I’ve been a vegetarian for nearly forty years.  Eating meals, as a child, presented a huge battle of wills between Frank and Jeanne (my parents) and myself.

It started with my first solid food offering.  I couldn’t swallow it and lacking certain verbal skills, could not express to my anxious parents why I didn’t want to eat.  I was on overcooked, super-pureed food well past the toddler stage.  I didn’t even talk until I was four years old, and even then my family couldn’t understand what I was saying because my speech pattern had an out-of-sync cadence.

I grew up in a middle-class environment with a schedule of seven dinners served, without variation, and rotated on a weekly basis.  By the time I was six I had committed the “blue plate specials” to memory:

Monday:  meatloaf

Tuesday: chicken

Wednesday: spaghetti (thanks to Anthony and the branding push of Prince’s Pasta)

Thursday: Westerns

Friday: steak (which my mother told us it was fish so we wouldn’t be held accountable for the venial sin of lying when asked by our grandparents what we had for dinner on Fridays)

Saturday:  frankfurters

Sunday:  pot roast or some variation of stewed beast at my grandparent’s home

As dinnertime approached, my stomach began to develop deep cramping pains.  The loud voices and threats of “You’re going to die if you don’t eat!”, juxtaposed with, “I don’t care if you sit there all night, you are going to finish that meal.”, was a set-your-watch-by-it confrontation each evening.

And sit there I did.  Sometimes I would fall asleep, only to revisit the same meal warmed up for breakfast.  I didn’t eat it then either.  Sunshine rarely makes a bad situation better, it just illuminates it.

Obviously I was having throat chakra issues.  Couldn’t swallow.  Speech delayed and not intelligible.  But the most frightening thing was what was happening in my brain as I took my place at the dinner table.  I could see the entire animal in its natural state, getting slaughtered with all the horrors of a child’s imagination.

A simple hamburger was, in my mind, an entire steer out on the range.  The story would unfold further upon staring at my dried chopped meat, as my mother smothered it in Heinz 57 – it was being led to the slaughter house.  There I would see it struggling, as it was being decapitated, entrails lying on the butcher’s floor.  Chicken, eggs, fish; sustenance that once had a face became an indelible image, trapped forever in my mind, of the sacrifice it made to be on my mother’s mundane menu.  The food would just hang on my fork.  Tears would run down my face – there was no way I could eat this.  And when forced to do so, I would put it in my mouth, pretend to chew it, stuff it in my cheeks, then spit it into my napkin.  I’m sure my parents knew this, but in order to maintain our pride, both teams allowed this ritual to continue well into my early teens.

So parents, if you have an eccentric child who refuses to eat things with a face take heart.  Vegetarians are just wired differently.  We don’t eat like birds, my scale can attest to that mis-information; we will not starve ourselves to death; and sitting hours on end staring at a plate of food that stimulates images of an animal’s demise is not being defiant and wasteful – it’s being mind-full.

Mindful that it takes people of all beliefs, shapes, sizes, and colours to co-exist on this magnificent planet.

I’m looking out my window watching the wind blow spirals of snow.  Mesmerized by the images, I can see faces of Nature Spirits, mouths open singing their songs in high pitched tones.  The branches of bushes weighted so heavily with ice crystals that it creates igloos of twigs.

As a child, most days were spent outside.  Winter was no exception.  I would lay under the snow covered branches of the trees and become immersed in a magical world of scattered geometric patterns.   I embraced my new found privacy, as it gave me abundant time to communicate with Nature.  My thoughts easily led, like a caravan, with inspiration as I traced with my eyes each unique path of woven white limbs.   My heart would be at such joy in my little fortress of snow, feeling the warm arms of silence and safety, comforted by the quiet hissing of the snow as it fell.

All seasons bring us a rebirth in discovery of symbolic signs as to what we may be missing in life.  As adults, we often forget these enhancements and push them from our vision and senses as everyday life and worries take precedent.

