Shopping

We are creatures that consume. Can't get around it.  But also it's fun to find a new venue (new to me) which offers prices that are pretty unimaginable.  Such is Aldi's.  It's in nearby Asheville, where all the competing grocery stores are besides Ingles and Hopeys here in Black Mountain.

I shared a statement (in a Facebook ad?) that said they were offering organic produce.  Other Facebooker's said no, it wasn't all organic.  The first time I shopped there several weeks ago, avocados were 29 cents...and this time they were 59 cents.  Either one is great for competing with $2 in my regular grocery.

I was happy to find Gaelic Ale tucked away here.

And others (on FB) said they didn't like the stores for various reasons.  I continue to enjoy this one which was recently renovated...but I'd never seen it before that, so I don't know what its improvements were.

 It's clean and well organized.  I make sure to go on weekdays earlier than when school's out, to avoid a crowded venue.  This time new things were being brought out and shelved (Wed. afternoon) so that took up aisle space.

I was pretty happy with prices. Of course there are many things I'm not interested in purchasing. And because space is given to them, I missed finding some of my regular grocery items.  But it was kind of fun to see what they had.  I did have to be a wise shopper when I saw a few items that were not really low priced. I didn't notice any items that I purchased that had 'expired' dates on them, which is often the case in bargain stores.


Today's Quote:

It is a powerful practice to be generous when you are the one feeling in need.

ALLAN LOKOS

Morning has broken - though shade keeps the frost alive

So spring is officially here.  Lovely morning for it.  There's frost on the roof of the building downhill from me again.

Some trees are casting shade and the sun doesn't seem to be doing the melting line like it did a few days ago. (Here.)

Oh there it is, where the higher roof shades the lower one, and the frost melts back as the sun hits it.

Isn't it nice with all the word's trauma and news that I can focus on how the sun melts frost on a neighbor's roof?

Happy Vernal Equinox!

The earliest blooms are out there.  Nights still below freezing this week, but warm (and mostly sunny) days.  Sigh.  She turns toward an equal day/night in the hours, and soon it will seem like everything is mating and having new growth.  She, Gaia, our mother earth, is such a wonder to be aware of, amazed by, and just observed.

Joy is flooding my blood also.

Quote for today:

We can’t enchant the world, which makes its own magic; but we can enchant ourselves by paying deep attention.  Diane Ackerman

Speaking of rooftops

 My living/dining room windows have a great view that reflects the seasons. I recently posted about other rooftops over at Living in Black Mountain.

 The rooftops are more visible during winter months...

This morning (no, not the snowy view) I saw frost on the roofs of the apartments downhill from me.  Then, because we're close to Vernal Equinox, the frost was melted as the sun hit it...and I could watch as the shingles appeared gradually.

It was so peaceful, knowing I was probably the only person seeing this miracle, that as the earth spun eastward, I witnessed how close to alignment our buildings have been built to east west coordinates.

It was so beautiful I didn't even try to take photos.

A quote for today:

Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another.  Jesus

Ram Dass said...part three

Astronut not tethered 

Time is a box formed by thoughts of the past and future. When there is only the immediate now – when you’re not dwelling in the past or anticipating the future, but you are just right here, right now – you’re outside of time. Dwelling in the moment is dwelling in the soul, which is eternal presence. When we’re outside of time, there’s no subject or object; it’s all just here. The thinking mind deals only with subject and object. But from within here now, you watch time go by. You are not being in time. You be, and time goes by, as if you were standing on a bridge and watching it all go by.

Ours is a journey toward simplicity, toward quietness, toward a kind of joy that is not in time. In this journey out of time to “NowHere,” we are leaving behind every model we have had of who we thought we were. This journey involves a transformation of our being so that our thinking mind becomes our servant rather than our master. It’s a journey that takes us from primary identification with our psyche to identification with our souls, then to identification with God, and ultimately beyond any identification at all.

