One Hundred Thousand Angels On My Side

In Search of The Most Beautiful Song
“One Hundred Thousand Angels On My Side” 

“C’mon Mom, let’s go!”  My twenty one year old daughter,  Ashley, had come home from her college apartment, to do her laundry and pay me a visit.  By now, after many months, staying home with my son who was on house arrest, I had found a new addiction.  It was a renewed love for writing that I had as a young mother and teenager!  I was hooked to the computer!  I loved writing and spent all my time between clients collecting puzzle pieces and making sense of this most amazing gift called, “Life!”  Now, she was pulling me from away from my love for writing, to go in search of another.  “Let’s go find some new music!” she said, knowing that she could peak my interest with the hope that there was a new song somewhere out there that I had not yet discovered to use in my sessions as a massage therapist.

As we entered Borders Bookstore, I felt refreshed to be out in public.  I love people and am enthused by being with them.  But, the last several months since my son’s sudden departure to detention and my surprise annulment had left me a little gun shy.  All I wanted to do is “hang out” in a peaceful place.  I loved my new home and I was quite content to spend all my free time writing and creating, in my very own “Scents of Peace”.  But, now, as I walked into the well lit bookstore, I felt happy to be there.  She headed one way for the racks of compact disks.  I headed another.  We would meet somewhere in the middle.  “Ashley,” I called out to her, “Let’s find the most beautiful song in the world!”

Two men were engaged in a conversation in front of one of the CD aisles.  One, bright eyed man looked up at me, as though my question had been intended for him.  “I’ll help you!” he said with a warming smile.  “Do you work here?”  I asked.  “No, but,  I’ll help you!”  Soon, we were pouring over the titles of many CD’s looking for “the perfect song” together.

He asked me what I intended the song for.  I told him about my work with people including using the five senses to awaken the human spirit, with music, massage and aromatherapy.  “I just like to collect good uplifting music. I use it in assusting people to find joy!” I told him.  He affirmed his interest in this kind of work and his own great love for good music too.  I suggested that he pay me a visit so that he could see how I was using music in my therapy.  I handed him a business card, thinking that I would probably never see him again.

The next morning, while I was in session, Dean paid me a visit with a few CD’s of his own. He left them for me and promised my assistant, Linda, that he would be back with more. He had been in search of the most beautiful song, since the night before, and wanted me to hear these.  I listened to the songs…they were nice…but, not quite the most beautiful song in all the world…

It was a few weeks later when he struck solid gold.  He brought me a CD that truly depicts the essence of my work.  It was on a music sampler from a company I had never heard of before.  Later, Dean and I, now newfound friends, ordered ten of the “Freedom to Love” CD’s.  The song is a unique song which was we learned from the distributer, was recorded in
England, by a woman named, Lucinda Drayton, who performs with a group called “Bliss”.  The song is called “One Hundred Thousand Angels On My Side”.  Since discovering the “most beautiful song in all the world”, I have used it in countless sessions.  It truly speaks in a language that sings to the heart.  I haven’t met a person yet, who is not “awakened” by it’s beauty. 

Since then, he still finds me beautiful songs.  But, what impressed me the most about this man was his gentle nature, his kind heart and his giving spirit.  That is “the most beautiful song” anyone can ever sing to another human being.  To give the gift of their time, their interest, their concern is to become a ministering angel in the flesh to our fellowmen.   Since then, when I am counting my many blessings; I start by counting the many angels that I have crossed paths with in mortality on this side of the veil and from the other.

It has taken “all the kings horses and all the kings men” to put my heart back and the hearts of my children back together again after experiencing many “unexpected detours” along life’s way.  I am amazed at the blessed brothers and sisters that have come into my and my children’s lives in the past few years, since I went through my first divorce.  I realize it took an all out search party in an effort to save one exhausted  and very confused and tattered queen,  her royal subjects and her little kingdom.  It’s taken at least “one hundred thousand angels“, both seen and unseen to assist me on my way.  That is why I have celebrated the gift of angel-friends for the past two years, at my birthday.  It commemorates for me the moment, I set foot upon this earth, 46 years ago in search of angels on my side.

In the past few years, since I discovered that beautiful song through a beautiful friend, I have truly come to realize what the most beautiful song in all the world truly is.  It can be heard above the chatter of the world.  It can be seen in the joy of a perfect stranger’s eyes as he smiles and says, “I’ll help you!”  It is written in-between the lines of every book that bears witness of a divine being who loves us enough to send us angels to our side.  It is felt only as we embrace the light in each other’s eyes.  It is heard when we hear the distant beating drawing closer in one another’s hearts, becoming one with our own.  It is whispered in the quiet moments when we realize that we do indeed have a loving Father in Heaven who cherishes each and every one of us.  It is in the realization that the Atonement is big enough, deep enough, wide enough and high enough to cover a multitude of sin.  It is in the still, soft voice. 

