The Dart Maker Blog

Can we get Americans to conserve energy on nights of Meteor Showers and Eclipses? The reason I ask is there are several such dates throughout each year, which such special events occur and if we told people of the need to conserve energy and the issues with light pollution then we might save quite a bit of energy over a year’s period?

We could have a rule, or a suggestion that require lights out for light pollution issues during these events in our heavens. We could ask citizens to respect light pollution issues and tout the beauty of the events and ask citizens to be cognizant that others will need the lights off to enjoy the beauty.

If we can save the energy of 25 to 30 night per year with dimmed lights and work to resist the temptation to turn all the lights on which are not needed we stand to save 5% of our lighting energy usage each year and in doing so about 2-3 percent of our nation’s total energy usage on the power grid. That is a huge savings and worth a look see.

Will it really work? Well ask yourself if you were asked nicely to use less lighting during these nights, would you? Sure you would. Now then what if you got into a habit of turning off the lights in the house you did not need? What then, well you would simply use less power and if everyone did this also, well, you get the point. So, perhaps you might consider this in 2006.

“Lance Winslow” - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

What you focus on determines your reality because your mind becomes active in acquiring and bringing into your reality the things that you focus on.

You bring into your experience what you focus on.

If you focus on lack, limitation, negativity, and scarcity, then that is what you bring into your experience.

If you focus on abundance, expansion, positive things, and plenty, then that is what you bring into your experience.

A moment of introspection will make this obvious.

Why, then, if it is that easy to switch our reality, from one of suffering to one of joyful experience, do we persist in injuring ourselves?

It is because we are not in charge of our minds. Rather our minds are in charge of us. We, a conscious being, are dominated by our conditioning.

This is why the practice of meditation is important.

Every time we meditate, we dissolve more and more conditioning. We get off autopilot and take over the path our ship is cruising on.

As we let go of more and more of our reflexive thinking, we start to take charge of our own minds, and our reality, slowly, creakingly, turns around for us.

Of course, this is not easy.

Yet, it’s not much fun living a scattered and chaotic life either.

Until our awareness comes to the surface, we can’t really expect to improve our health, boost our finances, or be able to calm the storms of a relationship. Our dreams are always one step ahead of us, lost in the mist of “someday I will…”

The path is simple. Learn a method of meditation and practice it.

The path is also difficult. You have to learn and you have to practice.

The reward, however, is immense. Increased self-awareness, increased control of your mind, and increased appreciation and meaning of your own self and life.

In many religious traditions, we are often said to be asleep.

What exactly does this mean?

It means that we are almost wholly unconscious. We think and act in ways that are not in our best interests.

A conscious person is an aware person and awareness is something that comes when we release the subconscious programs that run our lives.

A brief review of yesterday will show you how your notion of self-control and inner mastery is pretty much an illusion.

If meditation is not your thing, then try contemplation, sitting in silence, quietly reflecting on who you are and what it is that is important to you.

A daily routine where you work on raising your awareness will do you a world of good. It will, in fact, change your world, placing you in one more favorable to your interests.

Saleem Rana would love to share his inspiring ideas with you. Hunting everywhere for a life worth living? Discover the life of your dreams. His free book tells you how. http://www.theempoweredsoul.com/enter.html

Copyright 2004 Saleem Rana. Please feel free to pass this
article on to your friends, or use it in your ezine or
newsletter. It’s a shareware article.

Self is everywhere, shining forth from all beings, vaster than the vast, subtler than the most subtle, unreachable, yet nearer than breath, than heartbeat. Eye cannot see it, ear cannot hear it nor tongue utter it; only in deep absorption can the mind, grown pure and silent, merge with the formless truth. As soon as you find it, you are free; you have found yourself; you have solved the great riddle; your heart forever is at peace. Whole, you enter the whole. Your personal self returns to its radiant, intimate, deathless source.

~ Mundaka Upanishad

This beautiful passage from the Mundaka Upanishad comes perhaps as close as written words can to “speaking the unspeakable” ~ to pointing to that which the tongue cannot utter (nor the ear hear, nor the eye see) … and giving us ~ its fortunate readers ~ a “prescription,” a practice for experiencing this that it is pointing to, directly:

… only in deep absorption can the mind, grown pure and silent, merge with the formless truth.

