Monthly Archives: November 2010

Dancing Bears We Never See

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I was reading about the Rihanna Umbrella nonsense about one of her songs with the evil lyrics the song contains. Someone has a wild imagination and too much time on their hands. There was a bright side to skimming the story though.

Reading that dribble led me to think about a trip to a park a few years back. I had taken two of my Grandsons to a park. I looked around at all the people at the park with their families enjoying the afternoon and enjoying being with each other, having fun. There were families who were at the park, but no having fun and definitely not enjoying each others company.

The youngest Grandchild’s focus was on perceived ‘Gang Bangers’ (his words). He thought the park was full of them to the exclusion of everyday families enjoying the nice weather, and warm lazy day we had. He was so focused on Gang Bangers real or imagined, he became anxious. This Grandson sure either we were going to be attacked because we weren’t part of a Gang, or a gunfight was going to break out at any second and we would be in the crossfire.

The other Grandson was pretty quiet for the most part. It took a little while to figure out why. He was enthralled with all the young, his age, women at the park. Those young Women were all he could see. He was oblivious to families, ‘Gang Bangers, and the afternoon.

Of course I noticed a few young men who could have been gang members, and I certainly noticed more than one or more pretty women. If the Grandkids noticed anything other than what they were focused on they did not mention it.

I am sure everybody reading this has watched at least one, “Men in Black” movie. The movie is loosely about aliens in New York, along with the alien airport situated among millions of New Yorker’s who never seem to have noticed. Those few who did notice had memories erased. The Men in Black were right there with their memory erasers, ensuring the secret did not get out.

I remember a watching video (maybe 2 if I have them mixed up) where you are told to watch how many times a basketball ball is passed back and forth in a group setting. After the video is over, you read a Dancing Bear waltzed through the group, and myself like most people do not see it. I had to watch the video a number of times because when I was not focusing on the ball being passed, it was incredible how obvious it was.

In a recent movie where Jeff Bridges plays a worn out Country Singer who finds something good for once. Along the way, Bridge’s character loses a four year old boy in a mall setting. Out of desperation he informs mall security, and the first question mall security asked is, “What was the boy wearing?” Of course Jeff’s character did not know, he was focused on the boy and not his clothes until that moment.

Speaking of credibility, the net is also full of documented cases of how poor we are when it comes to being an eye witness. If you find that idea odd, think about someone close to you, and what they were wearing the last time you saw them.

Why this happens is to keep us from being overwhelmed by everything happening around us. We create an idea of how everything should be and that is what we see. In the example of the people passing the ball back and forth we do not expect to see someone in a bear suit dancing through the group, so we do not. What clothes someone is wearing are not as important as what their expression is, or how and what they are saying, so we block it out.

This idea really has me wondering how much happens around us that we never notice because it is something we do not expect to see. Maybe those few moments in our life where we witness something we can not explain, an apparition, ghost, monster, whatever it is, maybe they are more common than we think. Maybe because we do not expect to see anything unusual we do not?

The same applies to what some of us read. Two people can read the same small book, and one person struggles to get through it, while the second person another wonders if they ever really will get through the book with all the amazing insight the pages contain.

The same idea also applies to our world and our problems. We see our problems the way we have always seen them. We solve them in whatever manner we have always solved problems. It works so why change it.

What would happen if when the next problem happens, we look for a Bear dancing through the center? You may not see a Bear, but when the same type of problems repeat over and over like a television rerun, perhaps trying to see it as if you have never had the problem before will help you see it in a new way?

Maybe after seeing the problem in a new way, a new solution will be found and the problem will go away for good? Maybe better yet, looking for the dancing bear in the problem may lead to the realization that the problem is not a problem at all, but rather an opportunity?

A problem turning into a dancing bear situation is definitely something we are not used to seeing. Perhaps we need to start looking for the dancing bear. Who knows where it will lead if we solve a few problems and then start looking for dancing bears other places.

