tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80018855388363015162024-03-12T22:58:24.448+00:00Sometimes It's PhilosophicalPondering and pontificating. Actually just talking to myself. These are the things I most need to learn and remember.Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.comBlogger20125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8001885538836301516.post-40207215401557911492011-01-30T21:10:00.005+00:002011-01-31T08:47:34.218+00:00On extended family livingSomeone came up with a better name for this a few years ago and I can’t remember what it was, but I’m pretty sure I blogged it at the time. OK, it’s <a href="http://moneyfacts.co.uk/news/savings/parents-move-to-live-with-children/">3G living</a> - I touched on it by that name in <a href="http://offgridness.wordpress.com/2008/10/19/its-a-beautiful-tree/">this post</a>, and in a bit more detail and in a bit of a rant back in 2007 <a href="http://sometimesitspeaceful.blogspot.com/2007/12/end-of-autonomy.html">here</a>. <br /><br />Well so far we’re still just 2G living here, although the second G is spread out across an 18-year age range. And instead of parents moving back in with their children, we’ve got adult children who might never move out – and indeed, who might raise their own children here. Tom will be 22 next month, so we’re essentially four years into this particular experiment and, although the real test (when someone moves a partner in, which might never happen, or might result in one or both of them moving out again very quickly!) hasn’t happened yet, we’ve at least got some experience to write about beyond the theoretical. <br /><br />First, why are we doing this? Mainly because we can. We’ve got enough space here and enough resources to ensure that everyone can have their own private space, plus enough shared space in the middle for us to comfortably enjoy together. <br /><br />How did we manage that? Very creative use of space. Very careful husbandry – we hardly ever buy anything non-essential, have very cheap, short camping holidays very close to home, drive an old car and never buy in labour. Taking a few very carefully calculated risks and being lucky enough to be able to secure a mortgage to buy the right place at the right time (1997). (Although it didn’t feel like the right time in terms of house prices etc. at the time! We had friends who’d bought a 5-bedroomed house for £15K in the mid-1980s. Five times that ten years later seemed like a frighteningly astronomical sum.) Firmly refusing all offers of further debt, no matter how tempting or necessary they might have seemed at the time. <br /><br />Fear of debt was one of my main motivations in deciding not to ask the children to leave home when each one grows up. (Note: I’m not asking them to stay either – they all have to make that decision for themselves in as free and unfettered a way as possible. But I want them to know that not ever leaving home is one of the choices that will always be open to them, as will coming back to live here if they do move away. Although I won’t be able to guarantee that no-one will have pinched their bedroom!)<br /><br />By the time my mortgage is paid off, I’ll have endured the standard 25 years in debt. I don’t want to put my children through the same thing, if I’ve got a choice in the matter. I’ve done everything I can to make sure I do have a choice in the matter, so that they can have one too. I consider it to be one of my responsibilities to them: ensuring they’ve always got somewhere to live, some means of making money, and a sufficiently good education to be able to stay completely debt-free. Being without debt and sharing living costs means they don’t have to seek full time contracted employment if they don’t want to, which has meant they’ve had <a href="http://rightoffsite.wordpress.com/2011/01/27/on-gcses"/>more choices than usual</a> in wider respects. I’m planning to write more about self employment with low initial capital outlay in a future post. <br /><br />Benefits of extended family living we’ve enjoyed are as follows: <br /><br />· Pooling of skills, strengths, talents and preferences: one person can do plumbing, another likes to vac the carpet, there are four adult childcarers and educational facilitators; one likes growing food – another likes buying it! And so on. <br />· Pooling of funds and sharing of resources: Tom’s business can afford a slack period because there’s other family income to fall back on; in turn it offers some protection in the event of a failure of other sources of income; one electricity/gas/water/TV licence/ council tax/ mortgage account is cheaper than many. Even things like shoes, coats, clothes etc can be swapped around and borrowed/lent easily meaning there’s more choice available for less cost per person.<br />· There’s good company available without needing to leave the house! Some people like to play and discuss games, others like to talk politics, do crosswords together, cook and eat together or just mess around. There’s usually someone available and willing to share fun time with. <br />· Increased security. This is the house that never sleeps: someone is always awake, someone is always in. <br />· We are each other’s nurses and sickness cover. In the event of a crisis, we are each other’s crisis management team! <br /><br />But there are a few drawbacks: <br /><br />· It’s not without conflict. Two of the adult siblings in particular struggle to live in the same house peacefully; everyone knows everyone else’s weak points and people wind each other up – although they’re the same old arguments we’ve always had and everyone’s got used to it, so it’s not really much of a problem. <br />· Taking friends home always involves the whole family, straight away. This can be good and bad. It’s a bit more difficult to have a private life though – although possible. All four adults have managed it. <br />· People think we’re weird! Other relatives have really struggled to come to terms with what we’re doing: they think it’s just wrong and we’ve been shunned and criticised by them. But for us, this is just another continuation of our experiences of home educating. They were just the same about that. Some people get really disturbed by breaches of social norms, even ones that have obvious benefits and few drawbacks. <br /><br />Overall, I’d add that it’s because we’re closely related family who have always lived and spent our time together that this works so well for us. We really respect, know and love each other and this is a bond that can’t really be replicated, I don’t think, in any other way. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ptLiXDjgMUA/TUXVDfvJwtI/AAAAAAAABTs/YjEJ0yEOK54/s1600/06%2BJan%2B2011%2B074.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_ptLiXDjgMUA/TUXVDfvJwtI/AAAAAAAABTs/YjEJ0yEOK54/s200/06%2BJan%2B2011%2B074.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5568090770349081298" /></a>Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8001885538836301516.post-54273070821052889692010-04-25T17:25:00.002+01:002010-04-25T17:46:50.841+01:00Google Hollie GriegI've been seeing this message around on people's Facebook profiles and elsewhere, but didn't actually get around to doing it until I read <a href="http://www.renegadeparent.net/post/Child-Snatching-by-the-State-conference-first-thoughts.aspx">this</a>, by Lisa at Renegade Parent. Then I wished I done it earlier: it's something we're all morally obliged to do, perhaps. <br /><br />It seems to me that the big question in the Hollie Grieg story is: <br /><br /><i>Why don't the named alleged perpetrators sue for libel?</i><br /><br />Especially the ones in the public eye, in positions of public responsibility. If ordinary people are morally obliged to Google this story that's being carefully kept out of the mainstream media, aren't those named individuals obliged to clear their names of such heinous crimes? <br /><br />And if they don't (as, so far, they haven't) then what are we to think? <br /><br />Times are changing. Stories spread anyway, with or without the big guns in the mainstream media deciding what they want us to know. We, the public, form our own opinions. And generally speaking, when people in responsible, well-paid positions of <b>public</b> office do <i>nothing</i> to clear their names from specific allegations like this, it looks like a tacit admission of guilt.Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8001885538836301516.post-63734230874152465422008-09-14T05:51:00.003+01:002008-09-14T05:57:11.650+01:00This man is saying what I've been saying for years... but he says it so much better than I ever did. <br /><br /><a href="http://podcast.abovetopsecret.com/atsmix_3064.mp3">Here</a> is about an hour of some of the most enlightening, inspiring conversation you could ever hear. <br /><br />It's Dr. Míceál Ledwith, whose <a href="http://www.hamburgeruniverse.com/">website</a> is worth a look too. Oh, and <a href="http://www.hamburgeruniverse.com/articles.html">these articles</a>, which I'm just about to plough through..Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8001885538836301516.post-37869167947341187242008-08-14T07:55:00.003+01:002008-08-14T08:01:41.467+01:00Work goes staleZara and I were chatting about work yesterday, and we came to the conclusion that like old food, if it's not attended to in the right time and the right way, work goes stale. <br /><br />My mother-in-law used to say: "There's nowt keeps like work", but I disagree. It doesn't keep well at all. <br /><br />Zara explained: "If I start to tidy my bedroom and get halfway through, then give up and do something else, it's nearly impossible to finish the job because it's gone stale and the moment has passed."<br /><br />I was talking about tidying up too, and washing dishes. I'd gone to bed leaving it undone the night before and woke up to two-hours' worth of stale work the next morning. Never again! I want to do it while it's fresh.Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8001885538836301516.post-17845517150499422032008-07-10T03:34:00.005+01:002008-11-13T07:43:45.091+00:00Taking care of the soil<blockquote>Still, I thought I would go ahead and talk to the doctor. No reason not to. I left the commercial roads and cut over to Paradise on farm roads. <br /><br />The farms stopped me. They were perfect. They were absolutely exquisite. Each one was minutely cared for, as if the rows were pulled up straight each morning and the corners tucked in at nightfall. The soil was looser than at other farms; it was lighter, fluffed up, as if it had been given a good beating in a copper bowl. <br /><br />I drove along a stream bed bounding with spring rains and watched where it widened into a pool by a farmhouse. Ducks sailed across the pond as if in serene possession of their affairs. I watched. There was no traffic and few sounds. I rolled down the window and let the smell of the earth fill the car. I thought I could hear a duck paddling across the pond. I was awestruck. <br /><br />I stared at the ploughed earth, at the breathing, fertile soil all around me. And then I began to cry. After the assaults I had felt and seen in the cities, assaults of man against woman, woman against child; after the endless asphalted city floor; after the heavy metal-dust smell of power coursing along boulevards and into dark buildings, here - here, all this time, these people had been taking care of the soil.