Are you on the right path!!

Posted on October 31, 2016 by Rod's World

I have done several workshops lately, the latest being on Experiential Astrology , the new Moon and Kali. I don’t know a great deal about Kali, having studied more the Lilith and hecate lineage of goddesses over my trip so I looked up Kali.

Kali comes from the Sanskrit root word Kal which means time. There is nothing that escapes the all-consuming march of time. In Tibetan Buddhism Her counterpart is male with the name Kala. Mother Kali is the most misunderstood of the Hindu goddesses. The Encyclopedia Britannica is grossly mistaken in the following quote, “Major Hindu goddess whose iconography, cult, and mythology commonly associate her with death, sexuality, violence, and, paradoxically in some of her later historical appearances, motherly love.”

It is partly correct to say Kali is a goddess of death but She brings the death of the ego as the illusory self-centered view of reality. Nowhere in the Hindu stories is She seen killing anything but demons nor is She associated specifically with the process of human dying like the Hindu god Yama (who really is the god of death). It is true that both Kali and Shiva are said to inhabit cremation grounds and devotees often go to these places to meditate. This is not to worship death but rather it is to overcome the I-am-the-body idea by reinforcing the awareness that the body is a temporary condition. Shiva and Kali are said to inhabit these places because it is our attachment to the body that gives rise to the ego. Shiva and Kali grant liberation by removing the illusion of the ego. Thus we are the eternal I AM and not the body. This is underscored by the scene of the cremation grounds.

Of all the forms of Devi, She is the most compassionate because She provides moksha or liberation to Her children. She is the counterpart of Shiva the destroyer. They are the destroyers of unreality. The ego sees Mother Kali and trembles with fear because the ego sees in Her its own eventual demise. A person who is attached to his or her ego will not be receptive to Mother Kali and she will appear in a fearsome form. A mature soul who engages in spiritual practice to remove the illusion of the ego sees Mother Kali as very sweet, affectionate, and overflowing with incomprehensible love for Her children.

A worthwhile guidance to follow in Life, so let’s have a look at what life says about being guided:

1. They sat very few individuals ever reach enlightenment because most people do not have the stamina to take all the steps required. I think we need to remember this and that there will be a lot more steps.

2. Yes, you are not one of the 150,ooo people who died on the planet today if you are reading this. That means you have survived those countless mistakes you have made and are still being guided: Life is a Flower.

3. In a week one of the two most unelectable people in the western world will be president of the United States. Guess what , have the courage to let go of what you can’t change.

4. Mason Cooley (1927 – July 25, 2002) was an American aphorist known for his witty aphorisms. One of these such aphorisms Cooley developed was “The time I kill is killing me.” He was professor emeritus of French, speech and world literature at the College of Staten Island. He was also an assistant professor of English at Columbia University from 1959 to 1967 and an adjunct professor from 1980 to 1988. He received his B.A. from San Diego State University and his Ph.D. from Oxford: Bad Blood.

5. One of the more forgotten religious guides, if you say you follow your guiding angel you often get a smirk from certain individuals.

6. If you are lucky you might find one of these guides in your life, perhaps even more than one. I have one at the moment, Arion Light from the Activation School: Blinded by the Light.

7. You can’t read the whole quote but certainly get the gist of it.

8. Pick a side to be on, Douglas bader was a famous fighter pilot in WW2 who lost both his legs in an accident and returned to combat. I want some of the divine guidance he was receiving: Break the Rules

9. I love the emoji for a hug, the little yellow creature holding its hands out, perhaps it’s doing this.

10. I would suggest you are being well guided by this quote,and there’s butterflies, yay!!: Stuck on You.

11. I am always so thankful the Chinese gave us the wisdom of Lao Tzu. This is from Confucius, another very wise man.

12. Coco Chanel was known for her lifelong determination, ambition, and energy which she applied to her professional and social life. She achieved both financial success as a businesswoman and catapulted to social prominence in French high society, thanks to the connections she made through her work. These included many artists and craftspeople to whom she became a patron. In 1970, her net worth was $19 billion (equivalent to $118 billion in 2015), making her one of the richest women of all time. She thought for herself, very loud: I Won’t Back Down.

13. My friend Leyolah Antara swears by prayer, saying it is vital in entering being guided, she is the founder of Kundalini Dance, Leyolah Antara.

14. If there is a piece missing, all there is to do is persevere, really: Prince Ea.

15. My favourite cigar smoker, Led England during WW2, made great speeches and wrote some great quotes, here’s one.

Don’t give up on looking for your guided, I found my best one at 60.

