Dec.27,2009
Living with a good friend and his kids here at 8600 feet...taking re-certification requirements to reinstate the certification so I can work in the field once again.
I find these last few months to be wonderful.
— An on-going hiker's meditation and journal—
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Tuesday, September 8, 2009
September 8, 2009
10:05:55 MDT
I wrote the following today in response to a forwarded email from an AA friend, that I have not seen in a while attending AA meetings over at ARID.
“I’ve been a regular-customer of the Steps of the program of AA and a regular meeting attendee there and have become concerned but not worried w/ angst over your apparent-to-me- non-attending. When and should you feel I’m worthy of a deep response I am here, buddy!
My experience has been that when I hold-in the 10th Step I become sicker and sicker on the inside and feel bad and seem to only be able to skim the surfaces of the various aspects of this redneck-living in plain sight here in the good ole US of A. I need the debriefing as much as the next one.”
I wrote the following reaction to a thank you note for my time yesterday, both at the Club and in the neighborhood walking around and talking.
“I sensed the Dr. ordered some camaraderie yesterday at the dregs of the car-show, however did not know this until you brought your light to it. Thanks for typing this thank you note to me. I was of like mind considering the three of us talking back there by the cigarette bucket too.
The follow-up makes sense as well, pertaining to the-what we shared vocally… see if this has relevance for you? Remember, just like you, my experience has been regarding the 10th Step that I need the debriefing the same as the next one who has a thorough 4th Step on the plate.
The alternative to the debriefing is to hold the 10th Step in and then feel sicker and sicker. I am not invested holding this in… after all it pays a large dividend and has benefit to remind one-another that the 9th Step actions we take are merely a demonstration that,”…We have made our demonstration, done our part. It's water over the dam.” This I’m invested in.
It is of no lasting consequence whether those we harmed are accepting or throw us out with the bath-water!
It is helpful for us on the living-in-plain-sight line up, right here in the US of A to adhere to this.
Your thoughts, innuendo and overtone are welcomed.”
What is apparent to the practice as I sense it is that the benefit to practicing the principled living here in the US of A simply is the awareness that in the Big book of Alcoholics Anonymous the tertiary degree and bonded ness of understandings have made me more stable. I made demonstration of my cleaning my so-called side of the street with my family over many years and continued to harbor emotional draining thoughts concerning being non-accepted by those of the surviving family I was born into. It is now or rather in-the-NOW that the benefits of this generation of spiritual work has sent me the solace and comfort of knowing INSIDE that God indeed has helped. See? Simply it is notable, to understand in the core of the heart, my heart, my big-fat-heart; that making the living-change of behavior repetitively over many years is the required work/action.
This multi-year investing in time and endeavor bears fruit in the world and that it is of no lasting consequence whether I have been approved of or given verbal accolade or contrarily been thrown-out with the bathwaters.
It is of concern and lasting evidence that I made the repetitive actions over the long haul; the recordable cameras-checkable verifiable actions and that inside, my heart has settled in His Love.
I feel for them in a way and other than this sentiment I feel lighter on the road less traveled. As though this past 4-5 years has been the water-shed time for me to morph or transform more slowly into the next space of maturities that are promised as a practitioner of a spiritual “program” such as AA’s.
For those unfamiliar with Alcoholics Anonymous meetings… a resounding Yes that, those meetings are central to the drinker who senses troubling consequences resultant from the brain physiology and chronic changes in neurotransmitter transmission. The program of spiritual principles and its instilment and embodiment in the adherent serves to remove the black-and-white from the every day sense of ego.
I am grateful for the authors’ suggestions in the same vein as I, as the adherent of Hatha Yoga all these years am grateful for my original Yoga teacher’s suggestions to me.
10:05:55 MDT
I wrote the following today in response to a forwarded email from an AA friend, that I have not seen in a while attending AA meetings over at ARID.
“I’ve been a regular-customer of the Steps of the program of AA and a regular meeting attendee there and have become concerned but not worried w/ angst over your apparent-to-me- non-attending. When and should you feel I’m worthy of a deep response I am here, buddy!
My experience has been that when I hold-in the 10th Step I become sicker and sicker on the inside and feel bad and seem to only be able to skim the surfaces of the various aspects of this redneck-living in plain sight here in the good ole US of A. I need the debriefing as much as the next one.”
I wrote the following reaction to a thank you note for my time yesterday, both at the Club and in the neighborhood walking around and talking.
