>Of course when children are involved I still have trouble aligning myself to this line of thinking...


No? Really? <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smirk.gif" alt="" />

Your vehemence is a blessing though. Kept me going sometimes....

Love to the campers.

Weaver: “Me, I'm taking souloss's place in the trees because I've become just way too confrontational lately...time for me to chill for awhile.”

You need to go fishing more often. Here, take one of my extra poles out at dawn. And here’s a can of leftover worms for bait. Squiggly things aren’t they.


2long: How big do pepper trees get? You make them sound sort of like weeds. I am very familiar with fruit orchards, cherry especially. But I’ve never heard of pepper trees. Do they grow real pepper? And OK, I’m going to look into Radical Forgiveness.


((FF)) – Just a hug. Stay warm by the fire.


Well, hand me my underwater lantern there will you? And my box of dynamite is around here somewhere. I’m meeting Bigfoot down by the lake for some night fishing. Ah, here it is, I seem to be sitting on it…

Hi Appy and binder! Happy birthday, Dylan.

SS, are you lurking? Just wondered what your Friday night date is?

Weaver, love you!

Hi DD and GC and anyone else warming themselves by the fire. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

> How big do pepper trees get?

I know this wasn't for me, but the ones on the coast here can grow big - tall as a house anyway....they can be scrubby (weedy) and wild.

- Kimmy

Ours don't get as tall as a house, because our house is so tall! (about 40 feet). The trees get about 30 feet tall, and do so rather quickly.

From what we can tell, the trungs that were about 18 inches in diameter were only about 20 or 25 years old, though they must have sprung up a bunch of times from the original trees planted 119 years ago.

2day is not a good day. My W emailed me and asked me why I opened the phone bill. I told her "curiosity". She then asked "is there no trust?"

Cripes. I thought we were evolvec beyond such nonsense.

What I want 2 do here: Been talking with Spacecase about his experiences with radical forgiveness - arguably the most helpful thing for healing he must have experienced. I remember the discussions we had around that time, about 3 years ago. I remember feeling like "yeah, that's really neat and lofty stuff, but so impossible 2 achieve".

It may be very very difficult, but I believe it is essential for me.

-ol' 2long

I'm going to repost the passage 2long posted, and then because I believe it has it's basis in "ACIM", I am going to post briefly something ILULOVE has from ACIM on forgiveness...just because to me this was the key...the missing piece in learning to forgive -



From the perspective of ACIM, according to summary by someone (forgot who) -



I have been reading ACIM on and off for six years, and it is just now starting to make sense to me so I know how hard this is to swallow.

Oh I meant to post the 12th summarization of ACIM Spacecase's website has not the 13th, so here it is -

Weaver, that was sweet.
You are kind.

Faithful, my W is not feeling well today, she didn't go to work. Some kind of flu I think.

So, no date tonight.

Last week we went to see the new "Pink Panther" movie with Steve Martin. I was all prepared not to like it, but it was GOOD!

I woke up this morning, and got the twins off to school, and my W said she wasn't feeling well. I got back in bed, and rubbed her back for a time. After she drifted off to sleep I thought for a while.

Just the normal stuff for the most part. What I had to do when I got to work. Big things I have going on this next week.

The radio played, I listened to songs and thought about how they correlate to life, and reflect our feelings.

I thought a little bit about many of you. I won't go into all that came to mind. I will say I have high hopes your future.

That reminds me - Binder, please email me.
ssatoutdooroutlet.com
insert the proper symbol for the word "at".


Work has been busy, Not much time to post lately. Just finished one phase of a project, now on to the next, and I should be working now probably, but I haven't had much of a lunch hour since before Christmas, so I think I'll take a few minutes.

Have you noticed that it's hard to concentrate when you are tired?

I think mostly we limit ourselves ........... more than having limits that are placed upon us.

I had one man say to me once "you can make lots of money selling Amway." I think he was right, but I didn't want to sell Amway. (still don't)
We are happy to stay where we are, so ........... we stay. Often we don't know how good it could be to make a change, or how happy we could be, or would be if we got outside our comfort zone and made some drastic changes.

