I am grateful for
I am grateful for people subscribing to courseofayear.com email delivery
I am grateful that I could walk 3 mile today
I am grateful that the weather was nice during my walk
I am grateful for the opportunity to play chess
I am happy that I got the Provisions menu out today
I am grateful for the Sangha group
I am grateful for the opportunity to help Buca
I am grateful for the Dharma talk tonight at sangha.
Posted on January 9, 2008 | Leave a Comment | permanent link
In the dark - again
Last night brought another windstorm and another power outage. They’re becoming almost routine around here. The lights went out about 10:30 p.m. and weren’t back on when I left the house at about a quarter to 10 the next morning. Then I had to stop and help some other volunteers move sections of a tree out of the road just to get to town. The other direction wasn’t passable at all because the tree that fell there brought down a power line that draped across Cape George Road. Exciting stuff.
It’s almost, no, it is actually funny how the weather has disrupted travel and communications around here for the last three months. People just shake their heads or roll their eyes, generally with a shrug to say, “What can you do?” A sense of humor certainly helps.
Read more. . .
Posted on January 6, 2007 | Leave a Comment | permanent link
I am never upset for the reason I think.
There has been a lot of opportunity to practice this one today. Nothing noticeably big but plenty of evidence that all the little upsets gnaw at me.
Dreamweaver, the program that I do most of my production work in decided to get strange and unpredictable. After an hour of frustration, trying to get it to behave I had to totally uninstall it and re-install. The next hour was spent re-entering my preferences and setting up site directory and transfer settings.
That was probably the best use of my time as I was suffering serious caffeine withdrawal. Tracking my blood pressure carefully over the last few weeks has shown me that for the two or three hours after I have a cup of coffee, my BP increases dramatically, from borderline to real hypertension. Not good.
I’ve been cutting back gradually over the last week and doing okay but today I seemed to drop below the threshold at which real symptoms occur. I’m short tempered, have trouble concentrating and feel slightly flu-ish.
So over and over, I stopped took a deep breath and reminded myself that I’m never upset for the reason I think. That and I finally broke down and grabbed a full cuppa to get through the afternoon. I’m ready to cut the caffeine out but feel better doing so in a way that lets me still work.
Posted on January 5, 2007 | Leave a Comment | permanent link
Random crows
So tired. Windy last night, again. The last couple of months have had so many wind storms that they all seem to blur together. And the rain, record amounts, thy both just seem to just wear me out.
The rhododendron by the front door banged on the house all last night, or so it seemed. My nervousness in wind was running at high rpms keeping me awake and making the naps I caught shallow and non restorative. But these thoughts do not mean anything.
Funny how tiredness twists things out of their normal perspective. It’s actually easy to believe that the thoughts don’t mean anything. They seem as random as the crow that Carrie caught throwing moss off of the roof of our office, capricious and perhaps even having their little jokes at our expense.
Posted on January 4, 2007 | Leave a Comment | permanent link
I do not understand anything I see
Boy do I resist this. Everything seems fraught with meaning today. I’m hyper aware of the cobweb in the corner. In fact, I’m getting right up and attacking it with the duster.
Back.
Obviously that thing has been there for, at least, weeks, probably months. Cobwebs don’t just suddenly appear.
Objects, seem diamond sharp right now. The sounds of someone driving up the street, which I typically, never notice sound extremely loud, though they really aren’t.
It’s been like this all day.
Starting with the lesson this morning and for the three times shortly after I “suddenly” remembered to repeat today’s phrase to myself, it seems as if my senses have been amped up to 12 or 13 on a scale of one to ten. I turned the truck radio off driving both to and from work because I wanted to listen to the sounds of driving, the motor’s brrrr, the sound the tires made rolling down the road, the swoosh of passing vehicles, all intense and immediate.
The lesson uses the term see, though what’s most in awareness is sound. It’s probably the same for the purposes of the Course. I’m noticing the chill air across my lips and the back of my hands right now, as well as the sound of a passing jet. Oddly, understanding doesn’t seem as important as normal. The simple awareness is compelling enough.
