Our motley crew visited a Buddhist temple yesterday. We met a very sweet Vietnamese woman who gave me 4 books, one on how to deal with anger. That she made it a point to specifically give me the book on anger was obvious to everyone and later I remembered this issue was also pointed out to me at our family meeting last year. Alright already!
Rather than grapple or ignore it I have decided to take a different approach with this relentless stalking beast. I’m looking it in the eyes, all of them, and making it welcome, serving it a delicious meal, offering it a comfortable chair to sit in, letting it borrow my favorite slippers…
make it my friend.

Eating has been an issue. My normal diet is simple and clean. No animals or animal products and no processed foods, that means no breads or pasta or cheese, just fruit and vegetables and nuts and beans and seeds and sometimes whole grains. This seems like craziness to everyone. It’s NOT! I feel good eating like that, it makes sense to me, for me. Here, living communally it isn’t really working. I’ve been eating cheese! And sugar!
We drove by a Cinnabon yesterday and the Monk just about had a coronary. He has a mad sweet tooth and there was nothing for it, we had to go in and I tried, ok, not very hard, but I did try to resist,but in the end I had to have a bite. Maybe two. That was plenty. I marveled that one could eat a pillow sized cinnamon bun swimming in a pool of sugar and not drop dead on the spot.

We all took a nap when we got home.

What’s in store for today?
The Monk and I are cooking tonight so yay, I will make a dense salad to go with the cheesy zucchini concoction the monk has in mind.

I will serve The Beast his portion.

Our motley crew visited a Buddhist temple yesterday. We met a very sweet Vietnamese woman who gave me 4 books, one on how to deal with anger. That she made it a point to specifically give me the book on anger was obvious to everyone and later I remembered this issue was also pointed out to me at our family meeting last year. Alright already!
Rather than grapple or ignore it I have decided to take a different approach with this relentless stalking beast. I’m looking it in the eyes, all of them, and making it welcome, serving it a delicious meal, offering it a comfortable chair to sit in, letting it borrow my favorite slippers…
make it my friend.

Eating has been an issue. My normal diet is simple and clean. No animals or animal products and no processed foods, that means no breads or pasta or cheese, just fruit and vegetables and nuts and beans and seeds and sometimes whole grains. This seems like craziness to everyone. It’s NOT! I feel good eating like that, it makes sense to me, for me. Here, living communally it isn’t really working. I’ve been eating cheese! And sugar!
We drove by a Cinnabon yesterday and the Monk just about had a coronary. He has a mad sweet tooth and there was nothing for it, we had to go in and I tried, ok, not very hard, but I did try to resist,but in the end I had to have a bite. Maybe two. That was plenty. I marveled that one could eat a pillow sized cinnamon bun swimming in a pool of sugar and not drop dead on the spot.

We all took a nap when we got home.

What’s in store for today?
The Monk and I are cooking tonight so yay, I will make a dense salad to go with the cheesy zucchini concoction the monk has in mind.

I will serve The Beast his portion.

Dallas is gray. The sun is taking a holiday elsewhere.
Yesterday my cousin’s co-worker took us on a tour of a cat sanctuary/rescue, where he and his wife volunteer. There was every kind of exotic cat, meaning any non house cat, though apparently some do believe a bengal tiger cute enough to keep when it’s little.

So, there were lions and tigers and cougars and many others I don’t remember and have never heard of. It was a long day. I wondered about Toxoplasmosis, Cat Box Disease. I think I saw this parasite in action yesterday. These volunteers were maybe a little too…vigorous.

Making birthday cards for the cats, reading to them, playing guitar for them. I thought of the father in Life of Pi telling his son Richard Parker, the bengal tiger, was NOT his friend.

These cats were of course, beautiful and also terribly sad. Life in wire cages. There were these sad little tributes on the cages for cats that had died.

I can’t figure out how to post more than one picture at a time…

I’m having a wonderful time with mother, monk and cousins. All such amazing and profoundly beautiful people.

Dallas is gray. The sun is taking a holiday elsewhere.
Yesterday my cousin’s co-worker took us on a tour of a cat sanctuary/rescue, where he and his wife volunteer. There was every kind of exotic cat, meaning any non house cat, though apparently some do believe a bengal tiger cute enough to keep when it’s little.

So, there were lions and tigers and cougars and many others I don’t remember and have never heard of. It was a long day. I wondered about Toxoplasmosis, Cat Box Disease. I think I saw this parasite in action yesterday. These volunteers were maybe a little too…vigorous.

Making birthday cards for the cats, reading to them, playing guitar for them. I thought of the father in Life of Pi telling his son Richard Parker, the bengal tiger, was NOT his friend.

These cats were of course, beautiful and also terribly sad. Life in wire cages. There were these sad little tributes on the cages for cats that had died.

I can’t figure out how to post more than one picture at a time…

I’m having a wonderful time with mother, monk and cousins. All such amazing and profoundly beautiful people.

I’m on my way to Dallas for a quick family get together. The Monk and my Mom will be there, all of us blessing my cousins’ new digs and life path.

For the trip I picked up a book from the library titled Sweeping Changes by Gary Thorp, Discovering the Joy of Zen in Everyday Tasks. It fit perfectly in my bag and with my thinking this morning as I started to plan what I will do when I get back home.

