An Interview with Children’s Author & Illustrator Andrea Torrey Balsara on “A Better World of Books”

On November 9, 2019November 20, 2019 By Alethea KehasIn A Better World of Books5 Comments

Andrea Torrey Balsara is an author and illustrator who believes in the goodness in people, especially children. Her stories and art reflect her belief that we are all one, and that no matter where we’ve come from, we’re all linked together.

Andrea, thank you so much for being a guest on “A Better World of Books!” I think we met some time ago through that amorphous world of social media. Although we’ve never actually “met” each other in-person, I believe we share a love for writing and helping children of all ages discover and embrace their true selves. Can you share a bit of your story of how you began to write and illustrate books for kids and teens?

When I was around 6 years-old, I remember holding a beautifully illustrated picture book and a yearning welled up within me. I wanted to make pictures like those so badly. I forgot about that dream the older I got. Later, when other things fell away, that old dream came back. I started out knowing nothing, and burned through many years learning the hard way what not to do. I had never thought about becoming a writer until my sister, Michele Torrey who is herself an author, encouraged me to learn writing. To my surprise, I love writing as much as illustrating. I love sculpting words and images from nothing.

You write on your website that all the characters in your stories go through their individual journeys to discover that “Life is good.” Can you give us an example or two of how your characters arrive at such an optimistic outlook?

For me, hope is essential for a story that inspires. My young adult book, The Great & the Small, deals with some dark themes but overall there is a feeling of the triumph of the human spirit. Hope isn’t a weak emotion, or a naïve turning away from the truth. It takes courage to see past the current state of things to what could be. The main characters in The Great & the Small, are deeply flawed and, as is human nature, run from truth and from pain until they are forced to stop and face their own frailty and fear. Hope springs from that courage. We all have deep sources of hope and courage within us, if we choose action instead of apathy.

I am wondering if your own characters and their journeys are at least in part inspired by your personal experiences. If so, can you tell us how you found and embraced the sunny side of life?

I struggled with depression and undiagnosed PTSD all through my school years, and it was hope that kept me going. Sometimes there was only a sliver of hope, but even that sliver of light can cut through the darkness. Somehow, step by step, I made it to a place of wellness. Now, I don’t see suffering as a curse, but rather as a teacher. Suffering teaches us strength, courage, and resilience. Then, once we move past suffering, we embrace joy. One of the presentations I do is entitled, “The Hero’s Journey.” We are all everyday heroes when we keep moving forward, learning, and growing.

Your book, The Nightingale’s Song was inspired by a dream you had. Can you tell us about the dream and how it bloomed into this award-winning book?

Around 25 years ago I became aware of the concept of Unity in Diversity, the belief that diversity is a strength, instead of something to be feared. I had grown up in predominantly white communities, but hadn’t realized I identified myself as “white.” One night, I dreamed I was walking down a long road lined with trees. I couldn’t see myself, but as I walked down the road, I wondered, “Who am I?” I couldn’t remember. Was I white? Brown? Black? Who was I? In my dream, I guessed that my skin was a deep brown. When I woke up, I realized that this dream was the first time since I was little that I was just ME. My outside identity, instead of defining me, had been fluid. It was a powerful shift in understanding. I wrote The Nightingale’s Song based on that dream. It starts out, “Last night, I had a dream that my skin was brown like mahogany…” By the end of the book, the child realizes that no matter what colour their skin is, they are still who they are. Humanity is one, and while we look different from each other, have different languages and different ways of doing things, there is a unity, a common humanity, underlying all of those differences. That is Unity in Diversity.

You’ve written and illustrated, I believe, eight books for children and young adults, two of which, The Great and the Small and The Nightingale’s Song have received awards. Which book, or books, that you have created are closest to your heart and why?

