Gaia Community: elisa's Blog

Reason and Passion

http://elisaspot.gaia.com — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 00:09:51 GMT

Reason and Passion (Khalil Gibran)

Tags: passion, reason, khalil gibran

Crisp and Clear, The Daily Aries Ponder (49)

http://elisaspot.gaia.com — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 13:58:00 GMT

Gooooooooood Morninggggggg!!

Most excellent walk at the Tree Place this glorious, crisp, clear, and cool autumn morning!
I listened and took my camera along this morning. I figured out how to use the video setting by accident, wow what a lot of shake! I shall need practice and will reshoot at another time :D Yay! More new things to learn and to do!!

I figured out this morning why I have a feeling of conflict about taking images as I do the Tree Place thing. And when I got home and downloaded all of the images, ate, got tea and then set out to begin to write today's Ponder, this was the first thing that I found:

"There's a bit of Faust in us all, believing as we do that the more we learn about something the closer we are to it. Not so. Any event, fully attended, uproots all our knowing at the source and carries inexhaustible surprises.
True attention is rare and totally sacrificial. It demands that we throw away everything we have been or hope to be, to face each moment naked of identity, open to whatever comes and bereft of human guidance.
Nor is the potential for pain to be underestimated. Now we come face to face with the radical fact that there is nothing, however dear, that cannot be taken from us from one moment to the next; nothing, however sinister or horrifying, from which we will be permitted to recoil or separate ourselves. All the dreadful, mute suffering from which inattention shielded us will now be seen and heard."
- Flora Courtois
The door to infinity
Parabola

Tree Place time, I can realize what and how much I put other things first, how I deny the call of Now, to remain what society calls 'functioning". When I attempt to take photos, even by pull of energy, it requires me to focus on what I will do, rather than what I AM (doing). It is pretty humorous that the best images I capture are at the Tree Place lol! Silly chatter in my head...pray first girl, then come back for the camera...but, what if I miss the heron or another irreplaceable shot(HORRORS!! lol)

Choose...chooooose, gotta love binary thinking :D Here is what can happen when I allow myself to create more options and doors when I am unsure of what to do with a No.

And She Ripples--by Elisa

Desire Dancing--by Elisa

Eternally glad for direction!
Elisa, One Aries

Tags: elisa, The Daily Aries Ponder, One Aries, crisp, clear, autumn, learning, attachment, knowing

Joy, Despair, Different Places, but the Same Things...

http://elisaspot.gaia.com — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 01:12:41 GMT

Cafe Del MAr - Dreams 3 - 09 - Rue du soleil - Manush

When one sits in Life on Life's terms, one can feel many things. One can attempt to escape by drawing a pretty picture in the mind on what is not so pretty. One can create a lie inside oneself, by repeating words like All is Well, without meaning it. This can create HUGE debt. It also reinforces negative tapes within oneself, normally those tapes we are thinking to avoid or to blot out by using affirmations.

Now, should one use affirmations to unlock doors, ones they truly feel and internalize, these then hold what looks like great power. Is it the words that hold the power? An outside source which we must despair to rush after crawling on knees hoping the supplier of said affirmations doesn't decide to take away that which we desire in order to feel good. Junkies of feel good waiting for the next provider?

Or, have we noted our innate gift, once attending, to convert anything at any time. The ability to notice and see the smallest speck of joy in the present moment of despair is God's gift to us. Enchantment with life! To note in infinitesimal moments of now, smaller and smaller so that each runs together in God's time, not ours. With this gift we can move through anything and retain our inner God granted JOY!

Much Love to You,
Elisa, One Aries

Tags: conversion, despair, elisa, grounded, happiness, hope, joy, love, now, peace

Chocolate and Pudding, The Daily Aries Ponder (51)

http://elisaspot.gaia.com — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 23:40:52 GMT

Goooooooood Mafternooooooooon!!

I'm sitting here, feeling I'm not quite sure what. I can say I'm a bit wistful when looking out at a constant gray and dismal sky. (note to self increase calcium with d already this darker seeming season)

And I just stepped out to try looking at it again and to the East, in the plain flatness of the gray, were streaks upon streaks and mounds, the type that look like the mud shaped ripples that form at the edges of hot pots and lava flows. I have never seen a gray sky quite like it, magnificently fractal.