It is in the moment that you realize that no matter what your child has done, you will continue to love him with all of your heart.  This is the song of redeeming love.  If you listen closely, you will hear one hundred thousand angels singing it in this very  moment.  The song of redeeming love is reward for the patient.  It is the gift to the merciful. It brings hope to the persevering.   It is the blessing that is visited upon your head that sometimes comes disguised beneath a shroud of adversity.  It is in realizing tha we all have, “One Hundred Thousand Angels” on our side!

Karyn Grant

www.lullabythefathers.wordpress.com - See the update on my experience singing to the men at the prison on Sunday

www.kangenwatermusic.wordpress.com- See the update on our “Living Water; Living Music” Party at Kit’s on Tuesday, March 20, 2007

www.cherishingplace.com- to order Karyn Grant’s Music

joycoaching@comcast.net- to email Karyn

Cherish the Believing Child

Rewriting Your Fairytale: Joyfully-Ever-After 

Do you remember Little Child, how you used to love to sit and read fairytales with on your mother’s lap?  Often, by yourself, you would look at the pictures even though you could not read the stories by yourself.  Your mind was a fresh white page, upon which the tender hopes of “Once Upon a Time” was written in a child’s hand, and through a childlike perspective.  Dreams of “Happily-Ever-After’s” filled your mind with hopes for a glorious future.  As a child, you did not comprehend the difference between reality and visionary.  Oh, what a believing heart you had!  Cherish the believing child, for it is she who will lead you into the kingdom of love, joy and peace. 

The Believing Child simply believed all that she heard.  The stories spoke of  handsome princes rescuing damsels in distress.  They made it look like a good thing to be a weak thing.  The pages transformed pumpkins into coaches, and little white mice into coachmen.  There were fairygodmother’s and seven dwarfs that somehow managed to make dreams come true.  The Believing Child accepted the fairytale impressions that filled her mind and no one taught her to believe any differently.  As the little girl grew into young womanhood, she was taught to believe that marrying in the King’s House would ultimately lead to a happy ever after. 

Soon, she hoped that she would be dancing off into the sunrise and sunset of mortality with a handsome prince by her side, in glass slippers that fit perfectly. The first kiss from her very own prince charming seemed to only further convince her that fairytales come true and that her dreams were sending her on her way into a life of bliss and ecstacy.  She fell in love with the idea of being in love and didn’t read the fine print on the prince’s resume.  Neither one of them truly took the time to ask enough questions and get enough answers.  The starlight was shining too brightly in each other’s eyes.  Do not chastize the Believing Child for dreaming her “Once Upon a Time” dreams.  It is the very quality of “Believing” that we need in order to awaken the Sleeping Child, who fell into a graceful surrender of sleeping forgetfulness when the magical fairy dust turned to ashes before her very eyes.  She felt betrayed.  She felt abandoned.  And eventually, she stopped believing in castles, and princes, and coaches, and fairy godmother’s, and fairy dust.  As a child, you thought as a child; it is time to put childish thoughts away. 

But, it is in the resurrection of the child’s believing heart that she will be taught the realities of the True Prince, the Real Kingdom, the Plan of Salvation, the purpose of opposition, and that the metaphor for the Fairy Godmother, is fact, the Atonement of Jesus Christ, which transforms childhood sorrows into the Song of Redeeming Love. It’s time to awaken the sleeping child from her silent and lingering slumber of sadness and teach her how to believe again!  It’s time to teach her what she can believe in and in whom she can believe!  I shall teach her that she can believe in God, her Eternal Father and in her Eternal Mother!  I shall teach her that miracles still happen for those who believe and endure to the end!  I shall teach her how important her gift of believing is in order to create a far more glorious future than she ever dream possible!  I shall teach her to believe that with God, nothing is impossible!  Come, bring Me the Cherish the Believing Child and bring all of her past disillusions with life, with love, with happy-ever-after’s to the Bridegroom, even the Son of God.  The Truth is, that it will take the gifts of believing, trust and faith to create the reality of a truly “Joyfully Every After”.   

Suggested Song: I am Your Prince by John Canaan/
CD by Karyn Grant: “Arise, Daughter, Victorious!”
www.cherishingplace.com (to order click on catalog)

Creating A Joyfully-Ever-After

Cherish the Believing Child 

Do you remember Little Child, how you used to love and to sit and read fairytales with your mother?  Often, by yourself, you would look at the pictures even though you could not read the stories yourself.  Your mind was a fresh white page, upon which the tender hopes of “Once Upon a Time” was written in a child’s hand, and through a childlike perspective.  Dreams of “Happily-Ever-After’s” filled your mind with hopes for a glorious future.  As a child, you did not comprehend the difference between reality and visionary.  Oh, what a believing heart you had!  Cherish the believing child, for is she who will lead you into salvation. 

