Work in progress.

These are being worked on. They can already be claimed.



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Food, Inc @ John Stewart - The Daily Show.

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Robert Kenner
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Jason Jones in Iran

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Happy Independence Day!

Taken in Annapolis, MD (Historic District)
2008
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Safe.

Image by Thai Jasmine via Flickr

"Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person,
having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words,

but pouring them all out,
just as they are, chaff and grain together,
certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them,
keep what is worth keeping,
and with a breath of kindness

blow the rest away."

--Dinah Craik

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Inspiration. Paying Attention.

"What are we ignoring" (a Zen podcast from one of my fave hosts, Gil Fronsdal), from the Insight Meditation Center, in Redwood, CA.

A new movie about the (Carl Jung's) concept of Shadow, by Debbie Ford and guests. Here's the web site.

A description of the Shadow.

Links to explore about the Shadow.



Emerging Earth Angels. The 6/23/09 entry was quite significant to the current phase of my life.

And, from Abraham:

"Enlightenment means literally aligning to the Energy of my Source. And genius is only about focusing. Law of Attraction takes care of everything else. Physical humans often want to make enlightenment about finding some process and moving through the process that has been pre-described. But true enlightenment is moving to the rhythm of the internal inspiration that is coming in response to the individual desire. Enlightenment is about allowing my connection to the Source that is me for the fulfillment of the things that I have individually defined here in my time/space reality. That's as good as it gets!"

Excerpted from the workshop in Boulder, CO on Saturday, June 7th, 2003
Jerry and Esther Hicks

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Good times.

Back to my job/goal/desire of tuning into a higher level of awareness; no more ranting for now. The last few days have been filled with that and I totally noticed what it does to me.

The longer I go the more I realize that what I pay attention to, and the level of energy I attach to it, changes my outlook, my attention field, my words, my memory, my level of patience and even my capacity to rest.

And it's not my place to deny that it also changes the outcome of events. I KNOW this. And though it can be challenging to avoid, it's simply not worth to focus on what's wrong, with me or the world in a helpless, complaining, ranting sense. Been there, done that.

I still don't know how to reach a better balance, though: how to notice negative things and to not let it get to me; if I knew I'd be a sub for Mother Teresa by now.

But since I have this inate (and learned) tendency to notice the lesser aspects of people and the world, at least I'd like to learn how to be proactive in helping to improve them, if I can. I know it will come, that I will unquestionably learn this through diligent practice - because the opposite just doesn't have a place in my life anymore.

Complaining does nothing to change things. Instead, it helps to settle what's wrong.

Since it's best to start from ourselves, that is what I'm doing. The big things that I can't help solve need to be at a safe distance. It's self-preservation, and we all need it. I equate it to the concept of "think globally, act locally", where the "local" stands for "self".

Which brings me to tell ya that I'll be on vaca for the next few days. I have one more oldie project that I will tie loose ends on before I go. I have no idea how long I'll be gone. Isn't this wonderful? It's total play by year! :)

It's time for the old Cris to take a much needed break. The last real trip I did was in 2002 (as crazy as that sounds) and it wasn't such a great trip at that, considering hubby wasn't with me. Now we are going to be together (yay!), and he's gonna show me a little bit of California, which we are hoping will become our new home.

I can't wait to see what I will be feeling as soon as I step out of the plane and put my foot down on the ground there, and what I will feel as we travel around. He recently did a week long tour on his own and I was in love just looking at the pictures and hearing him talk about it.

I know that an old phase of my life has ended. It's dead. I refuse to go back to it as it was. I accept nothing less of new, even if that new means hardships. Life is all of it, easy and hard. I'm not afraid.

I've done this before. I've left my country once to arrive here in the US, to start a new life when the old one had ceased, and it was the best thing I could have done. My life completely changed in ways I could not have predicted. Even art came out from inside me, where it had been hiding for many years. Great things happen if we don't hold hands too tightly with our fears. Fear can be a friend. It's all in how we relate to it.

Hubs and I haven't seen each other since end of April; it really feels like longer, and I think that it's because I was able to focus on me and make big personal progresses. Eliminating sources of stress has made a huge impact on me.

I'm enjoying my sleep very much, I'm exercising, taking charge of what I gotta do on a daily basis, my mind feels much lighter, and best of all, I feel very attuned to *what is*.

I go back to one of my all time favorite words: surrender. It's really the first time that I feel I'm doing that without effort; there's a new found trust that I feel that everything is taking care of itself and it does not need my interference in regards to outcome. All I need to do is to focus on me, as I am, and all else is moving right along, towards the vision I have for the future.

And for the first time I feel I don't need to rush the future, or to get there quickly. Of course I'm eager and excited and hopeful, but it's a steady stream, as oppose to a frantic current - if I may use the water element as an analogy.

As I sit here writing this, I see 2 quotes in front of me:

"Hope is negative. Desire is positive"

"First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do."
- Epictetus, Greek philosopher

And a piece of paper in which I wrote: "Show appreciation".

Magic words to ponder upon.

Art? I painted this the other day, but she already has sold.


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True.

Image by kattebelletje via Flickr

In regards to the last post, what happened is that the neighbor ran over the water tank in the front yard. You know, the big metal pipe that comes out of the ground, in the middle of the lawn. My house has one too.

I looked at her yard with detective eyes, to try to figure out what had happened; it was obvious: there was a 2 feet long track of freshly cut grass, which stops right at the metal thing on the ground. I had to smile, it looks pretty funny, considering I was inside the house, writing that blog post when it happened, and I could tell what was going on just from the noises.

My mower is set to cut the grass higher so I usually cruise over my water pipe fine, though I'm always mindful b/c hubs told me to remember it.

Yesterday I was still feeling awful, so I took a refreshing shower, got on my bike while the sun was still about 2 hrs from sunset and rode to the Chinese food joint. I had been craving their fried dumplings for 2 days. I got 2 packs; ate one outside, near the grass, while basking in the late afternoon sunshine, and then brought one home. That's 12 dumplings, and t'was good!

I feel better.

Sometimes, you just gotta be extra good to yourself.



Psst... I'm putting work on eBay today.
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