Book

I'm in the process of writing a book.  It will be a short biography/memoir.  I need to find a publisher and have no idea how to go about the process.  I also need to find a publisher who will protect my privacy, so I will be using a pen-name.

I have something to say that I think might help people.

If anyone can give me some tips on getting a book published, finding a publisher, or other related things, please contact me.  I could use all the help I can get right now.

Here It Is

I have too many posts already... but they are old.... this one is new.  Here you will find mostly a stream-of-consciousness.  Hopefully you will like most of my thoughts; some you won't.

Hello familiar friends and strange friends.  Would it sound too new-agey if I said there are no strangers?

I am bored, with a lot on my mind.  I can't promise an orderly arrangement on this blog, just thoughts being thrown out into the Internet Wild, hoping they will be caught by a reader or two.  Or maybe I just need to say things for the sake of saying them.

On with the show.

One thing I've noticed we learn as adults is that we're not important as we once thought we were in youth.  It's because the world grows as we age.  At 35 years old I miss the beaming smiles of teachers as they put gold stars on my homework.  Yep, teachers gave wonderful pats-on-the-back.  Something I have learned is that there aren't many out there giving me the metaphorical "gold star" anymore.  Well, some do, but the numbers have dwindled.  This is something I miss.  I enjoyed being made to feel special.  Life teaches some hard lessons.

I don't like not being rich.  I want to come across a large amount of money so I can pay my bills and buy things like the camera I've been drooling over.  I hate being poor and wish a millionaire would tell me that today is my lucky day, that I can move out of the government subsidized apartment complex where the cops are frequently seen because who-knows-what goes on here.  The odds of winning the lottery are nearly microscopic, so I'm not even going to play.

I used to have a job with a good income until I got sick.  I went from being middle-class to lower-class.  Sisyphus' rock tumbled down but it doesn't seem to be going back up.  Yet, the Damoclean sword probably hangs over all our heads, for even I am certainly more fortunate than many in this world.

Even though I got sick, my life has more meaning than it did in the past.  I finally got over a bump that was holding me back in life.  Now I am freer than I was, and hopefully someday I'll be freer than I am now.  Life is a growth process.  Some days it seems like my seed is dormant, and others I grow like a weed.

In the Blink of an Eye

So many things disappear without notice.  Not just the small things, but things as big as spring.  One day I look out my window and the sky is grey; the trees are bare.  Spring could nearly come and go without my notice.  About a week ago I looked out the window and noticed there were small tufts of leaves growing on the trees.  When did that happen?  One day it's grey, some days after it's not.  What happened to the days in between?

After 34 years spring must be something I take for granted.  Been there, done that.  I should make it a point to notice the details of spring's entrance.  I may have lived 34 years but it doesn't mean I'll live 34 more, or even 1 year.

It's like.... just noticing that I can only taste the food in my mouth when I'm exhaling.  Something silly, perhaps, but of large importance to me to learn something about my body that I didn't know all the years of my life, something to do with eating which is one of my favorite things to do!

So, I smile and welcome the daffodil that grows in full bloom beneath my second story window.

Hello daffodil.

Hello spring.

Feline's View from a Window

My cat fascinates me.

I opened a window for her today.  She gets excited when I call her name to come to the window; she will come barreling through the apartment to jump into it.

What fascinated me today were all the small details I noticed about her when I spent about 10 minutes just staring at her and watching her behavior.  She sniffs at the fresh air and I wonder what she smells.  Something tells me she is taking in the scents of all the homeless cats that live outside, but maybe she is noticing everything, the scents of the grass, blossoming trees, people walking around outside, the children.  Her whiskers flutter around.  She is staring toward the sky; her head whips from left to right as a bird flies by.  Her ears twitch at sounds and apparently even at sounds that I cannot detect.  She stares at the ice-cream truck as it passes.  The sun on her fur makes me want to plant my face down into it to feel its warmth, to smell the sweet aroma.  It is comforting to do that.  ...And then there is the reflection of the sun in her clear eyes.  She is my golden-eyed girl.

She loves her window.

I love her.

Out of Winter's Grave Still Covered in Dirt

It is April 5th, 2013 and although spring has been here for a short while today seems to be the first real day of spring. I have been too depressed for so many years that I have forgotten how to get excited over the beginning of spring. Even now I am relying on a caffeine pill to give me enough feel-good energy to smile at the sun.

