silent thunder

I'd like to claim I'm brave for following this path, but really, it is out of desperate need. It was either release and let go, or continue to live long periods in rage, projection, judgement and sadness and potentially chase my wife away and live in the inertia of the storm. And I'm no great master. I'm an idiot who still will have days where for no apparent reason, I wake up in a rage and cannot shake it for a day or two. Or I come across a story in the news that wounds me deeply and I retreat into the maelstrom of sadness and rage at the audaciously unnecessary nature of humans' evil nature... Though any longer, instead of stomping around the house screaming at the world, I am silent in these bouts and I take myself out of the house, or I sit with it. Even when I am angry for a righteous reason, it is no pleasant thing for the others in my life to witness my pain and to suffer the waves of anger, without any manner to help... so first I learned silence, instead of projection... then as I sat with it, without feeding it... as you say, without any effort, or seeking, just allow it to flow through me, I began to really be able to let go with sincerity and eventually joy. Effort, seeking both bring tension and tension creates resistance which just slows down the flow of energy through a system, causing it to remain longer. I spent years falling into long bouts of focusing almost exclusively on what was wrong with the world... always getting bent out of shape over the petty, spiteful, mean-spirited or outright evil actions of those around me and around the world. It filled my days with constant tension, judgement and rage. My wife and I were together for 18 years before I relented to her long desire for a child and agreed to try for a child... Part of me knew that it would be the height of foolishness to bring a young one into my field of energy before then as I was lost in the inertia of near constant strife. But thankfully, through the grace and some hard lessons of my teachers (human, animal and forest) and through my deep need and desire to let it go, that epiphanies manifested in my awareness as vajra and showed me beyond doubt, that I have only so much time and energy in this form and I can either use my energy stewing on what I hate... or I can focus my energy on nurturing what I love. As with most processes and particularly with new habits, inertia is a key component for me... and as I fully committed to the process of silence and release, slowly at first, then with more potency, the inertia of these energies grew and though I'm far from where I'd like to be, I'm no great master... I can say I'm also far from where I used to live and the merit of it, is a vibrant resonance in the laughter and love that now rings through my home from my wife, son and I. As I was climbing into bed last night, I said to the universe... "is there any greater thing than to spend a simple night at home with the people we love? then climb into bed and sleep? thank you!"

My favorite recipe is the one I used when I had my heart issue: I do two versions of it, one without the goji berries and cordyceps, as I don't always get around to picking those up. 16 oz distilled water 1 fuji apple (quartered for space) 1/2 avocado with the pit 1 raw beet 1 cob of corn, cut the corn off the cob 1/2 cucumber (sliced for space) handful of organic strawberries 1 small beet (quartered for space) 1/2 lime, scrape the green but leave the white pith 1-2" of ginger several sprigs/nodes of mint and cilantro a handful of goji berries small scoop of dried cordyceps blend on highest setting for two cycles of 50 seconds and it's done... This makes enough to serve my wife, son and I a full breakfast on a regular day, or if I'm recovering from illness or trying to stave off an oncoming issue then I'll drink half in the morning and save half for lunch and have soup for dinner.

I use raw ginger for daily small pain and inflammation... but for post surgery... I can't imagine and I don't like remembering. Just ugh mate... get better fast.

Oh Mate... freaking ow! Can I ever relate to that one... Much empathy... I had two ankle reconstructions and have a very similar reaction to most pharmaceutical pain killers. I wish you a very speedy and full recovery.

The unit I have goes for around $300.00 but on sale when I purchased it... it came to around $250.00. When I got it, I wasn't in the market for one and had never even heard of them in fact... but a family member came to visit us, who was in treatment for Leukemia at the time and the use of far infrared was recommended as a support therapy and as they are on the road a lot, the portable unit was the way to go for them, as it even works in their RV. Between that and my blender... some of the best money I've ever spent. Really appreciated benefits.

Yea, Jerry Alan Johnson is a real gem. Amazing.

LoL... thank you for that... it made me snort!

on second thought... na

selfishness isn't living your life the way you want... it's expecting others to live their lives the way you want. unknown.

Our skeletal system is a fluid system and its origins are in the ocean. All of that liquid history is present in us now. The work in fluid movement of Susan Harper and Elaine are potent. check them out here... edit: that was odd... link seemed to work at first, then not... think I got it fixed now though

This really resonates with me roger. My process of late, is almost entirely based on radical release. Complete acceptance of the now and letting go of all process, expectation and aversion. In this complete release, illusions fall away as water flows downhill. Effortlessly. That which abides... pure being, clarity, bliss, these words come to mind, but it's nigh on impossible to describe it in words. simple being. pure awareness. raw, potent beyond description blissfully calm and centered deeply grounded while floating free all these words bring a tiny sense of the experiential awareness of it... yet they pale to the task of transmitting the experience. few truer words for me in the TTC than " the tao that can be spoken, is not the eternal tao."

awakening is a fluid verb... a process there is no noun to it, no destination. walking the path, is not knowing the path she abides... experiential, not intellectual where he flows, effortless, not seeking abiding being now

Yea this practice manifested for me, out of a real need for darkness... far too much light in my life at all times of day, living in a major city. The practice is so potent, very cleansing and yet oddly ironic that with eyes open in pitch black, there are all manner of luminescence, telescoping, sacred geometric patterns revealed. Colors iris in and out. Potent and cleansing are the two words that continually come to mind. That and my mind still consistently wonders... what is the speed of dark? A good documentary on the topic of light pollution and the lack of darkness in our lives came out a few years back. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1863406/ edit to fix broken link

Oh Hells Yea!!! that is awesome!

