Changing Places

U.S. military deaths in Iraq reach 3,000 | Top News | Reuters.com

3,000

Burning the Viking Longboats

Hogmanay!

Scotland’s favorite party!

More on Hogmanay…

Edinburgh

Unfortunately looks like Glasgow’s was canceled due to high winds this year.

Wow! Go to the link to check out all the great California progressive bloggers! Woo hoo!

Calitics: Soapblox California :: Enormous California Blogroll

So, on the flip, one will find an enormous California liberal / progressive / lefty blogroll.

Much of it will be sorted (priority given to state and local politics) and worked into the front page blogroll.

If you’re a liberal / progressive / lefty blogger in California, and you’re not on this list, believe me, it wasn’t for lack of trying on our part.

Whenever you advise a ruler in the way of Tao,
Counsel him not to use force to conquer the universe.
For this would only cause resistance.
Thorn bushes spring up wherever the army has passed.
Lean years follow in the wake of a great war.
Just do what needs to be done.
Never take advantage of power.

Achieve results,
But never glory in them.
Achieve results,
But never boast.
Achieve results,
But never be proud.
Achieve results,
Because this is the natural way.
Achieve results,
But not through violence.

Force is followed by loss of strength.
This is not the way of Tao.
That which goes against the Tao
comes to an early end.

Tao Te Ching, Thirty

I have been struggling all day to write anything with meaning for this day, but, as always, the Tao says it best.

So a tyrant comes to an end. What about all those left?

And who will rise to fill this tyrant’s place?

It cannot end well. And so it will end badly. We have guaranteed it now.

Good thoughts for the day…

SistahCraft:

It is thriftier to use quality materials and take good care of your articles, so they will look fabulous on you for years to come, and not beat up after a few washings. Economy is not disposable. Really.

Sensei and Sensibility:

Stewardship, preservation and caring for things, is another of my values. This, too, is at odds with “get rid of it, knock it down and build new.” I feel confirmed—and joyful–every time I walk through Grand Central or attend a concert in Carnegie Hall, for example.

Maybe there is something here that helps to explain why I was so moved by the experience of Abu Simbel, one of the temples saved from the dammed up waters of the Nile. To save Abu Simbel required international cooperation, caring, commitment, skill and $400 million dollars. To save it required a lot of “Yes!”

Discardia

After visiting the home of a woman in an informal settlement in Soweto and chatting with her as she cooked on a paraffin stove in her two-room jury-rigged shack, the quantity of stuff I have in my apartment alarms me. And I’ve been consciously reducing my belongings over the last few years!

Miriam didn’t have many things, but everything she had had a purpose. Her home was painfully simple – and I do hope that she’ll soon realize her dream of moving into a more solid home, perhaps even with plumbing in the house – but she had put her heart into it and made it clean and cheerful. Her wallpaper was crafted from bright green wrappers from some household product and the exterior was painted gaily. The dirt floor was scrupulously swept and a few plants were growing in her yard.

Visiting Miriam’s house and a girl’s orphanage near Nairobi and a Maasai village made it very clear that it is not number or newness of possessions which make a home happy.

As I begin appreciating what I have more, buying fewer new things and getting rid of things I don’t need, it makes it easier to afford (or notice I could already afford) to contribute to other people’s quality of life. Sometimes that bit of money comes from skipping something I realize isn’t really worth spending my money on. (Never getting into wearing makeup sure has saved me a lot of money over the years!) Sometimes it comes from acknowledging that something brings me enough pleasure that I really should invest for the long term in it. Once you do the math you may figure out that ad hoc purchases are actually costing you a lot more than you really need to spend.

Love Winter – when the plant says nothing. — Thomas Merton

A wet, blustery day here …

Check out da BLING!

December
14, 2006: Santa Claus Is Chinese, Or, Why China Is Rising And The United States Is Declining

It’s not the fact that our Christmas is made in China, but rather the mindset that has led to it that is most disturbing. We want to consume no matter what. We want to spend now and let our children pay. It is this same mindset that introduces tax cuts while waging a costly war. Economic sacrifice is no longer part of our vocabulary. After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt banned the sale of private cars in order to mobilize the manufacturing capacity and engineering skills of the U.S. automobile industry to build tanks and planes. In contrast, after 9/11, President Bush urged us to go shopping.

In the United States we are so intent on consuming that personal savings have virtually disappeared. We have an average of five credit cards for every man, woman, and child. Of the 145 million cardholders, only 55 million clear their accounts each month. The other 90 million cannot seem to catch up and are paying steep interest rates on their remaining balance. Millions of people are so deeply in debt that they may remain indebted for life.

