A golden lode

Today was one of those days where good things happened. My brother signed a contract to become a partner in an oil company. The doctor was able to move an appointment up 3 weeks. And my company signed a major contract that will take my business to the next level. What a deal. I felt like a gold miner in California in the 1880s who had made the dusty, long trip mined a few streams for gold and found nothing, only to wake up the next day to land a really huge nugget that allowed him to continue with his dreams. Let's call it a mother lode day.

As good as that may be, there is yet one thing that could top that. It is my greatest wish. And it would be the whole vein of gold in the rock around it... the mother of all lodes!

Tapping the reservoir

The Ogallala Aquifer is the world's largest underground reservoir in terms of how large it is. It covers 8 states in the midwest of the U.S. It can't be seen from the Earth's surface, but it irrigates much of the heartland of America. It's named after a town in Nebraska because the town was where the type of reservoir and the type of water filling it were first identified.

Inside of me is a reservoir of thought that irrigates the drought of mundane living. It is large, and it refreshes the thoughts in every area of my life, enriching them all. Even though rain may not be falling in my life right now to make things green and vibrant, I look to that Ogallala reservoir within. From it, thoughts are watered and life gets better. I call its very special name often. There's nothing like this reservoir in the whole wide world.

Letting Scorpio center me

Looking at the sky from the front porch tonight, I was staring at the constellation Scorpio. It's the shape of stars known for its long tail. I'm enamored enough with the night sky with all of its constellations. But, tonight it seemed that Scorpio was shining a little more brightly. I'm sure that it was lower light level in town. But, I like to have my imagination run away sometimes. The Greek mythology behind Scorpio isn't consistent. It has at least 3 stories of how it got in the sky. None of the stories make a person love the scorpion. It is like the serpent in the creation story. People disdain scorpions as much as they do snakes. But tonight my thoughts were not about the scorpion's sting.

The location of the constellation is near the center of the Milky Way. And perhaps, that's why I couldn't lower my gaze tonight from looking at Scorpio. It signified things and people who anchor or center me. I was in need of that reminder tonight. A little time with the night sky put me at ease, calmed my soul, and touched my heart with the flash of a face.

Applying Tombstone

Tombstone is a well loved film by the American public. It continues to run on the movie channels. I don't know exactly why the public loves the movie, but I think part of the reason is that the bad guys in the movie get exterminated en toto. People love to see justice served and many times, justice is harshly served. In this movie it is extremely served. And, that's the reason I am using this movie tonight.

I have commented on the Hailey Dunn case before, but the most recent move on the part of the Colorado Police Department defies understanding. They arrested Hailey's mother again. It appears the PD is trying to squeeze her in an attempt to get her to talk about her involvement in her own daughter's disappearance. So, they round her up for lying to authorities back in December when the disappearance was reported.

That correlates to two scenes in Tombstone which motivate me to action. After Wyatt's younger brother gets killed, Johnny Ringo invites Wyatt to a duel and tells him where to meet him. Wyatt, just before going to meet Ringo, visits with Doc Halliday about whether he can beat Ringo in the duel. Doc tells him he can't. In the next scene, Doc shows up in the shadows of the place Johnny Ringo is waiting to duel Wyatt. Doc approaches Ringo and opens with the line, "I'll be your huckleberry." At that point, the viewers are very much behind Doc because they know Doc will be Ringo's huckleberry and Ringo's demise is about 60 seconds away, as it should be since he is so evil.

Another scene is when Wyatt and company are confronting the Cowboy gang at a river. After killing many of the gang at the river, some in Wyatt's company are talking to Doc about Wyatt's boldness. They mention that revenge has made him so bold. Doc weighs in by saying, "Make no mistake about it gentlemen, this is not revenge. It's a reckoning."

I can't stand it anymore. The PD is making one move after another to deflect attention from themselves to a person who most of all would like to see her daughter again. Enough is enough! I'll be the huckleberry. Someone in the town knows what happened and is being allowed to remain undetected and taunt all who show up to search for Hailey week after week for 6 months. I say it's time for total exposure of the deflections that have occurred. It's time for their reckoning.

