A similar simple living habitat called affectionately, The Hobbit House, was also built in Wales. It's also quite a charming and creative living space constructed by hand out of readily available materials. You can find more information about it at the owner/builder's website,www.simondale.net.
I just came across this very charming video done by a man in Wales who has been exploring how to live lightly on the planet for the past 30 years. I'd say he's got it down pat!! What a charming little rustic round house he's made with cord wood, solar panels, a wind turbine, a "living roof" of grapes and grass. All his needs are pretty much simplified and he can enjoy life. I find the simplicity and sustainability highly appealing. Oh, and he mentions making a bit of money with his crafts and music. Right up my alley. Hmmmm. No telling where this might lead. This concept sure does appeal to all my sustainable, eco-minded, simplicity seeking instincts. Does anyone else out there find this interesting???
A similar simple living habitat called affectionately, The Hobbit House, was also built in Wales. It's also quite a charming and creative living space constructed by hand out of readily available materials. You can find more information about it at the owner/builder's website,www.simondale.net.
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"The fragrance of the rose lingers upon the hand that cast it." ![]() As another birthday approaches, I find that I am in a very introspective mood -- consciously counting my blessings, past and present. They have been both abundant and deeply moving and my heart is filled with gratitude! As I reflect on the spirit of birthdays past, what better time to give tribute to the woman who helped form the person I am today? Through nature and nurture, DNA and devotion, my mother is such an intrinsic part of me that I'm not even always aware of the depth of the blessings she bestowed. And I can still be caught off-guard when one of her timely cliches pops out of my mouth. (The tumultuous teenager in me rolls her eyes when this happens, but the adult me smiles and recognizes wisdom.) My mother was the embodiment of loving kindness and compassion. She simply lived her philosophy by daily application of it. She gave to others through her nursing skills healing veterans and, later in her career, providing tender care to children in the hospital; to her family she gave unstintingly of her time, attention and wisdom in both ordinary and amazing ways; helping friends, neighbors and even the occasional stranger with a cheerful, generous heart was her trademark. Mom used to say she never met a stranger, meaning that strangers became friends. One of her favorite pastimes was sharing roses from her garden. This became a bonding language of love between us, as each mother's day I would buy and plant new rosebush in her yard. This simple pleasure brought joy to both of us, and by extension to others. My Mom gave in tangible ways. She drove a sick friend to a doctor's appointment, took a pie or casserole, books & magazines to shut-ins, prepared meals for her family -- yes, this was back in the day when families actually ate most of their meals together, sitting down around a table with food, drink and conversation. It saddens me to think that so many of the younger generation have no concept of this experience. One of my fondest memories is coming home after school to be enfolded in that wonderful aroma of freshly baked bread, and treated to a still-warm-from-the-oven slice of motherly love! I was truly blessed this week to meet a lovely new friend and experience an immediate heart connection. We spent several hours pouring out our stories, many centered around our mothers, and felt a soul-deep sharing in perfect trust and understanding -- recognizing a kindred spirit in each other. A stranger became a friend through the alchemy of love and sharing. What a joy this is and how rare! Instead, we tend to rush through our lives in such a flurry of work, worry and demands, that we make a living, but often forget the importance of making a Life. Had I been completely focused on the everyday grind, I would have missed this extraordinary gift! So, on this birthday, I remember the special, unique blessings of life--the ones that cannot be found in any store, or even online :) I bask in the warmth of shared moments of extraordinary love, friendship and connection and cherish them for the treasure they are. I can see my mother, picking a perfect rose from her garden to take to someone who needed a bit of cheering up, and know that the fragrance of that rose lingered on her giving hand, as the joy of her love lingers in my soul. Today, I will pick a perfect rose from my garden and follow my mother's example. That will make the happiest of birthdays! The holiest of all holidays are those The new year starts with fireworks, parties, celebration of all kinds, but I think the real joy and beauty may belong to those who go "in silence apart" to search their hearts deeply for wisdom in two things: what they want to release of the "old" (habits, stuff, damaging emotions, ideas, limitations, excess weight or addiction) and what they truly wish to create "new" (peace, nurturing relationships, meaningful work, space for spiritual practice and contemplation, service to others, healing).