Life is an incredible curriculum in which we live richly and passionately as a way of awakening to the deepest truths of our being. As a soul, I have only one motive: to merge with God. As a soul, I live in the moment, in each rich and precious moment, and I am filled with contentment.

- Ram Dass, excerpt from his book Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart, published 2013.

Ram Dass said...part two

We are on an inevitable course of awakening. If you understand that message deeply, it allows you to enter into your spiritual practices from a different perspective, one of patience and timelessness. You do your practices not out of a sense of duty or because you think you should, but because you know in your soul there really is nothing else you would rather do.

In Sanskrit this is called vairagya, a state of weariness with worldly desire where only the desire for spiritual fulfillment is left. The spiritual pull is the last desire, one that really grabs you, but that dissolves on its own because you dissolve in the process. The Tao says, “In the end you will be like the valley which is the favorite resort of the Way.” You become receptive, become soft, become open, become attuned, become quiet. You become the ocean of love.

The soul is made of love, and must ever strive to return to love. It can never find rest nor happiness in other things. It must lose itself in love. – Mechthild of Magdeburg

Spirit Helpers, painting by Susan Seddon Boulet

- Ram Dass, excerpt from his book Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart, published 2013.

Ram Dass said...part one

Photo by Stacy Redmond

A soul takes human birth in order to have a series of experiences through which it will awaken out of its illusion of separateness. The physical experience of being incarnated is the curriculum, and the purpose of the course is to awaken us from the illusion that we are the incarnation. Spiritual practices are tools to help us accomplish these goals.

You start from innocence and you return to innocence. A sage was asked, “How long have we been on this journey?” He replied, “Imagine a mountain three miles wide, three miles high, and three miles long. Once every hundred years, a bird flies over the mountain, holding a silk scarf in its beak, which it brushes across the surface of the mountain. The time it would take for the scarf to wear down the mountain is how long we’ve been doing this.”

- Ram Dass, excerpt from his book Polishing the Mirror: How to Live from Your Spiritual Heart, published 2013

Who is dancing?

I went back just a few years, looking for any dancer photos.  Ah, there are weekly concerts by Lake Tomahawk each summer, and I did capture a few friends and neighbors. Mostly they were listening, but I have seen these lovely ladies get up and sway to the music. And since it's on grass, swaying might be the safest way to "cut a rug."

 For much of the evening, young people did their own movements, cart wheels, hand stands, or perhaps just navel gazing while wearing a yellow shirt and sitting in the dirt...

 But this couple was brave enough to get up and dance in front of the crowd.

 As were these lovely ladies

 The concerts are often a lot more crowded than this one was...and there are usually a lot more dancers.  Now I know what I'll be taking photos of next summer.

Linking to Sepia Saturday this week.

Poor Richard's inevitibles - death and taxes

I think I'm an optimist. But of the pessimistic variety.  Which means that I prepare for the worst, hope for the best, and worry a little bit to help oil the friction that might happen.

 Early this morning I went to the education room at the library and waited for volunteers (with training) from AARP to help prepared my taxes for the governments under which I live.

I had gone last week too late to get served, so this week I returned earlier and was the 3rd on the list...and before they started taking new folks, I would get to go to the three stations one by one.

 I only waited a half hour or so for the first "intake" interview, to make sure I'd answered all the questions on their forms.  Then I had an hour wait for the next interview, during which I noticed people going ahead of me, so I went to the clerical type person in charge of the list of names to say I was wondering how they got ahead of me.  She said the list was confusing and messed up, and that I'd be called soon.  Which in another 10 minutes I was.  So that was the interview with a computer to enter all my data.  Since I'd been there last year (and many years before) it was just a job of a few minutes to enter this year's information.  And then I thought I'd have another half hour wait, so I went to my car and got a sip of my coffee (no food or drinks allowed in the library).

I decided not to stay out there, and as I walked back inside, the gentleman was calling me already for my last interview. Another 10 minutes and I signed my IRS and State of NC forms, and was done, as they e-taxed them off to the respective governments.

