I'll Fly Away - Cotton Pickin Kids

From Out Of The Mouths Of Babes.

 Wisdom was once the product of age and experience.  People worked to gain experience and grew older telling each other stories of that work.  These stories get changed to fit the circumstances, and we call this wisdom.  

As we get a little older than just old, we might have a grandchild with us doing some task or job, that needs to be tended to.  During the progress of this experience you might make up a life story built around a work ethic and tell it to your grandchild.  This to is called wisdom.  Some of us get really good at the making up of stories thing and our stories get retold from generation to generation.  These generational stories eventually become the fables that are passed from one time to the next.   These fables become the foundations of our societies, these are our cultural heritage. 

Today wisdom pops up in the most unusual places.  A child might look into the eyes of a parent and say something randomly that sounds very much like the voice of a grandparent a generation before the birth of that child.  This type of wisdom after the amazement wears off, is titled as genetic wisdom.  We look at the child and call it genetic wisdom because we are having a hard time understanding the origin of the message.  Our children are being born with the stories of our grandparents preprogramed into their DNA. 

I read in a large important cultural book something that looked like this a long time ago, "From out of the mouths of babes shall come the wisdom of the ages."  Of course I am paraphrasing, but William Shakespeare may approve?  

When I speak to my own grandchildren I look them right in the eye, I smile at every word they speak, and I make sure that I am listening, really listening.  Because that big book, the one that guides cultures, gives it's own ageless wisdom.  "From out of the mouths of Babes."  Are we going to learn something, or are we going to ignore what should have been learned?

Peace and Balance,

John

A Life's Direction

 

When we are young the world is wonderous, a magical place where all possibilities play out through our imagination and play.  All things are real to a child.  Then we crawl into that time when we say to ourselves, loud enough for other's to hear, "It's not cool to play, it's not cool to believe." then secretly we still play.  Often we have a friend to share this time with. This friend is either real or imaginary, all's good. 

Then comes a morning when we wake.  Our imaginary friends are gone and our non-imaginary friends are standing beside us.  We are no longer waging war with mom and dad, we are engaging with mom and dad sometimes following, sometimes leading in a shared direction to a shared dream.   Possibly somewhere along this path, you and your friend will present to Mom and Dad two copies of yourselves, and they become Grand-mom, and Grand-dad.  And your copies start their own journey's.

There comes a time when you are holding the hand of Grand-mom and Grand-dad walking in the original direction.  It's your turn to lead.  The Moms and Dads are following our wonder and awe. Then you wake holding the hand of your child who is leading you, there is music.

Next stop, who has your hand?

Peace and Balance,

John 

What I Met On The Crossroads!

 I wake in the morning and look into the mirror.  What do I see?  I see me, but is it the me that I saw the night before in the same mirror?  NO, it is the new me that woke to look again.  In any given moment we are not the same, we have changed ever so perceptually from one moment to the next.  I have become more now than I was yesterday, and tomorrow I will be more than I am today.  That is the nature of our ever continued existence. 

Almost 25 years ago I had a physical and spiritual crisis.  I was broken and moving became difficult.  When you do the type of work that I did and your life depends on your ability to physically move, and suddenly your ability to do that movement stops you go into crisis.  This crisis leads to a spiritual conflict.  You blame other forces for your short comings.  Those forces are responsible for your not being able to complete the things that you need to complete.  Therefore you go to war with unseen and unknown forces of nature.  You are at war with yourself.  This is not a war you can win, and this conflict causes an extreme spiritual conflict.  I meditated upon it.

I fought this battle, physically and spiritually for almost three years, and it nearly destroyed me.  I was presented with a cross roads.  Just like Ralph Macchio  I stood in the center of that cross roads and waited for the Devil to make his presence known to me.  Unlike the movie, "Crossroads" however, the devil I was faced with looked just like me.  His eyes were penetrating and he tempted me with all sorts of wonderous things.  He said to me, "I can give you everything you want in life, I can give you your life desires, I can give you the world."  Sounded tempting.

I realized I was not fighting with an outside source, the devil I was intellectually battling was indeed myself.  This battle was not painless, it was not unemotional, it DID effect everything about me.  I became a New Me.  I was, and am forever different from who I was just prior to the turn of this century.  This is when I began to let go.

I let go of everything I was.  I let go of the stuff that I thought I was teaching, I let go of the  things I thought were important.  I began purging my soul.  Just before the year 2000 I met her.  She came into my life, my new life and I was gone.  She and I have been constant companions for 23 years as of the time I'm writing this.  She has filled my heart, and I began to create.

