Keep the Sabbath!

This was supposed to be posted yesterday, which wasn’t the Sabbath either. But then I sort of kept the Sabbath and didn’t do anything at all until very late afternoon when it was cool enough to plant a few bushes of purple basil and some indigenous jasmine to climb up the trellis and block out the view of Resident Evil. This post is not about Resident Evil so we won’t go into that; it is about the wisdom of keeping a sabbath, if you don’t agree with keeping THE Sabbath.

Seriously, there is much to be said for shutting down and doing absolutely nothing for one day every week. OK, you need to make coffee in the morning and maybe read the newspaper, feed the cats (if you’re me also the dogs, the ducks, the chicken and the quails) and so on, but after that, nothing. Page through Huisgenoot. Sleep. If you must, do all the things you never allow yourself because there is no time: watch a silly movie, fall asleep while watching it, …eh, run out of ideas of being lazy. The point is, don’t set goals, don’t have a to-do list – enough time for that during the week – don’t make plans, don’t drive yourself.

 

Make it a date with yourself, if not with God. Your body and mind need a day of absolute shut-down to recoup and fire on all engines for the rest of the week. We’ve been programmed that way. You can either work at 3/4 capacity 7 days a week or on full capacity for 6 – do the maths and see what is more productive.

Eat to live

A quick thought before rushing off to study, work, start the treadmill…about eating! One of my goals is to lose 10kg (or more, you never know…) through the course of the year. Not because I subscribe to fashion magazines’ ideal image of the female beauty, or am trying to attract some man (believe me…) or to exercise an obsessive nature, but because I believe it integrates with other goals, namely to improve, help, being more responsible with resources.

Being overweight, however you look at it, means that you are in unbalance with your environment. (Even metabolic disorders are unbalances). People who live close to nature are just about NEVER overweight – when there is harmony between humans and nature, there is enough for everyone.  Ego is insignificant when there is harmony with nature, and that eliminates preoccupation with self, obsessions, emotional disturbances that cause overeating, unequal sharing in resources, and all the other evils that humans have embraced in the quest to satisfy the deeper hunger within themselves.

Surely, when an end and a reckoning comes, those who take the trouble to read blogs like this would like to present themselves as IN CONTROL. As being responsible and fair users of resources (if you have been taking more than you should, you will be zapped by aliens!), and as trustworthy custodians of that which we have been entrusted with: our bodies, our environment, the lives of others.

If you feel you don’t answer to anyone, carry on: eat, drink, be merry – nature itself will deal with you. My husband always says: people carry on about saving the planet, but the planet will survive, it’s the human species that they’re worried about saving. If we carry on consuming with thinking, eating things we don’t need because we think it’s our right, destroying resources in the process, adding poison to our food because it tastes nice…the species will not survive. The universe or the planet will find a way of getting rid of us. The ones who can blend in, be part of the bigger picture, are the ones who will survive.

Start thinking about what you eat TODAY. More later!

A word of CAUTION…

As we march on, conquer obstacles, establish and improve things, and generally feel that we’re on the up and going for it…take a leaf from the Israelites’ notebook as they enter Canaan after years and years in the desert… don’t be too cocky (excuse the pun…) and forget God: He had the Israelite men circumcised right at that time, removing their confidence, fighting ability and general oomph, at the same time reminding them SHARPLY (with sharpened stones, in fact) of who was in control. And don’t assume that God, the Universe, the Great Spirit, or whoever, is on your side like Joshua did: the commander of the armies of the Lord reminded him also that the armies of the Lord were the armies of the Lord, and we need to be on THEIR side and not assume they will be on ours. (Read Joshua 5 in the Old Testament for background)

Formulating your goals

If you have been reading the previous posts, you will be starting to form an idea of what you want to do with this Ultimate Year, and you know one of the things you’re going to do is to minimize NONSENSE. You may need some suggestions for concrete goals, though, and I have the following. They are broad enough to cover any circumstances, and can be applied in as large or as small a context as is convenient:

1. Establish something

2. Improve something

3. Eliminate something

4. Help someone

5. Increase Awareness

 

These goals could, of course, overlap. If you establish something, you may be improving something else and helping someone, AND increasing awareness at the same time. And if you increase your own awareness you are improving your own world and that of others. If you increase someone else’s awareness, you do the same, and you are helping them and eliminating ignorance. But for the sake of clarity, write these down and keep them separate even if you know that they overlap. it will help you keep track of your original goals.

