Category: Today’s Delights

I’ve heard a few people say they don’t like Sundays. Is it because the next day they’ll be working at a job, and with a co-worker, or two that are not their cup of tea?

It’s been said that more heart attacks occur on Monday than any other day of the week. That tells a story; that’s something to think about. And do something about.

 

 

It seems summer has slipped quietly away and autumn has suddenly appeared. It feels different; it is different. What’s amazing is, just like that, we’re into another season and all that it brings. We seem caught off guard. Some of us are still wearing summer clothes refusing to believe that cold weather has approached. And the ones who dislike cold, even the thought of it, have already taken out dark-colored clothes and warm jackets. (They say cinnamon is great for a circulation boost). Autumn and winter feel colder if we don’t welcome it because thoughts of cold will be the dominant mood. So, let’s have fun and enjoy what’s coming because we can’t do anything about it unless we move to the tropics. What a thought!

Some statements that manage to find their way onto the printed page are so funny you simply have to roll over laughing. For instance: “What your underwear says about you.” Please feel free to think that it says nothing, statement maker. Leave us and our underwear alone. Sometimes we choose this style and color; sometimes we choose that style and color. Can’t it be that simple? Don’t waste your time reading any more into it than that. It sometimes seems all so comical.

“First born kids make better CEOs?”- “Older Children than average had a slightly higher IQ than their siblings.” Birth order – it is what it is. Older children, middle children, younger children can all contribute nicely to the whole scheme of things. Why is so much time spent researching this? Have some researchers run out of things to do in the world? Some CEOs have done a splendid job of running a company into the ground. Maybe before any questions are asked about how and why they managed that, we might want to first address the all-important question of birth order – if it’s that important.

I suppose that what’s on my mind is this: In our world aren’t there many other kinds of questions that need answering?

“What kind of nursing home do you want to live in when you’re old?” Some statement makers make it seem as though we naturally head for a nursing home when we’re old. It puts a kink in the process of aging by insinuating the last stop is a nursing home. For some, yes; for others, no. Old and nursing home don’t have to go hand-in-hand. Christiane Northrup once said: “Happy, healthy, dead.” That sounds good to me.

Let’s wait and see, and in the meantime, prepare to live a happy and healthy full life. Oh yes!

What a lovely day; let’s all enjoy. And remember there are those times when you just have to roll over laughing.

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I am under no laws but God’s. – A Course In Miracles

Be your own lamp, he said. Seek no other refuge than yourselves. Let truth be your light. – the Buddha  (from The Story of India, a movie)

 

Rain, it feels good. All right, we’ll do rain today. Those people on vacation at the beach need to have a Scrabble game going, or find a few great movies to watch, or get a party going and have people bring whatever they want. Nothing else said, anything they want to bring is fine-a couple gallons of ice cream, a dvd, a game, lots of music, a plan, etc. Or today can be a carefree day at the beach, walking solo without an umbrella, getting soaking wet, feeling the natural surroundings.

Ah, the beach. There are people who have striking year-round tans and a love affair with the sun and beach almost since they were born. I love the sun, but in a different way. For me sitting on the sand facing the ocean on a very hot day has to be early in the morning or after 3:00pm, otherwise it’s pure torture. I’ve never been able to understand the joy of baking in the hot sun, dripping sweat, oily sticky body, sand on oily skin on a sweltering day. Hmm, what fun! Once I was at a beach in Panama, and after 5 minutes turned beet red. Oh, yes, it was intense. I know that if a sun worshipper were writing this this paragraph would be entirely different.

Have a wonderful day. Enjoy it with or without your umbrella.

Some people are proud of a bald or balding head in that they are confident about it. Then there are those people who with a few wispy hairs attempt to cover their bald head. Others wear a toupee and perhaps would look better without it. Some try for products claiming to grow hair. Some go to doctors claiming to grow hair. Others couldn’t care less.

One day I had an appointment at a downtown Manhattan salon for a hair cut, and the very handsome owner of the salon clearly had an interest in hair loss. I’d been noticing that my eyebrows were disappearing and apparently he did too as he sat me down and suggested a product from Hong Kong, along with two weekly treatments, for applying the product and opening the pores. At that time, I fit into the catagory of “couldn’t care less” so that didn’t happen. But he didn’t give up, and as I was exiting the salon, he mentioned that coffee was also used for hair loss. Quite interesting, I thought. Perhaps I should have asked for more details as I couldn’t imagine walking around with coffee grinds on my eyebrows. Hmm!

