Ethical Parenting: Finding Out About Love, Starting With Ethics

Posted on September 13, 2014 by Eloisa

What does it mean to Love our children?

What would love do every moment and in every interaction we have with our partner, with children, with others?

How do we know what love would do?

Have you heard of ‘The Golden Rule’? A Biblical term referred to by Jesus as, ‘treating others as you would like to be treated’. Notice it is not ‘how you are treated, or how you treat others’ but rather how you would ‘like’ to be treated. Or you could take it one step further and say ‘treat others as God treats me’. This is what I understand ethics (very basically) to be. The beauty of ethics is that it is easy and simple to see based on the above premiss: treat others as you would like to be treated, and in most situations this will give a good indication if you are engaging in a loving manner or not.

For me it is a process of discovery about how God treats me. I am needing to unravel a lot of false beliefs about God and have so far only heard the Truths about God not fully experienced them for myself. So I am beginning with ethics, treating others as I would like to be treated. You can do this with or without God.

What does it mean to parent ethically?

I feel we have a heap of double standards as adults especially with children. If we asked of ourselves what we ask or demand of our kids I can guarantee we would be outraged. We would feel controlled, belittled, interrupted, confined, isolated, shamed, unimportant, ignored, entitled, and probably a heap of other things not mentioned here that you probably felt yourself as a child.

I notice often that I treat kids differently to adults.

Grownups when I was a kid said things they didn’t mean, they lied and hid behind ‘nice’ facades which are not really that nice, sometimes downright terrifying. They said one thing and meant another, they didn’t explain, were dishonest and said they knew or would do things when they didn’t, wouldn’t or forgot, they made promises they couldn’t keep. Kids got in the way, were not as important as adults, didn’t get the same attention. They didn’t know what love was because they had been mis-informed and mis-educated about it also. Sometimes I wonder why people have kids if they don’t want to love them, but it seems there are many parents having kids for other reasons than love.

I realise what I say could be very confrontational. I feel it is true though. I have been looking at my own reasons for having children, they were not pure and to love the children unconditionally. I am having to learn how to love and grow a sincere desire to want to love. I have had a screwed up version of love and a screwed up perception of parenting and I am going through a process of re-education. It feels uncomfortable often and I am coming to terms with the fact that I have not wanted to love. Rather I have wanted to be loved, to be cared for, to be seen as a ‘good mum’. I have wanted the children to demonstrate ‘good’ things about me because I have felt so bad inside of myself.

I feel sad about this because it means I have not allowed the children to just be themselves and love them for it. I have demands, expectations and investments in them. I want from them, rather than to give to them. I have manipulated, moulded and groomed them into what I want them to be, to fit my mould, rather than what God created them to be as they are.

At first I didn’t want to see what I had done. I was in a lot of denial (still am on certain issues and subjects). There are many ways to justify, minimise, deny what we have created and what we do as parents, but honestly we need to get real, get honest and see where we are unethical, where we are out of line in the treatment, especially of children, but also our partners and our brothers and sisters (other people) in general.

Many people think it is okay to shame, condescend to, belittle, hit, hurt, abuse, rage at, violently treat children to varying degrees or under certain circumstances. We say it is ‘for their own good’, ‘we have their best intentions in mind’, often we even say it is because we ‘love’ them. We blame children and excuse ourselves for all sorts of hurtful actions, not seeing that it is us who our children are reflecting in the first place and we are punishing them because we don’t want to be reminded and feel our own pains and hurt parts. It is us who children mirror and they highlight our lack of love.

Children learn so amazingly. They lean quickly and they learn from feelings not words. They reflect our true feelings not the ones we want everyone, including ourselves to believe are true about us (our facades – what we want to believe we are rather than what we actually are at this point in time).