I created, worked and reworked, and created again things that I thought were lost to me.  What I was teaching, and thought was a good way, was not.  It was a bastardized form of that devil that I met on those crossroads.  I had to let it go or I would have died and taken a toll on my students.  I walked away.

20 years passed and I was approached by by my past.  2 individuals came back into my life and asked for instruction, "I have not what I used to have." I said.

"What do you have?", they asked.

"I have what I was in the beginning, and what I will have in the end. I will teach you to be you." is what I said.

From the Crossroads I grabbed the Devil by the hoof and pulled him off of his feet, and hit him on the head soundly with the Rock of Ages sending him back to Hell from whence he came.  

So she and I now share all, and I teach what I am pronounced to teach.  They Learn to Be Themselves.

Peace and Balance,

John

Who Was The Pink Panther?

 The year, 1963. The Subject, The Pink Panther Diamond, the largest diamond in the world, was supposed to go on public exhibition in Paris, but disappeared just before the showing.  And who do we have to investigate the theft, non other than that world re-nouned detective Inspector Jacques Clouseau. 

 Princes Dala's gift from her father the Maharaja is loosely based on the Nur-Ul-Ain, the 60 carat centerpiece of the tiara worn by Empress Farah, after she wed the last Shaw of Iran in 1958. The Shaw and his wife were know world wide for their flamboyant extravagances, one of the main reasons he was exiled from the throne and his eventual death from cancer.  

Also in 1963 The Pink Panther, and animated series about a pink panther, was introduced to the little screen.  The panther replaced the diamond from the movie comedy, and the Pink Panther himself was a little bit of a Cat Burglar.  The animated Inspector Clouseau was foiled at every turn in his attempted to thwart and capture the Pink Panther.  

Mr. Panther only spoke one line through out his career, that was in the 140th episode of The Pink Panther when he climbs into bed and in David Niven's best high classed voice says, "Good night, Goldie..."??? No one knew who the hell Goldie was.  Is it possible Blake Edwards was making a reference to Golda Meir, the Israeli Prime Minister?  One may never know. 

Peter Sellers was a fantastic choice for Detective Inspector Jacques Clouseau in the Blake Edwards movie, "The Pink Panther."  With his iconic very thick phony French accent, "That's whet I said, Yew Fooool!" In his trench coat and hat, fighting his man servant Kato off at any given moment during the film, Detective Inspector Clouseau exudes Sellers style of humor capturing the audience in laughter and chortles in any given phrase.  Sellers was the master of making stupid funny. 

Peter Sellers had a career that spanned some 60 films, appearances on BBC, and other radio forums, as well as public television,  most of which where comedies.  He was Oscar nominated three times starting in 1959 with his short film, "The Running And Jumping And Standing Still Film".  The name itself should receive some sort of award, and was awarded an Academy Award posthumously for "Dr. Strangelove", and "Being There" both released after his death in 1980.  

Peter Sellers died of a Heart Attack in 1980, and as a last joke had Glenn Miller's "In The Mood" played at his funeral.  I googled his death and this is what is listed, in this order, not an exaggeration. Peter Sellers' cause of death, "Mr. Sellers was Married 4 times and had 3 children from the first two marriages, he died of a heart attack."  A joke from the beyond.

You're wondering why I'm re-visiting the, "Pink Panther"?  Because at heart we all have a little Cat Burglar in us just waiting to get out.  

Peace and Balance,

John

Declassifying The TR3B

Steven Spielberg made a movie that opened in 1982 called, ET, about a lovable little lost alien child that made friends with some children in a Southern California town waiting for his parents to come and take him home, "ET phone home."

Regardless of what you call them, UFO, UAP, flying saucer, other worldly space ship, whatever, the fact is that we see things flying above our heads that we can not explain or identify is not mistakable.  It is happening.  How we identify these things is what's changing.  

The closer we get to admitting fully that there are beings visiting our planet from some other place, betters our understanding of what we are seeing flying in the skies, under the waters, hidden in remote caves, and traveling from north to south faster than the blink of an eye.  The closer we are to the Alien Presence here on the Earth. 

At this time our government is slowly, painstakingly going through the process of declassifying the TR3B, (Tactical Recognizance Triangle shaped, what the B stands for I don't know...) Space Ship that the United States and it's alias have had in it's arsenal for generations.   The ramifications are unknown, serve it to say we are about to reach the levels of Buck Rogers and the Star Command.  