The Believing Child simply believed all that she heard.  The stories spoke of  handsome princes rescuing damsels in distress.  They made it look like a good thing to be a weak thing.  The pages transformed pumpkins into coaches, and little white mice into coachmen.  There were fairygodmother’s and seven dwarfs that somehow managed to make dreams come true.  The Believing Child accepted the fairytale impressions that filled her mind and no one taught her to believe any differently.  As the little girl grew into young womanhood, she was taught to believe that marrying in the King’s House would ultimately lead to a happy ever after.  Soon, she hoped that she would be dancing off into the sunrise and sunset of mortality with a handsome prince by her side, in glass slippers that fit perfectly. The first kiss from her very own prince charming seemed to only further convince her that fairytales come true and that her dreams were sending her on her way into a life of bliss and ecstacy.  She fell in love with the idea of being in love and didn’t read the fine print on the prince’s resume.  Neither one of them truly took the time to ask enough questions and get enough answers.  The starlight was shining too brightly in each other’s eyes. 

Do not chastize the Believing Child for dreaming her “Once Upon a Time” dreams.  It is the very quality of “Believing” that we need to awaken in the Sleeping Child, who fell into a graceful surrender of sleeping forgetfulness when the magical fairy dust turned to ashes before her very eyes.  She felt betrayed.  She felt abandoned.  And eventually, she stopped believing in castles, and princes, and coaches, and fairy godmother’s, and fairy dust.  As a child, you thought as a child, it is time to put childish thoughts away.  But, it is the resurrection of the child’s believing heart that will be taught the realities of the True Prince, the Real Kingdom, the Plan of Salvation, the purpose of opposition, and that the metaphor for the Fairy Godmother, is fact, the Atonement of Jesus Christ, which transforms childhood sorrows into the Song of Redeeming Love. It’s time to awaken the sleeping child from her silent and lingering slumber of sadness and teach her how to believe again!  It’s time to teach her what she can believe in and in whom she can believe!  I shall teach her that she can believe in God, her Eternal Father and in her Eternal Mother!  I shall teach her that miracles still happen for those who believe and endure to the end!  I shall teach her how important her gift of believing is in order to create a far more glorious future than she ever dream possible!  I shall teach her to believe that with God, nothing is impossible!  Come, bring Me the Cherish the Believing Child and bring all of her past disillusions with life, with love, with happy-ever-after’s to the Bridegroom, even the Son of God.  The Truth is, that it will take the gifts of believing, trust and faith to create the reality of a truly “Joyfully Every After”.   

Suggested CD: Enlightened Journey By Karyn Grant
To order Music as Therapy CD’S by Karyn Grant; Joy Coach, go to www.cherishingplace.com and visit our catalog!
To view Karyn’s other sites:
www.joycoaching.wordpress.com
www.lullabythefathers.wordpress.com

Cherish The Laughing Child

Cherish The Laughing Child
“Laughter is the blessed medicine!”  I hear the sound of my teenage children and their friends laughing in the kitchen.  I recall the sound of women’s voice’s and the lingering faint echoes of yesterday’s light-hearted moments spent laughing together in my living room.  The angel presence of “laughter” rings throughout “The Cherishing Room”.  I hear the sound of a new friend’s laughter, who writes a column called, “The Laughing Mother”, reminding me to not take life too seriously.  I remember the verse in Psalms, “that laughter is the best medicine” and the one in Proverbs, that “a merry heart doeth good like medicine.”   Suddenly, I am sent into a myriad of happy memories, both silly and splendid, where laughter played such a precious role in creating a respite of happiness.  I was indeed, “The Laughing Child”.  Once, I was punished for my inappropriate timing.  I was sent to the chalkboard to press my nose against it, in a big chalk circle for laughing during an Easter film.  My little friend had so delightfully and infectiously good-humored me in an unwarranted moment of absolute bliss.   It was hard to stop laughing, even at the chalkboard.  At least for the first hour.  The second wasn’t so pleasant.  It’s time to reach within and comfort the laughing child.  That wasn’t my last lesson in learning to “turn off the laughter”! 

Somehow, God manages to sandwich in-between this most serious blessing called, “Life”, some wonderful “blissings”, as well.  A “blissing” is a word I just made up which means, “unexpected moments of joy”.  “Be of Good Cheer”, His Son kept telling the people, reminding them, that he had overcome the world.   

