So I fell today. Haven't fallen in a really long time. I swore I'd never make this an MS blog or a blog about MS, so although the cause basically this isn't the focus of this story. This story is about the mid air part. The part of nothing but you, air and the force of gravitational pull.
I realize how little I can do when the warm weather comes. The inspiration, gumption, intent, motivation goes right out the door. Can anyone be too tired to read? I guess I can be. I'm reading Damien by Hess and I've read the page where he's bragging about stealing apples now 6 or 7 times. When you can't think there is a certain beauty in the wonder of it all. You can't think of yesterday or last week or much of anything else. It's sort of wonderful just being in the now, being in the moment. I'm sure a Buddhist monk would give me a precious jade carving for my ability to be in the moment. I am ONLY in the moment. I feel the breeze each time like its the first. I taste the wine with each first sip. And there's a long run of first sips
Monday, May 30, 2016
Wednesday, May 25, 2016
Orest Bedrij
Amazing how time passes when you get involved! Well I've been busy but nothing was as important as this last weekend attend a self divinity event led by Orest Bedrij. He is a genius, created windows for Microsoft and created the programs to get a man on the moon. Look him up! He's amazing in that his take on God and our relationship with him in our higher power is wonderful. I've lost organized religion for awhile but remain a highly spiritual person. This was such a wonderful experience with a fantastic group of people held at the Xenia resort in the Catskills. Beautiful setting, great food, a nice escape. Ok rooms are not exactly lavish but the bed was pretty comfortable and the grounds and event made it sensational and easy to overlook the rudimentary interiors. Sitting down by the rivers was decadent however and looking at the majestic nature surrounding it all was spectacular. A place I'd gladly return to.
I was going to add the prayer but can't get it from my camera. I guess I'm blogging this to spread his message and way of thinking. It's wonderful for those of us that love God, our higher power but don't feel anything in a church. I myself have always loved churches but I've realized it's the interior that I'm looking at. The peace or the trappings of it all. Orest has given me a different sort of peace and I'm so appreciative. As he says after each course. "I Love you" and I have never felt more loved and connected to God. As Orest says, universes come and go but you will be here forever!
It's a beautiful thing and I wanted to share it with my beautiful readers. I love you.
I was going to add the prayer but can't get it from my camera. I guess I'm blogging this to spread his message and way of thinking. It's wonderful for those of us that love God, our higher power but don't feel anything in a church. I myself have always loved churches but I've realized it's the interior that I'm looking at. The peace or the trappings of it all. Orest has given me a different sort of peace and I'm so appreciative. As he says after each course. "I Love you" and I have never felt more loved and connected to God. As Orest says, universes come and go but you will be here forever!
It's a beautiful thing and I wanted to share it with my beautiful readers. I love you.
Thursday, May 12, 2016
Surrender
Surrender is a word I rarely use. Perhaps I've given "fight" the upper hand. Fight is the stronger, more aggressive, more dedicated to a cause sort of word, or at least I thought so. I think I was mistaken, to surrender isn't the giving in or letting go as I always feared. It's letting things be, doing with what comes along, a path of least resistance. It's in the doing, changing, creating, judging that work begins. Jackhammers, trucks, men with shovels dig up roads, move mountains for a new road that will allow us to get from there to here with greater ease, less effort and time. So maybe I did the work to get to surrender, or maybe a step by step got me over the mountain and to a destination, like a holy crusade. I'm not sure if my book is filled with all the needed stamps of the shrines that came along in life, but at this point I'm done and not sure why I'm carrying a book.
Surrender is a very difficult concept. It's actually more work as in the regular battles of the mind. Wanting change or opinion but not engaging, being at peace, letting things be the way the universe presents them AND accepting them.
I'm tired, physically, mentally, emotionally tired. I'm going to blame my MS or the drugs I take for it or my current stress level or the weakness in my body and what this has done to my spirit. I'm broken just now. Summers heat is seeping into the spring coolness and I will be victimized by the humidity or humility that I need to face.
