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Showing posts from 2011

Ten reasons why I Google Blog

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a day in the life Unemployed due to company downsizing, writing a book, planning to get back into shape starting tomorrow. I have been drinking too much since the permanant lay off on January 7th, and the morning meditation has become almost non existant. A web associate stated that this time has been selected as the "reinvention of Tao". I hope to use this space to vent, speak of my sucess, hear from some of you comments and perspectives that will allow a deeper personal insight into what it means to be a human being. This was my first post to Google Blogger - February 14, 2005. Much has happened since then. My book, a labor of love and solace, as well as being the source of my "going Hemingway" for a season, was lost due to my faulty backing up practices. A lengthy novel lost forever and no strength to repeat the story. What tale to be told is next?   My marriage has come to an end. Enough said.  I'm working now, but at 60% less the pay of

Growing a Beard

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My picture now adorns the gallery located at  beards.org  My face however has adorned facial hair in it's myriad form since the age of fifteen. Sideburns, mustaches, full beards, partial beards; my face has played with them all. Around ten years ago I turned my short and trimmed  beard into a goatee and began to let it grow. Shortly thereafter I began to shave my head. (go figure?) I have cut my beard in the name of conformity several times and I have at times excessively trimmed it trying to find a little more fullness. When my two daughters were under the age of ten, all those many years ago, I shaved my entire face wiping away any hint of burns or stache or beard. They wept. Why is it that there are those of us who feel compelled to sprout facial hair while there are perhaps an equal number of men (?) who shave chests, faces and their pubes? WTF?  In homage, in some weird way, I can hear the C S N & Y song beckoning to me. I think that I'm done with cutting, t

Chickens do not celebrate Christmas

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I once read about the grouping of stars that we call the "Big Dipper". Throughout history this grouping of stars has been recognized throughout Eastern Asia, India, and England to the Americas. It has taken on many names such as the plough, the ladle, a cart, and sometimes it has been recognized as a bear or the home to the "immortals". This grouping of stars has been shaped and defined by culture and imagination. It's all a matter of perception. And to my mind's way of seeing things the chickens appeared quite celebratory on Christmas morning. My imagination perhaps. I know that I was anticipating Gaia Girls arrival and that I had a very sick chicken sitting in my kitchen. But it truly did not seem as though I were projecting. They looked like they were going to break out into song! I thought that they might miss the absent hen now being nursed in the chicken hospital but they went on without skipping a beat. A little while after Gaia Girl made her tri

All we want is Happiness

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One of the casualties of divorce is the sometimes violent disruption cast upon the children of divorce, be it the adult children or the grand-kids, the whole world is forever changed. While attending the deployment ceremonies for my son in law, my grand-daughter looked up at me and asked, "When are you going to watch me again?" Her presence was once a staple in this house and it had been more than a year since we've been able to spend more than a few minutes alone together. This weekend she will be coming to TaoSpring and this seven year old girl couldn't be any more excited. Of course, my plans are to spoil her and to let her know just how much she is loved. I know that she has many questions and I plan to answer each one as tactfully as I am able. It's really not all that complicated While people can seem oh so complicated, it all boils down to this;   all we want is to be happy. Ignorance leads us away from happiness. Ignorance has us breaking the most

Chicken Life: From the egg to the Roaster

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White Broilers are shipped in a little box and arrive filled with a whole lot of peep. The little fur balls are always a hit, melting the heart of even the hardest of the New England curmudgeons. Everyone wants to hold one. Anyone standing in the wings will soon make their way forward like paupers in a soup line waiting their turn to hold one. And in the end the same can also be said of these tasty plump morsels. Weighing on average 8 Lbs, after just nine weeks, organically fed and raised, they                            are happy and playful. And come next Sunday they will be in the freezer. Shortly thereafter one will grace the table where it will be received with thanks.

