Holiday season 2009

Walking home today I tried to focus on every vertical panel of the wood fence on the right hand side.  It felt better than looking at the fence entirely.

Nobody that I know wants, nor needs, anything at all this year.

This year should be for children (15 and under lets say).

For us adults, here's an idea.

How about you place $40.00 in an envelope for each person you had planned to purchase a gift for, and label each envelope with their name.  Put it in a smart place.   When the time comes, that $$$ will go away from you on behalf of the person who it was allotted to.  For instance:

-If that person hits hard times within the year, buy them something they need.  

-If they get sad, buy them something to cheer them up.

-Donate the $$$ to a charity or organization that they believe in.

-Purchase them the means growing their own food.  It should only cost roughly  $40.00     and about an hour of labour.  

Here is the present under the tree:

Dear                         ,

Please understand that this year, my gift is completely intangible. If you have purchased something for me that I do not need, I plan on passing it on to someone who needs it more, On behalf of yourself.  Thank you from all of us.

P.S. if you dont understand it, txt me.

love,                                 .

the power of people

while checking my email i came upon this news tidbit and photo (unidentified photographer). please check reliable sources for more current information and details.

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Thousands of protestors occupied Thailand's main international airport Wednesday, halting all flights in a blow to the country's already-fragile tourism industry as they pressed their demand for the government's resignation.



The airport takeover was one of the boldest gambles yet by the People's Alliance for Democracy in its four-month campaign to topple Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat, whom it accuses of being the puppet of a disgraced fugitive predecessor, billionaire Thaksin Shinawatra.

Inflammation Proclamation

Lottery hope by methamphetamine wisdom
Wealth and good fortune by helicopter drop
Sipping a soft drink from an Aeron chair
Were it not for Ipods – one could have heard “Pop ”

Nothing but a shell of a former white mansion
I sold off my Lexus to cover my Benz
Somebody said they would come home to roost
I thought they said chickens– instead it was hens

Diverse portfolios make wonderfully good fuel
First for the bubble and finally the fire
The lift will take you to the penthouse suite
The fall – to the bread lines with labor for hire

Ash Wednesday, Black Tuesday, Good Friday’s somber wake
We’re all April fools waking up on Sunday
Closing the book at chapter 11
The freeway to serfdom – your 401k

The Royal Apartment Building

to connect

i have learned, in my short life so far, the need to feel attached to the human race, to be a part of the universe. i understand how important it is to connect. although this connection can be to things, to ideas, to feelings, and to thoughts, the most profound of my connections have been those with other people.

one should not underestimate the power of truth. being open, and sometimes painfully honest, with other people can get right to the core of our being. without censor, without pride, and without denial. there may be fear, as this is a great endeavour. but, with so much to risk there is infinity to gain. to connect with people in love, in joy, in fear, in sorrow, in grief. it is wondrous to feel life through a second person.

i've been incredibly blest, and perhaps undeservingly so, to have the opportunity to do this. beyond finding this connection with friends and family - which i take care now to qualify, i try never to take for granted - i have been able to make this connection with strangers. this, more than anything, has been the most provoking experience of my adult life. it instills in me a burning desire to touch and taste and hear. i want to be ever more aware of this world and all that it offers. and even more, it gives me great hope, the kind that yearns and aches with brilliance. i hope for the time when we all might connect. in this we would find the ultimate compassion, and perhaps, eternal peace.

It Has Been Said...

Good morning, good evening, good afternoon. Ladies and gentlemen, doctors, charlatans, foe.
We’re doing it again, again and again— the ink is love, the answer is ‘I don’t know.’ I know, I know, this hardly seems fair. Awareness, they taught, was a scale. Well, as it turns out, me became we and our ‘one way’ a permanent jail. It has been said that words give meaning, great change comes when a word has been spoken. Words can be written, read, altered and destroyed. Intent, however, just cannot be broken. Having said that, we’re starting to remember who we are again. Fear once kept us in a perpetual state of amnesia, but I am no longer afraid...

Otherworldly

Breathing with Anxiety.