So, ok this surrender thing is new to me but I'm seeing how sweet life can be when just being in the moment makes you see all the small things you were busy running past. Without any planning or backhoes, things fall into place. They really do. You don't have to participate in everything and if you do, there doesn't have to be a finish line to cross each time.
I'm going to spend this summer looking at clouds, I think there is great wisdom to be understood in them. I think they understand the surrender I'm seeking. Oh how I want to drift and float above it all and let the wind take me away.
Surrender is a very difficult concept. It's actually more work as in the regular battles of the mind. Wanting change or opinion but not engaging, being at peace, letting things be the way the universe presents them AND accepting them.
I'm tired, physically, mentally, emotionally tired. I'm going to blame my MS or the drugs I take for it or my current stress level or the weakness in my body and what this has done to my spirit. I'm broken just now. Summers heat is seeping into the spring coolness and I will be victimized by the humidity or humility that I need to face.
So, ok this surrender thing is new to me but I'm seeing how sweet life can be when just being in the moment makes you see all the small things you were busy running past. Without any planning or backhoes, things fall into place. They really do. You don't have to participate in everything and if you do, there doesn't have to be a finish line to cross each time.
I'm going to spend this summer looking at clouds, I think there is great wisdom to be understood in them. I think they understand the surrender I'm seeking. Oh how I want to drift and float above it all and let the wind take me away.
Saturday, May 7, 2016
Death and Frosting
This morning I woke up with two things on my mind the first was creamy but sweet frosting and almost at the same time death. I didn't get back to think about frosting until I got downstairs and had a Greek style vanilla yogurt that I pretended was frosting in its creamy consistency and vanilla sense but it became immatation sour cream rather quickly and that was the end of that.
Death on the other hand was forefront. With my head under pillows and blankets I was in complete blackness and wondered about if I was dead, would it be total blackness or total whiteness? I tried not to breathe for some time but I couldn't help to hear the streaming sound of mountaintop winds as my lungs filled in and emptied out in a smooth and rhythmic flow. My only other sense was the sensation of my tongue feeling my hard and smooth backside of my lower front teeth. I was wondering what to be dead was like, to not breathe, not to feel, not think, be in the total space of it, white or black. Not to care. My eyes cracked open and there on the mattress under the pillow in my dark cave was a soft charcoal sketch. The dim light from a crack between the pillow and blanket appeared as if a charcoal by Michangelo. I wanted to see a Madonna or something but it was more like the shadow of a lamb I thought. Death is non- ness. Really, it's beyond letting go I imagined, it's not being present, a lightness of being or not being anything. I'm pretty sure when you do check out that's it. End of line, done. I imagine that before we are life would pretty much be the same as after life. We just won't know. So, the moral of all this is, enjoy the frosting, the pleasure of life when and while we can. Today is a birth, a birthday, an anniversary, a christening, a wedding, a graduation, a holiday, a weekend or weekday, a bank closed holiday, an earthquake, a volcano, a rainy day, a sunny day, a religious holiday, a three day weekend, a vacation day, a day of death, my funeral, your funeral, our funeral, someone's funeral, a death day, the day someone somewhere died, the end of the play.
If you like something, start applauding now, tomorrow will be too late.
Death on the other hand was forefront. With my head under pillows and blankets I was in complete blackness and wondered about if I was dead, would it be total blackness or total whiteness? I tried not to breathe for some time but I couldn't help to hear the streaming sound of mountaintop winds as my lungs filled in and emptied out in a smooth and rhythmic flow. My only other sense was the sensation of my tongue feeling my hard and smooth backside of my lower front teeth. I was wondering what to be dead was like, to not breathe, not to feel, not think, be in the total space of it, white or black. Not to care. My eyes cracked open and there on the mattress under the pillow in my dark cave was a soft charcoal sketch. The dim light from a crack between the pillow and blanket appeared as if a charcoal by Michangelo. I wanted to see a Madonna or something but it was more like the shadow of a lamb I thought. Death is non- ness. Really, it's beyond letting go I imagined, it's not being present, a lightness of being or not being anything. I'm pretty sure when you do check out that's it. End of line, done. I imagine that before we are life would pretty much be the same as after life. We just won't know. So, the moral of all this is, enjoy the frosting, the pleasure of life when and while we can. Today is a birth, a birthday, an anniversary, a christening, a wedding, a graduation, a holiday, a weekend or weekday, a bank closed holiday, an earthquake, a volcano, a rainy day, a sunny day, a religious holiday, a three day weekend, a vacation day, a day of death, my funeral, your funeral, our funeral, someone's funeral, a death day, the day someone somewhere died, the end of the play.
