Serenity South

Maybe it’s a matter of my age, but I’ve always found it easier to believe in and understand the presence of angels and faeries than the mysterious workings of cyberspace.  Or maybe it’s just that lately I’ve seen and personally experienced people being able to be judgmental and cruel through the removal of the personal element in cyberspace…. there are no controls put in place in the world of blogging to insure any degree of integrity or truth…. and these things have made me sad…..

However!!!! just this past week I received two fabulous cyber hugs from two amazing women who  entered my life here at Serenity South and made me feel so grateful that the internet can do good things… like instantly wrapping me in such light and love.  I am delighted and humbled that my Solstice Angel Layla (with whom I had the amazing opportunity to share fireflies) and my newly rediscovered friend (I’m positive we’ve been friends in many former lives) Gail, took the time upon returning to their lives above the Tropic of Cancer to let me know that they celebrated the short time we spent together.  Thank you both for such  lovely gifts of thought and time!

My Solstice Angel appeared on, do I need to say?  Summer solstice.  I have always loved summer solstice.  Growing up in Canada it was the day of the most light, and things were green…. the very best day of the year…… from there it just was moving back towards winter!  I remember one summer solstice where Tup and I and two other friends had hiked in to a wilderness campground in Volcano National Park on the Big Island of Hawaii….. sitting on a slope of lava trees (which are shapes created when an eruption flowed down and surrounded trees, instantly incinerating them, but the moisture  in the trees  cooled the lava sufficiently in the moment of their burning to form a kind of negative image column) watching, at the same time in three different parts of the sky, Kiluela Volcano fountaining, a full moon rising  and lighting.  Does magic exist?  You bet it does!

My Solstice Angel appeared at the perfect time to say exactly what I needed to hear.  Don’t you love when the Universe provides this!  Thank you Layla.  While one person can make all the difference in a world (that would be Tup in my world) one other person can be less than nothing!   Perspective is an amazing thing.

Two beautiful blondes….. both entering a different chapter in their lives…. may the Universe bring you blessings in direct proportion to what you give to others…..  so you two are going to take off and soar!  Thank you for your gifts of love and encouragement… I return them ten fold.

While in a meditative state visualize from your heart center that you are expanding until you can see the earth within your heart center……now a rate faster than the speed of light see your heart center expanding until you encompass this galaxy and thousands upon thousand other galaxies until you arrive at the Great Cental Sun. Here you will see the arms of light expanding outward into specks of light that are trillions upon trillions of other galaxies. Now remember that you are consciousness superimposed over all that you feel and see. You are now one with the Mother Creator and her LOVE for you is ever expanding and you start you journey of healing the rings of emotions The rings must be done in order for as they become balance within you they expand and grow causing the other ring to want to grow and expand also. The ring work together one being positive and the other negative The Positive aspect always goes first so here we go………….remember to spend about 30 minutes with each aspect. After about 30 min. you can slowly return.

LOVE…replace fear and allows us the desire to be includes. The negative aspect is TRUST….the desire to surrender

INSPIRATION…replaces anger and allows one the desire to be inspired or inspire. The Negative aspect is PEACE…replaces protectiveness and allows one the desire to be at ease.

CREATIVITY…allows one the desire to create. PLEASURE…allows one the desire to be delighted

EMPATHY…allows one to experience the desire to connect. ACKNOWLEDGEMENT…allows one the desire to see the perfection in ones dream.

GENEROSITY…allows one the desire to give (by the way which most light workers and healers have been doing for a long time).

RECEPTIVITY…allows one the desire to receive (which most light workers and healers have great difficulty in doing).ENCOURAGEMENT…allows one the desire to encourage or be encouraged. BEAUTY…allows one the desire to be uplifted.

COMMUNICATION…allows one the desire to express. ASSIMILATION…allows one the desire to integrate.

PASSION…allows one desire to know. JOY…allows one to play and live life.