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Low Dollar Camera For Christmas

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I did a lot of low end camera research over this last week. I thought I would post what I found to assist you if you too are looking for a camera. These are sub $200.00 cameras. I found according to their reviews, offering a lot for the money and were in town to play with before deciding on which camera to buy. Honestly, if I were given any of these cameras as a gift, I would be perfectly happy with any one of them.

Sony W370 – Does almost everything as well as the FH20 but for more money.

Canon A490 – Amazing for what it does at its very low price.

Canon A495 – Almost a clone of the A490 with almost the same bells and whistles.

Sony T99  – I really wanted this camera, but it was mentioned in a few places that the low light ability left a lot to be desired.

Samsung HZ30W – One heck of a camera if everything works. Very mixed reviews out there on this camera.

Panasonic Lumix FP1 – Another great pocket camera with a lot in common with the Sony T line, only for less $$. It also suffers from low light problems.

Nikon S80 – Very nice camera competes well with the FH20, for more money.

Panasonic Lumix FH20 – I ended up purchasing this make and model. This camera edged out all others within $100.00 price range in a number of reviews.

low light, no flash

That was the line up in the low end price range that I seriously considered. There may be other models out there that compete as well, but I did not have access to play with them. All in all I was really impressed with Sony’s touch screen menu. It was easy to use I thought, though others did not seem to care for it. That means the menu designers and I think alike.

One thought to keep in mind is the megapixels of these cameras are now hitting fourteen. That is a huge picture allowing you to cut down the size of the picture removing the edges where most of the flaws are.

All of these models have the same basic flaws in their picture quality. In general, if you are shopping in this price range, you probably won’t notice the flaws inherent to the cameras, or they won’t be important as long as you don’t expect professional results and flawless large prints.

These cameras are so close in function and quality that any of them would make a great small camera. Try out the option and menus system of each one and decide what menu works best for you. That is the biggest deciding factors in this price range.

In closing, one thing I think is getting crazy is the megapixel numbers. I thought my now dead five megapixel camera took all the picture I really needed. Now I have a camera capable of taking great pictures of almost 2.5 times the size of my old camera. I don’t really need more megapixels next time out. What I would really like to see better built and thought out cameras with better menus instead of cramming in more megapixels.

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Importance of Synchronicity and You

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I know a Man who was driving home from a trip out of state. Along the way he stopped to help another Man and his Son who were broke down on the side of a back road far from the nearest town. What followed was for the Man a life changing experience.

I have another friend who was chatting to a man and passing time when the man mentioned he was looking for someone who could do some custom woodwork for his home. My friend wants to be able to make a living doing custom woodwork.

I know you are reading this post and wondering what is in it for you. What are you going to get out of this post? As I write, I am wondering the same thing. Where is this post going and how is going to end with something you can take away knowing you read something worth your time.

A few months ago, I read of a poem and some notes, Dark Night of the Soul, written by a Spanish Monk hundreds of years ago. If you have been following this blog for a while, you know I have written of The Dark Night of the Soul too. The title of the book caught my attention because when I wrote my post I had no idea the title was already in use for hundreds of years.

I bought the book, which contains a poem and extensive notes explaining the written by St. John of the Cross, who was a Carmelite friar and priest. St. John of the Cross is also considered a Mystic which is how I stumbled across his writings. I read the poem and it made complete sense to me explaining the journey of the ourselves when we are transition to something different than we were before.

After reading the poem and starting on the rest of the book, I put the book aside as I was really interested in Sufism. I first came across Sufism years ago. Sufism is unique, considered both religious and mystical, arcane knowledge is/was well known by the Sufi’s of old. It seemed everything I read said Sufi’s were familiar old forgotten knowledge. So much so it seemed Sufi’s from the past were quite familiar with Angels, and other concepts mainstream religion rarely mentions.

