I love to travel to Asia
29 April 2008
26 April 2008
25 April 2008
24 April 2008
New
Hi Everyone it's lilly. Well the weather in Vancouver has been really cold and it is still April. I have been busy over the last little while but all is good. I hope you like our blog. We had a good time at our Mad Hater Tea Party there was dancing and good food and tea. Thank you to all who came it was a great night.!! We will have many more things to come over the next little while stay tuned to see what coming up. Please let us know what you think of your blog we would love the feedback thanks lilly
It's me
Hello, I am here because I wish to share some new stuff.
I was remembering the days when I knew only what I learned from home. I thought I knew everything. When all I knew was home stuff and even then my parents did'nt finish school so alot of stuff was old school ....like sewing a patch or a zipper or a hem none of what I was taught was professional but it worked...when I learned how to do these things by a professional?...I found that it was a better way...I was confused that what I first learned was even wrong.
I also found that respect like what Simon says in reflection, (it is too bad I just realized this now) I might have had a better relationship with my mother or even my father before they died. I am trying to forgive myself for blaming my parents for all the mistakes I made in my life...I truely made them myself and they were no way my parents fault they were not even there when things went bad for me.
Parents are to me my world they were my whole world..I couldn't see much else at all....even school reflected on home life....what I learned at school showed what and how I learned at home.
So I had to relearn alot of stuff but I got started in 1989 when I sobered up and started to lead a clean and sober life style.
I was remembering the days when I knew only what I learned from home. I thought I knew everything. When all I knew was home stuff and even then my parents did'nt finish school so alot of stuff was old school ....like sewing a patch or a zipper or a hem none of what I was taught was professional but it worked...when I learned how to do these things by a professional?...I found that it was a better way...I was confused that what I first learned was even wrong.
I also found that respect like what Simon says in reflection, (it is too bad I just realized this now) I might have had a better relationship with my mother or even my father before they died. I am trying to forgive myself for blaming my parents for all the mistakes I made in my life...I truely made them myself and they were no way my parents fault they were not even there when things went bad for me.
Parents are to me my world they were my whole world..I couldn't see much else at all....even school reflected on home life....what I learned at school showed what and how I learned at home.
So I had to relearn alot of stuff but I got started in 1989 when I sobered up and started to lead a clean and sober life style.
Ancient Culture (Simon's reflection)
: Today’s Reflection is about ancient cultures, their disappearing
: wisdom, and the impact of it on the rest of us.
Just imagine the following situation. A mother just gave birth, and is refusing to feed her baby. Just like that, for no apparent reason. They are both your responsibility. What would you do?
Talk to the mother perhaps. Understand what is going on with her, explain, try to convince. Bring a therapist. Anything along these lines.
But what if we are not talking about humans? What if both the mother and the baby are animals? For example, camels. Yes, camels.
:: “The world is not to be put in order, the world is order. It is
:: for us to put ourselves in unison with this order.” - Henry Miller
Personally, I would have no clue what to do. Perhaps try to hold (or tie) her legs and push the colt towards her, in the right direction, hoping he will start sucking her milk. A modern western veterinarian might have a better idea. Perhaps, after several tries, the vet will give up and start feeding the colt in some other way, using some sophisticated modern device or approach.
But what if the colt wouldn’t eat? Refuse. Nothing, unless it comes from his (or her) mother, who refuses to feed the baby. What would we do then? And, on top of it all, we are not located in some large city, where everything and anything is immediately available. What if we are deep in the Mongolian desert, with nothing but several yurts, in the middle of nowhere? What then?
Welcome to a fabulous movie I recently watched, The Story of a Weeping Camel. I am tempted to share the details with you, yet I think I will not. It is a movie you have to see. In the meantime, the solution in the movie is quite simple (to a local Mongolian tribe), and profoundly shocking to a westerner like me. Play some music. Yes, bring a local musician and play some violin-like instrument and see what happens. Yes, I am simplifying the description, yet what happens is absolutely incredible. This brings me to the topic of this Reflection – ancient tribal wisdom. Rapidly disappearing, and we are probably not aware of it until it is too late.
