That particular concept means nothing to me. I never thought of January 1st as being the beginning of anything other than an arbitrary month in a calendar made by man. To me the new year does not start until spring. Winter is the end of the cycle.

Yet this supposed beginning has been ingrained in our social consciousness for a couple of thousand years now, so I can’t just ignore it completely. When I was younger it was just another excuse to party. Those who embrace the idea of this being a beginning will talk about setting new goals and starting new paths. Often talk is as far as they get. Or some will jump into their new direction with focus and energy, but after a short period the realities of life and the difficulties of change will kick in, and everything reverts to the way it was before. Some may succeed in creating the change they seek.

The process is different for everyone.

I used to toy with the concept of New Year’s resolutions, but they never really stuck for me. My difficulty is that I am too now oriented. I am not really goal driven. This is not to say that I do no seek to improve myself, or change those aspects of self that no longer serve the path I am on. Rather it a choice of the moment. I don’t think in terms of “this year”. My focus is “this moment in time” which might extend as far as “today”.

Recently my energy has been on the negative side. Much is happening in my life and the world at large that does not resonate with me … or at least the me that I want to be. It is so easy to blame this negativity on outside events, because frankly humanity is on the cusp of a momentous decision on the ultimate path our communal soul will follow. But the reality is a negative reaction to what is going on outside us is a choice … even if not always a conscious one. The rest of the world is going to do what the rest of the world is going to do. WE can only change our own choices, which include how we react to what the rest of the world is doing. The is a fundamental truth.

It is also a truth that is easy to forget.

Every moment has the potential to start fresh. If the path we are on is not working for us, change direction. It is truly the choice of a moment. In practical terms, this might be a little more of a challenge. Changing direction mid-step could have unintended consequences. However, we are built in such a way that we reset every morning. Thus EVERY day is an opportunity for a fresh start.

So instead of a New Year’s resolution, I am setting a New Day’s resolution. Today’s resolution was inspired by the rising sun. For no matter how bad things may seem. the sun continues to rise every morning, even if we cannot always see it.

This morning it was quite visible to me.

The post A fresh start first appeared on thrumyeyes.

momentous

mō-mĕn′təs

adjective

Of utmost importance; of outstanding significance or consequence.

From The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

A few days ago my morning started as it always does. I woke up because for various reasons my body decided it was time to wake up. On this particular morning my reaction to waking up was one of pleasant expectation. It varies depending on the quality of my sleep, the nature of my dreams, and the weather. The mood being appropriate, I set out doing the morning rituals with energy (not always the case). These rituals include getting my self started on the day’s journey and attending to Her Most Royal and Beloved Majesty, Brown Dog. Of course she has her own rituals as well. A quick(?) timeline of the morning:

• Wake up
• My ‘Behind closed doors’ stuff
• Bribe Brown Dog to take the medication she is currently taking
• Turn on the computer, and make sure all the tools I am likely to use during the day are current and functioning
• Stimulate my mind a bit (translation … play some games)
• Notice Her Majesty is demanding my attention, meaning it is time to give her a Dental Chew, one of the collection of goodies that qualify as Doggy Crack
• Enjoy watching the dance of pure pleasure Brown Dog performs when I give her said yummy
• Go back to what I was doing
• Notice Her Majesty is demanding my attention, meaning it is time to go out on the deck with Brown Dog so we can “meditate” together

And so the post actually begins …

I have seen the view to the left countless times. I have take hundreds of photos of that view …so many that I thought there was no point in taking any more.

EPIPHANY

Stillness does not exist. Every aspect of EVERYTHING is in constant motion. On a macrocosmic scale everything is constantly moving, even if from a local perspective it does not seem so. On a microcosmic scale the ‘stuff’ that everything is made of is always in motion. Stillness does not exist.

What follows from this is that we can never view something the exact same way twice. Thus a new photo would be a NEW photo. Our perceptions might not agree. And so we limit ourselves.

