Wind Blows Nest Out Of Tree

On this breezy afternoon a bird's nest was dislodged from a tree.  The Red Cross has set up a temporary shelter.  It's an empty cereal box so if you see if over there please don't toss it.  The displaced family was provided with seed, blankets, and should it wake up early enough, a worm.  Donations in the form of broken straws, feathers, twine and sticks are requested to help the family build a new nest.  In the meantime the birds can remain in the shelter as long as necessary or until recycling day.

Alice B. Walker

She could bake a cake in a dutch oven on a camp fire.  She rode the open ranges of the young baby state of Arizona with my father.  She wrote poetry and laughed often.

How To Walk A Basset Hound

Here's the first thing to consider.  Your Basset Hound doesn't take walks like other dogs.  Other dogs look around and ponder life on occasion.  The Basset Hound sniffs.  That's it.  Imagine if your sense of smell was at the very least ten thousand times greater than that of any other human.  Seriously.  Would you have time to look around?  I doubt it.  Would you bother marking territory?  I can't imagine that, either.  Here's what you would do.  You would sniff and know more about the world than the wisest being on it.
So when you walk you Basset Hound let the most powerful nose on the planet take it all in.  No hurries.  No worries.  Each blade of grass contains the secrets of life.  Every breeze solves the mysteries of the planets.  Every dew drop tells of miracles unimaginable.
Come to think of it, maybe every moment of every walk no of every day could with or without the Basset Hound contain such experiences.
Let's give it a try.

Just Sing Yourself To Health

Come on.  Everybody sing along from the 'King And I' -- you know the way it goes.  Whenever you feel afraid you just whistle a happy tune....
Music really can help you heal and help you feel better.  Sing.  Whistle.  Or at the very least listen.
There's a whole new area of research focused on the power of music.
It’s a field of science and medicine which has captured new attention because of its role in helping Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords recover from her serious brain injury.  Her singing helped her regain her speech.  It also doubtless helped her feel much better.
Give it a try.  Sing your way out of where you are to a better place.

Expressing Gratitude Is A Healthy Thing To Do

It seems so easy to forget what we have that is wonderful.  It also seems that we are hard wired to look at what we have that sucks -- our jobs, our homes, the weather, or minor aches and pains.  That time of life sucks or at least my life sucks thinking is unhealthy.  With practice we can turn those thoughts around and head them back toward gratitude.  Studies show that we can deliberately cultivate gratitude, and can increase our well-being and happiness by doing so. In addition, grateful thinking—and especially expression of it to others—is associated with increased levels of energy, optimism, and empathy.  That type of cultivation is really pretty easy.  Just take a minute and think of three things for which you are grateful.  Write them down.  Tomorrow do the same thing except try to come up with three different things.  Pretty soon you will have thousands of things for which you are grateful.  Give it a try.  You'll feel better about life, about others, and about yourself.

Be Brave And Read This Book

The Last Time I Died by Joe Nelms
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

If what you want is an easy to read, predictable, straight forward plot driven narrative do not even consider this book. On the other hand if you're looking for a roller coaster ride, don't bother breaking the rules create your own from the get go piece of amazing creative genius grab this book and don't let go until its last word slams you in the gut to leave you slumped in delighted exhaustion, this is your read!

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Watching What We Say

This week’s Torah portion, Metzora (Lev. 14:1 – 15:33) picks up where last week’s left off, discussing the purification rituals for impurity brought about by a disease which the Torah calls “tzara’at”, which translates as “leprosy”, although its symptoms do not seem to resemble the disease we know as leprosy today.  This week’s portion creates even more confusion by talking about “leprosy” occurring in cloth or leather, or even in the walls of a house.  What kind of disease afflicts humans, clothing and walls?

The most common explanation given by the commentators is that tzara’at is not a physical illness, but a spiritual disorder.  As as example, the Talmud (Arachin 15b) explains the word “metzora” as a sound-alike for “motzi shem ra”, one who spreads evil talk; a gossipmonger.  It is no wonder why explanations like this one are given.  This is a very confusing text, and we look for explanations that make more sense than the literal one does.

However, we should be careful when making those kinds of associations.  In our liturgy, too, we sometimes run across phrases such as, “we are deaf to their pleas” or “our blindness causes their pain”.   How does it feel to a person who has a disease or a disability when they hear their affliction compared to a moral defect?  Perhaps we need to take those factors into account, and not use metaphors that we would not use if a person with the impairment in question was standing before us.