“I sensed the Dr. ordered some camaraderie yesterday at the dregs of the car-show, however did not know this until you brought your light to it. Thanks for typing this thank you note to me. I was of like mind considering the three of us talking back there by the cigarette bucket too.
The follow-up makes sense as well, pertaining to the-what we shared vocally… see if this has relevance for you? Remember, just like you, my experience has been regarding the 10th Step that I need the debriefing the same as the next one who has a thorough 4th Step on the plate.
The alternative to the debriefing is to hold the 10th Step in and then feel sicker and sicker. I am not invested holding this in… after all it pays a large dividend and has benefit to remind one-another that the 9th Step actions we take are merely a demonstration that,”…We have made our demonstration, done our part. It's water over the dam.” This I’m invested in.
It is of no lasting consequence whether those we harmed are accepting or throw us out with the bath-water!
It is helpful for us on the living-in-plain-sight line up, right here in the US of A to adhere to this.
Your thoughts, innuendo and overtone are welcomed.”
What is apparent to the practice as I sense it is that the benefit to practicing the principled living here in the US of A simply is the awareness that in the Big book of Alcoholics Anonymous the tertiary degree and bonded ness of understandings have made me more stable. I made demonstration of my cleaning my so-called side of the street with my family over many years and continued to harbor emotional draining thoughts concerning being non-accepted by those of the surviving family I was born into. It is now or rather in-the-NOW that the benefits of this generation of spiritual work has sent me the solace and comfort of knowing INSIDE that God indeed has helped. See? Simply it is notable, to understand in the core of the heart, my heart, my big-fat-heart; that making the living-change of behavior repetitively over many years is the required work/action.
This multi-year investing in time and endeavor bears fruit in the world and that it is of no lasting consequence whether I have been approved of or given verbal accolade or contrarily been thrown-out with the bathwaters.
It is of concern and lasting evidence that I made the repetitive actions over the long haul; the recordable cameras-checkable verifiable actions and that inside, my heart has settled in His Love.I feel for them in a way and other than this sentiment I feel lighter on the road less traveled. As though this past 4-5 years has been the water-shed time for me to morph or transform more slowly into the next space of maturities that are promised as a practitioner of a spiritual “program” such as AA’s.
For those unfamiliar with Alcoholics Anonymous meetings… a resounding Yes that, those meetings are central to the drinker who senses troubling consequences resultant from the brain physiology and chronic changes in neurotransmitter transmission. The program of spiritual principles and its instilment and embodiment in the adherent serves to remove the black-and-white from the every day sense of ego.
I am grateful for the authors’ suggestions in the same vein as I, as the adherent of Hatha Yoga all these years am grateful for my original Yoga teacher’s suggestions to me.
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
August 26, 2009
August 26, 2009
11:37:48 MDT
http://www.canyoncountryzephyr.com/newzephyr/august-september2009/pagespdf/au09-2-3.pdf ――――――――――>>>>>>
11:37:48 MDT
http://www.canyoncountryzephyr.com/newzephyr/august-september2009/pagespdf/au09-2-3.pdf ――――――――――>>>>>>
Jim Stiles puts it straight-forwardly. Both industrial factories are similar. It is the readiness of the privileged-classes of Americans that make one distinction or another regarding what it is that is ‘acceptable’ to them.
********************************************************************************************
http://www.hcn.org/issues/40.20/who2019ll-clean-up-when-the-party2019s-over/article_view?b_start:int=4&-C=
“Other critics argue that the BLM needs to demonstrate that it’s able to heal industrialized lands before it considers new development. “I don’t think we’ve seen enough successful interim and final reclamation that would justify using it as a wide-scale management approach,” says Nada Culver of The Wilderness Society’s Rocky Mountain regional office in Denver.
But the BLM is increasingly using the promise of reclamation to justify opening up ecologically sensitive areas. Last May, BLM National Director Jim Caswell said that his agency and the industry now have the means to carefully develop millions of additional acres of energy-rich public lands currently off-limits for environmental reasons. “With the means to make energy development a temporary use of the land, we don’t have to choose between energy security and
healthy lands,” he said.
As an example, BLM officials point to plans for energy development on Western Colorado’s Roan Plateau. Although environmentalists criticize the agency’s plan for allowing drilling on the top of the plateau, it does limit surface disturbance to 350 acres at any one time.
