It could always be worse...

As bad as your life might suck right now, at least your dad didn't lock you in a cellar for 20 years and force you to birth 7 children by him.

Cheers!

No Fear

'Lead us from the fear of Death'
'Though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I shall fear no evil.'

A big part of athletic endeavor, especially competition, is confronting fears. I'm exploring the root of those fears. The Four Agreements book says our main fear is social rejection, something that has been conditioned in each of us from the day we are born. I've noticed that some people get extremely good at pleasing others at a young age, and these are sometimes the people with the worst fear when they grow up and have to compete in an athletic (or other performance) setting.

I'm now starting to think that the fear of performing in front of dozens, hundreds, or thousands of strangers is because this person who is so good at deciphering how to please others one-on-one, cannot possibly control the outcome when they are being judged by myriad eyes. This is a paralyzing and very real fear in their mind that they will get rejected, possibly by dozens of people, and there is nothing they can do about it.

So how to get past this? I think any fear has original wounds which need confrontation. This person's inner child is still fighting for its life, and the adult suffers needlessly. In fact, all fears can probably be traced back to the fear of death, and that is not something you want to be confronting 24/7.

A person needs to expose fears for what they are, so that they can begin to live the life of a fearless warrior. A warrior knows what to fear and what not to fear.

A person who fears competition is living in the past. There is nothing to fear at the moment! You are NOT going to die if you do not perform well. You behave as though there is a gun to your head.

A competition should be a venue of inspiration and glory. Can you imagine a perfect competition, where no one chokes, and everyone performs their best for that given day? That is what spectators want to see. It is not enough to do your best in spite of your fear, you must begin that slow, painful walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death to illuminate and eliminate your fears.

Because that is just what living with a fear is...merely the 'shadow' of death. To truly grow up, one must begin to leave the shadows for the light. No fear!

"What are you afraid of? Death? You should be afraid of not living!"
~Sri Swami Satchidananda

Rev. Wright

My take on Obama and his Reverend's recent comments:
It goes back to the outspoken uncle syndrome. I think Rev. Wright is probably proud of Obama's success, and like an uncle, thinks that he will now have a voice in Washington because of his close relationship with Obama.

It's like when I first joined Chevron as an engineer, both of my favorite uncles kept asking when they were going to get their free gas cards. I love them both and find them very amusing, but if others assumed I shared all of their opinions, it would strike me as ridiculous. True, they are not my spiritual advisors, but jeez, give Obama a break. Find me one pastor of a large church in this country who does not make controversial comments.

Or, talk about the real issue which is that Sunday morning is the most segregated time in America, whether the pastors are bashing gays, promoting sodomy with minors, marriage of children or polygamy, or lamenting injustices to people of their culture.

Are we really prepared to insist that we want a president who belongs to a 'National' church? Some mystical, non-existant church which offends no one and accepts everyone? Or would we rather have a president who does not belong to any church?

I thought the design and the beauty of America was in the freedom to practice any religion we wanted, as long as church and state remained separated. I guess all these Fundamentalist politicians have ruined American trust in this kind of separation with their constant assertions that they cannot possibly separate their faith from their job. Way to go. Way to ruin American politics with your simple-minded pandering.

I think our founding fathers were much more bright than that, realizing that of course a person is the sum of his experiences, but that a real leader would take into account the best interests of the Nation over any single religious creed. Obama has not promised to make his church's creeds America's, in fact with his constitutional education and teaching credentials, it would be shocking to see him easily swayed by any local church's opinions.

Mister Roger's Version (Rest His Soul)

Propel, propel, propel your craft,
Unforcefully down the liquid solution.
Ecstatically, ecstatically, ecstatically, ecstatically,
Existence is merely an illusion.

