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Archive for the ‘Tao’ Category

7-2

Sitting in silence, I sometimes get a visit from voices from the past. Always when I am on my computer at my work station, I get unwanted ads and visuals about – aging and how to look younger, … I ask myself, what is the obsession with looking younger, we are born to grow and unfold into the beautiful energies we become. In nature, the fruit trees, the flowers, perennials, they come back in the spring looking young and fresh, they blossom with beautiful flowers, then some share/ give us their bounty, visuals can be breath taking, and the taste delight on our tongues… hmmmmmm.

Have you lost “simplicity” in your life?

Are you still trying to “find” your”Self”?

What do you see when you look in the mirror? I greet the “me” I’ve become most mornings when I begin my day, and again at night when I say “goodnight”… Have you taken stock of “YOU” today, Do you “like” the person that looks back at you when you face a mirror.

Be big hearted. In fact, what you are concerned about might be something you don’t need to be concerned about. Interact with people without worrying too much

Perfect Liberty 2023.02

staying calm

— We may not be able to change those around us – but we can change our reaction to them —

When we encounter a situation or “person” that creates in us a negative or upsetting reaction, pause, take a moment to reassess your reaction. We all have moments where we have to readjust our “thinking/reaction” to a colleague, in-law, family member, whoever could be a total stranger. This is an exercise in becoming more adept at communicating from a position of awareness rather than one of defensiveness.

Develop new ideas through your imagination -softly and flexibly. If you could find a way to add a twist you will have more joy,

Perfect Liberty 2023.28

photo Shriey Keen, NZ

Doorways

Today I’m starting with doorways of places visited by friends Nick and Mel who are travelling/exploring and visiting with family in Europe. We see similar impressive entrances in our older buildings here in Canada when we visit bigger cities, and/or ones that have been around for a very long time.

This group of doors I took while on a scenic tour of a tourist destination in Ontario, about an hour plus from where I live. Out of interest, which doorways would draw your attention, the big wooden doors in huge impressive fortress type buildings, or the colourful and charming doors in older commercial buildings in small towns.??

Discover something new today. Have a willingness and an interest, start your day with excitement.

Perfect Liberty 2023.22

For more doors visit Dan’s No Facilities site… where you will find doors from all corners of the globe. This feature happens very Thursday (most anyway) https://nofacilities.com/2023/06/22/june-leftovers-2/

now..19th

The turning point is now. life is a sequence of moments called now. You have the key to turn yourself around.

Perfect Liberty 2023.19

After many days, weeks and months, these two turkeys are comfortable enough with me to sit beside me on the fence and simply BE. They acknowledge that I’m an “energy” that they “know” shares space in their environment from time to time. I respect their space and they mine.

I have reached a stage in my life where I thrive on quiet, a contented state of “being” … I try to have my first interaction of the day a happy one. I remind myself of the positives in my life. Knowing that I can walk peacefully in a wilderness… where coyotes wander, rabbits join me for walks, birds of every size and colour go about their business while calling out greetings to each other … yesterday I heard and saw an “odd couple” of gulls bickering and arguing not far from where I was having lunch. In the morning I watched as a turkey vulture swooped down gliding on a current over and past my car as I drove down to P23. He landed on a tall tree where I could see him clearly .. but too far for me to get a decent picture with my cell phone.

What pleased me, I had stopped the car, my window down I called out a greeting… and he stayed in place and didn’t fly away. That was a stunning moment! These moments in time, happen because I have made the woodland part of my everyday … I do my best to simply BE … I let the energy around me happen, I try to blend in to allow life to happen.

When I was teaching meditation active/passive… I often encountered students who when asked why they wanted to meditate replied, they wanted to connect with “themselves”.. still the chattering of the mind… if the mind is constantly charging through all the “to do’s” and filtering through past events, holding on to old grudges…. your aura, personal energy will be exhausted and cluttered in no time.