I'm going to join AARP now.  They've served me so well with this service, all for free, though it does take a dedication of about a whole day to wait usually.  That's why I didn't stay last week, with the assurance that coming back this week I'd get through faster.

Many of the people who come to these Tax Clinics have more difficult taxes to be worked with, though I'd say most of them are retired like myself.  It is certainly a blessing to me. I prepared my own taxes for many of my working years...but I'd have to read about all the changes each year.  I'm glad that someone else is doing that now.

"I avoid looking forward or backward, and try to keep looking upward." 

Charlotte Brontë

The Wednesday rant about DST

With daylight savings time CHANGE this last weekend, as usual my sleep patterns lag behind the hours.

"At night our fear is strong... but in the morning, in the light, we find our courage again."

MALALA YOUSAFZAI

I'm grateful that I have not had the dealings that Malala Yousafzai has had to face in her young life living with the Taliban. My nighttime battles have been mainly with the changes of aging, allergies, sleep apnea and a C-PAP machine, bladder retention, neighborhood noises of apartment living (and a train nearby that I'm almost used to) and bronchial problems which lead to coughing, oh, and not to forget anxieties which come out of nowhere and give me thought racing.

So I'm feeling under-rested and somewhat looking forward to today's activities. In a few more minutes, after a relaxing hot shower and soothing breathing exercises, I'll be ready to face the laundromat, the vacuum, the preps for clay work and friends visiting to watch a movie together, and I will know that this is a good day.  Even if the clock is skewed silly, it's spring in the mountains.  The sun came up again (at it's appointed time!) and there are no clouds (sort of hazy though) in the sky.

I will try to remember my mantra which I used to say upon waking "It's another day given to me in this lifetime."

Winter is almost over

There is a quiet humility about the earth in the winter months, as animals and people retreat inside to do their deep work. 
From Daily Om...by Madisyn Taylor.

It seems as though the inner work is almost done...as we have 10  8 more days till Spring Equinox!

Of course those folks south of the equator will start having cooler days, as we get the warmth returning.

Today it's suddenly cold and rainy, though it wasn't supposed to be.  Poor weather folk.  They can only do so much.  A local church said pretty much the same on a radio broadcast today.  Saying the weathermen can predict but they are often wrong, so put your faith into the One and only who does know what's going to happen.  I was amazed that God now needs radio ads.

It's a make-some-soup day for me.  I've got lots of root crops, and just got a bunch of chopped cilantro, which of course will garnish my soup nicely.  Or perhaps the tomatoes which were beginning to go bad...and are now soaking in soapy water.  They will fit nicely with cilantro and some mixed greens.  But wait, I'm running around so much this week, when will I have time to make soups and salads? Well, I'll find a way.  Where's that crockpot?

Today is planned to take some pottery to a gallery and leave it for a month or more.  All Creatures Great and Small, at the Swannanoa Valley Fine Arts League...in their Red House gallery.  

I'm making less functional things now, and enjoying sculpting different kinds of things.  How about a big globular shape with some heads coming out of it?  Well, so far that's what's happening with the latest piece.  

Women's day 2019

Another blogger listed some of the women of import to her.
I admit to not knowing all of them. (I've used * to designate who I'm looking up)
But I have also added a few of my own.

How about you?

