Call to Action

I have not posted for a long time because the Internet on my computer has crashed. The only Internet I have is on my iPhone. If this gets out it will be from said phone.

I was going to write another concept blog about imagination and its effects but that will have no effect.

Imagination is what has brought humanity to now. Take your choice, either the imagination originated with a creator or some creature(s) at every evolutionary stage had the wit to use the tools they came with to create more and to move us further through the spiral.

In the process we have had and are having ad infinitum war over ideas created in the imagination. In reality there are no physical boundaries, in reality there is no control (yes I know how Genesis is interpreted) of any thing or person other than our own selves, in reality there are no differences between individuals, in reality there are no religions and money is not real. All of these are ideas or concepts created in our mind and that is the definition of imagination.

All of the creations of mankind be they scientific or artistic past or present start out in one or more individual's mind(s). All our agony or our joy is self created. Even the creation of a family or community starts first as an idea.

It is time to use our imagination once again. One of the greatest abilities we have is to look at things in a new way. That is how new ideas are generated.

This world has a growing and terrifying movement. There are people (although I hesitate to use that word with reference to them) who seem to think that intimidation is a wonderful policy. They think that they will get their way using it. We have always had this belief in our society but never before have their been so many. While my obvious targets are the various terrorists groups who are so violently inflicting their will around the world, I am also referring to those groups and individuals who believe they are superior to others (for whatever reason) and that gives them the right to bully (in whatever form) anyone else.  (For those in Canada, the telecommunications giant Bell Canada fits in this group, besides certain of their employees have seriously affected my mental health). I could go on but I think you get the idea.

There is an answer! It is time to see these actions and the people behind them for what they are. COWARDS! It is simple. If someone needs to restrict, confine of control you, it is because they fear you. If you are worth fearing then you are powerful. Furthermore most of these individuals hide behind religion and anonymity or they give orders to someone else. They do not stand in front of you, give you the same options as themselves and risk anything. Instead they scurry around leaving or using long distance weapons and are long gone before any deed is accomplished. Then and only then do they announce from their hiding place that they were the guilty party. Really brave.

We do not need to fight them with their tools. See them for what they are. Laugh at them in the media; it is true that the pen is far mightier than the sword. Ignore them. If they hurt, focus on their victims, ignore the perpetrators. They just want attention.

I have been a mother too long. These actions are the actions of a young child. Give them a time out. Show them a new way. Join hands. Join with all those individuals who believe that our race and this world are the most incredible, wonderful creations in existence. Join hands with me.

Since I have extremely limited access to the Internet, if you receive this please forward it to all your circles. Love, share and care! You are powerful.

Coming Out!

How’s it going?  I now have myself floating around with nothing to see or to do.  That is rather unproductive, even for me.  Where do we go from here?

I have noticed in my life that I seem to flip between different ways of seeing the world.  If I should be looking at a perceptual illusion, I can often easily flip from one picture to the other.  Looking at an illusion which asks me to determine the length of a line, I automatically assume that they are the same because I’ve seen so many.  Currently Facebook has had a rash of moving images; just hit like and comment move.  The image is moving already.

I am married to an individual and am the daughter of an individual who truly believed that science and math were the only way to describe the world.  My mother and I follow the belief that there is some force greater than us in the world that plays an active role here and now; my mother called that force God, I have changing definitions of it.  Like the perceptual illusion situation, I move back and forth.

I also like to change photos - a little

 

 

For the past 61 years of my life, in one way or another, I have been cared for.  I have been protected from the harsh realities of life.  While this has been enjoyable, it has also taught me that I must rely on others for my success and prevented me from having to learn how to cope by myself.  I have reached the time in my life when that is no longer enough.

I am left floating around being too scared to come out of my mind into the actual world.  That isn’t exactly true.  Since I was a teenager, off and on, I have exhibited a strong ability to listen to people.  As part of that listening, I often find myself making suggestions as to how they could improve whatever facet of life they are currently having a problem with.  Often it is a matter of reframing the information they already have or drawing on years of reading.  Sometimes it is doing something for them that they can’t do themselves.

