NOV 9/08 - ENERGY, CREATIVITY, THOUGHT, & SPIRITUALITY

I decided to address the issue of energy, as I believe each of us is endowed with a limited supply at birth. As we grow older we use up our energy level. The question I have is ‘do we think before we use up our energy & are we careful about what we expend our energy upon’?

What seems to me to be unlimited is our creative ability. We are endowed with a thought process that can manifest in very creative ways. Where do those thoughts come from & do we trust them when they come?

As a young person, was our creative ability recognized for what it was or were we told we did not have much intelligence? Were you ever told when you were young that your actions had messed up your future? I was!

If any of these things happened did you buy into the conclusion & did it affect your self esteem?

We are always capable of changing at any age & we are capable of bringing change to the world. Creativity counters apathy. Thought can bring new life.

I added spirituality to the title of these thoughts with a little apprehension as it might be interpreted in a religious sense. To me, spirituality is the vein that flows through us all & energizes our eternal essence.

The energy that emanates our physical body carries with it thought. Thoughts can be directed outward or inward, they can be selfish or loving.

We live in a spirit of love or self absorption.

We are now being asked to decide what kind of world we would like to leave to our kids. Does it matter to us what the world looks like after we leave this plane?

Is our energy dissipated to the point that there is no power left in our spirit?

Does our life live on in our offspring? Do we come around for a second trip?

Do these questions lead us to a meaningful life or do we find our existence fairly meaning less?

Love, sharing, & compassion, bring power & meaning to relationships.

A vibrant spirit brings a flow of opportunities that never seem to appear while we are self absorbed.

Apple trees don’t spend a lot of time thinking about what they might produce in the way of fruit. We often miss the opportunity to be fruitful in our every day actions.

Is the fruit we produce the result of our creativity or our physical labor?

Are we cogs in a system or lights of hope in the dark?

Each of us carries within us, a creative ability which can be let free. Trusting one’s thoughts, decisions, & talent, leads to a joyful journey.

Since my last thoughts came out, Barak Obama became the U.S. President. If that doesn’t show us all that anything is possible, what will?

Obama fired the imagination of millions. He has given hope to a forgotten majority.

Through Obama’s example, people are rising up to make a difference in all walks of life. Watch the fire spread after his inauguration in January.

Can we make a difference? Where three or more are gathered together there I am also. Who is I? Is I the Original Creator? Is I the collective we?

Are we not all branches of a creative tree? Is not the spirit within each of us the sap that runs through that creative tree?

Mankind is powered by the Creative Spirit!

Letting that power lay dormant is a life underutilized.

Let’s fire up our imagination & put things on a new track.

Old ways of thinking do not have to be our future.

Obama wants to take the world down a new path.

He will need all the help he can get.

We can sit on the sidelines of history or jump on the field & play.

Spiritually speaking each of us is a powerhouse. Creativity can flow from our thoughts like energy flowing through the power lines.

As energy manifests as heat & light, so creativity manifests as deeds & materiality.

When we transfer our life onto the material plane, we remove ourselves from the spiritual realm.

When we live for material gain, we lose the peace that surpasses human understanding.

So think great thoughts, live good deeds, create positive results, & bring your spiritual gift to life.

Let love be the thread that runs through all your thoughts & actions.

Live from a spiritual perspective.

Live life & let go.

David

NOV 2/08 - TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE

This Triple Bottom Line concept is starting to take hold in Business Schools & through the Corporate Social Responsibility movement.

TBL recommends that when we measure the profit of a company, the social & environmental costs should be taken into account before arriving at ‘net profit’.

Naturally, analysts are already questioning the effectiveness or validity of the concept.

“The concept of a Triple Bottom Line turns out to be a ‘Good old fashioned Single Bottom Line plus Vague Commitments to Social & Environmental Concerns’ ”, Wayne Norman & Chris McDonald, Business Ethics Quarterly, March 2003

As Ina likes to say, “Just keep it simple”, so here is Barbara Kingsolver’s, the writer of ‘Poisonwood Bible’, version:

“Each & every ¼ lb of hamburger is handed across the counter after the following production costs, which I’ve searched out precisely: 100 gallons of water, 1.2 pounds of grain, a cup of gasoline, greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those produced by a six mile drive in your average car, & the loss of 1.25 pounds of topsoil, every inch of which took 500 years for the microbes & earthworms to build. How can all this cost less than $1.00, & who is supposed to pay for the rest of it?” ‘Small Wonders’, Barbara Kingsolver.

Is this crazy or what?

Or as Bill Cosby puts it: “Come On, People”.

We are definitely living a life of waste & the current conditions in financial markets are waking us up to the fact.

The powers that be are calling our trillions in accumulated debts ‘toxic waste’.

It now seems to me that we have a triple bottom line way of blowing up our world: nuclear war, global warming, or economic depression.

Any of these may lead to the annihilation of billions of people & maybe the end of history as we know it.

Are those last few words too strong?

Well let me settle down to a concept that Ina espoused to Dr. Brent Mainprize, Univ. of Victoria.

‘Let’s make a difference while making a dollar’.

Inherent in this statement is compassion & love.

Are those two ingredients too difficult to comprehend & practice?

Ina’s approach is a different perspective on the triple bottom line. Where TBL recommends treating social & environmental considerations as costs, I suggest that Ina’s approach is to see them as financial opportunities.

Is this another way of saying ‘do unto others as ye would want done unto yourself’?

Love & compassion are feelings; money is often the materialization of ideas.

Can money be the materialization of feelings?

Herein lays a quandary for me, when trying to make a difference while making a dollar.

Am I operating on the basis of love or for financial reward?

When does the motivation shift?

Does it matter as long as our fellow persons & nature are at the heart of our actions?

‘Love is a many splendored thing’, as the song goes!

As Ina made me realize this morning, you don’t have to travel very far to find something which comes from the heart.

So I want to propose a new definition for TBL.

To Be Loving, David

OCT 26/08 - ENDANGERED SPECIES I opened Yahoo this morning to be met by a news headline discussing our ‘massive nuclear arsenal & its deterrent capabilities’. Won’t any weapon we conceive be used against us? How do we stop technology transfer?

Climate change is now part of our vernacular & the discussions I hear lately are whether we can reverse it before it reaches the irreversible point. The two dates that I see & hear the most are ten years or 2012. Does it matter whether it takes 50? What are we doing?

There is much in current literature about the speed with which our generation has been & is wiping out whole species.

However, none of the above impacted me as much as the following quote. Ecotech’s Rob Watson says: “when a species doesn’t learn to fit in with Mother Nature, it gets kicked out, it’s that simple, & that’s why everyday when you look in the mirror now, you’re seeing an endangered species.”

Is it that simple? Have we finally come to the point where we have created at least two acceptable ways to completely wipe us off the face of the earth?

How did we get to this point?

What were we thinking or are we thinking?

Do we think?

Ina & I have had the opportunity, this week, to spend time with our fabulous new grandson, Sam, & also, a group of graduates from Royal Roads University, whom we hosted here on Pender.

Sam is moving into his second year of visiting this planet & is amazed at all his new discoveries. Sam has no clue that we adults have reached a point where we are an endangered species within his lifetime, actually before he gets the chance to live it.

On the one hand, it makes me sick to think we might do what we are capable of doing or allow it to happen, however within Sam’s eyes I see hope.

The same possibilities lie within the students that joined us on Pender this weekend. Our discussions revolved around a different way to do business, ‘making a difference while making a dollar’.

We discussed the triple bottom line concept from a different perspective. As currently taught, the environmental & social aspects of doing business are to be considered a cost, subtracted before calculating net profits. We discussed them, instead, as the opportunities to create a profit.

At what age is the opportunity to shift paradigm’s most likely. Ina says get started at a very young age, she would like to mentor right down to kindergarten.

Was it Jesus who said ‘become ye as these little children if you want to see heaven on earth’ (para)?

Children watch what we adults do more than they listen to what we say. At school kids are hearing more & more about the issues we face but when they come home or over to see their grandparents what do they see.

Do we live a loving, compassionate, conflict free life when they are around?

We probably don’t unless that is our normal lifestyle.

What stops our love flowing on a regular basis?

Conflict can lead to unhappiness. Removing oneself from that conflict can lead to better health.

What stops us?

Fear!

A life of fear is not a life of love.

A life of fear leads to walls & weapons of mass destruction.

It is that which resides within each of us that will dictate the world Sam gets to grow up in or not.

We choose a life of fear or love.

It is the fruit of our nature.

Our spiritual makeup gives us the option.

We can ‘choose’ between love & fear.

Choice!

Personal responsibility!

Simple words, complex concepts!

To keep this simple!

Let’s do it for Sam!

Love is life!

Life is love, David

OCT 19/08 - COMPETITION or COMPASSION

We live in a materialistic society where competition is a part of our every day life from a very early age. The success of the reality show, Survivor, is a strong reminder of the ‘one’ winner approach.

As human beings we all have the ability to show compassion & often do so with our time & a portion of our income & wealth.

The global divide between those without & us with, is growing wider. We will need to narrow this disparity significantly before world security conditions improve. The Millennium Development Goals call upon each nation to devote 0.7% of their Gross National Product to solving this issue.

Rather than leave this goal to our governments, each of us can bring it down to the family level by contributing 0.7% of our income monthly & thereby internalize what our government has promised.

I say promised, but in most cases have not delivered. Do any of us know whether our own government is one of the ones to have promised but not delivered? Maybe it is time to find out & if not, why not?

Most of us are hearing a lot about John McCain & Barak Obama these days. One of the messages that John McCain keeps hammering home is that Obama is going to “spread the wealth around”.

John appears to think that his message of fear will resonate with us the voters. John is hoping that in addition to not meeting our promises as a nation, to our global family, that we will also not want to share too much with our national family.

John is also making the point that Barack will be open to “talking with our enemies without preconditions”. John apparently feels that carrying a big stick will bring peace quicker than humility & listening to other points of view.

As John continues to pound the negative advertising messages home, the polls indicate a tightening of the race. What is it that gets half of us to act out of fear? Each of us has to deal with that fear half of ourselves.

It all starts with us!

So far the pundits are suggesting that the tide appears to be moving towards a more open accommodative message as a path to the future.

If we don’t start down that road who will?

Compassion instead of competition is a point of view, a way of life. It is a different way of looking at the world we live in.

We are in a global race now & the finish line has a nasty surprise in store for us, unless we wake up.

Spreading love across the landscape has far more long term benefits to all of us & our grandchildren than spreading fear.

We, the baby boomer generation have a chance to turn things around. Ina & I are spending a lot of time mentoring students & are quite heartened by their openness & willingness to take on social & environmental issues. If we could get over our reluctance to deal openly with other nations, we could work quite productively hand in hand with this next generation. Obama appears to want to bridge that gap, might he be worth the risk.

There are many ways to ‘see’ the world. Our perspective is one of them. We need to look at our global issues from many viewpoints. Talking with each other helps & listening enhances the possibility of successful outcomes.

