There's a Reason it is called "Eve" - Christmas Love for all my Soul Sisters (and Soul Brothas, too!)

Merry Christmas! It's time to get your Girl On!!

I have never not been the rabidly charged and insanely jubilant Anti-Cheerleader, especially when it comes to all things "Girl." Because we have all been through marked and life changing stuff lately, I thought that it would be appropriate to bid you all a couple of good Christmas wishes, Girl Style, and let you know what exactly it is that a Girl wishes for on Christmas...

While it may not be the merriest of Christmases for a lot of us, there are a few things that I need to say to you all, and I thought that this would be the best way to do it...


Today I woke up to the thought in my head that we all need to prepare for the year ahead, and I do not mean to prepare yourselves for something horrible to happen - even though something horrible can happen. I want you all to think and dwell on everything that you have been given by Spirit in 2011, and I want you to think about all that you lost during that time, and now I want you to think that it is not a bad thing that these things happened.

You've gotta start thinking about all those perceived losses as the Hand of God wiping away your muck, taking all of your worn out ideals and presumptions that no longer fit anymore and think that God gave them to the local Thrift store. You have to have faith in everything that you do and you have to see yourself as a diamond in the rough. Right now your nerves are raw, your body, weary, your mind tired of all the bad things that it has processed.

All the tears that you cried, and all the arguments you had, and all the crap that you were doled out this past year was not without purpose. You were meant to go through it all. You were meant to learn.

Merry Freakin' Christmas, folks! You are now smarter than you were at this same time last year. (And you thought it was just going to be another drama-filled Christmas...not hardly, and not even close...)

 "Get Your Girl On"


I want you all to think about what it is that you have been through these last 12 months, and when you do, don't cry. Don't cry for lost time, and neither for all of the pain that was caused by someone else, pain meant for you to feel and to carry, but certainly not yours alone to deal with. Think about how angry you have been, how many times you cried and how many times you looked to the sky and asked God if this was all there was for you. Think about every argument, every loss, every tiny little thing that you have gone through and be grateful for it all because without it, you would not be who you are now.

The greatest gift that we have to give to ourselves this year is the acceptance that we may have come into 2011 weak, insignificant to another, confused and not really caring to learn more than we already did. We started out impatient with no direction and no idea of where it is that we want to be, but in the months that passed you did not realize that you have changed and all the changes were for your own good. You were made stronger by the adversities in your life that were not your cause, and you have been made into the Goddess You Are now because of it all.

If you were called names, belittled, told who you are, told that you are unworthy, useless, pathetic, anything that is not Truth, take heed and know, NOW, that you were once a diamond in the rough, once a mere piece of earthy green jade that looked more like a glistening rock that needed to be washed more than anything else.
But now look at ya - now you shine brighter than the diamond that was hard to see through the blackness of the coal, are more lustrous than any other jade known, and it shows.

Today walk out into the brightness of the Sun and see your shadow for the very first time all over again. Look into the eyes of those people who call you "Mama" and see there, too, the beauty that is You. Look into your heart, into your Soul, and never mind what it was that you were told about anything ugly, anything not conducive to bringing out that brightness that is You. You are the one who makes this year the merriest of all, and  you are the one who makes it beautiful. Get on out there into the great big world and strut your stuff, all of it, all at one time, because you earned it, darlin', you really earned it.

Take a stare at the mirror and see there that you have changed and see too that the changes were right, were needed, were the gift that you gave yourself the day you decided that you have had enough of someone else telling you your worth, your abilities and talents, who you are and what you will always ever be. You are Who makes your world great, and you are who makes your world shine, and you are the one whose place in the world is in manifest, so go on out into it and make your Oscar Night entrance, and know that it is the greatest gift that you have ever been given.

Don't go for second best....put your Love to the test... (You've gotta Love Madonna !! ) and get out there and be of good cheer, spread Joy and Love everyone with whom you have an encounter, no matter how brief or odd...don't settle for less than what you deserve, and make sure to it that everyone else knows that this is your own gift to yourself - the gifts of strength, self-Love, beauty and day-dreaming.

Take it upon yourself today to make sure to it that this time next year, you remember that you Shine like the Sun, are mysterious like the phases of the Moon, are more able to do things than you were last year, and now you are all you need to be at this time in your life, so as to move on, to move forward, to Be Who You Are.