The following is to me a very obvious example. I recently listened to a T.V. news program on the decline in the numbers of truckers available as the baby boomers retire.  The current generation has fewer numbers available to replace the current generation.  That generation therefore is in the driver’s seat (no pun intended).  Find out the answers to three questions: what do current drivers like about the lifestyle, what really irritates them, and evaluate the upcoming generation’s requirements in a job. Market to the right age group (high school probably) the positives and change the negatives in the industry.  It was done successfully in the tech world years ago.  It is being done in the various trades now.  The goal is to find the high school students that like the lifestyle.  Government help in the same areas as are being given to both the trades and medical doctors (for rural areas) will help.

As stated above, I have something that I enjoy immensely and have done very quietly and unobtrusively.  I also have something to look at; my goals.  My goals are very encompassing.  I want to live near my children, which means moving from one side of Toronto to the other.  I like living with access to the country but would appreciate being close to the comforts of the city. At my age, I want security for the rest of my life for myself and my family. Security to me means complete freedom from financial concerns.  I am oriented to increasing my health not vice versa.  I would like to help people on a one-on-one basis as well as write (either fiction or long distance helping).  Ultimately I would like to find a way to activate a dream I have had, to find a way or a place where all individuals can be united and accepted completely regardless of any division.

Okay here I am.  I have conceived of an image for myself.  I have some goals.  I have some sort of focus although I can also see the other side of a situation.  I even have a desire to change (that after all is what this blog declares).  Challenge: I don’t believe that I am capable of doing any of this for myself (others no problem).  After a lifetime of letting others take care of me, I am having real difficulty with the concept of taking care of myself.  One day I suspect I will have no choice – no matter how much I am loved by my family.

 

My Lightening Heart - energy with love originally designed by Laura Wildman

 

Is there anyone out there who feels the way I do?  Perhaps there is someone who has some answers.  Thanks for reading.

FLITE

Welcome back to my vision of who we are.  In my last blog I described the center of the spiral.  Today I will be discussing the forces that swirl around us impacting us in all areas of our lives.  I see five; focus, love, imagination, time and energy.  Since I enjoy playing with letters I have combined them into an appropriate word: Flite. Yes I know there is no such word but in this age of texting I’ve also noted that it doesn’t really matter.

This is how I feel

I am hidden within the picture

but there are too many distractions

Focus is both created by you and creates you.  What you experience in your life will tell your brain what areas to target for you while it drops the rest.  By placing the spotlight on that one area, you become unaware of other possibilities.  An image my family is sick to death of explains this.  Everyone knows what a tree is, yet no one sees a tree the same way.  I see the overall shape of a tree, an engineer probably looks at the structure of the tree and a photographer might see the tree in relationship to the surrounding environment while a fine artist sees the details of the leaves, stems, trunks and roots.  Other individuals will see how they can use the tree.  I’m afraid I have to disagree with Shakespeare; a rose by any other name may not smell as sweet because that is determined by how you sense it.  Besides I am sure somewhere that some scientist has managed to link a bad smell with a rose just to prove that he can.

If you want to change who you are, one step is to change what you choose to focus on.  That is a lot harder to do than to write the statement.  At the moment I have two brown horses cropping the grass outside my window.  What I see are horses.  But what would happen if instead I looked only at the shape of their shadows.  It is early afternoon so the shadows are foreshortened and right beside them.  At one moment I saw a box with something moving at the back of it.  A moment later and it was a different shape.  Perhaps I look at the horses and see only the rippling tide of their brown skin.  What name works for that?

The many ways love can impact our life has been enumerated most notably by Elizabeth Barret Browning and a German band called Natural.

www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/15384‎

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Let_Me_Count_the_Ways_(Natural_song)‎

In each case they were talking about the love between people.  There are many variations of that particular love; parent/child and vice versa, best friends, first responders. But love is not just between people. Your particular passion is an expression of love.  The sense of relaxation that can be found when you are experiencing nature is another form of love.  My cats love me and I respond.  I’ve heard it said that people with dogs or for that matter any pet feel the same way.  People who have a deep faith in something have a love relationship.

When an individual of any age experiences a severe lack of love their physical health and their desire to live are seriously affected.  This tells me that this particular element of our life is a basic necessity.  If that were not enough every single article, magazine or book that even touches on the idea of improvement starts off with helping others.  The gift economy movement has taken off around the world.  Any spinning of my particular spiral is going to have to find a way to tap into this.  I am reasonably good about expressing love to those in my close circle.  Reaching out to strangers has proven to be a bit harder.

