The path does not need to be 100% clear before you take the first step onto it. Life has unfolded to this point for you for to arrive at this trailhead. If you can see your way in, can imagine good things there, and know how to step forward - go! Consider this post a sign.

The word illuminate can be defined as "to make visible...by shining light upon it". I recently listened to cell bioloigst Dr. Bruce Lipton give a talk about how we, all of us, are pure energy illuminated. He is the author of the book The Biology of Belief. Here is a link to a YouTube video The Light We Are in which he explains how we illuminate/experience our beliefs.

This is my prayer for today. Help me let go of society's expectations. Help me let go of society's judgments. Help me let go of proving my worth. Help me let go of seeking validation. Help me let go of anything that isn't for my best. Help me let go of my fear of abandonment. Help me let go of my need to own them. Help me let go of my need to control them. Help me let go of anyone that isn't for my best.

I am aware of myself as an energetic being. I am aware of others as energetic beings. I am aware of the energy I radiate. I am aware of the energy others radiate. I am aware of the energy nature radiates. To deepen my awareness, I deepen my breath. I am aware of my breath as my very life. I am aware of others' breath and how we all breathe in and breathe out the one air. I am aware of my heart beat as my very life. I am aware of others' heart beats and how we all have hearts that rhythmically beat.

Things are not always what they seem, look closer. People are not always how they're acting, look closer. You are not always 100 percent right, look closer.

"Up your levels of self care and watch how much less you care about what isn't for you." I love this! I need this so much in my life that I am making it my lock screen.

At the start of this new year, I challenged myself to make a blog post every day of 2025. Six days in, I have already failed. So, now what? Give up? Quit? Or...take a rest and keep on going? Yes, I could have forced myself to make the post when I got home from a long day of work and social events, but I didn't. Instead, I chose to rest, simply because I was tired. And that is okay! I am making up for missed day with this blog post right now. Then, I will write another one for today. And just like that, I will be back on the track of reaching my goal. Adjusted in wording only, I will have 365 blog posts by the end of 2025 :) that makes me smile!

Oxford defines mindfulness as "a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations." For me, mindfulness is a state in which I am peaceful, content and intent on staying present. It is a state of acceptance of what is, who I am, how I am, and where I am. It is a knowing that everything in my world is exactly as it needs to be for my highest unfoldment, fullest analysis, and deepest enjoyment. It seems I am unable to maintain this state of mind for long periods of time. Eventually, I return to feeling scattered, stressed, or even frazzled. But I always have a choice to let go of those unbalanced and uncentered states by becoming mindful. In my experience, I first have to let go of everything around me and within me. I do this as I take 3 cleansing breaths and then blink. I have been doing this since elementary school - no one taught it to me - it just seemed to come naturally! So after using this method for 40+ years I can be still, let go, and emerge present relatively quickly which means I can do it in while walking around my classroom monitoring student work or while driving around my twin 13-year-old daughters or even in a stadium full of people in the midst of an exciting basketball game. I don't have to be alone, at home, or in a meditative position. I can achieve a mindful state almost anywhere and at any time with the 3 cleaning breaths and the blink. I would love to know how you define mindfulness and how you uphold, maintain, and sustain this state of mind. And, as always, thank you for reading my daily thoughts on spiritual ideas.

