The Universe is a funny place you know.

I'd been having troubles with my thoughts due to some recent life experiences. Ruminating, obsessing, I tend to look at a problem from every angle, upside down, inside out, back to front...I'm starting to realise now that by doing that all I'm doing is submerging myself in problems and not really finding any solutions.....

So anyway...

I bought myself an MP3 player as a 'cheer up buddy' gift and to have some distraction from my worrisome wayward mind while I stare at ceilings and walls all day. (I'm a construction painter...work can get mind numbingly boring at times, a lot of repetition and not a whole lot of creativity).....

Half an hour into the day I was bopping away, listening to my music and I was just getting into some really great book passages I'd recorded two nights before when...boooomp....ran out of battery!

What was the universe trying to tell me?...

"You got shit you gotta deal with son...cant hide or run...you face it...sort thru it...come to a decision"...lol

That day ended up giving me a great lesson...because later on...

In the past I'd get uptight at having my plans changed at the last minute...I'd just started this new job (there was a half dozen of us new guys) and we got a little bombshell dropped on us just around smoko time. We were told we'd have to drive into the city to do an induction for the new painting crew we'd started with (the foreman didn't have the appropriate paperwork with him). An hour there...an hour for the induction...then another hour back...IN PEAK HOUR TRAFFIC...and no, the tight fisted little **** of an employer wasn't going to pay us for the time.

In the old days I would've stewed and CURSED under my breath for the rest of the day...as did most of the guys who got the news.

Today I thought..."Well...cool...here's my decision.I haven't got my music so ill leave work earlier and go for a drive...he's not paying me for it anyway. I'll leave just after lunch, that should be good, I'll have a steady afternoon spin in to the city, beat the traffic, I'll drop in and see my mate Marcus on the way home, haven't caught up with him for a bit...might have a beer, it'll be alright, nice and cruisey, should actually be a good afternoon."

Either way I thought I was going to be short a few hours work so I chose the path of least resistance.

I ended up just cruising along in a light hearted mood for the next few hours at work and then at lunchtime...lo and behold.....the paperwork turned up and we didn't have to go anywhere! We all got to do the induction on the job, paid for and all (and in the employers time!...bonus!)

How cool was that?...

I had made a decision to be cool about it all and it ended up being just about as cool as it could possibly be!!!

Instead of wasting a half day of my life in a "neg-head downer mood", I smiled, made my decision, and floated. Beautiful.

Amazing!

Lessons all over the place

That's how cool it is

I realise my days are completely up to me, I may not get to choose what comes my way, but I certainly get to choose how I'm going to handle it, how I'm going to talk to myself and help myself through this steady flow of life.

Go with the flow

Make the best out of a situation

Find the positive

Be cool baby, just be cool

It's all so true!

Yeah the universe is a funny place at times...

If there is a divine plan...the Divine Planner's a gag writer, I'm sure of it!

Think well...be well...feel good...be good

Accept it all and flow on through, keep on truckin' so to speak.

It was a good day, I understand now it was a good day because I chose to MAKE it a good day.

That's a pretty good feeling.

Corregio is said to have killed a man himself with his bare hands so he could look upon the face of a dyeing man and see what he would see in his face. For him to more truly give depth and understanding to his paintings he killed somebody. I found this painting on the net years and years ago...it's haunting...the story of it too...beautiful...strength.

Habit forming....

Perseverance: the act of starting again, over and over.

Thinking positively is an acquired habit. Just as thinking negatively is an acquired habit.

Everything requires practice – painting houses, saving money, thinking positively, eating well, getting enough exercise.

Habits require repetition, reward, and an orientation to becoming ingrained and 'natural'. Habits of thought, habits of health, habitual states of being.

Our relationships are habitual.

Relaxation is habitual.

Learning to relax is easier when made habitual.

"Happy to be here…" habitual thought.

Let Old Habits Die

LET YOUR OLD HABITS DIE.