Each book feels like a little spiritual child to me, and you know I can’t choose between my children! Haha! Seriously, each book always requires so much from me and is so much a part of me, that I can’t choose. I will say that The Great & the Small was a book that I HAD to write if I wanted to get any sleep. It nagged at me until it was done. In some ways, The Nightingale’s Song is the same, although they are VERY different books. All of my books are my “heart-songs,” expressions of my heart, and so while they are different, they are the same. There’s that Unity in Diversity, again!!

Andrea, you don’t simply perform readings of your books for your audiences, you also offer empowerment workshops. Can you tell us a bit about how your book The Great and the Small is used as a guide for youth to “unlock their true potential?”

I wrote The Great & the Small as a response to an experience that I had when I was 10. My family lived in Germany, and we went to the museum at Dachau, which had been a concentration camp responsible for killing thousands and thousands of innocent people. The experience was deeply disturbing, and from that moment on, I was consumed with the question of good and evil. Many people believe that some children are born as “bad seeds.” I completely, TOTALLY, reject that idea. It lets us off the hook for being accountable for our actions if we are “born bad.” I believe we are born with the capacity for both good, and evil. So, I wondered, why did the baby who was Hitler, grow into the monster he became. Conversely, why did Nelson Mandela grow into a saintly, transcendent person, in spite of the injustices he endured? What choices did they each make along their paths? The Great & the Small is about how we each can fall into darkness, or can rise above. Both choices are within our grasp. Many young people feel helpless, and often feel that they have no control over their own lives. I want to change that narrative. I want to help empower them to see that whether they are famous, whether they are “successful” in the eyes of the world, that the CHOICES they make are what defines them. And that when they fail (and we all fail sometimes) they can CHOOSE to keep going, to keep learning, to keep rising above. We are not locked into a destiny as if we are railroad cars on a track. We, out of all living creatures, can choose for ourselves our path and can rise above even the gravest circumstances. But first, we must know that we have a choice.

If there was one “super power” that you could endow upon each child at birth, what would it be?

The power to think for themselves.

Can you tell us about any projects that you are working on right now?

I am working on finishing illustrations for my picture book series, Greenbeard the Pirate Pig, a book about a guinea pig with a dream. Haha! I love working on it, as he is such a funny character to me. I am also working with a website developer to sell my artwork and designs on an art website. It will be up and running in a week or so, and the website will be, www.balsaraboutique.com. Come and visit!

And, last but not least, what is the best way for your readers to connect with you?

They are welcome to connect with me on:

My Website: www.torreybalsara.com

Green Beard The Pirate Pig

Are you an author with a vision for a better world? Do you have a published book of poetry, fiction, or nonfiction that uplifts and empowers readers to create a more positive inner and outer environment? If so, I’d love to hear more about it. On a “Better World of Books,” I interview authors and review books of all genres that offer a vision for a better world. If you think your work is a part of this vision, please contact Alethea.

The Upside of Hate #towertarot #thetower #tarot #thechariot #thestar #thedevil #themagician #thelovers

On November 6, 2019August 31, 2021 By Alethea KehasIn A New Earth, Reflections, Warriors of LightLeave a comment

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I got discouraged for a moment. Perhaps it was a long moment, but I didn’t count the seconds. Fear resided inside the words I read, and festering with that fear was hatred. It has become easy to hate these days in a world that appears to be ripping into shreds of immorality. That’s what we’re shown on the surface where we linger with sensationalism. The media prefers to grasp the hand of the monster that lives both inside and outside of us, holding it like it never wants to let go.

I had been scrolling through Facebook, that skewed version of reality where the darker side of humanity is allowed to run amuck with gleeful abandon. A friend was bemoaning a poll forecasting possible results for the next presidential election here in the U.S. The screen was awash with red. I could have pulled myself into her fear, but I decided I’d be better served to let go the hand that would hold me into the netherworld.

I believe there’s an upside to hatred, if we choose to find it. At the core of hatred is an insidious fear that thrives in its deoxygenated environment. It’s a terrible existence. This choosing to “live” in hatred. The fear of the “other,” and the “unknown,” deprives us of life and the soul withers inside its troubled shell. But hatred tells a story, as does the fear behind it. It tells the story of a history that is ours, but one we don’t have to hold onto.