To me, the new year has always felt sort of sacred -- a little oasis of time in which to reflect on the year just ended and all it brought, for good or not. To find any lessons we can count as "learned", growth that happened, mistakes made, and also triumphs to celebrate. Often, a year will contain a theme that recurs, such as change, loss, joy, love, awakening...but, no matter what challenges the year brought, they can be set aside, somehow, at the ending. You get a fresh slate, a new shining chance to start again to identify and solidify thoughts, desires and actions. It really is a happy time if for no other reason than that! I have seen an idea to "capture" moments through the year, since they are often fleeting and can easily be lost in later experience. In order to properly recall and cherish the moments that bring joy, write down a short (or whatever length appeals) reminder in prose or poem, or even pictures if you are so inclined. Place them all in a glass jar or other decorative bowl or vessel and let them accumulate all year long. Then, on New Year's Eve, take them out and revisit each one, to reawaken the beauty therein. After all, it is quite easy to remember the traumas, the events that feel as if a cosmic 2x4 has walloped us! But, we surely also want to bring the joys alive and appreciate them fully, rather than let them be lost along the way. Another idea is to use a technique taught to children: write a letter to God. Children tend to be very direct in their observations and requests (and often quite funny, too!). Why not do your own adult version of a letter in which you put your fondest desires for the new year into words. I challenge you to take the time to do this exercise, and put the letter in a safe place to be opened next New Year's Day and see how life has changed. You may be quite pleasantly surprised that many of those things you deeply desired have come to pass. A treasure map also works to produce these results, if you find that more appealing. You use photos, magazine clippings/images, words, or whatever represents your desire and place them all upon a poster board or other surface, adding and changing as needed. This is used to then focus and concentrate your attention and intention. It has amazing power for many folks. I've done this and then forgotten it and rediscovered it later, to find so many of my desires did indeed manifest, even without my continued energy. Whatever method you choose, do at least find a creative, fun way to capture the moments of your own life and rejoice in those that have blessed you. You can think of it as collecting cherished ornaments for your heart and inner life. And may you find peace and prosperity in all your special moments in 2013! ![]()
"There are two means of refuge from the miseries of life: music and cats."
~Albert Schweitzer As a lover of cats and a musician, I heartily agree with Albert Schweitzer in this quote/life philosophy and even have it engraved on a plaque hanging in my study. I would add one more crucial item to Schweitzer's list of useful refuge-remedies: books! Every now and then, the perfect book shows up in your life by some mysterious serendipity, at the exact moment you need the comfort, information, inspiration, wisdom, beauty, escapism, or higher vision to heal your inner being. Just as a song can become your "mantra" in lifting you out of sadness, so can a book lift you to higher emotional ground, insight and understanding. The little gem of a book titled "The Dalai Lama's Cat: a novel" by David Michie, was just this sort of soothing-serendipitous-balm-in-a-book for me. It is part allegory, part comedy, part fantasy, part teaching tale, and entirely charming! The story captures the reader in the opening paragraph by its unconventional viewpoint -- seen through the eyes of a kitten/cat, who is rescued from abuse and almost certain death on the streets of New Delhi by none other than the Dalai Lama to become HHC (His Holiness's Cat). It cleverly interweaves colorful characters and their all too human foibles, simple tenets of Buddhist philosophy, teachings & history, intimate moments of insight, details of daily routines of the Dalai Lama, and some pretty awesome life lessons-- all while telling the story of this privileged feline who shares the inner sanctum (and lap) of the Dalai Lama. As the cat, HHC, also known as Mousie-Tung, Snow Lion, The Most Beautiful Creature That Ever Lived, Rinpoche (Precious), explores her new environment and life (both inner and outer), struggles with lessons such as disengaging from the basic instinct to kill (hence the Mousie-Tung title), to yearning for a "relationship", to overeating, and the causes of suffering, many precepts are introduced in a skillful, entertaining way. The mind is opened through HHC's cat's eye observations of celebrities, heads of state, and important people of all walks of life, whose meetings with the Dalai Lama change them in subtle and life-altering ways. The warmth of the storytelling, and the engaging atmosphere of the setting brings wit and wisdom together with insight and truth to give this book it's appealing and yes, enlightening power. If you are looking for a good read, that is at once amusing and deeply inspiring (in a sneaky cat kind of way), this one will bring a surprising array of gifts and delights. I heartily recommend this cat tale of amazing depth and insight. Pull up a comfy chair, next to a cozy hearth, and let HHC and this sweet book purr its way into your heart! FTC Disclosure: I received this book for free from Hay House Publishing for review purposes.
