Gaia Community: J~E~S~S's Blog

Ode to my dad

http://thepixellator.gaia.com — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 02:34:50 GMT

Cross posted from my featured member thread on Gaia Networking.

I am grateful for my father. He's a molecular spectroscopist. He's quiet, soft spoken, intelligent, and caring. I told him about my upcoming trip to the big chat and mentioned it might be about how to be happy. He quipped,
“Happy? I know the secret to being happy.”
“What's the secret?”
“Take spectra.”
That's his job and he loves it. To take spectra means to use lasers to inspect a molecule enough to identify its various atom components. You find out what colors are absorbed and reflected and somehow can tell what atoms are there.

He went on, “I've taken spectra all my life and I'm always happy.”

Ode to my dad! He had a shirt and passed it on to me when I was a teenager. It said, “Spectroscopists do it with frequency and intensity. The Coblenz Society.”

He makes googoo faces to newborns through to toddlers in the grocery store. He quacks like a duck to them. He walks the golf course every day, not to play golf, but to walk his dog and collect stray lost golf balls. He has a collection of thousands of color sorted golf balls stored in five gallon buckets in his garage. If he ever gets his own business going, it could be called, "Bob's Balls." He re-sells the balls to the golfers in his community. It brings him joy to search for golf balls through the tall grass and shallow streams.

Thanks, Dad, for everything you are. I love you.

Tags:

I'll tell you why I'm going to LA

http://thepixellator.gaia.com — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 15:50:01 GMT

I was invited by Elese Coit to attend The Big Chat conference in LA. It starts today, but honestly, the gas and food money won't come through until today so I'll have to start driving after the money is ready!

I was contacted by Social Media Group to see if I'd like to test drive a Mercury Mariner Hybrid and blog about it.

Both of these opportunities came through around the same time, so I asked for the Hybrid to drive to CA with. I drove it on Wed for about 8 hours and used half a tank of gas. I hope it will save us money on gas during the trip, although high speed driving uses the gas engine, and slow speeds use the electric motor.

But, I've made the drive from Denver to LA CA about 8 times, maybe less, in the past 12 years. We know it takes about 18 hours and usually costs about $600 in gas.

I blogged earlier about The Big Chat. I think I'll be doing some soul-searching to uncover or reveal the things that I'm really passionate about and learning or exploring how in the world to make a living from those things. Or maybe not. I don't exactly know what we'll be doing; it will be a surprise. Perhaps we're just going to talk about how to make positive change in the world; what conditions need to arise in order to foster change in myself or in others. I don't yet know at this point whether it will be about practical applications for my dreams, or theoretical explorations about what's possible.

Tags: mercury mariner hybrid, california, big chat

In what areas of your life do you want to learn more?

http://thepixellator.gaia.com — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 05:16:40 GMT

My soul is directing my learning, for I never stop self-education. Currently, it's focusing on how to allow myself to be human and make mistakes, how to connect my creative self with my daily-mundane self, how to tap into my soul's desire for what I really want in life, how to tap into my own special talents to reach the rest of the world that hungers for knowledge.

Tags: QaR, learning, life, education, exploration

What was your last vacation like?

http://thepixellator.gaia.com — Mon, 25 May 2009 05:46:25 GMT

My last vacation was like touring an unfamiliar country with a personal sherpa, or guide, to show me how things are done. I went to El Salvador, my husband's home country last year for the first time after eleven years of marriage. I met his family and extended family. I met the woman who baptized him when he was a baby. I met his step-brothers, who share the family business of running a chain of grocery stores with his father, also a pastor. I met his sister and half sister and their children. I got tours of local beaches from people who know where to go. I was blessed with a trip to the most scenic restaurant in the world, where I was serenaded by a local guitarist and his son: a mariachi duo. I saw the poorest parts of town and the richest parts of town. I gained perspective on life.

