Ever feel like giving up?

I Love Living Life. I Am Happy.
Nick Vujicic





Something to think about, to cry about, to laugh.....
Play it again, and again, if need be.

Photo Friday - Something Spiritually Inspiring

Photo taken at Capitola, California the day after a big storm when the sun was going down. The hilly area off in the distance is the Monterey Peninsula, which, due to the weather, appears to be much closer than it is. Though I am not the woman in the picture, (since I was the photographer) I look at this picture and see me. I see the longing I once had during a very dark time in my life.

See how she has her arms wrapped to her body. Longing. She's not entirely hopeless quite yet. She's still standing. Some others nearby do not seem to be even aware of her, or the incredible vision just over their shoulders. I look at the surfers as those who have jumped right into the waters of life, and are living it fully.

Just a little while ago it was raining, the daytime sky was dark, like her. The rain stopped and there was but a hope of sunlight, that is when she walked out there onto the rocks. This picture is the moment when the world rejoices in the return of the sun. She just stands there longing and hurting and suddenly, there it is, the clouds parting enough and color seeping into her heart. I like to think it is this moment captured when the inspiration enters in the next breath and the spirit is blessed. Something primeval comes alive in me at times like this, and water always has a lot to do with it.

"Watch the waves, and the more you watch, the more you will able to see the beauty of them. The more you watch, the more the subtle nuances of thought will become clear to you. And it is beautiful - but you remain the witness. You remain on the beach, You sit on the beach, or lie down in the sun, and just let the ocean do it's own work - you don't interfere.


If you don't interfere, by and by, by and by, the ocean doesn't affect you. It goes on roaring all around, but it doesn't penetrate you. It is beautiful in and of itself, but it is separate, a distance exists. That distance is real meditation, a real silence. "


From: Discourses on Tilopa's Song of Mahamudra

Water Heater

Did you know that heating water accounts for up to 20% of your household energy costs? 

If you have a natural gas water heater then you should drain a pail of water from the hot water tank every three months or as recommended by the manufacturer. 

This will remove sediment that reduces heat transfer and lowers efficiency.

Info quoted from
Blog on Smog

The Google Search Writing Trigger Technique

.
When writer's block hits me, this is a method I've developed to free me from the shackles.

Using one word is a well known technique for triggering writing, even if it only squeezes a single sentence from our brains. But, that is not the only part of my scheme. So hang with me, here, as we still need that one word to begin the process.

Pick a word any word.

Can't think of one?

Grab the nearest printed object. Mine says Ipod. Okay, so I grab the word, pod, and write about it.  "the pea pod was like velvet in my hand, the peas, like the food of the gods, blessed my mouth with flavor".

Yes, it's corny. But, let's not judge. Whatever you come up with will work. A stream of conciousness will suffice. (pod... dod... god... blessed.. food...). It's a trigger, not to be taken too seriously. Anything to stimulate creativity when we're wanting to unleash ourselves from our greatest enemy is a gift.

Now, take the full amount created and put it in Google search. The above one word trigger sentence brought forth a lot about peas in the google search, a lot about food. But, let's say you want something more creative to help you get moving. Something, unrelated to cooking or growing peas. In fact, let's delete the peas and anything that might bring up a food reference out of our search. Might as well get rid of the extraneous adjectives, and get a cleaner search.

pod velvet hand gods blessed mouth

Let's see what happens...

Ah ha! Look at that. Pod still wins out with food references. We can go with this or narrow down further. Even though pod was our trigger word, let's throw out the pod.

There it is! Many new trigger words to get your fingers jumping over the keyboard. Not just one.

Now, here is the important thing, and I mean important! No matter how interesting the response looks, DO NOT GO THERE! You will end up spending the next hour perusing the site and all the fascinating new information. After all, a writer is a word junky. Words call us home to luxuriate in their warm embrace. DON'T GO THERE! This is an exercise in self control. No, this is an exercise in creativity. Yes, both.

Here's what you do next. Looking at the Google responses you will see jumbled parts of sentences containing your words. This combination of phrases is enough to trigger some writing. One of my Google responses is from the site: Book of Riddles - Strolen's Citadel: A Role Playing Community

"A golden bird did in its mouth abide The serpent drank the water, ... Jewel on black velvet, pearl in the sea Unchanged but e'erchanging, eternally. .... For our ambrosia we were blessed, by Jupiter, with a sting of death. ..... A sieve/collander (Sphere of Annihilation) Though desert men once called me God, ..."

This is not an exercise in plagiarism, so it's not a good idea to turn this into a little poem. It looks like it already is part of one. If there is one turn of phrase that really stands out for you, write it down, and go from there:

Here's my example:

The serpent drank the water as the dew formed. I was more fascinated by the drops of moisture than I was of his tiny eyes staring fire into the dawn.