Hatred is a ruse to lure us backwards into the spiral of the abyss. We can stay stuck there, or we can dig through the ruins and discover why the tower keeps collapsing upon itself. It is a vulnerable journey, which is why we often choose to linger with the discomfort of fear. It yells a power that has no basis in truth, yet we listen to its words thinking that if we heed them we will survive, forgetting about the countless others that will perish. Forgetting that we too will starve for want of light.

But if we listen, really listen past fear to its origins, we get ever-closer to the true self. The self that wants to be healed. The self that wants to be held. The self that desires love. And, our tower begins to crumble its mighty fortress. The walls that would contain collapse. Smoke billows and the fires rage, until the flames abate. It may take a long time to put them out, but herein lies the beauty of creation. The alchemy of self exists inside ourselves. Collectively and individually.

Beneath the angry red screen that tried predict more hatred across the land, I felt the pulse of the vein of life. Life searching to be reborn. It’s been a long time. A really, really long time, since we’ve known how to live in harmony with the life around us, and that inner life that is the self as a part of the whole. Perhaps we need to give ourselves a little more compassion. When we look at the vast and complex journey of our existence in human form, we see the struggle to survive, but also to thrive. And in the searching and breaking down, we can relearn how to balance upon the thread of light that is joy.

Humanity has reached the stage of existence marked by The Tower card in Tarot. Its number is 16 in the major arcana cycle. Balanced on one side by The Devil, and the other, by The Star, The Tower card is the epitome of upheaval. To get to the light of the star, that inner, true light of the self, the devil within and without must be reckoned with. As much as we may fear the devil outside of us, we must come to realize that he only exits because of what is inside. The chains, as the card reveals, are self-imposed. We can choose to live chained to fear, or we can break the fortress and let the light shine through.

Becoming, in essence, naked to the true self, is a vulnerable act. It takes trust, courage, and a surrender in the knowing that love is the truth of the self and of Life. If we reduce The Tower card down to its integral parts, we arrive at card 1, The Magician and card 6, The Lovers, in the major arcana. The Magician possesses the alchemical magic of the self, The Lovers, of the union of the opposing energies; the yin and the yang that exist in the individual self, as well as the self searching for union with another. If we join the 1 to the 6, to complete the reduction, we arrive at the number 7. Card 7 in the Tarot tradition is The Chariot. Here we see the individual reigning over polarity. The yin energies sit one side of the chariot, the yang on the other. The sun and the moon are in balance both within and without. Over the breastplate of the figure that is self, is a square through which the light of the heart is shining through. The light of the star shines on the crown of the head.

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The Chariot card is card 7, though. It precedes The Devil, The Tower, and The Star in the cycle of life represented in the Tarot. The choice to reign with the force of the ego or with the peace of inner light is still subject to personal will. The number 7 is that magical number that speaks of transformation. Everything is possible, and so there is the promise of union through alchemy.

This breaking down and collapsing that is so prevalent in our time often feels fueled by hatred and the ego’s need for self-preservation at all costs, but when we look closer, as symbolized in the card, we can also find the light of origin. Lightning strikes the crown of power from the top of the tower and opens the pathway to the divine self. Enlightenment can occur through the upheaval, if the self allows it.

Through the rubble of fear and hatred, there exists around us and within us, so many seeds of this light. Stories of courage and truth abound as voices gain strength with the conviction that love is the essence of life. Young women are stepping into the light of the divine feminine energy in a manner the world has not witnessed for a long time. They bring to us the promise of balance as they break fearlessly the barriers of fear. There is a feeling of warrior energy, a warrior energy fed by the light of truth. Their voices are strong and clear, and the are joined by many others, both male and female, in a dance of union. It’s our choice, collectively, how to collapse the tower and find the balance of life, but it all begins with the self. The self that stays mired in fear, or breaks the fortress to find the light.

