Let's Talk Turkey

 

I’m posting what I feel, not to get numbers, but I’m have enough ego to want someone to read what I am written.

I know with a blog, you need to produce something people want.

Sometimes a blog is for information, often it is to inspire, sometimes for entertainment. Some people blog for self-indulgence. However, I prefer to say it is for self-expression. I encourage people to do that, to find whatever floats their boat and do it. That gives life its juice.

I have read that your demographics are into what you are into, and I would like to supply what you are looking for, but I must admit it is a shot in the dark. Thus, I must provide what I’m into and take my chances.

I found out today that more people watch YouTube than they read blogs, and while I’ve have been reticent about going on YouTube, now I find I don’t have to put my big fat face on it. (My face isn’t fat.) I’m thinking of filming forest trails, for I love the forest, and I live in Oregon, where there are forests to share. While walking along the forest trail, filming, I could talk about how we attract what we want, how we can have a happy life, and get what we want out of life. We are here for a reason, and I see that frustrated and unhappy people abound. We all need a picker-upper once in a while. Hell– we need it daily.

Having someone admit it isn’t all a bed of roses is essential too. (I’ll try not to use too many clichés.) It’s okay to acknowledge where you are. If it’s in the dumps, admit it and move on from there. Rarely do we jump from absolute misery to absolute happiness in one quantum leap. We climb up incrementally. Like anger is better than depression. What comes after anger? Maybe some resolve, some insight. Calm even. Acknowledge where you are and move from there. The idea is to not allow the minutia of life to overshadow the grandeur of it. (You see, I talk to myself as much as to you, for I have noticed that once I express my feelings, I am uplifted.)

I want to celebrate life. Is that what you want?

Upward and onward,

Love from Jo

P.S. I placed wild turkeys for the picture above, for they have enough smarts to survive, among coyotes, dogs, raccoons, and whatever else likes turkey for dinner.

A few years ago, we rented a lovely home on three acres in California. After a time, the owner moved in chickens and turkeys. They were out of view from the house, and as I had some experience with chickens I offered–for a reduction in rent, to feed them for him. It was a great arrangement, and the turkeys were young and thus became attached to me. They would sing out a chorus of gobbling when I approached their pen–of course they knew food came with me, but even the owner said they liked me. The trouble was we also had coyotes that would break in during the night, I would see the evidence come morning. So, I kept calling the owner to shore up the fencing. Finally, he got it rather coyote proof.

And then, can you believe it? I guess turkeys are inquisitive creatures, and would go up to the fence to meet Mr. Coyote, and zap off with the head.

I tried to tell them, but would they listen?

I’ll try to steer you right.

The Gap

 

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“What you think you become. 

“What you feel you attract. 

“What you imagine you create.” --Buddha

 

Well, well.

The Gap is the space between where we want to be and where we are. 

You’ve probably heard a lot about The Law of Attraction—that we draw to ourselves what we resonate with. The above quote of The Buddha pretty much describes it. 

Some days my resonating stinks, so it’s a good thing the Great Spirit is forgiving, or I’d be in deep doo-doo. 

Elon Musk is in the Gap with Starship Rocket prototype. That rocket takes off, a glistening silver sliver aiming for the sky, nose up, a blazing trail behind it. The rocket goes to its designated height, beautiful. It lays on its side and slowly descends back to earth, like a little flying squirrel with its side flaps extended. Right before touching down on the launching pad, Starship pulls itself together, turns its nose up again, and slowly descends. Unless it lands squarely on its feet, BAM! It explodes.

Four have exploded. One sat on the launching pad for about ten minutes after flying, with a slow burn happening around its perimeter, then Bam!

You see, each time a rocket doesn’t work, the scientists learn about what isn’t working.

Thomas Edison said he found 1,000 ways not to make a light bulb.

I’m in the gap with a little notebook I wanted to print. My thought was to Print a blank book, people like those little books with pretty covers. 