Washing by hand

alegria

Tags: Q&R, vacation, recent, stories, travel, holiday

Grocery stores and toddlers

http://thepixellator.gaia.com — Wed, 20 May 2009 03:33:31 GMT

It's a challenge to bring a young mobile child to the grocery store. I'd like to encourage young moms to remember that when children are three, they want independence but they're not quite ready. Use the child seat and safety belt in the grocery cart/buggy, no matter how much they protest.

One time last month my son wanted to go in the main basket instead of in the dedicated child seat in the grocery cart/buggy. I let him do it. I handed things for him to put in the basket. As he was bending down to place an item, he lost his balance (and I wasn't even pushing the cart!) and banged his face on the metal edge of the basket. There I was, carrying a screaming, bleeding toddler through the store to the meat department, where they offered me their sink and a bag of ice. He was fine after that.

This week I went back to the same store. This time, my son only wanted to get in the kind of cart that had a plastic car with a little steering wheel attached. Since none were available, I let him walk next to me. I stood in line at the bank in that grocery store, and while it was my turn, my son wandered. He encountered an 18 month old toddler and started playing chase with him while I was occupied at the teller's. I turned around and found the other little boy had wandered deep into the fruits and vegetables section, but my son was nowhere to be found.

I dropped the question I was asking the teller and began a light jog through the produce section. He was not near the balloons in the florist section. He was not anywhere in the produce section. He was not in the bathroom. By this time I simply began shouting his name through the store. I began asking random people if they'd seen a little boy. No one had.

Now people were becoming alarmed. There was a lady jogging through the store shouting her son's name. There must be a lost child. Then I found a person who said she saw him run that way. I was on his trail. Now people began signaling to me as I ran. There must have been three people who just pointed the direction they saw him run. They just KNEW what I was jogging for.

"Little boy? Blond hair?" His finger pointed to his left, back towards the balloons.

I rounded the corner, two more people waved at me, signaling he had passed. A man near the teller's station tried to stall him while he waved to me that my son was there.

My son made a little trip around the store, but found his way back to where he lost me. I met him back at the bank. I picked him up, found the nearest chair in the movie rental section, and gave him a time out.

I asked him to repeat after me, "I will stay next to mommy in the store."

I'm grateful that the people in the store rallied together to help me reunite with him. When I think on what happened, I could easily have avoided this if only I'd taken a shopping cart and strapped him in. I'm vulnerable in the store in two places, at the bank and at the checkout, oh, and if I have to stand in line at customer service. Any time attention has to be on something else for more than 30 seconds, moms are vulnerable and need to make sure their child is secured and can't run away. A three year old does not yet have the presence of mind to remember to stay close. I saw a three year old boy leading his mommy on a wild goose chase through the parking lot. He was having a blast, running in front of my car, weaving in and out of parked cars, playing "chase" with his frustrated mom. They will run away at that age.

Tags: baby, grocery store, lost

strange day

http://thepixellator.gaia.com — Thu, 14 May 2009 01:57:15 GMT

What a strange day it's been, and I don't know what to make of it. I awoke with a dream of someone I know giggling while they put a black widow spider on the back of my neck and asking it to bite me. I didn't know if this dream was a warning that something I said on my interview yesterday was wrong, or if it was a foreshadowing of something to come. I could imagine two different situations it could apply to, but can't go into it here.

I received wrong directions from a gas station attendant.

I began paying attention to my backyard because I've let it go to waste for five years. I was picking up trash, moving flagstones with my son, and trying to get the slide back on the plastic playhouse, to no avail.

Then I showed my good neighbor what I had done. He's in his mid 70s. We talked like normal, I walked him around my backyard and escorted him back to his yard. Then I went to close my garage door so the dogs won't run away when my 3 year old scooted over to talk to our neighbor in his yard.

It was only the amount of time it took me to clear the trash can from blocking the garage door! It must have been two minutes that my son was talking to him in his yard. Then my son comes running to tell me "he fell down."

