Thursday, November 18, 2010

Daily Reminder # 171



I know I should do more than just gratitude today but my brain is on strike. It was gray and damp and rainy all day and the batteries on my camera were dead so I had to resort to pictures from 2 years ago at about this time of year. One things I've missed this year - along with the bees - is squirrels. I've seen a couple but I used to see bunches of them all year long. So anyway, that's it from me. 




Some things I'm grateful for today:

  • garbage and litter box taken care of
  • my microwave oven
  • Angel and Tara Grace
  • my red chair
  • legs that wobble me from room to room
  • the 5 senses
  • squirrels
  • friends
  • neighbors
  • the internet
  • Listerine
  • angels
  • reiki
  • music
  • yogurt & cottage cheese 
  • gogi berry juice
  • coconut oil
  • running water
  • indoor plumbing
  • the promise (way far away) of Spring
  • mail
  • life


Have a Grand Day!

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Daily Reminder # 170

Scraping the bottom of the picture pile tonight. Sorry


Well, Neale Donald Walsh's message from God was a really good one today. It's something I tell other people, something I came to believe with my head a long time ago, though as with most wisdom, part of me gets it and part of me has horrifically cruel nonsense embedded in my psyche and maybe even in my "bones."  


With my therapist yesterday, I got stuck in one of those beliefs that is so deeply imprinted on me that even tough I know things I think are untrue, I also don't know it and carry them with passionate conviction. Yesterday, the subject was about me committing the crime - and I mean that quite seriously, that's the way my unconscious and the channeled voice of my mother see it - of purchasing the chair that I'm sitting on. Or food that is not the cheapest in the catalog or isn't pure nutrition. I am after all, poor. Eighty-seven of the dollars I spend on food each month comes from food stamps. I should be living on gruel and pasta. If I spend money on myself and don't send a donation to the Office for the Aging or pay off all my debts, I am not just foolish, I am evil and selfish and stealing from the common weal. I have sat for 8 years on a chair that was uncomfortable and that felt like it couldn't hold my weight because I thought it was selfish of me to want one that was designed for my weight. I know with part of me that this was not a frivolous purchase. But OH MY, the other voices in my head are outraged. I feel a need to apologize for anything I get for myself. I used to feel this way even when I was out in the world earning money at a job. If I had something or got something for myself that someone else didn't have, guilt of ownership often over-rode any pleasure. But I'm rambling and way off subject from what Neale and God have to say. Well sort of off subject. Sort of on.




I used to tell myself and others (still do, I guess) that you can't make wrong decisions, you can only make the best choice you know how to at the moment. And you can't second guess the choices you do make because you don't actually know that things would have turned out different or better. Could have been worse. So anyway, I'm done rambling now. Here's what today's What God Wants you to Know....

On this day of your life, dear friend, 
I believe God wants you to know...
..that you cannot make a mistake, you can only
make a decision that will be your next best step.

There is no reason to hesitate when you know
that you have nothing to lose. And losing is not
an act of God, it is a thought in the mind of
humans.

Get rid of the thought and you get rid of doubt.
Ride your Wisdom to Victory.

You will not have to think but a second to know
exactly why you received this message today.



Some things I am grateful for today:

  • apples
  • orange pineapple smoothies
  • my microwave
  • food
  • water
  • my home
  • Netflix
  • laughter
  • reiki
  • angels
  • Angel and Tara Grace
  • batteries
  • imagination
  • mail
  • my cane
  • my red chair
  • options/choices
  • my therapist
  • Neale Donald Walsh
  • music
  • hope
  • possibilities
  • life


Have a Wonderful Day
May all your Choices Come Easy

Tuesday, November 16, 2010

Daily Reminder # 169


Well, my brain is empty this evening yet again except for gratitude. I didn't even take any photos today since it was gloomy and gray and even the cats seemed uninspired. The photos posted tonight are a few days old and no the best. But they are what I've got.  




