Conservation with Phillip on Animals & Food

Posted on January 9, 2024 by Diana Rankin

Question

How can we help the animals? Should we be vegetarians?

Phillip

Humans must align themselves with the animals and learn of their choice. This means that a human is to ask the animal if they are willing to sacrifice their body to feed the human’s body. Animals are more in tune with the energy of their species so the human need not ask the specific animal but instead ask one of the same species.

By this we mean that if you are considering consuming a beef burger it would be necessary to ask Steer if he was willing to sacrifice his body to sustain yours. If the answer is in the negative it would be wise to choose another meal. However, if the steer agrees, the second step for the human is to ask if the beef burger is healthy for this body.

If the answer is positive, the beef burger must be prayer over. A simple prayer of thanks to the steer and to thank the human body for its acceptance of the meal is suggested. Of course, additional thoughts may also be included. The meal should be eaten with awareness and gratitude. This will allow the body to accept the meat.

For those humans who wish to aid the animals, begin by observing them. Learn their ways and provide aid when needed.

Animals have their own ways. Learn their ways and love without condemnation.

As with the aid to other humans, the aid to animals in your world is much the same. Harm not; give to help in time and money; and watch over and protect those you can.

Love is action and every prayer said in love is stronger than condemnation said in anger.

We remind you the evolution taking place in your world will see animals and humans sharing the same peace table. This transformation is already taking place.

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On the World’s Anger; the Way of Peace

Posted on January 2, 2024 by Diana Rankin

A conversation with Phillip, my Spirit Guide

Diana: Phillip, there is so much fear and anger in our world today. We are doing our best to counter it with love but it’s overwhelming. We feel we’re not doing enough, that we should be doing more but we’re exhausting ourselves. Help! We need your wisdom.

Phillip: The anger comes from fear. The human condition for many is to fear what may  be around the next corner. These individuals are not yet able to take the hero or heroin’s journey. They have not yet had enough experience to know the perils are in part what make the journey an adventure.

This does not mean to say their lives lack adventure. It is to say they have chosen to stay in one setting along the journey. This also does not mean these individuals are without pain. Their pain may be quite deep but the fear of moving out of the wound is greater than the pain. The anger will continue as long as the fear remains.

Those who have walked through the fear have a different life experience. You, and those who work with you, have learned it is not about never experiencing fear but continuing the journey anyway. Your hearts have reached a point to where you must help those who are unable to face their wound, so they are unable to heal it, thus they stay locked in fear, and those they bring harm to.

It is not that you are to address every issue that touches your heart. It may not be your role to work on any specific issue. As you explore and learn of your soul’s mission you may learn your calling is to heal one issue, or you may learn your calling is to spend time in prayer and meditation. As you have written the world needs both warriors and peacemakers until neither are required for the world will then live in peace.

Spread yourselves not too thin for then you will harm yourself and accomplish little. In doing so, you add stress to the world when it is your heart’s intention to add peace.

As you learn more and more to live in love you will find the small acts of kindness you give away, the smiles and laughter you give to the world—these are the ways to override the pain caused by those who are in pain themselves. Every time you see beauty in the raindrop and feel the expression of a cloud, you are loving the world.

Do not set aside the good worth of what may seem a small jester—a donation, a prayer, a thank you. These are the ways of peace.

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Phillip’s Wisdom for the New Year

Posted on December 28, 2023 by Diana Rankin

All that occurs in your life and everyone who comes into your life is a mirror for you to see yourself. Many will baulk at this statement, not liking – or not understanding – its truth, so there is need for further explanation.

Humans like to believe the best about themselves, and it is right that they should. However, all of you are within each of you. By this we mean that within every person there is the capacity – and the ability, if tapped – to experience all human emotions and experiences. You have within you the seed of the wisdom of a Gandhi, the passion of a Quan Yin, the anger and fear of a bin Lauden, the hatred of a Hitler, the knowledge of a Buddha, the love of a Christ. It is your choice which seeds you water. You express the blossoming of the seeds through thought and action. Now that you have an understanding of how all of you are within each of you, let’s address how everyone and every experience is an opportunity for you to see yourself.

