Have you ever had a week where so much has happened that by Friday you feel comfortably numb? A state where so much has gone on that not only do you feel neither here nor there, but disorientation circles around you? Comfortably numb….going thirteen rounds in the boxing ring of life. Why does this happen, we may ask? Perhaps it is the minds way of giving us a “time out,” a chance to reflect, rest, relax, regroup and prepare to get back on the treadmill of humanity.

I once was walking along a street in New York City, a man bumped into me and kept right on going. I looked back, he didn’t even turn around, just headed off down the street, banging into a few other people. On another occasion, I was at the post office and a person went up to the window and asked for three books of stamps. The clerk at the window had a glazed look on his face….he waited about three minutes and said to the customer, “How many stamps do you want?” Comfortably numb, indeed.

Many of us are constantly looking for ways to deal with the pressures of life…some use medication, others alcohol, and some, exercise. Unfortunately, more and more are just choosing to tune out and float. You know what I mean? Just look around…you can see it. It’s one thing to daydream…it’s something else entirely to look vacated. The band Pink Floyd has written a song all about it called, you guessed it, “Comfortably Numb” !

Have you ever gotten into a car, driven around ten blocks, and wondered how you got there? Comfortably numb. Have you ever had a conversation with someone, tuned out, and tuned back in before the end of the conversation? Comfortably numb. Have you ever had a cup of coffee and then the next minute the cup is empty, and you’re wondering who drank it all? Comfortably numb! Have you ever done the laundry, brought it upstairs, and then returned later to pick it up again? Comfortably numb. How about this one….you think it’s Tuesday until you get to the office and find out it’s Wednesday! Comfortably numb, indeed.

As you can tell, I’m having a little fun with this…but one thing’s for sure….this “condition” of comfortably numb can become quite contagious. Let’s hope we don’t start to live in a world that’s just “comfortably numb.”

Step lively,

Jennifer Avalon

© 2007 Jennifer Avalon

We all start out seeing the world as a beautiful, wondrous place. Unfortunately, in many cases, life can easily dampen our dreams. As the years roll by we can become discouraged, and eventually abandon the goals we set out on originally. It all comes down to our perceptions, and pockets of little sparks that can justly kick start our engine of accomplishments.

Have you ever been around someone who is full of life and excited about the future? After a while the air around them begins to feel charged, and when they leave you feel a drop of energy. A fully charged individual believes anything is possible, if they just put their minds to it. On the other side of the coin are those who simply fold up the tent and surrender. Unfortunately, we’ve met some of those people too…how many times have we met someone who we feel has already died, and they’re just waiting for their heart to stop beating?

Sparks are all around us…little gems, little miracles that can blast us through a dead-end street. Some people see walls…while others can walk right through them. A wise man once said, if you don’t like the way things are, help change it, don’t sit back and complain. All it takes is one person to take a bold step. Sparks are there just for the asking, but it’s up to us to take the blinders off so that we can see their glow. The breath of God is all around us…all it takes is for us to breathe it in. A spark cannot ignite and glow unless it has oxygen…the air that God provides us to breathe, it too can transform the smallest ember into a flame within the heart.

Good people glow because they are full of sparks…they know that life is a marathon race, where a peaceful death is the finish line. Sparks can help us become super beings who can see beyond themselves. Sparks help us understand that we are all part of the family of man, where every soul is a member. A spark can be a thought, a new idea, a solution to a pressing problem. It’s extraordinary how just when we’re ready to give up, a spark appears.

Shine On,
Jennifer Avalon

© 2007 Jennifer Avalon

Reminiscing about the past can be a tricky exercise. You never quite know what thoughts and feelings can crop up in your mind at any moment. It doesn’t always have to be an unpleasant activity. Here is something to try the next time you have a few minutes to gaze into the past and drift through the memories:

Start at the first moment you can remember being alive…let’s say it’s 3 years old. Picture the year in your mind….think to yourself, are there any positive memories associated with that year? If there are, write it down. Then, proceed to the next year and the one after that, and so on. Each time you remember a positive thought, action, or feeling, jot it down. After a while the list begins to grow and the negative memories fall by the wayside. As we look back on our teen years, some may have been troublesome, but I’m sure we all can pull a chuckle or two out of the rabbit’s hat of adolescence. Once you get to the present, look over the list….you may be surprised just how many good times you had and perhaps forgot about. Take the list and put it in a safe place. Whenever you have one of those blue days, where nothing seems to go right, take out the sheet of paper, look over it, and you’ll be transported back to a warm moment or two when the world seemed just right.

It’s not a foolish exercise….it’s not living in the past. It’s remembering the good times, and allowing us to count a blessing or two. I am a big believer in positive reinforcements…God knows we need them more than ever these days! But the past doesn’t always have to stay in the past….it might help us in the present to be able to burst forth and catapult us into tomorrow, understanding that good times too, can lie ahead…the best days of our lives may not be over, and miracles sometimes come when we least expect them.

