Identity Enhancers Hinder Wisdom

Nothing wrong with having things, positions, titles, education, cars, houses, fashion label clothes, properties, wealth, a belief, etc.  The problem comes with "Identifying Yourself with These."

You are not your job, family name, title, car, house, clothes, your religious beliefs, wealth, position, ivy league college you attended, etc... These are "Identity Enhancers,"

When you know this you can drop all pretence of superiority or inferiority to anyone. You can stop pressuring yourself to live up to a false sense of self, you can have inner peace and uncover your purpose here. You are not here to elevate the five senses to become your identity, you are here to make the world a better place for yourself and others with your unique gifts and talents. Talents that help the world, not selfishly magnify you.

One day we all come to this realization, the earlier you recognise this in life, the longer you will live life in abundant peace with yourself and others.  The trouble comes when you deal with others that do not have this same knowledge, this is the time you practice patient presence. 

Thankful to have seen this early on in life by my life circumstances and fell in love with all people knowing no one is above me or below me. We are one.

Saving a Beloved Tree!

Sweetheart is having to take down dead trees around the house.  We love trees and don't want to take these down but now there's the possibility of these falling on the house, and we can't have that!  Besides always wanting a large natural gazebo in the yard so I can have a comfortable seat by a real outside fire year round, I wanted a sculpture in the yard.  In my travels I watched a tree that was damaged by wind and ice break off 3/4 of the way down its length. The next trip by I saw a sculpture being created out of the stump and thought what an ideal idea!

There is a tree in our front yard that husband loved that has to come down now.  He does not like taking it down it was one of his favorite trees.  I told him about the one I saw being made into art work and he was happy.  At the wood carving festival we looked and looked and spoke with each artist. When we found one we really liked, I asked him if he would come to our house and carve in this tree if I gave him food and board while he worked?  He said, "Yes! Especially if you will offer lodging!"

So we have found our artist and I told him we are clearing land and would be ready for him in a year or so, he said, “good because I am booked out quite a few months.”

(He figures he would need two weeks.)

No problem!  Sweetheart and I would love to have him and his family here for such a wonderful occasion!  Now we are getting pictures together of the animals and positions we want them on this old tree. Designing what we want, is our specialty, we love to design.  This will be a gift to each other for our lifetime.  Yes I will be kissing wood, again I know…I love beautiful wood carvings!

Kissing Wood!

Watching my new addiction Wood Carvers on Netflix, I was motivated to see these artists perform live.  I found a demonstration in Ridgeway, PA. I booked a room and made plans.  We waited as the weeks went by and I was more excited each week as we did the countdown to the weekend.

We both worked the night and day before we left and were tired.  I offered to drive out there as I am better driving in the night than my counterpart.  He did not sleep much the night before because he was working too.  We were a little testy to one another for the first 5 hours but then realized we both were running low on sleep and this was the cause. 

We arrived 7 hours later and just took a chance, I stopped by the hotel first to see if we could get in the room at 10:30 am instead of check in time 2pm that afternoon.  Yes! The room was not rented out the night before and we were allowed in early.  We freshened up and headed over for a great day, I was so excited I could hardly wait to get there.

Ridgeway was only 10 miles away and the parking was non-existent.  Being from NY we know how expensive tickets can be so we were leary to park anywhere.  After a while, we saw locals parking by a stream with mounds of rocks (it looked like there was construction going on here) and figured..why not? If we get ticketed we will just "treat every event as if we had chosen it" and pay the  fine as if it was the price of parking for the event.  NYC charges us every time we park anywhere for any event and this sleepy little town could use the money...

The wood carving demonstration was so amazing to watch, we both loved watching the artists create a sculpture in one hour.  The weather was cool but not hot, simply perfect. When we left I thought I will buy a simple souvenir for $25 or so and be content.  Truth be known I have wanted a wood carving totem pole like sculpture in my yard for decades!  I saw the demonstration and you know how art speaks to you and you have to have it?  That bear and beaver spoke to me loudly, I bought both for another gift for our fortieth since we are fixing up our yard this year in celebration of our anniversary. This will look beautiful in our yard.  The bear rode home in our back seat and his friend the beaver rode in the trunk. The artist Josh Dagg gave me another tabletop piece he did as a thank you gift for buying his sculptures, a crane.  Thankful for finally having another dream come true. Life is like that if you live long enough and are patient, dreams will come true.

Yes, I was kissing them on the way home.  Animals make me happy and I have to kiss them even if they are not real.  I was kissing wood.

What A Gal!

Susan B Anthony Museum in Rochester, NY is one of my favorites.  When I think of how she travelled by herself across the entire country on a buckwagon to give speeches for "Votes for Women," it is awe-inspiring to me. Her entire family were abolitionists and helped with the underground railroad passengers.  Frederick Douglas and she had tea and would talk for hours about  changes this country needed and how to accomplish these together.

The women's movement was spearheaded by many intelligent, educated, and yes, wealthy women of the day.  When Ms. Anthony approached the  University of Rochester to allow women to attend, the college gave her this proposal: If she could come up with half of the $100,000.00 needed to add a room to the college campus, the college would allow it.  Women could attend but had to be in a separate classroom. The money was raised from all profits from the movement, lectures, papers sold, books, and wealthy donors amounted to $42,000.00 but she was short $8,000.00.