• Abigail Adams
• Harriet Tubman
• Sojourner Truth
• Phillis Wheatley * (c. 1753 – December 5, 1784) was the first published African-American female poet
• Sacajawea
• Deborah Sampson Gannett * (December 17, 1760 – April 29, 1827), better known as Deborah Samson or Deborah Sampson, was a Massachusetts woman who disguised herself as a man in order to serve in the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War.
• Admiral Grace Hopper
• Clara Barton
• Ada Lovelace * Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (née Byron; 10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852) was an English mathematician and writer, chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's proposed mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. She was the first to recognise that the machine had applications beyond pure calculation, and published the first algorithm intended to be carried out by such a machine. As a result, she is sometimes regarded as the first to recognise the full potential of a "computing machine" and the first computer programmer
• Ida B. Wells *(July 16, 1862 – March 25, 1931), was an African-American investigative journalist, educator, and an early leader in the Civil Rights Movement. She was one of the founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP).^[1] She arguably became the most famous black woman in America, during a life that was centered on combating prejudice and violence.^[2]
• Alice Paul * (January 11, 1885 – July 9, 1977) was an American suffragist, feminist, and women's rights activist, and one of the main leaders and strategists of the campaign for the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which prohibits sex discrimination in the right to vote.
• Beatrice Wood - potter
• Maria Martinez - original potter to carve black on black designs at San Isle defonso Mesa, AZ
• Joan Baez
• Lucretia Mott
• Vicki Lane, mystery and blog writer
• Lucy Stone
• Madam CJ Walker
• Mary Wollstonecraft
• Simone de Beauvoir
• Martha Nussbaum * (born 1947) is an American philosopher and the current Ernst Freund Distinguished Service Professor of Law and Ethics at the University of Chicago, where she is jointly appointed in the law school and the philosophy department.
• Theda Skocpol *(born May 4, 1947) is an American sociologist and political scientist, who is currently the Victor S. Thomas Professor of Government and Sociology at Harvard University. An influential figure in both disciplines, Skocpol is best known as an advocate of the historical-institutional and comparative approaches, as well as her "state autonomy theory."
• Amelia Earhart
• Jeanette Rankin
• Frances Perkins
• Eleanor Roosevelt
• Mother Jones
• Margaret Sanger
• Rosa Parks
• Barbara Jordan
• Mary McLeod Bethune
• Dorothy Height *(March 24, 1912 – April 20, 2010) was an Americanadministrator and educator who worked as a civil rights and women's rights activist, specifically focused on the issues of African-American women, including unemployment, illiteracy, and voter awareness.^[1] She was the president of the National Council of Negro Women for forty years and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1994 and the Congressional Gold Medal in 2004
• Shirley Chisholm
• Angela Davis
• Mary Anne Shadd Cary *(October 9, 1823 – June 5, 1893) was an American-Canadian anti-slavery activist, journalist, publisher, teacher, and lawyer. She was the first Black woman publisher in North America and the first woman publisher in Canada.^[1]
• Emily Dickenson
• Mae Jemison * (born October 17, 1956) is an American engineer, physicianand NASA astronaut. She became the first black woman to travel in space when she served as an astronaut aboard the Space Shuttle Endeavour. After graduating medical school and a brief general practice, Jemison served in the Peace Corpsfrom 1985 until 1987. In 1987 her application to become an astronaut was accepted by NASA and on September 12, 1992 she was a mission specialist aboard STS-47. In 1993 she resigned from NASA and founded a company researching the application of technology to daily life.
• Sally Ride
• Sandra Day O’Connor
• Geraldine Ferraro
• Ruth Bader Ginsberg
• Hillary Rodham Clinton
• Nancy Pelosi
• Kamala Harris
• Betty Friedan
• Robin Morgan *(born January 29, 1941) is an American poet, author, political theorist and activist, journalist, lecturer, and former child actor. 
• Gloria Steinem
• Shulamith Firestone *(January 7, 1945 – August 28, 2012)^[2] was a Canadian-American radical feminist.
• Tracy Chapman
• Dolores Huerta *(born April 10, 1930) is an American labor leaderand civil rights activist who, with Cesar Chavez, is a co-founder of the National Farmworkers Association, which later became the United Farm Workers (UFW)
• Billie Jean King
• Maya Angelou
• Toni Morrison
• Mary Elizabeth Bowser *(originally Mary Jane Richards, 1846 – 1867) was a Union spy during the Civil War.^[2] She was an American former slave and worked in connection with Elizabeth Van Lew.^[3]
• Zora Neale Hurston
• Maya Lin
• Janelle Monae *
• Nina Simone
• Rachel Carson
• Malala Yousafzai
• Tarana Burke *
• Katherine Johnson *
• Katharine Graham *
• Bella Abzug
• bell hooks *
• Amy Ray *
• Emily Saliers *
• Carolyn Shoemaker *
• Marian Wright Edelman
• Jane Addams
• Elizabeth Blackwell *
• Dorothea Dix
• Isadora Duncan
• Marie LaVeau *
• Ava DuVernay *
• Nichelle Nichols *
• Leslie Feinberg *
• Byron Balard
• Queen Liliuokalani
• Cathay Williams *
• Victoria Woodhull
• Adelaid Alsop Robineau
• hecatedemeter
• Georgia O’Keefe
• Judy Chicago
• Shannon Watts *
• Emma Gonzalez
• Mari Copeny *
• Mary Caroline Richards
• Anita Cameron *