On June 24th 1947 amateur aviator  Kenneth Arnold spotted 9 unusually shaped objects flying near Mt. Rainer in Washington state.  He claimed the objects flited from side to side and flipped in unison like the tail of a Chinese Kite.  He estimated they were traveling at about 1700 MPH, faster than any known aircraft at that time.  Then almost an exact month after there was the crash of 3 separate craft in fields outside of Roswell New Mexico.  These incidents have since been boiled down into one incident and one craft that has made it into popular UFO culture.  

Shortly after a government funded project looking into the existence of UFO's was opened called, "Project Sign" looking for signs of extraterrestrial existence. This was the first of three project the US. government funded, followed by Blue Book, and finally, The Condon Report.  Then, supposedly, the search for ET went cold.  

Then at the turn of our current century a resurgence in public interest in the UFO phenomena was reignited with the disclosure that US military pilots have been having encounters with unidentified flying things while flying sorties.   With our current ability to record and photograph objects undefinably clear, it is hard to cover up the existence of objects that we have no idea of where they came from.    We are now faced with the questions, "If they aren't ours, who's are they?"  or, "They are ours, why are our governments keeping the truth from us?"  Both questions are ominous. 

As Bob Rich of the National Astronomical and Space Administration, (NASA) recently told a congressional committee overseeing our space interests, "We Now Have the Ability to take ET Home."  

Peace and Balance,

John

Pumpkin Pie

 

Is a pumpkin a fruit or a squash?  According to Dr. Joe Masabni of Texas A&M Agri, a pumpkin is neither a squash, nor a vegetable.  A pumpkin is an old fashioned fruit because anything that starts as a flower is botanically a fruit.  Giving us some insight on a pumpkin's potential pie filling properties.

Pumpkins are a good source of Vitamin C, Calcium, Iron, Vit. D, B6, and Magnesium.  A good source of dietary fiber and about 95 calories for a small pumpkin makes it an excellent food source.  The pumpkin could even be verging on the primoradial edges of being a super food.  Just think pumpkins and bananas standing hand in hand on the precipice of food immortality.  

Generally beginning with the Holiday season, Thanksgiving thru Christmas and New Years, one of the staple experiences is Grandma's Old Fashioned Pumpkin Pie.  The pumpkin pie takes all the good things about a pumpkin, the healthy stuff, and blends it with the stuff of the holidays that are only good for you during this time of year.  Things like: Sugar and Brown Sugar, Molasses, Allspice, Cinnamon, Butter, Evaporated milk, and of course cooked and smashed pumpkin all mixed together and baked in a real nice pie crust at 375 degrees for about an hour until the center of the custard is wiggly, yet firm and a toothpick emerges un-sticky.  Pumpkin Pie, yum.

In order to serve a good pumpkin pie properly the chef needs a large quantity of home made whipped cream.  This is fairly simple to create.  Some Heavy whipping cream, sugar, and a touch of vanilla is all it takes.  Mix it all together in a large bowl, stick a blender in the bowl and turn it on high until the ingredients are magically transformed into that frothy sweet stuff we know as whipped cream.  Oh boy...

Now the proper deployment of the whipped cream.  A method of distribution is to find the largest spoon, ladle you have in your spoon drawer and dip it into a cooled bowl of your homemade, thickened, whip cream and plop a healthy quantity on a goodly slice of pie.  The word dollop does not apply as it is not an adequate description for the proper amount of sweet whipped goodness on top of your pumpkin pie.   Grab a fork and dive in.  If need be a spring board can be made available. 

For me a good pumpkin pie does not usually survive a sitting.  You may have surmised by now that pumpkin pie is like mother's milk to me.  Pumpkin pie in my world is a year long experience, as it should be.  Pumpkins are indeed a Super Food.  Immortality is right around the corner, now to add some banana.

Peace and Balance,

John   

Aurum Plain and True

From the top of the mountain

Over the horizon

 Aurum plain and true

Shining beyond the blue

Above the below

Crisp and cool

Tis on the wind

Ventus unseen

A forever light

Always Heaven

Sight

Aurum plain and true

The Dream Of Life - Alan Watts

Global Warming?

 

This morning while at school, in the middle of February of all things, there was a tremendous couple of lightening strikes followed by a couple spectacular thunder claps.  The whole building shook.  At first we all speculated that the heating system in the building had just went Boom.  That wasn't it.  We felt the first boom, and I saw the second lightening strike out the window followed by a bigger Boom.  That sort of thing intrigues me.  The science guy in me wakes up and starts thinking.  You can tell because of the smoke that shortly billows out of my ears. 