My dad was a farmer. He loved growing fields corn most of all, but he also grew a variety of vegetables in his garden. He loved the smell of freshly plowed soil in the spring. He loved to measure the growth of his corn as in "knee high by the 4th of July" and, even though harvest meant long days, short nights, and hard work, he gratefully enjoyed every moment of the fall. Winter was his time of reflection and of rest. Even though I am not a farmer by trade and I have not yet successfully grown a productive vegetable garden, I go through these same processes and seasons in my own life. I love the onset of fresh new ideas. Recently, I was introduced to the concept of grounding. Loosely related to the commercial grounding systems where they sell you sheets for your bed or bracelets for your ankles that supposedly ground you to the Earth (maybe they work, maybe they don't), I'm talking about the kind of grounding that drives me to be outside and connect with nature and the Earth through my body. To begin my personal exploration into this idea, I began going outside barefoot (of course, the idea emerged in the middle of winter) and feeling the cold ground connect with the souls of my feet. So far, I have only done this in the middle of the night (I don't want to worry the neighbors) and for a few minutes at a time (It's cold outside!) Although, I will say that my body has become more and more desensitized to the cold. It is almost as though the energy rising up from the Earth through the soles of my feet and out through the palms of my hands warms me. (If that sounds insane, I encourage you to give it a dedicated try for yourself!) At 1:30 on this a.m. it was windy and I felt the wind wrap around my body and hug me. Exploring new ideas can be like this is fun! I enter with a curious mind. I am open to the experience. I am surprised along the way. What is a new idea you'd like to begin exploring? I love to monitor my spiritual growth. There is nothing better to me than being presented with a tough situation, similar to a past tough situation, and handling it way differently. It is in these moments that I can clearly see how far I have come. It is in this recognition that I give thanks for all of the experiences I have had to help me grow in the ability of regulating my emotions. How are you growing? I love to harvest my spiritual rewards. I am happier, healthier, wealthier, and more free than I have ever been! I'm enjoying that! To everything, there is a season. Winter surely arrives. Dark nights of the soul are unavoidable. May I use this time to reflect and to rest. May I used this time to imagine what seeds I will be planting when winter ends and spring emerges, which it must. Winter does not last forever. Wha'll you plant?

Everyone breathes. Stop and think about that for a moment. Every human being - all 8,025,000,000 people - are inhaling and exhaling the same one air. Included the animals - all 20,000,000,000,000,000,000 (20 quintillion) of them - and see that we are all constantly taking in and giving back air from our atmosphere. What if you could zoom out, hover above the planet, and see this in action? Imagine...here's a video to help you: While we all breathe, how we take in and give out air differs among individuals. My habit, for example, is to take short breaths from my lungs - a style of breathing common for people whose habit is to hurry and worry their way through life. Once I became aware of my short and shallow breathing, I consciously made an effort to take deep breaths from my abdomen - a style of breathing common for people whose habit is to be patient and confident. As I inhale I imagine the breath traveling around the circumference of my waist before moving it through my diaphragm and into my lungs. I exhale, imagining this flow in reverse, deflating my lungs, moving down through my diaphragm and around my abdomen. To keey mind busy as I consciously breathe this way, I like to imagine myself on a journey as shown in the video above. Lying on the floor of my living room, I float through the ceiling and look down on the roof of my house, and then from above the trees over this acreages. As my view expands, I imagine my neighbors just living thier lives, breathing in and breathing out. I eventually extend this to include all of humanity and the animal kingdom as the Earth spins. Breathe - the Universe it taking care of everything else

We can exist ... or ... We can live! I was recently introduced to the concept of a Do-Over World. In this experience of reality, we try to keep everything the same from day to day and essentially live our lives doing the same thing over and over. We are passive, an observer in our own life. Sleep. Eat breakfast. Work. Eat lunch. Work. Go home. Eat Dinner. Sleep. Day after Day after Day. And when there is no work to do, we either sleep more or distract ourselves with television, social media, video games, and the like. Our sleep is restless and we use it to escape our reality. Our thoughts run amuck. We numb our emotions. It can be called the world of the living dead. Appearing to live on the outside, but dead on the inside. Throughout this routine, we are driven by the fuel of "not enough so get more". More money. Nicer car. Bigger house. Better job. More stuff. We strive to keep our routine and the stuff we have accumulated intact. We fight against anything that may disrupt it. Habits and routines dictate our day. We resist change. This is what I call existing. At the same time I learned about the Do-Over World, I learned about the Ascending World. In this experience of reality, we actively engage in our own unfoldment. We are not on the sidelines observing, but are in the arena! We are becoming our best selves. We are living our best lives. We still need to sleep and to eat, but these do not consume the majority of our time. Our sleep is peaceful and restful. Our eating is slow and deliberate. We may enjoy television, social media, video games, and the like but we are intentional about what we watch and conscious of what we consume. We spend as much time creating as we do consuming. We imagine. We choose our thoughts. We feel all of our emotions - joyful or painful, we let them flow. We may still have structure to our day, but we recognize the multitude of choices we have within that structure and actively make choices that lead to our own happiness, health, wealth, and freedom to live a life in which we can create our own day every single day. No longer bound by meaningless jobs to earn a paycheck, our work contributes to the well-being of ourselves, others, and life. No longer driven by material accumulation to prove our worth, we get in touch with nature and live harmoniously with all. This is what I call living. I am currently operating on the continuum towards the ascending world and farther from the do-over world. It is not that one is better than the other. It is not that I am better than you. (I assure you, we are all equal!) It is simply a choice I have made in how I want to experience my dash. Lori Jager-Keleher (May 17, 1972 - ?)