Most of us are slaves to habit and familiarity. Our present environment is a symbol of our present thoughts. My family is me, my job is me, my friends are me. It has been observed a wounded animal will return to what is familiar. Because man is also an animal he likes familiarity and in time of trouble will also return to what is familiar.

There is a compelling force driving us to old surroundings because these surroundings remind us of how we were, or are supposed to be - they are comforting and reassuring.

How does one go about changing years of habit?

Many people who have had near death experiences or have had severe trauma in their lives come away with instant change. Their lives are never the same and it is most noticeable by those most familiar with them. Meaningful change does not have to come by hitting yourself over the head with a hammer nor do you have to sign up for courses or college. Change can come fairly easily, in simple steps, which are subtle and for the most part unnoticeable.

Before change can come there needs to be a desire for change. A complete lifestyle makeover can be accomplished over a period of time without the trauma of hitting yourself over the head with a hammer. Habit simply means you are doing the same thing over and over again, there is no growth in repeating steps.

The very meaning of life is movement! Lasting change does not come with making a change, but with commitment to keep changing until it becomes a habit - a habit of change. One of the best times to start your change is first thing in the morning. Commit yourself to making at least one tiny change everyday and it doesn't have to be the same change. Try turning your alarm ahead or back 10 minutes. Try leaving your house 15 minutes early for work one morning or take a different route -you will see new people and different things.

Make small subtle changes, which will not upset your life or those around you.

Make this your priority every day - to do something different. What you are going to start noticing is how things start changing around you and how people will start to treat you differently.

Crater 1.

Sedan

Storax Sedan was a shallow underground nuclear test conducted at the Nevada Test Site at 37.177, -116.047 by the United States on July 6, 1962 as part of Operation Plowshare program to investigate the use of nuclear weapons for mining, cratering, and other civilian purposes.

The blast had a yield of 104 kilotons (435 terajoules) and displaced more than 11 million tonnes (12 million short tons) of soil and resulted in a radioactive cloud that rose to an altitude of 3.7 km (12,000 feet). The radioactive dust plume headed northeast and then east towards the Mississippi River. It created a crater 100 m (320 feet) deep and has a diameter of about 390 m (1,280 feet). It is about 21 km (13 miles) away from Area 51.

Basically all the atoms within this atomic divot are hot and reactive (which means they're just jumping around and buzzing like crazy). This means that if your body was exposed to it for a micro-second you would short circuit and your cells would begin to function in anomalous ways.. ie...you'd mutate till you died, your cells would mutate till you died.

An inverted mountain. Like death on the Moon. Like a drawn-out crow's call. I wouldn't be hiking around it.

This bomb was so powerful, but really, look at its neighbours and cousins........................this is small fry...

Check Nuclear valley on earth Google sometime...

Its really fantastic hay...you'll like it.

There's a scene in "Barfly", a film starring Mickey Rourke and Faye Dunaway who play two alcoholics living the seedy undercurrents of bars and booze. Rourke plays a gifted writer whose life is dominated by the bottle and the The book/movie  is supposedly based on the life and writings of Charles Bukowski.

Charles Bukowski, (Born: 19__ to 19__ )

In one scene of the movie, a female publisher comes to see Rourke at a bar to tell him he's been 'discovered'. He's been there for a while, he's been drinking.

At this point she had no idea what he looks like or who he is...She's never met him or seen him, so when he leans into her face at their initial spontaneous meeting and she asks, in a slightly defensive manner, "Who are you...?"

He replies, "Ahhhhh..mmm....the eternal question...and the eternal answer is............I don't know..."

The film is a stark and grimy immersion into a look at an alcoholic life filled with poetry of both words and poignant life experiences, both rich and dismal...at times...there are splashes of colour...not only the dawdry hues of back-alley neon lights upon wet streets (where Bukowski has late night fist fights with Eddie, the wanker barman) , but also colours of instances that sometimes populate our own lives....like when...

