Vitamins for the Soul: A rocky Place.....

So there's this amazing zen rock in the contemplative garden behind the building where i take all of my classes. It sits in the koi pond, half submerged and teeming with life within the soft succulent peat that grows there. I often imagine it when I am meditating, as I did yesterday because for me it represents a metaphor that unlocks the key to my own enlightenment. I've been having difficulty this semester determining a healthy balance between when it is appropriate to delve and probe the issues that have concerned me and when I just need to lighten up. I think that both have their merits and so I've striven to keep them in balance and even though I've been overwhelmed by the process from time to time, I have seen a tremendous amount of growth result because of it. Where this rock comes into play is I noticed that at the place where the rock converged with the water and the air seems to be the place where the most abundant forms of life reside, where life in that space is fullest and I spent a moment ruminating about how that correlated to my own life and consciousness. So I cultivated this metaphor.



The rocks below, the ones submerged in the depths had their own forms of life covered in algae, stagnant, complacent, and seemingly trapped. They had "fallen" or rested so deep that all they could do was stay buried in their environments, in their space within, in themselves. It's not a bad way to be, if you can make peace with that, but I wouldn't want to be like that all of the time. If I compared it to my consciousness I could almost compare those rocks to myself when I am lost in thought, trapped in contemplation, or lost in my own ego.

The rocks above I imagined lived wonderful lives. They were heralded in that garden as fixtures, of service to all of those fortunate enough to regard them to offer support, stability and a novel moment of peace and solitude. But for those who were unfortunate not to be regarded they would be at the mercy of the elements, drunken college students, and wandering pets and kids. The winds could carry pieces of them whereever it pleased and those rocks would come into contact of worlds and warmth and all sorts of brilliance that the rocks below could only dream of, they were the rocks which were most unstable, least anchored, and most likely to be carried away. They were destined to have a lesser life span but more likely to be remembered. They were glory rocks fated to meet their own end.

The rock in the center though, my rock upon which no one will ever sit, lays untouched, unscathed and instead of being stripped away by the winds is simply stirred by it. For the life that grows upon it and within it in those spaces where the depth and the warmth of the stirring present collide, represent the vast abundance that can fill us, me when we position ourselves in a harmonious balance between the sacred and steady depths and the whirling warmth and beauty of the mundane. Life unfolds at the point where those depths and external world converge, and the moment that I find that place, I find that I am filled with abundance and gratitude, that fills up my life and slows everything down enough for me to be able to appreciate it.

It is the place where freedom and service collide and love and happiness yield joy. Where we are steady, mindful and expressive all at the same time. This is the place where love and life and art are born, and if we take the time to notice these moments within our own lives, we find a fuller part of ourselves can be born by simply living..noticing and appreciating the sacred process and significance of the present.




Presently I am remembering how incredible my weekend was. I was hanging out with a friend of mine and we had quite the adventure. We were headed out to walmart to buy food to bake for our departing international friends but the freakish anime style sporadic thunderstorms kept trapping us in odd places and so we ended up on an oddysey and had the most amazing day of bead shopping, jewelry making, hw, and partying. how often do you get to live a full day with another person and truly enjoy it? we had an amazing time. the next day i woke up went to morning meditation and thought of this rock while i did my walking meditation. as i walked i tried to be mindful of my breathing and of my steps, this week's area of focus. It was amazing as we walked circles around the "Fireside Room" I was able to feel the warmth of the person's footsteps in front of me.

It was incredibly warm in those spaces and then my feet arced around the cold coiled carpet once more until it found another step of his and I felt a sense of comfort at being in the presence of such tremendous energy. It reminded me of why it is important to be mindful of my own steps, because even though people were not always going to be mindful of coming across my own energy, the impact of the steps that I take could just as easily be felt whether they were noticed or not, and that it was my responsibility to ensure that the impression that I was leaving were those warmth, of conscious responsibility and of growth. Those were the "footprints" I want to leave in the hearts of those who know me. Not of one who is negative or destructive; reckless. Which means I am going to have to start taking better care of myself.

Smoking Pot

So I was considering going off of the meal plan this summer. I have a week and a half to kind of make the decision, and while I've decided that access to amenities will most likely keep me on campus, the issue of whether or not it is economical to try and feed myself [or run the risk that I continue to pay the same amount as everyone else with the limited resources in dining services makes available and risk being frustrated] is something that I certainly can't ignore. I don't know that I can take another hungry summer, especially since summer is 12 weeks and meals will only be offered for 8 of them. A friend of mine is planning on going off campus and offered to let me cook meals there under the stipulation that I cook meals [to which i agreed so long as those meals did not contain meat.] i came up with the idea of grilling vegetables and veggie burgers or building a separate veggie pan with a long handle but it appears that someone has already beat me to the punch. I wanted to see whether they have cast iron, ceramic or stainless steel fryer inserts, but to be honest I have a lot of homework to do, so I'm not going to stay up late going through that. My amazing journey led me to a much cheaper and inventive option, which i discovered trying to learn how to make a my own hibachi stove.

