Horizons Magazine

Andrea de Michaelis, Publisher

Soul Centered Astrology Report s
by
Andrea
de Michaelis

.
.

May 2007

Hand karma, attracting challenges, computer crash and no backup, messages from the paper shredder, unsolicited advice, green bananas, Abraham-Hicks Secret behind the Secret.

Hello and welcome to the May 2007 edition of Horizons Magazine.

For everyone who’s asked about the progress of my hands after the March dog bite incident, they are improving every day. I can now use the index finger of my left hand to type, and can use the thumb also. Yay! I am still bathing and grooming one handed, which is a trip, but it shouldn’t be long. Thanks for your notes and prayers!

I’ve been doing a little reflection on my ‘hand karma’ and realizing in an expanded way that I may be unconsciously being a little prideful about my ability to overcome challenges. I am beginning to realize that is one way I attract and pre-pave these little crises for myself. By taking pride in being able to overcome them. Plus then I get to write about it, so everyone gets to hear my lesson. I need to update and revise that belief. I know behind it is my good intention that I want to save someone steps by writing about the lessons I learn along the way. I find it hard to let go of the belief that what I do matters - yet that whole concept is of course a paradox. It’s not my job to fix anyone, but I know holding thoughts on their behalf works. I know they don’t have to participate consciously, but I also know if they do, that increases results dramatically, so I like to encourage them to do it.

Having to depend on other people for things that require two hands took a lot of getting used to, but I am now — after this last go round — officially over that! I’ve recruited several friends to lend a hand and everything is running more efficiently now.

Oh, did I mention that my computer crashed last month and I had not been backing up? I hafta just laugh, I was the one who attracted it! I bought a new computer in March that had to be returned a few days later, and I was working on my old computer when the crash occurred. I did have the April 2007 magazine file saved to a thumbdrive, as well as my bookkeeping program and journal. But my subscription list was gone, as well as my ad files and all my layout files. That was my gigantic bank of several years’ worth of articles waiting to go in. Like the ones I didn’t lay out yet for May....... hehehe

So I wrote to all the authors and publicists I could think of whose work was waiting to go in and they began resending to me. I knew I could recreate my subscription list since my bookkeeping backup was current, that it would just take some time to do. I did spend an entire day going back and forth over just what program I wanted them to go into, now that I had a chance for a fresh start.

I tend to stay stuck in particular work patterns and limit myself by not wanting to make a change to a new program or begin a new routine. When I catch myself doing that, I am always eager to break the pattern and broaden my perception of what else is possible. So I’m eager to restructure, now that I’m free of another layer of my past!

Still another layer I recently removed from my past was boxes of old files that I no longer needed. I bought a paper shredder in March and have been shredding junk mail and the old files. The paper shreds into small, beautiful elongated elliptical shapes. One evening as I was emptying the shedder basket, I watched as messages formed from the fragmented text as I sifted it thru my fingers. It was like reading one fortune cookie after another! I tried asking questions in my mind and got a series of relevant and insightful answers. It made me realize that I am in communication with the Universe all the time, and if I pay attention, I will hear its messages from everything around me.

One most recent message happened just yesterday. Earlier, I had emailed to my friend Beth Head: “I can bend the fingers on my left hand today! Last night as I finished my evening meditation, I noticed the fingers of my left hand were curled up for the first time since the injury, fingers bent. The second and third fingers are still swollen and the pads too sensitive to touch anything, and until last night they were also quite stiff. I am excited about the major progress! I can also now use my pinky on the left hand to type. Before, I could only type with the index finger since I couldn’t bend the fingers to keep them out of the way. So thanks, your prayers are working.”
### end of email

About 15 minutes later, I wrote her another email: “Wow. Right after I sent you the last email, I walked out into the living room in time to hear Jewel’s song from 1995 “Hands” . As I stood with eyes closed listening, it spoke to me in a way it had not before. I came in and found the lyrics and here’s how they spoke to me. I just wanted to share since it was my email to you that precipitated the whole encounter.”

Lyrics to Hands by Jewel

If I could tell the world just one thing
It would be that we’re all ok
And not to worry because worry is wasteful
and useless in times like these. (something I know but was worried about my continuing hand injuries.)

I will not be made useless (I felt as though God was promising this to me directly)
I won’t be idled with despair (again God was telling me this directly via my own internal dialogue)
I will gather myself around my faith
for light does the darkness most fear. (I had an instant image of God and gurus standing before me, above me and around me, one of those saturating images where I felt as thought I’d been suddenly transported into the midst of an ongoing movie.).