With the deadline approaching SBA cashed in her life insurance policy for the final $2000.  She was completely committed to promoting women being educated, having their own income, (separate from their husbands money) and their right to vote.

This home in Rochester would become the headquarters for the women's movement.  Mary SuBA sister, stayed at this house with their ailing mother until her death.  She worked as a principal for the school nearby.  Mary handled all the family finances to keep the cause and SBA on the lecture tour to spread the word for the "right to vote for women."  Every year Mary paid her taxes she would write on her check to the government, "Taxation Without Representation."

Susan along with 14 suffragettes voted in the Federal election, Rochester, NY in 1872. Two weeks later she was arrested. The Judge came to the trial with the final verdict already typed out and in his pocket. The jury was instructed to find her guilty and she was not allowed to speak on her behalf before the verdict was read.  In the closing statement finally SBA was allowed to speak and she made her point although the verdict stood. The court fined her $100 which she never paid.  What a gal!

What a life well lived, thankful for SBA because of her she began a forward thinking and positive movement that lives on today. What conversations she must have had with FD and other progressive thinkers of the time. What a gal!

No Man Completes Me, But I Need This Man

Being a women's libber from way back, I love men.  I do not claim to be a feminist because hatred of men and feminism has been too closely related now. I hate no one anymore.

As a child I grew up in an atmosphere of a strong man and a strong woman.  Nonetheless they were at odds with each other daily. Their example is why I decided, "marriage was never the plan for me and children were out of the question."  Yet I have both now.

There is no doubt in my mind that no man needs a woman or children to be completely content and feel loved in his life and no woman needs a man or children to be completely content and feel loved in her life.  No one completes me or you, no one.

Then I met my Sweetheart and I see "I" needed "this man."

If this needs further explanation for you to understand then I cannot explain it. You have to live it, you have to find it, you have to want it, and you have to make a lifetime commitment to him/her to understand this statement.

I wish this kind of "peace on earth" to all men and women.  Today I'm thankful my husband did not take the original "No" I gave him to his marriage proposal, he kept coming back. He kept being my friend. No sex to complicate the feelings between us, just a friend. We have traveled a hard road overcoming past hurts and dysfunctional family expectations but we are here, after all these years, we are here.

He is my best friend now.

Do not get me started on the wonderful, amazing, children he and I have, because of them we have found such love in the world together with them, "my heart runneth over." But this is our story, you do not need a man, a woman, or children to feel this loved.  There are many great people in the world and if you are awake enough you will find your family of kindness and respect among them. Do not let society, religion, culture, or family dictate what will fulfil you and make you happy, you decide. You are enough. I love you.

You Only Live This LIfe Once

Many believe there are multiple lives, I do not.  The one in heaven is an unknown to all of us.  Except for everyone seeing their dead relatives on the other side waving them in, there is not much talk about life on the other side.  What do they do?

Well I am not going to give much thought about that, I'm busy figuring this one out first.  I do know if there is a thing you want to do and it is within your financial means to do it, even once, you should do it.  Save if you have to but do it, just once.

Today I had a picnic with a dear friend. We sat by the Hudson River and looked across to see our own "Silver Streak" pass by again. We both have sat by this river for many, many, years, she, twice as many as me, she has lived here most of her adult life. Today as she sat there telling me facts about the river I never knew, she stopped to look at the train going to NYC again.

She said that she and a friend had promised each other they would ride that train to NYC before they died ... but he died a few years ago and now she was never going. 

I thought I have ridden that train so many times to the city and it has brought me much joy. Riding by train is my favorite mode of transportation. I could not let this simple wish go...

I asked her if she would accept a belated birthday gift from me? 
She said, "What do you mean?"
I said, "We are going to ride that train next month together."
"What if I'm not feeling well that day?"
"Then we will go the next day."
"Really? That is expensive, that is too much, are you sure?"
"It is not too expensive, it is a simple ride to the city to put a check by that bucket list item."
"You only live once, you might as well live."
She said, "I agree, ok. That would be wonderful."

A simple dream. I like simple things too, we (she and I) are of the Third Franciscan Order, she told me so! We are simple people.

Thankful I can do a simple thing with a friend to make her smile. Life is too short not to have fun.

Relax Let Life Live You...

Writing this blog is really a practice in writing for me.  The blog was to get me into the daily discipline of putting aside time to write so I could write my first book.  At times there are misspellings and grammatical errors, some I notice, some are pointed out to me by my much more educated family members.  And still I write...

To fix every error is not my focus, my focus is to get the blog out every day, to push my mind to come up with another topic that interests me.  If in the process of teaching myself to produce writing instead of talking about writing I make some errors...so be it.

My focus is to write a book and get opinions out there and expose myself for better or worse.  To write from the heart is the best way to write, so I have read and been taught by online authors. 

Not sure what this life has in store for me but I know I feel compelled to write this book and I will write it to see what the next adventure will be.  Let life live you, it does anyway...some of my mentors teach this...I have tried my way so many times to control my life and others, and it is exhausting!  Anxiety and never ending thinking, planning, doing to keep it all together...

Life has to be more serene than this...  Thankful to have some really good people in my life, my closest are into self-exploration and living the dream.  Today I am writing  a list of my family and friends that make me smile every time I think of them.