Might As Well Dream Big 2012

Here is my dream business: http://anamayaresort.com/index.html. A Body, Mind & Spirit Resort. Yes please.

Any ideas on how I begin to build this dream from the 60-something crowd, or if I am totally off-base and unrealistic, I would love any thoughts about the viability of this particular business model, and suggestions towards the first step.

Smphony of Science

I don't know why I never heard of these until last night (thank you, Facebook) but they are utterly wonderful--the more so if you know what they are talking about, at least a little and who they are. Fabulous. Quantum physics, the history of the human species and brain science, set to music. Amazing.
http://symphonyofscience.com/videos.html

Honoring Roots

My mom has always been a force of nature. For those who think that sounds like a good thing, imagine a tornado as your mother. Certainly worthy of awe and respect, beautiful in its own way. But get out of its path when it turns in your direction and sometimes, though you take shelter, you will be destroyed.

But now, mom is 88.  She did not age gradually, but rather like a dog, one day, you notice the muzzle has grayed and the next, the years suddenly grow heavy.  Only a few months ago, she was wreaking havoc on the home where she had been placed following her broken femur.  Already that time seems long ago, though, as with a tornado, when calm descends, it is hard to put your guard down.  The force is gone but the devastation remains. The question is, now, is how to reframe my own life with mom. I find myself reflecting on the gifts she gave me. Ironically one of them is how to deal with forces of nature. I find myself less flummoxed by stormy or difficult people and situations than many around me. Like a negative teacher, the one who does everything wrong, you learn from watching how to do things right. So, another gift that she and my daughters gave me was the chance to understand the true dimensions of being a mother.  My love of nature is another gift, the place where I met my true mother: Mother Earth.

Mom was 87 before we got her to a psychiatrist. It has been years since I heard her laugh. The medications she was given uncovered the gentler human residing inside the coat of armor. Over the year, I learned to have faith in that gentler creature, though I rarely saw it, and to love it rather than my mom’s injured personality.  Another gift.

This last Christmas and New Year, I celebrated family roots through food and tradition.  I have a fun heritage: Mexican and Scottish. That is a lot of enjoyable cuisine and some fabulous folklore.  This I recommend to you. Eat your birthright.  Go beyond the  lives of mom and dad into the spacious world of ancestors.  I know more about my ancestral traditions and foods than my parents ever wanted to know. They did not pass it on to me; I discovered it, bit by bit. And what’s fun is I have had friends to play with. I traveled by gastronomy, and touched my ancestors and roots, all of them, even my mom.  Try it this year. Genealogical exploration through feasting.

My Avatar (kidding, I think)

Guy travels the world and shoots one second of footage in each location.

www.youtube.com

Alleluia for This Life. On My 61st Birthday.

·      I am thankful for the unlikely and astonishing fact of being alive.

·      I am thankful for this incredible living planet that holds me with loving gravity every moment.

·      I am thankful for my parents, ancestors and all the purposeful and accidental actions that came to pass to create my life.

·      I am thankful for my partner in life, who has gone on so many journeys with me.

·      I am thankful for two most wonderful and remarkable daughters who inspire me, teach me and who have taught me the very depth of love.

·      I am thankful for my fabulous friends, who keep me company, encourage and hearten me.

·      I am thankful for a magical universe of unimaginable proportions.And the ordinary extraordinary miracle of water.

·      I am thankful for the  indescribable wild power called “God”, so far beyond the domesticated and tiny interpretations we hold. Only Rumi comes close to words that are worthy.

·      I am thankful for the muse of creativity, which flows in my veins and which provides revelation and interpretation to the world.

·      I am thankful for my body/mind and all the places, feelings and thoughts it has explored.

·      I am thankful for love. And the smell and taste of home cooking.

·      I am thankful for courage, imagination, truth, integrity, vision, roots, and a sense of place.

·      I am thankful for peace. And freedom.

·      I am thankful for beauty. And that I can behold it.

