Yearly Archives: 2012

How To Deal With People Who Bum Cigarettes

I don’t think of what smokers face.  The first day on a new job, a friend is asked for a cigarette by coworkers who see him smoking. The remedy was to only carry into the office each day as many as he wants to smoke or share. I don’t give him heck for smoking because he’s down to a few a day and he enjoys it.  He does it as cigarettes were meant to be smoked: he’ll take a break from work and step outside and look at nature; he’ll begin to relax and breathe a little more deeply and he uses smoking as his trigger to relax.  In the process of simplifying his life, he’s faced with handling serious issues as he rebuilds according to the new vision.   There can be a lot of stress rise and fall during that process.  To his credit, he doesn’t drink or drug or take prescription meds or overeat or gamble or carouse, just the few cigs a day.  If that’s all he needs to handle the amount of stress I know he is under, I say let him have the cigs.  Who am I to judge?  The below is from How To Deal With People Who Grub Cigarettes. Continue reading →

Backing myself into a corner, getting myself unstuck

Yesterday I saw a rainbow twice, once at 7:45am in Melbourne and again at 8:00am in  Palm Bay.  It was an auspicious beginning to a very good day.   On the way home from Melbourne, I stopped at Big Lots to see if they had any coffeemakers, since mine had stopped working.  At 8:00am, they weren’t to be open for another hour, so I figured I’d check when I went to the post office later.  Yesterday’s main job was to finish billing for the November Horizons Magazine, and I finished just in time for it to be picked up by the mailchick.  Yay, no trip to the post office needed!  Then I got a call from one of the stores that carry the magazine, telling me their envelope had arrived empty and could I please send her magazines right away since her customers love it.  Of course!  I readied the mailing and mused that I thought I’d get one day I didn’t have to drive to the post office, but it’s no big deal as it’s just 3 miles from me.  At the post office, I ran into a friend of mine, who said he’d just been thinking of me.  We hadn’t seen each other in 20 years.  We both had planned on going to the post office earlier, then decided not to, then showed up at the same time.  Synchronicity! We chatted while we waited in line, then went for coffee so I could give him a reading.  I like it when friends have good things on the way to them and I can let them know to expect it.   The coffeemaker flashed in my head, to try Goodwill.  Sure enough, I found a Mr. Coffee Programmable Coffeemaker for $4.99 and a digital alarm clock for $1.99.  Bounty! I love recycling still-good old stuff!

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You say that you love rain, but you open your umbrella when it rains.
You say that you love the sun, but you find a shadow spot when the sun shines.
You say that you love the wind, but you close your windows when wind blows.
This is why I am afraid, you say that you love me too.
– Saruhan 1949 (Turkish folk poetry)

It is time for ALL non-indigenous practitioners of Earth Wisdom to step forth and be who they are

It is time for ALL non-indigenous practitioners of Earth Wisdom to step forth and be who they are, representatives of a contemporary Earth Wisdom, and stop seeking to gain points by piggy-backing their practices upon the honor and respect of the ancient traditions of indigenous cultures. In this approach the practitioners of contemporary Earth Wisdom can earn respect. Respect will never come through misappropriation of another culture’s practices, whether by imitation or claiming ceremonies to be what they are not and were never meant to be.  IMHO… A problem arises when a person or persons have spiritual insight – perhaps even inspired or guided by an indigenous people’s spiritual practices and perspectives – and then pronounce their spiritual wisdom to be that of the indigenous peoples themselves. This is, at best, misguided, and may even be out and out misappropriation… a lie. It does not, however, mean that the spiritual principles being presented are without value or an inherent truth.   Continue reading →

Knowledge is learning something every day. Wisdom is letting go of something every day. Zen proverb

Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life.

“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life – think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success, that is way great spiritual giants are produced.”  Swami Vivekananda

I’ll only talk you off the ledge so many times, then I have to set you free

Why did I un-friend you? If I don’t know you, it may just be that you haven’t made yourself visible to me, so I don’t yet know how interesting and cool you are and how relevant and important you might be to my life.  If so, send me a msg and I’m glad to re-friend you.  If I DO know you and I have un-friended you, one reason I’ll do that is when you consciously choose to repeat a past error and pretend you don’t know it, then want me to counsel with you about it when you clearly didn’t listen the first twenty times.  Domino poured her heart out to me a year ago over someone who she said played her, ripped her heart out, jeopardized her marriage and made her suicidal.  After months of back and forth talking her off the ledge several times and repeatedly telling her to put it behind her, I thought it finally was.  Now she’s chosen to re-engage this person.  She can do what she wants, bless her,  bless all of us, I just no longer want a ringside seat to it.

Why are you knocking at every other door?
Go, knock at the door of your own heart.
—Rumi

RELATED:  Sometimes I just have to unfriend a friend for awhile
Recognizing when someone is a sacred step on your journey.

A good indicator of a person’s character is how they handled past relationships, and how they handle unsettled finances or responsibilities from those relationships.