There are people outside; they are listening to their music and the children are playing. For the most part I liked winter when the children were still inside. It was much quieter and people did not feel the need to drive by with music blaring out their car windows. I guess it's safe to say that spring should excite me but does not because it does not fit my mood. Winter is more like me. I guess in a way spring depresses me because I don't feel like bathing in the sun or laughing with friends. I prefer to be alone and how can spring and summer accommodate someone who stays indoors? My loneliness is self-imposed - I turn down most social invitations - yet seeing people frolic together seems to amplify it.  Winter is mine; I am indoors with everyone else. Nothing is expected of me.

After more than ten years the doctors have found a good medication cocktail for me and I seem to feel a twinge of hope that spring and summer will bring great things. Just feeling hope is a great improvement for me.  I just have to ease my way into it.  Today it's 64 degrees and one of my windows is open with my cat sitting in it. This is the first step to saying "hello" to spring.

Just a Trilobyte

My father briefly dated an archaeologist when I was a kid.  She gave me a near-perfect - if not perfect - trilobyte fossil.  I don't think I was responsible enough to have that specimen because it ended up lost.  Now I am 34 and I'm responsible enough for a trilobyte.

Trilobytes, here I come!

Is the Grass Really Greener on the Other Side?

"There is a very little word that we often use. It has only two letters, but it is full of power for good or evil. It is the word 'if'. Do not be always fancying that if your circumstances were different you would be different; if only other people would be agreeable, you would; if only you were somebody else and had their chances you would do differently; if this, that and the other might be, all would be well with you."  ~Hermes
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I tend to say "if" a lot - If only I had more money.  If only I lived in better home.  If only this person treated me with more kindness.  If only I had this or that or did this or that I would be happy.  But the fact is, IF I were to get this or that or achieve this or that, I'd only be wanting something more, something bigger, something else.  Life can turn into a cycle of wants if I'm not careful, instead of a cycle of thanks for what I have which has the power to bring a sense of contentedness.  I sometimes think the grass is greener on the other side, but I must remember that to someone else my grass is green and healthy and lush.  I have a beautiful field and if I tend to it with love and gratitude it will allow me to feel satisfied with things the way they are, which will allow me to be satisfied with myself, which will allow me to be in harmony with my Higher Self.

Thanks, Universe, for the lovely pasture I have and for the rain and sunshine you provide to keep it green and in production of some of the most beautiful flowers I have ever seen.

Negative Thoughts, Negative Energy

"It is your belief in vulnerability that causes things to get bigger. It is the absence of your awareness of well-being. There is nothing creeping after you. There is no bad stuff coming after you...it is only you holding yourself in a place where you are disallowing the well-being, that would be there otherwise. There is no bad stuff out there. Everything is a by-product of how you flow your energy." ~Abraham Hicks
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Negative thoughts create more negative energy.  The snowball effect definitely applies to my thoughts, and before I know it the negative energy I have created is monstrous.  Luckily I have Ray around to remind me of the good I have in my life.  When I start thinking I don't have enough money, or our apartment is too small, or the neighbor's music is too loud, or about the people in my life who have hurt me, he reminds me that I have a roof over my head when the homeless are trying to stay warm by sleeping on the sewer grates.  He reminds me of the comfortable bed I have to sleep on when some people are sleeping on benches.  He reminds me of the women in the world who go to bed lonely without a man that loves them.  He reminds me that I have lots to be thankful for.  Yesterday he asked that I write a list of things I have in my life to be thankful for.  (Of course he was first on the list!)  When he puts things in perspective for me it lifts me up and makes me feel that I am lucky to have what I have and there are some people in this world who would give anything to be in my position.

Ray takes all my gloomy clouds and paints silver linings on them.

Ray reminds me that even on cloudy days the sun is still shining above and beyond them.  The sun is always shining.

The Soulmate Holds the Key

A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we’re pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we’re safe in our own paradise.
~Richard Bach

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That is how I feel about my soulmate.