I don't care for serpents and I would find myself avoiding the visual stimulation to go further with this, so if I change serpent into butterfly... maybe. But, the researcher in me will want to verify if butterflies actually drink dew at dawn, unless I'm going to give myself poetic liscence, and go with the flow.

Another method is to make a list of all the significant words so that you will have something more substantial to keep you going. Perhaps create a whole piece with those words.

golden
bird
mouth
serpent
drank
water
Jewel
black
velvet
pearl
sea
Unchanged
eternally
ambrosia
blessed
Jupiter
sting
death
sieve/collander
Sphere
Annihilation
desert
men
God

I am so tempted to go into that website and discover how all those enticing phrases are related! What wonderful words these are!

We could easily spend an hour or two perusing a dictionary to delight in all the nuances of these words. Couldn't we? If you have time and no deadline to meet, enjoy yourself. See ya later. Come back when you're ready to play some more. But, If you are still in the "let's see where else this will take us" mode, stay here.

If you are still not feeling particularly creative, the simplest thing would be to make one sentence each with one of the words in it. In the past, I would have done this on small cards and put them away until later to use as triggers. But, now we can simply keep them in a document, we call, triggers list, or simply, sentence list.

Here are some examples of sentences I might create if I am totally in left brain mode:

Her hair had the sheen of a newborn black colt

The hillsides looked like velvet.

He liked the feel of the pearl handled gun.

The sea was alive with fury that day.

Later on, we can go back to these sentences and ask the who, what, where, why's, etc. and maybe a novel will be born.

If you want to go a next step further, take all the words and make a poem or story.

I won't share mine right now. I think I've got 50,000 words on the way!

Negative Positive Polarity

.

Negative

I dislike that word immensely when it is used to suggest that it is not acceptable. We do more harm to ourselves by putting that connotation upon our thoughts and actions.

Sickness, struggles and dying are a natural part of life. If we call that negative, then we are negating ourselves  and all of humanity for experiencing them.

It is okay to say that cancer sucks.

It's okay to say the pain (physical as well as mental) is unbearable.

It's okay to say, "I'm afraid".

It's okay to say, it is time to call hospice.

It's okay to say the truth of what you are feeling without any shame, remorse or guilt. When other people judge us as being too negative about our cancer experience because we aren't fighting hard enough, or succeeding in being healed, they don't know what they're talking about, even if they are our nearest and dearest beloved one.

The worst thing anyone ever said to me during the times when I was barely hanging on, was "If only you believe it, you will be healed!" Not only was it unkind, but damaging.

It made me question whether I had a right to survive, because maybe, I was not trying hard enough, not doing it right, not keeping myself positive, not praying hard enough.

When I see people I care about struggle with these concepts I cringe. Dealing with the diagnosis, and bearing the treatments is enough for us to experience the totally of our humanity.


When we are in the pit of despair, it is okay to say it out loud. "I am in the pit of despair."

"I don't know what else to do."

"I'm not giving up. I'm just facing reality."

Keeping the "negative" feelings stifled is like a cancer in itself.

Shedding myself of these beliefs gave me the right to live whatever life I was to have in freedom. I was released from worrying about other people's judgment on how I was coping with my cancer, and relieved of the guilt I felt that somehow I deserved the cancer, that somehow I wasn't doing things right. That I was wrong to my core.

Once I accepted it's okay for me to voice my personal feelings, first to myself, then to others, whether they agreed or not, that heavy cloud of self-doubt disappeared. Accepting my real feelings, understanding them as a natural part of life, just like falling in love and giving birth, the sun shining and rain falling from the sky is what helped me to cast off the concept of judging myself for what I was experiencing.

I have had four people in my personal life, who have dealt with cancer in the past few years. One of them died. She fought for her life valiantly, and she was very good at expressing her emotions, whether anyone thought she was being negative or not.

And I daresay, anyone who could possibly believe that one dies of cancer because of expressing one's true feelings will one day understand the error of their judgment, if they should happen to be diagnosed themselves.

I like this definition of Negative:

Electrical polarity (positive and negative) is present in every electrical circuit. Electrons flow from the negative pole to the positive pole. In a direct current (DC) circuit, one pole is always negative, the other pole is always positive and the electrons flow in one direction only. 

Both are needed for the circuit to be complete, to be whole, to flow.


Those who attain perfect wisdom are forever inspired by the conviction that the infinitely varied forms of this world, in all their relativity, far from being a hindrance and a dangerous distraction to the spiritual path, are really a healing medicine.

Why? Because by the very fact that they are interdependent on each other and therefore have no separate self, they express the mystery and the energy of all-embracing love. Not just the illumined wise ones but every single being in the interconnected world is a dweller in the boundless infinity of love.

-Prajnaparmita
From "Buddha Speaks,"
edited by Anne Bancroft, 2000.