22 December 2023, Day 562

Oh, it is fun for me to be writing to You today!  We’re in Winter Solstice 💫energies today.

For me, it’s a special observance, as is Spring Equinox and a few other traditional ways of identifying changes of seasons.  Many people I know pay attention to these times as well. They’re great opportunities to celebrate as are occasions like birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, other special events of all kinds.  🥳   🎉   💃🏽

For many people, 2023 has been a particularly challenging year.  For me, it’s been a year with surprising twists and experiences leading to numerous changes in my prior lifestyle and activities.  I find myself living in the Rocky Mountains.  Didn’t realise that this was going to happen until after I broke my wrist, had surgery and required rehabilitation for the past few months and for a while to come.

I was born in the Rockies and spent my first 35 years happily living and working in 7 different locations within this extraordinarily beautiful mountain range, extending from northern Alberta and British Columbia in Canada to New Mexico in the USA.  https://www.britannica.com/place/Rocky-Mountains.

Speaking of mountains and the end of a year .. I observed New Year’s Eve of 1975 high in the Himalayan Mountains.  I was in Nepal visiting a long-time, dear Friend living / working there.  We’d trekked many days to reach a yak-butter factory at 16,000’ elevation.  En route, we ended up overnight in a wooden structure, having yak steaks and yak-butter tea with a man from Nepal and another man from Tibet.

My Friend spoke Nepali and was able to converse comfortably with the Nepali gentleman.  The Nepali man spoke Tibetan,   And so, delightfully, with the two multi-lingual fellows translating, all of us were able to talk, laugh and share a lot with each other.  I remember the weather being bitterly cold – the coldest part of that kept at a distance as we huddled around the cooking / warming fire in the middle of a large room.   After eating, we crawled into our precious extreme low- temperatures sleeping bags to slumber until the dawning of 1976.

The next day, we continued trekking toward Langtang National Forest and the yak butter factory.  At the time, there were VERY few people living along that route.  We discovered when we reached the butter factory that it was defunct and likely had been for a very l👀o👀ng time.  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Langtang_National_Park

Standing at the bottom of a sheer wall of rock and mountain, next to the factory ruins, looking straight up many thousands of feet, I made a declaration to myself ‘Someday, I will be on the other side of that mountain’.

Interestingly, 40 years later, almost to the day, after not once thinking consciously again of that moment in Nepal, I was standing and exploring .. on the other side of that sheer rock wall – in Tibet.   Another mountains/new year story!  😀

And here I am now, living once again in the region of the world where I was born.  Am currently a 3+-hour drive west of where I grew up from age 5 and lived while attending university.  Am in a part of the world I love and feel very ‘at home’ energetically.  Unexpectedly I am here and am genuinely happy about that.  (This is possible after fully mourning that I no longer live in Hong Kong – a deliberately-chosen and much-beloved home for me for my second 35 years here on Earth.)

These and other greatly fortunate experiences prompt me to keenly live my next 35 years! Am happily curious to discover where I will be living and calling ‘home’.

On home ..

May You be ‘at home’ wherever and with whomever You are.  May You KNOW You are loved and cherished .. certainly by this one individual and many others. 

May You have focus and passions in life which give meaning to your days and your ways of spending time, energy, money and other precious resources. 

May You wake up feeling grateful every day to have another moment of conscious embodiment as a Divine Being in Human form on Planet Earth. 

May You remember how wonderfully Divine You are.  Know that You are a gift to this world and particularly to those of us who know and love You as You are. 

May You know love, warmth, welcome, compassion, generosity, caring, safety and authentic joy – at the very minimum.  And may all other blessings be yours as well. 

I am grateful for your presence in my life, now and when/however we interact.  Please stay in touch.

Thank You.  Bless You.  Happy holi, holly, holy days if, when, how and with whomever You celebrate.  Blessed be your new years ahead.  Love, Diane 🌹

Sharing powerful thoughts shared with me* .. And sunset photos I recently took.

Z:  ‘A benevolent mind projects a benevolent world’ 

Byron Katie  (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Byron_Katie)

E:  ‘The most potent weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed.’  

(Anti-apartheid activist. (18 Dec 1946 – 1977; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Biko )

M:  ‘You forget to remember to be afraid. ‘                (From the animated film:  ‘9’)  

Thank You to Friends Z, E, M and to the generous skies above this small city.