The Box That Is Not You #freesoul #flyingdreams #yoga

On November 5, 2019August 31, 2021 By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Memoir, Reflections2 Comments

Photo Credit:<a href="http://Image by Mediamodifier from Pixabay” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”> Pixabay

You are not the box, you are what’s inside of it.

At 46 years old I am feeling more limitless than I ever have before. Even as a young child. You see, I never had the freedom of a child unbounded by constraints. And, that is okay. One cannot change the past, and nor does one have to. The freedom to allow the self to break through the barriers of restrictions is not conditional to time, place, or age. It is, simply, you allowing yourself to be you. To really get to know the you that resides inside the outer representation of the self, and come home to that realization with joy.

“Whatever you’re doing. Keep doing it. You look good. I can tell you feel good,” were the words of a friend of mine as she left my morning yoga class. She also heard my words filled with fear one month ago.

“Do you fly a lot in your dreams?” another friend asked me a few days ago after she heard about my latest flying dream. There was a wistful note to her words, and I could see the look of longing in her eyes when I told her, “Yes.”

Many adults can remember flying in their dreams at night when they were children. I don’t. My flying dreams came later, in a steady regularity, after my own children were born. Their births, you could say, birthed my own inner child. But, it’s a been a slow birthing. It has not been smooth and effortless, and it certainly has not happened over night.

I chose the picture I did to introduce this post because to me it is symbolic of the myriad boxes we can choose to carry around in our lives and try to fit ourselves into. There’s not just one, but for most of us there are many. The box of the perfect child. The perfect spouse. The perfect mother, father, sister, brother, grandparent, student, athlete, coworker, employer…you get the picture. So many boxes to contain the essence that is you. Shaped not by your own will, but the will you have given away to another.

Yet, we are not meant to live inside the confines of a box, nor are we meant to jump from one box into another depending upon circumstances. Although we reside in a physical body for a limited amount of time, we are limitless beings here to experience the essence of our truths. We are here to grow and evolve into being. To love and to move, ever more freely into the breath of joy.

The boxed self might conform to a specific ideal, but it is never your truth. When we close in the sides and seal the edges, the light inside is trapped. In an effort to constantly please and conform to a false ideal that is not our own, you not only suffer, the world suffers. Herein lies the irony of the “perfect” self. Although we may believe otherwise, no one is served by the confines of limitations. The free soul living in truth shines with a brightness that ripples through time, space, and age. It is never too late to become it. It is never too late to step out of the box and fly.

Go ahead, give it a try. Imagine your self as a limitless being. Feel it, see it, know it. Joy is yours to find. Reach inside and grab ahold of it. Then, let it go. Feel the expansion that is you. Wholly and completely. Let self limiting believes slip away with the breath. Let old restrictions free their tangle until only you remain. Breathe into that light that is you and know it as truth. Take a good look at you and remember who you are, so when you forget, you can bring it back.

Sitting, for a moment, with Possibility #yoga #wonder

On November 4, 2019August 31, 2021 By Alethea KehasIn Reflections, yoga12 Comments

Photo Credit: <a href="http://Image by Johannes Plenio from Pixabay” target=”_blank” rel=”noopener”>Pixabay

It’s Monday morning. The teenagers are off to school, the husband to work. There is a dog on each couch. One beside me, the other off at a forty-five degree angle with her back turned to the edge. In the other room the pellet stove hums through fire and my home is filling with its warmth. Outside, the sun is rising to melt the frost that laces the ground in white, and dry the laundry that I have just hung on the line. And, somewhere in the midst of trees and bushes the cats roam the early day.

Even though the hours spread before me without a tangible promise, inside the body the heart beats with possibility. It promises nothing but what I make of it. The routine of daily life is laid before me. I know I will walk and feed the dogs at midday. Pick the kids up a few hours later. But the in-between is mine to fill. There are no yoga classes to teach, except the one I will offer to myself after I finish this post.

