A friend is starting a non-profit organization that really sounds like the type of thing that can make a difference. Please read and consider….
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Greetings family and friends,
With little free time, in the middle of post production on my first feature film, I finally started a non profit organization that I have been wanting to do for a few years now. It is called “Hoods To Woods” I want to take disadvantaged and critically ill children on camping adventures. It kills me that so many kids live so close to the mountains and beach and have never been out of their neighborhood. There is a temp web site up www.hoodstowoods.org.
Per the advice of a supporter, I am writing to ask if you could find the time to please write a brief letter of support, on your official letterhead if you have any.
We are going to take the letters and use them to get grants and other support from sporting goods companies etc.
Please simply write, in your own words, how you think this is a good idea, a worthwhile effort, you fully support helping children etc. (no need to write “Duh! who would not want to help poor kids?”)
So far I have the interest of the Los Angeles Sheriffs department and some other cool names.
I am really excited to make a difference in these kids lives and to spend more time camping too!
“For that which is boundless in you
abides in the mansion of the sky,
whose door is the morning mist,
and whose windows
are the songs and the silences of night”
Build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness
ere you build a house within the city walls.
For even as you have home-comings in your twilight,
so has the wanderer in you, the ever distant and alone.
Your house is your larger body.
It grows in the sun and sleeps in the stillness of the night;
and it is not dreamless.
Does not your house dream?
and dreaming, leave the city for grove or hill-top?
Would that I could gather your houses into my hand,
and like a sower scatter them in forest and meadow.
Would the valleys were your streets,
and the green paths your alleys,
that you might seek one another through vineyards,
and come with the fragrance of the earth in your garments.
But these things are not yet to be.
In their fear your forefathers gathered you too near together.
And that fear shall endure a little longer.
A little longer shall your city walls
separate your hearths from your fields.
And tell me, people of Orphalese,
what have you in these houses?
And what is it you guard with fastened doors?
Have you peace,
the quiet urge that reveals your power?
Have you remembrances,
the glimmering arches that span the summits of the mind?
Have you beauty,
that leads the heart from things fashioned of wood and stone to the holy mountain?
Tell me, have you these in your houses?
Or have you only comfort, and the lust for comfort,
that stealthy thing that enters the house a guest,
and then becomes a host and then a master?
Ay, and it becomes a tamer,
and with hook and scourge makes puppets of your larger desires.
Though its hands are silken, its heart is of iron.
It lulls you to sleep only to stand by your bed
and jeer at the dignity of the flesh.
It makes mock of your sound senses,
and lays them in thistledown like fragile vessels.
Verily the lust for comfort murders the passion of the soul,
and then walks grinning in the funeral.
But you, children of space, you restless in rest,
you shall not be trapped nor tamed.
Your house shall be not an anchor but a mast.
It shall not be a glistening film that covers a wound,
but an eyelid that guards the eye.
You shall not fold your wings that you may pass through doors,
nor bend your heads that they strike not against a ceiling,
nor fear to breathe lest walls should crack and fall down.
You shall not dwell in tombs made by the dead for the living.
And though of magnificence and splendour,
your house shall not hold your secret nor shelter your longing.
For that which is boundless in you abides in the mansion of the sky,
whose door is the morning mist,
and whose windows are the songs and the silences of night
There are many arts. Some tug at emotions, some tug at reason and intellect. Some manipulate both.
When prose and music wed to film… and when the philosopher directs the tone… what changes can happen in others?
One can watch a spider work hard and find inspiration. A surfer carving glassy waters, a gymnast or a chess master can inspire.
To do is the goal. don’t sit… do. At the end you’re more sorry about the things you didn’t try, than the things you did that didn’t work out well. Just live. And life isn’t crawling into a hole. If you can, get out and live.If you’re spinning your tires into a rut…. ease off the gas…. and get out of the car! And if your life is in the ruts… get outside if you can. Just do something.One of the most inspirational music videos I know is ‘Right Now’ by Van Halen
‘Right Now’
~Van Halen~
Don’t wanna wait ’till tomorrow,
Why put it off another day?
One by one, little problems,
Build up, and stand in our way.
One step ahead, one step behind it,
Now ya gotta run to get even.
Make future plans, I’ll dream about yesterday.