Sacred belief

The Green Lantern is a movie mainly for kids. It has great symbolism that kids need to hear, namely that fear can be overcome by will power. One's will power can wane and a person has to work at perfecting the will, but eventually it will overcome fear even if no one else believes that he or she has enough will power. The movie is a great lesson in personification of abstract ideas.

During the course of the movie, the hero has to admit his human limitations and his failures in life especially in relationships. He also has to admit that he has let fear get the best of him in a number of situations. However, the one person he wants to have a relationship with, in a scene near the end of the movie, tells the hero she sees courage in him even if he doesn't, and she knows he can be the Green Lantern who will overcome the fear facing the people of Earth with will power. It is a touching scene, and it turns the tide in his thinking. From that point on, he fights the fear that has descended on the Earth and wins the ensuing battle. He had it in him all along, he just needed a catalyst to bring the best out in him.

All of us need catalysts from time to time. Those points keep us believing in ourselves and our abilities. In particular, it's nice when someone tells us that they, too, believe in our abilities. When that happens, it's a sacred moment. It makes us better than we normally are, better than we would otherwise be. In a world that sends so much negativity our way, I'm thankful for the sacred moment when that one special person voices belief in us... so very thankful... so very beautiful... so very, very sacred!

Great meaning in an uncoined phrase

The phrase, "the winter of my discontent," is understood by nearly everyone whenever it is used whether or not one knows its original context. Funny... the opposite is not even a coined expression. I guess it would be "the summer of my great content," or "the summer of my greatest satisfaction."

I have one of those summers whether or not the expression has ever been coined. It was the summer I went to Canada. I went with my siblings, and the trip went well and I enjoyed the mountains of Canada greatly. But, as immensely satisfying as that experience was, there was another part of that trip that wasn't present with me that gave me the greatest satisfaction. It was what was contained in the deepest place within me, my fabric, that made the Canadian experience so bright. It was not the faces around me although they were pleasant enough. It was not in the rugged, jagged mountains that surrounded me although they were majestic and beautiful. It was an essence locked deeply within me that gave me my "summer of greatest satisfaction."

And that essence still satisfies me on a daily basis.

Finding the soul

Tonight on the Science channel, a special was aired that dealt with the soul. It's amazing to me that people are trying to define that idea in scientific terms. Mainly, though, the soul is the mind, or the way the brain's neural network is designed. The documentary included a neurosurgeon, a couple of psychologists who monitor the subconscious, and a neuroscientist/cognitive scientist who all have tried to track what happens in the brain during both waking and sleeping hours. The bottom line is that we still do not know, but some clear direction is starting to emerge on what areas to study.

Interestingly enough the word in Greek for soul is psyche. So they were on the trail of the right pursuit all along. It's the mind that gives rise to the idea of what outlives the body.

The most interesting idea is that our minds with all of their philosophies and views (the sum total of the connections we make daily and cumulatively) are nothing more than an amalgam of every influence from events or people that we have either encountered or that we allow to have even the smallest influence.

All I know is that my mind or soul or psyche or substance that makes sense of experience definitely bears the stamp of one experience I have had in life more than any other. Wouldn't it be nice if it would be that experience to outlive my body. I would be buried with a smile and my mind would fully enjoy infinity.

Atlantic sunrise

There is a certain energy and newness to watching a sunrise. This morning the clouds were over the horizon, so I had to wait 30 minutes for a peek at the sun.



But as the sun began to create its aura and brighten the water, anticipation heightened as to what was about to happen.



The sun reflected off the water, which made me, in turn, reflect on thoughts running through my mind. The scene added clarity and hope to my thoughts... hope that the deal in the works here in Georgia will actually materialize and clarity on the exact steps to closing the deal... and clarity that the warmth the sun represents is not a figment of the imagination.



