Chances

"If you're never scared or embarrassed or hurt, it means you never take any chances."

- Julia Sorel

Insignificant

"When made frustrated and fretful by small cares, look up at the sky, the stars, and see how insignificant our troubles really are."

- Unknown

Worry...

"Worry does not empty tomorrow of its sorrow; it empties today of its strength''

-Corrie Ten Boom

It begins with imagination

Imagine from R Smittenaar on Vimeo.

Two Options

But the love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth, the earth which bore us and sustains us, the only home we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need — if only we had the eyes to see. Original sin, the true original sin, is the blind destruction for the sake of greed of this natural paradise which lies all around us--if only we were worthy of it. ~Edward Abbey 

It seems to me there are only two options, silently allow the endless destruction to continue or do something about it. We each have gifts, we each have a voice, it's time to use them...or passively enjoy the soulless, man-made world that is being creating around us...when the Earth suffers, we suffer, even on the most subtle psychological levels...there is no reason we can't all enjoy a healthy and happy environment and life on this planet, we have an amazing amount of knowledge and resources, but we sure are having problems letting go of archaic ways of thinking and taking ourselves to that place. I truly don't understand it.

Day vs Life

I came across this and realized how important it is for me to remember it. Personally, when I have a bad day, I can fall into a spiraling mood of frustration that begins to permeate all my thoughts and situations. It can spread like wildfire for no reason. Just because one thing or a few things aren't how I want them, or they don't go as planned, or a day causes me frustration, anger or sadness, there's no reason to let that invade the rest of me. There are always many things to be thankful for, to enjoy and be happy for. It's especially important for me to remember this when I am having a "bad day."

Happy Solstice

http://www.noaa.gov/features/02_monitoring/snowflakes.html

December 21, 2011

 9-15 inches of snow predicted in the canyon this Solstice. 

Decided to take a few shots of the beautiful snowflakes as they just started to fall today. 

Snowflakes are one of nature's most fragile things, but just look at what they can do when they stick together. ~Vesta Kelly

Nature is full of genius, full of the divinity; so that not a snowflake escapes its fashioning hand.

~Henry David Thoreau

Winter Reflections

"The way a crow

Shook down on me

The dust of snow

From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart

A change of mood

And saved some part

Of a day I had rued."

by Robert Frost (1923)

Now is the time to honor the winter season that is upon us. Her cold and dark gives us the opportunity to face challenge, to persevere, to look inward, focus on the mind and honor nature's most difficult aspects.  While not so true with today's modern conveniences, winter used to be a time of survival and overcoming difficulty and challenge. Through our obstacles, we learn, grow and evolve. I remind myself to honor this, remembering my ancestors who survived through winter with little other than their own determination, will and strength. I choose to honor this within myself, spiritually, physically, emotionally and mentally. I see winter as a time to reflect, to stimulate the mind, body and soul with warmth and growth. A time to reflect inward and give thanks, a time to honor and respect nature and realize that balance is essential to survive and thrive. For the winter snow brings the source of life as spring and summer thaws her frozen crystals. 

Below are some wintry photos from my time living in the Colorado mountains

The sun travels low on the horizon

I'm taken deep inside

shades of white and grey pervade

until the sun fills the skies so wide

a silence like no other

from the blanket of snow below

fills the air and brings a peace 

that only the soul can know

underneath the layers of snow

awaits a beautiful world

*********************************************************************************

"If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.”

~ Anne Bradstreet

And this is what I wait for every year. One of the most beautiful places on Earth. The colorful flowers, the deep green grass, and the serenely flowing waterfalls do something to my soul that no other place can do. All thanks to the nine months of snow that hold this Alpine regions in it's grip for so long. Once it melts, it feeds the Earth and she supplies one of the most spectacular places of beauty and grandeur...

“Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence. Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance. Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence. Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.”

~Yoko Ono

Pause

Life is a luminous pause between two great mysteries, which themselves are one.
~ Carl Jung

Web of Miracles

We All Need to Work to Preserve Our Wonderful World

Matrix

Our present urgency is to recover a sense of the primacy of the Universe as our fundamental context, and the primacy of the Earth as the matrix from which life has emerged and on which life depends. Recovering this sense is essential to establishing the framework for mutually enhancing human-Earth relations for the flourishing of life on the planet.

~Thomas Berry

Within

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

~Albert Camus

Heart and Mind

Achievements

Energizing Emptiness

"The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have."

~Norman Vincent Peale

Insanity

Black Friday violence and insanity:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/26/us-usa-retail-violence-idUSTRE7AO15H20111126

Watching the videos on the news last night was frustrating, heartbreaking and embarrassing. I'm ashamed of the behavior of my fellow humans. How did we get to a place where an electronic device is more important than human life? I simply can't believe a shopper would pepper spray others to get past them and that someone can get shot in a parking lot over material items. I also don't understand why these stores don't just give out numbers to those in line, develop a lottery, or come up with some better system then letting people mob each other in their stores. It's so archaic, we can do better than that.

It is behavior like this that makes me lose hope that our society will ever evolve. I don't understand it. We have lost our compassion towards others and we have forgotten what is truly meaningful in life. Not only that, most people don't even know or care that all of the electronics we buy have a huge impact on our Earth and natural resources. No one gives a fuck and it's just sad.

