Changing Places

I was reading Sally’s latest article in Yoga Journal today, “Waking Life”, which is excellent, by the way, and decided to check out her web site. She has a number of other excellent articles posted there, including this one which appealed to the engineer in me. Surrender is probably one of the most difficult concepts on Yoga for me (or any spiritual practice).

Sally Kempton, meditation teacher, Swami Durgananda

My favorite surrender story was told to me by my old friend Ed. An engineer by profession, he was spending some time in India, at the ashram of his spiritual teacher. At one point, he was asked to help supervise a construction project, which he quickly found was being run incompetently and on the cheap. No diplomat, Ed rushed into action, arguing, amassing proofs, bad-mouthing his colleagues and staying up nights scheming about how to turn the tide. At every turn, he got resistance from the other contractors, who soon took to subverting everything he tried to do.

In the midst of this classic impasse, Ed’s teacher called them all to a meeting. Ed was asked to explain his position, and then the contractors started talking fast. The teacher kept nodding, seeming to agree. At that moment, Ed had a flash of realization. He saw that none of this mattered in the long run. He wasn’t there to win the argument, save the ashram money, or even make a great building. He was there to study yoga, to know the truth—and obviously, this situation had been designed by the cosmos as the perfect medicine for his efficient engineer’s ego.

At that moment, the teacher turned to him, “Ed, this man says you don’t understand local conditions, and I agree with him. So, shall we do it his way?”

Still swimming in the peace of his newfound humility, Ed folded his hands. “Whatever you think best,” he said.

He looked up to see the teacher staring at him with wide, fierce eyes. “Its not about what I think,” he said. “Its about what’s right. You fight for what’s right, do you hear me?”

Ed says that this incident taught him three things. First, that when you surrender your attachment to a particular outcome, things often turn out better than you could ever have imagined. (Eventually, he was able to persuade the contractors to make the necessary changes.) Second, that a true karma yogi is not someone who goes belly-up to higher authority, but a surrendered activist—a person who does his best to help create a better reality—all the while knowing that he’s not in charge of outcomes. Third, that the attitude of surrender is the best antidote to anger, anxiety, and fear.

I often tell this story to people who worry that surrender means giving up, or that letting go is a synonym for inaction, because it illustrates so beautifully the paradox behind “Thy will be done.” As the god Krishna told Arjuna in the Bhagavad Gita, surrender sometimes means being willing to get into a fight.

A truly surrendered person may look passive, especially when something appears to need doing, and everyone around is shouting, “Get a move on, get it done, this is urgent!” Seen in perspective, however, what looks like inaction is often simply a recognition that now is not the time to act. Masters of surrender tend to be masters of flow, knowing intuitively how to move with the energies at play in a situation. You advance when the doors are open, when a stuck situation can be turned, moving along the subtle energetic seams that let you avoid obstructions and unnecessary confrontations.

Such skill involves attunement to the energetic movement that is sometimes called universal or divine will, the Tao, flow, or in Sanskrit, shakti. Shakti is the subtle force—we could call it cosmic intention—behind the natural world in all its manifestations.

Surrender starts with a recognition that this greater life force moves as you. One of my teachers, Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, once said that to surrender is to become aware of God’s energy within oneself, to recognize that energy, and to accept it. It’s an egoless recognition—that is, it involves a shift in your sense of what “I” is—which is why the famous inquiry “Who am I?” or “What is the I?” is central to the process of surrender. (Depending on your tradition and your perspective at the time, you may recognize that the answer to this question is “Nothing” or “All that is”—in other words, consciousness, shakti, the Tao.)

A rule for cleaning – but it applies to all of life as well…

10. Pay attention. Almost everything will fall into place if you do. Don’t think about the revisions in the tax code. Or anything else. In Latin: Age quod agis — “Do what you are doing.”

Two new roses planted along the side patio today – “Night Owl” and “Sky’s the Limit“.

Hopefully they will soon provide a lovely view from my bay window where I do my blogging!

Gah! Well that was fun! Thankfully mostly past us now….. patio has a three inch drain – which flooded out. It’s finally draining, I think….

(That big red dot there is Poway underwater)

UPDATE – 2:40 PM:

OK, so now we have winds gusting to 40mph, and it’s 43 degrees!!

