Change. Not only because of President Obama and his message, although that did get me started thinking about change. He inspired me to volunteer, something I had not really done before. Now I may have myself stretched too thin!

Also, now that our nest is empty, we talk about moving to somewhere tropical or possibly the San Diego area. I keep telling my husband that in order to find work in a new place we may have to "think outside the box". In other words, find something different that we like to do and can do in another place.

I need to learn my life's purpose. I feel the need recently to find my purpose and act on it. I have been volunteering for various things that I like to do, but I'd like to know that the things I am doing are to further my purpose.

Perhaps my time is getting short and I feel that subconsciously. Perhaps I am just having empty nest syndrome and ready to get out and do something different.

I don't know.

Most of the time, my intuition is just a "knowing", if you will, that something will either be fine or not. I have been listening to my intuition for several years and it hasn't steered me wrong yet. Of course, oftentimes it doesn't give me any opinion at all, so I have to decide a course of action on my own.

On one occasion, though, it was almost a tangible female voice that told me as I drove past a car parked at a stop sign to my right, "he's going to pull out in front of you". I was already aware of the possibility, but it was so odd to "hear" something say that to me, and it made me much more focused on the event. The other driver did pull out in front of me and to make matters worse, had a trailer on the back of his truck, but I swerved right around it all and wasn't even terribly angry about it. After all, I had plenty of warning!

I feel most free on a boat on the ocean, so far from shore that I can't even see it anymore. It is almost as freeing to be in the mountains where I can't see other people for a time.

The closest I usually get is (lol) a massage, because my cell phone is turned off and locked in a locker some distance away from me. I am completely cut off there, and it is more relaxing because of that.

I think we have too many alarms, ringtones, etc. that jar us into the present and that alone is stressful because some part of your brain is always expecting to be called. My particular nemesis is the bedside alarm clock! It scares me awake every morning; I am going to try to find a zen alarm clock. I know they make them, and I need one!

Yes, I believe there is value in suffering. Although sometimes the suffering is so hard that people don't believe it will ever go away.

The good times, mental and physical, are so much sweeter after suffering. When you've been in pain, and it is suddenly gone, you feel so much better than you would have if you'd never been in pain.

I am not expressing this very well, but I know what I mean!

I do not practice any religion, I just live. If something good happens, I am glad, if something bad happens, I am sad. Either way, I don't thank or curse any invisible being.

I went to various Christian churches, Baptist, Methodist, whatever, before I was about 10 and it did nothing for me. We quit going when my kindergarten-aged sister got tired of the minister kissing all the little kids goodbye!

I never could wrap my head around the idea that you are going to live forever, but you have to die in order to get this benefit!?

I lean strongly toward paganism/shamanism. I love the earth, her forces and her creatures and see how strong she is, and how insignificant we are. Just watch the waves roll inexorably in to shore, nothing can stop them or change their pace, no matter how much we might want to.

I can't believe that humans are more than just another animal species or parasite upon her.

I have never been treated decently by a Christian, and that is the truth! Not one, not ever. I'm sure some of them try to be kind and helpful, but they just go into a dark room, pray, and throw money at the world's problems. Rarely will anyone go into a dangerous area, help the needy, or put an arm around someone who is hurting.

There are other religions around the world that sound much better to me, but I have no experience with them. Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, and Wicca are three that intrigue me. I have a somewhat scientific mind though, and have to see some proof before I believe anything.

Sarah

I have always heard that if you dream in color, you must be schizophrenic or have some other strange mental illness. I always dream in vivid, saturated color. I don't usually see the people clearly, I know who they are, they just don't LOOK like themselves. The color is the most vivid thing to me.

I have, however, polled my family and people I work with and most of them dream in black and white. I was just wondering how many people dream in color and what that is supposed to mean.

Two other related things...I am not in the least artistic, so it isn't because of some artsy part of my brain. Also, I have migraines occasionally and the vivid colors you see during one of those episodes remind me of that.

The last experience that actually took my breath away was the beauty of an ice storm.
We had been stuck in the house, unable to drive for a couple of days. When I left for work that morning, I topped a hill and the sun was shining on everything and it was the most beautiful shade of silver! The grasses that were normally brown were silver, icicles on barbed wire fence were silver, the roads, trees, everything was just fabulous. I got tears in my eyes and had to pull over for a second because it was so beautiful and so unexpected! Now I know why they call ice in the Pacific Northwest a silver thaw; it absolutely took my breath away.

The last thing I seriously wondered about was, are there really fairies?