Funny how old photos will sometimes slink back into your life. This photo has been beckoning me now for over a week. Lovely spring.
Other happiness is's:
What the world needs more than anything is bodhisattvas, active servants of peace, “clothed,” as Longchenpa said, “in the armor of perseverance,” dedicated to their bodhisattva vision and to the spreading of wisdom into all reaches of our experience. We need bodhisattva lawyers, bodhisattva artists and politicians, bodhisattva doctors and economists, bodhisattva teachers and scientists, bodhisattva technicians and engineers, bodhisattvas everywhere, working consciously as channels of compassion and wisdom at every level and in every situation of society; working to transform their minds and actions and those of others, working tirelessly in the certain knowledge of the support of the buddhas and enlightened beings for the preservation of our world and for a more merciful future.
— Sogyal Rinpoche
In Tibet we say: “Negative action has one good quality: it can be purified.” So there is always hope. Even murderers and the most hardened criminals can change and overcome the conditioning that led them to their crimes. Our present condition, if we use it skillfully and with wisdom, can be an inspiration to free ourselves from the bondage of suffering.
— Sogyal Rinpoche
my latest encounter with the elephant in the book stacks. (more pachyderm encounters of the photographic kind).
Somebody's on a mission towards Inbox 0.He knows me very well. And no, the email didn't help. :)
I take it this email didn't help.
Jerry
(actually, this photo is better without any of my trying-to-be-witty comments. i love this photo.) thanks, Matthew, for letting me blog this. :)
I am on a quest for a certain kind of photo of levis. So of course the first place I turn to is flickr. I do an advanced search. Creative Commons. Open to commercial use. Open to being modified.
Number one "most interesting" photo? MY PHOTO! Yea! Too bad it's not the photo I'm looking for. :)
From Echo_29: their dog Cima romping through the wild flowers in the Carrizo Plain.
so i woke up in a slightly crappy mood. not really interested in meditating. and then that kind compounded my crappy mood because here is the deal: doing what you say you are going to do helps alleviate a crappy mood. it just does. for me. and that is because it is a step of faith and commitment. as opposed to being a big talker.
i'm so done being a big talker.
and then i read this:
The practice of mindfulness defuses our negativity, aggression, and turbulent emotions, which may have been gathering power over many lifetimes. Rather than suppressing emotions or indulging in them, here it is important to view them—your thoughts and whatever arises—with an acceptance and generosity that are as open and spacious as possible. Tibetan masters say that this wise generosity has the flavor of boundless space, so warm and cozy that you feel enveloped and protected by it, as if by a blanket of sunlight.And so yes. I will sit.
— Sogyal Rinpoche
So I've been tired. I'm tired when I get up in the morning; I'm tired when I get to work. I'm tired during the day; I'm tired when I get home. I seem a little disinterested in everything. Life is tasting a bit like a bowl of plain oatmeal and that is no way to live. Sure, it's enough to live on -- but it's not making a smile spread across my face.
So, I'm going to do an experiment for the month of February and will see if this helps.
For the month of February I am going to
Think of something your heart really years for. Now imagine that you have that thing, whatever it is. Spend 10 solid minutes imagining this with all senses -- what does it sound like, look like, feel like, taste like, smell like. 10 solid minutes.And that's what I'm going to do for February and I really really hope it brings me some more oomph. Some more get up and go (cuz my get up go seems to have got up and went. <-- I wish I made that up. Clever.).
That's it.
god love flickr and all the wonderful glimpses it gives us into both the ordinary and the extraordinary.
It is only through disruptions and confusion that we grow, jarred out of ourselves by the collision of someone else's private world with our own. — Joyce Carol Oates
Thank you dear bagel with jelly
You're tasty from my mouth to belly
You're doughy, you're sweet
You're so good to eat
Inspiring rhymes that are silly
Dear jelly on top of this bagel
A great meal to find at my table
Your sweetness is tasty
My eating is hasty
Devour? I'm willing and able
All true. All factual. All proven. All documented. A must read for Travelers of the West: True Tales of Jackalopes Gone Bad. Learn the stories that the postcard proprietors don't want you to know.
Here you see the San Andreas Fault in action. Super slo-mo, but action nonetheless.
This is Wallace Creek, a (typically) bone dry shadow of a creek in the Carrizo Plain. At one point (back when it was still in diapers or perhaps just learning how to sound-out the words), Wallace Creek ran straight-ish. And then the earth shook and Wallace Creek moved a little. A couple hundred years later the earth shook again, and again, Wallace Creek moved a little. Over and over, every couple hundred of years.
The sign post says that eventually this spot will be in the same zip code as the golden gate bridge.
Yesterday we ventured out to the Carrizo Plain again (so great out there). We saw a golden eagle from some distance. Slowed down to take its photo (it was on a pole), but it flew off when we rolled down the window.
Golden eagles are the third largest raptor on our continent (only bald eagles and California condors are bigger). Check out this set to see how big a golden eagle is in the hands of a human.
it's pretty easy. :)
There are two ways of spreading light...to be the candle, or the mirror that reflects it.
— Edith Wharton
From an email I got today (a several-times-a-week dealie from Shambhala).
Faith is a sense of dignity.The Christian mystic Meister Eckhart talks about faith in the sense of being awake: being present and mindful and aware of the situation. Faith is seeing things as they are -- whatever that might be -- precisely, directly, and without any hesitation.
my friend lynnie recently visited the area of the station fire. this photo is so incredibly sad and moving. and yet hopeful, because i know it will grow back (with time). (and care.).
52 Weeks is a Flickr project/group where one takes a self portrait each week for a year. Last year Orrin did it and I was in love with his project! I loved it so much -- and he had a big year as his first child was born. It was very inspiring. I've been thinking about doing this project for about a month. I'm starting with the new year.
and that pisses me off.
and further impoliteness, i have recently said in other nether regions of the intertubes:
(meh. i shouldn't add a negative twist. i always loved getting older and then i passed some line -- not an age line but a ... hmmm... just a whatthefuck line and now i donotlikeitatall and age can gofuckitself and oh no now i'm just a typicalwoman. FUCK! arghh. poo. etc.)whatevs. so sue me. that's a pretty honest insight into me who is usually abnormally pollyannaroseyglasses.