Seven Hundred Full Moons

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My lifetime has witnessed approximately 700 full moons. Come the year 2012, my birth month will hold two full moons, with the first full moon of that month falling on the day of my birth. He shook my hand insincerely and walked back up the hill and back into the shadows. And the thing that I remember most is the way that the light of the full moon made his grimace look more like a smile. But I felt that his eyes told the truth. He held nothing but contempt for me. Tonight's moon lit the landscape and made the cold December night as inviting as a midsummer campfire. I walked the perimeter drawing on my pipe watching the mix of heat and smoke rise up high and disappear into the night sky. Peeking in on the chickens always draws a smile from me and tonight was no different. The light of the moon faded their colors to shades of light and dark, white and gray, making only my familiarity distinguish one hen from the other. A bucket left in a corner of the coop startled me for one ten

Faith Made America Strong

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"Our party cannot be all things to all people. It can't be. Our loudest opponents on the left are never going to like us so let's stop trying to curry favor with them." Rick Perry Jefferson penned the opening words in the Declaration of Independence to inspire opposition to the political belief of the era: The Divine Right of Kings;   We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness - ...and it would appear that a certain faction would like for us to return to a time when the populace will be once again governed by the government  (A Christian government) Will the President of a Christian Nation rule by and through divine right? When a man such as Rick Perry states that "as President, I will end Obama's war on religion," I am frightend. His message was openly anti

The way to a man's heart

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It is said, or maybe I should say that it has been said, that "The way to a man's heart is through his stomach". And quite surprisingly so, I find that statement to be well, true? Okay? I admit it. Or at least to a portion of it. I am not saying that it's the solid foundation for a good homesteading relationship but man, it sure makes for some damned good mortar holding everything together. Last evening Gaia Girl made for me four of the finest pork chop marinades, with leek fritters and an incredibly delicious aromatic rice. (and she does not eat them) I ate one chop for dinner. One for breakfast with fresh eggs. One at lunch with the most heavenly carrot and butternut squash bisque. The last I had for dinner again with rice and added a sprinkle of Frank's Louisiana hot sauce. And lest I seem to make light of the bisque, it was Food Inc. front cover material. Beautiful in color.Texture was picture perfect. Smell was heaven made. The taste, liquid Prozac. I c

Pizza on Christmas

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Working retail. The new world. Not that I'm complaining, because I'm not. It's just how things are. There's a host of gems available to me now that I would have surely missed out on had I not been directed down this pathway. Gaia Girl works on Christmas eve and a portion of Christmas day too. She is greatly needed in her profession and excellent in what she does. Being in retail, I too will be working on Christmas eve. The store has to be open after all. This is how retail works. In order to do better than break even, you must take the good with the bad. Even if the employee wages and the electricity aren't covered by the sales of the day. Sunday, Christmas day, we have off. Come Monday, it's back to the same old grind. Ahh! Working retail. The new world. Not that I'm complaining, because I'm not. But you know, I review that past and count many more stress filled and unhappy Christmas days than I do days of comfort and joy. I'm glad

HOLIDAYS GREETINGS!!!

An old friend from blogger days past has sent me this video from You Tube. She is an amazing gal and I am proud of and for her. Please watch and comment and I hope this finds you all well and puts a smile on your face.

Unseasonable weather, happy chickens & skunks

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Okay. Enough of the soapbox exhalations about what a mess we're all in. The warm days have been celebrated by even the grumpiest of the New England curmudgeons that wander into the store each day. They can't help themselves though and often feel inspired to leave a benediction behind asking the powers that be to give us a winter that will shine with mercy upon us. Have mercy. On me. If it wasn't for the few perky people still out there shopping in these dismal economic times, I don't think that I could make it through the day. We are far from the days of the great depression. No one likes that they have to tighten their belt. And this frustration is magnified while the "top" grows fatter and the rest of us focus on getting lean. But I digress. (again!) The chickens are still laying plentiful and the afternoon sun has them playing like kids in a schoolyard. The nights do get cold though and leave their water bucket coated with a half inch of ice by mornin

SNAFU is not a new word

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No, this is not an endorsement for Yellow Tail Shiraz, although I wouldn't mind receiving residuals for such a seemingly perfect product placement. And I don't have much to say about the cat n' hen either. Curiosity could hardly obscure what these two were really feeling toward each other that day. "Dude! You're in my space." "Man, you're ugly!" "Go away already!"  They would of course, choose to walk on opposite sides of the street if they could - (and they can't you see, as we have indoor cats and chicken coop chickens) but you do get the point. There's just no reason in trying to mix the two. As a rule, feline and fowl do not mix. And the same rule applies for the Democratic party and the G.O.P.  No such alliance or partisan politic will ever exist for the two. There is a long and arduous game at stake here and those that sit around the political round table are the only ones who really know what the rules are an