That effectively forces operators to reclaim parts of well pads while they’re still active before moving on to the next area. The BLM has adopted a similar approach for southern New Mexico’s Otero Mesa, home of one of the few remaining intact expanses of Chihuahuan grasslands.”
Does the plan call for mitigation― on say ½ acre of current drill pad― therefore, set in motion the creation of a new road and accompanying bull dozer for another 20 ac. pad to be disturbed?
I believe this policy is skewed in favor of the large corporations. And back to my friend Stiles’s dispute regarding the swapping of one industrial form on the landscape for the other.
Seems to me these are the very folks that remember to bring the ubiquitous plastic-re-usable sack to the grocery store- under pretenses to ‘save the environment’ only to fill said sack with mostly throw-away packaging. My opinion again, is that they somehow justify “FEELING” better about their selves and therefore bally-hoo and herald the wind farm scenario as opposed to the methane drilling-rig reality.
“Other critics argue that the BLM needs to demonstrate that it’s able to heal industrialized lands before it considers new development. “I don’t think we’ve seen enough successful interim and final reclamation that would justify using it as a wide-scale management approach,” says Nada Culver of The Wilderness Society’s Rocky Mountain regional office in Denver.
But the BLM is increasingly using the promise of reclamation to justify opening up ecologically sensitive areas. Last May, BLM National Director Jim Caswell said that his agency and the industry now have the means to carefully develop millions of additional acres of energy-rich public lands currently off-limits for environmental reasons. “With the means to make energy development a temporary use of the land, we don’t have to choose between energy security and
healthy lands,” he said.
As an example, BLM officials point to plans for energy development on Western Colorado’s Roan Plateau. Although environmentalists criticize the agency’s plan for allowing drilling on the top of the plateau, it does limit surface disturbance to 350 acres at any one time.
That effectively forces operators to reclaim parts of well pads while they’re still active before moving on to the next area. The BLM has adopted a similar approach for southern New Mexico’s Otero Mesa, home of one of the few remaining intact expanses of Chihuahuan grasslands.”
Does the plan call for mitigation― on say ½ acre of current drill pad― therefore, set in motion the creation of a new road and accompanying bull dozer for another 20 ac. pad to be disturbed?
I believe this policy is skewed in favor of the large corporations. And back to my friend Stiles’s dispute regarding the swapping of one industrial form on the landscape for the other.
Seems to me these are the very folks that remember to bring the ubiquitous plastic-re-usable sack to the grocery store- under pretenses to ‘save the environment’ only to fill said sack with mostly throw-away packaging. My opinion again, is that they somehow justify “FEELING” better about their selves and therefore bally-hoo and herald the wind farm scenario as opposed to the methane drilling-rig reality.
Either way the animals lose!
We must really have our priorities screwed up.
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
comment regarding McDonald's book
August 11, 2009 Flagstaff, AZ
20:20:06 MST
Excerpt: 'A Colossal Failure of Common Sense'
by Lawrence G. McDonald
Lehman Brothers, like the great city beyond the massive glass windows, never slept. When the trading bell sounded on the New York Stock Exchange at four o'clock in the afternoon, a lot of equity guys packed up because there was nothing more for them to do. Bank debt and high-yield debt often went till seven o'clock or later. And there were always people waiting for late calls, often from the West Coast.
Those guys were there for dinner, working until ten o'clock. But the key moment in the trading day came around 6:00 p.m., when all the traders had to present their profit/loss numbers to the pit bosses — in my case to Larry and Richard Gatward. Most days the traders had normal-looking balance sheets, not too drastic one way or the other. But losses were not loved at Lehman. And if you turned in a sheet with a drop of $500,000 on the day, that was trouble. The Lehman hotshots would be aware of that in a New York minute.
In a way, Lehman was run by a junta of platoon officers. They'd all learned the basics, but they'd also spent a lot of time in combat. I think of them as battle-hardened, iron-souled regulars, guys like Larry and Alex Kirk, Mike Gelband, Peter Schellbach, Richard Gatward, and Christine Daley. My new commanding general was missing, however. Not missing in action, you understand. Just plain old-fashioned missing, locked in some rarefied war room on the thirty-first floor, an unseen but apparently malevolent presence. His name was Richard S. Fuld Jr. As one of his new troop commanders, I looked forward to meeting this famous CEO. When I mentioned this possibility to Larry McCarthy, I recall him laughing, a touch sardonically, which was not all that unusual for him.
"That probably is not going to happen, buddy," he said. "I've never met him myself."