Namaste until next time, my dear friends.

P.S. I was having the day off, and nearly forgot to write this.

Surrender to What Is!!

Posted on October 27, 2016 by Rod's World

I am currently reading Gabrielle Bernstein’s new book The Universe has Your Back. In it, she talks a lot about faith, not necessarily Gods faith but faith in the universe and each other. Here’s a link to her page, she is one of the new thought leaders: Gabby’s page. What do you have faith in, your friends and families love, that it will all work out, that something will save you? There are many options so let’s have a look at some of them.

1. With faith comes fear, with the light the dark, I have worked more on the fear and the dark using a method called renewal recently, it has moved me from my head to my heart. Here’s a link to its source: www.activationschool.com.

2. I went to a catch up with the graduates of a program I crew on called GRIT: Create the Life you Want and Emeli Paulo , the facilitator led us through a process that got you in contact with your soul and you took away three gifts. here’s info on the program, GRIT – Find your Purpose.

3. Breathwork, the way out of your head into your heart and soul.

4. The power and the passion, both you cannot see. But you can certainly feel it: Power and the Passion.

5. I know when my heart is not seeing the light, it feels constricted. A bit more difficult with my eyes, because my logical mind believes what I see is real.

6. This beautiful image is the closest to God’s version of faith, George Michaels beautiful song expresses it well: Faith.

7. Faith and God, what else could you talk about but the iconic book A Course in Miracles : ACIM.

8. haven’t had a dog and cat quote for a while, but Aaw isn’t he cute. How many people have covered this song, the Stones and Iggy have: Walking the Dog.

9. I love Kundalini Dance, a journey to cleanse the chakras, one night you dance blindfolded for two and a half hours. In a crowded room you dance by faith and do not crash into each other.

10. Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM (9 May 1860 – 19 June 1937) was a Scottish novelist and playwright, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. He was born and educated in Scotland but moved to London, where he wrote a number of successful novels and plays. There he met the Llewelyn Davies boys, who inspired him to write about a baby boy who has magical adventures in Kensington Gardens (included in The Little White Bird), then to write Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn’t Grow Up, a “fairy play” about an ageless boy and an ordinary girl named Wendy who have adventures in the fantasy setting of Neverland: Flying.

11. Another way of saying the past, the present and the future, I find this method a bit more powerful.

12. One of the first blues songs I ever heard was Stormy Monday all those years ago in Blum’s records in Bendigo when the sales girl who loved blues used to tell the manager we gawky schoolboys had asked to hear it. It wasn’t this version, but I love Eva Cassidy’s take on it: Stormy Monday.

13. I fill out my Desire Map journal by Danielle LaPorte every day. As it has you write your Core desired feelings for your life, what you are avoiding , and what you are grateful for as well as what you are going to do to access what you want to feel it is what keeps me going on the days I don’t want to : The Daily Planner

14. With our logical mind being so skilful at making up real stories about what happened, this is not as easy to do as it seems: Have a little Faith in Me.

15. We all have big dreams, how come they often don’t look like we have imagined, keep on dreaming, though.

I think faith is also closely aligned with the community, the more the merrier, the stronger the faith.

Namaste until next time , my dear friends

We’re all in the same Game!!

Posted on October 24, 2016 by Rod's World

I live in the northern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia. It was the policy of succeeding governments , both left and tight to place the heavily demonised asylum seekers who had arrived on the shores of our proud country amongst our population. What they did not mention is they placed them in houses without furniture and food, some without electricity for days. This would never be reported in the mainstream media of our country as they are on the side of asylum seekers are evil.

I work at Darebin Intercultural Centre, set up to assist the assimilation of new groups to our multicultural neighbourhood. We set up an asylum seeker lounge to get the new arrivals out of their houses and into the community and provided free English lessons for anyone, some visa classes issued to asylum seekers banned them from working, volunteering and receiving the basic 510 hours English training, but we are called a civilised country.

So who is an asylum seeker, here’s the definition if you didn’t know :

asylum seeker – a person who, from fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, social group, or political opinion, has crossed an international frontier into a country in which he or she hopes to be granted refugee status.

It does not say if you came by boat you were queue jumping, that is something our government made up, so lets have a look at what the world has to say about it:

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1. I was asked a question at an event called The Awakening that I attended yesterday. It was, What is it that makes you lose hope? My answer is tribalism or nationalism, that ethos that makes people thing that there are human beings on the planet who matter less than people born in your country.

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2. What would the world look like if we followed the above words of the great orator and civil rights champion, Martin Luther King : Justice.

