My Magical JourneyCreating a fabulously fantastic life!

Hello Friends!

I just mailed this month’s newsletter.  I’m especially thrilled with this one because it only took 30 minutes, instead of 3 hours!!!  Why?  Well, I didn’t spend forever adding links to every article I’ve written this month, along with coordinating pictures.  In it, I announce a big website update – much more journal style articles like a blog on the homepage.  This will happen as soon as my tech support (Mark) gets a moment free from creating our newest (and so exciting) website, NoNewPlastic.com.  We’ve decided to not buy any new plastic for an entire year.  In the meantime, we’re learning about plastic, going on discovery trips and interviewing experts, and changing how we live.  We’ve made some cool changes already.

I knew something big was happening last week because I felt angels all around me.  I usually don’t feel angels.  If you’ve been reading articles on the blog, I often refer to my Spirit Guides, but not angels.  I literally felt loving beings of light behind and beside me.  Have you ever been sitting or standing so close to someone that you were almost touching, but not quite?  You know how you can feel them at the tips of the hair on your arms?  That’s what I felt for several days.  I feel that when I’m meditating sometimes, but usually not constantly for several days.  It was really incredible.  I also had a “random” conversation with a man in a store who I felt was delivering a message from an angel to me.  Have you ever had that happen?  There have been so many times when someone has spoken to me and told me exactly what I need to know right then, and I can feel as they are talking that they are relaying a message from my Spirit Guides.  Based on all these signs, I knew something big was coming.  We had some news during those days that could be worrisome in normal circumstances, but I knew that everything was working out perfectly.  Even as my logical mind was freaking out, my Spirit was calm.  One of the insights we got after those few days was to launch NoNewPlastic.com.  Everything came together very smoothly and without brainstorming.  The ideas floated into our minds.  One thing led to another, and four days later we had a website, several articles, and a dedication to a year with no plastic.

To some, it may not seem logical that this website (MyMagicalJourney.com) could focus on psychic abilities, meditation, manifesting a great life, and an eco-friendly lifestyle.  For me, they are all tied together.  I believe everything is one energy.  If we are tapped into our own energy and the energy of the spiritual realm, we are also tapped into the energy of the earth.  The past several years, as I have become even more in touch with my energy and the energy around me, I’ve felt a deep connection to other life forms and the environment.  I feel that the earth is a living energy, and when it’s not treated well, I feel just as if I am not being treated well or someone I love is not being treated well.  When I do things that I know are bad for the environment, I feel like I’m treating myself badly.  To me, putting trash in a landfill, for example, is just like putting a layer of trash under my own skin.  I’m a living energy, and so is the earth.  Plastics have bugged me and confused me for a while now.  I know a lot about them, but there is so much contrary information circulating, which I believe is sometimes intended to keep us in our same old routine of using plastic for everything.  Plastic has many positive uses, but it also lasts forever.  I believe we should treat it like a product that lasts forever, and use it wisely or not at all.  That’s why I’m so excited about doing this project.  I hope you pay a visit to our new blog, and I look forward to hearing your ideas and the ways you are living more eco-friendly as well!

Love,

Melanie

Hello All,

Hello all you wonderful, brilliant, shining beings of light!  (How’s that for an intro?)  Anyhoo, I had the coolest thing happen this morning.  And yes, this does have to do with my recent sewing obsession!  Don’t be surprised if every post on my blog from now on has something to do with sewing.  Ha!  Yesterday, I was wondering how to make ruffles in fabric.  I thought about it several times, but forgot to look it up online.  Then, just before I woke up this morning, a helpful spirit gave me a tutorial!  I saw a close up of some fabric in my head, a large needle, and then the needle went through the fabric at the points marked.  Then, the thread was pulled and voila!  a ruffle!  I said thank you to the friendly Spirit who helped me with that.

One of the things I’m looking forward to is connecting more with my grandmother and Mark’s grandmother, both of whom were avid sewers.  My grandmother on my mom’s side sewed clothing all the time.  She also knitted clothing.  I’ve already told them both that I expect their help in my newish hobby.  I say newish because I had a sewing machine when I was younger.  It lasted several years before the foot pedal broke.  I didn’t realize at the time that I could have just bought a new foot pedal.  I think we gave it away to a woman who wanted to sew for her children.  Then, I took a sewing class in high school.  I made a very structured top but didn’t choose the right material, so I never wore it.  Then, I tried making two different dresses.  One was a semi-disaster.  There were many fitting issues, and I eventually gave up.  Now that I’ve read a million reviews online, I realize this is a common thing.  The second dress ended up looking more like a sack than a dress.  A very well made, pretty purple sack, but a sack nonetheless.

