A test posting

A test posting...

The following is an excerpt from Switching Off Autopilot: A Taoist Perspective on Mindfulness. It gives a tongue in cheek look at the Autopilot...

The book is available in full at http://www.lulu.com/content/1120909

The Four Little Pigs

They were born long ago now, but the real story is that there were actually Four Little Piggies: two sets of twin piglets.

It was quite gruesome, unfortunately, but right after the four were born the Big Bad Wolf gobbled down both their parents. Life in the Neanderthal Time Fast Lane... The young ones scampered for their lives. Dom and Vicky were the older twins names. The younger pair chose even more unusual monikers. Bridge was thus third out of the four. The last little piggy’s name got lost in the scramble to escape the Wolf. It’s nickname soon became Sleepy.

No Pig Parents meant only minimal scraps of love to go around - this was right back at the beginning of Pig History, you see. Given their circumstances, they were in deep trouble from the get go. The fearsome Wolf soon started threatening to control their lives. Quite pertinent to our theme here, the young pigs had four different types of reactions.

1. Older by a few seconds than his twin sister, Dom figured out pretty quickly what to do - adrenaline would work... “I know how to fix his clock, I’ll beat him at his own game. Life with Wolfie around won’t be nice, it’s true. But his style works. All I have to do is Dominate all the other piggies and I’ll be fine. A nice 10,000 square foot home in brick, a Hummer each for me and the wifey and I’ll have him beat quite nicely!” Later he was heard to brag to his younger siblings: “It’s an easy choice, pardners. You’re either with us or agin us.”

2. Next, although she had the same close to human DNA and was born almost on Dom’s rump, Vicky had the reverse hormonal reaction. She wanted to run - yet shrank into herself and cried. She knew the wolf would come and beat down Any Door, Any House where she tried to live. Depressed, defeated and knowing she’d always be The Victim, she decided then and there to work as a servant at Dom’s house - or else for the Wolf whenever he required it.

She soon developed an excellent internal radar system. It worked perfectly. Set in place in her tummy, it constantly searched for Dom and Wolfie’s weapons of Mutually Assured Destruction. Not an easy life, but Vicky soon knew who she should serve when.

3. When Bridge had arrived, the active part of the second twin set, there’d been confusion as to her or his gender. The few minutes birthing delay did make a difference, though. It gave Bridge more Perspective to be sure. Looking around, she/ he could see partial merit to both the first twins types of reactions. All the same, the devastation from Dom seemed Really Crazy and Vicky’s answer didn’t appear much better. Earnest to set things right, Bridge searched for a whole Long, Pooh type Hour for a solution. It finally came, even before the genome was fully mapped: Compromise.

From that point on there was no stopping this Bridger. Messianic, using a vast array of Normalizing Beliefs, he/ she got to Work. Ignoring differences between Dom, Vick, Wolf and even his younger twin Sleepy, Bridge began to make a Superficially Okay World out of that previous chaos. Grace had to be molded from these circumstances, terrible as they were. The Search for the Good was On.

None of the others really understood, but Bridge KNEW what was right. All the other piggies and players on the surface of the planet would eventually get along nicely together. Bridge would make sure of it. They Had to All Get Along: there was No Other Solution. Meaning well - yet being delusional - certainly guilty, anxious, worried, somatizing all manner of ills, Bridge is still working hard in each of us all these years later.

4. Born last and passive on this prehuman scene, you can guess how Sleepy solved all this insanity, right? You got it. Sleepy knew what to do: Get drunk at that place down the street - The Pig Trough. Alcoholics Anonymous meetings were soon required by Bridge, yes, but Sleepy just went to the next level of denial. “Piece of cake” as some far distant British ancestors would say...

Sleepy’s Problems were now soon All Resolved on Ativan, shopping or Reality TV addiction, Prozac, Caffeine (or some of that nice cake!) Stoned, asleep or addicted in some other happy way whenever the pain and craziness got too close, Sleepy knew Nirvana was Here, collected together in Dom's nice version of Consumerville. Those high rental rates were just the price you had to pay. Black Angry Humour R Us...

This was prehistory and all four pigs never got to hear of Plato’s cave, of course. They never imagined they might be living in such a place. Their world was Dualistic and that was an end to it.

That they live on in your body and awareness is not a problem, right? More Conscious? How could any of us in modern times accuse them within us of not being awake, each in their own way? Mindful, Hah! Even advanced by ten thousand years here, how can you possibly be mindful, balanced in any more basic way than the life stance choices they made so long ago?