Some things I'm grateful for today are:
  • my microwave
  • Angel and Tara Grace
  • laughter
  • Dr. Jim
  • vitamins
  • 2nd Place on Punny Monday
  • white sage
  • my television
  • my cane
  • my legs
  • my ears
  • my eyes
  • my voice
  • my brain
  • angels
  • reiki
  • music
  • lime yogurt and cool whip
  • pasta
  • cheese
  • kindness
  • life



Have a Purr-fect Day!

Monday, November 15, 2010

Daily Reminder # 168

I know I posted tree branches yesterday too
but the clouds were more interesting today and
I don't have anything else really.
Just gratitude again this evening. I did a second marathon day of Lie to Me. Season 2 is now behind me. I think this qualifies as addiction. Season 3 isn't available for instant viewing yet, so hopefully I will return to the land of the living tomorrow, though I fear I may experience some withdrawal symptoms. 






I want to thank those of you who have asked about Frenemy. I replied in the comments but since I almost never do that, probably nobody saw my answer.  I always feel kind of bad about not replying to comments, but I also tend to think that most people don't check back (because I don't) so it seems like a kind of futile exercise to me... and also I always think that if I reply to one person, then I have to reply to everyone and sometimes all there is to say is thank you and that just seems kind of obvious or proforma or something so it makes me even more uncomfortable than not answering.... But back the the subject of Frenemy. We are estranged and she/it is living in a corner of my kitchen. She may get to be a clothes rack since my wooden rack broke and now can only hold about 4 items which is a nuisance. Walking with her just made me feel even more anxious, so I'm back to using my red kitchen chair. I would probably been better off not going for fancy wheels and brakes and stuff. I may give her another try, but for now she feels like a waste of $70 and a physical and psychological failure. Such is life. Still, you never know about things unless you try. The red chair has the virtue that I can sit down if I get tired. Frenemy had a seat but I don't think it would hold me. And the shame mounts. So it goes.  Back to more positive things. And thanks for asking and caring.






Some things I'm grateful for today:

  • my red chair
  • people who care
  • netflix instant viewing/Lie to Me Season 2
  • a fine dinner
  • the sound of purring
  • water
  • teeth
  • Angel and Tara Grace
  • vitamins
  • sam-e
  • my cane
  • my Tibetan salt lamps
  • reiki
  • angels
  • my home
  • friends
  • beauty
  • my camera
  • birds
  • tree branches and clouds (again)
  • Life


Enjoy your day!

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Daily Reminder # 167


Just gratitude tonight....


Some things I'm grateful for today:

  • kitty love
  • my computer
  • Netflix and Lie to Me (halfway through season 2)
  • my red chair
  • my desk chair
  • my mattress
  • clouds in a blue sky
  • tree lace
  • water
  • orange pineapple smoothies
  • a good meal
  • indoor plumbing
  • eyesight
  • angels
  • reiki
  • the ability to walk
  • rocks
  • the smell of white sage
  • laughter
  • my nieces & my nephew
  • beauty
  • life



(check it out)

Have a Beautiful Day

Saturday, November 13, 2010

Daily Reminder # 166



Amazingly, there is still a little bit of color left in
my backyard right now. Doubt it will last much longer
Well, it's 2:00 am and I'm not just going to do gratitude because my niece Diana told me about a TV series called LIE TO ME and I'm not totally addicted. I've watched 4 episodes so far this evening and I may watch one more before going to bed and then I will watch more tomorrow morning and probably all day. The show is brilliant. It's about a man - and his team - who understand the science of reading faces and they can read whether people are telling the truth by a variety of facial expressions and gestures. It's just so well done. I can't recommend it highly enough. If you are a Netflix user, it's on the instant watch list. Watch! Really!