I am grateful for those moments of sheer comic relief that seem to even out the wrinkles in life’s fabric.  I hear a faint chorus of giggling with my sister’s,  even in our forties, like little school girl’s.  These sweet memories bring a smile to my lips.  I remember the hearty chortles of my daughter, Ashley, that has melted many an ice cube, when moments of mothering,  were too serious for words.  Often, she has made me burst out laughing~with one of her hilarious remarks that seemed to come out of no where!  I remember with relief, when the ice was broken in a strained moment, by laughter shared with my first date when I tried slicing a cheery tomato and it sprayed his tie (prior to the dance) with fresh cherry tomato juice.  I remember him laughing it off, leaving me more than relieved. 

I remember laughing at many a well-timed joke.  Moment’s that might have otherwise been stiff and uncomfortable, when a mistake had been unintentionally made, magically turned a sad moment into a funny one.  Steven, my twelve year old, is the best at this.  He makes me laugh when I least expect it.  His sense of humor is one of my choicest blissings.  I remember those suppressed snickers during lengthy prayers when trying so hard to be enduringly reverent.  I remember the infectious sound of my baby’s giggles that seemed to erupt from somewhere deep within them, sending me into a joyful moment when I could do nothing other them smother them with kisses and raspberries on their bellies.  I remember the tee-hees of little school girls when we spied a boy we all wanted to impress.  I remember the “twitters like birds” like the ones described in my favorite song in Mary Poppin’s, “I Love to Laugh!”    

I recall a time when life seemed so very serious and I had forgotten how to laugh.  I remember Dena, my Venezuelan friend teaching me in her beautiful accent, the difference between joy and sorrow when she said, “Life is full of “POC’s and POL’s”.  When my children get mad at me, I simply smile and say, “POL: that’s part of life!”  Or when one of her children is facing a challenge, she smiles and says, “POC: That’s a piece of cake!”  Perhaps, as my daughter Lara suggested when I was forgetting to claim joy one depressing moment, “Laugh even when it’s not funny, Mom!”  Even when life seems sullen, even a symbol such as this, : ) gently reminds me to LOL…Laugh out loud!”

The Healing Power of Vibration

Another blogger wrote about her dream. I loved it and thought it vividly describes the power of vibration…

The Almost-Silent Performance
by Laura Moncur

I just woke up from a dream. I went to a beautiful performance art show. It was amazing! The theater was VERY small and intimate. It sat less than fifty people. The show was QUIET. It was amazingly quiet. Just beautifully quiet. The theater was in the round, so there were no seats any better than others.

The first act started with a pool of water. The performers approached the water and put their feet into it. They made moises with the water that sounded like music. It was absolutely beautiful. It was kind of like STOMP but so silent and quiet that you would miss it if you weren’t paying attention. It was percussive and dance and all the lovely music came from the water.

The second act had a patch of grass in the middle of the theater. They walked on the grass in time to create music. It was so quiet and beautiful. I was amazed that they could get the theater so quiet. It was such a lovely sound of people walking on the grass in the exact time to make music. Even though the music was being created with such different “instruments” you could tell that they were playing the same song on the grass as they had in the water.

The third act involved one woman in the middle of the theater at a huge keyboard, not a musical keyboard, but a computer keyboard. She was typing and we could see what she was writing on the screen. The sound of her typing was a rhythmic tune, so she was creating this inspiring music again, but just with her fingers on a keyboard.

There were intermissions between the acts while they changed the theater. Outside the theater, there were arts and crafts for sale: lots of colored glass hanging from metal curlie-cues. It was the kind of art that makes subtle noises like bamboo windchimes. Somehow, I think all the arts and crafts had to do with the show. Because the theater was so small, they were making their money on the souvenirs instead of the seats.

After I woke up, I realized how difficult it would be to create this performance in real life. Each person allowed into the theater is a noisemaker and we don’t live in a society that rewards the quiet. You would need restrictions for people to even come into the theater: no cell phones, no pagers, no children under the age of 15, no talking, no one with any sort of sickness that would make them sniffle or cough. I think this sort of performance simply couldn’t work in today’s society without strict enforcement and bodyguards to evict people for even the slightest infraction.

The whole idea of this performance is that music is everywhere around us. It is in the drips of water that come off the house and the soft padded steps of the cat across the carpet and in my fingers as I type this entry. Even now, I can feel the music in my fingers as I type this and my clicking is suddenly beautiful instead of a noise that falls into the background. I can hear the hard drive in the computer spinning as a backdrop to my typing and the world is beautiful.

I want this performance art show to exist. There is so much noise in our lives that this almost silent performance was a life-changing experience for me, even if it was only in my mind…