~Living a life of sophisticated domestication deep in the heart of Texas~

Wednesday, September 26, 2007

Blest be the Harvest Moon....




Under the harvest moon,
When the soft silver
Drips shimmering
Over the garden nights,
Death, the gray mocker,
Comes and whispers to you
As a beautiful friend
Who remembers.

Under the summer roses
When the flagrant crimson
Lurks in the dusk
Of the wild red leaves,
Love, with little hands,
Comes and touches you
With a thousand memories,
And asks you
Beautiful, unanswerable questions.

Carl Sandberg

We're blessed with an early Harvest Moon this year, so we hope you all will enjoy it tonight.

May you also enjoy the charming old song, compliments of SGTex.

Shawn & SGTex
***

Sunday, September 23, 2007

And a fine Sunday evening it is, thanks...


I'm sitting here with SGTex and we're trying to decide just exactly what is that flowering plant growing in the neighbor's hanging basket. The question has put me on to Spring-thinking, and I really don't much care whether or not we happen upon the botanical name or identify the pretty plant, because I'm just enjoying the time together. I am glad he's got the know-how and is quite a gardener (admittedly, I am too). We'll be deciding what to plant on our patio, and as soon as the garden centers start loading up on the latest and loveliest, I'm going to be hard put to leave it alone and not come home with a trunkload of flowers.

Good thing we don't have to park far from the front door!


Shawn & SGTex
***

Photo: Wave Blue petunia

Saturday, September 15, 2007

As I was saying earlier....



"...Treated me kind
Sweet destiny
Carried me through desperation
To the one that was waiting for me
It took so long
Still I believed
Somehow the one that I needed
Would find me eventually

I had a vision of love
And it was all that you’ve given to me

Prayed through the nights
Felt so alone
Suffered from alienation
Carried the weight on my own
Had to be strong

So I believed
And now I know I’ve succeeded
In finding the place I conceived

I had a vision of love
And it was all that you’ve given to me
I had a vision of love
And it was all that you’ve given me

I’ve realized a dream
And I visualized
The love that came to be
Feel so alive
I’m so thankful that I’ve received
The answer that heaven has sent down to me

You treated me kind
Sweet destiny
And I’ll be eternally grateful
Holding you so close to me
Prayed through the nights
So faithfully
Knowing the one that I needed
Would find me eventually

I had a vision of love
And it was all that you’ve given to me
I had a vision of love
And it was all that you turned out to be"




And that's the way it is.

Shawn
***

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

This world of ours...



Our friend Michele shared these words with us today, on this 9/11 morning. In part, this is what she will be reading at the Interfaith Memorial Service in her California town.

"The contrary people think
This world is in a great fire
The end of the kalpa of destruction is coming.
In reality this world of mine is peaceful.
It is filled with gods and men.
The gardens, forests, and stately buildings
Are adorned with various treasures;
The jewelled trees have many flowers and fruits;
The living beings are enjoying themselves;
And the gods are beating heavenly drums,
Making various kinds of music,
And raining mandarava-flowers on the great multitude
and me."

The above is excerpted from The Life Span Chapter of the Lotus Sutra

***
"In my lifetime I want to see evidence of things turning around, of my home planet starting to be less of a hell and more like heaven or a Buddha land. Hurry Kosen-Rufu of Sandai Hiho, hurry jiyu." SGTex, June 2005

Shawn
***

Sunday, September 9, 2007

Nearly a new Monday morning...


"To laugh often and much, to win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children, to earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends, to appreciate beauty, to find the best in others, to leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition, to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived--this is to have succeeded."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson


Just sharing a bit of wisdom as we move into another week. The moon is about to turn from 'going to coming' and there's much to be done. Here's hoping we all enjoy the blessing of the morrow...

Shawn
***

Thursday, September 6, 2007

"Ssssshhhh....shush, now..."




Something I hear from time to time is my Man telling me, "Now, lookie here..." Other times, it's "Shush, now. It's all right..." Words like that, which more often than not have to be repeated several times over, until the racing thoughts (and words pouring out of my mouth) cease, and I desist, you know, from being not-so-very cooperative.

That's one of my most favorite things about him. That Calming Effect. Letting me know that all will be well, real soon-like. I can tell you, he's had to draw on that quality in himself more times than we can probably count during the last couple of years.

Today he found this song from a favorite film, The Color Purple, and shared it with me. I am so grateful, as it really hit the spot. Just what I needed, that beautiful reminder that it really pays to listen up and pay attention, because there's a message with my name on it, written across the sky, just beyond those gray clouds. You know, the ones with just a hint of silver lining....

Shawn, getting her spiritual groove on, and ever so grateful for SGTex
***

Wednesday, September 5, 2007

Trouble in Sweetwater....


This is for all you gardeners. Never bring your plants into the house.

Garden Grass Snakes (also known as Garter Snakes.... Thamnophis sirtalis) can be dangerous... Yes, grass snakes, not rattlesnakes.

Here's why...

A couple in Sweetwater, Texas, had a lot of potted plants. During a recent cold spell, the wife was bringing a lot of them indoors to protect them from a possible freeze. It turned out that a little green garden grass snake was hidden in one of the plants and when it had warmed up, it slithered out and the wife saw it go under the sofa. She let out a very loud scream. The husband (who was taking a shower) ran out into the living room naked to see what the problem was. She told him there was a snake under the sofa. He got down on the floor on his hands and knees to look for it. About that time the family dog came and cold-nosed him on the behind. He thought the snake had bitten him, so he screamed and fell over on the floor. His wife thought he had a heart attack, so she covered him up, told him to lie still and called an ambulance.

