Sunshine + Flowers = Happiness

What is it that's so magical about the sun shining that brings out the best in people? The warm rays on our faces and smiles appear. I suppose for people in northern hemisphere sunny days like today make a much appreciated change from the biting wind and bracing cold of the winter. With spring comes the first flush of colour; snowdrops, crocus, primrose, daffodils and any day the bluebells will cover the floor of the woods like a giant perfumed blanket.

In Buddhism there is the saying;
accentuate the positive,
eliminate the negative,
result happiness.

You could also say;
sunshine plus flowers = happiness!

The Girl Effect

I love the message that we should value girls and that we should promote the wider acceptance and understanding that men and women are equal. Education is a fantastic means to empower people. I'm less comfortable with the idea that money, profit and economics is THE solution to poverty. I think the value system embedded within the free market economy of profit and growth has created the have's and have not's which results in poverty. What do you think?

Chuckie Chick went a wandering ...

He wander'd lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once he saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;

Beside the lake, beneath the trees,

Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Words heavily borrowed from William Wordsworth (1804)

Insomnia

i can't get no sleep
deep in the night
and no rest in sight
let me dream again
find a release
some peace
from this insomnia
i can't get no sleep
just before dawn
and i can feel the morn
before another day
give me a break
as a lay here again
for all I need is
you by my side
just enough time
to drift off for
a while
to sleep

You make it easy, as easy as ...

1

2

3

4

to say

I

Love

U

Women's Cricket World Cup Joy ...

Woohoo - go laidees !!!!

ICC Women's World Cup final, North Sydney Oval:

England 167-6 (46.1 overs) beat New Zealand 166 (47.2 overs) by four wickets.

"There are 100,000 stars in our galaxy and 1,000 million galaxies.

I am sure cricket must be being played elsewhere"

- Sir Patrick Moore gets to the heart of the alien life issue -

love is love ...

Keepers at a bird sanctuary in West Sussex hoped that the last remaining female Blue Duck in the country - called Cherry - might mate with either of the drakes, Ben or Jerry. But neither male duck appeared interested and are now inseparable at the Arundel Wetland Centre, leaving Cherry to her own devices. Centre warden Paul Stevens said he was disappointed that efforts to produce new Blue Duck offspring had failed but said the two male birds made "a lovely couple". "They stay together all the time, parading up and down their enclosure and whistling to each other as a male might do with a female he wants to mate with," he said. "People who visit the centre think they're a fantastic couple, without really coming around to the idea that they are two males. "They both have very big personalities and people come from all over the country to come and see them. Cherry doesn't seem bothered by it, she's just happy to keep herself to herself." Blue ducks originate from New Zealand but there were thought to be just three birds in the UK. Keepers initially introduced Ben to Cherry, but neither seemed keen. They then brought Jerry down from a sanctuary in London. Mr Stevens said: "Cherry showed some interest in him. She displayed typical mating behaviour - she approached him and called to him, she even looked like she was nesting. "We thought it was great and it was all going to happen but nothing ever did." Mr Stevens said the male ducks were then placed in the same enclosure: "To our surprise the two males really took to each other and it was obvious that they really liked each other. "It would have been nice to get a last clutch of eggs from Cherry but Ben and Jerry do make a lovely couple."

Story by Caroline Gammel

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/wildlife/4962394/Blue-Ducks-likely-to-die-out-in-UK-after-male-birds-get-together.html

at the point of change ...

In the spirit of Sesame Street today is brought to you by the phrase ‘keep it real’ and the word ‘process’. Where I’m at right now is dealing with the fears within. My fears are having a party in my head and in my body. My true self is watching my fears sing from the hilltops, charging through the lanes and essentially pressing all my anxiety buttons in the only way they know how. What does this all mean? Well it means sometimes it hard to breathe, or to focus and concentrate on the simplest of tasks. It means that I get lost in conversations and exhausted by my own thoughts super fast. It means that I am having to keep it real in the best way I can so as to hang onto the railings of my life. And the words process, process, process come up time and time again. It’s like I’ve swallowed something huge and it now needs to be digested, digested, digested !!! I don't need to take anything new on board for a longtime; no ideas, no people, no places, no sounds, no nothing.