Huh? A managing director, the head of distressed-debt trading, had never met the CEO? Beat the hell out of me. But slowly in the coming weeks I learned about several unorthodox aspects of Fuld's character. I spoke to a few people who met him a couple of times a year. But there were a few guys who had never even seen him.
When Lehman's CEO arrived by limousine in the morning at a VIP entrance at the back of the building, his driver had already called ahead alerting the front desk in the lobby of his majesty's imminent arrival. The front-desk attendant then hit a button programming one of the elevators in the rear bank to go directly to the thirty-first floor. A security guard would then hold the elevator until Fuld's arrival. This was Fuld's private transport to the heavens, the one that preserved his godlike existence. Into this rarefied capsule he slipped silently, and was, in a way, beamed up to his somber mahogany-paneled office, far from the madding crowd. He left the building the same way, which was not, I thought naively, much of a way to keep your finger on the pulse.
"I hear he's a very defensive guy," said Larry.
"You mean he's paranoid?"
"Paranoid? Hell, no. He just thinks everyone's out to get him."
Which was, in case you hadn't noticed, vintage McCarthy.
There was, it seemed, no doubt that our spiritual leader and battlefield commander was an extremely remote and watchful character, surrounded by a close coterie of cronies, with almost no contact with anyone else. And I suppose that was fine so long as the place was chugging along without civil war or mutiny breaking out, and continuing to coin money, which is after all the prime objective of the merchant bank.
But I sensed there was something deeply disquieting about his strange wraith-like presence, this oddball demigod who ruled everyone's lives. Quite simply, people were afraid of him, even though they couldn't see him. And this was a fear based upon reputation, because through the years Fuld had fired many, many people, for a thousand different reasons. Popular local intelligence, however, suggested that the most prevalent way of incurring his rank displeasure was to be so clever that you threatened his power base. He worked within a tight palace guard, protected from the lower ranks, communicating only through his handpicked lieutenants. And as the years went by, Dick Fuld had tightened his circle, shutting out more and more key people from the downstairs floors where the daily action seethed, where the trading battles ebbed and flowed, where more critical information flew around than anywhere else in the city. That was the place from which he had, to all intents and purposes, removed himself. In the process, he had become separated from the most modern technology and the ultramodern trading of credit derivatives — CDO (collateralized debt obligations), RMBS (residential mortgage-backed securities), CLO (collateralized loan obligations), CDS (credit default swaps), and CMBS (commercial mortgage-backed securities).
Stories about long-departed commanders were legion. There were mind-blowing tales of the Fuld temper, secondhand accounts of his rages, threats, and vengeance. It was like hearing the life story of some caged lion. Tell the truth, I ended up feeling pretty darn glad I wasn't meeting him. There was something of the night about this guy, and it all dated back to the early part of the 1980s, when he and his chief cohort had not quite covered themselves in glory. In fact, he had been instrumental in one of the biggest screw-ups in Lehman's long history, and not surprisingly, there was a touch of Prince Machiavelli about the whole episode.
Excerpted from A Colossal Failure of Common Sense by Lawrence G. McDonald. Copyright © 2009 by Lawrence G. McDonald. Excerpted by permission of Crown Business. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Very good book, finished it today. Could hardly stand to put it down for more than a few minutes except to sleep. Decent education regarding financial instruments the bankers package to move debt around and how they make it look as if these instruments are actual assets rather than liabilities… taking from Peter to pay Paul. Every undergrad program in economics needs to have at the least, this one book on the ancillary reading list whether entry-level or upper-division.
McDonald gives a well-vetted account similar in depth to Suskind’s The Price of Loyalty in telling the unadulterated truth. This time, about the current melt-down of the so-called ‘global’ economy’. Praise to McDonald for exposing in every day language the colossal failure of common sense of those at the helm of a venerable merchant bank and the reason for its recent demise.
20:20:06 MST
Excerpt: 'A Colossal Failure of Common Sense'
by Lawrence G. McDonald
Lehman Brothers, like the great city beyond the massive glass windows, never slept. When the trading bell sounded on the New York Stock Exchange at four o'clock in the afternoon, a lot of equity guys packed up because there was nothing more for them to do. Bank debt and high-yield debt often went till seven o'clock or later. And there were always people waiting for late calls, often from the West Coast.