Like attracts like. This is a basic principle, but you say, “I am a good person, so why are there so many negative people around me?” Or, you say, “Why are people mean to me when I’m always so nice?” These are legitimate questions. Let’s examine the answer.

Is every thought you have a positive one? Are all your actions kind? Most likely you will answer no to these questions. If you see a news report about a terrorists’ attack, are your thoughts to bless everyone – everyone – even the terrorists? Most likely not. We have made our point.

Instead of moving into a place of love where – without condoning the act – you can love each person, you move into a place of fear. You then again and again watch reports of the violence on your electronics, and you speak over and over of the violence to those around you, thus allowing more and more negativity to build up within you, adding to the negativity, fear, and violence in the world. And at the same time, crying, “But I’m a nice person. Why are people so mean to me?”

You see, to live in the grace of joy, you must look into the mirror the other holds up for you and say, “Thank you for showing me what seeds within me I am watering.” Then you are able to wash away that which does not serve your life and feed that which does. As you cleanse your inner world, your outer world will change.

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The Shift to the World of Love

Posted on December 19, 2023 by Diana Rankin

Originally this article was published in The Spiritual Path newsletters in December 2012. Because its message is so important, I decided to add it to my current blog, with a few thoughts about our world today.

In 2012, President Evo Morales of Bolivia, in an address to the United Nations on September 26, eloquently explained the power and importance of what took place December 21, 2012. He stated, “…according to the Mayan calendar, December 21, 2012, marks the end of non-time and the beginning of time. It is the end of the Macha and the beginning of the Pacha. It is the end of selfishness and the beginning of brotherhood. It is the end of individualism and the beginning of collectivism…the end of hatred and the beginning of love. The end of lies and the beginning of truth. It is the end of sadness and the beginning of joy. It is the end of division and the beginning of unity…”

Our world today, at the end of 2023 and the beginning of 2024, seems more divided, less joyful, with less brother/sisterhood among all peoples. Still, I believe what President Morales stated to be true. We have entered a new era, a time of greater love. Over these past years, I have seen an energetic world emerging, a golden, luminous world like a penumbra emerging from our planet. I believe this is the new world being created with love where President’s Morales’ words will be lived.

If this is true, why then does it seem to be the opposite with guns killing innocent children? With wars destroying countries and lives? With so much anger against others?

Why are so many U.S. political leaders waging a war against women’s health care? Why is a political Republican front runner adding so much fear and hate to already explosive situations?

I turn to Zoroastrianism, one of the world’s oldest monotheistic religions, to give you an answer. The official religion of Persian (modern-day Iran) from 600 BC to 650 AD, Zoroastrianism is a complex religion that explains the duality of good and evil in the cosmos and in the human mind. Forgive me for simplifying it for my purpose here. Since Zoroastrianism influences many religions that came later, you may notice similarities to other religions.

Life is a mixture of opposing forces – life and death, health and sickness, day and night, good and evil, etc. One cannot be understood without the other, so life is opposing forces. Humans have free will to choose, so some will choose evil acts while others choose good acts. It is believed that when all humans choose good acts – and it is believed that day will come – then goodness will triumph over evil.

We all have to make the choice to choose good over evil, each and every one of us, which leads me back to what I wrote in The Spiritual Path in 2012:

Each and every one of us is either contributing to the beginning of joy and unity in our world or we are stuck in our old patterns that no longer serve our lives or the world. In order for our world to survive, we must be the change we want our world to become. We must stop our selfishness and remember we are all brothers and sisters. We must end our hatreds and fears and anger and be love. We must stop our lies and be truth. We must work through our pain and sadness to find healing and be joyful. We are being called. It is time to answer.

It will not happen overnight, this moving from fear to love, each person choosing good over evil. It will take time, and it that period between now and then, we each must accept our responsibility in the process; we each must choose good over evil again and again and again, not letting hate for those who harm move us from love, but instead strengthen our resolve to choose love over fear, good over evil.

