The Elephant in the room

I've been sitting on this post for a while now.It's the elephant in the room.....politics.
                                                              
Recently I helped my freshman son with part of his homework. Strangely enough he got law as an elective. Poor kid had to write a 5 paragraph "thesis" on the the differences between our Declaration of Independence and the french version known as The Declaration of the Rights of Man. I can't say I recall ever having this type of homework so early in the school year and as an early elective. He tried explaining his take on it and ended up looking like a deer caught in the headlights. I can put words together pretty good so I told him that he needed to study for his math test and other missed assignments and I would handle his "thesis" What an education I received while studying briefly the two documents! I really hope he gets high marks on that thing! The one thing that stood out the most was that they both stated that all men are born into certain rights and that those rights can not be taken by any person or group of people. I remembered that I listened to President Obama speak this morning at the U.N.

In this speech he said that during his time in office, he's heard many people call him quite a few names. He said he may not like what people say about him but he will defend their right to say them! This year marks an election year. The boundaries of party lines are clearly drawn in the sand. One side would have us believe that half the country is nothing more than victims who want to live off the success of others. The other side would have us believe that the way to a stronger country is to build from the middle out and that everyone should pay his/her fair share. One side blunders with such gems as legitimate rape, comments about 47% and "you people". The other side blunders with "bump in the road" comments in regards to the angst in the middle east. One side seems to encourage hate rallies and personal attacks. The other side appears to slither away from chaos and hope that things will get better. One side make mid stride changes to voter identification laws to apparently keep Latino, elderly, and first time voters from getting to the polls in time.
                                                               
No matter what your party affiliation, it's clear that some aspects of all government have gotten too big for their britches. They have forgotten what makes this country great and that is it's people. Our forefathers drafted our Independence as a means to break away from the tyranny of the King and form a new country and new laws. They adopted the concept that all men are, in fact, created equal and thus born into freedoms such as life liberty and the ability to protect those freedoms. I believe that they intended government to act merely as a referee for those times when peace between "thy neighbor" needed an intervention of sorts. They did not intend for the government of today to ever exist and, this is my opinion, it is a government riddled with takers, liars, cheaters and people who just don't give a rats ass about the people that put him or her in office. This means ALL forms of government. And while there is a mass exodus within the GOP due to their candidate Mitt Romney and his blatant disregard for most of humanity, there are still equal numbers of people, people with money and then means, that will go to the nth degree to ensure that you and I remain minorities---with no voice.

In a perfect world we would need no government. We would coexist with each other and take only what we need being careful to leave enough for someone else. In a perfect world we would have medical care once reserved for only the wealthy available to everyone. In a perfect world we might need nothing more than a "sheriff" to settle disputes and the disputes would be few and far between. The reality is that we do not live in a perfect world. So when it comes down to who we want for this elected official or that, who we want for the most important office of all: The President of The United States, we must take time to weigh each side without getting lost in the lame he said he did BS that has become commonplace. The fact is that we made history by electing President Obama to the White House four years ago. The time has come again, four years later, to decide whether we're happy with our current President and any or all of his efforts. If the answer is no then we are obligated to do one of two things: re elect him and give him more time OR elect someone else and give them a shot. Frankly, I don't believe that Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are the next greatest. The GOP has made some arrogant and alarmingly dysfunctional statements as of late and I do not believe that any Republican is suited for any place of power.

I leave you with this......

We need to search our minds and hearts, we need to read between the lines. We need to do our homework. I would suggest becoming familiar with the French and American versions of the Rights of Man and only then voting your conscious. It's true that we have the right to remain silent, but in doing so we give ourselves over to those who potentially mean us personal harm and mean to endanger our God given and inalienable rights.

