Two or more cats were howling horribly nearby as I tried to get to sleep last night. "Wonder whose died?" I thought.
It's strange the garbage that can flow through the mind when we are half asleep, but it came to me that a lot of these thoughts have a source, often going back many years. We are made up of all the information that has been thrown at us since we were born - and not only by the media at large.
When I was a child my mother told me that when a cat or cats cry outside of a house it means there has been a death in the family. I don't know where she got this from but it's become a part of what is me. The idea or thought still lingers after all those years have gone flown by.
But it's not only other people's thoughts or stories that infiltrate our minds so do our own.
I remember when I was sixteen there was a girl I fancied. From somewhere I had heard that if you wish for something while under a bridge, especially a train bridge, then this would come true. Fortunately there was such a bridge near to where I then lived! So I made many detours on my bike wishing that I would go out with this particular girl. Not sure why I didn't simply ask her out!
The peculiar thing is that sometimes, when I drive under a bridge in the car, I'll still think of that girl as she was then. I no longer wish to go out with her, of course. She could well be a grandmother now - just imagine. Okay, I know I've now got a grandson - but who would have thought such a thing possible back then.
I guess what I'm getting round to saying is that words have a remarkable power to stay with us and influence our lives and beliefs. We have to, therefore, be a bit careful what we say to others - especially children - and also what words we allow as seeds to germinate in our own minds.
The fact that crying cats make me think that someone may have died isn't too much of a hassle and remembering a teenage girlfriend is actually quite pleasant. But what about all of the other words and ideas I've gathered over the years. Hopefully most of them are positive but in reality they will be mixed.
If our own words can stay with us and influence us it might be as well to take care what we repeat to ourselves. Positive auto-suggestion, as it used to be called in the 1970s, is a useful tool.
We are a bit like sponges and at times we perhaps need to squeeze out all of the dirty water and top up with something pure and sparkling. That's surely what the Law of Change is all about.
We want to make sure that our words and thoughts create a good future for ourselves.
Photo by Diego Grez via Wikimedia Commons
and 
.