I made some rather bad dietary choices for myself this last week, add that to hormones. YIKES!! The body is quaking and shaking. It sends frantic signals to the body that say fright, anxiety, trick trick!! In my OH LORD I have to stop this feeling/utterance, I realized once again that I was utilizing one of His great gifts to me. The ability to attend. At once I thought wow ocd type moment...tooooo much focus, run shut it out ignore. However that way of thinking traps me, it's an escape. So, I took the gift and paying attention to the body I said, "I am truly sorry for giving you so many bad things. Thank you for signaling to me that I have forgotten to care well for myself and where it all will lead if I continue. Then, I talked to the minds and I said please invoke all standard grounding procedures and ignore the body. I thanked them for telling me that my feet are on the ground. The keys are under my fingers. My emotions and senses are truly stable with NO cause for alarm, save the body reaction to the food, which will pass shortly, while I continue to signal it that all is really calm and there is no need to locate some drama nor fear to analyze, grow, or rid myself of. The minds thought of a nice warm vat of chocolate pudding to submerge the body. Other parts of the mind a nice float on a calm river, under bright blue sky and sun, the sounds of water trickling off of my fingers front and center.

This is what I found to share with you today.

ENERGY 52 - Cafe Del Mar (MIchael Woods Remix)

"One of the most difficult things to learn is that mindfulness is not dependent on any emotional or mental state. We have certain images of meditation. Meditation is something done in quiet caves by tranquil people who move slowly. Those are training conditions. They are set up to foster concentration and to learn the skill of mindfulness. Once you have learned that skill, however, you can dispense with the training restrictions, and you should. You don't need to move at a snail's pace to be mindful. You don't even need to be calm. You can be mindful while solving problems in intensive calculus. You can be mindful in the middle of a football scrimmage. You can even be mindful in the midst of a raging fury."
Mindfulness Versus Concentration
- Henepola Gunaratana
Mindfulness in Plain English
and/or
Mindfulness in Plain English

Yours,
A very chocolatey,
Elisa, One Aries

Tags: anxiety, attention, breath, calm, elisa, meditation, mindfulness, now, one aries, should

Our Strengths and How It Is...

http://elisaspot.gaia.com — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:33:12 GMT

Enya - The River Sings Video

English translation:

Our words go beyond the moon.
Our words go into the shadows.
The river sings the endlessness.
We write of our journey through night.
We write in our aloneness.
We want to know the shape of eternity.

Who knows the way it is?
Who knows what time will not tell us?

Mountains, solitude and the moon
until the journey's end?
The river holds the lost road of the sky;
the shape of eternity?

Who knows the way it is?
Who knows what time will not tell us?

Where is the beginning?
Where is the end?
Why did we fall into days?
Why are we calling out into the endlessness?

Who knows the way it is?
Who knows what time will not tell us?

Loxian Lyrics

Mmer-hymm a rhee-a ka-n
Mmer-hymm a vl-a lu-ua
E-a hymm llay hey
A rhee o mmay
hOr-oom-may o nay rhay
hOr-oom-may he eer-hee-mo
h'er-ra-Kan sy ay a rhee a mmay

h'un-nin in la go dee rhee?
h'un-nin in la go chwk a too?
h'un-nin in la go dee rhee?
h'un-nin in la go chwk a too?

h'airr rin a kan a-he-ra,
h'airr rin a kan o-rhay-na?
E-a nno llow rro;
A rhee a mmay?

h'un-nin in la go dee rhee?
h'un-nin in la go chwk a too?
h'un-nin in la go dee rhee?
h'un-nin in la go chwk a too?

Ta-na mmo-ree va rhay?
Ta-na mmor rro nna oom a?
(yl) Le-a tor-ee-ay
A rhee a kan
Kor-rhee-ay ko-da nay a
Kor-rhee-ay a-ru hil-la
Vee a kyi a hey
A rhee a mmay.

Ah hey, Ah hey, Ah hey, Ah hey,
Ah hey, Ah hey, Ah hey, Ah hey.

Yll yy-ka pirr o bay ru
Yl-y-ka kal-la kwyay la
O-na han-ee ay
A rhee o mmay?

h'un-nin in la go dee rhee?
h'un-nin in la go chwk a too?
h'un-nin in la go dee rhee?
h'un-nin in la go chwk a too?