When I got there, my neighbor was unconscious but breathing hard. He has a history of seizures. He had had a seizure while sitting and talking with my son. His own grown son came out of the house to tell him he had a phone call, and he had already fallen by then, and there my son was, looking at him. He'd gashed his head on the cement or rocks and his blood was mixed with the mud from his freshly watered yard.

By then another male neighbor had come over and we three discussed what to do. Should we call the hospital? His son told us he'd heard he was not supposed to call the ambulance after a seizure. I asked for a towel to get the mud off his face. I wiped off the blood that was pooling in his eye, and cleaned the mud from his face. I saw the contusion was large, already black and blue, right on the side of his forehead. What if he gave himself a concussion or what if he had injuries? He couldn't talk to us. He was breathing deeply as if in a deep sleep.

When I suggested that his injury was pretty bad, then the neighbor suggested the son had better call the ambulance. The son was sure he'd come out of the seizure by the time help arrived. However, he still wasn't responsive when the paramedics came. But he did struggle when they put the neck brace on and strapped him to the stability board. I watched as they took him away, and his lady friend who had been on the telephone had arrived and decided to ride in the ambulance.

Oh, the thoughts that go through my head! I have to take deep breaths to chase away the thought that perhaps the exercise he got while walking in my yard brought on the seizure, or perhaps my little son had said something or triggered a memory that caused the seizure? Then I can counter those thoughts with the suggestion made by my older son, that it was a good thing our young son was there when the seizure happened so he could run and tell me. When we question him, the information we get is that our neighbor was sitting down, he didn't look good, then he fell. My 3 year old was the only witness.

My neighbor's son said perhaps it was a good thing he had gone to my yard because he was about to get in his car and drive to his lady friend's house. It would have been more disasterous if the seizure happened in the car.
----
I just heard that he's woken up and can remember being in my backyard, but not the fall. That's good news.

Tags:

Sharing news about webinar on life purpose

http://thepixellator.gaia.com — Tue, 12 May 2009 04:03:06 GMT

Cross posted from Live On Purpose blog. I think this webinar will be very interesting, it's free, and they will be talking about The Big Chat coming up in LA. I encourage you to register for the webinar using the last link below. If you want to meet me in person in Los Angeles next month, register for this webinar and then decide if you like the speakers enough to see them in person, because I'll be attending The Big Chat.

--------

During the past several weeks, I have been introducing you to a few outstanding individuals who are doing big things towards living a purposeful life. Do you remember these two?

Michael Neill and his Genius Catalyst web site and Feel Happy Now book and movement.

Bill Cummins and his “What one person can do” program and Boothby Institute.

These two speakers will be leading a free webinar on Tuesday the 19th at 11 am pacific. Don’t worry if you’re at work during that time, because a recorded audio will be sent to registered participants. I would like you to go register right now to hear these awesome speakers for free. Even if you can’t free your schedule during that time slot, go register. Here is the information about the call:

The Big Chat Presents…

a free, LIVE Webinar

with Michael Neil, Bill Cumming and YOU
TUESDAY, MAY 19TH, 11am Pacific, 2pm Eastern

for a conversation about LIVING FROM THE INSIDE OUT

How does one need to think in order to be successful in any economy?
What is the key to feeling peaceful no matter what is going on around you?
What are the brilliant problem solving approaches used by two master coaches?

Based on questions about what is most important to you right now….

Register here for the Big Chat Webinar and you’ll get the webinar details and special code to join.

You can join via the web or phone and the call will include live Questions and Answers with two brilliant coaches!

This call will be recorded, and will be made available at no charge to everyone registered.

Tags: big chat, webinar, purpose, life purpose

Overcoming Fear

http://thepixellator.gaia.com — Sat, 02 May 2009 06:03:08 GMT

Cross posted from my blog Live On Purpose

Overcoming fear seems to be the topic of the week, as The Women Masters conference call was on living a fearless life, and on a separate blog Happy Lotus, Nadia isolated the movie Defending Your Life as one that masterfully deals with the topic of overcoming fears.