Making stoves out of empty cans, which i think is much more sustainable [although i'm not sure whether the cans can be recycled once they've been used. but i don't see why not....] anyway, here are some great models that i've found.

the journey starts at wikipedia



How to Make a Simple Beverage Can Stove

Try making your own easy, lightweight and portable cooking stove from used aluminum beverage cans. This project costs virtually nothing to create and it will cook for up to 15 minutes. This is a really simple version of the beverage can stove. Other versions can be more complicated but this one works well despite its simplicity. You will be creating a top half and a base half from two different beverage cans, both halves which are then telescoped together to create a small, solid, lightweight stove. The steps outline creating the base and the top halves of the stove and slotting them together. The article also provides steps on priming and ignition of your stove.

How to Make a Top Burning Alcohol Stove

aka - The Pepsi Can Stove

lists advantages and drawbacks to using a diy portable stove.

image courtesy of redding.com

for those of you who take your diy a little more seriously....
we have:

Introduction to the Pika Alcohol Stove System

The Pika stove is a new arrival into the wilderness. Using most any type of beverage can available, you can build an ultralight alcohol stove system to suit your hiking needs.

The Pika stove is a passive air-laminar flow intake type stove, versus the pressurized Pepsi stove. The Pika is fuel efficient, lightweight, and easy to build using simple tools. There are several sizes of pikas that can be built: the smallest, the solo models, use Coors cans or 12 oz soda cans, then the Mad Pika uses 24 oz beer cans, and the largest is the Fat Pika made from Foster beer cans. The two smaller stoves are perfect for the solo hiker, and the larger size pikas can serve as big boilers when needed. The cat stove by Roy Robinson is the first passive air alcohol stove I built. It taught me well, and inspired me to design my own stove. This site will cover construction methods lightly, and will present many ideas that you can apply to any stove construction project. I prefer to let the builder study the photos and ideas rather than focus on deep construction details. Pika stoves require two beverage cans of equal type, and one smaller can for the fuel bowl. Ultralight alcohol stoves are easier to make than you ever believed.

Zen Backpacking Stoves



But some people take this super seriously. so i didn't want to leave you without some input from the pros...


A simple-to-make, hot-burning, backcountry stove

The Super Cat Alcohol Stove

These guys have broken out all of the stops testing beer can stoves, stoves made from cat food cans, recorded burning length and recorded temperatures. It doesn't get more empirical than that. This will be good stuff to know in the event of any more natural disasters.

Afraid to Fly (reposted)

"You were Born with Wings, Why Prefer to Crawl Through Life" ~Rumi

I have never felt so demotivated in my life, and I am finding myself fighting everyday to just stay focused upon what I should be doing, so I can move forward. I've had to really begin fighting just to get myself to follow through on things. I know I'm pretty burnt out. But the truth is, it isn't an excuse to stop going and I understand that now. I have found tremendous strength and resilience to keep on pushing through, stay on the grind, but there are sometimes when that is not enough. I'm finding it harder to get out of bed, harder to be punctual, to stay committed. I used to be on such a corporate time schedule. Now, I have somehow become the epitome of the overworked demotivated student. I don't want to be a clique. I added some responsibilities for the next year, like SIFE and accepted an advisory position for the SGA [the power minus the commitment] so hopefully that will force me to tighten up a bit. ] I think the problem is that right now I have no one to be accountable to besides myself... which would be fine if my authentic self weren't so fond of fun and naps.

"We can easily manage if we will only take, each day, the burden appointed to it. But the load will be too heavy for us if we carry yesterday's burden over again today, and then add the burden of the morrow before we are required to bear it." ~Newton

Who you tellin. How do I balance my adult self, the one with all of these responsibilities with the part of me that once to yield from time to time and enjoy life to the fullest? The only thing I have done to resolve it is to get up earlier and try to squeeze a few extra hours out of the day. That means I get to enjoy later afternoon naps and I get two days out of one. The problem is, I keep squandering the free time I gain during the bottom half of the day. You know what the problem is: Facebook. Well actually, that's not entirely true. I was barely on it this week until Thursday when I just shut down. But yesterday I wasn't on it and still nothing really got done, [I know, but it was Friday]. To be honest, I think my sensible adult self is still programmed to real world expectations where taking a weekend or getting rest or going for an early morning hike, or doing laundry is permissible because it is a sign of balance. Unfortunately, it seems that with all of the power outages, mini dramas, and so on that perhaps I am overwhelmed because what was carefully scheduled out gets pushed back onto the things that I've put off and I'm stuck with a whole mess of things that I need to do and I no longer have the will to want to do them.

“When you get right down to the root of the meaning of the word "succeed," you find that it simply means to follow through.”

~ F. W. Nichol [ I suppose this means I should start on my assignments]

See this is what it has come to in order for me to get work done. I have to limit the procrastination that I do engage in, to specific pursuits. The video above was fun, but I've tightened the parameters very specifically to personal development, or things that can help me with my assignments and only after given intervals. I just got an assigment done. Which is why I'm on here. One down and a jillion piling up. I can't wait for this semester to be over.



So Rumi, you're right. But it isn't that I crawl because I like being stuck in the mud, I think the fear of doing the work it takes to fly is what's keeping me down. Following through for me is what it's going to take for me to get to fly.... or perhaps I'm still going through some growth...

