Who else is a Pisces out there?

Yes, I'm a Pisces ... (actually on the cusp) ... born February 23rd when dinosaurs roamed the earth. Although I subscribed to the Daily OM when I first started blogging, I seldom read my Horoscope or the Daily Message because there's just too much of interest out there in this virtual world and not enough hours in the day. However, after spending considerable time responding to comments on each of my blogs (and let me add thank you very much to those who take the time to write) and emails, I rushed upstairs to shower and dress because I'm meeting a friend for breakfast this morning around 9:30. She's having some medical tests done first, so the time frame isn't fixed. So it happened that (upon returning downstairs as I sat down at the computer) I saw the following.


January 8, 2008
Structured Enthusiasm
Pisces Daily Horoscope

You may feel energized and enthusiastic about your activities today. You may feel a new sense of motivation about your goals, or you could come up with an exciting new direction for a current project. While strong enthusiasm may help you quickly move your projects forward, you may also wish to give some thought to getting organized today so you can move ahead efficiently. Simply take some time to review your plans in detail, and see if there are ways to improve your productivity or streamline your efforts. It may be helpful to make a list of the tasks you want to accomplish and any action steps that will help you reach your goals. Then you can map out a clear progression of actions that will help you bring your goals into being.

With an organized plan of action, we lend structure to our enthusiasm and enhance our ability to manifest our dreams in reality. We often let our enthusiasm take the lead, which can result in hasty or ineffective actions. If we instead take time to review our goals and devise more efficient plans, we can improve our productivity and lessen the amount of time and effort we must devote to manifesting our dreams. With an organized plan and an optimistic mind-set, we can accomplish more than we believed possible and achieve our goals with ease. By taking time to get organized with your plans today, you will have a clear blueprint for success and can let your enthusiasm fuel your desire to excel.

Apparently, I'm supposed to add "structure" to organize my enthusiasm. I've avoided "resolutions" entirely for years ... decades even, and once I retired from teaching in June of 2001 ... I released my long-practiced over-developed obsessive need to plan at all. Instead, I've opted to take life as it comes ... enjoying each moment for whatever it brings ... rowing, no drifting, "merrily down the stream" just as I once did as a child. I'm happier, healthier, and (according to friends and family) more relaxed, calm, and fun to be around. Therefore, I think I'll continue as is ... at least for today.

Spreading the Word -- Discover the Inner Christmas and Other Holiday "Stuph"

In case you didn't know ...
Ladybug, Kikipotamus, Sandy, Karen and Kara have their 12 Random Christmasy Things about themselves up at their blogs. Just click on the links to read their lists (and mine) if you haven't already done so, and if you wish to join the fun ... please do. The more the merrier! Remember to leave a link to let us know when your list is up so we can all visit.

Something Special
Kara's list ends with a link containing this brief but timely and inspirational Inner Christmas Movie created and offered by Lynn Jerico who reminds us "... wonder and wisdom live in questions, not answers." I hope you'll pause a moment to click and watch it because I'm glad I did. I suspect many of us will be considering "The Twelve Polarities" and participating in the "Twelve Minutes of Inner Christmas Practice" between December 25th and January 5th this year. Thank you Kara!

For those with time
to linger and consider the season
(seriously or otherwise):

1. be inspired by this T-13 collection of Bible verses about Christmas at Brain Freeze

2. savor this touching personal experience at Los Angelista's reminding us we can all do something, no matter how small ...
if we're paying attention with an open heart
3. for Christmas Facts see Michelle's T-13 at Artventuring
4. for Christmas Activities to do with Kids (big and small) complete with "how to" links visit Believer in Balance
5. if you need a laugh or two to get you through the day check
out these hilarious Christmas Cartoons at Burnt Offerings

Happy Holidays to you and yours!

Thursday Thirteen #4

Lest you read only this blog (& not Sacred Ruminations) and think I've lost my ability to count accurately, my 3rd T-13 is located there in case you missed it last week.