 

Message in a Bottle

                                                         

I created this blog as an outlet for some of the random thoughts that run helter skelter  in my head...nothing more than that. It's my intention to amuse and entertain but in some cases share the magic of things around us...things we all tend to take for granted. I firmly believe that once you know more about the world around you, you can make the necessary changes, if any, to create peace from within. Once we attain that peace from within, we start oozing that peace and pretty soon, just like a yawn or laughter, it becomes contagious--in my mind anyway.  Today's "journey" is about the hidden messages in water. What? Water? Really?                                        

  

                                                        

The answer is YES! A million years ago, I saw a movie called "What the Bleep Do We Know?"  and there was one part of this movie that really caught my attention: every thought we have becomes a thing. A Japanese author named Masaru Emoto came forward with a radical concept: our vibrational energy not only affects everything around us but the water we drink! His experiments consisted of ordinary water glasses filled with ordinary water. The water was exposed to music, pictures and words. The water was then frozen and examined under a microscope. His findings were nothing less than amazing.

                                                

Water, in simple terms is the basis for all life. 70% of earth's surface is made of water. We humans need water to survive. I was never made more aware of how vital water is as when I learned that my chronic dehydration from drinking nothing other than soda, tea or coffee had not only robbed my body of a quality life but affected my kidneys in a pretty dramatic way. Living in the desert water becomes a precious commodity as we use it to wash our clothes, our dishes, our bodies, our cars. We water our trees and our lawns. Every thing we eat or use in some way starts with water.

I recently downloaded an app that is supposed to be the chants used for the medicine Buddha. The instructions were to take a glass of water and repeat the chants 108 times this making the water "blessed". The water is then consumed and the benefits of the water fill the body. I can tell you that my cold and sore throat symptoms were dramatically reduced. Is it because I drank blessed water? Is it because I believed I drank blessed water? Or is it because my own immune system did it's job?  Who knows--either way I received some benefit from the water. Which brings me back to the point of this blog. Mr. Emoto concluded that water that is of highest quality produces beautifully intricate crystals, like the one above and that poor quality water produces yellow or brown ill formed crystals..............

             

When Water was exposed to messages such as "Thank you" or "Love and Appreciation".................

                                          

I Hate you and I will Kill you or You make Me Sick..................

                                                      

It seems very clear, and at an urgent level, that we simply must start believing that our thoughts shape our today and tomorrow. Our energy and vibrations affects every living thing. We see this played out in our pets who scurry away when we've come home from a hard day at work. We see this played out in indigestion when we eat upset. To suggest that we give thanks, beyond the mundane dinner prayer, for the things we put in to our bodies is profound. It goes back to the concept that once we become thankful we open ourselves to more goodness....a pay it forward mindset, if you will. Too often, we walk through life asking "what do I get in return?" I have been guilty of this more times than I care to recall and in specific with my husband as we struggle to repair our fractured marriage. I am learning, as mentioned in my previous post, that when I see life's challenges not from the view point of what's in it for me but rather how can I help you in your journey, my own life gets easier. I've not yet mastered it and doubt that I ever will. School is always in session and life is a learn as you go.

                                                         

Whether or not you believe Mr. Emoto's conclusion's or agree with his critics that is nothing more than a snake oil salesman, I leave you with this.....  

                                       

What if he's right? The ancients knew to bless and be thankful for everything. In behaving this way they could only benefit from a better and more satisfying spiritual health. Regardless of what your spiritual beliefs are, there is something bigger than ourselves. The messages are everywhere and readily available to everyone. When get wrapped up in every day life we end up like the malformed ice crystals. When we stop, even for a second, and show a modicum of gratitude, we become the beautifully intricate crystals we were meant to be.   

                                                   

Fractured Fairytales or how I learned to make the perfect 3 min egg

Relationships are perhaps the most complex and complicated thing we humans go through even as it strives to fill one of our basic needs....in my opinion. As a single woman in my twenties I had many relationships and not one of them was ever fulfilling. I believe this to be so because I was looking for someone to "complete me"...I had fallen, as many do, under the spell of Hollywood's version of what true love is.  Now, some thirty years later I am learning how wrong Hollywood has been.
                                                              
Relationships are not just confined to a man and a woman but exist through a parent and child, siblings, friends, doctors, etc. We crave interaction with other humans and use relationships to define ourselves. I think women are prone to doing this most of all. When a relationship becomes fractured, like my marriage, we tend to view this as us not being perfect in some way. Women have long rested our perfection notions on such Hollywood gems as June Cleaver or  Laurie Petrie. Perfect hair, dinner, house, children, life. The reality of it is that we are more like Lucille Ricardo or Edith Bunker.

