The Season of Harvest

Many centuries ago a very wise Greek, named Aesop began telling moral tales.

They were called Fables, Latin for ‘little talk.’

These talks set a tone for the Seasons of the Harvest.

In a field one summer's day a Grasshopper was hopping about, chirping and singing to its heart's content. An Ant passed by, bearing along with great toil an ear of corn he was taking to the nest.

"Why not come and chat with me," said the Grasshopper, "instead of toiling and slaving away?"

"I am helping to lay up food for the winter," said the Ant, "and recommend you to do the same."

"Why bother about winter?" said the Grasshopper; we have got plenty of food at present."

But the Ant went on its way and continued its toil.

When the winter came the Grasshopper found itself dying of hunger, while it saw the ants distributing, every day, corn and grain from the stores they had collected in the summer.

As with tales that tell a truth, it contain many truths.

Ants are really strong.
Grasshoppers have very little use for the future.
Save now.
But For me it speaks of time to prepare to harvest:
So-Sew

What seeds have you sown?
I planted, carrots, potatoes, tomatoes, rosemary, basil, squashes. And with weeding, watering and fertilizer that’s what I got. A harvest of fresh food to make the ants happy and feed a few freeloading grasshoppers too.

What aims, goals and intentions did I plant?
I started with a presentation on Goals to Flow-ers at a Soropotist meeting. A speech on how our goals become the fruits of our efforts and how when firmly planted goals become the flowers of whom we are.

I found the words that form our Pity Pot, the consume’ of our Stinkin Thinkin and SHARED the deodorant for Stinkin Thinkin.

I planted seeds to handle my peers who have been caught by their own critic, got the disease of cynicism and are headed into being a curmudgeon-the person who throws the wet blanket over our enthusiasm and appreciation. I answered the challenge of the curmudgeon with our greatest tool humor.

I bid you come with you now, into the seasons of Holidays with a taste of what the holidays can become BECAUSE:
We can reap compassion in a challenging economy.
We can share kindness with all.
We can harvest the fruits of our labor, making work-love made visible.

For the fall plant a fall seed of Holidays.

Of holy days to come.

Of being grateful for each moment.

Start by putting real meaning into Halloween, change your costume and change who you are, find new ways to look at life, get an attitude adjustment, to have fun.

Followed on November 1 by a reverence for All Saints day.

All, everyone as a SAINT that day.

And on the American Thanksgiving I make gratitude lists and extort over grace the thanksgiving of our bounty.

I celebrate holidays I barely understand, Hanukka and Kwanzaa, searching for meaning and respect for others' ritual. Respect for that I may not understand.

And then on a bedraggled Christmas I ponder the multitude of meanings given to a day of commercial magnitude and of good cheer, goodwill and excited grandkids.

And a new start on New Year’s Day, that you can extend all the way to A Chinese New Year.

To make ReSoultions to what I want to create in 2010.

Begin now as each day grows shorter, to lengthen your compassion, your kindness, your gratitude for the miracle you are.

Plant your seeds.

Bring your harvest home with aliveness, enthusiasm and appreciation.

Because if you are not appreciating this moment, what are you doing?

Ya Gotta have a Buddi or Two

Happy May Day 2009-

This is a recycled, edited, updated Avatar Fry Day, a newsletter from 2004 to Buddi’s.

Dear Buddi your in this one and each blog, and each Sunday Sermon I write.

"I ended April coining a new word. Washington Post does it all the time, words like:
Intaxication: Euphoria at getting a tax refund, which lasts until you realize it was your money to start with.
Cashtration (n.): The act of buying a house, which renders the subject financially impotent for an indefinite period.
Hipatitis: Terminal coolness.
My word is Buddihood (v).

A buddi is not so committed as a bodhis (bo·dhi·satt·va (bo´dî-sùt¹ve) noun Buddhism. An enlightened being who, out of compassion, forgoes nirvana in order to save others. [Sanskrit bodhisattvah, one whose essence is enlightenment: bodhih, perfect knowledge + sattvam, essence, being (from sat-, existing)., but a buddi is on the path to nirvana.

Buddies are more than a friend, they are an inspirer.

Not a muse, though they have qualities of a muse, but empathetic.

They are role models, mentors and peers. Someone who listens and hears with compassion and insights. They bring out the best in you, and you mirror them.