Bundle up and go sit outside under your own igloo of twigs.  All adults have some childhood memory of unbridled joy locked within their heart.  Rediscover what solitude, communing with the elements and being a part of your environment can do to transform your weary Spirit back to innocence.

Ever wake up drenched in sweat, your heart racing from a terrifying nightmare?  Or escalated panic because you can’t remember what you were dreaming about?

Night and Mare, two words coupled in a seemingly innocuous union turns out to be a marriage of hellish proportions.

Early legends help us to understand how this compound word came to mean calamity while we sleep.

Night Mares, symbolized by either a black or white horse suggests the balance of positive and negative thought forms of our super sub-conscious.  In Hungary and Spain they believed that black horses were lucky.  In France, just the opposite.  In Ireland, the owner of a pure white horse was supposedly given the power to predict cures for physical ailments. In South American lore a night mare was either a black or white horse riding through towns and jungles foretelling doom to people who saw them.

In Scandinavia, a mare or mara was a female demon that rode on the chest of sleeping people, tormenting them to do evil bidding.  Mares had such power as to float through keyholes, or cracks between wood and stone in the home.  Mares could ride anything, expert equestrians of trees, or beasts.  Grossly knotted tree roots were proof positive that a mare had been in a local village ready to stalk the innocent upon slumber.  Somehow it figures that written legends would make mares women responsible for nocturnal attacks!  Men are such scaredy cats.

If a cursed woman was suspected of being a mare, these simple words spoken in their presence “You are a mara!” three times would break the evil spell and set her free.   For men reading this post:  if you suspect some ex-wife/girlfriend  is a mara because she’s made your life a living nightmare think of how I’ve set you free.  You’re welcome.

To ease nightmares in children and adults try these suggestions:

Position a white colored shallow bowl, filled half-way with purified water and place it under the bed.  The bowl should be in alignment with the pillow placement.  Empty this and refill with fresh water each day.

Purchase or make a dream catcher.  Hang it on the ceiling, above a bed.

Take a purified small crystal and infuse it with the intent of peaceful dreams.  Sew it into a dream pillow and place it inside the pillow case.

Use the protection exercise listed here.

Important notation for parents:

Night terrors in children differ greatly from nightmares.  Nightmares can be remembered and expressed upon waking.

Night terrors are one of the most frightening things to witness as a parent so use this link to gain a broader perspective of how to help your child.

My youngest granddaughter (she’s four) and I were cuddling together and I asked her to close her eyes and think of a number one through ten.  I told her I was going to “guess” the number.  After a few ”guesses” I told her to close her eyes again and I was going to think of a number one through ten, and she was to “guess” the number.  Our time together resulted in laughs, hugs, love and last but not least, telepathic development.

Training, using all six senses, can begin at any age, but how fortunate are the children who have someone to start their education early.  Want to start teaching your children?  Once your child knows their numbers one through ten, this exercise is a fun way to share some time together and develop early telepathic skills.

Here’s how to begin:

Ask your child to close their eyes and think of a number one through ten.  Instruct them to take their time and ask that they imagine writing the number on a piece of paper.

Ask your child if they have the number.  Once they say yes, close your eyes and relax your breathing.  Imagine that your child is writing a number on a piece of paper.

Say the number out loud.

Variations on the same exercise:

Use a regular deck of playing cards.  As you look at a red or black card think on it and ask your child to guess the color.

Place a small object within a paper bag.  Concentrate on it.  Ask your child to guess the shape or color.

Things to remember:

It’s not how many times you get it right in the beginning.  You are both developing a skill that when you see the correct number it will feel a certain way inside your solar plexus.

The skill you two are developing is one of telepathy; communicating between two minds.

You will soon discover who is a better sender or receiver.

Begin a Development Journal, and keep score of your correct answers.  Start logging percentages of accuracy, along with markers, i.e., health conditions (sick/well; tired/well rested; emotional/calm, etc.), weather conditions, and external conditions (noisy/quiet).

Make it FUN and don’t ever press the exercise on an unwilling or reluctant child.

Let me know how you do.  Oh!  This same exercise works between adults as well.