This clip is from UKRAINE's GOT TALENT!

This young Ukrainian girl tells an entire story via pushing around sand on a table.  She uses nothing but sand and her hands to create these images.  What amazing
artistic talent! 

This one had me mesmorized and in tears, even though I didn't understand the language.  Words unnecessary.  I hope you enjoy this too.

According to Piero Ferrucci, freedom starts with being kind.
To others. And yourself. History provides the proof:

....."One of the reasons behind the success of evolution is that we've been kind to one another. "He suggests a little more silence and a little more kindness-not just for others but for ourselves.  It could be a doctor's prescription.  But Ferrucci immediately adds a caveat. There are two major obstacles to kindness, he says.
 
"The first obstacle is passing judgement, on yourself or others. The second obstacle: telling others what they should do or who they should be, giving them advice and trying to control them. If we would do that a little less, everything on earth would run a lot more smoothly."  After considering for a moment he adds: "By the way, have you ever seen anyone actually follow someone's advice? See? Everyone does what they want to anyway."

Kindness... it seems like such a simple quality, not terribly grand or some kind of keen breakthrough. And yet this single virtue, according to Piero Ferrucci, can save humanity. "More to the point," he adds. "It is saving humanity. Have you ever wondered why the world still hasn't fallen apart, despite all its complex structures? Mail carriers, train conductors, newspaper vendors, cleaners, etc... of course they earn their livelihood with what they do, but it all happens largely thanks to their good will, to their kindness."

Ferrucci looks at his watch. The photographer-yet another person with good will-is due any minute. It's time to wind up our discussion. But he has one more thing to say: "The most sensible way to look after our own self-interest, to find freedom and be happy, is not to directly pursue these things but to give priority to the interests of others. Help others to become free of their fear and pain. Contribute to their happiness. It's all really very simple. You don't have to choose between being kind to yourself and others. It's one and the same."

Read full article from Ode Magazine :
 http://www.dailygood.org/more.php?n=3815

From Out There, floating around.  They seem to always find me through the shower head.  Me, grooving in the warmth of the water, the scent of magnolias,  verbena, Dove soap,  sudsy bubbles, the hum of the water, the scratchy bath brush, groovin' groovin' in bliss.  All the ideas come clear as a bell, perfect, in a purple wave of perfectness, all is well, all is right, all is alright.  God, I love my life.

I turn off the water and pull the curtain open .......

Forgiveness has been one of the highlights of my life.  One of the most illuminating and freeing experiences of my life.  Only good flowed from it.  Here is one of my favourite quotes that so many friends have also found both funny and profound.

"Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past."
~~Lily Tomlin

When I was struck down by stroke or brain virus, my 2 sisters turned on me when I needed them the most.  Not only did they not help me, they took actions that hurt me, our father, and divided all the relatives.  They slandered me and made false accusations that were ludicrous and hurtful.  In my weakened, vulnerable state, I was reeling in despair.  They refused to speak to me for many years.  Any attempts to communicate with them  they blocked.  Birthday cards I sent to them were returned.  A cousin who was friendly with me, was told not to phone or visit them.  It was ugly, and they used up my father's small estate to pay a high priced lawyer $500 an hour to keep me from visiting my father in the nursing home.  My father was crying as I had been his caregiver.  Through a haze of brain fog and neurological damage, I tried to fight back.  What in the worldl were my sister thinking?  Did they hate me so much?  for how long?  A counsellor said it was Sibling Rivalry - that we were all getting older, and this was a good chance for them to get even since I was in a weakened state - it was a good time for them to attack.  Wow!!!

I  cried,mulled, cried, consulted, was given free legal advice by a sympathetic lawyer, I despaired.
I was reading a lot of Buddhist stuff and got a wonderful online Buddhist teacher(Reverend Da Shi Yin De) and became his student.  When I asked for spiritual guidance on this horrible state of emotional affairs, he wrote me the words that helped set me free.

"STOP TORTURING YOURSELF.  You're making yourself angry because people aren't acting and talking in a way you think they should be."  He invited me to consider setting myself free.

At first I was shocked at his lack of sympathy ;>)), hey, I was a victiml here!  Did he miss that point?   No, he had not.  He had it just right.  I was allowing them to victimize me.  I allowed them to have power over me with just their thoughts, words, and even their actions.  Why was I giving away my power?  Why was I reacting so badly to their words and small minded actions.  What were my choices here?