Those guys were there for dinner, working until ten o'clock. But the key moment in the trading day came around 6:00 p.m., when all the traders had to present their profit/loss numbers to the pit bosses — in my case to Larry and Richard Gatward. Most days the traders had normal-looking balance sheets, not too drastic one way or the other. But losses were not loved at Lehman. And if you turned in a sheet with a drop of $500,000 on the day, that was trouble. The Lehman hotshots would be aware of that in a New York minute.
In a way, Lehman was run by a junta of platoon officers. They'd all learned the basics, but they'd also spent a lot of time in combat. I think of them as battle-hardened, iron-souled regulars, guys like Larry and Alex Kirk, Mike Gelband, Peter Schellbach, Richard Gatward, and Christine Daley. My new commanding general was missing, however. Not missing in action, you understand. Just plain old-fashioned missing, locked in some rarefied war room on the thirty-first floor, an unseen but apparently malevolent presence. His name was Richard S. Fuld Jr. As one of his new troop commanders, I looked forward to meeting this famous CEO. When I mentioned this possibility to Larry McCarthy, I recall him laughing, a touch sardonically, which was not all that unusual for him.
"That probably is not going to happen, buddy," he said. "I've never met him myself."
Huh? A managing director, the head of distressed-debt trading, had never met the CEO? Beat the hell out of me. But slowly in the coming weeks I learned about several unorthodox aspects of Fuld's character. I spoke to a few people who met him a couple of times a year. But there were a few guys who had never even seen him.
When Lehman's CEO arrived by limousine in the morning at a VIP entrance at the back of the building, his driver had already called ahead alerting the front desk in the lobby of his majesty's imminent arrival. The front-desk attendant then hit a button programming one of the elevators in the rear bank to go directly to the thirty-first floor. A security guard would then hold the elevator until Fuld's arrival. This was Fuld's private transport to the heavens, the one that preserved his godlike existence. Into this rarefied capsule he slipped silently, and was, in a way, beamed up to his somber mahogany-paneled office, far from the madding crowd. He left the building the same way, which was not, I thought naively, much of a way to keep your finger on the pulse.
"I hear he's a very defensive guy," said Larry.
"You mean he's paranoid?"
"Paranoid? Hell, no. He just thinks everyone's out to get him."
Which was, in case you hadn't noticed, vintage McCarthy.
There was, it seemed, no doubt that our spiritual leader and battlefield commander was an extremely remote and watchful character, surrounded by a close coterie of cronies, with almost no contact with anyone else. And I suppose that was fine so long as the place was chugging along without civil war or mutiny breaking out, and continuing to coin money, which is after all the prime objective of the merchant bank.
But I sensed there was something deeply disquieting about his strange wraith-like presence, this oddball demigod who ruled everyone's lives. Quite simply, people were afraid of him, even though they couldn't see him. And this was a fear based upon reputation, because through the years Fuld had fired many, many people, for a thousand different reasons. Popular local intelligence, however, suggested that the most prevalent way of incurring his rank displeasure was to be so clever that you threatened his power base. He worked within a tight palace guard, protected from the lower ranks, communicating only through his handpicked lieutenants. And as the years went by, Dick Fuld had tightened his circle, shutting out more and more key people from the downstairs floors where the daily action seethed, where the trading battles ebbed and flowed, where more critical information flew around than anywhere else in the city. That was the place from which he had, to all intents and purposes, removed himself. In the process, he had become separated from the most modern technology and the ultramodern trading of credit derivatives — CDO (collateralized debt obligations), RMBS (residential mortgage-backed securities), CLO (collateralized loan obligations), CDS (credit default swaps), and CMBS (commercial mortgage-backed securities).
Stories about long-departed commanders were legion. There were mind-blowing tales of the Fuld temper, secondhand accounts of his rages, threats, and vengeance. It was like hearing the life story of some caged lion. Tell the truth, I ended up feeling pretty darn glad I wasn't meeting him. There was something of the night about this guy, and it all dated back to the early part of the 1980s, when he and his chief cohort had not quite covered themselves in glory. In fact, he had been instrumental in one of the biggest screw-ups in Lehman's long history, and not surprisingly, there was a touch of Prince Machiavelli about the whole episode.
Excerpted from A Colossal Failure of Common Sense by Lawrence G. McDonald. Copyright © 2009 by Lawrence G. McDonald. Excerpted by permission of Crown Business. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Very good book, finished it today. Could hardly stand to put it down for more than a few minutes except to sleep. Decent education regarding financial instruments the bankers package to move debt around and how they make it look as if these instruments are actual assets rather than liabilities… taking from Peter to pay Paul. Every undergrad program in economics needs to have at the least, this one book on the ancillary reading list whether entry-level or upper-division.