Here are Thirteen Quotes I find worth consideration:

1. "If you think you can, or think you can't ... you're right." Henry Ford
2. "Make a habit of two things: to help or at least do no harm." Hippocrates
3. "Nothing great was ever accomplished without great enthusiasm." Ralph Waldo Emerson
4. "You cannot depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus." Mark Twain
5. "Happiness does not come from doing easy work, but from the afterglow of satisfaction that comes after the achievement of a difficult task that demanded our best." Theodore Isaac Rubin
6. "Never, for the sake of peace and quiet, deny your own experience or convictions." Dag Hammarskjold
7. "It is always our own self that we find at the end of the journey. The sooner we face that self, the better." Ella Mallart
8. "I cannot give you the formula for success, but I can give you the formula for failure: Try to please everybody." Bayard Swope
9. "I'm worried that we live in a climate where we are not allowed to fail and therefore we are encouraged to take fewer and fewer risks. For all human endeavor is set by risk, as the physicist Franz Kernig believes. Freedom risks its own abuse, thinking risks error, speech risks misunderstanding, faith risks failure, and hope risks despair. The risk of life is death, and man is man only by virtue of his risks of the future." Madeleine L'Engle
10. "In the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter and sharing of pleasures, for in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning refreshed." from Kahlil Gibran's THE PROPHET
11. "We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us. ... And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others." Nelson Mandela
12. "Yours is not the task of making your way in the world, but the task of remaking the world in which you will find before you." Franklin Delano Roosevelt
13. "Live as if you were die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever." Mahatma Gandhi
    

Links to other Thursday Thirteens!

The purpose of the meme is to get to know everyone who participates a little bit better every Thursday. Visiting fellow Thirteeners is encouraged! If you participate, leave the link to your Thirteen in others comments. It’s easy, and fun! Trackbacks, pings, comment links accepted!

View More Thursday Thirteen Participants
Get the Thursday Thirteen code here!

For
easy
access,
I’ve listed
more T-13 links
along with
the Thursday Thirteen
Blogroll to my
sidebar

Reclaiming my Yard (Part 2) or A Slow & Tedious Single-Handed Transition

I suppose this could also be entitled
How I Made a Bunch of New Friends From
Passers-by Who Stopped to Chat :)

Day by day (as time & energy permitted) I worked in the yard ... enjoying my progress (however slow & tedious it seemed to others) ... making new friends as folks on their way to and from the beach stopped to comment (many offering suggestions as to how I might speed things along, not realizing I was using this as a meditative practice). I spent considerable time thinking about how I might similarly reclaim the inside of my home (as in clear out the clutter of books and reading material that collect on any horizontal surface despite my best intentions).

I started by cutting the Korean grass covering the concrete "footer" originally designed & put in place to keep the lawn out of the flowerbeds. I knew it was there, but others were surprised as it reappeared. Next I cut back the bushes encroaching on my walk-way to the house, then started digging out the roots. That's when I discovered the first of many 3" in diameter roots from the city's tree on my neighbor's parkway and invested in a hand-saw to cut them out in foot-long pieces so I could pull them out in sections.

As it turned out, those tree roots were EVERYWHERE in my yard (and probably still run under the grass area) though the offending tree itself has been removed after the fact (illegally, of course, by my new neighbors who afterwards planted something in its place that is lovely and hopefully less intrusive ... all without the city's knowledge ... just as others on the block have done previously). When they asked me about taking this action (ie should they get a permit first), I suggested that it's often easier to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission in such cases. Actually, I suspect it's quite possible the city is relieved to have home-owners pay for such removal and replacement :)

But I digress (please bear with me as my mind wanders often these days) so I'll now continue with my tale of transition.

Removing the grass from the stream bed was most challenging. I'd clear out a section of rocks, pull the grass out by the roots, replace the 27 year old plastic with a new piece (cut to size & overlapping the previous one), sprinkle a little rock salt to slow down future grass growth, and replace the rocks one-by-one before moving on to the next section and repeating the process. Of course this took WEEKS of daily effort, but I enjoyed the pleasant weather and didn't worry about how long it would take. I snapped photos of my progress to email to family and friends (and now to share with you), but as I look at the photo-collage ... I realize it doesn't contain those close-up pix, so maybe I'll see if I can make a "mini-collage" to use in a later post (making note to self as I type that thought here).

I suppose I could have invested in a weed-wacker and/or some other tools, but I am "a senior citizen" and doing this by hand allowed me to sit down on the job. In addition, it didn't require me to learn new skills or risk injury by accident :)

Eventually it did become obvious (even to my independent self) that I could use some help. I managed to use my trusty pruning tools and newly acquired hand-saw to prune the lime and lemon trees (as I've done yearly for decades) as well as to decimate the peach tree that had never produced edible fruit probably because it was planted too close to the house and in the shade of the lime tree. What I couldn't do however was dig out the massive root system created by this tree over its 27 year life span. So, I enlisted the help of a local gardening service for this purpose.

