Meady's Musings

Advent Calendar 2011: Christmas and Boxing Day of The Christmas Adventures of the Purple Elephant and the Little Mouse

2011-12-27T00:00:00.000-04:00

copyright of The Meady's Musings Production House 2010.

Day 25-Christmas Day

It was already the wee hours of the morning by the time all the guests had settled in at the Meady's Musings Production House but really it was very hard to sleep with all the excitement and awe! But humans need to rest as do animals and all other living earthly beings.

The herd of elephants were the first ones up! And the Purple Elephant went outdoors to be with them. And they were the first ones to notice that by 6 AM there was a long line of people outside the production house who had come to see the babe in the manger. So when they showed this to the Purple Elephant he went inside to wake up the little mouse to the news and to begin preparations to first of all deal with the line of people and then to prepare for the Christmas day meal!

As might be expected the little mouse did not take the news well and start to get very nervous again...went to the corner to pray for guidance and then told the Purple Elephant to convene a meeting of all the animals that were currently living inside the production house itself. That means that the meeting was to exclude the herd of elephants grazing outdoors and the animals in the manager and other living quarters outside the main production house. When the meeting was then convened it included the Purple Elephant, the little mouse, the bears, the monkeys and yes not to be forgotten the owner of the production house.

At the meeting a plan was hatched as to how to deal with the queue outdoors and how to prepare breakfast for all and the other Christmas meals! The duties were divided and plans devised as follows:

1. The Purple Elephant would go outside and rustle up the herd of elephants to inquire from the long queue of folks outside the house what exactly were their needs and wants.

(While doing this they would also collect and distribute water to all in the queue and one or two elephants would
go down to the orchard and also pick some fruit with their trunks to distribute to those in the long line
waiting to see the babe.)

2. A few monkeys were also assigned to work outside with the herd of elephants. One of the monkeys assigned was a very smart chimp called Chompy who would question each of the persons in the queue on their needs and wants and take notes. Some of them would be asked to step aside if decided by the monkeys. These persons would be taken into the production house for further questioning and evaluation if it was felt that they needed counseling as their need to see the babe was driven by some deep seethed unfulfilled desires instead of pure joy!

3. The rest of the animals would help with the Christmas meals. Which with the number of mouths to feed was no easy task indeed especially with mostly monkeys and bears involved! And with a much maligned mouse stirring the pot! Luckily the only human who would be eating was the owner of the production house who by now had known that the little mouse could do no harm! And after all he (the little mouse) was born out of her very own head!

By 10 AM everyone including the persons in the queue had been fed. But the production house was all abuzz as the number of persons who needed to be taken aside for counseling was proving to be the vast majority of persons in the line. Then the little mouse took the decision that was seconded and agreed to unanimously that the babe in the manger should be the one to decide who should be fit to see him or not and no one else. So all were allowed to visit him and lo and behold as more persons came time seemed to stand still! And by lunch everyone had seen the babe and were all content!

Then everyone sat down on tables indoors and outdoors and had the Christmas lunch! Before the meal was eaten the following prayer was said by the little mouse:

Oh Universal spirit from whom all things come
Animals, humans and all of us who are one
Bless our humble meal
Make it that we eat in peace
Let us know the unreal from the real
And let all the Universe's beings feel
The nourishment of body, mind and soul
That you infuse into this our Christmas meal!

With peace, love and light from all of us at the Meadys' Musings Production House!

And really that was the main events on the Christmas day as dinner also went by with not a thing to complain about!

Day 26-Boxing Day

Copyright of The Meady's Musings Production House 2011

On this day the owner of the production house entered the earthly plane and all the animals in the production house had planned and plotted to honour her on this day. The mouse was in charge and the Purple Elephant was running with her at her heels after every stride. By the end of the day the owner was very pleased with the animals who lived under her roof and all hers and their guests! Even the monkeys put in a sterling performance and there was really not much left to say but that indeed it was a very lovely Boxing Day and Happy Birthday for the owner of the production house and all her animal creations

Advent Calendar 2011: The Christmas Adventures of the Purple Elephant and the little mouse:Christmas Eve

2011-12-24T23:55:00.000-04:00

By this time all the house guests had arrived safe and sound at the Meady's Musings Production House. In fact the season's plans had gone far more on schedule this year than last's. All the animals had basically arrived without major transportation problems and there was no honey bee strike like last year and so no resulting uprising of bears too. And the monkeys were better behaved since the whole cat wringing incident!