Having compassion is a way of life & it includes compassion for nature. The oceans & animals need our love as much as the human population does. We can set laws that protect our natural wealth, as well as us being a good example, personally, for others to emulate.

On an individual basis, what is the best advice to take for our personal, family, & our planet’s future?

Let me quote from a book, ‘Me to We’, Craig & Marc Kielburger: “As we explored the religions of the world during our travels, we found that every faith we encountered shares the basic tenets of service, compassion, & love for others. The basic idea can be summed up in a simple phrase; ‘do unto others as you wish them to do unto you’.

The following is a list of world religions & their interpretations – . Hinduism – this is the sum of duty; do not to others what would cause pain if done to you (Mahabaratha 5:1517)

. Taoism – regard your neighbor’s gain as your own gain, & your neighbor’s loss as your own loss (T’ai Shang Kan Ying P’ien, 213-18)

. Native Spirituality – we are as much alive as we keep the earth alive (Chief Dan George)

. Buddhism – treat not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful (Udana-Varga 5.18)

. Islam – not one of you truly believes until you wish for others what you wish for yourself (the Prophet Muhammad, Hadith)

. Judaism – what is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. This is the whole Torah; all the rest is commentary (Hillel, Talmud, Shabbat, 31a)

. Christianity – in everything, do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law & the prophets (Jesus, Matthew 7:12)

. Sikhism – I am a stranger to no one; & no one is a stranger to me. Indeed, I am a friend to all (Guru Granth Sahib)

. Baha’i Faith – lay not on any soul a load that you would not wish to be laid upon you, & desire not for anyone the things you would not desire for yourself (Baha’u’liah, Gleanings)

. Jainism – one should treat all creatures in the world as one would like to be treated (Mahavira, Sutravitanga)

. Unitarianism – we affirm & promote respect for the interdependence of all existence of which we are apart

. Zoroastrianism – do not unto others what is injurious to yourself (Shayast-na-Shayast 13.29)”

If this list does not get the message across then go back to my ‘past thoughts’ two weeks ago & read the quote from the 12 year old Suzuki girl to the ’92 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.

Namaste, David

OCT 12 – SPIRIT

The word ‘spirit’ has popped up quite often recently & has me concentrating on what it actually means & whether it is part of our very being. You will notice the word used in this following quote in regards to nature:

“All you need to do is see young children exploring a garden or a riverbank to know that we are hardwired to enjoy & revere nature, but, in modern times, that instinct tends to get buried the older we get. That’s probably what Mahatma Gandhi had in mind when he observed ‘to forget how to dig the earth & the soil is to forget ourselves’. That’s the spirit we have to reawaken if we want & expect that people will vote with their money, their voices, & their ballots to preserve the natural world.”

A webpage that I discovered this week, www.greenspirit.com, refers to its name ‘greenspirit’, as a concept that combines environmentalism with both a deep appreciation of nature and an enthusiasm for the challenge. "Spirit" as in spiritual and "spirit" as in team spirit.

Once again spirit is referred to here in relationship to nature, spiritual. Patrick Moore goes on to refer to spirit as something that moves amongst a team. This spirit joins the team together in a unified effort.

Often times I hear the word ‘spiritual’ used in a religious connotation, as in ‘where two or three are gathered together in my name, I will be there’. Who is I?

(As a side note, many people ask us if our name ‘greenangels’ has to do with the environment, & the answer is no, we took the name from the Angeles Verdes organization in Mexico)

Much of what I have read & heard about the First Nations or Indian peoples is that they found spirit in nature, trees, fish, & other wildlife.

So where is, what is, or Who is this spirit or spiritual Being?

Does it take a team, or two or three gathered together, to bring this spirit into being?

Does this spirit reside only in nature or might we be carrying the seed also?

What sparks the seed to life?

What makes this spirit flicker?

Can we glow like a lamp on a table or a beacon on a hilltop?

Is the spirit enlivened when we get beyond our individuality, our ego, & develop concern for others ahead of our concern for self?

Is spirit imagination, the one faculty that distinguishes us as human beings?

Where do we get the ability to imagine?

When is imagination squashed?

When is spirit, in our lives, finally put away as unrealistic?

Man can imagine anything & it has been suggested thereby that anything is possible, ‘if ye have the faith of a mustard seed, ye will be able to move mountains’.

“It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, & they are life”, so spoke Jesus. He went on to say “even the spirit of truth; ……..dwelleth he with you & shall be in you”.

Why does Jesus refer to the spirit of truth as ‘he’?

So spirit runs through nature, it shows up when two or three are gathered together, & apparently it has a personal nature of some sort.

Now if that isn’t confusing, then let your own imagination wander!

I’m beginning to see why people say “in spirit we are one & one with nature”.

It appears to me that moving towards this ‘one’ is the way to harmony amongst us & with nature.

It also seems to me that this is the way to internal harmony. Could this medicine, this ‘oneness’, be the way to bring harmony into all our relationships, including those with nature?

There is a seed here, I just know it!

I’m going to water, cultivate, & continue to hoe around this seed until I get the resulting plant to grow.

Bear with me; it’s called ‘growing’ up.

Talking about growing up, when does one get past the wonder of nature & switch to domination of nature?

Somewhere along the line we go from imagining, to accepting, & then forgetting.

Is age a state of mind?

Does our spirit have to age with our body?

Are we weary because we are getting old or are we getting old because we are weary?

Why does it animate us to ‘see’ through the eyes of a newborn when the world could look the same through our own?

Seeing a world of possibilities is not the exclusive realm of the young.

Try mentoring!

Life is as we ‘see’ it.

Manifestation is the fruit of imagination.

Let’s grow, David

SEPT 28/08 - A $1,000,000,000,000 BAILOUT

Count them, that is 12 zero’s. Some folks are estimating the U.S. Federal bailout, of the financial institutions, may approach $1 trillion. Yes, that is with a ‘T’.

In addition, the war in Iraq is approaching $1 trillion & the U.S. owes China close to $1 trillion. As someone once said “a trillion here, a trillion there, it is beginning to add up to real money”.

Yesterday, I passed four young boys in our neighborhood, ages between 7 & 9. They were waving ‘lemonade for sale’ signs. I stopped & asked the price. One boy answered “25 cents” & then asked “if I wanted small, medium, or large?” I noticed the boys only had one size plastic cup. I asked for a small. One boy started filling the cup 2/3rd’s full & another boy said “that is a large”. I was then given a full cup of lemonade. The third boy asked me for my 25 cents.

I said “that must be 25 cents each?” & handed over 4 quarters, at which another boy said “well, ok”, appearing somewhat put out.

I drove away thinking the math & inherent understanding of the value of money on Wall Street & in Washington is not all that different from the thinking these youngsters were using.

Arriving at the local café, one of my island neighbors suggested that the thinking in the power centers is ‘suspended judgment’, created by greed.

Just think what any one of those three trillions, mentioned in the 2nd paragraph above, could do in the world to solve issues like poverty.

It is definitely going to take different judgment, than what got us into this debacle, to get us out.

When it comes to mammon, man’s thinking gets fuzzy, much like the four young neighborhood entrepreneurs.

Greed is, what can I get out of this, with no thought of the consequences to others.

As I drank my lemonade, I wondered if the boys had thought about the environmental impact of their plastic cups & whether they had received any regulatory oversight from Mom, in the quality of the product.

Chances are the boys had as much concern about the environment & as much regulatory oversight as Wall Street had in getting us onto this financial precipice.

Could there be a new paradigm in our thought process going forward?

Might this crisis wake us up to the reality of what we are doing?

Making money for the sake of making money is not mentally or physically healthy either to us or to our planet.

Living in a material world does not bring happiness, rather a loss of self.

Reversing course & folding back into our real identity, our soul, wakes us up from our material dream world.

A trillion here & a trillion there is of no value if one loses ones soul.

What does that mean ‘losing ones soul’?

Losing who we really are, our essence, the light that lights our life.

We are not our body, what we wear, that which we own, or think we own.

Sometimes out self esteem convinces us we are only a small light in this physical world but at least we might recognize we are light.

Yes, we are light & love.

How often do we show that side of our real self?

In the end, a trillion $ here or a trillion $ there will be of no importance, it is what we leave behind, in the minds & hearts of our fellow beings.

At times it appears impossible to change the way things are managed but landslide votes come from we the people.

Change starts in our heart & then we make up our mind, a singleness of ‘purpose’.

What is the purpose of your life?

As Paul Newman said when being interviewed by Heather Mills “I have been so lucky, starting with that avalanche of semen out there”.

Why did you come to this planet or why were you sent?

Was it just a lucky break & now a matter of riding it out to the physical end?

Can any one of us make a significant difference? That is always the way it has been, some ‘one’ making up their mind to make a difference.

When you make up your mind it is amazing what you can materialize & manifest.

The question is which emotion from the heart drives the mind? Are we driven by love or greed?

Our spirit arises from within.

Do we operate from a spirit of love or a spirit of indifference?

Does a spirit of love only pertain to our close family & friends?

There is so much to learn about our inner being. When we take our concentration off existence, our material well being, we find spiritual clarity is possible.

With a world full of noise & conflict, it is often hard to find that quiet place within ourselves where the still small voice can be heard.

Ye can’t serve both Mammon & your Self.

Which do ye choose? David

SEPT 21 - ONE RIVER, MANY WELLS

The title for today’s thought comes from a book I read by Matthew Fox, a common wisdom that springs from our diverse global religious faiths.

Matthew’s thesis is that underlying all religions is a common river, which surfaces through different interpretations.

I would like to take this concept one step further & suggest that underlying each & every one of us, when you wipe away gender, color, or nationality, is that same underlying spiritual river.

Isn’t ‘life’ given as a gift to each & every one of us? How we take our Source energy & interpret what goes on around us, is where the individual ‘I’ gets into the picture.

Most of us want to believe we are unique. We ‘see’ the world through our perspective.

It is often difficult to ‘see’ the world from the other person’s point of view. Conflict arises from those differences & other people get hurt. Yesterday 53 people were killed in a car bombing in Islamabad, why?

Someone decided to make a point. That point came from their point of view. Many innocent people got caught in the crossfire, they always do.

Generally, warring parties call those innocent women & children, collateral damage. Packaging the atrocities this way allows for acceptable home consumption.

The current contenders for U.S. President are arguing over whether the Iraq surge was successful or not. Isn’t the question, why are we there in the first place & why are our young dying along with the innocent Iraqi women & children?

It appears to me that we are there because there is a lot of cheap oil there. So the national interest comes down to protecting our right to waste the earth’s resources, not have oil rigs blocking our views off either of our North American coasts, & have cheap prices at the pump.

What is wrong with this picture?

Us!

Whichever candidate promises to keep us over there long enough to protect our standard of living, beyond our actuarial lifetime, & is willing to impose our democratic & religious viewpoints on them, may just be the fellow we put in power.

We did that the last time, in the name of fear.

Might it be more sensible to find out what we have in common with the rest of the world rather than concentrating on our differences? Weapons breed more weapons.

Bombing them into submission has never worked. We can’t kill life. Life will keep popping up, with or without us. Check out nature for the truth in this statement.