Even if it is a few minutes of each day that you set aside for YOU…. you will find that YOUR personal well being will thrive. Your inner feelings are like rivers of lava, emotions can be like a volcano, they bubble under the surface…waiting for the time they can flow hot and searing with their own momentum… It is in letting go that the emotions will lose their heat ..cool and no longer be damaging and dangerous.

Today, zero in on one “thought” “thing” that is cluttering your mind.. and lose it. Less clutter (negativity) will help you stay calm.

Oyashikiri

16 = 7

Colouring, an art form that I love to enjoy visually but realized a long time ago, that this skill was not in my bag of tricks. MY friend Awen who is a genius with a colour palette never ceases to amaze me with her delightful little art pieces. She send me this little fox a few years back, every once in awhile I come across it and it always … ALWAYS makes me smile. She was learning to blend water colour pencils using a wet paint brush. Even that .. I remember being so thrilled with her little gift to me, and the way she was able to take a pencil and blend the colours like she did… that I went out and bought several sets of water colour pencils. I tried, I truly did… but finally I had to face the fact, yes I could colour, but in no way did I have the patience or the necessary “talent” to get the results I wanted.

Another example of my thinking that if I had the tools I can reproduce or do anything. Not true. it is like the time I wanted to try oil painting (my Mom painted in oils)… I lacked the patience to work with oils .. over the years my reality is I like immediate satisfaction/results from the tools that I work with. example, I love multi media products, especially acrylics and the pastes,waxes and powders that allow the artist in me to create in 2, and 3D .. I like texture and form. I want hills, valleys, shadows, lumps, bumps, swirls. I create and express my visuals in abstract.

We all have a need to express ourselves, and each and everyone of us will do so in a different way. If you are like me, you never repeat something exactly the same ..each piece has to be unique to “itself”

Make the best use of materials and money. You can do different things as materials and money play their roles. How to make them work is important.

Perfect Liberty 2023.16

No two people are alike, nor do they express themselves in the same way. Our form of expression is unique to us.. what is the same and the common thread, is the need to have the ability and outlet to express ourselves. WE all have our own way of expressing ourselves. Do you know what yours is?

listening

Friends are visiting overseas. Nick knows my love of doors and interesting architecture, he sent this along yesterday. Today with the pouring rain and dull overcast sky … I looked at the window and felt a longing to linger … let the sounds of the far away city and the ambience carry me away … Ever wonder what it would be like to drift silently along, passing open windows … hearing snitches of conversation float past you… it would be nice to just let the mind wander and rest on a thought here and there, not focus on anything but ” being present” to whatever vibrations/energy comes your way.

With so many of us dealing with a multiple myriad of “possibilities” every day… taking a breather is so important. I overheard two people talking the other day about their pending holiday. “it will great, we leave at X time, then IF our connections work out, we will travel approximately another 10 hours, before landing in XX and from there we shuttle for another hour… ” I found myself shaking my head and thinking… so much time in transit… I hoped that after all of that, they would have allotted plenty of time for chilling before making that same journey back.

It is wonderful that we can now get to almost any corner of the globe. But no one has yet been able to convince me that cramming thousands of miles in a short period of time is “restful”… especially when often times we have only a limited amount of time to be on “holiday”. Guess I’ll be an arm chair traveller for some time… I love hearing about the travel exploits of friends, but for now.. I will let them stand in lines, go through customs run for connections, sleep in strange beds, rush from one tourist attraction to another. Yep… I’m in another “zone”.

Others are others, and I am I. If you force your values about anything on others, it can be self righteous. Don’t be overeager and have a sense of “others are others. I am I”

Perfect Liberty 2023.13 (English translation done in Japan)

Let’s look at and listen to others with an open mind. your judgment becomes clouded when you look t a situation or person with preconceived notions. Observe them for what they actually are.

Perfect Liberty 2012.27

where am I

What happens when you know you are awake, but you think you are sleeping, or vice versa. Is there a name for this condition. I was actually having a discussion with Velcro (male whippet) about his food intake, and whether or not the food was fresh.. I know.. scintillating conversation,but it seemed to me (at the time) that the discussion was heartfelt.