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3. I teach English to asylum seekers. One of them is a Sri Lankan woman who was born in a refuge camp in Indian, having two children there. Whose relations paid for her to travel to Australia by boat as she had no chance of getting out of the camp legally, where she and her children was placed on Christmas island and Darwin detention centres for 12 months before being allowed into our community.

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4. This is how having to look after Asylum seekers is portrayed by mainstream media in our country : Share It Maybe.

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5. These are two lines from our national anthem Advance Australia Fair, we seem to have forgotten something.

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6. One of the tricks used to raise worry about asylum seekers is that they won’t fit in. Perhaps the fact that modern day coffee and the guitar owe their discovery to the middle east may allay these fears: Guitar Live.

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7. Our Air Force at the moment bombing parts of Syria, I would call that shock and awe, get the connection.

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8. How do we fix the problem of asylum seekers flooding our shores? Our country has increased its equanimity with each cultural intake of refugees. When I grew up as a child all you could get was steak and three veg. at roadside cafes, I now live in a suburb with about 20 different culture’s food outlets; When you say nothing at All.

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9. William Cuthbert Faulkner was an American writer and Nobel Prize laureate from Oxford, Mississippi. Faulkner wrote novels, short stories, a play, poetry, essays, and screenplays. He is primarily known for his novels and short stories set in the fictional Yoknapatawpha County, based on Lafayette County, Mississippi, where he spent most of his life.

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10. Before planes everybody arrived in our country by boat, The first boat arrivals, the English, declared Australia Terra Nullius,Terra nullius – Indigenous Australians had inhabited Australia for over 50,000 years before European settlement, which commenced in 1788. Indigenous customs, rituals and laws were unwritten and their social and political organization was unknown or understood by Europeans as being analogous to their own institutions, and the British could not find recognised leaders with whom they could sign treaties.

The first test of terra nullius in Australia occurred with the decision of R v Tommy (Monitor, 29 November 1827), which indicated that the native inhabitants were only subject to English law where the incident concerned both natives and settlers. The rationale was that Aboriginal tribal groups already operated under their own legal systems. This position was further reinforced by the decisions of R v Boatman or Jackass and Bulleyes (Sydney Gazette, 25 February 1832) and R v Ballard (Sydney Gazette, 23 April 1829).

Prompted by Batman’s Treaty (June 1835) with Wurundjeri elders of the area around the future Melbourne, in August 1835, Governor Bourke of New South Wales indicated the significance of the doctrine of terra nullius by a Proclamation that Batman’s so-called treaty was null and void because Indigenous Australians could not sell or assign land, nor could an individual person or group acquire it, other than through distribution by the Crown. a land with out people , and set about trying to wipe out the native indigenous people on their arrival: Treaty.

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11. One of the methodologies used by the Australian government was to stop reporting the arrival of boats in the name of national security.

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12. One of the asylum seeker couples I taught English to were a civil engineer and a doctor who had to flee Afghanistan when the Taliban declared a fatwa on Lina, who was a doctor who had been empowering women. Most people who seek asylum had jobs before they had to drop everything and run for their lives: Getting It On.

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13. Words not included in the asylum seeker who arrived by boat in Australia policy. We have generously given them temporary visas where they must reapply every three years to see if they can stay. What would you feel like in your life was measured on a three year life span.

14. And this is one of the main reasons that we know the term asylum seeker: War, what is it good For.

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15. I have friends who say questionable things about asylum seekers, The first question I ask them is have they ever met an asylum seeker? There answer is usually in the negative.

I request you to research your knowledge of what is written about asylum seekers. A viewing of the excellent Mary meets Mohammad documentary helps greatly.

Namaste until next time, my dear friends.

namaste2

As long as you don’t need them!!

Posted on October 20, 2016 by Rod's World

I saw a beautiful word on the way to my volunteer work today, when I got their I was told I was no longer a volunteer but a visitor and have to wear an ID identifying me as so, I have been volunteering there for 3 and a half years, bureaucracy is a beautiful thing.

The word I saw was transference, I wasn’t sure of its exact meaning so I went to google, here it is : definition of transference:

Transference is a phenomenon characterised by unconscious redirection of feelings from one person to another. One definition of transference is “the inappropriate repetition in the present of a relationship that was important in a person’s childhood”. Another definition is “the redirection of feelings and desires and especially of those unconsciously retained from childhood toward a new object”. Still another definition is “a reproduction of emotions relating to repressed experiences, especially of childhood, and the substitution of another person… for the original object of the repressed impulses”. Transference was first described by psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who acknowledged its importance for psychoanalysis for better understanding of the patient’s feelings.