Remembering this thought sent me scurrying to the library to see what I might find on Sufism. There was not much, nothing was uncovered in my search of the catalogue system, though I know I am not good at searching out information this way. I went to the section on religion and there was a book by someone named Hazrat Inayat Khan titled, “The Inner Life”.

The Inner Life will not appeal to many people. If the idea of Sufism and or Spiritual Growth is something you are interested in, you may find the book a breath of fresh air. If not, you will find it filled with thoughts and proclamations that make little sense, and are foreign to how you think.

I finished, The Inner Life, or most of it as the book was due back at the library, and I decided it was not on the most checked out list, I could read the last pages sometime in the future. While I was at the library, I looked for more books on mysticism or Sufism, and came up empty handed.

That left the bookstores here in town. The selections vary, probably more from the way books are put on the shelves than the books themselves. Quality and knowledge seem to vary from book to book. While at one bookstore, I asked for help finding the section where books on Sufism would be if they had any.

There was a man at the section and he was holding two books, and looking for at least a third book. I said to the man, I was looking for a book on either Sufism, or mysticism. The man without a moments pause replied I may enjoy this book, as he reached down and removed a book from the shelf. He then said he finds the writings in this book beautiful and the words reach into both his mind and his soul. I thought that was a lot of information about how he felt about a book jammed into the ‘New Age” section which generally has a lot in common with fantasy.

As I looked down to see the book he was offering as good reading I was quite surprised. In his hand was a copy of the book, “Dark Night of the Soul, by St. John of the Cross. Somehow I was not surprised, yet at the same time I was very surprised. The man continued that he found the writing to be among the best of any books on mysticism. Written in simple words, he said the book has had a profound impact on him, and his life.

Synchronicity according to my e-dictionary is: The simultaneous occurrence of events that appear significantly related but have no discernible causal connection. If ever you were or are on a search for anything in in life, it is vital to pay attention to synchronicity as it happens. There is a Buddhist proverb (I think), “When the student is ready, the Master appears”.

For many of us, I believe synchronicity leads is to our destiny of we are aware enough to know it is happening and go with it. My friend stopping on the road, my other friend in a casual chat, and myself searching for books, each found something important and potentially life changing because of chance, or perhaps due to the action of synchronicity. Is it synchronicity that led you to this post, or is it this post which will change something in your day to take you to where you want to go and learn what you want to learn?

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How to Really Accomplish Life Change

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If you read my previous post, you know of my frustration over why people do not seem able to make real lasting changes in their life. Many people are happy where they are in life, and prefer not to step out in a new direction because new directions are scary.

People try to follow a new plan for a day to a month, then the life they have previously created creeps in, and before they know it, their life is in the same as before. For others, the goals they want to achieve take decades to accomplish, and they become frustrated in a few weeks or months.

As I mentioned earlier, the biggest problem is too many people miss or gloss over as not important what really is most important. What nine-hundred and ninety-nine out of every thousand people who want to make changes in their lives miss is the single most important part.

People are so busy doing what they think is correct, follow a set of rules or manage a flowchart, they miss the key element. They polish and rearrange the tasks of their todo list. Once their list is as good as they can make it, they check off step one, which was to make a list.

Some amount of time goes by, and they check off the second task. Some time later a third step gets checked off. Eventually the list comes to an end. They know they have made some positive changes in their life. They also know the level, quantity, or quality of change they were expecting did not happen, and they do not know why.

They become morose and disenchanted with the process because real change did not happen as they thought it should. They forget the whole idea until a Change Your Life  Package shows up again – in another form. Then they remember this is important, and they start all over again.

What is missing? Why do so many people miss or believe what is not important is needing to become totally involved? Totally involved rather than making and checking a list of tasks. Checking off tasks is useful for doing many disparate items that need to be done. Checking off tasks is important to help one track progress toward a physical goal, checking the steps involved.

Checking off tasks with little or no inner awareness of participating is doing no more than externally acknowledging some amount of work was done. Doing work is simply what it sounds like. Doing work is completing tasks. Doing tasks does not changing lives over the long term unless your inner you is involved.

