This 12 - year old might alarm, evoke jealousy and cause righteous concern among a few

Trust, reciprocal learning, playing with ideas, being wildly optimistic and not living down to other people's puny expectations - works for me.

(And I know you won't let anyone tell you, Adora, that you've been robbed of your childhood when, in fact,  you're expressing one of many possibilities of what childhood may be)

Do you think we've got a lot to learn from children? Do adults suffer from a loss of childlike curiosity, boldness and optimism?

Photo quote de jour - Guest post by Layla Morgan Wilde

"Every new beginning comes from another beginning's ending" 

by Layla Morgan Wilde at The Boomer Muse

"New Beginnings? Sure but some things never end "
My embarrassing gut reaction invoking JC and evoking a sublime response.
Check out my guest post at The Boomer Muse.

A visit to the Boomer Muse's hall of residence

I must remember to tell you that this Thursday, Layla Morgan Wilde will be guest posting here while I will be guest posting at her blog, The Boomer Muse. I'm looking forward to it. 

LMW's Blog Catalog profile reads thus:

"Layla Morgan Wilde is the Boomer Muse, a baby boomer's best friend. She shares her own brand of quirky wit and wisdom with her photo diary,inspirational quotes and Cat Saturday for cat lovers" 

Her tagline says:

Writer/Blogger/Photog/Intuitive Life Coach...not necessarily in that order... based in Westchester County, New York.

Ever since I came across her name and her blog, I've been consistently making a couple of cognitive slips:

1. I keep thinking and reading her name as Lady Morgan Wilde. Somehow, that runs off my neurons and tongue more readily than Layla Morgan Wilde.

2. I don't know why I keep thinking that she's from Canada when she clearly says she's from New York.

But all that aside, I'm excited about exploring some new part of my mind and seeing where that takes me as I write my guest post.

So that my post doesn't land on her blog like a lost potato chip on a plate of amuse bouche, I've been traveling through her blog to breathe the air there, take in the scenery and eavesdrop on past and present conversations. 

I find myself in a place of visual contrasts framed by a collage of darkish images in a banner supported by a dark sidebar against a white background. A spread of tarot cards partly covering what I presume is a journal of some sort and a cat who glares at me from under the words 'i know wat u thinkin' are among the images in the banner.

I am not sure how I feel about all this but I am curious to find out more - about how I feel and about LMW. And so I wander further in where I discover lots more images, of cats, trees, tarot cards and mandalas, many of which have captions that cause me to stop a little longer. I don't want to miss an opportunity to be inspired or at least reminded of something that had once inspired me. One such caption says:

"Speech was given to man to disguise his thoughts"

The air here smells of musk and frangipani as if it's laden with something old while trying to make the new feel welcome.  Ah, yes, this is after all the Boomer Muse's very own hall of residence where generations not too long past have left a legacy of aspirations, some abandoned but many still waiting to be fulfilled.

I look for somewhere to sit for a while to gather my thoughts and eventually return to an image I'd briefly enjoyed earlier - a mandala, this one with a light background. I feel a relief, but what from?

Some of the conversations I overhear sound like late evening confessions from admirers to which the author seems to respond with deliberate cheer. One conversation, however, about an ill-fated raccoon and a cat who becomes a hero is particularly lively, drawing ready admissions from readers of being moved to tears.

This gallery of images with dark backgrounds and dark frames interspersed with personal reflections and invitations to spiritual games is not one that I'm finding easy to relax in.  This makes me wonder why I feel I should be able to.

It's this wondering that makes me realize that my visit to LMW's blog tells me at least as much about myself as it provides me with hints about it's owner. Perhaps it might be a stimulus for some of your own self-discovery?  If you're game, go visit The Boomer Muse and find out for yourself.

In the meantime, why not develop and practise the eye with a little help from Amazon

   

 

 

Ironies this Easter

I'm allowed to have my opinions and you don't have to read this blog.