Already I can see the blue of the mat spread across the wood. My muscles stir cells reaching through memory to begin again anew. An hour to dance with the vessel of form and stretch into the wonder that is life.

I think of the days when I would sit and wait for wonder to find me. An offer of something new through an email or phone call leading me down a path of exploration. Today there are no expectations. No disappointments of no magic beyond the mundane in the tangible. There is only me sitting in the stillness of possibility and the knowing that I have minutes to weave into the creation of hours. Words to follow onto the page and their journeys to explore.

Today brings the promise of the joy of creation. To traveling inside the labyrinth of the self and find the treasure of the seed waiting to sprout. The bud reaching for the touch of light to bloom. Words press me into the shadowlands in search of wonder. They have stories waiting there. Life in stasis, softly breathing as it waits to unfold. And so, I think, perhaps I will write their stories, not knowing what they will tell me yet, or where they will lead me to wander. It doesn’t matter where we will end up. The magic is in the endless opening. The light beckoning in the soft fire of the heart.

I dream again of flying, this time to free joy #Dreams #freesoul #flyingdreams #joy #healingdreams #dreamhealing

On November 4, 2019August 31, 2021 By Alethea KehasIn Dreams, Energy Healing, Reflections4 Comments

On the night of Halloween, I went to sleep, once again, to fly. The dream began in a fairytale landscape inside a forest of haunting beauty. Light glowed golden upon trees dancing with vines as my footsteps led me further into the heart of the wood. There was no fear, only wonder inside of me until I reached my destination. An old victorian house turned into an inn stood in the middle of the fairy woods. I went inside and felt the golden light of the forest disappear with the closing of the door.

“Come with me,” the inner keeper urged, “I will show you to your room.” I followed with reluctance. Each room, when I peered inside, looked old and drab. The bedroom I was offered was not only filled with old things, but it was in need of a good washing. I turned down the bedclothes to show the inn keeper how dirty they were. “I cannot stay here,” I said.

So we moved on. Each room we entered was little better than the one before. “Could you stay here?” he asked of a room that was neat and tidy, but still filled with old things. “I suppose it would do,” I offered in concession.

When he left, the room still felt occupied. I noticed a man and a woman in the corner. Ghosts of the past? I could not say for sure. Except I knew they had to go. And the room, well, I was not going to allow it to contain me. Left alone, I began to fly, clearing the darkness into light with great gulps of air expelled from my lungs and out of my mouth.

And as I flew and expelled the darkness, the house began to expand and grow into an endless maze of rooms. Skipping the lower levels, I zipped up the stairway until I reached the top floor. Here I found a scene of exquisite beauty painted in a mural upon a ceiling the color of a cloudless sky. I flew with joy, following the arch of the sky-like ceiling through an ever-expanding house.

On and on I flew, until I realized they were coming for me. Fear began to creep its darkness over joy. I could hear them approaching. Their angry words filtered up the stairway ever closer in their need to capture the woman who flew when she should be walking. I had no choice but to go down. And so down I went, floor by floor. But as I flew each level through endless rooms, I exorcised the darkness with my breath.

As my feet touched the ground floor, I realized gravity once again. Although I had evaded capture, surrounding me were the familiar markings of the mundane. All was brown and drab. Ordinary and old. My eyes searched until they found my feet upon the floor and I smiled. “Ha,” I laughed in realization. “Even here I can fly.” And so I lifted my feet and flew, once again, into joy.

Hour later, I walked into my friend Deb’s house and sat at her kitchen island with our friends, Sophia, Adrianne, and Jane. Dressed as a dragon in a purple and green onesie borrowed from my daughter, with silver fairies dangling from my ears, I was filled with a childlike giddiness. “What’s going on, Alethea?” Deb kept turning to look at me with a smile. “Why are you so happy?”