The loudness of the thunder prompted me to call home and check on my Mona.  She isn't thrilled about flashing lightening strikes and huge rocking noise from the sky in mid February.  Usually when there are booms of that size I beginning thinking of large ooops' and explosions occurring in the upper atmosphere.  Ya know that occasional ariel accident.  That was not the case, just thunder.  

Thunder and lightening in the middle of February is extremely rare.  Usually the atmospheric conditions don't contribute to weather anomalies that should and do appear during the summer.  This winter however things have been abnormally warm and the conditions are changing.  We had close to 60 degrees in the North Country a day ago and it was 48 degrees when I crawled out of bed at 3:30 this morning.  And they say that global warming isn't really happening.  I would love to see the looks on the faces on a couple of the Powers that Be trying to explain the weather.  

There is scientific evidence that supports both theories, that global warming is a natural cycle of the planet, and that global warming is the product of man's negative impact on his environment.  Regardless if it's natural or a mistake or not, global warming is a thing that should be contended with, not ignored.  If we continue to ignore the ramifications of global warming some pretty darn bad things may happen.  Rising of the oceans drowning the coastal cities, the point at which a temperature inversion so catastrophic occurs that life won't be able to maintain a natural body temp. and die, and of course the far out possibility that the atmosphere of the planet becomes toxic to all life.  All possible extremely negative outcomes of the long term effects of global warming.  Isn't that wonderful?

So, this morning while enjoying a moment at school of nothingness, a couple of large boomy noises woke the students from their glum slumbers into an almost alert status.  A very bright white flash followed by another Boom rattled their teeth.  February has been disturbed by the happenings of July or August.  I'm telling you, Global Warming is a Thing man!

Peace and Balance,

John

The Problem With Plastic.

 Our modern world spends allot of time speculating what would happen when the garbage on our planet gets to the point where we no longer have any space to place it.  Just how high would the piles go?  Would there be enough time for the natural processes of nature to reclaim the organic matter, and if so what happens to all that plastic? 

Today if you google plastic islands, you're going to find a bunch of information about huge islands of floating plastic in our oceans.  It seems that in the very center vortex of each of the Earth's oceans is a gigantic plastic island made up of bottles, syringes, plates, basket balls, and yes Nike sneakers.  It seems we as a species aren't very appt at collecting and reclaiming our plastic materials.  We make so much of this stuff that we can't possibly recycle it all so it ends up eventually floating out at sea. 

What's going to happen in the future, are we going to have entire continents made up of collective plastics?  Is there going to be a race of super intelligent cockroaches occupying these continents that will form raiding parties on the organic world seeking out organic garbage for their sustenance?   Is it possible? One may never know.  

In the future are the governments of the world going to be forced to negotiate with these intelligent bugs in order to keep feeding them our refuse with the possible threat that they may become hunters of living things?  Terrifying thought.  However, that might be a solution to our garbage problem.  If we had a race of super intelligent cockroaches to rely on for the disposal of our garbage we wouldn't have such a problem, only the collection and distribution of all that plastic. 

Here's a scenario for you.  We have a period of tangible contact with these critters and come up with the solution on how to deal with and dispose of all that plastic.  Then what happens, are the super intelligent cockroaches going to feel threatened and wage war on us because we are removing their plastic homelands?  There is no winning scenario for this problem.  We are screwed.  

As far as I can tell the only tangible solution is to deal with the plastic problem right now before all this business with the bugs gets us into trouble.  If we can get our collective heads out of or orifices long enough to create a solution to the plastic problem maybe we can sway any negative contact with any race of super intelligent cockroaches.  After all, we only really need a real big shoe, right?

Peace and Balance,

John

Red Shadow Singers - Eagle Song

An Old Tibetan Parable, "Good Luck Or Bad Luck, Who's to Say?"

 A long time ago there was an old peasant that lived high on the mountain with his favorite Yak.  Then one day the Yak ran away into the mountains and the Villagers all cried, "Such Bad Luck, such bad luck."

The old man smiled and said, "Good luck or bad luck, who's to say?"

After two days the Yak returned with two other wild Yak, and the Villagers cried out, "Hurray, such good luck!"  

The old man just simply smiled and again said, "Good luck or bad luck, who's to say?"

