Monthly Archive: October 2008

I have new items posted to my store, Moss’ Malas .  I hope I can sell some of these wonderful items and add more stock — eventually this store is intended to fund Pathways Foundation, which will help people in need on all lightworking paths.

I’ve continued to feel isolated of sorts.  In my studies, in my friendships, in my activities I feel as though I’m the only one here so often.  Not all the time, but my type of bipolar tends towards depression.  It’s not too bad, but it’s there.  I have made two new friends on the internet recently, but that tends to enhance, not diminish, this feeling, as there is no chance of actual meetings and physical closeness.  Ah well, I’ll get over it, through it, or past it one way or another.

Hugs,
Me

I have spent a wonderful weekend housesitting (and dog- and cat-sitting) at SerpentStone House.  This weekend is/was SerpentStone Samhain at Dragon Hills, and I don’t go to Georgia… Rhiannon., knowing this, offered to pay me for housesitting and taking care of the animals.  They have all been sweeties (to me, not always to each other).  It has been a blast; I’ve done some spiritual stuff, more knitting, and even played my guitar a little and worked on writing a new filk song.

Edited to add:  I’m home now, and getting back into my usual routine.  It’s good to be home, but it was so lovely to be there.  The original SerpentStone Circle is out in the back yard, and I took advantage of my access to it.  There was a crystal cluster in the middle of the altar, which apparently had been used as a stick incense holder, and it was almost covered in moss… wonder why I liked that, LOL.

Mike took care of my place, and did some work on the Asheville Homeless Network receipts, which have been piling up for years with nobody even looking at them.

Hugs,

Me

My friends rope me into these things, LOL

1. Were you named after anyone?  Nope, my older brother got all the family names
2. When was the last time you cried?  about a month ago
3. Do you like your handwriting?  Nope.  They waived a required course in Junior High for me to take typing…
4. What is your favorite lunch meat?  sliced turkey
5. Do you have kids?  Yup!  Two.  Boy & girl, both 33
6. If you were another person would you be friends with you?  You bet, the realization of this put me on the path to my recovery
7. Do you use sarcasm a lot?  Naw, me?  Not a chance.
8. Do you still have your tonsils? yup, probably the oldest man alive with tonsils… they used to yank them out at the slightest provocation, and I never gave them one
9. Would you bungee jump?  Nope.  Couldn’t pay me enough to try it.
10. What is your favorite cereal?  I’m a simple guy, corn flakes are fine
11. Do you untie your shoes when you take them off?  Depends which shoes I’m wearing, can’t untie velcro
12. Do you think you are strong?  Oh yeah.  I doubt many peope could have lived through my life
13. What is your favorite ice cream?  Basking-Robbins Pralines N Cream
14. What is the first thing you notice about people? Their eyes
15. Red or pink?  GREEN
16. What is the least favorite thing about yourself?  My tendency to complain about things (working on it)
17. Who do you miss the most?  Maeve
18. Do you want everyone to send this back to you?  no difference
19. What color pants and shoes are you wearing? Duluth Trading Co. blue jeans, black shoes
20. What was the last thing you ate? I just had 3 fried eggs for breakfast, am drinking my morning coffee
21. What are you listening to right now?  Blue Indian by Widespread Panic, don’t think I’ve heard this before… I just steal a bunch of music on the Internet and get around to listening to it sooner or later
22. If you were a crayon, what color would you be?  Green
23. Favorite smells?  Carnations, lavender
24. Who was the last person you talked to on the phone?  Mike Paglia, who is house-sitting at my house while I’m house-sitting at SerpentStone Houe
25. Do you like the person who sent this to you stole this from? Wish I knew her better, but she’s in my second level of online friends (not one of the ones I talk to all the time, but among those I pa attention to)
26. Favorite sports to watch?  NFL, but I like most sports… don’t watch anything “religiously”, NFL comes the closest
27. Hair color?  medium brown (never a selection option on those websites, ya know? they want either dark or light brown…)
28. Eye color?  Blue, almost baby blue but it’s a tad darker than it was when I was a kid
29. Do you wear contacts?  Nope, my eyes are too dry… they turn into corn flakes in no time
30. Favorite food?  I have 3 recipes, can pick any of them… that’s right, can ponly cook 3 things, LOL
31. Scary movies or happy endings?  I won’t watch scary movies… but I cry too much over happy endings, as I never get one of my own and the people in the movies are LOTS worse than I’ll ever be
32. Last movie you watched? Serenity
33. What color shirt are you wearing?  white printed tee
34. Summer or winter?  Winter.  You can always put more clothes on, but there’s a limit to how much you can take off.
35. Hugs or kisses?  HugsRUs
36. Favorite dessert?  don’t usually eat dessert
37. Hot or cold beverages? no preference
38. Favorite room in your house?  living room I guess…
39. What book are you reading now?  Autobiography of a Yogi and the Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda for me; I’m reading the last Fuzzy Planter book to my friend Frankie on the phone at night
40. What is on your mousepad?  I have a trackball, don’t need a mousepad
41. What did you watch on TV last night? Keith Olberman and Rachel Maddow
42. Favorite sound? applause
43. Rolling Stones or Beatles?  neither, I have much better taste than that (this rolling Moss gathers no Stones)
44. What is the farthest you have been from home?  Define “home”.  I’ve never been outside of North America though.
45. Do you have a special talent?  I have many, none of them exceptional but all of them special
46. Where were you born?  St. Mary’s Hospital, Long Beach, CA
47. Least favorite household chore? picking up
48. Most precious object on your computer desk?  My precious objects are around the room, no room on my computer desk
49. A special possession?  My 130+ hippos and baby doll
50. How many e-mail addies do you have? I lost count.  7 I check, probably forgot about lots more, and that doesn’t count all my website email addys (which I forward to one f my 2 main email addys)