“I don’t know,” I returned her smile. “Maybe it has to do with my dream last night.”

Sometimes we heal in the day time, sometimes we heal at night. Thousands of years ago, we built temples for dreaming and inside we slept to heal our bodies, give clarity to our minds, and find a deeper understanding of the truths of our beings.

For as long as time has been recorded, poets, sages, and inventors have dreamt masterpieces while their bodies slumbered. I wonder how many people really believe that dreams are simply random, nonsensical ramblings of a mind left to wander with abandon?

Even as a young child I was fascinated with dreams. For awhile, I kept a dream journal. Sometimes I would dream an event before it would happen, and wonder how that could possibly be. There is so much more going on while we sleep than many of us realize. Although I cannot say with certainty what every dream means, nor can I recall them all in vivid detail. But, I am certain we dream with purpose. In the landscape of night we live out our fears and our joys, and sometimes we transform through them.

A month ago I felt as though I might be consumed by a fear I could not wholly define. It felt old and deeply rooted, its origins extending beyond this lifetime. The dreams of this past week have felt healing and transformative. There now exists inside of me a core of strength in the place that held that irrational fear. A sense that despite the demons that might howl around me, I will be okay.

The Guardian #Web #Writephoto

On October 31, 2019 By Alethea KehasIn Uncategorized22 Comments

He stood there in utter stillness, guarding the doorway. Sweat pooled around his feet, which stood in two metal buckets of armor offering no relief. It was going to be a long night. After the first hour had passed without a single movement of his joints, he decided they couldn’t pay him enough. This was torture like nothing he had ever endured before. Not to mention the ridiculous lace bodice they had made him wear. “It’ll sop up some of the sweat for you. You know, absorb the moisture to allow your skin to breathe a little.”

Who were they kidding? There was no breathing in this airless suit. No wonder they had laughed as they walked away and closed the door. Had he heard them turn the lock? He couldn’t recall now, but hours had passed in agony as he listened to the ticking of the clock in the other room. It was the only thing he could do. Focus on that dratted clock. “Tick, tick, tick, tick…” every muscle inside of him wanted to burst free and fling it across the room. But, he dare not. “If you move, we will kill her,” they had warned.

So he counted the seconds, growing ever more insane with fury as they turned into minutes and then hours. Through the immobile helmet he could make out lines of muted light. Was it coming through the window, he wondered, or from somewhere outside? Not even the wind howled a response. Just the clock’s steady beat echoed a time that seemed endless.

And while he stood, she wove her web. Careful not to pass in front of the horizontal slats that hid his eyes. Beginning at the crown of his head, she spun her silken threads around his neck. Seven circles took two hours, but she never tired. Then, down his back she traveled until she got to his hands, rigid in their metal gloves pressed against his thighs. Here she wove more circles. Small ones around the wrists, seven times on each, and then wider she traveled the circumference of his waist. Seven more orbits brought her to the early dawn hours after midnight. She finished in the seconds before the dove called the morning to light and broke the spell of night.

Now he could never leave her.

For Sue Vincent’s writephoto prompt challenge “Web”

writephoto

A Dream of the Free Soul #Dreams #freesoul #flyingdreams #dreamflying #joy

On October 30, 2019August 31, 2021 By Alethea KehasIn Dreams3 Comments

universe-2742113_1280 — <a href="http://Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay“>Photo Credit: Pixabay

I had one of those dreams I love, again. The ones where I lift, without effort, my feet off the ground and fly unburdened through the landscape. This one, though, was different. Normally, I wake from my flying dreams feeling frustrated. Lingering inside of me is an almost desperate desire to turn the dream into reality. To somehow master the actual art of levitation and fly around during my waking hours. It sounds somewhat absurd when one considers it in a literal sense. Why fly when you have feet?

