Thanksgiving 2016

When the Egyptian farmers completed harvesting their corn, they used to cry and pretend to be a grief-stricken. This was done to mislead the spirits of which they believed lived in the corn. The farmers had the fear that the spirits might become angry when they cut down the corn on which the spirits used to live.

Hops Festival:
The month of February and March is the time for the harvesting of Hops. Hops are dried in kilns, bleached with sulphur dioxide and pressed into bales. About 90% of Australia’s hops are used for making beer.

Nubaigai is the harvest festival held in Lithuania. In Lithuania, the Thanksgiving tradition involves the creation of a Boba which is then wrapped around the worker who bound the last sheaf.

The harvest wreath is then carried in a plate covered with a white linen cloth. As the procession moves on, people who reaped sing an old song which represents how they rescued the crop from a huge bison that tried to devour it.

1963 – U.S. President Kennedy was assassinated while riding in a motorcade in Dallas, TX. Texas Governor John B. Connally was also seriously wounded. Vice-President Lyndon B. Johnson was inaugurated as the 36th U.S. President.

The story began in 1614 when a band of English explorers sailed home to  England with a ship full of Patuxet Indians bound for slavery. They left behind smallpox which virtually wiped out those who had escaped.  By the time the Pilgrims arrived in Massachusetts Bay they found only one living Patuxet Indian, a man named Squanto who had survived slavery in England and knew their language.  He taught them to grow corn and to fish, and negotiated a peace treaty between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag Nation. At the end of their first year, the Pilgrims held a great feast honoring Squanto and the Wampanoags. 

If you are really thankful, what do you do? You share. W. Clement Stone

5 Ways to Talk to Your Pro-Trump Family on Thanksgiving

1) Arm yourself with facts, but convey emotion with personal stories.

2) Ask open-ended questions and listen to their responses.

3) If they’re misinformed, question their sources.

4) Channel your inner Hillary.

5) Don’t argue to win.

What is your favorite comment or quote about the election, results or candidates?

She’s a professional matchmaker.

“I had one man that refused to continue to date a lady that voted for Trump. I have heard of countless conflicts with dates because of the election. It’s been so bad I’ve decided not to set up any more dates till next week,” Rose said Thursday.

What a shame. Donald Trump will be remembered as the man who decimated the Republican Party and gave us crooked Hillary as our next president.

Getting Boxed In – Pray for a Miracle While Plotting an Escape

Yesterday, one of my hens, Barbara Boxer, got trapped in one of those twelve inch plastic milk carton cubes that was sitting out.  You know, the ones you buy at Target for storage purposes.  Anyway, I discovered this in the afternoon when I went out in the humidity to check on the sweaty livestock.  I heard frantic cackling.  I saw curious interest.  My chicken killer puppy Sydnee probed that black plastic upside-down container.  Something moved inside the makeshift cage.  Chapter II of “Chickens knowing how to get into trouble but not knowing how to get out of it”.   Chapter LXVI of farmer playing god and reaching down from people heaven and lifting the cursed carton.  A seeming miracle to the Godless chickens.  A continuing wonder to the amused farmer.  A constant reminder that farmer incompetence trumps barnyard stupidity.  When will they learn.  When will they ever learn.

Don’t know much about how poor Barbara Boxer got boxed in.  Don’t know if that is the end of her woes, but probably not.  I do know that she is not unique among chickens or other life when it comes to getting boxed in by her own actions and needing a seeming miracle to get out.  I was there but if not, death was certain.  The actual box of chicken fiasco opened me up to the hypothetical box of human humility each of us has experienced, escaped, and then been re-trapped within.  Pick from life’s realities, any of life’s challenging realities, and you will be able to assemble a box from which you seemingly can not escape… without a miracle.  Even though you always do.  But one day your luck may run out.  Someday your wits won’t be enough.  Your family and friends may not be able to lift the increasingly heavier box off.  What should you be doing if you are now or have been trapped in a box consisting of a job too consuming, a partner too demanding, finances too over whelming?  I don’t know.  But do something to escape the “box-on-box-off” cycle.

Having been within the walls and ceiling of the job-marriage-employment box, I have been trapped in more than once.  I remember some one reaching down and saving me – once.  I remember reaching up and saving myself – once.  In both cases it was important for me to understand how I got boxed in.  It was important to accept that I had the biggest hand in building the box that so imprisoned me.  It was more important that I did not allow myself to let that same box to surround me again.  I think I have been successful but boxes come in a great many deceptive forms these days and there is no end to the creative ways in which the crafty human can construct his own prison.  Ok, so when one finally finds oneself trapped by the walls of self destruction, what are the steps to getting out?

First – what happened?  Finances, affiliations, frustration will weigh heavily but unless you understand your circumstances you may make things worse by choosing quick action or slow denial.  Find a sound sounding board.  Put your worries on the shelf until they can properly and orderly be consumed.  Maybe speculating the worst can help with putting your best foot forward.  Perhaps saying some things out loud can advise you on your necessities.  Never let a contrarian in the room – this brings doom.  Get yourself a straight shooter to keep you on the path.  Always put your concerns in an important/urgent grid which allows you to label each as important/urgent (!), important/not urgent, not important/not urgent, and NOT IMPORTANT/URGENT (!!!).