Just thought I'd remind us of those obvious, though perhaps not always remembered facts before I get on my soapbox. (What? Defensive? Me??? No wayyyyyyy).

For some reason, I'm reminded of an anecdote from the life of Winston Churchill. Apparently, he'd had one too many at some social gathering or so one of the ladies present thought.

"Sir", she said in her haughty-taughty, disaproving school-maam-ish voice, "you're drunk".

To which Churchill, not one to deny anyone a helping of his vitriolic wit, retorted "Madam. you're ugly. And tomorrow, I'll be sober".

So, what's any of this got to do with ironies that emerged this Easter (which, in case you haven't noticed, I haven't even begun to talk about) or the oft forgotten facts I prefaced this post with?

Stuffed if I know.  But, you know, somehow, I can't help feeling there's a common thread running through all of them. Just wish I knew what it was.  Perhaps if I start talking about the ironies, it will reveal itself?

First off, I received one of those slide shows about Easter in my email. Specifically, it was about the things that Jesus was supposed to have said on the cross and what their deeper, hidden meanings were.

This mini expose was presented against a background of some beautiful crucifixion images. ('Beautiful crucifixion'??? Don't ever again say you haven't been given evidence for the proximity of the madness and genius centers in the brain).

Anyways, I read about how God had given us his son who had sacrificed his life for us because Jesus and (or is that 'as') God loved us so much. I read how Jesus-God was so forgiving and even how Jesus-man felt forsaken by God, yet ultimately yielded to him.

All this was familiar to me as one born and raised in the Catholic tradition. So familiar that I could summarily toss it over the thinking edge of my mind and thus retain my position in the land of sane.

But, in amongst all this, one thing stood out for me like a bleeding thumb. It was a part of the message that effectively said, "If Jesus loved us so much as to give his life for us, surely we can show our love for him by loving one another too".

It reminded me again where all my years of not just accepting punishment, self and other imposed, but also inviting it, had its noxious roots. And that would have been that, except, to my surprise, I felt a strong and unfamiliar urge to say to the sender of the email and all his other recipients as well as the author of the presentation, "Grow up!"

Grow up, for chrissake! (If I know Christ, he'd be writhing in utter despair too). Do we need the sordid suffering and death of someone to convince us that we must love one another?  Which inhuman part of our mind does that kind of thinking appeal to?

(As for loving someone back because they loved us first, puhlease! Which puerile part of our mind is that supposed to appeal to?)

Now, I'm sure some clever person is going to tell me, "Well, it is because we realize how inhuman it is that we are motivated to be kinder to one another".

Really? Aren't people naturally kind? Don't people naturally feel good when they reach out to others? Aren't people naturally happy when they give up habits of fear and competition? Do we need rebel-rousing sacrificial deaths and self-mortification to tune in to what naturally feels right and good, and to act with kindness and compassion toward one another?

Well, you know what? Perhaps some of us do. Or at least, perhaps some of us believe we do. As for me, I can tell you that I tried it for a lot of my life and it didn't work. And I think I know why too. I was relying on two powerful and pervasive myths:

1. That somebody else's sacrifice (whether divinely inspired, humanly misplaced or falsely recorded) can be the wellspring of my goodness and kindness towards others

2. That I am, by nature, not inclined towards goodness, kindness and compassion. This, despite being 'created in the image of god'.

They are the myths that I was brought up on. But this child has grown up and seen the myths for what they are - spell-binders to control and manipulate the many for the benefit of a few.  And that's where I'll leave this particular irony.

Here's another - the new-found religious fervor of one of our major supermarket's, W. It didn't escape my attention, this whole refrigerated food section that W stores provided "Just for Lent".  Aww...how awwwwww-ingly touching.

"Just for Lent".

Doesn't it make your heart melt? Doesn't it make it ooze with gratitude for how well God is rewarding you for your sacrifice i.e. abstaining from meat (while you overload on everything else)?

That's it. I'm done. For now.

PS Anyone figured out what that thread is? Please let me know if you have.