Wikipedia introduces fear: Fear should be distinguished from the related emotional state of anxiety, which typically occurs without any external threat. Additionally, fear is related to the specific behaviors of escape and avoidance, whereas anxiety is the result of threats which are perceived to be uncontrollable or unavoidable. Bill Tancer's top ten list of fears as culled from search engine keywords consisted of flying, heights, clowns, intimacy, death, rejection, people, snakes, success, and driving. In general, people appear to be most afraid of two things: the threat of pain or death, and the threat of social rejection or isolation.

I think it is fear of "the threat of social rejection or isolation" that drives us all to adopt strange and dysfunctional coping skills. We're quirky. We have baggage. We are eccentric. We are trying to feel as though we fit in to something. Isn't the entire field of counseling/therapy devoted to helping people get over their fears?

The web site that was introduced to me this week on The Women Masters call was Fearless Living by Rhonda Britton. I had never heard of her before, even though she's managed to appear on Oprah several times, she's written four books, and she has a daytime reality drama, Starting Over. (I don't watch very much daytime TV!) But I know just from the short bit I heard from her that she is authentic! In fact, getting to your authenticity was a big topic in her call. How can I live authentically if I'm stuck battling my demons by constantly resisting that which I'm afraid of? I can't. One can't dream of living a life of purpose when shackled by fear. Check out her programs and books because I know she helps people step by step.

I have issues and baggage! For me in this moment, the act of keeping this blog titled Live on Purpose is my way of holding myself accountable for my own evolution. It forces me to grow beyond my comfort zone, it allows me to converse with wonderful people I would have never met, and it keeps me constantly seeking out new information in the topic I love dearly, self-growth!

I remember that I posted a video from Isha last year, and I decided to check in with her Youtube channel just now. (Really! It's not because our Gaia sidebars are flanked with ads for the movie, it's because I made this blog post before I checked in with Gaia)Looks like her movie "Why Walk When You Can Fly" is ready! She says, "we are not our thoughts, we are not our fears, we are not our emotions, we are so much more than that!"

Official Trailer - Why Walk When You Can Fly? The Movie

Tags: fear, isha, love

I dropped out for a little while!

http://thepixellator.gaia.com — Fri, 27 Mar 2009 01:37:14 GMT

I was very busy because I set a goal for myself. At first I was going to have my ebook live before Feb was over. Then my boss, a publisher, suggested I find an editor. Okay, I took him seriously and found one a week before my own deadline. But my Chiropractor, who had been reviewing a printed version of my ebook, and had marked it all up with red pen and had it ready to review with me, left it on the kitchen table, and his wife trashed it (not knowing what it was.)

So then we scheduled a meeting over breakfast to review what I had written, and he had great suggestions, yet they required that I research some more, and write a new section. I did that, and I was 2 weeks past my deadline. I submitted the changes to my editor and she spent 3 or 4 days to review it, and TG because she found some embarassing mistakes.

Then, even though I tried to control my tinkering, I just had to tinker some more. I added another section based on research I found over the weekend in a bookstore and at the library. How could I go live with this potentially important information missing from my ebook? I could be called an amateur! Oh, the shame. So I added the section.

Then my editor and I found that some of the links in the document aren't working. There was a pattern. I have footnotes at the bottom of nearly every page. Only the links that were last on the page were broken. Hmmm a mystery. I found out that the footer was being appended to the last links. I changed it to an image. Then the page number was getting appended to the final links on the page. I added a space after every link and that solved the problem.

Well, this is all very boring stuff to someone who isn't an editor or publisher or writer. But I am just putting it out there to show that writing an ebook is very labor intensive. With my perfectionist tendencies, I probably made it harder than it needed to be, but I'm very proud of the result.

You can read about it here: http://www.liveonpurpose.info

Zaadz' own Brian Johnson generously donated one of his Philosopher's Notes to be added as a bonus item for purchasing the ebook.