I would love to have feedback on what you have decided to do!

 

 

 

Take no sheeit!

Happy 2012! We are more than week into the Ultimate Year, but the calendar year dawns where I am and it holds all the promise and excitement and opportunity for new growth that every new year does.  If there were any holds on implementing resolutions for the Ultimate Year now is the time to let them go – no more excuses of festive season, end of the year rest period, etc. GO with those things that are going to make the year the best of your life.

One thing. This year, do not take any shit from anything or anybody. What does that mean? Is it a horrible, mean, spiteful, cynical, combatative thing to say? Well, if you want it to be. But let’s look at it from more sides than one. In a little booklet that came my way, A Guide for the Advanced Soul (I think I will be sharing from that regularly – if you are reading this blog your soul must be a little bit more advanced than most!), the page I opened on yesterday in a moment of needing inspiration said:

You make

yourself and

others suffer

just as much

when

you take offense

as when

you give

offense. (Ken Keyes, Jr., Handbook to Higher Consicousness)

 

My husband and I were talking about a person very close to us geographically that is our hair shirt, our thorn in the flesh, and Andrew said that it would be very difficult to displace her to somewhere where she would be less harmful and toxic, because she clings like dogshit to a blanket. (In our house that expression has more meaning than in most: we have five dogs, seven adult cats and a few kittens waiting to go to their new homes).

This person would obviously not appreciate being compared to dogshit, but that is not the point.  A few points emerge from that expression for me. One is that we have allowed her to become like that to us, that she has offended us so deeply and extensively that her presence , or even just the thought of her, clouds our minds and pollutes our mental processes and how we manifest our desires in the world.

That causes us suffering. We LET HER GET TO US, and now we need to wash the blanket, so to speak. We TOOK the offense she so clearly meant to dole out.

It is easy to SAY that we shouldn’t take offense – that it should roll off like water from a duck’s back. (We have three ducks, maybe I should watch them more closely?). Often, as in our case, the matter is more complicated than offense between two parties. Sometimes, you have to put up with a bit of shit in order not to offend a third party, or to make life easier for them.  That is when one needs to act more advanced than we have been doing, and refuse to let the shit cling to your soul. To have a mental attitude that repels it from the word GO, to have set boundaries past which foul things can NOT proceed.  And if they connect with that barrier, to bounce back directly to where they were sent from.

Constructing this barrier is something we will explore throughout the year, in a series of thoughts on how to not take …let’s think of a better word here…let’s call it NONSENSE…from anybody, anything or any situation. NONSENSE (read offense, shit, trouble, whatever, here) is unfortunately what makes the world go around once it is given an opening to get in. The NO-NONSENSE APPROACH to environmental, social, emotional, spiritual and other realms is what will make the year more ULTIMATE – we simply won’t have TIME for nonsense and must deal with it firmly and mercilessly. Without GIVING offense if possible.

Start by looking at your own situation, in widening concentric circles starting inside you. Where is the nonsense located? How did it get there? Who do you blame for it? What steps do you need to take to rid yourself of it? What IS nonsense in your situation? What is acceptable – in the context of your own AND the greater good – and what needs to be dealt with without delay?