Imagination is the next force swirling around us.  I have had a great deal of difficulty with this one.  For a very large part of my life, I defined imagination as the prerogative of artists of any kind and those individuals who somehow were able to create completely new ideas or products.  Notice I separate these two.  I, of course, was neither. Recently I have come to the realization that imagination is far more.  That in fact every single person who exists uses imagination daily.  Some, however, like me do not recognize it.

Most parents/caregivers (of any age) are able to determine exactly what the other person wants despite the fact that others cannot.  This requires imagination.  Whatever you do at work I know that it requires imagination whether you are figuring out what your boss, colleagues, employees or customers actually want or how you will produce it.  Any planning or organizing that you do implies that you are imagining the future.  This blog (actually the entire internet network on whatever device) is a mental concept that has no reality.  Yet there are a whole lot of people in this world who are using it as a valid means of communication. Let’s go back further.  Abstract thought, which this definitely is classed as, is a sign of imagination.  So is the number zero.  That first group of primates that left the trees for the plains, for whatever reason, had to conceive of the idea long before they actually did it.  That is what imagination is, the thought that comes before.  It is the thought that is fuelling this part of my journey.

Time likes to play games with us. At one point it is linear following the path from Past to Present to Future or, if you’re a physicist, going from order to entropy along the arrow of time.  My body also seems to be moving from order to entropy.  At other times, it is a circle (at least according to the Lion King).  As you might have guessed by now, I prefer the concept of a spiral but even with that time is still moving in one direction.

Personal time has nothing to do with any of that.  Personal time is dictated by our feelings.  Every one of us has experienced those hours that pass like minutes and minutes that last for an eternity.  Age has also affected time.  When I remember something from my past, I notice that time seems to have compressed.  At one point, I knew the exact moment of the event, then the year, now the event happened sometime within 2 or 3 years.  As I watched my children grow up, it seemed that they lived two years to my one or maybe that was just me refusing to age myself.

Spiritual time is also very different.  Regardless of what type of book you get your information from, they all agree that spiritual time and physical time are radically different.  After all the word eternal describes the non-physical world.

Time then is a necessary factor, but it is one that changes constantly.  Perhaps the trick is to change with it depending on your focus.

Energy is the last force I am talking about today.  Like time energy varies.  There is the energy of the stars which created, with the help of gravity or because of gravity, the world(s) as we know it (them). There is our personal energy.  This is dependent on the fuel we provide our bodies and the joy or lack thereof for what we are doing.  There is also stress energy.  By this I mean the adrenaline which is pumped into our bodies allowing us to flee or fight; be acclaimed as heroes or be a live jackal.  Unfortunately a lot of us live with stress for a long time.  Apparently like anything else too much energy is not a good thing.  Spiritual energy exists but how it is defined appears to be open to a great deal of debate.

When I combine FLITE with brain, body and spirit I see a description of who and what we are.  If we wish to change and I do at least some part of that combination has to be altered.  For every person that exists in this world there is a different way to do that.  I am greedy.  I want it all. In Wonders of the Universe, Brian Cox describes the solar system as being created by spin.  It requires a very fast spin to change the landscape be it stars or tornado.  I intend to speed up my spin and see what happens. Perhaps I will just take flight.

Enjoy your time.

The Spiral Spins 1

I do not normally intend to publish a post this close to the last one.  I very much enjoy spinning ideas in my head.  This blog allows me to share those thoughts with an unseen audience.  I did state in my first blog that this process is about changing who I am.  After 61 years of spinning, it has crossed my mind that ideas that stay in your head aren’t terribly productive. Thus periodically I will update you on what if any practical changes result. Perhaps someone out there might recognize something that helps them or my family can keep up on what’s happening to me. To separate these updates from the normal blog, I will keep the above title changing the number as appropriate

I actually started my spiral spinning last year.  60 was a significant number for me.  My parents were 60 when they suddenly looked old to me.  To be fair, it was at the age of 60 that my mother was diagnosed with kidney failure – might have had an effect.  Shortly after my 60^th birthday I decided that was not going to happen to me. Who after all wants to admit that the body might be getting old?

