Friday, June 11, 2010

Weekly Wordzzle Challenge: Week 113



This is week 113 of the Weekly (aka Saturday) Wordzzle Challenge. Anyone new to the process can refer back here to find out how it works. Sorry this is posting late. Blogger is saving after virtually every word I type, which makes the process VERY slow. Did the same thing last week. Don't know why. If it's the time I'm working or something about how I cut and paste the weekly structured stuff, but it's making me cranky and late both. Anyway, I apologize.


This
week's 10-word challenge are:
chapter, vigorous, whipped cream, charter member, cut a rug, fling, sparingly, gravity, pregnant pause, universal
For the mini: glamorous, gin and tonic, fill in the blanks, water-logged, masterpiece


My 10-word:

Sal Simmerson was a charter member of the Hancock chapter of the Cut a Rug and Have a Fling Society. The society believed that vigorous dancing was a universal cure for almost anything that could ail a person. Sal was something of a dancing fanatic, but the gravity with which he pursued his cause somewhat contradicted the theme of dancing as a source of joy and healing. When he danced, however, he lived the message in a way that nobody could miss. Sitting across the table on their first date, Mirabelle was nibbling sparingly on her strawberries and whipped cream, waiting for the pregnant pause friends had warned her came before he broached the subject of dance. So far the date had gone well but she wanted to hear what he had to say about before she told him that she was President of the Delhi Samba and Tango club. He must have done well, because a month later they were engaged, a year later they were married and 20 year later they had a troop of 7 little dancers of various sizes.



The mini:

Looking around at the water-logged wreckage of what had once been his glamorous summer country home, John Smith wished very much that he had a whole jug of gin and tonics to numb the grief he felt. He had designed the place himself and it had been a masterpiece of beauty and charm. He had expected to win awards for his design. Now all that remained were after the ravages of fire and the water damage the fire department had wrought putting it out was a husk of charred wood, broken glass and water soaked decor. Now he was asked to fill in the blanks of a form for an insurance company that didn't care, that didn't see his home for what it had been - his creation, his dream - but just as a commodity. He knew it had to be done. It's just that there was no blank for a broken heart.



The mega:
(I apologize. This is SOOOO bad... but with the constant saving, I was already late and I just couldn't try again.)

For vigorous exercise, I'd "cut a rug,"
Fling my arms and give a hug
To the glamorous girl I was wedded to
Best day of my life when I said "I do,"
Of her fan club I'm the charter member
Lasted a life-time - May to December
First time we met there was whipped cream on her nose
And still she looked beautiful from head to toes
Her make-up was always sparingly applied
There was nary a blemish she needed to hide
That very first meeting she stole my heart
And I'll tell you now it was a wonderful start
To a life-long love with many a chapter
I was hers for always - she was my captor
I bought a gin and tonic and asked her on a date
She said yes and sealed my fate
A life-time of happiness universal
For heaven my our life was a dress rehearsal
Fill in the blanks with words for delight
And you''ll have my life described just right
Time never dimmed her beauty fair
When I walked with her, I walked on air
And now God has called his masterpiece home
Left me this world alone to roam
My eyes water-logged eyes are running dry
I cry and cry and cry and cry
For Laura Gravity, beloved wife
The center of my world and life
But life goes on though she has passed
A pregnant pause that will not last
Til I am in her arms once more
At Heaven's glorious golden door.





***********

Words for next week's 10-word challenge are: Cleopatra, Saturday, perfume, suicide, guaranteed satisfaction, germs, stop in the name of love, Swiss cheese, cheap, luggage


For the mini: gratitude, shadows, sufferin' succotash, flattery, piglet


Thanks for playing. For those who are new, here are some guidelines to make the process more fun.


Enjoy! See you next week!



DON'T FORGET TO ADD YOUR
NAME TO MR. LINKY!!!!!


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Daily Reminder # 15


"Follow your bliss," Joseph Campbell advised. Listening to him talk you know that he lived his own advice. Anybody who hasn't been fortunate enough to watch the 1988 series of six interviews called the Power of Myth (available for instant viewing from Netflix) that Bill Moyers did with the late Joseph Campbell really should make it a point to do so. Campbell, who was a professor of anthropology and mythology was an inspiration. Those six conversations he had with Bill Moyers expanded my universe and opened my mind to many new ideas. They are wonderful.

I found this video on YouTube with a number of Campbell quotes. Each one of them is profound - like a tome in a sentence. I hope you enjoy it and are inspired by it.




