Oh to be the sea !

Be the sea…I smile just thinking about it !

When Niki was still a young womble I recall how she used to get soooooo mad with me trying to calm her down when she was angry or frustrated.

The words I always used…“be the sea “ would so to say whip up a storm…no wonder why that perhaps didn’t always work out as planned 😊.

This triggered me today …and yes there hasn’t really being much over the past weeks worthy of my soapbox.

There has obviously been a lot of terrible and unacceptable events (more than “normal” in fact ) but I think that’s been more than adequately covered by the media .

I have always been of the opinion that it pays to be prepared and no , I was never a boy scout although I did go through Military Officers training so that more or less beat some sense into me, not that I wasn’t sensible before …I’m digressing already and I’ve only just begun…what’s that Karin Carpenter …

So …sense and sensibility …The one thing that Officers training taught me …apart from squaring off beds and living on minimal sleep was, no… still is that Calm is what gets you through ALL situations.

I have oftentimes been accused of being cold and emotionless …not true (Green Mile …just saying !)

I am just perhaps too conditioned to be reflective rather than confrontationally reactive.  

Assess, Propose, Implement…

Not the “Don’t think just do “ which the military so eagerly wanted us all to follow. Not that I disapprove of NLP methods,  (Neural Linguistic Programming) but ….digression is real

So speaking of the Calm, indeed it (in my opinion) pays to think first and leave the doing till later and before I get labelled as a fence sitter …Time is relative ( Yes, its been my own space week this week and I have had an elegant sufficiency of Cosmology 101’s from my podcasts , Big Bangs , Strings…you name it Gravitational waves … )

So…Focus (Thank you Mr. Miyagi !)

Calm, it helps if in the Chaos that is life you can at least slow it down enough to be able to separate all the elements of the chaos, ego, bitterness, opinions and make an objective decision. You may not make any friends , in fact better if people do get upset with your decisions every now and then ( not always …you may need to reassess your position then!)

What is important is your Integrity, your Insight and Intentions, ( amongst many other letters.)

Lead by example …something I have heard many many times in my life.

So why is it that despite my best efforts I am unable to get Lillypug …Pugzilla to NOT go mental when I am listening to my music ……

Breathe in , breathe out …

So where was I …Lead by example… this goes much further than just always been the better person …sideways again …thinking of Lynyrd Skynyrd,  A Simple Man …

(Behaviour- it’s not a competition after all) but Values, Valor , Empathy, Tolerance all are worthy traits that we should be passing on to our children to ensure this little rock we live on becomes a better place.

In this time, and yes before we go Covid Crazy , things are indeed difficult for many , but spare a thought for those without food on the table or a roof over their heads, those without online ordering or a convenient home delivery …Life is unfair and there is always someone who has it worse , Never Forget that.

(Where did that come from…? )

I’m only running on one espresso ! 😊

Todays extract from the Stoic Page a day triggered me somewhat , Not quite sure that we are at war although it doesn’t hurt to be prepared…

Sorry couldn’t help myself …my brain works sideways !

Here is the song version 😊

But where too , its easy to ponder and ponder but there also needs to be action…in the words of (😊) one of my favourite bands , take it away the Violent Femmes

“No Killing”
I don’t wanna see my brother die
We don’t want no killing Lord
I don’t wanna to see my sister cry
I don’t wanna see
I don’t wanna see I I I I I
I know that bad things are going down
I, I know that loneliness is all around
I know that the world is starved for love
Love
Y’know that there’s good
And there’s evil
And there’s evil
Disguised as good
They’re knocking at my door
They’re knocking at my door
Don’t let them in
Don’t let them in
I think it’s the Milwaukee Police
I think it’s the police
I think it’s the polizei
I think it’s the polizei I I I
Everyday everyday everyday everyday
I need your love love
And it’s a bad bad score
And I need you all the more
I need your love
Love

And wait …what about Seth ?????

Too long delayed

Today is Juneteenth, a holiday that should be more widely observed.

It doesn’t mark the date of Lincoln’s proclamation that freed the slaves, nor does it occur on the day that the 14th amendment was passed. Both were overdue and urgent and important steps forward. Instead, it commemorates the day that a last group of slaves (outside of Galveston, TX) heard that they had been freed months earlier.

Holidays are symbols. They can cause us to pause for celebration or grief, for togetherness or simply to smile. Holidays are worth recalling because they give us a chance to connect and recommit to an idea that matters to us. This is a holiday about freedom delayed.

Change is hard, but delaying what’s right is toxic. Today we can remember just how much we have to do and realize the ability each of us has to see and alter the systems around us.

Not simply today, but every single day.

A chance to make things better.

(Amen to that)

Some good music in this set , I’ve covered them before but the lead in is from Fury at the Slaughterhouse…

Down there’s America
Down there’s Africa
Down there are still people who think
That mankind is the most important thing

We’ll circle till eternity
Around the world in minutes we
Understand the history
The whole human catastrophy

Unfortunately, Perspective is a sorely lacking gene in many people.

Maybe if we try really hard to put things in perspective…I warned you I was on a Space Week…

The Pale Blue Dot of Earth

This image of Earth is one of 60 frames taken by the Voyager 1 spacecraft on February 14, 1990 from a distance of more than 6 billion kilometers (4 billion miles) and about 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane. In the image the Earth is a mere point of light, a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size. Our planet was caught in the center of one of the scattered light rays resulting from taking the image so close to the Sun.

This image is part of Voyager 1’s final photographic assignment which captured family portraits of the Sun and planets.

Look again at that dot. That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every “superstar,” every “supreme leader,” every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there–on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that, in glory and triumph, they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner, how frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds.

Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the Universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known so far to harbor life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment the Earth is where we make our stand.

It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

— Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot, 1994

Here’s to a better week ahead! oooooh and a ring eclipse tonight/tomorrow (don’t forget !!!)

and ….a long overdue shot ( Espresso !!!!)