I’m still not sure if I know what it means after that but I will have a go at discussing the following quotes on it:

1. Have you been to see a film and left disappointed because their interpretation didn’t match the one you had created from reading the book in your head, I know I have.

2. In the definition it talks about repetition in the present, if the repetition is of a negative nature get away from that transference: Bad Vibe.

3. I have a friend who does self development work, he says it is to have people become sane in an insane world, he must have read this.

4. How often do we fear situations in out life, and when they occur the result is nothing like the expectation, for me its a fear of heights, what’s yours: Guts over Fear.

5. Arthur M. Jolly is an American playwright and screenwriter. In 2006, he was awarded an Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Nicholl Fellowship in Screenwriting for a script named The Free Republic of Bobistan.

6. Are you great at hugging , holding and being held. To me this is the greatest act of transference of the soul, spirit, energy through action: I Want to Hug You.

7. Nationalism, one of the great tools of fascism. Sport taken to extremes, killing in the name of!!

8. James Frank Dobie – was an American folklorist, writer, and newspaper columnist best known for many books depicting the richness and traditions of life in rural Texas during the days of the open range. As a public figure, he was known in his lifetime for his outspoken liberal views against Texas state politics, and for his long personal war against what he saw as bragging Texans, religious prejudice, restraints on individual liberty, and the assault of the mechanised world on the human spirit. He was instrumental in the saving of the Texas Longhorn breed of cattle from extinction. Imagine what he would have thought of our crazy times: The Human Spirit.

9. Aren’t they so charismatic: we all know one of them. In the conscious dance community I hang in, I know quite a few thankfully, people who are alive and full of enthusiasm.

10. That first day of school when we are with our mothers normally, and they leave us behind with a whole lot of strangers, how long did it take you to get over the first day blues: First Day of School.

11. How often do we transfer our vision into reality? I put it in google, guess the result: 20,300,000. I suppose that’s why they call it leadership.

12. Simone Weil was a French philosopher, mystic, and political activist. After her graduation from formal education, Weil became a teacher. She taught intermittently throughout the 1930s, taking several breaks due to poor health and to devote herself to political activism, work that would see her assisting in the trade union movement, taking the side of the Anarchists known as the Durruti Column in the Spanish Civil War, and spending more than a year working as a labourer, mostly in auto factories, so she could better understand the working class : Never Know.

13. Father of the Star Trek phenomenon, Gene Roddenberry – was asked to write a series called Riverboat, set in 1860’s Mississippi. When he discovered that the producers wanted no black people on the show, he argued so much with them that he lost the job, but what a great question.

14. The father of transference, Sigmund Freud lightening the situation a little: The Cigar Song.

15. The Diva of soul Nina Simone lived with the transference that music can be, a blessing or the burden of fame throughout her life, suffering mental health issues and family breakdown as well as playing to some of the biggest audiences of her era.

So what have you transferred from your childhood and who do you relate to like they were that person who did that to you the first time, It’s a life time journey battling the transference of our minds.

Namaste until next time my dear friends.

Real Heroes don’t wear Capes!

Posted on October 17, 2016 by Rod's World

I won a competition when I was very young dressed as a super hero. As you get older you realise that the heroes in life don’t necessarily wear capes. That heroics are much simpler than that, a smile when you feel down, a hug when you feel lonely. a dollar in a cup.

Appreciation of what they do is what people remember, it has been an ongoing battle for me as it was not a strong point in my family as I was growing up. I have to remember to say thank you as it was not something I learnt from an early age.

Acts of appreciation, what does society say about them, lets have a look:

1. Margaret Elizabeth Cousins, also known as Gretta Cousins (7 October 1878–11 March 1954) was an Irish-Indian educationist, suffragist and Theosophist, who established All India Women’s Conference (AIWC) in 1927. She was the wife of poet and literary critic James Cousins, with whom she moved to India in 1915. She is credited with composing the tune for the Indian National Anthem Jana Gana Mana in February 1919, during Rabindranath Tagore’s visit to the Madanapalle College.

2. I am not like the millions who think that the Tony Robbins documentary I am not your Guru is a classic. Too me it looks a lot like manipulation but a lot of people I respect swear by him and have done the fire walk : The Tony Robbins Experience.

3. I still remember the Japanese airline staff member who walked us to the front of the line in Kyoto airport because we were due to miss our flight as we had assumed a flight to Moscow would be international. It was domestic and we could not read the signs in 1990.

4. Expectations versus acts of Appreciation. How dull has your relationship become when your day to day actions are expected? : Someone Like You!!