The attendants rushed in, wouldn't listen to his protests and loaded him on the stretcher and started carrying him out. About that time the snake came out from under the sofa and the Emergency Medical Technician saw it and dropped his end of the stretcher. That's when the man broke his leg and why he is still in the hospital.

The wife still had the problem of the snake in the house, so she called on a neighbor man. He volunteered to capture the snake. He armed himself with a rolled-up newspaper and began poking under the couch. Soon he decided it was gone and told the woman, who sat down on the sofa in relief.

But while relaxing, her hand dangled in between the cushions, where she felt the snake wriggling around. She screamed and fainted, the snake rushed back under the sofa. The neighbor man, seeing her lying there passed out, tried to use CPR to revive her.

The neighbor's wife, who had just returned from shopping at the grocery store, saw her husband's mouth on the woman's mouth and slammed her husband in the back of the head with a bag of canned goods, knocking him out and cutting his scalp to a point where it needed stitches. The noise woke the woman from her dead faint and she saw her neighbor lying on the floor with his wife bending over him, so she assumed that he had been bitten by the snake. She went to the kitchen and got a small bottle of whiskey, and began pouring it down the man's throat.

By now the police had arrived. They saw the unconscious man, smelled the whiskey, and assumed that a drunken fight had occurred. They were about to arrest them all, when the women tried to explain how it all happened over a little green snake. The police called an ambulance, which took away the neighbor and his sobbing wife. The little snake again crawled out from under the sofa. One of the policemen drew his gun and fired at it. He missed the snake and hit the leg of the end table. The table fell over and the lamp on it shattered and as the bulb broke it started a fire in the drapes. The other policeman tried to beat out the flames, and fell through the window into the yard on top of the family dog who, startled, jumped out and raced into the street, where an oncoming car swerved to avoid it and smashed into the parked police car.

Meanwhile, the burning drapes were seen by the neighbors who called the fire department. The firemen had started raising the fire truck ladder when they were halfway down the street. The rising ladder tore out the overhead wires and put out the electricity and disconnected the telephones in a ten-square city block area (but they did get the house fire out).

Time passed... Both men were discharged from the hospital, the house was repaired, the dog came home, the police acquired a new car, and all was right with their world. A while later they were watching TV and the weatherman announced a cold snap for that night. The husband asked his wife if she thought they should bring in their plants for the night, and that's when she shot him.


Borrowed from another MT Forum

Shawn
***

Tuesday, September 4, 2007

Let your light shine down.....





An awesome rendition of a favorite. I adore this version...
Shawn & SGTex
***

Saturday, September 1, 2007

SGTex on a September Saturday...


This is what SGTex had to say in response to a creationist's post on MTDaily Religion Board, our "I'net home away from home." I am so impressed and proud, I just had to share it with you all here.
Shawn


Evolution & a rational spirituality:

"In the evolution thread below, avmar remarks: “If evolution is true, then...we are nothing, made for no reason at all. There would be no purpose in life since, after all, the only purpose we have after we die is to fertilize the dirt.”

I joyfully disagree with with this assessment of the implications of evolution theory and the scientific account.

It seems to be very important to creationists to assert that they have a monopoly on all meaning and value and purpose, and in advancing that arrogant claim they have to paint evolutionist thought as being starkly vain and nihilistic, ugly and wrong and hopeless. You can see this in their little comic books, where the one little Christian in the classroom stands up and makes a fool out of the mean old evolutionist professor in all his bombast and bluster.

Very important to villainize and misrepresent us evolutionists as *wanting* to believe there is no God, no meaning or purpose or moral value in existence. But this is a false and rather unfair “strawman” device of the creationists, to keep the flock believing the other side must be insane and bent on sin. I have never met an evolutionist, even an atheistic one, who believes we are nothing or that there is no purpose in life except to rot in the ground after we croak.

Rather, those who embrace science and reason and the beautiful evidence that permeates all of nature tend to be inspired, spiritually inclined intellectuals with lofty philosophy and a wish to do good in the world. This is because science and reason along with a vision of the display of the living universe can only lift us up to the glory and dignity we are heir to.
All things are wondrous, and the workings of the universe are unutterably splendid and good. It is not necessary that an outside entity endow us (or a star, or an atom) with purpose. We contain/are contained by the highest and only meaning, that which is its own cause and purpose, eternal and constant. That's a Buddhist tenet, but is eminently compatible with evolution theory and variations on the “Big Bang” theoretical physics.

In my sect we worship that sovereign absolute by chanting the perfect equation for it, Nam Myoho Renge Kyo. But of course there are other ways of appreciating the wonderful law of the universe, foundation and basis of everything, pure meaning, pure goodness and all that is purposeful and real.

Universe is from the Latin universum, “entire, complete.” One = the All = All Things That Actually Exist. It's a matter of whether one respects that straightforward definition of “universe.” If strict creationists posit a creator God outside of the universe, I think ironically they are excluding Him from the set of things that exist!

What if the universe and God were not two? What if the profound reality turned out to be eternally self-caused or uncaused?"

SGTex
***

Photo: Das Weltall (The Universe) from the Scivias Codex