Perfect is described as: "conforming absolutely to the descriptions or definition of an ideal type; excellent or complete beyond practical or theoretical improvement". That being said.... perfection simply does not exist. The truth is that we all wake up with drool stains on our pillows, sheet marks on our face and hair that would scare even Bozo the Clown. When you add children to the mix, it's a whole new level of hell and chaos. The best any of us can hope for is getting the kids to school on time and the our spouse (male or female) to work in clothes that match. Speaking only for myself, I was one of those little girls who dreamed of a big wedding. I had a vision of myself walking slowly down a grand staircase dressed in a million dollar Cinderella gown and into the arms of my prince charming. In fact I have a very clear memory of crying bitterly after seeing a rendition of Cinderella because she was beautiful and it was so romantic that I just didn't want it to end.  When my mom would go to Hancock Fabrics to paw at patterns and lust over the plethora of textiles I would always slip away and hang out in the wedding section. There I could find a dress form clad in satin something or other with lace encrusted with sparklies. There was a glass cabinet with wedding veils and head pieces and that was where I secretly planned my wedding.
                                                             
I subscribed to idea of the white picket fence, the 2.5 children, the dog in the backyard and the entire concept of a perfect married life. What I ended up with was a Justice of The Peace wedding, a scant reception in our apartment and all for a grand total of $1700.00 but I was the happiest that I could have ever been on that day despite the fact that I had been fighting with my husband the night before the wedding and a mere hour before the wedding. My husband and I have fought nearly every day until the moment when I realized that perfect was nothing more than smoke and mirrors. That neither he nor I were perfect, never were and never will be. My standards were set too high and rather than lower the bar and give him the opportunity for a small victory, I bitched that he wasn't even trying.

I leave you with this.   

I saw a picture of Gabby Giffords standing with her husband Mark as together they watched the shuttle Endeavor fly low over the U of A this morning. I couldn't help but reflect that against all odds they have survived great tragedy and celebrated greater triumphs. I think that their success comes not from expecting impossible strides from one another along a journey but rather in expecting a journey with each other. When we celebrate the small victories we open ourselves to greater triumphs.When we accept the imperfections as the perfection itself , that's when true love can grow ad flourish. Lowering the bar is not lowering our standards. It's realizing that keeping the bar so high prevents us from seeing the good in another person and makes us old and wrinkled and unhappy way too soon. I still have much to learn but it gets easier as I go. Life is not a series of events that we try to remember when we're 90 and faced with the certainty of death. As Mother Theresa once said:  “Life is an opportunity, benefit from it. Life is beauty, admire it. Life is a dream, realize it. Life is a challenge, meet it. Life is sorrow, overcome it. Life is a song, sing it. Life is a struggle, accept it. Life is a tragedy, confront it. Life is an adventure, dare it......"

That's how the Iceberg crumbles

Alrighty....if you haven't figured it out by now, my brain is always stuck on overdrive. I'm like a kid in a candy store!

                                                                               

Today's rambling are about sounds. Now before you get in my nose hairs about having already written about sounds, let me tell you a story? I was watching a TV show called "Weird..or What?" and in this particular piece they talked about something called " the bloop" . The bloop is a sound some scientists discovered using  military hydrophones. According to this show, it was the loudest sound known to man because it was recorded in three different parts of the ocean.  Skeptics say it's a blue whale and roll their eyes. But when compared to actual blue whale "song" it turns out it's not even close. So this odd sound in the pacific ocean remains a mystery. Here is the sound.....  Bloop   

This sound was never repeated. A one time occurrence. Me being me I wondered what other sounds our oceans hold beyond whale songs, dolphin play and rolling waves. We've heard that age old question: If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it, does it still make a sound? Well what about icebergs? Off to the google gods I went......

                                           

The answer is YES! And what a sound they make! I found a few audio files that knocked my socks off. This precious marble we inhabit is alive with all sorts of sounds. 

