ten-minute conversation (well, he did most of the talking, I just asked questions) and I felt my funk begin to lift. As I said good bye to this charming child and was moving on down the aisle, he turned around and said, “Oh, and I love you.” Funk totally gone now!
And here's the really cool twist. I was feeling so good, I decided to come home and reschedule a doctor's appointment for the next day that had taken me a month to get but was contributing to my funk because it was smack dab in the middle of a day off. Now, this I would normally not do because it's just too irresponsible to cancel at the last minute when others are planning on you. I was on my way to the phone to make the call when it rang. It was the doctor's office needing to reschedule and apologizing to me!
So that's my little experiment, for what it's worth. Grabhorn is much clearer than I am about why feeling good works so well in attracting what it is we want. I'm still wondering if good vibrations were attracting like vibrations or I just put myself in a place of feeling good to the point where I was more apt to notice and enjoy what was coming my way? I don't know and I don't care. The bottom line is, it really doesn't matter, does it?
“There are no facts, only interpretations.” ~Friedrich Nietzsche
“When you shut down your inner dialogue, you are shutting down your inventory of all the things that offend you.” ~Wayne Dyer
“It is something to be able to paint a particular picture, or to carve a statue, and so to make a few objects beautiful; but it is far more glorious to carve and paint the very atmosphere and medium through which we look, which morally we can do. To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.” ~Henry David Thoreau
“Too often, the opportunity knocks, but by the time you push back the chain, push back the bolt, unhook the two locks and shut off the burglar alarm, it's too late.” ~Rita Coolidge