Come on turn, turn this thing around
Right now… Hey! It’s your tomorrow
Right now… Come on, it’s everything
Right now… Catch your magic moment
Do it right here and now
It means everythingMiss a beat, you lose the rhythm
An nothin’ falls into place.
Only missed by a fraction,
Slipped a little off your pace.
The more things you get, the more you want,
Just trade in one for another.
Workin’ so hard to make it easy.
Whoa, got to turn. Come on, turn this thing around
Right now… Hey, it’s your tomorrow
Right now… Come on, it’s everything
Right now… catch that magic moment
Do it right here and now
It means everythingTell me, what are ya waitin’ for?
Mildred, the church gossip, and self-appointed monitor of the Church’s’ morals, kept sticking her nose into other people’s business. Several members did not approve of her extra-curricular activities, but feared her enough to maintain their silence. She made a mistake, however, when she accused Frank, a new member, of being an alcoholic after she saw his old pickup parked in front of the town’s only bar one afternoon. She emphatically told Frank (and several others) that every one seeing it there would know what he was doing! Frank, a man of few words, stared at her for a moment and just turned and walked away. He didn’t explain, defend, or deny. He said nothing.. Later that evening, Frank quietly parked his Pickup in front of Mildred’s house … walked home …. . and left it there all night.
Nature has given each species certain hormonal urges to ensure procreation. Mankind has these same urges…
Often nature ensures that animals are ‘hard-wired’ to see the differences in others of the same species as likely indications of a suitable mating partner. This is a method that ensures the mating units are not too closely related… this widening of the gene pool leads to what we call ‘Hybrid vigor’. It is this ‘Opposites Attract’ feature that gives us widely dissimilar people who find some common interest in one another.
Ladies Love Country Boys
Trace Adkins
She grew up in the city in a little subdivision,
Her daddy wore a tie, Momma never fried a chicken,
Ballet, Straight A’s, Most likely to succeed
They bought her a car after graduation
Sent her down south for some higher education
Put her on the fast track to a law degree
Now she’s comin home to visit
holdin the hand
Of a wild-eyed boy
with a farmer’s tan
And shes ridin in the middle of his pickup truck
Blarin Charlie Daniels yellin, “Turn it up!”
They raised her up a lady
but there’s one thing they couldn’t avoid
Ladies love country boys
This song is something like Vickie and me… she grew up in Orange County… she really never knew anyone with a garden until she journeyed to the country to visit her brother who was working on a local landscape crew due to his knowledge of Spanish. She saw a whole new life in the bush after she met me….
But it sure was a different life than the city… we lived for a time in a tow-behind 27 foot travel-trailer. We grew much of our own food, and had no Television. As the song said… it was as primitive as could be. And it was fun, and new for us both.
While the initial onrush of ‘Romantic Love’ is heady and easy to flow along with…. it is the long-term committed relationship that requires constant work, and forgiveness and love… and may require a bit of that in varying degrees each and every day…. To forgive and to accept and to deal with shortcomings and problems is the only way to continue.
Just as Reba says….
~Reba MyIntyre~
‘I Keep On Loving You’
“Love takes the patience of Job”
That’s what my Mama always said
‘Faith is the belief in something more than what you know’
That’s what the Good Book says
You gotta play the cards you got
Who knows what fate is holding
At times you gotta go without knowing where you’re goin’
That’s why I keep on lovin’ you
I keep on lovin’ you
Through the ‘baby don’t leave mes’
And ‘never will agains’
And ‘I promise tos’
I keep on lovin’ you
Lord knows we’ve had our share of fights
Our sleepless nights, our ups and downs
We’ve had plenty and then some of ‘baby I’m gones’ and turnarounds
Sometimes I swear it might be easier to throw in the towel
Someday we’re gonna look back
And say “look at us now”
That’s why I keep on lovin’ you
I keep on lovin’ you
Through the baby don’t leave mes
And never will agains
And I promise tos
I keep on lovin’ you
I’ve heard it said that “Men marry women hoping they’ll never change… Women marry men hoping they can change them”.
Best is to pick someone you can put up with, and remain committed to… and hopefully you will have picked a person that can put up with you… and will remain committed to you also.
I suppose it’s something of a crapshoot… and I never was a gambling man….
