Headed for Eternity admin | 13 Jan 2010
I’m wishing myself a happy birthday today since as of earlier this morning I’ve now reached the august age of 62 years and am one year closer to the grim reaper’s knock on the door.
Oh my, how weird is that?
Interestingly enough, I don’t feel a day over 23.
Except when I’m trying to remember my zip code or telephone number or where I left the car keys.
I hope to do more with this blog in 2010 than I did in 2009.
Feel Good Stuff & Music admin | 21 Nov 2009
I watched True Romance, one of my favorite movies of all time, last night.
I’m going to write about the movie itself at a later date, but right now I want to share a link to Chris Isaak’s Two Hearts, the song that director Tony Scott chose to accompany the closing credits.
I turned the DVD player off around eleven p.m. last night and then sat at my computer here in my little home office with my guitar for two more hours listening and signing along to Two Hearts… over and over again.
Ridiculous, eh?
Well, this song made me feel like I was 18 again instead of 61 plowing rapidly toward 62.
Today when I should have been working, I spent several more hours thinking about how this song was constructed, and how the lyrics worked so well with the music.
The whole thing just comes together like a perfect waffle.
I mean, seriously, Two Hearts is quite remarkable on multiple levels.
Listen to it and then share a few comments of your own, will you?
Meditation admin | 12 Oct 2009
For this week’s meditation we turn to a wonderfully simple but also richly meaningful haiku by Matsuo Basho, the most famous poet of Japan’s Edo period from 1603 to 1868:
Year after year
… on the monkey’s face
a monkey face.
Ha, isn’t that great?
I promise this week’s exercise will keep you challenged and busy during the coming seven days.
Here are the “how to” details…
Take a long, slow deep breath.
Hold for a second.
Exhale slowly.
Repeat several times until you’re clear and still.
Now visual instead of the monkey’s face your own face. This might be tough at first. Think of looking at your face in the mirror. That should bring up an image or a thought pattern like an image. Either will work.
Once you have your face in mind, breathe it in and out for a few breaths.
Nice and slow breaths.
Nice and deep breaths.
Now instead of your face in the mirror, breathe in your face before you were born.
Hold for a second.
Exhale slowly and completely let go of your face before you were born.
Repeat breathing in your face before you were born and letting go of it until you feel a physical shiver of bliss.
Then repeat as long as you can stand the sheer joy of complete peace of mind, but don’t do it at work because you might get fired from your job.
Do not, repeat, do NOT try to understand this meditation intellectually because trying to do that might drive you insane.
Well, that wouldn’t happen but trying to understand it intellectually isn’t going to get you anywhere but to Frustration City.
Instead, just do it.
And then let go of your face before you were born.
Wow, that’s bliss and peace of mind.
Note: This is an extremely powerful meditation so it’s worth working with. Don’t try it with three wimpy breaths and then give up. Practice it every day.
Once you get it, kaboom, you’ll know you now have something for the rest of your life that is very, very special!
If you liked this meditation, I bet you’d find my free EarthRain meditation newsletter useful.
Meditation admin | 23 Sep 2009
For this week’s meditation we turn to a classic Taoist saying…
To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.
Would you like to experience what it’s like when the universe surrenders?
You would?
Great. Here’s how to have that experience…
Repeat this breath focusing exercise until that’s all there is.
No thoughts.
No desires.
Just the air moving.
Now let go of the air moving.
The mind is still.
Ah!
The whole universe has surrendered and you are free.
And, yes, of course this exercise will free you from any problem that might be on your mind.
Chet
P.S. If you like this meditation, subscribe to my free EarthRain Meditation Newsletter, why don’t you? 
Meditation admin | 14 Sep 2009
For today’s meditation, let’s learn something important from Maurine Stuart, who writes:
The practice is what you throw yourself into. Unconditionally. The practice is the teacher. Your practice is your teacher.
You might be asking, “What is my practice?”
That’s so easy to answer:
Right now, this very moment, breathe in, hold for a second, exhale and be still. Feel the shift of consciousness.
Repeat three times.
That is your practice.
That is your teacher.
All the rest is noise and window dressing, so pay it no heed.
Instead, throw yourself into your practice.
Until next time,
Music & Videos admin | 12 Sep 2009
We return to one of my favorite songs this Saturday morning – Stand by Me.
Today’s version comes courtesy of the late great John Lennon:
It doesn’t get a whole lot better than that, does it?
Well, actually it does.
Don’t believe me?
Then click here for a big, wonderful surprise.
Language & NFL Football & Sports admin | 05 Sep 2009
Child please, the other night I put my feet up, turned on the boob tube, flipped over to the On Demand selections, and ended up vegging out for close to five hours mesmerized by HBO Sports’ highly watchable, Hard Knocks.
Now, other than for professional boxing, I’m not a big sports or football fan, but for some inexplicable reason, I enjoy reality shows and/ or documentaries about athletes, especially the slickly-produced HBO offerings.
With that bit of background, the point of this morning’s entry is to help push a new phrase right smack, dead-on into the lexicon of American English.
Drum roll, please…
And the new phrase — the fabulously wonderful new phrase — is…
Child please.
Now, I know this two word combination seems simple enough on the surface, but in reality it’s a deliciously expressive and wonderful new way to say Fuck you when you’re in life or social situations where saying the real thing would get your ass kicked halfway into next Thursday.
For example, your spouse starts nagging about the lawn needing mowing.