We are responsible, we create so much of the pain in our children’s lives*** – especially when they are very young (as they get older they act out upon the injuries created by us and use their will either in harmony with love or out of it – often dependent on what we taught them until they learn or discover otherwise. Even so their actions come from things that we did to them in the first place, because we chose not to forgive our parents for their actions.), we create it by not allowing our own pain to flow and be released. We create it by suppressing our children, by teaching them to be what we want them to be, rather than be who they are as God created them. We teach our children that they are not okay as they are, they need to be something else – something we approve of, and they do that, or they rebel which ever will cause us to feel the most, and often instead of being humble and feeling our feelings we suppress and punish the child some more. What we need to do is to feel. To own how we feel as we feel it and to feel it responsibly, without taking it out on another soul. It is that simple. Feel and heal – without involving your kids, without involving others, just you and God, if you desire. That is how it is done.

We teach children that parental approval is love. I am saying it is not. Parental approval is nothing in comparison to love, it is a substitute and a poor substitute at that, and yet even as adults we are striving for it rather than seeing that the how we would like to be treated and what we would like to feel (love) from others is mostly not what we are receiving.

I feel that a massive, world wide, re-education program is needed that begins with Love – God’s version not ours. We need to re-educate ourselves with God’s Truth rather than the lies our parents and environment taught us as kids and the lies we continue to tell ourselves as grown ups, reinforcing our erroneous childhood educations, that keep us locked up as damaged children. We need to re-educate ourselves first and automatically this will educate our children about God’s Love and God’s Truth through example rather than theory.

If we really want to love we can begin with ethics, we can begin with treating our children as we would ‘like’ to be treated. We can stop controlling them and begin to love them. We can stop shouting at them and withholding approval of what they do or don’t do and be soft with them, teach them about love, self discovery, self responsibility and ethical behavior themselves.

We need to do this through our actions and behaviour not our words. Words are cheap and meaningless when they don’t match the real feelings coming out of us. Being honest, truthful and real is important for real relationships and friendships. To be ethical we are going to need to first be honest and see what we are doing, how we treat others and ourselves and be honest about how it actually feels. So-often we are conditioned to accept unloving behaviour and we come to feel it is ‘normal’ or ‘the only way’ or even the ‘right way’ I am suggesting there is another way (God’s Way of Love) and that we can start right now, with a first step being by simply practicing and treating others as we would like to be treated.

That means stop blaming others, including your children for your own personal pain. For example, stop getting angry at children and own your feelings as yours, find out why you are angry and what you are angry about. I guarantee that you you don’t enjoy people shouting at you, punishing you, condescending to you, controlling you, having double standards and telling you lies so why are we doing it to others, especially children. Children are honest with us, until they are taught otherwise, so why are we not honest with them?

I am noticing that how I was treated as a child is often how I treat children and it is only as I soften to the hurts within me that I am discovering that naturally and without effort I begin to treat our children and others more softly, acceptingly, compassionately. While I am hard and punishing with myself I am also hard and punishing with others.

I encourage you to explore your own behaviours and how you treat your children, I encourage you to be real and self reflective no matter how painful it feels and find out the truth of what you feel, feel it without harming others or yourself and your life will change if you are doing this sincerely. It is beautiful and a gift to both yourself, your children and those around you.

Give it a go, experiment, discover, explore ethics and see what you discover…

* For more information on Ethics and Morality go to the following link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mybby95f3vs

** I say ‘your’ children, though I would like to suggest that they do not belong to you at all, but are rather God’s children and your brothers and sisters. I find it helpful to think about this as I treat brothers and sisters very differently to children who I feel I ‘own’. Children are not property, though we have for many generations believed and told them they are. Children are not to be owned, enslaved, brought or sold. Rather children are a perfect gift born from desire and are the most amazing creation and perfect reflection of our soul condition, where we are at and the areas that we need to heal in love. They are a blessing and a gift and our only ‘job’ is to teach them about Love, God’s Truth and God’s Love, God Herself, and allow and enable them to discover for themselves…

***We harm children by mis-educating them about Love, Truth, God and not being truthful about so many subjects. Including not being truthful about our own feelings and thoughts, creating addictions with children, demanding and expecting of them, inhibiting their freewill and not correcting unloving behaviours in a loving way.

