http://www.smm.org/buzz/blog/day-we-all-die-september-10-2008
My good friend Belinda told me about this one night and I had to look into it. I still don't really understand how this is going to kill us exactly but I really like the rap video on the PopSci website that tries to explain it.
by Elsa Joy Bailey
Daily Inspiration, Spiritual Growth, Spiritual laws, self
fulfillment, Personal Growth, spiritual inspiration
Imagine
a brilliantly colored world atlas
spread out, vast as a tablecloth,
across your dining room table.
You stand before it, peering at its
endless nooks and crannies,
its giant pools of blue water, looking over
the exotic and unfathomable names of cities
and countries beyond your awareness.
You take in the whole of this mammoth map,
parts of which are familiar as dust,
parts of which are completely alien.
And pretend you've been given an assignment:
to bless and forgive every piece of this huge map;
every name, every river, every mountain, every desert,
every village, every spa, every bridge, every coast,
every battleground, every street sign.
Now you can stop pretending.
Because in truth that's exactly the way it is.
You and I have been given such an assignment:
to forgive everything, everyone, everywhere.
That is our human potential.
You ask: but with a world that stretches
so many miles out of sight, with such an
immense list of characters and events,
how on earth do we accomplish such a
herculean task?
Piece by piece by piece.
Actually, it's simpler than it seems.
(Simpler -- but not easier.)
This world is much like a hologram,
which means that to entirely forgive
and bless the small piece of map
on which we stand and live
is to forgive the whole.
So we start right where we are.
Day by day, we are here to learn to see past
what our eyes and ears report;
to see through surface to essence.
We are learning to forgive it all.
The ripe lush strawberry that made us itch.
The pothole that tore a hole in our tire.
The grocery clerk with an attitude.
The relatives we try to avoid.
The co-worker who appears to hate us.
The newspaper report of a gang shooting.
The water bill that is inordinately high.
The washing machine that shrunk
our sweater into a doll's dress.
The driver that splashed mud on our new jacket.
The sun that refused to come out when we needed it.
The endlessly long line at our favorite restaurant.
The head that blocked our view at a concert.
The checkbook that doesn't add up.
The irate letter from a landlord.
Everything.
These are our daily assignments;
the extraordinary opportunities we are given
to see past the skin of all moments
and catch the shining innocence that waits beyond
and beneath the obvious
Is it easy work? No.
Does it take a long time to complete? Yes.
But of course we are given a lifetime
in which to do it.
And when we have moved through our
private map, piece by piece by piece, and,
with the help of the Divine Love at our center,
have come to release each face, each instance,
each folly -- what happens then?
Freedom.
We had a nice lunch today to say goodbye to Kelly, the best dog sitter in
the universe. Bob told me a great story about when he went to New York and
attended the David Letterman. It wasn't even the show that was the
highlight, it was the flaming hoops he had to jump through to become a
member of the audience. It was an all day affair, with what sounded like 10
screening line ups where he and Lisa were very slowly accepted as DL
audience material.
Hearing Bob talk about the audience reminded me of the dream I've had since
I was old enough to watch TV shows with laugh tracks or an audience; think
Three's Company, One Day at Time, The Jeffersons, etc. I've gone completely
off track of my goal. I need to do something quick before I fall into the
cavernous hole of the midlife crisis! Oh ya, the goal. The goal is to get
discovered as the greatest laugher of all time and make millions sitting in
audiences laughing all day and all night encouraging others to laugh. Is
that not the perfect job or what? What am I doing? I need to book a ticket
to New York pronto and explore this. Anyone want to join me?
...find areas in which their values are in alignment and support the achievement of each other’s goals. They co-create activities and projects in which each of them can pursue their values in cooperation with the other, complimenting each other’s skills, and capitalizing on each other’s strengths. The more independent each of the members are, the more interdependence becomes possible.
...for sucking so horribly at the blogging lately. I've been so distracted by my real life that I haven't been blogging. If anyone is still paying attention I sincerely apologize. I have a ton of pictures, 174, that I've taken with my new camera but I don't have room on my computer. I need to find some room and I'm working that out. Stay tuned, I'll have new photos and maybe some opinions soon.
Thanks for your patience and dedication.
PS> I'm officially on the Canucks bandwagon again. They're playing an incredible game right now, Round 2, Game 2, 1st overtime period and they're playing awesome!!
Your results:
You are Dark Phoenix
| A prime example of emotional extremes: Passion and fury incarnate. |
If you need a giggle, check this out.
http://dumpsterdiving.meetup.com/cities/ca/bc/vancouver/
That's the score on last week's battle. If you haven't heard, you must live in the desert or small-town Ontario or something, as many as 1000 trees in our beloved Stanley Park were wiped out by 120 km/hr wind blasts last week.