Posted on January 3, 2007 | Leave a Comment | permanent link
Reminiscing
Still thinking back over my ACIM experiences. It’s been just over 22 years now. I first saw the books at a Christmas party in 83. It took me over six months to read the Text. Being a linear thinker it didn’t even occur to me to do otherwise. Start with volume one. Read it through. Then, proceed to volumes two and three. The Course in Miracles was still only available in sets of three hard bound books. The looked impressive too, in rich blue with gold text and a pebbly texture.
Read more. . .
Posted on January 2, 2007 | Leave a Comment | permanent link
Back to the Course
It’s been a few years since I started this project to get ACIM online. I guess I never actually go going because I wasn’t ready to go through the lessons again.
The first lesson feels both familiar and new. I had an anticipation that I would somehow feel like a know-it-all and a bit blasé about the whole thing. Not so. The little bit of nervousness that the lesson mentions certainly came up.
Nothing I see means anything.
How strange to feel both strong cynicism and deep relief when I think about this. Coupled with the combination of nervousness and calm that bubbled up when I looked about me and repeated the lesson show me that this will be anything other than a rote repetition of a series of exercises that I’ve done five or six times before.
It’s also strange that I can’t remember exactly how many times I’ve done the lessons. I’ve started them several more but didn’t get past the first month. Those times were different. I began because I thought that it was a good idea, but didn’t really feel compelled, as I do now.
The first time through the lessons took almost two years. I would fall asleep reading. I would lose the books for a couple of days at a time only to “find” them again, sitting, alone, on my coffee table. That time was memorable.
So was the year I did them with Susan and Matt, as well as the time right after I moved to Port Townsend. But the other times are hazy, as if they happened to someone else or in a dream. Somehow, I don’t think this time will be like that. I’m as strongly compelled to do this as I was the first time.
Posted on January 1, 2007 | Leave a Comment | permanent link
Resolutions and tribal mind
Do I join the millions of other people who make resolutions that they won’t keep? It seems futile and silly look at that way. Then again, it doesn’t hurt to take a time of reflection to examine those places in our lives that cry for more attention.
Currently K and I are reading “Sacred Choices” by Christel Nani, in which the author speaks about the places in our lives where we are living from other’s expectations, which she calls “tribal beliefs.” It’s as good a term as any to describe societal expectations. She doesn’t claim that all tribal beliefs are bad for us. I would dismiss the book out of hand if she did. She does say that following those expectations that are out of alignment with what feeds us, saps energy and vitality out of our lives, enough so that living out of alignment for too long can lead to susceptibility to illness.
Read more. . .
Posted on December 31, 2006 | Leave a Comment | permanent link
Adding Podcasts
I’ve been wanting to add an audio version of the Course to the site but have been unable to persuade the people I know with “good” voices to volunteer the time needed for the project. So I decided to do it myself.
As you will quickly notice, I do not have a professional’s presentation. You might even call me speaking challenged, as I spent several years in speech therapy and have to really concentrate to get the words to come out in the proper order and without a strong lisp. No matter. I am what I have available and the podcasts are getting made. What you hear is what you get.
There may even be a silver lining to the situation. Since I have no illusions about how I sound I’m okay with less than perfect recordings. I’m not going to do a lot of re-recording or editing of the lessons. The goal is to offer understandable audio versions of the lessons for the sight impaired or those who simply prefer to listen rather than read. If you can do better and are willing to donate mp3 recordings of the lessons, please contact me.
Posted on December 30, 2006 | Leave a Comment | permanent link
Hello world!
Printing “Hello World!” is the standard first program that programmers write when learning a new programming language. It seems a good place to start with a new journal, and a good place to start the lessons from A Course in Miracles once again.
I first encountered the Course over 20 years ago at a party. The host had the old fashioned three volume set on her bookshelf. A Course in Miracles, what an intriguing title. I pulled volume 1, the Workbook for Students off the shelf and started to read the introduction.
This is a course in miracles. It is a required course. Only the time you take it is voluntary. Free will does not mean that you can establish the curriculum. It means only that you can elect what you want to take at a given time. The course does not aim at teaching the meaning of love, for that is beyond what can be taught. It does aim, however, at removing the blocks to the awareness of love’s presence, which is your natural inheritance. The opposite of love is fear, but what is all-encompassing can have no opposite.
This course can therefore be summed up very simply in this way:
Read more. . .Posted on December 29, 2006 | Leave a Comment | permanent link