5. This is not so easy to do, a dear friend of my brothers is in hospital at the moment with the possibility she will not see 50, you never expect this.

6. Bruce Wilkinson is a Christian philosopher and author who has given keynote addresses at major national and international events with stadium audiences of 80,000 or more. He has written more than 60 books that have been translated into 30 languages, including several books that reached the number one spot on the bestseller lists of The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and USA Today. Bruce’s book, The Prayer of Jabez, remains the fastest-selling book in history, with worldwide sales exceeding 20 million. Scarlet Begonias.

7. A little known secret that can have you lead a fulfilled life.

8. The Wonder of you. A lot of songs have been written about this. Here’s the most famous by the King: The Wonder of You.

9. Aaron Polson currently lives in Lawrence, Kansas with his wife, two sons, and a tattooed rabbit. His stories have featured magic goldfish, monstrous beetles, and a book of lullabies for baby vampires. His work has seen print in Shock Totem, Blood Lite II, and Monstrous with several new stories forthcoming in Shimmer, Space and Time, and other publications. The Saints are Dead, a collection of weird fiction, magical realism, and the kitchen sink, is due from Aqueous Press in 2011. “

10. These people are rare, we usually marry them or have them as our children. Have you seen that ad were the father announces his death to get his children to come at Christmas. It says a lot about unconditional love. Here’s a disco version: Unconditional Love – Donna Summer.

11. One of the most famous quotes ever written about appreciation comes from Maya Angelou and it doesn’t even use the word.

12. When you put your love out there you are giving your power away, it lies within the life within you, the same for flowers, don’t pick them and bring them to an early death : Dead Flowers by Townes.

13. My friend Daniel started a Facebook page : Daily Gratitude Space for a forum so people could write what they appreciate daily. It has grown to over 1,000 members. Join, its a beautiful thing to do.

14. Love her or hate her, Mother Teresa’s words are still quoted 20 years after her death. There are many Indians alive today who appreciate what she did for them even though she was considered a bit narky : Mother Teresa’s Song.

15. What can you not say about the great man who is Wayne Dyer. Who did he appreciate? Wayne Dyer stated Nisargadatta Maharaj to be his Teacher and cited the quotation, “Love says: ‘I am everything’. Wisdom says: ‘I am nothing’ from a compilation of talks on Shiva Advaita (Nondualism) philosophy I Am That. He was influenced by Abraham Maslow’s concept of self-actualization and by the teachings of Swami Muktananda, whom he considered to be his Master. In his book, Wishes Fulfilled; Mastering the Art of Manifesting, Dr. Dyer also credited Saint Francis of Assisi and the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu as foundational influences in his work.

I appreciate all of you who read my blogs, I am in awe you are from all over the world. I was especially bemused by the person from St. Kitts who read one.

Namaste until next time, my dear friends.

Make each day, a Story!!

Posted on October 13, 2016 by Rod's World

Are you a good storyteller? I love listening to podcasts and the ones that hold my attention are the ones who tell great stories. To me, a great story is one that has you live an experience you haven’t before. This means that everyone can be a storyteller for another because we all have our own unique experiences, how do you get other people to listen to yours?

Lets look at what people have said on their storyboards:

1. Christina Baldwin is a writer and seminar presenter of 30+ years experience. She has contributed two classic books to the exploration of journal writing, including the well-known classic, Life’s Companion, Journal Writing as a Spiritual Practice, revised and reissued in 2007 after 100,000 original sales. This work led her to a long study of personal growth and group dynamics and as a result of that experience she wrote Calling the Circle, the First and Future Culture to explore how social container releases needed wisdom.

2. From little things, big things grow. In Australia an indigenous tribal elder Vincent Lingiari took on one of the large land owners Lord Vestey with a simple story, Its our land: From Little Things.

3. Steve Jobs was a classic story teller, he said Our goal is to make the best devices in the world, not to be the biggest, my entire family now has apple computers.

4. How do you relate to stories, do they lift you up and give you a new direction in life. They do for me, it may be a simple half page or a 400 page volume but if they add to my knowledge they have done what is required : Compass.

5. Michael Margolis made a career from Story telling. on his twitter page he wrote the following : Helping trailblazers tell their story. Educator, anthropologist, entrepreneur. Left-handed, colour-blind, believes chocolate is a food group. Try the red pill. His webpage is called http://www.getstoried.com.

6. Our mainstream media tell stories, they unfortunately have become written for profit not the betterment of society. How did we let it become about money not what would help our society grow: Magic.