Most of you know I’m really squeamish about getting into sales, and I only do this sort of thing either when my back is against the wall or when I have something to offer that I really think is needed.  The current effort is more of the latter.

I have begun to sell malas (meditation beads).  The majority of them are the typical 108 mala beads plus the meru, or “home bead”, and they are used in various Eastern chants, whether Buddhist, Hindu, or Sufi.  The malas I am selling are handcrafted in India, properly constructed and blessed there by people who know what they are doing.  I have sold or given to my friends many of these malas, and now want to make them more available.  The proceeds from all sales will go toward (1) increasing stock, and (2) Pathways Foundation, which was established 3 years ago to help people in all “lightworking” paths who are in financial trouble… and which has been languishing as an empty fund ever since.

To look at what is presently in stock, visit http://mossmalas.ecrater.com (you can also get there by going to http://pathwayssanctuary.org and clicking on the link on the Menu or on the Links page).  eCrater only lets me post what is in my hands.  I have placed two orders recently which will increase stock, mostly in terms of variety, and I have a 6-page catalog of what is currently available to me (although availability can vary somewhat).  If you don’t see what you like, please ask for my catalog and I’ll email it to you.  (All my malas are made of beads and seeds available in the Chennai district of India, so please don’t ask me for things such as redwood or other beads that would not be available.)

I hope you visit my site — just visiting will increase my listing and get me more visitors, hence more sales.  Thanks for letting me profane my blog with money talk.

Hugs,
Me

I continue to read aloud, on the phone, almost nightly to my dear friend Frankie, who lives about 40 miles away but can’t afford to get to town much.  We just started the 7th and final book of the famous Fuzzy Planter series, “Fuzzy Planter and the Deadly Halitosis”.  (Yes, people, those are puns.  I am a much-vaunted Master of Pun Fu.)  (For those who are curious about the earlier titles, they are:  “Fuzzy Planter and the Horrible Scones”, “Fuzzy Planter and the Secret Chambermaid”, “Fuzzy Planter and the Poisoner of Zyban”, “Fuzzy Planter’s Goblin Gets Fired”, “Fuzzy Planter and the Side Order of Phoenix Fries”, and “Fuzzy Planter and the Half-Assed Quince”… or is that “Half-Developed Prints”?)