I won't bore you with all the details, whatever they are, of how it came about.  But I released myself from their grip which wasn't as tight as I imagined.  I remembered a 90 year old Bahai friend, Joan Moore,  telling me to pray for them. HAH!! as if that was every going to happen!  I had long ago given up praying.  Why would I pray for my enemies or to be less dramatic - for those trying to harm me.?

I asked my teacher about prayer, and he said when you pray, you are praying to yourself and for yourself, or something like that.  I remembered the Metta Prayer. ...May all beings.... hey, ALL BEINGS...-?sisters?.. 

The more I moved away from being victim and martyr  in the drama, the more sense it made, and the freer and better i felt.  I rose above the situation to a new viewing stand, and became the Observer in the play, not the victim and  beseiged heroine.  I became free.  In my heart and mind I wished them well, and that they could free themselves from the dark places. .  I was free.

Today, my sister and i enjoy wonderful times together, even though there was about 6 years when they closed me out completely. Did anybody win or lose?  Yes, we all lost and won.  And have moved on and on. 
 
Someone recently asked me, "Have you forgiven your sisters?"  I laugh.  "Oh, I don't know if it's forgiveness.  I don't think of it in that way.  I just think, THAT IS JUST WHAT HAPPENED THEN ---THIS IS NOW!!  I gave up all hope of a better past."
 
....and let go
and moved on
  

May all creatures, all living things,
all beings one and all,
experience good fortune only.
May they not fall into harm.


"The man who foolishly does me wrong, I will return to him the protection of my most ungrudging love; and the more evil comes from him, the more good shall go from me."
~Buddha~

Auntie Vickie is 90 years old.  She was very troubled when the family became divided when my two sisters refused to speak to me for almost 6 years.  It all revolved around me being my father's caregiver and that my father and I had a close and loving relationship in the later years of his life. And I handled all his financial and medical affairs.  

My sisters at times refused to visit our father.  When he was moved into a hospital and then a nursing home in my small town, I visited him every single day for about 2 years.  He was just a short walk away and I would just pop in each day and bring him a treat and find out what he wanted - pencils, garlic head cheese, peaches, 3-hole punch., whatever.   I think there was resentment of some sort because we liked each other - my older sister dislked him from childhood and my younger one had not visiedt him for 2 years even though she was a few miles away fixing up his house for sale.

When I became ill, they decided to prevent me and my father from communicating, banning me from even visiting,  censoring his mail, and even telling the home not to sell him stamps so he couldn't send me letters. My father was crying and wondering why I wasn't  showing up or writing or phoning (and he had no idea that I had suffered several brain attacks).  They had a whole bag of mini tricks, and a $500/hr. lawyer, who thought up many petty new things to prevent contact.  Yikes!  Through the Patients Rights Office, I put a stop to that but it took about a year or more to even find them in my weakened brain fog state.

So back to Auntie Vickie, she was very sad and troubled and told me she prayed every night that God would answer her prayer - that "you girls would start talking again".  I tried to explain that I had always been willing to talk, but they refused any overtures over the years. .  Even when my Dad died, my sister phoned my son and said, "Tell your mother Daddy died and if she wants to know the arrangements, phone the funeral home, not me.   He's at Lamb's Funeral Home."  

 I was terrified, I had to face my tormentors in a public place  with my emotions raw at "Daddy''s" death.  My friend Nancy, said she would stay by my side every single minute and not leave me for a second.  She is tiny but mighty with an angelic face.   I got through the funeral with help of friends, though my sisters had orchestrated a bizzare final send off.  

My friends were surprised that my sisters said "family only" at the graveside at the last moment.  Some of them were already on their way there.  At the graveside, the minister began by saying, "The family has asked me to speak  but not to do a Christian burial...."  I just about fell over.   whaaaaat?...the minister went on, "but I am a Christian minister and that is what I do - Christian burials.  Anyway, he did the prayers, and dust to dust, and Jesus was mentioned, all the stuff. I was very embarrassed by what my sisters had done, but proud of the minister for speaking up.  What in hell were those sisters of mine thinking?

