I am fairly certain that it is pretty much common knowledge that anything and everything exists and can be found on the internet. (There is also a pretty damned good chance that there is porn of it here as well.)
That being said, I spend altogether more time here than I probably should. (And almost certainly more than is good for me.) Sadly, this means I don't get out and about as often as I should. On the bright side, it means I find some truly outstanding things.
I mentioned a while ago how I am actively trying to see more of the beauty around me. When I said that, I wasn't referring exclusively to the real world. There is beauty of all kinds everywhere and, when I find it here, I can share it with everyone else.
That being said and without further ado...
I present to you, Art, Media and Beauty!
Enjoy!
Art is contemplation. It is the pleasure of the mind which searches into nature and which there divines the spirit of which nature herself is animated.
-Auguste Rodin-
Showing posts with label Meditation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Meditation. Show all posts
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
The World has issues... Episode 1...
Alrighty! This is my take on one of the ways that the World has gone all wonky!
Today's topic?... Spirituality.
It seems to me that this is one of those key elements indicative of an individual's humanity. Sadly, it seems that it is also sorely lacking throughout much of today's society.
Let me see if I can explain.
First of all, let me say right off the bat that I am not Christian.
I am also not Catholic, Protestant, Atheist, Buddhist or Wiccan. Hell, if I am going to be honest here, my spirituality and beliefs fail to line up with any particular established set out there.
So where does that leave me?
Well... In most situations I use the word Pagan because it tends to cover a wide variety of belief systems, many of which I draw from in an effort to define my own spirituality. Maybe spiritualist would be a better term but I hate to come across all new agey.
The bottom line here, however, is that I am a spiritual individual. Not as deeply spiritual as I used to be but spiritual none-the-less.
Alright then... Why am I saying that spirituality is something that has gone wrong with the world?
Because it occurs to me that most people are lacking in this area. I mean, people swear to have faith and live by His word and all that but, for the most part, it appears to be an empty faith. People are told to do this, not do that and believe in this because it is what He wants. "You have to have faith," they say. "Have faith and He will deliver you."
Only on rare occasions have I met someone who truly felt and believed in all of this. More often than not, it seems, people go to church on Sunday, not because they know deep down in their souls that it is right, but because they have been told that it is right and they never thought about it again from that moment to this.
Even more distressing to me are the number of people I have seen desperately seeking for something that felt right to them and wound up clinging with all their might to the elusive olive branch offered to them from this or that religious institution. It seems as though the shoeless man will wear any shoe, regardless of size, provided it means he no longer has to go barefoot.
It looks, to my eyes, as if religion has taken up a post as Keeper of the Void. People have come so very very far from our animalistic roots that something basic is now missing and rather than look deep inside of ourselves to see that void and learn best how to recapture that missing essence, we turn to religion as a crutch or a bandaid.
Now, I am not saying that religion is bad. If you have faith in something, by all means keep it close to your heart and never let anyone tell you that you are wrong. What I am saying, is that faith is not the only ingredient. There is more missing from us than words and ritual can replace.
For example, look at the food we eat. Not only is a hardy portion of it unnatural but there are words in ingredient lists that 9 out of 10 people can't even identify! And as if that weren't bad enough, those people who strive to maintain an organic diet are ridiculed for doing so. The same thing goes for vegetarians and vegans. It is more than a little bit distressing that those people who are doing their damnedest to live a healthy, natural lifestyle are being put down by people who are living lives so far removed from nature that they no longer have so much as a frame of reference.
Hell, I am as guilty of this as anyone and still it disgusts me. I really need to try to keep that in check.
Please understand that I am not a health food nut. I eat the same crap most other Americans eat. All I am saying is that I can see where the desire and need is coming from. In a way, it is almost as much a religion as Catholicism. It is choosing to live a life style based on the truths held closest to someone's heart. Seems to me as if they are more or less the same thing.
Need another example? Talk to your parents... Hell talk to THEIR parents and ask them what community means. Friends? Family? Probably not followers...
