A spontaneous visit to Japan...

Every morning, I sit in bed with my partner, and we start the day by talking about our dreams from the night before, any ideas that have popped into our heads and we wish to explore, and then we meditate before we eat breakfast and start the day.

This morning, Jules was working on his iPad, when he turned to me and said:

"Would you be interested in going to Tokyo for a short break? Just before we leave New Zealand to go back to the USA?"

I nonchalantly said: "Sure..." (my voice sounded a bit unsure....)

Jules punched something on his iPad screen and waited.

I asked what was he doing...

He said that he just placed a bid in an online auction for airline tickets.

Two tickets from Auckland to Tokyo, for a real bargain price.

I asked when does the auction closes, and he said: "we will know if we won in....... Twenty eight SECONDS...."

Exactly twenty eight seconds later, we won the auction and.... I guess we are going to Tokyo....

I am very excited to go.

I LOVE Japan and I enjoy visiting it often.

And beside... I need a break from our retreat- isolation- hard work rural place up here in the Hokianga.

We originally planned to drive around the North Island of NZ in January, to visit places we have not seen before, and to enjoy our adopted country, but the weather has been so rainy and stormy that we have fallen behind on our maintenance work and gardening.

I have been spending many hours in the studio, and it has been going VERY VERY well.

I had many insights and light filled moments while exploring the subject of body image in my art.

So now........In about two weeks...... we will enjoy a week in Tokyo.

Usually the last week before we leave NZ, is always devoted to packing and closing down the property.

Now in the last week before our return to the USA, we will be in Tokyo.

I was thinking that it was time for a break...

For the past month we have worked so hard daily, both physically and artistically.

And our wonderful and simple life involved mostly meditation, mindfulness work in the garden or around the property, cooking, eating, resting, reading and writing.

We like this kind of simple and soulful life.

We look at it as if we are at a Zen retreat in the isolated hills.

We are following in the footsteps of the ancient Japanese Zen Masters, who believed that hard physical work combined with daily meditation and living a simple and wholesome life, is a good path to fulfillment and enlightenment.

The Masters used to chop wood and carry water from the stream, meditate while sitting Zazen, and continued to meditate during daily activities.

Meditation should not end when you get up from the cushion.

You can stay engaged in working meditation or walking meditation, which involves being totally focused on the task at hand, thus freeing the mind from its monkey nature of jumping from one idea to the next idea, from past regrets and memories, to worrying about the future.

When you work with a free mind, you do not get tired or fatigued.

What I plan to say now, may sound strange to you... But it is true.

When we move away from body-identification and operate fully in Spirit, we will find that we require less sleep, less food and that we do not feel fatigued at all.

We can have exuberant amounts of energies, if we do not waste mental and emotional energies on judging, worrying, or resenting, and entertaining disempowering or unforgiving thoughts.

To be fatigued is to be dis-spirited.

To be inspired, is to be In-The-Spirit.

You can choose to face each situation, each moment, each day, from your Spirit and not from your ego.

It is an hourly or even momentary choice, which we have to keep on making... Until it becomes second Nature and we will do it automatically.

Our TRUE Divine Nature will take over, if we will let it..... By offering our occupied minds up to Spirit to be corrected.

You are NOT alone..

And loving HELP IS there for you...

Would you not be willing to accept it?....