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park slope, brooklyn

I have a simple question. First, the reason for the simple question. Last week in Park Slope, Brooklyn it was impossible to not notice mothers, fathers, and caregivers strolling babies. That’s fine; Park Slope is an almost ideal place for families. And, at the same time, a wonderful place for people of all ages on their own, or not.

It’s an etiquette fact that pedestrians stay on their right side. Understandably, in Manhattan it’s almost impossible to keep to that etiquette rule as it gets tricky because of the sheer number of people. When Manhattan is at its busiest it’s often necessary to play a little game of side-stepping.

Park Slope, however, should be very different. People are wanting a more laid back lifestyle from their next door neighbor, Manhattan. Park Slope suggests a stress free environment, and pure creativity in the form of small clothing shops (many by Brooklyn designers), consignment stores, exciting new small restaurants, take-away speciality food places, pottery, furniture, and painting workshops, wonderful small gift shops, the Brooklyn Museum, co-op gardens, the Botanical Garden, an easy ride to ever-evolving Coney Island, and green and gorgeous-looking Prospect Park for everyone’s pleasure, and that’s a partial list of goodies.

Now the simple questions: Why do people strolling carriages in Park Slope think it’s all right to push two (or three) side-by-side so that no one can pass from the back, or from the opposite direction? And why should a pedestrian who’s walking toward someone who’s pushing a carriage as if in a race, be required to quickly step to the side to let the serious pusher pass? Strolling with baby in a Park Slope setting should be, could be, nice.

They’re simple questions, maybe so simple that it’s not worth the time. But wait, there are a few important matters to consider: respect for other people, awareness of one’s surroundings, and teaching a toddler how to behave in public. Let the people pass; do it graciously, and don’t stress, enjoy the time with the little one.
The following website with its interesting name has a lot to offer: www.fuckedinparkslope.com

Now to change the subject . . . have an extraordinary day everyone!

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“To know how to live is my trade and my art.” – Michel De Montaigne

“The moment your attention turns to the now you feel a presence, a stillness, a peace.” -Eckhart Tolle

“I live for every present moment and don’t think about the future.” -Henry Schliemann (from the book The Greek Treasure by Irving Stone)

“May I always be in the right place at the right time to do as much good as possible.” -Raymon Grace

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camino de santiago

I’M OFF THEN by Hape Kerkeling
Have you ever thought about hiking the Camino de Santiago? – If you have or haven’t, I’M OFF THEN is a delightful travel book; it’s very funny and very honest. The writer freely shares what he’s feeling and learning, and the thoughts that arise on his spiritual journey. Questions come to him from out of the blue, and answers come when least expected. He meets people of all persuasions, a few become good friends, others he’d rather not have met. And the differences of one little village after another where pilgrims stay the night to seek food and refuge are noted, as are thoughts about the day’s hike.

Experiences differ greatly because everyone has their own reasons for hiking the camino. I’ve read that the experiences a hiker encounters on the pilgrimage are the ones needed, and that includes the people one meets along the way. To go alone seems quite brave. If the hiker is on a personal quest, then alone time tends to soothe the soul – after awhile. And there are always companions who come and go. At the end of the journey Santiago’s magnificent cathedral is there to greet the pilgrim.

The good and the not so good all sound wonderful to me because, when all is said and done, the experiences seem worth the tremendous effort it takes to hike the Camino de Santiago. Are you ready?

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from a friend in malta . . .

Thank you for the following, Lilian. You’re so good at informing people about all kinds of pertinent information.

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Please take note this in no hoax
Another reminder!
No matter how many times you get this
E-mail,
Please send it on!!!!
Bottled water in your car is very dangerous!

On the Ellen show, Sheryl Crow said that this is what caused her breast cancer.
It has been identified as the most common cause of the high levels of dioxin in breast cancer tissue.

Sheryl Crow’s oncologist told her: women should not drink bottled water that has been left in a car.
The heat reacts with the chemicals in the plastic of the bottle which releases dioxin into the water. Dioxin is a toxin increasingly found in breast cancer tissue. So please be careful and do not drink bottled water that has been left in a car.
Pass this on to all the women in your life. This information is the kind we need to know that just might save us! Use a stainless steel canteen or a glass bottle instead of plastic!

LET EVERYONE WHO HAS A WIFE / GIRLFRIEND / DAUGHTER KNOW PLEASE!
This information is also being circulated at Walter Reed ArmyMedical Center .
No plastic containers in microwaves. No plastic water bottles in freezers. No plastic wrap in microwaves.

Dioxin chemical causes cancer, especially breast cancer. Dioxins are highly poisonous to cells in our bodies. Don’t freeze plastic bottles with water in them as this releases dioxins from the plastic. Recently the Wellness Program Manager at Castle Hospital , was on a TV program to explain this health hazard.

He talked about dioxins and how bad they are for us. He said that we should not be heating food in the microwave using plastic containers….
This especially applies to foods that contain fat.

He said that the combination of fat, high heat and plastic releases dioxin into the food.

Instead, he recommends using glass, such as Pyrex or ceramiccontainers for heating food. You get the same result, but without the dioxin. So, such things as TV dinners, instant soups, etc., should be removed from their containers and heated in something else.