I must have gone to bed and gotten up again a dozen times yesterday. Not because I was tired and couldn’t stay awake, but because, my body wanted to lie down. With the poor air quality of the past week, I was still out and about. one day we walked the boardwalk to identify the planks that needed replacing. The NCC take safety seriously, the next day we went back and replaced a couple of the damaged boards and secured others that were not secured and wobbly. Yesterday I went back on my own and picked up the boards we were not able to carry the day before and carried them back to the parking lot to be dealt with Monday when the mtc. staff are back.

There were no problems, in fact I felt good at having accomplished the tidy up on my own. Obviously my brain and my body were not on the same page. (it does happen) The city rated # 1 for worst air quality (in the world) on one of the days that I was out …. I don’t know where I got the idea that I was invincible, but yesterday I got a healthy dose of “wake up” … I wanted to know from nothing, I ate, slept, ate some more and lay down again. I did try to watch the silly box, but it was a failed attempt at being interested.

Here is one of my gems of wisdom… that came into my brain while the fog was clearing. my aching arthritis in my thumb joints… as I lay there thinking about what a pain it was having to deal with the “aging body” and my throbbing thumb joint. Like an insert on a telly show. my mother scolding me, telling me to stop bending my thumb back.. I thought it was so cute I could bend my thumb to touch my wrist (flexible joint) ..my Mother told me over and over again, that I would be sorry. Guess what… she was right. fortunately she is not around to gloat .. which she would never do anyway… she had too much class for that.

Today is the 11th, Ancestor’s Day. In PL we have a ceremony every 11th of the month, where we express our gratitude for the love and virtues of our ancestors …. service today sill be at 10. a.m. See you there!

Make today a “give back day” We can live our daily lives owing to our ancestors, our elders and the work of our predecessors. Above all, kindness for others is the best way to give back.

Perfect Liberty 2023.11

In PL, everyday is a new day. a new canvas… (thank goodness) PL Precept # 1 Life is Art. I’m ready for a new day and a new experience, how about you…

a door closes,

photo Bonnie H.

Abby Saint Benoit in the Eastern Townships, Quebec.

How often have you heard the expression, when one door closes, another one opens. I have heard it often over the years and I have lived long enough to know that, it is true. At the time when emotions are raw and the hurt is cutting… the agony of the moment seems so all encompassing that we wonder if we will live through it all. We do. To know such pain is because you were blessed with happiness. Incongruent but true.

It is easy for me now, year past my “youth” I can look back and remember the moments of total misery, I felt and knew “heartbreak”.. I longed for and wanted something that I couldn’t seem to find, I didn’t understand what I wanted either. What I thought I wanted, and what I was so sure I couldn’t go on living without.. turned out .. it was a total disaster in so many ways, yet, I learned from these heart aches, and I grew stronger as a person.

My interest in doors goes back many years… You’d think that by now I would have seen enough doors, but just when I think .. a door is just a door…. I will come across a doorway that is simply “striking” .. it will shout out.. “hey.. gotcha!” and I know I am about to participate in a new chapter of “life”.

Live in the moment. There is only today.

A door may close … and you will walk away

but. know. always. there will be another doorway

a new beginning .. a new discovery

the door will open for you

always/forever

is now

Q

For more doors, visit Dan’s No Facilities site.. for the Thursday Door feature. https://nofacilities.com/2023/06/01/jennies-doors/

Wednesday moment

Be flexible to change. A flexible way of thinking and responding is one of the keys to getting along with others.

Perfect Liberty 2023.31

One never knows.. what we will find when we walk through an area.. simply observing.

Let’s do it

Do we learn from our past. Can we move forward with peace in our hearts and the commitment and desire to live with respect/understanding and appreciation for others.??? This is a time to reflect and pause in our daily activities to remember and take notice of the positives in our lives.

Get things started with grit. If you work on things in daily life with the attitude of “let’s do it!” you will feel a power to accomplish things. People around you will rely on you.

Perfect Liberty 2023.29

The simplicity of a quiet morning – each day is a new beginning – a new chapter begins.

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