PERSONAL STAGNATION IS A STATE OF MIND

If everything seems stale and repetitive, that is because we choose to perceive it as so. But it can’t be. So we need to change our perception. How? Embrace the moment. I’ve said it before. The past is past, unalterable. The future is a shaping idea, not realized until its moment comes. THIS moment is the only real truth.

All of this hit me in a glorious moment of release. Suddenly all that went before was gone from my awareness, and the yet to be was … well … yet to be. I simply breathed in THIS moment, and it was pure bliss. Then I took out my phone/camera/whatever the hell it is and took a few NEW (new New nEw neW) pictures. The two above and a couple of Brown Dog’s

MOMENTOUS DECISION

Do I lie down?

Yes. I do.

The only thing that creates equivalence between THIS moment and THAT moment is that we will be inevitably faced with a choice. The choice may be to simply be or not. Or maybe it will be more involved than that. Every choice we make determines the qualities of the next moment. This ultimately means that

EPIPHANY GROWS

EVERY choice we make is the most important decision of the moment. In other words, it is a MOMENTOUS decision in the purist sense of the word. The very NEXT moment is determined by what happens in THIS moment. This is a basic fact of existence ( at least if we have a linear view of reality. It could be that all these moments happen simultaneously, but that does not really change what I am saying here).

SIMPLIFY

Embrace THIS moment. Make MOMENTOUS decisions. Find the inherent peace and joy of doing so.

Live a momentous life.

The post A momentous life first appeared on thrumyeyes.

The combined result is the ME I am today. This ME often has me double taking when I look in the mirror. This ME has me wondering not only about what is next, but what WAS that led me to be … well … ME. In one sense I have not changed much at all. I have simply shed layers of illusions that “defined” the me that I thought I was, leaving me closer to the ME that I AM.

One of the changes has been a loss in interest in many activities that (I thought) used to define me. Among these was the blogging I embraced for a while. I kept my many blogs alive, but only in a “plugged into respirator” sense of alive. Three years ago I was going to restart this project along with others related to it. It seems I am just getting around to it now.

I am starting over with all of these ideas. I am incorporating what was, but shaping things differently, and approaching everything with a new perspective. This site is no longer anything more then me reintroducing myself to … you guessed it … ME.

As with the last time I restarted this site, I am announcing it with a new logo. Actually the whole site is a complete makeover. Only fitting, since the same applies to ME. I do not know if anyone will actually visit this site. I do not even know if I will maintain any continuous presence here one I am done with the current makeover. But in this moment I want and need to write this post. And so a new journey begins.

The post Maybe I should re-re-introduce myself first appeared on thrumyeyes.

EVERYTHING changes.

The hows and what’s of the change will be determined by the rules of nature. Sometimes the change may seem chaotic, but it always has definable patterns. When the patterns are cyclical and contain a regenerative aspect, then we might call the thing that is changing alive. As these cyclical patterns become more and more complicated, the inherent “life” becomes more evident, until what seems alive becomes actual life. Living things are constantly changing. Some of that change removes what is not longer productive to the life form, some of it replaces, and even improves upon, those aspects that give the organism life. Cells die, cells are replaced, cells grow. Waste is removed, useful resources are replenished, the cycle continues and life goes on. When these patterns work in an ideal fashion, we consider the life healthy. The further from the ideal, the further from health.

Not only is change  INEVITABLE, it is NECESSARY.

Enter consciousness. Awareness. This phenomenon is what truly makes life unique. The processes of life do their best to find balance, as energy does, and will slowly adjust as needed. But add awareness to the mix and suddenly the rules themselves start changing. With awareness comes the ability to choose. Choice can both enhance and interfere with the processes that define life. The higher the level of awareness, the greater the possibility to enhance … and interfere … with the effectiveness of these processes. In other words, the ability to choose can directly influence health.

The human species is currently the dominant species on our planet, and (questionably) the most aware. Our level of awareness and ability to make choices not only has a direct impact on our own health, but that of ALL the life we interact with. Humans can influence the health of the cultural groups we are part of; we can impact the ecosystems we inhabit; we can truly affect the planet we live on. This ultimately means we need to be very careful about the choices we make, even if seemingly only for ourselves.