This is really crazy weather for us…. La Nina is certainly one for unusual weather!

Maybe actually fixing the housing and businesses that are still destroyed in the city would be a better plan?

Good grief. And their actions in showing off their “toys” are just inexcusable. Nagin should resign.

N.O. police show off new crime-fighting equipment – New Orleans News – NOLA.com

New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin and Police Superintendent Warren Riley on Tuesday used the floor of the Superdome to display more than $1 million in new armament and other equipment, largely for use by the SWAT squad in emergency and riot situations, including a fully equipped mobile command post, two armored cars and modern assault rifles.

Nearly all of the equipment was financed from a $6.6 million state allocation to New Orleans police that was earmarked for crime-fighting items or strategies, Riley said.

The city officials said the new equipment reflected a determination by the Police Department to root out and arrest criminals and make New Orleans safer, as well as to help police handle any emergency situation encountered.

The money will also pay for 600 bullet-proof vests.

The 27- and 14-ton armored cars, costing about $380,000 and $270,000 respectively, will provide cover to officers in SWAT situations and help them safely evacuate citizens from dangerous situations, Riley said.

Via the BAG.

My flowering plum always lets me know spring is here – or near….

Hearts of fire creates love desire
Take you high and higher to the world you belong
Hearts of fire creates love desire
High and higher to your place on the throne

We’ve come together on this special day
To sing our message loud and clear
Looking back we’ve touched on sorrowful days
Future, past, they disappear

You will find peace of mind
If you look way down in your heart and soul
Ah, don’t hesitate ’cause the world seems cold
Stay young at heart cause you’ll never (never, never, ..) grow old at heart
(Never, never, never, never know)

As the way of the world
Plant your flower and you grow a pearl
A child is born with a heart of gold
The way of the world makes his heart grow cold

– Earth, Wind and Fire
(Maurice white, charles stepney & verdine white)

Come together on this special day, come together
Let’s sing today…

Via Dependable Renegade…

Via the BAG…

May my creativity be restored
On all levels
In all areas
and forevermore

When the Madwoman is transformed from destructive paths and embodied in creative ways, a woman will not give up her vision. Rid of the resentments, paranoia, and isolation that result when her anger is suppressed or goes unrecognized or unacknowledged, she will be free to create. Her vision will be clear and congruent, and she will have the courage and wisdom to embody it in the world. — Linda Schierse Leonard, Meeting the Madwoman

I am just finishing up reading this book, and if anyone would like to read it, I will be happy to send it along to you. Just leave a comment here and I’ll get in touch with you for a snail mail address.

Enlightenment at last – will he become a Democrat now?

Nah. He just thinks Republicans ought to be “outraged”. No, they ought to just wake up to the fact that their party hasn’t represented them in seven years now.

Or any of the rest of us, for that matter.

Angry Bear

Mike Huckabee continued to cry foul Monday over the results in Saturday’s Washington State GOP caucuses, saying the state party chairman’s decision to call the race there early for John McCain is reminiscent of elections in communist bloc nations. “That is not what we do in American elections,” Huckabee said on CNN’s American Morning Monday. “Maybe that’s how they used to conduct it in the old Soviet Union, but you don’t just throw people’s votes out and say, ‘well, we’re not going to bother counting them because we kind of think we know where this was going.’ In a statement released Sunday, Huckabee’s campaign said Washington’s GOP Party Chairman Luke Esser called the race for McCain when Huckabee was only losing to the Arizona senator by 242 votes and over 1,500 votes remained to be counted. Esser has said he remains confident he made the right call. Speaking on CNN, Huckabee said the campaign has sent lawyers to the state to formally challenge the result. “I was just stunned,” Huckabee said. “It’s the kind of thing that Republicans across America, not just in Washington State, ought to be outraged over.”

Well, this is ironic.

And sad, in a way.

But I feel a lot more for all the families that will end up losing their homes that don’t have rich daddies.

Florida Taking Its Toll (Brothers) On Daughter’s Condo – Realty Check with Diana Olick – CNBC.com

You just can’t make this stuff up. Apparently even a big builder’s daughter can’t seem to keep faith in the Florida housing market. According to an SEC filing, Wendy Topkis, daughter of Toll Brothers co-founder and Vice-Chairman Bruce Toll, is walking away from a Florida condo, just like everyone else. A Toll Bros. condo!! The Palm Beach Post says it best: Et Tu Wendy?

