Had a glitch in my web site and ALL my photos from the ASL Walk and travels, etc. have gone on a walk-about of their own!!!
BUT I’ve found a way to make galleries more easily (thanks Tony!!!)
Sooooooo, I apologize for anyone coming to see the shots from the ASL Walk!!!!
I’m slowly adding them (and other photos) back to the site.
Each experience in life is a wonderful opportunity for learning. And that’s what this gal is doing!
With Aloha,
-Sj out
p.s. updated March 15, 2014 in Whistler where I’m happily ensconced in our hosts’ bed, watching snow fall quickly turn the green forest to white! Wow! Such a treat!!!
p.p.s. yup, that’s me with mumps . . . the family legend is that they’d gone w a y down by the time this picture was taken.
I found this picture on Wikipedia under the page on Consciousness. When I copied the image in order to include it in this post, I noticed that its title features the word Bewusstsein, the German word for consciousness. Interesting. Germans are thinkers; they’ve long been known as thinkers. Hmm, I can hear some of you non-Germans groaning at that statement while remembering a particular period of the 20th Century when Germans weren’t considered to be thinking but rather reacting. Despite that sad and horrible time, I think it’s true that Germans tend to be deep thinkers. So many intellectual topics have their roots, or at least their fingers, in the German thought process.
“Okay,” you ask, “What’s on your mind today Sj?”
Consciousness. Today I’m poking around in the playground of Consciousness or Bewusstsein. When I pry apart that German word, I find that it has two pieces: an adjective (Bewusst) and a verb (sein). Bewusst can be translated into either “conscious” or “aware.” Sein is that ubiquitous verb “to be.” Literally “to be conscious or aware.”
Okay, to be conscious is to be aware.
Wikipedia’s definition also uses the word aware: “Consciousness is the quality or state of being aware of an external object or something within oneself.”
The Apple dictionary in my computer breaks the definition down even further into three parts:
1) the state of being awake and aware of one’s surroundings : she failed to regain consciousness and died two days later.
2) the awareness or perception of something by a person : her acute consciousness of Mike’s presence.
3) the fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world : consciousness emerges from the operations of the brain.
The third definition is the one that I’m tossing around in my sandbox today, “the fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world.”
The mind is conscious or aware of itself. It’s a “fact.” Is it?
“Hello Sj, how are you today?”
“Fine thank you. And you?”
“I’m well. Have you noticed that we’re not alone?”
The mind’s also aware or conscious of the world.
“Hello world!”
“The fact of awareness by the mind of itself and the world.”
Is it possible for a person to be aware that they’re NOT aware?
I love that question.
Is it possible for a person to be aware that they’re NOT aware?
Here it is again with a slight tweak.
Is it possible for a person to become aware that they’re NOT aware?
I’d love to hear from you! Feedback. Comments. What do YOU think?
The following YouTube video also addresses this topic, albeit in a completely different way: BUT it’s no longer available when I took a look-see a few years later.
Take a short break from your daily routine, pretty please with a cherry on top : ), and give it a look-see.
And then, I would love to HEAR from you. What are Your thoughts? Your ideas? Your ponderings and bemusements?
You can comment here on my blog glob post OR at my YouTube channel below this video clip.
Let’s start a dialogue to see what you and others think. This isn’t a pop quiz, and there are no wrong answers. If it’s what you think, it’s what you think.
Let’s all keep an OPEN mind and see where this takes us.
It starts simply by taking a moment, a breath, to stop, look, and listen.
What do YOU do when you’re a Grump? After it’s landed on your head and oozed down into your heart making a mess of the joy that was there just moments before?
Five-years ago, a case of the Grumps landed on my Dad. Sitting in a wheelchair unable to walk (just a few weeks after he’d won a 3-hour match in a national tennis tournament), my Dad was thinking, “What the?”
Slumped over in his chair, he brewed.
And stewed.
A Grump.
Feeling sorry for himself.
Seeing no way out.
And then, something c h a n g e d.
I saw it with my own four-eyes.
Somewhere within himself he found the strength to sit-up.
To cast out one kind word.
And then another.
And another.
Soon a fountain of encouragement sprang forth from his personal spring of goodness.
“You can do it!”
“Try again!”
“That’s it!”
Encouraging words flew across the rec hall landing first on a middle-aged woman who’d been paralyzed in a car accident.
Next, they found root in a young man who’d broken his neck in a fall.
One-by-one, I saw the change.
One-by-one, I saw the effects of my father’s words.
“Way to go!”
“That was a solid hit!”
“Good job!”
As this group of spinal cord injured people played volleyball, magic began to happen.
M A G I C.
Sj with her father, November 2008
And it started with my Dad.
The Grump.
Somehow he’d found something to grab onto.
A something that he could stand on.
A something that took him to the other side.
A bridge of sorts manifested itself when he looked within.
When he thought of others.
When he took his eyes off his own sorrow and reached out a helping hand,
in the form of encouraging words.
“You can do it!”
“Try again!”
“That’s it!”
From the depths of despair and self-pity, my Dad found a bridge to the other side.
How fitting that a man, who built bridges during World War II to replace those that the Germans blew up, would find a bridge WITHIN himself. A man who served his nation as a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
In his final days, my Dad built a bridge to the other side. A bridge that enabled him to help others even as he helped himself.
A different sort of mettle appeared right when he needed it most.