After a period of time the old man hired one of the village boys to work with his Yak. Then one day while working with the Yak the boy fell and broke his leg.  The Villagers all cried out, "Such bad luck!" 

Again the old man just smiled and said, "Good luck or bad luck, who's to say?"

That day a Warlord came to the village and took all the boys to fight in his army and upon seeing the boy with his broken leg left him free, and all cried out, "Such Good Luck!"

The old man just smiled and said, "Good luck or bad luck, who's to say?"

So if good things happen, or bad things happen, "Good luck or bad luck, who can say?"

Peace and Balance,

John

Axis Mundi and the Omphalos

 In Ancient astronomical systems the universe rotates on a great axis called the Axis Mundi which houses at its center the omphalos, the navel of the universe.  Several locations throughout history have been considered the Axis Mundi or it's center the Omphalos.  These locations are the many holy mountains in the multitude of theologies growing upon our planet. 

Mount Herman was considered the Axis Mundi in Canaanite tradition, where the Sons of God descended in 1 Enoch (1En6:6).  The ancient Greeks considered the Omphalos' location, the Oracle at Delphi, the roots to the Cosmic tree, and at Mount Olympus, the Home of the Gods.  Judaism has the Temple Mount, and Mount Sinai, Christianity has the Mount of Olives, and Cavalry, Islam has Mecca, and the Temple Mount, (Dome of the Rock).  Shinto has the Ise Shrine, in addition the Kun Lun Mountains are supposed to house the Peach Tree of Immortality, and Chinese mythology locates 4 pillars that hold the world.  Southeast Asia considers the Four Pillars as the Great White Elephants that hold up the heavens.  These are all accepted examples of the Axis Mundi, and it's center the Omphalos.  That was quite a list I know, However non of these cultures, at the time of their collective discoveries had any contact with each other, yet they all hold a common belief in the Center of the Universe, the House of Heaven. 

My Native American Ancestors, and the other side of my family, the Celts, had similar beliefs in the center axis that connects all things. The Plains Indians collectively has a belief that connects them culturally together regardless of the tribal affiliations or languages.  This is the Sacred Circle, or Sacred Wheel.  It is a common thread from the tip Argentina in the South to the Innu of the Great North, and across the Big Pond to the Misty Isle.  The Sacred Wheel represents the universe from the center, the Omphalos through the Four Spokes, the directions or Four Winds, with the Great outer Wheel connecting all things.  Each Cardinal direction in the Wheel is represented by the colors of the races of men.  Yellow in the East, Red in the South, Black in the West, and White in the Far North.  Each direction binds all people together in our Universe as we reside on the Back of our Mother the Earth, Ina Mahka.  The four spokes, the Four Directions, also called the Four Winds are the Axis Mundi spoken about by the other cultures of the Earth, and it's center is the Omphalos, the Navel of the Universe, Heaven.

The Zen parable that says, "To see the universe is to look inwardly."   is a simple instruction on getting to the Center of All Things, the Emerald Palace, the House of the Buddha from which we all reside.

Heaven anyone?

Peace and Balance,

John

Laundry

 

There is another ritual that we all practice either by choice or necessity, laundry.  Laundry is an act of contrition paid by you in homage of your clothes.  Every few days, or weeks, depending on the magnitude of the pile, we take our laundry to our personal clothes washing devises, or go in search of such machines as to feed them with quarters to sit and read a book, and or watch the spinning round and round of the clothes in a hypnotic rhythm of the drying process.  I'm convinced that the music often accompanying the spinning process is an attempt by the moral majority to wash our brains interjecting it's own code upon our beings.  

I have a special area that I let my dirty clothes collect.  This place has a wicker basket that gives me special signals as it closes time to wash the items.  If I ignore these subtle signals walking past the items to go up a certain stair case becomes impossible thus making doing the laundry a necessity.  Ignoring the signals is how I learned an important lesson about falling upstairs.  This lesson in itself can verge upon the supernatural as it defies gravity and should be addressed in a separate article.  

Laundry doesn't actually become laundry until a certain volume of clothes has been attained.  When reaching this level, usually between 2 and 4 feet in depth, then it has attained the cosmic title of Laundry.  

There is a choice presented to every practice of this ritual, "Which detergent to use?" This is an important decision and is very personal for every doer of the deed. Every house hold has it's own favorite soap. As long as the clothes come away from the process clean and smelling better than they went in, the correct choice has been made.  Fabric softener is optional. 

So, for you the practicer of the ritual of Laundry, take my advice, don't let it pile to high, and make sure you always have detergent on hand.  