Paper isn’t bad but you don’t know what is in the paper. It’s safer to use tempered glass, such as Pyrex, etc.

He reminded us that a while ago some of the fast food restaurants moved away from the styrene foam containers to paper. The dioxin problem is one of the reasons…

Also, he pointed out that plastic wrap, such as Cling film, is just as dangerous when placed over foods to be cooked in the microwave. As the food is nuked, the high heat causes poisonous toxins to actually melt out of the plastic wrap and drip into the food. Cover food with a paper towel instead.

This is an article that should be sent to anyone important in your life!

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listen up! – graduates, and everyone else . . .

Tama Kieves’s eletters are refreshing, I think because she never hesitates to punctuate them with an abundance of honest enthusiasm. She wants everyone to feel the exhileration she experiencess in her own life. This earnestness is felt in all her writings, workshops, and, I bet, the one-on-one coaching sessions. She wants people to know that there’s another way. Again and again she tells the story of how she transformed her own life. She speaks from experience when she says to listen to your own “inspired voice,” that “there’s nothing safer than listening to your own heart.” Many people aren’t passionate about what they do in life, as once she wasn’t, so she gently pushes with her words, and eventually she hopes a glimmer of light will shine so that someone who once believed in a dream will begin to resurrect it.

She never meant to graduate from Harvard Law School; she allowed herself to be coerced into going. She wanted to write. It took a little while for her to extricate herself from the long hours, stress, and the emptiness of having a job she never wanted or liked. And it took a while for her to remember her dream, and to gather the courage to do something about it. There’s an authentic aliveness about her because she dared, believed, and then changed her life. To put it mildly, she’s a happy camper now.

about Tama . . . www.awakeningartistry.com

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caleb hawley, kalahari bushmen, rumi

I like your post, Emi, and when you described the five trained dancers kicking and flipping at Steps On Broadway while listening to the lyrics of Caleb Hawley, I was reminded that there’s another side to the how of meditating; it’s movement. Instead of sitting, the body moves, and dictates exactly how it will move. It’s the way of the Kalahari Bushmen of Namibia and Botswana – “one of the oldest living cultures on earth” who sing, dance – shake, vibrate – all night. THE BUSHMAN WAY of TRACKING GOD by Bradford Keeney, PHD.
www.shakingmedicine.com

Reading Bradford Keeney’s book is exhilerating, to say the least. He seems to forever be on cloud 9; his enthusiasm for this way of tracking God doesn’t stop throughout the book. And to read it is to suddenly find yourself wanting to find a beat on a CD that might somewhat duplicate the beat the Kalahari Bushman dances to. Oh, Yes! And there you are moving to your own body’s dictate, listening, being aware. To what? – you ask. To the place within you that’s been wanting to reveal things to you alone. The jacket of this wonderful book says, “The Bushman Way of Tracking God will redefine everything you ever thought you knew about life, spirituality, and the divine.” That’s the truth.

20140301-201808.jpg And a moving meditation was Sufi poet, mystic, and originator of the dance of the whirling dervishes Jalaluddin Rumi’s way when he began whirling, turning, spinning through the streets of Konya, Anatolia (present-day Turkey). If you carefully read and reread this simple, beautiful, 151 page book, Rumi’s Four Essential Practices – Ecstatic Body, Awakened Soul by Will Johnson, perhaps you will never eat the same way, breathe the same way, move the same way, gaze the same way – see things in quite the same way again.
www.hayatidede.org/events/htm
www.whirlingdervish.org/classes.htm

As you can see, Emi, your enthusiastic description of Sunday’s performance at Steps got me thinking. I liked it, and knowing you, I bet you wanted to be on that stage kicking and flipping, “shaking your booty” with the dancers.
www.stepsnyc.com

Time to get moving.

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michael

When Michael got his first camera, it was love at first sight. He wended his way along the streets of Manhattan observing, waiting, enjoying, clicking, and developing. He captured the city in spring, summer, winter, fall – the parades, the buildings, the solemn times, the happy times – people in general.

Recently I mentioned to Michael how nice it would be to see a few of these photos, perhaps as part of a blog. I think he said yes to that, but I’m not sure.

One incident stands out when remembering Michael and his camera. I remember a lovely evening and a teenage Michael. He’d left the apartment with his camera, and then he was back – his face had an expression I didn’t recognize.

This is what happened: There was for many years a wonderfully stocked newspaper and magazine shop with friendly and kind owners at 23rd Street and Third Avenue. He’d gone into the shop looking for the latest photography magazines. In front of the racks was a young man also carefully perusing the fine display. They stood together both earnestly looking for the right magazines. The young man finally chose, bought, and left. Soon after Michael left with his purchase. The scene that greeted him changed the evening. A few minutes ago a young man was happily browsing in a shop. Now he was sprawled on the street as were his motorcycle and magazines. They said he died instantly. That night a camera was put on its shelf for awhile.

In many books it’s written that we are all one with each other – that we are connected with all of life. If Michael had come upon the scene of the accident while walking, undoubtedly he would have continued on with the evening. However, a slight connection with the motorcyclist changed all that.