The prescription, the practice being offered by the Mundaka Upanishad is the practice of “deep absorption,” a state of Being that can be accessed (perhaps most effectively) through meditation practice. So what is “meditation practice”? Let’s explore …

In the same way that the practice of Hatha Yoga includes (at least potentially) thousands of asanas, and in the same way that there exist thousands of different forms of Qigong (Taoist energy-cultivation practices) ~ so also are there thousands of different forms of meditation practice. (I’m using the term “meditation,” in this context, to describe mind-training practices performed with the physical body held in a relatively stationary position.)

Within the Mahayana vehicle of Buddhism, meditation practice is divided, most generally, into two categories: Shamata (calm abiding) and Vipashyana (clear seeing). The most basic form of Shamata/calm abiding meditation ~ and a good place to begin, if you’re new to the practice ~ is simply to sit, in a location where you’re not likely to be disturbed, with the spine in an upright position, relax (body & mind), and do nothing else at all. Easy! Try not to even think of it as “meditation” … but rather a time to just sit and be at ease, to cultivate stillness, with nothing at all to “do,” for five minutes or ten or a half hour. This is called “Shamata without support.”

If this was too easy, you might like to explore “Shamata with support.” In this form of meditation practice, you use a particular “object” as a “support” for you practice. You can, for example, use your breath as support: letting your awareness rest gently on the inhalations & exhalations, perhaps counting the cycles of the breath, from one to ten, and then beginning again. Mantras (strings of Sanskrit or Tibetan syllables) or mandalas (visual representations of aspects of mind), candles, or objects from the natural world (e.g. a shell or a beautiful crystal) can also be used as support for your meditation practice. The idea here is that the “object” acts as “support” by helping us to keep our attention in the present moment (instead of drifting off into thoughts of the past or future).

A more advanced practice is to use as “support” whatever happens to be arising in the fields of the senses. So, for instance, you could decide to use as support every sound that you hear, or the smell of incense or perfume or food in the room, or whatever taste happens to be in your mouth … Emotions and thought-patterns and eventually anything at all that is arising, can be support for our practice. How exactly these things become “supports” (as opposed to distractions) is a subject for a future essay … or perhaps is best left to personal interaction with a meditation instructor. For now, the point is simply this: eventually, every single thing in your experience can act as a support for your meditation practice, for your becoming more Present, more awake, more “alive” in the here and now.

Vipashyana/clear seeing practices (also know as analytic meditation) are meditation practices often used in conjuction with hearing a Dharma talk or studying a particular text/scripture. In such forms of meditation, a particular idea or concept is taken into the space of meditation, and within that place “held” and “examined” in a deeper way than is possible when we’re engaging only with conceptual mind. A certain kind of clarity and certainty can then emerge, with respect to particular aspects of the teaching. This sort of meditation is also a means for yogic exploration: for exploring, in very specific ways, the working of mind, for “going inside” and having a “look” at aspects of ourselves which we may, in our day-to-day living, be quite unaware of.

But if you’re able to be happy with the very first Shamata( without support) practice ~ the practice of simply sitting, relaxing, and “doing nothing” ~ this is excellent … and will serve you well, on your journey toward [merging] with the formless truth … [solving] the great riddle … and [returning your personal self] to its radiant, intimate, deathless source … Sobeit!

Elizabeth Reninger holds Masters degrees in Sociology & Chinese Medicine, is a published poet, and has been exploring Yoga ~ in its Taoist, Buddhist & Hindu forms ~ for more than twenty years. Her teachers include Richard Freeman and Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche. For more essays on yoga-related topics, please visit her website: http://www.writingup.com/blog/elizabeth_reninger

Formula 1 motorsport is purely the apex of go-karting. It’s the professional design of the sport in full. Formula One is a universal phenomenon, a multinational business company that receives millions & millions of dollars per annum from advertising, sponsorship, and radio revenues. Well known Formula 1 drivers with a millionaire existence race these wonderful motor cars that are unmatched with hi-tech features - everything from tough to manufacture lightweight structures that glide the mechanism to tires with unequalled grooving style that illustrates the powerful movement on the track.