·      I am thankful for trees, the moon, the ocean, rivers, the starry sky, the heat of summer, fresh vegetables, good dogs, good music, good books, good movies,  good food.

·      I am thankful for movement, walking in nature, dancing, yoga, laughter and fun, hugs, rest—dreams and a damn good sleep.

·      I am thankful for breezes, gardens, shade when you need it, poetry.

·      I am thankful for liberal religions, forbearance, forgiveness, tolerance and diversity.  And the people who remind us of those things and fight for them.

·      I am thankful for good jokes, sacred clowns and good comedy which make the world bearable.

·      I am thankful for all those small moments. When you just catch the ferry (or plane or train or bus).  When the person you are thinking of calls you.  When you catch the falling glass.  When you walk back to get your hat and find you have left the burner on. When you walk into the thrift store and there is the exact item you have been wanting.

·      I am thankful for all the journeys I have been privileged to take across this magnificent  Earth.

·      I am thankful for clouds, hot tubs, sauna, trails, mountains, valleys, and did I mention trees?

·      I am thankful for babies and children. And soup. And scarves.And massage.

·      I am thankful for flowers and fall foliage and dining tables full of food and friends and family.

·      I am thankful for quantum physics and John Muir and canoes.

·      I am thankful for Star Trek and Lord of the Rings and all magical journeys into imaginative realms.

·      I am thankful for salmon, songbirds, whales and horses and all animals. Special shout out to my kooky dog Jack and all those who put up with him. He makes us laugh.

·      I am thankful for rain, wind, trailing clouds along a blue sky. And did I mention trees?

·      I am thankful for all those who do a good thing, the right thing, who speak truth though their voice shakes, and who stand up for the future, the ones who have no voice or power, and who protect the ancient earth.

I am thankful for how incomplete this list is and how I could go on and on.  May this river of gratitude never stop,. I wish to always ride in its current. Alleluia for this life.

The whole universe is in a glass of wine

In my quantum physics adventures, I have come across the amazing mind and quotes of American physicist Richard Feynman. I especially like this one.

 "A poet once said, "The whole universe is in a glass of wine." We will probably never know in what sense he meant that, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look at a glass of wine closely enough we see the entire universe. There are the things of physics: the twisting liquid which evaporates depending on the wind and weather, the reflections in the glass, and our imagination adds the atoms. The glass is a distillation of the Earth's rocks, and in its composition we see the secrets of the universe's age, and the evolution of stars. What strange arrays of chemicals are in the wine? How did they come to be? There are the ferments, the enzymes, the substrates, and the products. There in wine is found the great generalization: all life is fermentation. Nobody can discover the chemistry of wine without discovering, as did Louis Pasteur, the cause of much disease. How vivid is the claret, pressing its existence into the consciousness that watches it! If our small minds, for some convenience, divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts — physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on — remember that Nature does not know it! So let us put it all back together, not forgetting ultimately what it is for. Let it give us one more final pleasure: drink it and forget it all!"

Cleaning out the Wreckage

In my mom's last post, she suggests giving yourself a mental break from the cold and darkness of December. This time of year is cold and dark, and the animal within us responds to the change of season by habitually becoming more internal. It is a time for reflection and solace, creature comforts and internal organizing.

Winter is also a time to deal with things, all the thing you forgot about in the balmy daze of Summer. For me, it is a time to deal with finances. I am using the cold and early darkness as an excuse to sit inside with a pen and paper and get down to the nitty-gritty nastiness of finances in your 20's. I was afraid to start, but it actually seems to make the cold and dark more bearable, more purposeful.

Try it. Pick something you have been avoiding; some nagging underbelly of your life, and DEAL with it. Give yourself imaginary gold stars after you spend time working on it. Pair your task with creature comforts to make it more enjoyable, aka, I like to drink wine while I work on my finances. Get down and dirty with your loose ends and use this period of cold and dark to deal with them. When Spring arrives, you will feel lighter; more deserving of the levity of those warmer months.