Awareness is a powerful ally for positive change, but as with any useful tool, it can also be detrimental to healthy choices. We will often choose that which gives us comfort over that which is actually beneficial to us. We will often choose pleasure over discomfort. We will choose ease over effort. Our awareness is itself malleable, meaning we can even choose to shape our own awareness. So how do we ensure we work in our own best interest?

This is the ultimate challenge we all face, even if our own awareness is not enough to even recognize the challenge. We make choices constantly, sometimes without even realizing we are doing it. Each of these choices has an effect on our well-being, our overall health, again even if we are not fully aware of it. My personal journey has been about not only learning to make the right choices, but to shape my level of awareness in such a way that the choices come readily. Sometimes, this journey has not been so easy (recent months have been very difficult). This blog has always been about sharing my journey, and maybe help others in their own. I have been quiet of late because my personal rough spot. I intended today to end my silence on another topic altogether, but it seems I have stepped onto the path of a new level of awareness, and my sharing will be a multi-step process as well. This was a necessary step, both for my own journey and the sharing of it.

Change is inevitable. Even when we don’t choose it to happen (or even expect it). The first step to working with change is to accept this simple fact. That is today’s’ lesson for myself. Next lesson … letting go.

The post Change and choice … Awareness 101 first appeared on thrumyeyes.

However, good habits need to be established first. Beyond that, sometimes life has other plans, and no matter how good our intentions we cannot manage to so easily do what is needed to keep our ideal level of wellness. When this is the case, it is up to us to do what we need to get back on track. This is when effort becomes more of a challenge. This is when we are tempted to fall back into bad habits, or worse, find excuses to NOT push on, because it seems so much easier. In the short run it may even BE easier. But ultimately we will see that we benefit more from continued effort.

So how do we avoid excuses? The simple answer is: Don’t make them. Unfortunately, we may be making excuses without even realizing it. Avoiding excuses first requires RECOGNIZING them.  And there lies the true challenge for some. This particular challenge is one I personally face all too often. These are some of the tricks I have learned that keep excuses at bay:

• KNOW LIMITS – If we push past our limits, we will find our effort to be beyond us. This can easily become a reason not to continue. Instead of giving up, just lower our effort to what we can do.  If we do not overshoot, our limits will grow.
• LEARN PATIENCE – This goes hand in hand with understanding limits. Like it or not, sometimes achieving our goals will not happen as fast as we would like. Without patience we might constantly push too far beyond those limits, ultimately giving ourselves the excuse of constant failure. Allowing ourselves to succeed in smaller doses may take longer … but we WILL continue.
• UNDERSTAND THAT LIFE HAPPENS – No matter how much we think we have control over our lives, some things are beyond our control. This is a simple fact of life. Whether it be due to some ailment that befalls us, or because circumstances interfere with our efforts, sometimes we simply cannot proceed as planned. This can easily become an excuse to not try again. Don’t give up. Adapt.
• BE FLEXIBLE – This is really a summation of the previous three points. When we find things don’t quite work in one way, try another. It could mean no trying as hard, or maybe changing our schedule. I could mean finding alternative methods. If we lock ourselves to a certain path, a blockage on the path becomes an easy excuse not to continue. Just find a detour, or a new path altogether.
• FOCUS ON WHAT WE CAN DO – This may be the most important point. If we keep encountering reasons that we CANNOT do something, we stand in our own way. Focus on what we CAN do, and we will continually make forward progress. We will also find that the CANNOTS become a smaller and smaller list.

Whatever paths we find ourselves on as we journey through life, how (or even IF) we proceed along them is determined by our own choices. We will encounter obstacles, but how we respond to those obstacles is also our choice.  We can let the obstacles become an excuse to give up, or we can find a way to continue DESPITE such excuses. Only by continuing will we find our destinations. Beware excuses!

The post Beware excuses! first appeared on thrumyeyes.