There is at present no other sport that best epitomizes the turn of phrase “worldwide sport” like Formula 1 racing. Particular countries serve as active contributors in shaping the Formula 1 scene - Malaysia for example, is a hot spot for Formula 1 racing (Fernando Alonso, a Spanish-born F1 driver under Team Renault recently just won a F1 race there) & Italy plays a substantial responsibility in designing and creating 1st class, top-of-the-line Formula One cars. Rivalry is ordinary in F1 - providing an edge of excitement with each and every zip of the curve and nitrous boost of the machine. Catch up with the latest Formula One Results.

Formula 1 cars can be summed up in two words: technological wonder. These shiny, low riding gems completing laps at speeds topping one-hundred and seventy miles per hour consist of nothing more than just a frame, an engine, & four wheels. For a start, the engine is placed behind the cockpit as opposed to regular cars. Find great offers on cycling equipment.

Hypnosis, meditation and visualization are three similar processes for accessing a creative area of the sub-conscious mind. Relaxation Magic lessons use a combination of all three therapies for maximum results. With the exception of people who have mental disabilities such as schizophrenia and severe retardation, everyone can achieve the relaxed focus of hypnosis, meditation and visualization by themselves.

Within themselves everyone has their own unique solutions for solving a situation they want to work on

The way I work is to help a person first reach a relaxed state and then through visualizations find personal imagery to explore their situation. One reason I feel hypnosis, meditation and visualization are so potent for problem solving is that areas of stress can be reached indirectly through analogies and a situation can be discussed without causing more discomfort

Recent research is confirming how connected the mind is in creating and eliminating physical problems. Physicians can fix the body but the mind can create the situation again. This is why adding the mind to a health program is the optimum method for total healing.
The first step to being in control of your life is being in control of your mind. If you’re not controlling your thoughts, who is?

Meditation and visualization enable you to communicate with your physical body, to relax mental and muscle tension even regulate autonomous body systems. Documentation has been out for years that meditation masters can control their heart rate and body temperature. Perhaps we will never need to use body heat to dry wet robes in frigid weather but being in peaceful control of ourselves mentally and physically is an ideal goal.

Excerpt from Relaxation Magic:
http://www.lulu.com/maryannlaraia

Certification Hypnotherapy Training Institute of SD, CA Advanced Hynotherapy Diploma 1989 Basic Hypnotism Diploma 1988

Hypnotherapy KWAFC Kent WA 1990 - 1995 Private Practice Encinitas, CA 1995 - 1998 Hartford, CT 1998 - present

Related Education Chapel of Awareness Encinitas CA 1996 - 1998 Meditation classes with the focus on healing Cabrillo College, Aptos, CA 1982 Physical Effect of the Religious Experience Study of what happens physically in the body during altered states Builders of the Adytum LA, CA 1975 - 1980 Lessons on Meditation, Kabala

How do you connect chakras, the energy centres of the body in Eastern tradition, and flowers, pretty, ephemeral, bright, cheerful manifestations of nature?

…by way of color therapy.. yoga energy balancing techniques…meditation… and a simple way of making yourself feel better and reenergized even if you don’t really believe in any of the above.

There are seven main chakras (as well as several others) in a line from the base of the spine to the crown of the head and one more newly recognised chakra just above the head which I believe is important. Each one is associated with various areas of physical, emotional and spiritual well-being. When the energy flow in one becomes blocked it can result in certain symptoms and vice versa. By keeping the chakras open and the energy flowing, we can maximise our body’s ability to keep well and heal itself.

One way of stimulating energy flow is by a simple visualisation. Each chakra has a colour of the spectrum linked to it. Focus on that colour and imagine that colour light pouring into the chakra and saturating it in pure coloured light, then visualise the chakra as a spinning disc of colour. Take 2 or 3 deep breaths as you do so. You can also repeat a mantra or affirmation to intensify the positive energy you are creating. Work through each chakra (see below for summary) in turn from Root to Crown to rebalance your whole energy level.