:: “When a man has created a blade of grass, only then he can start
:: thinking of himself as a master of the Universe.” - Einstein
I have been both curious and fascinated by the wisdom of people who have been around for a long time, in ancient and tribal times. They ways they knew how to live in-tune and in an alignment to the world around them. From medicinal plants and foods (I think I still remember my grandmother’s nestle soup), to healing, to conservation of the environment (aboriginals in Australia lived in the outback without leaving much trace) to a way of life that honoured all life forms. These indigenous people are some of our planet’s most endangered species; their young are being seduced by the Western culture and are losing interest in the old ways. With them, their vast knowledge and ways of life are disappearing – and we all lose.
:: “Today, with little notice, vast archives of knowledge and expertise
:: are spilling into oblivion, leaving humanity in danger of losing its
:: past and perhaps jeopardizing its future as well. Stored in the memories
:: of elders, healers, midwives, farmers, fishermen and hunters in the
:: estimated 15,000 cultures remaining on earth is an enormous trove of wisdom.
::
:: This largely undocumented knowledge base is humanity's lifeline to a time
:: when people accepted nature's authority and learned through trial, error
:: and observation. But the world's tribes are dying out or being absorbed
:: into modern civilization. As they vanish, so does their irreplaceable
:: knowledge." -- Eugene Linden, Time Magazine Cover Story September 23, 1991
Every individual in the world, regardless of cultural background or race, has an indigenous soul struggling to survive in an increasingly hostile environment created by that individual’s mind. A modern person’s body has become a battleground between the rationalist mind — which subscribes to the values of the machine age — and the native soul. This battle is the cause of a great deal of spiritual and physical illness. Over the last several centuries, a heartless, culture-crushing mentality has enforced its so-called progress on the earth, devouring all peoples, nature, imagination, and spiritual knowledge. Like a bulldozer, it has left a flat, homogenized streak of civilization in its wake. Every human on this earth, whether from Africa, Asia, Europe, or the Americas, has ancestors whose stories, rituals, ingenuity, language, and life ways were taken away, enslaved, banned, exploited, twisted, or destroyed by this mentality.
What is indigenous — in other words, natural, subtle, hard to explain, generous, gradual, and village oriented — in each of us has been banished to the ghettos of our heart, or hidden away from view on reservations inside the spiritual landscape. We’re taught to believe that our thoughts are actually the center of our life. Like the conquering, modern culture we belong to, we understand the world only with the mind, not with the indigenous soul. And this indigenous soul is not something that can be brought back in "wild man" or "wild woman" retreats on the weekend and then dropped when you put on your business suit. It’s not something you take up because it’s fun or trendy. It has to be authentic, and it has to be spiritually expensive.
-- Martin Prechtel (“Secrets of the Talking Tiger”)
:: “The Universe is my Country, The Human Family is my Tribe”
:: - Kahlil Gibran
A sunny week to you all, inside and out.
:: From The Four Corners
:: This is a new section of the newsletter, featuring news, ideas,
:: moments of inspiration of something someone somewhere is doing
:: that is making a difference in the world.
Community-Based Tourism might be the next step beyond eco-tourism, adding the elements of traveling to natural destinations inhabited by indigenous cultures. Community-based travel is all about learning from and directly helping the disappearing indigenous communities around the world through cultural exchange, financial assistance, and education. Minimize impact. Build awareness. Provide financial benefits and empowerment to indigenous people. Respect local culture. Check out the following:
Community Aid Abroad: www.caa.org.au/travel
Crooked Trails: www.crookedtrails.com
Cultural Restoration Project: www.crtp.net
Global Exchange: www.globalexchange.org
i-to-i: www.i-to-i.com
:: Simon’s Reflections newsletter is published on a
:: bi-weekly basis and contains writings that touch
:: the heart, provoke the mind, and inspire action.
:: And I do welcome your thoughts and comments.
Simon
Archives: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SimonsReflectionsList
About Simon: http://www.SimonGoland.com
--
“Kiva lets you lend to a specific entrepreneur in the developing world - empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty.”
http://www.kiva.org/app.php
: wisdom, and the impact of it on the rest of us.
Just imagine the following situation. A mother just gave birth, and is refusing to feed her baby. Just like that, for no apparent reason. They are both your responsibility. What would you do?
Talk to the mother perhaps. Understand what is going on with her, explain, try to convince. Bring a therapist. Anything along these lines.
But what if we are not talking about humans? What if both the mother and the baby are animals? For example, camels. Yes, camels.
