Adventures with Teresa

Labeling. I love labeling! Or perhaps I should say, I love it when things are labeled, especially in a closet filled with boxes, or shelves of organizing bins. Those of you who know me from my Science North days know how my storage room looked - everything was labeled! In fact, people would come to Astro to borrow things, not because I was the only one who had them, but because they could find them easily. Which of course I didn’t mind, except when they borrowed things and didn’t bring them back!

Labeling of chemistry bottles is pretty important! There’s nothing worse than having an unlabelled bottle of clear liquid and wondering what it is! Or a spice jar - inside, you can see green, dehydrated flakes of <i>something,</i> but adding it to your spaghetti sauce could turn out to be disastrous! But equally dangerous, when we label things and people too quickly, we cut off our perspective.

Snap judgments are a type of labeling. If you were to meet my cat, for example, and instantly decide that black cats are bad luck, you’d miss out on getting to know him, seeing how sweet, cuddly and smart he is. Not an ounce of bad luck either! In your haste to label him, you might even miss the fact that’s he not really black! He’s actually very dark brown, and his fur turns a lighter reddish brown after he’s spent some time in the sun. So besides making a judgment about him without bothering to get to know him, you would have actually made an inaccurate assessment of reality by being to quick to come to a conclusion. This is obviously much more serious when it comes to racial over-generalizations or other snap judgments based on a person’s appearance.

Freedom comes when you stop labeling things! I used to be a professional astronomer, and so I knew every constellation, planet and the names of all the brightest stars. I knew a lot about moon phases and aurora borealis. But I missed out on the beauty of the sky, to a degree, by all the labeling I did (and also in feeling the need to explain everything). I find that these days, I enjoy just looking at the sky, not being so preoccupied with what constellation is where (I can still dig that out of my memory if I want to). The same might be true for you in an area you have expertise…maybe you compulsively label cars, by make and model, or by opinion - ugly, old, noisy, sleek, fast, expensive, etc. It is very easy to do!

Try this for fun: try to go as long as possible without mentally labeling anything. Just take in your surroundings and enjoy them as they are. Don’t judge them in any way, or analyze them, just disconnect your brain and observe whatever is near you. It works best in places you’ve never been - have you ever noticed that you feel different, “more alive,” when on vacation? That is probably because you are not labeling things but just enjoying them as they are. It is easiest when you’re in nature, but can be done anywhere! Give it a try and see if you notice more freedom, peace, life, or space in you. This idea comes from Eckhart Tolle’s book <i>A New Earth.</i> It’s an excellent book, and I recommend it to everyone!

There is power in acceptance. When we accept ourselves completely, we are free from thinking we aren’t good enough, from hating parts of ourselves, even free from striving to be something we aren’t. We can see ourselves as we really are - another member of humanity, no better or worse than anyone else, and we’re all pretty damn amazing!

Accepting ourselves leads to acceptance of others. When we’ve dealt with our own junk, our own issues, we can see and accept others much more easily. We realize they are human too, maybe with some issues of their own, but that’s okay. When, at our absolute core, we don’t judge ourselves harshly, we are more understanding of others too.

Accepting our life’s circumstances is also important. By accepting what we have now, where we are now, we remove our desperate wanting. Wanting things to be different (different job, spouse, kids, etc), wanting more ____ (money, stuff, toys, friends, popularity, holidays, etc), wanting less _____ (trouble, work, bills, snow, etc). When we learn to accept what is, we come back to the present, stop moping about the past or pining for the future and we’re instantly happier. It means we stop rebelling against God and life and all it’s given us. Thankfulness helps us accept things as they are, and always leads to more contentment, too.

We often take things for granted! We, healthy people, take for granted that we can get up and do things, go places, and sleep at night… when I work midnight shifts, sleeping is not always easy! We take for granted we can have a shower any time we want, get food any time we want, call our friends or family any time we want. There are people living in parts of the world that can’t do any of those things with any measure of reliability, and from what I’ve heard and seen, on the whole, they complain less than we do.

Thankfulness leads to acceptance of what is, which leads to acceptance of ourselves, which leads to acceptance of others, which leads to more kindness, understanding, tolerance, compassion, and love! I wonder what would happen if we all took a little time out to accept ourselves more.

Mwow. Mweeh. Mweeih. Meh. Mwow…

These are the words Eddie greeted me with as I got home from work today…. I was just getting out of my car, and there he was, much to my surprise, trotting down the sidewalk to me! You see, he is not supposed to be outside without supervision - I let him roam the cat-proof back yard when I am home, and if he doesn’t come in the house to check on me, I check on him. (It’s very cute how he comes into the house, makes sure he knows where I am, then heads straight back outside for more sunshine and fresh air.) I make sure he hasn’t escaped the yard - I heard you laugh when I said “cat proof” - or gotten into any other sort of trouble (but primarily I don’t want him to escape). He got out of the yard one evening, and it was not good! It happened a couple of hours before I had to go work a midnight shift, and I walked around the back alleys and streets near my house, calling his name and searching under cars, hedges, wherever I thought he might be! But I didn’t find him - either he didn’t hear me calling or he didn’t want to come out of hiding. Whatever the case, I had to go to work, while my beloved furry one spent the night in the back alleys of High Level (scary places even for a cat with all his claws). We occasionally have coyotes in town! I was a little worried, to say the least! Today, though, I hadn’t worried one bit, since I believed him to be in the house when I left for work. I had let him roam the yard while I ate breakfast and whatnot, as is his early-morning pleasure these days, but I was quite sure he had gone back in. Since I hadn’t seen him for certain in the house as I left, I did a quick check of the yard, but I didn’t see him anywhere, and I needed to get going, so I left. So, my kitty had an exciting day outside today!

And I know nothing about it! Except that he was waiting in the yard when I got home, anxious and very happy to see me. Did he hide all day from barking dogs and noisy trucks? Did he stalk the many birds that visit my bird feeder? Did he lounge lazily on the deck, ruling the yard and enjoying the sun? Did he get his required 10 hours of sleep today? Was he hungry, thirsty, or missing his litter box? Okay, by now you may be laughing at me, but it’s interesting to think of what might have happened. I’ll never know what he went through today.

And the coolest part of all: he isn’t mad at me! He was so relieved to see me (maybe he thought I would be gone for days) and he obviously missed me. All he wanted to do was get some attention and retreat to the safety of the house. Even though he loves his freedom, he loves me more. He had to live with the situation when I locked him outside, and he isn’t even mad at me about it! What a guy! For a cat, he has a very small ego! I’ve been reading a lot about ego lately - more on that another day!

In the last few years, I find I am fascinated by flowers. They are so intricate, so beautiful, so fragile… and except for hot-house flower store flowers, they happen spontaneously. The plant just decides when to grow the bud and the bud opens according to its own will and timeline. Even though plants are said to have no intelligence, I wonder about that. They follow the sun as it travels across the sky, or lean towards a sunny window. They conserve water in a dry season, such as when I forget to water them! They seem to know when to flower, either in response to summer weather or to decreasing light, as in the case of my Christmas cactus. It burst into blooms in October and is still flowering, although much less than before. Pointsettias are another flower that blooms in response to long days and short nights. In fact, one webpage says to keep the plants totally dark at night - make sure you don’t even turn a lamp on - through October and November to make sure they flower. So here were humans are, having to change our lifestyle, living in the dark, in order for a plant to flower! Sound silly?

Well, maybe not. Before the invention and popularization of electricity, we lived in the dark when the sun went down. People had lanterns or candles, and if you wanted heat as well as light, you had a fireplace. On the whole, life slowed down in the evening, and people spent time at home relaxing and going to bed early. If you watched “Little House on the Prairie” you know what I am talking about.

Sometimes, I long for those days. It was so much simpler - people didn’t cram their evenings with activities, or work late into the night. They were productive during the day, and worked hard, but they knew when to relax and recharge. Life was more connected to what was natural, less forced and artificial. I think I need to go camping! In a couple of months… there’s still a lot of snow on the ground here!

Did you know you can return apples at the grocery store?  I return things to stores when they no longer work, or I bought too many of something, but I’ve never returned produce until yesterday!  I am so used to buying organic apples, which taste great no matter what variety I buy, that last week when they didn’t have any organic apples and I had to buy regular ones, I couldn’t eat them!  I tried one, and I could only get 3 bites down!  They tasted awful, like the skin had been painted!  Sure enough, I read the side of the bag later and they have a disclaimer about coating them with wax, parrafin and/or shellac!!  Well, I must have got shellacked apples, ’cause that’s how they tasted!  Yuck!  So, sure enough, Extra Foods took the apples back strictly on my explanation of bad tasting skins.

So this got me to thinking, that if everyone did this–bought organic apples, tasted how good they were, and then refused to buy, or even returned (!) regular apples–in no time, all apples would be organic!  That is, if the rules of supply and demand really do work, which some days I doubt!  (Do people really demand to watch some of the junk that’s on TV?  But that’s another blog…) And it also reminds me of an article I read about the true cost of organic produce!  Initially, it seems more expensive, but in the long run, it is far cheaper, because it uses less energy and natural resources to grow.  They save money on chemicals (obviously) which is pretty much balanced by the wages for more people needed to grow it (depending on what country you’re in, labour costs fluctuate greatly).  Turns out they don’t actually need the chemicals, because the farms naturally attract predatory insects to eat the bugs you don’t want (pests).  A study comparing organic and non-organic farms showed the same number of pests (but the organic farm also had the “good” insects).

Wow!  Could it be that farming with chemicals is totally unneccessary?  No!  It can’t be!  Or maybe… yup, it’s totally possible, with a little more elbow grease and other techniques to grow food without chemicals that tastes–O my gosh!–like food!!!!  Not like shellac. 

One other quick point, before I get too lost in sarcasm… the article continues to say that the price of organic food being a little higher actually represents the cost to grow food.  Non-organic food prices are artificially low because they produce such a volume.  Or maybe because they’re not producing food.  And this has not even begun to consider health-care costs caused by pesticide-related problems!  I won’t go into that, but you can read about it yourself!  A quick search brought me to http://www.chem-tox.com/ but I am sure there is a lot more info out there!

Whew, I haven’t had a rant like that for a while!  Have a great day everyone!

I’m almost finished reading “Undefended Love” by Jett Psaris and Marlena S. Lyons. It’s about learning how to love in relationships in a way that is not defensive (hence the title), but also about learning more about ourselves and being really happy, truly at peace, with all that we are.

One of the chapters I read yesterday talked about a continuum of emotional needs: needs–wants–desires–preferences–no preference. We often feel desperate to have our needs met; like a hungry baby, we are screaming inside for someone or something to feed us, and we feel the need is urgent, like we’ll die without it! While we all have needs like this, many people (the authors’ survey said one-third) don’t know how to identify or put words to these needs. If we take time to connect with our needs and acknowledge them, we’ll find they don’t take over our lives like we think they will. On the other hand, some people are chasing their needs so intently, they are actually in relationship with their needs, not their significant other or themselves. We can learn to accept that firstly, we have needs, and then to accept whatever the need is and that we’re not going to die without it. When we face that we have a need, and that the need may not be met, but don’t let ourselves get caught up in any fear or panic that surfaces, we develop strength and courage to face more things and learn more things about ourselves! We can learn to comfort ourselves when we feel fear or desperation. We are stronger for having faced our need and the possibility of it not being met, and all the uncomfortable feelings that go along with it. The next step is to move towards wants.

A lot of us have been raised not to think about our wants. We were told (directly or indirectly) it was selfish and improper to do so. Or, we shut down our awareness of wants because they were denied so many times and we just couldn’t handle any more rejection. Again, if we give ourselves permission to want things, we feel freer. The key is to focus on wanting, not to get caught up in daydreams about what we are wanting, “what if” we get it, and whatever negative feelings that come along when we think we won’t get what we want (jealousy, frustration, anger). Just want! Want something, but don’t obsess over it, get greedy for it, judge yourself or get unhappy because you don’t have it. It seems a bit counter-intuitive, but it’s a way of getting out of denial about who we truly are and what’s going on in our minds. And as with needs, we grow when we experience want-and-not-having, without getting caught up in the feeling–let it pass. Like a child learning what “no” means, it’s not comfortable, but we gain perspective on the world. Maybe we can’t have everything we want in life, but life goes on!

Next comes desire. The author’s use of the word “desire” is not as I would use it, so I had to get used to that. To me, a desire is something you want a lot, almost as much as a “need.” However, in this book, they mean desire as something you would like but are not quite as attached to as a regular want. It’s something that is generative; rather than being based from a lack of something (like a need or want), it comes from a desire for something new. That made sense to me, and it is interesting to think about. What new, pleasant, happy thing would I like to have in my life?

When we have even less emotional attachment, we have preferences. And farther along, we accept everything that life has to offer, fully happy with our situation and everything in it, and we have no preferences. We’ll take what comes, and we’re completely content with our physical surroundings and completely accepting of ourselves. While it seems passive in one way, it’s exciting in another! Imagine striving for nothing, being totally content. That doesn’t mean nothing ever changes and we are stuck in the mother-of-all ruts. (A rut implies we’re in a bad situation and unable to get out.) We are open to growth and change, improvement and betterment, but we are also open to struggles, difficulties, and hard times. We know that everything happens for us, not whining about why something is happening to us. We are more alive, and totally grateful for everything that life is, just as it is, right now!

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I feel like I’ve been doing book reviews lately! On that note, I should mention that the writing style of the book made it a bit of a slow read for me, and it’s so packed with new concepts, I certainly didn’t breeze through it. I found I often had to put it down and think, and I also found some parts hard to follow, simply because the terminology and ideas were so different from anything I’d ever heard of. But if you’re ready to delve into some deep personality discovery, go beyond personality-based relationships, and learn how to be totally non-defensive with others, it’s excellent!

I’ve been noticing lately that I feel different when I watch TV. Within minutes of watching, my mind, somehow, feels different. It’s like the free-flowing thinking is being re-routed. Difficult to explain or understand, until now.

I’ve been reading in a very good book Evolve Your Brain by Joe Dispenza, D.C. He talks about how when you think a certain thought over and over, new neural nets are produced. In other words, neurons that fire together, wire together (as he puts it). This does make sense when you think of habits and things… you seem to do them automatically, don’t you? Those particular thoughts are so used to occurring together, they become almost “hard-wired,” probably to make it easier for your brain to do repeatedly. Well, we also have automatic thought patterns, although many of are uaware of what those are. It’s a great exercise to start becoming aware of what you are thinking, and also practicing staying in the moment with your thoughts and feelings, and not letting yourself get carried away in daydreams, or negative fantasizing (which I have dubbed “apocalypsing”). But, this is the subject of another blog, or heck, a whole book!

So, as I was reading Evolve Your Brain just now, it occurred to me: what if millions of people are all watching the same TV program, and all the commercials, at the same time? What does that do to the collective consciousness? For example, if a million women watch an hour-long show, and during that show, see the same anti-aging commercial 6 times (at least!), what effect does that have on women-kind as a whole? I think it might make us kind of obsessive about wrinkles or sagging, or age spots - you get the idea! What if that message affects only half of those women negatively (and the other half resist the message, knowing there is more to you than how young your face apparently looks)! That’s still an awful lot of people thinking the same thing at the same time… I wonder what that does to the Earth and all of mankind’s consciousness as a whole? What about violent shows, shows where the criminal takes centre stage, where twisted, aberrant behaviour is showcased. Maybe people would start to see those things as normal, or even as a way to get attention (since the criminal gets lots of attention, people chasing him etc.)… Scary, isn’t it? I am starting to understand how violence (in shows or video games) can be seen as entertainment. I never used to understand, but it’s the excitement that goes along with it - what will happen next, wow, I can’t believe he did that, etc. That excitement can be addictive - in fact, I think it’s pretty accurate to say that excitement is addictive no matter what form it comes in - TV, real life adventures, reading books, playing games to escape reality, etc.

So, the messages of TV are powerful, and they are amplified by the fact that so many millions of people see them. Even if you think they aren’t affecting you, they are. See if you can notice how you think or feel differently when you start to watch - you’ll probably only feel it for the first few minutes before the brainwashing begins and you lose your immunity to it. See if violent shows change you. That’s my theory anyway! Thoughts anyone?

Last week, I went cross-country skiing, briefly - there was no trail made, so I didn’t got far before filling my boots with snow and turning around and backtracking! It was a beautiful day, only about -5 C, so I was just happy to be out and about. On the way back, I got a special treat - I saw 2 moose cross the path in front of me! It was quite a sight - they were coming from the direction of town, heading into the bush, and of course the trails are on the edge of town. They running across the trail, so obviously they must have been scared by something, probably a car or truck. I don’t think it was little old me on the cross country skis, ploughing along…! It was quite a sight to see, 2 beautiful, big moose bounding across the trail and into the bush. One went in to a thicker area, so I couldn’t see it, but the other one just went off into the poplars, so I could see it quite well for a while. It seemed pretty unconcerned with me. So I am feeling very blessed to get to see some moose up close! I have seen them along the road, rarely, and even as I whiz by I am always excited to see them, but on foot, at much slower speeds, it was a real treat.  I don’t know if they were male of female, because the males don’t have antlers at this time of year (someone correct me if I’m wrong, I’m not a biologist).

And then the other day, at work, I saw 5 or 6 deer, not far from the airport! They were in a cutline that we have that allows us to see Footner Lake and Watt Mountain. Luckily, I had brought my camera to work that day, so I managed to get a few pictures! So that was another treat! And I saw some more deer (possibly the same ones) that night going home from work, along the edge of the road! Luckily, they bounded over the snowbanks along the edge and did not test the structural integrity of my car! Deer are so smart!  Apparently, the wolves are on the move as well - my coworker told me, and I also had a pilot comment that he saw a deer that had been taken down by wolves.  The snow has a nice crust on top, so they can get around better (and I imagine it’s harder for the hoofed animals).

To top off my week, I’ve been blessed to see 2 wonderful displays of aurora! Dancing, ribbony, floating, cloud-like, spikey, mostly green with wisps or red! Darren said there was an awesome display in Edmonton that same evening, with white and purple even!  So I hope that lots of you got to see them!

So I’m just feeling very grateful and appreciative of the nature that I’ve encountered in the last week!  It makes me glad I live where I do, where the northern lights are a frequent occurrence and the skies are nice and dark. I took some nice pictures of the lunar eclipse a few weeks ago and some constellation pictures, too, right from my back yard. And I’m using these gifts to remember God’s greatness and to put in perspective some people-related things that have happened this week.

Hopefully you’re all having a great week, and enjoying the spring-like weather!  I was out on my back deck today, soaking up the rays!

I received the most beautiful gift just now! I was coming home from work, walking out to my car, and looked up. What an amazing display of aurora! It was faint across most of the sky, with the stars in the background, but then as I turned around, I saw a wonderful bright band towards the west–a ribbon of dancing, shimmering energy! Wow! I know, I shouldn’t be this excited; I’ve seen displays like this before, but it takes my breath away every time! I was mesmerized, and wanted it to never end.

Seeing the awesomeness of the northern lights reminds me of God–how can it not? It is so amazing, awe-inspiring… I am at a loss for words! I just start trying to think up more synonyms for “awesome.” I guess that’s what God’s power is like–awesome beyond words! He created the universe, and although it is unimaginably vast, he’s found in every part of it… so huge, yet found in the smallest snowflake or tiny amoeba. There is order throughout all of nature (although it might look chaotic on the surface), and that’s a clue about his nature and power, too, I think. Very orderly, yet with lots of room for creativity and unstructured beauty. It’s interesting how so many things are symmetrical, like basically all flowers and animals, but also things like matter and anti-matter (and many other particles), and the galaxy, although not perfectly so. The solar system isn’t really symmetrical, since all the bigger planets are farther away… but when you learn some planetary dynamics, and how solar systems are formed, then it makes sense too. So, much of his creation is nice and orderly.

And then there’s us humans. We aren’t very orderly (although at least we are symmetrical). We are mean when we should be kind, thoughtless when we should be attentive, blunt when we should use tact… We don’t seem to be very good examples of God’s nature at all, do we!! Well, there’s a reason for that! For all God’s power, there is just one thing he cannot do: He cannot interfere with the free will he’s given us. That’s what makes us different from most of his other creations (the jury’s still out on Chimpanzees and cats). He can break any other law he wants, the laws he created, like the laws of physics, or chemistry (although he doesn’t do that terribly often), but he cannot break the law of free will. We can choose to do whatever we want–to be whatever we want. If we’ve chosen to be miserable, God cannot make us happy. To force happiness on us would take away our free will, and that’s simply impossible, even for a second. If we want to be happy deep down inside but don’t know how, that’s different! That he can help us with, because he sees our hearts, our deepest desires, our unspoken needs. But that’s getting into his omniscience, and that’s a topic for another day! So, we should take this gift of free will seriously and be careful about what we choose!

Hope you’re enjoying my “ideas about God” series!

P.S. I usually try to post only pictures that I have taken, but I don’t have any of the northern lights. Not yet… The pic below is from NOAA POES satellite (http://www.swpc.noaa.gov/pmap/) showing areas of intense electrical activity in the atmosphere! Red is most intense, and this view from space, generated by many satellite passes, is superimposed on a map of Earth. It’s pretty easy to see Great Bear and Great Slave Lakes, and of course, I’m not that far from Great Slave. Overall activity today is 8 out of 10!

I think a lot of people who believe in God don’t really believe in his omnipresence. Omnipresence means that God is everywhere–that there is nowhere, in space or time, where God is not. But many people don’t seem to believe this at all. Let me explain.

It’s easy to see God in good, beautiful things! Sunrises, sunsets, delicate flowers, the Milky Way… It’s also easy to believe that God might be found in good people. In bad people, people who are rude, selfish, criminal or evil–not so likely! But maybe you’ve even realized that we’re all human and as such, we’re all capable of being rude or selfish, but equally capable of being kind and loving. All the potential for good is in every person; not everyone has realized that potential or made any use of it! This is an awesome revelation! But what about people seen as truly evil?

Let’s discuss the idea of good and evil. You may have been taught that there is good and evil in the universe; God is good and Satan is evil. The two are at war and although God is more powerful, Satan is not to be trifled with. (God is trifled with all the time, and often treated with less respect than “forces of evil.”) You may have also been taught that God is holy and therefore cannot mingle with evil things (like sinners, demons and the like). Heck, sinners and demons are almost the same thing in some people’s eyes! Anyways, I think the idea of God being separate from evil comes from the Old Testament, where God lived in the tabernacle, in the holiest of holy places, where only the high priest could go, and he could not come in contact with unholy things! Talk about putting God in a box! Anyways, if he can’t be near unholy things, what does that leave? Isn’t everything that isn’t him unholy? So does that mean he can’t be anywhere?!?

Do you see the problem? Well, what if I suggest that there are no unholy things. Or, removing the double negative, that everything is holy. So, God truly is everywhere and in everything, including demons. Now you might be saying “whoa there, Teresa, you’re jumping off the deep end!” Well, I guess I have, because I no longer believe in demons in the traditional sense–that they are pure evil, battling God for control of the world. In fact, I’ve come to believe there’s no such thing as pure evil either, but rather see demons as lost souls, beings that have gone astray, who need to know God loves them just as much as you or I need to know. Crazy? I don’t think so. As long as you believe in evil and good–two polar opposites in the universe–you can’t believe that God is everywhere (unless God is evil, but that’s crazy). So what do you want to believe:

1. that God is omnipresent and good is everywhere in the universe

2. that evil exists and God is not in it (therefore God is not omnipresent)

3. that God is evil (please don’t pick #3)!

Whatever you choose will colour all your other beliefs about God–and life–so think carefully! By the way, it’s not that I believe there are no bad influences, un-loving people or negative situations, just that these things aren’t inherently bad or evil. In other words, at the core, the essence of everything is good. Including me! My soul is good! And it’s totally untouchable by evil, because evil is not real. It’s eternal and full of love, and that brings me a lot of peace.