Tags:

What is one thing that there are no words for?

http://thepixellator.gaia.com — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 06:57:55 GMT

Really, there are no appropriate words for the kind of love one feels when one opens to God consciousness. I haven't done it but for a second or two, but I'd like to go there more often! There really isn't a phrase or word to even describe the state. "God consciousness" isn't quite it. "Krsna consciousness" is a movement, not really a state of being, though they will tell you so. (Hari Bol) "Awake" "enlightened" are common phrases, but not really it.

Tags: QaR, words, new, experience

Interview is up.

http://thepixellator.gaia.com — Fri, 20 Feb 2009 03:56:12 GMT

Just a quick note to let you know that I interviewed Gaia's own Carol Skolnick and posted it at my Live on Purpose web site. It's a great informational interview all about The Work of Byron Katie and how Carol is a facilitator for The Work. She reveals a bit about her past and her depression, and she used The Work to pull herself up!

Interview with Carol of Clear Life Solutions

Tags: The Work, clear life solutions, interview

Life has been busy

http://thepixellator.gaia.com — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 04:38:59 GMT

It's Feb. already? It's time to think about preschool enrollment in the fall. It's time to start opening w-2 statements. I've been so busy it snuck up on me.

Today I finished the redesign of the Chiropractor's site I've been hinting at for a while. His main goal was to have the new patient paperwork online so people could fill it out at home. He also wanted to link his existing site to the feature-rich Maximized Living site he's also got.

“Infinity Wellness Before” http://hub.tm/?IKMEP
“Infinity Wellness After” http://hub.tm/?MPWLF My recent redesign.

So, I used a Wordpress template from here http://www.neoease.com/ and modified it to fit my Chiro's logo. Then I went and found a calendar plugin, but I went through two I didn't like before I settled on the cool plugin from Kieran O'Shea. It will allow his office staff to enter his teaching dates and trips away from the office for all patients to refer to.

So, anyway, if you're in Aurora CO check out Dr. Tim for excellent chiropractic care. I never knew a chiropractor could clear up chronic feminine infections! But it's true. I've got mild scoliosis and absolutely no osteopath at John's Hopkins ever recommended a chiropractor to my family when I was getting xrays every six months as a preteen. What I found out this year is that due to the curvature of my spine, my nerves related to most of my organs are pinched, thereby lessening the immune strength and functioning of the organs. Even if you don't have scoliosis, you probably are living with subluxations that compromise your health. Basically, a good chiropractor (hopefully with Maximized Living group) can save and extend your life, while increasing your quality of life.

And that's really cool. So I offer my Chiropractor this web site redesign as a good will offering, done in my spare time.

Tags: web development

There's a hole in the fishbowl

http://thepixellator.gaia.com — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 01:23:49 GMT

Three year old boy: "I trying to kill the fish. I made a mess upstairs."
Mommy: "You what? You tried to kill the fish?"
Three year old boy: "Yes. I made a mess."

Mommy runs upstairs. There is a hole in the fish bowl and half the water has drained out. The fish is alive. Phew. There is water on the floor and broken glass in the sink. Mommy goes downstairs, and the boy has not moved from the couch.

Mommy: "You broke the fishbowl."
Three year old boy: "I not break fishbowl with mirror. No."

This just cracks me up. Of course, I told him, "Don't try to kill the fish again. I love the fish." It's a betta and we keep a small hand mirror by the fishbowl to get him to puff up.

But the lying is just intrinsic to my kids. First he admits out of the clear blue. Then he tries to cover it up!

Tags: baby, fish, fishbowl

Dance

http://thepixellator.gaia.com — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 05:10:45 GMT

I have a gym membership. In December, the Zumba teacher broke her ankle and they needed a replacement. They substituted street dance, hip-hop style. Today was my first class, however I met and chatted with the instructor in Dec. after joining in the last ten minutes of his class.