Instead of making up some lame excuse if you’re in a good mood (Dear, I tripped this morning getting the newspaper and injured my Achilles tendon so that landscaping work will just have to wait until next weekend…) or — if you’re feeling aggressive — escalating the situation with a Get off your fat bum and do it yourself, you’d simply say…
Child, please.
Using those two words, especially if pronounced in a slow and loving tone of voice will befuddle your better half (if he/she hasn’t yet read this blog entry or watched Hard Knocks) and the chances are good the lawn will stay unmowed, and you’ll win this particular marital tiff!
We have American football wide receiver for the Cincinnati Bengals of the NFL Chad Javon Ochocinco (born Chad Javon Johnson on January 9, 1978, in Miami, Florida) to thank for bringing Child please into the English language, and Ocho (dare I stoop so familiar?) does so with a depth of thought and understanding of language and nuance that I’d never given him credit for.
You don’t believe me?
Watch the video where Chad explains just a few of the more subtle aspects of what I predict will join Sarah Palin’s Death Panels (and, yes, due to popular demand from loyal readers I shall write one day soon about the Alaskan Word Mangler) as one of America’s most creative expressions:
Now, seriously, I bet you’ve joined me in no longer thinking of Chad Ochocinco as just another self-aggrandizing loud mouth. In fact, you’re no doubt now including Ochocinco with a peer group of brilliant word and phrase creators like…
Well, even though I feel confident I’ll be revisiting the Child Please topic in the future (and no doubt even using the phrase on occasion in these humble scribblings), I think this would be a good place to stop for now.
Oh, one more thing…
… if you’re offended by some of the words or phrases used in this blog entry, I have only one thing to say to any rude comments you might leave below…
Child, please!
Seriously, good God in Heaven (if there is such a thing — that’s a topic for another day), what a wonderful new addition to the vocabulary of contemporary America.
Thank you my new wordsmith hero, Chad Ochocinco!
Health & News about Boomers admin | 27 Aug 2009
While goofing off today when I should have been working, I had to smile at the following story, which says at least some bad old baby boomers are still getting high:
Some baby boomers are continuing to use illicit drugs as they grow older. The number of 50-somethings who say they took drugs within the past year has nearly doubled from 5.1 percent in 2002 to 9.4 percent in 2007, according to a new analysis by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA).
Among all other age groups the rates of drug use stayed the same or decreased. Over the same time period marijuana use among Americans age 50 to 59 increased from 3.1 to 5.7 percent and nonmedical utilization of prescription drugs climbed to 4 percent in 2007 from 2.2 percent in 2002.
Click here to read whole story…
Well now, I don’t know about you, but I’d much rather see my fellow boomers having a toke now and again than I would see them scarfing down the horrible so-called “medications” that the “your doctor” types prescribe so willy nilly.
I mean, seriously, it’s stunning to me how stupid most people must be who watch prescription drug commercials on TV and who then go to their doctors and actually request the meds they’ve seen promoted so vigorously on the boob tube.
Really, what kind of idiot are you if you think TV advertised drugs are safe when almost 30 seconds of many of the one minute commercials are devoted to monstrous side effects like…
Well, maybe the last one might not be so monstrous… though at four hours, whoa, it just could be… really monstrous.
But I digress.
Back to the subject at hand.
I guess the point of this little rant is that the endless drug commercials on TV tend to piss me off, especially when so many fellow Americans are locked in prisons for using drugs that are less potent and significantly less dangerous than the junk the medical community and pharmaceutical goons are dealing to gullible senior citizens (as well as younger people) in this country.
What’s the difference between legal and illegal drugs in this country?
Not much.
You get both from pushers of one stripe or another, don’t you?
How absurd is it that some of the pushers spend much of their lives in prison for selling their junk while some of the other pushers vacation in the Bahamas for selling their “medications”?
Something stinks up the joint in this equation, don’t you think?
Meditation admin | 20 Aug 2009
For today’s meditation, let’s turn to American novelist and short story writer, Willa Cather, who tells us how to be happy…
That is happiness: to be dissolved into something complete and great.
You are already complete and great. Right now. In this very moment.
But you most likely don’t realize your completeness and greatness because your constant mind chatter and thinking about the past and the future are blocking the real you.
So bust through the block.
Close your eyes.
Take a deep breath. Hold for a few seconds. Exhale slowly. Repeat until you’ve slowed down, decreased your thinking, and deepened your awareness.
There it is.
You.
Total, complete, and great.
Amazing.
And now you know how to be happy anytime you want to be.
Books & Meditation & Self Improvement admin | 11 Aug 2009
I’ve been swamped with putting on the final touches of my 21 Days to Health & Beyond detox diet and rejuvenation program the past week, and I’m still buried today in last minute details for tomorrow’s launch.
But I do want to share a quick quote here on the blog to keep the cobwebs from gathering too thickly while I’m working.
This quote comes from one of my favorite poets, Theodore Roethke, who wrote…
Being, not doing, is my first joy.
Oh, that’s nice, isn’t it?
And so hard to do these days when most of us aging boomers (and everyone else for that matter) are running around like chickens with their heads cut off trying to salvage what we once thought might be some retirement days of rest and relaxation after a life time of hard, brutal, soul-deadening, grind it til you drop working for a living.
Well, I don’t know about you, but later today I’m going to take some time and just be.
If you have a favorite quote from a poet, there’s plenty of space here on the blog to comment and share it, eh?