The World Awaits....Mele Kalikimaka

I Love You All !!
Rox

(Rev. Roxanne Cottell is a Freelance Writer, Speaker and Spiritual Counselor residing in Southern California. For inquires regarding the Ka Wahine 'Ui dance program for survivors of domestic abuse,or any other inquiries. send an email by clicking this link . Her latest book, "Goddesses, Priestesses and Queens" can be purchased at lulu.com and amazon.com) 

"The Greatest of These is Love..." (1 Corinthians 13:13)

The greatest gift another can receive from us is our Love

I just finished writing my other blog  and find that the one thing that survivors of domestic abuse are very unsure of is being able to Love fully again.

Let me tell you one thing, folks - no one is not ever capable of not Loving completely, no matter what or who. We were designed with the capacity to Love, with the capacity to give that Love, and it does not matter how many times we are beaten, literally or figuratively, the one fact that remains and will always remain is that no matter how much we want to believe that we are not lovable, no matter how many times we tell ourselves that we will not ever trust another person again for as long as we each live, there is not one person on the planet who is void of the ability to Love.

The Ability to Love


We, at one point, believe that we are not lovable, believe that we are somehow the only person on the planet who is not getting the Love we deserve and the one person on the planet who was meant as the poster child for who has been abused. NO ONE NEEDS to be abused, but it happens a whole lot, and in the time that it takes for someone to beat out of us the idea that we do not need Love from many sources we are at the point where we believe there is no return.

When speaking of Love, there is no such thing as a point of no return - Love is always returned, maybe not by the person who we try to Love and who we want to Love us, but from the rest of the planetary Tribe we are all an important part of. And when it comes to that point, it is the time that we find a way to involve ourselves with something outside of ourselves so as to give to the world the thing that lives within us.

Love.

There is no gift quite like it

This time of year we are bombarded with mail and emails and pop-ups and people at our door who are soliciting donations for various causes. And of course I would encourage anyone to give what they can, but when you can't give something tangible, give something that you can give all the time, without needing to stand in line to pay for it, and give something that is guaranteed to come back to you.

We are convinced by others that we are not worthy to receive what it is that we need, and if we believe this we end up with nothing, or what seems like nothing, but there is always our inborn capacity for Love.

Give of your Self - find a cause to support...


In all the years that I have been in this marriage with this now dying man, I never really understood why it was that I felt like I was not doing enough. The truth was that I was doing plenty for him and nothing for me. When the first AIDSWalk that he knew about my participation was about to start, he gave me so much grief for it and badmouthed me to the point of not being able to think straight. Then one morning I woke up and looked at him and saw that it is not because he is a homophobe, not because he is choosing ignorance over common sense, that we was like this, but because it was something that he was not willing to know more about, and what he was not willing to know more about was the idea of giving of one's self through time and effort.

To people who have no cause to support, theirs is a world which is black and white, cut and dry, and there is no such thing as being able to give without also expecting to receive something tangible in return. This man knows that though I love my tangible goodies, I am someone who Loves and Loves giving intangible gifts. It is no wonder that I do what I do for my job - I Love people, and I Love communicating with people, and I Love to give people things that they can feel but cannot touch.

In short, I Love to Love others, and my Life is about giving it freely to those most in need of it. It is my cause, to be here in this Life to Love others by teaching them and including them in how they heal from the brokenness of their own lives so that they can go on with Life with their heads and hearts vibrating in unison, lending to the greater Whole of Life itself.

If what you have been through in Life has taught you anything at all, I hope that it is the knowledge that you are Loved, are lovable, and that you have a lot of Love to give, not just to one person, but to the world at large. By joining a cause, you give yourself an avenue through which you can work out your imbalance of wanting to Love but not being able to or wanting to show it or give it to the person to whom you entrusted your Self to and then later found that you judged them incorrectly. Where you feel like there is nothing, there is something and that something is Love and the nothing that you feel is just there to remind you to get out there in the great big world and start giving it away...

You can do it. You can be your own cause until another one comes along that needs your brand of Love!!

I Love You All!!
...Rox...


(Rev. Roxanne Cottell is a Freelance Writer, Speaker and Spiritual Counselor residing in Southern California. For inquires regarding the Ka Wahine 'Ui dance program for survivors of domestic abuse,or any other inquiries. send an email by clicking this link . Her latest book, "Goddesses, Priestesses and Queens" can be purchased at lulu.com and amazon.com)