I reposted an image on Facebook that had the following quote: “The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has ever been before.” ~ Albert Einstein

I said it reminded me of this one: “Well-behaved women seldom make history.” —Laurel Thatcher Ulrich

Someone else said Albert’s comment applies to men also.

This was my response (as is so often the case, my response turned into a short article):

Yes, Albert’s comment very definitely applies to men also.

The being well behaved comment applies primarily to women.

Men have long been admired for trail blazing like Daniel Boone, conquering the world like Caesar, or doing things differently and innovatively like Steve Jobs. Women in the western world have only within the last hundred years or so been able to get a degree in their chosen field (not just nursing or teaching), vote, or even wear pants.

Even in the more progressive west, women in certain religions still have no say, must wear a dress or skirt, and are expected to go along with whatever the men in their lives say. In other parts of the globe, women must cover themselves and their opinion and even their abuse often goes unnoticed.

I salute the women who risked jail and physical abuse so that women could vote. I salute the women in other cultures who have the courage to try to change things.

Here is a GREAT little video about the Girl Effect – what can happen when you help just one of them:

I am blessed to live in a country where I can be me – wearing what I want, saying what I want, and as long as I’m not harming someone or something else (I believe in the Golden Rule) or breaking some law, I can do pretty much whatever I want to.

I can own property and a business. I can travel the world. If I choose a romantic partner, that partner can be any color, any religion, and even any sex. And as long as I don’t let fear and my own limiting beliefs stop me, I can pursue my passions and achieve my dreams.

We’ve come a long way.

Yet there is still a long way to go. Not everyone is on board with letting down the prejudices and hatreds simply because someone looks, acts, or believes things that are different than what they are used to.

We are each a gift from God blessed with uniqueness. Its time to shine our light, and be who we came here to be.

Jesus said, “Love your enemies.” There comes a time on the spiritual journey where you no longer have enemies. You simply have misunderstandings. Some of those are easy to correct. Others are more challenging.

In the end, we are much more similar than we are different. We all have a deep desire to be loved, appreciated, and accepted for who we are. When we get beyond our own garbage, we realize that when we are mean to another, we feel bad about it.

Every moment of every day is a step along your personal spiritual quest.

If you enjoyed this post, you might enjoy an audio program I was recently listening to by Mike Dooley. It’s called Infinite Possibilities and it talks a lot about the nature of reality, manifesting and creating your own reality. You can check it out here:

Have a fabulous day,

Takara

Every now and then I review and revise my eBook called Dancing with Dolphins. I was just doing that last night and was reminded of Lolita, a killer whale. The eBook is dedicated to her.

I posted a message on my Wild Dolphin Lovers group on Facebook yesterday to see if anyone had heard anything about her lately. She was captured off the Washington Coast when she was young, shipped to Miami, and has been performing there for the past 40 years.

Someone sent a link with an update about a lawsuit that is going on between activists and Seaquarium Miami, where she is held captive.

The gist of her story is here:  http://www.miamiseaprison.com/lolita.htm. I can’t read it without crying. I’ve met John Crow, a man who helped in her capture.

Someone asked me if a 40 year old orca could survive in the wild.

This was my response:

Its a very interesting question, with no clear answer.

We know where she came from – in the waters near the San Juan Islands of Washington State. We are even pretty sure who her mom is. If I remember right, she came from J pod. It’s a miracle she is even alive. My understanding is that in captivity, they rarely make it past 10 years.

This orca (they are actually dolphins not whales) has had such an impact on my life. I quit my day job as an engineer to help start a non-profit in the San Juans to assist in her return. I took part in the Lolita Symposium in Seattle with 60 others. There have been numerous campaigns for her release and several celebrities have been involved over the years. Yanni, Olivia Newton John, and several others were involved for at least a time.

I even went to Miami to meet her. About half an hour before her “show” starts they open the gate and let you file into the stadium. We were the first in line. When the gate opened, we ran up the ramp and over to the small tank. Until the show started, you are actually allowed to stand near the tank. So we did, of course.

She came over and just stared at us with her big eye. She stayed there with us the whole time. Periodically she would dip her head under and then pop right back up and stare at us some more. It brings tears to my eyes just writing about it. Despite all the other people coming over to the tank and entering the stadium, she never left us. We finally had to take our seats. I’m not sure what she was supposed to be doing during the show, but she was obviously behaving a bit differently from normal and the trainers kept looking over at us.

I’ve met a hand full of people that I felt connected to instantly. Those people are now my dear friends and we are as close as sisters. My relationship with Lolita is like that. There was an instant recognition and she is forever within my heart.

I send her love and many blessings.

Slavery is slavery any which way you look at it.

After watching orca capture footage and seeing Lolita in Miami, I’ve never set foot in another place with captive dolphins or whales. When I see pictures of people in a pool with their hand on a dolphin, smiling for the camera, I cringe.

