A Smile

There is a smile hidden
in the "corners"
of a frown somewhere,
you just need to
move them around
a smidgen.

I'm Alive

Believe in Yourself

Wanting To Join

Dumbing Ourselves Down
From http://www.dailyom.com/

The ability to go into any social situation and sense the level of consciousness in that situation is a gift. It enables us to move considerately in a world that holds people of all levels of awareness. However, there is a difference between shifting our energy to accommodate people and dumbing ourselves down to a regrettable degree. Sometimes, when we get into a particular social situation, we may feel pressure to play it small in order to fit in. Perhaps everyone is drinking or smoking excessively, engaging in gossipy small talk, or complaining bitterly about politics. It is one thing to notice this and modify our expectations and another thing entirely to join in.

When we notice where people are coming from and acknowledge to ourselves that their energy is not in alignment with ours, we have several choices as to how to proceed. One viable option is to quietly endure the situation, keeping to ourselves until it is time to leave. In this way, we take care of our own consciousness and protect our growth process. Another option is to interact in a way that honors and pays respect to the people in the group, while gently attempting to shift the level of consciousness with our input. In order to do this, we must maintain our own vibration, which means that joining in by dumbing down is not an option.

When we choose to dumb ourselves down to fit in, we not only sell ourselves short but we also lose a possible opportunity to influence the situation for the good of all concerned. Our desire to join in may come from our natural yearning to feel connected to the people around us. There is no shame in this, but being able to stand on our own, separate from the crowd, is a powerful milestone on any spiritual path. It can be difficult in the moment, but when we arrive on the other side, our integrity intact, we may find ourselves feeling positively smart.

I think I know my modus operandi, and that is to quietly endure the situation, keeping to myself until it is time to leave. I have done that is most all of my social interactions and life in general. All the time hoping and wishing the time to leave would hurry up and get here. Not always, of course, but for the most part, yes I do.

Perhaps it's time to start moving more towards "gently attempting to shift the level of consciousness with our input" mode of operation. The problem I have is the "gently" part. I often act in a more zelotic manner rather than being as understanding and respectful of where others are, as I could be. Then part of that comes from being socially challenged, hopping along on one foot because the other is always in my mouth. An opportunity for grow here too.

So today, I am going to focus on the other option “to interact in a way that honors and pays respect to the people in the group, while gently attempting to shift the level of consciousness” with my input.

Letting Go

Sometimes letting go gets you more than you bargained for. It may turn out that you let go of more than just what you thought it was, you were letting slip away.
I feel like now I have let go of all that remains of life. Letting it slip between my fingers like so much sand and in the act, as the last of a few grains of sand passed through, realizing, they mean no less to me now, than any possible future days I may have ever even dreamed to live.

It is odd how, what should have been a relatively insignificant moment, can obliviate what ever purpose or reason life once held for me; substituting in it’s stead, something far more tenuous and fragile than I could ever have imagined possible for any reasonable being to accept so totally and without question.

It seems I have discovered that within my mind or soul or what ever it is, in some once dark, hidden corner, beat the heart of a madman and fool. A wisp of morning blurriness, which swallowed the world I once thought, was home. And with the coming of another day, when a light shown and the eyes cleared, I asked “where is the world?” There remained nothing to see, to touch, hear or taste. And from whence came this light I saw as my vision cleared, was it from sun or moon; or was this just a flash, a last futile attempt from dieing nerves before a blindness which blotted out all I once saw and cloaked me forever in darkness?

I can not say, my sight, my reason, they all have fled me, leaving behind only an unfathomable void, cold, empty and without substance.

I wonder how I even was able to articulate anything, other than some spasmodic, unintelligible, accidental syllables. Yet, somehow, I did, and with one foot eternally falling through this void and the other firmly planted in serene bliss. Considering the irresoluteness of who I am, to stand also with resoluteness, both simultaneously, is truly astonishing.

But, I am at peace and happiness blooms.

Quotes on the way to a mousepad

I went looking for a new mouse pad for work. Google my all knowing oracle was, as usual, my ever loyal guide in this quest. Firstly I was looking for something inspiring which would start each day, as my mouse made that initial glide across the inspirational surface, with visions of the wonders which lay ahead.

Then next I thought what of those dark days without vision, hope or anything other than all encompassing doom and gloom. Perhaps it could be simplified with a new word “dloom” instead. Of course it just sounds like some fools walk, you know dloom, dloom, dloom… So perhaps instead, I should look for something which would point to a light at the end of the tunnel or a path out of the pit. Maybe a picture or a musical pad which sang as my mouse danced. Alas no musical pads. :(

I eventually settled for a quote.

Here are a few I liked, which I found on the way to the one which, with a few taps of the keyboard, bit by electronic bit. would reduce my bank account from what it was just moments before.

I hope you enjoy them as much as I did in browsing to them.


"Whatever you do will be insignificant,
but it is very important that you do it."

- Mahatma Gandhi


"In the depths of winter, I finally learned that
there was in me an invincible summer."

- Albert Camus


"I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound
they make as they fly by."