Parents have a lot to answer for. I am also beginning to get glimpses though of what an incredible gift being a parent is and if we ‘parented’ more as God intended it would be friggen awesome all round – that is what I aspire to and get excited about! Children are a gift and a very fast way to learn about love, if you are willing and have a sincere desire to love, in a real way.

School Holiday Activity

Posted on September 4, 2014 by Eloisa

A Morning in Nature

We have been investigating things we are excited about lately. They include, but are not limited to, the environment, kids, parenting, growing in love and experimenting with a personal relationship with God*.

We have put together all of these things into a fun filled morning of discoveries. Bring your water bottle, a vegetarian snack, your adventure shoes and a change of clothes and join us if you desire for a morning investigating, exploring and discovering the wonders of creation in the natural world.

Check out the flyer below or the events page for all the details.

* Note: Though God, the Human Soul and other spiritual matters may be mentioned during the mornings, and in spontaneous discussions, we do not expect everyone to agree with what we say, though you may find it interesting. If you do not want to be part of those conversations you do not have to be and can elect to leave the discussion.

We envision these morning to focus on love in action and a fun & enjoyable exploration of nature for each person who joins us.

Snail Sex

Posted on August 29, 2014 by Eloisa

I was emptying the scrap bin some months ago and came across these two little snails in the middle of what I think was snail sex.

I had never witnessed this event before and found it to be extremely fascinating.

Below are some images, which, if you have ever wondered about how snails have sex, may answer your question.

20140327 Some little creatures procreating on the compost bin

20140327 snail sex

20140327 I think this is how snails have sex and procreate

20140327 I think this is how snails procreate

There is a YouTube clip with a snail laying eggs which is really interesting also. They lay their eggs in a hollow under the earth.

Observation of Dam banks & Exposed Earth

Posted on August 29, 2014 by Eloisa

We have been observing God’s perfect design to heal the earth when it has been disturbed or degraded by us.

Fungi growing in the rocky, clay soil. Fungi are the ‘fruit’ of the mycelium that is running under the ground and the major contributor to creating soil and recycling plant matter into beautiful soils. Fungi is so important in our environment

Pete created a dam last year near our house, we call it the Big House Dam. We have had very little rain during that time and it has not filled that much going from the first picture below to being dry cracked mud for most of the time since it was created.

Note: In the last week we have had rain so I have included images taken yesterday evening 20140828 of the most water we have had yet. It is really interesting as all the water that is coming down the hill can be seen seeping through the internal dam wall and running into the dam (see last photos at the bottom of this post).

We have observed barren earth banks begin the healing process naturally. It seems to us the earth is designed to heal.

Pete planted some Lomandra along the top of the dam banks and we have scattered seed all about the banks.

Lomandra with plantain growing near it

It seems to me that everything in God’s universe just wants to grow, in fact I suspect it is designed to grow. There were flowers that I scattered seed and they grew in a mini version of what they were in more fertile soil. They still flowered and produced seed but were stunted, about one fifth the size of what some others we had planted in more fertile soil grew to be.

Stunted flower still growing but tiny in comparison to it’s same species planted in more fertile soils. The plant was approximately 10cm tall.

Stunted flower*

We noticed also that the plants have been healing the soil from the bottom up and the sides down. Small very close to the ground plants first appeared and different species continue to appear (such as plantain, clover, and heaps of ones I have not yet identified) – this was before we planted any seed, which indicates that there is a natural seed bank contained within the soil, which seems to me specifically designed for healing, regenerating and repairing the areas of the earth we degrade (what we call weeds) already in the soil waiting to do their job when the conditions are favourable. Sharp flat to the ground thistles and fleabane were the next cycle of dominant plants.