My hands are small, I know, (I felt vulnerable and like I was making excuses not to work as I heard this)
but they’re not yours they are my own (I felt as though God was reminding me He is working through me)
but they’re not yours they are my own (when He repeated it, I got it in a way I had not before)
and I am never broken. (this I did know)

Poverty stole your golden shoes
but it didn’t steal your laughter
And heartache came to visit me
but I knew it wasn’t ever after.

We will fight, not out of spite
for someone must stand up for what’s right
cause where there’s a man who has no voice
there ours shall go singing. (I always thought this line said “there are shadows singing” as in Luke 19:40 Jesus saying, “...if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.” For the first time, I heard it as it really is and received another deeper “a-ha” than I had before.)
In the end only kindness matters
### end of email

I spent some time contemplating the significance of Spirit working through my hands. I was reminded of a story we’ve all heard about during the Second World War, a quaint little French village was bombed by mistake. The villagers were forewarned and cleared out of the village before the bombing started. They sat on a nearby hill that night and watched as bombs leveled their town. They returned to their village and all joined together in the effort to rebuild. As the rubble was cleared from the village square, several pieces of white marble were found, the remains of the statue that stood in the square. The villagers called on the best sculptor to rebuild the old statue as a remembrance of the rebuilding of their village. The sculptor worked for years on the great challenge. Finally, a veiled figure stood in the square, then the veil was removed. There in the square stood a figure of Christ exactly as in the visitors center in Salt Lake City, with his hands outstretched to all. But this statue had no hands, because a bomb blast hit too close and pulverized them beyond repair. So the inscription, instead of reading as it once had, “Come unto Jesus,” now read “I have no hands but yours.”

I generally feel a duty to help out those in my immediate arena, and do, to the best of my ability. But it’s also a good lesson for me to know that not everyone is looking for help. A friend recently suggested to me, to ask if someone wants to hear my suggestions, and to not just begin giving advice. Do you know people who are always giving unsolicited advice and opinions and sometimes it’s hard to have a cohesive conversation because they keep butting in with what they think would be better for you to do, what you SHOULD do? Well, it turns out I am one of those people!

In a way, it’s an occupational hazard, since in my private practice I am paid to point out to people any habits of speech or behavior I notice that demonstrates a belief system they might want to change or update. I spend so much time with clients and so little time in casual social settings, that my tendency is to “work” on my friends when I’m with them. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t do it on purpose and when I notice it, I correct it. But I catch myself at it time and time again. So I was invited to consider asking, “May I suggest something?” or “Would you like my opinion?” rather than just rattling off what I think they should do other than what they are doing. As soon as he pointed it out to me, I realized I did it a lot and that I have several friends who do it a lot as well. Vibrational match!

At
http://theadvancedsoul.com, a friend writes on the topic of Unsolicited Advice and Shoulding on People. He says: “On my journey, I came to realize that giving unsolicited advice had the opposite effect I intended. I’ve been working on myself for 4 years now and I’d like to think that I have gotten somewhere, or rather I have returned to a place of inner peace I once knew. And over this time I have acquired lots of bits of information to make my life harmonious with the world. Naturally I want to share this info with those close to me, and with the world actually. I mean my life is so happy and amazing, wouldn’t everybody want this? The answer to everybody’s problems are so simple and I have them. Then I try to share them with somebody not on or even near a path of enlightenment and it backfires. They rip me apart for even offering this advice. So where did I go wrong? Well, my uncle once told me never to give unsolicited advice. That is a tough thing to handle when you think you have all the answers. I live by some simple rules that make things run happy and smooth, but the advice rule has been hard to follow. I mean you see somebody struggling with a problem that is making them miserable and you know all they have to do is this one thing and all will be happy.

But the fact is, this thing will solve my problems because they are my truths at this moment in time. I could not have taken that advice 5 years ago because I was not in the proper place in time. I suppose there are many paths to enlightenment, one is not the correct one and the others are not wrong. So I need to bite my tongue, maybe chew it off, I don’t know. This is hard to do. One thing my wife does is to ask people if they want some advice. This doesn’t always work, because people just say “yes” to be polite. But I guess they feel less angry at you since they did in fact give you permission. So my wife had a “talk” with me the other day about this. I’ve been giving her unsolicited advice a lot lately. For some reason, since she is on a path like mine, I thought it was ok. But I found out, it’s never, ever, ever ok to give unsolicited advice.“

And now that it’s been brought to my attention, I agree that’s good advice.