Conscience

It's that thing that wakes me up in the middle of the night.  In my waking thoughts, I seldom have a sense of guilt, or that I've done something wrong.  But we all know that I'm not immune to doing such things, but somehow I don't have a "guilt-meter" that ding dongs when I behave in a hurtful way.  I admit to this, and for a while thought that meant I was a sociopath...you know, the kind of person that walks all over everyone in their lives.  I certainly didn't want to be that way.  So I usually keep my mouth shut in groups, and often when conversing with friends...and have learned a few tricks like "I hope that I can say this and not hurt your feelings...but..." and "Can I give you some feedback?"

Then when I awken for the bathroom trip in the middle of the night, I hear mysef saying something to someone else, and wishing I hadn't said that.  Or "did she mean what she said after I said that?" Or "why oh why did I say that to her?"  

It usually means an hour or more of tossing and turning with possible scenarios that I can make happen so I can be relieved of this burden of guilt and forgiven.


 I found the following quote, which bothers me even more...

"If we knew just how powerfully our thoughts, words, and actions affected the hearts of those around us, we’d reach out and join hands again and again."
Tara Brach

My thought is...How easily bruised some people are...and we don't even notice if we've been the ones to bump so hard into their soft underbellies.  I kind of wish we had a little light that would blink (maybe on an ear lobe) blue, green or red...depending on how that person's response emotionally is to what has been said to them.

Look deep within - another? Myself?

The universe buries strange jewels deep within us all, and then stands back to see if we can find them  
Elizabeth Gilbert

I guess I spend much more time being introspective than I do looking into the depths of others.
(Blogger is giving me the exercise to rewrite the whole blog if I want it to be legible...it is posting everything in smallest type face...and won't let me change it.) To continue...

But I think I'm missing a lot that way. So for the next 24 hours I am going to ask others questions about themselvces.  I am going to spend more time focused upon others than myself.
That may not come naturally to me.  I had admitted to being an introvert, to enjoying my own company.  I get my energy from my alone time, when reading, writing, looking things up for various research projects, being in nature...and don't put that much of my energy into getting into the depths of my friends (though I have had some great conversations at times.)
So be warned, fellow people sharing space in my neck of the woods. I'm coming to find the jewels that you have hidden deep within you.
Do you want me to? See, my first thought is, how invasive that would be.
But perhaps I can do it with a spirit of exploration that will benefit us both.
What do you think?
If you are reading this, please reply about yourself, just a glimpse that will let me know something of that worth that I am willing to search out.  What I imagine you're thinking is, whow this is very private! How dare that person that I barely am acuainted with ask such a thing?
Well, that's my introverted persona thinking that.  If you think differently, perhaps you would share that, say, you love Jeopardy. Or perhaps you might want to focus on your love of nature.
I sometimes have really nice comments here on blogger, saying that you have similar interests, or find answers to similar quests.  
I feel very much like a "Sheldon on Big Bang Theory."