Like Children With a Game

"You are like children with a game, and you think that the game is played by everyone. Physical life is not the rule. Identity and consciousness existed long before your earth was formed. You suppose that any personality must appear in physical terms. Consciousness is the force behind matter, and it forms many other realities besides the physical one. It is, again, your own viewpoint that is presently so limited that it seems to you that physical reality is the rule and mode of existence." -- Future Seth

Stop Thinking

How long will you think about this painful life?
How long will you think about this harmful world?
The only thing it can take from you is your body.
Don't say all this rubbish and stop thinking.

~Rumi

Long Time in the Making

When you think objectively about how much work went into creating your own capacity to have the experience you are having in this very moment – fourteen billion years of hard work - then it might even begin to strike you as immoral to spend too much time sitting around and worrying about the fears and desires of your personal ego. Surely the purpose of all that cosmic effort and creativity and positivity – from nothing to energy to light to matter to life to consciousness to you - could not possibly have been just for that. When you awaken to the evolutionary process and its endless creativity, and you discover how profound and complex the structure of our universe is, you start to recognize and appreciate, at a soul level, what a precious gift it is to be here.  (p. 37, Andrew Cohen, Evolutionary Enlightenment: a new path to spiritual awakening,ch. A Big Yes)
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When looked at from that perspective it seems like more than just a grand fluke!  It gives life so much more meaning.  I should keep this in mind when I'm feeling down and wondering if there really is any meaning to life after all.  Since before the beginning of time I was an idea, a thought that became an action!  Now here I am, and to get me here the Universe had to line things up JUST SO.  I was a long time in the making, and SO WERE YOU.

Just Try

With each morning’s awakening try to live through the day in harmony with the Higher Self. “Try” is the battle-cry taught by the Teachers to each pupil. Naught else is expected of you. One who does his best does all that can be asked. There is a moment when even a Buddha ceases to be a sinning mortal and takes his first step toward Buddhahood. (Blavatsky Collected Writings, Vol. 12, Esoteric Instructions)
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In the mornings I have been doing exactly that - trying.  I may be forgetful when it comes to thinking positive thoughts or showing gratitude to the Universe but some mornings I have succeeded in remembering.  I feel that if I work with the Universe then the Universe will work with me.  We get out of something what we put into it.  As above so below.  Have you heard this koan below?

"A new student approached the Zen master and asked how he should prepare himself for his training. "Think of me a bell," the master explained. "Give me a soft tap, and you will get a tiny ping. Strike hard, and you'll receive a loud, resounding peal."

OK, Universe.  I'm pounding on that bell with my thoughts and I'm putting feeling into them.  Hope You can hear me.  Thanks for listening.  (Since gratitude is important.)

What To Do With All These Thoughts

Not to be able to stop thinking is a dreadful affliction, but we don't realize this because almost everyone is suffering from it, so it is considered normal.  This incessant mental noise prevents you from
finding that realm of inner stillness that is inseparable from Being.
-Eckhart Tolle
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I don't know that I could ever stop the incessant chatter inside my head but I have been trying to replace the negative thoughts with positive ones.  We'll never be able to watch all our thoughts because we have about 60,000 thoughts a day, but anytime I can become aware of them and catch myself "in the act", so to speak,  is a good thing.  So, anytime I can I'm going to think good thoughts and thoughts of gratitude to the Universe.  As someone with OCD I tend to think the same thought over and over and over again.  (...and did I say "over and over and over again"?  Good.)  So, I'd much rather say, "It's a great day!" many times, instead of, "Oh, it's a gloomy old boring day."

Dear Universe

" Your happiness depends on your ability to change your state of consciousness, to extricate yourself from the realms of the unconscious, the subconscious, and even the self-conscious, in order to elevate yourselves to the realms of the superconscious, or divine consciousness, so that you may dive into it as into an ocean of light. Doing this, you realize not only that you are free from the limitations of your physical body and the impressions of the five senses, but also that your whole being extends to infinity. In this fusion with divine light, even if it only lasts for a brief moment, you feel that you are gradually being taken over by your superior self, which is a tiny part of the Godhead. And then, one fine day, all of a sudden, you will be given all the comprehension, sensations, or achievements you previously lacked."  ~Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov
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I've been very pumped up and excited about the Law of Attraction.  My main goal at this point in time is to make myself feel good.  I'm putting effort into thinking positive thoughts.  So, my first order from the Universal Catalog is HAPPINESS!  Ever since I put my order in I've been feeling some of these blues lifting.  It's an actual sensation that I can feel physically when depression starts to fade away, and I'm feeling it.  I'm starting to realize that I need to put a little bit of effort into making myself feel good beside just taking some magical pill which really isn't very magical at all since it doesn't work 100%.  It might work 50% but I need to do the rest.  I am programming myself like a computer.

