Janine emailed me that our drumming to calm the storms seemed to be working. She suggested making up some chants for the media to get them to back off a bit.  I replied:

“I totally think it’s working. I am loving getting to spend time doing the storm prayer work, at Unity’s noon prayer service today it was mostly about the storms, seeing them slow down and spin in clockwise direction.  I shared the storms chants with Beth earlier and at her suggestion we did it at the noon session – there were only a handful of us there but it felt very powerful! “
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Email to Rev. Beth “I was so glad I came to prayer service today.  Thank you for incorporating the storm chant into the prayer offering.  Did I email you the storm chant words?

CHANT TO SLOW THE STORM (to the tune of The River is Flowing)
The storms, they are slowing, Slowing and slowing.
The storms, they are slowing, Out in the sea.
Spirit, cover us, With your love, your Mother love.
(for my Christian friends, Jesus cover us, with your love, your Father’s love)
Spirit, cover us, Keep us safe and free

As we do the chant, we see the storms circling clockwise at your great suggestion.

This is the chant I did earlier today:
Sarva mangala mangalye, Shive, sarvartha sadhake,
Saranye triambike Gowri narayani namosthuthe.

Phonetically:
Sar’ va    man’ ga la     Mahn’ ga lay
Shi’ vay    Sar’ vaa tha’     Sad’ ee kay’
Sha’ ran yay’    Tray am’ bee kay’   Gowri
Na’ raya nee’     Na mos’  too tay
Na’ raya nee’     Na mos’  too tay     (repeat the chant in sets of 3)

It basically is a Hindu version of  “Blessed Mother who oversees the material world, bless us and protect us.”

Andrea

I forgot I have to pay all the bills today which means: I have to balance the checkbook which means: I have to open the mail  and log it in before I can make a deposit. Which means I can’t finish billing till all that is done.

They are out there preparing to pressure clean my driveway so who knows how long that takes.  As soon as I can finish this bank work, open mail, pay bills, finish billing, I am running out for a couple of hours, have no idea when that will be as what I think should take 2 hours may take 5.

Mark from the ashram emailed me his vision statement.

“ I envision a World of Peace, Harmony, and Well-Being for all.   I envision Health, Well-Being, and Harmony between Mind, Body, and Spirit for all..   I believe ancient Wisdom and Practices of Yoga, Meditation, are the ways of achieving Peace, inner and outer.   I see this Peace as a missing, yet integral, part of the Educational environment now!   I believe we can integrate this Peace into our current educational paradigms, transforming the paradigm, empowering students and teachers. I believe that, if we, as teachers and educators, are to prepare students for their lives, careers, in this world, we must have them find Peace and Power within themselves, and take that out into the world.”

I emailed him: “ Hi, I think you expressed yourself well.  I liked the Intention. Not as criticism by any means, but I am interested in that living at your sister’s seemed a more conducive environment for working toward peaceful resolution of daily matters that come up, and we can’t work on them if we’re away from them.  It reminds me of Karuna Das who in the beginning lived at the ashram, and he would always flip out when someone would slam the a door because it “disturbed his meditation”.  A yogi learns to maintain his center no matter what is going on around him, and he places himself in troubled times to bring peace to it.
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end of email

My personal checkbook just balanced on the first try for the first time ever. Nice!

The Horizons checkbook came within $40 of balancing on the first try!  Yay, close enough for me.  I round deposits down to nearest dollar and round checks up, so $40 is darn near right on, I’d say.

Ok, now I know what I have, on to the bill paying portion of the day…

Later in the day:  I got my driveway pressure cleaned today, first time in years.  It looks good, I must horrify my across the street neighbor, who has to look at my Addams Family house while I look at his cookie cutter brick box and flat lawn. He cuts his trees down because the falling leaves are too much work to keep raking up…  Then he puts those leaves in a plastic trash bag for the landfill… go figure!

Email to a friend who asked me to summarize what I believe:
“My beliefs are as a result of my own personal experience, as well as personally witnessing the individual and collective experiences of at least hundreds of people thru the years.  My main beliefs are, in no particular order:

1.  We create our own reality.

2.  Our point of power is in The Now Moment.

3.  One person, connected to “Source”, with focused intent, is more powerful than thousands or more who are less focused, less connected.

4.  My thoughts and prayers, my vision-holding/keeping for myself and others, profoundly contributes to the outcome.  Yours do, too.  Everyone’s thoughts do.

5.  As a result of knowing the above, I feel compelled to help others achieve whatever they want to achieve.  For me, this expresses itself – partially – in me scheduling daily thought time on a list of people and projects for whom I hold pre-paving thoughts of a healed life and a happy future.  I have dozens scheduled daily because I know the value of practice, practice, practice.

6.  I feel compelled to help people know how powerful they are and that the process to discover this is easy.  I  feel compelled to let them know, each time they voice something in their life they are not happy with, that they have the power to change it, beginning right now today.  And it doesn’t cost them a dime; it just costs them thought time.

