2020 and Beyond

 Let's back up a little bit... back at the end of 2019, I was having strange, apocalyptic dreams. They creeped me out. Also, friends of mine that I talked to all the time were ALSO having apocalyptic dreams. Little did we know what 2020 was going to bring to all of us. When Covid-19 drove us all into quarantine, I think we all felt like the world was ending. (I felt like I understood why I had those dreams.) The world didn't end. It changed, though, and so did we. And what I believe a lot of us actually found, for better or worse, was ourselves.

Once we were secluded from the world of work and schedules and commutes... well, it was like a collective sigh of relief from humanity, wasn't it? All of us who were stuck in a rut, spinning our wheels in the metaphorical mud suddenly realized that we were being gifted an opportunity to reflect on what matters the most. We made connections with friends and families via Zoom, as awkward as that can be, it was nice in a way. We found out that we needed the break from the hustle and bustle we were living. We learned more about self-care. Many learned to meditate and connect with their Higher Self. The Earth started to heal as pollution died down to a minimum.  We reconnected with Nature, as a way to get out of our homes and find some peace for ourselves... thus reminding us of how important those natural spaces are for everyone. I also learned that Love is the highest frequency, and all things must be rooted in Love. One of the downloads that I received from my guides was that my purpose is to help guide people to that understanding. 

In hindsight, that year truly gave me 2020 vision for what my true needs were, and it gave me the time to detox from the craziness of civilization. For many, it also gave a clearer view of what we didn't want to experience anymore... whether it was poor health habits, manic work hours, dysfunctional relationships... disconnection. Some of us started learning new things about our truest selves. I discovered that I want to be part of the up-leveling of Humanity. I want to see us reach the Golden Age that is prophesied by ancient civilizations and various channels throughout history. What is being channeled by people all around the world is that THIS is the beginning of a Great Age. That is why many of us have incarnated here now... to help do the difficult work of raising the consciousness of humanity from the dark ages of control and lack and scarcity thinking to a world of freedom and abundance for all. We all are part of this world for our own light to shine! How we contribute is by being our very best selves. By learning who we are and how we can help. We contribute by creating art, music, and more. Creativity comes from the heart and the higher self. All you have to do is express it!

It's now January, 2024. I've made my way (slowly, slogging through some muck) to a place in my life where there is little I fear. I can truly say that when I search my energetic body, I can't find too much in me that feels fearful. The unknown is nothing to fear... it's just unknown. It can be only positive in nature, if you understand that we are all here to learn. The difficult challenges we face are there to forge you into a stronger, wiser YOU. Know that when we leave this earthly plane, this Grand Experiment of Duality, we return to the Source. We merge back with Mother Father God, Source, the Universe. We return to Unconditional Love. We return to the Loving Embrace of each other, where we were before our bodily incarnation into this Dimension. Let go of fear... we are all here. Together.

In all things, be Love. In every exchange, do it with Love in your heart. Treat each other with the understanding that we are all connected, and indeed we are all ONE. We are ONE with each other, and with our planet, our solar system, with Mother Father God. Separation is the illusion that was put before our eyes so that we could find our way back to God, and prove that we are Divine Beings who have not forgotten our immortality. Ask yourself if this feels right to you. You don't have to take my word for it! Why is it that when we do something out of deepest love, that it feels so good and raises our vibration? I believe it's because we were all meant to be vessels of Love. We are here to support each other in our learning and advancement towards a society that acts out of Love. Wouldn't that be an amazing world to live in? Well, it's exactly where I'm heading, folks! Join me!   

Happy Memorial Day!

On this Memorial Day, I remember my grandpa and grandma. As I've already written a post recently about my grandma, Sigrid, I wanted to write this one about my grandpa: Albert "Jinx" Durfey.


A few things that I remember about him are his constant sense of humor and mischievousness... (He once nearly got into a fight when he accidentally pelted a stranger at a restaurant in Wisconsin with the aluminum ball he'd made from his baked potato wrapper. He was trying to throw it at a family member.) How he always had a bag of jelly beans or gumdrops in the car, for driving snacks, how he played a mean game of cribbage, and his alpaca sweaters. 


Every morning, he'd get up and get dressed, and he'd typically wear some plaid pants, a button-downed shirt (short sleeves in summer) and an alpaca sweater. As a kid, I didn't even know what an alpaca was, until my grandpa told me that it was an animal, like a llama, which people would shear to get a kind of wool, and then they'd spin it into yarn to make sweaters and stuff. 


I met some this weekend and did this short video to show you how adorable they are. We met some at the Lebanon Wine Festival. All the footage was taken by Keith, since I was in the pen with the cuties, petting them and swooning.

Alpacas from Shari Durfey on Vimeo.

The sound they make melts my heart! And you can't really tell, but their eyelashes are about 2" long... the white one has white lashes, the black one has black lashes, and the brown one has brown lashes. Ha ha... they are the cutest! And yes, they are very soft.