But there was a strange thing that not only the Purple Elephant and little mouse had realized this year but all the animals did too! The men who had appeared in the square last year in sports utility vehicles aka SUVs were no where to be seen this year although they had explained that they often come to town around Christmas time yearly. At first the Purple Elephant had come home from the square a day to tell the little mouse his fears...that he had not seen the men as yet and it was several days later than when they had appeared last year! But the little mouse had said to him that it was probably just that they were running later. Maybe they needed to repair their SUVs or get new ones all together and the Purple Elephant knew all too well how hard it was to buy a new SUV at times on the island! But now it was Christmas Eve and not only had they not seen the men with the SUVs but they had not seen the lovely couple return this year who gave birth to a baby boy in a manager that the animals had to quickly put together last year as by then the house was overflowing with animals and have fallen to the ground with all the mayhem! So in fact just in case this year the Purple Elephant had built an entirely separate duplex for the couple if they visited perhaps bringing the baby boy and the donkey that was oddly carrying them around...odd as the animals though why not an SUV? But the donkey had explained to them about his special bond with the couple.

Now it was almost two hours to the midnight hour and not a donkey or SUV was in sight!

Then Purple Elephant's sensitive ears and feet picked up a far away sound almost as far away as the square...and but surely he realised it was a drum! The sound got closer and closer and for all the good behaviour the animals showed till then...well that just vanished and they all got uneasy till basically all the animals were out in the maidan (field) with the herd of elephants! Then lo and behold coming around the curb they saw as the intensity of the sound was very strong now...well there you have it! A little drummer boy and with him he had a herd of sheep! So the animals let the sheep stay in the old manager that was built last year for the couple. Then were about to invite the little drummer boy to stay indoors but he said he never left the side of his sheep. So then all the animals stayed in the maidan as the little mouse went indoors and returned with a cup of cocoa for the little drummer boy who seemed to be cold. The little drummer boy blinked a while and eyed the little mouse from tail to whiskers but then took the cup of cocoa as he thought if he could so love his sheep why could he not take cocoa made by a mouse!

And then the little drummer boy played for them! Saying that he was just warming up his drums for now...

And lo and behold...as the song ended rounding the curb was an SUV and then another and then another and out of the third SUV alighted the donkey and from second one the couple with a just born baby boy! And then the three drivers of the SUVs and the couple, the donkey and the baby all joined the little drummer boy in the manger with his sheep. When asked what happened to that baby from last year...the couple looked up and blinked at animals without saying a word and with a nod of the donkey's snout...all the animals knew what it was...

And then the little drummer boy played his song!

Merry Christmas from the Meady's Musings Production House!

Advent Calendar 2011:Day 2 & 3 of The Christmas Adventures of the Purple Elephant and the little mouse

2011-12-09T23:44:00.001-04:00

This picture is not owned by us but was burrowed from this site. Please notify us if we have infringed any rights and we will immediately remove. We thought it fair to say too that in the real life story to this pic the cat and orangutan are best of buddies! No Purple Elephant intervention necessary! :)

DAY 2

On Day 2 of the Christmas Adventures of the Purple Elephant and the little mouse the day opened with the little mouse quietly in a corner deep in prayer. The guys from the UCP desk couldn't help but notice him and just stood afar quietly themselves observing him and taking notes for their own blog posts! This was the prayer that the little mouse did say:

"Dear Lord although I may but a little mouse be
You well know that I let little scare me
Apart from those cats of course
And even then I just surrender to your as the divine source
And although the start of this Advent calendar maybe late
It won't affect what will be on any of my guest's Christmas Eve dinner plate

You know better than I great spirit that in the Universal sense of things we are all one
And so please don't let my Christmas plans be undone
You see the owner of the house was late to open the Advent calendar
But she must not be blamed for such a blunder
As her world I'm told was a bit asunder

So let's now work together
To make this Christmas the best one ever
Keep the cats at bay
And let all our house guests enjoy their stay
This dear Lord is my Advent calender opening prayer!"