Social media is an absolutely wonderful thing but once again, it is only guarding a void.
At this point, so many people live their lives through the internet that it is a wonder anyone goes out of their houses anymore. I for one, have friends I would never have known if it weren't for this machine. I mean GODS! I live with a person I met playing World of Warcraft!
I think my Grandfather would be appalled. (Of course, he would have to bite me and get over it but that isn't the point I am trying to make today.)
When my parents grew up, their friends were the people they knew from school. Everyone was in the same geographical location and, unless they had close ties to family elsewhere, that was their world. Their family were the people related to them and that they knew in person.
Followers weren't even something that existed back then. (Unless you knew some o' them freaks up the block what wears der funny lookin' robes an' calls 'emselves the Followers o' Brother Zeke or some such nonsense. Don't go near em', don't talk to 'em, don't meet their eyes, and whatever you do, don't drink their Koolaid!)
Now each of us has a million followers on Twitter, 497 friends on Facebook and Myspace, and my family are people who are 2000 miles or more away and who I talk to once a week on a phone I keep in my pocket. Shit, I get to watch my sister grow up on Skype for fucks sake!
My community is made up of thousands of people I have never even met. Yet, I don't think that I know more than a handful of my neighbors and I have lived here for well over two years now.
Once again, let me point out that I do not mean to disparage these wonderful social networking tools we have arrayed before us. I use them daily and I have no intentions of giving them up. I am merely trying to find ways to illustrate how our spirituality is suffering from the fact that we have moved so very very far from our roots in nature.
Albert Einstein is quoted as having said, "It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity."
Spiritualism, I think, is an extension of the closeness we feel with the world around us; An extension of our humanity and as we have grown farther and farther apart we have lost something so basic that most people don't even realize that it is missing.
Maybe it is time we stop and examine that a little bit.
I'm just sayin'.
The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual.
-John Muir, letter to J.B. McChesney, 19 September 1871-
Today's topic?... Spirituality.
It seems to me that this is one of those key elements indicative of an individual's humanity. Sadly, it seems that it is also sorely lacking throughout much of today's society.
Let me see if I can explain.
First of all, let me say right off the bat that I am not Christian.
I am also not Catholic, Protestant, Atheist, Buddhist or Wiccan. Hell, if I am going to be honest here, my spirituality and beliefs fail to line up with any particular established set out there.
So where does that leave me?
Well... In most situations I use the word Pagan because it tends to cover a wide variety of belief systems, many of which I draw from in an effort to define my own spirituality. Maybe spiritualist would be a better term but I hate to come across all new agey.
The bottom line here, however, is that I am a spiritual individual. Not as deeply spiritual as I used to be but spiritual none-the-less.
Alright then... Why am I saying that spirituality is something that has gone wrong with the world?
Because it occurs to me that most people are lacking in this area. I mean, people swear to have faith and live by His word and all that but, for the most part, it appears to be an empty faith. People are told to do this, not do that and believe in this because it is what He wants. "You have to have faith," they say. "Have faith and He will deliver you."
Only on rare occasions have I met someone who truly felt and believed in all of this. More often than not, it seems, people go to church on Sunday, not because they know deep down in their souls that it is right, but because they have been told that it is right and they never thought about it again from that moment to this.
Even more distressing to me are the number of people I have seen desperately seeking for something that felt right to them and wound up clinging with all their might to the elusive olive branch offered to them from this or that religious institution. It seems as though the shoeless man will wear any shoe, regardless of size, provided it means he no longer has to go barefoot.
It looks, to my eyes, as if religion has taken up a post as Keeper of the Void. People have come so very very far from our animalistic roots that something basic is now missing and rather than look deep inside of ourselves to see that void and learn best how to recapture that missing essence, we turn to religion as a crutch or a bandaid.
Now, I am not saying that religion is bad. If you have faith in something, by all means keep it close to your heart and never let anyone tell you that you are wrong. What I am saying, is that faith is not the only ingredient. There is more missing from us than words and ritual can replace.