...Bukowski walks along an overcast New York city street in the mid-day and passes an old drab 'British racing green' delivery van. He looks into the passenger side window on passing. Sitting there is a pure white dog. There is no driver in the car. The glass is fully closed but the window is clear and as he steps closer the dog bares its fangs. The red and pink and white of its teeth, lips and jaws are in stark contrast to the van the dog sits in, the gray of the day outside, and the greasy haired 'bum'  casually leaning in to look through the glass. The dog grows thicker and whiter and fills out until the barking and snarling and baring of sharp teeth have totally filled the interior of the truck...

.....Bukowski stands there with his face only inches from the glass, looking into the window and whispering... "Ohhhmm, yeaaah, you're beauutiful!"..... as the dog almost goes into convulsions with rage and spit begins to fleck on the inside of the window...!

It's a lovely piece of cinema, a powerful piece of writing...and well worth the effort to watch it.

and the poem I wrote?...I'll put it up soon

...that universal force that animates and binds all things in existence...

me and you and all of us together

  "A human being is part of a whole, called by us the "Universe," a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separated from the rest--a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

  Albert Einstein

When trees fall in forests.....

I was in a national park packing up camp after a drizzly night in the rainforest. My friend and I were six hours walk from the nearest road, deep into a block of emerald green that stretched for 260 kilometres to the north, west, and south in Southern Queensland, Australia.
Beneath the canopy it's dark and subdued but once the sun reaches a morning point heavy light falls down through the gaps in the branches and leaves and swollen drops of water roll lazily off glistening leaves. the descending shafts of light,illuminates their progress, like slowly dripping diamonds, splashing like small bombs of liquid lifelove and nature......soooooo refreshing.
The wide shafts of light begin to show the steam rise. It's cool…quiet and so relaxing. So ethereal.

While filling my pack with the last of my gear a deep, a heavy soft 'crack' shuddered through the undergrowth and the air beneath the canopy. Dewy drops shivered from the leaves all around us. I froze! My mate David and I just stared at each other across our packs, mouths agape, wondering and smiling, waiting, lol...is this a loke?...hahaahha...... we didnt know what was coming next.
A death groan sang up from beneath our feet and began to spread through the forest. It rose up into a hammering timber cacophony until there was nothing but noise all around and then it peaked with a thundering crash....a frozen instant and then a gentle taper of crackling branches and rustling leaves descended in a slow fall until gradually a sound like a wave on sand at the beach petered out into the quiet of falling leaves and the hollow of a space left empty.

A tree as round as a living room with its canopy a hundred feet from the ground had fallen in slow motion about ninety metres from me and Dave. It opened up a keyhole the size of three house blocks in the roof of the trees for the sun to come through. Vines and inter twining branches throughout the mesh of the canopy brought down a few neighbouring trees as well.

Birds had stopped screeching and the emptiness found thousands of leaves fluttering down through the fresh sunlight like some undersided drab olive lime green kaleidoscope. My whole vision became movement upon movement, colours upon colours, a gentle breathing out and collapse of violence and activity in a space more remembered for the miniscule crawlings of small life within small life. The growth of moss, the humdrum of bugs and the frenetic pace of snails was suspended for an instant.

The tree had fallen across a small stream that we had rock-hopped over the day before but due to the rain the previous night had swollen to three times its size. The tree had come down on its side, it had split open like ripe fruit, a pulpy timber bridge had been created across that expansive forceful stream, big enough for seven people to stand atop without need for jostling.

The water rose, swelled and pushed the softer portions of timber on their way down the valley, but the iron-most lengths of the tree fell silent, settled heavily into the earth and water, and took their place. I'm sure they’re still there now.
It was one of the most amazing things I have ever witnessed in my life. It was so surreal, so powerful, so shockingly violent and brief in an environment that has always seemed to me to embody peace, unity, and the quiet undercurrents of a humming natural power. A place that seemed to change as i have grown, smoothly and daily, without ripples, dependably, but with intrusions that amaze and capture your attention.