The little mouse thus ended his prayer. And the UCP guys scuttled off to their desks to share it on that blog!

The little mouse got up from his kneeling position and went off to look for the Purple Elephant. He found the Purple Elephant outdoors clearing soil and planting grass in preparation for his elephant herd that had sent trumpeting signals from place to place until it got to the Purple Elephant this morning via the airwaves outside the house that indeed they would be trekking towards the Meady's Musings Production House this year and in fact given the time it would take for them to get there as a herd they were already on their way!

And there you had it by the 2nd day of the Christmas Adventures of the Purple Elephant and the little mouse two house guests had now confirmed! Well two if you count the herd as one and Fynn the bear as another. But in reality that herd ranged between 40 to 50 odd elephants or so and of every colour you could imagine (if you recall from previous years). They were yellow, brown, blue, grey, white, rainbow mixed and of course many other purple ones too! But you shall hear more about them as the days go because for now that brings Day 2 of the Christmas Adventures of the Purple Elephant and the little mouse to a close.

DAY 3

On Day 3 of the Christmas Adventures of the Purple Elephant and little mouse the Purple Elephant was still busy at it in the yard planting grass for his relatives to eat when they arrived. It was then he heard a strange sound only to turn around to see one of the monkey's wringing a cat in his hands! The Purple Elephant got so startled at the sight and sound that he jumped all fours up about a half of a metre or so into the air and trumpeted as he fell to the ground. The fall then caused a loud sound no doubt that made the little mouse and the other monkeys in the house run to the doors. When they saw what was going on outside they ducked backed indoors and peeped instead out of windows to see what was about to unfold. Not the little mouse tough...poor thing was so scared he ran to his bedroom and closed all the windows and again went to a corner to in this case nervously pray. With the knowledge that if his end really came he would then just surrender on to the divine this he had learnt well from the UCP guy's blog posts!

However the monkeys inside the house piled all on top of each other to see what the one monkey outside was about to do as the Purple Elephant glared at him. And this is what happened...

After the Purple Elephant hit the ground he again trumpeted and then addressed the monkey in a high yet loud shrill!

"What are you doing monkey>? Is that a cat in your hand I see? If so you should certainly un-wring him! Don't you know that although the cats may not be my friends as they hunt my best friend and co-inhabitant of the house the little mouse. Both of us do not agree that we should subject the cats to such cruelty. No animal should be that cruel to another...even if you cannot live like brothers you should still respect the life in others! Now don't release him as he may try to get at the little mouse but un-wring him and give him to me so I can wrap him in my trunk and take him back to the cats!"

Strangely the monkey just looked at the Purple Elephant in a puzzled manner twisted his head from side to side a bit and then made a monkey noise un-wrang the cat and put it into the trunk of the Purple Elephant. When he was done with this he scratched one armpit and then the other...made a monkey noise and jumped into a nearby tree for after all he was an orangutan you see!

At the end of this stint all the monkeys in the window started to make monkey noises and jump up and down and all over each other's heads! But they immediately froze in silence when the Purple Elephant turned their way and with one glare he was on his way to drop the un-wrung cat back to the other cats!

And folks for day 3 of the Christmas Adventures of the Purple Elephant and the little mouse that was that!

Advent Calendar 2011:Day 1 of The Christmas Adventures of the Purple Elephant and the little mouse

2011-12-07T00:00:00.000-04:00

Fynn the Steiff bear who was the first guest to confirm this year!