I challenge each one of us to answer, to let go of fear and live in love. The time is now, and we are the people.

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Winter Solstice Is a Time for Introspection and Awakening Light

Posted on December 14, 2023 by Diana Rankin

Winter Solstice comes at me always unexpectedly as the days shorten and the nights lengthen. Loneliness can overtake me in the darkness, leaving me feeling empty of energy, and I must remind myself to turn the loneliness into one of deep introspection and honor the sacredness of turning inward.

As I witness the daylight move so quickly away, I want to hold onto it, and I remind myself to remember that all life is a coming and going, with a few precious moments for each experience. As the participant in life’s movement, I must stay present lest I miss the richness that presents itself in the moments of my life. I remind myself of the value in darkness as I let go of the need for more light. As the great bear in the West goes into her cave, I too am led into the cavern of my inner world.

It is within the inner world where I find both the richness and the horror that is my personal human experience that expresses itself out into the world. I come face-to-face with my beauty and my unkindness; with my success and with my faults and failures. It is where who I am and whom I want to be smack up against each other and I cannot hide the truth of my thoughts and actions from myself. It is here, in this inner world, that I am able to delve into myself and move beyond to the point of creation of that which I want to be and want to manifest within my personal world and for the greater world. It is here in my inner world that I meet my ancestors and the ancestors of all. It is here in this inner world where I soar through imagination into other worlds and gather together with beings of immense wisdom and knowledge that I then bring back to my world.

As I remember what awaits me in my inner world, I remind myself to allow the darkness to linger just a little longer in the morning and the daylight to leave at its appointed hour in the evening.  As I let go and give myself over to the shortening of the days as we draw closer to Winter Solstice, a voice from my inner world gives me the gift of knowing that on the awakening of the day following Winter Solstice the light begins to lengthen as the days begin once again to grow longer.

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Sitting in the Irish Mist

Posted on December 5, 2023 by Diana Rankin

In the Western/American culture in which I live, we are impatient. We do not like being in the space between what was and what is to come, sitting in the Irish mist, I call it, because it reminds me of time spent in Ireland when I could not see around the next curve in the road or in my life; those time after something has ended and before the next begins.

We want it now and we want to know the whole picture, not just the beginning. But life is full of those spaces between here and there, and seldom are we shown the second step until we actually take the first one, which we are only shown after patiently spending time in quiet of the mist.

After talking with a friend about sitting in the Irish Mist, she sent me this poem:

 I beg you, to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart
and try to love the questions themselves
as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language.
Don’t search for the answers,
which could not be given to you now,
because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is, to live everything.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps then, someday far in the future,
you will gradually, without even noticing it,
live your way into the answer.

~ Rainer Maria Rilke Letters to a Young Poet

Rilke’s poem speaks elegantly to spending time in the Irish mist, moments of needed reflection that help us let go of that which was and grow into that which is to come.

Where I live in a rural woods, patience comes easier for me than it used to when I lived in the city. Perhaps it’s age as well that allows me to sit quietly and watch the morning mist rise from the farm fields on the other side of the trees, bare now from fall’s winds. Perhaps even, it’s a bit of wisdom that allows me to reflect on that which was, to heal and clear its wound or un-attach from its joy, so when the time is right, I can move into the next phase of my life, allowing the next creation to unfold in Divine time and not on my timetable.

If we are able to do this—allow our lives to unfold naturally rather than push them—that which comes is ready for us, as are we, created by our dreams and built by our patience.

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3 Practices to Create Prosperity

Posted on December 1, 2023 by Diana Rankin

These are practices I’ve used at different times in my life. Although I’ve not manifested $1 million, I have reached the point where I don’t worry about money.

There was a time when I’d wake up in the middle of the night worried about paying the bills. Interestingly, my income is less now than it was then since I’ve cut back on my workload. Yet, I always have everything I need. Money comes from different sources, my work (book sales, speaking engagements, clients, etc.), donations and gifts, and from unexpected sources (money found in an old purse or pocket gone through before giving them away, a scratch-off lottery game, etc.). What I need appears when I need it.

