Staff of Light

Byron Katie has an amazing system of accepting. Accepting what? Accepting everything. This is her first book where she discusses her life’s journey and her discovery of “The Work”. “The Work” is Bryon Katie’s system for accepting reality as it is and determining why you are having resistance to any particular thing.
She postulates that any resistance we feel in a situation is due to a unresolved issue inside our self.
She has laid out a simple system where you answer a 4 questions about your assumptions, and then apply a turn around. The questions and turn around give insight into yourself and allow you to release unresolved issues and move on.

This is very powerful work and many examples and stories are detailed in the book. After reading this book one should be able to apply “The Work” to situations in their lives and find some resolution.

“The Work” is simple, powerful, yet infinitely deep. It is a tool you can use daily to deal with stresses and issues that come up.

I really enjoyed this book, and “The Work”. I have done “The Work” often, and I visit her website for more information often. “The Work” requires you to be completely candid with yourself. The tools are simple and available to give you the opportunity to release the issue. The catch is, you have to be willing to do the work, and answer the questions authentically. By writing out the answers on paper you make it harder for your mind to trick you and justify a situation.

I recommend this book (and “The Work”) for people who are interested in exploring there reactions to situations and letting go of their resistance.

I used to collect Magic the Gathering cards. It is called a trading card game. Packs of cards called Booster packs are sold, they contained a random set of cards, generally 10 I think.
You never knew what cards you were going to get in a pack. Some cards were “common” and in virtually every pack. Some cards were “uncommon” and you would get one every several packs. Other cards were “rare” and you would be lucky to get one of those cards often.

The object is to collect the cards and create a deck of cards to play the game against an opponent. You can make different types of decks, and people generally have 2 or 3 decks at least. The deck building is a major part of the game. People study the cards that are released and make design there decks on paper, or at least in their head. Once they determine which cards they want they buy booster packs to try and get those cards. However as the booster packs are random a person may have to by multiple boxes of booster packs.

Another way to get the cards desired is to trade cards with someone who has it. If someone is building a “Red” deck, someone else may have a “Red” uncommon that they need. That other person may be building a “Green” deck and the “Red” deck builder may a rare that the “Green” deck builder needs, in this case a trade could be arranged. The “Red” deck builder could offer to trade the needed “uncommon”, 10 “commons”, and another “uncommon” for the “Green” Rare card. There is economics governing perceived value for a “rare” card that need to be met.

Every card actually has a perceived value both for trading and for purchasing outright. People sell individual cards and card lots that other people snatch up. These cards have real perceived value and people are willing to spend cash on creating decks.

People can and do play Magic: TCG (Trading Card Game) for a long time. New cards are released often, new strategies are developed. Some people are true collectors. It is a fun game. However eventually the old decks and cards become old and get put aside for newer cards. Some people find a new hobby and move on. If someone decides to quit, they often sell there better cards, but the others often get regulated to a shoebox in a closet.

A lot of money has been exchanged for those cards. There is perceived value in the cards, to collectors, to other players, and to the person who has the cards. A rare card can be sold at quite a profit, but the majority of cards are not worth much monetarily.

The value is not really in the cards. The value is in the experience of creating the decks, the socialization of playing the games and trading the cards, the community you are a part of. Money is exchanged for the cards that allow you to have experiences. Pretty much like everything else.

Mini-economies spring up all the time. In the case of Magic:TCG, the cards form a basis of an economy. Legal currency is occasionally used to facilitate transactions, but the cards are the items that hold the perceived value. I don’t think that is accurate, the cards are the items that hold the perceived value, but underlying that is the experience that having a particular card will allow that has the perceived value.

I have been thinking about this recently. I am online a lot. I belong to several online communities. Some of the communities sell gift cards that you can buy in a store, like Target or Best Buy, and convert into “online currency”. Then you can buy digital goods. A new outfit for an “avatar” (an avatar is an onscreen representation of your character in an online environment), or perhaps a online pet, or any number of online goods.
These items exist as bytes on a computer. These digital goods are traded, sold, purchased, collected, and hoarded, like material goods often are.

Accounts get hacked and people steal the online “currency” or digital goods occasionally. In the material world, houses and cars get broken into and things get stolen. Is there a difference there?

I know people who spend hundreds of dollars a month on their digital goods collections. These goods have no value outside of their online community. But in the online economy they have perceived value.

I have struggled with how people can spend so much on a graphical representation of an item, like a shirt, online and not have anything to back it up with.
Then I thought about Magic:TCG. The cards really only have value in their community. If everyone just stopped playing Magic:TCG the economy would crash and the cards would be worthless. But the cards are not really what has the value, it is the experiences and the community. It is a hobby and how a person chooses to use their free time (and disposable income).

