thelerner

Yup. He modded and plodded a long time. If you haven't been a Mod it's hard to realize and fully appreciate the job they do. liminal_luke alway brought perspective and kindness to the process.

cool, but I'm dreaming of a small (trained) plant in a small container, w/ little bonsai buds. An oz or less is dandy. It's illegal to grow here and exotic enough to get the folks talking if found.

What kinda pisses me off, is in a state like Illinois where mj is newly legal you can't grow plants (less you have medical card and permission). Feels blatantly like a money move to benefit chain stores and the tax base. In a more perfect world, people would use responsibly and grow their own. Education and positive social pressure. Neither demonized nor overly praised, rather treated w/ respect, knowing its benefits and pitfalls. This fall that might be a project of mine. There's an online place that has 3 seeds for $30, autoflowering, short plant, pleasant blueberry smell. Growing seems easy, flowering and proper harvest seems to take some care, but growing a single refugee plant, might be fun. & a chance to make inexpensive tincture. addon: Did it. Went cheap and used 7 grams of Face Mint 'shake' ie leftover grinds. Also used a knock off brand of Everclear. Froze both outside (it was winter), then let'em sit in the cold overnight. Drained.. let some alcohol burn off. Had 4 oz of Green Dragon. Under the tongue a dropperful burned. 3 (1/2)dropperfuls was a pretty good dose. Tasted of unpleasant chlorophyll. Next time I plan to go for Golden Dragon. Use flower, not shake, use only 1/2 everclear half vodka, and only let it sit an hour in the freezer before draining. Less potent but hopefully better tasting.

Early on in meditation I shot for emptiness, an empty mind. These days, practicing closer to Dzoghen, I appreciate the emptiness around my thoughts. I scratch, I squirm, I think, yet emptiness is still there. I settle into it, yet even when I don't it's still there. Sounds come and go, thoughts too, things in my visual field, come and go. All in the vast space of consciousness, as long as I'm willing to let them go. I'm finding more solace in 'space' then in emptiness. And in space, the thoughts and squirming are fine.. they settle down, back into space, where I swing like Tarzan, breath to breath.

wtf? dble pst.

There are some illusions worth clinging to. Love, family, friends, Goodness, Honesty, Charity. Maybe we cherish these things because they benefit us, maybe because such beliefs build a better world for us. Kindness tends to be reciprocated and even when it's not, it still makes me feel better. Kids are aggravating, but they are our hope, for a better world. this says it better then I

The KAP people are carrying out much of Doc Morris's legacy, see https://kundaliniawakeningprocess.com/blog/ They have online programs that follow much of his path. The Indian's map has 7 chakras, the Kabbalah has a tree and its sephira and 22 paths that connect them. Personally for Kaballah I enjoy the Ecstatic Kaballah, aka Abullafiah's Kaballah, which is not so much standard Kaballah as sacred sounds. So the practice is very experiential. Big fan of Rawn Clark's work based on Franz Bardon's Hermetics, which again are very experiential. Here's a link to some of the programs, free, lessons don't progressively, good stuff, imo http://abardoncompanion.de/ Thing is, one person's gold is another's tin. Give things an honest try and move on if they don't connect.

In general I dislike making decisions out of fear, or when people peddle fear as a motivation. We live in a world where while there's real horrors, most often scares are over blown.. for media, if it bleeds it leads. But, sometimes the boogeyman is real. There are psychopaths, sadists and regular people having a string of bad luck, stretched past their rationality. When Covid hit, I wondered what took so long, I had the same thought on 9/11. When weighing real dangers, I try not to be overly influenced by anecdotal stories, and rely on a multitude of experts. Trying to get opinions on both sides, giving more weight to the ones I find have the greatest expertise. I'm willing to trust experts, but I'm not willing to be first in line or the back quadrant either. Better to see how the numbers are evolving as the data unfolds. Science is about setting up models, how well is real life data following the models?

I've read about exercises for 'hair breathing', believe it was Taoist. Hair.. as antennae, kind of stuff. Probably Chia type stuff, but Chia learned/borrowed/stole much of his stuff from older sources.

I'm not a vegetarian but I do find the arguments that it is spiritually and ecologically better to be strong. An old girlfriend put it simply, 'Why create pain in the world, when you don't have to?' Apparently my answer is, cause its convenient and tastes good. I'm following my cultural norm. Still, at my best, I minimize it. At my worst, I ignore it.

What do I got?? umm Music therapy, listen to this twice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_P0xltLyCY Sting, Fortress Around Your Heart. We build fortresses, moats, labyrinths and we get lost inside them. We know they're bad, but we keep jumping in. The darkest deepest ones being our past. One thought and we're lost in a string of dark imaginings. Worse the thoughts are confused with 'Me'. Solution.. not easy, but it helps to know that the above is a key to it. I've been listening to an app Wide Awake, it's got daily meditations, heavily Dzoghen oriented, striving to create more space and awareness in the mind and thoughts, so you don't have to fall into them. Giving a better chance of seeing a thought coming and letting it go by instead of being trapped in it. FWIW the app is free, for a month. Generally there is no saviour or white knight to save us, no magical super practice. I think we have to save ourselves. Do the daily work, simple and boring that puts us on a path that goes around our mind's minefields.