It is not a friendship based on what SAGE creator, Brandon St John, called “you buy my bullshit, I’ll buy yours.”
It’s not based on money or the sympathetic snivel of sharing a pity pot.
The relationship does not depend on length of time, although like wine, aging these buddihood decants into magic.
It’s the partner in the master & baiter game, a student and coach.
The questioner and answerer.
Your partner in drilling a skill.
Your mirror.
Definition of a Buddi is the archetype on the list of character ethic’s I wish for.
Love of all life, especially self-love.
Compassion when feeling and experiencing another person.
Empathy, a sign of wisdom, a relief from our self-importance.
Commitment to being present no matter what.
Courage to keep coming back for more.
Perseverance to do the real work. Know They Self.
Patience to accept the unacceptable.
Understanding practiced into an art form.
Wit to laugh at ourselves, & sense the contradictory humor in consciousness.
Insight into finding another way of looking at all situations.
Clarity to see all the other ways of looking.
Creativity to come to solutions.
Honesty in being real.
Changeability with the flow.

My life has been blessed with many amusing buddies.

Partners, in dyads sitting across from me, with a presence, and being a ‘present’ to work with.

Framed?

I love framing. All life is framed.

Framing a building, creating the ribs and skeleton of a structure where it’s possible to walk through walls. I earned a living in the 1970’s framing.

In the 1980’s I meet the Ricki’s, my Metalinguistic Institute NLP trainers and learned about reframing-whats another way of looking at this/that? And the ways we frame life. I remember the Ecology frame, Family frame, Survival frame, Spiritual frame, Fun frame, and my favorite, the just for the hell of it frame. I became good at framing ideas, eventually creating Avatar Fry Days, blogs and The Sunday Sermon of The Church of Attention.

Later in the 1980’s I became a fan of framing pictures. A passion grown first with the salon hair gallery, then into themes, hands, my Art Deco mode, the credos and mottos, ancient wisdom, Art Nouveau, the Who Are You prints, Raleen’s flower art, collages, Hollywood’s glamour age, and the family & friends. Now those frames are boxed, another way of containing a structure, separating this from that, cataloging where and what it is.

Frames on my glasses have become important, especially the green frames that neutralizes my red eyeball scar, covering the gravity around my eyes.

Framed amongst the redwood trees, the cabin popped out to greet us.

Framed within the soft chords of the guitar, the flute spoke of distant dances.

Framed inside an island of safety, we believed many things.

Sitting on my porch watching the sunset and listening to Joni Mitchell sing Coyote, I was amused by her framing of the song, with the chorus creating a frame. Both as a way to contain the characters and theme, and how like the choir in Greek theater, the voice from above, a right angle to the action. Another way, often a divine way, of looking at a subject, from the edges, the frame, over the fence like the cartoon Kilroy.

Grandmothers telling nursery rhymes, fairy tales, begin the frame with Once upon a time and bring us to completition with and they lived happily ever after or simply The End.

It’s all-possible within a frame. Time and space are at your command.

Feeling confined, make a bigger frame.

Feeling confused make a clearer frame, or add some mirrors.

Feeling separate and alone, add characters.

Feeling overwhelmed, use some ‘white out, take an eraser, or lift the screen on your etch-a-sketch.

An interesting twist is to take the frame to the past, as in “I was framed,” lose creativity and freedom amongst the paranoid delusion of victim hood.

What frames do you love?

Conscious Mortality

Being aware of the presence of our demise is as rare as the common sense necessary to count back change.
“Here’s your purchase sir, that’s $14.95 from a $20, a nickel makes $15, and $5 makes $20.”
Counting change is a game where you start with the end in mind. What about starting or at least being aware of life with the end in mind, because life does end, it’s a round trip.

If I knew the end of this life was tomorrow, or today, say after lunch would I:
Repent? Rue the moment? Regret and moan to the end?
Or
Find my attention quite expansive?
Express emotions of gratitude?
Would my mind become curious and very interested?
Would I be kinder & nicer?

A philosopher and teacher from the last century wrote in the epic 1238 pages of All And Everything “the sole means now for the saving of the beings of the planet Earth would be to implant …a new organ…that everyone of those unfortunates during the process of existence should constantly sense and be cognizant of the inevitability of his own death as well as the death of everyone upon who his eyes or attention rests.”

A best selling anthropologist referred to death constantly being over a spiritual warriors shoulder in his many books.

Simon and Garfunkle sang “So I’ll continue to pretend, My life will never end.”