An uncle of mine told me to “stay single, and raise your kids to do the same”… somehow in the sixties that was a really funny line.. cause no one had kids without being married (it seemed). But he had five or six wives in his time….. he was speaking from experience.
Kahlil Gibran ‘On Marriage’
Then Almitra spoke again and said…
“And what of Marriage, master?”
And he answered saying:
You were born together,
and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings
of death scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the
silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love.
Let it rather be a moving sea between
the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous,
but let each of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone
though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together.
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress
grow not in each other’s shadow.
Give yourselves some room…. for most folks being together 24-7 is too tough. Get out and blaze some paths, encounter some new people… have some adventures…. but always be good.. so that you can come home and be happy to be there.. and have no regrets. Life with regrets is burdensome and heavy.
But get away from one-another on occasion… just remember:
‘There ain’t no place like home’
Train
‘Drops of Jupiter’
Now that she’s back from that soul vacation
Tracing her way through the constellation
She checks out Mozart while she does Tae-Bo
Reminds me that there’s room to grow
But tell me
Did the wind sweep you off your feet?
Did you finally get the chance to
Dance along the light of day
And head back to the Milky Way
Tell me
Did Venus blow your mind
Was it everything you wanted to find?
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?
Can you imagine no
Love, pride, deep-fried chicken
Your best friend always sticking up for you
Even when I know you’re wrong
Can you imagine no
First dance, freeze-dried romance
Five hour phone conversation
The best soy latte that you ever had and me
Tell me
Did you sail across the sun
Did you make it to the Milky Way
To see the lights are faded
And that heaven is overrated
Tell me
Did you fall for a shooting star
One without a permanent scar
And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself
And did you finally get the chance
to dance along the light of day?
Yep
Vickie and I are quite different, and yet strangely so alike in so many ways…
and after half a lifetime together we still get along and love one another….
although sometimes we grate on one another….
at those times we agree not to speak of the ‘issues or problems’….
luckily we have a lot of space….
and in a short time… there is no trouble.
Because in time most troubles fade away….
and in the end nothing else really matters but love.
And after we leave, that’s all we can take with us.
It’s said mankind has been living with their animals for some ten thousand years…. I’ve heard ‘civilisation began when people started hurling words instead of stones’…. Maybe also it can be said civilization started when someone picked up an orphaned baby animal and raised it up… finally figuring out how this could improve the lives of people… the dog was perhaps the first domesticated animal… the social needs of dogs is similar to humans.. so we naturally get along well as a family unit. The keen noses of dogs would alert of intruders.. etc. Dogs are a good animal to have on a homestead. We also like our cats as they eat the gophers that plague our cactus. Actually, I need to talk to our tax man and see if we can expense the cats on our taxes for the rodent control they do… maybe the dogs too since they bark at the deer and alert me to run them off if they try to get in our seven foot high fence.
Nah.. better not try that.
Here’s a photo of our Chihuahua Chica and the two kittens she raised up.
I imagine heaven is a bit like this… animals that would be naturally antagonistic brought together in love through the Grace of God.
Chica raised these two orphaned kitties for us… giving them the warmth they needed while we fed them kitten milk replacer from eyedroppers. It is so heartwarming and precious to see the way they’ll come in from their nocturnal hunts and lay down next to their momma the dog. They chase each other around the house in their little play times. Dang… we’ve got it good here…. we were without a TV for years… but the animals always kept us entertained. Between the sheep that acted like goats (Barbados), the goats that looked like sheep (angoras), the domestic and wild Russian boars we’ve had…. rabbits, fowls… etc.
Here’s Whitey and Little-Dude…. both are shelter-dog rescues. Both were abused in their lives…
Trauma can do so much harm to a mind and spirit….
Whitey was found by us before he was mature… after some six months with us he jumped onto my lap for the first time. We had Little-Dude for almost three years… in that time he only jumped up on me a few times in the last weeks before he died. I always had the worry it would be when he’s old and sick before he loses the edge of fear that kept him from me. Even then he was wary… eying me suspiciously when I stroked his fur. No one knows the trauma he went through… he had broken ribs and a tail with several breaks in it. He would cling near to Vickie and stay between her and me as if to protect her… whenever I approached her he would get scared and bite me.. but he was so old.. his teeth worn down to little dull nubs.
