qos | Take Five Minutes. .. .

Current Mood: hopeful

Take Five Minutes. .. .

The crush at work has abated for a while, and I'm facing what will probably be a long and boring day.

This is an invitation to take a mere five minutes and leave a comment on this entry by typing anything that occurs to you: stream of consciousness, a favorite memory, a witty or obvious observation, questions for me or for the universe, the beginning of a story, a book or movie recommendation, anything that occurs to you, so I can have something interesting, or intriguing, or amusing, or even mystifying, to read at work today.

Consider it your charitable contribution for the day. It will net you some good karma.
Really!

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... so I'm going to give you two verses of a hymn we used to sing in his honor at my home church, when I was a kid:

Jesus calls us, o'er the tumult
Of our life's wild restless sea!
Day by day his clear voice soundeth,
Saying, "Christian, follow me!"

As of old St. Andrew heard it
By the Galilean lake,
Turned from home and toil and kindred,
Leaving all for his dear sake.

I wish I could reproduce the tune for you. It has a rollicking rhythm suggestive of a rocking horse, or of a boat on rough water. *g*

Oh, I know the tune!
Thanks for the memory!

We used to carry a St. Andrews cross flag as part of the Troop's heraldry.

Who decided that the Republican states should be red and the Democratic ones blue? Are the Republicans claiming a Communist origin?

What would a Tim Burton production of The Nutcracker be like?

Does that sign on the road mean No U-Turn or No Eel Fishing?

If logic prevailed, wouldn't men wear skirts and ride side-saddle?

Definitely thoughts to set one pondering!

A Tim Burton Nutcracker would be scary, but probably fascinating!

It still amazes me how beautiful every day is here. It's grey today but gently warm... more like spring than winter.

Did you read my posts about Virginia? hee hee hee

Bad little sis. ;)
HUG

Yes, I read them.
Sounded like business-as-usual to me!
;-)

Stream of consciousness. Several people have told me this would be a good idea for me to try. But I've been resisting, so I will take this invitation and make the effort.

I'm not married. I'm not sure if it's because I don't want to be or whether it's habit. I have a dog. I didn't get a dog all my adult life because I thought if I get married, maybe my husband wouldn't like dogs. And then I thought, what the heck am I thinking? So I got a dog three 1/2 years ago. I love her. She cuddles up to me at night. She is loving.

I'm thinking, thinking of something else to say. I'm going to Virginia to stay with my parents for a month. I think I sounded so sick and pathetic that my mom asked me if I would like to come visit, and I said I don't have any money and she said she had a credit card and so she got on travelocity and found a round-trip ticket for 325 dollars two days hence. So I leave tomorrow. I will stay for a month. I will bring my computer so I can work there.

I'm living in a mess. I keep the public areas of the house in "good-enough" order so I can admit guests into my home. But my bedroom is like some sort of vignette from Hurricane Charlie. It could be in a rusted out metal trailer on the Florida coast. It's pretty bad.

I have one more minute. This is hard. I'm very very tired and drugged feeling today. From my cold I think. I want to go back to bed and take a nap. Maybe I will. Maybe I won't. Who am I kidding, or course I will. I am a sloth. I took the seven deadly sins quiz on LJ and tied for sloth and lust. I just don't know what to do about that.

Okay, I think my five minutes are up. Thank you for allowing me this outlet.

I think stream-of-consciousness writing is great! Thanks for the glimpse into your mind.

I know I still owe you a response in our conversation about religious paths!

For a long time I didn't get anything monogrammed because I thought I would get married and change my name. Eventually I got married but kept my name. Now I'm not married and happier for it. I definitely have the habit of being single.

Aren't parents wonderful?! My mom used to drive hundreds of miles to see my sister on the weekends when she was in college and struggling.

I'm glad someone else has a house that's a mess. I'm having my birthday party here pretty soon, and it's giving me good reason to clean up -- but beyond the clutter there's the matter of the walls that need washing, the refrigerator that needs to be scrubbed out, and etc. Ack! Where is my 21st century self-cleaning house??

Hope you feel better soon!

Heaven is my father and Earth is my mother, and even such a small creature as I finds an intimate place in their midst.

Therefore that which fills the universe I regard as my body and that which directs the universe I consider as my nature.

All people are my brothers and sisters, and all things are my companions.