Well that's it for today. Discover Joseph Campbell. The man is so brilliant but beyond that he is a man who radiates joy and excitement about living and thinking and discovering ideas. He's an inspiration. I love Bill Moyers too. I'm so glad that PBS made them available to me.

Some things I'm grateful for today:

  • Joseph Campbell
  • Ideas
  • Bill Moyers
  • Public Television
  • the internet
  • cool nights
  • birds, bees and bunnies


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Thursday, June 10, 2010

Daily Reminder #14


Trying to say something vaguely sage every day is really HARD. Therefore, today I am going to cheat and post a section from one of the most beautiful and profound books ever written: Kahlil Gibran's THE PROPHET. Awesome book. Never fails to move and inspire and touch and challenge me. I typed out a different passage but decided I'd rather use this one on Joy and Sorrow. Today's photos are from past years.... Kitties and a Groundhog because my friend E - for whom these posts are intended - is very fond of both.


Then a woman said, Speak to us of Joy and Sorrow.

And he answered:

Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.

And the selfsame well from which your laughter rises was oftentimes fillled with your tears.

And how else can it be?

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain.

Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven?

And is not the lute that soothes your spirit, the very wood that was hollowed with knives?

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy.

When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight.

Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater."

But I say unto you, they are inseparable.

Together they come, and when one is alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.

Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy.

Only when you are empty are you at standstill and balanced.

When the treasure-keeper lifts you to weigh his gold and his sliver, needs must your joy or sorrow rise or fall.





Some things I'm grateful for today:

  • The garbage man
  • Kahlil Gibran and The Prophet
  • words and language
  • my cane
  • cedarific cat litter



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Wednesday, June 09, 2010

Daily Reminder # 13

The world is made of miracles. Just look around at the flowers, at clouds, at the bird on a stump and question whether there are miracles in this life. Think of the human body, how we breathe air in and out and it keeps us alive, how we can see and hear and think.... how a throat can vibrate and make sounds so beautiful they make smile or laugh or cry or ....

Then there are miracles of human kindness and the resilience of every species. There's a place called the Catskill Animal Sanctuary an awesome place where they rescue abused and sick animals. A friend sent this essay to me today. I hope you'll read it. It will make you smile.

The human spirit, the animal spirit are awesome things. That we rise above our wounds is a testament to what we are capable of and yet very few of us recognize ourselves for the miraculous and beautiful souls that we are. We don't let ourselves fly. And we are ashamed (I'm projecting my own wounds here) of our desire to do so and afraid of it as well.

You are awesome. I am awesome. Every soul on this earth is awesome (even the ones we can't stand). If we could find it in ourselves to look at everyone and everything with the eyes of love - with attention to how amazing the world around us really is - I think we'd take better care of ourselves and our environment.

Not sure I'm making sense tonight. I'm writing this very late.





Some things I'm grateful for today:

  • clean laundry
  • miracles
  • truth tellers
  • poetry
  • beauty
  • butterflies



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Tuesday, June 08, 2010

Daily Reminder # 12 with Touches of Red


It's Ruby Tuesday hosted by Mary/theTeach at Work of the Poet for people who love red. I was going to make a separate post but I'm too lazy, so I'm posting my RT photos with my Daily Reminders today. I had thought about using a pun like "seeing red" and talking about anger, but I didn't feel like it. No relation between the photos and the words. Hope nobody minds. I had a whole bunch of amazing robin photos but they were lost to a tragic downloading accident. I'm still heartbroken.


Today's Reminder: Humor is divine.

I've always found it puzzling that Christianity (in my experience) tends to portray God as such a grim being. I can't imagine being God and not laughing sometimes. Joy and laughter seem so glorious and holy to me. I love the idea of the laughing Buddha. It's glorious.

When I was really young (compared to now... about 7 or 8) I had a kind of booming laugh that I think of now as my Buddha laugh. My whole being was in it and it came from somewhere beyond me and it rolled out of me and usually when it started everybody around me ended up laughing until it hurt, myself included. It wasn't usually about anything. It just was. My mother hated it and eventually cured me of it. ("You'll be crying by bedtime," she would intone and then she would make it happen.) But I digress. There was something about that laugh that connected me with God/the Universe/All-that-Is. It felt SO good to laugh like that. I have very little memory of my childhood, but I have an almost visceral memory of that laugh and a longing for it as well. I'm still hoping that maybe some day I'll get it back.