MB did that for me. I hope it wouldn't be to dramatic to say that what I learned changed my life, and my marriage for the better. I suppose it's not just what you learn, but what you do with what you learn.

The limits are mostly enforced by our fears, not by sound reason. We fear the unknown. This poem says it well -

It's only the view
from where you sit
that makes you fear defeat.

Life is full
of many aisles
why don't you change your seat?

Some say it thus -
If what you are doing is not working, why don't you try something else?

Often we won't even admit that what we are doing is not working.

Did I ever say that I like campfires?
It's even better when your friends are with you.

SS

Alright SS, you have mail.

How do you know what changes you could make that would change your life? How do you know where you are stuck and what you are doing wrong?

I order anyone who visits the fire to watch this story.

Well, GC I am sitting here crying. Thanks for sharing. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

makes me remember there is always hope! Thank you.

Dang. Made me cry, too. Every kid should have a few minutes like those.

What? The autistic kid? No. He ought to have LOTS of wonderful times in his life.

No, I mean his teammates. And the opposing team's kids too.

Weaver, thanks for posting that stuff about forgiveness. Especially the one you didn't mean to post, 'cause it actually means a lot to me.

I've spent most of the last two hours sitting here and thinking about it. Not very easy thoughts, all in all. Thoughts about how little I've forgiven my ex. Thoughts about the conscious choices I've made not to forgive -- because that separation is still important to me.

Separation -- she being the bad, me being the good.
Separation -- she being in the wrong, me settling in to wait on a marriage that died ... oh, probably on 9/11/2001.
Separation -- believing that it is not safe to have a connection to someone who tried to sever the connection between a parent and a child.

Stupid, that last one, if you look at it right. Severing a connection because someone tried and failed to sever a connection. But ... also not stupid. Just imperfect.

There is still considerable fear and anger, there, at this woman who destroyed so much of my life, who tried to destroy so much more.

So much emotion, still, around someone who I would rather I had never met. Someone I can still see for the person I loved for two decades. Someone I can still see for the person I hated for two years.

So much emotion around someone that I really don't expect to understand ever again.

I wish her well. I genuinely want her to be happy. But, that wish is still just like the blessing for the Czar. "God bless her and keep her... far away from me."

And like Binder, I know that I waited for a long time. During that time, she said many variations of, "It's over, don't you get it? It's OVER. You're deluding yourself."

And let's take that, for a moment, the way you would take it when you're telling a small child that the movie is over. Not in the angry denial way that we usually attribute to wayward spouses -- because we want them to come back to watching the movie with us -- but let's take it as the gentle and unalterable truth. The movie's over, sweetheart. It's time to go home now.

There must surely be some wayward spouses who get to that point. There must surely be some who get there sooner, others who get there later.

Odd... even the waywards I know who've been divorced for a long time don't get to that quiet reality. There is always fireworks in it. The external manifestation of the internal struggle, I suppose, to make it true -- and true without it being their fault, at that.

Huh. Song in the top 95 seems appropriate just now.

It's better this way
I say
Having seen this place before
Where everything we say and do
Hurts us all the more
It's that we've stayed too long
In the same old sickly skin
Pulled down by the undertow
I never thought I could feel so low
In all the darkness I feel like letting go...

If all of the strength
And all of the courage
Come and lift me from this place
I know I can love you much better than this....

Full of Grace

I know I can love you much better than this...

It's better this way

I watched her carry DD away from my door tonight. I watched DD's face fall as she realized it was the end of our fun.

I felt, again, the rising hope that I felt so many times before. I can love you. I can find a way through all this.

And then I watched her and DD join my ex's new husband.

It's better this way.

It's not really.

It's just the way it is.

The move is over, sweetheart. Time to go home and go to bed. You can watch a different one tomorrow, and for a while you can forget that that one will end, too.

Did I mention that I watched him kiss whipped cream off of her nose from a distance of about 24 inches a few weeks ago? Looking back on it, I'm amazed that my reaction was what it was. "You kids. Haven't you gotten over being newlyweds yet?"

Perhaps it would've been wiser to shove his face into the ice cream. But probably not.

