“One final piece of advice: Do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am–a reluctant enthusiast…a part-time crusader, a half hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still there. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, encounter the grizz, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, that lovely, mysterious and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much: I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those deskbound people with their hearts in a safe deposit box and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this: you will outlive the bastards.”
–Edward Abbey, at a 1987 Earth First! rally
grounded
Morning Trip (205)
“Keep your passion alive–
it will warm you when the
world around you grows cold.
It will not allow comfortable
familiarity to rob you of that
special glow that comes with
loving deeply. It can lift
you over stone walls of anger
and carry you across vast
deserts of alienation. But its
greatest gift is that of touch–
for passion cannot dwell in
solitude–it thrives best in
loving embrace. So keep your
passion alive–hold one
another as a tree holds the
Earth and your love will
bear the fruit of many,
many seasons.”
–Shamaan Ochaum Climbing Eagle
When Elisa Weaves…
weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee………………..
Wide Awake, and Dancing!!
Morning Trip (46)
“The water that flows down the mountain does not think that it flows down the mountain.
The cloud that leaves the valley does not think that it leaves the valley.
A philosopher asked the Buddha to neither speak nor be silent.
It is known how difficult it is to shut the prison door? Words and speech disappear.
If mind is not – mind, who can we ask for advice?
The old monk who thinks he can calm the mind of another is
just mocking everyone around him, and he doesn’t even know it.
The sea is calm when the wind stops blowing.
Still, we search outside of ourselves.
One burst of laughter dissipates a thousand doubts.
I yearn for the soul
of marvelous truth.
Coming back to myself,
I walk beneath the shining moon.
Stars move with silent sounds.
The universe is calm, nothing
brings trouble.
Perfect tranquility: nothing
whatsoever is happening.
Everyday thought is the way.
Without walking for days,
one is suddenly at home.
When confronted by people, you can say yes or no.
Words are never perfect.
Even if people stop speculating,
we still have to use things
to point out the truth.
Wake up! Wake up! Don’t let anyone despise you for another moment.
I have a touching story to tell you. But please wait until this cloud passes.
Otherwise, even if I tell you the story perfectly, the distance between us will still be ten thousand miles.
Those who are enlightened
who see through
the eyes of great wisdom,
can see noon at midnight.
The deepest truths disclose themselves naturally,
don’t even ask the hermit on the hill.
Space is one, without a crack:
By what road does the scent of the cinnamon flowers
come to us at the end of the day?
This is Buddha’s examination.
Those who pass the test of emptiness
will be declared winners.
For your name to be on the list of winners, don’t leave blank pages.
– Tran Thai Tong
Koans from the Khoa Hu – Lessons in Emptiness“
Nutboogers! Passionate Commitment Bites Me in the A.. (uhm hiney)
DARN IT ALL!
This is my What the Heckle and Jeckle Face!
I made a comment over on Kathy’s blog, Close the Door and Stay Inside All Winter. And then, I responded to another comment. And then, Kathy had her own reply. It’s what happens on blogs quite frequently!
This morning, I got up and began to do my pleasant normally pleasant morning routine. I became engaged before I finished the first cup of tea. Normally, is not my best decision in the day, to do so before having the third cup. Just ask those who know me! I am particularly enjoying a new blog that I’m writing, which I am keeping private, for now. In it, I’m expressing things that I do not often express and in ways that I do not often express them. I think that I like it, though some of the things can feel ugly in parts. And then I get feedback, and the hidden ‘ugly’ bits, just become normal. (OOOOOo….maybe THAT’S ENOUGH!!!—this is directed at Kathy! Everyone wave madly to Kathy)
But every day, as I finish reading or writing there, I come back to the dashboard here and look at the February Passion Creative Every Day 2011 commitment that I made. And I have posted nothing. Well, I have posted many things indeed, just all privately. So, I am accumulating guilt and some small amount of shame–the shame part is odd for me to do. I’m frowning at the little one jumping up and down waving a hand madly in the air saying…look look at meeee I AMMMM working very hard over hear…do you see me do you?!?!?!
We can all take a moment to sigh and shake our heads, maybe even an eye roll at it. Anyway, when I do commit to something BOY DO I!!!!!!! Even to my detriment! And the things to which I commit, I do not even always realize that I have made an agreement with myself to commit, until I come to an internal and unfamiliar fussing, which makes not so much sense. Fine! It’s the wave of sudden Passion that does it, makes me aware, brings a tacit agreement to light. It can then present me with a difficulty making a conscious choice, to continue it, to decide why I took such a thing upon myself to begin with, and can I make it of good use.
