Easy Bake Coven 2

2008-07-16T14:54:00.001-04:00

From the blog Mindfulness by Frank Ostaseski:

A while back, I developed five precepts as companions on the journey of accompanying the dying.

Perhaps they have relevance in other dimensions of life and can offer some inspiration and guidance. I think of these as five bottomless practices that can be continually explored and deepened. They are not linear and have no value as theories or concepts. To be understood and realized, they have to be lived into and communicated through action.

The First Precept: Welcome Everything. Push Away Nothing

In welcoming everything, we don’t have to like what’s arising. It’s actually not our job to approve or disapprove. It’s our task to trust, to listen, and to pay careful attention to the changing experience. At the deepest level, we are being asked to cultivate a kind of fearless receptivity.This is a journey of continuous discovery in which we will always be entering new territory. We have no idea how it will turn out, and it takes courage and flexibility. We find a balance. The journey is a mystery we need to live into, opening, risking, and forgiving constantly.

The Second Precept: Bring Your Whole Self to the Experience.

In the process of healing others and ourselves we open to both our joy and fear. In the service of this healing we draw on our strength and helplessness, our wounds and passion to discover a meeting place with the other. Professional warmth doesn’t heal. It is not our expertise but the exploration of our own suffering that enables us to be of real assistance. That’s what allows us to touch another human being’s pain with compassion instead of with fear and pity. We have to invite it all in. We can’t travel with others in territory that we haven’t explored ourselves. It is the exploration of our own inner life that enables us to form an empathetic bridge to the other person.

The Third Precept: Don’t Wait.

Patience is different than waiting. When we wait, we are full of expectations. When we’re waiting, we miss what this moment has to offer. Worrying or strategizing about what the future holds for us, we miss the opportunities that are right in front of us. Waiting for the moment of death, we miss so many moments of living. Don’t wait. If there’s someone you love, tell him or her that you love them. Allow the precarious nature of this life to show you what’s most important then enter fully.

The Fourth Precept: Find a Place of Rest in the Middle of Things.

We often think of rest as something that will come when everything else is complete, like when we go on a holiday or when our work is done. We imagine that we can only find rest by changing the conditions of our life. But it is possible to discover rest right in the middle of chaos. It is experienced when we bring our full attention, without distraction, to this moment, to this activity. This place of rest is always available. We need only turn toward it. It’s an aspect of us that’s never sick, is not born, and does not die.

The Fifth Precept: Cultivate Don’t-Know Mind.

This describes a mind that’s open and receptive. A mind that’s not limited by agendas, roles and expectations. The great Zen teacher Suzuki Roshi, was fond of saying, “In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.”

From this vantage point we realize that “not knowing is most intimate.” Understanding this we stay very close to the experience allowing the situation itself to inform our actions. We listen carefully to our own inner voice, sensing our urges, trusting our intuition. We learn to look with fresh eyes.

2008-06-12T19:50:00.002-04:00

Activists forced out of 'Peaceland'

Radar protesters held by police after forming an independent state

Greenpeace activists who declared an independent state called Peaceland at the site of the planned U.S. radar base at the Brdy military area were detained June 9 when military police cleared the area of their encampment.

By press time, five demonstrators had been taken to the police station in Příbram. Some were removed from trees, where they had been manning surveillance platforms.
The activists had occupied the location since April 28 to protest the proposed base. On June 2, they’d decided that a declaration establishing an independent state would be their next attempt to get the attention of government officials. [More...]

2007-10-16T16:17:00.002-04:00

Quote For Today

Love the earth and sun and animals,
Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,
Stand up for the stupid and crazy,
Devote your income and labor to others...
And your very flesh shall be a great poem.

~Walt Whitman

THIS IS A TEST POST!!

2006-11-01T00:34:00.001-05:00

With more than 300 publications in 85 countries, read by more than 100 million people each month, IDG is the world's leading publisher of computer magazines and newspapers including PC World, Computerworld, InfoWorld, CIO, Macworld, and Network World global product lines.

IDG.com has contacted me to interview me for one of their publications about the problems with Blogger.

I said, "Sure. What do you want to know?"

I've sounded off in Google's Blogger Help forums for over a week now, so I guess he saw my contact info there. I can't get Blogger to respond to my repeated inquiries, so maybe this will get their attention. There are many more Blogger folks with trouble, too. If you're sailing smoothly through Blogger, count yourself lucky.

2006-10-30T21:39:00.001-05:00

GREY GARDENS

A paper bird sits in a rusty gilded birdcage by the window in one of the 28 rambling rooms in Grey Gardens by the shore. We watch Little Edie place a loaf of bread onto the attic floor for the raccoon that crawls out from behind the wall and heartily digs in.

With no running water and cat feces everywhere in this dilapidated house, Little Edie always managed to dress each day in one of her "revolutionary costumes". She would knot up a turban and wear makeshift skirts with a lovely brooch decorating her daily headgear, always in high heels, and red lipstick. Under the skirt were hose. Always. Color: Suntan.

After all, socialites must look presentable.

Are you a "staunch woman?" Does your "best costume for the day" involve a moth-bitten sweater wrapped around your head and pinned with a jeweled brooch? If so, you're likely a devotee of Grey Gardens, the 1975 documentary about an elderly society mother and her aging daughter living in isolated squalor in an East Hampton, NY, mansion. The film, which fixates on the day-to-day insanities of Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter, 'Little Edie' (the now-deceased aunt and cousin, respectively, of Jackie O), has acquired an enormous cult following over the past 30 years, mainly due to the extreme eccentricity and campy joie de vivre of the women. Nowhere is this popularity more apparent than in last spring's loving adaption of the film to an off-Broadway musical, starring Christine Ebersole in the roles of both the elder and younger Edies (in separate acts). Ebersole entranced sold-out crowds during that first run, and now her powerhouse portrayal will hit the big time when Grey Gardens opens at the Walter Kerr Theatre on Broadway opening night November 2.

Related:
* Fansite
* Documentary
* Yahoo Group
* The Musical

2006-10-28T11:43:00.001-04:00

saturday morning me//
hazelnut coffee #2/g-blonde #8,544,711,026, cough/
quesadilla/orange juice/
long maroon dress/black shawl/
black cloche keeping my head warm/
tights AND sox & my dingos/
listening to: devendra on shuffle/
so how about you?/

2006-10-27T17:16:00.001-04:00

Skybrows

My beautiful daughter.

She's shaved off her eyebrows again.

Now she draws them on.

Why does she do this? Ha!

I never had any eyebrows.

They've always been so, so light.

She's going to creatively draw them on for Halloween.

She always makes me smile. I love you, Skyler. With or without eyebrows.

2006-10-26T17:06:00.001-04:00

I've spent this week vollying back and forth with my server people and Blogger people and crusing the google blogger help troubleshoot section. So frustrating that I can't publish since Friday, Oct 20, to my Easy Bake Coven site. Not that I have anything to report, but not knowing when I'll have that capability again. I'm paid up for my domain name, I should be able to use it. Blogger is currently fixing something else today. If that doesn't do the trick, I'll keep posting here until I can get WordPress or something else. Damn.