7. We have all heard the saying you will not be remembered for what you had when you pass, but how you made people feel, the stories that are told about you when you are no longer there.

8. Sir Terence David John “Terry” Pratchett, OBE was an English author of fantasy novels, especially comical works. He is best known for his Discworld series of 41 novels. Pratchett’s first novel, The Carpet People, was published in 1971. The first Discworld novel, The Colour of Magic, was published in 1983, after which he wrote two books a year on average. His 2011 Discworld novel Snuff was at the time of its release the third-fastest-selling hardback adult-readership novel since records began in the UK, selling 55,000 copies in the first three days. His final Discworld novel, The Shepherd’s Crown, was published in August 2015, five months after his death. He definitely turned his life into a story: The Hedgehog Song.

9. Changes, don’t wait to be a richer man: Changes, just gonna have to be a different man. Lines from a famous Bowie song. Don’t keep telling the same story for your whole life.

10. Interculturalism: Love and Respect for All: Everyone Included. I set up a Facebook group so we can share great cultural stories, Join Here : FB Interculturalism.

11. “Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we now know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand.”

12. Tenzin Gyatzo, HHDL has it down pat. Its not success that is going to transform the world. Will it be the Western Women as he has also said : Transformer.

13. I hadn’t heard of Michael Margolis before I wrote this blog, have watched a few YouTube videos while writing it, he is a fascinating man, have a look.

14. Nourishing is one of the great things stories are capable of as they strengthen our dreams: Dream.

15. I think my brother in law worked on this story. Images help stories as well.

So lets get out their and pump up our stories and fulfil our dreams.

Namaste until next time , my dear friends.

Pluck those Strings!!

Posted on October 10, 2016 by Rod's World

Where I volunteer we did a project last year producing a book called My Journey, My Lucky Country about the stories of 11 mature age migrants and their journeys before and after they decided to settle in Australia. One of them commented that she found it hard with out any English when she first arrived but if you are determined that anything is possible. I had found my word for today’s blog, determination.

So lets take the journey down the path of determination:

1. Carl von Clausewitz -was a Prussian general and military theorist who stressed the “moral” (meaning, in modern terms, psychological) and political aspects of war.

He saw history as a vital check on erudite abstractions that did not accord with experience. In contrast to the early work of Antoine-Henri Jomini, he argued that war could not be quantified or reduced to mapwork, geometry, and graphs. Clausewitz had many aphorisms, of which the most famous is “War is the continuation of politics by other means.”

2. These are several of the attitudes that you need to live a determined life: Win.

3. There’s a famous saying that life is about learning, the day that you stop learning is the day that you die. It’s from a Tom Clancy novel. I agree but cannot admit to doing it all the time.

4. I am statements support you in the quality of life you lead. In our country there was a rock anthem: We can’t be Beaten.

5. When you wish upon a star it may happen or it may not, but if you commit that you will, it is all over.

6. There is only one song that could go with this quote from one of my animal totems: The Leader of the Pack – The Shangri-La’s.

7. From the worlds most famous philosopher Anon. comes advice when we can alter our future, Now!!

8. Self will is needed in this short quote about what it takes ti make stuff happen: Free.

9. Josie Spinardi is an American weight loss guru, who specialises in have people break their overeating habit helping people to create the life they can’t wait to wake up to.

10. I’ve got a couple of friends who always seem to sparkle whenever I see them, they say they work hard on being happy : Sparklers.

11. How many lucky people do you know, who seem predestined to success, then there is the rest of us who get there through grit and determination.

12. The worlds oldest rock and roll band, Who else could it be: Satisfaction.

13. To fulfil a project it must be an everyday occurrence, well planned out , and followed.

14. How we interpret a situation, as a mistake that ends all hope, or as an opportunity to learn helps work out how far we are likely to rise: We are the Champions.

15. Tsepiso Makhubedu has his or her own page of quotes in searchquotes but no autobiography. Perhaps they will be as famous as anon. one day. Be a rebel.

As Ruza said if you are determined anything is possible, how would your life be different if you lived your life that way?

Namaste until next time my dear friends.

The best is yet to Come!!

Posted on October 6, 2016 by Rod's World

Some days I struggle for a subject to write my blog on, I had nothing in mind today when Elliot Goulding’s Halcyon came up on my music feed. Not being sure what it meant I looked it up:

definition of Halcyon –

ADJECTIVE

denoting a period of time in the past that was idyllically happy and peaceful:

“the halcyon days of the mid 1980s, when profits were soaring”
NOUN

a mythical bird said by ancient writers to breed in a nest floating at sea at the winter solstice, charming the wind and waves into calm.

a tropical Asian and African kingfisher with brightly coloured plumage.