Some things I'm grateful for today:

  • Netflix
  • Lie to Me
  • my nieces & my nephew
  • Angel and Tara Grace
  • Abundant drinking water
  • email
  • ice cream
  • cheese
  • garlic
  • beauty
  • sunshine
  • earphones
  • my camera
  • electricity
  • my home
  • my refrigerator
  • wordzzles
  • this blog
  • angels
  • reiki
  • friends
  • Life
  • Laughter



Have a Great Day
Watch a Movie ... or Watch Lie to Me

Friday, November 12, 2010

Weekly Wordzzle Challenge # 135


It's week 135 of the Weekly (formerly Saturday) Wordzzle Challenge. In two weeks it will be Thanksgiving here in the US, I think maybe it would be good to take a one week break and return again in December.But next week we will still be on for the few dedicated players who still take the challenge. But I ramble....  I kind of screwed up with last weeks words... I try not to put things that go together - like galloping stallion - but I was sick (cough, cough, whimper, whimper) and I didn't notice until it was too late.


Word for this week's challenge were: chilly, free for all, fit as a fiddle and ready for love, cows, phone book, casserole, witch, wedding, courage, passionate  and for the mini: martini, galloping, stallion, ocean, musical


My mini:

Megan Martini watched the mare and stallion galloping along the ocean beach with tears in her eyes. She had done it! Cupid and Psyche in equine form - a love story, a musical and nature film too. She knew it would be a hit. She just knew it.


My 10-word:

Dana Demeter (she had changed her name from Dorothy Dobson) sat quietly humming  "fit as a fiddle and ready for love" (Singing in the Rain was her favorite musical) and leafing through the phone book looking for a wedding planner who might be able to deal with the fact that she was a Wiccan. Her mother, she knew, would have a cow (perhaps several) on learning that her daughter wanted to have what she would call a "witchy" ceremony. To say that their relationship had grown chilly since she took up her new faith was perhaps to put too warm a descriptive on it. It had taken all Dana's courage to tell her parents the news. She had invited them to dinner and made a favorite family casserole which she had tried to lace with as much love and as many calming herbs as she could think of. It had tasted awful and had done nothing to mute her rather conservative mother's outrage. Clearly she needed to work on her spell casting and herbal studies. When they were leaving, her father - a twinkle in his eye - had kissed Dana on the cheek and whispered in her ear that her mother would get over it. Dana  hoped he was right and that her recovery would happen before she married Drake. Mercifully at least his side of the family was fine with their religion. Being Pagans themselves, they were delighted with their son's choice. Dana sighed, wondering how her mother would cope with all the new "crazy people" as she would call them being forced upon her by her "troubled" daughter. Mother hated having her world view expanded. How she had ended up with someone as open-minded and creative as Dad, had always been puzzling to her daughter, but they seemed to mesh in some strange way.  She hoped that she and Drake would have the same kind of passionate respect and affection that her parents shared. They managed - no matter how far apart their views on any issue - to honor one another's feelings and respect their differing views. If she could live with Dad, Dana finally decided, Mother would eventually come to terms with her new son-in-law and his parents. Who knew... maybe they would get her to convert.... and she burst out laughing at the very thought, just as her eyes fell on what looked like a good prospect for their wedding planner. Dana sighed. Life was good.


My mega:

Sandra sat unhappily knocking back her 5th martini. She couldn't believe she had let her witch of a mother-in-law take over her wedding and turn it into this damp, chilly, bizarre, out door bucolic (cows and all) free-for-all. Their poor guests were being asked to eat some kind of weird casserole and instead of a wedding cake, there was a huge pile of eclairs that looked way too much like cow s**t for Sandra's taste. It was a wedding that would live in infamy and she knew she was never going to live it down. Even the band - which was currently playing "Fit as a Fiddle and Ready for Love" was a sadistic joke. Even her friends were laughing at her. She called a waiter and started on her 6th drink. She would be avenged, though. If she had her way, Mike's mother would never see them again. She was already making plans to make sure she and Mike had an new and unlisted number in the next phone book that came out. The worst part of it all was that instead of the passionate hero she had seen him as before meeting the mother-in-law from hell, he had shown a total lack of courage in standing up for their dream of a Hawaiian wedding by the ocean, with a luau and moonlight nights galloping along the beach on white stallions. I should have called it off, she thought to herself. If Mike would let his mother do this to them on their wedding day, what could the future possibly promise. Sad to say, Sandra was right about this. She got the last laugh, though. Years later, she wrote a musical comedy based on the wedding and her marriage that was one of the biggest hits ever to hit Broadway and which later - in movie form - netted her millions. Were the two years she spent with Mike worth it? No, but getting revenge on her mother-in-law wasn't half bad.