"Have you danced before?" he shouted over the music after I picked up the combination after five minutes.

"Used to!" I replied.

Later, I told him I haven't danced seriously for about 20 years, but I've got about 12 years of ballet, another year of modern and scattered classes of jazz, indian, and african in my history. I nearly joined the performing company at The Dance Place in DC, but I moved away before I was invited to audition. (Carla, the owner, told me that she would have invited me if only I wasn't moving...)

Today after class, (and he's a pro teacher and enters competitive hip hop dance events) he was saying how hard it is to get the girls who've been trained in ballet to actually loosen up. When they try to do hip hop they are stiff as a board, just like their ballet or jazz teacher molded them to be.

"It's difficult to unlearn conformity," I added, because it took me several years to stop pointing my toes when I lifted my feet from the floor. It took me years after quitting ballet to be able to shake my hips!

So that's a great allegory for how people get attached to the methods and tools they use for coping. High school is all about blending in, right? Structured education teaches children to answer as they think they should, not as they really want to. But, we've all got to learn to conform as we're growing up, then to be able to lose the conformity when it's time to take charge of our own lives.

Tags: dance, hip hop, ballet, conformity, life

Where do you find the sacred in your life?

http://thepixellator.gaia.com — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 04:41:01 GMT

Is NOTHING sacred? What about nothingness, as in no-thought? It's great.

Tags: QaR, divine, sacred, holy, everyday, daily

What about Santa?

http://thepixellator.gaia.com — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:09:23 GMT

If, in your wanderings on this earth, you ever find yourself contemplating on how to end your suffering by killing someone else, you know you're on the wrong track. Right and wrong are subjective, you say? This "Santa killer" in the news has me thinking.

My husband started talking to me about the man who open fired on his ex-wife's family at a Christmas party while dressed as Santa in front of our 11 year old. First I chastised him lightly for not waiting until we were alone for a ghastly topic like that, and I don't even promote the idea of Santa as the family's gift giver to our son. Then I tried to explain what happened to our son very matter-of-factly.

I explained that this man thought that all his suffering was caused by his ex-wife and their family because of the bitter divorce. He thought that if he could only get rid of the source of his suffering, he would feel better. But the mistake was to look outside himself for the cause of his suffering. And when you're so deep in the blame mentality like he was, it's too easy to overlook the fact that you'll end up suffering more when you go through with a murder plan.

You are responsible for your own suffering based on your reactions to the things around you. Don't let yourself get to the point where you think life will be easier if someone else were dead. That's when you have to look inside, at yourself, and see what you can change in you to make things work better for you.

Tags: santa, santa killer, personal responsibility

Alegria

http://thepixellator.gaia.com — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 00:15:36 GMT

This town Alegria, in El Salvador, has words of peace printed throughout. The bottom of the electric poles are painted red with white letters painted vertically to form words of peace. On one pole, the word "Paz", Spanish for "peace". On another pole, the word "dignidad", Spanish for "dignity". There are other telephone poles that say 'esperanza" (hope), and amistad (friendship). The town itself, Alegria, means Happiness.

My digital camera's batteries died before I could get a shot of the telephone poles, so this shot, from a cobblestone road at the top of a mountain, holds the memory for me. It's one of my favorite landscape shots from my trip earlier this spring.

Down at sea level, the heat combined with the humidity was intolerable. Up in Alegria, the air was crisp and comfortable. There was the most beautiful restaurant in the world also doubling as a mini zoo (vivero in Spanish) nestled in this town.

We sat in an open air patio with a gorgeous mountain-top view of the valley below. Tropical birds flew from one side of the valley to the other, and they were at our eye level.

In the vivero were many breeds of birds in cages - parrots, tucan, dove, turkey, finches, parakeets. There was a field full of caged exotic chickens with tail feathers so long they curved to the ground. There were banana trees and papaya trees. They had a caged racoon and two "zorras" that looked like foxy badgers.