![]() This is my 17-year-old cat, Misty, napping in her cat bed. She has worked hard over her long life to teach me some very valuable lessons. I'm a slow learner, apparently, but she is persistent. Here are the basics: 1. Naps are excellent tools for enhancing life and making it very pleasant. Naps can happen at any time and without warning. You must pick your nap spot with the greatest care so you won't be disturbed, and vary the location according to the time of day, season, and movement of the sun. Napping will make you a better person/cat/being. If you can arrange to have a nap companion, that is preferable. Take lots of naps. 2. Ask for what you want. Ask often. Ask loudly. Ask without ceasing. Ask and you shall receive -- (OK, Jesus taught this one, first, but Misty is an avid believer!). She also believes in the seek and ye shall find philosophy, with the added twist that she gets me to do her seeking -- for her toys. It's sort of like playing fetch with a dog, but in reverse. She hides them, I seek them. 3. Pay attention to your surroundings. Misty will notice if I move the living room sofa two inches to the right. Really. And if I add anything new to her/our environment, it must be fully inspected and approved. She's very thorough and she notices the least little change. If the change does not meet her approval, she lets me know about it in no uncertain terms. She has many ways of doing so, and none of them are nice. Accordingly, she almost always gets exactly what she wants. See # 2 above, since these two work in combination and synergy to great effect. 4. The entire world and all of humanity are at your beck and call. Explore, enjoy, live it up! Someone will always be there to open the food can, comfort and pet you when you need it, and otherwise take care of your every need. (This one works better if you are small, cute, furry and have four feet.) 5. Exercise is good for you. Stretching luxuriously, leaping on and off furniture, running in a mad dash from one end of the house to the other, chasing the little feather toy on the end of the stick -- all these are really good things to do, and you should do them often. Yoga is sort of acceptable, but it bores her quickly. She shows this by dragging her tail across my mouth, usually when I'm in downward dog position. (I have often wondered how she knows that's what the pose is called!) 6. Drink lots of pure, fresh water. On this lesson, she is most adamant. She has several water bowls around our house (at least four, for one cat!) and all of them must be kept fresh. She knows if it hasn't been changed in the last 2 minutes. Unless she sees you do it, it doesn't count. Water is very important and no compromise is ever allowed. 7. Personal grooming must be done often and with great care. Washing your face and paws is crucial, and keeping every hair in place requires your full attention. She allows us to comb her to assist in this task, but really, she does a smashing job on her own. If someone ruffles your fur, immediately smooth it back in place and go on as if nothing happened. This may be the most valuable of all Misty's lessons. 8. Everything in the Universe exists for your pleasure, fun, happiness, and if you expect only good, that's what you get. For instance, she expects love, comfort, care and adoration from her humans, and -- yep, you guessed it. She gets it. OK, as I reconsider, maybe this one is the most important. The Universe is a good place. Enjoy it! I've seen variations of this phrase on plaques and in TV commericals (it sounds like a wine commercial -- perhaps it is a wine commercial, but I'm not endorsing alcohol here!) I think it is sage advice, with or without the wine, and it works as a philosophy of life, too. We humans tend to be sucked into seriousness at the drop of a stock market and it takes real determination to remain positive when all around you gloom and doom abounds. All the more reason to concentrate your efforts in the direction of life. After all, the stock market can't give you a hug and dry your tears when you are upset.