McDonald gives a well-vetted account similar in depth to Suskind’s The Price of Loyalty in telling the unadulterated truth. This time, about the current melt-down of the so-called ‘global’ economy’. Praise to McDonald for exposing in every day language the colossal failure of common sense of those at the helm of a venerable merchant bank and the reason for its recent demise.
Friday, July 24, 2009
July 24, 2009 GRCA, AZ
Reading another book by Childs... HOUSE of RAIN... and am better organized about the so-called ancestral puebloans/ anasazi... i am going to recruit a hiker/partner to trace the meridians discussed throught this important work.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
July 23,2009 Cline Library, NAU, Flagstaff, AZ
Chubasco weather has been beginning its buid-up of atmospheric energies. yesterday, the intense storms of about 5 PM, MST brought brief torrential downpours, lightning strikes and thunder.
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
July 21, 2009, Continued yoga journal--So. Rim, GRCA AZ
July 21, 2009, So. Rim
09:59:49 hours, MST, GRCA, AZ
“…The asana simultaneously teach us to stay with the matter at hand, while deconstructing the personality flaws that induced us to hide out in our imaginations in the first place….” (Rolf Gates)
My opinion regarding this sentiment follows the lines of …lose confidence and “act-as-if”….
Living in one’s imagination or living the way one “thinks’’ one “should”, or living “as-if” in public is the sure-fire method- to lose the value of living in the Moment.
Seems like the addicted lifestyle demands its adherents live life “as-if” and as one “should” keep up appearances to “fit-in”. As in living in one's imagination!
Are you fitting in? Have you gotten the message yet that the sub-division crowd and the big people and the big cars of America are all about keeping up pretenses? Are you living in your imagination?
We invest years in a moment, and then that moment passes and we must be willing to let it go, so as to be able to embrace the next moment. This is the adult way. This leaves no loop-hole to become ensnared by emotionally.
***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****
“In life we must learn not only how to live, but how to die well.”
Seneca
“This quote was my first introduction to the world of adult life. I was twenty-six when I read it, and although I had graduated from high school and college, had left the army and friends I’d made during difficult years, I had not yet grasped the cycle of life,
What Seneca taught me was that an adult lives many lives. We invest years in a moment, and then that moment passes and we must be willing to let it go, so as to be able to embrace the next moment. A study on longevity found that the common thread among those who live long is their ability to endure loss. This is the lesson of shavasana.We embrace a moment with all we have, and when the moment is over we step back and let go.”
Meditations from the Mat, Rolf Gates and Katrina Kenison
09:59:49 hours, MST, GRCA, AZ
“…The asana simultaneously teach us to stay with the matter at hand, while deconstructing the personality flaws that induced us to hide out in our imaginations in the first place….” (Rolf Gates)
My opinion regarding this sentiment follows the lines of …lose confidence and “act-as-if”….
Living in one’s imagination or living the way one “thinks’’ one “should”, or living “as-if” in public is the sure-fire method- to lose the value of living in the Moment.
Seems like the addicted lifestyle demands its adherents live life “as-if” and as one “should” keep up appearances to “fit-in”. As in living in one's imagination!
Are you fitting in? Have you gotten the message yet that the sub-division crowd and the big people and the big cars of America are all about keeping up pretenses? Are you living in your imagination?
We invest years in a moment, and then that moment passes and we must be willing to let it go, so as to be able to embrace the next moment. This is the adult way. This leaves no loop-hole to become ensnared by emotionally.
***** ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *****
“In life we must learn not only how to live, but how to die well.”
Seneca
“This quote was my first introduction to the world of adult life. I was twenty-six when I read it, and although I had graduated from high school and college, had left the army and friends I’d made during difficult years, I had not yet grasped the cycle of life,
death and rebirth that happens within a single lifetime.
What Seneca taught me was that an adult lives many lives. We invest years in a moment, and then that moment passes and we must be willing to let it go, so as to be able to embrace the next moment. A study on longevity found that the common thread among those who live long is their ability to endure loss. This is the lesson of shavasana.We embrace a moment with all we have, and when the moment is over we step back and let go.”