When you get together next time with friends or family, try the exercise with them….pass a sheet of paper to each person in the group and get them to write down some positive thoughts and experiences from the past. Then, take turns reading them aloud. Trust me, there will be much laughter, pats on the back, and maybe even some tears of joy. At the end of the evening, you may all even ask yourselves, why don’t we do this more often?

A penny for your thoughts,

Jennifer Avalon

© 2007 Jennifer Avalon

Life is one huge forest…while all around it are multiple trails from which we have to choose. Some are short, some are long…each represent a journey of length and time. We all choose one, whether we know it or not. So let’s expand on this concept of trails through the wilderness a little further….

When we examine these trails some are quite astonishing…they can incorporate dead ends, circles and paths that seem to go on forever. I have a cousin who passed away at 26 years of age…I kid you not, he packed more into those 26 years of living then some I meet who are close to 80. Though his trail may have seemed short to some, once inside the forest magical things can happen when you can stumble upon a super trail where Time and Space can be compressed and condensed. Jimi Hendrix, the legendary guitarist, passed away at 27 years of age, yet each year we are still amazed at the depth and expansion of the music that is still being released from the library of material he accumulated and recorded over his short time on earth. The other side of the equation is a friend I have who is 75 years old and spent the better part of her life doing as little as possible. Yes she had dreams, and ambitions, but was so paralyzed by the thought of taking a chance that she chose to not even bother. Unfortunately, Life can end quite quickly, but for those where it does, for the rest of us, wasting Time can become a sin.

Once we enter the Forest of Life, indeed anything can happen! We learn with each step, embrace the challenges, and seek food, comfort and shelter. Yet we are forewarned…it is quite easy to get lost in the forest. Weather conditions can change at any given moment. There are no guarantees, but to increase our odds the better prepared we are, and experiences along the way can greatly increase the odds for us to prevail through. The destination? What else? The other side of the forest.

Some consider Life the ultimate game, where the stakes are high, and mistakes are costly. For me, as I walk along my trail through the wilderness I may make mistakes, but I try to learn not to repeat them. Life can be kind, and Life can be cruel….yet no matter where we are in the forest, if we just look up, there is the sky, reminding us that there is another world beyond the trees.

Happy Trails,

Jennifer Avalon

© 2007 Jennifer Avalon

Within the past century, decade by decade the family structure splintered piece by piece, and, in some cases, spread itself to the four corners of the world. When the children grew up to spread their wings they couldn’t get far enough away from Mom and Dad. “Independence” became the motto of the day. “Doing your own thing,” was cool. Unfortunately, something happened to the family along the road to Nirvana…it slammed into a brick wall. In a perfect world, distance and space between family members could be a good thing, but Life has a strange way of throwing cold water on a formula that doesn’t work over time.

I’m sure we all have our horror stories of family members who went adrift and did bad deeds….but were we quite prepared to enter into financial and emotional relationships with strangers? What am I getting at? Well check this out….two brothers may have a hard time owning a house together, but have no problem becoming a partner in a condo or co-op with a group of people they don’t even know. Whether we care to admit it or not, condos and co-ops are business arrangements that are shared, and if something goes wrong, all are liable. So while we’re running from our families, we have landed and embraced relationships unfamiliar to us. While in the past families would pool their money together to purchase property and items, that money over time has been diluted and reduced to less buying power. The tribal family has become franchised.

Welcome to 2007….where people are starting to reverse the trend. I’ve begun reading where it is now becoming not uncommon for brothers and sisters to pool their money together to buy townhouses, two-family houses, and believe it or not, country inns. They woke up one morning and realized, “Hey, we can buy better and more if we pool our money together.” But can you really trust your family? Or do you have an easier time trusting strangers? In the olden days when a family member got out of line, the head of the family called a meeting and solved the problem. If a condo or co-op can have an elected board, why can’t a family? What was once scorned and frowned upon, is now starting to be considered an option, once again. Family used to be business, and finance…it just may become that once again.

While many of us in the past set out to try to reinvent the wheel, we may be just finding out that the wagon can run quite well with the wheels we already have. Maybe they just need a little oil and grease from time to time…but vintage doesn’t have to be a dirty word. The family structure is the glue that keeps a nation together…without it, over time, we crumble. I think many are coming Full Circle taking what they’ve learned, and applying it to the family structure and realizing that the best quality of life is when the family is strong, governed, and nurtured. We may return to the days where around one table Grandparents, parents, and children see themselves as friends, not enemies.

Full Circle,

Jennifer Avalon

© 2007 Jennifer Avalon

These days we are hard pressed at times to see the Purpose of Life. If we turn on the television news we see man-made and natural disasters, and the History Channel is ever ready to tell us of impending doom. The older generation moans that it’s “not the way it used to be,” and the Science Channel tells us that we are gobbling up nature and possibly creating a future furnace that we’ll have to try to survive in……so, is it worth it?

The Purpose of Life is to change it….we all come here fresh from Heaven, with traces of the knowledge and splendor, and the Love that creates us all….we are pushed or pulled into an earthly world of distress, disharmony, and decay. It is our job to change it….for the better. To make it become closer to where we originally come from….