</blockquote><br /><br />This is an excerpt from <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Midwifes-Story-Penny-Armstrong/dp/1905177046/">A Midwife's Story</a> by Penny Armstrong and Sheryl Feldman, kindly lent to me by a friend. It's the story of Penny Armstrong's midwifery practice amongst the Amish people in Pennsylvania and the quotation describes her first impressions of the area. <br /><br />It struck a chord with me because the soil is what we've been working on <a href="http://offgridness.wordpress.com/2008/07/05/work-in-progress/">here</a> - the meditative pastime of sorting the real stone from the lumps of concrete, old bits of tile and other junk, and separating out the soil from mounds previously excavated from the house. Our predecessor built an extension and had the earth and other debris from the foundations and construction dumped in the coal cellar. We then converted the basement and dumped it all in the field. It's been there this past seven years, growing weeds, waiting to be sorted. I knew I'd get around to it eventually. <br /><br />A few people have looked at it and suggested less time-consuming alternatives. "Why don't you kick it down the hill, cover it in compost and grass over it?" said one person. <br /><br />"Just leave it where it is and grass over it," said another. "Make it part of the landscape." <br /><br />"Get a digger," said someone else. "You can set them to sort through what they're shifting, to pull out the stones." <br /><br />"Will it sort out the lumps of coke and concrete from the real stones?" I asked. It wouldn't. And anyway, it would cost more than we can afford. And anyway, I wanted to do it by hand. <br /><br />People think it's mad, but it's meditative. And the children help, peering at bits of stone to see if they are the genuine article or just composite. <br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ptLiXDjgMUA/SHV_Ua9KijI/AAAAAAAAApU/VVVrRq3CeQI/s1600-h/10+July+2008+005.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_ptLiXDjgMUA/SHV_Ua9KijI/AAAAAAAAApU/VVVrRq3CeQI/s320/10+July+2008+005.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5221219331815934514" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />And while they help, we're talking about all manner of things: what the worms are doing. (Why aren't they over there, in nicer soil?) What's been happening in the house. What used to be here. Who used to live here. How they lived. Why they built the sheds. (WWII - Dig for Victory. We know this because my dad, who was a local child at the time, remembers them being built.) How they built them, and why like that. The history of the house, the field, the town, the world. How big dinosaurs are, and how far away Australia. <br /><br />When I'm working alone it's time to think. There's something about repetitive physical work isn't there? It takes on a life of its own - a momentum. Jobs that you thought would take forever slowly but definitely disappearing. And at the end of the day, you feel like you've done something.Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8001885538836301516.post-43424022650971540962008-06-21T22:22:00.000+01:002008-06-21T22:24:54.739+01:00Re-post: Right *here*, right *now* - Apr 07This is the principle by which I live, parent and educate because if difficulties arise, they always seem to come from either fears for the future or regret about the past. But we are free to choose where to focus our minds: Past, future - or now!<br /><br />I don't know whether living entirely, permanently in the NOW is always a good idea. I tried it for a few months once, but found that I had to force my mind not to do anything else, and enforcement tends to only waste energy and to involve a corresponding backlash. So I'm happy to think back sometimes to think about what's happened to learn from it and to remember past events with fondness.<br /><br />I do find it interesting, though, which particular events I look back on with the most fondness. They're often the times when I was doing something apparently unremarkable - except living in the NOW! The special events like marriage, birthdays and childbirths were often so fraught with complications to do with the specialness of the event, that I obviously found it hard to enjoy them properly. <br /><br />The more I live in the present moment, the less I fear the future. I have been known to indulge in the occasional panic about things to come to varying degrees, but I suspect this causes a frame of mind that looks for bad news and therefore often finds it. I have images in my mind about the long term future which all involve happiness and contentment. I think we do tend to find what we're looking for, one way or another.<br /><br />Some thinking about the future is probably sensible though, to avoid danger. But taking action to avoid danger is a different thing entirely to just worrying that it will come and hurt me and mine. But too much focus on taking such action can lead to inertia, or - worse - the wrong sort of action. <br /><br />I believe the universe is intelligent. Some people call this God, Allah, Jehovah, the Tao or other names relating to their culture and interpretation. This intelligence creates order and I think the key to right action lies in observing and complying with this order. Not being gullible or desperate to find answers or to follow the crowd. <br /><br />By switching off the noise and finding somewhere quiet, to listen and think and just to be, the right answers arise on their own. <br /><br />Right answers feel different, like nothing else. They just click into place and feel right, then it's easy to trust them.<br /><br />posted by Gill at 8:10 AM <br /><br /><br />6 Comments:<br /><br /><br /> Mieke said... <br /><br />Very, very beautifully put into words, thank you, Gill. Very Zen, too ;)).<br />11:08 AM, April 27, 2007 <br /><br /> <br /> Amanda said... <br /><br />A lovley post!<br />11:24 AM, April 27, 2007 <br /><br /> <br /> Ruth said... <br /><br />I can never live in the right now. I have spent my life looking ahead to what might happen and taking action to avoid it if it looks bad. I drive the whole household mad:)mainly cos any predictions I make about future events normally come true lol, be they be good or bad. I wish I could let go of the future but I can't. Does that make me a control freak?<br />3:47 PM, April 27, 2007 <br /><br /> <br /> Adele said... <br /><br />"Right answers feel different, like nothing else. They just click into place and feel right, then it's easy to trust them."<br /><br />Yay Gill! People tend to underestimate this kind of intuitive knowledge, but I think it's the most important kind. :)<br />4:00 PM, April 27, 2007 <br /><br /><br /> Allie said... <br /><br />I'm a *right now* kind of person too - or I try to be! Just yesterday at work we learned of a student who had been killed in a car crash. I took a reserved book off the shelf where it was waiting for her - a stark reminder of the fact that we can never plan with any certainty.<br />8:01 PM, April 27, 2007 <br /><br /><br /> Gill said... <br /><br />Thanks all! But that one just wrote itself ;-)<br />I should maybe root around for more, where it came from!<br />3:32 PM, April 28, 2007Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8001885538836301516.post-30366923064452729892008-06-21T19:34:00.003+01:002008-06-21T21:25:45.543+01:00Re-post: And now for something controversial - Jan 07The Commission for Social Care Inspection has just published their <a href="http://www.csci.org.uk/about_csci/news/families_take_the_strain_to_fi.aspx">State of Social Care report</a>, in which it claims that "Individuals and families are increasingly having to find and pay for their own care."<br /><br />Well, here's a new idea: Instead of putting your children into full-time state-funded daycare from as early an age as possible, so that you can go out to work and buy things you might not actually need, thereby becoming less familiar with and more isolated from them as they grow up so that by the time they're adults you're all essentially strangers; instead of spending your children's childbearing years reclaiming your own youth, working for more stuff you might not need, going off on holidays you really, if you're honest, might not even enjoy that much and becoming even more distanced from your family so that by the time you really need them they barely know you and anyway are following your example and busy having 'lives of their own'; Instead of putting off having children because they're expensive or not convenient or you never quite 'met the right person'... try doing the opposite! <br /><br />If everyone lived a more natural family life instead of thoughtlessly living by state-imposed, state-serving (by 'state' I really mean corporate business interests) mantras like 'every child must go to school', 'relative poverty is a serious problem' and so on, the numbers of elderly people left reliant on care from stangers would be drastically reduced. In fact, strong, home-based family networks tend to look out for their neighbours too, so the reliance on state care would be virtually eliminated. In <i>fact</i>, reliance on the state would be virtually eliminated! And <i>then</i> where would we be? ;-)<br /><br />In a much better place than we are now, in my opinion, with far fewer problems.<br /><br />7 Comments:<br /><br /> <a href="http://sewq.wordpress.com/">Qalballah</a> said... <br /><br />Amen.<br />4:17 PM, January 12, 2007 <br /><br /><br /><a href="http://indigoshirl.blogspot.com/">IndigoShirl</a> said... <br /><br />Well Said.....:~)<br /><br /><br />5:47 PM, January 12, 2007 <br /><br /> <br /><a href="http://magicalmeyhem.blogspot.com/">Ruth</a> said... <br /><br />Good post Gill.<br />8:27 PM, January 12, 2007<br /> <br /> Amanda said... <br /><br />This is an interesting post, I really enjoyed reading it :0) but I don't see how it would work :0( Most of my friends have waited until they have met the right person/got some security before having kids. Most of them work because they have to/need to. I do know what you're saying though. But its a hard cycle to break... <br />I've been in a situation where I have looked after a dependent relative, I personally would'nt do it again.<br />1:47 PM, January 13, 2007 <br /> <br /><a href="http://homeedsweden.blogspot.com/">UmSuhayb b David</a> said... <br /><br />living in Sweden, the state encourages us to send kids to daycare from age 1, way too young I think. I'm some sort of misfit when I say I'm a housewife, the swedish word for it in fact is hardly ever used (I was given a questionnaire to fill in by the Health visitor and I couldn't find a box to tick which showed my 'occupation'!) In the end the questionnaire went in the bin.. anyway!<br />3:15 PM, January 14, 2007 <br /> <br /><a href="http://othena.blogspot.com/">Unshelled</a> said... <br /><br />Hi, meant to do that earlier ...<br /><br />I love how you really get straight down to it and as they say call 'a spade a spade'......