Problem is, we see these pictures, they're good but they're the tip of the iceberg, an hour or 3 of the day. It's whether he has the same wah when he cuts wood, carries water.. deals with life's trickiness. Sitting in peace is easy, living in peace is hard.

That is really nice. A bit masculine for a cow year though.. maybe give a some eyelashes.

The concept of the 'Dark Midnight of the Soul' runs through many cultures. Go deep, quiet the mind enough and you might get to a pretty dark, nihilistic place. As if you were heading towards 'enlightenment' but took a wrong turn.. everything sucks and there's no reason or meaning in anything. Death and tragedy can trip people into the state to. Some require mental hospitalization, others fall back to normal, a few find it a necessary step on the way to enlightenment. A lesser drama is once you've got the mind quiet for longer periods, the negativity (shit) comes out..louder. Quiet the 1,000 thoughts and the ones that remain hit harder and be way more disturbing. I've found without a positive direction, the mind drifts in a negative direction.

What has been most difficult for you about the pandemic? Lack of socializing. My usual haunts weren't available, the coffee shops, restaurants, plays, music.. all canceled. I got a VR game system (Oculus) and lived a more virtual life. What have you learned about yourself during the pandemic? I've understood meditation better, thanks to more practice and the Waking Up app. Seeing it more holistically as getting in touch with the truer self. How have you maintained connections with other people during the pandemic? I tried but it was harder. I think of myself as middle of the road as far as protection but others were much stricter and largely quarantined themselves. How have you taken care of yourself during the pandemic? Picked up a couple of health habits. From the top, teeth- rinsing my mouth out several times a day til no little bits of food come out. Also spitting out the toothpaste at night but not rinsing it out, so a little more film stays in my mouth overnight. From the bottom I've been putting foot powder on my feet after showers. It dries and keeps them from itching during the night. I've let the middle pretty much go to rot. Had a good AM program lifting kettlebells that was going well, til I quit it due to an aching shoulder. More meditation. Having 1 or 2 small coffee and one green tea a day. Taking vitamin D. Fighting unsuccessfully the Covid 15#'s but back on track now. Been hanging out w/ some 72 year olds who are amazing examples of health and fitness.

We got rain yesterday. There's been a drought in the Midwest and we really needed it. As much as we curse the drought we need to appreciate the rain. Best of all is when we appreciate the weather we got.

As I've grown older I've gotten more lactose intolerant. weh still good for a small portion though.

never heard that, but I think it's worth the risk. There's so many good things about chocolate that I'll often put a teaspoon or two of the cocoa powder into my coffee. Nice to get a hit of Magnesium, anti-oxidants and unique flavonoids first thing in the morning.

Belgian Balance Brewer coffee maker. Fill the copper steam reserve w/ water. Put coffee in the glass cup, light the alcohol burner. Wait for the reserve to steam enough to slowly fill cup. When the reserve is empty, it rises, shifting the balance and turning off the heat. Coffees brews a little while, then gets siphoned back into the reserve tank for serving. The very definition of steam punk cool.

Portuguese Sherry French Pear-in-Bottle Brandy Life best uncorked.

Interesting question. It seems like you're coming from a place of compassion. Song birds are rare, one legged mothers, even rarer. Somehow the thought to help it came to you. I'd say go with it, too often we argue ourselves away from initially compassionate decisions.

Even if you get some advantage of self satisfaction out of giving to charity, imo, do it anyway. Cause its still needed. Selflessness like most human qualities runs a gamut. imo most of us could use a bit more. I don't aim to be a saint, but I'm culturally conditioned to think me me me, more more more. Can't help thinking it's not good for me or society. Even what I consider middle ground is probably more egoic then it should be.

There's a system of Gong. Doing 100 days in a row of something challenging. There's willpower needed, even if its physical, overriding the minds instinctive want of pleasure/laziness. The practice I've done that really pits mind against body is Wim Hof program. The daily cold shower is a test of willpower, especially when they get longer or require a long breath hold under cold water, where the body's stressed. With any strenuous martial art, you have the mind overriding the body.

Udemy.com has hundreds of online learning courses. They're having a Black Friday discount. For example I'd been thinking of trying there 100 Days of Python computer course, now its on sale, down from $94 to $9.99, it's a no brainer. They have a wide variety of classes, from Chi gung to cheese making. Drawing, musical instruments too. During this long covid winter, online learning might be just the thing. Especially now that may courses are 90% off.