So back to Auntie Vickie.....90 years old, of the apricot highly sprayed helmet hair, green eye shadow, midnight grey panty hose, high heels, long plastic dangly earrings, telling me several times that she was "errr, mmmm, praying every night,, yes, you know...that you girls wll talk again, eh? hahaha(small laugh).  I wish you girls would talk again, you know,.I pray every night."

Right then and there, hearing her small voice, my mother's last sister alive, telling me her wish and prayer, I decided I would try to help God answer her prayer.  Never mind what those "girls" had done over the years to make my life difficult and sad.  No, it wasn't about them any more...it was about Auntie Vickie...she was 90 and could be gone any minute, her health was frail, and her shoe heels were getting lower and safer.  I didn't want her to go to be with God and be mad at him for not answering her prayer. 

I decided I would approach the most approachable sister who lived about 10 miles away  - the one who I had run through the spinkler with, had shared the same 3/4 bed as kids, the one I had talked to every day on the phone with before all this crazy nonsense came into being like a plague. I mulled over ---  COULD WE START AGAIN, could we have a future,  COULD WE HAVE  A  NOW?  Perhaps!---that  was the best answer I could get.

I decided to send my sister  a birthday card yet again with some picture of us age 7 and 3, sitting on a table top, taken by a roving photograher in the 1940's.  I bravely wrote on the back of it "I love my sister", and put it in the mail.   I waited a few days, and then phoned and left a message on her answering machine "Hey, it's your seeester, your birthday's coming up and why don't we go out to the Caribbean restaurant  up the street from me.  It's cheap and cheerful.  My treat!"  and hung up.

A few hours later, I got a call back.  Yes, she would accept, but only if we went Dutch Treat, she did not want me to pay.  Ok, noon at the restaurant.  It was a bit awkward at first, but after a big healthy rum drink and cranked up calypso music, we relaxed, and started talking and laughing, and laughing, and before we knew it, 3 hours had passed and we were still talking and laughing.  We got up to leave and hugged each other, and she drove me home.  We have been talking ever since.  I phoned Auntie Vickie after about 3 days, and told her what happened.  She was in tears, she was so happy.  But there was still one lost sheep.....


Photo -- googled, not Auntie V

WHOO HOO! 
EARTH TO OBAMA SUPPORTERS ! get your butts out on the street
NOW!

Why are the right wing nuts able to rouse the rabble to get out on the streets with nazi signs, hammer and sickles signs, hollering nonsense about Socialism, and getting all the press coverage, like this is normal???

Where are you?  watching them on TV.  Watching Survivor?
Hell- ohh!
SHOW YOURSELVES, DAMMIT.

thank you.

Yesterday, my son and I went to the local library to get  library cards.  We're new in town and like to use the library services.  We gathered up documents with our current address to prove we actually live here in Peterborough.  I was excited to see that they had a coffee bar with nice coffees, snacks, comfy chairs a la mini Starbucks.

I got my card but  was in a hurry so I asked where the Buddhist section was. I swear I was away the day they taught the Dewey Decimal System in high school.  I quickly grabbed a few books - The Yoga of Healing, Kundalini Yoga for the West, Living Buddha, Living Christ. 

On the way to the car my son remarked, "I thought the library would be nicer.  The one in Niagara is so much nicer.".  I agreed that we had been lucky to have such a beautiful library with secret places to sit with fountains bubbling, light streaming in through sky lights, plants everywhere. 

"Ya,it was so much nicer.  I expected the one here  would be nicer"....

"Well, " I said...."maybe you can do something to make it nicer ;>)"

"Like what?"

"Well, maybe you can be a volunteer at the library, help seniors find stuff, or maybe get on the library board, or be a fund raiser for the library, and when you get the money from your law suit, you can make a generous donation to the library to make it nicer."

He said, " Hmmm.......I never thought of that......"


Photo - Niagara Falls (Ontario) Public Library

I have hundreds of ways of saying no. It all has to do with tone of voice, facial expression, and body language.  So these 2 letters are very powerful and easy to pronounce.  You just have to give it the right inflection and let the  asker know immediately.  Here's some:

Nope! - (no way, not going to happen)

No-o-o-o - kinda whinnied (like are you kidding?)

Nooooooo  (lips pursed, eyes squinted - resolute)

Noohooh - said with evil laugh tone (what you're saying is a scary? ridiculous? concept)

Throw in some head nods, modulate voice high low, raise lower eyebrows, shoulders, make eyes big, little.  There is such a variety.  It is hard to understand with so much available why people find it hard to say no.  I think they want to be "nice".