The online communities are much the same. They provide an experience. While the goods may be digital, they have a perceived value in the community. If the community shut down, everything would be gone. But the experiences still remain. Generally to get a mini-economy going a online community has to be fairly well established, so the risk of it shutting down unexpectedly is reduced.

It is not the actually item that is important, but it is the experiences that item allows that is important. If it is a material good, or a digital good, they both provide valid and authentic experiences. Both allow access and validation in the communities a person desires to interact in.

The common thread is connecting with other people, sharing experiences, building ties, and enjoying oneself.
It’s actually pretty cool.

I got up just a tad late this morning. I got ready and was out the door. I got to work and I was running late. I had a meeting I needed to prepare for, but I knew I needed breakfast.
So I went straight to the cafeteria. I was really flying. I had purposeful strides, I was focused on getting breakfast and getting to my tasks. I was ready to move. I had no time to waste, because I had somewhere to be and something to do.

I walked into the cafe. It was somewhat busy as usual. The middle island had people around it getting food on my left, and on the right was a small group talking. Right in front of me was a clear shot, then this lady wandered into my path.
I literally pulled up short on my leg in order not to run her down. I am not really sure where she came from. I pivoted a bit to the right thinking to go around her, when she shifted direction and went right, so I shifted left, and she shifted left. Consciously I do not think she knew I was behind her, or there at all really.

However there was no where I could go I just had to slow down and stay behind her. I took a deep breath and said, it’s not a big deal, it’s maybe 100 feet to where I need to get my plate. So I followed her in. She peeled off to the right at the end of the island and I stopped to get my dish.

Then there was someone standing there, in front of my scrambled eggs, talking to another person. I took a deep breath (again) and waited until she was ready to move. It was moments really, but it felt longer.
She moved and I got my eggs. I turned out to get my cup of water (which was behind me), and the lady from the entry way bobbled back into my path.
I don’t know where she came from again, but she was there. She got a cup ahead of me and went over to another machine to get her drink.
I got a cup and waited in line to get my water from the machine there.

Now I had my water and my cup and I was going to the cash register, as I was filling my cup I looked ahead, clear shot to the register, no one was there.

I stepped away from the dispenser and the lady walked in front of me again, and in front of her 3 other people snuck in forming a 4 person line off of a sudden.

I was ready to tear my hair out. Don’t these people realize I have somewhere to be? I don’t have time for this.

Of course I have time for it. I was living in the future, thinking about all the things I need to accomplish, planning my attack, worrying about getting things together for this meeting. I wasn’t in the moment at all. I was not really in the cafe, not mentally.

I was not engaging the people I encountered, the people I knew in the cafe, or the helpful people who put out the food, or ring up the purchases. I was not fully present to appreciate how awesome it is to be able to go there and get breakfast, how many delicious options there are (which I restrict myself on right now). I was not enjoying the moment.

The universe sent me all these people to remind me to slow down, live in the moment, appreciate what is around me, and that the place I have to be is right here, right now, not somewhere else, not somewhen else.

The song “We don’t need another hero” by Tina Turner is stuck in my head. I just can’t get it out.
The refrain plays over and over.

It got me thinking about hero’s. We don’t really need another hero. We don’t need someone to swoop in and rescue us from the the castasrophe of our life. Sometimes it would be nice, but utlimatily it does not do much good.

But I think people do need role models. Someone to look up to, someone to show that you can do it, whatever it is. People need each other, but people really need someone to emulate.
Emulate is not actually the right word.

I have taken countless classes on internet marketing. The people I have taken the classes from our doing really well. But they all seem to start by teaching you how to market internet marketing classes.

This does not work with my moral code. These people seem to enjoy themselves, do well, are sucessful, but I can’t take there approach. But I can use some of the tools I learned for products I do believe in, so it is not all a waste.

So I have been considering role models. I realized that very recently I have added a new hero to my personal lexicon of hero’s. A new role model. Just out of the blue.

Recently, within the past year, I have been introduced to a personality.
This person went to school and became a videographer. He worked camera’s on tv and movie shoots.
He did a little directing. However he determined that what he was doing was not his bliss.

He must have spent time searching for what his bliss is.
With inspired action he went back to school and learned a new trade. He married the skills from his job along with the new trade he learned.

This person is….. Tada Alton Brown.