Reading Now

I finally started another book. It is called The Four Agreements: A Practical Guide to Personal Freedom, A Toltec Wisdom Book. It echoes and builds upon all the philosophy I've been reading in the past couple of years. A quote for my throwers:

"That is why humans resist life. To be alive is the biggest fear humans have. Death is not the biggest fear we have; our biggest fear is taking the risk to be alive -- the risk to be alive and express what we really are. Just being ourselves is the biggest fear of humans. We have learned to live our lives trying to satifsy other people's demands. We have learned to live by other people's points of view because of the fear of not being accepted and of not being good enough for someone else."

Some more...

"We don't see the truth because we are blind. What blinds us are all those false beliefs we have in our mind....We cannot see who we truly are; we cannot see that we are not [yet] free....The real us is pure love, pure light..."

I had some strange reactions to this book after reading it at the ocean: I wanted to call and tell my boyfriend I loved him, and I inquired about a job as a pizza delivery driver at Domino's (they weren't hiring). Read this book, then watch Fight Club again. You will see it in a new light.

Words of Advice

Words of Advice, originally uploaded by Chrissy Mc.

I thought these would make good words of advice for our presidential candidates. From an ice cream store called PollyAnn in the Sunset District (I got a free peanut butter and oreo cookie ice cream cone by spinning the wheel - yum!).

Central Valley Sunset

Central Valley Sunset, originally uploaded by Chrissy Mc.

Driving home from LA on the 5. Nostalgic, but I don't miss the haze (or smells) at all!

The Perfect Sandwich

Today I rejoice, for I have finally figured out MY perfect Subway Sandwich:
6-inch whole wheat
Veggie Patty, toasted with Pepperjack cheese
Avocado
Fresh Spinach
Black Olives
Yellow Sweet peppers
Sweet Onion Sauce

Yum!

Ever-Changing

When I was young
The stories made sense.
The lessons were clear.
The entertainment was pure.
The more I learned
The more critical I became,
Lest I seem foolish.
I reasoned and dissected
And sorted fact and fiction
According to what I 'knew.'
But Alas,
The more I learned
The less I knew.
And I came back to my child
For knowledge built on reason is
But a house on shifting ground
I've seen facts come and go.
What was the last great fact after the earth is round and we are not the center of the universe?
Don't bore me with your new facts,
Fool's gold.
Science is finite and I'm a skeptic that it can tell us anything we really need to know.
Yes it is useful, like the Neanderthal's tools.
Chip away at this disease.
Keep you from playing the lottery.
But leaning on science for all your answers is a limitation.
You will only be as wise as the number of theories in your pocket.
Know that everything you need to know is all around you.
Science is a magnifying lens through which we explore a part of the whole.
But the possibilities and joy are endless through the eyes of a child.
As I change, so do my theories.
But the infinite is infinite.
Thank God.

Building on yesterday...

Music and unconditional love are as close to Truth as I have come.

Horror-scopes, or just Astrology

http://www.astrology-online.com/aries.htm

On my slow journey out of the deep, scary forest of no-no taboos that was my sheltered youth, I have discovered the joy and intrigue of Astrology. Believe it or not, it's actually not the black magic witchcraft I was led to believe it was!

I remembered back to a post I had done a while back when I went to astrology.com and got my "chart" done for like $9.99. A 19-page report came with it, all of it so specifically accurate it was spooky. Well, since then, I've been noticing things like my supervisor for my morning "homeland security" job, as my father likes to refer to it, reminding me constantly of my "Aries" qualities (he's quite fond of Astrology), and most of them make a lot of sense. So last night, as I celebrated with birthday cake and ice cream, I borrowed an old coffee table book of Astrology from my housemate last night and looked into it some more.

I found out that there is the sign everyone knows about, roughly correlated to your month of birth, known as your "Sun" sign. Then, there is a lesser known "Moon" sign, that is a secondary characteristic. I am a Taurus moon sign, which explains why people often describe me as "balanced," as their characteristics are somewhat opposing. There are something like 12 different "Houses" that the different planets can affect, and each house describes certain aspects of your life. The analogy given was like a vintage of a grape - you can tell how good a wine is (or guess what its characteristics are without drinking it) by knowing the date the grape was "born."

