Don’t you just love this game we are all playing called “Life on Planet Earth?” The more I play the game and enjoy the process the more I am able to figure out how to understand the rules of the game so that I can play at higher levels with less frustration and more joy.

When I was sleepwalking through life, for about forty years or so, I always thought that life was happening to me and I had to keep reacting to the people, places and events in my life. Then I went through a period where I started to open myself up to looking at life from a different perspective than the one I had been conditioned to believe from birth.

The main concept that really caught my attention was the idea that I was not a victim of life; I was the creator of life. Whoa. Hold on there Betsy. I finally realized that we are not here to discover life but we are here to ‘create our life’ in any manner that we choose. Now, once I got this concept deeply entrenched into my belief system the game was on for me and I have never looked back.

Once you understand that you are creating your life as you go along you begin to see your whole life and the whole ‘game of life’ from an entirely different perspective. Instead of wondering what is going to happen next you begin to ‘create’ what is going to happen next. And when this starts happening you begin to ask the question “why do I want what I want?”

The answer is always the same. I want what I want so that I can be happy. That is the end game of every choice we make in life. We are always trying to be happy. Now that makes a lot of sense. Once I got this in my head I realized that you don’t have to do anything to ‘be happy’ because happiness is not something you strive for and attain. Happiness is the essence of who you really are. So in fact, you have the capacity for happiness at any time. All it takes is a choice to “be happy” and you can reach that state of being.

Your true authentic self is made up of unconditional love and unconditional love expresses itself in the world as happiness and joy. Joy is the highest state of happiness and when you are experiencing joy you can be assured that you are totally aligned with the source energy from which the entire universe comes.

So the real key to a successful life is to be in a state of joy all the time, right? And in order to be in a state of unconditional joy all the time you would have to choose that and make it your priority above all others. Intellectually this seems like a very doable thing because you know that in order to experience unconditional joy you would have to accept every condition, experience, person and event in life as a joy to you. It would have to be ‘unconditional.’

There could not be any situation whatsoever that would change that for you. Nothing. And guess what, you get to put the meaning to everything that happens in your life. So you are the only one who can call forth a ‘condition’ which is not joyful. Would you do that if you really wanted to experience unconditional joy all of your life?

Theoretically you would not choose any conditions that don’t bring you joy but in reality you do it anyway. Why? Because you have a mind that is not on the same path of unconditional joy that you are. You have a mind but you are not your mind. You, the real you, observes your mind. You, the real you, observes your body. You, the real you is not your mind or your body but is the observer of your mind and your body. You, the real you, is perfectly capable of living in unconditional joy because that is your true nature.

When you are aligned with that nature you feel the joy. When you are not aligned with the truth of you then you experience the conditions that are not joyful to you. It still all comes down to choice. You are the observer and you are the choice maker. Try choosing unconditional joy in your life. Just try an experiment with your life and see how you like it. If you choose it you will be ‘Joyful.’

Live in love,

Richard D. Blackstone

Posted on August 27th, 2010 by Richard
Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »

I am so blessed to live by a river. There is amazing energy when it comes to water and when the water comes in the form of a river the energy is truly palpable at times.

It is mid-July as I write this and the days here are long and hot, into the 90’s, which is pretty warm in this part of the country. So taking a ride on the river has a lot of great advantages right now, not the least of which is to cool off a little and take in the nature that comes along with this assignment.

So a friend from out of town is visiting and we decide to float down the river from the nearest point of entry to the south, which is a bridge at Creswell. It is about 4 miles on the odometer from my house to the bridge. Only about 4 miles as the crow flies, which I came to find out is different than that same four miles on a meandering river. I still figure it will be about two to two and a half hours. Give or take.

Coast Fork of Willamette River

Let the floating commence. We started out in a very slow part of the river and then got to our first rapids that kind of shot us down the river and I reaffirmed my assessment of having a leisurely ride down the river.  And that is exactly the way it was for the first three hours. Just beautiful and warm and lots and lots of birds and nature to look at and appreciate.

By my reckoning we had to be very close to my house where we would take our ‘inner tubes’ out of the water and do our high fives. Well, one river bend turned into another river bend and nothing looked familiar and then the sun started going down over the trees. It is one thing to be floating down the river in the sunshine and quite another when you are in the shade. All of a sudden it is cold and then it is not quite so fun.

But it was funny. We had to keep laughing and making fun to keep our spirits up as the river bends kept coming but we were not close to home yet. The standing joke was that “I think the house is right around the next bend.” Ha ha. NOT.

We started shivering and then we started doing the backstroke on our inner tubes so that we could get down the river faster. Yahoo, it soon became an obsession of necessity to get as far as we could as fast as we could so that we could get out of the river and warm up.