The official national debt, the product of years of fiscal deficits, now totals $8.5 trillion—some $64,000 per taxpayer. (See data.) By the end of the Bush administration in 2008, this figure is projected to reach a staggering $9.4 trillion. We are digging a fiscal black hole and sinking deeper and deeper into it.

Each month the Treasury covers the fiscal deficit by auctioning off securities. The two leading international buyers of U.S. Treasury securities are Japan and China. In this role, China is now also becoming our banker. This developing country, where income levels are one sixth those of the United States, is financing the excesses of an affluent industrial society. What’s wrong with this picture?

Via treehugger.

R.I.P., James Brown…

The children are currently waking up their dad with these….

Update at 8:30 pm:

Only a couple hours to go now, and the War on Christmas will be complete! All the games have been played with, Dad’s scotch has been tasted, and Mom’s puppy is absolutely exhausted!

Now we are tie-tie.

May all beings know peace.

Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht,
Alles schläft, einsam wacht,
Nur das traute heilige Paar,
Holder Knab’ im lockigen Haar,
Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh,
Schlafe in himmlischer Ruh.

Seek silence.
Gladden in silence.
Adore in silence.

As one progresses on the path, one seeks silence more and more. It will be a great comfort, a tremendous source of solace and peace.

Once you find deep solitude and calm, there will be a great gladness in your heart. Here finally is the place where you need neither defense nor offense — the place where you can truly be open. There will be bliss, wonder, the awe of attaining something pure and sacred.

After that, you will feel adoration of silence. This is the peace that seems to elude so many. This is the beauty of Tao.

Deng Ming Tao, 365 Tao

The Tao is silence
words
cannot capture.
The Tao is emptiness
not even
silence
can embrace.
(The Tao is Tao, 2)

It is part of wisdom to know when to speak and when to use silence to point the way. It is also part of wisdom not to say anything, either verbally or through silence, when people are not ready to listen.

In the final analysis, real understanding of the Tao can only be reached when you go the way yourself.

True understanding of the Tao is based on experience. It cannot be transmitted by either words or silence.

The only thing one can do to guide others is to point the way. — Jos Slabbert

How do you bring people into harmony with the Tao?
You can only point at the invisible.
It is like using sign language in the dark.
The mystery is that it works.
(The Tao is Tao, 95)

You are the One which is aware
of the awareness of objects and ideas.
You are the One that is even more silent than awareness.
You are the Life which precedes the concept of life.
Your nature is silence and it is not attainable,
It always Is.

‘This – Prose and Poetry of Dancing Emptiness’
– Sri H. W. L. Poonja (Papaji)

Our original nature is, in highest truth,
devoid of any atom of objectivity.
It is void, omnipresent, silent, pure;
it is glorious and mysterious peaceful joy ~
and that is all.

Enter deeply into it by awakening yourself.

~ Huang Po

“Music is the silence between the notes.” — Claude Debussy

“He who does not understand your silence will probably not understand your words.” — Elbert Hubbard

“See how nature – trees, flowers, grass – grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence…we need silence to be able to touch souls.” –Mother Teresa

“I have learned silence from the talkative, tolerance from the intolerant, and kindness from the unkind; yet strangely, I am ungrateful to these teachers” — Kahlil Gibran

“The fish in the water is silent, the animal on the earth is noisy, the bird in the air is singing. But man has in him the silence of the sea, the noise of the earth and the music of the air.” — Rabindranath Tagore

“The water in a vessel is sparkling; the water in the sea is dark. The small truth has words which are clear; the great truth has great silence.” — Rabindranath Tagore

“In the attitude of silence the soul finds the path in an clearer light, and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness. Our life is a long and arduous quest after Truth.” –Mahatma Gandhi

I enjoy silence, both the lack of sound, and the silence beyond the chattering of my mind. When I am most at peace, there are few thoughts in my head, other than perhaps, “ah”! or “mmm…” The pleasure of a beautiful rose in my garden with its sweet fragrance, some great sex, some really good chocolate, and other sensual things can bring me to that point. But the deeper silence comes mainly in my awareness of the Tao, the moments I see real depth in the world, in the sun shining on a leaf and noticing all the texture and intricacies of just one leaf, or a landscape like those Ansel Adams photographed.