The Purple Elephant and the little mouse had really hoped to start things early this year they really had! But you see it was the owner of the production house that caused everything to go all awry. As you would recall yesterday at the opening of the Advent calendar exactly six days late this year they had to go and bring her into the virtual reality of the blogosphere back into the imaginary house in which they live! To do so they had to cross the lines between virtual and real...cartoon and flesh...driving many a human to the psychiatric chair when they had beheld the glowing cartoony forms of the Purple Elephant and little mouse. But they really had no choice...and now although the Purple Elephant and the little mouse had in their virtual world started planning for the Holidays well in advance in fact as early as November during nanowrimo! There was no owner present in the production house to write about their adventures and so really all their work just went up in cyberspace without enough HTML to keep it grounded for you readers to see on your computer screen!

So forgive the Purple Elephant and little mouse this year if they are a bit more scattered and stressed as the Purple Elephant runs about making lots of noise while the little mouse scampers even faster to get things in place for the many house guests that no doubt will again be arriving this year! It really wasn't their fault that things didn't get started earlier it was just that there was simply no writer there! And if anything goes wrong just blame those monkeys!

So speaking of house guests the Purple Elephant and little mouse have heard the news that has been confirmed early on that the bears will be visiting again this year. In fact a new bear from London will also be arriving this year. They got that news since October really when the owner of the production house was over that way. Now what they understand is that the bear is not really an English bear exactly although he lives in London. In fact he is really German in origin with 'knopf im ohr' translated into English as 'button in ear'. He is indeed a Steiff bear...not the fancy limited edition type nope Fynn lives in his box with a yellow tag pinned down by the button in his ear so he is an unlimited edition bear. Which basically means Fynn has many other Fynn brothers and they sure do get around in their boxes traveling to all parts of the globe! However those Fynn bears seem to be very early birds as yes folks Fynn the Steiff bear was the first confirmed guest to be visiting the Meady's Musings production house this year! He had RSVP-ed to the Purple Elephant since October and had asked that the little mouse try as much as possible to be the one to pick him up at the airport as he had a very special surprise that couldn't wait!

So this has just been adding to the anxiety of the little mouse as he has been scampering about the house and occasionally going into corners to take perhaps a break and from what his body posture at least looks like...to pray?

But as we end the story for today on The Christmas Adventures of the Purple Elephant with the little mouse we all have to pray and hope that even though the start is indeed late all will be well that ends well and it will still be a grand holiday!

Advent Calendar 2011: The Opening and Happy St. Nicholas Day!

2011-12-06T00:00:00.000-04:00

We at the Meady's Musings Production House have left many a story untold this year and many a blog post unfinished and unposted! You our readers must realize it really was never our intent! However we were just too taken up with travelling to different lands and putting on real live blog displays on UCP this year but mostly too involved in our day job! Yes as you know we must pay the bills and we have just been putting our shoulder to the wheel all year long this year!

But we really have just gone and done it now! As we've started our Advent calendar late now too! The Purple Elephant and Little Mouse were just very cross indeed and so they had to make it out of their imaginary house over into our real world to let us know just how they felt! And it wasn't a good sight I will tell you for many a passerby to see a cartoony looking elephant purple at that with a cartoony looking mouse on this back scolding a real life lady on the street! In fact many of the passersby ended up on the psychiatric chair! And for that we at the production house all yell out an 'Oh dear!' But it must have been worth it for here we are to declare the Advent Calendar 2011 open!

The rules again this year will be that on Meady's Musings we will be telling the story of 'The Christmas Adventures of the Purple Elephant with the little mouse' of course at times we may pause for a little this and that.

And on UCP-Universal Collective Prayer we will be keeping to the reverence and prayer of the season.

However there will be days that the two blogs will collide like today as we join to launch the calendar and celebrate St. Nicholas Day! Yes Happy St. Nicholas Day 2011 folks! So although the Advent calendar is declared open late this year it is not that bad as it is on this very special day that celebrates that old saint of giving whom has forever been Americanised as a fat man in a red and white suit!

As we celebrate the day this year we look back at these times when we asked:

Do you believe in Santa Claus?

and when we said:

Yes Virginia there is a Santa Claus!

And remind you again this year that if you need to learn more about St. Nicholas the St. Nicholas Center is a pretty good place to start!