Thanksgiving

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The meat birds are happy in their new digs. Playful, fat and full feathered, they are now about twenty one days away from the freezer. That's farm life! I took a walk through the old flood plains early Sunday afternoon. The weather, unseasonably warm, provided me with a chance to walk an area that few now visit. These many trails and cart roads we once traversed freely. They are now closed by barricades made of steel or stone and are only accessible on foot or by bicycle. In winter there are many miles of snowmobile trails that crisscross the area. Many of these roads, closed by decree and that now go nowhere offered a place to hunt, fish and a hidden place where you could go necking with your sweetheart. In the last few decades these enjoyable places of beauty and solitude became dumping grounds for demolition, tires and items that no one wanted to pay a disposal fee for. But not all was lost. There remains a haunting beauty evident in an area where once 1930's autom

Meat Birds and Thanksgiving plans

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For the last four weeks we've had meat birds  living in our basement. The brood gathered under a heat lamp sitting comfortably upon fresh wood shavings and they began to eat. And eat, And eat. By the third week you remove the feed from 7 p.m. until 7 a.m. and then watch the bedlam when the morning feed is lowered back into the pen. On Sunday Gaia Girl collected the twenty five plump little broilers and moved them to a coop and run several miles away. I can still hear them cheep, chirp and squeak in the basement. Creepy! Thanksgiving is fast approaching. With the pending divorce all tradition as I have known it is no more. Time for something new! Thanksgiving has been a huge holiday for my family and for my parents before me. And with following tradition, Grace is said while that responsibility often falling to me. My dysfunctional sons, my drunk wife, my daughters (my hope) made it feel more like an Irish wake. I was much more mournful than thankful. With every passing year

All Hallow's Eve

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Twenty four inches of snow. When it arrives one day before Halloween it's not a surprise, but a horror for everyone. The area where I live had the highest amount in snow totals and yet we did not loose power. We were prepared with our wood all stacked and lanterns full and wicks all trimmed. We came away unscathed and little worse for wear.  Not true for a larger part of New England and all of the way down into New Jersey. As I write this, many homes are still without power. Unlike TaoSpring, many homes rely entirely on electricity for their homes to operate. It's true that we too need and use and rely on our local power company more than we want to. And as a part of our future goal for TaoSpring, whether or not it be the TaoSpring in it's current location, we will seek to lessen our dependence. And why? There may exist all sort of tree-hugging, ethereal, new age reasons for lessening our imprint upon the planet we call earth. But simply put, in contrast to the non-ce

家 人 Chia Jên

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  O n Saturday my granddaughter, the daughter of my oldest daughter, turned seven years old; Oh !The apple of my eye. And on Sunday I attended the wedding my good friend's son. Many years ago I went to this same friend's wedding while four years ago I  also attended his wife's funeral. Ob La Di - Ob La Da......... How often do we find ourselves seeing people that we really like and have truly missed only to see them at birthdays, weddings, and funerals? Busy, busy, we are. And spread out too. Family, friends, community. They really are precious resources. And much of my weekend had me thinking about how important family is and about how my experience of family has changed. Family can be a true example of grace. Gaia Girl shed tears as we watched the father and the bride dance while for me, I felt a little anger at having been forced to keep away from my daughter's recent wedding. Life is so short. Tears and anger should be short lived.

Chicken in the big house

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TaoSpring - Chickens, potatoes, stew and trivia

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 I know that it sounds derogatory but I assure you, we love Little Fattie . She is loud, brash and full of personality. Just like those girls from Jersey. We're up to a dozen eggs a day now. The two Barnevelders that we introduced about six weeks ago? They segregate themselves like they're too good for the rest of the hen house. They strut about like a pair of aristocrats and stay so close to the coop and roost that they get top bunk most nights. They really threw the pecking order into a spin by their arrival. They're supposed to be great birds to have but I'm not sure I even like them! I imagine them wearing fancy coats and powdered wigs expecting preferential treatment.  We harvested the last of the peppers and potatoes. The eggs and the V-dub bus sat quietly watching the scrub and dry process. Last night we went to the local pub and joined in for a night of trivia. First timers, me and Pants were. I think it was the beards that did it. And damn! Does my fac