A very wise teacher once pointed out that the nightly (or morning) news is always the bad news. It was true then, and it's even more so now that the information age brings so much to our attention, in such immediate and varied ways. Do you sometimes feel totally bombarded by information, as if you are under attack? I do! There's always plenty to be sad/upset/outraged/shocked (insert your own emotion here) about when watching the TV news, or seeing it through a feed on your computer or smartphone. And even the efforts of some news media to play a "feel good" story at the end of the broadcast does not cancel out a half an hour of bad news and shocking images. The thing you must remember to keep things in perspective is: bad news, the more shocking the better, sells, and that is what advertisers are looking to do. So, do we mere mortals have any control over the bad news brigade? Well, the answer is no -- and yes! The one thing we can (and I've come to believe should) do is to unplug ourselves from the onslaught -- yes, I know this is a very radical idea. I'm proposing a complete news fast. If you want a challenge in flexing your muscles of self-control -- here it is! Can you stop watching, listening, reading, computing or otherwise ingesting the news for a fixed period of time? It's a whole lot more difficult than you might initially think. If you rise to the challenge, you can start by unplugging the TV. Leave it unplugged. Just try it for a week. Or, if you are a real addict, try it for one day. Just a day! You can do that!! No cheating, now. If you don't live alone, this is obviously a LOT more complicated, because you have to get everyone to agree to do this. See what I mean about the difficulty? You might want to wait until the Olympics is over to start the news fast. Just a thought to keep the proverbial peace. Once you've mastered the TV, move on to the computer. Facebook will still be there when you return. Just don't turn it on. Or if you do, use it for creative writing or something that's purely fun and not tainted with any news. It's not easy, but you can do it! Then, you can find all kinds of positive ways to fill the time you would normally spend watching the news/TV/computer internet surfing/reading the paper. Do you enjoy reading? If so, pick up that new novel you've been meaning to start. Or start a craft project. Or a home repair project. Or a hobby you've not had time to do in umpteen years. Or go out dancing or sailing or whatever you enjoy. That's a major advantage of going on a news fast -- you will find your leisure time increases exponentially. The other rather wonderful side effect of a news fast is that you start to feel calmer, less frazzled, less distressed/depressed if you don't have a constant barrage of negativity coming at you all during your waking hours. The trick is to do this in baby steps. At first you might feel shaky. You may fall down (and plug the TV back in for a fix or take a peek at Facebook), but if you persist, you will find some truly worthwile benefits. My husband and I did a news fast for a whole month and it literally changed our lives. We even had meaningful conversations when not glued to the TV. Really. Try it. I won't go on and list all the benefits of less stress and a more positive outlook. You've no doubt seen those numbers and read those articles. What I will tell you, is that finding ways to truly come alive, to share laughter that makes your sides hurt and tears stream down your face, to experience a joyful, deeper intimacy with those you love -- these things are the priceless jewels in our human lives and we can choose, consciously, to nurture them and let them shine. So, take back a bit of control over your life and turn it in a positive, fulfilling, uplifting direction. Live, laugh, and love. Do it for a day. You may like the results so much you'll make it a permanent lifestyle change. The title of this blog post is also the title of a song from the musical Oliver, based on the story of Oliver Twist. It takes on significance in the show when sung by a bunch of ragamuffin orphans, street thieves, who are basically starving. One of the street urchins dares to ask for "more" food, which is simply unheard of! Though most of us are not starving street urchins, the scenario got me thinking about how our whole relationship with food impacts the rest of our lives so significantly, whether we lack enough food to be healthy, or simply make wrong choices about the foods available to us. Most of us are taught, at an early age, to pacify ourselves with food, hence the whole concept of comfort food. We Americans are very focused on food and the many issues that surround it -- from childhood obesity with its staggering implications, now creating the first generation with a shorter life expectancy than previous ones, to the many diseases associated with poor diet choices (an astounding 2/3 of Americans