Saturday, June 30, 2012

thinking about strength

"Strength doesn't come from what you can do. It comes from overcoming the things you once thought you couldn't." ~sent to me by Suzie,  author unknown


I have always believed that kindness, gentleness came from strength. And from the security of self confidence, but I have never thought about where strength comes from. 
Even if you try to keep Karma in mind in all of your actions, it doesn't mean there will never be trying times. Life is just that way. Sometime damned mysterious in it's ways.  
 




We all find our strength from different sources, that much I am sure of.  The words by Chief Dan George "may silence make you strong."  speak loudly in my heart.  In that silence, that solitude, where one can open their heart and mind without the intrusion of others. I feel the the strength rise in my heart,  and the reassurance of those who have gone before me and the guidance of a greater Spirit who knows me better than I know myself. 

Saturday, June 23, 2012

You know wat separates humans from animals? COFFEE



" I don’t have a problem with caffeine. I have a problem without caffeine."~unknown

I think I had my first cup of coffee when I was about 4, it was really more like milk with a spash of coffee, my Dad prepared  it for me. And we sat together at the kitchen table, and looked out the window and enjoyed our morning coffee, he was a man of few words.
It was commonly believed or may-be just commonly told to children in those day that coffee would stunt one's growth, I am pretty sure that wasn't isn't true.


In fact I believe that I do have Obsessive coffee disorder.  I will not just drink any old kind of coffee from any old mug.  unless of course my regular brand is unavailable, and my favorite mug needs to be washed, I mean really,really needs to be washed.

 "I sleep just to wake up for coffee!"~unknown
The aroma of fresh coffee drifting up the stair is one of the most pleasant things to wake up to.  On a chill winters morning when there is nothing much to do but look out the window at the falling snow, a fresh cup of coffee and a rocking chair are solace to my soul.

Many people are like instant coffee: the minute they get in hot water they dissolve.
~~unknown
!~
Drink Coffee! do stupid things faster with more energy.  ~~unknown

Like what kind of stupid things?  Is a stupid thing a judgement call or an absolute? And why should I want to do them, faster, am i not doing them fast enough now???  

Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Saturday, June 16, 2012

Meditation Mountain

It's the same, but different, no really it is.  When kids walked  to and from school I crossed this bridge at least twice a day, sometimes on a dare when the river was in flood stage , more than twice. And was scared as hell to do so, but I did it.
The railroad station and yard were on one side and a restaurant which is still there, and  some other buildings which are not were on the other.  there was also a store that sold comics and the best  olives in brine I have ever eaten.  It has been so many years, some things i can barely remember.

I

As far as I cam remember  it was in the early 60's  that  passenger trains quit  stopping here, and i can't remember any activity in the freight yard since they put through a huge power line in the late 70's, but trains still run through here.  Decorated with the works of spray paint artists, who's
skills are quickly painted over, too bad because some of their works are REALLY worth seeing and appreciating.


Over years  in fact decades of disuse the station house fell into disrepair, the one at the other end of tow fared much better, I think it is a restaurant.    over the years, there were plenty of rumors about people buying it,but no one ever did, and gradually the windows were broken and the portico began to come down, I was sure that one day it would not be be there when I drove past, there is was  looking sorta like the old days..  I am so glad I was wrong.

However the beautiful and well kept up mansion on the hill behind it is gone!!!! to make way for a truck by-pass, as is the row of little houses on the street nearby.  Many times we would walk that street to buy candy or get groceries for Mom, and of course we always stopped to splash in the horse trough, at least until the city removed it.  That street with the almost unpronounceable name, was named after the family who built and lived in the old mansion. A street. like the narrow road and pathways over the hill, connected two rival parts of town.  One where the tannery  and brickyard workers lived in their neat rows of company housing, and the section where the the more affluent workers from the chemical plant, which used to discharge pigments into the river and color the water, and sometimes ice and snow brilliant hues, lived  in mostly newly built houses.