Mmer-hymm a rhee-a kan
Mmer-hymm a vl-a lu-ua
E-a hymm lly hey
A rhee o mmay
hOr-oom-may o nay rhay
hOr-oom-may he er-rhee-mo h'er-ra -
Kan sy ay a rhee a mmay.

Ah hey, Ah hey, Ah hey, Ah hey,
Ah hey, Ah hey, Ah hey, Ah hey.

Yll yy-ka pirr o bay ru
Yl-y-ka kal-la kwyay la
O-na han-ee ay
A rhee o mmay?

h'un-nin in la go dee rhee?
h'un-nin in la go chwk a too?
h'un-nin in la go dee rhee?
h'un-nin in la go chwk a too?

Mmer-hymm a rhee-a kan
Mmer-hymm a vl-a lu-ua
E-a hymm lly hey
A rhee o mmay
hOr-oom-may o nay rhay
hOr-oom-may he er-rhee-mo h'er-ra -
Kani sy ay a rhee a mmay.

Yll yy-ka pirr o bay ru
Yl-y-ka kal-la kwyay la
O-na han-ee ay
A rhee o mmay?

Tags: dance, elisa, enya, joy, music, strength, video, wisdom, worthy

Exercise FREEDOM!

http://elisaspot.gaia.com — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 15:29:11 GMT

Exercise FREEDOM! Don't Allow Others to Dictate what you have said or expressed, be FREE!! It is YOUR gift from God! (whew! large font with copy paste!)

Enya - We are free now

Tags: being, bullies, communication, elisa, expression, freedom, intelligence, standing-up, understanding

No One Laughs At God

http://elisaspot.gaia.com — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 06:32:26 GMT

Regina Spektor- Laughing With (Official Music Video)

Tags: accountability, avarice, despair, elisa, God, greed, joke, laughing, need

Joy, Despair, Different Places, but the Same Things...

http://elisaspot.gaia.com — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 12:15:09 GMT

Cafe Del MAr - Dreams 3 - 09 - Rue du soleil - Manush

Tags: conversion, despair, elisa, grounded, happiness, hope, joy, love, now peace

Loving Worldly Wordy Caresses--The Daily Aries Ponder (50)

http://elisaspot.gaia.com — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 11:32:27 GMT

Goooooooooood Morningggg!!!

Wow! I got a LOT of sleep last night. Twelve hours I think!

In my not so awake yet fuzz, and in the middle of the first cup of tea, I began to ponder what was going on about me. (Keep in mind that generally I am of no use until the third cup of tea to anyone.) My furry brain kept focusing on the words. Words on this site and others. Words in emails. All running together in the tealess and happily furred brain of sleeping to the point of hybernation. I thought oh my, I'd better get tea and quickly locate music with the right energy for recovering all of my faculties. As I opened youtube, I was also opening my inspiration source of quotations. What follows was the second item from the top of the random group I clicked upon :D I've included the sound experience too!

Dubai Chill House Grooves

"We are so in love with our words and ideas that we forget the direct experience from which they arise. We build concept upon concept. In the end we have abstracted our contact with life into the rote regurgitation of thought-bound ideology.
We have fallen victim to the great curse of human existence of the tendency to misconstrue language (words, thoughts, ideas) for actuality. We are entombed in our brains.
We are thinking our lives, not living them.

Think about the problems all this thought is creating. We pick up a self-help book, a book of spiritual advice, a religious book, thinking it might help with our thought-bound world. We read. We think it quite interesting. We think we will read more. We are not sure where all of this is going, but we think we will read more and find out.
It is not going anywhere.

Thought has nowhere to go but its own isolated, endless fragmented repetition.

Without the obsession of thought we are the recognition and the expression of the energy of consciousness and space in which we and others coexist in such profound contact that there is nothing that definitively divides us.
We search for this relationship of profound openness, without guile or armor, vulnerable, trusting, and at the same time, intimate, intertwined, boundaryless - but this transcendental relationship constantly slips from us as we experience it and then try to institutionalize it.
When our minds are absolutely quiet, when thought is still, this relationship is the natural state of our being. Then thought, the ego-center, enters immediately to catalog, analyze, and capture the beauty of the vision.
We seek the rare butterfly. Upon glimpsing its beauty we stalk it, catch it, drive a pin through its head to mount it, and put it on our wall with its Latin name. We trade the moment of beauty for the endless stultification of a dead symbol, an artifact, a word, a concept.