So what about the flowers? Whatever you use to visualise the colour would work, paint swatches, coloured stones or crystals, an image in your minds eye, but beautiful photographs of flowers saturated in the pure colour of each chakra can bring some extra flower energy into your life as well.

Flowers raise the vibrational energy around them, which is why they have long been associated with celebrations, brought as presents to new mothers, sick people, loved ones. Weddings and funerals are lavish with them. We are rarely aware of the spiritual connection these days, we just know that flowers cheer people up and make them feel glad. So flower photos as visualisation aids make sense and are beautiful to have around. www.aflowergallery.com has a whole section devoted to chakra flower photos.

There are books written about the chakras going into far more detail than there is space for here, as it is a deep and complex subject, with infinite, individual interpretations, but here is a basic, brief summary of the chakras and their associated areas and colours.

1. Root - Red
Situated at the base of the spine.
Emotional grounding and ones roots. The excretory and reproductive systems and the immune system.
Mantra “I am in touch with the earth, my roots”

2. Sacral - Orange
A hands breadth down from the belly button.
Sexuality, creativity, financial issues, honour and ethics, one to one relationships.
Genital and urinary systems, bladder and prostate.
Mantra “I am a creative, sexual being”

3. Solar Plexus - Yellow
Over the solar plexus at the bottom of the rib cage.
Self-esteem, self-confidence and how you see yourself.
Digestive system, worries and fears, the stress of responsibility.
Mantra “I believe in myself”

4. Heart - Green
Over the heart.
Love, forgiveness, unconditional love. Relationships.
Circulatory and immune systems. Heart and lungs. Loneliness.
Mantra “I can give and receive love”

5. Throat - Blue
Centre of the throat
Communication, self-expression and will power.
Thyroid problems, sore throats, addictions(due to lack of will)
Mantra “I speak my truth”

6. Brow - Indigo
Centre of forehead
Intuition, intellect and mind, inner vision.
Brain and nervous system, eye problems.
Mantra “I see clearly”

7. Crown - Violet
Top of head.
Spiritual awakening, search for meaning. Our relationship to our spirit and God.
Central nervous system, overwhelming fatigue.
Mantra “I believe”

8. Soul star - White/crystal
Directly above the crown, about two hand’s breadths from the head
Awareness of ones soul and its connection to the conscious self.
Gives perspective on life and ability to see seemingly random positive or negative events as part of the soul’s journey.
Mantra “I transcend”

This is a personal, simplified interpretation of the chakras. Use it as a stepping stone to finding out more for yourself.

Copyright Kit Heathcock 2005

Sometime flower photographer, keen observer of the resonances of life and fulltime mother. Born in the UK but now living on a farm in the southern hemisphere. Contributor to the creation and maintenance of www.aflowergallery.com one of the homes of chakra flower art.

One of the biggest challenges facing a pokern player is keeping people in when you’ve got the best hand-you’ve waited all night, played well, saved your chips, folded, folded and folded some more, and now you’ve got a full boat. Now you’ve got a new problem-how much do you bet?

You want to keep people in the hand, but you’re also looking to make a buck or two. Bet too much and everyone will fold, but if you bet too little and you’ll waste your awesome hand.

The key is to make any bet worthwhile to the other online poker players. Throwing all your chips in might work if you’ve got someone reckless enough or there are some other big hand possibilities, but if you want to suck in the two pairs and trip hands, you need to take several factors into account.

Look at what online poker hands are possible: Assuming that you’ve got the best hand, look at the board and see what might be out there. If there are some big hand possibilities (not as big as yours, of course), then you can put more on your bets. If there’s not much potential on the table, then keep your bets more minimal.

Look at the other player’s stacks: Try to keep your bet within practical range for the other players. You want them to feel that the risk is worth them calling your bet, so unless you think they’ll call, try to avoid putting them all in.

Finally, look at the players themselves. What are their tendencies? Figure out if they’re tight, loose, or somewhere in between. If you’ve got a sucker who calls everything, then go nuts. If everyone is conservative, put a conservative raise out there and hope they call.