There is no place exempt from crashing violence, it grows from the ground...and with time...it will fall from the sky.
As quickly as it happened it faded. We wandered around in amazement, looking through the space that had opened up, feeling the heat of the sun pounding down into this new oasis. On seeing all the tiny seedlings of trees that before in the gloom we had not noticed, it changed from being a moment of destruction and loss into a 'birth'.

The sun now called forth the striving of a thousand small plants to compete for the right to stand tall in that place that had just been surrendered. In years to come another tree would stand and spread its branches a hundred feet above the soil.

It took us six hours to walk back out of that valley and to hit the tarmac road that signals civilization.

I know now that when trees fall in forests they make beautiful sounds, loud, frightening beautiful sounds!

Sometimes I think back to that morning as i go about my daily life, when I'm so caught up I feel like I'm suffocating in a forest of people and words and noise and confusion.

I like knowing there are places on earth filled with stillness and quietude that are not immune to destruction and chaos, but thrive on it, allow it, welcome it and grow and are reborn from it.

Funny, that tree could have fallen anywhere, in any direction. Could've even fallen on top of my head. Hahaha...truly...really...that'd be worth a laugh! But it didn't (thank the gods!).

People say we should find things in our lives to be grateful for. I feel grateful for being present that morning. It feels like I was witness to a force, a power, like evolution in motion, taking giant strides across the earth. I don't know the words for it.
It's like I saw no thing, but I felt a passing, a breeze on my cheek, a movement just beyond my field of vision that i didnt quite see but knew had been there. I felt i had been touched.

It was a good experience. cant say much more coz i dont know what to say...it doesnt happen every day. I loved being there.

This is a picture of my swimming hole where i grew up in  Mossman.

It's still there now, in my heart, that tree is falling, those leaves are falling, the sun is shining, I'm hearing the crashing...and i'm just seeing it all happen, so gracefully... theres nothing i can do...i just witness...and im so very grateful...

The Samurai Creed

I have no parents; I make the Heavens and the Earth my parents.
I have no home; I make the Tan T'ien my home.
I have no divine power; I make honesty my Divine Power.
I have no means; I make Docility my means.
I have no magic power; I make personality my Magic Power.
I have neither life nor death; I make A Um my Life and Death.

I have no body; I make Stoicism my Body.

I have no eyes; I make The Flash of Lightning my eyes.

I have no ears; I make Sensibility my Ears.

I have no limbs; I make Promptitude my Limbs.

I have no laws; I make Self-Protection my Laws.

I have no strategy; I make the Right to Kill and the Right to Restore Life my Strategy.
I have no designs; I make Seizing the Opportunity by the Forelock my Designs.
I have no talent; I make Ready Wit my Talent.

I have no miracles; I make Righteous Laws my Miracle.
I have no principles; I make Adaptability to all circumstances my Principle.
I have no tactics; I make Emptiness and Fullness my Tactics.

I have no friends; I make my Mind my Friend.

I have no enemy; I make Incautiousness my Enemy.

I have no armour; I make Benevolence my Armour.

I have no castle; I make Immovable Mind my Castle.

                                                            I have no sword; I make No Mind my Sword.

Thanks to Mr. Fowler at: Lfowler's Home Page for the use of the Samurai Creed!

I don't have any hair, so the jokes on me...

Did you know that the myth of blonde people being a little...'cognitively challenged'...comes from the observation that younger children are more usually fair-haired and then darken with time. This phenomenon appears to coincide with their growth of experience, knowledge and wisdom.

It is a product of reverse reasoning to suppose that a person whose tresses fail to darken with the accumulation of years, has probably failed to accumulate the necessary experience and wisdom that is required to function optimally in everyday life...hence...the plethora of strange anomalies and humorous incidences that are displayed by our fairer friends.

With this bit of knowledge in mind I think we can all understand and appreciate how these anecdotal stories gain life...we all know its not really true...don't we...???