Alton Brown is a TV Personality on Food Network. He started the show Good Eats on his own dime with his own vision with no commitments. He wanted to do it, he had faith and he just started to do it.
He made his first episodes, shopped them around and found somewhere to air it.

Within a year it was picked up by Food Network and it’s been running for 10 years now.

Every episode is a magical journey into cooking, his passion and bliss for what he is doing shines through each episode.

He had a job that he was good at. However he came to a point where he realize it just was not working for him.

He ha faith in himself. He had a creative idea, but no guarantee it would work. But he followed his bliss and changed his life.

I wonder if I have that kind of strength and faith inside of me.

This is a WordPress blog! YAY! WordPress is the way to go for site development right now. If you want something pretty basic, quick and easy to manage. Which I do.
So I selected WordPress as my tool to publish this.

WordPress makes putting content onto the site easy. It also makes updating content easy.

WordPress also has plugins that let you extend the base functionality of the program to do other stuff, like write book reviews.

WordPress is great and it allows a person to start getting stuff up right away.
However there are a few issues with WordPress. Stuff gets displayed how the people who made the tools designed it to. In order to get around this you need to learn how to change or edit a theme, or create new themes and plugins.

I think I can learn how to create a theme and plugin for WordPress. I have the technical basis to be able to learn it. But it would take me time, and take time from working on content.

Right now I want to focus on content. I may choose to learn how to tweak themes, or create plugins in the future, but right now I am going to use the functionality “out of the box” and let it be good enough.

While I am learning how this out of the box functionality works and discovering the best way to add content things may be somewhat segmented in order to do things, or may not seem logical.

Take for example the book reviews. I am very greatfull to the creator of the book review plugin. However it does not allow posting by category or by author. It lists them in blog form. It also does not allow comments by default and I can’t figure out how to turn them on.

I would like the book reviews to be sorted by category and/or by author. I would like more functionality there, but I don’t want to have to build it right now. So what I have is “good enough” for right now.

I may change up as I try different plugin’s but I am doing the content.

This is a change for me. Previously this is not something I would have been able to let go. I would have worked and worked on finding the perfect plugin or trying to build it myself, if it did not work, I would grind to a halt and give up for a while.

This time I am saying, this is good enough, I am going to accept it, use it and keep moving on.

It’s inspired action, the drive to do something and the willingness to accept what is.
It feels kinda good and liberating……

Another thing about WordPress I like is that it tells you how many words your posts are. Mine tend to be around 500 words which is a typed page, generally. I think that is kinda cool….

The Knight in Rusty Armor is a thin book. I was really surprised by how small of a book it is. I was skeptical about how good a book this thin could be.
It turns out that you don’t need all that many pages to make a profound statement.

Robert Fisher tells a compelling and profound story that is almost stark in it’s simplicity. He has created a story that helps us understand the masks we have chosen to wear, often times unconsciously in response to our cultural expectations and our personal expectations of who we should be.

He aptly points out that we spend so much time focused on being who we think we should be, that we loose who we are, and we loose our connections.

What being encased in these masks does to us and our relationships is made apparent, as well as what we need to do in order to get in touch with who we are.

This is a great book for everyone, it is short, an easy read, to the point, and compelling.

I recommend this book to people who are working on their personal authenticity. Often times people don’t even have the realize that they have put on a mask. This book is great to show us how to start seeing what masks we have put on and when.

I get up at 6:30 most mornings during the week. I am not an easy early riser, I like to sleep later if possible. Generally I really look forward to me weekends where I can sleep in. I guard my weekend mornings zealously until 10 am so I can sleep until 9 or so if I want. I have been known to sleep in even later when possible.

Yesterday I had a 9:15 appointment so I had to get up around 7:30. After the appointment we had an event for our other business.

I had to go straight there and finish setting up and run the event. It went until 11 pm, I got home about 12:30 am. I was tired, and I went to bed.

I expected to sleep until around 10 am today, maybe later, just rest, maybe read a little if I woke up and doze off, I don’t know, whatever it takes to have a very languid morning.

I woke up at 7:15. My pager was going off. Noting important, at least nothing I need to deal with. I got up and used the facilities, and went back to bed.
At 7:30 I realized I was not going to fall back asleep. Ok, I thought, I can read. Then I realized something odd. I did not want to go back to sleep.

I wanted to get up and work on this site. I wanted to get my email and type a blog and do other work.
I wanted to get out of bed. I have an inkling that this may make me tired later today, but right now I am enthused to get up early on a Sunday and do work.

This is crazy. Why am I enthused to get up? Why am I enthused to do work?