Acknowledge where you are right now and realize that it is where you are supposed to be. Request your Miracle from this standpoint.

Destiny is knowing that things are going to happen, as if by accident, when they are needed to occur. This is a kind of divine intervention that is a gift from the universe. We need to acknowledge our destiny.

Insight is realizing that you will be guided by your Heart. This intuition will guide you to make decisions. Your decisions are correct even though they appear incorrect after they are made. This intuitive process is allowing you to make the mistakes that you need to learn and move forward in life to fulfill your destiny.

Before a Miracle can occur you need to visualize it, see it happening and write it down. A spiritual Miracle can occur when you bring it into reality by the actual practice of writing it in the physical world. Your faith in the Miracle is what transforms the universe to bring your destiny. A conviction to make it happen is the fuel to starting the fire within.

Taking action on a daily basis will give you the Motivation to transform your physical life into greatness in which Miracles do happen. Without action on your part you will stay the same. Use your insight to dream of the action steps that you need to take to manifest your Miracle. Action is the kindling to get you started.

Conviction is that you can change your life and will. Without conviction you will flounder. This takes effort and action. It is not easy. By realizing that Love is the answer, you will seek it. You will have a greater conviction to give more of the love that is inside of you to others. Love begets Love and motivates your transformation.

Devotional Love is when you see the Love in all people and everything everywhere. When you start to see this, you will see the beauty and love everywhere in the universe. This insight will take your conviction to majestic levels.

Have gratitude for everything that occurs in your life. What happens in your life is guiding you to your destiny. When you give back gratitude for your daily experience, the universe will be gratuitous in kind. Your life will seem to turn around.Giving and receiving are the yin/yang of the universe.

You manifest your destiny by creating a Miracle plan. When you follow these 7 steps your life will become one of mystery, magic, luck and surprising adventure.

Frank Gasiorowski is an Author, Speaker, Radio-TV Guest/Producer and the Voice-Over narrator for the new SmootheMIXX CD produced by Smoothe Intl. Frank is co-founder of the “Total Self Mastery University” http://www.TotalSelfMastery.com with Dr. Mike Davison. Frank is the founding Director of F.A.I.T.H. Ministry. http://www.FindAnswersInTheHEART.blogspot.com Get your FR*EE 90 Day Goals ezine at http://www.90DayGoals.com Copyright 2006

“Wait for the Lord” (Psalm 27:14).

“Waiting has four purposes. It practices the patience of faith. It gives time for preparation for the coming gift. It makes the blessing the sweeter when it arrives. It shows the sovereignty of God to give just when and as He pleases” (Dr. James Vaughan).

There is also a condition attached to our waiting: “Don’t be impatient for the Lord to act! Keep traveling steadily along his pathway and in due season he will honor you with every blessing” (Psalm 37:34 RSV). We are to attend to the little duties as well as to the large ones. Wait and work; pray for grace and then exercise it.

It is interesting that God also waits: “Then he waited for the harvest” (Isaiah 5:2 RSV). He waits for us to consider His nature which proves His intelligence and beauty and goodness; He waits for us to reflect on history threaded through and held together with His justice and mercy, and whose mission it is to turn sin into righteousness; He waits for us to realize that the alternates of adversity and prosperity, friendship and enmity, sorrow and joy, are but the instruments of His spiritual instruction that we may finally dwell in the mansions He has already prepared for us.

We waste much time waiting for signs and wonders. Christ told the expectant crowd, “This is a wicked generation. It asks for a miraculous sign” (Luke 11:29). In our day of the Gospel, which is filled with the plainest evidence of God’s care for us, we do not need to use a flashlight to shine it on the Son who is the Light of the world and we don’t need to dump in our buckets of contaminated water to add to the Living Water. To ask for signs from God when He has already pledged numerous promises is to tell God we are ungrateful and undeserving.
===============
The duty of waiting:

The Christian soldier is long in learning to wait.
Marching and countermarching are much easier to God’s warriors than standing still. There are hours of perplexity when the willing spirit anxiously desires to serve, but knows not how. Shall it vex itself by despair? fly back in cowardice? turn aside in fear? rush forward in presumption? No; simply wait; but

I. WAIT IN PRAYER. Call upon God; spread the case before Him; tell Him the difficulty; plead His promises.

II. WAIT IN SIMPLICITY OF SOUL. In dilemmas it is sweet to be humble as a child. It is sure to be well with us when we feel and know our folly, and are willing to be guided by God’s will.

