Embracing the Wind, Dancing under the Moon

Jet engines
                     Push
                                    A steel gray night
                                           Twilight
                                           
        An illuminated moon
        Biting the clouds
        
        The colors do the speaking
        Fading sun pushing pink to space
        Ice white moon
          puncturing
                             Darkening blue -sea blue- sky
        
        Riding over
        Clouds
                               Tearing the peace of blue
                               
                               
                               
        -- Soon to descend --
        But for this moment alone
        It's the moon's light
        That keeps me high above the sky
                  Tonight                
                        

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I wrote this poem in a hanging moment in the sky,
alone with the moon and myself
similar in tone to this photo.

---

A great shot showing
To explore space,
Is to dance upon the clouds of our dreams.

To be ourselves is to go beyond
Merely dancing upon the ground.

Dare to embrace the wind.
Be lifted to go beyond the moon.

Peace



Photo Supplied by NASA

Facing Morning Doom Again

Olympia Washington, 7:30 am

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Just looking out the window now... It's snowing, or one of the local volcano's just blew up and is dumping ash on us again.

It's not worth checking the news. And if it blew up really bad, well then, I probably wouldn't be typing this now... so Wotever, I will assume it's snow for now and not the more fun prospect of impending doom.

Just means it's time to shuffle and cook up a waffle. My mother taught me to always face impending doom on an almost full stomach and a waffle iron (One of the old fashion Iron ones, not an electric one). Seems like good advice which I always follow in these times of trouble.


8:15 am (update)

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No sirens or people rushing about in panic... It must be snow.


9:05 am (update)

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Yup it was snow, and it melted leaving behind only this morning's poem about certain volcanic doom.

Snow tumbled as ash
After the
Volcanic Silence
of the erupting morning before me

Standing on the porch
Cold burnt out snow
Evaporating upon
explosive contact to the ground.

Should this be a sign?
A portent of disaster into the day to come?
- OR -
Should it just all move along as
plate tectonics of the soul
Always shifting about,
releasing spiritual potential
to again embrace
the beauty: of the simply falling snow.

How can anyone see the world as ordinary when it's always magically shifting about in visions of what we make it to be?

Peace

Signs of a Midlife crisis

A common question when facing the possibility of a midlife crisis is: What are the signs? As a culture we just love to define symptoms and then react in a cookbook fashion to cure the problem.

Here are ten common signs:

1. Looking into the mirror and you no longer recognize yourself.


2. You desire and crave physical -Free Flowing- movement. For example: Running, Biking, Dance, Fast red sports cars, Sky diving, etc.


3. Changing or investigating new religions or churches or new age philosophy


4. Unexplained bouts of depression when doing tasks which used to make you happy.


5. You see how everything is totally fucked up, and you have new ideas on how to fix it all.


6. Hair changes. (Natural changes in thickness, luster, color or Assisted changes in dying hair suddenly or shaving your head bald)


7. Feeling trapped...


8. You keep asking yourself: "Where am I going with my life?"


9. Changes of diet: different foods taste good or bad now.


10. Someone unexpectedly exclaims: "You are going through a midlife crisis!"

For a cook book, well you can check out A Personal Tao.

The full list is posted on A Personal Tao web site.

Please feel welcome to add comments or stories or additional items to the list.

Peace

Midlife Transformations

I just wrote and published an article about Midlife Crisis.

This is a first part of two parts and the first draft of the first part of the article.

(Hee, writing that last sentence was fun).

Please comment, spot errors, and generally add your feedback.

(I just posted up the 2nd draft 2/21/07)

Peace

Taoism

To become a Taoist Master

Is not devouring
brand name cereals of enlightenment.

Is not a reward
from competitions of being right wrong, moral or foremost.

Is not learned and validated
earning diplomas to wallpaper ego.

Is not built from
monuments to self or mankind

To become a Taoist Master

...IS

...being yourself wholly.

---

Peace

Working at the Moment

9:24 am

Typin at a keyboard: cognazant of work: spelling is totally optional.

Screamin in MAH Mind!

The work day today consisting of mocha stimulation and chasing a few dollars.

---

9:26 am

Chillin to the song "Saturday Morning" by the Eels

Investigating the process of performing an XML transformation of a Excel Spreadsheet to store within a SQL 2005 Database server. It's a cash day, a day to be a consultant and ponder information storage schemes for a customer at this moment.

I work at so many different jobs: all based upon patterns and communication.

---

9:29 am

Can't concentrate cleanly, So taking some time out to be a Taoist monk for the moment:

Writing a journal entry to still my mind, a literal process of awareness without attachment.

---

9:45 am

Ok so where am I going with all of this?

I could be plowing a field or turning over XML information. Work is a process of fitting into society. Defining self relative to cash flow. People rushing about to earn some cash to buy: some food, then some clothes, then some self image...

This brings up an interesting question:

How much of a job is used to be yourself, to survive as compared to buying and creating self image to fit in culture in order to earn more money?

My mind is not screaming really, it's pretty still inside my thoughts. The puzzle I am examining is the conflict of self image compared to the working image most people become in order to earn money.

