Fun 4th

Tags

Bikram yoga, Books, gratitude, simplicity

We stretched the 4th of July into five days. This Canadian embraced the American celebration and it was glorious.

We went to a pick-your-own peaches place.

I drank beer at lunch.

I watched fireworks and ate vegan sausage with fries.

I drank four cups of tea on my front porch.

I did yoga. (Once.) After yoga we sat on the studio floor talking with other yogis for so long that we had to move on to a bunch spot to continue the fun.

I read while lying on the couch until I fell asleep. Then I woke up and read more.

I made brownies and ate far more than my share.

While I admit that I did a little Sunday evening pouting about my blissful little stay-cation being over, there is something that was very invigorating about the whole thing.

I didn’t need to go anywhere exotic. I didn’t need to do anything terribly exciting. I just needed to slow down and notice the abundance that was already around me, and enjoy it.

That, I did.

If you celebrated the 4th of July, hope it was a lovely one.

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Just now now: book induced teleportation

Tags

Alexandra Fuller, Books, Southern Africa, Travel

Just now now: a photo representing the past week; a visual gratitude journal, of sorts. 

My heart belongs to Southern Africa.

I can’t entirely explain it.

I was obsessed with the place for a solid twenty years before I ever set foot on African soil. And when I finally did, it was better than I could have imagined. It was like coming home.

I’m now a ridiculously lucky duck; I have been over there several times and I freelance with organizations that do work in South Africa.

I’ll live there someday.

It’s now been almost seven months since I was in Africa and I miss it like a dear, far away friend.

When the missing is like this, books ease the ache. This week, it’s been hard to get my nose out of Scribbling The Cat by Alexandra Fuller. I loved her first book, Don’t Let’s Go To The Dogs Tonight documenting her childhood during the Rhodesian/Zimbabwean civil war.

Here in Virginia, the weather is getting cooler, the dog curls up on the couch next to me and I am powerless to resist. I might just be flipping pages, but I’m suddenly back in Southern Africa. Fuller’s story is painful and beautiful and it reminds me the power of a good story to transport you.

I don’t think we have all the words in a single vocabulary to explain what we are or why we are. I don’t think we have the range of emotion to fully feeling what someone else is feeling. I don’t think we can sit in judgement of another human being. We’re incomplete creatures, barely scraping by. Is it possible – from the perspective of this quickly spinning Earth and our speedy journey from crib to coffin – to know the difference between right, wrong, good and evil? I don’t know if it’s even useful to try.

-Scribbling the Cat

Why are there some places that just get into your soul and stay there?

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Techie Tao: digital spirituality

Tags

Books, spirituality

I’m reading the Tao Te Ching on my Kindle.

Is that weird? Is there something strange about reading an ancient and sacred text on a Kindle? Something that is so…not a scroll?

I’m still getting used to the Kindle in general. I love tech toys but I miss the smell of paper; I’m one of those nerds who shoves her face into old library books. I miss the feeling of turning a page and no, the page turning sound on the iPad doesn’t work for me, either. I can’t help it…I’m a writer; I like paper.

All these feelings are pushed to the extreme while reading something like the Tao Te Ching electronically. These are seriously revered texts. There is just something unnerving about it being digital, though I can’t entirely explain why. (Wait, isn’t the Tao about the acceptance of not knowing? Well, maybe it does still work on the Kindle…)

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”

~Marcus Tullius Cicero

Is this where we are heading with e-books? Will future “book” shelves hold just vases and frames?

I must admit that the Kindle has some serious perks – it’s pretty awesome that Nelson Mandela’s 500+ page autobiography Long Walk to Freedom no longer takes up my entire carry-on. I also really do love the idea that going electronic saves trees and reduces toxic ink chemicals. Apparently, the carbon footprint analysis of e-books really is a legitimate environmental trade off; in this particularly icky analogy, e-readers are considered the “cloth diapers of books.” Um, eww. But point taken.

They are no longer printing the Oxford English Dictionary and Amazon sells more ebooks than hardcovers. That’s how digital we’ve become. It’s kind of weird to think that the dictionary is extinct.

I know. It’s as if I’m clutching a box of cassette tapes, yelling “No! I like it this way!”

It is undeniably amazing that I can download Autobiography of a Yogi. From my couch. In 30 seconds. For free.

I just wish they could make it smell like dead tree.

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