It isn’t just a matter of finding alternative sources of energy, which I agree makes sense. It is a matter of finding out how to help one another through discovering our common heritage.

The One River!

What makes us human?

Ahhh, now there is an interesting question.

I don’t know of any hero’s we put on a pedestal for their kill ratio, Stalin, Hitler, or Clinton playing bystander to the Rwandan genocide. We generally revere people like Mahatma Gandhi, Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela, & Martin Luther King.

What do they have in common?

They worked for peace; they worked for the poor & downtrodden.

Where did their Spirit come from?

I believe it came from the One River, the thing they had in common.

It has been prophesied that the poor will inherit the earth. Is that madness or logical?

Since the powerful are on course for blowing up the world with weapons of mass destruction or through environmental degradation, it appears that approach won’t leave much to be inherited. This seems to me like the short term 90 day profit mentality of Wall St.

Guess what this week revealed in the financial sector, a possible global financial meltdown. Credit taken to extreme lengths has threatened to take the financial system down worldwide.

First, corporate greed brought us Sarbanes-Oxley, an effort to legislate integrity. Next, no doc, stated income, lending, an invitation to lie, brought us the subprime catastrophe. Financial engineering & greed, this lack of moral fiber, brought our financial system to the brink.

Many people & institutions made huge profits out of this catastrophe & now the public is asked to bail it out. That sounds a little bit like the collateral damage in our overseas conflicts; let the public pay for our international policies, their public in this case.

Do the weak & poor always get to carry the burden? Are the rich & powerful, just that, on the backs of the weak & poor?

Are we not all born from the same river?

Are we not all fountains of creativity waiting to be turned on?

Are we not all wells that can provide water for those that thirst?

We have water ye know not of!

We have wisdom inherent from the ages. Our brain is under utilized but our hearts are withering also. We can have a full heart, if we let go & get involved.

Let’s carry water for those that are too weak. Let’s share the load & the wealth we have fortunately received from being born into the right place.

When we gain humility, we will have many more friends locally & worldwide. This world could be a safer place if our approach to the Middle East was to give as well as take.

As a matter of fact why not take that approach daily with all our neighbors, at home & internationally?

Recognizing the underground river that connects us all & connects us with nature could help us to round out our own happiness & existence.

Love flows through our veins. It is up to us to let it out.

The world can be our family.

Well? David

SEPT 14/08 - CLARITY, TRUTH, & SATYAGRAHA

Satyagraha: literally meaning holding on to truth.

How do we get clarity in our own life, how do we know what is truth for us?

How do we pin down the purpose for which we were sent? When is the time to act, the time to act in our own best interest, not always thinking of the reaction of others, or the effect on others?

What is truth? Is our truth our own beacon? Is the path one which is unique to our self?

I’ve always thought if you ask the right questions, the answers should be self evident. The answers can rise to the top from underlying ethical questions. The answers come out of the ether if we are willing to be silent & listen.

Our heart holds the answers we require. Trusting the heart leads to solid foundations.

Clarity for our own lives is often difficult to hear with the confusing background noises of everyday living.

Friends, family, co-workers, television commentators, politicians, & numerous other well meaning folks can cloud our head, ears, & thinking to the point of feeling very lost.

How do we find our path? How do we walk the yellow brick road?

Anxiety & fear step in for their daily feeding & we water their thirst without understanding the seed we are planting.

Offers come from all directions & sorting out those that are well intentioned from those that are manipulation makes a further trap for the soft heart.

When might turning our back be the right response? When might firmness & following through on difficult decisions be in order?

Following the heart is the path of righteousness.

Redemption lies within.

Heaven is here on earth, we need walk compassionately to experience it.

Life can be full of color, happiness, & peace. It’s our perspective that defines the clarity.

Truth for one is not truth for all.

For others, let it be.

Don’t carry the weight of the world around, let the load go.

We can only do what we can do & freedom lies within the acceptance of that fact.

Pushing one’s limitations & self imposed boundaries can be scary as well as exhilarating.

Push!

Failure is not a verdict it is a learning experience.

Happiness is a state of being; we have wrapped ourselves in a lifestyle of having.

Read ‘The Earth Charter’ once or twice.

There appears to be a spiritual awakening afoot.

We are starting to recognize what we have done to nature, to the indigenous peoples, & to ourselves.

We have given up our lives for what?

When we find our selves, we will know the answer.

We are co-creators; we are sons & daughters of the Source of all.

We bring into this world, our legacy. We continue our life through love.

Life & love are eternal spiritual aspects while physicality disintegrates.

Where might our concentration lie?

Giving is really all we have, getting is an outmoded concept.

Life can be quite simple. Clarity is often blurred by analysis.

What might one take away from these thoughts?

Act & act now!

David

SEPT 7/08 - FOR LOVE OR MONEY

For love or money, now that is the question?

It is stated differently in the Book of Wisdom ‘ye can’t serve God & mammon’. The word Mammon refers to money, do you suppose the word God refers to love?

“Man is a money-making animal, which propensity, too often interferes with his benevolence”, Herman Melville, 1851

Herman Melville is hitting a similar point, the underlying part of our nature that changes when money enters the picture.

When do we decide to do something for love rather than money?

“We must realize that when basic needs have been met, human development is primarily about being more, not having more”, ‘The Earth Charter In Action – Toward A Sustainable World’

Our impact on the environment is one of neglect as we have pursued our requirement for more. We have gone far beyond basic needs, as Maslow defines them, & continue to ‘want’ more

. As the Earth Charter states above, ‘human development is about being more, not having more’. Which can we take with us?

When it comes to our family & friends, we will do things out of love & compassion. Could that feeling extend to our brothers & sisters of other races & nations?

Why do we become dispassionate at some point where other nations or the environment are concerned?

Whose money is spent on armed conflict, our taxes, wouldn’t it make sense to share that money first?

If governance is an issue, in developing countries, would not education help?

Around April of each year North Americans go through the exercise of tax reporting & payment.

How is that money spent? Who spends it? Aren’t we the employer of those that do? Do we care what they do with it or what impact it might have?

Does their taking our money & spending it on further endangering the lives of our children through military actions & not focusing on issues that could ultimately tilt the ecological balance of our home, this planet, make any difference to us?

Do we stop to question where we shop & who we give our patronage with our money & what impact if any they are having on the two issues raised above?

Does it matter to us that global corporations are operating on the bottom line only concept? Do we realize that legally they may have to & cannot legally take into account social or environmental costs?

Who sets the rules they have to play by? I say play because isn’t it really one big global monopoly game?

Which raises the question of who is going to win? We invest our dollars where we can get the best returns or others invest our pension funds that way. The corporations involved race to compete in the marketplace keeping costs down & profits up supported by our investment dollars.

These corporations vie for our investment dollars, do we hold them to any standards? Do we even know how they operate when they are overseas?

Is their taking advantage of our fellow humans, to bring us the lowest cost ‘things’ or bring us the highest dividends on our invested dollars, of any concern to us?

They would have us believe that whatever is done overseas including military action to protect their actions, such as drilling for oil, is for the betterment of that society. As a matter of fact we will bring them our governmental system & they will live a much freer life.

When we are captive to money & things & they don’t want to be, how is our system freeing them up?

I am reading ‘The Bottom Billion – Why the Poorest Countries Are Failing & What Can Be Done About It’. They definitely are below their basic needs. Why don’t we concentrate on bringing them above starvation level before pushing for more things here at home?

From a monetary standpoint, keeping these folks at poverty level keeps costs down & profits up for our major corporations. This increases the dividends on our invested dollars. Isn’t this our system & is there really anything wrong with it?

We have to make choices, for love or money? Is there a balance? Ina & I have been exploring the concept ‘Making a difference while making a dollar’ for a number of years now. It has been very difficult for people to understand that formula & I must say it has been very difficult for us to achieve the balance suggested.

Is there a balance or is it one or the other? Our world issues would suggest the ‘one or other’ approach will have a very unhappy ending. The prophesied ‘end times’, an apocalyptic finale, is looked forward to by many of the Christian faith, which may not be much different from the Islamic approach of suicide bombing to get there sooner.

My question is ‘where are we going’?

Why rush to nirvana when here is where it was meant to be?

We just need to open our eyes.

We can accomplish anything we set our minds to.

Let’s use them!

It’s our money & our money can follow our hearts, not replace them.

Let’s send love with our dough or let’s not give them our dough. They ‘knead’ it so they will listen.

Let’s make our voices heard. Together we are GNP. Together we can make a difference. It starts with each of us. Express your concerns with your purchases. Believe me they will get the message.

Who is ‘they’? Ultimately, they are us. We just need to recognize the enemy & the enemy is us.

This is a message of hope.

If we can ‘see’ the possibilities, manifestation won’t be far behind.

Is it love of money that blinds us? Certainly the ‘love of money’ has been suggested as the root of all evil.

Do we turn a blind eye when money enters the picture?

Are we willing to do anything in the name of profit, are we willing to let others of our society do so in the name of freedom?

These are basic questions that anyone of us can answer & impact with our daily purchases & votes.

We have a chance to change the global picture. The baby-boomers are a massive buying bulge moving through the pipe of life, let’s not burst the pipe. Let’s take our massive purchasing power & make a difference!

So, love or money, how about love through money?

Could we actually show love with our money?

Why not? Christians celebrate Christmas, can’t we turn that concept into a daily affair?

Think of the amount of money spent on gifts at Christmas, might that number multiplied through our taxes & investment dollars, remove worldwide insecurity?

Are these questions too tough for us to contemplate, our children will have to?

Love is not the only answer; money infused with the power of love can solve insurmountable issues.

Let’s not continue the question, love or money, let’s find the balance.

The seed is love; the plant is the fruit thereof.

Let love loose, David

AUG 31/08 - LEGITIMATED AVARICE

This week brought us the U.S. Democratic Stadium Show with Barack Obama & the Clintons. Much discussion popped up about George W’s ‘War on Terror’. It appeared that most of the folks on the show thought he had gone to the wrong country, Iraq, rather than questioning the whole idea of a war or the root causes.

“War is the rich man’s terror while terror is the poor man’s war”, Sir Peter Ustinov

Has Peter Ustinov got a point & does Mike Nickerson put it more appropriately below?

“Has the Global Monopoly Game reached the point where endless war is necessary to hold loser’s at bay while bloated economic systems suck up resources everywhere & turn them into waste?”, ‘Life, Money, & Illusion - Living on Earth as if we want to stay’, Mike Nickerson.

Does Mike’s comment above make us stop & ask ‘what are we doing’ or do we support a new U.S. administration with a gun toting female vice-president that we back to quit shooting moose in Alaska & start turning heavy artillery against our fellow beings.

Searching for the ‘root’ causes of this malaise that will affect my kids & grandkids, I read the following quote from the Earth Charter.

“If it is true that ‘legitimated avarice’ is the driving force of global capitalism, then any serious attempt to obligate the powerful will increase the existing trend towards what Hammond has described as a ‘fortress world’ ”, Aberlardo Brenes, Costa Rica, ‘The Earth Charter in Action’.