Peace and Balance,

John

 

Walk This Way | Aerosmith | funk cover ft. Judith Hill

Who are the Aliens?

 

 A couple thousand years ago human beings thought intelligence's from other places, our first impressions, where either considered gods, or angels.  For millennia we worshiped these beings as our creators and the teachers that were supposed to be leading us to a better place, Heaven or Hell. 

As our understandings of these intelligences grow so do our thoughts and pictures about the nature of these beings.  Our Angels and gods became visitors from other worldly places, and the craft they travel in changed from the Chariots of the Gods, to the space craft that Aliens use to travel from one place to another.   Our Angels have become our Aliens.  

For those of us who have not let go of old ideas about the nature of other worldly beings, Religions have been developed based on old ideas of gods and angels.  Human beings have created ideas of all seeing benevolent overlords with our best interest at heart.  It is our job to worship these beings blindly and follow all instructions given to us on our paths to Heaven.  Now, there are old stories of a war in heaven.  The Winners, the kind and benevolent ones, have given us a directive, "Do what we say."  So, we do, should we?

It is said that the spoils go to the victors.  How do we know that the victors in this war were actually the good guys?  Because we are told to believe, have faith, worship?  A couple hundred years ago, even up to today, I would be and am considered a Heretic.   Then I would have been hanged, burned, drowned, and possibly quartered.  Today I am condemned to a fiery Hell by those who, "Know" the Lord.  I have my doubts that these Godly people really know what it is they speak.  I guess ignorance is bliss. 

Today we are in the throws of yet another change in understanding.  Our Aliens are reverting back into us by way of time.  Human understanding of unknown creatures visiting us are either, Us traveling back in time, or what have been called, "The Visitors" traveling through time and space to meet us.  We then are possibly the Creator in the first place.  We created Ourselves.  Convoluted...

The smarter we get, the more confused we are about the nature of, "Heaven and Hell."  Through this all, we still hold on to God.  However, the Guru in us would say, "If you want to talk with God, look into a mirror and start speaking."  So, they tell me I'm going to Hell. These Godly people. 

For me, I just speak, or think, or talk to my friends.  God is everywhere is it not?

A long time ago we had our gods and angels.  There was a war.  Someone won that war.  What was the war over?  Possibly We are the prize, and the war is a huge identity crisis.  

Who were the winners, and who were the losers?  An answer to both questions, Us.  As our understandings grow, I am not afraid to look into the reflection of a pond and declare, "I AM God." 

Who are You?

Peace and Balance,

John

Mahavatar Babaji & Bodiless Yogis | Sadhguru

What is Feng Shui?

 

The basic principles of Feng Shui, "Wind, and Water" another way of saying, "Yin Yang", start within the formulating foundation of the human body.  Feng Shui is the method in which the individual learns to balance the ebbs and flows within the energies of their physical being.  The tidal forces of nature, the Tao or the way, are balanced in the center of the individual and slowly expand from the center to the outward environment.  

What Feng Shui is, is how your relationship with the self evolves and balances.  We start within, and work to the expanded.  When we harmonize the self we become more aware of the environment outside.  As each phase of this awareness grows the personal environment also expands and the tendrils of awareness reach further and further outward to the unseen expanding environment over the horizon.   

This awareness has the latent after effect of you the observer and facilitator naturally changing your personal environment to match your internal environment.  If done correctly this is a natural shift, not one that that has to be a focus of the practice.  You start to arrange your space naturally, it becomes a part of you.  You are then beginning to flow with the Tao. 

Feng Shui is based from the center of the Bagua, or 8 directions.  You have the first 4 cardinal directions, and the secondary directions that your awareness flows into though the practices of movement, breathing, and meditation.  After the 8 directions are located, the 5 elements grow from within the practitioner.  The natural elements of Wood, Fire, Water, Air, and Metal, not in that specific order, is related to each of the others in a specific recipe commanded by the laws of nature.  

From the center of Bagua the 5 elements grow and bind realities and space together into a whole or Holistic being that is part of itself and everything else in one moment.  Everything is Now. 

Feng Shui is Not a psychotic need to be a clean freak.  It IS, you connected with your true nature, the everything, and the self.  

Peace and Balance,

John 

The Expense of Winter Wind.