:: “The world is not to be put in order, the world is order. It is
:: for us to put ourselves in unison with this order.” - Henry Miller
Personally, I would have no clue what to do. Perhaps try to hold (or tie) her legs and push the colt towards her, in the right direction, hoping he will start sucking her milk. A modern western veterinarian might have a better idea. Perhaps, after several tries, the vet will give up and start feeding the colt in some other way, using some sophisticated modern device or approach.
But what if the colt wouldn’t eat? Refuse. Nothing, unless it comes from his (or her) mother, who refuses to feed the baby. What would we do then? And, on top of it all, we are not located in some large city, where everything and anything is immediately available. What if we are deep in the Mongolian desert, with nothing but several yurts, in the middle of nowhere? What then?
Welcome to a fabulous movie I recently watched, The Story of a Weeping Camel. I am tempted to share the details with you, yet I think I will not. It is a movie you have to see. In the meantime, the solution in the movie is quite simple (to a local Mongolian tribe), and profoundly shocking to a westerner like me. Play some music. Yes, bring a local musician and play some violin-like instrument and see what happens. Yes, I am simplifying the description, yet what happens is absolutely incredible. This brings me to the topic of this Reflection – ancient tribal wisdom. Rapidly disappearing, and we are probably not aware of it until it is too late.
:: “When a man has created a blade of grass, only then he can start
:: thinking of himself as a master of the Universe.” - Einstein
I have been both curious and fascinated by the wisdom of people who have been around for a long time, in ancient and tribal times. They ways they knew how to live in-tune and in an alignment to the world around them. From medicinal plants and foods (I think I still remember my grandmother’s nestle soup), to healing, to conservation of the environment (aboriginals in Australia lived in the outback without leaving much trace) to a way of life that honoured all life forms. These indigenous people are some of our planet’s most endangered species; their young are being seduced by the Western culture and are losing interest in the old ways. With them, their vast knowledge and ways of life are disappearing – and we all lose.
:: “Today, with little notice, vast archives of knowledge and expertise
:: are spilling into oblivion, leaving humanity in danger of losing its
:: past and perhaps jeopardizing its future as well. Stored in the memories
:: of elders, healers, midwives, farmers, fishermen and hunters in the
:: estimated 15,000 cultures remaining on earth is an enormous trove of wisdom.
::
:: This largely undocumented knowledge base is humanity's lifeline to a time
:: when people accepted nature's authority and learned through trial, error
:: and observation. But the world's tribes are dying out or being absorbed
:: into modern civilization. As they vanish, so does their irreplaceable
:: knowledge." -- Eugene Linden, Time Magazine Cover Story September 23, 1991
Every individual in the world, regardless of cultural background or race, has an indigenous soul struggling to survive in an increasingly hostile environment created by that individual’s mind. A modern person’s body has become a battleground between the rationalist mind — which subscribes to the values of the machine age — and the native soul. This battle is the cause of a great deal of spiritual and physical illness. Over the last several centuries, a heartless, culture-crushing mentality has enforced its so-called progress on the earth, devouring all peoples, nature, imagination, and spiritual knowledge. Like a bulldozer, it has left a flat, homogenized streak of civilization in its wake. Every human on this earth, whether from Africa, Asia, Europe, or the Americas, has ancestors whose stories, rituals, ingenuity, language, and life ways were taken away, enslaved, banned, exploited, twisted, or destroyed by this mentality.
What is indigenous — in other words, natural, subtle, hard to explain, generous, gradual, and village oriented — in each of us has been banished to the ghettos of our heart, or hidden away from view on reservations inside the spiritual landscape. We’re taught to believe that our thoughts are actually the center of our life. Like the conquering, modern culture we belong to, we understand the world only with the mind, not with the indigenous soul. And this indigenous soul is not something that can be brought back in "wild man" or "wild woman" retreats on the weekend and then dropped when you put on your business suit. It’s not something you take up because it’s fun or trendy. It has to be authentic, and it has to be spiritually expensive.
-- Martin Prechtel (“Secrets of the Talking Tiger”)
:: “The Universe is my Country, The Human Family is my Tribe”
:: - Kahlil Gibran
A sunny week to you all, inside and out.
:: From The Four Corners
:: This is a new section of the newsletter, featuring news, ideas,
:: moments of inspiration of something someone somewhere is doing
:: that is making a difference in the world.