Take 2 minutes. close your eyes. now open them a crack and focus on nothing in particular.
count your breaths, even, smooth, and effortlessly.
1..., 2...., 3...., 4...., 1...., 2...., 3...., 4....,
If thoughts, desires, fantasies, worries arise, do not judge, do not evaluate, no good/bad, right/wrong, selfish/unselfish, just let them go and return to the breath.

How did you do? I bet that that things did arise, but you were able to come back to the breath.
Ever feel anxious?
mind racing, heart beating fast and pounding.

Anxiety is simply physical sensation. a flush to the cheeks, a mild acid sensation in the chest, a quickly beating heart. This is normal and perfectly healthy.

Where anxiety goes wrong is when we start to label and evaluate those sensations.
This is bad, My heart is beating too fast, everyone can see my red face,

or we start to over-evaluate things from outside.
S/he doesn't like me, they think I am an idiot/loser/immature/freak/etc. That person is dangerous, or anything.

These evaluations act like threatening situations to our bodies, our bodies pump up the juice, and the sensations get stronger, then more evaluation, and on goes the cycle.

The cerebral cortex is mediating the sympathetic nervous system, and dumping adrenalin into the blood, which is activating the adrenal gland which secretes cortisol (a stress hormone) etc, etc,

So what can you do? Go back to the breath. cut out the evaluations and breathe with the present moment. Examine the physical sensations as they are, and watch them go. Absorb the anxiety, don't treat it as an outsider.

And all will be well.

a model of companioning by dr. alan d. wolfelt

companioning is about walking alongside; it is not about leading.

companioning is about being still; it is not about frantic movement forward.

companioning is about discovering the gifts of sacred silence; it is not about filling every painful moment with talk.

companioning is about listening with the heart; it is not about analyzing with the head.

companioning is about bearing witness to the struggle of others; it is not about judging or directing those struggles.

companioning is about being present to another person's pain; it is not about taking away or relieving the pain.

companioning is about going to the wilderness of the soul with another human being; it is not about thinking you are responsible for finding the way out.

Poles

Sometimes I feel like I am driving onto a highway, you know those on-ramps, the curves, the pull that just keeps going and going and going, you wish it would stop, it makes you feel sick and then finally you straighten out only to realize you now are about to merge onto a 4 lane highway, MERGE, MERGE, MERGE!! Then other days I feel like I have crossed the dimension from the reality we know, I have come in contact with the condition, the moment, the connection that seems to slow down time, its wonderful. I guess we cannot have one without the other, otherwise we would not know the difference and therefore not appreciate the relief. Just like the seasons. North Pole and South Pole, apparently we have a similar magnetic magic in our own bodies, the head being the positive and the feet being the negative. Which direction do you sleep in? My head is towards the east and my feet are towards the west.

There was a recent article saying that a 10 year old student at Northridge elementary school had seen a large cat behind the school, which snarled at him, and he reported it to his father who pushed this story to the Saanich news. I originally thought, child is exaggerating, father is overreacting, what has the world become. But in recent weeks, my baby was born, there has been a paradigm shift, and I have become a legitimate father. I would never put my children in harms way. I also may have become a half-assed environmentalist, asking myself, “what is more important?” and why?

Since then, There has been numerous cougar sightings in the area, including one very nearby, and the community that I live in has requested that we not leave our children unattended in the communal backyard, and to be on guard at all times as cougars can become quite aggressive at this time of year.

Possibly, part of being human is BEING - MAN, acting in my own interest before the interests of others, Securing the homefront. This is never anything that I have considered before fatherhood, which makes me think that this is a product of reproduction. But, my question is, is this a natural change of focus or is this a process of becoming older? Also, what really does matter more? The Cougar's instinct or my child's safety?