We live in a jungle….. literally.  The land around us was cleared for pasture years ago, so it’s not thick, not able to see a meter in front of you jungle, but there are creatures out there.  Creatures who may not have the greatest good of every living creature as their top priority!  What does this have to do with gratitude?  Well, I was thinking the other morning how absolutely grateful I am every morning when my Vinnie comes home from wherever he had been wandering the night before.  Every single morning, this immense rush of pure gratitude to see him…… and I started thinking, wouldn’t it be lovely if I felt and acknowledged such gratitude for more things in my life…. things that maybe I take for granted…. every single day.

Our mantra that we are working with such joy to live here is “Love, Praise, Gratitude”.  It’s nice to take a little time every day to just allow myself to feel so very, very grateful for what I have in my life.  Tup, Papa, friends, family, health, my four-legged family, joy and abundance.  Thank you Universe.  I am very grateful.

Have you ever heard people giving different statistics on what percentage of the human brain humans actually use?  Personally I love trivia like this and I am quite sure that I have, in the past, enjoyed and then quickly forgotten  jokes (even the male bashing ones) that clever people came up with based on the topic.  I have many times imagined things that I would be able to do if I could just harness the 93% of my mind that currently seems to be playing somewhere else in the Universe. You may have done this as well.  It’s kind of like this computer…. how did I get things to write in underlined blue?  Will it still look like this when I post?  Did I actually want this to happen? Does it really matter that much?

I know I have the ability to hold a glowing ball of light in my hand.  I’ve practiced this for years…….. one day soon, hopefully, I’m going to surprise myself and actually see it!  I’d like to be able to access the literally hundreds of songs and scripts that at one or another point in my life I knew by heart, rather than resorting to “La,la,la,la” after the first two lines….. and just what was that chord that came next? I know people who can actually move things with their minds.  I want to be able to do this too. What’s the key?  And where can I get my copy of it made?

I do know for an absolute fact that one time in my life my mind created, from its own hidden power, a physical manifestation in this energetic plane.  We were living in Hawaii and Tup fell in love with the kitten that our upstairs neighbor had brought home.  Pelepuka…. translated as hole in the sky or midnight…  was a beautiful little long haired black baby.  Tup tends to fall in love extremely easily with anything soft and small and warm blooded.  It’s one of his finer traits in my opinion.  However when the neighbor decided that she couldn’t keep this kitten my mind decided it was time to use some of that unused power.  As I knew we weren’t going to be staying in Hawaii for the lifetime of a cat, I didn’t want to open our home and our hearts to this sweet little scrap of fur, and my mind came up with the perfect excuse.

It created a cat allergy for me.  Instantly! and aggressively!  Suddenly I, who had always had cats in my life and my bed, couldn’t put my hands anywhere near this kitten and then my face without my eyes reacting by swelling and going red and looking like something out of a horror film.  It was scary and faintly frightening and totally convenient.  It was so easy to say, “Look, my love, what she’s doing to me”.  We didn’t take her in.  My cat allergy stayed with me for a couple of years, then faded away.  It wasn’t needed any more.  Now, thank the gods, I  can hold my cats up to my face and let them kiss me and enjoy them totally, without any fear.  What I would have missed out on if my mind had locked in that allergy for the rest of my life.   Which leads me to wonder….. How many things are we holding on to in our lives that really aren’t needed anymore?

So what was the point of this post, if indeed there was one?  Threefold I guess.  Now that I’ve semi figured out how to post pictures it will allow me to post pictures of my boys Vinnie(orange) and Joey (white).  It will  give advanced warning to people that this is an extremely animal friendly zone, and it might make us all ponder just what we might direct the power of our minds to when we figure out how to do this.  May they be amusing and wonderful and  powerful plans for that 90some percent.  Who knows…. maybe we’re getting closer.  My grandmother always used to warn me to be careful what you wish for, as it might come true.  May your wishes move closer to reality every day.  Ro/

The other morning when Tup and I and our now three dogs…. more on that later… were walking on the beach, Tup out of the blue asked me what time it was.  While thinking that it was rather a strange question to ask on our beach walk, I made a guess at it being about 5:20am, only to have him tell me that was not the answer he was looking for.  “Okay”, I said,  “I’ll bite.  What time do you think it is?”  His answer…. “It’s NOW.”