How does your life work?

What's of most value to you?

Thanks for at least reading so far.  And think about what you might answer...

Beginning and ending

We are all connected: To each other, biologically. To the earth, chemically. And to the rest of the universe, atomically.
Neil deGrasse Tyson

That means not just those who think like us.  We are connected in thought, as well as chemically, through being part of the living beings on the face of this blue ball.  Those who think differenty from ourselves, those who are the criminals, those who are victims, those who we love and those who we hate...yep, all connected in one big melting pot of humanity.  And then all other living beings...animals, plants, microbes, bacteria.  Connections galore.

I love Carl Sagan's thought of how the chemical makeup of each of us is that of star dust.  

So what's new?  

Today. Now.

Choices of what I do today.

Choices of what I think right now.

How I end this blog post...

Tuesday musings

First thing you thought about when you woke up this morning?

For me there's the joy of all that is possible for another day, so I usually think of what's planned.  Today I think I began by thinking of some friends, and their lives.  Then I put my feet on the floor, and thought of the weather.  Pretty mundane.  That's why I'm grateful when the coffee and computer are ready for my next awakening to have a community to visit here in the web.

And there are some inspiring posts on my blog collection.  Thank you everyone who shares thoughts and experiences and quotes of inspiration.  I like the photos...oh so many and diverse, and they show that we humans are walking about this blue planet collecting beauty to share.  It's like a little clubhouse where we each empty our pockets to show what we've brought to each other.

I like having someone else's ideas to bring me a new direction - a pause to consider, perhaps even meditate upon.  So this one resonates with me this morning.

Human beings are not born once and for all on the day their mothers give birth to them, but... life obliges them over and over again to give birth to themselves.

GABRIEL GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ There are housekeeping hints that don't ever go away...like this font, this margin setting, and that I just don't feel like changing it.  Argh.  It's a bit annoying, but somedays you choose your battles, and this just isn't one of them.

"Our inner child lies hidden beneath the layers we've put on, in order to become adults." Madisyn Taylor

I'm trying to reconcile childish cravings for satisfaction, with adult determination to change some habits ("bad" comes to mind, but they are about eating, so it's hard to use that term.)

Sugars are bad for me.

"OK" adult me says, "that's true."

So to please younger me, I'm thinking of how I can have more fun in my life, without dealing with the sugar craving at all.  Just fun.

Teen girls batting a ball while wading in the creek, a sunny day in the 50s...what does that say to me? "They're crazy, numb feet for sure!"

Hearing the traffic

The other day I walked in a park nearby, but was amazed how loud the traffic was.  I've walked there in summertime, and I guess the leaves on trees must muffle it.  That day, Feb. 28, there were no leaves.  And lots of traffic.

It was due to rain more that afternoon, but was dry before noon, so I watched the semis go their way (see white box through trees.) I admit I was jealous of the runner who jogged by me with earbuds in his ears, listening to a much nicer song, and I hadn't even heard him coming up behind me.

The Interstate 40 is to the left as I looked back at the parking lot.  That's near the ball fields, which probably will see action soon as the warmer weather comes.

There are actually 3 choices of path to follow, and I liked this little children's tracking sign.

In the past I've gone down to the right under the interstate to the community gardens.

The walk goes through one tunnel under the highway, and the Swannanoa River goes through several others.

I chose to walk up the straight path toward downtown Black Mountain, going over the walkway bridge.

A well forested area, but these trees looked different, and what did that sign say?

I guess the dirt path off through the woods went towards some college land with some athletic fields.  I didn't go that way.  This is not in Montreat, but Montreat College has a Black Mountain campus now.

I went up the steep hill, rested my panting lungs, then turned around and went back.

 There wasn't much evidence that spring was coming soon...just a few buds on some tree, might be redbud?

The river had flooded in the past, leaving all that sand on the right, but it was pretty calm and clear today...before the next rain!