Quality Procrastination

So I won't even lie. It's the end of the year. I'm stretched way too thin and people keep adding on assignments and commitments that are now going to take me into next school year. I will do them but I have to decompress from time to time just to get keep myself amicable enough to keep doing it. it may be procrastination, but at least its constructive. note to the reader, please note the time of this post. this is when i started writing this. i have yet to do any hw... well technically everything that's due for my classes is finished. i just have some other deadlines encroaching that i need to take care of so i don't get overloaded this weekend. i must admit that lowering the bar to just under-overachieving has reduced my stress and anxiety levels. Sadly I will not be making all A's this semester [a grim reality that these videos will help me accept].



I should probably note that it's in your best interest not to watch the entire playlist in one sitting. Even if you have the time, you should try to do something at least a little bit productive. Believe me you'll thank me later. This guy will explain to you why:



but, let's face it. we are multi-dimensional creatures. sometimes lack of motivation is related to exhaustion and other times we may just need to be properly stirred. This is what I dug up that made me want to get out of bed today.



I would also like to note for those of you who are bummed, angry, or just going through some things, even though they are one of my biggest time wasters, I have found that the Facebook Quizzes serve as excellent self-esteem boosters or distractions when you've had a very awkward, challenging, or frustrating day. Yesterday was frustrating which proved to be distracting so I listened to some guided meditation for my midday nap after classes so I could wake up and get some work done. Something about sleep and a little bit of NLP (neurolinguistic programming) seems to be soothing when I find myself scattered and in need of a little bit of grounding. According to today's round of quizzes I am:

You belong to the Freaks [in the Which 60's subculture would you belong to quiz]. You usually hangout on buses or in caravans of clowns and your friends are Merry Pranksters and the Yippies. Your motto is: Do It! Your heroes are people like Ken Kesey and Abbie Hoffman..

A Scene/Emo Kid [in the What New York City Teenager Stereotype Do You Qualify For? quiz]: Scene kids are simply emo kids who don't want to be associated with emo kids. Who would? Your idea of a perfect day is hanging out in Union Square with your scene friends, having a picnic, doing a lot of cocaine, and taking pictures to document the whole thing. You're internet-famous for no apparent reason, but thank god for the internet every day; as it's where you've met most of your friends. You have more friends on MySpace than you, or anyone for that matter, will ever have in real life. Your biggest fear is that your 200K myspace friends will one day realize that you are actually a fat chick with acne. But, after all the angle-shots and photo editing, no one will ever know........ ...except for all of the people who see you in real life.

An Old Soul [in the "How old a soul are you?" quiz] Life's a rich affair of the senses, where emotions are music and the physical world the orchestra. You play as hard as you work, inhaling the rewards of both in a familiar and appreciative way. You know how to take care of yourself - spritually, mentally and physically, and are not prone to excess except in particular, carefully chosen instances. You appreciate art and music, free to escape in the concepts they birth. Time represents a canvas on which you display your craft, expressing your experience with life in interesting and new ways. You find yourself yearning for the past as a means to escape the hurried and impersonal present, recalling the lifestyle of your earlier times here. You are happy to lead but also know when following is more rewarding, and why. While you can tell the difference between and old soul and a young one, you are still prone to mild impatience when faced with other souls' faults or bad habits. As a result, you sometimes distance yourself and miss out on what otherwise may have been valuable experience. It is those experiences that will draw you back again and again, until you are a very old soul, and ready for the graduation from the school of the physical..

A PLATINUM MOTOWN GENIUS! [in the Do you know the MOTOWN HITS? quiz] Are you really Berry Gordy, Jr? You MUST BE because you know all about the MOTOWN CLASSICS!.

A Professor in Experimental Nuclear Physics [in the "What is your dream job? quiz] which is heartening because i really want to be an asset to the scientific and tech community but with my struggles in trig i was beginning to have doubts... If you don't know what this is, take the quiz again and don't lie this time. Otherwise, your head is always in a math or science textbook. Your theories can beat out Einstein. Keep up your studies and a doctorette degree is coming your way..

I'm Jason Kidd [in the Which active NBA player are you? quiz]. You're maybe old but your basketball IQ washes the entire league over. You're a nifty passer, a good rebounder given your lack of size. You glued the entire Olympic team to get that Gold Medal. 100+ triple doubles and counting, surefire Hall of Famer, Jason Kidd!.

And finally....

that's right a Master Ninja...
You are a Master Ninja. AKA the perfect ninja. Your skills are greater than any other ninja. You use your knowledge and skill with such expertise that you never have to kill anyone. You are a teacher to all other ninjas, a mentor.

I wanted to post this result to my wall, but this is the one quiz that does not have sharing options. I'm not gonna lie. This semester has been rough and I have been a reluctant warrior about it, but from time to time i have gotten pretty lethal. I just try to keep that stuff under wraps because well what can I say, I have to be mindful. If someone else got this I would be in awe and wonder how can any one person be THAT awesome?!!! I don't know either. I just hope these are qualities that will carry me throughout the long haul.