We can use language to approach that which is beyond language. We can use language to amuse ourselves. We can use language as poetry, as music. But we forget that these words, any words, bring us nowhere in actuality, only somewhere in the mind, in thought. We are in a bubble. We are staring in the pond admiring the reflection of our own thoughts."
- Steven Harrison

May the Amazement of Getting Just What I Need Never Leave Me,
and When I think It Has, May I Trip Over It again, GLEEFULLY!!
Smiling and Slurping the Third Cup of Tea,
Elisa, One Aries

Tags: dreams, elisa, illusion, language, now, reality, sound, words, the daily aries ponder

Alban Elfed--Autumn Equinox

http://elisaspot.gaia.com — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 11:06:09 GMT

The video, while lengthy has the most uplifting tones and breathtaking scenery! The Autumnal Equinox, on September 21st or thereabouts, is called Alban Elfed or Light of the Water in the Druid tradition. It represents the second of the harvest festivals - this time marking the end of harvest-time, just as Lughnasadh marked its beginning. Again day and night are equally balanced as they were at the time of the Spring Equinox, but soon the nights will grow longer than the days and Winter will be with us. In the ceremony we give thanks for the fruits of the earth and for the goodness of the Mother Goddess.

Alban Elfed This is the Feast of the Autumn Equinox. The Light of the Sun in the Wheel of the Year stands in the West, in the Place of balance between the Light and the Darkness. This is a time of the Great Tides. This is the Gateway of the Year. This Feast is known by many names to many people, for the Truth is reflected from many mirrors. It has been celebrated as Alban Elfed and Harvest. Our ancestors called it by names long forgotten, and our children will call it by names as yet unconceived. At this time, our ancestors saw the Sun, for the first time in half a year, be unable to outshine the Dark. Although he still shines with strength, his strength grows weaker as the days grow shorter. Today he holds the Darkness in in equal measure to the Light, but he is struck in his season with the wound of Time and from day to day the darkness will grow as the Lord of Light sinks into his Age, for the wound is grievous and will not heal. This is a time of farewell and gratitude for the Summer that has been. At this time, our ancestors saw the Lady who is the Spirit of the Land stand before her people with the full bounty of her Harvest. Here is the reward of labour and reverence of the Land. This is the fulfilled promise of the days of Spring and Summer. This is the Reckoning of the Year, for Harvest is now complete and the portions are set to feed folk and animals through the cold dark days that lie ahead. This is a time of wonder and gratitude for the gifts the Lady showers down upon her people. This is the time of the turning of the Light into Darkness. Let us step forward into the darkening days holding before us the divine promise of new Light at the end of the Dark Days, from year to year and life to life. This is the lesson of the Lord and the Lady. This is our knowledge and our affirmation. This is the Holy Word that is written in no less than the Earth and the Sky and in all things that are made. This is a wonder and a marvel. –Coifi --source

Tags: elisa, alban elfed, autumn fall, autumnal equinox, equinox

Element of Life!!

http://elisaspot.gaia.com — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 12:46:21 GMT

Tags: elisa, tiesto, tower, video

Standing Up

http://elisaspot.gaia.com — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 12:33:34 GMT

"She responded
The birds' favorite songs
You do not hear,

For their most flamboyant music takes place
When their wings are stretched
Above the trees

And they are smoking the opium
Of pure freedom.

It is healthy for the prisoner
To have faith

That one day he will again move about
Wherever he wants,
Feel the wondrous grit of life -
Less structured,

Find all wounds, debts stamped canceled,
Paid.

I once asked a bird,
"How is it that you fly in this gravity
Of darkness?"

She responded,

'Love lifts
Me.' "
- Hafiz
intense city

Teachings can teach you not to react. Teachings can teach you to react(in an old or a new way). Teachings can be a lie of someone else, by accident and on purpose, the reasons for this are many. Is there something about us that causes this to occur? Perhaps.