Your email program and your  autoresponder service require that you use a plain text editor for your email messages. Wordpad, free on your PC, is a great choice!

Most businesses online use an autoresponder service to keep in touch with their customers, clients, and subscribers.

Autoresponders:

An autoresponder email service is the best way for an online or off-line business to:

• announce a new product launch,
• offer special promotions,
• give advice on how to better use a product or service,
• send a weekly or monthly newsletter,
• deliver an ecourse,
• keep you and your business on top of your customer’s minds,
• and more.

There are several great autoresponder programs available:

• constant contact
• aweber
• icontact
• infusionsoft

Personally I use Aweber.

My online newsletter, Here’s to Your Magnificence, is now 14 years old. When I started out and only had a few hundred subscribers, I sent the messages out manually. As more and more people began joining the list, it became overwhelming to try to keep up with messages that bounced, requests to change email addresses, and to manually add people to the list. So in 2004 I began using Aweber and I’ve been with them ever since. They took a huge time consuming burden off my shoulders.

Now I get to concentrate on doing what’s fun – writing helpful content. They do all the work behind the scenes, adding, changing email addresses, etc.  Whenever I call, they promptly answer my questions, and sometimes they even do things for me to clean up a problem on an email template. They also live chat for assistance. I find all of that invaluable in my business.

For editing purposes, most people prefer to write long messages in a word processing software of some kind before they cut and paste it into an email or autoresponder email service.

That is often a problem.

Ugly Coded Email

Most email programs and autoresponder services require plain text. If you cut and paste a Microsoft Word, Open Office,  or WordPerfect document into an email program, you often end up with weird symbols throughout the text.

The reason this happens is because Microsoft Word, Open Office, WordPerfect and others are word processing programs that allow you to  format  the document. Formatting adds code throughout the text. If you type a word like “don’t” into Microsoft Word and then paste it from Word into an email program, the apostrophe often shows up as a weird symbol.

Having symbols like that throughout your emails looks very unprofessional.

Here is the fix!

Type your documents into Wordpad and save them as text documents. If you are using a Microsoft operating system, chances are very good that Wordpad is already on your computer.

How to Access and Use Wordpad as a Plaint Text Editor for Your Autoresponder

Follow these instructions:

• Click on the bottom left – round windows “Start” button on your computer. A box will pop up.
• Click on “all programs” – just above the start button and the search box down on the left bottom of the page.
• Scroll up and down the list and look for the “Accessories” folder
• Click on it.
• Another list will show up under the folder
• Double Click on Wordpad. It should already be there.
• Copy and paste or type your article into Wordpad.
• Edit as needed. No need to format it, other than using a carrier return (the enter key) to separate paragraphs.
• When you have finished editing, click on the word “file” at the top left of the window you are in.
• Click on “save as” in the drop down menu. A box will pop up.
• Give the file a name
• In the “save as type” section, click the little “down arrow” to the far right on that line,
• Click on “text document”
• Then press the save button.

Your plain text document will now be on your computer wherever documents are normally saved.

Then, copy and paste the Wordpad document into your email or autoresponder program.

Voila! No more weird code.

Have a deLightful day,
Takara

May you lead a blessed life. May all that you take in be a blessing to you. May all that you give out be a blessing to others.

Click the image on the bottom right of the little video screen to watch it full screen.

Enjoy!

All the things I’ve been working on lately . . .

Unless you only recently joined my mailing list, you probably haven’t heard from me in awhile.

When I’m writing books, I find it hard to find the time to write articles. Since I’m working on several books simultaneously, I’ve completely lost track of time.

Peering Through the Veil, my eBook on meditation, is being completely rewritten. Since it won an award, I decided to take another look. It has been 10 years since the original was written and much has changed. I’ve more than doubled the amount of information it contains about many forms of meditation. I’ve also added numerous personal stories and experiences. And I’ve included several additional chapters not previously covered on topics such as pilgrimage, brain wave states, binaural beats, group meditations, isochronic tones, earth based spirituality, and much more. This book will be in print very soon.

The recordings are almost finished as well. The book will come with a guided meditation MP3. I will also be offering an upgrade to the book which includes the new Meditation Essence and several guided meditations.

As soon as that is finished, I will be completing the book and on line training program, Dowsing for Divine Direction, on dowsing with a pendulum. So many of you have asked for this training, I’m sure you will be as excited as I am when it is finally available.

The New Dance series is coming along nicely. The first two books are each about 3/4 complete. I am so excited and proud of this new work. I can’t wait to share it with you.

In addition to writing, I’ve been a mad scientist in the laboratory creating over 30 new gem essences. They are so new, I don’t yet have them available on the website.

Now that I’ve added the energy of the violet flame, the essence of lightening, and all these new gem essences to the energies I can use for making blends, I’m now able to create several blends I’ve been wanting to create for a very long time.

I’m finishing the formulas for the new Dolphin line. These are essences designed specifically to address some very heavy issues like betrayal, trauma, sexual abuse, and much more.