Good morning all my European/East Asian/Asian/East Indian fans!! You represent the largest number of my readers, and for me, it is affirmation of the deep feelings I have that draw me to your cultures and someday, hopefully, your soil!! These places and belief systems seem somehow to be ingrained in me in large part, and I want you to know that I am humbled by your interest in my creative outlet...thank you for your dedication.
My word of the day is...cultivation.
For those who are interested, my book is coming along very well. I have been blocked here and there, side-tracked, so to speak in my diligence to spend as much time on it as I would like...but ya know, life happens, doesn't it? I view these down-times as times of gathering. Since my book is being written of things I know, and I am always learning something new everyday, I continue to gather all the time. I don't write out of "thought" but more out of "reflex." I seem to have a built-in switch labeled "cultivate," where I tend, and nurture my thoughts and feelings associated with them to a level of maturity, and then, I gather and separate them. What then comes out, is raw creativity. It is not enforced, led, or tempered at all by thought alone. It rather, just spills once I've gathered all that I have cumulatively cultivated to overflow.
Today was the first day in a couple of weeks that I tended to my book, and have been quite lax in tending to this blog as well...as the opportunity for massive cultivation had presented itself and that is where my presence has been. Perspective is the point of balance in it all for me, and that is where the rubber hits the road and where the good grain is separated from the unusable. There is useless information and useful information. There are things that matter and things that don't...but they all have a life, and it is our duty to discern between the two within the final separation process of our cultivation and gathering.
We need to realize that even though we have spent 100% of ourselves on whatever it is we choose to nurture and care for, that we will never yield 100% of what we put into it. We will take a hit and there will be a loss...the best we can hope for is that our gain surpasses our loss. This is why it is wise to take a step back in a pursuit and just GLEAN, because there will be left behind, something good that you may have missed in the initial gather that may in fact, be the very thing that will boost your gain over your loss. It is a time-consuming process and not for those looking for an immediate answer or those unable to resist temptation of instant gratification. It is a process of patience in pursuit of knowledge and wisdom.
In this specific period of gleaning, in what was left behind, I found that I am a VERY long-suffering person. I always thought that patience was not a virtue to be listed on my resume of life, but have found contrarily, that it is probably the virtue I practice the most and is the very thing that has put my gain up OVER my loss in every situation. I always desire the best outcome possible, with all things considered...and THIS takes an immense amount of patience, attention, and focus. As a matter of fact, there would be NO cultivation without patience, there would be no gathering without it, and definitely no separation.
So if I am absent from you here, just know that I am in one of the steps of this process & also know that I will not ever come here and blurt something from the top of my head...it will be the product of a finely cultivated, gathered, separated and gleaned message from my heart to yours.
“Natural abilities can almost compensate for the want of every kind of cultivation, but no cultivation of the mind can make up for the want of natural abilities.”~John Ruskin.
"Patience is necessary, and one cannot reap immediately where one has sown." Soren Kierkegaard.
“Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession.”~ Ralph Waldo Emerson.
“To what extent can one have a sense for something if he doesn't have its embryo inside him? Whatever I come to understand must itself develop organically in myself, and what I seem to learn is only nourishment and cultivation of that inner organism.”~ Novalis.
Recognize the natural, harmonic rhythm of the cultivation to the harvest...don't disrupt it by the need of a quick fix. We should not ever expect to cash in on something that we never first patiently cared for.
Love you all...see ya next time, same place...probably around the same time...Happy Harvest!!
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
Got gratitude?
Well hello strangers...
Sorry I haven't been on lately, I have a few projects going on right now that have kept me quite busy, and now I prepare for my favorite day of the year...THANKSGIVING!! This day marks for me (and most others) the beginning of the holiday season. It is a day of family and friends (those present and past), cooking creativity, aroma therapy, different tastes and textures, and a hint of Christmas here and there to cast your eye upon. I get butterflies in my stomach thinking about this day that is now fast approaching. I look forward to my time being transformed into a beautiful meal shared with the people I most cherish and the new guests I seem to be blessed to entertain on this day year to year. There is a LOT of laughter filling this house as well as some stimulating conversation. There is football on the television, full bellies, and the tryptophan nap. After the after-dinner relaxation, we all gather 'round the table and play stupid games and crack open the booze...and then my son becomes the life of the party---GOD I love him!