Little Dude had a little spot on the grasses near the garden in which he liked to sit in the sun… we’d laugh and call him ‘Viejo’ which means ‘old-man’…. he so reminded me of some of the southern villages in Europe… where you used to see the old men sitting on benches alongside their houses…. their dark clothes in many layers… a beret-type cap on their head… smoking smelly cigarettes… how the mind works, that a little old chihuahua can remind me of my childhood in Europe.
Little Dude passed on about a month ago on April 13 … he’d come in from his little warm-spot in the sun, and collapsed by the refrigerator…. he went through some spasms for a time, shuddered and stretched, and stopped breathing. We buried him at the little spot he liked to sit in the sun…. it was touching because both Whitie and Chica sat on that spot in the sun for the next few days, and would nap on the little blanket he always liked to lay on. Some folks say animals don’t realize death…. but I know they do. When you’re working slaughtering animal after animal as I’ve done in the past… you soon realize the first couple trust you… proceeding along the line willingly… until the smell of death starts to get to them.. then they start to realize something is amiss…. they start to protest and panic… yes, animals in slaughterhouses do get scared… and it makes a difference in the taste of the meat.
Most cultures have a way of assuaging the guilt of the people when they kill an animal…. they pray that the animal uinderstands the need to take their life and eat them… they pray for forgiveness, and that the animal will understand…. we don’t have that in this modern time when you have others do the killing for you…. if you’re gonna eat animals… I think it is best to kill them yourself… it seems more honest somehow.
As for Little Dude…. I wish we could have gotten into his mind to see what happened to him….
At least we gave him a secure home, with good animal friends he could try to be close to. I think he had as good a time for that few years as he possibly could given the internal torment he had.
R.I.P Little Dude… see you at the Rainbow Bridge one day.
In just a few weeks, millions of young men and women will graduate from high school or college.
As a friend or family member, you may be wondering what to give this year. Fortunately, I know just the gift your graduate wants.
Cash. (Yes, the same thing he or she wanted last year.)
However, it never hurts to throw in a lagniappe, something small but meaningful. Ideally, a graduation gift should encourage the graduate’s dreams, with one eye on the past and the other on the future.
That’s why I like to tuck the envelope inside a copy of James Allen’s timeless classic, “As a Man Thinketh.”
Born in Britain in 1864, Allen was a slight boy who suffered from poor health. In 1879, his father – out of work and facing insolvency – sailed to America, hoping to set up home and send for his family. Soon after arriving, however, he was robbed and murdered.
At age 15, Allen was forced to work as a factory knitter and later as a private secretary to support his family. He found the work mindless and unfulfilling but took solace in the evening among his books, often reading the Bible, Shakespeare, Tolstoy and Whitman into the early hours.
In 1903, he decided to devote himself fulltime to writing and that same year published his best-known book, “As a Man Thinketh.”
It’s a slim volume, one that can be read in less time than it takes to snooze through the average commencement address. But it packs a powerful wallop.
The essential premise is that, even if you’re unaware of it, your underlying beliefs shape your character, your health, your circumstances, and, ultimately, your destiny. Your thoughts create your reality. ** You literally are what you think. **
For this reason, you should be at least as meticulous about the ideas you feed your mind as the food you feed your body, since your life will largely become what your thoughts make it.
This is not to say that your mind alone can heal a serious illness, fix your finances, or change the world. Allen was no purveyor of New Age mumbo-jumbo. He was, above all else, a pragmatist and an advocate of hard work and effort. Yet he understood that every great undertaking begins with a particular state of mind.
Or, as he put it:
* Men are anxious to improve their circumstances, but are unwilling to improve themselves; they therefore remain bound.
* Let a man radically alter his thoughts, and he will be astonished at the rapid transformation it will effect in the material conditions of his life. Men imagine that thought can be kept secret, but it cannot; it rapidly crystallizes into habit, and habit solidifies into circumstance.
* All that a man achieves and all that he fails to achieve is the direct result of his own thoughts … a man can only rise, conquer and achieve by lifting his thoughts. He can only remain weak, abject and miserable by refusing to lift up his thoughts.