I have long forgotten the correct name of this hill, which is being turned into  bypass, but the name I knew it by was Meditation Mountain. I used to take walks along the narrow roadbed and many paths that crisscrossed it, and also connected the two sections of town. Collecting bits o colored sandstone and fossils, or whatever i cam across, including once a seashell, and another time a jawbone.  The youngest girl in the family next door and i would pick berries and just roam around, sometime we saw other people and sometimes not, she called it Meditation Mountain, and we often sat on a large rock which gave us a beautiful view of the town, she would tell me stories about everything from  girl stuff tot own history to the headless horseman who terrorised the village her mother was born in, and me too.

So as i see it it is all still the same, only different.

Thursday, June 14, 2012

Someday we'll find it

~ The Rainbow Connection ~
Kenneth Ascher and Paul Williams
Why are there so many
Songs about rainbows
And what's on the other side
... Rainbow's are visions
They're only illusions
And rainbows have nothing to hide
So we've been told and some chose to
Believe it
But I know they're wrong wait and see

Someday we'll find it
The Rainbow Connection
The lovers, the dreamers and me

Who said that every wish
Would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star
Somebody thought of that
And someone believed it
And look what it's done so far
What's so amazing
That keeps us star gazing
What so we think we might see

Someday we'll find it
That Rainbow Connection
The lovers the dreamers and me

Have you been half asleep
And have you heard voices
I've heard them calling my name
Are these the sweet sounds that called
The young sailors
I think they're one and the same
I've heard it too many times to ignore it
There's something that I'm supposed to be

Someday we'll find it
The Rainbow Connection
The lovers, the dreamers and me


I glanced out the window and there was a rainbow, grabbing my camera I ran out the door,   It was already beginning to fade, and in the time it took to snap 4  photos its was gone, well gone from the sky but certainly not my heart.

That was a couple of days ago and I still  feel the  wonder, just about like the first time I ever say a rainbow.   That something that lifts you out of yourself and  makes one feel like a part of the grand order of things, a gift of connection.

In that  dark and nearly empty movie theatre, where I sat,fidgeting, through the Muppet Movie, other than Kermit, who is as my loyal readers know  is my favorite Philosopher,  and Miss Piggy who is, um well she is, she has this unique view of life, which, OK I can't explain it other than she makes me laugh, I am not a Muppet fan. 
I would not have gone to this movie, I was talked into it.

Kermit began to sing The Rainbow Connection, sweet lilting .  I felt the essence of Paul Williams words.  And now over 30 years later I am even more sure her is right, there is something we are, each of us meant to be.
And when we find out what it is, we will be content and may-be even happy, just being , just being our self.





Saturday, June 9, 2012

Sorta going around again versus coming to the end of the line???

One of my favorite people, Donna Henes wrote on her Huffintion Post blog "The Wisdom of Circular Thinking" ~~http://www.huffingtonpost.com/donna-henes/circular-thinking~~
 got me thinking about the divide between humans and the natural world, there really shouldn't be a divide because we are a part of that natural world,
The natural world is circular, even though most of them are not perfect circles, but human seem to prefer straight lines, perhaps it is our way of separating our selves from Mother earth, asserting our independence form our parent, but them may-be  not. I don't know.   It seems to be possible that straight lines are thought to be good because they are easier to construct accurately, and you need accuracy to build a house that will stay standing.  We humans want to go in straight lines, straight lines of construction and straight lines of though, and straight lines of achievement. The straight line does get you there in shorter distance, and direct, but once you get there what's next.

 Circular paths and thought found in the natural world, if you follow one it will take you through more experiences and then brings you back around to the beginning and the end.. In this "coming full circle"  you are not the same person, because you have undertaken a journey.  You have seen things from many different points, more than you would have with your eyes fixed on a straight line.  And I am not saying that along a straight line there are not opportunities for different perspectives, just that there are fewer of them, and it is more difficult to see other possible outcomes and consequences if one doesn't view  the situation in 360 degrees.  To look at it as a well rounded decision, and to view the knowledge acquired, the journey to the goal and, the methods used, to be at least as important as the goal.


 Every time you take that journey you return a different person, hopefully a smarter, happier and more well rounded one also.


Sorta going around again versus coming to the end of the line???

just rambling

"Have we    passed the midpoint of Summer? may-be without knowing it?"   That's a good question, to which i had no answer. so ...