It is also a time of reflection, as I remember my dad. His birthday is at the end of the month and sometimes I celebrate Thanksgiving and his birthday the same day (not this year). I write him a letter every year the night before thanksgiving, telling him how I am doing (as if he doesn't already know!), but it helps me bring to the surface all of the missing him I have done for the year. It has become a way of incorporating his spirit presence to something tangible, I guess. It helps me to talk to him....and I also read the letters past, which remind me of how far I have come through the years, and I think that as proud of me as he was before he left, I see him being even more proud of me now. I can see his smile when I do something "smile-worthy", I can feel his concern when I am lost, and his nudge when I am uncertain. He was my biggest cheerleader and my most trusted confidant. He was a shining example of simplicity, authenticity, integrity, and mutual respect. He was the only man in my life for years, the most important one for years later, and now the most physically missed at my Thanksgiving table year to year. I am grateful to have been my daddy's baby girl. I am grateful for the sense of fairness, acceptance, and compassion he instilled in me. I am grateful for the time spent with him, his sense of humor, his veracity, and his unwavering way of putting others above himself. I am grateful that he really KNEW me and loved me anyway. I am grateful that he always made me feel as if I were som'n special, something beyond what he felt he and my mother were responsible for producing. I am grateful to be the me I have grown to be. I know that every year, he sits with us in our home, at our table on Thanksgiving day being grateful as well that his presence is so important to all of us, sharing the love, laughter, and seeing the food so lovingly prepared and set before all who gather. Happy Thanksgiving dad...and happy birthday...I love you! (I wish you could just MAKE THE GRAVY!!)
This year, I will be welcoming 3 new guests to our Thanksgiving celebration and it is my wish that that the utter exuberance my family has for this special day, they will take home with them!
If you are having difficulty finding a reason to be grateful, visit a homeless shelter, a soup kitchen, a cancer hospital, a children's hospital, a veteran's hospital. Take some REAL time to talk to an elderly person about his or her life and what was most important to them because chances are, these will be the very things that are most important to you when you reach their age. Look deeply into the eyes of your children and silently "watch" them as they go about their day, extract from them what it is that is important to them in that moment. Say a kind word to someone, hug someone, tell someone how important they are to you and that you love them. Listen to yourself breathe as you lay down for the night to sleep, listen to the life going on around you. Feel the wind, the sun, smell the air. Grab onto and hold tight to every little bit of kindness that someone shows you, every ounce of respect someone trickles over you---and then pay it forward to another...because someday, you will be the absent person at a dearly loved-one's table, and I don't know about you, but I would hope that my presence there would be deeply missed.
Be thankful to be alive. In order to receive a blessing, you have to BE one first!! God Bless all who read today. Have a safe and joyful Thanksgiving and Holiday season.
"Hem your blessings with thankfulness so they don't unravel."~Author Unknown
"The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you."~John E. Southard.
"He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has."~Epictetus.
"Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving." ~W.T. Purkiser
Much love
Raina
Sorry I haven't been on lately, I have a few projects going on right now that have kept me quite busy, and now I prepare for my favorite day of the year...THANKSGIVING!! This day marks for me (and most others) the beginning of the holiday season. It is a day of family and friends (those present and past), cooking creativity, aroma therapy, different tastes and textures, and a hint of Christmas here and there to cast your eye upon. I get butterflies in my stomach thinking about this day that is now fast approaching. I look forward to my time being transformed into a beautiful meal shared with the people I most cherish and the new guests I seem to be blessed to entertain on this day year to year. There is a LOT of laughter filling this house as well as some stimulating conversation. There is football on the television, full bellies, and the tryptophan nap. After the after-dinner relaxation, we all gather 'round the table and play stupid games and crack open the booze...and then my son becomes the life of the party---GOD I love him!
It is also a time of reflection, as I remember my dad. His birthday is at the end of the month and sometimes I celebrate Thanksgiving and his birthday the same day (not this year). I write him a letter every year the night before thanksgiving, telling him how I am doing (as if he doesn't already know!), but it helps me bring to the surface all of the missing him I have done for the year. It has become a way of incorporating his spirit presence to something tangible, I guess. It helps me to talk to him....and I also read the letters past, which remind me of how far I have come through the years, and I think that as proud of me as he was before he left, I see him being even more proud of me now. I can see his smile when I do something "smile-worthy", I can feel his concern when I am lost, and his nudge when I am uncertain. He was my biggest cheerleader and my most trusted confidant. He was a shining example of simplicity, authenticity, integrity, and mutual respect. He was the only man in my life for years, the most important one for years later, and now the most physically missed at my Thanksgiving table year to year. I am grateful to have been my daddy's baby girl. I am grateful for the sense of fairness, acceptance, and compassion he instilled in me. I am grateful for the time spent with him, his sense of humor, his veracity, and his unwavering way of putting others above himself. I am grateful that he really KNEW me and loved me anyway. I am grateful that he always made me feel as if I were som'n special, something beyond what he felt he and my mother were responsible for producing. I am grateful to be the me I have grown to be. I know that every year, he sits with us in our home, at our table on Thanksgiving day being grateful as well that his presence is so important to all of us, sharing the love, laughter, and seeing the food so lovingly prepared and set before all who gather. Happy Thanksgiving dad...and happy birthday...I love you! (I wish you could just MAKE THE GRAVY!!)