Singing Iceberg

Iceberg Breaking

Ice Fishing Sound         In this video if you look at the water in the hole, you can actually see the water bubbling as the sound seems to get closer

                                               

Then of course I started wondering what else makes sound? During an art experiment someone hooked sensors to a variety of house plants and then connected the sensors to a synthesizer and what we hear is....   Plant Music  Stalagmites and stalactites also make music    Luray Caverns 

When we stop long enough to realize that every living thing is capable of vibrational sounds, it should  radically change how we think about the space we share with every living thing! 

  Carry on........

Where do I stand?

I recently asked my Dad and Step-mother to visit my blog. I thought it might be cool if they saw a side of me they never knew I had. Somewhere along the line I think that my humor was mistaken for carelessness and I received a letter from Daddy. In this letter he mentions the book of Ruth which is where my name comes from. Naomi Ruth. He mentions that the way to salvation is to first be saved, or reborn. Second to submit to God's word and will and third always be of service to others with Gods word. Sounds great right?

I could not for the life of me understand why Daddy would have sent me such a letter, especially after reading my blog. Aside from some salty sea hag type words there was little in the way of some sort of denial of God's existence, except to say that you my readers are free to define your relationship with God as you see fit. Because of the way I was raised I have slipped away from the formal organized religion.  I sometimes had religion beat into me, literally. We went thrice on Sunday and on Wednesday which is over kill in my opinion. Still, as a parent I wrestle with the notion that I have not done a proper job at instilling God's word in my own children. I have always wanted them to be free to chose for themselves. Making their own decisions and drawing their own conclusions. This may or may not bite me in the ass later.

I stumbled on what I think might be the reason for his alarm and so for the record I wanted to let you, as well as him, know just where I stand.
                                                            
I am now and always be a child of God. I believe that he sent Christ to Earth because he lost faith in his creations. I mean we've given him some big reasons to have lost his faith. I believe that when Christ died, he made it possible for God to renew his covenant with his children. I also believe that a person's relationship with God is a personal one and NO ONE person has a monopoly on knowledge about or with God. I feel that going to church is pointless although it is clearly instruction that "Where one or more gather, there am I". There are just too many people in church these days that are fake. They go to church on Sunday morning and sleep through the sermon and then beat the shit out of the family after lunch. The catholic church is a classic example of when religion gets too big for its own good and actually HARMS it's followers. I believe that I am going to heaven, that my name is in fact written in the book of life.  I do not believe that God sits up there in the clouds and picks and chooses who gets his favors on what day. I do not believe that he is the God of the Old Testament where he sent plagues and such to wipe out mankind because he was pissed. Christ, being part man and part deity made it easier for God to understand what the rest of us humans go through as it pertains to choices, decisions and faith. The God that I believe in today is still a just God but he is a compassionate God and a patient God.  I believe that when you lose sight of your responsibility or obligation as a Christian, that's when you lose the option of being true "fishers of men". I believe that the best type or form of "witnessing" is to lead a worthy life. And in my opinion we will have some "esplaining to do" if we don't.
                                                                       
There is no one religion that is the end all be all. God did not intend for his children to be divided the ways that we are. I firmly believe that in order to be an atheist you have to have first believe that there was in fact a God. But I also believe that it's not my place to cast the first stone because I am in no way "perfect" although in God's eyes I am. I will NEVER allow condone or agree to slander of the bible or of God. I do not agree with the idea that believing in spirits and ghosts is part n parcel with Satan.

There you have it folks. Knowing this "secret side of me" should change nothing between us. I will continue to have a wicked sense of humor, continue to speak my mind and encourage you to do the same. Only when we feel safe among each other can we begin the daunting task of conversion and only when we ourselves are  right with God can we bring others closer to God.  I really hope this ends Daddy's fear once and for all.

Boundaries: what are they?

I just finished reading a blog from a fellow Twitter user. It asked the question about boundaries that paranormal investigators can sometimes cross. That blog can be found here:   Boundaries

This is my response:  In my opinion the paranormal is legit. I've seen too much in my life to say poo poo to it. Yes, I know there a bunch of really smart people out there with a million pieces of scientific evidence proving that ghosts do not exist. My response to that is that not everything can be so easily explained and.......what if you're wrong? When it comes to anything paranormal both sides have compelling "evidence" but both sides need to remain open to the idea that maybe they called it wrong. That being said......