Meditations from the Mat, Rolf Gates and Katrina Kenison
Sunday, July 19, 2009
letting go of investments in the moment
July 19, 2009 Cline Library, NAU15:05:00 PDT, Flagstaff, AZ
…continued yoga journal;
We invest years in a moment and circumstances have a life all their own. A birthing, a lifeline or living, and then a death. All this occurs in a lifetime WHILE we are ALIVE.
Long ago I left friends from a complicated time as well as neighbors and some folks on some of the jobs where we met. The on-going ness of familial ties has a lifeline or living of its own, as well.
I have let go in this lifetime of wanting things different than they are and have adjusted with God’s help and some human aid to allowing things in my family to be just as they are.
What is different is that now I am ok with the difficulty that my family has with closeness and intimacy.
Instead of wanting them to change and pick up my offers to join-in with me, I am now ok with letting go of wanting them to be different. Letting go of complications has been the life long personal/Spiritual lesson learned well.
Long ago I left friends from a complicated time. Now I feel like I have let go of complicated family members from a difficult time. I tried being of useful service for some 20-25 years to no avail, now is the time to let go of them and that moment that I invested much time with.
A new moment is arriving. Remember, it is neither the journey nor the destination that matters most, but being OPEN to find what is in the next Moment seems to me to ring vital and has more import.
Trying to get people, family or folks at large to like you when they do not like you is a wasted effort and letting go of trying to do this is what the letting go is all about. After-all…why not spend time with folks that ALREADY do like you? Go figure on a spiritual lesson learned well.
Spent the past ten nights living in the tent out on the forest service-line on the Arizona Trail. Days have been spent walking the BA and Kaibab Trails… to date 82 miles.
Living out-of-doors and walls leaves nothing to be desired.
I enjoy not living INSIDE. The lone male elk has been calling, bugling and bellowing under cover of the stars. A green hummingbird checked me out yesterday at day break. I like being around in the outside; in the great Ponderosa forest of the Mogollon Rim in No. AZ and do not lament for an instant the amenities afforded in middle-class America.
Am on a break today and am happier for it. See? It is the moment that Janis Joplin talked about in the 60’s, the moment that Naparsteck referred to concerning Childs’ work and of course the work Gate’s has been up to, not forget Bill Wilson too.Fretting about the other 364 days leaves us alone in our misery and dis-conjoined from this moment.
Thank you my friends for reading my soliloquy today.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
July 5,2009
Continued yoga journal…
Craig Childs helps us understand that it is neither the journey nor the destination that is most important but rather what it is you are willing to find. Those most open, like Childs, find their souls.”
Martin Naparsteck, Salt Lake Tribune
Martin Naparsteck, Salt Lake Tribune
From Rolf Gates and Katrina Kenison’s Meditations from the Mat:
“What we need to do is to recognize Inner Nature and work with Things As They Are. When we don’t, we get into trouble.”
Benjamin Hoff
“Desire is the wish for things to be not as they are. What is wrong with that? In a culture that reveres progress, working with things as they are sounds depressingly like fatalism. Did Martin Luther King Jr. work with things as they are? Did Helen Keller work with things as they are? Did Rocky? [the movie] Well, yes, they did, actually. Dwelling in the real, individuals who accomplish great deeds demonstrate what is possible, demonstrate how things are. There is nothing fatalistic about working with things as they are. Fatalism begins when we leave the present, when we forsake the real in favor of our imaginations. Within the real lie the seeds of all our dreams. As we accept and connect with the postures that are hard for us, we find the understanding that leads to mastery. That is working with things as they are.”Gently I go forth…
Do you believe as I have over many years now that ‘fatalism’ leads one into a sense of unconscious acting-up or playing –out a scene with an ingrained automatic behavior pattern looking pretty much like desperateness?
Fa·tal·ism n.
1. The doctrine that all events are predetermined by fate and are therefore unalterable.
2. Acceptance of the belief that all events are predetermined and inevitable.
Sometimes I become for sake of this discussion, distressed, distracted and anxious with a sprinkle over the whole she-bang― a degree of upset ness― with things seemingly not going-to-go the way I hallucinated or had a vision that circumstances should or worse yet, imagined they would.
This living in the future serves to re-enforce that things as they are not fair at least.
and at most―my imagination tells me, rather the ego inside the brain… that magical meatball up there, that because things are not fair, that THEY ARE WRONG and I deserve A BREAK.
This is laughable when engaged in working with things as they appear and practice being Here Now. As Ram Dass titled his book after his stroke years ago, I am Still Here.
