Namaste Sweetie! 090820

Namaste Sweetie,

Happy 2's Day!

Whatever you enjoy the most

OH!  you know know what to do! 

:  )

I believe the world as we know it is changing

The collective consciousness of humanity is evolving

And we MUST EVOLve or Die
(notice the word LOVE in Evolve: )

This is incredibly exciting and thrilling

And also incredibly frightening

If I had the power - the authority

I would command you to read this book

A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle

 Since I do not have such power

I highly recommend - strongly urge you to read it

This may be the single most important book you will read

Many of you may have already read this book

It's been around for years but it has just now come to me

Perhaps because now I am ready for its teachings

Another reason I think that proves this book is important
Is that there are those in the "religious" community
Who damn this book as dangerous heretical teaching
The reason they think this
Is that this book goes against their fear-based religion
I understand this because I escaped
The Fear-based religion I was raised in
God is not Fear - Anger - Hate - Destroyer of His Enemies
God - or perhaps a better way of saying God is 
The Eternal Consciousness that is within ALL
Source of All
This "God" is only Love, Peace, Joy, Compassion
I cannot tell  you how joyful and full of Peace and Love I feel
Having Left behind the old paradigm of God that I was taught
The God I was threatened with
God is not a threat
God is Unconditional Love
In you and in me
Regardless of what the "religious" have told us
The reason the world is so fucked up today
Is because we were given a view of God as a Wrathful Tyrant
Destroying all his enemies
This is a Lie that has been perpetuated for centuries
Man has distorted the truth to benefit his own power structures
And Look at the history of those centuries
Violence in the name of God
That is Fucked up!
How can Unconditional Love be violent
This book helps us to have a healthier view of Source
It teaches a way to a higher consciousness
Which in turn can create a better more Loving world
A New Earth

A lot of AOM - the AOM TV, Radio AOM, AOM Meditations

Have been my attempt to promote 

our evolution into our new consciousness

This book so beautifully describes this new consciousness 

Imagine that I am outside your door right now

Banging on your door - Begging for you to read this book

Because this is what I am doing right now

I beg you to read this book

You can read it online in PDF form here LINK

You can also listen to the audio book on YouTube Here LINK

Or just click the link on the sidebar----------->

I hope you will enjoy your visit

I wish you a Glorious Day!

Peace and Love,

AOM

~*~

~*~

NAME THE MOVIE GAME!

I can name that movie in one scene!

:  )

This was Bogart's breakout movie

He got the part because he played it on Broadway with Leslie Howard

Howard lobbied for Bogart to get the film role

And because Howard did him such a favor

Bogart and Bacall named their first child, Leslie

Bette Davis was the lead actress in this film as well

Here is the scene:

Name the Movie

AOM Meditation: 042020

~*~

Hatchet is a novel by Gary Paulsen. It is a survival story of a teen-aged boy named Brian. The story begins with Brian and a pilot flying over the vast Canadian wilderness in a single engine bush plane. During the flight, the pilot suffers a heart attack, loses control of the plane, and crashes into a lake. 

Brian escapes the submerged plane and swims to the shore. That first night, as he tries to sleep, he is viciously attacked by thousands upon thousands of mosquitoes. He fights, wrestles and writhes insane trying to stop the unstoppable mosquito attack. Finally, he surrenders and just takes it. 

Alone, battered and bruised, he just lies there in the dark and takes the attack. Accepting what he could not change did not stop his suffering but he suffered less once he accepted what was.  Later in the story, Brian discovered how to make fire and finds other strategies to combat the mosquitoes. While the mosquitoes were awful to endure, he was able to endure them without the torture because he changed his attitude. He quit fighting and accepted what he could not change. It was only then that he could move on to learn how to make life better for himself.

I've remembered that scene from the book because it is a great example of accepting what is - accepting the things we cannot change. It seems to me we are all in a similar situation today. We are all enduring a period of self-isolation due to the virus. We can't go and do as we once did. We can fight, wrestle, and writhe against our current situation or we can accept what is and find ways to make our current situation more pleasant. It's all a matter of changing our attitudes. Let us see our current situation with new eyes. Rather than focusing on what we can't do, let's focus on what we can. Let's choose to make this time amazing and fun. We have this time to grow in so many different ways. It's all about our perspective - how we see what is. We can make these hard times better. Our Perspective and Attitude are Key. 