According to the home builder’s proxy statement:

Prior to fiscal 2007, the Company entered into an agreement of sale to build and sell a condominium to Wendy Topkis, Bruce E. Toll’s daughter, and her husband for a purchase price of $2,468,075. In January 2008, the buyers informed the Company that they did not intend to make settlement on the condominium. The Company intends to pursue its rights under the agreement of sale.

Does that mean they’ll sue darling daughter? The company’s general counsel says they are pursuing normal procedures.

Daddy is quoted as saying she just changed her mind because she had another child and the place would be too small, but I’m guessing the 13 percent drop in Florida prices was screaming at her a little louder than the baby. So Wendy just adds to the company’s 61 percent cancellation rate in the Sunshine State.

Now, if Wendy was required to put down the same 7 percent deposit on the new home as everybody else, then she could be out $172,765. Of course, daddy owns almost five percent of the company (market cap around $3.5 billion) so maybe he could help out, or perhaps he wants her to learn about fiscal responsibility the hard way. None of my business of course; just family business…or lack thereof.

Retailers Taking Their Medicine and Turning Cautious Over Growth – CoStar Group

When asked if this phase possibly creates an opportunity for those smaller local or regional retailers who had a tougher time getting great real estate when the big chains were expanding, Kampler said, “I think this is an opportunity for the ones that would typically have had trouble getting a landlord’s attention. The consumer is bored and does not want to see the same collection of stores in every shopping center from coast to coast. Malls should have more flavor, and stores should reflect the specifics of the geography and natural setting. There’s a small handful of malls around the country that have gone out of their way to have interesting tenant mixes and maybe we’re going to get back to some of that.”

They really don’t care about you, either….

Gung Hay Fat Choy! (Wishing you fortune)
Sun Tai Geen Hong! (Wishing you good health)
Man Si Yu Yi! (Wishing you a thousand wishes)
Sum Sung Si Cheng! (Wishing you your heart’s fulfillment)
Bo Bo Go Sing! (May every step be higher and higher)

The Lunar New Year, also celebrated by Koreans, Vietnamese, Mongolian, etc. for hundreds of years, is called Korean New Year, Vietnamese New Year, etc. by other peoples and known in Chinese as the Spring Festival .

2008′s socially adept Rat year brings us charisma, intelligence and the ability to charm the pants off of just about anybody – literally. Romantically, 2008′s repertory will be as eclectic and varied as this first sign of the Zodiac. High-strung, curious, and ever alert to sexual opportunity, during Rat years we will all feel the need to make an emotional connection with our love partner. It is after sunset that the Rat year comes alive with numerous acquaintances, lively discussion, and intensely romantic interludes. We will all value companionship and love more than anything else this year. Enjoy the concealed and stealthy midnight hours ruled by the Rat of romantic secrets and delicious debauchery. People fall in love easily during Rat years and we will all be prone to some memorable infatuations. In the last Earth Rat year (60 years ago) Alfred Kinsey’s Sexual Behavior in the Human Male stunned the country with revelations about infidelity, homosexuality and other issues.

Positively, in the previous Rat year of 1948, the Jews of Palestine declared independence and the State of Israel was born on May 14, 1948. Negatively, another major beginning occurred that year on May 26, 1948 when the government of South Africa embraced Apartheid bitterly dividing the country. Financially, socially and globally, for better or for worse, 2008 is pregnant with potential.

2008 will also be an intellectual one, as the Rat is the curious professor of the zodiac. Expect a renewed passion for knowledge, and interest in the sciences in 2008. Travel and a hunger for new experiences, will also beckon. The 200-inch telescope at Mount Palomar began operation in the previous Earth Rat year of 1948 and the “Big bang” theory of the universe’s origin was first postulated. In Aztec, New Mexico Three radar units tracked a falling UFO and a military search party was dispatched from Camp Hale in Colorado. The search team finds a crashed 30-foot disc, recovers remains which is stored in Hangar 18 at Wright-Patterson AFB.