I do. I use bound booklets for my computer data. And they can be journals, or whatever you want to record, an address book, press plants between the pages, whatever you can think of. Add a few quotes, and they are more fun. 

I wanted lined pages, ha-ha. Trying to get lined pages formatted for a physical book is another story. I’m learning 1,000 ways not to make a booklet. Either the lines are screwed up, or something is wrong with a page, and the launcher shows that I have a blank page. 

Fix it.

I’ll get it. I’m determined.

I’m in the Gap.

On www.bestdamnwritersblog.com, I spoke to writers. If you’re a writer, you know what I am talking about. You have good taste. You recognize exquisite writing when you see it, but then you look at your own work, “Uh oh. Rats!”

You’re in The Gap. 

Keep on. Keep practicing. It isn’t all talent, and what in the heck is talent anyway? Einstein said it’s 90% hard work.

Apparently, people are interested in this old principle now called The Law of Attraction. The Buddha tried to tell us. Ancient scriptures said, “Ask, and you shall receive. Seek, and you shall find. Knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” The Secret tried to tell us. Justin Perry regularly talks about The Law of Attraction on YouTube, and he has over a million followers. 

I used to hate it if things were going badly when someone would ask me, “What did you do to create that?” 

“Well, if I could create my current situation, I certainly could create you not being in my face.”

That question was rubbing salt in the wound.

If The Law of Attraction was as simple as some make it out to be, we’d all be rich, beautiful, and abundantly happy. My twelve-year-old grandson scoffs if he hears us talk about it, for I think he has the idea that we mean just ask, and it will show up at your door. Maybe it will, perhaps it won’t. It is not as simple as that.

We’ve thought or asked or prayed for many things that didn’t happen, and a good thing too, sometimes we change our mind. And then we thank the great powers that be that that asked for something didn’t happen. 

Gaps help sometimes.

Contradicting thoughts, exist in the gap chasing away your desired outcome.

In the gap are subtle, unconscious, emotional components. That’s the reason attracting what you want is so tricky.

The Buddha said, “What you think you become. 

“What you feel you attract. 

“What you imagine you create.”

He said that about 500 years before Jesus, before Mohamad, before Krishna. Before, the new thought gave us the idea that thoughts create.

 

We know, stories become exaggerated over time, but perhaps there is still a kernel of truth. It is said that Prince Gautama, who become the Buddha, had a favorite white horse named Kanthaka, who it was said to be 18 cubits in height. (Eighteen hands in measurement is a tall horse—18 cubits would be outrageous.) No matter. Kanthaka and the Prince proved to be a formattable team in contests such as horse-rider ability, archery, and sword fighting—a prince had to prove his metal. Kanthaka pulled the chariot Guatama, and his servant Channa used to ride through the city while Channa showed the Prince the ways of the world.,

 The Prince had been sequestered in the Palace for 29 years, hidden from all misery, age, or ugliness. It had been prophesized that the Child Guatama would either become the most powerful of all leaders or leave the ways of the world and seek his enlightenment. His father wanted to keep him to be a leader and so imprisoned him. 

Who helped him escape?

Kanthaka.

Kanthaka leapt the gates and fled with The Prince from the imprisonment of the Palace. 

Further embellishment said that the gods held their hands under Kanthaka’s feet so the clatter of his hooves against the stone pavement would not awaken the guards.  

In this story, the role of Kanthaka illustrates the reverence, respect, and dependence between horse and human that has endured for centuries. 

(Hee hee, I got a white horse in here.) 

Although I ascribe to the idea of the Law of Attraction, I know we are still in a physical world. We still have a pandemic; we still have situations, not of our choosing.

We’re in the Gap.

All I can say is, “Be a person worth saving.”

 Astronauts made it home safely in a recycled rocket.

P.S. I have 17 blank pages in my booklet, augh!

*The  picture at the top is of Gautama riding Kanthaka with Channa running beside them.