There were little houses (cabanas) for rent at about thirty dollars per night.

In the restaurant a man and his son serenaded our table mariachi-style. They sang us two songs at first, and another during dessert that was so nostalgic and beautiful it nearly brought my husband's uncle to tears.

This was the restaurant that didn't want us to leave. We were all in the car, ready to go, but some men were working on the gate, welding the hinges on it, so we couldn't pass. We asked, "how long?" and the men said to wait a little bit, "un ratito". We asked another man, who jokingly said, "20 minutes".

So we got out of the car to wait, admiring the view and talking about life, and it was ready in about fifteen minutes.

Out in the town, I needed to change my baby's diaper. We pulled over at an outdoor public park with park benches, where I began changing him. I noticed guards watching us. As I finished up, I realized these were armed guards, and my husband said they were there to secure the safety of everyone in the park. I quickly packed up the baby and we left, passing all the telephone poles painted with peaceful words.

Tags: alegria, el salvador, armed guards, cobblestone streets

Landmark moment

http://thepixellator.gaia.com — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 02:06:54 GMT

Can we fix it?

Well, really, nobody else cares when somebody else's kid is finally potty trained. But it is a huge deal to me, the mommy. I had a potty training dvd sent to me from the Pull-ups brand and it informed me that potty training takes from six to eight months.

That's a long time. The parents are so, so ready to not have to pack a diaper bag or worry if there will be an accident in public. And I was feeling like a broken record, for those of you who remember records, repeating to him, "I want you to poo poo in the potty. Big boys poo poo in the potty." It was like talking to a picture on my wall, he ignored me for so long.

But this week he "got it." So, it's a landmark moment when he finally willingly does his business on the throne. I do think it's been about eight months.

Oh, and remember that small power drill I bought myself? He taught himself how to use it correctly and now it's his favorite passtime. That's a good one, yep, he can now unscrew all the battery covers to his favorite toys. I've really got to hide that drill much higher, in the closet.

Tags: growing up, baby, childhood, potty training, power drill

Article on Valerian hits #1

http://thepixellator.gaia.com — Fri, 12 Dec 2008 22:19:08 GMT

I started writing at Helium last year. I have not had very much time to devote to this little sidetrack, and I've only contributed 6 articles. But I've just noticed that one of my articles is now in the #1 position out of 11 articles. I wrote it in November 2007and have no clue how long it has been #1.

It's a technical article about valerian and its use as a sedative.

http://www.helium.com/items/718243-valerian-and-its-use-as-a-mild-sedative

Helium presents its own writers with a pair of articles and asks "which is better?" The ranking system allows good articles to rise to the top and the weaker ones to be ranked lower.

Elsewhere, I've established an "expert page" at SelfGrowth.com. I've linked to more technical articles there related to wellness and brain health.

http://www.selfgrowth.com/experts/jessica_alvarez.html

I know, I know, I'm patting myself on the back here, but I also realize it is time to celebrate success in my life. This is my way to be thankful for what I already have.

Tags: helium, valerian, selfgrowth, celebrate success, articles

Getting a fresh start

http://thepixellator.gaia.com — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 05:34:37 GMT

I'm cross posting from my own blog "Living on Purpose". It took three days to write this post, it'd be a shame to only alert one group of friends about it! If you comment, would I have your permission to cross-comment ; to post it on the other blog?

http://liveonpurpose.info/blog/?p=40

Getting a Fresh Start

When web site developers are building code for an online application, like a proprietary shopping cart, they need to know exactly what the application is supposed to do before they even start. They need to know who the audience is, what the end goal is, whether there will be volume discounts, whether the opt-in email list will be offered before or after the sale, and exactly how many steps the user should see during checkout.

As the developers near completion, and testing begins, managers will ask for new functionalities that nobody anticipated in the beginning. This is called “scope creep.” Now the developers have to go back to square one and try to hack in the new function without completely rewriting the entire application. It’s a patch, because deadline is coming.