We must have the intention, ask, and trust. Then receive. I hope these practices work for you as they have for me. Let me know.

Practice 1

Back in 2005 to 2007, Steve Pavlina started an experiment, a $1,000,000 experiment (Million Dollar Experiment http://www.stevepavlina.com/million-dollar-experiment.htm). He wondered if it was possible to make $1 million through intention, guided by intuition and synchronicity. He decided to find out and invited others to join him.

Every day for 60 seconds participants were to sit quietly with this intention: In an easy and relaxed manner, in a healthy and positive way, in its own perfect time, for the highest good of all, I intend $1 million to come into my life.

According to the Million Dollar Experiment site, 1,730 people participated in the experiment publicly over the two-year time span. Participants reported manifesting a combined total of $1,247, 929.17 in extra money. You might want to give it a try. We’ll hold the energy for each other.

Practice 2

In a blank check register, pay yourself in “energy money” $200 the first day. You must spend all the money, so write down how much you are spending and where you are spending it. For example, you might designate 10 percent as a donation to a spiritual source; another 10 percent for a wealth-building account; or you might buy groceries, theatre thickets; or pay a bill, etc. 

The second day, you double the amount you pay yourself, so you’ll have $400 to spend. The third day you’ll have $800, and so on. As you go along, any money issues you have will start to come up. They sure did for me.

It was around the $8,000 mark when I told a friend I was getting bored with the experiment. He asked me what I was “buying” (remember this is all energy money; not “real” currency). I said that I was making donations, saving some, paying the mortgage, vet bills, electrical bill, etc., etc., etc. He was yawning by the time I finished.

“What are you buying that’s fun?” he asked.

I had to think about that for a few minutes. “I bought some books,” I said. I like to read.

“Buy a $200 bottle of wine,” he suggested.

I nearly choked. “I hardly ever drink,” I sputtered. “Plus, I can’t imagine spending $200 on a bottle of wine.”

“That’s the problem,” he said and smiled.

I got it. It wasn’t about buying a $200 bottle of wine. It was about having the consciousness of prosperity, and I didn’t have it. I wasn’t having any fun with money. Somewhere in my belief system, I had the idea that I had to work hard for money, and I wasn’t allowed to be frivolous. Ha!

Although I’m still not frivolous with money, I do have a better balance in my life of work and play. I’ve also had to learn to play games with myself around money to avoid getting bored. Although money may never be my strongest motivation in how I live my life, I have learned to respect it more and in turn respect myself more.

There’s a PS to this story. My friend took me to his Mercedes dealer to shop for a new car. No, I didn’t buy a Mercedes. That wasn’t the idea. The idea was to raise my money consciousness. So I didn’t buy a new Mercedes, but I did get a new Toyota.

Practice 3

Give and receive. You’ve heard me say it before that giving and receiving are like breathing in and breathing out. On the in breath, we receive; on the out breath, we give. We can’t have one without the other. When we give, we signal to the Universe that we have plenty to give because we know that we are always provided with all we need, and so we are.

Raising our money consciousness takes time, desire, intention, and practice. We may not be ready to win the $1 million lottery or to buy a new Mercedes. But we just might be ready to get that new Toyota or…

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Flight or Fright, A Life-Long Lesson

Posted on November 27, 2023 by Diana Rankin

Here’s a terrifying thought; imagine being strapped into a flight suit, tethered to a steel cable and lifted hundreds of feet into the air only to be dropped to the ground going 60 mph. Even more terrifying was that my nephew was nudging me to take this jump with him.

It was years ago on a family outing with my niece, Michelle, her husband, Michael, and their son. They were trying to cheer me up; I’d been having a rough time. My marriage was breaking up, and at the same time, my job was ending. I was struggling to get something going and every direction I turned seemed scarier than flying off a platform head first toward the ground at 60 mph.