Low to the ground, very sharp and spiky thistle species

An example of the ‘softer’ milk type thistle variety

Now there are other smaller flatter plants (not necessarily meant to be small and flat, just that is how they grow in such an arid and harsh environment) growing up and as more and more grow side by side they join up to cover the soil and ‘protect’ it.

pioneer ground covering plants that are slowly covering all the bare soil. You can see how these are joining up to create a more densely covered area. Dead fleabane that will become mulch creating soil

Close up of pioneer ground covering plants that are covering all the bare soil. You can see how these are joining up to create a more densely covered area. As they die they will become mulch and new plants will come and do their job until the soil is balanced

As the plants complete their cycle they die it is creating mulch (this is not abundant mulch at this time, but it is interesting and cool to watch all these things happening. Note it would be faster and better for the soil if we covered it and helped it out more, we have noticed erosion happening on the banks due to the soil not being covered.)

20130615 Dam in just after it was built.

20131221 some primary plants beginning to sprout and heal the disturbed soil

20131221 some pioneer plants beginning to sprout and heal the disturbed soil

20140220 some primary plants beginning to sprout and heal the disturbed soil

20140220 some pioneer plants beginning to sprout and heal the disturbed soil

20140509 The plants are beginning to sprout up and move in from the outside in. This is aided by the cycle and the first lot of plants spreading seeds that are sprouting and also by the plants creeping in. I am in awe of how there are already seeds in the earth designed to grow under the conditions we created through destruction

20140509 Dam, The middle row of lamandra was planted by Pete the rest are all wonderful weedy plants that are doing their utmost to cover the bare soil. I am fascinated at how the weedy plants grow and these pioneer ones are very close to the ground. I feel they are trying to cover as much bare earth as they possibly can. After these appear more begin to come up in the gaps creating more and more cover for the damaged and exposed soil area.

20140509 plant life beginning to establish itself on the edge of the dam

20140509 Fleabane that is growing up from the edges in around the Dam, doing its thing to heal the disturbed and damaged soil

20140509 fleabane, plantain and other ground covers that are ever spreading their seeds to grow and cover more and more of the exposed soil of the dam bank

20140509 Growing from the bottom up, all the thistles which have died and will now become mulch along with all types of other soil healing plants all creeping closer and more up the dam bank. I find this fascinating how plants are designed to grow, repair, and heal the soil. They do it without any human intervention and all the plants that are needed the seed is in the soil ready to heal when the conditions are right for them. We have noticed that there are cycles of plants, for example there are sharp spiky thistle crops which come up once to three times until they have done their job and then new types of plants appear, like softer milk thistles and then softer still. Each plant seems to come up between one and three times and then doesn’t come up again in the same area.

20140828 As full as the dam has been so far. You can see the erosion lines in the foreground and some of the pioneer plants on the far bank

20140828 pioneer plants on the inner wall of the dam bank with dead fleabane that will become mulch and in time soil

20140829 Plants on the internal wall of the dam bank. All of them have started out really small, flat and low to the ground. They are spreading and connecting up to each other. These ones started at the side, and top and ventured down towards the water. They are now getting closer to joining up with each other and making a solid ground covering

20140829 The most water we have had in the big house dam so far

* The flower is still growing but in miniature version as it is not getting the nutrition from the soil to become a big plant. This demonstrates to me that God has designed things in the universe to grow no matter how harsh the environment is, the potential is there. Imagine what could happen with a little love, some beautiful soil and nutrients.

Living Systems Create Abundance

Posted on August 28, 2014 by Eloisa

Below are images of the swales that were first dug and planted out at Octoberfest 2011.

Pete has been converting them into living systems, meaning filling the swale part up with matter, including but not limited to:

Cardboard bales – thank you Bunnings Armidale
Windfall branches and pruned and dead tree matter
Biodegradable household waste, including old clothing, paper, green waste etc
Newspapers/paper
Sheep manure
A couple of dead animals
Woodchips
Hay

We noticed during the drought a huge difference in this area to other areas of the property. The grass was greener on the swale banks, it was longer and more lush.There is a heap of fungi growing and breaking down matter within the systems, indicating that moisture is being retained in these systems. Insect life is increasing. Animal life is increasing in this area also. Trees are growing and healthier.

We have noticed that each type of matter breaks down at different rates, attracts different insects and grows different fungi and plants.

Living Systems are awesome. They create abundance when made with love and given to generously when initially set up. We cannot stress enough the importance of Love and giving generously when setting up living systems. If there is no desire to love and no intention to give generously and abundantly to the project you are engaging in with the earth, the results will reflect that, our soul’s are powerful creators.