Re-read that last quote from Aberlardo a couple of times until it sinks in & helps us question what we are doing & where we are going.

As a Canadian, I could take the position that U.S. politics have nothing to do with me, but let alone the fact that my grandkids are U.S. citizens, what the U.S. decides to do has direct impact on me. Try flying to Las Vegas sometime & if you don’t think a fortress world is in affect you will after the trip.

Years ago, as we crossed that same border the smiles connoted welcome, today the guard dogs & suspicious looks make one ‘feel’ as though we are entering Stalag 13.

The income disparity between the rich & the poor is ever widening, but who are the rich, as John McCain was asked? John jokingly thought the break point might be about $5mil of income per year. He also couldn’t remember whether the number of houses he & his wife owned was seven or not. As the Governor of Arizona said, she had one & she knew where it was.

The point I am making here is who are the rich? They are we!

Often we compare our well being with those within our own society, the rich & famous. The majority of the world sees us as the rich & famous, and depending on their leaders maybe the devil incarnate.

The rest of the world sees us as the country that comes to take their resources & labor, as cheaply as possible, & then waste them in a truly unsustainable way.

Many of those countries are taking things into their own hands by deciding to go play the same game. The quotes above suggest that is a Global Monopoly Game that ultimately leads to one winner. With nuclear weapons available the end result is no one wins.

Hasn’t this outcome been prophesied? Might we want to wake up?

What we are doing to the environment & our fellow human beings can’t stand up to the light of reason.

If capitalism & competition, ‘legitimated avarice’, are at the root of these issues, isn’t it about time we took a close look at our approach?

Is this not a case of the heart? Our heart!

What is avarice & are we all falling for its siren song?

Do we all have a big automobile in the driveway? Do we all have cheap foreign made adult toys all over the house? Do we all live in a fairly nice house & is it bigger than we need?

The Global Game is not going to end until the players walk away from the table. That’s us folks!

It is a mindset. We were taught to want & compete. We now think these advantages that we have are our inalienable right. We wrap them up in national flags & back them up with powerful weapons.

What are we over there for & why? Do we really believe that Saddam was coming to town to get us or did we decide that he was going after our life blood, oil, in his neighbor’s sandbox, Saudi Arabia?

Hopefully none of us are naive enough to believe the rhetoric but we should well understand the answer every time we fill up at the gas pump.

If more guns & lives will help keep the gas prices down, well that’s not all bad. However, this darn global warming issue might get me in the end. How do I have it all & not lose the game?

Ahhhh, herein lies the dilemma!

We have got to get in touch with our heart.

In our heart the answers can be found.

In our heart is where the problems lie.

Sorting out our heart is this century’s quest.

The Earth Charter discusses love as an answer.

Now isn’t that an amazing truth.

Hasn’t that option been suggested before?

Why do we kill those we love & why don’t we love those we kill?

These aren’t just questions for the terrorists!

Which brings me to who are the terrorists?

Could it actually be us in sheep’s clothing?

This Labor Day weekend, let’s ponder those who labor in foreign countries to produce our standard of living.

Might we think about them in our quiet time today & tomorrow & possibly consider the idea of sharing our wealth with them?

Might this approach take some of the gas out of the terrorist’s tank?

So legitimated avarice or unconditional love?

Our choice! David

AUG 24/08 - IN SIGHT

This week someone told me that I had some interesting ‘in-sights’. What, I thought, does that actually mean?

C. G. Jung talks about his 2nd self, that which he saw behind everyone, in his book ‘Memories’.

It reminds me of the young Jewish fellow, Jesus, who seemed to ‘see’ something in each of us that we don’t necessarily see in ourselves.

What is insight & where does it come from?

As important, do we have confidence to trust our own insights?

Most of us ‘know’ things at times but we have a tendency to check it out with someone else before accepting it as truth for us.

This reaction, to check with others, may take our truth away from us. Is it possible to live a life trusting that Intelligence which arises out of our very own being?

Where does that Intelligence come from?

Each of us has a different perspective on life from anyone else. We look at things based on where we live, what our past experiences have been, & what education we have received including what religion we have accepted.

Given the myriad of perspectives in the world, as many as there are human beings on the planet, is there one ‘truth’ behind us all & can we tap into that truth?

In-sight or the third eye is something we should all be able to trust. How do we turn within & receive the lessons & solid judgment which lies there?

Our lives are often very active & busy, running from morning to night. Our minds are continuously thinking, mulling over the future & the past.

Slowing the mind & bringing it to the present, to rest & to listen, is something of real value.

Whether we believe we are talking to our self or to a higher Intelligence, does not really matter, the benefits are commensurate with the practice.

How do we slow down our world? Detaching from the material merry go round provides numerous benefits. Removing oneself from the politics of work, our local church, & our neighborhood, adds additional relief.

Flowing from logic to emotion, work to service, is an adjustment that pays dividends in our own life while helping out others.

Good will is a conscious act.

All of the above ideas are a movement within.

Our happiness & fulfillment depends on our own perceptions.

Might the physical world invade our privacy & create heartache, of course?

Are we led by the mind or the heart? What combination of those two positions, are the ultimate blend?

Love mixed with insight can provide answers to most of our questions.

Letting life flow has its benefits, knowing why aids peace.

Insight is the jewel buried in the field.

Owning the field is not enough. David

AUG 17/08 – ADDICTION & THE ULTIMATE COCKTAIL

We probably all know someone with an addiction problem, usually considered as such, if it involves alcohol, smoking, or drugs.

What would you think if I said that we all are addicted & that addiction has catastrophic ramifications globally?

‘A Path Out of the Desert’, Kenneth Pollack: “Nevertheless as Lord Palmerston once noted, nations have no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests. Thus though we should not neglect our friendships with the Arab States, we must look past them to our nation’s strategic interests. In that light, the principal strategic rationale for our alignment with the Arab States is really an extension of our strategic interest in Middle Eastern oil.”

Mr. Pollack puts the issue in straightforward terms. Our economy runs on oil & we want what we want, gas guzzling vehicles, so we have to protect our addiction to the stuff.

Pollack contends that terrorism arises from our willingness to subvert the wishes of the Arab people & their own development, to satisfy our own thirst for the stuff they have under their soil.

You might re-read Kenneth’s quote above & see that he says we must look past our ‘friendships’ with the Arab States to our own strategic interest, their oil. Therein, to me, lies the real issue.

We are so addicted to oil that we are willing to sacrifice their interests & friendship for our standard of living.

Apparently yes, what is wrong with us?

We know that alcohol can change an individual’s personality, resulting in aggressive behavior, which often harms family & friends. We have many criminals in our jails that acted under the influence of too many cocktails.

Just think of the ultimate cocktail, oil & nuclear, that could come together in the Middle East, in an uncontrollable way. We know that Muslims & Jews are not the best of friends. We know that Israel & Pakistan have the nuclear bomb. We know that Iran is doing what it can to get nuclear capabilities.

What are we doing coming into the middle of that explosive mixture with military hardware which could ignite a devastating holocaust? The fact this outcome, in that geographic area has been prophesied in the Book of Wisdom, does not make me feel any more comfortable. Whether it is Judaism, Christianity, or Islam, that predicts the outcome, it’s the outcome that makes me sick. Sounds like a hangover.

The point I’m making is that this is of our own making, yes you & me.

We are addicted & we don’t want to admit it. The solutions to addiction are generally useless until the addicted recognizes & admits the addiction.

President George Bush has stated publicly that we are addicted. Last night Obama & McCain were interviewed by Pastor Rick Warren & both suggested we need to have a vision greater than our own selfish interest.

I don’t know how many of you reading this actually take to heart our addiction to oil but the solution lies with each of us. Until we face up to what we do individually our national leaders will have to protect our supposed interests by sending our kids to war to protect our right to use up the earth’s resources & blow it into the planet’s atmosphere.

It is a shame that most of the oil sits below an explosive Islamic time bomb but maybe that is the Creator’s early warning system. Terrorist explosions & incremental environmental change, as bad as they are, could be a wakeup call for those of us that believe we can drive any vehicle we want & that when we pull up to the pump to assume the gas should be cheap.

Let’s recognize our addiction! Once we each own up to the problem, we can begin to find solutions, & it won’t take our leaders long to figure out which way the wind is blowing.

It is up to us, each of us!

Global businesses produce what we buy. Let’s quit ‘buying’ into the problem, gas guzzling vehicles & plastics being major contributors.

Here on Pender Island more & more people are taking their own reusable cloth bags to the grocery store & refusing plastic bags.

What about the energy that comes to our house, how is it generated & why not consider getting off the grid? My son, Troy, is here this weekend with Linda & the grandsons, Tyler & Matthew, & Troy asked if I was aware that I could put pipes deep into the earth below the house which would keep the house warm in the winter & cool in the summer. He tells me, that far below, the temperature stays constant & we can tap that for moderating house temperature in winter or summer.

I’ve heard of heat pumps & geothermal, maybe I should begin to understand their practical application. I have also heard many people speak of getting off the grid & selling power back to the system, is it a pipe dream (no pun intended) or might it be part of my future?

Why don’t I take the time to find out about it, our life might depend on it?

A small cocktail each day, usually has little affect, but when it comes to excessive guzzling of alcohol therein lies a problem.

The same goes for our nation, that in the last 30 years, went from modest oil consumption developed locally to massive imports sucked out of developing countries. The fact that we have moved from modest usage to gas guzzling proportions, has led to a serious addiction issue.

Our answer to our incessant guzzling is to ask Saudi Arabia to suck the oil out of their ground at 2.5 million barrels per day faster, to keep our local gas pump prices as low as possible. If they comply, we bring the explosion sooner. That is what happens when we enable an alcoholic.

As long as the Saudis are willing to cooperate with us on this strategy, even if it creates further political instability in their region of the world, then we can ‘feel’ comfortable overdosing on the stuff as far into the future as it will last.

Do we really care about any of this?

As Kenneth Pollack says we have to look past friendships to our real interest, their oil.

Do we care what environmental, legal, or social issues they have?

We’d better start caring. The cocktail we are currently stirring is globally potent.

The terrorists are trying to ignite the bomb we are producing for them.

We not only take military weapons into their territory but we then sell them to both sides. Are we mad?

Do we do this in the name of profits, GNP, or national security interests? Whatever the supposed reason, are we nuts?

Is my question too simplistic or irrelevant?

Is it easy to ignore in our busy day?

Terrorism, the environment, friendships, & the oil we burn in our cars, are all tied together.

It is not always comfortable to admit we have an addiction but in this case, I believe it is earth shattering to ignore it.

As a teenager I siphoned gas through a hose from a number of other vehicles & I know how bad it tastes when it gets into my system. It is now time for us to recognize how deleterious it can be when we allow it to run our economic system.

If we don’t make quiet time, except at the pump, let’s at least keep the price of gas high until we all decide to support a rationale alternative energy approach.

If oil greases the wheels of progress, let’s rethink the definition of progress.

Hope lies in education! Ours!

Friends before resources!

Love along with profits!

