" Choice, not circumstances, determines your success. " Author unknown
Anyone can be the author of this quote. Yet how many of us think of choice first rather than the circumstances of our life. We all have choices. I never thought of choice as my own free will. My twelve step program taught me about making choices. I had made choices in the past. Some of them were bad and some were good. For example, in college at a Friday night party everyone is drinking beer. I had a choice to stay or leave. I stayed. For one there is peer pressure. I didn't want to feel less than if I left and I didn't want to hear my roommates comments. I could have excused myself, but I did not. I wasn't in a 12 step program at that time. Even when in a twelve step program, I sometimes didn't make the correct choices. Another example is relationships.I was not emotionally and spiritually fulfilled in a former relationship. It was not fulfilling in many ways. I had a choice. It wasn't until prayer and meditation entered my life that I was able to make the correct choice and end that relationship.
What choices have you made in life? I have many choices today. I meditate and pray on many of my choices. Not only the pros ad cons. I do know today that success does come from making the GOD choice. GOD choice is the "Good Orderly Direction" choice.
This may sound infantile or childish, but it is not.
Do not make quick choices, or spur of the moment choices. You never have to be that pressured in life to make a quick choice. It is your choice that determines the outcome or success. Never a circumstance with determine the success.
“If you limit your choices only to what seems possible or reasonable, you disconnect yourself from what you truly want, and all that is left is compromise.”
Robert Fritz
Last night was a cold winter night with the blowing or rather whipping around the corner from the East River and the Queens River in Roosevelt Island. Feeling a bit stuffy I wanted to make a tea concoction . I had decided upon neetles, raspberry leaf and elder berries. Fascinated with Sauer's Herbal cures and the different types of medicinal berries, I plunged into the use of elderberry.
I knew that elder berry was used for coughs and in cough syrups. Using elder berry young shoots alone or cooked with spinach and eaten with salad, will immediately purge both water and phlegm with both emetic and laxative action. I have found that the Germans loved the taste and zest of elderberry blossom fritters. Sauer discussed the use of elderberry for St. Anthony's Fire or ergotism. He discussed that drunk as a tea , elderberry will encourage sweating , dissolve clotted blood as well at St Anthony's Fire. This disease entity has intrigued me.St Anthony's Fire or known as ergotism is the effect of long-term ergot poisoning, traditionally due to the ingestion of the alkaloids produced by the Claviceps purpurea fungus which infects rye and other cereals. As you know, rye is a gluten grain along with barley, oats and wheat. This fungus , C. purpurea ,most commonly affects out crossing species such as rye (its most common host), as well as , wheat and barley. It affects oats only rarely. We read about St. Anthony's Fire from literature of the Middle Ages. Sixty years ago on August 15, 1951 there was a mysterious illness causing hallucinations, writhed in agony in their beds, vomited, ran crazily in the streets and suffered terrible burning sensations in their limbs.
This occurred in a tiny village in France called Pont Saint Esprit (Bridge of the Holy Spirit) The madness was diagnosed after it dumbfounded many. . They were suffering from St Anthony's Fire, a dreaded illness that was common in the Middle Ages. The cause was poisoning from a fungus (ergot) that grows on rye grass. The fungus contaminated the rye flour used in making bread.
Medicine is sometimes depicted in art. St Anthony's Fire is no exception.
In the French town of Colmar near the German border sits one of the wonders of Western art -- a 16th-century polyptych (multipanelled altarpiece) created by an enigmatic figure for a hospital that treated victims of Saint Anthony's fire. The Isenheim Altarpiece, regarded as a "sublime artistic creation," and its creator, Matthias Grunewald, have fascinated artists and scholars since the work was first moved to Colmar some 200 years ago. Matthias Grunewald's 16th-century Isenheim Altarpiece glorified suffering and offered comfort to those afflicted with a dread disease.
Two top photographs: Elder berry
Two bottom photographs: The altar and painting by Matthias Grunewald
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