Universe, I will be happy.
Universe, I am the Master of my thoughts.
Universe, thank you for all that you have given me.  (Because gratitude helps bring more good things into one's life.)

Tosui's Vinegar

Tosui was the Zen master who left the formalism of temples to live under a bridge with beggars. When he was getting very old, a friend helped him earn his living without begging. He showed Tosui how to collect rice and manufacture vinegar from it, and Tosui did this until he passed away.

While Tosui was making vinegar, one of the beggars gave him a picture of the Buddha. Tosui hung it on the wall of his hut and put a sign beside it. The sign read:

"Mr. Amida Buddha: This little room is quite narrow. I can let you remain as a transient. But don't think I am asking you to help me to be reborn in your paradise."
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This is a funny Zen koan.  Just yesterday I was joking around with Ray about how I was hoping it could be possible to hop off the merry-go-round of reincarnation, as if we had a choice.  Round and round we go again, and I am getting rather dizzy!

I know that my speaking of koans probably defeats the purpose, which is to silence the mind, but I can't help myself.  :)

The Law of Attraction and OCD

A humorous - or not so humorous - thought occurred to me yesterday.  I've been listening to the audio book _The Secret_ by Rhonda Byrne.  It's about the Law of Attraction.  I'm a firm believer that we can at least affect our own moods by our thoughts.  (...and at times our moods affect our thoughts.)  I've been trying to push myself out of the doldrums by thinking positive thoughts.

...but on to the humorous thought.  How does the Law of Attraction work for someone with OCD?  I'm sure our thoughts cause things to happen tenfold, since OCD is obsessive thinking.  I have OCD.  I tend to think negative thoughts, so if I can change my thoughts to positive thoughts, instead of ruminating on the gloomy past, I could be happy day and night, not just during my bipolar up phases.

"I am the Master of my thoughts."

Is That True?

One day the Master announced that a young monk had reached an advanced state of enlightenment The news caused some stir. Some of the monks went to see the young monk. "We heard you are enlightened. Is that true?" they asked.
"It is," he replied.

"And how do you feel?"

"As miserable as ever," said the monk.
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I like this parable.  I think it gives a very realistic idea of what enlightenment is.  Enlightenment is not going to solve all the problems one has.  Enlightenment is not going to take away depression, or solve money problems. Enlightenment is not going to solve relationship problems or employment issues.  Enlightenment just is.

Depends on How You Look at Things

Life is the same for the saint and for Satan;
and, if they are different, it is because of their
outlook on life. The one turns the same life
into Heaven and the other into Hell.

-Hazrat Inayat Khan

Earth can be our heaven or it can be our hell.  Right now, to put it in simple terms, there is a lot of $#|% going down on my part of the planet and I can either choose to focus on this small part of life when the rest of life going on around me is wonderful and beautiful.  I can pump my head full of sad gloomy thoughts or I can pump my head full of happy gratitude thoughts.  So, will I be the saint or the Satan?  I choose to be the saint.

A Course in Miracles... and Other Odds and Ends

My fiancé and I started the lesson portion of A Course in Miracles the other day.  We're on the third day.

I've started a new blog as a sort of journal of my experiences with it.

http://acourseinmiraclesjournal.blogspot.com/

Elsewhere, yesterday I signed up to get "Notes from the Universe" from the TUT's Adventurers Club and a statement on their website today made me smile.  I'd say it applies to me.  "The reason old souls enjoy spending time alone is because they never really are."

The first letter I received from today says,

"Sophia, you don't even have to ask.

I know, I'm there, and I'm already busy.

The Universe

On the other hand, Sophia, a little wink, "the chicken" when no one's watching, or a soft "hubba, hubba..." wouldn't hurt, either."

I laughed at the synchronicity because earlier today I made a joke with Ray about being beaten with a rubber chicken.  (Ray is my fiancé.)