The Holiday Season is upon us once again bringing with it the joy of celebration, the sadness of missing those that have gone onward, and the promise of a better year to follow.  It is a time of reflection; to glance back at all the joys and sorrows that entered our lives.  It is a time of sharing, of caring, of giving and receiving, of giving thanks and blessing those that cross our paths.  It is a time of wonder and magic when we look in the eyes of the children.  It is also a time to remember why these holidays exist. 

Thanksgiving Day is filled with parades and football games, with families gathered around a bountiful table and shared conversations.  Thanksgiving is a holiday in remembrance of the guidance and teaching extended by the Native People of this land to the Pilgrims. Thanksgiving is a day of giving thanks for all the blessings we have received, for all the guidance and. inspiration we have shared and for all the new friends we have made. 

Giving thanks is an important spiritual concept.  Much has been discussed about energy in our classes and none is more pertinent than the energy of blessing and thanks giving.  What a difference one word of encouragement will give to a person who is struggling with a difficult task.  A simple smile to a stranger on a street can inspire hope within. The gift of sharing the way you coped in a traumatic situation is often the very thing a grieving person needs the most. 

It seems like the turkey sandwiches are not even gone before Christmas bursts upon the scene.  We strive to capture the magic this day brings in the gifts we give the joy we share and the decorations we put up. 

Many of us go through the entire Christmas season without giving thought to the real meaning of Christmas; more than just a celebration of the birth of Jesus the Christ, it is a celebration of life itself and the message that Christ carried with him, the promise of eternal life.   There may be empty spots around the table this year that were filled last year or the years before but in our hearts there is no emptiness if we but remember this promise.  There is no emptiness if we touch each others hearts and share our pain and our joys.  Christmas is a time of sharing and of caring, of giving and receiving, of blessing others and being blessed.

We offer you a challenge for this holiday season.  From the day you read this article until this day next year spend a moment each day in extending blessings and thanks giving.

Take a moment each day to thank the person across the counter from you that serves you.

Take a moment each day to give the gift of patience to a person ahead of you in line that is moving slowly or that car on the freeway that is poking along, we do not walk in their shoes and cannot know the thoughts that slow them down.

Take a moment each day to give thanks to the wonderful beauty of this world we live in.

Take a moment each day to encourage the person who is suffering difficulty in their life. 

Take a moment each day to do one random act of kindness for another.

Take a moment each day to laugh.

Take a moment each day to count your blessing and to bless another.

Most importantly take a moment each day as you lie down to sleep to thank God for all the blessings you have received this day.

It is a well-known ancient law that what you give out is returned ten fold.  For this one-year make your harvest one of laughter, joy, blessings and being blessed.

In the short time Spirit Space has existed we have seen those that were in despair find hope, those that were lonely find companionship, those that thought they had no knowledge discover the potential within.  We have seen many loved ones come forth in joy to speak with those that remain behind.  We have shared the pain, the tears, the laughter, and the joy and as such have become an ever-expanding community of kindred spirits.  We have been blessed many times over in sharing with other communities like Spiritual Persistence, Meeting Of the Hearts and After Death Communications, homes on the web which strive as we do to provide a peaceful spiritual place to learn and share.   We have been blessed in ways not even realized yet just in meeting you.   For all of this and more we give thanks.

May you be blessed with love, friendship, peace, harmony and all things good from this day forward!

The Spirit Space Staff

Hi Everyone!

I would like to take this opportunity to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Holidays!

I received this dream from Lady Di:

"One night I dreamed of a room of devils ugly devils, they were trying to get to my daughter.   I prayed and kept asking God to help me protect my daughter.  I could feel myself shaking, crying & praying out loud over and over again.  All of a sudden, the devils turned into a room full of Angels all with the big wings and beautiful.  The head one was watching over my daughter & smiling & had my daughter's face.  I woke up at this point; I could not go back to sleep, it was  4  AM.  I went down stairs for a cup of tea. A few seconds later my daughter came down the stairs.  I said "Renee what are you doing up."  She looked at me and said "Momma, I had the most beautiful dreams of Angels, they were all in my room and one looked just like me."

