Tag Archives: nablopomo

Taste is a Matter of Timing

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FullSizeRender (6)I love really old houses. I grew up in a tiny Victorian here in California. When I was nine, we moved to a ranch style house across town.  I was so sad. I was glad to have my own room, but I missed the nooks and crannies, the mystery, the history, of our little gingerbread Victorian.

My family’s first house really didn’t have that much gingerbread, not like this lovely old home which is nestled amongst homes mostly built in the sixties. Low slung, practical (read ugly) little things known as Bohannons.

I notice that people younger than me like ranch style homes, the low slung Bohannon style houses, and even seventies apartments. They don’t see what I see. They don’t see through the lens of someone born in the sixties and raised in the seventies and eighties; they don’t look through my lens.

Lately I’ve noticed that pointed, pink frosted nails are back in style with some younger women, and I think, “Oh no. I am not going back to seventh grade.” So style in houses and nail polish seems to be related to when you (or I) were raised, and what styles you had then. I want the house I had between two and nine years old, and I don’t want the nails I had in seventh grade. I guess seventh grade is not a time I want to go back to, but early childhood is. Hmmm…interesting information.

What styles from the past are you attached to? Which would you rather not revisit?

nails01from http://www.modnet.com.au 

 

microblog mondays, color pops

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Weekly Photo Recap #3

Well, here it is dark outside. I’m sooooo tired and have been doing all sorts of things today. Luckily, it’s Microblog Monday!

I am more energetic and also in more pain, so lots of exercise of the walking kind was in order today to get the blood pumping. Along the way I took lots of pictures of pops of color, which was today’s photo prompt. I’m not super happy with any of them, and wish I could edit them better or more or something. I’d like black frames, because they would give the color pops extra pop,  but I’m too tired. Been trying this app and that, and have come to two conclusions:
1.  I need to allow this post to be imperfect.
2.  I need to learn photoshop.

These are both things that have to do with making my life easier. First, it’s just easier sometimes to say, “this is what I can do today. The end.”  Secondly, sometimes you gotta do something hard to make things easier. Project Easier sometimes should be called “Project Contradictory.”

Another hard thing that we did today to make things easier in the future: Pupper and I walked to visit friends who have a new big dog, in addition to their old big dog with whom we are already friends. It was a barking, growling fest as three shelter dogs got to know each other. It was rough, as we two dog moms sometimes feel that we were raised in shelters too. Everyone getting altogether too frazzled. Too fast. Too much. Dogs barking and growling. So tiring.  We thinking we might be doing it wrong. Most likely, they’ll all three be hanging out happily in a couple of weeks or maybe sooner.

It was FH’s last day at a job where his boss has been less than pleasant toward him for two years.  So hoorays were in order. A lovely Indian Buffet Feast. So full. I know that the new job will be so much easier. FH and I seem to have let this grouchy person invade our relationship somehow. I think that the unpleasant boss has been projecting his anger onto FH, and then FH projecting it on to me, and then me, acting frustrated and confused. Maybe I’ve had too much therapy, but the fact remains that if people don’t express their bad feelings, someone else winds up experiencing those feelings and it’s not fair or fun. It’s weird. I’m burning sage like a madwoman to clear the air! Life as an empath. Very strange.

This is turning out not to be very micro, but here’s the lovely badge for MicroBlog Mondays!
Microblog_Mondays

 

Mystical Mystery of the Heart Sutra and Letting Go

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IMG_3437

I have a mash-up religion. I was raised Catholic, practiced Buddhism and Yoga for many years, and feel connected to spirit, God, The Universe, whatever you call what can’t really name or understand. So I will chant many prayers and mantras to myself, The Hail Mary, the Mantra of Lakshmi, and the Heart Sutra are three of my favorites. I’m not really into the dogma, just the practice.  Just the letting go, feeling safe.

The message of the Heart Sutra mantra is “Gone, gone, all the way gone, over to the other side, enlightenment, Hallelujah.” There are so many translations of it. The essence is that of letting go and finding peace and enlightenment. A mystery:  how we suffer, why we suffer, how we can alleviate suffering, what’s it all for?

One of my favorite Buddhist teachers, Pema Chodron, explains it a lot better than I can. She says it like this:

THE HEART SUTRA

A teaching on the Sutra of the Heart of Transcendent Knowledge

 

It’s in this process of muddling along — it’s in all the falling down — that the courage and the kindness and the compassion and the strength really comes. And the flexible mind.

 

Then he [Rinpoche] goes on and he talks about the mantra. And the mantra is: OM GATE GATE PARAGATE PARASAMGATE BODHI SVAHA.

In other words, a way to practice the profound prajnaparamita is actually to say this mantra — as well as the on-going practice of continually letting go, or letting be, training in a flexible, open,ready mind. But also, one can chant this mantra.

 

By the way, there’s a lot of teaching on the prajnaparamita, and I’m not going to go into all of that. Some of them are very, very long — twenty thousand lines and so forth. But the pith of it, the heart of it, is in this sutra. That’s why it’s called the Heart Sutra because it’s like the pith of all these teachings on prajnaparamita.

 

Then it’s said that the pith, or the heart, of the Heart Sutra is the mantra. That everything that is said in this whole sutra is actually reiterated and encapsulated in the mantra.

Rinpoche’s translation is: OM, GONE (GATE is gone), GONE, (then PARAGATE) GONE BEYOND, (PARASAMGATE) GONE COMPLETELY BEYOND, (BODHI) AWAKE, (SVAHA) SO BE IT. So: OM, GONE, GONE, GONE BEYOND, GONE COMPLETELY BEYOND, AWAKE, SO BE IT.

 

There’s lots of translations of this, and one is: OM, TRANSCENDING, EVER TRANSCENDING, TRANSCENDING EVEN TRANSCENDING, TRANSCENDING EVEN TRANSCENDING OF TRANSCENDING, SUCHNESS, SO BE IT.

 

What is wonderful about this mantra is that it is not a description of some fruition. It’s actually a description of a journey that we are all on. We are all on this journey of going, going, going beyond going even beyond.

No matter where we are, we can move on to the next beyond. Do you see? It’s not a description of: I made it! It’s like this! It’s a description of: OM, groundless, even more groundless, can it get moregroundless than this, Oh my gosh, it’s ultimately groundless, there’s no ground!, and then BODHI could be translated as Aiiiiiiiii….. [or…. Ahhhhhhhhh…] So be it. [laughter]

 

Pema Chodron

from Shambhala.org