Do you know what time it is? I do. It's Now! It's always Now! There's only Now - the past is gone, the future is not yet. We can keep the past alive by thinking about it and emoting over it. Sometimes I want to do this, as when I enjoy reliving the good times. Sometimes I need to bring the past into my present, like when I am processing a traumatic experience. The key is not to stay there. In the Apple TV show Shrinking I learned a technique to keep the past in check and I use it whenever I find myself living in the past. I set a timer and allow myself a few minutes, never more than 15, to sit and fully focus on that past time or event. Once that period of enjoyment or bereavement or whatever it may be is over, I return to the Present and no longer allow the thoughts and the emotions of the past to consume me. The key is to "sit and fully focus". We have to slow down long enough and give ourselves time and space to do this. I have to make it a priority in my often too-busy lives. We tend to allow the future to consume us as well. We plan. We prepare. We worry. These are just a few ways our focus can be taken out of the Present. I am a mom of teenage twins and a classroom teacher. I could spend the majority of each day planning and preparing. And for many years, it seems that's all I did! And in doing so, all I experienced was hurry, worry, and stress. Since then, I have learned to stay present in those processes - slowing down, enjoying them, not hurrying through them and not worrying about them. That which truly needs to get done will get done and that which doesn't simply won't. I have relinquished control of my to do list, and instead, trust my inner vision to guide me in discerning the difference between what is necessary and what is not, what is important and what is not. The key is to "trust my inner vision." We often let habits or expectations dictate our day. I now choose to create my day, relying on my inner vision to make it as wonderful as possible What exactly is inner vision? Google's AI Overview says, "Inner vision is the ability to see beyond the physical word and gain a deeper understanding of intuition and insight. It's sometimes called the sixth sense and is considered a real and practical tool that can be accessed by everyone." For me, it is intuition, insight, as described above, but it's also a constant companion, who is a kind guide and a loving presence. How do I use inner vision to create my day? Although I have come along way in relinquishing control and letting go of habits and expectations, I still need some structure to my every day. For me, it comes down to priorities. Foundationally, ground zero, I have to take care of myself. For me this includes meditating, journaling, grounding, exercising and eating well. Number one, always has been and always will be, is my children and grandchildren. Their needs...their requests...their events... our snap streaks... our game nights... being an integral part of their lives brings my deep joy - even on the hard days. I, number one, am a mother. Number two, I am a teacher. This takes many forms in my life. My work for Transform Your Classroom, Transform Your World, and the schools in which I am employed - my commitments to these come next. Number three, I am a student. Not only am I currently a student in Waldorf University's M.Ed. program, I am always a student of life. The world is truly a giant classroom. Within this structure, I have many choices which makes each day unique! If you got this far in my blog post, thank you for reading and allowing me to share a piece of my soulful journey with you. I hope it helps you fully enjoy the Present! May I stay present and use my inner vision to navigate both my outer & inner landscape.