My mother was "nice".  She hardly ever said no.  After she died, I grieved for a long time.  The one thing that came out as a revelation to me "I am never again saying yes when I mean no".  How could my mother's death prompt such an idea?  Later, I thought about it more, and it appeared she didn't protect herself, her boundaries, she didn't get what she wanted.  The doctor said she had a bit of a martyr complex.  Hey, that's not good!  I didn't want to die a martyr.

And I certainly did not want to live a martyr. No way,!  No siree, Bob!  NOt going to happen~ no no nanette, no way Jose.   Now I  comfortably say no- even a Big Fat NO --and smile or laugh with ease. It's easy, uncomplicated, truthful. 


 

Children, from birth,  should be exposed to the things that add so much quality  and texture to our life -books,  music, art, nature, philosophy, spirituality---things of the spirit, heart, and mind, so they can create things from that place. They need to be guided by  parents and family members who are stable, loving people.  .

Children  should experience responsibility for themselves and others through Work, even at the youngest age. . They should experience Reality, Play, and Dreams. They need to participate in real life as useful members  of society.  The need to learn how to  give and be useful instead of being zombie couch potatoes, whining "I'm bored, there's nothing to do" and having a long list of  electronic toys that cost hundreds of dollars.  And if they really want them, they can earn and save the money to buy them  themself.  

 Mostly they should experience Just Being a Kid, running in the woods, collecting chestnuts in the fall, laying on their back under a treee,skating on a pond, having a best friend, having loving family  who have time and smarts to do the right thing. 

A little Tough Love is not a bad thing.   I think there is way too much  emphasis on kids' self esteem, and not enough on teaching them Self-Restraint - good manners, civility, self-discipline. Children should not be indulged like Prize Pomeranians.

And finally, humour - to develop a sense of humour, to experience the funny and the absurd and to have a good shaking laugh - where the stuff come out of your nose, and you drool,  your eyes water and your stomach hurts. 

What are my other choices? ;>)

What's wrong with small talk?  It primes the pump for conversation and social interaction. You are free to stop making or listening to small talk at any moment.
  
Small talk and big talk both serve their own purpose, depending on the situation and the people involved. Small talk is neither good nor bad.  It is only a tool.

"How are YOU?...  by the way...   

 Hilarious!!
DON'T YOU HATE THAT SOUND! 

Spaaaaaaaah!

Fascinating talk - worth every single minute you spend listening to this.  I hope you will watch the video and remember what he said ;>)

FISH STORY 

My cousin told me this hilarious story from years back.  When her son, Trevor,  was about 8years old, she took him down to the waterfront to see the awards for a Fishing Derby. He was so amazed to see all these gigantic fish being held up.  He was admiring a non-winning really big fish -about 3 feet long.  Trevor being so cute and adorable, won the heart of the fisherman.  He told Trevor he could have the fish.
My cousin tried to talk him out of it, but Trevor wanted to take it home and show it to his father. He refused to leave the park without the fish.  So my cousin said ok.

Trevor took the fish home to their nice apartment building to show his father.
  "Why did you bring that thing home, what  the heck are you going to do with the big fish?"  Trevor wasn't sure. "I'm putting it in the garbage," his father said.  And he wrapped the giant fish in more newspaper and put it down the garbage chute. 

A few days later, there was a big drama outside the apartment building with lots of police cars.  My cousin and Trevor went outside to see what was going on, and heard the news that the police were investigating a possible murder - they think they found body parts stuck in the garbage chute.  When they finally retrieved the stinking bundle, they discovered it was not a body at all but a giant fish.  The police hollered out to the crowd , "Does anyone know anything about this big fish?: and before my cousin could stop him, Trevor hollered out "Yes, that's my fish."  Trevor's father had to pay a fine of  $175 for illegally disposing of the  fish. 

Yes,I believe inthe earthly variety who have guided, helped, and protected me.  They are near and far.  They are practical, wise, and kind.

There are angels who exist in the spiritual realm who are available to those who know how  to "be" in the spiritual realm.  But first you have to learn how, or have a desire to tap into the spirtitual realm and accept the language of the spiritual realm.  Believe in the magic of the spiritual realm and it will be appear to you.  You will find it if you look.