In this Now moment, then, even as an up to date Human, you believe you only have those four options. Like formulaic Aspects to your awareness options, you fear that you can only Dominantly Enact, Victimly Avoid, Bridge or Sleep through Fear’s Wolfish Reality any day you spend on the planet.

Don’t these metascripts/ Aspects sound familiar? There are combo versions too: they cover for each other. How could there be other options? Ahhh, there’s the point of this book. We do know somewhere within us that balance and mindfulness are the answers. We may even have heard of the Tao. Aspects we’ve come to see as ‘who we are’ will perhaps have heard of such. The problem is in the application...

CONNECTING?

Well, I bought this little Palm handheld computer you see - and the addiction has continued from there.
It allows me to check email and surf the web through a wi-fi connection to the internet and thus also end up with what is witten here...
Do we/you/ I Need to be more Electronically Connected?
I don't think so... I think it's you and me actually attempting to be Etherically Connected!!!

test postfrom handheld

Twilight tones

So I have finally reached the point of returning here... had spent much time on the Freedomassociates.net site.

This afternoon was spent with three decidedly non-normal guys who made waiting for them to fix my car's air-conditioning quite worthwhile.

So if you have car problems and are in London, Ontario - I can highly recommend the Midas on Florence. Thank you to Andrew, Steve and Rick...

I mentioned the books on the 'Ringing Cedars of Russia' to Steve. It may look on that page that it is about selling cedar products but if you download some of the free chapters on the books pages you'll get an idea of what it is about. There have been 10 million (!) of the books about this woman's views on life published in Russia alone. So I would also recommend this series to anyone else that is concerned about the state of our planet... how caught our species has become with a technocracy that is oriented to keeping us addicted - unable to find the real joys in simplicity and connection with each other and all the layers of Nature... For more of that see my BEEing page

Walk Calmly

Walk CALMLY while Ignoring

The Royal Opposition 

Wouldn't this make church more fun?

Wouldn't some of these have made church more fun?

Church Announcements on Typewriters: … Thank God for unconscious humour. We could all do with more of these instances to remind us not to take ourselves so seriously!

These sentences actually appeared in church bulletins or were announced in church services…

1. Bertha Belch, a missionary from Africa, will be speaking tonight at Calvary Methodist. Come hear Bertha Belch all the way from Africa.

2. Announcement in a church bulletin for a national PRAYER & FASTING Conference:
"The cost for attending the Fasting & Prayer Conference includes meals."

3. The sermon this morning: "Jesus Walks on the Water." The sermon tonight: "Searching for Jesus."

4. "Ladies, don't forget the rummage sale. It's a chance to get rid of those things not worth keeping around the house. Don't forget your husbands."

5. The peacemaking meeting scheduled for today has been canceled due to a conflict.

6. Remember in prayer the many who are sick of our community. Smile at someone who is hard to love. Say "Hell" to someone who doesn't care much about you.

7. Don't let worry kill you off- let the Church help.

8. Miss Charlene Mason sang, "I will not pass this way again," giving obvious pleasure to the congregation.

9. For those of you who have children and don't know it, we have a nursery downstairs.

10. Next Thursday there will be tryouts for the choir. They need all the help they can get.

11. Barbara remains in the hospital and needs blood donors for more transfusions. She is also having trouble sleeping and requests tapes of Pastor Jack's sermons.

12. The Rector will preach his farewell message after which the choir will sing:
"Break Forth Into Joy."

13. Irving Benson and Jessie Carter were married on October 24th in the church. So ends a friendship that began in their school days.

14. A bean supper will be held on Tuesday evening in the church hall. Music will follow.

15. At the evening service tonight, the sermon topic will be "What Is Hell?" Come early and listen to our choir practice.

16. Eight new choir robes are currently needed due to the addition of several new members and to the deterioration of some older ones.

17. Scouts are saving aluminum cans, bottles and other items to be recycled. Proceeds will be used to cripple children.

18. Please place your donation in the envelope along with the deceased person you want remembered.

19. Attend our next Church Hall Meeting and you will hear an excellent speaker and heave a healthy lunch.

20. The church will host an evening of fine dining, superb entertainment, and gracious hostility.

21. Potluck supper Sunday at 5:00 PM - prayer and medication to follow.

22. The ladies of the Church have cast off clothing of every kind. They may be seen in the basement on Friday afternoon.

23. This evening at 7 PM there will be a hymn sing in the park across from the Church. Bring a blanket and come prepared to sin.