Fictional Reserve

In March of 2007 the turbulence started. Many of us could feel it coming, but those ‘moneyed scientists’ didn’t want to pay attention to our poor human passions. Their unwavering faith in numbers would challenge the idea that it was all coming apart at the seems, decidedly not about to burst into a thousand fragmented pieces somewhere over the ocean of unserviceable debt.. Still the stewards of the greenest green flying machines were saying everything could continue functioning normally. We should resume buying drinks and paying for them through Visa.— a soft landing was the only probable outcome. This reassurance was all fine and good for the indebted slave who functioned throughout daily life never contemplating what his superiors would call the big picture, because nobody cared what the big picture looked like through the eyes of a family about to foreclose on their very first home. The magic of modern accounting failed to account for this family, as well as the idea that diversifying risk was a bit like killing off an unwanted ant colony. If the slow acting poison smelled sweet enough, more ants would return to feed. Delighted by this seemingly free and abundant source of magical sustenance, the ants would begin taking the poison home to feed their young, totally unaware that an hour of tragedy was looming for the entire colony. This could have been avoided, had the masses paid attention to the warnings given by the intuitive few. But they didn’t. And when the poison had been spread throughout the entire system— Alt-A mortgages, teen credit cards, equity loans, collateralized debt obligations— those who ate most of it became symptomatic first.
Money making money seemed like a sweet deal but once again relied upon people’s faith. Faith in the markets. Faith in the ignorant— those who would never come to accept the fact that not enough gold existed anywhere in the world to represent what had already been lent. It was a bust from the beginning because we’d already seen the practice of usury and its negative effects on an economy. Debt was never equal to wealth. Debt was always the equivalent of slavery— with a dictionary definition of sin. It was by no accident that every great world religion came to view lending money at interest an act against God and humanity. Why? Because the ancients new paper money was based upon a fallacy. This was also one of the reasons for the American Revolutionary war. The country’s founding fathers new that private ownership over the coining of money would usher in the return of massive federal debts. The people’s tangible assets would disappear, replaced instead by worthless paper receipts— fiat currency— proving ownership of debt backed by nothing but thin air.

Falling Asleep

Waiting for my chemical numb.
My massaging messenger.
Bringing me gifts of landscapes, ideas and feelings foreign to my conscious soul.

Over or under the Mulberry bush.
Cradling nursery rhyme logic.
Unabated Images. There is no rest from rest.
We are forever dancing, feeling, living an existence unnatural and unknown.
We inhabit it together.
You
and I.
The journey to the center of the earth, a quiet stroll in the park, death & torture.
Flying.
I am most alone and uncaring in this regard.
When it comes.
That renderless pixie.
Depositing freedom.
Bodiless, I indulge myself.
I deserve it, I think. Body's can be so cumbersome can't they?
All that breathing and thinking about moving.
Where I'm going, things just happen.
They just are.
And I accept it.
I await it.
With open unmoving arms.
And a soft soft pillow.

Energy

We are living on this earth that appears to be divided
Different shapes and colors of land separated
Yet connected by vast blue bodies of water
Everything populated with Life
Life Energy - an electrical surge of feeling
Filling everything we know and everything we don't
New Dimensions
We need to embrace this presence
capture it and use it for fuel
if for no other reason than to just feel it in the deepest part of ourselves
so we can then radiate it back out
into everything we sense and everyone we know
There will always be light and dark
happiness and sadness
peace and war
love and hate
This is real
But we have gone to extremes
We must find our balance again
And we must truly believe that when we feel this great energy
It Grows
Others begin to feel it as well

mother earth

i want the earth
i want to feel her beating core, pulsing with me
pulsing within me
i want to dance in her tears and marvel in her radiance
i want to go home

New Skin

I find it so very refreshing to hear Obama speaking the language of peace, hope and understanding to his fellow citizens. His words flow in stark contrast to the deranged vocabulary employed by the Bush administration these past eight years. If only for a brief moment, such liberating winds of change once again feel warm and right, as Americans gleefully shed that old, itchy skin of near-tyranny, replacing it instead with a newer, healthier epidermis. The election of Barack Obama to the Presidency is a hugely symbolic event, and not just because of the colour of his skin. I hope that truly for the first time in her history, the United States of America will seize this opportunity to employ the might of her collective will for positive transformation.
Obama will not be a perfect President, this is for certain, and portions of white middle America may never give a black man a chance. But the message is out there now, the ball is rolling. The majority of Americans are happy again because they feel that their democratic system may actually have worked this time.
If only for this moment, I'm joyful that I have been witness to the shedding of the wrinkled flesh of white aristocracy for a face more representative of what America once stood for. Opportunity.