Saint Augustine has been quoted as saying “The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page”.

I want to be an avid reader, and there have been times that I have been. But these days I seem stuck on the same page. The book got a little darker than I wanted, and I put it down weeks ago. Until recently, I simply did not want to pick it up again. But as scary as the story might get at times, if we don’t keep reading … we will never know how it turns out. It is really silly to hide from a book that hasn’t even been fully written yet. I made the mistake of getting caught up in other people’s chapters, thinking that the pages I am writing are inextricably tied to  said chapters. My mistake.

One I often make.

But I found my courage again. Or maybe my inherent stubbornness has had enough of my hiding under the sheets. Either way I am back again for the nonce.  I will not whine about my journey stalling, or make big promises about where it is going, for neither is particularly productive at the moment. Nor would there be much truth to the words.

No journey ever truly stalls. Even if we seem to stay in place, it is only in a relative sense. We are a small speck on a tiny planet that is both revolving and rotating in a small galaxy that is also constantly moving; said galaxy part of a moving cluster of galaxies; all part of an inconceivably large universe that is also in constant motion, How can we say that our journey has stopped. Each moment we are in a different point in the space-time continuum, and we will (probably) never cross that point again.

When seen from this perspective, stagnation is purely a mindset.

Time for me to shake that mindset. Bold words. Let us see if I can turn said words into action now. My journey is far from over, unless I call it over. I do not know what is next. Perhaps I will continue the promised book, for even if never read there is power in the writing. Or maybe my wander lust will find another outlet that is beyond sight for me right now. Wherever my path takes me, I will begin reading (and writing) again. The Book of Life; The Book of MY Life, is far from over yet.

The post Here be dragons … so I’ll move over here instead first appeared on thrumyeyes.

So far, it is mostly none of the above.

The photo site is bursting with photos, with many more to add. There are two issues there. 1) There are about as man people who visit THAT blog as visit THIS one. And that person isn’t all that interested in buying photos. B) The software that allowed me to actually SELL my photos randomly stopped working. Good thing my fan doesn’t want to buy anything!

My Don Quixote complex is running strong. It doesn’t help matters that I actually made a good call recently, not only giving PAX Nation the illusion of exposure, but gaining a few new members, no doubt as crazy as I am. This has encouraged me to push harder, to the point that PAX Nation has now become my main focus. I still want to wander the world. I just might be tilting with all the windmills I encounter along the way.

I also continue to not write my books. By the time I write The Tao of Picnic, my memory of events might border on fiction … which may actually improve said events. Ironically, much of it is already written, since a lot of it will come directly from this blog. I just need to catch that disease called discipline. Unfortunately to catch something one needs to be exposed to it, and my social circle (which essentially includes me and Brown Dog), is severely lacking of infected folk.

I am not sure if I should be proud or ashamed that I managed to make an update for any interested in this blog into a commercial for some of my OTHER blogs. I may not be infected by discipline, but apparently the advertising bug has gotten into my system. Until the next time folks! Maybe I will have something more interesting to share!

The post The digital journey continues first appeared on thrumyeyes.

In terms of my personal growth, my activity has been much less physical than may be ideal, but I still have been very active, and I am seeing improvement. I have been focused on forwarding some of dreams, which often (at the moment at least) has me sitting long hours in front of a computer screen. Not the most healthy of activities in some ways, but we adapt.

I don’t get a lot of formal exercise these days, for several reasons. The primary one is I really don’t LIKE routine exercise. But still my fitness improves. How do I manage it? This is what works for me …

DIET

• Chew slower and longer.
• Don’t have seconds.
• Make sure I eat because I am truly hungry, not just bored (or emotionally disturbed).
• Mostly eat what I NEED, not what I WANT.
• That said, feed any cravings so they get satisfied quickly, instead of growing.

EXERCISE

• Stretch frequently, even if only small stretches.
• Walk and play with the dog frequently (I have to admit having a needy dog has some benefits).
• Don’t use “crutches”. In other words, make EVERY movement work for me. For instance, don’t use a railing to walk up and down stairs if I don’t need it.
• Focus on form and correctness of action. Am I sitting with a healthy posture? Walking? Are my movements conducive to a healthy body or potentially destructive in the long run?