~AOM

~*~

Let's Just Go With The FLOW

MUSIC and Meditations: "Fenesta Che Lucive" performed by Franco Corelli

 Elio (Timothee Chalamet) & Oliver (Armie Hammer)

At Monet's Berm (fan art)

~*~

GLORIOUS

Today we look at the book, CMBYN

And a song that was mentioned in the novel

On Elio and Oliver's last night together in Rome

They went to a party that lasted well into the night.

Upon leaving the party, Elio and Oliver

Walked (staggered) around the streets of Rome.

During this walk is when

They kissed a kiss that stopped time.

In later years, Elio would return to the spot of that kiss

To remember that brilliant moment -

That eternal kiss

After the kiss, Elio and Oliver were 

Walking back to their hotel

And here is where the narrative picks up:

"We turned left and, heading toward Piazza Febo, suddenly, from nowhere, made out someone strumming a guitar, singing not a rock song, but as we got closer, an old, old Neapolitan tune. "Fenesta ca lucive." 

It took me a moment to recognize it. Then I remembered. Mafalda had taught me that song years ago when I was a boy. It was her lullaby. I hardly knew Naples, and, other than for her and her immediate entourage, and a few casual visits to Naples with my parents, had never had contact with Neapolitans. But the strains of the doleful song stirred such powerful nostalgia for lost loves and for things lost over the course of one's life and for lives, like my grandfather's, that had come long before mine that I was suddenly taken back to a poor, disconsolate universe of simple folk like Mafalda's ancestors, fretting and scurrying in the tiny vicoli of an old Naples whose memory I wanted to share word for word with Oliver now, as if he too, like Mafalda and Manfredi and Anchise and me, were a fellow southerner whom I'd met in a foreign port city and who'd instantly understand why the sound of this old song,  like an ancient prayer for the dead in the deadest of languages, could bring tears even in those who couldn't understand a syllable.

The song reminded him of the Israeli national anthem, he said. Or was it inspired by The Moldau. On second thought, it might have been an aria from Bellini's Sonnambula. Warm, but still off, I said, though the song has often been attributed to Bellini. We're clementizing, he said.

I translated the words from Neapolitan to Italian to English. It's about a young man who passes by his beloved's window only to be told by her sister that Nennella has died, from the mouth where flowers once blossomed only worms emerge. Farewell, window, for my Nenna can no longer look out again. 

A German tourist, who seemed all alone and quite drunk himself that night, had overheard me translating the song into English and approached us, begging in halting English to know if I could be so kind as to translate the words into German as well. Along the way to our hotel, I taught Oliver and the German how to sing the refrain, which all three of us repeated again and again, our voices reverberating in the narrow, damp alleys of Rome as each mangled his own version of Neapolitan. Finally we said goodbye to the German on Piazza Navona. On our way to our hotel, Oliver and I began to sing the refrain again, softly,

'Chiagneva sempe ca durmeva sola,

mo dorme co' li muorte accompagnata.'

'She always wept because she slept alone,

Now she sleeps among the dead.'

I can, from the distance of years now, still think I'm hearing the voices of two young men singing these words in Neapolitan toward daybreak, neither realizing, as they held each other and kissed again and again on the dark lanes of old Rome, that this was the last night they would ever make love again."

~Andre Aciman

(Call Me by Your Name)

And here is the song they were singing
(The old songs were so morbid)
As you listen, imagine a man looking up to a window
The window from which his lover and he would talk
That special place where he remembered his true love 
This loved one whose light was no longer there
And yet whose light would forever shine within his heart

Fenesta Che Lucive
English translation

Fenesta che lucive e mo nun luce...

The once-lit window, now dark...
means that my beloved is ill...
Her sister looks out and tells me:
Your beloved is dead and buried...

She always wept because she slept alone,
Now she sleeps among the dead.
She always wept because she slept alone,
Now she sleeps among the dead.

Go to the church, and look into her coffin
See how your beloved is now...
From the mouth that once came words of love,
But now only worms...Oh! What sadness!

Now she sleeps among the dead.
She always wept because she slept alone,
Now she sleeps among the dead.

Franco Corelli

"Fenesta Che Lucive"

YouTube Direct Link: https://youtu.be/aW65effv6H0

AOM Meditations: MINDFULNESS (111717)

“Salvator Mundi” attributed to Leonardo da Vinci

There is a very interesting documentary now playing on Netflix about this newly discovered da Vinci painting. The program is entitled, "Da Vinci: The Lost Treasure". In it journalist Fiona Bruce receives an exclusive preview to an amazing artistic treasure. 