If you like something, start applauding now, tomorrow will be too late.
Thursday, May 5, 2016
Santos
This story surfaces in my life at unexpected times. I'm not sure what exactly Spurs it on but I would imagine that those reading this blog might understand the night visitors. The night visitors are the Angels that visit us when we are truly resigned, when we've really checked out of body and our minds have finally stopped with the incessant chatter. I always thought they were the 3 kings in a sense, that each of us is that purity, that being, a Christ child in a manger, I think it's only then that these visitors can come and tell us or show us clues about something that has happened and give us some sense of it.
Santos was a day spirit. I had just moved into a new home as a 30 something single man and felt a sense of place in my life, that I reached a success point of achievement and something very big was going to happen. It's not that I really knew this or felt this or was really conscious of it at all but there was this ongoing undercurrent of intention I guess out of a better word that I remember when I look back at it now.
I was unpacking some boxes and was truly in the moment and in my own head of whatever it was that I was doing. Suddenly there was a knock at the door and not only did the knock make me jump because of the sudden noise that broke my trance, but moral because this house was at the top of a very steep hill off a road that not many would ever use to solicit. I was weeks old in Connecticut as well, so it wasn't like a friend was dropping by either. As I walked to the open glass storm door I only removed yellow warm golden light beaming in. The light seemed to tint everything it touched with a golden powdery gleam. I didn't see anyone there, but when I got to the door this small boy about 4 foot tall was standing there and he was selling something, I want to say seeds but I'm not sure. It seems to be what I remember, at least.
Anyway I talked with the little boy,circled some choices, gave him 10 dollars and then he just disappeared. Can't explain it but he was just gone by the time I turned around. I assumed he just cut left or right to get the other neighbor but upon looking both ways didn't see him. There was no one walking down the steep hillside or driveway either. I went to bed that night and then realized that santos, although in child form was a saint who had come to tell me that everything was going to be alright. I knew it immediately then and have always remembered it. No he never came back by the way, with seeds or change or any other messages. I've taken it that that one was enough.
Santos was a day spirit. I had just moved into a new home as a 30 something single man and felt a sense of place in my life, that I reached a success point of achievement and something very big was going to happen. It's not that I really knew this or felt this or was really conscious of it at all but there was this ongoing undercurrent of intention I guess out of a better word that I remember when I look back at it now.
I was unpacking some boxes and was truly in the moment and in my own head of whatever it was that I was doing. Suddenly there was a knock at the door and not only did the knock make me jump because of the sudden noise that broke my trance, but moral because this house was at the top of a very steep hill off a road that not many would ever use to solicit. I was weeks old in Connecticut as well, so it wasn't like a friend was dropping by either. As I walked to the open glass storm door I only removed yellow warm golden light beaming in. The light seemed to tint everything it touched with a golden powdery gleam. I didn't see anyone there, but when I got to the door this small boy about 4 foot tall was standing there and he was selling something, I want to say seeds but I'm not sure. It seems to be what I remember, at least.
Anyway I talked with the little boy,circled some choices, gave him 10 dollars and then he just disappeared. Can't explain it but he was just gone by the time I turned around. I assumed he just cut left or right to get the other neighbor but upon looking both ways didn't see him. There was no one walking down the steep hillside or driveway either. I went to bed that night and then realized that santos, although in child form was a saint who had come to tell me that everything was going to be alright. I knew it immediately then and have always remembered it. No he never came back by the way, with seeds or change or any other messages. I've taken it that that one was enough.
Wednesday, May 4, 2016
Sleep Thru
I took these herbs last night for sleep. Sleep to me is that wonderful act of both trust and letting go.