With such a beautiful meaning I knew I had found my word for the day. The 15 quotes I have chosen relate to the adjective more than the noun but I promise you will know what the kingfisher looks like by the end:

1. I have many female friends who hang out together and empower each other with their music, art and businesses which allow them to take huge strides in being ultimately successful in fields you would not expect them too.

2. In his iconic Halcyon series of books Peter Kazmaler points out that its good to include both the dark and the light in your life when considering what will come next: Fear and Love.

3. James Thomas Fields was an American publisher, editor and poet in the 1800’s. His most famous poem is “The Ballad of the Tempest”, which includes the famous lines: “We are lost!” the captain shouted, As he staggered down the stairs.

4. A woman who has spent most of her life going her own way, Angelina Jolie has done some remarkable things: Go your own Way.

5. Glass Towers are an Indie band from Sydney, Australia. In answer to their question I say unless you are meditating in a cave high in the Tibetan mountains the answer is no, that’s not how society works.

6. They obviously write deep songs, I agree with the line from this song. The only reason the world will be lost is if we give up: Halcyon.

7. As we see with the dramatic changes going on with watch I.T. technology, virtual reality and driver-less cars this statement made Charles Khupcan, an expert on foreign affairs who served in the first Clinton administration becomes more real each and every day.

8. Go to the peace and quiet of the wilderness of your intuition to resolve those things that natter in your life, time for : Elliott Goulding.

9. We have only this moment, the power of now. How many Now’s do you waste?

10. Jeanette Winterson, OBE (born 27 August 1959) is an award-winning English writer, who became famous with her first book, Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit, a semi-autobiographical novel about a sensitive teenage girl rebelling against conventional values. Some of her other novels have explored gender polarities and sexual identity. Winterson is also a broadcaster and a professor of creative writing: Fifteen.

11. My halcyon days include this, for me peace and quite lives inside a good inquiry. And as they comment on Facebook when there is a cute dog picture, Aaw.

12. Karen Prior is a christian Professor of English who believes in the power of the word touching your soul, why books will never die: Great Big Words.

13. Remember those days when your mind and heart are in sync. They are Halcyon day but not days you are doing nothing but days you are living your dream.
14. Here is the beautiful Halcyon kingfisher. I take part in a return of the kingfisher festival in my hometown Melbourne Australia at CERES each year. It celebrates the return of the Sacred Kingfisher to an area that had been devastated by human indifference after many years. Here is the dance we do : The Kingfisher Boogie.

15. Gregory House, MD — typically referred to simply as House — is the title character of the American medical drama series House. Created by David Shore and portrayed by English actor Hugh Laurie, he leads a team of diagnosticians as the Head of Diagnostic Medicine at the fictional Princeton-Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey (based on the real-life Yale–New Haven Hospital in New Haven, Connecticut).

House’s character has been described as a misanthrope, cynic, narcissist, and curmudgeon, the last of which was named one of the top television words of 2005 in honour of the character. He is the only character to appear in all 177 episodes and, except for Wilson’s brief appearance, is the only regular character to appear in the season six premiere.

So there are many moods that fulfil halcyon times for people some quiet, some full of action because that’s the way they roll, Choose the one that suits you and go for it.

Namaste until next time my dear friends

Making Hope Possible!!

Posted on October 3, 2016 by Rod's World

My word for today is restorative, it’s interesting what quotes come up under that. When we restore something to its former glory we are doing a service to the planet as we do not have to build new structures, physically or mentally. we just make good what has become damaged.

So let’s begin our journey along the making hope possible trail:

1. By restoring Light and Love you have a much better chance of restoring the hope that has been lost from a situation.

2. Audrey Hepburn believed in the 5 R’s and that everybody was redeemable, imagine the world if we all thought that was possible: Wouldn’t it be Loverly.

3. This is one of the great pitfalls for perfectionists, do you start anything if you don’t think you are going to get it absolutely right. Problems are a part of life and for our lives to succeed we must learn to deal with them.

4.Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan was the 5th Umayyad caliph. He was born in Medina, Hejaz, Abd al-Malik was a well-educated man and capable ruler who was able to solve many political problems that impeded his rule. The 14th-century Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun states: “`Abd al-Malik ibn Marwan is one of the greatest Arab and Muslim Caliphs. He followed in the footsteps of `Umar ibn al-Khattab, the Commander of the Believers, in regulating state affairs”.