 

Sometimes there is a little expense involved with surviving a good ole fashioned "Cold Snap".  This has been an expensive winter.  In order to save on oil as the price per gallon sent me into a tizzy, I started using some space heaters to take up the slack.  Thing about space heaters is apparently they use one hell of allot of juice.  I received my last power bill and had a minor spasm.  Now, I really can't put the blame on the power company so much as myself for consciously making the decision to use them in the first place.  

This past weekend Northern New England experienced a frigged air blast from the Great Northern Hell.  Temps dropped below -30 Saturday night without the wind giving it's 2 cents.  It was cold.  Again, I've made the decision to use space heaters.  One in the basement, one in the kitchen, one in our bedroom, and one in a back hall that has an open wall to direct wind.  They were all running, but I am pleased that I've skirted the possibility of frozen pipes.  Extra blankets and sweaters helped support the thin blood of age. 

What I did do, that I suppose in retrospect I shouldn't have, was ignore my vehicle.  The battery died.  I attached it to a trickle charge on my battery charger and crossed my fingers.  What I found out was that it is possible for the temperature to dip down cold enough that charging the battery is just a practice of folly.  It took all afternoon long, and into the evening before I could start my CRV.  After it started I let it run for a good hour to charge, warm and insure that it would start in the morning.  During that process our youngish son came home for a short visit and pointed out the apparent flat tire situation caused by the coldness.  I waited till morning to deal with that.  

In the morning I started up my pony and proceeded to fill tires with air using my Slime Green air pump plugged into the power plug of the car.  It works well, but takes a goodly amount of time.  

As Cold Snaps go, this was a good one, and prompted me to purchase a starter pack, more power than one person should use in a lifetime, and a possible new battery.  Dang Cold Snap got expensive.

Peace and Balance,

John

The Folly of the Automotive Battery.

 

Let's talk about car batteries.  Yesterday when the evil blusteriness decided to attack the North Country I decided to go out to my CRV pony at lunch time to start it up and warm the beastie as to not have a worry at the end of the day.  Thing is the wind had been blowing pretty darn good and the temp traveled from cold, to extremely cold as the day progressed.  By the time I had decided to start her up, I got a complaint, the dash began that ticking death throw thing, and I swear the battery kicked up it's little legs and died.  

I tracked down the Automotive Guru from school in the CTE office talking with his boss and begged for a jump.  After a short quip we jaunted down to the garage and investigated his ample supply of starter boxes.  After attaching the cables to the correct poles, and my breaking off one of the post covers, the rig fired right up.  I let it run for a goodly amount of time to warm the inerts of the buggy enough to insure that it would continue to start when the day was over.  By the time we left school for the day it was well below the zero thing, but it started OK, and off we went, Home.  

I parked it last night and haven't looked twice.  The air temp. was 20 below dead last night and so far today, as of 2:41 the temp. as gone up all the way to minus 2 degrees.  A veritable heat wave.  The little voice in the back of my head it telling me that it might be a good idea to attach a battery charger and let it sit for a bit.  That little voice is the sound of experience, this has happened before.  Maybe not quite as chilly, but hey what can I say.   I shall follow the advise, later.  

Tomorrow the temperature is supposed to crawl all the way up to the mid 30's, possibly even 40 degrees and soon enough we shall forget the failures of the cold.  I will be purchasing my very own battery start it up pack at Wal Mart when I attend work.  After all this chilly spell has made a good excuse to stay in bed today.  

Peace and Balance,

John 

Mamma Nature's Sick Joke

 

Mother Nature has a sense of humor.  We've spent most of our winter so far warmish and not having to spend to awful amounts of dollars on heating fuel.  We got all comfortable with the idea that this winter is going to be mild and things would be temped. 

That is, just before She in Her infiniteness decided to throw at us a big ass ball of real F*ing cold air.  I can hear the mystic laughter as I write this.  It's all a big joke and we are the butts of it.  I wonder if there's a big office somewhere we can arrive at to file a formal complaint with the administration?  Somehow I get the suspicion that we should have explored the rest room walls in the basement of the old city hall or something.  Is Arthur Dent out there observing?  Douglas Adams might have seen this coming from a long way off.

I started my vehicle at about 5AM to let it run for a few minutes and warm up before I shut her down to restart again about 10 minutes before I came to work.  At that time it wasn't to awful out at almost 20 degrees.  As I'm writing this it's 11:45 AM and -7 degrees on my weather app.  It's supposed to be about -20 degrees when I leave work at 2:15PM.  Fortunately tomorrow is Saturday and I have a day off because Mother Nature has decided to bring the temp up to about 32 degrees Sunday.   That will feel like a virtual sauna compared to what we have in store for this evening.  Northern New Hampster is looking at a possible -50 degrees.  This is real, real danger weather.  This is when the saying, "Don't Piss Into The Wind." takes on a whole new meaning.  