My grandparents would have loved the wine festival, the alpacas, the food, the candy... they loved walking around with lots of people, and taking photos. I miss walking around with them. There's one thing that grandparents do that no one else can: make you feel like the center of the universe, even when you're old enough to know better. I miss you and love you, Grandma & Grandpa!  You're in my thoughts and my heart, always. 

Memory Tugs

I was reading Cannelle et Vanille's recent post, which had lovely photos of fresh picked peas, and I had a sudden flashback. (Whizzing backwards MANY years to Westminster, MA, when I was seven years old....) It was in the heat of summer after school was over, and I was visiting my grandparents for a month or so. My grandmother and I were sitting on their big back porch, which overlooked the 80+ acres of woods behind their home, which they owned. There was a bowl in my lap, a bowl in my grandma's, and a bowl between us. We were shelling peas for dinner, and chatting. Every now and then, I'd eat some fresh peas, loving the greenness and crunch of their flavor, knowing they'd be softer and buttery after my grandma cooked them. I wish I had a photo of this moment, but it's definitely etched in my mind, and pops up every time I see or think of freshly shelled peas.


I do have this other photo of us out blueberry picking in the woods. This was a bit later in the summer, and was another favorite thing to do...

That's my grandma Sigrid, and that's me with my blueberry bucket tied to my waist. (My grandpa's doing.) I love my grandma so much, you just don't know. I miss her terribly all the time. She was a singular soul, and had a way of making everything better when they weren't, and for making a little girl feel special when she thought she wasn't. I was lucky to know her for the first part of my life. I will always love and miss her to the bottom of my soul. 


She taught me many things... to appreciate nature, to cook and bake, to be creative in different ways than what I knew. She inspired me to make jewelry and to garden. She introduced me to the idea of accepting people for just the way they are. When I was a child, I aspired to be like her, and always thought of her as an angel in disguise. (I'm totally serious!) As an adult, I now understand that she really was an angel in disguise, and she watches over me all the time now. I'm a very lucky girl.

Hearts All Around

Lover's heart in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico

Seaweed heart on a beach in Northern California

Tide pool heart in Santa Cruz, CA

Wood chip heart on West Cliff Drive, Santa Cruz, CA

Heart opening at a cemetery in Fremont, CA

Heart stones found in Yosemite, CA

Seaweed pod heart

Heart-shaped face

Latte heart

Cloud hearts in Stresa, Italy

Two hearts in Monterosso al Mare, Italy

Graffiti heart in Italy

Fallen leaf  heart

Little leaf heart

Hawaiian beach heart within a heart

I am always seeing hearts (love?) everywhere I go. I wanted to share them with you in anticipation of Valentine's Day. Maybe to remind you that love is all around, if only you keep your eyes (and heart) open...

Love and blessings.

xoxo

Journaling... Primary Beliefs

One of the exercises that I've done for my journaling pages is defining what my Primary Beliefs are about these five main areas of belief systems:

Life
Self
People
Love
Abundance

The exercise was to write down one empowering and one disempowering idea that I have about each of my specific belief systems. It was really fascinating! I found that each of my disempowering ideas was in direct contrast to my empowering ideas! That means that I have been working against myself in my adult lifetime. You honestly can't get anywhere in life if you are pushing and pulling at the same time. You just end up in exactly the same place!

For example: one of my empowering ideas about Love is that it is a beautiful thing. Love is beautiful. Love is all-important. One of my disempowering ideas about Love is that people can get jaded and close themselves off from love. However, the type of love that caused me to originally formulate that specific idea wasn't a love borne of real power. It was a love that I had for people where the love wasn't reciprocated, and therefore, it was the kind of love that stems from my ego's need for approval/validation/etc. It wasn't the kind of love that comes from spirit and truth. Yet, I have been hanging onto that as part of my belief system about Love!

If you try to do this exercise yourself, I think you'll find some similar eye-opening contradictions in your own belief system.... it's apparently very typical. We base our belief systems on past experiences, even though we may have been very young, inexperienced, or uninformed, at the time of the experience. Then we hold onto those experiences as the basis for how we perceive the rest of our experiences. It's easy to fall into, isn't it? I mean, I've grown so much since the times when my heart was broken by someone, and have learned so much more about myself and about love since those times, and yet, when asked about what my beliefs about Love are, I found that they were based on those old experiences, and not the new ones that I've formed in my adult years!

Breaking down those "supports" for your beliefs are a way to open up your eyes (and heart) to what is important and wonderful about this world that we live in. It's a way to break the chains that hold us to behaviors and thought patterns that could be holding us back from our true happiness! I challenge you to do this exercise for yourself, and see what you find out about your own belief systems! Happy journaling! Blessings to all.... xoxo