Why not? David

AUG 10/08 – LIFE

I just completed a book ‘The World Without Us’, Alan Weisman. This following quote left me feeling rather discouraged with our human actions: “In Hong Kong, shark fin soup commands up to $100 per bowl. After slicing off their pectoral & dorsal fins, finners throw mutilated sharks, still alive, back into the sea. Rudderless, they sink to the bottom & suffocate. In a year humans take 100 million sharks, while sharks attack maybe 15 people. This is not a fair fight.”

We know this activity takes place in the Sea of Cortes & our friends Mike & Sherry McGettigan, www.seawatch.org, are trying to stop it.

This next quote by Enric Sala gave me some hope: “I’m so amazed by the ability of life to hang onto anything. Given the opportunity it goes everywhere. A species as creative & arguably intelligent as our own should somehow find a way to achieve balance. Even if we don’t; if the planet can recover from the Permian, it can recover from the human.”

It is a shame in a way that the last quote pins its result on our demise.

What is it about us humans that allow us to treat life so carelessly or with such ignorance?

When might we wake up?

Is there a consciousness shift underway?

Are we beginning to take responsibility for our actions or lack thereof?

On Ina’s page she writes about my wood chopping on Pender. I get to see & hear life all around me. The deer walk right up close, eagles & hawks fly above or sit on old snags over the ocean, birds of all species sing & call, whales come by most evenings, the air is clean.

Life on this island is in abundance & serene. It is a great escape but based on news bulletins, progress & its results will arrive at some point.

My past life in resort real estate led me to a small fishing village in Baja, Cabo San Lucas, where we developed a resort, Ocho Cascadas. In 1987 Cabo was a true paradise. Today, the beautiful 20 miles of beaches have been covered with developments, including Costco, Home Depot, McDonalds, Dairy Queen & pesky Pizza Hut motor scooters.

Most of us that went for the beauty & serenity are saddened by the ‘progress’ & are now looking for that next little fishing village.

When we get there this time, will our materialistic instincts activate again?

Ina & I decided a number of years ago while in Todos Santos, a small fishing village north of Los Cabos, that we would try to balance our future development activities between ‘making a difference & making a dollar’.

We have pursued that thought for the last 8 years & have yet to bring the balance suggested in this quote to fruition.

What tips the scale?

Money!

We, as a society, serve money. Money runs our lives. Money affects us in many ways & we are more than willing to sacrifice lives for money & progress, sometimes couched as national security.

Nuclear weapons that can obliterate large portions of mankind are developed to protect our standard of living, often referred to as protecting our freedom.

When given our freedom, we go to extreme’s, threatening the very existence of life itself.

The Enric Sala quote above suggests that at least life will get over it, get over us & our actions.

Where do solutions to our quandary lie?

They lie within our own breast. It is a matter of the heart. Balance starts at home, balance starts within the breast of each of us, when we realize that sharing & caring improves our own health as well as this planet.

Obesity could be diminished considerably when we address poverty. Sharing the food available keeps it out of our mouths, eliminating the need for many diet plans, & filling the stomachs of children that would otherwise die tonight.

By sharing what we have, it might help to reduce the need for people to attack us, & thus reduce our military budget which protects us from them doing so.

This emotional answer to an intellectual dilemma is coming from an entrepreneurial capitalist.

What has happened?

Where did I get off the progress bus?

Moderation & balance has entered my life over time, as a result of many things, not the least of which is Ina, but the results of what we are doing has made me think of the future’s of our children & grandchildren. In other words, I have started to think of someone else besides myself.

Democracy is a solid idea; capitalism has some very nasty edges. One has to do with our political structure; the other is our economic well being. What we take to be a normal increase in our standard of living is often far beyond a sensible world & life balance.

Alcoholism, drug addiction, obesity, suicide, & financial worries, are symptoms of a life out of balance.

When these subjects become daily soap operas that are watched by millions, then it is a society out of balance.

Thank goodness that life can get over our loss but can we get over our loss of life?

Let’s find a way to live that respects the Creative force behind all life.

Let’s live with It, we won’t live without It.

Love is where the answer lies.

Love lies within our chest.

Heartfelt, David

AUG 3/08 - IF NOT NOW, WHEN?

The above question was on a highway billboard that I passed on the way to Las Vegas last week.

As I read it, it made me think that whoever had spent the money to put it up, was not only taking a different perspective on life but had found the thought valuable enough to share it with the rest of us driving on I-5.

As I drove towards the sign my mind was racing ahead to what awaited me in Vegas & thoughts of what had been going on recently in my life.

The sign seemed to say forget both those future & past events. It seemed to be saying if you are not going to live in the now, what other time is there?

It was then that I saw the picture of the Porsche on the billboard. I realized it was that same old materialistic message that runs our economy. It was actually a message sent by the product purveyor to suggest that we can’t take it with us so go out & splurge.

What is it about a Porsche that the advertiser thinks fits our lifestyle or a lifestyle we might aspire to? What is our lifestyle?

Do we ever live in the now, was my next thought, & do I need a Porsche to help me do so? Getting financially over one’s limit does not help us to live in the now, it leads to worry about the future. Witness all the home owners that bought into the sub-prime picture.

When are we satisfied with what we have now?

When are we ever not worrying about something or someone?

To become immersed in the now takes an internal transformation from getting to accepting.

It takes a move from the material to the spiritual world, that world contained within each of us.

We are made up of that which makes up the Universe. Our ‘I’ is the ‘I’ within all others & ‘seeing’ that reality is a transformation in & of itself.

How do we ‘see’ ourselves in others? Do we ever stop long enough to know who ‘we’ really are?

Now is a good time to stop & smell the roses. Now is a good time to begin a transformation, to create a new world.

What we ‘see’ is often a shift not a process. One day we look at something or someone differently. If we are living in the past or the future we can’t always ‘see’ the person we thought we knew. That person could be our self.

We are capable of great things, living in harmony, much more.

Today is Trinci Day, our community, Trincomali, on Pender Island. What new revelations might this day hold? None, if I’m not present.

Living this day to its fullest will open up whatever doors it has to offer. Living in another world while this day passes, means missing life.

This life is not a rerun; it is an ever unfolding drama. We witness the events by living them. To live life to its fullest & slow it down at the same time is to live now.

Aren’t there things we should be worrying about? Shouldn’t I be practical? Isn’t reality full of issues?

We saw the Rolling Stones Documentary ‘Shine A Light’ at the Community Hall last night & Keith Richards was asked “what do you think about when you are on stage in front of 100,000 people?”

His answer was “I don’t think I just live in the moment, I just be” (para)

I thought his other answer was entertaining & possibly enlightening, when asked “what do you do before you get on stage in front of 100,000 people?” He said “I wake up”.

Being rather than doing is a state we often don’t achieve. There is always something that has to be done. In Ina’s Heart-dates this week, she reflects on my propensity to chop wood & carry water. Chopping gives me a chance to just be, to merge into nature, & to be of ‘service’ at the same time. The physical benefits should be obvious, the spiritual ones not so.

Chopping wood certainly makes one focus on the moment. If not, the result could be painful. My mind clears out & calms down for 2-3 hours while my body sheds tension & weight.

Being focused on the now slows the world down. Aging slows down. What is there about this practice that doesn’t make sense? To give is to receive.

My axe is paid for, the water is free, my strength is a God given attribute, & my service is appreciated by everyone.

If not now, when?

David

JULY 27/08 - WHEN DO YOU GIVE UP ON SOMEONE YOU LOVE?

Never!

Never, is the answer, provided our love is unconditional.

Getting past our viewpoint, that says ‘if things or people would just change a bit then everything would be perfect’, is the first step to acceptance or unconditional love.

Who might we love that could cause us some degree of consternation? Our spouse, a good friend, or our children qualify.

Do other people further afield qualify as someone we love or might they just be annoyances pure & simple?

John Templeton, of Templeton Mutual Fund fame, died this week, 1912-2008. He was one of the most successful financial people of this century & believed love was the basis of reality. It may be worth checking www.unlimitedloveinstitute.org an organization he supported financially.

Do our children ever change? Do we finally say we have had enough & we are no longer there for them?

Does our spouse ever change or do we finally give up & move on?

These questions are tough enough but when it comes to those further afield, is it not easier to turn a blind eye to their plight?

Is there someone who cares as much about those folks as we do about our siblings?

A billboard I passed this week asked “who is your creator”. Does this Creator, love all of It’s siblings like we do ours?

Is that the Source of unconditional love?

Is this a spiritual energy that we can tap into any time we want?

It was stated in history that this Source of unconditional love sent His son to tell the world the good news. It seems odd that it was a He, not a She or an It, that did the sending. Mankind, of course, I say ‘man’ kind as I don’t believe many women were involved, immediately decided to kill this son & we have continued killing in his name ever since.

Is there something wrong with this picture?

Let’s change it!

Let’s make an effort to change things to the unconditional love we feel for our grandchildren that have not yet gotten to an age where we might be applying conditional love.

We mold our kids & then as they begin to move out & flex their own muscles we begin to apply conditions if they want our support. We do this in all our relationships & find dissension a daily partner.

This trap is of our own making. We have planted our flag in the sand & we want ‘loved’ ones to ‘see’ things our way. But, is that true love?

Isn’t love allowing the flower to blossom into its own beauty?

In these days of genetically modified plants, even that may be changing.

When do we quit meddling in nature’s & other people’s affairs?

That last question can be answered when we accept things & people for what & who they are.

That is a tall order because when things don’t align with the way we ‘see’ them or how we ‘think’ they should be then we get uncomfortable & find we have to impose our God given wisdom.

So when do we give up on someone we love? When does the Source of all life give up? It doesn’t, It’s eternal!

Could our love come without strings attached?

‘Life is short we don’t have time for fussing & fighting my friends’, The Beatles.

Let it be, David

JULY 20/08 - Blood is Thicker Than Water

“It is often said that we do not so much inherit our world from our forbears, but rather we borrow it from our children. It is increasingly urgent that we act to prevent our debt from growing out of control.” ‘What Goes Up: The Global Assault On Our Atmosphere”, John J Nance

Yesterday, Al Gore put forward a challenge that we move to a sustainable energy society, completely eliminating oil.

The CNN pundits immediately went on the attack.

It’s often good to look at both sides of an issue but at times that can freeze us into inertia.

Wouldn’t Al’s challenge make sense for our children anyway?

It takes a grand vision to rally people & money. Al has put out a vision that could energize (pun intended) our creative DNA.

Our souls long to reconnect with a healthy earth. Our minds just need follow our emotions.

We vacillate between logic & emotion, between faith & fear. Our lives can be as completely different as a new thought. Al Gore has presented a new thought. We can accept or reject the idea.

When we put others ahead of our own supposed needs, the universe comes to our aid. When it comes to our own children it is often easier to give. We allow emotions to run more freely when it is someone close to home, ‘blood is thicker than water’.

When difficulties affect our direct descendants it cuts to the quick but when problems are at a distance we tend to let them run off our conscience like ‘water off a duck’s back’.

Why do we see our microcosmic portion of the world as different from the whole? Isn’t the fern part of the forest?

