Feels like time is speeding by so quickly that I don't realize how much of it has gone by between posts here. To tell you the truth, I'd kind of forgotten about my beloved little blog. Perhaps it's time to start it up again.

2012 has begun. We can all feel it. I can certainly feel more rush to get something real and impacting on the go. There's no better time than now! We always knew it but did we sense it? When January kicked off, it was great hearing all the talk of new ventures, new resolutions, people wanting to start really amazing community-oriented things. It gives everyone this boost of energy simply from having these people around. But now it's time that we keep that momentum going and keep falling in love with what we're doing, over and over again, as if it were always January 1st.

I've already had my little freakouts. I'm overwhelmed, I won't deny that. The thing that keeps me going is having all these amazing people around me who inspire me and want to be better, do better, and actually get life-long projects on the way. I'm now starting to implement schedules and deadlines. I'm a huge procrastinator but I DON'T want to be anymore. The only person I have to blame for this is myself, so I can't go on complaining about it.

First post since my travels have begun.

I've been travelling for 11 days and it feels like it's already been a month. Time goes by very slowly here in the mountains of Guatemala. It's a good thing and a bad thing, if you have a mind like mine that doesn't stop thinking and twirling and wondering. And sometimes worrying. But I'm learning to cope with it and it's actually become one of my challenges-- to stop. Stop doing all of that. See and feel mountains but don't think about them. Really inject them into your soul. No picture or no amount of words could sum up what you've felt about something.

I already miss the people I love back home. It feels like I'm so far away. Hard to believe I've got another 35 days to go before I see them. I'm having a blast, don't get me wrong... but this blast would be intensified x100 if my lover and my friends were here with me. It's amazing how much we take in alone versus with others around us. It's like we seperate our vision and our emotions. Right now I feel like I'm dividing those with strangers, and it's a very different feeling. That's why much focusing and silence is necessary for me to actually love what I'm doing and where I'm at.

Wonderful experience, both the good and the bad.

Yesterday I was asking my mom and my friend if they ever SEE the trees downtown. You know, the ones that are stickin out in front of your dental office? Or the ones you pass by while you're shopping? The ones blowing in the wind, just taking it...

And this morning I was speaking to my mom about how we constantly are waiting to be happy later. All we need to do is realize that if death is coming we can't constantly be waiting and waiting. What if that stuff never comes? What you thought would make you happy never ever comes? You are inherently amazing. Once you realize how happy you can be without ANYTHING else, you can be happy right NOW.

So anyway, this Osho book just read all this stuff right back to me:

"The conscious man lives in the body, loves his body, celebrates it, but he is not the body. He knows that there is something in him that will survive all deaths. He knows that there is something in him that is eternal and time cannot destroy it. This he has come to feel through meditation, love, prayer. This he has come to feel inside his own being. He is unafraid. He is unafraid of death because he knows what life is. And he is not chasing happiness, because he knows God is sending him millions of opportunities; he has just to allow.
Can't you see the trees are rooted in the ground? They cannot go anywhere, and still they are happy. They cannot chase happiness, certainly; they cannot go and seek happiness. They are rooted in the ground, they cannot move, but can't you see the happiness? Can't you see their joy when it is raining, their great contentment when winds are running hither and thither? Can't you feel their dance? They are rooted; they go nowhere. Still, life comes to them."

I almost cried actually when I read the part about the trees. Ooooh boy.

I'm going on a trip really really soon.

Like, 2 weeks soon.

HURRAY!

But I find myself disliking where I'm at right now, waiting and waiting until I'm there and having a blast. But I came to a sudden realization, at work, while "hating my life". Even though I'm about to go on the trip of a life time, I shouldn't be shunning life right NOW.

What if I were to die instantly tomorrow? I'd never have gotten to go on my trip. I would have wanted to change the way I was living every waking moment, loving every moment, charishing every single one of them so that even if I died a second later, "moved on" a second later, I'd have loved life til the very end. I wonder if we die as fulfilled and end up the same if we didn't die in a happy state. Or perhaps happiness is nothing and when we die we realize that we sweated all that small stuff for absolutely nothing. I guess that's mainly why I shouldn't sweat it right now. As the famous book titles, "Don't sweat the small stuff. And it's all small stuff."

What's wrong with the way we view wealth in our society? Generations born in this era are brought up thinking that making lots of money is wrong, that being "rich" is bad. The moment we're offered an easy way out, we think it's a scam, or we think that it's not ethical because we need to "work hard for our money". It's as if we were brought up to suffer, to be in pain and work for the man until the day we die.

I was having an argument with my folks about what I think it means to be wealthy. I concluded that I find wealth to be freedom. Freedom from all restraints, or if there are restraints they are ones you've decided to put up for yourself and you actually like those challenges and work better with them. Wealth is material comfort, yes, but not extravagently. I have the misconception of thinking that if someone dresses lavishly, has a nice car, owns an upscale over-the-top home, they're just greedy. But who am I to say? Just because I don't like all those things doesn't mean owning those things is WRONG. It doesn't make you a bad person. Is greed really all that bad anyway? Only reason I personally don't agree with greed is because it propels our economy to unnecessary heights and proportions. We're trying to stabilize the economy but instead we continue segregating the common people into lower and lower classes. SO. After coming up with this and catch 22-ing myself because I was just being really judgemental, I found out that I really do want money. I want to be stable, comfortable, free. I want to have TIME to do things that I love to do. But I don't want to slave my life away. An older man came into my office the other day and said he worked all of his life so that he could finally golf in his retirement. I want to retire in my 20's. I want to prove to the young folks that something different can be done that lets us take more control of our own lives and spend our time wisely, freely, with more stability and constant flow of ... yep, cashola.

PS: 111th post!

Today's tidbits from a book called "Body Mind Balancing":

If people are ecstatic, then the whole pattern of this society will have to change. This society exists on misery. Misery is a great investment for this society. So we bring up children … from the very beginning we create a leaning toward misery. That’s why they always choose misery.

In the morning everybody has a choice. And not only in the morning, every moment there is a choice to be miserable or to be happy. You always choose to be miserable because that has become a habit, a pattern; you have always done that. You have become efficient at doing it; it has become a track. The moment your mind has to choose, it immediately flows toward misery.

Every child is born ecstatic. Every child is born a god. And every man dies a madman.

If you become one with anything you become blissful. If you separate yourself from anything, even if it is happiness, you will become miserable.

This morning the walk to the bus was so blissful. Everything was beautiful, perfect. States like this come and go and I relished in it while it was there...

"When you know, they know. They look at you and they know. They can't help but look at you because they know what you know radiates outwards. Truth is, what they don't know is that the reason you look as if you know...is because you gave up trying to know, long long ago. You're a light, a shining image that radiates acceptance of everything around. They see their magnificent reflection purely through you, and that lifts them up to a sacred place they rarely get to experience. Truly, that is the path I choose in this lifetime, no matter how difficult to sustain. You have to get up and go to work, do your 'job' as best you can every single day. You job is only to remain constantly jobless: empty, in the most full, overflowing way. For your emptiness is full of room. Room for them to understand vastness."
-- Lydia