Ahhhh... the brilliance finally appears! The day holds promise that what can be accomplished will be accomplished... And I immediately felt the warmth of the rays... both on my skin and in my heart!!!

Watching majesty

Tomorrow is the last day I will get to be at the beach, so I am going to go to the seashore and watch the gorgeous, majestic sunrise. I think it will inspire me. I will have about 20 minutes to watch it. I am usually busy and inside, so I rarely take in a sunrise (or a sunset for that matter).

The symbolism of watching a sunrise is whatever one wants it to be, but tomorrow I am looking to see the sun come up and think of all that it means to be as full of energy as the sun. That energy should bear results in my business and will allow me to appreciate more the one whose rays warm my life.

Another beach moment

Last summer I spent a weekend at Peak's Island off the coast of Maine. This summer it worked out for me to spend a weekend at Jeckyll Island off the coast of Georgia. The terrain is wholly different. The island was forested with Spanish Oak trees featuring the characteristic Spanish moss hanging from the limbs. The coastline itself sported 8 miles of a narrow strip of white sand and sand dunes separating them from forested area. Both islands have their own beauty. The beach is a place I love walking on. Instead of walking in the park back home, I get to walk with the scent of salt in the air, the constant roar of waves in my consciousness, and the endless stretch of wave after wave in my vision. That makes for a nice walk.

I thought I would walk down the beach a couple of miles to a restaurant to eat and walk back. That way I would be sure to get my exercise for the day. Well, I did get my exercise, but on the way back the sun disappeared behind the horizon, so it got dark. Of course, there are no street lights on the beach, and the moon was a very small crescent, so I was walking without much light at all. I couldn't see the path back to the hotel, so I overshot it by a half mile. I finally found the main road, and walked back to the hotel on it. 4 miles turned into 5 pretty quickly. It took a good hour to cool down from the extra long walk.



You have to laugh at experiences like that. It shows how disorientation can lead you way off track even though you think you know where you are. I saw a gift book today, too, called Lessons of Life from the Ocean. I'd like to add this one to its pages. Walking on the beach after dark turns a decent walk into a disorienting one. Life is seldom a beach, but if it ever is, don't let walking on it lure you into staying on it after the sun disappears. It causes more than one anxious moment.

Optimizing an encounter

Learning is a tricky business. Having a goal helps. Then a person has an open mind, which is what it takes to learn something. A person who has no goal in mind doesn't know what will apply to something (s)he might encounter, so (s)he follows the path of least resistance - not to learn. It takes too much energy to learn. So, when the encounter finally does come, the person doesn't know to expect it or what to expect during the encounter, didn't learn the principle that would apply to the encounter, thus cannot capitalize on what the encounter might offer. Sometimes opportunities happen twice, but more often than not, opportunity knocks but once. So, many people lose chances to succeed because they are unprepared.

There are a few other reasons why someone might not learn something, but by and large, transfer of knowledge, that is, learning, happens because it is utilitarian for a person. This is especially true of adult learners. But, the energy factor is hard to overcome even for adults. Life gets more complicated the farther upstream a person gets from adolescence. One's energy has to be distributed among more people or more encounters. Thus, transfer of knowledge happens for a person in a narrow band, one that is utilitarian. That leaves just enough energy to meet the demands of children, friends, family, and problem encounters.

One lesson from this is to learn while young, before life gets too complicated and scatters one's force. Another lesson is that adults should force themselves to not have such a narrow band for transfer of knowledge to happen. Perhaps they should be aware of and act on the driving forces, whether extrinsic or intrinsic, or develop interests outside of their main interest in life, their job. Maybe someone they identify with a great deal would like to talk with them about a subject if only they knew something about it. That's all wishing. The world rocks on. "You can't change the stripes on a zebra," so they say.

But I personally want to be around and with people who learn, learn more, and learn a lot. For them, life is much more than an existence within a narrow band of knowledge. They're prepared for many kinds of encounters. It's the cut between men and boys, women and girls.