Old blog

There you are Nancy! Finally found this blog again, the spelling always throws me. I thought of you and your travels when I came across this in the artist Anne Truitt"s journal: "Do I experience in order to learn, or have I simply decided, as a matter of policy, to learn from what I experience?" Hmmm.........

I learned two interesting things today about my new environment. One, the Indian laborers that I see everywhere building the roads and construction projects, (the expresso bar down the road and the new 5 star hotel up the hill) Make 100$ rupees a day. That would be about one dollar and 10 cents. Yep. And the days are not short. Secondly Tibetan people do not introduce each other. They just don't. One of my fellow painters brought his girl friend to the studio today. Nothing was said. Not even to the master teacher. My go to guy Lobsang confirmed even if he brings someone home to stay at the house he doesn't introduce them to the other family members. If you want to know you have to ask. Certainly takes any pressure off of new meetings.

"When one looses the deep intimate relationship with nature then temples, mosques, and churches become important." Krishnamurti

Rajasthan, where I have been for the last two weeks, is the Western most state and is dry with areas of desert. It is also the arts and crafts capitol of the country and is home to many of the remaining indigenous tribes. Last week Kay and I ventured out in an auto rickshaw which can be rented (driver of coarse included) for 70 rupees (1.50$) per hour. After a hair raising ride across Jaipur we arrived at a shop where we decided to have some clothes made -You pick the style and fabric and they take your measurements and your money and guaranteed delivery in a matter of hours. When I got home I realized I had left my sunglasses somewhere. Not really expecting results I told the hotel desk clerk, he didn't know the store name so he called Max the rickshaw driver, Max of coarse remembered the store cause he was probably getting a kick back and he had to wait there for us for two hours--Max called the shop and under threat of loosing customers the shop keeper delivered the sungla...

I've been thinking it over.... What it is about India that is so mindblowing is its "otherness". Where we expect order, here there is chaos, instead of cleanliness the country just seems to be a very big mess (48% unemplyment and only 15% of the people pay taxes) Yet in the midst of the shit and the garbage there are beautiful women in the most glorious colored bejeweled sharis. No one seems to notice. On the morning train to Agra everyone is served bottled water, juice, coffee or tea and a breakfast by a gracious fellow in a turban and as you look out the window you see two fellows squatted down taking a crap next to each other while having a morning chat. The reality of all these extremes existing right next to each other turns ones assumptions upside down. There is a unashamed acceptance for humanity in all of its gradations. Something about that is very right even as it is looking very wrong.

Until you shall return, I wish you peaceful travels Nancy. Happy India!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Watch out India! Here she comes...

Witnessing my mom losing her memory. When she no longer recognizes me, will I still exist? Will she? How fleeting life seems to be.

The things we really need come to us only as gifts, and in order to receive them as gifts we have to be open. In order to be open we have to renounce ourselves, in a sense we have to die to our image of ourselves, our autonomy, our fixation upon our self-willed identity. We have to be able to relax the psychic and spiritual cramp which knots us in the painful, vulnerable, helpless “I” that is all we know as ourselves. Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, p.204

.... Apply the ego as the organ of awareness rather than the organ of decision making.

... it's 4:07 UTC, that's Coordinated Universal Time -- somebody didn't put their letters in the correct "acronymal" order, did they? That translates to 20:07 Pacific. I am sitting in the control room of the Hanford LIGO detector but I can tell you, I am not in control... It's my last shift as a "Science Monitor". All LIGO scientists are asked to come to one of the two US detectors at some point and do some helping out with the real deal. I chose the WA state desert over the Louisiana swamp land where our second US detector is located -- I went for half-life Hefeweizen rather than Carnival Jambalaya. One can wash down a plutonium pizza with that Hefeweizen; the owner of the local "Atomic Brew Pub" has quite a sense of humor. Do you know about Hanford's nuclear past and present? Nagasaki's plutonium came from about 10 miles down the road from where I am sitting right now and the desert landscape these days is littered with power p...

Fasting and praying now. Fasting to purify the body and mind and praying for the spirit. Grateful for this day, even with the cold damp weather. Spring will be welcome when it comes this year. Parkinsons is a dreadful disease, I am sure it is caused by some exposure in the environment although no one seems to know for sure....

"The idea of reincarnation is a fanciful way of addressing unlived life. If we take it literally, it seems to suggest that we are reborn through time as different people or even animals. This is the ego's attachment to an identify. Literalism is always a form of idolatry, and the idol is usually our own ego. The ego can't imagine its transformation and so liberalizes it. ... Understood psychologically, reincarnation refers to the redemption of our unlived life, the necessity of addressing all our potentials before we can realize God(unity). There are thousands of potentials within, all of which are calling simultaneously be expressed and experienced. This is the meaning of reincarnation for the modern person. All of our potentials want to be incarnated, to be lived out before our journey back to wholeness is complete. All of them are vying for attention simultaneously. Reincarnation is not for another time, another place, another existence-it is now. U...

"For those of you who don't know Nella Evets(Veets) let me introduce myself.....I am Nella Evets,which is Steve Allen spelled backwards. I learned how to say Steve Allen Backwards by listening to the original Steve Allen on tape. I had a tape recorder that had a track selector that allowed me to play tapes backward. I focused mainly on people whose last names were Allen; primarily famous people of the 30's, 40's, 50's, and 60's. Such as; Nella Derf, Nella Eicarg, Nella Xer, Nella Lem, Nella Ydoow, and so on. If you are wondering if I am related to the original Steve Allen, I am not. Originally my backwards name was Nella Nnelg, but at the end of 2000 I changed it to Nella Evets in honor and memory of the original Steve Allen. I was fortunate enough to know Steve Allen. He introduced me to videos of the golden age of television, late 40's and early 50's. KTL (channel 5) went on the air in 1947 in Los Angeles, the oldest TV stati...

This is a fun little song I grew up with. Mind you it's in Korean, but I wanted to share a bit of my childhood and childhood of many Koreans. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santoki The wikipedia site has translations and transliteration. First Verse: 산토끼 토끼야 어디를 가느냐 깡총깡총 뛰면서 어디를 가느냐 Second Verse: 산고개 고개를 나혼자 넘어서 토실토실 알밤을 주워서 올테야

Upon request from Nancy, my first entry shall be a formula, well, flow chart. If you ever find yourself in a pickle on the 5 second rule, consider this before making your next move!

True spirituality lies in finding out one’s own mistakes and correcting them. ~ Satya Sai Baba

Two universal and prime paths of transformation have always been available to every human being God has created: great love and great suffering. Only love and suffering are strong enough to break down our usual ego defenses, crush our dualistic thinking, and open us up to Mystery. They, like nothing else, exude the mysterious chemistry that can transmute us from a fear-based life to a love-based life. “Opening the Door: Great Suffering and Great Love” from The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See

May I be the first to congratulate you on your new blog, and to point out you spelled it wrong. Not be to antagonistic...