Don Quixote

Chasing windmills and/or dragons.

I guess its perspective as to which it is that we are charging at. When we see someone we love charging at a windmill sometimes the best thing to do is to charge with them and see the dragon as they do. It is not always a good idea to try and tell them its all a mistake. Even if they know that it is from the start. The only way that they are going to really be able to slay that dragon is to go after it, and find out it really is a windmill after all. Or hey it might really be a dragon and it is hiding, the rest of us can’t see it because we don’t have our TEMs on.

Our job as a friend, a true friend, I mean the “you are my family that I choose” kind of friend, is not to stop others from falling down, it is to help them up when they do fall. Yes we have to be honest, but sometimes it is better to just be supportive, do everything we can to help them, and not be an ass and a know it all. Being supportive can be a lot harder than being helpful at times.

“Oh I was being honest and helpful, by telling them they are making a mistake”

Well there are times when that is needed sure, but there are times too, when it is better to say here is your lance, i will hold the extra horse, so go charge… Being happy for someone to try something is a good friend. Help them, be there for them, and don’t say I told you so. I told you so is a cop out and weak ass attempt at making yourself feel superior nothing else. It serves no purpose at all. No one learns anything from “I Told You So”

Things can be caught up in our psyche for ages, a person can get into our head and the only way to exorcise them is to work at dealing with them. Distance and time both help, but even then we need to have a goal in mind to make the distance and time endurable. Besides, none of us knows what is supposed to happen, and none of us knows what will happen, all the possibilities are out there, in the past and the future.

Fathers Day

Today is Father’s day here in the US. To give the back story about what I am posting about: On October 13, 1982 my father, Jack Lammers died of a massive heart attack. He was at work teaching 6th grade at Bryant school, when he started to feel faint and was taken to the hospital by the Principal, Mr. Halverson. He died shortly there after.
Today is a wonderful day for families all over. It is an important day to remember our fathers and to honor them. Which we don’t do enough. Our fathers teach us, love us, raise us, guild us… They don’t get the credit that mothers do, which is both fair and unfair. Since there are great fathers, great mothers, horrible fathers, horrible mothers and all grades in-between. Sadly, and thankfully, all mothers and fathers are human, they all fail, they all had sex, they all had good and bad thoughts, they have all succeeded and are infinitely cooler then we thought they were when we were in high school.
My parents had a great way of raising me, they let me know I wasn’t the center of the universe. They protected me, they taught me, but they were the couple, they were the ones who were in love. I was added later. There is just about no way you can go wrong as a parent, as long as you are there and don’t abuse your kids. Be a good example of what it is to be a Gentleman or a Lady for your kids. When they grow up, they will act how you acted, and we all become our parents in one way or another. My father was a gentleman, and a great teacher. He was intelligent, kind, thoughtful, very witty, funny, and incredibly talented. I am a pale shadow of his best attributes, I hope to become better each day.
My favorite poem is a sad one, it is about death, and loss. The loss of someone special who goes to early from our midsts. Death is not the end, it is just a change of address. I will leave this with the words of Lord Byron...
And Thou art Dead, as Young and Fair
BY LORD BYRON (GEORGE GORDON)
And thou art dead, as young and fair
         As aught of mortal birth;
And form so soft, and charms so rare,
         Too soon return'd to Earth!
Though Earth receiv'd them in her bed,
And o'er the spot the crowd may tread
         In carelessness or mirth,
There is an eye which could not brook
A moment on that grave to look.

I will not ask where thou liest low,
         Nor gaze upon the spot;
There flowers or weeds at will may grow,
         So I behold them not:
It is enough for me to prove
That what I lov'd, and long must love,
         Like common earth can rot;
To me there needs no stone to tell,
'T is Nothing that I lov'd so well.

Yet did I love thee to the last
         As fervently as thou,
Who didst not change through all the past,
         And canst not alter now.
The love where Death has set his seal,
Nor age can chill, nor rival steal,
         Nor falsehood disavow:
And, what were worse, thou canst not see
Or wrong, or change, or fault in me.

The better days of life were ours;
         The worst can be but mine:
The sun that cheers, the storm that lowers,
         Shall never more be thine.
The silence of that dreamless sleep
I envy now too much to weep;
         Nor need I to repine
That all those charms have pass'd away,
I might have watch'd through long decay.

The flower in ripen'd bloom unmatch'd
         Must fall the earliest prey;
Though by no hand untimely snatch'd,
         The leaves must drop away:
And yet it were a greater grief
To watch it withering, leaf by leaf,
         Than see it pluck'd to-day;
Since earthly eye but ill can bear
To trace the change to foul from fair.

I know not if I could have borne
         To see thy beauties fade;
The night that follow'd such a morn
         Had worn a deeper shade:
Thy day without a cloud hath pass'd,
And thou wert lovely to the last,
         Extinguish'd, not decay'd;
As stars that shoot along the sky
Shine brightest as they fall from high.

As once I wept, if I could weep,
         My tears might well be shed,
To think I was not near to keep
         One vigil o'er thy bed;
To gaze, how fondly! on thy face,
To fold thee in a faint embrace,
         Uphold thy drooping head;
And show that love, however vain,
Nor thou nor I can feel again.

Yet how much less it were to gain,
         Though thou hast left me free,
The loveliest things that still remain,
         Than thus remember thee!
The all of thine that cannot die
Through dark and dread Eternity
         Returns again to me,
And more thy buried love endears
Than aught except its living years.

Where ever you go, there you are...

There is an idea that it seems a lot of people have, that we are disconnected from the world. That the natural world and the human world are not the same thing. That we are not connected to the universe, that we are separate from it. Think about this for a moment, really think about it. Why is it that we believe that just because something is man made that it is not natural? Why is it that we think we are not part of the universe? What kind of arrogance is it that says we are separate? What kind of ego does it take to say “I created this and thus it is not part of the whole.”

Often people seem to have this idea that things that are natural are good and not destructive. That the world is always in perfect balance, I agree the world IS in balance. We are part of that balance. But if we are part of the balance, then doesn’t it mean that even the imbalance that we seem to create is just part of it too? How can you say that humans only destroy things, or that we are throwing things off? How do you know? Is it just because thats the way it always was up till now. The dinosaurs were the dominant creatures right up till they weren’t anymore.

We need natural spaces, but that just means that we are not allowing ourselves to connect with the world that is around us. Aren’t all things just atoms? Aren’t all atoms made from the same blocks? Matter is just energy that is being lazy… If that is true, then how can you separate a building from a tree, a star from a baby. Once you let go of your concept of us and them, when you realize it is all just us and us, then you are always connected with the universe.

So often people tell us that we need to reconnect, or that we need to go else where to find ourselves. We already know ourselves, we just need to remember that and we need to listen to ourselves. If someone is trying to sell you a bill of goods that you need to do something to achieve your higher self, you should listen to yourself and know that you already are there. We interact with the natural world all the time… we breathe in the air, we feel the gravity, we touch the world in all ways and the world touches back.

The Tao is everything and nothing… God is in you, and you are in God.

Forgive, its the path to peace.