     

 

I fell in love last night

I fell in love last night.

From the moment we laid eyes on each other, our separate worlds collapsed into one, sending shock waves of desire and anticipation into its stratosphere. Would we survive dinner? Could we wait that long? We both knew the inevitable was...inevitable.

But first dinner.  All too excruciatingly slow in its arrival, it was, nevertheless suggestive of things to come.

Roasted caramelized aubergines appeared on a bed of silky leafed organic lettuce. They were accompanied by a pair of lightly baked tomatoes, plump and firm to the touch, the fragrance of Italian basil swirling around them.

Next, a plate of bright red prawns arrived with a lemon and dill dressing. Strip, dip and devour. Could anything be more straightforward? Or more revealing ? Or more fatal?

And so it continued, this meal that would take its time in satisfying some, but by no means all, of our cravings, teasing and taunting us all the way through.

When at last it was over, we found ourselves locked in a gaze that would later remind me of Cleopatra and Mark Anthony's fateful love affair. Right then though, the moment which our every thought, utterance and action had feverishly anticipated was but a final sip of wine away.

Distance dissolved and in its place was silk and satin, hair against skin, soft touch following soft touch, trembling and turning. I didn't want it to stop. Nor did he.

More intoxicating than wine, our evening affair left me drunk with the heady possibility that it wouldn't be our last. When it was time to go, I left with his smell all over me.

PS I know what you're thinking: I should've said 'lust' not 'love'. Well, go on then, tell me the difference, why don't ya!

Post Script: There'll be no shortage of gifts I can get him from Amazon :)

   

 

I dare you to define 'humor'

On a recent visit to Pie and Biscuits, I, along with other readers, was invited to watch a video of an ad. I won't say anything more about that ad except that the owner of the blog told us how funny she'd found it.

Well, I bit the bait of course and watched the ad. I found it funny enough but couldn't help thinking of other ads and other recorded incidents that have left me bent over double in suicidally uncontrollable laughter. Let me give you an example of one such.

So, anyways, watching this video again caused me to ponder, again, over this hard-to-define thing called humor, which incidentally, I was taught at school and at university, that other animals don't have. 

Well, I beg to differ. I am absolutely convinced my dog laughs when I set up a barricade to prevent her from getting to the front door.  Why wouldn't she?  She has never failed to get past it. Never, no matter how I vary the configuration or the components.

As for my cat, well, his humor is so dry I'm sure he goes to the Wickham every evening to wet his whistle.

But, as usual, I digress.  The point in question is: What is this thing called humor?

Dictionary Online defines it as

"a comic, absurd, or incongruous quality causing amusement: the humor of a situation.", while The Free Dictionary gives us this definition:

" The quality that makes something laughable or amusing; funniness:"

And all that is very well, but what exactly is this 'quality'? Can you shed some light?  Or if you can't, can you share one of your funniest, most humorous video or story?  You can never have too much humor, I don't think.

And here's some fun and  funny stuff from Amazon:

 

      

 

Jeepers Creepers! I've got a case of *blog rash*!

I've got a case of blog rash and it's makin' me itch something insane!

What? You haven't heard of blog rash? Well, aren't you the lucky one. Or the unlucky one, depending on your perspective of course.

Let me come clear. I mean clean. Blog rash is the condition where your desire to create blogs is so intolerably great that it breaks out like a rash and you just can't stop itching, I mean creating new blogs.

I've only just had this rush, I mean, rash, come over me. My blogs, the eponymous (oooooh, don't you like using big words) Thought Bubble Ten and Rooms for the Soul were only created in the last couple of weeks.  And I'm already itching to start my third. And I've got ideas for a fourth and fifth.  It's a serious rash, I'm tellin' ya!

I wonder if they will make me rich? Like Darren Rowse, maybe?  Oh, never mind the fame, I just want the money, thank you very much.

And in the meantime, do you think I need to see a blog doctor? If so, could you recommend one?