And remind you that we do believe in Santa Claus as we also recall the gift giving that was done for the baby Jesus!

Maniac Mondays: Introducing 'The Turtle' and his Yoga Moves!

2011-09-26T04:11:00.013-04:00

All pictures are copyright of The Meady's Musings Production House 2011.

We have a new inhabitant at the Meady's Musings Production House and we've been so enthused by him/her (we can't tell but the niece of nepotistic fame over on the UCP desk is the one who brought him to the house and she says he is a she i.e. it's a female of the species but that it may be for us a male he will be and so not a she!) over the last few months that we've begun to observe him so closely that we think it's now madness and so hence the new inhabitant is solely responsible for bringing back the Maniac Mondays blog postings! LOL!

The new inhabitant is a red slider turtle seen here.

He was living outside the production house for a while now but only a few months ago was he fully adopted into the house as one of the animal inhabitants of the Meady's Musings Production House...along with the Purple Elephant and little mouse themselves and the monkeys, bears and other elephants. Now we have to say we never thought we'd accept a non-mammal into the house this warmly...but indeed we have to admit it is now the case...one of the Meady's Musings Production House's animals is a reptile! OMG! Cold blooded...strange eyes and all! I can tell you it has the little mouse a bit jumpy because he doesn't want the other kind of reptiles around and they will not even be named!

But back to the turtle...like the other animals at the house he doesn't have any particular name as humans do and in his case he doesn't even have a colour and size connotation to him like how The Purple Elephant and the little mouse do. Nope he just goes by 'The Turtle'. And sometimes we become so fascinated by his moves in his aquarium we call him 'Our Turtle Love'. Yep for now he lives in an aquarium but we are considering to have The Purple Elephant dig him a pond and fill it with some water soon as he seems to be growing and growing this turtle!

However while he continues to in his aquarium live he continues to amuse us with his yoga moves...the ancient yogis already have a pose named after him:

'Kurmasana (Yoga Turtle Pose) – This pose is marvelous for reducing fat from the hips and belly.'

(And we hope he doesn't learn moves from some ninja master mimicking his moves from his aquarium as we don't quite think we'd want a child aged ninja red slider turtle on our hands! Cheesy we know...but then that's pizza...dudes!:P)

So here are some of our other pics of him as we admire how he sleeps on a bed of rocks as he basks under his sunlamp and we learn from his yoga moves!

And we now all live 'Happy Together' in the Meady's Musings Production House...as we welcome 'The Turtles'! :)

Tumultuous Thursdays: Just Where Does All That Energy Go: Are Inanimate Objects Storehouses for the Energy of Animate Beings?

2011-08-18T23:38:00.011-04:00

Full Moon, Trinidad Feb 2010. Copyright of the Meady's Musings Production House

We've not blogged in such a long time that we're quite wondering if we've forgotten just how! But we're eager to ask a question here on Tumultuous Thursdays as we jump right back into it hoping that blogging is like riding a bike and you just never forget how! :) So let's get to it and over the weeks we will explain to you where we've been or what we've been up to since we've been away...but now my dear readers of this here blog...on to the question!

JUST WHERE OR WHERE DOES ALL THAT ENERGY GO-Are Inanimate Objects Storehouses for the Energy of Animate Beings?

Now we know what you're immediately thinking...well...no where! As according to the law of conservation of energy matter is neither created nor destroyed and so the energy goes no where it's just circulating all around! But that's not what we mean exactly when we asked the question. What we're wondering about is first of all according to Physics all matter has energy whether it is present in an animate or inanimate being. However according to Metaphysics one might see the types of energy as distinct in an animate object as opposed to an inanimate object...no? I mean what's the difference?

Well this questioning today on Tumultuous Thursdays began when a friend of the Production House a one Mr. Sharma dropped by and was going on about:

"can our old house or a car or a school or a tree send out thoughts in the global consciousness field to reach us in altered state of our local consciousness like dream or meditation?"

Now we had to first of all give Mr. Sharma a cup of tea and a cozy place to sit on our living room sofa, call over some other friends...notify the owner of the Production House and allow the Purple Elephant to trumpet while the little mouse put up another pot of tea before we all got to sitting around the room thinking and talking...and it was a question indeed!