Words and language will become ever more important and poets, musicians and writers can easily produce their best work to date under the influence of the talented Rat. Exchanging and communicating are the priorities of a Rat year. A hyperactive and restless year of potential nervous disorders and neurosis of every type. A good year to explore relaxation methods such as meditation more thoroughly. You may find yourself more sensitive to illness, environmental insults and allergies this year as well, so be sure to get that flu shot and eat your vegetables!

And Hillary knows how to hit him – hard.

You go, girl.

Political Punch

Sen. Hillary Clinton: Well, the economy lost jobs last month and the mortgage lending crisis is leaving millions of Americans in danger of losing their homes and everyday expenses are on the rise. So the reality is we’re heading toward a recession. And I feel a real sense of urgency to do something. Unfortunately the Republicans, including Senator McCain, don’t share that view.

Now, you know Senator McCain is a friend, and I honor his service to the nation, but on this issue we have an honest and important disagreement. I believe we need to get help to the middle class as soon as we can.

Senator McCain failed to vote and I think that’s wrong. Senator McCain seems to take the Bush approach to economic stimulus: help those who don’t need it and ignore those who do. That’s what he did yesterday by not supporting the stimulus plan. I think we need to do something to deliver solutions to the people who need it most. That’s why I was the first candidate to come out with a detailed and comprehensive economic stimulus package. And it’s why I left the campaign trail to go back to the Senate to vote on a proposal aimed at jump starting the economy.

But unfortunately the Republicans banded together to block the bill because they oppose the Democrats’ efforts to do a little extra for the elderly, for disabled veterans, and for people who have lost their jobs. I think that’s wrong and I think it’s another reminder about why we need a president to deliver real solutions for our country. So what’s clear is the best stimulus package would be a president who knows enough and cares enough to solve our economic problems and that is the kind of president I intend to be.

If you can afford a donation, these folks need some help…..

Monkeyfister
The Toll Is At 54 And Rising…

Tragic. I pray that peace, kindness and hope can find each and every one of those touched families.

I’ve been looking around for some local centralized relief group/agency… Someplace.

Right now, I recommend the:

American Red Cross
Mid-South Chapter
1400 Central Avenue
Memphis, TN 38104
901-726-1690

And:
United Way of the Mid-South phone in a donation at (901) 433-4300.

They take DIRECT donations, so you can skip all the National-level waste and delay, AND they serve nearly every community in the effected radius.

I don’t ask for much from my readers, but I sure would appreciate some link love on this post– or better yet– if you’d work-up something of your own linking to the Mid-South Red Cross Chapter to help this area get back on it’s feet, re-building, and healing. It’d mean an awful lot to many. A bit of a small-blog swarm would be a mighty thing.

Thanks in advance.

I worked at the poll all day, and all I got was this lousy pin…..

I’ll be working at the polls all day, so not much posting will be going on here, if any. I might get to check in on a break.

Please — go vote if your state primary is on Tuesday!

Right now I’m off to get some sleep, since I will have to be up at an hour I usually deny exists…..

More than happy to be a part of it myself…. ;^)

the choice of a nude generation | The Agonist

there is a conspiracy, of which i am a professed member, to dismantle the petroleum society. the petroleum society introduced a host of concepts, including the nuclear family, in its drive to make labor mobile to the convenient places of production.

the conspiracy is to move production into forms that people can do where and when they want, even stark naked in their own bedroom.

the social forms and norms which came with the mechanized world have not been successes by and large. the divorce rate is high, it has torn apart the african american community entirely – moynihan had it exactly wrong, it wasn’t that african-americans were failing at marriage, it is that nuclear marriage was failing them. one major reason that immigrant communities do better than indigenous african-american ones, is that the immigrants keep the nuclear norm. the parents come over when needed, or the children are shipped back.

the nuclear norm is also one that is lividly more bigotted than the extended one. this is because each partner is the sole source of emotional support for the other. it has lead, directly, to a rise in the consumption of video pornography and use of sex aids, including bondage-discipline and sado-masochism, as ways of keeping the sexual passion alive in the the nuclear couple. it is also why “defense of marriage” becomes more an obsession of the right wing. the nuclear marriage, as more fragile and stressed, needs it.

at the same time, the economic realities which allowed and encouraged the nuclear family are being crushed from both sides – young people are failing to launch, and old people are collapsing back into the home to be cared for. often both at once.