My first response was to diet.  I had put on way too many pounds after an accident.  Generally diets don’t work for me.  I have epilepsy and one of my triggers is too little food.  Diets as we all know like to start with a sharp reduction in calories.  I found Beyond Diet.  Beyond Diet showed me how to eat vegetables and enjoy them enough to do it regularly.  It also told me to stop stressing about what I was eating.  Small enough ideas but they allowed me to lose approximately 30 pounds.  I have not quite got down to where I would like to be but I have the tools, I’ll get there.

A few weeks ago, I started a 30 day meditation challenge.  Way back in the past, I had actually taken a course in how to meditate.  Don’t know why but no matter how many times I read about how to meditate or even tried it, the concept never took.  The course didn’t take either.  In that case it was because at the time I didn’t believe I had an imagination.  The course director’s route to meditation was to imagine a light travelling through my body.  This time I said to myself I like to walk.  There is a type of meditation called mindfulness that involves walking and breathing.  Let’s try it. This way seems to work.  Over the period I have been doing it, I have experienced the state of freedom from my constantly running, usually negative, thoughts.  I have discovered that certain positive or helpful thoughts arise during these periods. Surprisingly when I meditate my body aligns itself and everything slows down a great deal.  I also find myself now meditating at other times: gardening, driving (yes I am aware of what is happening on the road – maybe more so), bathing and even blogging.

A double lily after the rain

in my garden

After yesterday’s (July 25) blog I asked myself, how does that equation apply to me.  Specifically my body wants a new home, the security of having that home paid for as well as my husband’s and my future assured as well as some for my children; my mind wants a connection with other individuals both to share and help while my spirit is concerned about the link between the spiritual world and practical world and most importantly how to help others who are on their own spiral.  A primary challenge with all of these is obtaining the money that will allow it.

Two things then followed that.  The first was that I came across something I had written in 2005 which suggested using significant numbers in my life.  That led me to wonder what those numbers were.  Eventually I realized that every 7^th year in my life something significant has happened to me that further developed my personal self.  On top of that the year of my birth adds up to seven, the day of my birth adds up to 7 and I was married in 77 when I was 25 (7).  How that will play out in my life I don’t know.  Last night I dreamed about a person I knew only in high school. Her name was Elaine Schleen. She had a sister Carol and a brother David.  At the time we all lived in Erindale Woodlands.  In the dream we were about to go travelling together.  I wonder what happened to her.  Marilyn Turner was the other significant person in my life then.  Wouldn’t it be weird if after a lifetime as adults they were to read this?  These people impressed me at the time because they chose to live in the way they wanted.  I was way too scared to do that.

 I am intrigued by the flower that blooms in its own time

Writing this I have noticed in every case, success has come when I was following my own reasons for doing something and generally following my own advice.  Said advice has come after years of reading about something but in the end it has been my opinion not someone elses' that was effective.

I would love to know if any of this hits a chord with anyone out there.

Take care of yourselves.

Connections

Hi Friends.  Hope your day is bright.  Mine is because you allowed me to share your day. My theme today is connections.  One way to connect is to post a comment at the bottom of this blog. Just say Hi.

A very tiny bird repeatedly harassing a very large hawk, a baby leaning towards its mother and two people talking about their beliefs are examples of the triad that humans seem to live by.  It is frequently referred to as mind, body and spirit.  The tiny bird, who won by the way, was protecting his home while the hawk wanted food but that day didn’t particularly care where it came from. The baby is expressing his/her desire for a connection to the individual who satisfies his/her wants.  The two individuals discussing their beliefs are probably searching for meaning. Maslow expressed this in another way, through his hierarchy of needs.

‎

 www.simplypsychology.org/maslow.html‎

 

I grew up in a scientific world so even though I am reaching for my connection to the spiritual world in order to share that connection with others I think in scientific terms.  What equation will express not only my current feelings but the path to success?  I should note here that I am not in any way a scientist.

 

The first part of the equation is obviously our brain.  I think of our brain as being a personal government.  It handles our interactions with the world and makes sure that the internal mechanisms are working. This requires constant input and interpretation of said input.