* As the plant springs from, and could not be without, the seed, so every act of man springs from the hidden seeds of thought, and could not have appeared without them.
* A man’s mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intelligently cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, and will bring forth.
* Whatever your present environment may be, you will fall, remain or rise with your thoughts, your Vision, your Ideal. You will become as small as your controlling desire; as great as your dominant aspiration.
Allen insists that circumstances don’t make you. They reveal you. And while you can’t always command the situation, you can always command yourself.
Sadly, Allen – frail throughout his life – died of consumption at 47. His nineteen books have sold millions of copies – all of them are still in print – but most were published posthumously. Allen was never a wealthy man, at least in the traditional sense.
Yet he believed deeply in his mission. His words have inspired men and women the world over. And he was an enormous influence on followers like Dale Carnegie, Napoleon Hill and Norman Vincent Peale.
More than anything else, “As a Man Thinketh” is a meditation. But it is also a revelation. Allen demonstrates how your life is enhanced and ultimately perfected by inward development.
It’s a fine message for graduates just setting out to tackle the world – and not a bad reminder for the rest of us, either.
Others have preached a similar message, of course. But few have put it in more poetic language:
“He who cherishes a beautiful vision, a lofty ideal in his heart, will one day realize it. Columbus cherished a vision of another world, and he discovered it. Copernicus fostered the vision of a multiplicity of worlds and a wider universe, and he revealed it; Buddha beheld the vision of a spiritual world of stainless beauty and perfect peace, and he entered it.
Cherish your visions; cherish your ideals; cherish the music that stirs in your heart, the beauty that forms in your mind, the loveliness that drapes your purest thoughts, for out of them will grow all delightful conditions, all heavenly environment; of these, if you but remain true to them, your world will at last be built.”
‘The Touch of the Master’s Hand’
~Myra Brooks Welch~
It was battered and scarred,
And the auctioneer thought it
hardly worth his while
To waste his time on the old violin,
but he held it up with a smile.
“What am I bid, good people”, he cried,
“Who starts the bidding for me?”
“One dollar, one dollar, Do I hear two?”
“Two dollars, who makes it three?”
“Three dollars once, three dollars twice, going for three,”
But, No,
From the room far back a gray-bearded man
Came forward and picked up the bow,
Then wiping the dust from the old violin
And tightening up the strings,
He played a melody, pure and sweet
As sweet as the angel sings.
The music ceased and the auctioneer
With a voice that was quiet and low,
Said “What now am I bid for this old violin?”
As he held it aloft with its’ bow.
“One thousand, one thousand, Do I hear two?”
“Two thousand, Who makes it three?”
“Three thousand once, three thousand twice,
Going and gone”, said he.
The audience cheered,
But some of them cried,
“We just don’t understand.”
“What changed its worth?”
Swift came the reply.
“The Touch of the Masters Hand.”
And many a man with life out of tune
All battered with bourbon and gin
Is auctioned cheap to a thoughtless crowd
Much like that old violin
A mess of pottage, a glass of wine,
A game and he travels on.
He is going once, he is going twice,
He is going and almost gone.
But the Master comes,
And the foolish crowd never can quite understand,
The worth of a soul and the change that is wrought
By the Touch of the Masters’ Hand.
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What a beautiful little piece the above is.
I’ve been in some extreme situations… met some horrendous people in my life….
Yet, even I still have faith that nearly everyone can be saved….
Sad besotted lives… nightmares in daily living…
Even they, with the help of the right person can be freed of their demons and live a happy existence….
It just takes the right help from the right person.
When you are the right person… won’t you please help?Because NOTHING in this life is purely by chance….
everything we experience is a learning point…
every day we are given opportunities to increase our internal wealth
and you never know when the fellow you pull out of the ditch
is the one who will fill you with internal gold
“Help thy brother’s boat across, and lo!, thine own has reached the shore.”
~Hindu proverb~
We’ve been oranically certified since 1993….
This is one song that runs right into and through me…
All I want to do is grow cactus, and live in this beautiful, quiet, remote canyon.
Jason Aldean
‘Amarillo Sky’
He says
“Lord, I never complain, I never ask why…
please don’t let my dreams run dry” On his knees every night he prays
“please let my crops and children grow…”
’cause that’s all he knows
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