are either overweight or obese!) -- diabetes, heart disease, cancer, organic vs. pesticides and genetically modified organisms (GMO). Throw in the advertising for weight loss products, the glossy magazine ads with super skinny, perfect supermodels, and it is a recipe for dysfunction. And yet, we have the science to understand how to change this whole dynamic. Author & speaker John Robbins wrote in his book, Healthy at 100, about research done on four different groups of people who regularly live past 100 years with health and vitality, and virtually NO cancer or diabetes. It begs the question, why are we killing ourselves with the very substance (and lifestyle, of course) that is designed to nurture us and help us maintain health, happiness and longevity? I have a theory. It is the same damaging, erroneous philosophy that is making a mess of our current "health care" system, which is in reality a "sick care" system: we are unwilling to take responsibility for our actions. We want someone else to "fix" things, from our health to our happiness to the very sustenance we consume -- we want a pill for every ill, we want a shrink to fix our emotional issues, we want fast food without health consequences and we want it all without putting forth much effort ourselves. We seem to have a national mentality of entitlement with no strings attached. When anyone dares to tell us the truth about our power to change our misery, we either stick our head firmly in the sand or, worse, we shoot the messenger. We can change this by opening our ears, eyes, and hearts, and starting a true dialogue about these aspects of our lives, which affect us all, such as was recently done by the excellent online interviews with many leading experts, called the Food Revolution You can check it our for yourself, get informed, start thinking about what it would mean to you and your family to create a joyful, healthy life based on your food and lifestyle choices. We do have power, but we have to take it, be responsible (or response-able, able to respond) for our lives. So do it! Take your power back and start your own food revolution today! I leave you with these words of John Robbins, his summation at the closing of the Food Revolution Summit. The words strike me as truth, as a light on the path. “I think you’ll know what to do. I think you do it a step at a time, a day at a time, a mouthful at a time, a food choice at a time, a purchase at a time, an order at a time, a meal at a time. And I think we will change the world one heart at a time.” “The primary agent of social change, to my way of seeing, is the human heart. As it awakens, as it becomes engaged, as it becomes alive with its responsibility, with its capacity for wisdom, for caring and for action, then our prayers start to manifest as our lives. Then our caring starts to be expressed in the way we are with each other. Then we bring out the best in one another. Then we live in a way that’s worthy of the suffering we experience, and that transforms the suffering into strength.” May all be fed May all be healed May all be loved On this special day when people are thinking about love -- romantic love, unselfish giving, cards & cupcakes & chocolates --take a moment to ponder what brings you joy. We are often so distracted by our busy schedules, our immediate "must do" list, those who depend upon us, the noise of life which is especially amplified in this electronic age of the Internet, that we let days or even weeks slip by without checking in to our own quota of joy. I read a recent article on the subject of deep happiness and it reflected the idea that doing something to inspire your creative spirit, to focus your attention in the NOW by creating something, is a great way to bring deep, abiding happiness to your life. Anyone who has ever experienced that deep sense of concentration and intention that blend into an act of creative pursuit -- be it making a piece of art or a homemade Valentine -- can attest to the fact that it slows the perception of time and makes a quiet little pocket of happiness (stimulating endorphins in the brain chemistry) in the center of life. My wish for each soul on Valentine's Day is that you can create a moment of deep, abiding happiness and share it with another who needs it!
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AuthorI am a singer, a writer, a craftswoman, a student of life and of Spirit, a wife, a friend, an inquisitive adventurer on the learning path. Seeking, sensing, sifting and now connecting! Please join the fun by leaving a comment or passing on a favorite post via your social network. As you can tell from the category list, my interests are varied and somewhat eclectic. I am seeking all that brings joy & excitement to life, purpose & passion to our daily round. I am curious about pretty much everything. Archives
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