Duane Elgin said it nicely in his article, "Why We Need to Believe in a Living Universe." We have come to see our universe as dead. We've given life and value to things that don't even matter and have forgotten about those things that really do. In a world where every strand is intimately connected in a web of life, we are only harming ourselves with ignorance. As a part of that web, I can't help but feel that loss of connection and insanity in myself. We can do so much better than this, and it's frustrating that we are seemingly stuck in an adolescent stage of human development.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/duane-elgin/living-universe_b_862220.html

Each One of Us Can Make a Difference

"...if each one of us were to contribute a single drop of clean water toward protecting the environment, imagine how pure this vast ocean could eventually be." ~GYALWANG KARMAPA

My View on Black Friday

The problems of today...

"The problems that exist in the world today cannot be solved by the level of thinking that created them." - Albert Einstein

Hazy Afternoon

Trapped in a fog

inside and out

The skies filled with our disregard

The sun only shines

on the other side

Forever gone unless we evolve

False Romance

By Matthew Lamar Mills at Peace in Thought:

http://walking-contradiciton.blogspot.com/2011/11/false-romance.html

The Story of Stuff

All of Annie Leonard's "Stories" are awesome. This one is particularly good for the upcoming holidays, when so much unnecessary (and often unwanted) consumption happens...

http://www.storyofstuff.org/

More Dumb Human Entertainment

http://www.grist.org/list/2011-11-16-las-vegas-new-water-park-is-literally-the-dumbest-thing-ever

There are multiple layers of things wrong with this. I dream of a day when humans evolve enough to entertain themselves in ways that don't completely desecrate the planet...

Biomimicry

Biomimicry or biomimetics is the examination of nature, its models, systems, processes, and elements to emulate or take inspiration from in order to solve human problems.

Very cool example of putting nature's wisdom to work: 
http://www.treehugger.com/clean-technology/airdrop-design-pulls-water-air-to-irrigate-deserts.html

Blossom

Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.

- Marcel Proust

Heartbeat

The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.

~Joseph Campbell

"Transform Yourself, Transform the World"

Zen poet Thich Nhat Hahn was asked, ‘What do we need to do to save our world?’ His questioners expected him to identify the best strategies to pursue in social and environmental action, but Thich Nhat Hanh’s answer was this: ‘What we most need to do is to hear within us the sounds of the Earth crying.’ (Macy, 1998, p. 91)*

If you feel sadness, frustration, guilt and anger from what is happening to our planet, allow yourself to feel it. Doing so not only helps us heal, it also has the potential to heal the planet as well. We won't fight or care for something that we don't have feelings for. When we repress our feelings, we rob ourselves of the opportunity to evolve and heal. In my opinion, this is one the deep roots of our environmental crisis. Not only have we lost our connection to our Mother Earth, we often repress the feelings we have about the destruction of our home.

Our way of life has simply disconnected us. Most people don't think about where their water comes from when they turn on the faucet, where their food is coming from, where electricity is coming from and what powers it, or where all the pollution and garbage is going and its chemical effects on the entire Earth system. Learning all of this information is difficult, it can make us feel guilty and ashamed of our actions. We can't ignore it either, which is actually the more destructive of the two options. If we allow ourselves to feel emotion towards these things, it will most likely be what pushes us to change. Once we realize that we are part of the problem, a problem that we care deeply about, then we will become called to act and to change our own behaviors.

We have a lot of things going against us, but that just means we need to fight harder. "In American culture, we are conditioned to try to keep a smiling face and remain chipper at all costs. A lack of optimism somehow indicates a lack of competence. Feelings of despair are treated reductionistically as a function of personal maladjustment. This doubles the burden individuals carry. Not only do they feel bad about their world, but they feel bad about feeling bad." ~Joanna Macy

Allowing ourselves to go into our deepest emotions is very powerful. It's a place many of us don't like to explore. However, going there fosters a movement of emotion within us. When we allow ourselves to stir things up, the emotions begin to shift. They begin to teach us, if we pay close attention. The exploration of pain, sadness and anger is necessary for healing and transformation. If we don't begin a paradigm shift with evolution of the self, where else does it begin? The key is to allow that transformation to take place at the individual level and then take that a step further and do something about it. Each person has their own gifts, not everyone has to be an activist, find your own unique gift and give it to our planet.

http://www.personaltransformation.com/Macy.html

*Macy, J. & Brown, M. (1998). Coming back to life: Practices to reconnect our lives, our
world. Gabriola Island, BC: New Society Publishers.

If You Want to be a Writer, then Write!

Writing is not easy. I should know, I've been trying to write a book for over five years now. I know the wild things very well. Too well. It's time to dust off the words I've written so far and get moving again. This was very inspirational for me to read: http://www.introvertedchurch.com/2011/11/i-know-where-wild-things-are.html

Manifestation

The thought manifests as the word;
The word manifests as the deed;
The deed develops into habit;
And habit hardens into character;
So watch the thought and its ways with care,
... And let it spring from love
Born out of concern for all beings...
As the shadow follows the body, as we think, so we become.

— The Dhammapada
(Sayings of the Buddha)

Entertainment

The things our society does in the name of "entertainment." Sigh...

http://www.grist.org/list/2011-10-31-treatment-of-circus-elephants-worse-than-you-ever-imagined