- Douglas Adams




BTW it was the one by Camus which snatched my $$. LOL

Haiku, July 21 – 24 2007

These are a few Haiku, I had written last weekend and Tuesday. Perhaps for the "purists" they should just be called short poems. What ever they are or could be called, they attempt to capture a moment or some etheric presence which passed through my being.



then became
now, to become someday
waterfall's whisper



sun illuminates
moist morning clinging to leaves
dew bells ring



my heart brushed by
butterfly wings within you
one soul not two



quiet sun plunges
splashing into a red sea
pensive pines listen



a swamp silent
covered with bracken mounds
egret cry pierces



bat shaped breach
in darkened fluttering sky
mosquito silent



weathered granite
searching for door openings
hollow world inside



sitting not there
green goddess unfolds from oak
wind smiles



Morning silent sun
rises over still water
wind kisses softly

Dadaist Haiku

oh sun spool beautiful
ground quietly thread-let soul
energy delicate



muddy wind-rising
stress force slowly tender strength
what primal advance?



open delicate
wasp thoughtful wind wings depart
tension weaving



path wished beautiful
stand apart enchanting world
flow tenderly smooth



ever-searching grace
anchored beautiful wind-rising
butterfly golden

Freedom in Unknowing

"If it is held . . . as a cross, it will remain as one . . . with individuals where there is in their experience crosses to bear, hardships or surroundings that to them are overpowering, overwhelming, by slights, slurs, and fancies of the inactivity of a coordinating force. If these are held continually as crosses, or as things to be overcome, then they will remain as crosses. But if they are to be met with the spirit of truth and right in their own selves, they should create joy; for that is what will be built."

- Edgar Cayce


“Sit down before fact as a little child, be prepared to give up every preconceived notion, follow humbly wherever and to whatever abysses nature leads, or you shall learn nothing”

- Thomas Henry Huxley

“There is such a thing as perfection...and our purpose for living is to find that perfection and show it forth....Each of us is in truth an unlimited idea of freedom. Everything that limits us we have to put aside.”

- Richard Bach

A few thoughts

"If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost;
that is where they should be.
Now put foundations under them."

- Henry David Thoreau


"Discouragement tricks you into mentally or emotionally dwelling in the very place you want to leave."

- Guy Finley


"When one door of happiness closes, another opens, but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one that has been opened for us."

-Helen Keller


"All men dream but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity; but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it possible."

- T.E. Lawrence


"As for myself, I always willingly acknowledge my own self as the principal cause of every good and of every evil which may befall me; therefore I have always found myself capable of being my own pupil, and ready to love my teacher."

- Giacomo Casanova


"A day dawns, quite like other days; in it, a single hour comes, quite like other hours; but in that day and in that hour the chance of a lifetime faces us."

- Maltbie Babcock


"To unpathed waters, undreamed shores."

- William Shakepeare

Memories of Cold

During the hot summer days, my thoughts often turn to cooler times. Here are couple of poems about some memories of cold.


White room

Bulky Bulwark of a door pulled opened,
memory of Ali Baba shouting, “Open, Sesame!”
Walking into a magical world of iced white;
cold air brushes my face as the spirits
of the this cold microcosm flee to summer.

Rows of coarse screened cabinet doors
filled with beef, pork or venison
all kinds of meat, all shapes and sizes,
wrapped tight with white butcher paper
sitting, as a congregation in prayer.

I breathe in slowly, so the frozen daggers
will not freeze my tongue, throat
and pierce deep into my lungs.
I breathe out, a fog drifts
Gliding away like clouds
lifting up mountain slopes
after a summer’s rain.

A taste of cold
iced air, sublimated frost,
condensing on my tongue
cold moisture running over the edges,
a cool relief from the summer’s heat.

Going to get venison steaks today
soon to be broiled, with mashed potatoes
gravy and
yucky veggies.
The green and orange,
they alone will hold my plate
when I am done.



Cold Steel Mud

Cold day of rain and mud
soldiers riding through grungy streets
swords rising, hacking flesh,
cold steel, flinging blood still warm.

Arm sliced deep
another cuts my face,
then my neck.

Falling to ground,
limp arm,
doesn’t
break the fall

Gasping for air, sucking only mud
shaking, rolling my face to the sky
spitting the muck
just one breath of air, just one.

Horses hoofs,
bones, leg, hip,
cracking, crunching;
only sounds, nothing more.

Mud warming, oozing
flowing, a tepid shiver,
warms my shoulder and neck,
like warm lips kissing my ear;
a pillow to lay my head.

Grotty cold rain flows into sleep;
till I wake, to a stranger, a woman,
wiping the vernix from my face.

The Bee

A
bee
cupped in a
daffodil,
exited
from the
garden, flying
high
in flight over a
juniper tree.
Kumquats too
love the
many
numerous
ornithopter like
petal hoppers
quickly
racing through
stamens inside
taffeta petals.
Umbrage tough and
venose, only the
wight,
xanthochroic
younkers and
zelotic find the prize.



This is an alphabet poem. The rules are only to write the alphabet down the left side of the paper, then each line has to start with that letter. Sometimes you just have to play and have frivolous fun.

Onenotone

I was driving to work the other day and saw this bumper sticker on a car which went by. I thought it was a noble ideal and a vision to strive for but…

Somehow it bothered me and kept crawling around in my mind like so many insignificant brain maggots tend to do from time to time.

Finally I realized what it was that just didn’t make unreasonableness. By unreasonableness, I mean it made sense to my rational mind but the irrational self was pacing around banging on the head trying to get my attention.

So here is what the banging pacer had to say on it and I might add, I do agree.

“Man” has yet to, or ever will, create the “One” religion, government and culture which will encompass all that we are or will become. How can we EVER expect to have “ONE” of anything when we are constantly trying to create a god(dess) which is greater than his/her creator to make it all happen? When will we stop looking for the “One” solution and grok one not one.

Significance

(Implied or unstated) meaning…






When you think of how significant each of our lives is to each of us, personally; as well as the significance of those very special, who have touched each of our lives in a deep and meaningful manner. Doesn’t it make you wonder at all the significance, unknown to us, that exists on our entire world?

And imagine, if you can, by stretching imagination beyond the limit, what magnificent, wondrous significance there is in a universe where our world is only a tiny pale blue dot, seeming lost, in billions of other stars and worlds.

Perhaps in the coldness of space there is more than just a cold emptiness. Perhaps too, there is more significance inside of each of us than we dare to dream.