CBC's latest report - there's a link to an aerial video here.
Flickr slideshow - posted by the person who maintains my favourite webcam, Telemark Systems' Live KatKam
Last week people were fighting over bottled water, this week it's snow tires. What's next? I'm not sure but I think Vancouver might fall into the ocean ane we'll be fighting over kayaks or something.
Meanwhile our backyard is filling up with snow, it's so beautiful, I love it. But no one loves it more than Bubba.
I'm worried about the new evergreen Magnolia we planted at the end of October. We checked it every hour on Sunday and we shook the snow off every 2 or 3 hours. I keep thinking the branches are getting too heavy with snow and they're going to break off. I can't believe it's holding up as well as it is.
Since I wasn't able to get out and take my own pics of the mountains today I found some photos other people have taken. Click on the links below to see them.
abnormal... but beautiful by Judy B
Winter Wonderland by mountainhiker
IMGP4058 c by tim_flickr
Snow in Vancouver by L_Barnes
43rd Ave by rinlee
It is important to recognize the power of our emotions--and to take responsibility for them by creating a light and positive atmosphere around ourselves. This attitude of joy that we create helps alleviate states of hopelessness, loneliness, and despair. Our relationships with others thus naturally improve, and little by little the whole of society becomes more positive and balanced. - Tarthang Tulku
Check out this cool movie of the fog rolling in and out of English Bay in September, this is part of bigger site, Kat Kam. HINT: right-click on the photo and select "Play" to start the movie. I like to look at Kat Kam every once in a while, especially at sunset time, today was 5:22 PST.
I found the link on a Vancouver Webcams website. HINT: scroll down to Kat Kams to see a live view of English Bay. It's a beauty!
I made a pretty good-looking, Rachel Ray 30-minute Shepard's Pie last night. Since Kevin's been sick I decided I'd attempt to cook a dinner for him. It's been a long time, I'm a bit rusty but the grocery delivery helped. SPUD.ca, it's the shit! It involves some pre-planning which is hard to adjust to at first. Delivery is once a week on Thursdays so we have to know what we want for the week and order it before 9 AM Tuesday. I think it's worth going through this adjustment to not have to go to the grocery store every week. I despise grocery stores and shopping! I don't even want to start trying to explain how much I hate it cuz I'm afraid I'll waste all my blog space on this negative thing. I'd rather use SPUD. SPUD makes me happy!
Moving on... What made this dinner extra special was I used Kevin's new favourite cook, Rachel Ray's, cookbook, Comfort Foods. We first saw her on the Food Network in St. Lucia, on our hangover day when we sat and watched TV all day, guilt-free. Her methods are fabulous, the recipes need some spicing up. I was impressed with the 45-minute preparation and cooking time, not so impressed with the lack of flavour. Next time I'll add some chilis or Frank's Red Hot and more Worcestershire to the gravy.
If you don't know Rachel yet you will soon, the big news on the radio this morning was that Martha Stewart did her part to shine the limelight Rachel's way this week. It's a funny story. Martha was actually dissin' her cuz she stole her guest star and aired it the same day. Poor Martha, she's not her regular, organized self since she's been to prison and back. Rachel must be famous though, there's a "Rachel Ray Sucks Community" blog going strong. The thing that surprises me it 's 3 years old! What dedication!
I couldn't find anything online about who the guest was (I wonder if it was Barry Manilow?). If I was Martha I'd fight for him too. Anyway, I copied this bit below from a New York Daily News article for your (and my) amusement.
Two household names
Rachael Ray has been called the next Martha Stewart. But are they really that alike? We hash out the kitchen queens.
By JOE DZIEMIANOWICZ, New York Daily News
Martha Stewart
Food career start: Caterer
Philosophy in a nutshell: Aspirational - your dish-soap container should be a work of art
Signature saying: "It's a good thing!"
Cheesecake recipe: Bakes a mean raspberry-swirl cheesecake
Pictures of self in current issue: 6
Accessories: Recently ditched ankle bracelet
Rachael Ray
Food career start: Waitress
Philosophy in a nutshell: Accessible - who has time for measuring cups? Half a palmful will do
Signature saying: "Yum-O!," "Oh my gravy!"
Cheesecake recipe: Hates baking, but posed in skimpy outfits in the October 2003 issue of lad mag FHM
Pictures of self in current issue: 15
Accessories: Recently donned wedding ring
Ooops, I've run out of time. Halloween will have to wait 'til another day.