The bottom line is contained in a thought that I had now during a bathroom break: the more POWER you have, the less SHIT (call a spade a spade) you have to put up with. So the flipside of not taking any nonsense would be to increase your power and influence. In all areas. We will explore how to do that, on a day-to-day basis. On all levels. You don’t have to be powerful in conventional ways to take part in this exercise. Even in the humblest stations of life one can have the necessary power, and by starting where you are you can increase it and improve your quality of life beyond measure. We are not talking political power or the power that corrupts here. We are talking being in control of your own destiny. Every one can move towards that.

And IF 21-22 December 2012 holds the end of one era and the beginning of the next – a time for exceedingly great jubilation and celebration in Mayan tradition, and surely the dawn of a better era should be cause of celebration in our case – you will be in a better position to face that era. NONSENSE will not be allowed in that era, and you will have been prepared for it. If everything just carries on like before, on the other hand, you will be better off than most: cleaner, more powerful, and more in control of your own and others’ destinies. Something to look forward to and work towards starting NOW!

 

Long pause…

Oops, that was three days without sharing thoughts on the issue of The Ultimate Year! That would be because life takes over if you don’t keep it in check!  Progress report: on the first issue of losing 10kg (or more, you never know!) I have been drinking more water, less alcohol, eating more fruit as snacks and watching the carb intake. Counting down to January 1, when the weight-watching gestapo in my brain will finally take position!

On the nursery/greening the townships/sustainable urban agriculture front: some startling ideas have presented themselves to me on garden design, and I can’t wait for them to be implemented when Patrick starts working full-time next week. Some things are just too difficult for me to do, like removing large patches of lawn to make space for paths, vertical constructions that will serve as showpieces of the optimal use of space, and moving large workbenches around. I have taken the leap of faith of employing Patrick on a month-to month basis to make things materialise faster. Four hundred more geranium cuttings have also been made and are awaiting distribution, while another four hundred are lying there wiaitng to be cut…maybe today?

Nothing on the travelling front, there are just so many hours in the day!

But we were going to come back to the Mayan prophecies concerning 2012 themselves. Buggered if I know where my book on them is! It is here somewhere… I think. I am now the proud owner of about 2000 books in a collection that I have been selling, and I will be selling many of these books as well. But back to the prophecies.

 

Quoted from a long and informative Wikipedia article on the 2012 phenomenon:

Objections

Coe’s interpretation was repeated by other scholars through the early 1990s.^[20] In contrast, later researchers said that, while the end of the 13th b’ak’tun would perhaps be a cause for celebration,^[3] it did not mark the end of the calendar.^[21] “There is nothing in the Maya or Aztec or ancient Mesoamerican prophecy to suggest that they prophesied a sudden or major change of any sort in 2012,” said Mayanist scholar Mark Van Stone. “The notion of a “Great Cycle” coming to an end is completely a modern invention.”^[22] In 1990, Mayanist scholars Linda Schele and David Freidel argued that the Maya “did not conceive this to be the end of creation, as many have suggested.”^[23] Susan Milbrath, curator of Latin American Art and Archaeology at the Florida Museum of Natural History, stated that “We have no record or knowledge that [the Maya] would think the world would come to an end” in 2012.^[3] “For the ancient Maya, it was a huge celebration to make it to the end of a whole cycle,” said Sandra Noble, executive director of the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies. The 2012 phenomenon, she said, is “a complete fabrication and a chance for a lot of people to cash in.”^[3]“There will be another cycle,” said E. Wyllys Andrews V, director of the Tulane University Middle American Research Institute. “We know the Maya thought there was one before this, and that implies they were comfortable with the idea of another one after this.”^[24]

 

I like these objections, and they make sense in our times. Perhaps the end of a cycle of human existence, and as I’ve said before, long overdue! If the Maya saw the end of a major cycle as a reason for great celebration, this is exactly what the Ultimate Year is about – celebrating existence by making it as useful, intense and satisfying on all fronts as possible. this year could kickstart the rest of your life. And should, by any stretch of imagination, there be a bang and a huge- shake-up at the end of the Ultimate Year, at least you’ve had it and are more prepared to move on.

