take beauty, for example, a marvelous idea

Thanksgiving day 2012

Happy and Grateful for Things, Yes...But how about Happy and Grateful for Ideas...

Take Beauty, for example

Sun's Path at Winter Solstice

and this

in the wndow of a frame shop on 6th Avenue at 11th street

And this

The Crystal Ball on the Windowsill with the sun this morning,

Now there's a beautiful idea:

all the spectacular magic growing in the dark somewhere in the planet..

the unseen beauty that is ours right this moment,

no

matter

what.

That's something to be happy about.

While we are at it:

beautiful, beautiful, beautiful

And, of course,

from Emoto's Messages from Water,

what gratitude looks like.

again, I say, Beautiful.

I have often thought that beauty is actually a dimension.. if a dimension is a place.. An unexplainable place where we unexplainably meet..  If we are in a concert, hearing Pachelbel's Canon in D, one of my all time favorites, and we are all at the same time loving it, feeling it, transported by it... At that moment it seems to me we are not only in the concert hall together, we are in some other unexplainable place as well.   Back in about 1997  I tried to read the book Hyperspace, An Odyssey

Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps and the 10th Dimension, by Michio Kaku.   

Don't ask. 

Actually, I learned alot about the first, second and third dimension..  How as "flatlanders", like gingerbread men (and women) (!) on a table surrounded by a short, stone wall.  We could slide around on the table, one dimensionally.. side to side,   north south east and west..  but, up and down where not an option yet.  Until it occurred to someone to sit up, then stand up and step over the wall, the universe was limited to sliding around on the table like  checkers .Bumping into the stone walls.  So. a consciousness shift.  Standing up made the idea that we could explore side to side AND up.

Imagine everyone's surprise to first grasp the idea that the world was round, not flat. Up AND DOWN?  Although, I have to guess that it was an idea whose time had come.  The man who is credited with inventing television said he didn't invent television;   television was an idea whose time had come.    So, when I got to the chapter on the 4th dimension.. I could feel it.. it was something like outside in at the same time as inside out...  . I THINK that's what was being presented..but, I didn't really finish that chapter.  And I certainly could not even imagine 6 more.  

  

I prefer to think about stepping into the ideas of beauty and telepathy as dimensions whose time has come..   It happened to me just tonight.  I thought of someone today that I haven't seen, or, actually, thought about in a couple years.  Out of the blue, he texted me a happy thanksgiving thought. This is happening more and more to everyone.  I have been known to send a word to someone telepathically..and then wait for them to say it. I send weird words, like walrus, and, it works. 

Ok. what does this have to do with the diea of beauty?  absolutely nothing. 

But, it has to do with being thankful for IDEAS...   that we HAVE right this moment. We don't have to wait or save up to have them.   Any idea.  Freedom. The fragrance of a rose, the first day of summer vacation in 3rd grade, a mustard seed.

And there is the idea of thinking a thought.  the choices.   The unexplainable connection,  The 100th montkey rule..  I love the idea that right this moment thousands of others may be thinking the exact same thought, or humming the exact same song, or marveling at something beautiful.

Ok.  Now I've rambled on about things everybody knows..but, that's a lovely thought., and nice to remember sometimes. 

Emoto, Messages from Water:

Angel.

Happy Thanksgiving,

Julie









looking for happiness? your search is over

Looking for Happiness?   Your Search is Over.

Happiness, the moment and the unseen.

You might recognize this as a drawing of a flower. It might not make you necessarily all that happy.. as it's well, pretty mediocre.   However, the important thing about this drawing is that I was thinking about how many things we can find around us, dirctly and immediately in our experience in this moment, breathing in and out, and noticing something we like...anything.. just to get to the place where a happy thought is possible.  (unless, or course, you are flooded with happy thoughts.. But, there are those who have somehow measured how many thoughts we actually have in a day.. and,  they say most of them are not so happy).  I'm not talking about petty little happy thoughts..  I'm talking about a life altering feeling/belief/knowing/peace/that/in/fact/we/are/going/to/be/ok/place.  Better than that. ..we ARE ok.  better than that.  We are happy.  Because in this moment.. we CHOOSE to be it...no matter what.  Even if you think it is the very absolutely LAST thing you can be

                                                     

at this moment.

So.  What if you can't see ANYTHING you like around you.  You hate it all.  that happens.  And you don't care about the sky or the trees or birds chirping or the smell of coffee or Styx "come sail away" blaring from somewhere.. or how the wind feels on your face.  especially how the wind feels on your face.   Nothing. 

Well, then, it might help to look for the unseen.