For example, look at the food we eat. Not only is a hardy portion of it unnatural but there are words in ingredient lists that 9 out of 10 people can't even identify! And as if that weren't bad enough, those people who strive to maintain an organic diet are ridiculed for doing so. The same thing goes for vegetarians and vegans. It is more than a little bit distressing that those people who are doing their damnedest to live a healthy, natural lifestyle are being put down by people who are living lives so far removed from nature that they no longer have so much as a frame of reference.
Hell, I am as guilty of this as anyone and still it disgusts me. I really need to try to keep that in check.
Please understand that I am not a health food nut. I eat the same crap most other Americans eat. All I am saying is that I can see where the desire and need is coming from. In a way, it is almost as much a religion as Catholicism. It is choosing to live a life style based on the truths held closest to someone's heart. Seems to me as if they are more or less the same thing.
Need another example? Talk to your parents... Hell talk to THEIR parents and ask them what community means. Friends? Family? Probably not followers...
Social media is an absolutely wonderful thing but once again, it is only guarding a void.
At this point, so many people live their lives through the internet that it is a wonder anyone goes out of their houses anymore. I for one, have friends I would never have known if it weren't for this machine. I mean GODS! I live with a person I met playing World of Warcraft!
I think my Grandfather would be appalled. (Of course, he would have to bite me and get over it but that isn't the point I am trying to make today.)
When my parents grew up, their friends were the people they knew from school. Everyone was in the same geographical location and, unless they had close ties to family elsewhere, that was their world. Their family were the people related to them and that they knew in person.
Followers weren't even something that existed back then. (Unless you knew some o' them freaks up the block what wears der funny lookin' robes an' calls 'emselves the Followers o' Brother Zeke or some such nonsense. Don't go near em', don't talk to 'em, don't meet their eyes, and whatever you do, don't drink their Koolaid!)
Now each of us has a million followers on Twitter, 497 friends on Facebook and Myspace, and my family are people who are 2000 miles or more away and who I talk to once a week on a phone I keep in my pocket. Shit, I get to watch my sister grow up on Skype for fucks sake!
My community is made up of thousands of people I have never even met. Yet, I don't think that I know more than a handful of my neighbors and I have lived here for well over two years now.
Once again, let me point out that I do not mean to disparage these wonderful social networking tools we have arrayed before us. I use them daily and I have no intentions of giving them up. I am merely trying to find ways to illustrate how our spirituality is suffering from the fact that we have moved so very very far from our roots in nature.
Albert Einstein is quoted as having said, "It has become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity."
Spiritualism, I think, is an extension of the closeness we feel with the world around us; An extension of our humanity and as we have grown farther and farther apart we have lost something so basic that most people don't even realize that it is missing.
Maybe it is time we stop and examine that a little bit.
I'm just sayin'.
The gross heathenism of civilization has generally destroyed nature, and poetry, and all that is spiritual.
-John Muir, letter to J.B. McChesney, 19 September 1871-
Friday, August 28, 2009
It is a beautiful night...
I just got home from my weekly gaming night and it is an absolutely beautiful evening. It is around 71 degrees (I know because I checked on my way home) and windy as hell. There is a lightning storm happening that is stunning to behold. It would be nice if it would actually rain but I am not complaining.
Anyway...
So I got home and decided to meditate outside for a bit and then blog.
Thats about as far as I have gotten. I haven't got much profound to say to anyone right now but I am trying to keep myself from letting this blogging thing fall to the wayside.
Blog complete.
If anyone hasn't seen it yet, check out the video for "Do You Want to Date My Avatar"... Worth a looksee.
Anyway...
So I got home and decided to meditate outside for a bit and then blog.
Thats about as far as I have gotten. I haven't got much profound to say to anyone right now but I am trying to keep myself from letting this blogging thing fall to the wayside.
Blog complete.
If anyone hasn't seen it yet, check out the video for "Do You Want to Date My Avatar"... Worth a looksee.
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