We feel that Living Systems are a really great way to begin to ‘drought proof’* a property as they hold and retain moisture under the ground and are a food source for the intelligent life that creates soil and keeps the earth healthy at the same time.

The images below hopefully give an idea of what can be achieved in your back yard as well as on a larger scale.

*More on ‘drought proofing’ to come

Foreground: Swale with tree matter, cardboard, wood chips, notice how green the grass on the top edge is. Background: Swale with hay

Swales being filled with Cardboard – we fill up the swales as we collect the raw materials and as our time is available. We would not recommend digging a heap of holes that you cannot fill. Leaving bare, exposed earth creates a lot of problems and potential for erosion. Make as many holes as you can fill, fill them and then create more. Do one at a time if needs be.

Cardboard bales

Sheep manure covering cardboard bales

Living Systems: Hay covering cardboard bales

Living Systems: A living system with cardboard bales, tree branches covered in wood chip

Living Systems: we noticed this awesome fungi growing in the swales that had newspaper and wood chips. The fungi actually grew out from between the sheets of newspaper as can be seen in the next image

Living Systems: we noticed this awesome fungi growing in the swales that had newspaper and wood chips. The fungi is growing out from between the sheets of newspaper. Noticed this happened after the newspaper had absorbed some moisture. Amazing how fungi breaks down matter!!

Photos taken by Eloisa, 20140611

Let Yourself Fall from the Plane

Posted on June 27, 2014 by Eloisa

Notes Along The Way

Imagine yourself high in the air, a passenger in a small plane. Mid-flight you are calmly sitting in your seat, eating free peanuts and enjoying the scenery from your window seat.

viewfromtheplane

Suddenly, one of the other passengers leaps up, and throws open the door of the plane. Shock fills the cabin.

Everyone else begins to exchange looks, the question written on their faces “What’s going on?”

Someone calls out “Hey, what are you doing?” but the sound of roaring air is all that anyone can hear.

The mystery passenger starts moving through the plane. Sickeningly you realise he is coming towards you.

“Why?!” you think as cold panic begins to creep up your spine. Before you can resist he has undone your seat belt and he grabs you by the shoulders.

Pushing and pulling he drags you towards the open door, air buffets your body and you understand that he…

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Frost Crystals

Posted on June 27, 2014 by Eloisa

20140627 First frost – beautiful ice crystals on a tree with lichen

20140627 First frost – beautiful ice crystals, looks like an ice caterpillar

Pete and I were commenting yesterday that we hadn’t had a real frost this year yet and how warm it is at the moment in comparison to other years. We have sunflowers about to open and even tomatoes that had flowers on the bushes. Last night we had the first big frost of the year. So we will see if the sunflowers open or not over the next few days. (The tomato flowers got ‘burnt’ last night.) And we had a magical morning of ice crystal discovery, exploration and wonderings about how, what, where, why, when, purpose, intention, etc of God’s creations.

20140627 First frost – beautiful ice crystals, look like they have been licked

We went out on a discovery expedition when we woke up ( I recommend warm clothes and gloves if you try it for yourself some time) and found all sorts of amazingly beautiful creations! We noticed there are different types of ice crystals and that each ice crystal is different from the next. Each plant the ice forms differently on and some plants even have multiple ice formations. Different areas have denser quantities of ice and each one makes a different pattern.

20140627 First frost – iced clover. Interesting how the edges and centre vein of the plant has stand up tall ice crystals, between the veins are lots of little crystals and the veins on the leaf itself are still ‘green’ without any crystals. The clover looks very pretty covered in ice and creates heaps of questions, heals the earth by growing, gives all sorts of other fabulous things to the environment, air, soil etc, feeds animals and humans… It is a truly remarkable creation!

feeds animals/humans, and

When you go exploring there are so many questions that come up – a few are below:

Why does moisture freeze in different shapes? How come different plants have different shaped ice crystals? How does ice form? Does Ice draw up moisture from the ground? Why does ice/cold make certain plants die and not others? What actually happens when things freeze? What is the purpose of freezing? How come God made every ice crystal different? And many, many more….