(Note: This painting recently sold at auction for 450 million dollars - that's great and all, but that money sure would feed a lot of people - just sayin'.)

~*~

What are you doing right now?

What are you thinking.

What is going on around you?

What sounds do you hear?

How is your body feeling?

Today we are going to talk more about Mindfulness

I know I talk a lot about it

But for a very good reason

It has dramatically changed my life for the better

And I'd really like you to have this gift in your life

(Something you should know

Mindfulness is different from Meditation.

You don't have to Meditate to be Mindful

But you do have to be Mindful to Meditate.)

     

As I study and practice Mindfulness

My life is truly improving

I now catch myself thinking things

That normally would send me

Into a tailspin of depression 

or an explosion of rage

Now - I am learning to watch myself

Like stepping out of myself

To be the watcher of my thinking and doings

Being more aware of my thoughts and feelings

Has helped me avoid living a life of mindless reactions.

It used to be like

When others would push my buttons

Ooooooo I was instant reaction

Reacting without thinking

Like a rudderless boat recklessly tossed about 

by people and events around me.

Now, as I continue to grow in being Mindful,

It's like having a rudder to steady and steer my life

I can see obstacles that lay before me

I have time to decide how I will respond to life

I now see things about myself that I never saw before

I can now savor the moments of my life

On a deeper and richer level

And the really cool thing is...

It's really not difficult

I mean really

If I can gain from it - anyone can

It just requires you to make the effort to be aware

Of what's going on in each present moment

Whatever you are doing - pay attention to that

Be With That

Be Here, Now, in This Present Moment

Be aware of what you are doing

And it will benefit your life, too.

~AOM

Now here's some folks who do a good job explaining Mindfulness:

~*~

While washing the dishes one should only be washing the dishes, which means that while washing the dishes, one should be completely aware of the fact that one is washing the dishes.  At first glance, that might seem a little silly: why put so much stress on a simple thing?  But that’s precisely the point.  The fact that I am standing there and washing these bowls is a wondrous reality.  I’m being completely myself, following my breath, conscious of my presence, and conscious of my thoughts and actions.  There’s no way I can be tossed around mindlessly like a bottle slapped here and there on the waves.

While washing dishes, you might be thinking about the tea you’re going to drink afterwards, and so try to get them out of the way as quickly as possible in order to sit and drink tea.  But that means that you are incapable of living during the time you are washing the dishes.  When you are washing the dishes, washing the dishes must be the most important thing in your life.  Just as when you’re drinking tea, drinking tea must be the most important thing in your life.

In fact we are completely incapable of realizing the miracle of life while standing at the sink. If we can't wash the dishes, the chances are we won't be able to drink our tea either. While drinking the cup of tea, we will only be thinking of other things, barely aware of the cup in our hands. Thus we are sucked away into the future -and we are incapable of actually living one minute of life.”

~Thich Nhat Hanh

(The Miracle of Mindfulness)

~*~

Mindfulness is the energy of being aware and awake to the present moment. It is the continuous practice of touching life deeply in every moment of daily life. To be mindful is to be truly alive, present and at one with those around you and with what you are doing. We bring our body and mind into harmony while we wash the dishes, drive the car or take our morning shower.

~unknown

~*~

"Mindfulness simply means awareness. It's a direct, intuitive knowing of what you are doing while you are doing it. It's knowing what's going on inside your mind and body, and what's going on in the outside world as well.

Most of the time our attention is not where we intended it to be. Our attention is hijacked by our thoughts and emotions, by our concerns, by our worries for the future, and our regrets and memories of the past. Mindful awareness is about learning to pay attention, in the present moment, and without judgement. It's like training a muscle - training attention to be where you want it to be. This reduces our tendency to work on autopilot, allowing us to us choose how we respond and react." 

In this video, mindfulness expert Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn defines "What is mindfulness?" and discusses the hard work and rewards of practicing mindfulness. 

 Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn

"What is Mindfulness?"

YouTube Direct Link: https://youtu.be/HmEo6RI4Wvs

~*~

My go to book on the subject of Mindfulness is

Mindfulness In Plain English

by Bhante Henepola Gunaratana 

I bought it years ago

Because it actually is in plain English

Just what I was looking for

So many books get so complicated

But this one is very clear

  

The book I have is an early copy

They have recently updated it but I have not seen it yet

You can read the early copy online for free HERE (link)