During his reign, all important records were translated into Arabic, and for the first time, a special currency for the Muslim world was minted, which led to war with the Byzantine Empire under Justinian II. The Byzantines were led by Leontios at the Battle of Sebastopolis in 692 in Asia Minor and were decisively defeated by al-Malik after the defection of a large contingent of Slavs. The Islamic currency was then made the only currency of exchange in the Muslim world. Also, many reforms happened in his time relating to agriculture and commerce. Al-Malik extended and consolidated Muslim rule, made Arabic the state language and organised a regular postal service: Soften Your Heart.

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5. When I was in the depths of my mental health crisis I use d to get on busses in the hope the problems would stay behind in the place I had left, they didn’t. Only when I started taking on board the love of my friends and family did the problems start to go away.

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6. Marianne and John both believe in this: Give Peace a Chance.

7. I have found lately that the solution for a problem lies in the heart not the head. By going into your heart and accepting what is so, it magically clears the situation.

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8. Risky behaviour is deemed to be that way if you haven’t worked out the way to get there. It may not be your normal path of action but there is always a way to get places: There’s no Other Way.

9. Yoga is a group of physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines which originated in ancient India. There is a broad variety of Yoga schools, practices, and goals in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Among the most well-known types of yoga are Hatha yoga and Rāja yoga.

The origins of yoga have been speculated to date back to pre-Vedic Indian traditions, it is mentioned in the Rigveda, but most likely developed around the sixth and fifth centuries B.C., in ancient India’s ascetic and śramaṇa movements. The chronology of earliest texts describing yoga-practices is unclear, varyingly credited to Hindu Upanishads and Buddhist Pāli Canon,probably of third century BCE or later. The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali date from the first half of the 1st millennium CE, but only gained prominence in the West in the 20th century. Hatha yoga texts emerged around the 11th century with origins in tantra.

Yoga gurus from India later introduced yoga to the west, following the success of Swami Vivekananda in the late 19th and early 20th century. In the 1980s, yoga became popular as a system of physical exercise across the Western world. Yoga in Indian traditions, however, is more than physical exercise, it has a meditative and spiritual core. One of the six major orthodox schools of Hinduism is also called Yoga, which has its own epistemology and metaphysics, and is closely related to Hindu Samkhya philosophy.^[

Many studies have tried to determine the effectiveness of yoga as a complementary intervention for cancer, schizophrenia, asthma, and heart disease. The results of these studies have been mixed and inconclusive, with cancer studies suggesting none to unclear effectiveness, and others suggesting yoga may reduce risk factors and aid in a patient’s psychological healing process.

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10. There is a new method of justice taking of in parts of the world. It is called restorative justice not retributive justice. It looks at redressing the issues that have caused people to commit crimes so they do not do it again: Clean This House.

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11. The daughter of artistic Italian parents, wife of a professor of philosophy, and an accomplished pianist, Vanda Scaravelli was accustomed throughout her life to meeting creative artists, intellectuals, and literati. The Indian philosopher J. Krishnamurti came to stay at the Scaravelli’s villa overlooking Florence every year. When Scaravelli’s husband died suddenly after World War II, she soon began spending summers with her children at a chalet in Switzerland, where she hosted Krishnamurti during his lectures there. B. K. S. Iyengar would come every morning to teach him yoga; he introduced Scaravelli, then in her 40s, to the ancient discipline, and “a new life came into my body.” Thus began her ongoing exploration of what she called allegrezza, “the intelligent heart.”

From T. K. V. Desikachar she learned breath awareness; she later formulated her own approach to yoga (in which “you become intelligent and at the same time you are happy”) and began to teach others. Her book Awakening the Spine (Harper San Francisco, 1995) became a classic. Since her death in 1999, at age 91, several teachers have carried on her work, most notably Toronto-based Esther Myers. “I practice because it is natural for me to practice,” she told Myers in a 1996 YJ interview. “There is no other reason.

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12. The restorative power of a visit to a major art exhibition or to a great movie cannot be paid for, it isn’t the money you put out: Art for Art’s Sake.

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13. I woke up with a bung knee this morning, after one hours sleep because every time I turned over I would wake from the pain. I hope the above quote has some credibility.

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14. In our social media madness that is called our lives these days always remember that our soul is there hanging out in the peace zone: Desiderata.

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15. Do we make our children think these days , or just rort remember facts so they are prepared for their careers that have been mapped out by society. MLK was not one to accept easy answers or half baked solutions.

The path to Possibility is what I have been aiming to address in this blog. Possibility opens up a new paradigm in our lives that allows us to restore all those dreams we had as children.

Namaste until next time, my dear friends.

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