He went on to tell me that he had started doing an affirmation each morning on the beach, asking himself the following three questions – “What time is it?”  “Where are you?” and “What are you doing? “.

Everyone will have their own responses to these three questions at any given moment.  Tup has chosen to give himself these answers every morning and I admit that I quite like them.  His answers -”Now”, “Here” and “Being in the moment”.  I am absolutely with him on the first two, but decided to add my own twist on the third.  So, what am I doing?  I’m just ENJOYING BEING! and I hope you are as well.  Have a lovely day.

One of the most interesting things about really living in the moment, for me, is how time has changed in how it functions.  There are days here that just seem to disappear, suddenly it’s dark and I don’t really know what I’ve done all day, even though the day was full, or my Papa calls and I realize another week has flown by, but my lack of awareness of time was made more than clear to me when Tup pointed out this week that my last posting on this web site was almost a year ago!  Okay, that’s just slightly embarrassing!!   I am going to get better!  This I can promise.

Now in my own defense I must point out that we just had our Internet connected in the past two weeks….. and after one day of connection the system had some sort of problem and we didn’t get reconnected until ten more days had passed.  Such is the way things work here.  It’s a constant mystery.  The exciting thing is that I have an entire years’ worth of events to write about!  I’ve already started my list of future post topics so that this one doesn’t become a novella.

It seems that when you actually have the opportunity to live in the moment, a year is just a heartbeat ago.  A year ago I would not have been able to sit here looking out the window as I write.  I’m not even sure if this window was here yet!  There are moments when I think, with such awe, of the people I know who would have documented every step of the building process and could look back to say what exactly was going on precisely a year ago …. but that’s not my style and that’s okay too. I know the general outline.

We moved in on May 13th of last year.  The house was in no way finished, but the ground floor was livable.  It was a powerful date for me to start our new life in our new house as it was my sister’s birthday.  It was her very unexpected death in 2003 that really started us on this journey, so it seemed appropriate.  I do remember that we threw an impromptu party that night with some friends in the neighborhood, even though our official “We’ve moved in” party wasn’t until three nights later.  I like to think it was the perfect way to establish that this is a house that is happiest when it is filled with people enjoying each other.  We have had a lot of wonderful gatherings here over the past year, and I can think of nothing better than to have many more.

Once we moved in it was time to start collecting our family.  Since 1996 we had been either living in different countries, or in places where it wasn’t fair for us to have  animals, so that we hadn’t had any four footed family members for a long time.  Serenity South is a very animal friendly place.  Be aware…. it really is true that while dogs have their people, cats have their staff!

We already had moved Kalani, our beautiful rottweiler, to the house as soon as the fence was finished and Rosa, a sweet, small, shepherd, had by that time chosen Tup to live with….but that’s another story for another day.  Next came Vinnie.  Weeks earlier I had commented to a local woman I knew that I wanted to get a kitten when we moved into the house.  It turned out that her cat had just had kittens, so one of them was mine.  The day after we moved in I told Miriam that we were ready for Vinnie…. he was already named in my mind as Miriam had told me that he fought like crazy with his brother and anything else, human or animal, that came close to him,  so the Vinnie was for full of piss and vinegar.  The next day I went to get Vinnie from the hotel where Miriam works where she was going to bring him.  I had borrowed my friend Amaure’s cat carrier to carry him home, typical North American mind set.  Well Vinnie had arrived at the hotel that morning tied up in a Bimbo bread bag…… yes the big bread company in Central America is actually called Bimbo, which has provided lots of laughs……… the bag was tied tightly around the neck of this poor scrawny, starving little kitten who turned out to be, when I had liberated him from his plastic prison, crawling with fleas.  This was actually, at the age of 50, my first experience with a pet who was literally crawling with fleas….learning all the time here.  When I brought this pathetic scrap of bones and fleas home Tup didn’t think that there was a chance he would live, but at a year Vinnie is sleek and beautiful and a joy to watch.  Pearl Grey followed within weeks, and Joey Two Spot, a.k.a. Jose dos Manchas arrived as an unexpected gift in October.  As of this exact moment this is the family….. but surprises happen here.