Trust in that you are at your most vulnerable state and that while you are out nothing too dire happens. Letting go in that you relax your mind and body as much as you can and just sort of drift into a subconscious state. Hypnos was the Greek God with wings are her head that picked you up and took you away. I did not wish to be carried off and hoped the pills would hide me perhaps in a deeper mental pit that she might miss. The pills were those oars that would help me row away from the islands of thoughts that my minding might try to take me too. At least for awhile, eventually I know my mind is probably going to win out and bring me assorted psychofragments of people, places, and memories of things stuffed somewhere in there. I'm amazed at what's comes to me, served on silver platters for me to pick and choose from. Like olives or dates the banquets can be bitter and salty or sweet and succulent. Always I am tempted by curiousity and the scrambling of our minds can create quite an exotic creation. I realize how much content a previous career has filled in. It strikes me as humorous almost when subjects and situations are dredged up. I do find they eventually show me an end, a truth that somehow puts something to rest.
I'm awake now, it's almost noon and I might have a fragment of shame to say I'm still in bed. I'm looking at the window and watching slate waves being pushed to shore by a wind with a badly tuned flute. At my sliding door it seems to strain to hit a note. But that whispering hollow sound is an eternal one. It makes me cling to my blankets and pillows like the Neanderthal might have withdrawn deeper in a cave to find warm embers or other or sleeping dog to cuddle near. That is neither dream nor memory but imaginative thought. But where did that thought arrive from? What carriage arrived from millennia ago to bring this rememberance from this sound? The sound of nature is there for us and no matter how we sleep through it will reach us if we listen and give it time. It's hands grip me tightly.
Trust in that you are at your most vulnerable state and that while you are out nothing too dire happens. Letting go in that you relax your mind and body as much as you can and just sort of drift into a subconscious state. Hypnos was the Greek God with wings are her head that picked you up and took you away. I did not wish to be carried off and hoped the pills would hide me perhaps in a deeper mental pit that she might miss. The pills were those oars that would help me row away from the islands of thoughts that my minding might try to take me too. At least for awhile, eventually I know my mind is probably going to win out and bring me assorted psychofragments of people, places, and memories of things stuffed somewhere in there. I'm amazed at what's comes to me, served on silver platters for me to pick and choose from. Like olives or dates the banquets can be bitter and salty or sweet and succulent. Always I am tempted by curiousity and the scrambling of our minds can create quite an exotic creation. I realize how much content a previous career has filled in. It strikes me as humorous almost when subjects and situations are dredged up. I do find they eventually show me an end, a truth that somehow puts something to rest.
I'm awake now, it's almost noon and I might have a fragment of shame to say I'm still in bed. I'm looking at the window and watching slate waves being pushed to shore by a wind with a badly tuned flute. At my sliding door it seems to strain to hit a note. But that whispering hollow sound is an eternal one. It makes me cling to my blankets and pillows like the Neanderthal might have withdrawn deeper in a cave to find warm embers or other or sleeping dog to cuddle near. That is neither dream nor memory but imaginative thought. But where did that thought arrive from? What carriage arrived from millennia ago to bring this rememberance from this sound? The sound of nature is there for us and no matter how we sleep through it will reach us if we listen and give it time. It's hands grip me tightly.
Monday, May 2, 2016
If it's blinking, it's thinking, if its steady it's ready.
The lights on my coffee machine like to screw with me. When all I want is a hot cup of coffee, it trained me to just push the button and choose the appropriate size cup icon. But now it likes to say "fill water", "empty grounds" and "add beans" like I'm on its mechanical care staff. I steamed a cup of milk for my afternoon latte and screwed it back by changing the setting from hot water to steam only to get screwed back by the eternal moments of the blinking red light. Nothing will run until the light goes from blinking to steady.
Taking and extra 3 seconds in life is a perfect first start to a better quality life, I assure you. The same exact spoken thing aged just a few seconds- can be delivered with with tissue and a nice box with custom ribbon instead of sandpaper, broken glass and tacks.