I think it is because I am becoming more inspired (in spirited as Dr. Wayne Dyer says). I have been praticing my connectedness, my gratitude journal. I am listening to my inner self and working on taking the steps needed to make things happen.

It’s a holiday weekend. I decided to have an event yesterday. I have had events on Memorial Day weekend before, and in the past it has been a mistake. Generally they are small events barely worth the effort. The last time I had an event on Memorial Day weekend 20 people showed up.
Everyone else was out of town or had family plans or something.

Yesterday 65 people came. That is a lot of teenagers to attract to a not well publicized event. It was a great turnout. To top it off we had a big number of new people who had never attended on of our events today.
This is huge, just huge. I also deepend some contacts there with adults that can help me organize larger events in the future. It was a very successful day. Beyond what I was expecting.

Then today I am motivated to get up and get working. As to what I get done, that remains to be seen.
But I am up and working on it.

Somehow being up at 8 am on a Sunday morning typing away is not as scary as I thought it would be.

That is the first line from a song I like by Toy Box. Then they go on and ask if you believe in the Wizard of Oz.
So, the song starts and says “Do you believe in Magic” and takes a pause, and I always answer in my head, “Why, yes I do, thanks for asking” in a really cheery voice.

I do believe in magic. The world is steeped in magic. There is magic in each moment, each moment I choose to be aware and conscious. Each moment I choose to allow myself to see it, or more appropriately get out of my own way so I can see it.

When that happens it is often almost overwhelming. I feel the connectedness. Then life happens and I get stuck in the thinking, the planning, the fears, the needs, and I get pulled out of the moment.

I have to wonder what it would be like to live in that moment, to have that high energy all the time, to feel the flow at all times.

Am I even strong enough to handle it?

I know, the magic of the connectedness is not the magic people think of when they say “magic”.

I think of rabbits out of hats, escaping traps, bending a spoon. I have never pulled a rabbit from a hat.
I have never actually bent a spoon either. But I have never wanted to do either. I have never intended to do either.

Intention. Intention, clarity, being in the moment. being completely in the moment.

Those are the first keys to great magic I think.

My life is one of wonders. I don’t always see it. I am not always in the correct energetic space to appreciate it. But sometimes I am. Sometimes I can see the magic happening right in front of my face, sometimes I can feel myself caught up in it and I can witness the power of the moment.
Dr. Wayne Dyer is one of my favorite authors. In one of his recent books he talks about being a sorcerer, one who is connected to the source.
I am going to be writing a book review and getting more in depth on this soon.
But it has stuck with me, I have wanted to flow the source and make magic.

This week I have been really connected and I am seeing things happening. It is a change in perspective.
I am so grateful to Diane and Loren Mickelson whose work really kicked me off on this creative change and opened the doors ways.
I am grateful that I can see the connections happening, that I am aware of them and I can feel the power starting to move through me, the energy.

It starts with the words “what can I do to help you today?”

I am not a real outgoing person. I am friendly, but I have a hard time going up and starting conversations. It’s ok. This week I wrote about authentically connecting. It is something new that I have been trying. I have been working on greeting people, paying attention and being.
This is a cool thing. I have (mostly) been in a better mood this week.

When I get to my job, I go to my cube and I sit and I type on the computer. I troubleshoot, fix issues, go to meetings. I am. I take lunch, and I often read a book at lunch. Recently I have been reading a fantasy series at lunch. I am on the final book of the trilogy.

After lunch today I went back to my cube and started plucking away at the key board. Pluck pluck pluck.

One of my co-workers stopped by. He sits in a cube a couple of rows over. I know him, and greet him in the mornings, but we have never really connected.

Today he stopped by my desk and said that he noticed I was reading this book. He said that he just got done with a great series and thought I might be interested. He offered to loan me the first couple of books.
Since my new modality calls for me to take what is offered I said sure. The books sound interesting, not something I would probably pick out for myself from the bookstore. But that is ok. It is outside my comfort zone then. He made a connection, offered me something, and I gratefully accepted.
I will read the books and see how I like them. It does not hurt me to read them, and I may really like them. But the important thing is, I made a connection, right out of the blue.
Someone who I have only exchanged pleasantries with for 2 years approaching me the same week I start focusing my intent.
I have to pay attention to it.
It is amazing how this happens, and how it is happening.

Now that I think about it, my cube wall sharer approached me with a technical problem to resolve this week also. We don’t interact a whole lot, but he was willing to come and ask my opinion about an issue. This is a change and a shift also.

Things are starting to happen.
Now if I can only get a boost getting this mortgage my wife and I are working on.