I am going to kickstart today by going on a 40min walk in my daughter’s hand-me-up cross-country shoes. And will be back!

 

Day 5:The year marches on

It is a good idea to start a year with Christmas, rather than to end it. IN this ultimate year, the season of new beginnings, of supernature coming close to us rather than us desperately trying to look for it, provides impetus and hope and inspiration for what is to follow.  We start with celebrating the birth of Christ (oh, if you don’t do that, in one way or another, if you are just a buyer of Chinese and other mass-manufactured presents, you might find this blog somewhat disturbing! But maybe it’s good thing), work that hope and supernature out through attaining plans and goals throughout the year, building up to the climax of the return of…what? who? Jesus? The flying serpent? Is Jesus, maybe, the flying serpent? And failing anything as dramatic and definitive as that, there is Christmas again, to keep us going until someone finally gets the end-time date right.

I saw a magazine cover three days ago that says: 2012: no end-time, but a year of caring. Well, actually, how do they KNOW, at this woman’s magazine, that it is not the countdown to a dramatic end of history as we know it on 22/12/12? And if they know that they don’t KNOW, but they desperately don’t want it to be the end, so they just DECLARE it not to be (will rival woman’s magazines follow with their own versions, or with evidence to contradict them? ) – why do they so desperately want to cling to what IS now? Why do they see the end of the current dispensation as a disaster, or at least something desirable?

Is it not time that some higher form of life intervenes in the mess that humans made of this planet, its social systems, economies and ecology? I’m going to have to think this one through, myself…brb!

Live as if it’s the last year of your life!

This is DAY ONE. The possibilities are endless – there are so many things that can be done, but in order to get SOME done you need to focus on them. The temptation is to start any project with too much energy and enthusiasm and then to fizzle out, get bored, lose sight of the details…every year I buy a page-a-day diary, and start filling in tasks even before 1 January. I have ticks and codes for everything achieved, little arrows to move things on to the next day if I didn’t get them done on the original day, etc. But by April I start losing the diary all over the place and reverting to believing I can hold everything in my head. Or the discipline of writing things down and sticking to them just wears off, or “life” takes over.

How to integrate life and an undertaking like this? Suggestion: imagine what you would like your life to look like when the flying serpent, or whoever, descends on December 2012 and takes stock of what you’ve done with what you were given to work with. Imagine what you would want to present to a judge when asked how you have lived your life.

This is an opportunity to rectify things awry, to establish new, good things, and to look for opportunities to make other things better. Even if the world doesn’t end on 22/12/12, it will be a whole lot better place if you make this the Ultimate Year!

So, take your goals, working from the completed vision, and breaking it down into blocks, roughly corresponding to quarters, or months, and then smaller blocks of weeks, and then units of what you can achieve in one day. Then start with one of those, for each goal, today, and do ONE LITTLE THING EVERY DAY to get to your goal. In my own cases, it would look something like this:

GOAL ONE: Lose 10 kg (or more, who knows…)

Because I’d really like to attain to this before the year is over, say by a quarter of the year or so (and anyone reading this can keep me to this), I need to do more per day, of course. So what I can start doing today is the following:

1. Have one teaspoon of sugar in hot drinks per day instead of three (one per cup). Use stevia for the rest. Six drops equal one teaspoon of sugar in taste. Well not really, but it is bearable. DO NOT, under any circumstances, use aspartame or any other artificial crap.

2. Drink a glass of water 30 minutes before every meal. And with the meal instead of sweetened cooldrink.

3. Limit alcohol intake to ONE UNIT.

4. Walk whenever you can instead of driving. Except when I have to buy a chicken coop – very uncomfortable to carry from the pet shop to my house.

Will buy some nice walking/running shoes today to ensure less painful cardio workouts…we tend to do them when we take the dogs for a walk, and the terrain is very rough and wouldn’t like to pull calf muscles again! Really discouraging, that!

 

GOAL 2: Brush up on and perfect neglected languages

In this case, the following: Hindi/Urdu, Portuguese, Russian and Mandarin.

