I'm logging off now .
Enjoy yoru evening everyone
See you again soon

Yes ! I am going to the opera tomorrow to see Cosi Fan Tutti
MT has got tickets.

Did you know that King Gustaf III was assassinated at a masked ball in March 1792? His murder caused repercussions throughout the civilized world and the event was operatically immortalised in Gustaf III or Le bal masque by Francois Auber and above all by Giuseppe Verdi in his A Masked Ball.

:p:D

Oracles in all shapes and sizes.

I'm back down to earth with a bump again
I just forwarded a joke that I thought was funny
only to receive this reply:

"Oh, no! Mexicans as targets again! I hope they weren't in the process of walking across the desert into the USA....and into an ambush of border guards. Bless all people who walk through deserts, swim across oceans, and struggle to find a better life for themselves and their families. We are all One...they are US."

Now I feel silly and insensitive.

Seriousness has taken over.
*poooof*

Must everything be taken so seriously ?

*sighs*

Seven spiritual practices for bringing peace into your life and the world around you. By Deepak Chopra

Reprinted from Chopra.com.

The approach of personal transformation is the idea of the future for ending war. It depends on the only advantage that people of peace have over warmakers: sheer numbers. If enough people in the world transformed themselves into peacemakers, war could end. The leading idea here is critical mass. It took a critical mass of human beings to embrace electricity and fossil fuels, to teach evolution and adopt every major religion. When the time is right and enough people participate, critical mass can change the world. Can it end war?

There is precedent to believe that it might. The ancient Indian ideal of Ahimsa, or non-violence, gave Gandhi his guiding principle of reverence for life. In every spiritual tradition it is believed that peace must exist in one's heart before it can exist in the outer world. Personal transformation deserves a chance.

Can it end war?

There is precedent to believe that it might. The ancient Indian ideal of Ahimsa, or non-violence, gave Gandhi his guiding principle of reverence for life. In every spiritual tradition it is believed that peace must exist in one's heart before it can exist in the outer world. Personal transformation deserves a chance.
When a person is established in non-violence, those in his vicinity cease to feel hostility.
- Patanjali, ancient Indian sage

Seven Practices for Peace
The program for peacemakers asks you to follow a specific practice every day, each one centered on the theme of peace.

Sunday: Being for Peace
Monday: Thinking for Peace
Tuesday: Feeling for Peace
Wednesday: Speaking for Peace
Thursday: Acting for Peace
Friday: Creating for Peace
Saturday: Sharing for Peace
Our hope is that you will create peace on every level of your life. Each practice takes only a few minutes. You can be as private or outspoken as you wish. But those around you will know that you are for peace, not just through good intentions but by the way you conduct your life on a daily basis.

Sunday: Being for Peace

Today, take 5 minutes to meditate for peace. Sit quietly with your eyes closed. Put your attention on your heart and inwardly repeat these four words: Peace, Harmony, Laughter, Love. Allow these words to radiate from your heart's stillness out into your body. As you end your meditation, say to yourself, "Today I will relinquish all resentments and grievances." Bring into your mind anyone against whom you have a grievance and let it go. Send that person your forgiveness.

Monday: Thinking for Peace

Thinking has power when it is backed by intention. Today, introduce the intention of peace in your thoughts. Take a few moments of silence, then repeat this ancient prayer:

Let me be loved, let me be happy, let me be peaceful.
Let my friends be happy, loved, and peaceful.
Let my perceived enemies be happy, loved, and peaceful.
Let all beings be happy, loved, and peaceful.
Let the whole world experience these things.

Any time during the day if you are overshadowed by fear or anger, repeat these intentions. Use this prayer to get back on center.
Tuesday: Feeling for Peace

This is the day to experience the emotions of peace. The emotions of peace are compassion, understanding, and love.
Compassion is the feeling of shared suffering. When you feel someone else's suffering, there is the birth of understanding.

Understanding is the knowledge that suffering is shared by everyone. When you understand that you aren't alone in your suffering, there is the birth of love.