SPIRITUAL / EMOTIONAL HEALTH

• Focus fully on what I am doing NOW (all of the above helps this focus).
• Remember that we define our own meaning in life.
• Don’t take things so seriously. Find the bright side. If I can’t find it, I create it.
• Negativity happens. Don’t focus on it. Let it pass through.

Improving our health does not require grand gestures. I just requires living consciously and well. Exercise programs and diets may speed up the process, but they will basically have only temporary results unless our habits change as we do them. It is often the small changes that are the most telling, for if we can consitently shift these … the whole pattern will change as well. Essentially, self-awareness is as important as hard work. Both are required for true healthy living.

The post Focusing on the small things first appeared on thrumyeyes.

Part of the extra weight was a hard drive, to store all the evidencephotos. By the time I got sidetracked to Ohio, I had about 4000 (yep … thousand) pictures on that hard drive. Unfortunately, due to the constant, unplanned uprooting of my life at the time … the hard drive got … misplaced.

As one might expect, I was a bit devastated by this. I had access to copies of many of the photos, but the originals … let’s just say my character grew three times that day. In a way it seemed I had invalidated a few months of my life. But ya can’t change what ya can’t change.

In the past few weeks, I have been upgrading my photo site, to make it more functional, add more photos, and add the capacity to (gasp) sell said photos (had to be done). Despite my “loss”, I still had a couple of thousand pics to sort through and upload … the vast majority NOT on the site.

It turns out … 2 years later … that I in fact did NOT lose most of those photos. I … surprisingly … did the smart thing and actually backed up the back up drive, without even remembering I did it. I may have lost a few photos, but the vast majority were actually hiding in plain site right here on the computer I picked up in my travels. Most of these photos are now available on the photo site (or soon will be).

It just goes to show you that if you let things go, they might just come back to you.

P.S. All of the original photos form this site are available on the photo site. You can even BUY them if you feel so inclined … but either way they are often higher quality versions than displayed here. Swing on over and take a look.

The post Stop seeking and ye shall find first appeared on thrumyeyes.

No limit is written in stone. Growth is partially successfully expanding limits. That said, though, limits need to be respected … they can only be pushed so far and/or so fast. One of my personal weaknesses, one that I think I share with many, is impatience. While I am not afraid to put work into positive change, I all too often expect it to happen much faster than reasonable, and when it doesn’t I lose motivation and focus. This can cause difficulties in all aspects of life, especially if I let it continue unchecked. Practicing patience is perhaps one of my greatest challenges.

Change takes time. The very definition of time reflects this … time is essentially a series of events in which change occurs. The passage of time requires change, and change requires the passage of time. How much time depends on what we are changing, and the mechanics involved. When it comes to health and well-being, no positive change happens instantaneously. Physical fitness takes time and effort. It simply cannot happen overnight.

The same is true for changing habits. This also applies to spiritual growth. The challenge for the impatient is when the change happens so slowly that it is practically imperceptible. This happens to all of us. Sometimes we reach plateaus, or maybe we are simply not pushing ourselves hard enough, but there will be periods when we put a lot of effort in with no apparent results. Those who thrive on routine might not be as bothered by this, but those of us who want things “now!” will find this irritating at best, and an actual effort stopper at worst.

So how do we deal with this, especially if we are impatient? Remember the simple fact that nothing worth achieving happens without effort … which includes the passage of time. If the seeming lack of progress causes us to want to stop, then maybe we need to shift gears for a bit (or possibly try a different approach altogether). But don’t give up! While putting the effort in may SEEM futile, NO effort is guaranteed failure. This is something I need to constantly remember myself. Keep on plugging, and when the change we seek actually occurs we might be pleasantly surprised. Even if not, it WILL come, unless we give up.

The post Patience is a … necessity first appeared on thrumyeyes.