When it was becoming evident that I had no talent for pencilling in eyebrows, my daughter Sumi made an appointment at Sephora to see someone in the Anastasia eyebrow section. To make a long story short, the product worked and the eyebrows began growing once again. Nice! www.sephora.com

In the book, THE SUNFOOD DIET SUCCESS SYSTEM, David Wolfe writes about a natural way to restore hair loss. I think this book is wonderful for many reasons. And to read it from cover to cover is a joy. At the moment I don’t have a person with a bald head in my life, but if I did I would sit her/him down and carefully begin that process, with permission of course.
www.sunfood.com

In the delightful to read book, Eat Pray Love, Elizabeth Gilbert is told that to make her hair grow faster and thicker, “First, I have to find a banana tree and personally cut it down.” This in Indonesia. www.elizabethgilbert.com

Ah, what a world of possibilities we live in.

“To bring anything into your life, imagine that it’s already there.” -Richard Bach, ILLUSIONS

“It’s a funny things about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.” -W. Somerset Maugham
www.maugham.thefreelibrary.com

There are many ads in Spirituality & Health magazine. The ads explain the benefits of their teachings to us in our professional or personal lives, or both. The fascinating thing about all those ads is that they point the way to the same destination-the betterment of ourselves and the world-but by taking widely different routes. And that’s the good thing about choices. Since we all have our own way we need to find what works for us. Are you asking what some of those choices are? All right! Great, I’ll list them. Seeing them in a different form sometimes makes it easier to grasp the offerings.

Kripalu offers “experiential workshops, professional trainings, and R&R retreats” www.kripalu.org

Heartwood Institute has “full-time vocational study in Massage Therapist, Holistic Health Practitioner, and Asian Healing Arts and Whole Foods Nutrition programs. . . “which will prepare you on your path toward a career in loving service” www.heartwoodinstitute.com

The American Institute of Holistic Theology offers “nonsectarian college degree programs through self-paced distance learning. You can earn your advanced degree in: Divinity. . . Holistic Health. . .Metaphysics. . . www.aiht.edu

Spirituality & Health magazine offers workshops “. . . for readers to dig more deeply into the topics we write about in Spirituality & Health. The authors of some of our most exciting articles will offer intimate workshops that explore in greater depth the themes of their work.” www.spiritualityhealth.com/workshops

Barbara Brennan School of Healing “. . . learn directly from Barbara Brennan on the 4-year training program that can transform your life and bring higher levels of awareness into everyday normality.” www.barbarabrennan.com

Omega Institute for Holistic Studies “still your mind stretch your body shape your world” www.eomega.org

The Mandala Center “A quiet, peaceful place for rest and renewal known for its beautiful facilities, excellent meals and breathtaking views of the high plains and volcanic peaks of northeastern New Mexico. For upcoming programs, www.mandalacenter.org

Amma Sri Karunamayi offers “spiritual discourses, meditation retreats, individual blessings and Vedic homas for the spiritual elevation of humanity and world peace.” All programs free except retreats, click “Tours and Retreats” at www.karunamayi.org

Colin Tipping’s Radical Weight Loss Program “The only things you have to give up in this program are the ‘stories’ that caused you to gain weight in the first place.” www.radicalmanifestation.com

OneSpirit Interfaith Seminary “is a two-year part time professional training that explores the world’s religions & spiritual diversity. Designed for working adults, the program leads to ordination as an interfaith minister.” www.onespiritinterfaith.org

Celebrant Foundation & Institute “Celebrants officiate at & create personalized & meaningful life-cycle ceremonies” www.celebrantusa.org

Red Lodge Longhouse Program “Red Lodge is a program of spiritual study based on ancient teachings drawn from indigenous peoples across the Americas.” Red Lodge Longhouse Program

Dance of the Deer Foundation Center for Shamanic Studies with Brant Secunda, “World famous shaman and healer in the Huichol Indian tradition of Mexico.” www.shamanism.com

The New Seminary for Interfaith Studies, Honoring all Paths, “A two-year Training Program Leading to Ordination as an Interfaith Minister with Spiritual Counseling” www.newseminary.org

Thich Nhat Hanh EVENTS 2007, Retreats Public Lectures, east coast events, www.greenmountaincenter.org, west coast events www.deerparkmonastery.org

Nine Gates Mystery School, “. . . is a year-long experience. It includes two nine day retreats, with over 200 hours of instruction from nine master teachers, delving deeply into the wisdom of the Celtic, tribal African, Native American, Sufi, esoteric Christian, Hindu, Taoist, Hawaiian Huna, and Tibetan Buddhist traditions.” www.ninegates.org