However, moving past blame or guilt is a next important step. Waking up to the idea that we all have our own inner discernment. Sometimes we have learned to cloud it. Sometimes we learn to ignore our discernment for whatever reason, ignore reality for whatever reason, and think that repeating words "all is well" will be like uttering abracadabra often enough that when we open our eyes taaaaadaaaaaaaa. Think about what we would tell a cancer patient with a more simple cancer that reads a lot of books and refuses a simple treatment because they follow this denial type of all is well practice. And we attend their funeral, and listen to their loved ones talking about the shock in the patient only weeks before death at what a silly choice they made. God sends us someone in a jeep to say to us that a flood is coming and we need to take action and be safe. We sit firmly and say, No, my God will save me. The water comes along, up into the first floor of our home, and so does a boat with a person in it saying, 'come on with us the flood isn't finished yet you are going to drown", and still some hold firmly--my God will save me. The water rises and the person has to climb onto their house roof. A helicopter comes along....we will take you to safety, and still the person shouts no noooooooooo my God will save me. And so, they die.

What does God send to you that is, after you notice it, nearly always right within your reach to help, encourage, discipline, or discourage from a thing that will bring you suffering? If you can imagine each human that is following trends and buzzwords and teachings as a giant two year old throwing a temper tantrum in a grocery store demanding things, it's both hilariously funny and very very sad all at once. Every day, we are again given the change to NOTICE! :) And to fly!

Much Love,
Elisa an Aries

Tags: avarice, elisa, greed, gratitude, hafiz, joy, knowing, life, lust, strength

Join Me in a Think:Respecting Nature's Autonomy in Relationship..

http://elisaspot.gaia.com — Sun, 06 Sep 2009 16:05:16 GMT

I was having a think

Ok geez had to space just to be able to see and to type under the pop up advertisement ew!
I was saying that this morning I was having a think about some topic of discussion about rocks and stones. The responses to my comments prompted me to search for writings or perhaps teachings on the subject and related areas.

I searched for writings about respect for rocks and nature and found this scholarly article. I begain reading and haven't finished yet. It will be interesting to see where it all ends up :)
Perhaps you might enjoy reading along with me and discussing the article, how you feel about it, and how such feelings show in 'real life' expression for you. There might be a right or a wrong here, however I'm simply interested in sharing thoughts and feelings.

Respecting Nature's Autonomy in Relationship with Humanity

Please comment or question after you've read.
(is it possible to have book and article discussion groups online?)
elisa

Tags: autonomy, convergence, discussion, elisa, humanity, learning, nature, relationship, rocks, seperation

Concious Expression of Committment and Choice

http://elisaspot.gaia.com — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 21:07:47 GMT

Each Human makes and unspoken pledge or agreement with every waking moment. With every thought or action from the individual, energy ripples out across the universe. I like the individual personality of each of these pledgers not screened and rehearsed, but in thought after an ideal. Each human can decide what they think about this. Each human can also choose to stay stuck, clinging to some 'ideal' that was never really present but to admit that would admit having a fear of change. My hope that you find this uplifting enough to attend each conscious choice that you make.

Tags: change, choices, elisa, expression, hope, interpretation, movement, stagnation

Article about Tao te ching 8

http://elisaspot.gaia.com — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 14:02:35 GMT

I found this article today. It pleased me, so I thought I'd share it.

"Tao te ching 8

Chapter 8 of the Lao-tzu Tao te ching presents water as that from which virtues can be derived by imitation of its characteristics. Water is an example of how nature (or an object of nature) teaches or presents models for human behavior that allow the individual to identify what is fruitful and harmonious for the self. While one may argue that other models of nature exist (”nature red in tooth and claw,” for example), they are out of context with the totality and often a priori. Taoism presents water as a universal object, at all times and in all contexts. The characteristics of water underlie the potentialities and actions of the myriad creatures, among them human beings.

(Here again we’ll use the D. C. Lau translation for its clarity and scholarship.)

Highest good is like water.
Because water excels in benefiting the myriad creatures
without contending with them
and settles where none would like to be,
water comes close to the Tao.

The opening paragraph describes water as not contending or striving with anyone or anything. This characteristic of water is a benefit to all. Water yields when confrontation looms, goes forward when opportunity is available, pulls back and waits patiently when obstacles arise. And water always seeks out the lowest place, that place where there will be no contention because nothing else wants to be so lowly.

Humility is a recurrent theme in the Tao te ching, but one does not necessarily associate water with humility. The characteristic is contextual: a booming ocean wave contrasted to a country ditch or a latrine. But it is water all the same.

The virtues of water are the virtues of sages and hermits. Obscurity is not literal. Water does not hide, flee, or disappear, but it is often hard to find and when found is hard to identify in its origin. So the sage is standing before us, or is one we never see or realize has wisdom. The hermit, too, is walking amongst us, in the city, the town, the countryside — not necessarily hidden away in a monastery or cave or distant hut.