Patricia Neal visited her eponymous rehabilitation center Fall 2008
It’s me talking candidly on a topic I’ve chosen. Unscripted. Off-the-cuff, and from the heart.
Deep inside of me (and not always so DEEP inside : ) is a natural cheerleader. A natural encourager. A voice which loves to yell, “Go for it!”
Go for it! Go for your dream, whatever it is!
And I mean it; I really, really do.
Go for your dream. It’s time. NOW. : )
And so, after talking to two new friends–one in Hawaii and one in Cambodia–I realized it was time. It was time to launch this particular ship in my personal voyage.
My hubby kindly assisted me in getting started in a way that I can easily continue on my own, with a good work flow, a good system. Thanks Tones!
Without further ado, I bid you welcome to Sj’s first Pep Talk: Nice to Meet You!.
We were literally jumping with joy to see each other again. : )
FLO, Future Light Orphanage is located outside of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. In the early 1990s, after having lived in a refugee camp in Thailand for over ten years, Madame Phaly founded FLO. When telling her story, she wrote, “By the time I left Site 11, I was responsible for 91 children. Some were orphans, but others were children of parents who could not take care of them. They were the nucleus of what would become the Future Light Orphanage, and some are still with me today.”
Unfortunately, Madame Phaly died in November 2012. She is greatly missed, but her legacy lives on.
Two years ago I happily stumbled upon this wonderful organization and taught English language classes during the children’s summer break. The following year I felt the pull to return. And now, on my third visit to FLO, I realize that our lives are forever connected.
You can visit past posts from when I was teaching at FLO to learn more about that experience.
You can visit eGlobal Family and sign-up to be a e-foster parent.
You can form a connection with a place like none other.
FLO is a global family. A community born from one woman’s generous and courageous spirit. There’s room in her and everyone’s heart for YOU too.
I just participated in a really inspiring writing workshop called Karma Free Writing.
For the closing, we were invited to post a video of us reading something we’d written (for the workshop or previously). What came to me instead, are the words to the five minute video shown below. The photos I selected from thousands of photos I’ve taken during my travels, as well as ones my husband and I have taken during our daily life.
When I lay on my bed (and this could be anywhere in the world), one of my favorite things to do is give thanks.
I may pass in and out of “wakefulness,” dozing now and then, and still, what I return to is Thank You.
Thank you to my parents for allowing me to be born through them. Thank you to my sisters for being such good friends and watching over me. Thank you to my husband for the joy of sharing my life with him. Thank you to Fido, our firstborn, for allowing us to experience a playful, ball throwing life. A life which also included a death, his death. That experience I recognize now as a tap on the door of my heart. A waking up to all that matters. Life itself. And death which is such a part of life too. And his kid sister, Rocket Girl, who he led us to when he visited me once while in dream-state.
Thank you.
Life. The greatest gift of all.
Life. All that really matters.
And thank you to You, my friends on this planet. For I recognize in each one of you a Divinity, a Perfectness. For you are a child of creation. For you are Life itself.
And with that gift of life, which we each here are experiencing comes the responsibility (I think) of appreciation. Appreciation of simply being alive. Breathing. Being. Living.
And now, as I return to my day, I once again give thanks.
* * *
I just felt that there are those who may read this and think, “Who is this willy-nilly silly gal who gives thanks for everything? How corny she is!”
To them I say, “Yes, I love corn. Because from corn we get so many wonderful things!”
Cobs once served a purpose we thankfully no longer need. : )
And I’m not talking about the making of mattresses.
And corn just tastes sooo good!
Yes, I love corn.
Yes, I love silly.
Yes, I love life.
And I have this f e e l i n g, YOU do too. : )
Hugs to you all,
-Sj out
p.s. And thanks D’Anne and John for the i n c r e d i b l y fluffy and delish pastries!!!
Pickles are funny to me. Well, at least the word is. It’s goofy. It’s fun to say.
“Hey Pickle! How are you doing?”
“What’s the deal, Pickle?”
“Pickle you later!”
What does that even mean?
I have no idea. It’s just fun to say.
Pickle.
Pickle, pickle, pickle.
I’m in NYC. In Brooklyn. In the most amazing home, (I LOVE home exchange! Mahalo Ria!!!) and I’ve signed up to take a 5-day intensive course in stand-up comedy at the American Comedy Institute. And I’m terrified. Yes, terrified.
Then why am I doing it?
‘Cause. The most rewarding things I’ve done in life were also the most scary.Going on my first plane ride at 14 with no one I knew to a country where I couldn’t speak the language. Scary.
Taking a job as a maid in a country where all I could really say was, “Ein Bier, bitte.” Scary.
Taking a job on a cruise ship where my main role was leading aerobics, and I’d only done that once in the class that I’d just taken because I’d actually gotten the job. Scary.
It’s a long list. I’ll stop. You get the picture.
Throughout my life I’ve made many, many leaps and next week I’m jumping off yet another cliff. Will I land on my feet or with egg on my face?
My husband says all good stand-up comedians talk about their flops. I reckon it’s a rite of passage, a part of the process. Irrrreegardless, I’m jumping. Maybe I’ll be holding my nose and it won’t be pretty, but I promise you I will jump.
And if I do flop? Land on my belly instead of my feet?
Well, there are always pickles.
And from the look of the Heinz pickle bookmarks, it’s time for an update.