Aina Me Kalani Healing in Paradise, “perpetuating the healing and spiritual arts of Hawai’i” Workshops Retreats Conferences www.healinginparadise.org

Eisner Institute for Professional Studies, “Specializing in Holistic, Clinical and Forensic Psychology also MA in Mental Health Counseling” www.eisnerinstitute.org

Sisters of St. Joseph of the Third Order of St. Francis, “take the step to Gospel living” www.ssj-tosf.org

Institute of Transpesonal Psychology, “Career Training and Personal Growth counselors, organizational leaders, research education, business and health services” www.ITP.EDU

Sophia Center in Culture & Spirituality “Where you can earn a Master’s Degree or Certificate in Culture & Spirituality” www.hnu.edu/sophia

Whew? And there’s more in S&H. The world is BIG.

I’m thankful!

In one of the Hudson River towns is a woman named Helen who owns a small shop. She’s from Ireland and although she’s been in the US for quite a few years, she still has a bit of a brogue. Hers is the kind of shop that’s more like a social club than a shop because it’s not easy to leave Helen’s place once you enter and buy what you want from an interesting array of items. If you’re there when Helen begins telling one of her many stories, you’re there for awhile. Her stories will either leave you bent over laughing, reflecting on lfe, or having a history lesson about Ireland or the Hudson River area. At times her friend Frank is in the shop and although he’s not from Ireland, he’s Irish. Together they’re quite a pair as they tell stories one after another- laughing so hard their eyes begin to tear. They should charge for the entertainment because they’re real good.

The back room is cozy, one forgets that it’s an absolutely perfect day outside with lots of sun and no humidity, and we, the listeners, are scrunched in a small area listening intently as if at a storytelling contest. I realize that storytelling is a skill, and you’ve got to be good in order to keep people enthralled to the point they forget they have things to do. And that’s one of the delights of being there.

To be able to drop everything in the course of a day and to sit, listen and laugh is a day well spent, too.

“Our ability to relax into life reflects our willingness to trust.” -anonymous

“Let the beauty we love be what we do.” – Rumi

I want to think light and fun on this rainy day. You, too? A rainy day is a calm day unless one’s schedule is on overload. A rainy day is a slower day because accidents happen more easily if we don’t make it a slower day. Have you ever slipped and fallen on a rainy day because you were in a hurry to get somewhere? That’s always a tap on the shoulder to not rush. Judging from the look of all those clouds, it seems they’ll be no sun shining on us today, unless we’re heading for a beautiful island with sunny weather. And, so, here we are with a no-sun kind of day. We have to appeciate these days because summer is peeking around the corner, and usually that means we’ll be complaining of hot and humid because hot and humid is hard to take.

Well, not always. We can do hot and humid by by a beautiful body of water, bare feet in sand, sipping a cool refreshing drink – the biggest decision to make is whether to go for a swim before or after lunch, oh, and another, what to have for lunch. That’s not hard to take.

Ah, but we want to keep our energy in the present moment, so back to our rainy day; it’s puddles for us today. That beautiful body of water is for another time. Actually I’ve been noticing lately that people are not timid about the rain as much as they used to be. I don’t know how that came about, but people seem more willing to walk a few blocks in the rain, without an umbrella, not caring whether they get wet. It’s nice to have that attitude, that sense of freedom. Then the rain becomes fun and we get to be like children. Children love the rain. They look for puddles to jump in never caring whether feet get wet, clothes get splashed on, mud sticks to pants. Children think fun, and rain is fun. Have you ever heard a child complain about rain? They’re not the ones who remember to bring an umbrella. They don’t want anything hampering their fun. Children stay in the present moment. We’ll watch them and learn.

Okay, I get it, we’ll be like children; we’ll see the rain as freeing and fun. We’ll do rain. Yeah!

Omega in Rhinebeck, New York sent their catalogue recently. On the cover is written: workshops retreats trainings conferences vacations community. In its pages is a history of Omega’s beginnings, and its development over the past thirty years. The catalogue introduces us to teachers from all over the world, teaching us just about anything we can imagine in the beautiful way Omega lets it happen. If you want a different kind of vacation, this could be just what you’re looking for. It’s very nice to turn the catalogue’s pages and see the faces of teachers and participants enjoying and learning in many many many ways-together. I’ve not been to Rhinebeck, NY, but have heard it’s a beautiful place, and I’ve heard Omega is not to be missed. In case you’re wondering, the phone number is 800.944.1001, and the website is www.eomega.org. Perhaps I’ll see you there soon. Nice!