Droid

Daily Dhamma Veni, Vidi, Velcro. I came, I saw, I stuck around. ~Author Unknown Knitting is a boon for those of us who are easily bored. I take my knitting everywhere to take the edge off of moments that would otherwise drive me stark raving mad. ~Stephanie Pearl-McPhee, At Knit's End: Meditations for Women Who Knit Too Much

Yolie found a website that gives instructions on how to knit a perfectly fitting sweater. She said it was going to be easy-peasy. It is, provided you have a degree in higher math and can tolerate sitting through instructions. I hate instructions. I throw them away, which can cause great havoc in my life, but also makes life interesting.

Anyway, Yolanda, Patty and I had some good laughs taking our measurements, after which I recommitted to a diet.

In other news, I want one of these ~



It's the Motorola Droid distributed by Verizon. I just know that if I have one my life will be much easier, I will become enlightened, probably lose that weight I need to lose, my complexion will clear up, my sinuses will become unclogged, and I will write a best seller. I promise not to throw away the instructions.

I mentioned this on facebook and one of my favorites there and here went out and got one! Arrrgh! The phone envy I am enduring!

(Yes, I can be extremely materialistic when it comes to new gadgets. And yarn.)

Tiny Dancer

Daily Dhamma There are short-cuts to happiness, and dancing is one of them. ~Vicki Baum

Today is my friend, Terry's, birthday. We've known each other for a long, long time and have only come close to killing each other once or twice.

Many years ago -- almost thirty -- Terry told me that her secret desire was to take ballet lessons. As far as I know, she never did, but she might have. I'm older than she is and my memory is not nearly as good. I made this little ballerina for her out of wire, buttons from an inherited button jar, scrap material, and matchsticks.



Happy birthday, dear friend.

Past Lives, Present Practice

Daily Dhamma It is a secret of the world that all things subsist and so not die, but only retire a little from sight and afterwards return again… Nothing is dead; men feign themselves dead, and endure mock funerals and mournful obituaries, and there they stand looking out of the window, sound and well, in some new and strange disguise. ~ Emerson (The Selected Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson)

This past weekend, I, my sister, Karen, my daughter, Sherry, and my friend, Maureen, went to a seminar in Sacramento put on by Brian Weiss, M.D. I'm not sure exactly what I expected, but the experience wasn't as great as I had hoped.

Dr. Weiss wrote the book Many Lives, Many Masters and several subsequent books on the concept of reincarnation and past life regression as a tool to heal present day problems. I read Many Lives years ago and found it to be utterly compelling. I was particularly impressed with Dr. Weiss's bonafides. He did not seem like the typical New Age guru, but a man who was a skeptic and scientist who became convinced through treating a patient, that she was having actual past life memories and memories of the "in between" times -- between rebirths. Fascinating.

I enjoyed Dr. Weiss's talk. He has a gentle demeanor, with a slightly self-deprecating sense of humor. I believe that he believes. I believe also that the experiences he writes and talks about actually occurred. What I found off-putting was his hypnosis experiments and attempts to "regress" a thousand people in the audience and then picking out people to share their experience. Some of the people seemed sincere and believable, others just sounded like nutlogs who wear tinfoil hats at home.

All in all, our group agreed that we could accomplish more through our own meditation practices. I found this quite comforting -- that I don't need a guide to gain self-awareness.

We did not stay for the last two hours of the seminar. We'd all had enough of the group activities and opted to start the five hour drive back home.

Twenty Pound Thoughts

The idea of mindfulness meditation is to bring the mind back to the present moment (we use the breath as our "present moment"). Sometimes it is relatively easy and sometimes it is quite difficult.

When our mind is racing with anxious thoughts (as opposed to the normal mind-chatter we all experience unless we are asleep), it's like the difference between lifting five pound weights at the gym versus twenty pound weights. We may not be able to lift the twenty pound weights as often, but we get more benefit from the effort.

So, the mind is racing with worry or regret. That's our twenty pound weight. Each time we are successful at bringing the mind back to the breath (present moment), we have just gained spiritual muscle. Maybe in a 20-30 minute session, we are only able to bring the mind back a few times; the rest of the time is spent struggling in the future or past. That's okay. With practice, we eventually are able to rest longer in the present moment. With continued practice, we gain equanimity in the face of any circumstance, recognizing that "this too shall pass."

When it's easy, it's easy. We may not have brought our thoughts to the present moment any more frequently than when it is difficult, but they are five pound thoughts, not twenty pound thoughts. They are thoughts about what to have for lunch, when we are getting our nails done, fun projects that we want to start. We end our session thinking, "oh, wasn't that relaxing and lovely," which is all well and good, but the real spiritual work happens when it isn't easy, when we are working with twenty pound thoughts. When we begin our "sit" with, "I don't want to do this; I can't do this," and end with "Damn, that was hard," but we've done it anyway.

Petunia 5324

When I moved my business to my home, I purchased a couple of second-hand desks for the office. I sit at one, my sister at the other. Call me Ms. Observant, but it wasn't until the other day when I was rummaging around in the middle desk drawer that I noticed "Petunia 5324" neatly written in pen on the pencil tray.

Who is Petunia? Is she still alive? Does anyone name their children Petunia anymore? What is the significance of 5324? Is it an extension? A password? A phone number? An address?

Whatever the signficance of Petunia 5324, it was important enough to write it indelibly where few would see it and even fewer (e.g., moi) would notice. I've probably been in that drawer a dozen times a month over the past few years and only noticed it recently.

How much about our mundane lives is important to anyone but ourselves? We go through our lives with blinding speed, leaving little evidence, once we are gone, that we ever existed. Perhaps spending a few moments wondering about Petunia 5324 isn't such a bad thing.