‘Hey, I think it is right around the next bend.’ And finally, we were right. What a welcome site to see my house sitting on the river bank and pulling into the little beach where we could take the ‘inner tubes’ out of the water and then drag ourselves out as well. Wow, that was one wonderful feeling to be back on dry land where we could warm up and get some grub.

But first it was a lot of howling laughter as we danced around in the warm sunlight of the deck. The shivering stopped and the glow of the river showed in our faces as we high fived and headed to the hot shower about four and a half hours after we put in upriver.

Here is the deal: Perseverance and total belief that you are going to make it to your destination. No matter where you are going as long as you keep your end result in front of you and persevere in your actions you will reach your goal, no matter what it is that you desire. KNOW that it is already a done deal because it is as long as you BELIEVE it is. Then just keep going. Sometimes you are going to be going through rapids and seem like you are rocketing to your destination and then at other times you are just barely moving and it doesn’t seem like you are making any progress, but you are.

You are in a river, it is called the ‘River of Life’ and the current in the ‘river of life’ is ‘well-being.’ When you stay in the flow of the river you remain in this well being and it always takes you to where you want to go. You absolutely know that as long as you keep your destination in mind and stay in the flow of the river you will get there eventually. Never lose heart in the middle of the journey even when the going seems slow. The flow of well-being will take you to some rapids soon enough as long as you BELIEVE it will.

Faith, Perseverance, and Belief. Go with the flow.

Live in love,

Posted on July 19th, 2010 by Richard
Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »

I woke up this morning to silence. This is quite unusual because every morning for the past couple months I have been waking up to the sound of swallows feeding their chicks. Let me explain:

I live in the country on one of the most beautiful pieces of property in the world. The house is situated on the banks of the Coast Fork of the Willamette River and is very private and secluded. It is ensconced in nature with lots of plants, animals and birds. The river is a natural bird fly-way and I get to see the birds playing all the time.

Coast Fork of Willamette River

The house that came with the property is a big manufactured home that is quite comfortable until I am ready to build my dream house and take this one out of here. In the meantime I am living here and really like the house. It is roomy and when I step outside my door I can see the river flowing by and the birds playing in the trees.

In the spring the birds start nesting and there are several families of swallows who have found a way to get into the eaves of the house and make their nests in my attic. That is perfectly okay with me because I like the idea of living with the birds in our little ‘bedroom community.’

Once the chicks hatched out a couple months ago I began to wake up to the sounds of the parents coming and going feeding their noisy chicks all morning long. It is not an unpleasant way to wake up; in fact I really enjoyed it. Every morning I can see the parents bringing food in and swooping under the eaves to enter their nursery and feed the hungry squawking chicks.

Well, this morning I woke up to silence. The chicks have all grown to the size and maturity that allowed them to take wing and move on from this temporary habitat. They have all flown the coop in the last couple days and so now I wake up to silence from the bird menagerie.

Such is the nature of nature. Now I can observe in the air what was once a baby chick in my attic and I am so grateful to be witness to the wonder of life as a bird and my relationship to one of the most wonderful creatures in my world.

I am so blessed and I thank the universe for this opportunity to witness my connection to Source Energy in such a wondrous and magnificent manner.

Live in love,

Richard D. Blackstone

Posted on July 7th, 2010 by Richard
Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »

The Vision Alignment Project is all about creating a grand Vision for Humanity and then having as many people ‘align’ with that vision so we can co-create it into our collective reality.

Tony Burroughs is the founder of the “Intenders” which is a grass roots organization dedicated to helping people learn the fine art of manifesting by consciously using our ‘intentions’ to create what we want in our lives. You can check out the ‘Intenders of the Highest Good’ at www.Intenders.com.

The “Vision Alignment Project”  is designed to manifest a new world model based in love instead of fear. We see a healthy and whole planet earth where everybody is loved and thriving, just as we were meant to live life.

Check out our first intention at our new website:

http://www.VisionAlignmentProject.com.

This is an interactive website because we want you to be part of the movement we are initiating. We would love to have you ‘Align’ with us by just reading the ‘intention’ and then clicking the button that says “YES, I align with this intention.”

If you really resonate with the intention we would like you to tell your friends as well so that we can take this idea and move it around the world. This is how you change the collective consciousness, you start thinking about ‘a vision whose time has come’ and then you pass it on to your friends and then they start thinking about it and the next thing you know we are living within the new intention.

Thank you so much for checking out this new website and putting in your vote. We are taking this viral so thanks again for being a pioneer in changing the way life is lived on planet earth.

Live in love,

Richard D. Blackstone

Posted on June 23rd, 2010 by Richard
Filed under: Uncategorized | No Comments »