There is no free flow of fresh air with the blanket over the neck hole so it gets warm and a bit stuffy, but it's not harsh, there's enough air coming in through the blanket that I can easily sit in there for an hour, hour and a half no problem. Though due to the body heat and stuffy air, I only tend to use it for this in the cooler months. If I want to do the black box practice in the summer, I sit in the closet I have cleared out and hang a blanket over my drapes and over the closet door, although this doesn't create a total blackout, it's still effective.

I let it air out for an hour or so before folding it up and I always use a towel on the floor and under my stool, to keep my sweat off the unit. Though we'll often leave it set up in a corner of the room that we use for sitting and qi gong. It takes up about the same footprint of a standard recliner chair and our cats love it for the cave like awesome that it is... and speaking of cave like awesome... It also works great as a black box/dark room for sitting open eyed in pitch black... which is a practice I've grown to really appreciate. I leave the stool out, sit inside on the floor then draw a blanket over the neck hole and zip it up. In a dark room with the drapes closed, it's really effective.

There was no install at all. It's lightweight, portable and folds up flat for transit... I brought it along on my last few road trips and my retreat with Wang LiPing... It's just big enough for one person to sit in... small enough that it fits in any hotel or motel room I've been in. Inside it has three panels, that generate the infrared, on the back and the two sides, it also comes with a small space heater that fits under the chair you sit on in the unit, to add standard heat to it to get a good sweat going... Here's a page with several varieties all of which look just like the unit I have... https://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&page=1&rh=i%3Aaps%2Ck%3Aportable%20infrared%20sauna What really impacted me and what I most appreciate is the effect on my joints, the warming of the deep tissue. It's particularly great when used before qi gong or a long sit. In the colder months I use it daily. My hips and ankles have always been tight and require the most work to loosen up, this unit is like an infusion of warm, liquid light, into the kua and the joints... It's blissful. I highly, highly recommend it.

Yea those eyebrows! First thing I thought when she came out from under the bed when we first met was "Wing Chun Master White Lightning Eyebrows... :)" Rama has already broken and is openly following her about when she comes into the living area, watching her with love and nose kissing her when she gets close. He's a large, amazingly soft-natured and nurturing maine coon. I call him the Panda-cat. That boy is so grounded and nurturing... he just never gets unsettled. He sure embraces the energy of his name. Maya watches little gizmo intently and is unsettled by her, but hasn't done anything other than let her know to keep her distance, which gizmo immediately does... she's a respectful little sprocket. Anytime her approach is met with a growl or hiss, she simply stops and sits or lays down on the spot. So it's apparent that things will just improve with time and we have a new family member.

great topic idea mate! My Blendtec blender in conjunction with a high phytochemical diet changed my life and kept me off a lifetime of three separate pharmaceuticals. My far infrared/negative ion generating sauna is another that has had a deep, immediate and lasting impact on my qi gong practice and my energetic process. Not much time tonight to add more, must sleep soon, but what a great idea for a place to share things with a positive impact.

this process our bees are undergoing is both terrifying and saddening to me on a level that is hard to describe... I have a deep affinity and abiding amazement for the bee life... this must change.

Here she is... She hasn't whispered a name yet... We brought her home Saturday evening and she's amazing. For a wild born, she's surprisingly self assured around humans and remarkably calm and unworried, thoroughly unlike the three other wild-borns we've had... While skittish for the first few hours, she almost immediately started purring and flirting... eyeing us from her safe zone under our son's bed, when we entered the room. With our other wild-borns, they all took a couple weeks to come out from their safe zones. For this one, it was about three hours and she was out seeking cuddles and love. She's a great blend of non-aggressive self assurance and calm acceptance of the new setting. She's deeply attracted to our male, Rama. Every time she sees him she starts toward him with a high tail and a bouncy lope... He lets her know he's not ready for that and she simply lays down and watches him then. Both Rama and Maya watch us play with her from a distance, with interest, but after the first couple hours and some sniffing around the door, they seem almost unfazed by her presence. And when she comes out to play for brief bits, they simply watch from wherever they are... Rama will break soon, I can see he's also pretty interested. Life is good.

https://www.quantamagazine.org/20150702-paradoxical-crystal-baffles-physicists/ Exhibiting the properties of metal and insulator in one crystal, Samarium Hexaboride is rather baffling...

So, my gal just called me and when I finish this post, we're heading over to a friend's house. Our friend has been fostering cats for thirty years and works in conjunction with a local adoption group and she's currently fostering a wild born female that we've hung out with and we're considering bringing her into the family today. We have a sister/brother who were also wild born and who currently live in near constant liquid bliss with us. and while I've no interest in breaking what is currently an amazing situation, I anticipate, I'll soon be posting some pics of the latest addition to our family.

My relationships reflect the level, depth and breadth of my awareness and understanding. When one has a ping pong ball sized understanding and awareness, their relationship with cats is a ping pong ball depth and breadth of experience and relationship. When one has a basketball sized understanding of cats, the relationship reflects this, in depth, breadth and level. Neither are wrong, or right, yet they are vastly different. The same principles apply to all things with which I have relationships... which is why, when I revisit some books, films and persons in my life now, my understanding of them and my relationship to them is vastly different, because my field of awareness has shifted.

On several occasions this has happened... it was paradigm shifting and I am grateful for the expansion of perspective based on the experiences. Once I came near to doing it by choice and there was a time I was seeking this with much effort, but no longer. When it comes, I embrace it... But there is no seeking any longer.