Work continued and we were able to move upstairs at the first of July.  We still have some things we’re waiting for…. I’m more patient that Tup…. but mostly we’re 98% finished.  The garden is still a baby garden, but things grow here so quickly.  My garden is a joy to me, and I look forward to the time that I can share plants with others as so many lovely people have shared with me.

We have developed a lovely yoga community that meets here Monday, Wednesday and Fridays mornings at 7am, I have my special place in the garden where it just seems right to do tarot readings, we built a lovely thatched roof rancho where we have two tables so that we have the option of doing massages for couples at the same time and where Tup does Shamanic work and we always have the beach just a slow three minute walk away.  Life is very, very sweet.

Sorry I’ve been silent so for so long.  It’s delightful now to be able to exercise my cybervoice whenever I choose.  Be warned… I’ve got an entire years worth of stories and reflections.

May you be having a lovely joyful day.  Let love, praise and gratitude surround you. Ro and Tup

So sometimes the Universe decides to give us lessons and we can either accept the lesson with gratitude or fight against it. Tup and I are learning to accept with gratitude the incredible lesson in patience that the Universe is letting us learn here in Puerto Viejo as our home SLOWLY becomes a reality. It’s lovely to be able to celebrate each new wall and the night that we were FINALLY able to dance on our newly completed floor was magical. Happily, when I was getting to the point of losing all of that hard earned patience waiting for the guys to come and reconnect the fence that they had ripped apart in the process of putting in the gates, our contractor helped Tup do the job and we were able to liberate Kalani, our dog, from the very small enclosure where a friend had been keeping him. It’s been a long wait for him, but I’m pleased to announce that he is now one very happy dog. His patience has been rewarded and he now has a lovely big garden to play in and watch over.

Tup and I have actually been learning great lessons in being in the moment while we walk the dogs on the beach. The absolute joy that they take in being with us, in chasing birds, sniffing every track and running to leap into the waves reminds us of how important it is to experience every single moment. For me it’s interesting how when I get on the beach all of the petty small things just seem to slip away. For that time I am completely content in my skin, in nature, knowing for that space of the day all I have to do is be present… and take joy in where I am. Sounds kind of sweet, doesn’t it? So what if the man who was supposed to meet with me this morning never showed up? He’ll show up another day.,,,, hopefully!

We are waiting with as much patience as we possibly can for the moment when we move in and are able to open the gates of Serenity South for Healing Holidays. It’s getting very close. Patience is paying off. We love where we are, we are extremely grateful to the Universe for allowing us to find this magical place and we offer praise to everything around us. Maybe I’m learning! Thank you Universe.

If the world is indeed what we dream it to be, then Tup and I are happily in the process of creating our dream here in Playa Negra, Puerto Viejo de Limon, Costa Rica.  While the process of building our home and healing centre is becoming a bit of a lesson in patience, it also is allowing an immense amount of creativity and joy to enter our lives.  We are delighted to have roof rafters, and the “waiting for wood” has become a bit of a runing joke between us.  Fernando and Randel, the two men who are building our house, are fabulous people, and we are pleased with the degree of conscientiousness and the  pride of workmanship that they show.  It’s great energy to have in the place where we want to live, love and make our tiny little difference in the world for the rest of our lives.  Yesterday they showed me the avocado tree and tomato plants that they haave started for us.  I’ve been happily planting literally hundreds of hibiscus, crotons, bouganvillea, plumeria, palms and orchids, in very small sizes, but things grow quickly here.  Tup has been working from our friends house where we’re waiting for our house to be finished.  The best thing every morning is walking Kalani down to the river to swim.. two hours of pure bliss!!  Doesn’t the sound of that make you want to join us?

Much love, light and laughter

Tup and Ro

See our house location on the Puerto Viejo Satellite Map.