I know someone who is jobless, homeless with thousands of dollars of fines. How can he ever get ahead? I know others with so much money, they are busy being everything but themselves in the rush to get more cash - which they always seem to need more of. I myself work enough to cover my bills and then move not based on desire but upon whims of exploring the empty space around me, within me.

So in examining the questions:

of Survival vs. Comfort
of your nature vs. what you become in earning cash
of needs : your own needs vs. what others have.

I am not really handing out answers to others, Nor is this a sermon. As I said earlier I am just "literally meditating", one form of meditation I practice when writing. Reminding myself: to balance within self acceptance: a day at a time. Doing the best I can, while helping others smile. Just looking at the patterns we make as we rush about to live.

It's enough, to change the world by simply being myself. The trick being: to remember to be myself, even while running about and upon the cogs of society.

---

10:26 am
Nice! The song "Tarkus" by the ELP, just came up on my playlist.

Time again to rock and work seriously now. Tarkus is a solid working song for me.

Whims of time and moving to the beat of life.

Peace

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Cosmic Yin Yang

---

Cosmic Yin Yang of two galaxies merging and dancing about each other. I was looking at this across the room and in the blur saw the Yin Yang. In everything: so many levels exist at how you can see the universe around us. The main ESA site has some great high res photos and movies to zoom in to give an idea of scale.

Peace

Change

Wishing for change to be:

Leaves a person dreaming.

Planting a seed, starting an action to ripple out:

Leads to new life.

To experience change
Means starting a process
to go beyond dreams...

---

Since I am slowly shifting life patterns now, I have been collecting these thoughts. Lately I have been doing little as possible, except some Yoga, to let everything go in the mind, body and spirit. To clear everything around me.

---

After examining key events in history, I conclude: true change comes from empowering others to embrace peace within their heart rather than to impose rules upon others.

While it might feel easiest to reach out to tell others how life should be. That's actually a symptom of insecurity within our peace. In fact: imposing rules and a stern helping hand is noise distracting others from hearing their own heart. It's important to be silent enough to allow others to hear their own heart.

---

Stepping stones

A stepping stone of silently accepting oneself.
A stepping stone of release.

A stepping stone into...

... a place where these words will not follow me.



Peace

---

Shaping Life

Living can never be fully shaped by desiring possessions.

Our empty space can never be fully defined by the lack of something.

This is a powerful concept from many different angles.

The most apparent angle is: Living by consumption, such as the American material lifestyle, only fuels a chase, a lifestyle requiring burning possessions to fill a person's empty space.

Think about this. Living upon chasing possession means the actual possession of the item can never be satisfying. This is due to basing existence (your empty space): UPON THE CHASE, over the dreamed results.

This is interesting to me, as American culture contains so many stories of a material lifestyle being futile. Yet, many people chase the dream of possession. The lure of being something else, someone else, so much richer, a dream of what we might be: being more attractive than what we actually are.

Here is the reason why:

Human nature includes the gift of being able to see: we can be more. This why so many people fail to see the beauty of who we are now. Tomorrow can always appear to be better when problems will always exist in the now.

Taoist practice teaches how to balance our potential with what we are now. Taoists are soul crafters: working upon shaping life with the flow of experiencing now rather than filling in life with illusions of what we think we should be.



Peace

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Longevity

I just wrote and published an article about Taoism and longevity.

This is the first draft of the article. Please free open to comment, spot errors, and generally add your feedback.

Peace

And the Survey Says:

When I last looked at the results of this poll asking:

Do you believe President Bush's actions justify impeachment?

Out of 419,870 responses

87% percent have voted:

Yes, between the secret spying, the deceptions leading to war and more, there is plenty to justify putting him on trial.

---

Heh! it will be interesting to see how the powers that be spin and change this story around.

The fact is: a majority of American's believes Bush to be a war criminal and impeachable.

It's too bad 2% of who sides with Bush: control the government, power structure and media sources. The power structure of America is extremely lopsided. So much for democracy in the modern corporate hegemony.


Peace

God as a committee...

Here is a email exchange between several of us heathens.

It cracked me up at the end the idea of god attending a... wait I won't spoil it, go ahead and read for yourself.

< Start of Email exchange >

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On 2/2/07, Kris wrote:

Hello, gentle coworkers:

I'm taking Monday off.

It will not rain, if "it" knows what's good for it.

Kris

---

On 2/2/07, Bob wrote:

What recourse do you have if "it" rains? I so want to know. Teach me.

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On 2/2/07, Casey wrote:

It might be enough for Kris to invoke godly powers??

I mean if we are all god and God is us, could he not do so?

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On 2/2/07, Casey wrote:

Whoa!

Insight...

My last statement would mean god is a committee.

No wonder god gets nothing done anymore

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On 2/2/07, Kris wrote:

That's very, very funny. Does that mean that God goes home at night fuming about his powerlessness? Does he have to consult with attorneys before smiting anyone? Does he have to attend sensitivity training?

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On 2/2/07, Casey wrote:

Basically yes

The paper work for smiting, and the sensitivity training are a major bummer now.

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< End Email exchange >

So anyways, it would be interesting to apply modern corporate ethics and policies to the God of the Old Testament.

The best thing about being a Taoist is a having a sense of humor... Life just wouldn't be interesting without it.