When there is love there is the opportunity for peace.

As your practice, observe a stranger some time during your day. Silently say to yourself, "This person is just like me. Like me, this person has experienced joy and sorrow, despair and hope, fear and love. Like me, this person has people in his or her life who deeply care and love them. Like me, this person's life is impermanent and will one day end. This person's peace is as important as my peace. I want peace, harmony, laughter, and love in their life and the life of all beings."

Wednesday: Speaking for Peace

Today, the purpose of speaking is to create happiness in the listener. Have this intention: Today every word I utter will be chosen consciously. I will refrain from complaints, condemnation, and criticism.

Your practice is to do at least one of the following:

Tell someone how much you appreciate them.
Express genuine gratitude to those who have helped and loved you.
Offer healing or nurturing words to someone who needs them.
Show respect to someone whose respect you value.
If you find that you are reacting negatively to anyone, in a way that isn't peaceful, refrain from speaking and keep silent. Wait to speak until you feel centered and calm, and then speak with respect.

Thursday: Acting for Peace
Today is the day to help someone in need: A child, a sick person, an older or frail person. Help can take many forms. Tell yourself, "Today I will bring a smile to a stranger's face. If someone acts in a hurtful way to me or someone else, I will respond with a gesture of loving kindness. I will send an anonymous gift to someone, however small. I will offer help without asking for gratitude or recognition."

Friday: Creating for Peace

Today, come up with at least one creative idea to resolve a conflict, either in your personal life or your family circle or among friends. If you can, try and create an idea that applies to your community, the nation, or the whole world.You may change an old habit that isn't working, look at someone a new way, offer words you never offered before, or think of an activity that brings people together in good feeling and laughter.

Second, invite a family member or friend to come up with one creative idea of this kind on their own. Creativity feels best when you are the one thinking up the new idea or approach. Make it known that you accept and enjoy creativity. Be loose and easy. Let the ideas flow and try out anything that has appeal. The purpose here is to bond, because only when you bond with others can there be mutual trust. When you trust, there is no need for hidden hostility and suspicion, which are the two great enemies of peace.

Saturday: Sharing for Peace

Today, share your practice of peacemaking with two people. Give them this information and invite them to begin the daily practice. As more of us participate in this sharing, our practice will expand into a critical mass. Today joyfully celebrate your own peace consciousness with at least one other peace-conscious person. Connect either trough e-mail or phone.

Share your experience of growing peace.
Share your gratitude that someone else is as serious about peace as you are.
Share your ideas for helping the world move closer to critical mass.
Do whatever you can, in small or large ways, to assist anyone who wants to become a peacemaker.

The Best Reason to Become a Peacemaker
Now you know the program. If you transform yourself into a peacemaker, you won't become an activist marching in the streets. You will not be "anti" anything. No money is required. All you are asked to do is to go within and dedicate yourself to peace.

It just might work.

Even if you don't immediately see a decline in violence around the world, you will know in your heart that you have dedicated your own life to peace.

But the single best reason to become a peacemaker is that every other approach has failed.

We don't know what number the critical mass is--the best we can hope is to bring about change by personal transformation. Isn't it worth a few moments of your day to end 30 wars around the world and perhaps every future war that is certain to break out?

Right now there are 21.3 million soldiers serving in armies around the world. Can't we recruit a peace brigade ten times larger?

A hundred times larger? The effort begins now, with you.

In honour of Wesak
I offer flowers, candles, and incense
in the Blogland temple
to remind me that life is like beautiful flowers that soon wither
and candles and incense that eventually burn out.
But the JOY and BEAUTY of a precious moment
is always there.

I'm loving my daft la la land mood
It's bliss
It's funny
TWO tele marketing people have tried to put a wet blanket over it
but I 'm having non of it !

Sometimes daft mood is mightier than intrusive tele marketers .
And so it is !