The truly profound moments of my life have been some of the simplest. My favorite memory of Christmas is when we would sing Silent Night at the midnight service at church, light candles and turn out all the church lights, and then walk out into the courtyard “bringing our light into the world”. The choir always led the way. Standing next to my mother, in our choir robes, shivering a bit in the cold while everyone emerged from the church with their faces lit by candlelight, is something I will never forget.

To all those suffering with losses this Christmas, my heart goes out to you. Those loved ones will never again join you to celebrate the holidays, but they will always be with you in your heart. Remember them with a moment of silence and then move your heart into joy, for having known them. We cannot celebrate birth and the new life brought into the world without recognizing death and knowing our light will eventually fade, and we will return to the Silence that is our real nature.

May all beings know peace.

Posted for my good friend John Pierce, sadly suffering the loss of his father today.

Take care, John. I’ll be thinking of you….

I’ve got to agree with this. I really think if Americans truly understood their kids were dying so others could profit, they would finally get it. Between the war profiteers and the oilmen, we are very screwed up indeed.

we move to canada

This goes to something else I’m forever saying. I’m frankly amazed when people call the war in Iraq a failure. It’s a failure only if you believe the US government’s propaganda about their objectives. If you believe, as I do, that the stated objectives – which changed constantly! – were only excuses to sell a war that was planned long ago, the goal of which is corporate profit and personal gain, then the occupation has been a spectacular success. And it will continue to be far into the future. There are already nine permanent US bases in Iraq. They’re not leaving any time soon.

chomp!

Via Big Picture….

Thought I ought to give equal time to the tiggies and dragons on the tree. Yes, we’re a strange family. We all have our favorite critters. With me, of course, it’s the golden retrievers:

We have the traditional things on our tree too, though. Mushrooms, cephalopods, dragonflies, fish – just like everyone else.

So, what’s the weirdest thing on your tree?

Winter Solstice, Brigitte Lopez

A homeless man dies in the gutter.
A tree cracks in the cold:
A shocking sound.

At the winter solstice, the day is shortest of all and night is longest. It can also be the time of bitter cold. The wind blows with a frigid ferocity, cutting all before it. Snow and ice became deadly. Those who are homeless die of exposure. Even the mightiest of trees can split from the drop in temperature.

The sound of a tree snapping is a sudden slap.

The horrors, the tragedies that this nadir brings! Winter tortures the world with icy whips, and those who are weak are ground beneath its glacial heels. Sometimes, we dare not even lament those who die in the onslaught of winter, in fear that the tears will freeze upon our faces. But we see, and hear. Huddling closer to the fire, we vow to survive.

No matter how affected we are by misfortune, we must remember that this is the lowest turn of the wheel. Things cannot forever go downward. There are limits to everything — even the cold, and the darkness, and the wind, and the dying.

They call this the first day of winter, but actually it is the beginning of winter’s death. From this day on, we can look forward to warming and brightening.

Deng Ming Tao, 365 Tao

“In the depths of winter I finally learned there was in me an invincible summer” — Albert Camus

“Sometimes our fate resembles a fruit tree in winter. Who would think that those branches would turn green again and blossom, but we hope it, we know it.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I prefer winter and fall, when you feel the bone structure in the
landscape – the loneliness of it – the dead feeling of winter.
Something waits beneath it – the whole story doesn’t show.
- Andrew Wyeth

Of winter’s lifeless world each tree
Now seems a perfect part;
Yet each one holds summer’s secret
Deep down within its heart.
– Charles G. Stater

I trimmed back several of my plants yesterday just trying to get a bit more sun in the yard. I wasn’t really thinking of Solstice, and yet, I suppose I was. My son lit a fire in our fireplace last night – he wasn’t really thinking of Solstice either. And yet, he was. My neighbor and her son brought us cookies yesterday, playing out a Solstice tradition thousands of years old. But, thinking they were just bringing us cookies for Christmas, of course. I wonder if the ancients started their winter rituals as a way of seeking just to have that little bit more sunshine in their lives at a dark time of year, a bit more friendship and sharing of the last of summer’s wealth at the start of a difficult winter period.

“One kind word can warm three winter months.”
– Japanese Proverb

May your Solstice find you warm and happy. Be kind and loving to someone you don’t know today. Oh heck, that’s good advice for every day.

Virgin dragon to give birth in holiday season – Science – MSNBC.com

As Christmas approaches, a virgin mother is anxiously awaiting the arrival of her offspring….

Via Boing Boing…

President Wants to Increase Size

President Wants to Increase Size

Says “Pickles isn’t happy with my size anymore, and wants a “surge”.”

( I have some interesting spam I could send him with help for that problem!)