The blind pedestrian walks to work on the highway shoulder during rush hour because of the urgency of the job, not the importance his life.  The beleaguered parent watches the world series on a school night because of the importance of escape, not because of urgency.   The jobless breadwinner worries about the urgency of the family vacation, not the importance of getting a job.  Walls are built by current urgency.  They are knocked down with the acknowledgement and action on future importance.  Let go of the immediate curiosity and get a hold future reality.  Dream on but don’t fantasize.  Unless you are still a child, you should not look outside yourself for rescue.  Even though it can happen and inspire wonder, it should not be your fallback plan.  But what do you do if your best isn’t good enough?

Think!  You have to decide what you want before you can decide what you want to do.  Balance your life.  Be honest with yourself.  Shed the things that don’t do you no good.  Usually nagging thoughts should be addressed.  When your unconscious comes knocking, let her in.  She, your unconscious, will not harm you.  That’s a start.  You, your conscious you, has a bad reputation.  Like a manipulative friend, his inspirations go awry.  His motives are the kind that don’t do you no good.  Use evidence, reason, logic, self-preservation if necessary but get out of the box on your own power.  Get into the groove of self-reliance and intuition by acting responsibly, confidently, and slowly.  That’s the ticket.  Who will notice?

Everyone.  Once you can not be easily influenced, lots of people will go away.  Others will attack.  Some will come towards you.  Those are the ones you want in your inner circle.  Losing friends isn’t always a bad thing.  Being alone can sometimes be a good thing.  A dedicated relationship is better than Facebook full of Friends.  Unfriend those who have not proven to be friends.  Reach out to those who are worthy to be friends.  Never seek to go below or above the level of relationship that costs you self-esteem.  Empower yourself using the means that work for you.  Pray.  Read.  Converse.  Listen.  Meditate.  Cry.  Laugh.  Find out who you are on your terms without having those terms dictated to you.  So much of is out of power can be brought into your hands by simply reaching out.  Getting out.  Looking within.

Death of a Crippled Chicken

My lame chicken died yesterday.  The inevitable arrived, as always, as a surprise.  My little chickadee couldn’t survive forever.  Watching her pathetically trying to edge up to the feed and water.  Me pathetically performing physical therapy on her wounded right leg.  Her bunk mate chick jumping on the her, snuggling, enjoying the closeness.  A meat chicken’s reality is doom.  Her dreams are merely instinct.  But to be impaired and live a shorter life than her siblings brings sadness.  Is there a way to look at this event positively?

The barnyard only functions when all of its parts are functioning.  Animals serving their purpose.  Farmer serving his animals.  Nature giving as she will and takes away as she pleases.  A crippled animal takes away everyone.  Takes food and water that does the least benefit.  Takes time for the farmer to attend to one that can’t tend to itself.  Sometimes, the imperfect can be made whole.  Reality dictates that life will run its course and require that crippling conditions must be corrected or overcome.  Life requests our very best if one hopes to survive.  Life demands much more in order to flourish.  The bad news for livestock is that the potential for a cripple grows small.  The good news for people is that we have options and power over our crippled condition.

I watched a video from a series called This American Life.  The episode, titled The Spy Who Loved Everybody, concerned a prank where a large group attended a small band’s nightclub gig in order to make that one night “the best gig ever”.  Initially, the band was amazed.  Later, they found out it was prank.  The take from both the individual pranksters and the individual band members varied widely and in opposite directions.  What was revealed, from my perspective, was that good intentions don’t have guaranteed results and a crippled person is the only one who can escape his impairment.

The prank leader who confected the “best gig ever” was made aware of the unintended results of mission and his agents.  Though harm was not the intent, it was undeniable that when the band found out the blowout gig was staged, they were crest fallen.  This fellow concluded that since that because their intentions were good, that it was still a positive thing.  One might call his intentions a good dream and the reality a bad nightmare.  In any case, the pranksters continued their good intentions and the same varying and often unexpected results.

On the band’s side, one member in particular was greatly harmed.  He said he spent his whole life trying to avoid confrontation and being laughed at.  This prank with good intentions took him back to the childhood days when he had to endure bullying and cruelty.  As grew up, he sought to escape the pain and find refuge wherever, finally landing in relative obscurity surrounded by possibly other emotional cripples.  The experience of the prank not only caused old wounds to open but also forced him to face the fact that his crippling attempts to avoid confrontation and being laughed at left him cornered with no options of escape.  One day, three months after the prank, he stood up and said enough.  This is who I am.  I play the guitar.  I enjoy my life.  There is nothing wrong with.  He healed himself of a lifelong impediment by hitting the bottom of his pain and merely standing back up and accepting who he was.  Who he always was.  Nothing could hurt him now or anymore.  But there was a last question.

The guitarist, named Chris, was asked, “Given a choice between dreams and real life which would you choose?”  Chris answered the first one (dreams).  This surprised me.  Why dreams?  But upon reflection I do see it.  The second one, reality, may help us realize where we are and what we have to do and how far we have to good but it is not encouraging to a cripple, emotional or otherwise.  The hardness of reality, with its sharp edges and bruising reminders and its unforgiving laws of physics can be a call to quit and hide and nurse our inadequacies.  But dreams have no such characteristics.  Dreams live without judgement or hardness or cruelty.  Dreams accept us and all of our inadequacies without notice.  Dreams allow healing and overcoming and forgiveness.  We are like crippled chickens if we accept reality by itself not allowing for dreams and can accept that same fate.  Dreams and being human allow for choices.  The choice for self-acceptance.  The choice to let others be themselves but outside of impacting your life.  The choice to like things the way they are.