When we cut down the trees in the Amazon, doesn’t that affect the air we breathe? Doesn’t the interconnectedness of nature apply to our human community?

The idea of asking these questions is to bring them into consciousness so that we have a chance to ‘see’ our world in a different light.

The first thought might be to dismiss them as meaningless or impossible to achieve but like Al Gore I suggest that we are capable of anything that we set our mind to.

Are our children worth the effort? Do our grandchildren deserve being passed a world with a chance of survival? Does it really matter whether we help arrive at the answer to that last question?

Don’t others take care of these seemingly impossible questions? Won’t Al Gore or some politician take care of things for us?

I was watching a documentary on the sixties this week & the commentators referred to the changing music, as the ‘60’s ended, as an indication that the revolution wasn’t going to happen.

They mentioned that ‘peace & flower power’ was just a dream & everyone was finally getting over it. Have we the baby-boomers actually sold out or given up? We surged forward questioning the status quo in the sixties & then cruised through the balance of the next 3 decades. We now have a chance to spark those prior flames into action during a period where we are in control, instead of our forbears.

We could blame things on the adults before but now we are they.

What to believe, who to listen to!

Putting money aside what makes sense? There is more than enough money available, look at the trillion dollars devoted to saving two institutions this week, Freddie Mac & Fannie Mae.

Money is only a medium of exchange, our environment should not be sacrificed for its attainment. Net profits have never assumed the costs to our environment or the social costs. You might want to pick up ‘Natural Capital’, Paul Hawken.

Why would we create a system, capitalism, where money is the sole objective? Our educational system fosters the economic system that we live within & making a buck becomes the winning formula.

The balance between people, environment, & economics, has skewed badly towards economics. Self interest sacrifices personal values. The market economy is based on the self interest concept. When values are taken out of the equation, when ‘anything goes’ in the name of business, the worst comes out in our human behavior.

Wealth tends to consolidate with a privileged few & the question arises, what is wealth?

These thoughts are meant to be global in nature but as close to home as your new grandchild.

The seed produces the flower & the crop produces our sustenance. Let’s not let the clouds of competition & greed sully the path our next of kin will walk when they are ready to stand on their own two feet.

Love may be an emotion but it is more powerful than logic.

Love can move mountains. Let’s let love loose.

David

JULY 13/08 - WHAT’S UP, DOC?

Do we really know what is being done to our planet, our heavens above, & our fellow human beings, in the name of an increased standard of living?

‘White Tribe Dreaming: Apartheid’s Bitter Roots’, Marq de Villiers: “Unrest is bad for the bottom line: businessmen supported apartheid until it began to damage the economy.”

‘What Goes Up: The Global Assault On Our Atmosphere’, John Nance: “Should any scientific matter involving environmental harm of significant magnitude be decided by reference to the economics & profits involved?”

‘Nuclear Peace: The Story of The Trident Three’, John Mayer: “In all the rhetoric(on the threat of nuclear war) it has been largely forgotten that the type of nuclear bombs deployed by the US, France, & the UK, are the type that can vaporize hundreds of thousands of people in seconds while leaving the environment uninhabitable for 30,000 years.”

The social issues of apartheid seem to have been overcome. The banning of Chlorofluorocarbons (CFC’s) seems to have helped the atmosphere, but the ozone layer protecting our planet is not safe yet.

‘Nuclear Peace’ is about three grey haired ladies that dismantled a Trident Nuclear Station in Scotland on the theory that it was illegal under international law. Their point was & is, that any weapon that would automatically kill hundreds of thousands of innocent bystanders, had to be illegal to own as a threat to the rest of the world.

Which nations have these types of weapons? Read the quote above again. We have met the enemy & it is us.

What are we trying to protect? What did apartheid try to protect? What were the chemical companies trying to protect while fighting scientists who ‘knew’ the damage being done to the earth’s protective layer from CFC’s? If your answer was profits, you are right.

Do we have any idea what’s going on up there? Do we care?

What’s happening in the environment above us will take 50 – 100 years to reverse if we stopped tomorrow. It is also possible that we could ignite a chain reaction that would be irreversible. Do we owe it to our grandchildren to understand what we are doing?

Do we stop to find out or do we go shopping?

In addition to asking what’s going on up there in space, we might want to ask what is going on down there in the ocean depth’s & I don’t just mean nuclear missiles floating around. As we wipe out untold species of sea life, the food supply is endangered for future generations.

We are now capable of knocking our planet out of balance in a number of different ways. Do we personally realize the threats to our grandchildren?

Is it prudent to just assume that someone else is taking care of these issues while we maintain our daily regimen?

Why bother to understand this bigger picture? Why not let it take its obvious course?

Three little grey haired ladies took the risk of years in jail to bring this threat to our attention. Be sure & pick up a copy of their book, its very readable, & google Trident Ploughshares 2000.

Why do ordinary people, such as these three ladies, go to such extraordinary efforts? What motivates one of us to look out for all of us? Is that not love?

What is love in action?

The authorities took these three women to court under the assumption they were criminals. How could a court of law turn love into a crime?

Were these three ordinary ladies exonerated?

Are the courts & the missiles designed to protect our standard of living & do they miss the ultimate point of life itself?

Might it be beneficial to ‘see’ things in a different light now that we have the capability to wipe out the environment for 30,000 years or more?

What about Star Wars, the new space missile defense system? Does it make sense to proliferate the heavens with weapons of mass destruction like the ones floating under our oceans? Once these weapons are everywhere, how do we stop an accident that could end civilization as we know it?

Could this happen?

We’ve let it get this far.

Al Gore & the three grey haired ladies are not taking this sitting down. They both have done something to wake us up. Will we respond?

That last question depends upon each of us. It depends on how compassionate we become about the way the world we live in is being treated by those in power. Each of us can do a small piece; together we can do anything.

When our grandkids ask ‘what’s up, Doc, we will have an answer.

Let’s not wait for God, let’s give her/him a helping hand.

Love, David

JULY 6/08 - THE SUMMER OF LOVE

Woodstock, Nixon, Vietnam, Kent State, Beatles, Dylan, do these names ring a bell? I have just read ‘Rolling Stone Magazine: The Uncensored History’, Robert Draper, & he refers quite often to the ‘Summer of Love’.

The ‘60’s definitely were a time of cultural upheaval & war. What was different to this our 2008 summer, with the Iraq conflict, climate change, & a possible African American U.S. President?

I have just started a book ‘White Tribe Dreaming: Apartheid’s Bitter Roots’, Marq de Villiers. It seems we have come a long way from the Dutch Afrikaner takeover of South Africa & Apartheid, to a possible African American President of the World’s most powerful nation.

In his book, de Villiers quotes the following: “Commerce, as it usually does, proved a force superior to conscience.” This comment was referring to Commerce in the ‘1600’s.

The ‘80’s were considered a decade of greed, that’s the 1980’s, & it refers to the way business was being done without any thought to conscience or integrity. Enron & Worldcom, amongst others, has been the result.

Ina is studying accounting at the moment & has discovered where the term ‘cooking the books’ came from, the accounting methods used to create pictures that may not reflect reality. The governments answer, SOX, Sarbanes Oxley, an effort to legislate integrity.

What is the matter with us? When it comes to commerce & taxes, morals seem to go out the window. Have we not learned anything over the last few thousand years?

When do we realize the severe consequences of a lopsided economic world? It is no longer just a cost to the other party, but a consequence that could cost our grandkids their place on earth.

We have finally reached a time & place where we can ignite a keg of dynamite that will take this planet completely out of orbit. With global warming we may not even have to light the fuse, it may already be smoldering.

We need to understand that the decisions we make individually & daily are cumulative & that time is not on our side.

Giving & money never were a well balanced combination. Is it possible that we could change that paradigm? Are we capable of seeing beyond our own needs?

Is it possible that our way of looking at things could be modified to take into account those with much less? Could making a difference while making a dollar become part of our lexicon?

Accounting has been a way to measure net profit without taking into account the social & environmental costs associated with producing that profit. Everything is measured in dollars & cents. There is no room for love in a balance sheet. The Summer of Love has been written off as a bunch of drugged out hippies.

Where is the human balance in a balance sheet?

The highest profits are achieved where labor cost is kept to a minimum & the costs to the environment are not considered at all. Putting a cost on protecting the environment would just reduce profits to many of us who are invested in the stock market & we wouldn’t want to see our stock value reduced.

We have to make choices! Why not consider investing in the companies that demonstrate social & environmental awareness?

Higher profit means we leave our kids with more money but what good will that do if their environment is irreparably damaged?

If there is no clean air to breath, what will money buy?

If two thirds of the world lives on less than a dollar a day, & we live on an ever increasing standard of living, how long can we keep the rest of the world out? How tall will the walls have to be? Can immigration laws withstand starvation & would that be morally right?

This summer we could begin to ‘see’ things differently & many of us have the age & wisdom to begin to shift our ways of thinking. This summer could truly be one of real love. We have the capability within us; we just need to let it out.

Most of the songs produced in the ‘60’s were words of love; those that didn’t were protest songs.

Many of us were the ‘60’s children & hopefully we haven’t forgotten what turned us on. Our memories are strong, where does our will stand?

In the ‘60’s we stood up for our rights & today we can stand up for our grandkids. To provide a safe place to live today, it will take more than fences; it will take mending fences between nations.

We must realize that we are all in this space ship together!

When we hurt anyone we hurt our selves. We are an interrelated human family.

Our ecological system is interconnected, far more than we understand.

It isn’t about understanding what makes up our DNA, it’s about living a life of love.

This may sound too simplistic, the message of love always was.

But, I ask, does love ever die?

Does summer ever end?

David

JUNE 29/08 - AMEN - ‘SO BE IT’

Amen is used after many prayers & I never thought of it as ‘So be it’ until recently. Another way of saying the same thing may be similar to what the Beatles sang ‘Let It Be’.

When you think of it, that is often a very difficult thing to do, to say ‘So be it’ & accept things the way they are. ‘Take it to the Creator in prayer’ might be another way of giving the Universe a chance to solve our perceived issues.

However, we are constantly ‘thinking’ human beings that have the option of free will & we use that option to help everybody run the world from our viewpoint.

Who knows how to raise children or grandchildren better than I do? Who knows how to run the business or educational institution better than me? As a matter of fact what isn’t it that I can’t handle better or at least be able to improve upon?

The fact my own life hasn’t been a perfect run of sensible decisions, really has nothing to do with the equation. My mistakes were not of my making.

How can we take life day by day & live it day by day, accepting things just as they are?

When do we decide that we have something to offer & interject our own thoughts? Our world needs help, why not me?

There is a larger consciousness out there & we are a ripple in that ocean of thought. We can contribute our wave action, as that is important, but should not fall into the trap of believing we have just set the course for all of mankind for all of future history.

Peace comes with an acceptance of our place in the bigger picture. Not recognizing our place creates dis-ease.

When we are able to say ‘Amen’ & leave it up to the ‘Thinker’ of over-riding thought, peace will reign within.

Can we walk on the ocean of thought with complete comfort? Can we rely upon the decisions arrived at by an unseen Thinker?