20140627 First frost – beautiful ice crystals, they are swirly and spiralling. How come it forms like this on this leaf and differently on the one beside it. Every question must have an answer…

Heading out in nature to discover things is pretty amazing and I reckon God made it specifically to encourage us to ask questions so we can develop desire to know and learn. I often find that it feels automatic like I suddenly have all these questions that I didnt think about before and now I want to know about. My curiosity gets sparked. In my humble experience everything in nature causes a flood of questions and wonderings within me that I want to know about. I was recently reading a couple of chapters in The Life Elysian, by Robert James Lees*, that speaks about children learning in the spirit world which I was reminded about with my experience this morning.

(For more images go to the gallery page in the menu bar or click here – click on one of the images to get full screen viewing).

20140627 First frost – beautiful ice crystals on the bark of a log with lichen. Notice how the exposed wood with no bark has much less frost crystal formation. I wonder why…

20140627 First frost – all the little crystals forming on the top of the tree guards

20140627 First frost – beautiful ice crystals, it looks like it has been dipped in sugar

20140627 First frost – beautiful ice crystals. amazing how these ones only grow around the edges of the leaves

* Chapters referred to:

XI. A Lesson in Creation

XII. Cushna At Home

Click here for link to a PDF of the Life Elysian or go to www.divinetruth.com

Living In Fear & the Freedom to Choose Differently

Posted on June 26, 2014 by Eloisa

Thanks Mary and Jesus!

Notes Along The Way

The sad truth is that the entire world’s population lives in fear in some or all aspects of their lives.

Some of us acknowledge some of our fears some of the time. But seeing our fear doesn’t mean that we deal with it healthily. In fact, most of us feel justified in our fears and demand, be it covertly or overtly, that our environment and the people in our lives make allowances for our fear driven limitations.

Then there are those of us who live in complete denial of large amounts of fear about any number of things at any given time. Denial is a perceived sanctuary and many people reinforce the barricades of the castle and pull up the drawbridge over which truth may have passed. Routines and addictions mask any sensation of fear, numbness becomes the norm, and even though the supposed ‘sanctuary’ can feel cold and damp…

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Fear Blocks Love

Posted on June 25, 2014 by Eloisa

I was reading some comments from Mary on her blog in relation to her post ‘Thinking of Dogs’ that I have found very helpful for my own personal self reflection*.

Comment from Amanda on ‘Thinking of Dog’s’ Post:

Mary How decptively simple this advice is. Mostly I rush through reading valuable information to get to the next thing that might help me instead of lingering over what I’ve already heard, feeling where it might apply to my own life (I resist that a lot) and miss out on the opportunity for personal change. That becomes very wearisome eventually and thank God for that.

Amanda.

Response to Amanda’s comment from Mary:

“I’ve found it useful to begin to consider my fears from the perspective of truth and this post is kind of an encouraging word for others to do the same.

When we are stuck in fear we justify its existence and never stop to challenge our fear-based beliefs with truth. We believe we are rational in our irrationality.

‘Thinking of Dogs’ is my way of saying ‘let me consider how I would feel about this situation or this relationship if I didn’t have fear’. I do it often. I’ve found that it’s helped me to get a grip and to strengthen my faith enough to begin to challenge my fears.

Its amazing to do this ‘what if fear wasn’t driving me here?’ exercise and to recognise what a contrast there is between what I’ve been doing and what I would actually do if I wasn’t justifying my fear.

Love
Mary”

* * * * * * * *

Conversation between Mary and Shannon about fear, how it affects us as kids & dogs: (in comments section on same post)

Response from Mary to comment:

“Its funny I was also raised with the message (and experience) that animals can sense your fear. As a child I took this to mean that if you show fear around animals they sense a weakness in you and will exploit it (it is extremely predictable that I interpreted the message about animals and fear in this way given that multi-generational injuries on both sides of my family uphold that the emotion of fear IS an actual weakness that will be exploited by other people unless you hide it). But this is not what really goes on when we are afraid around animals.