***********


Words for next week's 10-word challenge are:  career, incense, prosperity, chloroform, cane, electrical outlet, preponderance, salivate, chopped liver, pillows

And for the mini:  thank, teacher, movies, unleash, lamp shade


Thanks you for playing.  Newcomers can check here for some guidelines to make the game more fun. There are no rules, just some general guidelines and tricks.


Daily Reminder # 165


I'm going to let Neale Donald Walsh do my job for me again tonight. Today's (or maybe it was yesterday's) reminder of "What God Wants You to Know" was particularly fine. Short and sweet, but deep. It's in keeping with the Hawaiian mysticism concept that energy flows were attention goes (one of my favorite bits of wisdom). I got that from Serge King's book which I mentioned a couple of days ago.  King also talks about the idea of blessing everything... looking for the beautiful and the good and blessing them. It's another way of doing gratitude and refocusing your thoughts towards what is positive.  But anyway... I'm going to let Neale and God speak for themselves.




On this day of your life, dear friend,
I believe God wants you to know...
..that life is meant to happy.
I know this is sometimes hard to believe, and I
know that on many days it simply is not your
experience, but it is true. You have all the tools
right now to make this day, this moment, happy.
The best of these tools is love. Just love everything
that Life has to offer today. And of course, love
every person. Then watch the whole experience
change.




Some things I'm grateful for today:

  • Schwans
  • my microwave
  • Angel and Tara Grace
  • water
  • sunshine & blue skies
  • my camera
  • some new photos
  • electricity
  • humor
  • laughter
  • Netflix
  • earphones
  • gogi berry juice
  • coconut oil
  • my cane
  • kitty crunchies and how happy they make Tara
  • kitty toys and how happy they make Angel
  • reiki
  • angels
  • email
  • taste buds
  • a sense of smell
  • my home
  • my computer
  • my friends
  • Life



May Your Day Be Filled with Love!

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Daily Reminder # 164

I got nothing.  Just gratitude and old photos.






Some things I'm grateful for today:

  • Angel and Tara Grace
  • my house
  • my SSD
  • Schwans
  • showers
  • garbage and litter changed and out
  • my furnace
  • running water
  • indoor plumbing
  • my microwave
  • cheese
  • water
  • yogurt & cool whip
  • my fuzzy robe
  • cat toys and kitties at play
  • music
  • beauty
  • reiki
  • angels
  • life



WISHING YOU A WONDERFUL DAY!

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Daily Reminder # 163

This is from a couple of summers ago, I think. Gray and chill as it is
now, Spring and Summer and Fall will come again.  Politicians just
elected will be replaced. Life will circle on and have it's ups and downs
and so will I - hopefully for at least a few more seasons of seasons


It has been gray and damp and chilly here and I don't have any new photos so I will have to dig up some old stuff. Maybe I'll pick some reminders that summer will come again. Anyway, feeling a BIT down about the recent elections and the weather and Gabrielle (who is an awesome writer and poet) sent me a couple of lovely emails to check on me and cheer me up.  In her last one, she sent me this wonderful quote, which I thought was a good a reminder as a day could offer and also has the virtue of saving me the effort of writing something myself.


"To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic.  It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.
What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives.  If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something.  If we remember those times and places—and there are so many—where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.
And if we do act, in however small a way, we don't have to wait for some grand utopian future.  The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory."
Howard Zinn,   “You Can’t be Neutral on a Moving Train”


Some things I'm grateful for today:

  • pretzels
  • chocolate soy silk
  • Howard Zinn quotes
  • Gabrielle
  • my home
  • heat and hot water
  • abunant clean, good water to drink
  • Netflix/ The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
  • Angel and Tara Grace
  • teeth
  • eyesight
  • hearing
  • music
  • kindness
  • angels
  • Reiki
  • life


Hopefully next Spring the bees will return. There were a few at
the end of the summer, which gave me hope and I think there has
been some discoveries about what was causing the problem.
HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY!
STAY HOPEFUL

Tuesday, November 09, 2010

Daily Reminder # 162


Setting an intention is a powerful thing.