There is a well known prayer that starts with ‘Our Father’ & ends with ‘Amen’. Who or what is that entity referred to & why do we end with ‘So Be It’? It appears we are sending our message out into the ether & have a certain degree of confidence that Someone or Something is listening?

Might this Someone or Something be within? Might we be having a conversation with our Higher Self? Might there actually be more to us than meets the eye?

Might we be a piece of a much larger puzzle? Maybe we are not a self contained unit. Maybe we are dependent upon our brothers & sisters of all races & species.

We develop ourselves over the years to become that which we ‘see’ in the mirror & that which we ‘think’ we are. We chase education & wealth for a higher standard, that which we call a standard of living. We often lose ourselves in the materialistic world longing to know our true home.

Being able to detach & to draw ones life back to whence it emanated is very difficult while living within a physical body. Our eyes look outward & our thoughts get stuck in that outer space.

Heaven is offered to those on earth who can complete the return journey while encased in physicality!

Heaven is referred to as a place of personal peace. Personal peace comes through letting go, through letting it be.

Pressures are brought to bear on a daily basis. Personal responsibility can be a two edged sword but one we must accept.

The answer to our every question lies within, our intuition & conscience can tell us the path to take. We have the GPS needed to get us through this journey called life & it is a journey not a destination. Life itself never dies; our outer coat wears out, as does our current wardrobe.

One day we will shed the outer coating & move our consciousness to another sphere. In the house of the Creator or Creation there are many mansions’. Look into the stars at night.

Might we be conscious of those that have gone before once we join them?

Have we forgotten them yet?

Does not love tie a thread around relationships that can never die?

Can we meet across realities?

What is reality?

Amen, David

JUNE 22/08 - DRUGS, SEX, & ROCK N’ ROLL

Would you let your daughter marry a Rolling Stone?

The fellow that came up with that byline during the ‘60’s visited Ina & I this week. Many people can remember the original manager of the Beatles, Brian Epstein, but not that of the Rolling Stones, Andrew Loog Oldham.

Take a moment to check, http://www.andrewloogoldham.com/, for a then & now picture & some information about this interesting chap.

It was two years ago that I saw Andrew’s name in a Vancouver newspaper; he lives in Bogota, Colombia. I called 411, information, for a phone number. I got it! Amazing!

I read both of his books, Stoned & 2Stoned. What a life story! Not as I had envisioned it, watching the British Invasion from Canada, during the sixties.

On hearing Andrew’s voice on our message machine, Ina said she would like to meet him. They got along famously. Ina made a call to our future daughter in law, Lisah, who had worked with a local Salt Spring island movie production company, for an introduction. We arranged a meeting with the owners, Diane Roberts & David Douglas.

To our surprise, these two had produced the movie ‘The Rolling Stones on IMAX’, their Steel Wheels tour! Amazing!

Check http://www.westeaglefilms.com/. We took Andrew to Salt Spring Island & it turned out that Diane was from England & had worked for the new manager of the Rolling Stones. Is this a small world or what?

It was like old home week for these two Brit’s!

I, as a Brit, had been proud of the British Invasion, back in the ‘60’s, but was now hearing about it from a whole different perspective.

What I thought was occurring, at the time, & the way they saw the world, was quite different. As Andrew said, “we were just a bunch of 18 year old kids”.

We took Andrew into Victoria & I stopped by the garage that stores John Lennon’s original psychedelic Rolls Royce. It was given to our Victoria Royal Museum. The fellow that owned the garage was so obnoxious that Andrew jumped in our car & said let’s go, before the fellow knew who he was talking to.

I write the above to say two things: we never know who we are talking to, who lives next door (or the next Island), & we all have different viewpoints of the world. We ‘think’ that is our reality.

Throwing bales of hay, in Canada in the ‘60’s, left me with the viewpoint that everything on the rock music scene was happening in England. Andrew & the Stones, on the other hand, apparently saw the music world as being dominated by the Americans.

When we look out at the world around us, we get preconceived notions as to what is actually going on. We live in an insulated world & often don’t know who lives right around the corner.

How might we expand our field of vision?

Many of us live a ‘comfortable’ existence & put up with things that we would not allow if we knew we were writing our own story.

Ina & I have come to realize that we ‘do’ write our own story!

Andrew put his in writing, as well as lived it. When you read Andrew’s you will agonize over a big part of it. His claim to fame was a short period in the ‘60’s. His creation lived on to become the most famous rock band in history.

However, Andrew hasn’t written the final chapters yet. He has a chance to comeback from apparent defeat & make quite a difference in the world. Don’t we all?

Have any of us really thought about our final chapters? Andrew is 64, why doesn’t he settle down to a quiet ‘finca’ in the tropical country of Colombia with his beautiful ex International model ‘esposa’, Esther? After meeting Andrew, we know he has a lot more to contribute.

Many of us may take the viewpoint, & it’s only a viewpoint, that we really have nothing to offer. However, we can be a part of something new.

Our planet has many significant issues facing it, which question its very sustainability. These are not just environmental but also social.

A new book I’m reading, ‘Armageddon Averted’ is about the falling apart of the Soviet Union & how that could have been a nuclear nightmare. In the ‘60’s we all sat by the radio wondering whether John Kennedy, with his standoff over Cuba, would create a nuclear holocaust by facing down the Soviet Navy in the ocean off the United States.

What it points out is that we have more than enough weapons to destroy the planet, we came close before, & we will again. Al Gore points out we have more than enough cars to do the same thing through global warming.

Andrew’s life is wrapped up in music & Ina believes that music may be the answer to world peace. How did those two get together & will they bring any answers, to our world, through music?

Ina points out that ‘our’ love story started with a jewelry box, at the age of 15 that plays ‘A Love Affair to Remember’. She has kept the box all these years & it still plays the tune.

Like Andrew, I went out to lunch for 27 years, Andrew through drugs, I through alcohol, ambition, image, & travel. What was I looking for? What did I find? My heart strings played a love song that ultimately led me home.

Our story is not over yet any more than Andrew’s!

We may be entering the twilight years but they are years of wisdom & potential. We have so much we can offer to the next generation & for the sake of the grandchildren we know we can’t sit out the last act.

In the ‘60’s, Andrew’s Stones sang ‘Time is On My Side’ but we can’t take time for granted today. Things have changed considerably, many call it progress!

An associate of ours has just completed a book on a ‘Post Materialist’ society. Can we reach that state before exhausting our planetary abundance?

Can we help achieve a sustainable society? This is a question that we all have to reach individually; it is how we decide to live our lives. We live our story & the rest of our story has not been written yet.

How would you write your story if you knew it would come out the way you wanted it to? Well, believe it or not, it could!

What did Disney do to make his story come out the way it did, what did the Stones do, what is Andrew doing? If you want to read about a guy that was down, read Andrew’s two books! If ever there was a guy that should give it up, he qualifies.

Why is Andrew picking himself up? Why bother, he’s got a comfortable life!

Why should any of us stand up? What’s in it for us?

That last question is one that we have to overcome. We have to ‘see’ beyond our ‘self’, we have to ‘see’ the bigger picture. We have to ‘see’ how we might contribute in an un’self’ish way. We can have a life we never imagined, or maybe we did ‘imagine’ & it’s time has come.

Time is outside eternity & for the moment so are we!

Our life is but a drop in the bucket but it may be the straw that breaks the camel’s back. We are a manifestation of the Creative force that backs the Universe, we have inherent nuclear capabilities. We could explode onto the world’s stage, don’t let’s hold that positive force for good in abeyance too much longer.

It isn’t about money; it’s about our creative spark. What lies within, is what can bring happiness without. Align the inner needs with the outer circumstances & watch the transformation begin. There is a rose within the shell, let it blossom.

When we find ourselves in a place where negative thoughts begin to invade our day, move on. There is light at the end of the path & it is definitely a path that we are taking whether we choose it or not.

There are many paths to be taken, fear or love can guide our feet. Resistance helps direct our steps. Make love not war, is a ‘60’s message that is well worth considering.

In the words of an old friend of Andrew’s, Imagine!

Read about it in his book.

At home, David

JUNE 15/08 - HEARTFELT MESSAGES

“The day will come when, after harnessing space, the winds, the tides, & gravitation, we shall harness the energies of Love. And on that day, for the second time in the history of the world, we shall have discovered fire”, Teilhard de Chardin

I have often mentioned the still small voice within. From where does that voice emanate & how do we receive the message?

The voice emanates from the Spiritual Universe & our heart acts as the medium.

Last week I wrote about ‘thinking’, a process that goes on in our brain, an endless process that analyzes our every thought & action.

We must learn to trust the emotion that floods our heart, Love!

Our heart will tell us what path to take, where our brain may fear to tread.

How do we balance this love-fear equation?

Love can answer any values based question?

Love can’t be legislated anymore than integrity can!

Love comes from the heart & is a very powerful emotion.

You might be asking yourself, ‘should I go where my heart tells me, or should I resist for practical reasons’.

We live on this physical plane for a short duration, Love lives on for eternity.

Can we sink into the euphoria of love’s emotional tide or do we find ourselves riding on logic’s rough surface?

The voice we are meant to follow comes through the gateway of our heart. We must learn to trust its guidance.

The advice we receive from our fellow beings, as well meant as it might be, is sent & received through the mind. Generally, it is a reasoned approach to an emotional situation.

You have ‘thought’ about it long enough, it is time to listen to what you have ‘felt’ all along.

Life floods through everything we ‘see’, Universal Wisdom is provided through that which we ‘feel’.

Getting out of our head removes stress. Following our heart can lead to life at its fullest.

What happens when other people bother us? Don’t be attached to the outcome & remove judgment from the picture. Let anxiety flow like water off a duck’s back.

But where might a path of Love lead? Wouldn’t a more logical approach be more sensible? Ahhh, therein lies the dilemma!

We must stop analyzing & go with the flow. A path of purity transcends a paved highway.

A spiritual connection trumps a logical conclusion.

Take direction from the divine, listen to that which comes from your heart.

If I asked you to point at yourself, where would you find your finger pointing? Did you find it drawn to your heart or your head?

We too often live in our head but our life resides within our heart.

That which flows through our heart, flows throughout the Universe.

When we are able to move from our head into our heart, we are able to move from time into eternity.

When we are head over heels in love, time stands still.

Love focuses our senses.

The logical ramifications of a life lived in love, is an oxymoron.

Don’t struggle with the inevitable, live life to its fullest.

Heartfelt, David

JUNE 5/08 – THINKING

Do you find yourself thinking too much?

When do you let intuition or emotion take over?

When do you decide to trust your intuition?

When do you decide you know what to do & just do it?

We can analyze things to death, as Ina often reminds me, & we still have no idea whether it is the right answer to the dilemma we are faced with.

There is a time when faith combined with action is appropriate.

When we stop the mind, either through fly fishing – I’m reading ‘A River Runs Through It’ – or wood chopping – my favorite pastime, we are able to hear that still small voice that sends out messages of pure truth.

Each of us have that small voice, the big question is whether we trust it!