Community-Based Tourism might be the next step beyond eco-tourism, adding the elements of traveling to natural destinations inhabited by indigenous cultures. Community-based travel is all about learning from and directly helping the disappearing indigenous communities around the world through cultural exchange, financial assistance, and education. Minimize impact. Build awareness. Provide financial benefits and empowerment to indigenous people. Respect local culture. Check out the following:
Community Aid Abroad: www.caa.org.
Crooked Trails: www.crookedtrails.
Cultural Restoration Project: www.crtp.net
Global Exchange: www.globalexchange.
i-to-i: www.i-to-i.com
:: Simon’s Reflections newsletter is published on a
:: bi-weekly basis and contains writings that touch
:: the heart, provoke the mind, and inspire action.
:: And I do welcome your thoughts and comments.
Simon
Archives: http://groups.
About Simon: http://www.SimonGol
--
“Kiva lets you lend to a specific entrepreneur in the developing world - empowering them to lift themselves out of poverty.”
http://www.kiva.
17 April 2008
06 April 2008
Another Simon's Reflections : Today’s Reflection is about transitions - that inner process
: that accompanies the external changes we go through in our lives.
(The story below comes from "Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes" by William Bridges)
His face and body are whitened with clay, and he is no longer recognizable as the youth who left his village two months before. The wounds of his ordeal are healed now, yet they will always bear witness to what he has suffered. They mark him as one who has crossed the boundary of childhood and has put that life behind him.
He is alone. More than simply out of contact with his peers and his elders, he is absolutely and radically alone. During this time (or time-out) in his life, he is out of relation with all others. There is no map to which one could point and say, "There he is." There is no there, because he inhabits for this time a nonplace.
He is beyond the mediating powers of roles and relationships and social mores. Armed only with the rituals and chants taught him by an initiation master, he wanders free and unattached through the universe. Beyond the meaning-making powers of his everyday realities, he stands face-to-face with existence.
Eventually, after he receives his vision, he will know the time has come to return to the village and take up the rights and responsibilities of his new status and his new identity. Marked by his scars and empowered by his new knowledge, he will rejoin the social order on a new basis. He is in a profound sense a new person.
Rite of Passage is a way of withdrawal and return. It is the way of forgetting and rediscovery. It is the way of ending and of beginning. In following it, the person crosses over from an old way of being to a new way of being and is renewed.
:: "What we call the beginning if often the end. And to make an end
:: is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from."
:: - T. S. Eliot
I had a friend once. We have known each other for a long time, and have gone through many experiences together - challenges, victories, mutual support, celebrations, tears, joys, deep and revealing conversations, arguments, moments of vulnerability and closeness, and probably everything in-between. This was all a long time ago. Perhaps it only feels like it, because when life is rich and full and a lot is happening, it is easy to lose the sense of days and months and years. The connection faded away, we see each other very little now, and all the beautiful moments of the past are but a memory right now.
It was hard to let go of those memories and realize that the connection changed and shifted form. It was hard, and took a long time, to realize that I have been in a phase of transition with this friend. Resistance is indeed futile, and whatever we had in the past, has now ended. While unfortunate and sad, it is also unavoidable, and - as the common wisdom goes - life goes on. The past is just that. Moving along the transition curve, leaving the ending behind, one slides into a dip called the "neutral zone." This is a place of uncertainty, where the end has ended, and the new beginning has not yet started. A seemingly unproductive time-out when we feel disconnected from people and things in the past and emotionally unconnected to the present. An uncomfortable place, for sure. Yet, also very necessary, for in that place of neither-here-nor-there-ness, new understandings take place, and new seeds of ideas and insights are being planted. We begin to re-orient ourselves towards the "what's next?" direction.
Eventually, there will be a phase of a new beginning, when the time is right, and the planted seeds are ready to bloom. This is when the connection between us will be redefined and will take a different form. And, yes, I am fully aware that "no connection" is also a form of a connection, and it might be the outcome.
Just like in the story above, the ancients knew of the importance of rituals, to signify the ending of a phase, and a beginning of a new one. Until I come up with a better idea, I am going to look at this email as a ritual, signifying the end of the "ending" phase. Off I go into the "neutral zone"... though I suspect I have been there for quite some time now...
A sunny week to you all, inside and out.
:: From The Four Corners
:: This is a new section of the newsletter, featuring news, ideas,
:: moments of inspiration of something someone somewhere is doing
:: that is making a difference in the world.