(from "The Western Inscription")

i've been really surprised at how much i like chinese religion and philosophy. i thought i'd be much more attracted to indian stuff, but no -- it's the taoist and confucian writings that grab me.

In the past I had a very hard time getting my mind around Eastern thought. Maybe I'd do better now.

But this: Therefore that which fills the universe I regard as my body and that which directs the universe I consider as my nature is great!

I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough,
To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough,
To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough,
To pass among them, or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment—what is this, then?
I do not ask any more delight—I swim in it, as in a sea.

There is something in staying close to men and women, and looking on them, and in the contact and odor of them, that pleases the soul well;
All things please the soul—but these please the soul well.

This is the female form;
A divine nimbus exhales from it from head to foot;
It attracts with fierce undeniable attraction!
I am drawn by its breath as if I were no more than a helpless vapor—all falls aside but myself and it;
Books, art, religion, time, the visible and solid earth, the atmosphere and the clouds, and what was expected of heaven or fear’d of hell, are now consumed;
Mad filaments, ungovernable shoots play out of it—the response likewise ungovernable;
Hair, bosom, hips, bend of legs, negligent falling hands, all diffused—mine too diffused;
Ebb stung by the flow, and flow stung by the ebb—love-flesh swelling and deliciously aching;
Limitless limpid jets of love hot and enormous, quivering jelly of love, white-blow and delirious juice;
Bridegroom night of love, working surely and softly into the prostrate dawn;
Undulating into the willing and yielding day,
Lost in the cleave of the clasping and sweet-flesh’d day.

This is the nucleus—after the child is born of woman, the man is born of woman;
This is the bath of birth—this is the merge of small and large, and the outlet again.

Be not ashamed, women—your privilege encloses the rest, and is the exit of the rest;
You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.

The female contains all qualities, and tempers them—she is in her place, and moves with perfect balance;
She is all things duly veil’d—she is both passive and active;
She is to conceive daughters as well as sons, and sons as well as daughters. 70

As I see my soul reflected in nature;
As I see through a mist, one with inexpressible completeness and beauty,
See the bent head, and arms folded over the breast—the female I see.

-Walt Whitman

*sigh*

Whitman, who I discovered in college, was the first poet I fell in love with, and still the one who most consistently delights me.

Thanks for this.

You're welcome. I didn't know you liked Whitman - he just seemed appropriate.

It's hot as hades here. Well, almost. I actually enjoy going to work for the airconditioning - even if I have to wear a suit skirt. I have to go at 11 this morning - which means I won't finish till 4, which means it may be too cool (or I may be too tired) to go to the beach this afternoon. And going beforehand is just silly. Not to mention stupid, with my fair skin.
Do you live near a beach? I didn't for a while and I missed it horribly. I'm a real waterbaby and a half.

You're in Australia, right?
It was such a shock to read that you were hot today. It's gray and cold in Seattle, as Fall begins to turn seriously into Winter.
So yes, I am near a "beach" in that I live near the coast, but it's a gray-and-white beach most of the time.

Australia, yes. Southeast coast, near Sydney. Out summers come in fits and starts, but after a day of warmth followed by a week of cold wet in succession, humidity and high temperatures have moved in and made themselves comfortable. Is Seattle always cold? I know that even ion the middle of summer on the north island of New Zealand I would have considered it too cold to swim out doors - if their beaches were anything but pebbles.

if their beaches were anything but pebbles.
??? We have lovely sandy beaches!

Five Minutes
Everyone has to grow up. Resposibility comes with greater reward.
I have never felt so alone and I have never felt so alive, letting go of the love of my life, she told me she was leaving today, so I left to find myself. I pushed myself down to a place I never wanted to come back from. I climbed back out because I had to face the sun again. No matter how cold it gets I will face the sun again.
Now they are looking at porn and I am sitting here writing on a borrowed compter with time stolen from responsibility.

Everyone has to grow up.
Ah, you touch a nerve with this.

letting go of the love of my life, she told me she was leaving today, so I left to find myself
Forgive me for even asking: but are you saying what I think you're saying? Is Jess gone?

*heart goes out to you*

She's not gone. She's leaving.
She's not comming back.

Thank you.

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Take Five Minutes. .. .

Today is St. Andrew's Day...

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just a glimpse into my warped mind

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from Chang Tsai, a medieval Neo-Confucian writer

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GAH

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