Why do I write about this story when it seems to not have a direct connection to photography? Well, it’s this – a good photographer has a keen eye and when that eye instinctively focuses on something, and clicks the camera which stills the image, the photographer’s photos “speak” about beauty, joy, harmony, love, sadness, tragedy, fun, sickness, faith, adventure, power, success, courage – life and death in their many forms. They “speak” to different people in different ways. Perhaps the things seen with a camera are seen because of one’s life experiences – not everyone sees the same things through a camera’s lens.

I  know posting this is not a guarantee that photos are forthcoming. However, I’m cultivating the fine art of patience.

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listening

There are those days when there is nothing to say. Nothing to say? – you say. Why there is always something to say. To that I say, hmm. Sure we can all talk incessantly about nothing much. Saying something is more than that though; it’s listening to all that’s around us, and what it’s trying to tell us. Oftentimes it can’t be heard because we are a society that embraces noise. When we put away the noise though, and listen to what’s inside of us, and the things outside of us that speak softly and need silence to be heard – when we do this until we hear, we pave the way for an exquisite way of being in the world. Maybe then there’s something to say, or not. 😎

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RUN toward your fears! Embrace them. On the other side of your greatest fears lives your greatest life. – Robin Sharma

Surrender is like a fish finding the current and going with it. – Mark Nepo

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experiences

It’s written that the sages, through deep meditation and a falling away of the “I,” came to understand that all experiences are not good or bad, that they are just that – experiences.

Ahh, if we could live our lives with that thought and not add fuel to the fire with other thoughts, balance and joy would no doubt prevail – as the sages have said since ancient times.

If only we could; if only we would.

Tucked away in a small journal, unfortunately I didn’t jot down the author’s name, I found these words:

“If someone with a wand took away your ability to think, all of your problems would go away.”

It’s about the negative nature of thinking that’s easy to fall into – those thoughts that repeatedly come to mind unless an awareness of what’s going on quiets the mind.

And tucked away in a small journal are words of another, and again, no author’s name, food for thought though:

“You will never find the answer by dwelling on the problem. You find the answer by dwelling on the solution to the problem.”

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a quote by horace mann

Last night I passed a church on Chestnut Street in Philadelphia displaying a quote in large black and white letters in a glass-encasement attached to the building. Every so often the quote changes. Light shining on the words make them easy to read at night. Once in a while a quote seems to demand special attention from a passer-by whose imagination it manages to capture. Tonight Horace Mann’s words: “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity” got me to stop, stare and reread those simple words strung together in a deeply moving way.

In recent years magazines and books tend to write about how caught up we are in surface things, and if we were to catorgize many of them we’d have to put them on our meaningless list. The writers of these magazines and books want us to consider a whole other way of living in the world. That sounds like a fair suggestion considering the way the world is at the present time. And so the quote by Horace Mann seems a good starting point to think about what exactly we could do for humanity before we die. There are many people already living this way. They don’t get write ups; they don’t want write ups.

The quote by Horace Mann gives those of us who have more on our meaningless list than our meaningful list a chance to consider how we’ll go about winning some victory for humanity before we die. Now’s as good a time as any because we’re in the midst of a season that tends to put joy in our hearts whether we strive for it or not.

And so, I say to myself that it’s time to shorten my meaningless list, and begin to figure out why that quote by Horace Mann grabbed my attention. Oh, Yes!

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a thank you for a “simple” meal

I HOPE THANKSGIVING DAY WAS EXACTLY AS YOU ALL WANTED IT TO BE.

While recovering from a recent hospital experience, I sat one morning with a simple breakfast of Knudsen’s Concord Grape juice diluted with water; scrumptious Wheat Sandwich bread from Metropolitan Bakery in Philadelphia, toasted to perfection and spread with butter and bionatura Organic Bilberry Fruit Spread; Burlap and Bean Espresso coffee from Newtown Square, Pa made in a French Press (although a few days ago Sumi read that for health reasons a French Press and percolator are not the best way to prepare coffee. And so, a little research will begin on that).

With that simple breakfast before me, I decided to say a thorough thank you to everyone responsible for the enjoyment of this meal, – farmer, baker, supplier, retailer, and all of the employees – from land the world over. I was surprised at how many people and how much work was involved. And as I thought about the simple breakfast, the list became a very long one. Then I was reminded that it wasn’t only about the food, there was also the matter of the coffee grinder, plates, pot for boiling water, stove, toaster, utensils, glassware, tap water, and refrigerator. I truly hadn’t stopped to think about the extent of our dependency on each other until that breakfast thank you. A simple breakfast doesn’t seem so simple anymore.

On Thanksgiving Day I think the food would have gotten very cold had we all said a special thank you to everyone involved in that entire meal.

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Happiness resides not in possessions and not in gold; the feeling of happiness dwells in the soul. -Democritus

Simplicity should not be identified with bareness. – Felix Adler

The aspects of things that are most important for us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. – Ludwig Wittgenstein

If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, “thank you,” that would suffice. – Meister Eckhart

Great things are done by a series of small things brought together. – Vincent Van Gogh