So how do we do this? The complicated answer would be to say that each of us must do tremendous and huge things to accomplish this important change, but the truth is, it is the small and often unseen things that will change it the most. If each of us were able to see the Light of Compassion that beats in the chest of each of us, and the Glimmering Threads of Human Connection that makes us all One Family, we would never question or doubt our reason for being here. But by the very nature of birth, those memories of who we Truly Are become fragmented, all except for a trace…..the part of us that can still hear music, paint a canvas, cradle a baby, stroke a puppy.

So every time you smile at a sad soul walking towards you….every time you listen to a friend who needs a sounding board….when you feed a hungry person, take the time to play with a child, or cards with an older senior, these are the gestures that are our Purpose, and will help to Save the World. The ripple effect of a thousand kind gestures….spread across the spectrum of humanity.

Never doubt your Purpose….or ask if your life is “worth it.” It doesn’t take much to change the world….just the desire to do it.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

love, Jennifer Avalon

© 2007 Jennifer Avalon

These days we are hard pressed at times to see the Purpose of Life. If we turn on the television news we see man-made and natural disasters, and the History Channel is ever ready to tell us of impending doom. The older generation moans that it’s “not the way it used to be,” and the Science Channel tells us that we are gobbling up nature and possibly creating a future furnace that we’ll have to try to survive in……so, is it worth it?

The Purpose of Life is to change it….we all come here fresh from Heaven, with traces of the knowledge and splendor, and the Love that creates us all….we are pushed or pulled into an earthly world of distress, disharmony, and decay. It is our job to change it….for the better. To make it become closer to where we originally come from….

So how do we do this? The complicated answer would be to say that each of us must do tremendous and huge things to accomplish this important change, but the truth is, it is the small and often unseen things that will change it the most. If each of us were able to see the Light of Compassion that beats in the chest of each of us, and the Glimmering Threads of Human Connection that makes us all One Family, we would never question or doubt our reason for being here. But by the very nature of birth, those memories of who we Truly Are become fragmented, all except for a trace…..the part of us that can still hear music, paint a canvas, cradle a baby, stroke a puppy.

So every time you smile at a sad soul walking towards you….every time you listen to a friend who needs a sounding board….when you feed a hungry person, take the time to play with a child, or cards with an older senior, these are the gestures that are our Purpose, and will help to Save the World. The ripple effect of a thousand kind gestures….spread across the spectrum of humanity.

Never doubt your Purpose….or ask if your life is “worth it.” It doesn’t take much to change the world….just the desire to do it.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

love, Jennifer Avalon

© 2006 Jennifer Avalon

Whether we care to admit it or not, 2006 has brought us closer to the Last Stand. It was not enough that half the planet is either starving to death each day, or living at extreme levels of poverty…we now have the other half of the planet facing down the reality of nuclear proliferation. If you’re worried about the way things are, you’re not alone. Each week I receive many emails from people concerned about the state of affairs in this world. Where once nuclear weapons were quite expensive, now with a little know-how and some loose change, voila! you have a dirty bomb.

Picture yourself on a hilltop…while all around you are levels of protection, each one existing to defend your way of life, family, and neighbors. One by one, these levels of protection have been attacked and compromised. Be it corruptions of government, or scandals within religious institutions…while each one falls the wave of turmoil moves closer. Radio and television host Glenn Beck calls it “the gathering storm.” He believes that the same atmosphere exists now as pre-world war two. Glenn believes it is 1938 all over again.

I try to stay quite positive in my own life…but I do believe there are forces in play to change the landscape and the way we all live. Have we all gone mad, or is there truly something brewing out there, something on the horizon, where someone believes it is their destiny to rule and own the world? It can all seem quite bizarre and funny until someone like the President of Iran not only says he wants to wipe Israel off the face of the earth, but take on the Anglo-Saxon way of life also. Other heads of state around the world also chime in from time to time their visions of a New World. Each week there is a new face standing on the soap box of threats.

Neville Chamberlain who was Prime Minister of Great Britain met with Adolph Hitler to try to negotiate a peace treaty before the start of World War Two. He arrived back in England waving a piece of paper, saying “I have met with Chancellor Hitler, and I trust him…there will be peace in our time.” While he was speaking the words, Hitler was invading Poland. As all this was going on, only one person in the British government took a strong stand against Hitler….guess who? Winston Churchill. Was Churchill naive? Or did he see the devastation that was about to come? Some are saying the same denial is taking place again.

Is the United States the Great Satan, as some would lead you to believe? Or is there another agenda in play in someone else’s mind, who has a different vision of what the world should be like? Two opposing ideologies are on a collision course, and unless someone steps in and is able to head them off at the pass, the outcome is starting to appear quite obvious. If this happens, it will make the Second World War look like a tea party.

Why do I write this, especially at this time of year? Because the greatest gift we all can have is Peace. If there is a “gathering storm,” perhaps someone can break through the clouds with a little gleaming sunlight. Perhaps someone can blow away the clouds and calm the winds. I don’t know if one country can do it alone, but there is a power that is strong enough to wipe away the darkness. God, we need you now more than ever.

Give the gift of Peace,

Jennifer Avalon

© 2006 Jennifer Avalon