                                                       

When a horrific crime of any nature but especially one involving children takes place, we all want to find the person or people who are responsible and we all want justice. When such crimes remain unsolved we begin to blur the lines between justice and curiosity. An example of this would be Lizzy Borden, The Viscilla Axe murders and Jack The Ripper to name a few. Nearly 100 years later we are fascinated by these crimes and, as in the case of the Ripper, we really want to know "who dunit"....... I can't think of anything better than a ghostly confession via an EVP (electronic voice phenomenon) and who wouldn't want to be  the one who caught it?!                                                      

As ghost enthusiasts and ghost hunting professional, we are obligated to find and present paranormal evidence that is respectful not only to the living but to the dead as well. When we offer false hope we turn a worthy profession into nothing more than a flim flam scam and that creates difficulty for those of us who are actually trying to help, to learn and to teach others about the "other side" -- this also applies to psychics. I watch a lot of TV and I've seen some so-called psychics. There ARE real ones but it seems they are lost in the shadows of the "false prophets", the one's who want nothing more than their 15 minutes of fame. How completely irresponsible and totally unfair! In my opinion this story smacks of just that--irresponsible and unfair. Irresponsible on the part of the ghost hunting group to claim they found the "smoking gun" in an old rusty shovel head and unfair to the victims' families who for just a moment could breathe easier thinking that their child's senseless murder could at last be solved.

                                                               

I leave you with this.....my mother always told me, and I in turn tell my own children, if you have nothing nice to say don't say it at all. Part of the Hippocratic oath is to do no harm...... I think that should be the golden rule for those would be paranormal teams who only want fortune and fame and seemingly at the expense of others. 

As the Crow Flies

I was going to write a blog about how well the DNC is going and that if I was part of the GOP after  night's performance I would have to switch parties. That being said what I ended up with is this: Pride.


"a high or inordinate opinion of one's own dignity, importance, merit, or superiority, whether as cherished in the mind or as displayed in bearing, conduct."

                                                                  

I speak only for myself when I say I wish I had more of it and I wish we ALL had more of it. We learned pride from an early age. When we brought mommy a flower that was actually a weed and she is so pleased with you and the "flower", we learn it when our teachers give us A+ on a spelling or math test,and life goes on we begin to YEARN to feel pride in the work place and in relationships. If we are raised in a religious home as I was, pride is looked at as a sin and in tandem with the devil. I'm not sure but I think women might suffer more with the concept of pride because it feels selfish and alien-like. If I were to fathom the complexity of the emotion, I would say that women are actively taught not to be prideful and to allow the male pride, or ego, to take center stage. The male ego has been said to be fragile. If this is indeed true then we have all done the women of this nation and quite possibly generations to come, a disservice. For instance: I was scanning the TV for something to watch and I happened on a commercial for some billy redneck type show. What struck me as odd (and why I wanted to write about pride), was that the Mom asked the little girl "who do you love" and without hesitation she replied "Me".  The juxtaposition is striking! 

I'm pretty confident that most women were raised the opposite. It was never more apparent then during these two conventions. Woman's Rights, and the potential lack thereof, has become the central focus. The very idea that we should be forced as a nation to revisit the rights of any human at this stage of the game is appalling. 

                                                                 

I leave you with this: I've heard it said that being honorable is always doing the right thing even when no one is looking. Each and every one of us is responsible for our actions. What we do today with affect someone tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow. We can no longer afford the "luxury" of blaming each other. What I admire so about POTUS is that he doesn't point fingers. Yes, he inherited the mess. Yes, someone else made the mess but POTUS has always said "My fault" when something didn't get done under his watch. But it's not even about him or Romney, it's about US. If we are to ever move forward and achieve change, we have to take PRIDE in our country, our fellow countrymen and in ourselves. Only when we do this will we ever regrow and regain our strength. It's time to make good on the promises we made to ourselves: to be great even when no one is looking!  Carry on..........