Like the little seeds and the roots under the ground in the above drawing of a flower.  Flowers are Great.  no kidding. 5 roses in my kitchen have been known to save my life. More than once.  But. there is something even more beautiful  in knowing they are doing what they do no matter what.  That somehow they KNOW what to do, is a whole other amazing thing.  The life that is exploding everywhere around us at every single second of every single moment.  Breathing in, 1,2,3 and out, 4,5,6,7... maybe we can hear it.  like the instrumental in the middle of "come sail away"...  it feels to me, sounds to me,  like so much life.

                                                                                

 

The point is

the next time someone tells you about the elusive nature of happiness,

what all the studies have shown,

how hard it is to find it,

get it

keep it,

and that the odds are most your thoughts during the day are going to be unhappy,

there is always the unseen,

your heart is beating,

and this:

a completely unverifiable statement coming to me by a very very wise source

that I choose to believe

because,

well,

it makes me happy.

So, what is the guarantee that ANY of this is going to make you happy?  Absolutely none.

What I think it does is let us know we always have a choice about what we think.  Always.  And if we think things, deliberately, that plant us in the moment, we are not in the past,  causes suffering, or the future, also causes suffering.  Even if we are suffering in this moment, then we can give ourselves a break...  to find a moment of peace, even as impossible as that may seem.  I know there have been times when I've had to say..."Right now.  Happy thought.  right this moment, Julie, Have one. get one." And I have fought with myself that I was asking the impossible.  How dare I ask myself to do such a shallow thing at a time like this.  But, once I knew, one time,  that this moment was in fact a better place than the _____________fill in the blank of the past, or the _______________fill in the blank of the future...I started to trust it.  the moment that is.  Being there, here. now.  As many times today as I possibly can.  breathe  and notice. or imagine.  right now.

Seems to me at the very least, we can begin to beat the odds.

Which reminds me of something I saw last week at a new york intersection:  east 14th and 2nd Avenue.  A wildly busy intersection.  I mean wildly busy.  I'm waiting on the NW corner, looking up 2nd avenue.  This guy in a wheelchair, maybe in his fifties (?), smoking, is coming down the outside lane (one way street, lane closest to the other side of second ave), wheeling his chair at breakneck speed.  I mean as fast as his arms could POSSIBLY make that chair fly.  He manages to race through a completely empty intersection, across 14th street,  impossible, actually, and the moment he got across 14th street, he threw his fists in the air.  and coasted for a while. The thrill of victory.  It was amazing.  I told my daughter about it a few minutes later...  She said,  "that's what I like about New York... someone is always trying to beat the odds." 





Julie

\\



the difference between a visualization and a happy thought

The difference between a happy thought and a visualization, and other thoughts on happy thinking, while the lights were out in the east village.





A happy thought is imagining the life you already have.  The seen and the unseen.  And liking it.

Most people, when they talk about a happy thought, do talk about something actually in their experience...now.  Even if it's a poem that was written 300 years ago, it is speaking to them right now.  Or if it's a sunrise or a story or song or memory, it seems to be something that now has become their own.  For whatever reason and in whatever way.

And when I start to breathe intentionally, 1,2,3 in, 4,5,6,7 out... and pay attention to what is around me..what I hear, smell, feel, see, touch...or the thought of baby Alice's toes in the river...even though she isn't right here, in this zip code.. she is something that I have, and that I feel, and reminds me how grateful I am, even though there are many many things I don't seem yet to have. 

So, while I sat in the dark and took no time at all to realize how much I liked these three little candles on the table, I breathe in and out and hear the laughter on the dark street, because it's Halloween.. and while it seems like things aren't quite right with the world, Sandy brought with her so much sorrow and confusion, somehow if we can trust that even in the worst of times, we can find our way to one something that we  have.  and love... we can be grateful and begin to heal.


A "visualization" for the happy purpose of bringing something into your experience (form follows thought) that you don't exactly have at this moment, is most likely always a happy thought, but, not all happy thoughts are "visualizations". 

For one thing.. while it is so much fun to visualize the people, places and things we are bringing into our experience... When we are finished happily visualizing, and we come back to this moment, we don't exactly HAVE those things right now.  We know they are coming.  We believe it, trust it, and know it.. But, nonetheless, they are on the way.

At that moment, it might be a good idea to have a happy thought, about what we have in our experience this moment.. the seen and unseen.  our heart is beating, the trees are growing, the sky is somehow there and blue, the moon is full.. that reminds us that at this moment, this very moment, as infinite as it is, and yet as present as it is, we have everything we need.  Breathe in.  Breathe out.

What a happy thought.

Julie