One of the best things I ever learned about doing reiki is the concept of setting intention and then trusting the energy to know what to do.  The person who taught me this is a man named Serge Kahili King, a teacher of Hawaiian mysticism. His book The Urban Shaman is one of my favorites.  Anyway, he explained that when you try to think the flow of energy you actually impede the process. It would be like trying to think about how you walk: you would either fall down or go much slower. But if you set the intention for the energy to move between your hands or from you to person X, the energy knows what to do.... just like your muscles know what to do when you decide to walk across a room.


On my blog travels for the Blog Blast for Peace (see Nov. 4 post), I ran across this nifty sight where you can light a candle (or 100) for someone or something. It's pretty cool. Your candle will burn for 48 hours and then you can light a new one. In some ways, lighting a candle with a prayer is a way of setting an intention and letting it move into the world. Or maybe it is. I figure there's no harm in saying a prayer and sending that thought into the world. Thoughts have power.


I just realized that it's Diwali - a festival of candles... so Happy Diwali to all who celebrate that lovely holiday... and to all those who don't.


That's it for today.


Some things I'm grateful for today:

  • Angel and Tara Grace
  • my therapist, James Mulry
  • sam-e
  • gogi berry juice
  • coconut oil
  • my microwave
  • candles
  • light
  • angels
  • reiki
  • sweaters
  • colors
  • matches
  • my computer
  • friends
  • life



HAVE A WONDERFUL DAY

May Your Wishes Come True/Your Prayers Be Answered

Monday, November 08, 2010

Daily Reminder #161



Thank you to everyone for your good wishes and good thoughts.  Late again with my Daily Reminder and still feeling mentally too sluggish for wordzzles.  Got this in my email this morning and thought it was a good reminder.  I have concern about what will happen to Angel and Tara Grace if I kick the bucket ahead of schedule (I have asked them to die before me). My niece Diana has promised to either adopt them or find good homes for them.


This little video resonated with me for another reason. Right now I'm feeling old and dreadfully mortal. I kind of resonate with these dogs. When I have an especially hard time walking (which I am right now), I start thinking I'll end up in a nursing home like my mother only there will be nobody to care about me and then I get to wallowing in self pity over something that hasn't happened and so on and so forth.... so anyway... a video today.





And of course gratitude.


Some things I'm grateful for today:

  • my furnace
  • my computer
  • Angel and Tara Grace
  • my nieces and my nephew
  • coffee
  • International Delight
  • cottage cheese & fritos (really)
  • water
  • legs that carry me (grudgingly but they do it)
  • my cane
  • my red chair
  • tears
  • laughter
  • life


HAVE A GREAT DAY!

Sunday, November 07, 2010

Daily Reminder # 160



Well, my daily reminder is late again and I'm still just feeling whiny and under the weather - as much under the emotional weather as the physical. Not sure what is going on with me, but it isn't particularly good. Or maybe it is just an adjustment to changes in both the political and the earth climate. My winter "I wish I was hibernating completely" phase.


Anyway, just some belated gratitude.



  • Some things I'm grateful for today:
  • Angel
  • Tara Grace
  • shadows
  • sunshine
  • sleep
  • orange pineapple smoothies
  • heat and hot water
  • music
  • beauty
  • life


Saturday, November 06, 2010

Weekly Wordzzle Challenge # 134


Well my apologies for running late with this weeks Weekly Wordzzle challenge - #134. It's a measure of how rotten I feel that it only now occurred to me that I could post the words and Mr. Linky even if I don't post my own stuff yet. Sorry to be running so late.