Earlier today water was pouring out from a garage wall. My mom is doing laundry. I forbade it yesterday but that was yesterday and to her laundry takes priority over pretty much everything. I ripped out part of the damp wall and found the vile cracked pipe. Today my repair guy will come and see dollars on my face. I'll try not to reek of desperation and frustration. Life is about control and fear of losing it. Can I cope with the blinking light and act like I'm not really all that interested in a cup of coffee? Can my mom wait till the pipe is fixed before turning that dial to start on the washer? The answer is clearly no. Somehow if we wait we loose. But, since I am my own best experiment, I drove like a beginner, actually doing the speed limit, fully stopping at each stop sign and not inching up to a ripening red light about to go green. I brought my things back to the local WalMart and patiently waited in line. I waited as if at my own coronation, savoring each moment of anticipation. The pain in the ass little child of the woman who cut in front of me did not light my fuse. Peripherally, I watched as he ran around people and laid on the floor, ignoring her faux stress and weak correctional abilities. Finally he removed the belt of the stancion and it whipped him in the head, falling on his ass onto the base in full force. I showed neither concern nor righteous glee. He held in a whimper to match my careless gaze.
Finally, the girl behind the register sends me permission to come forward. I gush with joy and concern and good morning, how are you?? and wait to actually listen, giving my best body language of full on involvement and care. See seems shocked in a glad manner and all lights are on. We play our parts on a smooth transaction and bid each other, have a good day and we both truly mean it. Life is good, it just takes 3 seconds longer to own the beauty of it.
Taking and extra 3 seconds in life is a perfect first start to a better quality life, I assure you. The same exact spoken thing aged just a few seconds- can be delivered with with tissue and a nice box with custom ribbon instead of sandpaper, broken glass and tacks.
Earlier today water was pouring out from a garage wall. My mom is doing laundry. I forbade it yesterday but that was yesterday and to her laundry takes priority over pretty much everything. I ripped out part of the damp wall and found the vile cracked pipe. Today my repair guy will come and see dollars on my face. I'll try not to reek of desperation and frustration. Life is about control and fear of losing it. Can I cope with the blinking light and act like I'm not really all that interested in a cup of coffee? Can my mom wait till the pipe is fixed before turning that dial to start on the washer? The answer is clearly no. Somehow if we wait we loose. But, since I am my own best experiment, I drove like a beginner, actually doing the speed limit, fully stopping at each stop sign and not inching up to a ripening red light about to go green. I brought my things back to the local WalMart and patiently waited in line. I waited as if at my own coronation, savoring each moment of anticipation. The pain in the ass little child of the woman who cut in front of me did not light my fuse. Peripherally, I watched as he ran around people and laid on the floor, ignoring her faux stress and weak correctional abilities. Finally he removed the belt of the stancion and it whipped him in the head, falling on his ass onto the base in full force. I showed neither concern nor righteous glee. He held in a whimper to match my careless gaze.
Finally, the girl behind the register sends me permission to come forward. I gush with joy and concern and good morning, how are you?? and wait to actually listen, giving my best body language of full on involvement and care. See seems shocked in a glad manner and all lights are on. We play our parts on a smooth transaction and bid each other, have a good day and we both truly mean it. Life is good, it just takes 3 seconds longer to own the beauty of it.
Chia seed, flax seed and hemp hearts.
May 2, 2016- ok, so today is a Monday and diets all over the world are starting. My diet is one of healthy eating overall but it seems that at any given moment , parties, cookies, wine, salty crackers and macaroni and cheese are completely allowable if it's raining, I'm in a bored mood or if it's near me. I don't get it. Anyway, I'm going to try and not so much rely on willpower since I dont have any as I am and just sort of reset my brain to things I like and things I don't and switch some things around so that I no longer like pizza, or any of the afore mentioned things.
This blog is actually about visiting guests and family. But what it has in common with the above tale is the reset button of doing things differently. As my therapist said once, "why do it if it no longer serves you?". That little gem right there is why you rip out a check and pay the person. They tell you what you need to hear and give you permission to reconsider your actions. When a friend told me she was having her family visit from California I immediately shot off my own life lesson of advice:
Well that sounds like fun. Make sure your well rested which is nice of me to say but in reality company- family or otherwise- is stress! It means cleaning, extra shopping and you as being the cruise director. You are 89 not 34, these are family so they need to pitch in on some details, like shopping and bringing you food and ordering take out.