We have found a “missing” Callahan’s book (Spider Robinson) which will likely be read next.  I want to try Frankie out on the “Complete Enchanter” series, begun by Fletcher Pratt and L. Sprague deCamp and continued much more recently by L. Sprague deCamp, Christopher Stasheff, and others.  There is a 5th book, soon out in paperback, of the Temeraire series by Naomi Novik, that we will definitely get to.  And we keep hoping that Glen Cook will write a 12th book in his Garrett, P.I. series.  We have also enjoyed the Nightside series, and there are more stories yet to come in that one.  I can only estimate that I have read Frankie at least 40 books over the past 2 years or so.  There are some writers I love that don’t “do it” for Frankie, I run a few chapters or stories by her and then let her decide whether to continue, and we either continue or move on.  She admits that she never would have picked up the books I read to her, but enjoys it immensely.

At any rate, many who know and love me (admittedly not that many) are aware that I love to read aloud.  I don’t care what age group a book is written for, so long as it is written well.  I’m not all that good about it, and have been turned away by people recruiting readers for blind people, but nearly all of those whom I have read to believe those recruiters to be wrong, and besides, I just flat enjoy it so to heck with them.

Hugs,
Me

Sagittarius

“Be humble for you are made of dung,” says a Serbian
provers. “Be noble for you are made of stars.”  I expect that you’ll
soon be getting vivid evidence of that truth, Sagittarius.  Your
challenge will be to resist the temptation to believe that you’re more
dung than stars, or more stars than dung.  that might be hard, given
the fact that practically everyone around you believes they are one or
the other.  But I promise you that you have the power to do it.  You
can exude cheerful equanimity while dwelling right at the crux of the
paradox.

There is a new cookbook out, to raise money for the hungry.  I’m happy
to say they included one of my “famous” recipes (it’s good I only sent
them one, right?).

You can view the book announcement at http://eternalpressauthors.blogspot.com/

75% of the sale price will be donated to Action Against Hunger (http://www.actioncontrelafaim.ca ).

Hugs,
Moss

I’m finding that I’m reacting more like I’ve been teaching, which is a really good thing.

I have long said that there are three levels of knowledge:  knowing something in your head, knowing it in your heart, and feeling it in your bones.  Steps 1 and 2 may happen out of order, but step 3 either is ingrown or takes a lot of work.

I’m making some lifestyle changes.  This means reading more, reading light stuff less, spending lots less time on the computer, and changing my eating habits.  Since I seem to have found a Unified Field Theory in this, the changes fit my philosophy/beliefs and are therefore easier to implement and carry through.  I am practicing being more mindful about the things I do, and evaluating things as much as possible on a moment-by-moment basis to see if they pass the “smell test”.  Somewhere in here I will probably start doing more — and more directed — meditation and study.  Better sooner than later, but I don’t know how right now, maybe it will become clear soon.

If it is harder to get hold of me online, well, ya’ll have my phone number, and if you do enough research you can find both home and cell numbers somewhere on the Net.

If you feel like asking what or why I am doing, ask away.  I’m not doing anything I haven’t been teaching for years, just found a way to make it easier to put into practice or easier to evaluate whether to do something based on the teachings.

Hugs,
Me

1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it’s yours to keep for the entire period.
2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, “life.”
3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately “work.”
4. Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.
5. Learning lessons does not end. There’s no part of life that doesn’t contain its lessons. If you’re alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.
6. “There” is no better a place than “here.” When your “there” has become a “here”, you will simply obtain another “there” that will again look better than “here.”
7. Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
9. Your answers lie within you. The answers to life’s questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
10. You will forget all this.