Always thinking, always planning. It is my nature, it is what makes being still so challenging. The monkey brain never seems to tire of it’s endless doingness.

There is this from the book…

“There is always something to remind you of what still needs to be done. There is no way to arrive at “finished.” There is no road leading to “perfect.” There is just some wandering atom of life, some single bit of dust, that calls you to attention and keeps bringing you back to your life.”

The image is a digital collage made on my trusty pad. Its always so fun playing with my little brushes app.

I’m on my way to Dallas for a quick family get together. The Monk and my Mom will be there, all of us blessing my cousins’ new digs and life path.

For the trip I picked up a book from the library titled Sweeping Changes by Gary Thorp, Discovering the Joy of Zen in Everyday Tasks. It fit perfectly in my bag and with my thinking this morning as I started to plan what I will do when I get back home.

Always thinking, always planning. It is my nature, it is what makes being still so challenging. The monkey brain never seems to tire of it’s endless doingness.

There is this from the book…

“There is always something to remind you of what still needs to be done. There is no way to arrive at “finished.” There is no road leading to “perfect.” There is just some wandering atom of life, some single bit of dust, that calls you to attention and keeps bringing you back to your life.”

The image is a digital collage made on my trusty pad. Its always so fun playing with my little brushes app.

Last week I drove up the coast to hike one of over 80 hikes listed in a book from the library. I found Salmon Creek falls, an easy and short hike up through the redwoods. It was warm and sunny and the drive was fairly easy as it’s “off season” so there wasn’t much traffic and only one minor delay as work crews clean parts of the mountain off the road. This road closes at least once a year due to landslides leaving the handful of residents who are brave and lucky enough to live there, stranded. It’s wild and breathtaking country that I’ve only ever experienced once before when I visited Esalen. I felt it then and I felt it again last week walking those woods. Why haven’t I come up here every chance I get? The answer is that enlightenment isn’t something you attain, it’s something you remember and it doesn’t always stick. It slips away while you’re navigating life so you have to keep reminding yourself until it does stick. That is all.

Last week I drove up the coast to hike one of over 80 hikes listed in a book from the library. I found Salmon Creek falls, an easy and short hike up through the redwoods. It was warm and sunny and the drive was fairly easy as it’s “off season” so there wasn’t much traffic and only one minor delay as work crews clean parts of the mountain off the road. This road closes at least once a year due to landslides leaving the handful of residents who are brave and lucky enough to live there, stranded. It’s wild and breathtaking country that I’ve only ever experienced once before when I visited Esalen. I felt it then and I felt it again last week walking those woods. Why haven’t I come up here every chance I get? The answer is that enlightenment isn’t something you attain, it’s something you remember and it doesn’t always stick. It slips away while you’re navigating life so you have to keep reminding yourself until it does stick. That is all.

In beauty I walk.
With beauty before me, I walk.
With beauty behind me, I walk.
With beauty below me, I walk.
With beauty above me, I walk.
With beauty all around me, I walk.
It is finished in beauty,
It is finished in beauty,
It is finished in beauty,
It is finished in beauty.

Navaho

In beauty I walk.
With beauty before me, I walk.
With beauty behind me, I walk.
With beauty below me, I walk.
With beauty above me, I walk.
With beauty all around me, I walk.
It is finished in beauty,
It is finished in beauty,
It is finished in beauty,
It is finished in beauty.

Navaho

this morning i walked the east/west ranch through a light layer of fog.i walked the maze of sometimes muddy paths,up and down the hills and then down to the gravel path now strewn with earthworms after the rains.
the fog had lifted in perfect time with my thinking. i was replaying the now giant angry dialogue i’ve been playing in my head when in jumped the thought that i could just let that anger go and replace it with good will instead and just like that, i did.
now who knows how long something so simple can last? Maybe not very long, after all it wasn’t an earth moving realization or feeling, it was quiet but it got my attention and made me stop and choose a different path and i can choose that path again and again until it is so well worn that it becomes the path i walk effortlessly.
it felt like the fog and the hills and dead grasses and mud and ocean were all in on it. all there for my education on being.
thank you.

this morning i walked the east/west ranch through a light layer of fog.i walked the maze of sometimes muddy paths,up and down the hills and then down to the gravel path now strewn with earthworms after the rains.
the fog had lifted in perfect time with my thinking. i was replaying the now giant angry dialogue i’ve been playing in my head when in jumped the thought that i could just let that anger go and replace it with good will instead and just like that, i did.
now who knows how long something so simple can last? Maybe not very long, after all it wasn’t an earth moving realization or feeling, it was quiet but it got my attention and made me stop and choose a different path and i can choose that path again and again until it is so well worn that it becomes the path i walk effortlessly.
it felt like the fog and the hills and dead grasses and mud and ocean were all in on it. all there for my education on being.
thank you.

I found these giant mushrooms on my walk this morning and I wonder if they are edible….I need a guide book because just one of these would make a delicious, free and satisfying entree, if it didn’t kill me.

In other news, Mr.Chips our grandbaby purchased a very expensive razor and a book on the Internet this weekend. He’s 13 months old, he’s not even shaving yet and he wouldn’t read Brideshead Revisted for all the puffs in the world. All he wants to read is Where Is Puppy?

Evidently it’s not safe to let your grand babies play with your kindle unsupervised.