Wait, I missed it. Shiner as in eye, or Shiner as in beer from Texas that's very easy to drink?

GC

Shiner is beer?

Hm...


Well, at least it's not 'Bud'

-ol' 2long

This is a convo between Kimmy and 2long...I mean

HELLOOOW

Okay, I'm about to get a little cheesy here if no one minds...maybe just because I am really happy today. No reason...no new love, no new money, etc. but I woke up in peace and managed to stay in peace all day.

I read the threads on this board re: God and religion because it is such a huge interest of mine (well not the religion part of it anymore, but the God part and the people part) and I wish that someday we could all just have a friendly discussion about our own beliefs and journey to those beliefs, as unfinished as they may be.

It would go kind of like this -

"you know I had this feeling today, this feeling of peace that I have never known, and this light shown in me...and everywhere I went I saw this wonderful light shining in everyone else as well" And this experience was about as close to God as I think I have ever been"

"Wow, that's cool. This is what happened to me...which brought me to this belief (insert any belief)"

"Yanno I never looked at it that way, that sure is interesting"


And so on and so forth.

We could learn so much from each other and share so much with each other, and maybe through this learning and sharing we might actually evolve to new ideas...and maybe even closer to the truth and closer to God.

So in that spirit, my song for the fire tonight -

JOHN LENNON lyrics - "Imagine"


www.OldieLyrics.com


Imagine there's no heaven
It's easy if you try
No ****** below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people
Living for today...

Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need for greed or hunger
A brotherhood of man
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer
But I'm not the only one
I hope someday you'll join us
And the world will live as one

weaver:

Ever experience one of those "moments of consciousness" like Tolle describes in The Power of Now?

No thinking, just intense awareness and aliveness.

Best way I can think of 2 describe it is that afterward, all I can think of 2 say is... *oh, wow*

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Yes, today.

And every thing just seems to fall into place. All we have learned about mirroring, and seeing only what we are.

I couldn't have found a hostile person today if I tried.

Maybe it's because I'm finally getting that what we are is truly what we see.

My thought today has all day long been only one -

Light, peace and joy abide within us...
and God guarantees our sinlessness.

And that is exactly what I have witnessed all day long.

What was yours like 2long? I know you had one (or more) or you wouldn't be able to frame the question.

I'm not 2Long, but I'll try to answer. It's breathing -- and breathing the entirety of existence as you breath.

Everything is really clear.

You're more aware than you usually are. Colors are brighter. Noises are crisper.

And yet, there are no particular thoughts that mess with the internal quiet.

It all just... is.

My surface thoughts tend to continue to skim along the surface, jittering and chattering about how cool it all is. I let them. They're just extra noise to listen to.

And yeah, 2Long's reaction of *oh wow*... is about all I've been able to come up with, too.

I do know that afterwards, people react to me like I just got out of the shower and have a permanently sunny day around me. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Just J:

Like that, exactly.

weaver:

None recently. I used 2 have those moments as a kid, without understanding what they were. I remember my folks expressing concern about me when they'd find me sitting on the lawn on a nice sunny day for many minutes at a time, unmoving but clearly awake.

When I was a teenager on one of our last family vacations to Yosemite, we were walking along the shore of Hetch Hetchy reservoir on a nice sunny day. I had let the rest of the family get ahead of me a couple hundred feet. I stopped, everything became "still" and I could feel and hear everything all around me, even trees moving in the breeze across the lake. Some big radial engine airplane was rumbling in the distance like a melody (it was 1967 and there were a lot of the old prop jobs still around even then). A goosebumpy experience.

I distinctly remember it ended when I started thinking about it! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

-ol' 2long

It's quiet. Can you hear it? All around us there is noise and confusion. On the one side, there's a country song blaring in a round that repeats over and over:

You grab a line, I'll grab a pole
We'll go fishin' in the crawfish hole
FIVE card poker on Saturday night,
Church on Sunday morning...

On the other side, there's the pounding beat of a dance song, with lyrics about love:

I still hear your voice, when you sleep next to me.
I still feel your touch in my dreams.
Forgive me my weakness, but I don't know why.
Without you it's hard to survive.