III. WAIT IN FAITH. Express unwavering confidence; for unfaithful, untrusting confidence is an insult to the Lord. Believe that though He keeps us tarrying He will come at the right time and will not tarry.

IV. WAIT IN QUIET PATIENCE. Not rebelling under the affliction, but blessing God for it; nor murmuring against second causes, as the children of Israel against Moses; nor wishing to go back to the world again; but accepting the case as it stands, and putting it simply and whole-heartedly into the hands of our covenant God. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

It is the simple things in life that please me. But it hasn’t always been that way. There was a time in my life when everything seemed dark. It was a time when my children were the only source of light in my life. I was disappointed in myself for descending so deeply into such an obscure frame of mind and that increasing self-resentment only made each day all the more dismal. I took refuge in the stories that I wrote, escaping my own reality by creating new ones and falling to sleep as a character with a life far better than my own. I was trapped between the boundaries that I created for myself, allowing no other feelings but self-pity and disappointment to reside and freely cultivate.

It may sound quite dramatic to those who are fortunate enough to have never experienced such inner despair. Unfortunately, most people can relate to how difficult it can be to climb over the peak of depression, especially if they have been dwelling at the foot of the mountain for some time now. But with each minute, each hour and each day that we remain still, we have a greater tendency to get comfortable within those boundaries. The mountain becomes a part of the scenery that we soon fail to see and the journey we were meant to travel in order to reach our destiny becomes postponed, or worse yet, never conquered.

Life began to change for me after I realized that it was not my environment that controlled me, but it was I who controlled my environment. It was I who dimmed the lights in my own world and it was I who needed to slowly turn them back on. It was during that journey when I took a second look at my life, realizing that my children needed me. They deserved a mother who would provide light in their own times of darkness, guiding them into a better life than I had allowed for myself during those times of hopelessness. They deserved a mother who would conquer and move mountains in order to share with them the wisdom that I would obtain for the day when they would have to set out on their own journeys. They would learn that happiness is a gift that we give to ourselves and that regardless of how lost we feel at times, continuous movement in faith will eventually brink us to our peak.

It was at this time when I began finding the good in all things that I had subconsciously ignored. I began to notice everything that I overlooked outside of myself due to my previous self-indulgence with inner wretchedness. I found that it was the simple negatives in life that would control me and that the simple positives would, in fact, set me free. Just as I would have probed for and willingly allowed any negative to govern me, I began my search for each and every positive that would eventually set me free. I began taking one step at a time, falling on occasion, but getting right back up with my goal in mind as it became more visible with each step. Using my own internal compass and by creating my very own paths, I conquered feat after feat until I eventually mastered the art of scaling.

We deal with disappointing and depressing experiences each day of our lives. Rest assured that these difficult times are your opportunity to grow and to learn more advanced strategies in order scale your next mountain more quickly. These difficult times provide you with experience and knowledge that you can pass on to your children and to the world. They bestow upon you wisdom that, when looking back, will cause you to proudly stand in awe at how far you have traveled. Only through difficulty can you rest at the peak, look out over the horizon that surrounds you, and rejoice beyond today’s imagination at how beautiful life really is and how lucky we truly are.

Michelle C. Ustaszeski is a writer and photographer of inspirational and motivational art. She believes that if you can prematurely feel the emotions of your desired outcome, your reservations have been made and reaching your destination is simply a matter of time.

In 1998, Michelle created Sam-n-Nick’s Inspirations, named after her two children and located at http://soulfuel.com, when she combined her love of writing together with the digital camera. Sam-n-Nick’s Inspirations produces and sells scenic and enlightening framed art, bookmarkers, stationary, music, books, candles, bath products and other comforting gifts to warm the hearts and souls of her customers through private home parties.