She was so blonde...

• *She spent 20 minutes looking at the orange juice can because it said "Concentrate."
• * She thought that she could only use her AM radio in the morning.
• * She told me to meet her at the corner of "WALK" and "DON'T WALK."
• * She tripped over a cordless phone.
• * She thought a quarterback was a refund.
• * She thought General Motors was in the army.
• * At the bottom of an application where it says "Sign here:" she wrote "Sagittarius."
• * She sent a fax with a stamp on it.
• * She studied for a blood test.

and...!

• * She sold the car for gas money.

Well because she didn't have her car anymore she was walking around a lot to do her errands...one day she was walking down the street with her good blonde friend.........

.........and one of them was carrying a hold-all.
The First blonde said to the other, "What have you got in the hold-all?"
Second blonde replies, "Chickens"
First blonde asks, "If I can guess how many, can I have one?"
Second blonde says, "If you can guess how many, you can have both of them"
First blonde then says, "Three"

"I don't see the big deal in Shakespeare, in fact, he's full of clichés."

Sent: Saturday, June 16, 2007 3:48 PM
Subject: Fwd: These are Very funny analogies and metaphors

I ABOUT PEE'D MY PANTS!!!!! NO REALLY!

Every year, English teachers from across the USA can submit their
collections of actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays.
These excerpts are published each year to the amusement of teachers across
the country. Here are last year's winners:

1. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides
gently compressed by a Thigh Master.

2. His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking alliances
like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free.

3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only come from experience, like
a guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of
those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at
high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one of
those boxes with a pinhole in it.

4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli, and he was room
temperature Canadian beef.

5. She had a deep, throaty, genuine laugh, like that sound a dog
makes just before it throws up.

6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.

7. He was as tall as a six-foot, three-inch tree.

8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated
because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a
formerly surcharge-free ATM machine.

9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a
bowling ball wouldn't.

10. McBride fell 12 stories, hi tting the pavement like a Hefty bag
filled with vegetable soup.

11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an
eerie, surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and
Jeopardy comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.

12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.

13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when
you fry them in hot grease.

14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced
across the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one
having left Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from
Topeka at 4:19 p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.

15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences
that resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.

16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who
had also never met.

17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant, and she was
the East River.

18. Even in his last years, Granddad had a mind like a steel trap,
only one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.

19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.

20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike
Phil, this plan just might work.

21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not
eating for a while.

22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck,
either, but a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a
land mine or something.

23. The ballerina rose gracefully en Pointe and extended one slender
leg behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.

24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around
with power tools.

25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard
bells, as if she were a garbage truck backing up.

She was sending me more mixed signals than a dyslexic third-base coach.

Her artistic sense was exquisitely refined, like someone who can tell butter from I Can't Believe It's Not Butter.

The sun rose over the horizon like a great big radioactive baby's head with a bad sunburn, but then again it might just have been that Lisa was always cranky this early in the morning.

Jane was toast, and not the light buttery kind, nay, she was the kind that's been charred and blackened in the bottom of the toaster and has to be thrown a away because no matter how much of the burnt part you scrape off with a knife, there's always more blackened toast beneath, the kind that not even starving birds in winter will eat, that kind of toast.

Her pants fit her like a glove, well, maybe more like a mitten, actually.

Just like (or as) a bicycle rider lifts his butt from the seat when he sees a bump coming, so Bob pulled back, emotionally, when Alice got angry.

The moon looked like a discarded toenail clipping submersed in a puddle of saliva on a black formica countertop.

She felt used and unwanted, like the two chocolate halves of an Oreo cookie after someone has already licked the cream out of them.

My underwear stuck to my backside like an All-Pro cornerback to a rookie wide receiver as I browsed through the seed catalog that had mistakenly found its way into my mailbox.

Chicken: it's like a cow, but different.

The lamp just sat there, like an inanimate object.