AH HA! A LIGHTBULB MOMENT! Quite often, when I am feeling the most passionate about a thing, I will appear on the outside to have shut down. I will go quiet. Creative thoughts and pondering of all that I just typed fill my head, along with the daily–oh look a chickens, of daily life. I can get overloaded. It can feel, to me, as if there are so many seemingly disjointed things side by side, that there is no adequate way to communicate them clearly, to present an entire picture of me at once that is honest and accurate.
I will also add, before I abruptly end this particular post, that the thought….many minds in many places vs one mind in many places. I shall have to make a decision to consider if the expression is needed or if some of it is coming from being ungrounded and me not paying attention to it. Being grounded helps me to filter out things that are irrelevant in each moment. It also lets me be aware of them, if I choose, in a less blender type manner. (and a voice says..yes but what if sometimes some of the things wanting to be expressed are truly important and you are using being grounded as a shield not to see them, because they quite conveniently don’t fit a current idea of who you think you are) Sigh. Thank you wise teacher( and pain in the ass!) I love you.
And then…the Creator has other plans!–Purple Profundity: Poetry by Elisabeth Connelley
One drop of rains falls.
It can be ignored.
More gently patter down.
I look up (do you?).
A teasing pause.
One drop, two, a rush, a dance
The mind moves, the body follows.
A weaving dance, feeling joy, creating downpours of expression,
rising, twisting, and spinning
across a pattern of life
simple joy.
I smile, inside and out (do you?).
Come to ground.
Refreshed by self after converting gift of rain.
I sit, peacefully (do you?).
I watch the gift of ground.
–elisabeth connelley
Inside Upside Down and Backward Blog (9)
Hellooooooooooooooooooo…
Today’s recurrent theme is…walking on a tightrope. I feel ambiguous and perhaps lost. And then, I open my eyes, and I am all-together, walking on a tightrope.
The search to unlock and enhance my expression began with this video, embedding is disabled please click the link which will open in a new window for you. I had a very strange reaction while listening to his words and how he felt as he was doing the walk. It took my breath away in that often embarrassing manner when my eyes tear and my body shakes in awe. I do not often share this feeling with others. When I have tried, it seems that others cannot comprehend it, and I keep it private for the most part.
I took my eldest child to college this weekend. I noticed that the process was a lot like walking alongside someone with a terminal illness. I, of course, kept this to myself, trying to know what my daughter required of me and thinking not to be expressive in a manner which she dislikes. I could not tell, while observing the similarities in providing for a dear departing friend, if I was not really knowing what to do, or in a very balanced grounded state observing and coping nicely.
Several bits of my head say, I am confused. Some say, YAY!! Independence for meeee! Other parts say, Look at her goooo!!! Still other parts say, ok I let go of the bike, does she want me to walk away, or watch intently and to remove obstacles or catch the bike before she might fall. Yes, indeed I am walking a tightrope. Images in my mind show me silly things like lily-pads to jump on away from the imagined rope, but then they are just another place to choose to place my feet, one step at a time. I am thinking(thought) this blog after I located the video and the quotes that will follow. Both the quotes and the video helped me to express to the outside, or perhaps they did not help me, but I used them. Semantics are wonderful for expression, denial, and love.
I did not choose one quote today, as at the time of writing I wasn’t/am not completely finished exploring why this theme.
“A well-developed sense of humor is the pole that adds balance to your steps as you walk the tightrope of life.”
William Arthur Ward
“In the beginning you must subject yourself to the influence of nature. You must be able to walk firmly on the ground before you start walking on a tightrope.”
Henri Matisse
“In this day and time, with no competition you are really walking a tightrope. I mean you may think that no competition is good, but in reality no competition is really bad. ”
Jerry Lawler
“Life is always a tightrope or a feather bed. Give me the tightrope.”
Edith Wharton
“My wife says that stage acting is like being on a tightrope with no net, and being in the movies, there is a net – because you stop and go over it again. It’s very technical and mechanical. On stage you’re on your own.”
Eli Wallach
“Skill is successfully walking a tightrope between the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center. Intelligence is not trying. ”
Marilyn vos Savant
“The leader can never close the gap between himself and the group. If he does, he is no longer what he must be. He must walk a tightrope between the consent he must win and the control he must exert. ”
Vince Lombardi
“The world may end up under a Sword of Damocles on a tightrope over the abyss.”
Andrei A. Gromyko
Elisa's Spot 