I’ve only started Mandarin, and I’m really not proud of myself to have learnt the Hindi AND Urdu alphabets and a lot of words and structures, and not to be more proficient than I am at the moment. So for the first three months of the year, it will be focussing on Hindi/Urdu, and learning more Chinese on another level. That will mean:

1. One Mandarin lesson per week.

2. Learn two Mandarin characters per day.

3. Revision of two chapters of “Learn Hindi in thirty days” per week.

4. One Hindi movie per week.

5. Reading one Urdu verse in the Bible every day to brush up on the alphabet.

OOhh, how to set yourself up for failure…but, trying will definitely result in some improvement. If you reach for the stars, you wil get further than the person who didn’t reach for anything!

 

GOAL 3: Optimising InTouch Travel so that as many people as possible have access to affordable responsible travel to South Africa, India, Pakistan and Iran.

For now, a general breakdown would look like this – suggestions welcomed!

1. Create an extra page for InTouch Travel and its outward-bound twin, Magic Carpet Adventures

2. Provide general descriptions of the products and services on offer.

3. Keep in touch weekly with suppliers and prospective clients.

GOAL 4: Establish the Eden Project International, an organisation that provides beautifying and urban agriculture solutions, sometimes in the most unlikely places, where they are needed most.

A BIG page is being created for this, as it will be the focus of MY ultimate year: a working towards an earth (in this case Kuilsrivier and surrounding townships and not so nice areas) where every available piece of land is optimised for food production, improvement of the environment, and where the general mentality shifts com consumption to sustainable use and replacement. But watch the page…I will start with my own garden, and my task for today is to make cuttings of geranium bushes to donate to Blikkiesdorp – Symphony Way in Delft – so that every household has a Blikkie of Hope, a ray of colour that reminds them that even in the grimmest of circumstances, God is present and waiting for our interest, something He can work with to make our lives better.

Yes, God is very much in this thing! We are his hands, his ambassadors, his agents. If the earth is going to be new, if there is anything good we can lay at the feet of the one who is coming back (on 22/12/12 or at any other time), it will something WE will have to do!

Anyone out there joining me?

The next post will look at the Mayan prophecies, how they relate to world events today, and suggestions as what to do with them.

The end of the world as we know it.

According to Mayan prophecies, the current dispensation of the world we live in will end on 22 December 2012. My own view is that it wouldn’t be a moment too soon, but then “end-of-the-world” prophecies have come and gone and we’re still here, plodding forth in search of our destinies. But let’s consider this prophecy the ultimate one, the one that accurately predicts the end of the world as we know it, and ask the question: so what do we do with the year that’s left to us? Is this not as good a time as any to realise dreams, attain goals, make improvements on all fronts?

That will be the main focus of this blog: how to improve yourself, your environment and the world in one year. It is my own quest – and I invite everyone who believes in something beyond ourselves to join me and adapt any plans, tips, hints and suggestions here to suit your own context.

Humans were created in the image of God – let’s find out what that means! We have the power to create and re-create ourselves and that which surrounds us. This is the year to exercise that power and to wield it to transform all the spheres of life that we operate in.

My personal aims would be to lose 10kg (or more, you never know…), to perfect some languages that I learnt long ago and have neglected, to optimise my travel business so that as many people as possible have access to affordable responsible travel that explores the multitude of cultural and natural facets of South Africa and India, Pakistan and Iran, and, most importantly, to mobilise as many people as possible locally and all over the globe to beautify their surroundings and make them as useful as possible for the purposes of sustainable food production and responsible use of the planet.

Ambitious? Well, why not? This is the year for thinking big, for moving out of comfort zones, and for achieving everything I possibly can given the constraints of spacetime. And why not reach beyond spacetime? Any suggestions?

Be inspired, and inspire everyone around you in turn. Let’s get ready for transformation – creation needs it and it’s in our hands to implement!