Interpretation: I can see you and your daughter are very connected. *Smiles* Because of the fear you had for your daughter you dreamt of the ugly demons trying to her, and then they transformed because you were being shown that your daughter was being looked after.  And may I ask did your daughter learn a lesson from the rough experience she was going through?  The reason I ask is because what you feared may have been a lesson your daughter needed to learn.  What you both saw is that she is being looked after from the other side. *Smiles*  The confirmation came from your daughter and not only that but also the closeness that you both share.  I would say this was a vision meant for you and your daughter to share throughout your lives and to also show the love that only a mother and daughter can share. 

I hope this helps you. If you have any questions please feel free to email me at:
ariesram@alaska.net.

I encourage anyone having a question or concern about a dream to send it to me and I will do my best to help you with it. I also share a chatroom, Rainbow Bridge at: http://www.meetingofhearts.com .  Just click on the heart above Java Chat and follow the instruction.

I interpret dreams there also and would love to see you join us.  I work with a very dedicated and experienced medium and we also help with meditation skills.

Take Care and Sweet Dreams 

SPIRITUAL PERSISTENCE and THE PARADIGM SHIFT

Many things are happening at once. We live in a complex universe. But, out of those many occurrences several strands of similarity have been appearing with greater and greater frequency. One of those strands has been the growing emergence of a global spiritual quest. Another strand is the perception that a shift of our basic perceptions, a paradigm shift, will be needed to respond to that quest. Another strand has been offered by the work in Spiritual Persistence as its offer up a new paradigm.

The new spiritual quest seems to be an outgrowth of the diminished power of existing predominate modes to truly animate the beings of more and more people.  Or, in other words, the old religious answers no longer seem to answer many people's questions about life and death in ways that bring meaning. The views which were excitingly new two or five thousand years ago have been exploited by institutions and made irrelevant by change.  People hunger for something more meaningful than what is usually offered.

That spiritual hunger has been growing for many years. Some, feeling it, have maintained their silence. Some, feeling it, have turned in fright backwards to pre-existing structures of meaning. Other, feeling it, have been courageous: willing to risk scanning the horizon for new understandings and giving voice to both their questioning and their discoveries.

The Internet has become both a means for voicing those questions and discoveries and a means for sensing how global the hunger is.  Never before has the world been able to be in truly global discussion without barriers of nation, wealth, class, gender, or any other arbitrary division of humanity.  On our recent Spiritual Persistence Seminar Series, we welcomed guests (according to their Internet addresses) from at least 4 continents.  The old walls are falling.... and we are seeking the new paths across the formerly divided territories of body and spirit.

The notion of "paradigm" is simply described as the prevailing filters and blinders we wear. For example, there was a time when the cultural paradigm said that women were inferior to men and those filters and blinders influenced the way that all people viewed the world. It is often easiest to see a paradigm once it has been discarded, for it can be very hard to know when our spiritual and cultural vision is being limited or colored or distorted until we can see more widely, more accurately, more clearly.

Out of the global quest for spiritual meaning comes a sense that change of paradigms is needed if we are going to satisfy the growing spiritual hunger. The old limits keep us from what we sense we need.

Many people have found that what we have been sharing as Spiritual Persistence materials has become instrumental in the development of their own opening of perspective, their own beginning paradigm shift. From the discussions I have had with people who have begun to encounter the materials through our web site: http://www.widomaker.com/~bishopbeck/SpiritualPersistence.htm they sense that the thoughts shared by Rikkity almost immediately make intuitive sense. I keep hearing people say, "Well, of course, but I never thought of it like that." What intrigues me is that such a reaction comes from across the spectrum of religious thought a cultural setting.

I think the reason for this is that Spiritual Persistence is less about the content of the world that is to come and more about the way we need to perceive life, death, and spiritual existence so that our perceptions are wider, more accurate, clearer. As contrasted to philosophies that speak of what one will find in the future, Spiritual Persistence suggests a path that will take one to her or his future, and more importantly to our collective future of growing spiritual complexity.

The paradigm shift that increasing numbers of people worldwide are seeking to help satisfy their spiritual hunger for more inclusive, more meaningful answers will not be realized by talking about what it will be like. It will be realized as we find paths appropriate to our beings that will us move past the old filters and blinders. I know for me (and for many, many others) the insights in Spiritual Persistence help me make that move from what has been (and been limited) to what will be (and is limitless).

Come join me in the journey.

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