That voice reaches us from the universe and we are able to rationalize it through our smaller self.

We are a microcosm of the Greater Self. Our DNA is the DNA of the Universe.

We believe we are special, unique, & as God’s gift that is so. When we get carried away with our own self importance then we lose that innocence.

We gradually think our way into a manipulative lifestyle based on the way we ‘think’ things ought to be, our viewpoint of the world.

We find ourselves agonizing over our children’s decisions, the way our friends operate, & the way ‘they’ run things, the country, the planet, & other small matters.

We have our thoughts about the latest carbon tax while we drive our large vehicles.

Why are they doing it, life is hard enough as it is? We might ask; why are we?

When we reach unity within, we have a chance to find unity in the world. Trying to make that connection is very difficult for most of us.

It was recently suggested to Ina & I that we read ‘The Selfish Giant’, We did & found that winter never left the Giant’s Castle until he pushed his selfishness aside & let the children in. Spring arrived as the children thrived, & the Giant’s heart softened.

We are an interconnected body of humanity, under different cultures, colors, & flags. Our viewpoints are all different; just ask when was the last time that you & your spouse saw the world & events the same way.

Don’t we each believe that things ought to be ordered in a certain way? Don’t we all have an opinion on the way our children ought to act & how they ought to raise our grandchild?

Don’t we find ourselves ‘thinking’ about an awful lot of things?

Is it possible that we could just let all things be!

A vision of the future can be a beautiful thing but letting it work out the way its going to can be heart breaking.

Ina often says I broke her heart when I ran away after grade 12 but she also says that it might have been the best thing that ever happened. How can that be?

The way things have worked out for the two of us is terrific, what might the outcome have been?

What might have been is not something we ‘think’ about, it is not something we dwell on. Do the lost years, give us pause at times, yes, but when we see Tony, Christine, Troy, Michelle, Lynette(in absentia but as close as my heart), Sam, Matthew, & Tyler, the joy overcomes any remorseful ‘thoughts’.

Is evil planted in human hearts or do evil thoughts bring evil actions? A heart washed in love can overcome all obstacles.

I met with a retired Vice-Admiral of the Canadian Navy this week, & he said that the military is not the answer but only a tool to be used to back the bad guys off while others can pull things together. I agree that force, at times, is needed to square off against terror. Getting the proper balance is a matter of heart providing a counterweight to the mind.

Thoughts are often black & white, the heart can provide color.

Can you picture the Heart & Mind of the Universe?

Are we not a small model of ‘That’ which manifested Creation?

Are we not greatness encapsulated in a small seed?

Are we capable of much more than our thoughts?

Can we manifest anything?

Don’t ‘think’ about it,

Let’s do it, David

JUNE 1/08 - I INTEND TO LIVE FOREVER, SO FAR SO GOOD

The above quote apparently came from a fellow by the name of Steven Wright. This quote was from a book I read this week called, ‘Chasing Daylight: How My Forthcoming Death Transformed my Life’, Eugene O’Kelly

Eugene O’Kelly was the CEO of one of the world’s largest accounting firms, KPMG, when at 54 years old, he was told he had brain tumors & months to live.

This book is how he lived those last few months. It is a book worth reading for those of us who generally don’t contemplate the inevitable.

Eugene refers to a consultant in his book & that is how I got to know about Eugene’s situation. This all happened recently & our friend, the consultant, was telling us about it when Ina & I stopped at his & his wife’s house in San Francisco to stay overnight.

Our world & our time slip away when we are bogged down in the material issues of our day. We do not get the satisfaction of hearing the birds sing. Living with nature is different than living in it. Meditation may describe the difference. Life in a material world can stay very busy.

Another business acquaintance of ours just sent us a book he wrote, called, ‘A View from the Bottom: Freedom, Democracy, & Happiness in a Post-Materialist World’, Randy Royer.

Randy is describing a thought process that is pervading our current awareness, or at least some of us - he suggests 30%, where post materialistic thinking is taking hold.

Are we capable of recouping our spiritual awareness & pulling ourselves up out of the mud of materialism? Randy gives a historical perspective on how we gradually sank into the materialistic world.

We are not going to live in our physicality forever, so why not, like Eugene, begin to prepare for the transition with an enlightened approach.

When we stop to prepare, we get a chance to ‘see’ what’s really important.

What is really important?

It isn’t just about family.

It’s about us.

We are unique beings. We incorporate the ‘Energy’ that runs the Universe. Within our DNA is the actual ‘Author’ of life itself. People struggle over the concept of this ‘Thinker’. Check out a very interesting page, www.templeton.org/belief, which studies that concept from many different angles.

I want to keep this discussion away from organized religion so I will leave you to review that page alone.

There is a quote I read somewhere “with Yahweh all things are possible”. Together we are the compilation of Yahweh, together all things are possible.

We lack unity, we can’t see that what we do to another comes back tenfold, or what goes around comes around.

We live a life wandering in the wilderness. We are lost in the fog of self image.

Our stress comes from a life lived in a foreign land, our physical body. When we recognize we are a spiritual being on a physical journey, we are able to enjoy peace of mind.

Our mind is a wonderful instrument but it leads us more often than we control it. Our mind has a way of never stopping & often we find ourselves watching television or reading a book just to slow it down.

Concentrating on the end of the physical journey, notice I didn’t say the end of life, which would be an oxymoron; we are able to put things in perspective.

We are then able to organize, as Eugene O’Kelly did, those things which are really important to a life full-filled.

This way of ‘seeing’ can bring us to a point where we are willing to give up our life for our fellow beings. Generally, we are absorbed in self fulfillment; we live a life of material gain.

Somewhere along the way we lost our path & we accepted the common way of thinking, read Randy’s book. Education prepares us for becoming a tool of the system & we accept the role we were expected to play or ‘feel’ we were thrown into.

Personal talent is just that, ours. We were given the ability to love one another. How often do we use that ability with the world at large?

Leading a life, looking for opportunities to spread goodwill, brings Christmas more than once a year.

Recognizing there is an end to our physical existence allows for a fuller life here on earth. Also recognizing we are part of the Spiritual world allows for us to consider ‘Thy will be done on earth’. We are the vehicle to accomplish that suggestion.

Isn’t that exciting! Just think, anyone of us is the vehicle to funnel the miraculous!

Together we are unstoppable!

Anything is possible!

Wow!

Life does not end, the physical portion does.

Let’s realize ‘so far so good’!

What’s never ending can’t be so bad.

Immortally yours, David

MAY 4/08 - ‘SEE’ WORLD

If you look back at last week’s thoughts, you will see that I was writing about a project in the City of Peace, La Paz, Baja, Mexico, that involved the Sea of Cortes, the Baja fishermen, and Royal Roads University & their triple bottom line Entrepreneurship Centre.

That project is not just about saving the Sea of Cortes from extinction & the social issues surrounding it but also how we as fortunate, educated, intelligent, baby boomers ‘see’ the future, how we ‘see’ the world & its future.

Overheard in Starbucks this week, were two ladies sitting next to me, & one commented “I hope someday”. This made me think about the difference between wishes, hopes, dreams, & action. Action can come from wishes, hopes, & dreams; as a matter of fact that is where it needs to start. But, as said long ago, ‘faith without works is powerless’. I won’t say that it is useless nor that meditation or prayers are useless but the life within the Sea cannot wait much longer for us to ‘see’.

We can hope someone somewhere, He or She or It that we pray to, will do something about the issues that our world faces, or we might ‘see’ that the power to do something is within us & that that wisdom is waiting for us to be the instrument of Its power.

We have the capital & the technology to get things done, automatically, I found out this week. Wednesday I received the following message on my blackberry ‘Confirmation of Starbucks Card Automatic Reload Order’. Now does that make my trips to Starbucks ever easier? This seemed to be juxtaposed to the book I am reading ‘Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’.

Mind, Heart, Logic, Emotion, Spirit, & Matter, how do these all mix? We are a soup of all the above. Do you notice that only one of the six is actually present physically? Where do the other five come from? The combination of the first five allows us to manifest number six, matter.

The physical world came about from ideas sent through human minds & hands. We, as a materialistic society, have begun to live within that which we created, the material world. That world now forms our life, in many cases, versus us creating our own life.

Our educational systems are often designed to turn out workers for our capitalistic society rather than creative thinkers for our future.

Our quest is to try & find the path to a sustainable world through experimentation & service. We think that ‘seeing’ the world through a heart that cares might be the way to immortal life. Whether immortal life is a personal thing or a social thing, either way it’s important.

Whether we arrive at some future heaven, on earth as my parents believed, in the ether as many others do, or reincarnation as some religious faiths profess, life & its continuation is a ‘given’ by all of the foregone.

When we threaten the very existence of life itself, what might the future be? That is an oxymoron!

President John Kennedy asked “what can we do for America, not what can America do for us”. (paraphrased) I suggest the time has come where we must ask “what might we do for the planet we call home”. I suggest that we ‘see’ we are all in this together & connected at least by ‘Gaia’, our interconnected planetary environment.

As humans we can do all things together. When we ‘see’ that we are interdependent, we are one, then our world will be shaped by those thoughts. Thoughts, now that is an interesting concept. Do thoughts float in the ether? How do they come into our heads? Do we rely upon the thoughts of others to help create our own? Who discovered gravity & did that discovery help us today? Who thought to venture out into the ocean the first time & who discovered North America & did that help us out?

Would we be here today if those last discoveries were never made? If not, that means we are the result of someone else’s discoveries & passions. We came from desire, we came out of the ether, we came from nowhere. The question is ‘do we know where we are going’?

Are we the sum total of ‘our story’? What is our story & might our future be as simple as writing that story in action? Yes, yes, yes!!!

It is as simple as changing our mind, going into action, lights, camera, & passion.

Passion has different versions. Let the juices flow.

Let’s each find our passion by following our hearts.

Let’s ‘see’ what we can do together.

Let’s ‘see’ a positive future.

Let’s ‘see’ the light.

Now that’s a ‘see’ change!

‘See’thing with passion, David

APRIL 27 - LAY DOWN YOUR NETS & FOLLOW US

The following is a true story & is unfolding as I write & you read. Ina & I met an old fisherman & his wife, sewing fishing nets on the beach, in the Bay of La Paz, Baja California Sur.

We were being shown the beach as a great location for a resort real estate project. One question that I had is what happens to this couple who have a Palapa, a tarp over four poles, & a couch to sleep on, when we build our baby-boomer resort at their possibly decades old fishing spot? I knew the probable answer to this question, as I had been involved in taking a small fishing village in Baja, Cabo San Lucas, & turning it into a Costco, Pizza Hut, community, while replacing the local fisher-folks with silver salesmen, an annoyance to those sunning, reading, & sipping Margaritas, the North American baby-boomers.

While I was wondering about the answer to this question, Ina was noticing the little old lady & her finger nail polish. Why did I miss that? Probably I missed it, because like all couples, Ina & I ‘see’ the world from different viewpoints, different perspectives.

Whatever the reason, Ina went home & wrote a poem about this lady & her fisherman husband & here it is: