Hi Folks:
A few months back I wrote a post called ‘Little Wisdoms‘ because I often get these short insights – sometimes when I awake in the morning and sometimes during the day. Most of them are pretty short and almost all of them get posted on Twitter, but I’ve started making a collection in a Word file as well. I’ve accumulated another stack of them so I thought I’d share them here.
Hugs,
Mike.
Hi Folks:
Last Friday Marcia and I were at the Cornerstone Café for their ‘Open Stage’ night, and it was wonderful to see this continuing parade of people get up in front of the microphone – this person singing and picking a guitar, this person doing some very loving slam poetry, the next person reading what they’ve written, and so on. And sitting there in the audience, it occurred to me that if you saw these people on the street or in the elevator you’d never know that she loves opera or that he’s working on a novel or… Continue Reading →
Hi Folks:
It’s not (yet!) commonly known, but the first Saturday in July every year has been designated ‘International Free Hugs Day‘; that meant it fell on July 2 this year. Not that we ever need an excuse to hug people, but in order to celebrate we took our ‘Free Hugs’ posters down from the shelf and headed downtown. We also brought along a stack of ‘Hug Certificates‘, of course!
For our last ‘Free Hug’ session we were down on the walkway of the inner harbour, but we chose a different location this time: In order to celebrate the 100th Anniversary of the Canadian Navy last year, a bronze sculpture called ‘The Homecoming‘ was erected at Ship’s Point. The sculpture shows a young girl running into the waiting arms of her father, returned from sea. It was a perfect location for us!
We held our signs aloft and waited, but not for long. Very soon we had a reasonably steady stream of people coming by to hug, be hugged and, in some cases, to have their pictures taken. Several people asked why we were doing this, and we simply told them that it was International Free Hugs Day!! A couple of people wondered if it was a tourism promotion put on by the city; that may be a good idea (‘Hug Me, I’m from Victoria‘ T-shirts? Hmmm…) but no, it’s just something we enjoy doing. We hugged young people and old people and everyone in between. We hugged both locals and visitors to our city, all with gay abandon. We were instructed on how to say ‘a hug’ in Portugese (um abraca, I think), and basically we had a wonderful time! Hugging is good for you (and the person who’s hugging you), doesn’t take a lot of time, is non-fattening, doesn’t cause cavities and contributes to world peace!! Continue Reading →
Hi Folks:
Yesterday marked the 16th anniversary of the day my sister Liz passed away. The details of that are irrelevant for the moment but her soft, gentle nature always put me in mind of butterflies, and tiger swallowtails were a favourite of both of us. You can read more about that here. It was interesting because before Liz passed away I had only seen a few tiger swallowtails in my life, but when we flew out for her last days and for the services after, we saw tiger swallowtails everywhere. Marcia and I would go for a walk and one would follow us down the street. We’d get in the car and drive somewhere and one would be there wherever we stopped. If we were sitting in the backyard a couple of swallowtails would come cavorting by. When we flew back to Ontario I saw three swallowtails in the first 48 hours, and I’ve seen several every year since. Continue Reading →
Hello Dear Ones!
Two years ago today, on the Sunday of Canada’s Victoria Day long weekend of 2009, I stepped onto the retreat grounds of Queenswood and an incredible journey began … leading me to write my first book:
It has been – and is still – a magical journey, one in which you, Dear Reader, took an active role … as one of my dearest inspirations! That’s why I thought to stop by today to share this exciting news with you … my book has been published and is now available for sale! You can check it out here: http://bit.ly/buspoet (paperback) or here: http://amzn.to/buspoet-k (Kindle version)
And, as a tantalizing little bonus for you, a glimpse of one of my very favourite sections: Continue Reading →
Hi Folks:
I put this post in the ‘Spirituality’ section of our blog for two reasons: first because I think play is a wonderful spiritual exercise, and second because it gave me the opportunity to include a couple of great quotes on the subject. The first is from Seth:
“I communicate with your dimension, for example, not by willing myself to your level of reality, but by imagining myself there. All of my deaths would have been adventures had I realized what I know now. On the one hand you take life too seriously, and on the other, you do not take playful existence seriously enough.” ~ Seth Speaks, session 518.
Hi Folks:
The article on the back page of the March 2011 issue of Shambala Sun magazine highlights the following poem, written by Naomi Shihab Nye: Continue Reading →
Hi Folks:
This post is based on two events from yesterday, but before I get to them I should provide a little history…
The last time I was in school was a little over twenty years ago, and one Sunday afternoon when I was studying I had a woman who was a representative of a local religious organization stop by my door. She wanted to discuss her faith, and perhaps because I wanted to take a break from studying or perhaps because it was a sunny Sunday afternoon, I said, “Okay.” So we stood and talked for about an hour and a half. However, for everything that she offered from her system of beliefs, I countered with a different viewpoint from another Way. She’d suggest something from the book she had with her, and I’d offer something to the effect of, “Yes, but the Buddhists believe…” or “the Bible says…” or “in Taoist philosophy it is said…” or “in Native Spirituality they believe…” or, well, you get the idea. We went back and forth like this as I said for about an hour and a half until finally I said, “I’ll be the first one to admit that I don’t have all the answers; I’m still a student.” Her response to this was, “Well, I’ve found mine.” but I countered that with, “No, you think you have; you’ve stopped looking.” At that point she left. Continue Reading →
Hi Folks:
Been a little quiet of late here in our little corner of the ‘net… Anyway, some aspect of my Self has taken to waking me up at 1:40 or 3:30 a.m. or somesuch time and planting these little thoughts in my head, and since they’re mostly very short I’ve been posting them on Twitter. I also started collecting them into a Word file, and I’ve got together enough now that I thought maybe I’d post them here as well. If any of them resonates with you, feel free to share them… I usually just sign them as: ‘ ~ MNP’ Continue Reading →
Hi folks:
I was reading through my book of notes to my self this morning and stumbled over the following entry from January 25. Thought I’d share it with all y’all:
Let’s say you’ve been wandering around lost, over hill and dale, through forests and swamps, and all of a sudden you come across a community in the middle of nowhere. The place is beautiful; the people are warm, friendly and inviting… in short, a veritable Garden of Eden. You’re taken in, given food, clean clothing and rest, and after you’ve had a chance to refresh yourself the village elder comes to see you and tells you that you need to make a decision. There are two options: For option 1, you remain there and become an integral part of their community. You adopt their manner of dress, food, customs and beliefs. For option 2, you choose to retain control of your own destiny.
Given these two options, which one would you choose?
I related this to Marcia, and her initial response was very similar to mine. She said there were too many factors to consider and not enough information. It would depend on the people’s beliefs, ideas, attitudes, etc.
But here’s the kicker. Nowhere in option 2 is it expressed or implied that you would have to leave.
There’s no ‘correct’ answer to this question…
Love,
Mike.
P.S. Eleven years ago I wrote a story called, “The Way“. You can find more of our stories under the ‘Our Stories’ link at the top of this page.