<br /><br />Bws <br />Michelle<br />4:44 PM, January 14, 2007 <br /><br /> <br /> Gill said... <br /><br />Thanks all. I see even <a href="http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles-new/?p=478">Melanie Phillips</a> kind of agrees with me, which is slightly worrying TBH!<br /><br />Yes, it's a hard cycle to break, but well worth the effort I think.<br />11:27 AM, January 15, 2007Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8001885538836301516.post-35597498234640125152008-06-21T12:18:00.009+01:002008-06-21T16:06:12.987+01:00Re-post: Space-clearing ceremony - Jan 05From Wednesday, January 05, 2005<br /><br />More Epiphany/Chanuka thoughts and a space-clearing ceremony<br /><br />I sometimes like to think of my house as a kind of mini-temple, just for us - just meaning that it's our sacred space, really. I've done space-clearing ceremonies here, mainly just after we moved in, and a consecration rite. Part of the process involved candles and incense - very similar to the American Indian's smudging. In fact, smudge sticks work really well. They're specially made for the purpose. Nag Champa (Nitiraj) incense is perfect for it too.<br /><br />But I'm explaining this in quite a back-to-front way. I probably should set out the process we followed, so that I'm not just telling half a story:<br /><br />We thoroughly cleaned the house - this way just after we bought it - removed all the carpets, the wallpaper and the fitted furniture (just because we didn't like any of it) and painted the walls white. Then we went into each room and, using our hands, we 'clapped out the energy'. This involves just basically clapping around the walls, everywhere you can reach, and especially into the corners where the air is thick. When you first start to clap in a corner, the sound is quite muffled, then as you keep clapping you can hear the noise getting clearer. Basically, you're using sound to break-up the heavy energy. It's quite hard work, and it takes a long time.<br /><br />When this is finished, the space is quite raw. Then you need to go around again with a lit smudge-stick or some burning Nag Champa (Nitiraj) to further purify the space. The smoke and scent produced by these two is very cleansing. You could make your own smudge stick as an alternative to buying one, using cleansing herbs like rosemary, lavender, or whatever else you like. You need to make sure you have good, healthy thoughts in your mind when both making and using smudge sticks because your thoughts will be imprinted into the area when it's so raw and 'open'.<br /><br />Next, take a small bell, preferably one that makes a good, clear sound. Starting at the front door, set it ringing by moving it in a circular motion so that the clapper moves round and round the inside of the bell. It's important to keep it ringing like this while you do the whole circuit of the house again, through every room, around the walls and in the corners. The noise of the bell is sealing the energy - so you opened it by clapping, purified it with the smoke and now you're sealing it with the bell. Again, focus on good thoughts for your space while you're doing it.<br /><br />Now the house is cleansed, to consecrate it you need a bowl of sea salt and a bowl of water. Point the fingers of your left hand into the salt and your right hand into the water. Now, you can say what you want the space to be used and 'charge' the salt and water. If you're religious you can use prayers at this point. If you know how to do energy work, draw either earth or cosmic energy (or both, depending on how you work) into your belly by breathing in, then breathe out and visualise it moving down the arms, through the fingers and into the salt and water. If you know about directional energy you can use that at this point too.<br /><br />Go around the house again, sprinkling some of the water in every room. Salt is used for protection, so this needs to be sprinkled across or around the boundary of your property. As you're sprinkling the water, you can say something to consecrate each room, or - this is where children like to get involved - each person can sprinkle the water for their room say their own words to consecrate it. It can be just something simple, like: "This room is happy, peaceful, safe and relaxing," but use definite, present-tense words, like "This room is.." rather than future terms like "This room will be.." or indefinite terms like "I want this room to be..." If you're consecrating a room for someone else, you can use the person's name in what you're saying to make it a very personal space for them, but wherever possible it's important to check that they're happy with what you're saying. The general, family-use rooms can be consecrated for their purpose - the kitchen to provide nourishment at the heart of the family, the dining-room for healthy digestion and good conversation, the entrance to be welcoming, the sitting room to be relaxing and peaceful - whatever you want for your house.<br /><br />Finally, to 'set' the process, light a small candle for every room, on a saucer, surrounded by beautiful things like maybe flowers, petals, favourite little ornaments, a religious symbol if you're religious. Children often enjoy making their own candle-saucers for their own rooms, with items of their choosing - whatever makes them happy. Set the candle in the middle of each room and when you light each one, focus your thoughts on the new flame and again, think positive specific thoughts for the room or say the phrase you used while sprinkling the water. Again, children can light their own candles. It's nice to stay in the room while the candle burns out if you can, maybe playing some favourite music and/or doing a favourite occupation - something that befits the words, thoughts and intentions you've used in the ceremony. If you've got a lot of rooms, use very small candles if you're planning to stay with them all until they've burned down! Or you could just light bigger ones and move around the house or have all the doors open. Whatever you feel is the most practical way to 'set' the energy of the room with the candles.<br /><br />To finish off, you need to give thanks. Who or what to is up to you. Your God/Goddess, your house, the spirit or love of your family - whatever you're grateful to or for.<br /><br />I only did the full ceremony once here. If you do it too often, the place can become too unsettled and raw-feeling. But it's great for clearing negative energy generated by too many arguments, or just for shifting the previous occupier's imprint from a house. I've done mini versions of it since, maybe after an argument or when we've changed the use of a room or felt in need of extra protection. I have to say that we've never been burgled - except for the garage, and I didn't include that in the ceremony because it's quite separate from the house and I didn't think to. Also, people don't tend to come to the house unless we want them to. I don't know whether this is as a result of the ceremony, but we do feel very safe here.<br /><br />Also, regarding colour, it was good to paint every room white initially - it's like creating a blank page. But then as I've redecorated the house has gradually become far more colourful. I used the Feng Shui Pa Kua initially, for both colour and placement of things, but in more recent years I've got more relaxed and intuitive about this. The kitchen (West and Northwest) is now green with a red floor, the dining room (South and Southwest) is pink with a green floor, the cloakroom, hall and stairs (Southeast and centre) are bright red with gold spirals (that was fun!) and a red carpet, because they run through the centre of the house and I wanted some heat there. My room is 'marine' blue for contemplation, but I think I'll re-do that one soon. It's Northwest-facing so water colours fit but sometimes I think it's a bit too watery in there.<br /><br />Anyway, this blog entry came about because I was thinking last night about Chanuka and Epiphany (both today), the one meaning to re-dedicate the temple, to cleanse it with fire and the other meaning a manifestation of God, and/or commemorating the visit and gift-giving of the Magi and I thought: this would be the perfect day to do a space-clearing/consecration ceremony. When we do these things at appropriate times they're even more powerful, maybe because lots of people on the planet are doing/thinking something similar. This kind of joint focus is incredibly effective. Also I think there would have been reasons, to do with the movement of the planet and it's position, the cycle of nature and probably other factors, for the siting of these dates. As I said yesterday, it's the best time of year for land-clearing, before the new growth begins - and house (or temple)-clearing the same.<br /><br />Frankincense and myrrh would actually be perfect for use in the ceremony. I'd use the myrrh in the smudge stick because of it's cleansing properties and the frankincense at the end, with the candle-burning, to set the ritual, because of it's spiritually inspiring effects. You could even use some gold coins in your candle setting, especially in the South-eastern area, if you wanted to attract some wealth into your house! The visiting Magi didn't select their gifts at random, did they? These were the three most valuable physical elements of the ancient world. Gold actually has powerful mineral properties. I've heard of people using it as a herbal medicine, but I don't know enough about it to tell you in more detail. I might research it though, because it's very interesting. Aurum met is of course a homoeopathic remedy, made from potentised gold. My Materia Medica (Kent) tells me it's for use in people who loathe life, are weary of it, want to die and seek methods of committing suicide. Hmm. Handy stuff, then!<br /><br />Nowadays our lives are often so disconnected from the planet's rhythms I often think that's why many people get depressed or feel unfulfilled. I've certainly been a lot happier and more content since I've started thinking about these things.<br /><br /><br />posted by Gill at 8:53 AM 4 commentsGillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8001885538836301516.post-64713574486933181412008-06-21T12:18:00.006+01:002008-06-21T16:02:03.617+01:00Re-post: Ownership of space - Jan 05From Thursday, January 06, 2005<br /><br />A whole bucketful of rain has come through my roof now since this morning, which is going some. The ceiling looks OK; it's not bulging or anything, the water is just pouring straight through the flat roof where the plasterboards once met. It's not getting any better but I don't think it will collapse. I hope it doesn't: there are about 2000 books underneath for it to land on if it does. Hey, it's an indoor water feature. I always wanted one. (Be careful what you ask for..)<br /><br />So the other issue that I think about a lot, as well as how to get things done, is ownership of space, because it seems to me that this is a vital aspect of harmonious living. I'd like to extend a tenuous theory: that it's impossible for more than one person to share ownership of the same space. (I mean ownership in the sense of being in control of the space, as opposed to financial or legal ownership. If you feel confident of being able to move things such as furniture around in a room without feeling uncomfortable or being challenged by someone else, then I'd say you own that space in the way I'm talking about now.) If more than one person tries to share ownership of the same space, they'll always argue over it until one of them gives way and retires to the proverbial potting shed.