Anne's Note today is The Sanctity of Wherever You Are. The Main article, Holiday Plans, provides some tips on how we can make our holidays EZier and more enjoyable. The Healthy Living article, Two Recipes for Health, provides a Spiced Nuts Recipe and a Daily Jump Starter recipe. Today's Anne Talk, 'Twas the Day Before Christmas, is another of Anne's repurposed Christmas poems. The Featured Product this month is Anne's new reprint of EZosophy: The Art and Wisdom of Easy or At Least Easier Living. Click here to learn about Anne's newest book.

The EZ Mantra: "Everything can be EZ or at least EZier." – Anne Sermons Gillis

Living EZosophy, December 20, 2016
Published Weekly on Tuesday Mornings

Phone: 281-419-1775
Email: anne@annegillis.com

Anne's Websites:

  A Note From Anne

The Sanctity of Wherever You Are

Dear ,

We’re riding down the road on I-10 East. Some curse technology, but I’ve got to admit, this is sweet, being able to ride in a car and bang out a few words on my iPad. When you read this, we will be playing with the twins in Mt. Pleasant, SC. The stockings will be hung by the chimney with care and two munchkins will be running around the house singing Wheels on the Bus. While Mystics meditate atop the Himalayas, I’ll be resting in the beauty of ordinary life.

When I made my last trip to India, I realized I didn’t need to return. I normally saved my frequent flyer points so I could go back, but his time I realized that India held no more sacredness than any other place. The thing about experiencing our divinity at home is that we are so busy we miss it. The commission of the EZosophist is to not miss it; not to miss the sacredness that underlies everything at all times. Christmas times and other holidays beg us to experience the divine. Let’s allow the holiness of life to permeate every direction of our lives, at all times. Life is our appointment with wonder. Let’s be on time every time for life because every day is a holy day.

Happy holy days,

Anne

  Main Article

Holiday Plans

I’ve watched so many Hallmark Christmas movies that I am finally in the mood for the season. While I made the holiday EZier by skipping trimming a tree, I still placed seasonal decorations around the house. I included tiny white lights. Some of them are winking while I write. I’ve listened to my holiday play list so many times I know which song will play next. I’ve made two batches of spiced nuts and three pies. I have to do holiday cooking. It lifts me in a special way to cook special treats.

The above activities are a part of my holiday tradition. When I lived in Memphis, I often had no plans for Thanksgiving or Christmas day. My daughter was with her father and my relatives lived far away. I asked one of my friends what she did for Christmas. She said, “We made a holiday tradition.” She and her daughter went to The Peabody Hotel. The Peabody was an elegant hotel with festive decorations and live holiday music wafting through the air. Even though I always came up with a fun plan for the day, that year I invited a friend to go with me to the Peabody, and subsequently anytime I didn’t have plans on Thanksgiving or Christmas, I’d go to the Peabody. I enjoyed it so much I would be a little disappointed if I had something else to do.

It’s our job to make sure we have wonderful holidays. If we long for family and tradition, we have the ability and creative impulse to construct them for ourselves. We may not have blood relatives living nearby, but we can have a family of choice or we can experience the stillness of being alone. I have friends whose tradition was to go to the movies on Christmas Day and I spent a few years going with them to the theater.

Once, when I was emotionally devastated, I went to a California retreat center, to lick my wounds. The best airfare occurred on Christmas day. I preferred not to fly on Christmas, but it turned out to be a unique experience. Everyone had one thing in common. We all were flying on Christmas Day and that experience made us an ad hoc family.