But what made me think divine humor as today's reminder topic is something that happened last night during a reiki treatment I was doing for a woman who lives up in Maine. I had worked on her foot a few weeks ago and last night heard from her saying that her foot was doing pretty well but that she had just found out that the company she has worked for for 10 years has been sold and she doesn't know quite what that means for her future. She was feeling anxious. She's fun to reiki because she really just opens herself to the energy and I felt her start to float pretty quickly into the session. Then about 40 minutes in, something interesting happened. I felt/saw angels/spirits come and do a kind of surgery on her back. I hadn't sensed anything wrong with her back, but there was this lovely, peaceful "event" and at one point I "saw" them lift her glowing spine up and show it to me. Weird. Anyway, when I emailed her about her session, I told her about this. She replied saying she had fallen into a deep sleep during the session, woke up feeling good that she hadn't been aware of any problem with her back.

That was when it hit me - yes I DO have a point - that this was angel humor. Their punny message to someone concerned about her future: "We've got your back!" (The had literally taken it out and shown it to me.) In hindsight I know that was what the surgery was and it delights me. God/Angels/The Divine has a wonderful sense of humor and I think we often try to be so proper around our spirituality that we totally miss out on this wonderful aspect of how the Universe communicates with us.

Another example perhaps... I'm having a problem with my left foot that has me a bit worried. About the same time I started worrying about it... I got 4 reiki clients with problems where? The left foot. Don't tell me Some Being isn't chuckling somewhere.

My reminder is kind of garbled today, but I guess I'm trying to say that I think the Deity has a sense of humor and we should open our hearts to it... and also that we should connect to the divine connection that humor and laughter create between our ego self and our Higher Self. In short. Laugh a little. It's good for you and I think it makes God happy too.



I thought my wild roses had died
but they are just hiding this year
in the branches of the bush behind them.


and some red leaves hiding



Some things I'm grateful for today:

  • My friend Ellie
  • humor
  • roses
  • birds
  • mail that comes to my door



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Monday, June 07, 2010

Free Stuff

(Please scroll down for the Daily Reminder)

I love free stuff.... Quilly is having a contest for a free book. Even better than the contest she had for free pizza (which I won). Alas, I didn't get to eat my free pizza because the grocery store here didn't have any and the coupon would expire before the lady who shops for me could go again. I passed it along to a friend, who hopefully DID get to enjoy it. And I had fun winning. If only I could expand my winning capacity to the Publisher's Clearinghouse Sweepstakes....

But anyway..... check out Quilly's Contest. Winners have to earn points to qualify. The point system is explained at the post. Reply to her post and another on her site or twitter or... there was one other one, I think. Anyway, if you're reading this, you can read the rules at her site where they are explained better. Check out Punny Monday, too. It's fun.
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Daily Reminder # 11

A robin from another season...


Pay attention to your little voice.

Your little voice is very smart. It knows things. It shouldn't be carelessly over-ridden. I'm writing this early today. I usually write the daily reminder right before I post it shortly after midnight (on good nights). But alas, today's inspiration comes at a sad price. I just ignored my little voice and I'm a very unhappy person. For the first time in ages, I went and sat at the back door and took a bunch of pictures. Counting a few I took over the past few days, there were about 90 of them. I was excited about the ones from this afternoon. I had a bunch of pictures for Ruby Tuesday. I discovered that my wild roses aren't dead, they are hiding and I got some pictures of them. Best of all, there was the handsomest robin I've seen in ages and he posed and posed and posed and I got some wonderful shots of his gentleman bird-ness. And here the happiness ends, alas... and the reason for today's reminder.

Glowing with delight (well, metaphorically, anyway) I came to my desk to download the photos into the "new" computer. I just did what I usually do - download, unplug the camera, and delete the photos from the camera card. As I was in the process of deleting them, my little voice was counselling me not to delete them. It actually said I might lose them and why not wait. I hesitated, then told myself I was being foolish, even though there was no reason not to wait... NO reason. So what happened? This computer has Adobe Photoshop - which will be cool if I ever learn to use it. But for some reason (maybe because I was busy deleting pictures on the camera and not paying attention) it over rode what usually happens and I wasn't paying attention so none of my beautiful robin photos got saved and counter to the pleading of my little voice I had deleted them from the camera.

So... I'm sad and annoyed with myself. My little voice is pretty savvy. I don't know why I didn't listen. And that's why this is today's daily reminder. Your little voice is your friend and 9 times out of 10 (or possibly more often than that) has good advice.... so if it starts whispering or shouting... stop what you are doing and take heed.