4:00 PM Monday.  FINALLY got mine posted. Whew.


Words for this week's 10-word challenge were: charity, clouds, empty bottle, Give me liberty or give me death, medicine, shrimp, clear as a bell, credible, hole, Aunt Sally  and for the mini: just like you, leaves, everything in the store, continuing, dramatic


My mega:

Charity MacDougal looked at the empty bottle of Aunt Sally's sleeping pills and picked up the suicide note, which, in typically dramatic Aunt Sally style, read "Give Me Liberty or Give me Death," and was glad that there had only been enough pills in the bottle to give the sweet old woman a good rest and not a bad death. Looking out the window at the Autumn leaves blowing in the a chill, damp wind, Charity felt guilty for neglecting the tiny shrimp of a woman who had always made her feel loved and protected, no matter what. Aunt Sally had always found the sunshine behind the clouds and had had a gift for transforming the worst tragedy into "good medicine" as she liked to call it.  She had a laugh that was clear as a bell and a smile that could fill the holes in the most hardened heart. Her own heart was as big as the world and her generosity was boundless. In better days, Charity mused - Aunt Sally would have bought her everything in the store if she had even looked like she wanted it. Charity gazed fondly at the sleeping woman, warmed by the continuing flow of memories kept flooding over her. In her younger days Aunt Sally had done a pretty credible imitation of the Wicked Witch of the West that had delighted Charity and still made her laugh just thinking about it. I wanted to grow up to be just like you, Aunt Sally, but I guess I forgot that you were getting old and fragile and needed my love as much as I have always relied on yours. Thank God it's not too late to fix that. And saying that, she kissed the sleeping woman on the forehead and started making calls to make sure Aunt Sally would never feel alone again.


My mini:

Dante Smith's new store was called JUST LIKE YOU.  He had designed every dress in the store himself. They were dramatic and unique and infinitely - in his opinion - wearable. Despite his creative genius, business was not good... it was, in fact awful.  Even his continuing "everything in the store" half price sale didn't seem to be drawing new customers. He had been feeling hopeless... and then she walked in, tried on dress after dress (looking awesome in every one) and bought dozen. Next day she came back with five friends. He was a success.


My 10-word:  (sorry... about this one...)


Watching the clouds drift across the moonlit sky, Aunt Sally shook her head in dismay as she listened to the election results. Some announcer or politician - she had stopped paying attention - announced that the public had made their feelings "clear as a bell." Clear as a bell in an iron box with cotton wrapped around the ringer, she muttered to herself  unhappily and headed to bed for a restless sleep. In the morning, she looked at the empty bottle of medicine on her counter and shook her head that the people of her country had thought it was a good idea to elect to Congress a bunch of people who would cut taxes for rich people and food stamps and health care for the poor.  But that is what had  happened. There was no credible explanation for it except that they were the most easily duped bunch of dimwits ever to eagerly offer a shovel to their enemy and then help dig the hole into which said enemy hoped to push them. She especially hated that the same people who were eager to devastate the poor considered any acts of public "charity" to be socialism and had duped the very people they would most hurt into chanting slogans like "Give me Liberty or Give me Death," and had them talking about reclaiming freedoms they hadn't lost. It was tragic and infuriating both. She shook her head listening to someone interview a shrimp fishermen whose business had been decimated by the BP oil spill vilifying those who would put curbs on the rights of those industries to run rough-shod over the environment and the people who inhabited it.  Global warming wasn't real, the poor were just lazy, the rich were being picked on... surely she was in an episode of the Twilight Zone and would wake up to find out it had all been an unhappy nightmare. But alas, she knew the nightmare was just beginning.


************************


Word for next week's 10 word challenge are:  chilly, free for all, fit as a fiddle and ready for love, cows, phone book, casserole, witch, wedding, courage, passionate

And for the mini:  martini, galloping, stallion, ocean, musical


Thank you for playing.  Newcomers can check here for guidelines (there are no rules) to make the game easier and more fun.