We stood on the sidelines at the amusement park and watched the Xtreme Skyflyer crank upward and then with horrifying dizziness drop riders. “Xtreme” is right! It’s a skycoaster ride that sends riders soaring through the air like a pendulum on their way downward. Although I was younger then, I still was a woman of a certain age whose bones wouldn’t mend as quickly as my younger relatives, the ones who were coaxing me on. Yet, I admit that as frightening as it was, I also felt a tinge of exhilaration.

My family could see my fear, feel my hesitation. They coaxed me, supported me, even teased me, but didn’t push. I promised to think about it. After all I did brag on the drive to the amusement park that I would go on the skycoaster if conditions were right. Now, standing near the ride, I was looking for ways to back out. Whatever made me think I could do this?

“I’ll go if the sun comes out,” I said. To myself I thought fat chance that’s going to happen. The forecast was for thick clouds and so far the day had proven the meteorologist right. I felt pretty safe as we walked around the park, at least until the sun broke through the clouds and refused to leave. It was nearing the end of the day. I knew I didn’t have much time to make up my mind. Not making a decision was making a decision.

Michael stood next to me while we watched Michelle and their son on one of the calmer rides. “I’m scared too,” he said. “But I know if I don’t do this, I’ll always be sorry.” That’s all he said. No pushing me, no telling me I had to go on that skycoaster. Just a simple statement about himself that had everything to do with me.

I won’t say the fear subsided when I decided I too would be sorry if I didn’t walk—or is that fly—through this fear. I decided to do it, ride the Xtreme Skyflyer.

My fear increased to the point of near panic as the attendants hooked us up into our flight suits, as they called them. More like a blanket with straps. I caught a glimpse of my face in the ticket booth window. So that’s what sheer terror looks like! My eyes, frozen wide with fright, stared back at me. What in the world am I thinking? Can I back out now?

It was only determined stubbornness that kept me standing while being fitted into the flight suit. My knees buckled on the walk to the cable that would hook Michael and me together. Wires zipped and sizzled, then there was a snap, crack, and we were off, going up, up, up. Up. Up. My fear increased with every foot and my crossed arms burned with bruises as my fingers dug into flesh.

We jerked to a stop at the top. Someone had to pull the ripcord. Fortunately, it was on Michael’s side. “Ready?” he asked. I was still nodding okay when he pulled the ripcord. We were off!

Wind sailed across my face. I was flying, a bird soaring as high as the treetops. I saw the whole world. Weightless, fearless, adrenaline-charged, white-knuckle exciting! I was free. I screamed and laughed and kept right on laughing after we landed. I was still laughing on the ride home.

Riding the Xtreme Skyflyer was, of course, bigger than the ride or the hours that led up to getting on the skycoaster. I had stepped outside my comfort zone—way outside—and faced fear heart-on. I would—could—never go back.

I won’t say I’ve never felt fear since then. I have. But whenever fear creeps into my life and pushes me into a shell of safety, I hear Michael saying, “I’m scared too, but I know if I don’t do this, I’ll always be sorry.”

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Achieve Success Through Intuition

Posted on November 22, 2023 by Diana Rankin

This article is from my archives, and I think the information is worth repeating.

From the CEO to marketing to creative services to the shipping clerk, intuition is our best friend in the workplace. Over the years, I’ve presented ways to increase and work with intuition, or instinct if you prefer, to aid educators, police officers, medical personnel, and people in just about every walk of life you can name.

It all began back in 1984 when the Vice President and Director of the Creative Services and Marketing Department of a Fortune 500 company in Ohio and I went out on a limb together.

At the time, I had recently moved from liberal California to conservative Ohio. While talking to the director about freelance writing work, the subject of intuition and the importance of using intuition to find work you love came up.

The director asked me if I would consider putting together a breakfast seminar for his group on these very subjects. Although I had experience as a speaker, including substituting for my former boss at UCLA on occasion, my main work experience was as a writer, not as a speaker. Still, I listened to my intuition and said yes.