This year, I will be welcoming 3 new guests to our Thanksgiving celebration and it is my wish that that the utter exuberance my family has for this special day, they will take home with them!
If you are having difficulty finding a reason to be grateful, visit a homeless shelter, a soup kitchen, a cancer hospital, a children's hospital, a veteran's hospital. Take some REAL time to talk to an elderly person about his or her life and what was most important to them because chances are, these will be the very things that are most important to you when you reach their age. Look deeply into the eyes of your children and silently "watch" them as they go about their day, extract from them what it is that is important to them in that moment. Say a kind word to someone, hug someone, tell someone how important they are to you and that you love them. Listen to yourself breathe as you lay down for the night to sleep, listen to the life going on around you. Feel the wind, the sun, smell the air. Grab onto and hold tight to every little bit of kindness that someone shows you, every ounce of respect someone trickles over you---and then pay it forward to another...because someday, you will be the absent person at a dearly loved-one's table, and I don't know about you, but I would hope that my presence there would be deeply missed.
Be thankful to be alive. In order to receive a blessing, you have to BE one first!! God Bless all who read today. Have a safe and joyful Thanksgiving and Holiday season.
"Hem your blessings with thankfulness so they don't unravel."~Author Unknown
"The only people with whom you should try to get even are those who have helped you."~John E. Southard.
"He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not, but rejoices for those which he has."~Epictetus.
"Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving." ~W.T. Purkiser
Much love
Raina
Wednesday, November 9, 2011
"It's just the beast under your bed...."
The setting for a dream I had:
A thundering voice comes from the depths and says: "These are things to remind you of what you NEVER had" and then these pictures started flashing before my eyes:
A couple gazing into each other's eyes over a dinner table, holding hands.
A home soon to be empty of children...a couple plans for a trip abroad.
A diamond solitaire ring being placed upon a woman's finger as she sleeps on her birthday.
A glass plaque with an inscription that says "I will always love you."
An empty parking space in the driveway.
A couple working together on their new home; the redesign of a kitchen and dining room.
Daily laughter.
Dancing without music.
Words as daggers, lulling and stabbing, stroking and bludgeoning-but having no meaning.
An assortment of women who I didn't recognize gathered around my life, standing in for me in parts of it, and I knowing that I never would have even wanted to meet them had it been my choice.
In this dream, there always seemed to be a truth missing somewhere....however, the only truth I could remember always really knowing but never understanding, hoping wasn't true but was...fell from the lips of this man in my dream who had two mouths and resembled a clown: Out of the first mouth comes the words: "I get it now" "I have put myself in the same place I put you" "I love you and I will spend the rest of my life proving it to you if that is what it takes" and I watch as his appearance slowly begins to transform from a clown to a prince and I am impressed with his seemingly sincere nobility.
Just as these words begin to comfort me and his appearance begins to impress me, his other mouth speaks and says: "I don't love you, and I don't want to be with you."
I speak and say: "You never were....the end of something is nothing but a tangible validation of its beginning. It is not different, but the same. The conception of a thing is the same as it's ultimate emergence. The final outcome is only the proof of intent."
He laughs from the mouth that spoke last and his appearance again begins to change. The devastation begins as the other mouth speaks and says: "I care for and worry about you, that will never change."
This clown/prince was attempting to kill me in my dream for what seemed like years, and as he was delivering the final blow, I woke up---a little sweaty, scared, and disillusioned, but as I sat alone in the dark and I began to get my bearings and figure out where I was, my focus became readjusted and I remembered....HERE, RIGHT HERE, where I have been all along.
As I became fully awakened, I heard a soft voice whisper to me: "Dear child, you have gone out to comfort others; being concerned to save a life through a word, and you have worked with your hands as a ransom for your sins. You have not been one to reach out your hands to receive and draw them back from giving. You have not been of two minds nor spoken from both sides of your mouth, which has saved you from a deadly trap. You have been your own good law-giver and remain a faithful adviser to yourself and work diligently to remove all hypocrisy from yourself. I have given you wisdom, understanding, perception, and knowledge of my righteous demands and patience...Because you love me, I will rescue you and protect you, for you acknowledge my name. Now dear one, commune with your own heart on your bed and be still."