7.  It costs them writing down a list of where in their life they would like change.  It costs them scripting out the preferred tomorrow for each area of their life.  It costs them the scheduling of daily time to bring themselves to center In The Now, and then reading each script over, envisioning and feeling the outcome.  When they do this, it never NOT works.  The process is easy. The scripting takes time and fine tuning.  The practice takes practice.  They can be that one person, connected to Source, with focused intent, who is more powerful than the thousands less focused, less connected.

8.  It also costs them the loss of vibrational resonance with their “former’ life and people and circumstances they no longer vibrate in harmony with.  It costs them the heartache of friends not wanting to go there and just wanting to continue their old life, their old way of being with you.   But that no longer satisfies because, hey, you just learned how to create your own reality.  It costs you friends, family, mates, employers, employees, and alienates neighbors, etc.  But you gain internal guidance and response.

9.  So, knowing what I know, I simply find far less satisfaction in chitchat or discussing theories and philosophies, than I do in having someone identify something they want and showing them the process to get it. And working with them to identify it. And working with them to hold the vision.  And working with them to get the script right.  And practicing the script with them so they can see the evidence for themselves and know it works.  And that it works without me.  That’s what gives me the greatest satisfaction. And I’m as selfish as they get. It’s all about me doing in each moment what it thrills me to do.

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Email to a new friend, we’ve been exchanging biographical info. “I wanted to explain that in asking what you’ve read and studied and done, etc. is not to see how “well educated” or well read you are, rather to have a context within which to take in what you say to me and have a point of reference so I may understand you.  I don’t give you my bibliography and resume of metaphysical grokkage to impress you, I simply mention them so if you know the topics, you know where I’m coming from and you know how I am using the terms.  It’s like you discussing sound and music with friends.  You and I will not have as deep and complexly layered a discussion about it as you and another musician might.  You and he would both share a knowledge that goes far beyond my superficial understanding.  You and he are aware of nuances I know nothing of, and you and he share ‘the secret language” which completely escapes me. That’s all, I’m just trying to discover what secret languages we already mutually share, if any, in the interest of getting to know each other.
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On the way to bed I looked out my bedroom window and saw the land had dried enough so that I could go rescue a fallen archway.   The archway was made from the oak that came down on my back porch in 2004. My yard guy cut it in half, saving the giant philodendron (or whatever they are) and “planting” the halves in the ground about a foot.  They came down in the storm.  The trunks are rotted anyway.  So I pulled the plants away from the rotted inside and made a new pathway and laid them alongside it.  Then I just raked the dead stumps etc around it to mulch it up nice and covered lots of the philo with mounds of good dirt so they will stay alive.   Today was the first day the ground was dry enough to walk on and not sink in up to my ankles in mush, so I wanted to clean it up before the next storm comes along.

Sleep is forgotten for now.  I went out and took pics of the yard, which I do a lot.  I like there to be a symbolic something you walk under to step into the space.  Right now I’ve just got a length of bamboo stretched between a pine and a tree branch in the east garden.  I moved a plaster  angel grotto farther back and to the right, and raked a new pathway of sorts.  Giant philodendrons are to the right and left of the swept walkway, just lying on the ground with dirt and mulch atop, waiting for the rains.

One of my bigger bamboo stalks broke about 25 feet up, I can reach it to pull on it but am not strong enough to twist it free.  I will try again after I’ve slept.  My bamboo is going crazy!  I have 5 new babies that I can see.  Possibly more, since I mulch up about a foot above the ground around it.  Bamboo grows so fast you can hear it.

I had a dream about 10 years ago on a Thanksgiving night that all the animals I had eaten in my life were speaking to me.  Not chastising me, just kind of checking in and saying hi.  The next morning when I opened the refrigerator and saw the big turkey there, I felt such a profound sadness.  I called a bachelor friend around the corner and asked if I could donate it to him and of course he was thrilled.  I stopped eating meat for about 4 months then, but slowly went back to it.  Very odd dream.

I paint and draw when I get the time, like 9 minutes a year lately.  I enjoy music but mostly here at home I like to stay in the silence.  Two years ago I bought a 100 cd changer and have never set it up.  I get lots of free cds as review copies, and know I will have to organize the music by genre before putting them in the changer.  It seems like such a daunting task that I haven’t even begun it…   Then I would have to make a list, an index of what cd is where, so basically nothing gets done because of that.  I do sometimes turn the tv on channel 440, 441, the classicals, or 414, 415, the adult alternative music.  I haven’t listened to live music (except at church or conferences) for gosh maybe years…  I am such a workaholic…

Today I am here at the house catching up on bookkeeping while I wait for the garage door guy to come fix my door opener which twisted off the track and jammed.  I had a time Friday night undoing the bolts to release the arm so I could use the door manually.  What a trip!  I’m usually a pretty good handy man.