I knew my job was to inspire the director’s team, to offer them something they hadn’t heard before, or at least hadn’t heard the way I would present the information. They needed to be motivated, and I was the one hired to do that. 

Perhaps I was influenced by years of living in California, fostered by the director’s faith in me, but that limb we went out on came with the last line on the agenda. It read: “The ‘L’ Word.”

In today’s culture the “L word” might be easier recognized, but this was 1984 and most business people in a Fortune 500 conservative corporation in Ohio weren’t thinking of the “L word,” let alone speaking it out loud in front of coworkers.

I explained to the group that three letters followed the “L” and this word had a lot to do with their work as well as their personal lives, and that this “L” word was needed to use their intuition.

Throughout the morning, there was a lot of hemming and hawing, with a few guesses—luck, labs, lack, and so on—but no one came close…except one man, the vice president and director of the department. He sat there smiling while his staff kept guessing. Finally, I nodded and he gave the answer.

“Love,” he said. “To be good at your work, you have to love it, and if you don’t love what you’re doing, you don’t belong in this department.”

After a long moment of silence, I heard people starting to breathe again. 

“I love what I do,” he continued. “That’s why I’m so successful.”

Heads started nodding and everyone smiled. They got it.

Okay, you say, I get that love isn’t a dirty word in business anymore, but what does love have to do with intuition?

To be successful in one, you need the other. It’s the combination of love for what we do, coupled with intuition that takes us beyond knowledge and leads to our success, whether that success is leading a company, knowing what clerical backup is needed before it’s asked for, or moving out of harm’s way if a tower of boxes start to tumble.

Loving our work gives us the passion and motivation to put in the effort to learn and grow in the business of choice. There’s no substitute for knowledge and experience, but success comes with that extra step–intuition, aka, that “gut instinct.”

In the Harvard Business Review Modesto A. Maidique wrote:

“Gut,” replied Carnival CEO, Micky Arison, when I quizzed him, while interviewing him for a research project on CEO decision making, on how he arrived at the most important and fruitful decision of his career: the $5.45B acquisition of Princess Cruises. I must have seemed somewhat puzzled for Mr. Arison emphatically clarified, “I trust my gut.”

One of the most famous CEOs of all time, Steve Jobs, stated the importance of  intuition and love. He said, “Have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”

Everything else is secondary indeed. Without using your intuition, you may flounder, missing your dream. And the love, well, we all need love to survive and for our work in the world to have meaning.

Do you need a speaker for your group? Contact DianaRankin1111@gmail.com, or call 937-362-2117. To see more of my work, please go to www.DianaRankin.com and click on blog: to see my videos go to youtube.com/c/dianarankin1111

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Mom Wears Piper Out

Posted on November 22, 2023 by Diana Rankin

My mom wears me out. She goes from this room to that room. I have to follow her. That’s my job. I’m a doggy. It’s how we protect our humans. We stay close. Besides, Mom might have a treat in her hand. And what if she dropped it and I wasn’t there to get it! Gotta stay close.

Still, it wears me out. Mom just doesn’t sit still for long. Sometimes I’m still in the doorway when she turns around. She almost goes past me. But I’m fast. So, I turn around and stay by her.

Sometimes I’m asleep when she starts out. I have to wake up really fast so I can follow her. She might need my help. Or she might be going to my treat box. Or we might be going outside to play ball.

We don’t play ball at night. It’s different at night. That’s when we sleep for a bunch of hours. Mom stops moving from room to room. We stay all night in the same room. Mom calls it the bedroom. That’s because there’s a big bed in there.

My bed is right beside the big bed. That’s where Mom sleeps. On the big bed. She lets me sleep there too when I want to. We cuddle real close. I like that. She pets my head and face and tummy and back. It feels good. We sleep and sleep and sleep for a long, long time. All night.

I don’t think about treats when I’m sleeping with Mom. I don’t think about following her from room to room. Or trying to protect her. Or about playing ball. I don’t think very much. I just cuddle close to Mom.

I hope she knows I love her. I know she loves me. That feels good. To love and to feel loved. I like it.

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