One important caveat regarding listening to your little voice, though. Make sure it's your little voice and not the voice of one of your inner demons. They are tricky little bastards and will do their best to make you think that they are your inner wisdom. You don't want to listen to inner demons. They are always wrong. So, be careful. If you listen with your heart (which I didn't do this afternoon) and not your head and you'll know the difference. If you're in doubt, you might ask a question like... Is this something an angel would say to me? (For example... is an angel likely to tell you that the situation is hopeless and it's pointless for you to even try? I think not.)

Anyway, this is not my best reminder, but then my inner demons tend to be highly critical of all my posts, so... Anway... I'm trying to remind myself that there will be other robins and that the roses will still be there tomorrow... And, more importantly, perhaps, that I had a good time taking the photos. I'm not buying it completely at the moment, though it has helped a bit. I really wanted to share the robin. He was sweet.


Roses from another season...
this year they are hiding up inside the bush behind them.



Some things I'm grateful for today:

  • strawberries
  • rain
  • last year's photos
  • Google
  • cool evening air


HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY
Especially you, E... Happy Birthday!
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Sunday, June 06, 2010

Daily Reminder # 10


Listen carefully to the things you tell yourself.

I've become aware lately of some things I repeat to myself without even quite knowing I'm doing it. My two biggest ones are that I'm stupid. (Often phrased in the form of a question: How stupid are you, anyway?) I've been making an effort to correct myself at least to the point of reminding myself that I'm not stupid at all, even though I sometimes (fairly often) do stupidly self-destructive things. One of my other big ones is telling myself that I'm tired. I may in fact BE tired, but I've noticed that sometimes when muttering to myself about how tired I am, that I'm not really tired. I may be sad or bored or depressed... but often "tired" becomes my short-hand and I've discovered that even when I am genuinely tired, I feel worse when I tell re-enforce it to myself. For me, it's a way of crawling into my hole when I do that. I don't have a great corrector for it. It's a deep habit. I'm just trying to be more aware of it and change the message I tell myself to something else.

There are so many messages out there. Even when others may be giving us messages that feed our demons, we can make it a point to listen to how we adopt them. They think I'm may not be right for this job.... let them think that. You don't have to agree with them. You don't have to let your inner demons make the guy's song your own. Change the words. This job was meant for me and I was meant for it. It's my destiny. Time will prove that.

Then there's the "what's wrong with me" song so many of us sing. Lazy is one of my favorites. Disability equals laziness. Not being able to break from my agoraphobia means moral bankruptcy.... I could go on and on. The inner demons chant chorus after chorus of my many failings. I'm trying, lets change that to making an effort -trying my therapist once told me is another word for I'm not going to do it - to change the words and even the tunes of these subliminal lies I whisper in my own ear.

The mind, body and spirit believe what we tell them. Let's keep our ears open and tell them nicer things then we usually do. As my friend E (kind person and superlative punster), for whom these posts are really being written, likes to say: "You're no bunny til some bunny loves you." Well let's set an example for ourselves (and our inner bunny) and speak only words of love and kindness... to ourselves and not just the rest of the world.






Some things I'm grateful for today:

  • ears to hear
  • witch hazel (the astringent lotion, not... )
  • salad
  • Crocs shoes


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Saturday, June 05, 2010

Daily Reminder #9




Sometimes growth hurts, but it's always worth it. Every experience in life is what we create from it. We can create with joy and love or with fear. Sweet Tara Grace and Angel are both wonderful teachers. Tara has a heart so big and tender and so hungry for love.... Even though she was clearly treated cruelly before she was rescued, she hasn't got a mean bone in her tiny five pounds of determined, stubborn kitty-hood. She is still learning. She still moves towards affection and then backs away, but when she lets herself be touched she does it with gusto. And she plays with gusto. (And alas, she sneezes with gusto and lots of decorative you-know-what.) Her gentleness awes me, though. She didn't let cruelty touch her own pure gentleness. And that makes her more than just a survivor. It makes her awesome. Or I think it does.

Angel has her own brand of awesome. She has no doubt that she belongs at the center of the universe, no question that everyone should lover her and play with her and as a consequence pretty much everyone does. The rare soul who isn't charmed by her don't shake her confidence. She knows what she wants and she's not afraid to ask for it. I think that's pretty cool.

I aspire to be like both of them.... to never stop evolving, to trust my heart and to be fearless enough to be myself.

made this super-heroine self a year ago...
or more... I'd link to the website
but I don't remember it

Some things I'm grateful for today:

  • Angel and Tara Grace
  • possibilities
  • indoor plumbing
  • my house
  • UPS
  • made it almost through level 9 of Zuma


HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!



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