The American-Consumer-Culture inculcates this into those acculturated into this society. It is something that I am trying to practice…this being not to react to the so-called consumer-demands that seems so natural but diametrically opposed to working with things as they are especially in the ‘market-place’. For me this seems to occur most often in the consumer venues where corporations rarely bend their profit motives to haggle or give the so-called “break.”
I welcome your comments and opinions regarding your practice and progress on this point considering Naparsteck’s quotation and the meditation reading above.
Inculcate tr.v.
1. To impress (something) upon the mind of another by frequent instruction or repetition; instill.
2. To teach (others) by frequent instruction or repetition; indoctrinate.
How can I break the pattern of fitting into this culture while continuing to live here?
Do you suppose there is more haggling over in Somalia or Yemen?
What is that culture about? Thank you for the chance to continue my yoga journal with you looking over my shoulder!
“What we need to do is to recognize Inner Nature and work with Things As They Are. When we don’t, we get into trouble.”
Benjamin Hoff
“Desire is the wish for things to be not as they are. What is wrong with that? In a culture that reveres progress, working with things as they are sounds depressingly like fatalism. Did Martin Luther King Jr. work with things as they are? Did Helen Keller work with things as they are? Did Rocky? [the movie] Well, yes, they did, actually. Dwelling in the real, individuals who accomplish great deeds demonstrate what is possible, demonstrate how things are. There is nothing fatalistic about working with things as they are. Fatalism begins when we leave the present, when we forsake the real in favor of our imaginations. Within the real lie the seeds of all our dreams. As we accept and connect with the postures that are hard for us, we find the understanding that leads to mastery. That is working with things as they are.”Gently I go forth…
Do you believe as I have over many years now that ‘fatalism’ leads one into a sense of unconscious acting-up or playing –out a scene with an ingrained automatic behavior pattern looking pretty much like desperateness?
Fa·tal·ism n.
1. The doctrine that all events are predetermined by fate and are therefore unalterable.
2. Acceptance of the belief that all events are predetermined and inevitable.
Sometimes I become for sake of this discussion, distressed, distracted and anxious with a sprinkle over the whole she-bang― a degree of upset ness― with things seemingly not going-to-go the way I hallucinated or had a vision that circumstances should or worse yet, imagined they would.
This living in the future serves to re-enforce that things as they are not fair at least.
and at most―my imagination tells me, rather the ego inside the brain… that magical meatball up there, that because things are not fair, that THEY ARE WRONG and I deserve A BREAK.
This is laughable when engaged in working with things as they appear and practice being Here Now. As Ram Dass titled his book after his stroke years ago, I am Still Here.
The American-Consumer-Culture inculcates this into those acculturated into this society. It is something that I am trying to practice…this being not to react to the so-called consumer-demands that seems so natural but diametrically opposed to working with things as they are especially in the ‘market-place’. For me this seems to occur most often in the consumer venues where corporations rarely bend their profit motives to haggle or give the so-called “break.”
I welcome your comments and opinions regarding your practice and progress on this point considering Naparsteck’s quotation and the meditation reading above.
Inculcate tr.v.
1. To impress (something) upon the mind of another by frequent instruction or repetition; instill.
2. To teach (others) by frequent instruction or repetition; indoctrinate.
How can I break the pattern of fitting into this culture while continuing to live here?
Do you suppose there is more haggling over in Somalia or Yemen?
What is that culture about? Thank you for the chance to continue my yoga journal with you looking over my shoulder!
Friday, July 3, 2009
July 3, 2009 Grand County Library Moab, UT
July 3.2009
The warmest days of the season are yet to approach although this past week saw low 100's and just a sheet for covers at night.
The warmest days of the season are yet to approach although this past week saw low 100's and just a sheet for covers at night.
I like living OUTSIDE better than living tween walls of a bedroom in middle class housing.
The down side? Yes, testing the patience with the torturing gnats and little black flies .
Cleaned-up the camera inner workings with expert help from a pretty good meeting goer...Lynn Ross... he helped me out just when I needed it and I didn't have to ask. His abilities were a God-send!
Will post some teaser images for you to enjoy.
thank you, my friends.
The down side? Yes, testing the patience with the torturing gnats and little black flies .
Cleaned-up the camera inner workings with expert help from a pretty good meeting goer...Lynn Ross... he helped me out just when I needed it and I didn't have to ask. His abilities were a God-send!
Will post some teaser images for you to enjoy.
thank you, my friends.
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