For real, permanent change, you have to actively involve the inner you. Much more so than  completing steps 1, 2, 3, or putting  check marks next to items a, b, and c. Not putting you into the process is cheating yourself. Knowingly or unknowingly sabotaging yourself, keeps you from changing. You must be the center of the change. Actively seek opportunity and put you in everything you do. If you are not present and actively looking for pathways to change, you are only completing a checklist.

We all know someone whom we consider very successful. No person who is successful stays that way by accident. Successful people are always looking for opportunities to be successful from the time they wake up to the time they go to sleep. They may not be cognizant of what they are doing as it becomes second nature, but they are actively looking for opportunity all the same.

If you are related to someone successful or know someone well enough, pay close attention to them. You will notice over time, no matter what they are doing, they are looking for ways to how the situation may be made more beneficial to them.

Successful people are ever in the center of their lives. They actively look for and often find opportunity. Every opportunity does not work out as well as they hope. With time and experience they refine their purpose for change and learn to make the most of every opportunity. They are actively including themselves in what they do instead of simply wondering when they will be able to check off the next task.

To make real change you must have your inner self involved in any and all change you wish to create. Creating a checklist or flowchart moves you from one point to another, but does little to change your situation into something you want your life to be.

Actively look for opportunity to involve yourself in the change beyond a checklist or flow chart. The universe with all its power to effect change cannot help you effect change in your life unless you are an active part of the process. The more of you that you place into making creating change in your life, the grander and more pronounced that change will become. Input equals output.

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How To Create a Life You Really Want

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Have you ever heard anyone who is having continuous problems in their life, talk about what a happy life they are leading? Have you ever heard anyone in school with poor grades mention how they get good grades and mean it? How about someone who drifts from job to job talk about how easy it is for them to find a better paying job than the job they were last let go from?

I almost never hear someone utter those words or thoughts in reference to their life. If you have not read it here on this blog, you have read or heard about self limiting beliefs other places. If you have not read or heard about shaping and creating your own life on this blog, you have read it somewhere else.

It has frustrated me that so many people have read from many differing sources, ideas and ways to change their life; yet nothing ever changes for them. They read something here, or somewhere else, get all hyped up, and start trying to do what ‘everyone’ says they should be able to do, and nothing changes.

Until recently I was of the opinion that nothing changes because they do take not any idea of changing seriously. I thought perhaps they try out a suggestion they have read about over and over, and after a week or two give up on it.

A second possibility occurred to me that perhaps those people who were not able to realize any change were comfortable right where they were and they preferred the present circumstance of their life to the possibility of improving their life. I know a few people really do not what their life to change. Change is scary, what they have for a life may not be good, but it is comfortable.

I see it every day when a few people do the same things over and over again, expecting different results from their actions. It reminds me of an old computer saying, “input equals output”, which was a programmers pleasant way to say, “Garbage in, Garbage out’.

While reading last week I came across another explanation. Once I read it, I knew the reason people have trouble with ideas like LOA, and other Life Changing Strategies is because no matter how it is explained, people are not understanding what they should be doing. People read and read, practice, and practice some more, and nothing changes. All because what is so obvious to everyone who has used they strategies is omitted in the telling.

Law Of Attraction generally tells people in one form or another how to create a thought and then let that thought go out into the Universe. The Universe using some unknown magical ability is supposed to take your wish and make it reality. Poof, your wish has come true!

Other life changing strategies including my own, are to start living your life as if you have achieved your goal. Sounds pretty simple on paper from my side of the fence. If you want something to change, start living your life as if the change has happened. Works for me over my lifetime, it should work for everyone same as it does for me.

There are many who would rather I did not say what I am about to tell you. They are making a lot of money and really would rather not do anything to unset that proverbial apple cart. Some experts send desperate people down the path of pay for which does not really tell anyone anything they do not already know. Or they provide a multi step program, at so many dollars a step, never quite reaching the end.

