Celebrating The Coming Of Spring and Our Amazing New Life
Spring is finally here with exciting new directions, rebirth and renewal
THE DAWNING LIGHT # 87 Wednesday April 26, 2023
STILL MOUNTAIN CHRONICLES Section # 10
Photo Credit: Chinmayan
This Spring we are celebrating emerging from the long, dark and heavy winter back out into the warm sunlight and a sweet time of rebirth and renewal.
Now that we are no longer confined to our tiny house by rainstorms too intense to even contemplate going outside, we enjoy the freedom of these much more pleasant and hospitable days.
Suddenly, there is so much on Still Mountain that needs to be taken care of…from putting our gardens back into good condition after the winter…. to taking down the destroyed splitter shed… to completing several projects we started last summer and working on improvements…to taking steps to be prepared for the extreme heat we expect this summer.
There is always plenty that needs to be done here, and now that Spring is here, we are easing into the work but not being overwhelmed by the long list.
Taking It One Day At A Time
We have learned not to stress and strain over things that need to be done, by choosing to take them one day at a time, knowing that the important thing is to enjoy the process and that all will be accomplished “in due course.”
For the past week, we have been continuing our work of rebuilding the cargo bay of our small dump truck.
It turned out to be a much larger project than we imagined.
We spent a few hours a day removing the funky plywood sides, cleaning the built up crud in the frame, removing old sheet metal from the deck and thoroughly sweeping and vacuuming it.
Getting Sick From Toxic Fumes
After all of that work, we saw that the old deck was in rough condition from all the years of heavy use.
All those months when the truck sat unused with a full load on in it during the almost continuous rains of the winter left it with moldy places.
We decided to apply 4 gallons of a wood preservative called Copper Green to the old deck, to kill off any mold and prevent any further deterioration.
Photo Credit: Nicola Smith
Unfortunately, even with all the precautions, this stuff turned out to have such toxic vapors that we both got so ill from it that we were barely able to think, move or do anything.
Fortunately, after one full day of absolute misery, we are both recovering…and learning lessons about the fragility of life and unexpected consequences.
As I shared in a previous issue, the meager income that we received from making firewood for sale to our friends and neighbors has been slowing to a trickle.
We expected this, because as Spring is finally surging, folks will not need to keep their home fires burning.
But, the end of firewood sales also meant that we would not have even its meager income to cover our much simplified financial needs.
Making Changes and Taking New Directions
In taking our situation to the divine in prayer, I received clear guidance to relaunch our long closed property clean up service on a very limited basis.
That is why we pulled our 1981 E 350 Dump Truck out of storage, dumped the load off it and started rebuilding its cargo bay so that we will have it ready for doing dump runs for our future clients.
I also wrote a new Craigslist posting to let folks know we are offering this service again.
I discovered that we are the only clean ups service being offered in our county’s Craigslist, which is good for us.
I long ago gave up any ideas of competing with anyone over anything, because I have complete faith that the divine will send us whatever we need in the right time and right way when we need it.
In my faith walk, I have found that “the Lord helps those who help themselves” to be true.
As long as we are taking the practical steps and doing the necessary work ourselves while praying through and asking for help, I have always found that grace flows and the divine actively helps us to meet our needs.
We have to do our part, then the divine works, often behind the scenes and in mysterious ways, to help us. For example, after I put up our new postings about our service, the divine helps by having the right people find it and call us with their project.
Living By faith Is Very Liberating
It is very liberating to live by faith instead of the way most of the world believes to be necessary.
After putting up our new posting, I prayed and continue to pray that only those we are meant to serve find our posting and call us…
that all our clients be good hearted people we can have excellent relationships with…
who bring us projects we want to do and can do without investing major amounts of time, and that can be a total win win for all of us…
and that we only get a few choice projects each month that allow us to make enough money to cover our simple needs, leaving us with our time free to focus on the truly important things…
such as writing and publishing…teaching the Meditation Training Intensive course…having quality time together for us…and most of all, our own spiritual path and practices.
Trusting In A Higher Power
One of the aspects of living by faith is knowing with absolute certainty and trust that the divine will answer our prayers and to live with that eager anticipation that there is a higher power that delights in caring for and helping us.
My faith has been developed during all the years of my life through having to face challenges and difficulties of every kind that seemed intractable or impossible to deal with.
Photo Credit: Chinmayan
The wisest thing I have ever done is to develop the habit of taking every problem or challenging situation to the divine in prayer and seek for the solution and the guidance needed to resolve it through relying on the divine.
“You have not because you ask not…”as the masters say.
I have learned to ask.
Life would be far too overwhelming, painful and scary for me without this certain sure knowledge that the divine is within me, all around me eternally and delights in helping and providing.
It took a few weeks before we got any responses to our posting, but I knew that divine timing often means simply to wait and be ready.
Our Prayers Are Being Answered
In the past two weeks we have gotten calls from two different clients who need and want our help with cleaning up properties that they just bought or inherited.
These projects and clients check all the boxes of our criteria, so it will be like working for dear friends or family.
Both projects are ones we can do by ourselves, that are perfect for our E 350 Dump Truck, and which will pay us well enough to cover our monthly needs.
Now, we will focus on finishing the upgrades to our Dump Truck friend and then move out to do both projects…all in divine timing and flow.
Now my prayers are expressions of deep heart felt gratitude.
How sweet it is to live in Love with the divine, with each other and all of our new life that is dawning now!
Photo Credit: Chinmayan
Image Credit: Still Mountain Meditation Center
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