Prayer

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I was a man of prayer. In time, as my "beliefs" became less concrete, I knew that I did not know. The more knowledge that I gained the more I realized that I really knew nothing at all. And I also began to realize that I was not alone in this realization. I found it to be a very universal rung on the well traveled spiritual ladder. As Lewis Carroll once quipped, "If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there." Prayer began to cease as I found that I no longer knew who or what to pray to. Almighty God, Heavenly Father, Lord Jesus? It felt so woefully inadequate. My view of God became more like that of the experience of Tao: The Tao that can be spoken is not the eternal Tao The name that can be named is not the eternal name The nameless is the origin of Heaven and Earth The named is the mother of myriad things Thus, constantly without desire, one observes its essence Constantly with desire, one observes its manifestations These

Tracie's Farm

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http://www.traciesfarm.com/

TaoSpring - Meat Birds

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Here they are!!! Our Jumbo Cornish birds arrived via the post today. We received the call this morning and within minutes they were here. Cute as buttons and closely examined by our two cats, they quickly settled down to eating, drinking and taking comfort under the heat lamp. A week or so before Christmas they will be sitting pretty in the freezer. Recently this little ditty was found in a news paper: Outside, our brood is fairing well and we're up to ten eggs a day with fifteen birds. The Fort Seuss/TaoSpring/ Pallet coop withstood the wind and the rain of hurricane Irene and methinks a good old fashioned New England winter will be just what the Dr. ordered to break in the coop sufficiently.  I am planning a hive in the future. I have a natural affinity for bees and with my planned expansion of raised bed gardens it will be advantageous. While this has been a good autumn weather wise, wood needs to be stockpiled in anticipation of whatever the winter may bring. Mean

Increasing awareness: The undetermined mind

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I've spoken before about having an undetermined mind; A mind focused and aware: that understands and experiences life like a person climbing a staircase in the dark. Where each stair lights when you step on it and not before. No looking up at the top stair or looking two stairs ahead. It's one stair at a time. It is a state determined not by desire or aversion but through the clear force of equanimity. But to get there I determined, (no pun intended) arrival at having an undetermined mind, or awareness, comes via a very determined awareness. An awareness with intention. Tools such as meditation are often used as an aid to help increase our level of awareness. Martial arts, dance, playing music, acts that produce a forgetting of the self, can help us to experience the now in its fullness. With practice, we slowly empty the cup of self focused mind and there is just, "Look". That is why we practice. For those times when life can get messy. Our suffering is lessened

The Kings desire

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The Love of money is the root of all evil - The Bible 

The Dust Will Settle at TaoSpring

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My understanding and experience of meditation is to let it be whatever it is; you just remain silent, without any concern, without any judgment, without making any appreciation or condemnation. Soon all the dust will settle, and you will be left behind in your immense glory, in your tremendous beauty, in your peaks of consciousness. ~ Osho 

Marriage. Huh! What is it good for?

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Marriage is a conspiracy from Tiffany, florists, the diamond industry, and Christian fundamentalists. The only good thing about it is the diamond ring, the wedding gifts and the honeymoon. - Suzanne Finnamore Any man in love with his wife must be so dull that no one else could love him. - Montaigne I haven't spoken of my pending divorce lately. The divorce process is like a lot of things in life: you never fully realize just how painful something is until you experience it for yourself. And when it comes to marriage the opposite is also true: when marriage is good, it is really, really great. When a marriage is bad, it really, really, fucking sucks. You never realize how wonderful marriage can be unless you have experienced it. My spouse has always been a handful. But at times, it was wonderful; like a warm sun after a blistering rain. But if its always raining and you find yourself beginning to live for those brief intermittent breaks of sun through the darkened clouds, well

Eggs, eggs and more eggs - Gifted

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The chickens are giving us up to eight eggs a day now. Soon we will be gifted with more than a dozen eggs a day and we will gift others in return. There is nothing better than "fresher than fresh" eggs and eggs that are given to you for free. A gift within a gift. How cool is that!

Zen

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A recent post over at The Buddhist Blog had me thinking about this post from last year. I thought it an appropriate re-post. Pouring water into the ocean to make it wet... Who  are we really?  What  is really the meaning of Life?  How  can we attain lasting happiness in the face of our seemingly endless troubles? These questions are basic to our lives, and it is from these questions that the practice of Zen has its birth. Zen can be the compassionate scalpel that removes the layers of accrued opinions, beliefs, and frozen expectations that stand between us and true experience. Zen shows us that what we mistakenly call ourselves, our personal identity, is really no more than a mask over our true selves and natures. Beliefs, opinions, prejudices, educational and cultural training, our family backgrounds: All these are merely accidental factors, if you will. They are necessary tools for survival and integration into the larger society, but  they are not really who you