When was the last time you actually touched the person to whom you said, “Hey, stay in touch!”
I think it was Bob Hope who said, “People who throw kisses are hopelessly lazy.”
Here’s a little two minute essay, telling the story:
I love how Julian at the end says it’s all true because a guy in a lab coat told you so.
And I love how the people in the experiment say, “They MADE me do it!”
This video picked up 300K views, just since I first saw it yesterday. When you watch it, you’ll get an idea why.
And…thank you for being there, my friend.
For some reason, I remember Wayne Gretzky saying, “You miss one hundred precent of the shots you never take.”
Don’t get caught up in the choices. It’s what you do, not what you choose, that matters.
A photographer was trying to line up this picture of a surfer, but a dolphin came by.
Result: Awesome photo.
Here’s the story in the Daily Mail.
Do you remember where you were, the first time you saw Free Willy? For me, it was in a movie theatre in Eugene, OR, USA, with a packed house that screamed & cheered & clapped when Willy gets away at the end (see the poster at right, for spoiler). It was a football game where the home team won, a fairy tale that wasn’t Grimm, it was a tale of justice, unpeeled. It was awesome.
One of the byproduct events of the movie was the eventual real-life release of the whale who played Willy, a captive killer whale named Keiko. Was this a good idea? DId it work out? Did humans learn anything from the experience about orcas, or about themselves?
I got to shake David Kirby’s hand last summer when he was passing through Friday Harbor (WA) on a promotional tour for his new book, Death at SeaWorld. I found him thoughtful, articulate, and an impassioned warrior against marine mammal captivity. Reading Death at SeaWorld made want to read the article linked below.
He shares his take on what we could have learned, what we missed, and perhaps what lies ahead in this penetrating essay. Let me know what you think.
Here’s the link to David Kirby’s remarks about Keiko on the 20th anniversary of Free Willy.
And…. here’s the trailer for the movie, back then.
Part of the path to purification is walking (or running, if you’re fast that way!) through the fires that burn away the stuff…that keeps us from pure love. The fires are tough, usually painful, sometimes unbearably so – but there’s always another day. There’s always another sunrise. There’s always later…which is a great place to look back from.
Here’s one of my favourite expressions of this, from Rumi:
Sorrow prepares you for joy.
It violently sweeps everything out of your house,
so that new joy can find space to enter.
It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart,
so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place.
It pulls up the rotten roots,
so that new roots hidden beneath
have room to grow.
Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart,
far better things will take their place…
~~Rumi
It’s always good to have a tune to wake up to, first thing in the morning, and I’d say “Lokah Shamasta” with Miten & Deva Premal is a good one to start the day.
There are a number of uplifting & inspiring people on the Internet, and one of them is Gigi Young.
Check out her YouTube essays & website, and you’ll get the idea.
She posted this about a week ago, and it’s been echoing in my head ever since….I kept catching myself wanting to understand the past before I felt I could move ahead with the task at hand.
This kind of thing helps.
The Dalai Lama spoke at the University of Portland earlier this year, and as part of his visit, shared his thoughts about what he hopes is the way we humans would greet extraterrestrial visitors.
You can see the whole presentation (it’s about an hour & a half) here if you’d like.
Beautiful moon tonight, hey?
Here’s a song to go with it: Play here! (It’s me singing “Brother Sun, Sister Moon” for you….)
Happy Harvest Moon to you!
It’s true, isn’t it – the great artists keep reinventing themselves & bringing new work out. I like the spirit of Paul’s new song (the album with it is out in mid-October).
The song is called “New.”
I like the idea of someone, after decades, still writing music. Wahoo!
When I was a kid, the big excitement in the early 1960s in the States was space. We were going to space & to the moon & the stars, and we were making the rockets to get there. We were also making the people to go there, and they were stronger & smarter & tougher than the average bear, because they had to be. They we going into space!
The Mercury 7 were the early heroes of all this, and I knew them & their stories just like I knew the stats on my baseball cars & the details of all those Hardy Boys books we read…and I loved them.
One of those astronauts, Gordon Cooper, became one of the leading proponents of his belief, based on things he had personally seen, that the Earth was being visited by folks from other planets. You can read a quick version here, and here’s a short video of Col. Cooper addressing this:
Other astronauts have reported seeing things as well, with perhaps the most prominent & articulate being Dr. Edgar Mitchell, the sixth man to walk on the moon (Apollo 14). In this interview with James Fox, he reviews his thoughts & experiences regarding what’s there, and the possible reasons people want to deny it.
Over the last few years, people have asked me what I think, and I usually respond that I’m curious, like everyone else. It’s as simple as this: I’ve personally met over two dozen people who have described their encounters with ETs (extraterrestrials), both visual & actual contact, and they’re reliable witnesses, far as I can tell.
That’s the sort of thing I would like to share, here.
So, being curious, I keep asking questions. Hope you do, too.
It’s amazing we can see the detail on Mercury that we can….and did NASA just discover Han Solo? Here’s more.
Whenever I get in an emotional jam, there are different ways to re-think, re-feel, re-program….and sometimes they work!
Sliding into a place of mindfulness is always handy for any situation, and this little video by Mike Evans from Totonto might help nudge you in that direction. It’s fun, too (I like cartoons!)
Over the centuries, Brother Ian has been collecting stories & information & discourses for the purpose of elevating the human condition as needed, dissecting it when necessary, and building the case for hope.
In the spirit of noting that organized crime, organized baseball, organized labour, and organized religion tend to engender controversy & occasional discord, I promise to be neither organized or critical of those who are.