This sewing experience I AM SURE is going to be much more enjoyable and successful.  For one thing, I’m reading everything I can get my hands on about sewing and fitting garments before my sewing machine gets here.  For another, my first project involves sewing the edges of a bunch of flannel squares.  You know how Mark and I are making different changes to be more eco-friendly?  One of the ways is by not buying boxes of tissues.  We read and saw a video about tissues and toilet paper and how they are made from ancient or virgin forests.  We’ve been rethinking parts of our disposable lifestyle and figuring out how to do things differently.  Mark had some monkey print flannel fabric he bought off etsy, so we cut it into squares for tissues.  It is so great!  We tested our creations at the perfect time, because I had a little head cold last week.  I think he cut about 50 flannel squares for me.  Here’s the cool part – this is just like an infomercial.  I spent a day while I was all snotty at my mom’s, so I used regular tissues while I was there.  The skin around my nose was rubbed raw!  Now, this has happened many times before in my life, and I always thought it was because of my cold or allergies.  However, once I got home and started using my flannel tissues, no more sore nosey!!!  It wasn’t my nose that was the problem, it was the tissue!  My mom even uses the nice kind with lotion.  It still was too rough for my skin.  The only issue we’re having with our monkey tissues now is that when we wash them, the edges are fraying.  Enter new sewing machine! Tah dah!

We also got rid of our paper towels.  We started using fabric napkins while eating and cut up an old towel for cleaning rags.  Yesterday we went to a Chinese restaurant nearby, and they had paper napkins.  They were so scratchy!  I never realized it until I started using the good stuff.  I read an article that was talking about how we had to be trained to be in this disposable mindset.  After WWII, everyone was still in the save and reuse mode.  Then, there was a huge advertising push to get people to buy things that was saying how it made life easier to just have everything disposable – plates, napkins, tissues…you get the idea.  It was even on the cover of Life Magazine – I just looked for it online again but couldn’t find it.  It showed a woman with a trash can in front of her, lots of disposable things going into the trash, and big happy smile on her face.  I can see how this makes sense on the one hand.  Who wants to do dishes, right?  But when I realized that my trash doesn’t really go anywhere – that almost everything I use stays around FOREVER, it seems crazy to me to keep living the way that I have been.  So far with tissues and paper towel change, which actually make my life better, I’ve saved a lot of paper = trees = plastic packaging.

I’ve also made some pretty other cool changes.  Stay tuned for my toilet paper and tampon blogs!  HA!  The funny thing is that I’m serious.  :)  Tampons – sheesh.  I think I’ll post that one today.  It’s called The DivaCup Diary.  Check it out in the Eco-Living section of my site.

I hope you have a lovely day,

Melanie

I found a wonderful website, called Explore The Cycle, that features Flash animations about how different products are recycled and how single-stream recycling works.  Single-stream recycling is becoming more popular because it makes recycling so easy.  Everything goes in one bin, rather than having to separate paper, plastics, glass, and metals.  The animations are quick and easy-to-understand . . . kind of like Looney Tunes for eco-minded people.  If you are interested in learning how recycling works and what our recycled products eventually become, this is the site for you!

I am lucky enough to live in a town where recycling is very easy.  We have single-stream recycling, which means we don’t even have to separate the recyclable materials.  Up until about a week ago, when Mark and I watched the documentary No Impact Man (which is also available on NetFlix), I thought it was great that most of our waste went into the recycling bin.  However, now I realize that the idea is to minimize or stop creating any waste, whether it is recyclable or not.  This is due to several reasons: Read the rest of this entry »

Mark (my fiancé) and I are constantly learning about how we can change our lifestyle to one that is healthier for the environment.  We recently read about ingredients in laundry detergent and how they harm the environment in the book, Easy Green Living: The Ultimate Guide to Simple, Eco-Friendly Choices for You and Your Home.

After doing some extensive online research, I realized it was easy, cost-effective, and better for the environment to make our own detergent.  I wanted to be sure it worked well before writing an article about it and recommending it, and we finally had the big test Read the rest of this entry »

Part of living metaphysically is recognizing that everything is connected energetically.  In order to thrive we must show love, care, and appreciation for all things, including the earth.  One easy way to care for the earth is to update our shopping habits.   Here are some quick ways we can make our shopping excursions a little greener Read the rest of this entry »