What news are you reading? Of the usual kind, filled with the endless search for more shocking and more toxic, mentally and emotionally? If you are after a different kind of news, knowing about what works in the world, and where people are making a positive difference, you might want to try the following two:
http://www.enn.com/ - Environmental News Network
http://www.greatnewsnetwork.org - Great News Network
And you might want to subscribe to Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter; there is a lot more than just astrology there:
http://www.freewillastrology.com/newsletter/
:: Simon’s Reflections newsletter is published on a
:: bi-weekly basis and contains writings that touch
:: the heart, provoke the mind, and inspire action.
:: And I do welcome your thoughts and comments.
(The story below comes from "Transitions: Making Sense of Life's Changes" by William Bridges)
His face and body are whitened with clay, and he is no longer recognizable as the youth who left his village two months before. The wounds of his ordeal are healed now, yet they will always bear witness to what he has suffered. They mark him as one who has crossed the boundary of childhood and has put that life behind him.
He is alone. More than simply out of contact with his peers and his elders, he is absolutely and radically alone. During this time (or time-out) in his life, he is out of relation with all others. There is no map to which one could point and say, "There he is." There is no there, because he inhabits for this time a nonplace.
He is beyond the mediating powers of roles and relationships and social mores. Armed only with the rituals and chants taught him by an initiation master, he wanders free and unattached through the universe. Beyond the meaning-making powers of his everyday realities, he stands face-to-face with existence.
Eventually, after he receives his vision, he will know the time has come to return to the village and take up the rights and responsibilities of his new status and his new identity. Marked by his scars and empowered by his new knowledge, he will rejoin the social order on a new basis. He is in a profound sense a new person.
Rite of Passage is a way of withdrawal and return. It is the way of forgetting and rediscovery. It is the way of ending and of beginning. In following it, the person crosses over from an old way of being to a new way of being and is renewed.
:: "What we call the beginning if often the end. And to make an end
:: is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from."
:: - T. S. Eliot
I had a friend once. We have known each other for a long time, and have gone through many experiences together - challenges, victories, mutual support, celebrations, tears, joys, deep and revealing conversations, arguments, moments of vulnerability and closeness, and probably everything in-between. This was all a long time ago. Perhaps it only feels like it, because when life is rich and full and a lot is happening, it is easy to lose the sense of days and months and years. The connection faded away, we see each other very little now, and all the beautiful moments of the past are but a memory right now.
It was hard to let go of those memories and realize that the connection changed and shifted form. It was hard, and took a long time, to realize that I have been in a phase of transition with this friend. Resistance is indeed futile, and whatever we had in the past, has now ended. While unfortunate and sad, it is also unavoidable, and - as the common wisdom goes - life goes on. The past is just that. Moving along the transition curve, leaving the ending behind, one slides into a dip called the "neutral zone." This is a place of uncertainty, where the end has ended, and the new beginning has not yet started. A seemingly unproductive time-out when we feel disconnected from people and things in the past and emotionally unconnected to the present. An uncomfortable place, for sure. Yet, also very necessary, for in that place of neither-here-
Eventually, there will be a phase of a new beginning, when the time is right, and the planted seeds are ready to bloom. This is when the connection between us will be redefined and will take a different form. And, yes, I am fully aware that "no connection" is also a form of a connection, and it might be the outcome.
Just like in the story above, the ancients knew of the importance of rituals, to signify the ending of a phase, and a beginning of a new one. Until I come up with a better idea, I am going to look at this email as a ritual, signifying the end of the "ending" phase. Off I go into the "neutral zone"... though I suspect I have been there for quite some time now...
A sunny week to you all, inside and out.
:: From The Four Corners
:: This is a new section of the newsletter, featuring news, ideas,
:: moments of inspiration of something someone somewhere is doing
:: that is making a difference in the world.
What news are you reading? Of the usual kind, filled with the endless search for more shocking and more toxic, mentally and emotionally? If you are after a different kind of news, knowing about what works in the world, and where people are making a positive difference, you might want to try the following two:
http://www.enn.
http://www.greatnew
And you might want to subscribe to Rob Brezsny's Astrology Newsletter; there is a lot more than just astrology there:
http://www.freewill
:: Simon’s Reflections newsletter is published on a
:: bi-weekly basis and contains writings that touch
:: the heart, provoke the mind, and inspire action.
:: And I do welcome your thoughts and comments.
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