Just Humans Being...

Do you trust your own instinct or prefer to rely on opinions supposedly based on facts? Over the years we have been advised against doing what we have wanted to do, we have experienced so many sharp intakes of breath by the people trained in the various areas we have disagreed with, but we have always chosen to stick to our guns and do what we feel is right. The thing is, our decisions came from within – we were never been influenced by others or knew of other people doing what we we wanted to do, we just felt something...a knowing. When we first got together in 1986, we discovered that we both felt repulsed by certain meats and we began questioning why we continued to eat it when we felt so uncomfortable. One evening Sime came over to my flat and made spicy veggie burgers from soya mince which were delicious and I then found a recipe for walnut and broccoli lasagne and we carried on learning more and more. In 1987, we bought our first house together and it just so happened that ...

All civilisations are impermanent and must come to an end one day. But if we continue on our current course, there's no doubt that our civilisation will be destroyed sooner than we think. The Earth may need millions of years to heal, to retrieve her balance and restore her beauty. She will be able to recover, but we humans and many other species will disappear, until the Earth can generate conditions to bring us forth again in new forms. Once we can accept the impermanence of our civilization with peace, we will be liberated from our fear. Only then will we have the strength, awakening and love we need to bring us together. Cherishing our precious Earth–falling in love with the Earth–is not an obligation. It is a matter of personal and collective happiness and survival. ~ Thich Nhat Hahn ~ Here is a link to the full article: We Need a Revolution; It Starts with Falling in Love with Earth Now is the time to be thinking about the way you live your life.  To ...

“Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive, I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it. ”  ―  14th Dalai Lama How do you wake up? We start every day with a cup of herbal tea in bed & since we stopped having guests, we have the luxury of a kettle in our bedroom. Our alarm goes off at 6:30am during the week & we can just reach down to stick the kettle on. Three minutes later, we have a pot of one of our favourite teas brewing - nettle, fennel, licorice, cinnamon, ginger or tulsi ... We usually snuggle up for a while longer, until it's ready to drink & then enjoy our tea quietly for a while - listening to the birds tweeting outside our window. By the time the pot's empty, we are usually wide awake, chatting, laughing & we've talked through everything we have to do on that day. We can't drop Bebe off at daycare until 10am, so it's nice to get going gently... By 8am it's all systems go, but we ar...

It's my lovely wife's 45th birthday today and it's great to see her having such a nice time.  We had a bit of a lie-in, then Kay said that she'd like to go to the new Eden Project Cafe in St. Austell for breakfast.   Having dined there recently, we were aware of their "Book Swap" area.  Choose a book from home you wish to donate, write a brief piece in the inside cover and put it in the Swap Section. Then, if there's a book you fancy, take it home. Kay donated her favourite book "The Complete SAS Guide to Interrogation Techniques". I made that up. She actually donated the wonderful book "The Tibetan Book Of Living and Dying" by Sogyal Rinpoche, only because the last page is missing. Just joking. It was in pristine condition . I suggested selling it at a car boot sale instead but  then she gave me one of her famous looks and I shut up. Kay wrote in the cover about how good the book is and how she hoped that whomever took it...

I have a confession to make - We didn't work today... By the time Sime had returned from his band rehearsal last night, it was very late & so we went to bed late... This morning, we really didn't want to get up & then we ended up missing the kerbside recycling guys, so it started off the day being completely disorganised. In the end, I emailed our customers to say we'll do a full day tomorrow instead, which they are fine about - phew! For the rest of the morning, we discussed Buddhism & whether or not we live mindfully - Thanks to  Karin's New Blog ...  It seems quite a luxury to be in this position of not bothering to work, but really - it isn't.  At this time of year we live hand-to-mouth, but that's fine for us - if we earn we get to do nice things, if not - then we stay in & eat beans on toast!  From June, we will be working extremely long hours & earning, but with no time to spend the money - which is how we get to have such good Autum...