Today I read a Facebook post that asked, “Can this day get any more magical?” I commented, “Fortunately the universe arranges each moment with maximal magic.” Holidays can be rough when we are away from those we love or a loved one has passed on in the previous year. I may be insensitive, but I believe that whatever we are going through can always be EZier. We have choice points in our lives, and we can better spend our time by creating and immersing ourselves in the abundance of magic and good cheer of the holiday or spend our time in a state of “missing.” Missing out, missing someone, missing not getting enough presents, missing family, or missing a nonexistent partner. Why worry when we can pray; why cry when we can sing; why feel sorry for ourselves when we can help others? Why not grow up and take our lives by the corners, gather them up, and make things work out in more loving, compassionate, and joyful ways. True spiritual maturity is paying attention to life and taking the focus off what’s wrong with everything, who’s done us wrong, and how we’ve been the victim of everything in sight. Sometimes we need tough love to knock us out of our family patterns of distrusting life and being skeptical about happiness, and this is the time to use tough love on ourselves, because even though everything doesn’t have to be EZ, everything can be EZier and EZier – even during the holiday season!

Anne

  Quotes

"Ultimately what we’re touching is the invisible, all-pervasive Intelligence that surrounds us and penetrates us. It is grooming us to be able to tolerate its splendor. It can’t just reveal itself openly because we would be forfeited; we’d never know what hit us."
-- Terence McKenna

"I used to think I was lazy, but I found that when I do something in the right time, the doing comes so easily, it’s like I’m not even doing it."
-- Anonymous

"To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances freedom."
-- Nelson Mandela, The Apartheid Museum

  Featured Product This Month

At last, the reprint of EZosophy: The art of EZ or at Least EZier Living, is out. If you've been wanting an EZier life, this book provides a clear path toward EZ.

EZosophy:The Art and Wisdom of Easy or At Least Easier Living is a simple philosophy that radically changes lives. It is a book for the spiritually-based reader who no longer values the ego driven struggle of contemporary life.

EZosophy encourages you to:

• Give up Hard Attacks. Hardaholic no more.
• Drop the drama.
• Make your life EZier. Ease is not indolence. Rather, ease is the art of accomplishment without struggle.
• Identify ego driven suffering (EDS).

  Healthy Living

Two Recipes for Health

Here are recipes prescriptions for a more enjoyable holiday season or anytime.

Spiced Nuts Recipe

Everyone loves to receive homemade goodies for Christmas. These nuts are so luscious, you'll love them and they make great Christmas gifts. And if you like that holiday smell wafting throughout the house, this will do it, and the great thing is that they are so easy to make you'll feel like you’ve done practically nothing.

Note: This recipe ran last week, but the coconut oil was left out of the recipe. So here's the recipe again, complete.

Ingredients

• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice a mixture of cinnamon, clothes, ginger, and cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
• 1/4 cup coconut palm sugar or maple syrup
• Three cups of unsalted nuts such as pecans cashews walnuts almonds, etc.
• 2 tablespoons of melted coconut oil

Preheat oven to 250 degrees. Mix ingredients. Place the nuts in a single layer on top of parchment paper and a large baking pan. Bake for 1 hour or until the coating is crunchy. Cool for 10 minutes before serving. Keeps in a sealed container for two weeks.

Daily Jump Starter

Want to jump start your day? Need energy? Try these three things to get you going.

• You can do this while still in bed or standing. Raise your arms up, all the way from the body, not just from the elbows, and then lower them. Breathe in deeply as you raise your arms and exhale as you lower your arms. Do this five times.
• Make two fists and tap the top of your head 30 times with your fists.
• Massage the top part of your neck, where it joins your head, with your fingertips, for 20 seconds.

You’ll be surprised how you feel after these short exercises. You can even do them while in bed. They get you going and you can do them in less than 5 minutes. How easy is that?

If you have any healthy living tips for the newsletter, send them to me at anne@annegillis.com.

Anne

  Anne Talks

'Twas the Day Before Christmas

Today's Anne Talk is 'Twas the Day Before Christmas. It's another of Anne's repurposed Christmas poems. Time: 3:43.

Here's a link to other Christmas videos by Anne Sermons Gillis.

  Anne Art

Click the image to see a larger view.

Click the image to see a larger view.

  Anne's Schedule

All times here are Central Time
unless otherwise specified.

See the information immediately below on how to book Anne for your next event.

  Call or Email Anne Now to Schedule
  Her for Your Meeting.

You may reach Anne by phone at 281-419-1775 or click the button below to contact Anne by email. Anne is also available to officiate at weddings and funerals.