<br /><br />The woman of the house, if she's striving for domestic perfection, like Bree in Desperate Housewives, is in danger of inadvertently depriving her family of personal space to control, and I think that having personal space to control is an essential element of happiness and good mental health.<br /><br />It's difficult for us mums, because babies are born not needing their own space and older children can often be very messy and untidy while they learn how to deal with their stuff. Teenagers and other adults can be even worse than that and it's harder for us to tolerate because we expect more from them. We women quite often feel responsible for the state of the whole house. The buck stops with us. Society judges us on the state of our home - all of it - and if it doesn't then we feel it does anyway and so the end result's the same.<br /><br />What can we do? If we don't clean and tidy all of the house, we're at risk of being thought negligent or slovenly and if we do clean and tidy everywhere we're depriving our loved ones of their essential need to be in control of their personal space. And shouting or nagging at someone to tidy their space counts as taking control for it too. If we're imposing our standards on someone else's space we're not allowing them to be in control of it.<br /><br />Letting go of space to my children has been a gradual process for me as they've grown up. Lyddie shares my room, and it's interesting to see that it's fast becoming her room. She has all of her toys in there , a little table and chairs, she decides whether to have the TV on and what to watch, turns lamps on and off as she likes and so on. If we're both in there (this happened earlier today) and someone knocks at the door she's the one to call "Come in!" - because it's becoming her space. I'm relegated to the more public areas of the dining room and kitchen in the daytime now. But in the evening when she's tired she reverts to babyhood and I move in and reclaim the space. The toys get put away, something more grown-up goes on the TV, the curtains are closed. Of course, we don't spend all of our time apart all day, she's often in here with me or I'm in there with her, but it's on sort of a visiting basis. So far, it works well for us. I'll know when she's ready to have her own room completely separate from mine.<br /><br />The older children are now pretty much in charge of their space. As I say, it's been a progression. When they were a lot younger I would go in and tidy up, but I'd try to do it while they were around and ask "Where shall I put this?" so that they got an idea about tidying up. If someone's room ever got really bad (which they often did on a 6-monthly basis) I'd ask whether they'd like me to blitz it for them, because it really is too big a job to completely blitz a room for anyone other than a healthy, mature adult. (I use the terms healthy and mature wisely. I've known quite a few adults who weren't either sufficiently healthy or mature enough to be able to successfully blitz a really trashed room.) Anyway, sometimes the child would tell me they didn't want their room blitzing, so I'd tell them to just let me know if they changed their minds, which they invariably did after a week or so to think about it.<br /><br />Now, the boys are pretty good at managing their space. I ask them if they want chambermaid service sometimes, when I realise I haven't washed any of their laundry for a few days or I'm short of coffee mugs and if they say no I respect that and maybe just ask for the cups or whatever back. I'd still blitz their rooms for them if they asked me. Ali had his done a couple of months ago. Tom doesn't want his done at all. Zara's room is an absolute tip right now and I'm quite keen to get in there and do it but she says she's happy to keep it that way for now, so I have to accept that.<br /><br />Ownership of space means you do all the jobs in the space, so as the only adult in the house I've always chosen to take charge of cleaning the communal rooms like the bathroom, kitchen etc. Also my philosophy of not controlling people means that if I think something needs doing, I have to either get on and do it or change my mind and be happy to leave it undone. So the washing-up is my job, for example, because I'm the only one who ever thinks it needs doing. I'm happy to do this because accepting that it's my job makes me feel good. Imagining it's someone else's job and they should do it how and when I think they should do it makes me feel resentful, angry and bad. This is quite easy when it's only my beloved offprings' dishes I'm washing. I think it would be more of a problem if another adult was involved.<br /><br />Sometimes I wonder how other people manage to share space and tasks. Maybe there are people in families, partnerships, teams and groups for whom this just isn't a problem. I wouldn't be surprised if this kind of thinking is just my own idiosyncrasy.<br /><br />Still raining. Getting dark. What a day. Roll on Summer.Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8001885538836301516.post-10362491799114476342008-06-21T12:18:00.005+01:002008-06-21T12:30:34.263+01:00Re-post: Limbo - Oct 06From Friday, October 06, 2006<br /><br />The Pope is to abolish Limbo. ("Why?" quipped Zara "Did he hurt his back trying to get under the pole?")<br /><br />It interests me that he really does think he has the power to decide such things as whether Limbo exists, for people other than himself. It interests me even more that for some other people in the world he really does have this power. If he says a thing has ceased to exist, they actually believe it's gone. Poof! Gone. <br /><br />My personal belief is that our experience after death actually will correspond with whatever we believed in life. So (if I'm right) then the Pope really does have that power over vast swathes of humanity. <br /><br />I know people who believe life after death is always complete nothingness, the void (Limbo, as previously defined by Catholics) and some of them really welcome the prospect of their existence stopping and becoming nothingness on their death. Stardust. These aren't all unbaptized and some still believe in God but view this life as 'suffering' and therefore don't want any more of any sort of life after it at all. <br /><br />I know others who are agnostics or atheists who believe in a continuation of individual existence after death and in my opinion they have a perfect right to believe what they want to believe and I hope (and believe) it will be true for them. <br /><br />It is a matter of faith and the essence of being a Catholic (as I understand it) is that you put your faith in whatever the Pope decides is true. In fact, the essence of any organised religion means delegating the decisions about what you're going to believe to the people at the top of your religious body, whichever that may be. This is why I could never belong to one: I want to decide those things individually, by myself.<br /><br />Should the Pope (or any one man) have so much jaw-dropping audacious power? Maybe not, but he does. But only because and while ever some people choose to allow him to have it.<br /><br />A Catholic writer in the Daily Mail (Peter Stanford) bemoans the decision, asking "Why bother trying to be so good as to win admission from St Peter at the gates of Heaven, when everyone's got a free ticket anyway?" <br /><br />There's a picture of him and he looks to have had at least 30 years in which to think about such matters. Yet I thought the concept of 'being good and you'll get into Heaven' was the dentist-friendly version of that old parenting standby 'Be good and you'll get some sweets.' It's bribery! <br /><br />If you were St Peter, would you let anyone in who'd been 'good' solely to reserve their spot? It strikes me as being a bit selfish (= 'bad' last time I checked with anyone who quantifies these things. Which was probably my mother.)<br /><br />No I don't think selfishness is bad. But nor do I think being good just to get into heaven is good. I'm more inclined to think they're all subjective and rather useless concepts, like limbo. Does that make me existentialist? *Reaches for dictionary to find out what that means..*<br /><br />posted by Gill at 7:03 PM 2 commentsGillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8001885538836301516.post-51890023842007787632008-06-21T12:18:00.004+01:002008-06-21T12:28:44.493+01:00Re-post: Jehovah's Witnesses - May 05From Tuesday, May 17, 2005<br /><br />Have just had a chat with Margharita the Italian Jehovah's Witness. I usually find JWs to be very nice people and this one is no exception but try as I might I can't get around the evangelical ethos. I like to talk to people - anyone! People I like, people I don't like, people I know and complete strangers. I think everyone has a message for us, something to tell us or teach us - usually something they're not aware of themselves.<br /><br />But why do they think we must we all share the same religious beliefs? I just can't understand it. It's like saying we should all wear blue clothes or have red hair. There's nothing wrong with blue clothes or red hair, but some people like different colour, and most people like a variety of colours. Some people really don't like blue or red at all. What's wrong with that?<br /><br />We need the whole picture to be complete. We need every individual to think and believe exactly what they think and believe. Everyone has their own vital piece of the jigsaw. It's no good knocking on doors trying to persuade people that really, their piece should be identical to your piece. I can't see the sense in it.<br /><br />Anyway, I told her this and then we had a nice chat about growing potatoes instead.<br /><br />posted by Gill at 10:57 AM 5 commentsGillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8001885538836301516.post-14330273353294137482008-06-21T12:18:00.003+01:002008-06-21T12:26:59.587+01:00Re-post: I Ching - Feb 05From Tuesday, February 22, 2005<br /><br />I've been using the <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/I-Ching-Book-Changes-Arkana/dp/0140192077/sr=8-1/qid=1163671949/ref=pd_ka_1/203-3503293-8131166?ie=UTF8&s=books">I Ching</a> regularly throughout the past decade and so it's definitely a key part of my life and I've consulted it regarding every major decision I've made in that time, and some of the minor ones too. About 7 years ago I studied the I Ching very deeply. A lot of books have been written about its history, origins and how it works and the Wilhelm translation contains a lot of chapters about this, which I actually found to be more usefully informative than any of the other books. But, it being 7 years ago and my memory not being a very exact function I can only give you my very rough overview of the necessary bits of knowledge I retained from my studies, which is perhaps as well really, given that it's such a deep subject. I could probably blog about it forever if I looked all the info out again. So if you want to find out more I recommend the Wilhelm translation, which is also linked in my booklist in the sidebar.