Daily Reminder # 159

Well today's daily reminder is late (I usually post before I go to bed) and it's going to be short and sweet since I'm still not feeling my best.

Sleep is good. Most of us don't get enough, including me. I have no excuse since I'm homebound but I manage to not get enough anyway. I'm hoping to remedy that.


I'm going to try and tackle wordzzles but it may take me until tomorrow.



Some things I'm grateful for today

  • sleep
  • old sit-com reruns to distract me 
  • resilience of body mind and spirit
  • patience from blog friends (and the real life kind)
  • coconut oil
  • gogi berry juice
  • Angel and Tara Grace
  • Life



Have a Great Day!

Friday, November 05, 2010

Wordzzle Announcement


Alas, I woke up this morning feeling REALLY awful. I slept 9 hours and am still exhausted and sniffly and achy and generally truly miserable SO..... Wordzzles will be late. If a nap this afternoon perks my spirits and brain up, I'll try to post tonight.  If not, I'll try to post tomorrow morning.  If I'm still sick then, maybe I'll ask you to hold your efforts until next week.

My apologies for this. I feel yucky enough that I don't want to tough it trough and try to write something and I figure I should let people know early.

Daily Reminder # 158



During my "peace" travels yesterday I ran into some wonderful posts and some wonderful music.  I thought I'd share a couple of songs for today's reminder.  These are two from Arlo Guthrie that I found at a website called Anndi's Transition and they speak (or sing) for themselves.





and





and then there was this one that I found at a blog called Clara's Ramblings





Some things I'm grateful for today:
  • pretzles
  • Margaret
  • Peace lovers
  • inspiration
  • my home
  • my furnace
  • an abundance of clean drinking water
  • my friends
  • free game downloads
  • the internet
  • awesome movie - SPIRITED AWAY
  • netflix
  • indoor plumbing
  • YouTube
  • Mimi Lenox & the Blog Blast for Peace
  • cats - mine and the species in general
  • life



HAVE A GREAT DAY!

Thursday, November 04, 2010

Daily Reminder #157: Dona Nobis Pacem

I've put my reiki "healing hands" behind my globe and will post them below
in their entirety in hopes that you may feel the love generated
by them and that they may add a little peace to your day.

Today is the 7th Blog Blast for Peace, the brain and love child of Mimi at Mimi Writes by which she has inspired bloggers across the world to share thoughts and hopes and images and prayers for peace in our world.


At about the same time that Mimi first announced the date for this year's event, I received a link to a very interesting website called the Center for Nonviolent Communication from a friend of mine. I set it aside to use for today's event because it aligned with something I have been thinking about for a while now.


I'm politically very progressive. There's a very cool website called The Political Compass that evaluates where you are on the political grid and I am sufficiently liberal that I fall south-east of Gandhi and the Dali Lama, so you can imagine that yesterday's political results have left me feeling a bit of despair. But I digress.... As part of my political junkiness over the past few months, I've spent a lot of time at Huffington Post reading not just their articles but the comments of readers. To say the least - the language in much of the posters is anything but courteous. Much like what passes for news media, these days, it consists largely of people "yelling" at each other in print.  But what bothers me as much as that is the nature of the headlines there... to the point that I wrote to HP about it. Their headlines there are awash in "so-and-so SLAMS X." Their favorite words include words like SMASH, BASH... even when the article reveals that no such violent emotion or word-play was actually involved in the exchange. Politicians have "hit lists" and "take each other down." Glenn Beck and Fox news foment fear and paranoia and the rest of the is media not far behind.only somewhat more subtle in their approach....


Jon Stewart put it nicely, I thought when he compared the media using it's magnifying glass to "light ants on fire" instead of illuminating issues - and then offering a week of reports on the sudden onset of burning ants. (He said it much better, but I'm too lazy to find the exact quote. You can listen to his speech here, if you missed it. It's worth a listen.