the nude generation enters this reality without an attachment to the nuclear family, without a job picture that encourages the nuclear family, that is moving to someplace and having a long residence there in the employ of one company. the nude generation therefore, neither respects the norms of that system, nor do they have any force impelling them too.

instead, as people who find people by craigslist, facebook, linkedin, friendster, myspace, and even more exotic tools, they are impelled to build networks that are polymorphous, polyamorous in many cases, and polyvalent. multi is the word of the past, poly the word that the nude generation falls upon. the polytropic has become polyagenous, a society made out of things which are indefinite in their form and structure. we don’t buy things as much as we buy things that make things. computers, smartphones, internet service, sites that link us to new content we didn’t know about, websites and so on.

this conspiracy to overturn the past is driven my many things, it make sense because the past really has robbed the nude generation blind. in the last 30 years the end of the GI generation, and the beginning of the baby boom, has spent the money that the second half of the baby boom, the baby bust and the echo boom assumed would be there. they have eaten the air, fouled the economy, spent the credit, burned the oil, used up the land to build, largely, parking lots.

At Pauley Pavilion on the UCLA campus, California first lady Maria Shriver appeared alongside media mogul Oprah Winfrey to give a surprise endorsement of Obama, whipping the crowd of 6,500 into a near frenzy.
The rally for the Illinois senator, aimed squarely at female voters, also starred singer Stevie Wonder, Shriver’s cousin Caroline Kennedy – daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy – and the candidate’s wife, Michelle Obama.
“Every part of me believes in the empowerment of women, but the truth is, I’m a free woman,” said Winfrey as a sea of students stomped their feet and waved blue “Obama” signs. “And being free means you get to think for yourself.”
The endorsement by Shriver – a member of the Kennedy clan whose husband, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, has endorsed GOP candidate John McCain – came as a surprise even to the Obama campaign, said spokeswoman Debbie Mesloh.
“Think about it,” Shriver told the crowd. “If Barack Obama were a state, he’d be California. Diverse. Open. Smart. Bucks tradition. Inspiring. Dreamer. Leader.”

Brigid’s Mead

A celebration of the goddess Brigid…..

The Wheel of the Celtic Year: Imbolc

THE EXALTED ONE
…woman of wisdom…a goddess whom poets adored…— Cormac’s Glossary

It is tempting to view this tender goddess of the early Spring only as she is pictured in Scottish artist John Duncan’s famous picture, The Coming of Bride: a wide-eyed, golden-haired girl, encircled by children. But behind her girlish innocence is the power of a once-great ancestral deity, Brigid, whose name means “The Exalted One,” queen and mother goddess of many European tribes. She is also known as Brigid, Bridget, Brighid, Brighde, Brig or Bride and some scholars consider her name originated with the Vedic Sanskrit word brihati, an epithet of the divine.

The 10th century Cormac’s Glossary describes her as the daughter of the Daghda, the “Great God” of the Tuatha de Danaan. He calls her a “woman of wisdom…a goddess whom poets adored, because her protection was very great and very famous.” Since the discipline of poetry, filidhect, was interwoven with seership, Brigid was seen as the great inspiration behind divination and prophecy, the source of oracles.

She is said to have had two sisters: Brigid the Physician and Brigid the Smith, but it is generally thought that all three were aspects of the one goddess of poetry, healing, and smithcraft. Elsewhere she is described as the patron of other vital crafts of early Celtic society: dying, weaving and brewing. A goddess of regeneration and abundance, she was greatly beloved as a provider of plenty who brought forth the bounties of the natural world for the good of the people. She is closely connected with livestock and domesticated animals. She had two oxen called Fea and Feimhean who gave their names to a plain in Co. Carlow and one in Tipperary. She was also the guardian of Torc Triath, king of the wild boar, who gave his name to Treithirne, a plain in West Tipperary. These three totem animals used to raise a warning cry if Ireland was in danger.

Some Irish rivers bear her name, as do places as far apart as Breconshire in Wales, Brechin in Scotland and Bregenz in Austria, which was once the capital of the Brigantii tribe. This tribe was under the tutelage of the goddess Brigantia, who is thought to be another aspect of Brigid. The most powerful political unit of Celtic-speaking Britain, the Brigantii mostly held sway in Northern England, where place-names and rock-carvings still echo the presence of their mother-goddess.