I also learned that the art of reading the planetary alignment at the time of one's birth is an art & science that has been around for thousands of years, and the current form is a kind of synergy that happened around the 1400's, combining Astrological data and observations from all Asian and East-Asian cultures (and probably more, I didn't read very deeply).

Anyway, I also liked the references to Carl Jung in the Astrology book. Jung and I share the idea that traditions like religion, Yoga, Astrology, Music, and Art forms like mandalas continue to exist because they each touch on some universal truth that is primarily intuitive. I suppose Art and Music even more so than the more tangible things like Astrology and Yoga, which seem more science-based, being developed on thousands of years of observations of internal and external objects and phenomenon.

I'm going to try not to drive anyone in my life crazy with my newfound passion for Astrology, but it's hard to contain my enthusiasm sometimes! I asked all my immediate family members for their Birth location, Date, and Time of Birth, the 3 crucial factors in an Astrology chart. Fun for me!

Happy Birthday to Me

Yes, check my About Me page and you will see I've been traveling around as Christina Margaret McKinstry for 28 rotations around the sun...very exciting!

I'm still trying to figure out a way to help my boyfriend understand that a birthday is a wonderful thing to be celebrated and shared with the people you love. Live a little bit!

To poorly paraphrase a great philosopher: There is no difference between living and dying. Everything is an expression of the infinite. Why, then, he was asked, do you not kill yourself? Because, he replied, there is no difference!

That might not sound uplifting to some! However, to me, it means: Do everything, and live every day with a deep sense of happiness and joy, because every action you take is part of a larger plan which we may never understand with our finite consciousness. You are EXACTLY who you are supposed to be today, half choice, half chance.

Beautiful Day

It's a beautiful day to be bedridden. I've been K.O.'d by my second major illness of the season, but it couldn't be a nicer day. The sun is high in a cloudless sky. My bedroom window is totally open and a cool sea breeze keeps whipping through sporadically, calming my fever, while I lay bundled up in my down comforter with my loyal feline friend closeby.

I began noticing something was wrong 4 or 5 days ago, as I started to lose my appetite and felt bloated whenever I would eat. I haven't been feeling particularly stressed, though I have been working every day of the week. I even took myself to a movie last week to chill out. So, this time around the sickness is a mystery.

It is nice to have a couple of days in bed, though.

Nice Pose

Closeup of a San Francisco Bee, originally uploaded by Chrissy Mc.

I found this (dead) bee on the discus throwing sector and I brought it back to this rail to photograph it. The bees must have some kind of respect for the dead however, because a couple minutes after I took its picture, I got dive-bombed by a living bee. I assume its friends tried to hold it back, but it broke free in its grief for a kamikaze mission. Nonetheless, a cool picture, I thought.

One More Thing

Since when was being too busy to sit down for a well-prepared meal a sign of prospering?

Since starting to ride the subway & muni, my life has been LESS stressful. Instead of hurrying from place to place, I just go with the flow, and enjoy the downtime. George Carlin's idea that each child should have 3 hours daily of daydreaming should apply to adults too.

I notice that when I don't take those 3 hours (broken up throughout the day, usually), I get stressed and start to feel like the world is passing me by (when, in actuality, I'm the one in motion).

I feel great today!

Today on Planet Earth

Chinese government's take on forced abortions: "It's good for the environment."

Two companies are racing to build commercial spacecraft. We are slowly jumping out of our fishbowl. Think of the evolutionary adaptations to space for future humans! Lungs that breathe prana only?

So Smart

Did you hear the story about the stranded whale with her baby off the coast of Australia (i think, could have been New Zealand). Rescuers had failed in all attempts to move/guide the whales to deeper waters. Just when they had resigned that the whales would probably die, a local dolphin swam by, communicated with the whales through sounds, and led them to safer waters. They didn't even know dolphins COULD communicate with whales before this.
I think it is funny the way we define intelligence sometimes, as if an animal is intelligent if it can communicate with humans. But what does it tell us if our communication skills are so limited outside our species that a dolphin can do a better job than us?