But might as well be, for the hermit is a solitary in mind, heart, and spirit, and naturally seeks out the places where no one goes, indirectly benefiting everyone by lack of contention — by lifting up a heart full of nature and joy, but not as the world celebrates it. The hermit is flexible and a lifting of heart is contextual, as is a quiet or sad heart - booming wave or quiet trickle. The sage and hermit are flexible and easily live in simple or harsh conditions, demanding little, observant of the cycles of nature as they will benefit him or her, just as the sage and hermit will benefit nature and its creatures by not harming, abusing, or exploiting them.

The cycle of seasons instructs the sage and hermit, and water is an integral aspect of each. Not that the hermit is obliged to live in any given place. The taiga of Russia or the deserts of the Middle East were mono-seasonal, though they had subtle changes of season to which the hermit was attentive. Every change of season, even changes in cold or hot places, are brought about by water.

There are modern writers who say that water cures nearly all diseases, based on the premise that blood and tissue and electrical impulses are all based on uses of water and its elements in the body and in the atmosphere. The purity and simplicity of water is a metaphor for health and well-being.

Tao te ching 8 applies the notion of deriving virtues from nature to specific virtues that, like water, benefit all yet retain simplicity and obscurity in their non-contention. Following D. C. Lau, these are two sets of threes, skipping the interpolation of a reference to house-siting, which suggests a later feng-shui interest not appropriate to Lao-tzu:

In quality of mind it is depth that matters
In friendship it is benevolence
In speech it is good faith
In government it is order
In affairs it is ability
In action it is timeliness.

Alternatively, here is Red Pine’s more literal version:

thinking with depth
helping with kindness
speaking with truth
governing with peace
working with skill
moving with time

The first set of three applies to the individual: self, other, others; the second set applies to social interactions: government, business, world. The refrain (in Lau) about what matters in each case establishes, first, the reality confronted by the individual, and then the virtue that should be pursued in order to make the reality non-contentious.

Thus the quality of mind is best when deep, as in meditation, where idle thoughts and images not only do not disturb mind but further do not contribute to depth. The quality of friendship consists in the kindness or mutuality that is shared in non-contention, in the relationship of courtesy and openness that friends share. Communication beyond that is best characterized by “good faith,” or honesty, constructiveness, “truth” in Red Pine’s version — in words that are few but meaningful.

On the social level, government is best when its function is to maintain order. Order means peace internally and externally. Benevolence must first come from individuals in this scheme — if this prerequisite does not exist, government will be incapable of order. Likewise, business (”affairs” or “work”) must be characterized by mutual exchange of abilities, skills, and products of quality, functionality, and endurance. Without this virtue to business transactions, fraud and corruption result. But this fraud will have been the product of previous lack of virtue in this hierarchy from self, friends, society, and “government” or ordered interactions.

Thus, by “government” Lao-tzu refers to the convention of the emperor, but reduces it to order, ultimately a product of individuals. By “affairs” Lao-tzu refers to the convention of business, reducing it to exchanges of productivity and skill, as when a farmer sells his produce or a craftsman makes a tool. Reducing virtues to fundamentals brings us closer to visualizing the simplicity of personal relations, and brings us closer to the context of ancient China when the Tao te ching was composed.

Finally, the reference to action (or “moving”) means that only with these many preconditions does the virtuous person safely “act” or participate. At that point, the acting is to embrace a beneficent situation. The timing of action must be right because beneficence does not always manifest itself in all these factors from mind to friendships to business. If no one in the world is virtuous, the hermit will not act. Thus we extrapolate the Confucian advice to “recluse when the emperor is evil” and we anticipate Chuang-tzu’s philosophy of “non-action” in evil times.

The last sentence in this chapter probably belongs at the end of the paragraph on water:

It is because it does not contend that it is never at fault.