I hate taking the wise course sometimes. Surely a Three Stooges level ice cream fight would've been cathartic for all of us.

So I dunno. I have a lot to think about, still, when it comes to forgiveness.

And I think perhaps it's time to stop and stir the fire, perhaps do my Why We Love homework.

I'll leave you with another set of lyrics, from earlier this evening.

"A Love Before Time"

If the sky opened up for me,
And the mountain disappeared,
If the seas ran dry, turned to dust
And the sun refused to rise
I would still find my way,
By the light I see in your eyes
The world I know fades away
But you stay

As the earth reclaims it due
And the cycle starts anew
We'll stay, always
In the love that we have
Shared before time

If the years take away
Every memory that I have
I would still know the way
That would lead me back to your side
The north star may die
But the light that I see in your eyes
Will burn there always

Lit by the love we have
Shared before time

When the forest turns to jade
And the stories that we've made
Dissolve away
One shining light will still remain

When we shed our earthly skin
And when our real life begins
There'll be no shame
Just the love that we have made before time

J, the trouble is we will learn forgiveness, our relationships will become holy(healing), all our relationships... and until they do we will repeat the lesson...over and over again.

I am reading a great deal from Kenneth Wapnick who in my opinion is a brilliant clinical psychologist (who is by the way Jewish) "Jesus and Forgiveness", "the Journey Home"...and who feels that our one function on this earth is to learn forgiveness.

We project our guilt outward onto others in order to avoid our holiness(the egos greatest threat)...for if I can hate and blame others I will never have to change myself, never have to be wholly complete in myself...thereby never having to become all that I can become. Because I am afraid of my own brilliance, my own holiness and my own purpose... who wants to evolve to that level when we can stay caught up in our own pain/pleasure and littleness?

I know for me I have to find the reasons I keep attracting such devestating pain into my life...and I am getting there but I am still afraid to move into this new realm altogether because it is so easy to stay where I am with what I am comfortable with. Do I want to go all the way?

The Course says we will get to a fork in the road where we must choose which way to go...the way of the ego, or the way of holiness(peace) and that we cannot go back the way we came, we can stop there at the fork for awhile but ultimately we will choose one way or the other...it is just a matter of time.

This is why SS's questions really spoke to me...about change and being afraid.

Mmm. You're probably right, Weaver. I still try, very hard, to find compassion and connection and all those things. If it's a single choice-point, though, surely it has already passed. And surely, given the things I've written about, the ego has won.

I don't think it really feels that way from the inside. But I don't really know what it's supposed to feel like from either direction.

Then again, I'm not sure that I believe in a single choicepoint. I'm guessing that the way of ego circles around again to this same spot and you have the opportunity to make the choice again. Probably the choice of holiness does the same. Maybe we wear a path so well that the other starts to look invisible. I don't think it goes away altogether, though. There are too many examples of people who live for years in the midst of their egos -- only to finally find a way to something else.

The Buddha is an example, come to think of it. Ever read Siddhartha? It's an excellent book about a young man, a father, a warrior, who eventually becomes the Buddha after much search and much struggle and eventually time under a Boddhi tree.

As for my own path of forgiveness, I suspect that you're right that I'll see the same sights again. The same movie with different characters, played out again until it's time to go home because the movie is over.

And yet some part of each movie is eternal. I wish my ex well. And though I sometimes wish it were otherwise, I still love her. Not the "in love" kind. The kind that the friend of a friend described as, "After all this time and all that's happened, I -still- have a soft spot in my heart for the [PG-13 editing inserted]."

And, too, there is DD. Her name has many meanings, many connotations. One of the meanings is "an unbreakable bond." Her existence creates a bond between me and my ex that can never be broken. It changes the movie. Some part of it doesn't end while any of the three of us are still alive.

I don't think I have read that book although I do know the story.

And you are exactly right about there not being only one "choicepoint" as there will be many until we make the right choice.

So the fork in the road is simply a delay tactic which the ego uses to keep us in our ego minded world...eventually we will choose the other path, it is simply a matter of time for that too...as in the story of the Buddha.