Isn't it crazy how real bad dreams really feel...like you are actually living them? But how very soon they are forgotten and you laugh at them and yourself for ever being afraid as soon as you realize that none of it was real.
So to all of you scary monsters out there that make your appearances in the dreams of the innocent as they enter their rest, you should be ashamed of yourselves...(is that even possible for monster characters in nightmares?), cuz I got a feeling that the hell that you came from and attempted to usher into my dreams was probably a day at the beach for ya...maybe you should go get yourself a bucket and shovel, make the most of it, and enjoy it while you can. Thank GOD you were just a figment of my imagination and that you have no real power to hurt me...cuz all I had to do was WAKE UP, listen to the voice of love, and your reign of terror was over---just like that!
Go back to Never-Never Land you impostor...I'm awake now and fully recognize what is real and what isn't. Representatives of peace, truth, and love have also visited me in my dreams...only when I wake up, they remain with me...and that's how I know they are real.
A thundering voice comes from the depths and says: "These are things to remind you of what you NEVER had" and then these pictures started flashing before my eyes:
A couple gazing into each other's eyes over a dinner table, holding hands.
A home soon to be empty of children...a couple plans for a trip abroad.
A diamond solitaire ring being placed upon a woman's finger as she sleeps on her birthday.
A glass plaque with an inscription that says "I will always love you."
An empty parking space in the driveway.
A couple working together on their new home; the redesign of a kitchen and dining room.
Daily laughter.
Dancing without music.
Words as daggers, lulling and stabbing, stroking and bludgeoning-but having no meaning.
An assortment of women who I didn't recognize gathered around my life, standing in for me in parts of it, and I knowing that I never would have even wanted to meet them had it been my choice.
In this dream, there always seemed to be a truth missing somewhere....however, the only truth I could remember always really knowing but never understanding, hoping wasn't true but was...fell from the lips of this man in my dream who had two mouths and resembled a clown: Out of the first mouth comes the words: "I get it now" "I have put myself in the same place I put you" "I love you and I will spend the rest of my life proving it to you if that is what it takes" and I watch as his appearance slowly begins to transform from a clown to a prince and I am impressed with his seemingly sincere nobility.
Just as these words begin to comfort me and his appearance begins to impress me, his other mouth speaks and says: "I don't love you, and I don't want to be with you."
I speak and say: "You never were....the end of something is nothing but a tangible validation of its beginning. It is not different, but the same. The conception of a thing is the same as it's ultimate emergence. The final outcome is only the proof of intent."
He laughs from the mouth that spoke last and his appearance again begins to change. The devastation begins as the other mouth speaks and says: "I care for and worry about you, that will never change."
This clown/prince was attempting to kill me in my dream for what seemed like years, and as he was delivering the final blow, I woke up---a little sweaty, scared, and disillusioned, but as I sat alone in the dark and I began to get my bearings and figure out where I was, my focus became readjusted and I remembered....HERE, RIGHT HERE, where I have been all along.
As I became fully awakened, I heard a soft voice whisper to me: "Dear child, you have gone out to comfort others; being concerned to save a life through a word, and you have worked with your hands as a ransom for your sins. You have not been one to reach out your hands to receive and draw them back from giving. You have not been of two minds nor spoken from both sides of your mouth, which has saved you from a deadly trap. You have been your own good law-giver and remain a faithful adviser to yourself and work diligently to remove all hypocrisy from yourself. I have given you wisdom, understanding, perception, and knowledge of my righteous demands and patience...Because you love me, I will rescue you and protect you, for you acknowledge my name. Now dear one, commune with your own heart on your bed and be still."
Isn't it crazy how real bad dreams really feel...like you are actually living them? But how very soon they are forgotten and you laugh at them and yourself for ever being afraid as soon as you realize that none of it was real.
So to all of you scary monsters out there that make your appearances in the dreams of the innocent as they enter their rest, you should be ashamed of yourselves...(is that even possible for monster characters in nightmares?), cuz I got a feeling that the hell that you came from and attempted to usher into my dreams was probably a day at the beach for ya...maybe you should go get yourself a bucket and shovel, make the most of it, and enjoy it while you can. Thank GOD you were just a figment of my imagination and that you have no real power to hurt me...cuz all I had to do was WAKE UP, listen to the voice of love, and your reign of terror was over---just like that!
Go back to Never-Never Land you impostor...I'm awake now and fully recognize what is real and what isn't. Representatives of peace, truth, and love have also visited me in my dreams...only when I wake up, they remain with me...and that's how I know they are real.
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