<br /><br />To quote from the dust jacket of the Wilhelm translation:<br /><br />"The I Ching, or Book of Changes, represents one of the first efforts of the human mind to place itself in the universe. It has exerted a living influence in China for three thousand years. Beginning in the dawn of history as a book of oracles, the Book of Changes outgrew its limitations when ethical values were attached to the pronouncements of the oracle; it became a book of wisdom, eventually one of the Five Classics of Confucian and Taoist philosophy."<br /><br />Taoist legend has it that the holy man Fu Hsi discovered the principles of the I Ching around 5000 years ago when he was sitting by the River Lo, pondering the nature of the universe. He knew the phenomena of *change* to be the only constant in life and, as a scientific thinker he felt that the changes could be mapped mathematically, but couldn't work out exactly how. (At this point I think he placed an order with the Cosmic Supply Company!)<br /><br />A turtle then crawled out of the river and Fu Hsi noticed some strange markings on its shell. The shell was split into nine sections (like a noughts & crosses board) and each section contained a number of dots, set out as follows:<br />4 9 2<br />3 5 7<br />8 1 6<br /><br />This became known as the Lo Shu, or the magic square, and it forms the mathematical basis of every Taoist system, including Feng Shui and the I Ching. You'll notice that whichever direction you add the numbers in the square, the answer is always 15.<br /><br />From the Lo Shu came the Pa Kua, (Feng Shui compass) with it's 8 directions, 8 principles and the Taoist '8 Strands of the Brocade'. The 9th number in the Lo Shu (5) is always present in the centre. Each of the directional numbers represented an aspect of life as well as a compass direction. So:<br /><br />The North is represented by number 1 and this direction governs career prospects and the element of water.<br />The Southwest is represented by the number 2 and this direction governs marriage and the element of earth.<br />The East is represented by the number 3 and this direction governs health and the element of thunder.<br />The Southeast is represented by the number 4 and this direction governs wealth and the element of wood and also wind.<br />The number 5 sits in the centre, as on the Lo Shu. It represents the inner self.<br />The Northwest is represented by the number 6 and this direction governs the presence of mentors or helpful people and the element of heaven.<br />The West is represented by the number 7 and this direction governs the luck of children and the element of the lake.<br />The Northeast is represented by the number 8 and this direction governs education (learning) and the element of the mountain.<br />The South is represented by the number 9 and this direction governs fame and recognition and the element of fire.<br />If you compare this list with the way the numbers appeared on the turtle shell, you can see the correlation with the compass directions:<br /><br />4 9 2<br />3 5 7<br />8 1 6<br /><br />Fu Hsi took the Lo Shu directional principles and elements and combined these with the other universal truth of which he was sure: everything either is, or it isn't. Hence we have yin and yang, dark and light, black and white, female and male and every other pair of opposites that exists. Because, if you think about it you'll realise that it's impossible for something to exist without its opposite also existing. Therefore, everything that is can be divided into either yin or yang.<br /><br />Fu Hsi drew a broken line _ _ to represent yin and an unbroken line ___ to represent yang. But because life is a series of changes (the Chinese word for stagnancy is death, because when change or movement stops so does life) Fu Hsi recognised that things cannot be described as just yin or yang, but are more accurately always in a state of flux between the two polar extremes. They're either just becoming yin, or just becoming yang, or they're moving away from yin, or moving away from yang.<br /><br />So we have four kinds of lines to symbolise the state of change of everything that is:<br />_ _ new (just becoming) yin<br />___ new (just becoming) yang<br />and<br />-x- old, changing (moving away from) yin<br />-o- old, changing (moving away from) yang.<br />The old yin will soon become yang and the old yang will soon become yin.<br /><br />Fu Hsi worked out that the 8 directional qualities of the Lo Shu could be expressed in the form of yin and yang. (I'm missing out complicated explanations for these apparent leaps in reasoning, which are all set out in the Wilhelm translation and elsewhere.)<br /><br />So we end up with 8 trigrams for the 8 fundamental elements of life:<br />___<br />___<br />___ Ch'ien, The Creative (Heaven, in the Northwest)<br /><br />_ _<br />_ _<br />_ _ K'un, The Receptive (Earth, in the Southwest)<br /><br />_ _<br />_ _<br />___ Chen, The Arousing (Thunder, in the East)<br /><br />_ _<br />___<br />_ _ K'an, The Abysmal (Water, in the North)<br /><br />___<br />_ _<br />_ _ Ken, Keeping Still (Mountain, in the Northeast)<br /><br />___<br />___<br />_ _ Sun, The Gentle (Wind/wood in the Southeast)<br /><br />___<br />_ _<br />___ Li, The Clinging (Fire, in the South) and<br /><br />_ _<br />___<br />___ Lake, The Joyous (Lake, in the West)<br /><br />By combining these 8 trigrams into pairs, Fu Hsi made the 64 hexagrams of the I Ching, each with its own defined characteristics. And with every line of the hexagram having 4 possibilities (yin, old yin, yang and old yang), a hexagram can be structured in any one of 24 different ways from straightforward yin and yang lines, to all changing (old yin and yang) lines, to any permutation or mixture of the four kinds of lines, giving 1536 possible answers to a question plus another 64 if you follow the changing lines to their outcome in the resulting 2nd hexagram.<br /><br />Over the centuries since Fu Hsi set down the structure of the I Ching, others have added to its content, namely King Wen, the Duke of Shou and Confucius (Kung Fu Hsu) and the present I Ching is the result of their efforts: 64 hexagrams consisting of 384 changing lines and their meanings. These and their combinations represent every situation (problem) that life can present - Fu Hsi's mathematical map of changes. The maths in the I Ching has been found to correlate with the underlying structure of DNA which repeats throughout the universe, so Fu Hsi was right to look to mathematics for his map of the universe, as do our modern physicists now.<br /><br />To correctly define (divine) the present situation in order to cast an I Ching reading, we must access the same deep level of consciousness as that reached by Yogis and mystics in meditation. This level of consciousness is hidden from our day-to-day conscious minds because it functions only in the present moment. The present moment is connected, as if by a thread, to infinity/eternity and so this inaccessible part of our minds can access an overview of everything that is, was and will be. We just can’t be consciously aware of it unless we’re hypnotised, or dreaming, or meditating, or dowsing! Or… drawing a card, rolling a die, selecting yarrow sticks, or tossing coins. The infinitesimal moment of apparent chance situations, when the outcome could go either way and everything hangs in the balance to be influenced by something as subtle and seemingly random as a muscle twitch, this is the power of that deeply subconscious, magical part of our mind. (I think it’s also our spirit, the essence of who we are and the spark of life which hides behind the wall of our chattering conscious space-time dependant thinking.)<br /><br />To cast an I Ching reading, you need 3 coins of any description, but with a ‘head’ and a ‘tail’. Hold the coins in your hands for a minute and focus on your question or, better still, write it down. Or do both!<br /><br />Then throw the three coins six times, marking each of the six results as follows:<br /><br />Three heads: changing yang. Unbroken line --o-- with an o in the middle<br />Three tails: changing yin. Broken line -–x-- with an x in the middle<br />Two heads and a tail: yin. Broken line -- --<br />Two tails and a head: yang. Unbroken line ------<br /><br />And construct your hexagram from the results of the six throws, starting at the bottom and working upwards.<br /><br />I’ll form a question in mind about the wisdom of explaining the I Ching in my blog in this way and cast a reading by way of example.<br /><br />My first throw produces 2 tails and a head. This gives me unbroken yang<br />in the first place.<br /><br />-----<br /><br />My 2nd throw gives me 3 tails: changing yin in the 2nd place, above my unbroken yang:<br /><br />--x--<br />-----<br /><br />And my 3rd throw is another straight yang, which I place above the previous changing yin:<br /><br />-----<br />- x -<br />-----<br /><br />Throw number 4 is three heads: changing yang in the 4th place:<br /><br />--o--<br />-----<br />- x -<br />-----<br />Number 5 is a straightforward yin, so a broken line:<br /><br />-- --<br />--o--<br />-----<br />- x -<br />-----<br /><br />And my last throw produces 2 tails and a head: unbroken yang again. This is placed at the top of the hexagram.<br /><br />-----<br />-- --<br />--o--<br />-----<br />- x -<br />-----<br /><br />By looking at the resulting hexagram, we can recognise two trigrams of Li (Fire), one on top of the other. Looking up the 64 hexagrams in the I Ching book I can see this is indeed Hexagram no.30: The Clinging Fire. Because it has changing lines I’ll skip the main definition for Fire and read only the changing line definitions in the 2nd and fourth places:<br /><br />“2nd: Yellow light. Supreme good fortune. Yellow light is a symbol of the highest culture and art, whose consummate harmony consists in holding to the mean.<br />4th: It’s coming up is sudden; it flames up, dies down, is thrown away. Clarity of mind has the same relation to life that fire has to wood. Fire clings to wood, but can also consume it. Everything depends on how the clarity functions. Here the image used is that of a meteor or straw fire. A man who is excitable and restless may rise quickly to prominence but produces no lasting effects. Thus matters end badly when a man spends himself too rapidly and consumes himself like a meteor.”<br /><br />Also relevant is the resulting hexagram when the changes are complete – so the old yin in the 2nd place becomes yang and the old yang in the 4th place becomes yin, giving us Ken (Mountain) on Ch’ien (Heaven): Number 26, Ta Ch’u, The Taming Power of the Great.<br /><br />-----<br />-- --<br />-- --<br />-----<br />-----<br />-----<br /><br />Here I’ll read the main definition of the hexagram because this is how my situation will turn out:<br /><br />“Perseverance furthers. Hold firmly to creative powers and store them up. The superior man acquaints himself with many sayings of antiquity and many deeds of the past in order to strengthen his character thereby.”<br /><br />Well, I’ve lost this blog entry twice in the writing and taken up a whole afternoon and a lot of energy writing it, so I’ll interpret the meaning of my reading as follows:<br /><br />Fire: changing line in the 2nd place: The I Ching is the best thing to be blogging about.