Eating lunch at Cali Pho toiay I saw a squirrel scamper up the Norfolk pine there and retrieve a baby who was wrapped around her neck, and she carried it over into the next lot under the fence, where she must have another nest. Then she came back and did the same thing with a second baby . It was awesome, tom and I were watching her from inside the window.

I skipped delivering magazines to Cassadaga today and just slept from about 11am until 4pm.  Then I got up and drove to the beach to see if any waves were happening but it was kinda flattish.  I almost drove over to a meeting at a friend’s but I was dressed real bummy – jeans and tshirt.  I need to stop dressing like that out in public.  I think I had to wear dresses, suits and pantyhose for so long that I am rebelling in my later years.  At the office, I always dressed on par with the female attorneys, since we were side by side in court.  To me, wearing jeans and a tshirt only happened when I was playing or camping or travelling.  So I think I’ve let it become my badge of freedom.  However, too often lately I find myself running into someone and I have no makeup, am dressed bummy and hair up in a granny knot.  Not a good image for the mag, I guess.

Today I began drafting the “Win The Lotto” script.  As exercise, I go online and watch the videos of the lottery drawings and get excited as I do so.   For each one, I imagine I am someone somewhere holding the ticket and maybe I’m a hard working farmer somewhere, who was always hopeful that he might win someday. With every number the announcer calls off, I look at my ticket and I’ve got that number!   I feel the elation begin to stir in my chest with each number it gets greater and greater. I am getting more and more excited!   They call out the third number and I’ve got that one too! Between each number I’m thinking, “Boy, I can pay everyone off, the mortgages, the cars, the credit cards.   They call out the forth number and I’ve got it on my ticket. Now I can buy my mom a house, I can let my dad retire, I can invest in that farm.   By the time the final number is called, I’m jumping up and down for joy. Every number. Every darned number they called was on MY ticket and I now have more money than I ever dreamed possible. Me. Me! I won it!”

I did lots yesterday but napped in the afternoon.  I put my storm shutter up on the window outside my office since it’s my only window without a burglar bar.  I like the bars because they catch the flying branches before they hit the window.  Even in just quick storms here during the day, lots of deadfall branches come down from the pines and oaks outside, so I wanted to be safe.  I like the storms, because they bring the dead limbs down so I don’t have to pay to get them cut.  I’m enjoying more personal interaction (well phone) and helping people Like Lisa A. for her new magazine and website.   I like helping folks do things like that. So I created her a mock 13 page magazine, and left a cd of it out at the mailbox, so she could go home and try to play with it until I had more time to give her on it.

Since each page is laid out differently, I wanted her to get used to seeing the page as a variety of frames and objects you learn to bend to do your bidding.  Like the cover is just one 8×11 pdf file, the table of contents has several “text frames” in it, as well as images.  The Classified Ads are two columns, with a header of one column.  The Phone Directory is 3 columns, with a one column header on the first page.   I wanted her to recognize the elements that make each page cohesive, such as the footer that says Horizons Magazine by subscription $26/12 issues  Visit horizonsmagazine.com.

So her first homework was to, using inDesign, on each page replace the name horizons magazine with her mag name, replace my name with her name, replace the address, just basically make a sample page.  use my table of contents as a starting point for what regular monthly features she might want to include.  Use my ad rates as a starting point to figure her own out, she wants the magazine to be her income source.

I told her about Virtual Merchant and told her she’d get much more income if she had a website.  I told her I use Webstudio.com (Webstudio 4) to create websites, and I’d teach her to do it herself.  This is the stuff I love to do, let people know how easy it is to get started doing basically anything they want to do, plus how to promote it and make money from it.

I connected today with Miguel Gomez who grew up on my street when we were kids. He was my brother Bobby’s best friend. It was so good to connect with him and catch up. His mom still lives in the childhood home. I Googled a satellite view and found my old home 980 E. 27th Street in Hialeah. It’s all concrete now and looks so small I can’t believe we all lived there. We had dozens of trees front and back and the fence was a tight privacy hedge of Surinam cherry, and now I see none. I barely recognize it.

Yesterday at New Way the choir sang Jesus Christ Superstar and the crowd went wild; people jumping and dancing and singing along; we got an encore at the end, it was awesome, I had tears just spurting out of my face 🙂    I was listening to Fred Migliore’s FM Odyssey radio show yesterday on WFIT 89.5 and emailed him:  Your project about “Songs that changed my life” interests me.  The particular focus that interests me is your belief that we can change our thoughts using words and the importance of thoughts and words.  I believe singer/songwriters can be powerful poets who sing our tomorrows into being, since the words of their songs resonate in our heads over and over and over.   I’d like to run an article about that and along with it we can plug any personal projects you want to promote.  I’d like to know some songs that changed your life or changed your thinking processes.  I ideally have 800 words worth of space.  But that could expand because I think it’s important what we choose to listen to; what we allow into our life as even background sounds. Let me know your thoughts.  Email is always best for me.    Continue reading →