If you can remember what it was like when you were a kid and both your parents became afraid you know that as parents go into fear all love is withdrawn from their child at that time, their focus is on preventing fear and any positive, loving provisions they had going towards the child and its environment are suddenly gone. As the child in that situation, you usually feel very insecure and unsafe because of this withdrawal of love and the sudden loss of any sense of security the love was providing.

I believe it is the same for animals around us – when humans are afraid of an animal, the animal senses NOT the fear but the LACK OF LOVE and they begin to feel very uncertain about what is going to happen around them. In other words, they sense danger and often they respond in defence – not because they are aggressive but because they suddenly feel insecure in their environment and fearful for themselves. Does that make sense?”

Reply from Shannon:

WOW!! Yes! That very much makes sense. This totally “flips” how I was thinking on this subject…. I was completely focused on my own fear (like a victim), instead of, my own lack of love (with humility). Thank you so much Mary, this is a very very helpful insight!

Reply from Mary:

“Yes, I think two facts are often overlooked by people in fear

1. While we hold onto fear and justify it we are simply NOT ABLE to love in relation to what we fear. In other words, while we fear something we don’t love it.

2. That letting go of our fear is a choice that we have on a moment by moment basis.

So when fear is triggered and we don’t allow ourselves to feel it we are actually making a choice not to love in that moment.
Under those circumstances we shouldn’t be surprised that people and animals around us feel unloved and uneasy.

I know how easy it is to feel like a ‘victim’ of fear but we really do have a choice to let it go. I also know how much I’ve wanted to believe that I can love something or someone while still feeling afraid of them. It really doesn’t work and just isn’t possible.

The good news is that as soon as we do start to let fear go so many things change and we begin to feel more love for others and to receive more love quite easily.

So glad that the feedback helped.
Mary”

*Thanks Mary, Amanda and Shannon for these conversations!

‘New Discoveries’ in the Natural World

Posted on June 16, 2014 by Eloisa

New Discoveries for us.

God is one super loving being to create a world so full of diversity, wonder, variety, interesting stuff in such super abundance!

These are some creatures the kids and I have discovered about the place lately. We have yet to identify them. We are just enjoying finding them and watching them and seeing what they do, how they behave and wondering where they came from. They are so incredibly amazing.

For bigger images in a gallery style, go to the gallery page on the top menu bar and click on an image and it will come up so you can view it in detail.

We wish you all a life of wondrous adventures, exploration, discovery and experimentation.

In my humble opinion, God made this world a living, wondrous place to find out about God, Love, & ourselves. God’s discovery learning centre – the natural world around us – is truly exciting, splendid, awesomely magnificent and so full of wonders that if we truly engaged it with our whole soul I doubt we would ever stop asking questions and would passionately and continuously explore… For our entire existence! (It wouldn’t stop with this physical world we live in or our earth life I suspect.)

20140612 A new type of insect Iz Discovered on the Willow Tree. It seems to be a bigger type of Aphid that leaves red on you if you touch it. Some also have wings.

We think this is a type of Mealy Bug, not sure of it’s exact species. as yet unidentified properly.

A grape leaf caterpillar, I think its feet are amazing!

Spider & Insect Creation

Insect house It's house is totally made out of carefully cut/chewed off pieces of gum leaf, perfectly arranged to blend into the tree. When I went back to look for it the second time I got such a shock as it had moved house and all. I thought it was so cool and wondered what it would be like to live in such a beautifully crafted work of art and perfection.

Leaf Case Moth – Hyalarcta huebneri, Insect house It’s house is totally made out of carefully cut/chewed off pieces of gum leaf, perfectly arranged to blend into the tree. When I went back to look for it the second time I got such a shock as it had moved house and all. I thought it was so cool and wondered what it would be like to live in such a beautifully crafted work of art and perfection.

20140509 spider

Fungi growing out and around moist newspaper

DEAR GOD…

Personal experiments and experiences along God's Way