<br />Changing line in the 4th place: When you try to do too much too quickly you get careless and lose your work.<br />Taming Power of the Great: New hexagram resulting from the changes: Keep working, keep trying. Studying the past is very important. (It would be better to use the knowledge to strengthen my own character?)<br /><br />You might think this reading doesn’t really tell me much that I couldn’t have worked out by myself with common sense, but I didn’t really ask it a very specific question. Earlier today I asked about the DfES/LEA draft guidance and received the very auspicious 46 Sheng (Growth) changing to the even more auspicious 11 T’ai (Peace). The commentary stated: “A time of confidence and spiritual affinity with the rulers above. The small departs, the great approaches. Good fortune. Success.” – which I take to mean that with negotiations HErs will end up with a good set of guidelines as did the Scottish HErs.<br /><br />Reading back in my diary I can see that I was feeling vaguely unsettled on the 14th January of this year, so cast a reading, which resulted in the following commentary: “You long too much for joys that can’t be obtained in the usual way. You enter upon a situation not altogether compatible with self-esteem. Perseverance furthers. Wait for the right time to change things. Do the right thing, not necessarily the thing you want to do. Don’t tread upon paths that don’t accord with the natural order.” – which made a lot of sense to me and fitted with my circumstances at that time.<br /><br />Whenever I’ve had a difficult decision to make I’ve tried to follow the advice resulting from my I Ching readings and have then made what I now consider to be the best decisions for me and my loved ones at the time.<br /><br />posted by Gill at 1:20 PM 9 commentsGillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8001885538836301516.post-69093166798399039492008-06-21T12:18:00.002+01:002008-06-21T12:23:59.253+01:00Re-post - The Stone Cutter - March 05From Sunday, March 06, 2005<br /><br />I've just found this story on a mailing list and liked it so much that I thought it was worthy of posting here.<br /><br /><u>More Is Not Enough: The Stone Cutter</u><br /><br />There was once a stone cutter who was dissatisfied with himself and with his position in life. One day he passed a wealthy merchant's house. Through the open gateway, he saw many fine possessions and important visitors. "How powerful that merchant must be!" thought the stone cutter. He became very envious and wished that he could be like the merchant. <br /><br />To his great surprise, he suddenly became the merchant, enjoying more luxuries and power than he had ever imagined, but envied and detested by those less wealthy than himself. Soon a high official passed by, carried in a sedan chair, accompanied by attendants and escorted by soldiers beating gongs. Everyone, no matter how wealthy, had to bow low before the procession. "How powerful that official is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a high official!"<br /><br />Then he became the high official, carried everywhere in his embroidered sedan chair, feared and hated by the people all around. It was a hot summer day, so the official felt very uncomfortable in the sticky sedan chair. He looked up at the sun. It shone proudly in the sky, unaffected by his presence. "How powerful the sun is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be the sun!" <br /><br />Then he became the sun, shining fiercely down on everyone, scorching the fields, cursed by the farmers and labourers. But a huge black cloud moved between him and the earth, so that his light could no longer shine on everything below. "How powerful that storm cloud is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a cloud!" <br /><br />Then he became the cloud, flooding the fields and villages, shouted at by everyone. But soon he found that he was being pushed away by some great force, and realized that it was the wind. "How powerful it is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be the wind!" <br /><br />Then he became the wind, blowing tiles off the roofs of houses, uprooting trees, feared and hated by all below him. But after a while, he ran up against something that would not move, no matter how forcefully he blew against it - a huge, towering rock. "How powerful that rock is!" he thought. "I wish that I could be a rock!"<br /><br />Then he became the rock, more powerful than anything else on earth. But as he stood there, he heard the sound of a hammer pounding a chisel into the hard surface, and felt himself being changed. "What could be more powerful than I, the rock?" he thought. He looked down and saw far below him the figure of a stone cutter. <br /><br />posted by Gill at 5:06 AM 0 commentsGillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8001885538836301516.post-69282998734536413612008-06-21T12:18:00.001+01:002008-06-21T12:20:35.160+01:00Repost: Good Friday - Mar 05From Friday, March 25, 2005<br /><br />"Jesus died for our sins." What does THAT mean? I seem to remember learning, years ago, that it's to do with the offering of live sacrifices in worship. He was the ultimate sacrifice, so we don't need to mess about with bloody lambs any more - or, from a time before that, hapless virgins.<br /><br />The act of sacrifice is a powerful thing. On a basic level of understanding, it's very simple: "Hey God, we'll give you this, if you give us that." Does God (assuming He exists) (And I'm using capital letters out of respect for readers who think it's blasphemous not to, even though I don't think it's blasphemous not to) work like that? As a kind of cosmic bartering shop?<br /><br />I really don't think so.<br /><br />The Celts around here (The Brigante tribe who were based in and around what's now Yorkshire, but was Brigantia) apparently used to cut off their enemies' heads and throw them down wells to appease the water spirits. Their deities ran through the water, lived in the ground and the trees AND the sky. Their deities were everywhere. They believed that when they ate an animal or a plant they were ingesting its spirit and would take on its characteristics. If they killed a brave warrior they would eat him or her too, and give the best part, the head, to the water god. Sacrifice.<br /><br />Sacrifice is the act of taking the best thing, the thing you really wanted or needed and giving it away. It *is* a powerful thing, and not for bartering reasons. I think it's to do with making room for something even better.<br /><br />I think we've got a choice between two states of mind, either:<br /><br />Greedily or fearfully striving to possess what we need, which, though understandable, locks us into an unhealthy struggle. This option doesn't allow for trust that the universe will provide for our needs, so we have to go out and get them. Push, struggle, fight, work for what we need to stay alive and safe. Earn our keep. This option assumes that if we don't fight for what's ours, someone else will take it and we'll suffer increasing hardship and eventually die a horrible death with nothing. This option leads to the increasing anxiousness that keeps rich men awake at night, because we pile up possessions out of fear for the future, and the more possessions we've piled up, the more afraid we are of losing them. Every year we have to work harder and harder just to stand still. This is the school of thought that says: "If I work extra hard and put something aside I can sacrifice it to my god/ess and s/he might give me something back in return." Cover all the bases, hedge your bets. Be on the safe side.<br /><br />OR......<br />Just letting it go. Trust. Give away your best thing. Give away everything. Stop fighting. Stop trying. Trust. It sounds crazy, doesn't it? Who'd do that? They'd have to be mad! But actually the act of real sacrifice turns a key, electromagnetically. It transforms the output from all of those buzzing circuits in our heads into something completely different. In allowing the Universe (or God, or whatever you want to call it/him) to take the driving seat, we open ourselves up to whatever the cosmos had in mind for us. Sounds wacky? Too New-Agey? But think about the science behind it. We know now that time and space don't run on the straight lines we perceive them to, but that in the Universe time and space are bendy, flexible things. You get to the edge of everything and it comes back in on itself. Past, present and future mean something different to the Universe. In fact, I think they mean nothing to the Universe, or they have random meanings. It's only us, with our birth, aging and death, who insist on pinning them down into linear concepts. In reality, the only time that means anything to the universe is the present moment. Give up worrying about the future, live in the present moment, and you're open to all of that power. Not your power, which can only be weak, but universal power. You can't control it, but it's nice to go along with it. When Jesus allegedly said "It's as difficult for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven as it is for a camel to get through the eye of a needle," I think this is what He was talking about. <br /><br />So the act of sacrifice is the symbolic switching from the first way of thinking, into which we tend to sink by default, into the second way of thinking, which takes a little more effort but which ends up being an altogether more rewarding, relaxing, exhilarating place to be. <br /><br />I might be being fanciful, but I always feel something on Good Friday. I wake up feeling like this is a day of grieving and death. A day of sacrifice. But what do I actually believe about Good Friday? I don't think it's likely that Jesus of Nazareth was crucified on this day. We know from correlating Roman records that He was sentenced to death and that crucifixion was their way of exacting death sentences, so I'll go along with the crucifixion, but of course the festival at this time of year originally was for the goddesses of Spring: The Scandinavian Ostra, the Germanic Ostern or Eastre, Aphrodite from Cyprus, Astarte from Phoenicia, Demeter from Mycenae, Hathor from Egypt, and Ishtar from Assyria. All of these goddesses were celebrated in the spring. The origin of our word 'start' (Astarte), Easter is a time of new beginnings, new life. Evidenced by new growth and flowers in nature, it's the start of everything again. A renewal. Or, in the context of sacrifice, it's the switching of one way of thinking, to the other. Rituals, festivals, feasts and ceremonies are supposed to mark changes, I think.