If you click on the photo you will get a larger version
Anyway.... I'm being long-winded here and wandering in the woods before finding the path, but my point, I guess, is that words have power. Profound power. What we say and how we say it not only impacts the people we speak to. It impacts us. The energy and vibration behind our words - especially when they are spoken out loud - vibrates in our own bodies even as it vibrates out to those to whom we speak them. We become the things we say, and if we become conscious of that, maybe we will become more conscious and careful about the things we think and speak. I have found myself muttering (and sometimes shouting) insults at my TV during my recent weeks of political obsession and frustration. It may offer a second of instant gratification, but in the end, I don't like the way it feels.


We tend (well I do) to think of Peace on some grand scale - calling an end to war and violence - and I'm not opposed to that. I'm very much for it. I don't understand why people want to kill each other over religion or land or oil or any of the host of other absurd reasons human being use to justify massacring one another. I don't understand why people want to carry guns or why they feel justified in executing other human beings to prove that killing is bad.  Because of that I sign petitions and write essays and letters. I think it's good to do those things.


But of late I have begun to think that maybe peace needs to start at home and radiate out, that the more of us who learn to be conscious of and to moderate our angry hate-filled thoughts and words, the more of us who learn to meet hate speech not with counter hate but with compassion, with a heart open to understanding the pain that germinates that hate, the better the world will be. It's harder to grow hate in minds and hearts that are fertilized with kindness and compassion. It's harder to grow hate in minds and hearts conditioned to look for our co-humanity with even those whose thoughts and actions we most despise. It's harder to go to deny food or health care to someone in whom you can see yourself than to "that poor person" or "that liberal" or "that conservative,"  "that immigrant," etc. And it's harder to go to war and point a gun at someone when you think of them as a fellow human and not as "the enemy."


I don't know the answer to fixing the world or to creating global peace. I don't even know the answer to creating peace in my own heart. But I think being very conscious of my un-peaceful thoughts and words may be a good place to start.


I post a gratitude list each day. I'll keep it short today, but I don't want to forget. 


Some things I'm grateful for today:

  • the Blog Blast for Peace
  • Peace seekers
  • electricity
  • heat and hot water
  • the internet
  • my home
  • my cats
  • the US mail
  • my camera
  • life
  • Peace wherever it lives
  • Peace in my heart when I can find it
  • everyone who reads this post and posts their own


Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Daily Reminder # 156


Well, the election results aren't really in yet but it doesn't look good for my team. There were some races that were a relief, some that make me very sad. I guess it's the price we pay for living in a free country. People can   vote against their own good (or for their own very selfish good in some cases) and people can sit at home and not vote at all and the rest of us have to live with the results and hope the country survives.  My task now, is to start living by the things I say I believe - focus on what's good. Trust that good ultimately triumphs, try not to spend my days feeling angry. REALLY follow my therapist's advice about not listening to the news so much. I will never survive if I listen too much to Sarah Palin, John Boehner and Eric Cantor and some others. 




So.... I voted. I got at least one other person to go vote. In my own state, the results weren't too bad. It looks like my beloved Congressman, Maurice Hinchey, will win and the Dems won governor and both Senate seats. I have to say that I don't understand my country. I don't understand the choice of some people who seem not just inept but unintelligent and unkind. It is what it is, I guess. I just feel like Obama has gotten such an unfair deal. He has done much and it may be undone if these people get too much power. They will undoubtedly get credit for some of the good he has done as it starts to bear fruit. Sometimes life just seems unjust. 


Now I'll stop whining and be grateful.




Some things I'm grateful for today:

  • the right to vote
  • absentee ballots
  • Democracy
  • Angel and Tara Grace
  • my friends
  • that Congressman Hinchey got reelected
  • my microwave oven
  • orange pineapple smoothies
  • blue skies
  • my SSD
  • my cane
  • my red chair
  • my comfortable bed
  • free game downloads
  • movies/Netflix
  • my house
  • food stamps
  • HEAP
  • electricity
  • water
  • heat
  • eyes to see
  • ears to hear
  • the mute button on my TV
  • the last autumn colors
  • Life

The last of the Fall colors
HAVE A GRAND DAY!