Sparkly snow

Yesterday was an absolutely spectacular day in nature!!! I am deep in the heart of Canadian prairie with rolling fields covered in snow. What is so amazing is that the snow is never just pure white; there are always many shades of blue that make the fields come alive. My heart lifts up inside my chest and I feel an urge to paint them and take endless photographs.

Yesterday there was moisture in the air and the sun was shining thru the clouds and it looked like tiny diamonds falling to earth! I walked thru it at one point and I didn't feel a thing. It was like what I think pixie dust from Tinkerbell would feel like!

The diamonds landed on top of the snow, which is hard packed and so it looked like millions of tiny gems sparkling on top. As the sun hits a prism and radiates a rainbow, so the gems sparkled in beautiful colours! I saw rubies, emeralds, and sapphires as well as sparkling diamonds. It was so stunning I had to drive thru the countryside to look at more rolling snow covered hills ashine with beauty!!!

By noon the clouds had covered the sun and it began to snow. Tiny flakes fell to earth and defied gravity by swirling around, never seeming to touch earth. It was like being inside a snow globe after it's been flipped over and set right again.

Today there is a fresh layer of newly fallen snow which glistens in its own way. The sun is out again and to go outside one needs sunglasses. While yesterday was simply magical, today is a day of everyday beauty that is being missed by so many.

I like the words that played on the radio as I was driving on the snow covered dirt roads yesterday: "just another ordinary miracle today" (Sarah McLachlan). Yesterday was simply extraordinary. Yet, today there is nothing ordinary about it unless you choose not to look at the beauty and the miracle that is life.

YUM

I don't normally buy chocolate milk, especially since I've only been able to drink milk for the last 3 years without doubling over in pain and having an allergic reaction (yes, I did say allergy not milk intolerance). However, I was healed of this milk allergy and so, the other day in the supermarket, I bought myself some chocolate milk, the pre-made stuff mixed at the dairy and so extra smooth the way it can be done when you're not adding your own chocolate powder.

This morning I poured myself a glass and as it slid down my throat, I sighed in satisfaction and the words: "Man does that ever taste good" flashed across my dark waking-up-mind in a straight line like on a computer screen. I sat down to begin my morning pages and wrote out that thought. Here is what came out of the yum and enjoyment of drinking pure chocolate milk this morning.

I absolutely love chocolate milk from Dairyland. Not only is it because I grew up down the street from the Dairyland plant (which did not have any cows), but it makes me think of happy memories in my childhood.

Back in the day when there were still milk men and they drove around neighbourhoods delivering milk in their boxy yellow trucks, my grandpa had a special wooden box nailed to the back porch, and painted brown like the railing, in which the milk would magically appear. In my 6 yrs of living there, I never once saw the milkman put the milk in the box. Sometimes I saw his boxy pastel yellow truck with the Dairyland label on the side parked at the curb at the front of our house, but I don't remember ever seeing him. Odd, eh.

I remember the excitement about opening the screened back door and lifting up the brown wooden lid to see if there was milk inside. We were never allowed to put anything (like toys) in the box. It was just for milk. However, the last time my Grandpa gave us Hallowe'en candy, it was hidden in that box.

I remember wondering how milk got that elevated status. It was a bit of a magical box because the milk would always just appear in there. I never saw the milk man and neither did I hear him come up the stairs or close the lid. And it could make a sound. I slammed it once or twice to test its quietness.

So when we moved, I was more than a little excited to see the Dairyland building at the bottom of our street. Suddenly the milk was less magical. It did not just appear in the box, or get delivered from the milkman's boxy truck. It had a building. Inside the building was a lot of milk. I imagined large silver vats of white creamy milk. I saw the delivery trucks and the loading bays and the plethora of yellow plastic crates (that would one day line my summer camp cabin and become shelves on which us workers stored our clothes and personal belongings).

When the plant was built, this area was the country. Now tho', it was a little hard to understand why a milk factory was in the city. Yet, there were still elements of what that country looked like years before. Just past Dairyland, the traintracks emerged from forest and ran toward the harbour. Once over the tracks, there was a dark, stagnant river (that I was always afraid of falling into) that could be crossed by a rickety old wooden bridge, now closed to cars, making the long, deserted road a perfect place to learn how to bikeride. Trees rose out of the bog and a myriad of walking trails mazed thru the woods surrounding the lake on which athletes would row toward the Olympics. But, despite this pastoral setting, there were still no cows.

Driving into "the real country" I saw where the black and white cows lived on their large pastures of green grass. I even saw them playing leap frog, altho they always got stuck half way into the leap. It was explained to me that they were milked at the farm and that the milk was driven to Dairyland, which didn't make much sense to my child's mind, but which I accepted. The leap frog game was never explained to me, altho I did figure it out years later.

After all those memories flooded back, I poured myself another glass of chocolate milk.

You are pure potential

I have been reading this book that is positively influencing my life and today these words jumped off the page and I had to post them up here for all of you to read:

"Noah Webster's 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language defines potential in part as'existing in possibility, not in act.' It then defines potentiality in part as 'not positively.'

In other words, where there is potential, all the parts necessary for success are there, but they are not yet put into action. They still need something to propel them, something to empower and motivate them. They are often in embryonic form - they need to be developed.

Potential cannot manifest without form. There must be something for it to be poured into, something that will cause it to take shape and become useful. ... What stands in the space between potential and manifestation? I believe it is three things: time, determination and hard work!

...

All of us have potential and many of us want a manifestation of it, but too often we are not willing to wait, be determined and work hard at developing that potential. We have a lot of 'wish bone,' but not much 'back bone.

The development and manifestation of potential requires firm faith, not wishful thinking."

I encourage us all to reach for the sky and not be afraid of failure. "If you reach for the sky, if you fail you shall still be among the stars."

From the book by Joyce Meyer: How to Succeed at Being Yourself: Finding the Confidence to Fulfill Your Destiny.

Simplicity

Thank you to those of you still checking out my blog. I know I haven't been posting regularly and with all my recent major life changes I'm a little at a loss for words ~ if you can believe that :-) I also have not yet bought my own computer so can't yet upload any photos... but I have not forgotten!!! and will upload travel photos as soon as I have my own connection to "y'all!"

I have been thinking a lot recently about abundance and lack. With all the traveling I have done, I have seen & experienced both. It's a difficult thing to reconcile the two without feeling guilty for what I already have and then for what I want but don't yet have. There's also a desire to let go of the things that my culture's marketing media says that I am "entitled to" or "should have."

With my traveling experiences I have learned to live simply. Sure there are things that I still want, but I have learned the truth of this wise quote (author unknown): "joy is not in things, it is in us."

What are your thoughts on this subject?