We also have a second brain located in our gut which would be the second part of our equation.  This brain seems to be primarily concerned with processing what we provide it, turning it into something useful and letting the first brain know what it feels about what we are providing. Perhaps this explains why stress and chocolate are so intimately connected in my life. Judging by marketing, I suspect this was figured out long before the scientists wrote papers on it.

www.psychologytoday.com/articles/201110/your-backup-brain‎

For me there is one more item that must be considered, the soul.  The word soul has many, possibly negative meanings, for people today so let me explain what I mean by soul.  Your soul is that part of you that causes you to gravitate towards and away from specific things.  If you look back at your life, a pattern becomes obvious.  Certain items, types of people or experiences (or all) keep turning up in your life.  You are happiest when you are doing certain things.  I believe that it is the soul that develops those patterns and reinforces them by rewarding us with positive feelings.  It is also the soul that keeps us striving for more.  A popular perception of a Buddhist belief is that desire causes suffering. I think that our soul creates desire.  It is our perception of failure in meeting that desire that causes the suffering.  I would like to add here that the scientists will never find the soul.  It is after all our uniqueness, what makes us special.  You cannot replicate singleness.

So we have one side of the equation: 1^st brain + 2^nd brain + soul = what or, if you wish, brain + body + spirit = ?  I choose to think that the right side of the equation is the total person.  The person that is capable of living at the point of the paradox, the center of the extremes or Maslow’s self actualized individual.  It is not perfection because there is always somewhere further to go.

Depending on our life circumstances, each of us focus more on one area than the other.  My focus now is not on the individual parts but on the symbols between them and finally on what is on the right side of the equation, in other words on the connections between them.  It would be nice to know what is on the right side of the equation but more importantly what does the equal sign stand for?

The birds represent our physical needs.  Like other species we are quite capable of imposing our will when for some reason we decide that someone is in the way of what we crave.  The baby shows our necessary connection to other human beings however we define that requirement.  The two people sharing their beliefs is our soul shining through.

Those are the three primary connections. There are five concepts which affect all areas of our life but that will be for another day.

Let your soul send you positive rewards today.

Spinning my Spiral

A spiral is a moving point travelling up or down around a fixed center.  Spiral also combines the words spirit and practical using the letter r to link.  Spinning the spiral requires altering the point or the center or both.

I am a 61 year old woman. Life has happened.  Children have moved on. Living conditions have changed.  There is nothing unusual about that. What is unusual, for me, is that this time I am going to take charge of the changes that are going to happen.

Standard question to anyone trying to determine what they want to do – what would you do if money was no object? Of course, if you don’t have money, it is the object.  In the spirit of the question, my answer has always been to unite the spiritual and practical.  Since each individual is unique and has their own conditions of life, the way you choose to unite the spiritual and physical is specific to the person.

This blog will be about my journey.  For the last four decades my fixed center has been my family; my husband and two children extending outward to our parents and siblings as necessary.  I have been the moving point running, sometimes somewhat wildly, between and around them to satisfy the needs of the moment.  I enjoyed it immensely.

Now most of that center has moved on to create their own dance. My husband is spending most of his time working elsewhere.  My hopes are that at the end of this journey, I will be standing still at the fixed center.  The moving point will be both my links with people and the link that I forge between the spirit and the physical.  R after all can also be spelled are and our.  I believe both spellings are implied and necessary.

This is not a “Do your own thing” blog.  It is a blog about discovering new relationships.  My spiral has already begun its spin. Is yours ready to?

My first step is to stop looking in at my family, trying to decipher ahead of time what I will be needed for next.  If you have a family you already know that idea was doomed to failure.  Apparently, the people in my family (and probably yours) liked being spontaneous and didn’t like people understanding them too well. Mysterious is good.

                                           

Now I am going to look out. Kindergarten 101.  If you want to connect with someone you must walk up to them and then, horrors of horrors, you must speak.  Apparently I did okay in Kindergarten, it was when I moved at the age of seven that I failed.  Luckily the world moved on.  Today I have a way of easing back into the process.  That easing is this blog.  I can express myself without the fear of seeing rejection.  I can wave and say hi, I’m here.  You also have the same choice. Sometimes the technology works.

Hi there!

See you again.