YES

CosÍ Funny Titties Act I
In eighteenth-century Nipples , the elderly cynic Don Alponso discusses women with two young officers, Fern and Bill

The gallants insist their sweet-hearts are paragons of virtue, singing " La mia Dorbell ") and accept Alponso's bet that he can prove the ladies fickle if they do as he says for twenty-four hours.

( now that should prove interesting )

The sisters Fiordiligi and Doorbell revel in their love for Bill and Fern, respectively, showing pictures they carry in their lockets ("Oh guard, sorry . ")
yadda yadda yadda .. alot of confusion and more confusion ....

A double wedding is arranged between the sisters and the "Albanians."

Alponso brings in the notary - desperate Despina in another disguise. Just as the ladies have signed the marriage contract, familiar martial strains outside herald the return of the former lovers' regiment. In panic the sisters push their intended husbands from the room and go more or less to pieces when the men reappear without their "Albanian" mufti. Fern and Bill storm at the ladies when the marriage contract is discovered. But Alponso explains the deception, reasoning that true happiness lies not in romantic illusions but in accepting things as they are. Agreeing a trick can work both ways, the lovers reconcile.

ahhh .. it ends happily too

Yipeeee.
good things do happen to nice people
MT just called
Two tickets to the UProar " Cosi fan tutti "
Cosy fan titties , in English
It's an uproar by Wolfgang Amadeus
better know as Mozart.

Oh the joy !
It's a while since I've been to the royal Uproar.
It's a first night too .. a premiere
*jumps up excitiedly *

MT knows people in high places and was promised two tickets by high - placed person. High placed person was busy at the time and MT is a little concerned that this promise might not turni into reality, so is on her way to pick up tickets as I type this .
Fingers crossed.
I'll know soon if it is to be the UProar of cosy titties tomorrow night !!
YEah !

Things just happen
They unfold ,sort of
with love and ease.

My trip to Dublin was like that
And to Paris
And to Antwerp.

It's a kind of magic.

The very first time I heard R'svoice was in Greece.
I was away in Greece for 2½ months and must have given him number.
A phone call out of the blue , NIce
A most welcome phone call as I was out there on my own feeling a bit lonely in the dark shop next to a noisy cafe and bumpa bumpa music all the time so that you could hardly hear yourself think.

Then time passed.

One Sunday we were chatting on msn and a week later R.was here.
Ryan Air again ?

R. had been to Stockholm before and phoned to say he was nearly at my station and would I come to meet him.
Nosooner said than done.
Five minutes later , cos that is all it takes to get the station from my house , I was hugging my guest at the tube station for the very first time.

It's the unfolding that is so marvellous.
As you flow with the river.
LIke a lotus flower flowing downstream
Rachmaninov.
Meditations
Walks
Food
Wine
Snogs
Missing the Systembolaget .. it closes as 3 pm on Saturday for the weekend.
Sharings
Cooking in the kitchen
Shopping
Discovering places

R.has this amazing way of being in the now.
Everything simply IS
Nothing is complicated.
Things simply are.
You do whatyou like and abstain from the rest.
No judgement.

With R. things unfold easily and naturally and passionately.
Sizzle ,zing and ping !
Like going to a Revolution bar and experiencing an ice cold caramel vodka shot or two.
Rides on a double decker bus sitting on top.
or the Lord Mayor's chambers
Panneled walls and coats of arms.
The Emperor in China Town

Ahh . I am heading for la la land .. will stop now
*mwaaah* X

AND .. you get Swedish subtitles too .. lol

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtoFtilwpHA

Ok .. Jim Carrey may be a little OTT ( ha ha ) but I am totally enchanted . I love this man ! I'm mesmerised even.

Jim Carrey knows how to make things happen.
Jim Carrey captivates.
The charisma, the power, the focus .....This is a clip of him on the Jay Leno show wherehe totally takes over !! I marvel at how he does this. This is no ordinary human being. He must be an alien .

Enjoy.. while I am still prefecting my U-Tube posting .. I'm not sure where I'm supposed to " embed " ..etc etc