Trees Entwined

"Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion. That is just being "in love" which any of us can convince ourselves we are.
Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two."

- Captain Corelli's Mandolin -

Wild

"To me, humanity is not a stain on wilderness as some seem to think. Rather the human spirit is one of the most striking realisations of wildness. It is as eccentrically beautiful as an ice crystal, as liquidly life generous as water, as inspired as air. Kerneled up within us all, an intimate wildness, sweet as a nut. To the rebel soul in everyone, then, the right to wear feathers, drink stars and ask for the moon. For us all, the growl of the primal salute. For us all, the Scaramouche and Feste, for the scamp, tramp and artist, the furious adolescent, the travelling player and the pissed-off Gypsy, for the bleeding woman, and the man in a suit, his eyes kind and tired, gazing with sad envy at the hippie chick, with the rucksack. For us all, every dawn, the lucky skies and the pipes. Anyone can hear them if they listen: our ears are sharp enough to it. Our strings are tuned to the same pitch as the earth, our rhythms are as graceful and ineluctable as the four quartets of the moon. We are - everyone of us - a force of nature, though sometimes it is necessary to relearn consciously what we have never forgotten; the truant art, the nomad heart. Choose your instrument, asking only: can you play it while walking?"

- Jay Griffiths -

And my lesson was clear ...

In 2008 whilst filming his BBC series about the Amazon Bruce Parry had his own ayahuasca experience, which was: "Bruce - stop thinking you know better than everyone. Yes, you’ve had some great life experiences and you have a respectable insight to some subjects, but you’ve got to deflate that ego of yours, stop thinking of the clever riposte before the other person has even finished talking. Be in the moment and listen, yes listen to others. It’s not about being better than other people and establishing your place in some invisible hierarchy, it’s about sharing this worldly space with others. Occasional experiences are beyond rational thought. They cannot be explained. We live in difficult times and we are in danger of losing our connection to the natural world. Some answers will only come from listening and experiencing the world in its natural state." I can relate to this very much, as I feel this physical need to get out of my own way, to stop the chattering of my ego and to listen to those around me. I'm finding it hard to do that with the incessant demands of work. In my confused state I think it maybe time to step away from the University and sit awhile and listen until the next action finds me. Enough searching, striving, looking, acting. Now it's time to be.

Sweet Song

What am i to do

someone here is really not happy

Put myself on a line

It seems i never got thru to you

So i ween myself off slowly

I'm a darkened soul

My streets all pop music and gold

All our lives are on TV

You switch off and try to sleep

People get so lonely

I believe i believe i believe

Everything's out to sea

I believe i believe i believe

That is the way it should be

I hope you feel the same

Everyone is dying

Stop crying now here comes the sun

I didn't mean to hurt you

It takes time to see

what you have done

So i ween myself off slowly

I believe i believe i believe

Love is the only one

I deceive i deceive i deceive

Cos i'm not that strong

Hope you feel the same

And now it seems that we're fallin apart

But i hope i can see the good in you

Come back again

Coz i just believed in you

- blur -

The point of no return

You know that moment just before the champagne cork pops, or the feeling just as you take your foot of the ledge to bungee jump, or just when the string from a bow is released but the arrow has yet to move ...

Well this is it ...

All the forces of nature are pushing in one direction, the point of no return has been crossed and there is a nano second of time when you realise you can not go back and the future has yet to begin - that moment of NOW is so real, it's like the everything that is and ever was or will be. Life is 3-D, 4-D, 5-D ... infinite - D, all your senses are working to the max, AND YET in this moment of extreme awareness, of presence there is a knowing, a feeling of calm inevitability, of impending futureness.

It's scary, intense, overwhelming IN YOUR FACE no ducking, no diving, no hiding and from this you are drawn to the possibility, the newness, the excitement of it all.

WOW - this is happening to me, to the people I love, to acquaintances, to people I meet on the street and just get talking to.

I am witness to these moments occurring around me.

There is a palpable shift going on, no judgment, no good or bad, just change. As the saying goes, it's a stepping off point onto the field of play, have your game head on people, get ready for the B of the Bang, for the lights to go Green, it's all going on.

You better be a player or you'll get played !!!

Hang onto your HATS, coz here we go ... whoosh ..!