<br /><br />Looking at the Gospel accounts, what allegedly happened to Jesus when he was sentenced to death? There'd been a recent build-up in his popularity and fame. His arrival into Jerusalem had been marked by a public turn-out and evidence of crowd fever. He was treated like a pop star. He was a major threat to the established heads of religion, who depended on public support to maintain their positions of power and privilege. In rejecting their structure of power, in going 'straight to the top' in the spiritual popularity-stakes and unfearfully bypassing them, he marked his own card. From that point, his days were numbered. He must have known it. <br /><br />They pretended to give him a fair trial, but once powerful people have decided the outcome, there's nothing fair about these things. Anyone who's ever faced any kind of a public judgment will know this. The decision is made from the start, people's minds are made up. Such trials are just pantomimes. He'd got into that position as a result of a long series of decisions he'd taken over the previous years, and my guess is that he knew where it was all leading. But the part that interests me is the legal point on which the prosecutors hung his trial: "You said you are the son of God." And his answer: "It's YOU who say that," meaning, other people have chosen to draw that inference from my words. I never actually said that. And did he say he was the son of God? I think he said things like: "We're all God's children," and he called himself the son of Man, but I don't think in the Gospels he ever stakes a claim to be the Son of God, a deity raised about the rest of us. When I read the Gospels I read about a man who wanted to liberate people's thinking, to wake them up a bit and show them what's possible, not a man who wanted worshipping like a god. <br /><br />We do this transmogrification thing a lot, we humans. We're prone to setting other people up on pedestals, and turning them into gods. We do have such a tendency. The Egyptian Pharaohs: gods. The Chinese Emperors: gods. The British Royal Family - yes, our whole constitution here in England is based on the idea that they are gods: divine beings. But I think what Jesus of Nazareth was saying was that there's an element of us all that's godlike. We're all fragments of the same universal cosmic spirit, all equally capable, given the correct discipline, of a similar level of amazing abilities. I've seen things with my own eyes in Taoist training halls that are technically impossible. I've performed a few of them myself. It's a matter of technique, of belief, of training - and of sacrifice. Knowing how to flick the switch. Knowing how to work with electromagnetic energy. <br /><br />Before I deeply upset any Christians, I'm not saying Jesus of Nazareth was just like us. I think he was really something special. A blazing star to follow. But I do think he was a man, and no more a god than the rest of us, but definitely exceptional. He could have chickened out of what he went through any time. It must have been very tempting to opt out, fade into obscurity, just agree with whatever his persecutors were trying to bully or trick him into admitting. I've read the theory (Caroline Myss, I think) that the switch-flicking sacrificial "It's you who says I am," the letting go and acceptance of his fate, was what gave him the energy to resurrect. Whatever did happen must have been powerful, because we're still thinking about it today. The cumulative effects of millions of people's thoughts about crucifixion seems to be enough in itself for me to wake up today feeling like somebody died. I think that so much belief can create something real, and coupled with the time of year - well, it's something. It's not nothing.<br /><br />"He died for our sins." Our sins? I don't understand. How does that work? We still kill each other, steal from each other, do all of that stuff. How does one man's execution solve any of that? I'm sorry, but even if he managed to cheat death - and if anyone could, He could - I don't see how he died for our sins. I don't think he got himself nailed to a cross, stake, whatever, so that all future people could say "Oh, that's OK then. He's paid for all this sinning, we may as well do it." I don't even believe in sinning, really! But in dying like that, and allegedly coming back from that, he made himself infinitely memorable, which makes us wonder what He was all about. <br /><br />He didn't seem to have possessions that he held onto for long. He didn't seem to run around earning money, dressing in fine clothes, wondering how the stocks and shares were performing. He didn't seem to bother about impressing people, or worry about upsetting them. Surely, there's a lot more we don't know, but I definitely get the impression that he was a 'here and now' sort of person, which is inspiring. <br /><br />I won't be going to church today to listen to someone telling us what bad people we humans are and how much we sin all the time, because I don't believe that. I honestly think we all make the best decisions we can in every situation, and we all take the consequences of our actions. I don't want to know about how we turned an amazing man into a God and then brutally killed him. We do that all the time. The Romans crucified thousands of people, we're still righteously killing each other to this day, in Iraq, in legal courts imposing death sentences, all over the place. We sell poisonous, toxic food to each other, put deadly toxins on the land and into the air, drive fast cars which sometimes turn into killing machines... the ways we make ourselves and each other less healthy (closer to death) than we could be are many and varied. So what? What difference does it make, unless we switch on our brains and learn from it all? Maybe that's what Jesus of Nazareth was trying to say, I don't know. <br /><br />posted by Gill at 7:45 AM 7 commentsGillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8001885538836301516.post-8573531132597665622008-04-07T18:58:00.003+01:002008-04-07T19:33:02.641+01:00"The world is changing: I feel it in the water, I feel it in the earth, and I smell it in the air..."... and I hear it in the Post Office.<br /><br />Queueing to tax the car today I was holding the baby, who was in a very sweet, cuddly mood. After a while I realised she was playing her favourite game - peek-a-boo - with the woman (about my age) who was standing behind us. I turned around to smile and saw a bitter-sweet expression on this beautful lady's face and tears in her eyes. An older lady, next in the queue after her, was looking too and smiling tearily.<br /><br />I felt how they were feeling in my stomach, without even the ensuing conversation. But what I heard confirmed it.<br /><br />"My children are at school," said the younger of the two. "I'm ok until I see a lovely baby like this, then I do miss them horribly."<br /><br />"Yes and it's terrible that you can't even really stop to talk to them any more, like you could in the old days," said the older woman. "I'm always being told off by my daughter for talking to babies and children. 'Mum!' she says. 'You can't do <i>that</i>!'"<br /><br />I didn't know what to say. Deregister and home educate? Co-sleep, sling, attachment-parent, feed-on-demand, sing, play, cuddle and love them all day and all night, while you can? Maybe I'd have suggested it at one time, but now it feels like people are too far removed from natural living for me to explain how it's possible to a stranger, in a ten-minute queue at the Post Office. And anyway, it was too late for the older lady.<br /><br />"We're still human, aren't we?" I empathised, sadly. Human beings in an inhuman world.<br /><br />"I can't even take photos of my grandchildren in the bath any more," went on the older lady. "Soap and bubbles in their hair. It's part of childhood, isn't it? But you can't record it now."<br /><br />"Yes and you're worried who might see it if you do.." said the other.<br /><br />"You can't video them in a swimming pool!" said the grandmother. "We went on holiday and the camera was banned from the pool! I couldn't believe it!"<br /><br />The queue had moved. Our conversation was over. All we had time to do was shake our heads and say: "Shame.." But we all knew what we meant. Our communities. Our families. Things we used to take for granted.<br /><br />I was in the Post Office instead of taxing the car online because I had to drive it to the garage for its MOT and daren't even drive it the two miles from here to there without a tax disc. Is "It's in the post" enough to prevent one of the new on-the-spot fines, even if it's true? I didn't want to take the risk, having only just scraped together enough spare cash for 6 months' car tax.<br /><br />We went to the supermarket. People looked askance at Lyddie, as usual, for being out of school in term time. Five years old - tall enough to look six or seven - and not even wearing a uniform.<br /><br />And the price of food is so much higher than a few weeks ago. Out of the dozens of shoppers we only see one face not looking pinched or worried, looking for bargains - a woman with a baby like ours, playing a baby game and laughing together. Only one.<br /><br /><br /><br /><i>"As the Fourth Age approaches, the Elves are leaving Middle-earth, yet some still cling to hope..."</i>Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8001885538836301516.post-75808235624889404352008-02-06T08:58:00.000+00:002008-02-06T09:16:17.126+00:00ShrivingYesterday (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrove_Tuesday">Shrove Tuesday</a>) got me thinking about the issue of shriving. This is a word of which I wasn't aware before I looked it up in the dictionary last night, but I learned that it means confessing and that it stems from the Old English word <i>scrifan</i>: to prescribe [as in, a penance]. When I think about it, it's obvious that this is where we get the term 'to give short shrift' from, isn't it? I wonder why the word has largely fallen into disuse. A sign of the times? <br /><br />But confession and penance are important to us. They're important to me, anyway. I do things, from time to time, that on reflection I wish I hadn't done and then I feel bad about having done them. I'm not particularly a Christian, much less a Catholic, but at times like that I'd welcome the relief of a confession box and a scripted penance. <br /><br />You'd have to fully buy into the authenticity of the process - and I don't think I could - but if I did, it would be good to receive absolution on some matters. Absolution makes you feel ok again. <br /><br />The I Ching, in which I put more faith than the Bible for the simple reason that it's less cluttered, holds freedom from blame to be the highest good. Not, I think, because freedom from blame makes a person popular and therefore fortunate. But because freedom from internal blame, or guilt, provides peace of mind. Absolution. <br /><br />And yet I'm not a fan of saying 'sorry'. It's too easy to keep behaving badly and to think that just saying the word 'sorry', whether you really are or not, wipes the slate clean. This isn't about outward appearances, or what other people think - it's about how a person feels inside. Truthfully. <br /><br />When you breach your own standards of behaviour, even mistakenly thinking you were doing the right thing at the time, you feel bad. Confession, leading to punishment or penance would solve that feeling. But someone said 'We pay for our sins in this life,' and I think this - more than any other reason - is why I call myself a Taoist. Life has a way of meting out punishment: natural justice. <br /><br />So I sit here, worrying: when is it going to happen? And then I realise: it is. <br /><br />What I still don't know (and if you do then please tell me!) is why February 5th was officially deemed to be the best time of year for going through this process.Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8001885538836301516.post-59678018104043542982007-08-14T14:02:00.000+01:002007-08-14T14:19:12.627+01:00Sanctus victus - sacred livingI spent a big part of yesterday - as usual - cooking and cleaning and I got to thinking about the elements and rituals again. We cook with fire and wash with water. We breathe air, and open the windows to air rooms. We grow food in the earth, and when we compost we're making life from death, or growth from decay. We don't need to go to a special place to perform rites, or put aside a special time to do them. They happen every day, in the home, all the time without any special effort being required. <br /><br />But I did more cleaning than usual yesterday because a cousin is due to visit, who I haven't seen for many years. So I was thinking about that, too. Why do we clean more for visitors? I suppose there are two ways of answering that: you could say, we want to give a good first impression if we can; but you could also say that we honour and respect visitors and provide the nicest possible environment for them. Both are probably true. <br /><br />The thinking helped the cleaning to go faster, but I'd like to cultivate a healthier state of mind so that I can enjoy it more. Not too much though: too much cleaning makes for an uncomfortable house, I think.Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8001885538836301516.post-73788147670465389892007-08-04T12:13:00.000+01:002007-08-04T12:18:05.203+01:00A bit of what my younger son calls "Hippy Speak".Yes, every time I talk like this, he rolls his eyes and calls me a hippy. I take it as a compliment ;-)<br /><br />But it's occured to me this week, in dealing with a few challenges, that we co-create this world. The only space we can really control is the space between our own ears. Alchemy is the turning of something bad into something better, and we can all choose how to perceive things. And what's reality anyway? Just clumps of energy that comes together - well, why? how? Because we dreamed it so. <br /><br />You've got to have a dream. If you don't have a dream, how you gonna have a dream come true? Hippy talk, keep talking hippy talk...<br /><br />No, I haven't been smoking anything. Or talking to Tracy Emin. Or even drinking, except tea. Strong stuff though, this Yorkshire tea.Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8001885538836301516.post-37652023175152474202007-07-04T18:47:00.000+01:002007-07-04T20:34:28.816+01:00Real life in the matrixI've <i>always</i> loved the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy">Fantasy</a> genre, and have been known to lose chunks of my real life escaping into the realms of Tolkien or World of Warcraft, amongst other not-real places.<br /><br />What is it about Fantasy, that seems more appealing than real life? Where to start answering that?! With some bullet-points, I guess :-)<br /><ul><li>People in Fantasy land have a purpose: there's usually a clear line between good and evil, with specific quests, goals and rewards;</li><br /><li>They get to wear beautiful clothes and have great names;</li><br /><li>They often have special knowledge, skills and powers like magic, herbalism and martial arts;</li><br /><li>Real-worldly issues like money, boring work and bill-paying aren't involved. Fantasyland inhabitants tend to be autonomous and to lead exciting, adventurous lives;</li><br /><li>There's a sense of real fellowship - singing, story-telling, campfires etc.;</li><br /><li>They get to ride horses - there are no cars!</li></ul><br />Real life doesn't usually contain those elements nowadays, but it could do. One of my worries is that, the better and more accessible the Fantasy genre becomes, the more it attracts the rebels and natural creative thinkers, enticing them in, Matrix-style, and leaving the totalitarians free to have their way with real life, their natural opponents being otherwise engaged, fighting imaginery dragons instead. <br /><br />The old battle between Good and Evil is still there in real life to be fought, but the bad guys are winning by means of a few new-fangled weapons: confusion, distraction and boredom. By stealth, they perpetuate the status quo, bring in new laws and contrinue to subtly control our lives, decisions and habits. Our potential young freedom fighters, with the instincts, courage and strength to fight back, instead get lost in World of Warcraft and impotently satisfy their natural instincts in Fantasy world. <br /><br />In the recent series of Dr Who, The Doctor and his assistants wore keys to the Tardis, which had the effect of surrounding them in a kind of imperceptibility shield, meaning that although they weren't invisible, nobody saw them because the shield made it so that they didn't want to look. In some ways I feel the same about economic and political manoeverings in the real world, almost as if things are going on behind an imperceptibility shield. It's easier to look the other way, and play WoW, or read/watch Tolkien instead.<br /><br />And the fantasy worlds don't involve doing anything physically scary in real life.<br /><br />I had to stop playing WoW in the end, because it annoyed me that it wasn't real. Instead of spending my spare time gathering real herbs and making remedies, I'd be doing this on my computer, for pixellated points instead of for people's actual, real life health and wellbeing. Instead of working out how to preserve and maybe even regain some real life legal freedoms, I'd be working out a strategy for my guild to kill the next dragon. And instead of training and honing my real life self defence skills, I'd be doing the same thing with my imaginery WoW characters. <br /><br />Progress in a game leads to - well, just more to do. Nothing in real life. Progress in real life leads to increased safety, increased options, increased useful, applicable knowledge. <br /><br />So I'm trying out Real Life, these days, instead. The graphics are good.Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8001885538836301516.post-4293256948145547752007-06-29T11:12:00.000+01:002007-06-29T12:09:23.167+01:00Calling back powerOne of my favourite authors, <a href="http://www.myss.com/">Caroline Myss</a>, has done a lot of work about <a href="http://www.myss.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=4;t=000642">calling back power</a>. Basically, we can choose whether to allow ourselves to be dominated and abused, or we can give ourselves permission not to be. Nobody else can give us this permission - it has to be a personal choice.<br /><br />I see the act of reclaiming our personal power as being the actual act of growing up. Some people never do it; some come late to it, and still others never have a problem with claiming and owning their personal power.<br /><br />What exactly is personal power? It's nothing more or less than our control over ourselves - our decisions, plans and movements. We have no right to try to exert control anyone else, for any reason at all and nobody else has a right to try to exert control over us. This includes parents and children, husbands and wives, teachers and students, politicians and citizens, doctors and patients, priests and parishioners, salesmen and shoppers. <b>Nobody has a right to try to control or influence another person,</b> only themselves.<br /><br />However much we disbelieve it and carry on as if the above isn't true (me included!) - it is, so we're always wasting our energy when we do so. Also whenever we're trying to control each other, we're losing our own power and we're trying to steal theirs. And unless the other person consciously calls their power back, they're letting us. So we're all the weaker for it.<br /><br />I'm not saying we must never consciously allow ourselves to be influenced by people. When I read Ms Myss's work, for example, she is influencing my thinking, BUT I've still got my critical faculties intact. If you can hear or read another person's ideas whilst remaining fully in control of your own logical processes then there's no loss of power either way, just a healthy exchange.<br /><br />This is why I like the concept of teaching, learning and schools being optional. The ideal situation would be for people to have access to experts (teachers) on their own terms, by mutual arrangement between the two. The teacher then consolidates his or her own thinking by being questioned and having to explain, and the student remains in control of the learning process, so learns properly in conjunction with his/her own logical process and current level of understanding.<br /><br />In my Taoist training I learned that a healthy person is basically a self-contained battery of bio-electrical energy, who recharges from the earth (women) or the sky (men). If you've given some of your power to someone else and not called it back, you are basically a leaky battery who can never properly recharge. And if you have no faith in the earth or sky to recharge you, so you constantly try to leech power from other people instead, you're not only a very poorly battery indeed but you're also having a corrosive effect on your environment.<br /><br />How do you know if you're leaking power or not recharging properly? Here are some clues of that condition:<br /><ul><li>You're not happy. You feel angry/ frustrated/ bored/ irritated/ discontent.<br /></li><br /><li>You're not healthy. You're not sleeping well, you feel tired all the time. Everything is too much effort. </li><br /><li>You find yourself focusing on particular issues or specific people with resentment, blame or fear.</li><br /><li>You wish your life could be different but you don't know how to make it so and you consider it to be beyond your power to improve.</li></ul><br />I think everyone experiences some of the above at various points in their lives. Even the most enlightened sages struggle to keep it that way all the time, but it does get easier. Calling back your power is the first step. <br /><br />So how do you do that? <br /><br />First you have to believe that the universe will recharge you. You don't need another person to do it. Next you have to accept the principle that another person can only control you if you let them. Decide not to let them, and they can't. As soon as you realise this is <b>your choice</b>, you have called back your power. <br /><br />It helps to look back over your life at times when you've given your power away (A strict parent? A bossy teacher? A manipulative friend, lover or spouse?) and to consider how you could have opted to keep control over your own actions instead. Sometimes it's easier to submit to the rule of a person in a more powerful position, but if you do so consciously and logically, after considering the options, you still keep your power. Just working out the options in retrospect like this is often enough to sort out the past, no matter how abusive some situations might have been for you. <br /><br />It's recommended that you consciously call back your power and recharge your battery every day, but with practice it becomes an automatic, ongoing procedure. Life always produces hurdles and difficult people, otherwise we'd never learn or progress, but of course we get more adept at managing them.Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09707661738889563273noreply@blogger.com4