Captured Moments

WELCOME TO THE VIRTUAL BLOG TOUR Janet Rice Carnahan, currently living in Southern California, finds her inspiration in nature’s beauty every chance she gets.  Her poetry has been published online in “Jellyfish Whispers”, “Pryokinection”, “Camel Saloon”, “Three Line Poetry”, and “The Mind{less} Muse”.  Two of Janet’s poems were selected for the anthology, “Storm Cycle: The Best of 2013” through “Kind of a Hurricane Press”.  She also contributed poetry to two other anthologies, “Backlit Barbell” and “Prompted: An International Collection of Poems”, where she also received credit for the cover photo and caption.  On her website, Hear Earth Heart, she has self-published four poetry books, “Shadows in the Sanctuary”, “Into the Inner Path”, “The Cosmic Highway” and “Hear Earth Heart, a series of haikus”. The sunny Southern California coast provides marvelous opportunities for Janet and her husband to walk the beaches in search of all nature provides and never hi

In each human being there is a place of Unity and Love that creates Harmony and Peace.  It is found through knowing our own heart and soul.  In our Heart of Hearts, there is the purity and goodness we all silently seek.  It often takes conscious stillness to find it.  It is accessed through a quiet feeling of being attuned with our inner Self and being aligned with who we really are. We are not separate from this inner beauty and living Grace and yet the human system, especially the mind, works to convince us otherwise.  The spiritual arts of meditation and contemplation work to quiet the mind and calm the churning in our emotional and psychological bodies.  The more we practice that, the more we begin to prefer that sense of peace and calm.  Our thinking gets clearer and we relax more deeply.  Just closing our eyes and listening to our breathing does the same.  It takes faith and trust to listen to our heart and after we become established in it, we begin to see how the Love itself be

Father Haikus Waves came in too fast Her small legs tumbled, fumbled His arms swept her in Cherry tree was picked Tree house built for him with love Boy knows his hero Early morning ski Father prepares backpack lunch Takes kids to their peak Dad flies kites with kids Trips over run away dog Kids, dog pile on dad Daughter waves her bags Back and forth after shopping Dad smiles at her joy

Peace is not just a concept.  It is a real and truthful feeling when Love, forgiveness and gratitude become our living attitude and mantra.  Every breath is a natural gift of life and when we can openly, lovingly appreciate each moment's opportunity to be grateful, our heart begins to open to the Love it is.  Being alive in a human system has such beauty to it and, no matter what hardships we may be enduring, we can have faith that greater things are yet to come.  We can still be grateful that we are learning, growing and expanding our understanding of life and our selves.  All of our life supports our soul's growth.  We just have to exercise an attitude of gratitude and have faith in the process.  When we begin to accept our self and our life as being part of the greater plan, we develop a greater trust.  Self Love is part of the process of trusting our self on our way to becoming more peaceful human beings.  Being true to our self and our heart enables more Love to be present

If we think of experiencing infinite Love as the ultimate experience and yet we don't feel we resonate with that in our human life and system, an easy and lighter way to proceed is to communicate forgiveness into our emotional self and gratitude into our heart as often as possible.  When we are stuck in traffic, waiting for someone or waiting in line, we can send those positive signals into our own system, thereby changing our inner dynamic.  Forgiveness doesn't have to be about something specific, just a general forgiveness towards any aspect of ourselves that maybe needs releasing now.  It can be used even for very basic things.  Gratitude is the same.  We can be grateful for the air we breathe, the food we have, where we live as well as for our family, friends, children and spouses.  When both forgiveness and gratitude are sincerely used together, we begin to align and attune more genuinely with our heart.  Our system becomes softer and more flexible and less fearful.  Joy b

Understanding our self leads to forgiving our self because we when we access compassion, we realize that when human beings are unconscious, errors happen leading us to opportunities for growth and maturity.  What we knew at ten gets replaced at twenty and on it goes as we become more aware and develop greater consciousness.  The conscious active choices we make at certain times in our lives are based on all the information and development we have at the time.  Throughout our lifetime, we get plenty of opportunities and chances to grow and learn more and more about our self.  The more we become aware the more we can go back and forgive our selves deeply and completely for what actions we took or choices we made at the time.  Forgiveness and gratitude are two powerful aspects of human nature that enables us to lighten and lift our load.  They are active choices that align us with our higher nature and greater intelligence.  Once we feel and realize we are letting go of the past heaviness

Consciousness is a healing force of rich awareness and Love. Consciousness takes us to places that are both grand and small in scale to our own life as well as to the Universal and cosmic realms of an infinite expanse.  They say we only use 5% of our our human brain, which may be true but it is through expanded consciousness that we can broaden our view and our understanding of life itself.  Meditation and contemplation take us to those higher planes of thought, feeling and experience because those other aspects go beyond our conscious, active mind.  Once we link with higher consciousness, we can bring that energy back into our human system to help us see what still needs to heal and become more conscious.  It is a tool for human personal transformation through Love and truthful empowerment.  When we become more conscious, we become more Loving and true to our own Heart.  This enables us to feel and become the Joy of Love itself within our very system; thereby making our system more co

HAIKUS TO SELF LOVE A day at the beach Grandmother smiles at the sun As grandchildren play Father loads the car As the children bustle in He gives silent thanks Children go to school Mother sits in quiet time Her garden sacred Grandfather sits still Looking at all the faces Nodding at the joy Coffee in her hand She will contemplate early Holding gratitude

HAIKUS TO CONSCIOUSNESS Grandfather in group Easter dinner with family Blows kiss to Quan Yin Guru stops to ask Right before meditation What about women A sense the tree knew She sat on the roots to hear Wisdom spoke softly Asking to know truth He saw a bull and a snake Now he understood Shaman teaches class About body consciousness Tells the pain to go

Aspiring to know who we are, takes us inward to Joy.  Joy comes from the spirit remembering who it is and staying conscious of that Joy.  Joy is an alive energy that is our life force and when we consciously use it for healing other aspects of ourselves, we effectively bring the light of our inner Joy to places within our nature that are not as openly developed or mature.  If we imagine it to be like a miner's lamp, heading underground, looking for hidden treasures it becomes an active healing tool for change.  Our Joy allows us to flush out old energy that may have been blocked, setting us free to experience more Joy. Joy is a happy active Consciousness that is accessible through the Heart! Just watch a child at play. Their Joy is unmistakable.  When we add Joy to our thinking, our feeling, our life in our body, we feel lighter and brighter and much more uplifted!  Our Joy reminds us of all we are and all we can become by just choosing to be Joyful!  It is always there because it