Then, two months after launch of the application, users are demanding their own control panel so they can change details about themselves easily (just pretend this wasn’t written in the first place). Now the developers have to take code from another source and make it work with their own application. It increases the “bugginess” of the application because of some loopholes and perhaps not enough time built into the project for testing.

After a year or two of changes to the code, the developers feel it would just be better to start over, taking into account all these new features, and rebuild from the ground up. It would be a cleaner application all around. But budget constraints disallow this approach, and the application must make do as-is.

This is my allegory for how today’s society has been built. Systems and governments and political divisions have all been put into place piecemeal. Our society is built patchwork style, with lots of loopholes and bugs. People are falling through the cracks. People are losing their lives, their livelihoods. The bugs in this system run so far down and there has been so much scope creep in the infrastructure of our daily lives that it only makes sense to me to make a fresh start.

For instance, I know that to combat depression, a person’s diet needs to be clean, and free of highly processed junk foods and refined sugars. To be free of depression, a person needs to be able to make a living doing what he enjoys, whatever gives him a sense of purpose in his life. To be free of depression, a person needs to be able to communicate with his family members calmly without fear of an emotional blowout (often these blowouts are due to poor nourishment in the first place, which predisposes a person to fits of rage…)

But when I try to envision living like that in this society, I draw a blank. I go to work, I want to eat lunch, but there are no alternatives to fast food; nothing I can grab in a half an hour that fits into a “feel-good” diet…unless I really work hard at preparing lunches at home, which I don’t. I send my children to school, but they also do not have a healthy choice for lunch at school and they’re overwhelmed by soda machines and candy sold in the school store. Anytime I want my family to watch TV, I have to subject them to false advertising, violence, foul language, lack of morals…ok I’m sure you get it by now. Unless I extricate us from society, how can I make healthy lifestyle changes work, especially when the rest of my family is resisting any changes?

This is what an “intentional community” is all about. Wouldn’t it be nice to build your own society with a higher purpose in mind? Yes, there are monasteries, there are ashrams. These are communities centered around spiritual growth and connection to God. What if you wanted to include anybody who is hurting because of today’s society, regardless of religious views? Could it work? It certainly gets complicated. In mentally building my own “simcity” I realize I’ll need stores that only stock whole foods; nothing refined. I’ll need either our own tv channel or no tv at all. I’ll need schools that don’t treat children as cattle moving towards the guillotine, but as real individuals with infinite potential. I’ll need a medical care system that is radically different from what we have now, with no insiders’ links to big pharmaceuticals. Hmm, get rid of the bribery, the lies, the coverups…Wow, we really need to start over it seems!

But then remember that everything is already just as it’s supposed to be, because of God’s divine plan. Of course, we have free will to do what we want with our lives. It is by our own choice that we come to a healthy lifestyle; not because our parents forced us to move into this intentional community far removed from society’s current reality. And it is by our own choice that we come to know God, or reject God, or deny God, or whatever. Once a viewpoint is forced upon us we tend to resist it, don’t we?

Take M. Night Shamalayan’s movie, The Village. click for a full synopsis–a spoiler.
Although fiction, we can see from this story that a forced intentional community can feel like paradise for a while, but then something always happens to spoil it! In the movie, the village elders “ferociously” protect the secret that their little idyllic village holds. And then the illusion they worked so hard to protect is shattered. They wanted to shelter their children from violence, and it was violence that shattered their world yet again.

So, while we live in our patchwork web application of a life here in society, we can bring positive intention to our selves. Truly, the answer to straightening out the twisted web of society is to love one another, then although the web of society remains the same, our perception of it is changed. To crawl out from the darkness of depression while encompassed within it seems very hard, much like you just need to start over; yes, a fresh start! But the way to do it is start by loving yourself, accepting yourself as you are, and exercise your free will to choose a better life for yourself.

Tags: intentional community, shamalayan, village, love, depression