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Letter from The Editor

This is the season of holiday giving.  If you’re like me, you’re running around shopping for gifts for your loved ones.  Although Christmas isn’t my favorite holiday, I do love giving gifts to people I love.  Other than birthdays, it’s one time of the year I get to show people how much I care about them with gifts and have them accept them with good grace.  How delightful it is to find just the perfect gift for someone? 

We have all heard it is better to give than to receive.  However, I beg to differ on this.  I believe it is just as blessed to receive with grace as it is to give.  How often do we give something to someone, even something as intangible as a compliment, do they brush it off?  Think about when you have searched for and found a present for someone you knew they really wanted and it would make them happy.  How do you feel when they tell you, “Oh, you shouldn’t have,” and try to give it back to you?  You feel very disappointed.  You were so excited to give it to them, and for them to reject it, because of so-called manners, was disheartening. 

We need to learn to receive with grace and gratitude.  In our receiving, we are giving one of our greatest gifts to the other person – our love and gratitude.  How much more of an enjoyable experience for both of you when you receive with genuine enthusiasm? 

This holiday season, and beyond, I invite you to remember to receive with grace and gratitude.  The person giving to you wants to express their love to you.  Receive in love.  It is one of the greatest gifts you can reciprocate with someone else.  Change the saying and your attitude to, “It is just as blessed to receive with joy as it is to give in joy.” 

Wishing you the brightest and best holiday season!

Love & Light,

 

Tora Moon

                     

Giving and Receiving

There is a big difference in the energy of giving and taking, and that of giving and receiving.  When we are in survival mode, we tend to be in the give and take energy.  Unfortunately, so much of our society and business lives in the “take” energy.  They want to get something for nothing.  Or they try to get as much as possible for as little as possible.  For instance, the internet marketing methods going on right now includes so much “free” bonuses and stuff many times five to six times the value of the item being purchased.  Somehow the marketing industry believes we have to be offered a lot of something for nothing to entice us to purchase what we really wanted in the first place.  It seems as if we can’t just exchange fair value for fair value anymore. 

Taking energy is a forcing energy.  It is taking what we want without regard for the other person.  We force them into giving us what they have that we want.  This can be their money, their services, and even their love.  Taking is very disempowering, for both parties, but especially the one being taken from.  This energy of “taking” is what has defined the dominator model of competition which is the paradigm of our modern society.  When we take from someone else it is a way of conquering and dominating the other person.  It is an attempt to be in power over them.  For example, think about something as simple as a parent or adult taking away a toy from a child in anger.  The parent or adult is imposing their wants and their greater will on the child.  The child feels defenseless, unheard, and disempowered.  None of their wants or desires have been considered.  It is a lose-lose situation.  The parent looses the respect of the child.  The child becomes even more convinced their voices are never heard and what they want doesn’t matter. 

It is this disempowering, dominating energy which has led to the misconception that “it is better to give than to receive.”  It isn’t receiving which is negative, but taking.  It is very powerful, and empowering, for the other person for us to receive with grace and gratitude as it is to give.  When someone shares of themselves and gives us something, even as small as a compliment, we need to receive the gift with grace.  Think about how you feel when you have found something you know the other person will like.  You may have searched a long time for it or heard the person asking for it or commenting on it and you happened upon it.  How excited were you to give this gift to them?  How much were you looking forward to seeing and sharing their joy when you gave it to them?  Now, how did you feel when they responded with, “Oh, you shouldn’t have,” or some other disparaging statement.  Didn’t your bubble of joy deflate?  If they push away your gifts often with false modesty, how long do you think you’ll continue to give them things?  Not long.  Most of us aren’t gluttons for punishment.  Our gifts need not be physical objects that we buy, they could be our gift of love or song or our smile.  It could be praise of how nice they look or a job well done. 

Now, think back to a time when someone received the gift you were bursting inside to give them with grace and gratitude and enthusiasm.  How did it make you feel?  Didn’t their joy increase your joy?  I learned this lesson a number of years ago.  I was taking a weekend workshop with a friend.  He was facilitating and had a flip chart and a black marker.  He mentioned wishing he had more colors to illustrate his points better.  I just so happened to have a set of markers in fun colors at home, hardly used.  The next day, I gave him the markers.  He gave me back the gift of receiving them with joy and gratitude.  He was so happy with that little gift and he expressed it to me.  It wasn’t a dull, polite, “Oh, thank you, you shouldn’t have,” response.  It was an enthusiastic and sincere, “Thank you!  These are perfect!” 

I learned then our receiving with joy is a gift in return to the person sharing with us.  It becomes an equal exchange of energy.  And it makes them want to do more special things for us and to look for other ways to express how much they love us.  Isn’t that what a gift is?  An expression of love?  No matter what the gift, aren’t we giving to someone because we love and care for them?  We generally don’t give things or share ourselves with people we don’t like.  We need to change the saying and our attitudes to, “It is just as blessed to receive with joy as it is to give in joy.”

 

Meditation - Abundance

I've developed a method which transforms your life, bringing to you such qualities as Trust, Stillness, and Abundance.  I call this method, Transformational Prayers.  This method engages the mind, incorporates visioning, feeling, alignment of energy, affirmations, and the power of sound.  It activates all 3 of the steps of the Law of Attraction; clarity, attention, and allowance.  It aligns our energy with the aspects we desire to bring into our lives with focused intention.  This will transform your life.

I include using Mudras, which are hand gestures to create and align with the energy of what I’m focusing on.  I also use Mantras, which are prayerful chants, in this case, ancient Sanskrit chants.  Each month I will share with you a mudra and mantra set for you to try.  If you want to experience them more, they are included on my forthcoming CD Transformational Prayers, which includes a booklet of descriptions along with full-color pictures of the mudra and the mantra.  The music of the mantras is beautiful, full of interesting instruments and percussion.  Each piece is different.

 To pre-order your CD click here.

This month, since it is season of giving and receiving, I’ve chosen to share with you the mudra and mantra for Abundance.

Abundance

Abundance and prosperity comes in many forms, not just in money and financial wealth.  There is the wealth and abundance of health, of loving relationships, of family, and of right work.  It is the wealth that comes from wonderful friends with whom to share life experiences.  Abundance is joy, love, good food, expressions of your creativity, beauty, and connection to Spirit.  All of these are as important, if not more so, as money to living a full and satisfying life.  This mudra and mantra will help attune your energy to the bright blessings that Spirit has waiting for you.  And for you to allow those blessings to come into your life.

Mudra:

Cup your hands together and hold them outstretched about forehead height, as in an offering.  See and visualize the blessings, bounty and abundance of Spirit flowing into the cup of your hands.  Accept and receive the infinite abundance of the Universe, for the resources of Spirit are beyond our imagination.  When your “cup” is full, bring your hands to your face and breathe in, drink in the blessings, then place your hands over your heart in gratitude for all that you receive.

This mudra opens up the many small chakras in your hands for you to receive the blessings and abundance of the Universe, of Spirit.

Mantra:  Om Shrim Klim Maha Lakshmiyei Swaha

(OHM SHREEM KLEEM MAH-HA LOCK-SHMEE-YEAH SWAH-HA)

{Click here for sample}

Om and salutations to She who provides abundance.

 

This mantra is to the Hindu Goddess, Lakshimi, the Goddess of Abundance and Prosperity.  It connects us to the Divine Energy of Abundance and flows the blessings of the Universe to us.

Sample Affirmations:

My life is abundant and prosperous.

I am successful, prosperous and wealthy.

I choose to see the beauty, love, and abundance around me.

Doing what I love and enjoy brings me money and abundance.

I am blessed with abundance and prosperity.