People are using what they know to achieve what they want for their life, and the heck with the rest. The immediate goal is financial, with ulterior reason hidden away in private. The only thing separating you from them is either in the end they do not tell you what you need to know. Maybe they tell you what you need to know, but it is so disguised, that when you hear or read it, you probably gloss right over it. More to follow in the next post.

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Speaking With the Dead Through Dreaming

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Holding a seance is a hit or miss proposition, with a miss being the more likely outcome. Ouija Boards should be avoided and can be dangerous because of how the process works. Ouija boards are generally thought to channel only low level energy, and are not suitable to contact anyone who has passed on.

Asking out loud for a sign from someone who passed on is common, and is a good option for many. People find coins in unusual places taking them as a sign their passed love one is around. Other people find things missing, only to turn up in unusual places, somewhere the object would not usually be placed. For example a ring is missing from the jewelry box, is found a few days later in a cereal bowl. Generally any object being moved has some connection to the person passed on or a close connection to only one person.

Other people say they are touched, or woken. People who experience this are not comfortable being touched by something or someone they can not see. After they become used to it many people say are comforted by the touch. A few people who claim to be touched by loved ones, say it happens when it is important they wake up because something is wrong. I know one woman who claimed her mother who passed on has woken her daily since she was sixteen, about thirty years at the time.

The easiest and thought to be the safest way to contact someone who has passed is in a dream state. Dreaming and meditation have a lot in common, but we all dream. Many of us do not have the time, patience, or make up to meditate and reach a state where we are open to other realms.

There are some steps that need to be done if dreaming is to be effective. Remembering your dreams is vital. We are so used to dreaming we never think about what we dreamt when we wake. Within a minute or two of waking our dreams have for the most part vanished from our memory.

To help remember your dreams there is no fancy tool, or technique. The only tool I know of is a notebook and something to write with. It does not matter how the notebook is made, and whether a pencil or pen is used. Only that the notebook is next to your bed, and easy to write in.

If you wish to keep a fancy dream diary, I suggest you keep a separate notebook. One for when you first wake up and write down your dreams, and the second where you can write down your dream from the notes you initially wrote. This way your notebook will always be next to where you sleep, and your diary will be neat and complete.

Make a habit of writing down your dreams within the first minute or two of waking. More than one dream may be remembered. Write them down quickly. Wait until later, and there may be a blank spot where the dreams should be. Once writing down dreams becomes a habit it is time for the next step. The next step is to take an active approach to sleep and your dream state.

Before getting ready for bed, determine a dream purpose. Let that purpose be as simple as possible until it too becomes second nature. Decide what your dreams should be about. Some of the simple ideas may be: conflict resolution, how to see something in a different perspective, problem solving, flying, or something that happens in dreams that is fun to remember.

It is important not to make your dreaming stressful. Simply let your thoughts flow, reviewing and comparing dream possibilities as they happen. Once a decision is made about your  dream, let the idea go. Once in bed, and starting to fall asleep, think briefly about your dream purpose in the same way of remembering something is needed from the grocery store in the morning.

Within a short period, your dream notebook will start have dreams that are focused on the previous nights dream purpose. When this starts happening the time has some to start making a dream purpose of seeing and talking with a passed loved one.

The reason this works, I think is because the process becomes a shared venture. Being open and receptive to the idea of meeting and talking with someone passed, makes actual contact more likely. Both parties are taking an active role in the process which means less energy is expended by only one which makes contact easier to accomplish.

Some people have frequent dreams of family members and friends. Others dream of who they wanted to see, but they won’t communicate, and stay distant. For a few people, in one nights sleep, they get what they need, and find peace.

I hope you are one of the fortunate people and this method works for you if you choose to try dreaming someone into your dream. If after giving it a fair try and you do not seem to be making progress, I suggest you try learning to meditate. It may be you are not able relaxed enough to be able to be receptive as  your mind is too busy on other matters.

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