Yet we all have inside of us the memory of wings. Our soul, condensed into a physical form to live out a life, knows the freedom of boundless existence and pure, unfettered joy. This is why we dream of flight. To return to this truth. Before this morning, I would wake from my flying dreams feeling weighted by reality as soon as my feet moved off the bed and found landing on the ground. Back to a reality that could not compete with the marvelous freedom of my dream, I would consider it a teasing escape from the here-and- now of existence.

This morning, my dream woke me before it felt complete. I was still flying when it nudged me to wake up at the precise moment I needed to. I don’t use an alarm, and it was 6:10am, time to start the morning and call the teenagers out of their beds. Yet, although I was rather in love with the scene I was living in my dream, the feeling it had instilled in me lingered in a different way than previous nights’. Clarity developed as the vivid display of the dream landscape slowly faded. The gift was inside of me. Not illusive and intangible. It was, simply, me.

I have been grabbling with some of the larger issues of life these days. I will not go into them, as they are private matters, but suffice it to say, they have weighed upon me. Most nights I go to bed and dream of the struggle. Last night, though, I found the release.

It was one of those rare dreams (at least for me) where the seemingly tangled complexity vanishes into the pure truth of life. As I flew from scene to scene, facing the inner demons that I had externalized into my life, I exorcised them. Sometimes literally. I filled my lungs and blew light into the darkness of a haunted basement filled with festering “life.” I flew back to childhood and laughed energy into absurdity. The worry of words not being read turned trivial inside a bookstore that could not contain my flying body. I was vast and limitless. Without weight, I flew into the open air and breathed light to the children surrounding me. I knew they saw the wonder of it, and that was enough. I didn’t linger to prove it, instead, I realized, it was their choice to join me. They had their lives. I had mine. To live. Individually, first and foremost.

You see, as I flew, it became clear that I was flying for no reason other than for myself. What may seem as a selfish revelation, became a selfless truth. The tangle of need to please another, or gain another’s approval disappeared with each scene I flew through. Let them live their lives, so you can live yours.

About a year or so ago, while holding my hands above another person in the transmission of energy that is Reiki, I saw inside the lens of the inner eye, the birth of her soul. It was so profoundly beautiful, I kept it to myself. Until now. Imagine a star coming into being in the cosmos. A billion particles of light exploding into being. Together, their size dwarfs the planet we call home.

Her soul was all souls. No different than mine, or yours. The magnitude of this weightless revelation coalesced into the truth of my dream upon waking. The vehicle of this human body in which I reside no longer felt like a burden — limited and weighed down — as I realized that the light of my being was a truth that superseded any false notions of reality I chose to cling to. I could hold onto the burden of worry and doubt; of fear and disbelief, and that long held need to live through another’s approval, or I could let it all go and be me. Wholly and completely. Just me. Living this life uniquely designed for my growing and learning back to pure limitless existence.

Monday Magic #SoapBubble #magic

On October 28, 2019August 31, 2021 By Alethea KehasIn ReflectionsLeave a comment

Have you ever noticed how life has a way of bringing us joy even when we are immersed in our musings of the trials and tribulations we sometimes believe it is filled with? This morning, I found myself caught inside the web of difficulties after a somewhat trying weekend filled with highs and lows. I was lingering on the lows inside the quiet house of a Monday morning. I had just made some hot porridge and filled it with diced fall pears from the tree in our yard. The almond milk had been poured and a squeeze of amber honey added. Before I sat down to eat, I took the empty pot in which I had cooked my cereal, and carried it over to the sink. That’s when I saw the huge soap bubble sitting on the murky surface and everything inside of me shifted.

The magic of life is always there, patiently waiting for us to see it. I’m so glad I took that moment to breathe it in with my being, through the lens of the soap bubble reflecting the most beautiful movie I’ve ever seen. At the far edge of the bubble I saw two tiny rectangles reflecting the window above. The image is a bit blurry, as I had to zoom the camera lens quite a lot to capture the movement of the light and colors. Still, I hope you enjoy it too, and it touches your day with magic.