You're failure to be able to truly forgive your ex is why what 2long posted in his radical forgiveness post is so important...that we are not able to truly forgive until we understand that there was nothing to forgive in the first place.

...and until we understand that there are "no interests separate from our own" (this applies to all relationships at all levels, including at the world level)

I have been fascinated with that one single passage 2long posted ever since I read it...and now I am finally starting to understand the "there is nothing to forgive" part.

I know that I have so far to go, not in past romantic relationships so much... but because of Lemmonman's post to me on WAT's locked thread and my horrible reaction to it and subsequent ugly post, I realized that I have not forgiven the hospital staff for my mom's death. I hadn't even thought about it in a few years and the rage I felt when he posted to me is actually a blessing, because now I can look at my failure to forgive those working that night, among others and remove one more block (of many) that keep me from peace.

So in that example I chose to keep my anger/blame instead of doing what I needed to do to forgive and it came right around again (another "choicepoint"). Thankfully it was just a simple post that brought it up for healing and not another tragedy.

Hmm. I went and read that thread, Weaver. I hadn't read it until now. I see that you got pretty badly triggered.

I also see that Lemonman got pretty badly triggered.

And you both reacted in anger and fear and blame and frustration and all that stuff.

Lots of opportunities for getting back to a place of compassion. Forgiveness and compassion are not quite the same, but I don't quite have the difference in my head right now.

The fact that I'm resisting hearing what you have to say (anything that begins with "failure to..." gets my hackles up) indicates to me that I have more work to do here.

I knew that already, of course.

So I'll trudge along. Trudge trudge trudge. And I'll try my best and forgive myself for not being able to do it all. Sometimes that's okay.

I need 2 go back 2 Spacase's resources over there and re-read more of the articles about forgiveness. It sure is one of those things about life that, if you don't get it the first time around, or even if you think you do, it doesn't hurt 2 refresh your memories about the hows and whys of the process.

Like this weekend. I came home friday night thinking "hm, things are pretty normal around here, so my W maybe isn't really all that upset about the "trust' comment she made 2 me about my opening the phone bill."

But she was/is still pretty upset about it. And a lot of the time all I could think about was how utterly s2pid it is 2 be upset about something like me opening one of the bills and looking for suspiscious phone numbers on it. I kept thinking, over and over again, reduntantly, repeating myself "SHE is the one who can't be trusted, the one who should jump through hoops 2 earn my trust back! I am the injured party here! So there!!"

Part of the process of healing the hurts we don't deserve definitely does involve 2rning them in2 oppor2nities for personal growth - steering our thinker away from the self-consuming flames of negativity. I see that SC has done that. He's in a new relationship and still able 2 have a cordial relationship with his xW. And he's done it all without villifying her 2 her family and friends. Did it without exposure 2 many of them, even.

His enthusiasm for life shines through in his writing. So much so that I feel inspired whenever we correspond - and particularly when I'm feeling in pain - feeling like a victim. Heck, I get 2 see him when I go 2 Houston in a 2ple weeks! (I'll say 'hi' for folks).

Moody Blues: "Celtic Sonant"

"Deep peace of the running wave to you.
Deep peace of the flowing air to you.
Deep peace of the quiet earth to you.
Deep peace of the shining star to you.
Deep peace of the son of peace to you.

One man stood firm guarding cups overflowing,
Brimful of memories and yesterday's dreams;
He could never explain his own silent thunder,
The ocean just blows rough at this time of year.

And the wheel keeps on turning,
The wheel keeps on turning,
The wheel keeps on turning,
Turning around.

Words left unsaid may have special meanings,
Dust hidden pages fill the books left unread.
One blank page left the poet crying,
He failed to remember there's a price on his head.

And the wheel keeps on turning,
The wheel keeps on turning,
The wheel keeps on turning,
Turning around.

Away we sail with all our flags flying,
Too many changes can cause us delay.
Each star in the sky is there for a reason
Making it so bright for this time of day.

And the wheel keeps on turning,
The wheel keeps on turning,
The wheel keeps on turning,
This fool made it round."

-ol' 2long