So, if you live in my neck of the woods, sit and wait, look over your pipes, eat a hearty meal, and binge Netflix.  There isn't much else to do unless you're into freezing parts of yourself that shouldn't get cold.

Peace and Balance,

John

Groundhog Day 2023, 6 More Weeks.

 Today we celebrate the psychic impressions of a chubby, large, mid-western rodent, Punxsutawny Phil. As things happen when Phil sees his shadow we are supposed to, "Enjoy" 6 more weeks of winter.  I'm not really thrilled about the prospect of being thrust into more winter than is normally scheduled during a season.  However, this has been a fairly good year and we have only suffered minorly the doom and gloom of snow, and as of yet haven't been tortured with the extreme cold that Northern New England is often known for.  That is until this weekend, but we shall cross that bridge when we get there.

Punxsutawny Phil has wiggled himself into the mythological mind of the American public.  Since the tradition of having a Ground hog predict the length of winter is 137 years old today, Phil must be an immortal rodent.  He has had his cult of top hat clad gentlemen around him all that time.  This must be a secret school, a forbidden subject, or just asylum laden lunacism that captures the imaginations of those in power, and the un-initiated masses.   Phil has become a demigod.

In 1993, Bill Murray stared in a movie titled, "Groundhog day," where the protagonist is caught in a time loop until he learns a serious life lesson about the proper ways of treating and respecting people.  Of course Murray's character, "Phil" Connors is chasing the girl, Andie MacDowell, trying to re-kindle a past relationship.  However the power of the other, "Phil" traps him in the loop and Phil gets to relive Groundhog day over, and over until he learns some serious stuff.  It lasts long enough for him to learn a whole spectrum of skill sets that help him capture the girl.  Years of skills are programed into Phil over the course of this Groundhog day.  He is cursed. Phil the Groundhog is no force to mess with.

Finely there comes the point in the movie where, Phil Connors can no longer take the stress and tries to commit a grizzly suicide by driving himself and the Groundhog off a cliff in an old red truck.  Of course it doesn't work and he has to keep pushing on with his task.  The parody of 6 more weeks of winter, maybe?

Groundhog day is celebrated about half way through the season when our collective minds have slipped just enough for the masses to accept the possibility that a Groundhog can actually predict the course of the rest of winter.  Hey, why the heck not?  After all we tend to give credit to several news casters who have made careers out of lying to the public, the Weather Men.  

So if your like me and only subtly believe in the Cosmic Rodent, hold on tight, up here in the North Country it's winter right up until the Fat Lady Sings.  

Peace and Balance,

John  

 

  

Walk On The Wild Side, NO...

 I'm of the age that can tell who is a girl and who is a boy.  When I was a kid if you liked a girl you had a conversation with her and asked her to a movie, or whatever.  There was a definite distinction between the genders regardless of any specific orientation.  

Today I work at a public High School and, especially this year, have walked away from certain conversation either because I don't understand what I'm hearing or seeing, or I don't want to engage in a conversation that might put me in a position where I would have to defend what I'm saying vs. what I'm hearing.  Kids these days seem to be very comfortable with their fluid ideas of gender and sexual orientation.  

I just don't understand.  Some of these kids are definitely boys or girls, but switch and decide or choose  to portray the opposite sex.  Just like the Lou Reed song says, "Boys will be Girls, and Girls will be Boys."  I remain confused.

We have a couple female students that are actually very attractive young ladies, and dress all girly, girly, but who call themselves boys, and expect to be approached in same manner.  It's hard to have a conversation with a student who is definitely one gender as the opposite gender.  Especially when that student dresses obviously on purpose the opposite gender that they want to be addressed as.  

I understand that there are certain psychological disorders that make it impossible for the patient to accept or confirm genders that they were born with, however I don't believe that the majority of students are afflicted with this disorder, nor do I believe that the number of students that are, "Flipping" genders are going to remain in the one being, "Acted" out.    I just find this all very odd.  

An observation that I have been pondering is that most of these non-gender conformist students were born female verses male.  I wonder if that is a reflection of the stress levels, and or stressors that society is imposing upon our women.  There must be a study out there somewhere.  

So, this old man is going to have to learn new ways, However I refuse to, "Take A Walk On The Wild Side."

Peace and Balance,

John