The sage or hermit of today can apply the virtues of water to life itself. These virtues are not mere metaphors or abstractions. The virtues show us how to find in non-contention a source of happiness and well-being."
--Source

Tags: article, elisa, tao, tao te ching

More About Being In the Moment

http://elisaspot.gaia.com — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 13:57:15 GMT

"It may seem paradoxical to say that we have been expelled from the present, but it is a feeling we have all had at some moment. Some of us experienced it first as a condemnation, later transformed into consciousness and action. The search for the present is neither the pursuit of an earthly paradise nor that of a timeless eternity: it is the search for a real reality.
We pursue her in her incessant metamorphoses yet we never manage to trap her. She always escapes: each encounter ends in flight. We embrace her and she disappears immediately: it was just a little air. It is the instant, that bird that is everywhere and nowhere. We want to trap it alive but it flaps its wings and vanishes in the form of a handful of syllables. We are left empty-handed. Then the doors of perception open slightly and the other time appears, the real one we were searching for without knowing it: the present, the presence."
- Octavio Paz

Tags: elisa, future, moment, now, presence, present

Come Get Your Cake Tarty!

http://elisaspot.gaia.com — Sun, 24 May 2009 18:36:00 GMT

ar123193790227371

katy-perry-cake3-500x401

jonesDM1903 468x893

Happy Birthday Tarty!!!
mwaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Tags: happy birthday, tarty, fast dart, cake

Listen...

http://elisaspot.gaia.com — Sun, 24 May 2009 11:52:57 GMT

Steve Earle - Satellite Radio

Listen...
I don't know why yet.
I don't know why.
It's one of those days.
The frequency is high.

The new moon is up there.
Blue pigs might fly.
The words that are flowing
Could make some person cry.

I don't know why yet.
I don't know why.
It's one of those mornings.
Wildberry pie.

--elisa

Tags: listen, why, knowing, frequency, steve earle, poetry, elisa

Working out the stuff and a highly narrow social studies teacher

http://elisaspot.gaia.com — Fri, 15 May 2009 12:39:08 GMT

SEAL - FUTURE LOVE PARADISE

This was playing on my windows media player as I was typing my frustrated thought into my status message this morning. In the event I change it...and I do, often, I'll retype it here.

Elisa is: amazed at the ignorance of a white female social studies teacher and her narrow view of things associated with the harlem renaissance, which she is grading when she has inaccurate racist white accounts only. Breathing in and..........

I held back a LOT in that status message. Primarily due to space. I was also thinking that I did not want to look like a jerk having a rant. But, I am(or was when I wrote it). I rose to meet her ignorance with a brick wall of my own. I dislike having to bend and alter myself when confronted with oppression. It somehow seems wrong that the one oppressed must also be one who can see inner reactions and behavior and do the right thing. The right thing being to communicate well. Doing this seems to give or to show an oppressor that they have won or are correct. Doing the right thing seems to appear as an act of submission. This is far from the truth. I'm thinking that perhaps this perception of the opressor many times is what truly angers me. I think I wish I could grow beyond this anger. Though as I type I think that if I grow beyond it, I have given in. Though something inside says otherwise. I want my thoughts and massive efforts to be seen and to have counted for something. I want to be acknowledged. I want the abuser and oppressor to speak of their wrong action and to amend it darn them all!! If that is childish, well, then it is.

In the reverse, have I become the oppressor myself when another expresses their own understandings and thinkings and I wish to skewer them with how insensitive, stupid, hurtful and ignorant those expressed parts of them are?

So, listen to the video again and see how you feel after! Spins and dances and hugs myself to soothe whatever might be ruffled so that I might do the same for that teacher and everyone else like her and like me!

Good day...happy thinking!

Tags: harlem renaissance, racism, self-inventory, how to dance, thinking

OOOOOO Rocks coming to me also!

http://elisaspot.gaia.com — Thu, 14 May 2009 14:58:42 GMT

I have been searching for benitoite for a short while now. The bits I found seemed rare and highly expensive. I cannot afford that. So, I've been praying that if I have been searching for it in the wrong manner, the more correct would come along. Or, better yet the actual rock!

In another unrelated person to person to thing story, like the one with the essential oils, I found a very expensive looking site but he gets the pieces himself. I called and left a message and forgot. He called me this morning. He said yes very rare very expensive. And then he said but let me go down to the basement and rummage thru the tiny bit boxes! He found me a very small piece with not only one but two of the rocks I have wanted on it! It wouldn't be considered a lot for most people but to me it is still to much to purchase all at once. He put it aside until I call him and tell him I changed my mind or can purchase it!! How wonderful of him to take the time!

May you also find him helpful. Treasure Mountain Mining

Tags: rocks, crystals, mining, healing, helpful