Here's my advice, get your hair done and a massage, look wonderful, put on your most fabulous outfit and put a vase of Alstronomia (Peruvian lilies) on a table somewhere. ( buy when in tight bud and you'll have them a week!)
Pick up in the main room, take out a chair and put it in a guest room or something so the room looks bigger. If you want add a bowl of green apples to the coffee table.
Smile a lot, be the happiest and most content person in the room, and be patient and interested in everything they say.
Your job is to be fabulous, not scrub the floor. Someone else can do that. Try it!
Of course, this is what I would like to imagine myself doing as I start scrubbing the floor and throwing things in closets.
Let's see if a controlled diet can perfect my overall being and if I can try my own advice.
This blog is actually about visiting guests and family. But what it has in common with the above tale is the reset button of doing things differently. As my therapist said once, "why do it if it no longer serves you?". That little gem right there is why you rip out a check and pay the person. They tell you what you need to hear and give you permission to reconsider your actions. When a friend told me she was having her family visit from California I immediately shot off my own life lesson of advice:
Well that sounds like fun. Make sure your well rested which is nice of me to say but in reality company- family or otherwise- is stress! It means cleaning, extra shopping and you as being the cruise director. You are 89 not 34, these are family so they need to pitch in on some details, like shopping and bringing you food and ordering take out.
Here's my advice, get your hair done and a massage, look wonderful, put on your most fabulous outfit and put a vase of Alstronomia (Peruvian lilies) on a table somewhere. ( buy when in tight bud and you'll have them a week!)
Pick up in the main room, take out a chair and put it in a guest room or something so the room looks bigger. If you want add a bowl of green apples to the coffee table.
Smile a lot, be the happiest and most content person in the room, and be patient and interested in everything they say.
Your job is to be fabulous, not scrub the floor. Someone else can do that. Try it!
Of course, this is what I would like to imagine myself doing as I start scrubbing the floor and throwing things in closets.
Let's see if a controlled diet can perfect my overall being and if I can try my own advice.
Sunday, May 1, 2016
I'm Back after a four year hiatus... Back to the future...back to he past...
Welcome Back -Back to the future
Hello Readers- well, it's easier to start a blog then it is to stop a blog and then restart it up again - and the worst is to stop for nearly 4 years and restart. I am glad that I see that people are still looking but for those that were tired of waiting for more entries and threw their hands up and left, well bravo for you! its now 2016 and we all seem to have a big dose of ADD and anything that needs to be said is limited to a "tweet" size statement. How often have I waited for 3-4 seconds and moved on of something didn't download by the count of 2.5 seconds.
So I am revitalizing my blog VENITIAN SMOKE but it seems I cant figure how to get it back as a continuation of the established one, so I am just starting I off as a new one. I do hope you will seek it out if you are a new reader, it will help you understand my roots..
Ok well, its a rainy Sunday here in Connecticut and I am going to go fix my garage door now, I have little inspiration right now but plan on starting this tomorrow now that the set up and logistical needs have been met.
best regards, Ed
Hello Readers- well, it's easier to start a blog then it is to stop a blog and then restart it up again - and the worst is to stop for nearly 4 years and restart. I am glad that I see that people are still looking but for those that were tired of waiting for more entries and threw their hands up and left, well bravo for you! its now 2016 and we all seem to have a big dose of ADD and anything that needs to be said is limited to a "tweet" size statement. How often have I waited for 3-4 seconds and moved on of something didn't download by the count of 2.5 seconds.
So I am revitalizing my blog VENITIAN SMOKE but it seems I cant figure how to get it back as a continuation of the established one, so I am just starting I off as a new one. I do hope you will seek it out if you are a new reader, it will help you understand my roots..
Ok well, its a rainy Sunday here in Connecticut and I am going to go fix my garage door now, I have little inspiration right now but plan on starting this tomorrow now that the set up and logistical needs have been met.
best regards, Ed
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