Cause everytime we touch, I get this feeling.
And everytime we kiss I swear I could fly.

Behind, someone's found an old Fred Small album and is playing the agonizing songs of reality. First one is about Palestine and Israel.

In the hills of Ayalon above the broken earth
Two boys shout and play with a ball on a field of scrub and dirt
Divided sons of Abraham -- exhausted embrace
Prince of Islam, pride of Judah, know each other's face

"If we met on the sands of Sinai under a molten sky
If you held me in your sights and looked me in the eye
What would you do?"

"If we met on the sands of Sinai under a molten sky
And if I held you in my sights and looked you in the eye
I would shoot you dead."

Over yonder, there, it must be a group getting ready for the May Pole; the lyrics describe an old, old situation.

When in the springtime of the year
When the trees are crowned with leaves
When the ash and oak, and the birch and yew
Are dressed in ribbons fair

When owls call the breathless moon
In the blue veil of the night
The shadows of the trees appear
Amidst the lantern light

Cacophony all around. The campground is busy. And under the music, there are voices. Voices talking, voices laughing, voices wailing in sorrow.

Underneath that, there are the animals. A coyote not so far away. An owl, flying above the trees. The chitter of an awakened little critter, wishing it weren't out in the dark. Crickets and tree frogs and cicadas echoing near and far.

Even more. There is water somewhere, and wind in the pine trees. There is the crackling of the fire -- and somewhere up where the smoke reaches the stars, there is the hiss that's just background noise of existing. Maybe it's just the blood flowing through your ears.

Behind all that, though, there is a stillness larger yet. A stillness that holds each and every noise every single thing on earth could ever make. A silence so profound that the noises are engulfed by it.

Can you hear it? Listen, can you hear it?

Dang J, you just make me want to go camping.

I have never had a moment like that you and 2long have had...but when I feel peace so real that everyone I meet shines with it as well, I know I'm having some kind of something really special, and real. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Well, don't sell yourself short (I know you won't).

Sounds like that's how it manifests itself for you.

Pretty nifty, as you describe it.

-ol' 2long

I know how much your family enjoys those nasty flavored soda's ... you should go get them a bag of Harry Potter's Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Bean, by Jelly Belly...

Truly disgusting taste sensations just in time for Easter.

"earthworm, dirt, vomit" I had the pleasure of trying all three, thanks to my DD, the little chit.

Hey Weaver, you might want to try a book that really helped me understand about getting quiet and what you can do with it. Seven Masters, One Path, by John Selby, is a really excellent read. He covers a great deal of information in a slim volume, and does a really good job of walking you through the physical/physiological steps to getting quiet. It is not magic, after all -- it's a disciplined method of getting your synapses to do something very positive.

And I agree with 2Long. Your sense of peace is along exactly the same lines. One of the things that can come with quieting the thoughts is a sense of universal connectedness; an intuitive belief and realization that there is NO separation between you and everything else in the universe. My experience of that is limited and I'm not entirely sure that I've felt it all the way to my bones.

Your sense of the peace and luminescence that radiates from each person, though, seems like it's related.

Oh, and Weaver? Go camping! (When it's warmer.) <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />


Iew. I mean really. IEW. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/tongue.gif" alt="" />

Hi. Crackle.

I had an interesting weekend. Nothing big happened, but everything was interesting. The dead horse got whacked a bit.

It's going to crack 70 today. I love spring.

GC

85 here.

I'm in chanklas in capris.

I love spring, too!

Whoops, here's how the kool kids would put it to you:

"I loves me some spring."

GC

I know that's how I would have phrased it.
<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />


J,

It only lasted a day, but it sure was a glorious one.

Schnitzel and roasted potatoes for dinner.

Sound good?

;-)

I've not made schnitzel in YEARS! I can't wait!

Cut it out!

We're supposed 2 get more rain through friday now!!

I've only had my scopes out 2wice in 2 months now!

...feeling claustrophobic!

-ol' 2long