Like eating a banana every day is good advice. I love bananas. I especially like to buy green bananas. The yellow ones bring up all my commitment issues. Will it be ripe before I’m ready for it? Will I place yet another banana in the freezer for that smoothie that never materializes? Will I guilt trip myself for doing that? Will I beat myself up for guilt tripping myself? Buying yellow bananas can bring up all sorts of issues if I’m not careful? But when I buy green bananas, well, that changes the storyline! I begin to look forward to them turning yellow. Every day I walk by and wonder how much longer they are going to take. Sometimes they play really hard to get, taking a week or more. They know that gets to me. They like to play with my head. They are playing coy Venus to my Aries Mars.

Hey, forget the bananas for a minute! Abraham-Hicks! Order the dvd, see the inside back cover of this magazine for info, or go to
www.abraham-hicks.com. I admit I was a little miffed to find Abraham-Hicks edited out of The Secret movie. Which is silly since Jerry and Esther didn’t seem miffed. I guess disappointed is a better word. The biggest difference I noticed in the edited (what they call the ‘extended’) version is that without the crystal clarity of Abraham woven in and out of the other speakers, many subtle nuances of ‘the secret’ are missing. While most of the co-presenters were, if not students of Abraham, then certainly very familiar with the Hicks work and for many the Hicks material was their first introduction to the law of attraction. Yes, they all mention other authors, going back many years. But remember, all reference to Abraham-Hicks has been removed from the edited (extended) version of The Secret. If you can locate the original edition of The Secret, buy it!

At Amazon.com, Stanlie Lee wrote a great review:
A majority of the teachers quoted in “The Secret” DVD had studied Abraham, the clearest source of Law of
Attraction teachings, This DVD appeals to two audiences: fans of “The Secret” and fans of Abraham-Hicks.

First group: If you’ve read the book The Secret or viewed the DVD The Secret (Extended Edition), or better yet, viewed the original DVD The Secret (Original Edition) that included Abraham/Esther Hicks in it, and you’d like an even clearer, more comprehensive explanation of the Law of Attraction and how and why our emotions or feelings create our reality, then this DVD is for you. The teachings called Law of Attraction are a spiritual teaching of a universal, spiritual law, and who better to teach it that the group of spiritual beings who call themselves Abraham or Source Energy.

Second group: If you’ve heard Abraham lecture on CD, on DVD, or in person, and one of your favorites in Abraham’s talks has always been when Abraham tells a story about the intimate details of the lovely, very human lives of husband and wife Jerry and Esther Hicks, then this DVD is a must have for you, as Jerry and Esther themselves tell stories in this DVD about their life together, and detail, in a depth not available on any previous Abraham-Hicks Publications book, CD or DVD, their lives pre-Abraham and the step-by-step path that led them to Abraham.

There are three episodes of about 45 to 50 minutes each. The first episode is the interview with Jerry and Esther Hicks, who is the channel through which Abraham communicates. The second and third episodes contain the Q & A sessions with the entity Abraham. The questions are beautifully and lovingly answered by Abraham and this Q & A actually contains the most moving parts of this film. There is such unconditional love in these teachings, that one can’t help but feel that this is what it’s like to hear God speak.

Personally, I’ve found no clearer answers to life’s big questions than those answers from this teacher called Abraham, and, not too long after I’ve immersed myself in Abraham’s teachings, I sold all my other spiritual, self-improvement books to the used book section of the local metaphysical bookstore here. Reading other authors now feels like listening to a radio station whose signal is not always clear. Why guess at what an author means, why read between the lines, when there is a teacher as clear as Abraham who tells it the way the Universe really is, the way it’s all really set up to run?”
###

I am in complete agreement with that. When I first discovered Abraham *thanks to Walter Levine, the crystal guy*, my world changed. Just realizing that every subject was two subjects changed completely everything for me. Everything began making sense, and it’s been uphill since then!

So this month I’ve learned or been reminded of:
  1. Taking pride in overcoming challenges attracts more challenges into my experience.
  2. Starting over can be very freeing and liberating.
  3. The Universe is talking to me all the time. If I pay attention, I will hear its messages from everything around me. Even from the shredded trash.
  4. My hands are not my own.
  5. It’s never cool to give unsolicited advice.
  6. Some things are worth waiting for.
  7. Abraham-Hicks offers the clearest answers to life’s big questions, and makes the learning of it all very fun and doable. It doesn’t have to be hard.
Enjoy our offering this month.

Life is good!

Hari Om.

Comments? Write to the author, Andrea de Michaelis.</FON