24. Ladies Bible Study will be held Thursday morning at 10 AM. All ladies are invited to lunch in the Fellowship Hall after the B.S. is done.

25. The pastor would appreciate it if the ladies of the congregation would lend him their electric girdles for the pancake breakfast next Sunday.

26. Our new Low Self Esteem Support Group will meet Thursday at 7 PM. Please use the back door.

27. The eighth-graders will be presenting Shakespeare's Hamlet in the Church basement Friday at 7 PM. The congregation is invited to attend this tragedy.

28. Weight Watchers will meet at 7 PM at the First Presbyterian Church. Please use large double door at the side entrance.

29. The Associate Minister unveiled the church's new tithing campaign slogan last Sunday: "I Upped My Pledge - Up Yours."

Some Times

 
 

Some times...

Sometimes things look backward to us when we are not far enough away from something…

 

Last but not least, a real Grandfather.

 
 

More Fall...

 
 

Fallllllll

 
 

So. Here's three offspring and partners, one a husband that day...

 
 

Now

Well, long time no write - dunno how to be right in what I write :)

Will post a picture on Friday instead - it may say at least five hundred words, right?

Spaciness

Spaciness heretoday. It beats depression (!) I just wrote a 'spacey' comment to Richard Lawrence Cohen...


"Here's one former British student of yours reading your blog from a time in the spaciness of his lunch hour. He's reading these pixels which pass for ink marks while waiting for his next psychotherapy client to arrive after his lunch.

The depression (this guy I'll call me) can sometimes experience is slightly less today. Last week at a shamanic dreaming workshop we saw this-elf (for just a short refreshing while...) to be Celestial Dragon Circling, flying serenely 'above', grounded down to a Bearbeing(!) If the 'imp'-ortant elf that passes for my SUPER ego were to query the self writing back to Richardhere, then Celestial Dragon can now reply: "How am I Really? Floating along through skyground keyboard, thanks... aware of walking through Gaiamud, yet feeling mysky now."

I think I prefer to be out of that former depressing school I thought you wanted me in.

The 'English CLASS thing' your Progenitors 'raised' me in was just too Muddy - what's more it had no Sky or class...

Thank you and Bless you Richard,

Barry"

number two...

Two reflections.

The fuzziness of minute life is a trip.

An enigmatic element of life...

So Folks... Will we ever see this kind of beach day again? The sky in this shot - rounded by the semi fisheye lens - always strikes me as giving the same emotional experience as if the sky goes on forever... which it does.

and more.

more

The urban view can be colourful, scant, enigmatic or dreary: here's hoping we find a way over time to make it more joyful...

These images were some of how my intervening time has been spent...

LLLLllllllong time no post

This ain't black and white... Interesting - because even in my most depressed times this intensity of colour photograph will still make it part way through my depression - in other words, 'in spite' of the part of me that 'wants' to turn such a vibrancy into blacknwhite...

Given what I just wrote, I HAD to repost this.

A friend of mine struggles with depression - the way I see so many people doing - the same way I do it myself :>( ... We FOCUS on what is seemingly Right in Front of US. In the case of this picture of our 'outside dining table' ( ! ) this means focusing on black and white options for putting self/Self in This Box or That Box. To quote my friend:
"The self limitations of emotions, be it anger / depression /guilt / anxiety or fear can be as debilitating as any addiction or life threatening disease. Feelings of being a complete failure can lead to and result in a powerful journey to self destruction."

He then admitted to: "struggling now on how to continue with this discussion, battling with screams on how it must be done perfectly. I am allowing a reprieve, to attempt to shift to a part of me that is content with muddling along this journey..." To me, that "muddling along" he's speaking of [trying not to be judging himself about] is actually the "Pearl of Great Price" - i.e. that is exactly the way it feels - 'muddling through' the battlefield of giving oneself permission not to be just looking at the immediate blacknwhite non-choices in front of us - but giving myself permission to look up into the greenery of the trees or the blue of the sky above or the warmth of a Spring Sun - which, I stilllll predict - will get to us sometime about now... Blessing All Our Connections, Barry

So this is how I wish it looked here now. I dunno about anyone else but I think I'm just about done with winter. This path in the woods behind where I used to work was a major source of replenishment/rejeuvenation during the warm months. Going out there during my lunch break was consistently healing, even if the sun was not shining as in this shot... but the sun did and will make a big difference - it does even while we still have all this snow. More scheduled for the next couple of days too... :<(
The depressingness of the winter Will Pass, folks, I Declare it so...