When they offered a deal I couldn't refuse, I hired them also to finish stripping the lawn for me (much to the relief of my aching hands and back) and to clear off the parkway. It took three workers more than 4 hours (using power tools) to make the lawn area level as in the photo on the left, second from the bottom. Even better, they hauled away the debris so I didn't have make multiple trips dragging heavy trash cans filled to capacity the 120 feet from my front yard to the alley behind my house :)

I plan to create a mini-grid of those photos and pictures taken while they dug out the Tam Junipers on the parkway along with the Korean grass doing it's best to overtake them and claim the area for its own. The "parkway" task took 4 workers almost 5 hours to accomplish! Maybe I'll post it with the other mini-collage of my "rock clearing" photos.

So Karen ... I hope you enjoy Part 2 as much as you did Part 1.
More to follow as time permits :)

On Mindfulness, Transforming Anger, Practicing Peace, and Making a Difference

This morning, I found a post entitled "Mindfulness and Transforming Anger" at The Dream Life. It started me thinking about what matters and what doesn't. While listening to Ram Dass and Thich Nhat Hanh (two of my favorite people) discuss this topic -- I found the video clip both timely and perfect. I decided immediately to mention the post here, and to add a sidebar link at Sacred Ruminations so I (and others) can return easily to be reminded as needed in the future.

While I was at You Tube I discovered the following related links. I believe each to be well worth the time required to watch and listen whenever time permits. Thich Nhat Hanh speaks on Living in the Present Moment, Mindful Walking, and Peace in Every Step. The first two are a few minutes long. The last video link is more than an hour in length, but resonates so truly with my personal experience and beliefs that I opted to include it for anyone who cares to listen.

My "ex" was drafted in his mid-twenties and spent 13 months in Vietnam ... returning alive, but forever changed. In turn, my own life was altered. He was a social worker and I an educator. We did what we could with what we had to effect change in positive ways, yet we each spent many years frustrated and angry at the recognition that the main thing to be learned from history is that we don't learn from history. In the early 70s, I recall attending a meeting of a group called "Beyond War" based on an Einstein quote to the effect that war is obsolete. A story was shared there (leaving me with a vivid & long-lasting image) in which people were sitting together in a room filled with barrels of gasoline. Each person held a book of matches, but no one was foolish enough to strike one because doing so would destroy themselves along with everyone else. The older I get (and, of course, I'm a dinosaur) the more I realize that carrying anger & frustration doesn't help solve much of anything.

(Hmmmm ... that reminds me of a pink t-shirt I used to wear often that said something like "Never try to teach a pig to sing" on the front and "It wastes your time and annoys the pig" on the back) ... but I digress and my mind wanders easily these days. Forgive an old broad, please? :-)

While listening this morning to Ram Dass and Thich Nhat Hanh, I recalled that a couple of days ago I left a comment elsewhere on a different (but similar) topic and I share an excerpt here because it captures the essence of how I'm changing (with more effort than I care to admit) and articulates my current belief about how to make a difference which could lead to resolution of the difficult issues of our time. I quote myself here ...

"If we could just accept that we're not "alone" but rather "all one" we'd each do what's necessary to resolve the world's problems recognizing "we're all in this together" ... especially since we've seen earth from space and know how "precarious" life can be ... and we've learned that butterflies in Zimbabwe affect weather on California's coast. I have this image in my mind of a giant jigsaw puzzle and each of us is a piece. When we get lost (or fail to show up and get connected) gaps exist that no one else can fill."

One thing I know for sure from personal experience ... change begins with each of us as we gain awareness of what's within ... learn to own, honor, and live as congruently with our convictions as possible ... find ways to understand ourselves and others ... practice compassion & kindness while we pay attention to the results of our thoughts, words, and deeds as reflected in our relationships with others.

There are many paths, tools & habits to assist and/or guide our journey. A COURSE IN MIRACLES states "when the student is ready, the teacher appears" (and vice versa). It also assures us that all it takes is "a little willingness" to be open to the possibility for change. Don Miguel Ruiz offers a simple (if not easy) path through THE FOUR AGREEMENTS. Hundreds of others point to ways to begin ... and practice ... each moment ... to awaken to and embrace truth as we understand it in each moment.

I'm reminded of Thailand Gal's Blog Blast for Peace ... and perhaps this is my version? I offer it here for your consideration and comments.