World Hunger

We Are The Decent People
Wilferd A. Peterson


We are the decent people of the world.
We are in the majority, for men and women are essentially decent.
We live in all nations, we live under all the flags that fly.
Decency is not determined by our economic status, our religion, the language we speak, the color of our skin, or the ideology under which we live.
Human decency is a universal quality.
We, the decent people of the world, often have our voices drowned out by the shouts of leaders who misrepresent the things for which we stand.
We the decent people carry enough weight to tip the scale for decency if we will make ourselves heard...
We believe that war is the great indecency, that it kills and destroys all the higher sensibilities of man and leaves only death, suffering, and destruction in its wake.
We believe that this is a beautiful universe and that it is made for love and not for hate; for peace and not war; for freedom and not slavery;
for order and not riot; for compassion and not violence; for happiness and not misery.
We believe that there is only one war to be waged in the name of human decency, and that is the war against all the common enemies of man... hunger, disease, poverty, ignorance, crime and failure.
We believe that every child should have the chance to grow up in an atmosphere of faith, not of fear.
We believe that the ultimate decency is to help men and never harm men, to lift men and not degrade men, and to respect the dignity of all men as individual human beings.
We the decent people of the world stand for the kind of life that will be good for all of the people, all of the time, everywhere."

www.inspirationpeak.com

Auditions

We had auditions on Saturday. I never cease to be amazed at the courage of children. I can't imagine coming into a room with 3 scary strangers and singing. With emotion. I'm uncomfortable just watching, wanting them to do well... trying to keep a smile plastered on my face without looking fake. ugh.

They were amazing. So good, so strong.

I am thrilled. We got a great cast, life just gave us a gift.

Details coming soon....

Talismans

While I was pondering what I wanted to blog about this morning, sentences started rolling through my head. I was thinking I wanted to give a strong message of hope, something enlightening, you know... something worth reading. "but enough about me, me, me.... what about you?" So, I was searching my toolbox... yoga?....reiki...? ...tarot?...soulcollage? and then this popped into my head:

You are a child of the Universe, no less than the stars or the sun. You have a right to be here.

Ahh, Desiderata... and I felt my shoulders relax. And then I thought:

Do you really need those shoulders up there to talk to me?

And I smiled. My Tai Chi Master used to say that to me all the time. It was when I first realized that I was perpetually tense.

When do you feel alive, present, completely absorbed to the exclusion of the monkey mind?

Hmmm, the talisman. When I first started my spiritual journey, really started becoming present and aware, I would ask myself that question. I was wondering around in a daze, trying to get through my days without actually living them, just like most people. I had to really sit and figure out if there was a time that I WAS present. I discovered that, for me, it was when I was gardening. I had this reinforced the other day when I was planting and out of nowhere:

HELLO THERE!!!!

Ok, it wasn't in caps. But I about jumped out of my skin. My neighbor. A yard away. Pleasant-like. But I was so engrossed in my activity... which made me think of:

The proud warrior releases his arrow and peacefully watches.. fully alert to all around him but not feeling the necessity to interact with it. Relaxed. He waits.

Yoga 101. Part of being present is being aware. Not absorbed. Not zoning out. Big difference. I teach this over and over in yoga during relaxation. People tend to think that if they fall asleep, I'm a great teacher. But I know the truth. If they are relaxed and fully alert, I have done my job.

Do your job, then step back. The only path to Serenity.

Tao Te Ching. Changed my whole life. Learning to let go of results, do what I need to do and then back away and let others do theirs.

So? What are your talismans? Your touchstones? The words that showed you the way?

Inspire us.

status go

Life is weird. Very weird. So many things in our lifetime that we never thought would happen. Airplanes hitting towers. My stock dividend check dropping to $3.76 in one cycle. House prices plummeting. And husbands losing jobs. It's like Chicken Little was right.

What do you think will happen?

I've been so blase' about all of it. "Oh, it's just a natural adjustment to the universe, we need to become simpler, grow our own food, use less resources... blah, blah, blah...." Real easy to say when it's not happening to you.

I'm tired. To sleep. Hopefully.

Always Press On.