Robbie Robertson, Bob Dylan’s first electric guitarist picked up the theme on The Native American album with the chant, “It’s a good day to die.”
Put life on the line.
Give your life everything.
What do I have to lose?
These clichéd lines of motivation to not hold back, to get in the flow, to be all you can be, to leave it all on the court, are real.
Mainstream wisdom from the righteous right to the liberal left encourage us to be here now, to worship the moment.
I have an old friend who took this seriously; I mean dying is serious business, a business worthy of paying attention too.
Being present to what we love. Family, friends and this moment. To go beyond our habits and inhabit the thoughts of how do I want to be when I die?
How do I want to be as I live?
We heard of the ‘Bucket List.”

Those things to experience even appreciate before we kick the bucket,
BUT
Is there a cool way to go?
Would you rather go
“MAKING LOVE or MAKING WAR?
“Leave ‘em guessing or Leave ‘em Groaning?*
“Making a Difference or Making an Alibi?
“Trailblazing or Covering Your Tracks?
“Full of Passion or Full of Pills?
What’s a cool way to go?
“Laughing or Litigating?
“Singing or Screaming?
“Praying or Cursing?”
“Loving or Blaming?”

The author and guru of Death and Dying Elisabeth Kubler-Ross wrote her way, “At home with lots of flowers, a large window and grandchildren playing by the bed.”

“It’s never too late to die.”

If you’re not appreciating this moment, what are you doing?

*101 Cool Ways to Die By Douglas Gillies

Namaste Gary

I Practice, Always.

I remember 2/7/2004
It’s a clear blue morning on the Straits. Dozens of sailboats are headed out toward the Golden Gate.

I have been up since 5 practicing.

Practice from prassein, Latin ‘to do.’
Practicing Doing what?
Sitting in silence, for a while, a very little while.

It became so hard to do I got my beads and OM-ed. My voice deep and resonate through the Chakras. My imagination adding a spiral Chi feeling, an ascending motion.
I am practicing.

WHEN’S THE GAME?

I wonder, is this real?
I’m a western westerner, can’t get much further west without getting real wet. I am a Smith, a kid named Gary.

Practicing to experience the silence of the Shining Black Void, the Onyx of existence, which disappears (where can nothing go?) each moment I grasp for it.

As soon as I reach for it, believe I see, feel or have it, POOF, its gone.
What is it? Which way did it go?

But I practice. I have always practiced.

I tossed the tennis ball against the basement wall practicing ground balls.

Shot free throws, and practiced right and left-handed drives against invisible Boston Celtics.

Practiced throwing three strikes in the tenth frame to win the U.S. Open.

I practice my poems, the words to the song, and the lines to the play.

I can practice every chance I get.
It’s Saturday, such a good day to practice.
My bowling psychologist gives tips to practice. He asks:,
“What is your level of awareness?
“Virtually every bowling situation is either heaven or hell depending on your point of view you choose!

I practice, always practice.

“The eye of the storm-which ‘area of drama’ is your mind residing?

Those are practice for some practical results.

To be a poet, singer, bowler, a player, but personal practice, practicing nothing?

Doing that which leads to enlightenment.

Setting time aside, when no one else is watching, and doing something incredibly kind for ourselves.
It is from this well of patience and understanding, we develop from practice, which allows us to draw upon compassion, even when our mind is screaming in righteous rage of rightness to be right, right now. Right?

Practice to create compassion on the spot, anytime anywhere.

There is always a game for compassion.
The important thing is a time each day in which we practice waking up, beyond the sleep of the night, waking up to the amazing fact that we are alive.

Practice to be capable of developing skills of attention and will that leads to understanding and appreciation of our minds, unstuck, without boundaries and view the world and our self in motion.
A time of practice where we can go deeper into our

being and experience what the Tibetans call Namshak, equipoise. The balance and grace of the moment when we are able to respond to the present and not habitually react.

I practice to handle my racing, rushing and obsession with results.

I practice because there is something more here, more than my mind to comprehend.

I practice to find appreciation in a new way.

I practice to find gratitude in an old place.

I practice for teamwork and cooperation.

I practice to feel thanks always.

I practice because I have learned to love.

I practice Namaste
Gary

3. e·qui·poise (ê¹kwe-poiz´, èk¹we-) noun
3. Equality in distribution, as of weight, relationship, or emotional forces; equilibrium.
3. A counterpoise; a counterbalance.