This morning we took the canoe out for a little sightseeing. We were gonna go across the bay to see what there was in that stand of trees we've been looking at for the last 20 years.
The water was smooth, we were sunblocked, why not? We get a third of the way across and the wind starts kicking up. We keep paddling but soon realize we were getting nowhere. We turn to the edges and decide to hug the shore. Along the shore the water was smooth, it was so shallow we could touch bottom with our paddles, sort of pushing ourselves along as opposed to paddling... ala gondolas in Venice. We go out a bit deeper but the waves would push us back. Finally we give up and decide to start making our way back to our place. The wind was really fierce, we were really having to paddle for all we were worth and sometimes it seemed as if we were just getting no where. Just standing still. Maybe even going a bit backwards.

It struck me how much of a metaphor for life this was.

We eventually made it back, reluctantly. This evening, the water was smooth as glass. So clear the reflection of the nearby trees and homes were mirror images. It would have been easy to cross the wide gap to the stand of trees we've looked at for 20 years. But we had lost our momentum.... maybe tomorrow, we say. But tomorrow will be colder. And cloudier. And windier. And we'll be another day older. And in a hurry cause we have to get back to our real world.

Wonder what there is in that clump of trees? We no sooner made it back and got the canoe out of the water when an eagle came flying out of that clump... soaring majestically over the water. How disappointing that we gave up and didn't press on.

Next time.

Limbo Land Part 2

Yesterday I was teaching private yoga to a lovely lady who was delighted to find out what her body would allow her to do if she was gentle with it. As we were finishing up the class, I noticed my husband came home. It was 11:30...this couldn't be good. Making myself stay focused on my client, I didn't allow myself to speculate. Or maybe I just didn't want to know. My first thought, as always "is my Dad okay?" My second: His mom? His dad? the car? Sigh.

His job. Wow. After all these years? Really? Like really? We are now part of the growing statistics... part of all the poor souls who have lost their jobs. Their primary source of income. We've been praying for all his co-workers that they've been laying off over the last 8 months. Never dreamed he would be one of them. They (management) kept telling him he would not be one of them-- his job was secure because he was the only person in the office who knew how to do everything. Course, since they gone from a staff of 90 to 15 in 8 months, I guess they don't have much of everything that needs someone to know how to do it.

So, wow. We've talked about this for months. The what ifs.... "well, should I look for a full time job? what do I do about my now finally doing well business? should we refinance? should we go ahead and try and sell the house and move to a less expensive area? where? what about the kid's college? what in the world kind of job could I get that would make up for your income? How bad do we really think this economy will get? Are we all gonna live in tents? Obama will make it better...." and on and on. Preparing but not preparing. Which we now realize was stupid. Refinancing and consolidating is much harder when you don't have verifiable income.

All shall be well. Telling the kids was tough. Cory, bless his heart, came in from work and took one look at his Dad being home during the day "WHAT? You don't work no more?" (with a comical old man New York accent) Barry & I laugh. Poor Cory. "well... as a matter of fact, no, I don't work no more" "S*&&" "Yeah". He instantly runs upstairs and comes down with his tips from the night before.... "here's rent". Cory, who just found out his Starbucks store is closing and he will lose his daytime job in 30 days.... offering rent. Very sweet.

All shall be well. We were worried that Rhia, in college, would think she would HAVE to come home... she's been stewing for awhile with all the pay cuts Barry's gone through in the last year. We will work it out. If the worst thing that happens is she spends a year in community college...hey, a degree is a degree. All shall be well.

They closed down Barry's email account instantly. After all those years. He hadn't even made it home. He had to draft a letter to his contacts trying to keep it upbeat. Instantly...prayers of support, offers of help, leads for jobs. His brother even offered to take care of Rhia's college. We are so blessed. All shall be well.

So here we are. We've decided not to panic. He's working on his resume "honey, where's my resume?" "dear, that was 4 computers ago..." We'll try and refinance-- I put my rusty old wheeling dealing mortgage brain on in the shower yesterday... "you mean to tell me with a loan to value ratio as low as ours, you're still gonna verify income and do an appraisal? Honestly, you should pray we default! You could use the money..." All shall be well.

Know anyone who wants to hire a Jane of all trades?

Seriously, thank you all for your prayers and support and Reiki... we feel it. Wow. All shall be well.