We postulated that indeed inanimate objects may be storehouses for our energy...and then over time they slowly let it out again...sort of potential energy slowly becoming kinetic energy over time...I dare say at that thought the little mouse got a bit scared and kept staring at the baseball in one corner of the room and the cricket ball on the other....thinking one might just jump out at him! But not a ball in the house moved!

But surely this must be some of the things that psychokinesis is made up of no?

Perhaps when us animate objects interact with inanimate objects a bit of our conscious energy stays with them...either stored up to be released again later or reflected right away back at us or into the Universal space time continuum! :)

But the little mouse got even more sacred at the thought of energy being stored up and realeased later on...he was about to have the Purple Elephant throw out all used items from the house...when we all allayed his fears...with the grandmotherly quote:

"No harm can come to those who pray!" And the guys from the UCP desk took him away to do just that!

But then with the little mouse gone we did admit that such stuff was what the creepy horror movies that will remain unnamed are made up of no? But not all energy is bad my readers and there must be good energy too...it just might have been too much of a buzz kill for Hollywood to ever highlight it in film! Although there was Casper the friendly ghost!:)

But it really is something to think about no? And it's also probably the kind of thing that Feng Shui and Vaastu Shastra considers...the energy present in inanimate objects and it's impact on us animate beings!

But hey it was just our rambling thoughts today...after all it is a Tumultuous Thursday and things can get a little bumpy!

So that's it for today folks and we hope to be blogging more again out of the Production House soon...but we dare say we missed sharing those tunes with you guys out there in the blogosphere...so after all the talks were done the Purple Elephant got out his old 45s and we all danced to 'Dream a little dream of me'...after all it was a Tumultous Thursday! :)

The Purple Elephant with the Little Mouse Presents Our Guest Blog: 6 Simple Ways to Live a Sustainable Lifestyle!

2011-02-23T01:09:00.002-04:00

Here is the thing…the Purple Elephant with the little mouse hiding behind his ears as usual went to the market to buy some potatoes, corn and ochro (okra) for this soup the owner of the production house was making as all the monkeys had fallen ill with flu. While walking in the market the little mouse squealed and hid perfectly out of sight behind the Purple Elephant’s ear and then he whispered look down there. At that point the Purple Elephant felt a paw crawling up his knee and looked down to see a brown shiny coat dog. It’s just a dog he said to the little mouse…and then the little mouse peeped out from behind his ear again…

“Ooh...that’s nice…for a second I thought it was a giant rat and you know how rats like to bully us mice and I really wasn’t in the mood for such an altercation!” said the little mouse.

“Oh India and Thailand…these mouse and rat games…sometimes I think they are more bothersome than cat and mouse ones!" said the Purple Elephant as he scooped up the tiny brown dog with his long purple trunk! It was then he noticed the dog have a pendant around his chain and wait...lo and behold it wasn't a pendant really but a USB drive and the dog kept licking it...sometimes lapping it entirely into his mouth!

The Purple Elephant whisked the USB drive from the dog and threw it up to the little mouse who immediatley pushed the drive into his ipad to see on it was a blog...this blog from the good people at no other site but...THE DOG ATE MY BLOG! The little mouse read it and felt it would have a home here at the Meady's Musings Production House and so he called up the owner when she gave it a yes well the Purple Elephant waved his giant purple trunk and here it is for you to read! Enjoy it!:)

6 Simple Ways to Live a Sustainable Lifestyle

Joy Paley is a guest blogger for My Dog Ate My Blog and a writer on accredited online colleges for the Guide to Online Schools.

These days, everywhere you look someone is giving tips to live a “greener” lifestyle. While it makes sense to keep the earth in mind, a lot of these tips aren’t that easily implemented by people who are on a budget or lack certain skills. Sure, I’d love to install solar panels on my roof or a low-flow plumbing system, but right now what I really need are sustainable tips that help the earth and my pocketbook. So I did some research to bring you these six tips that you can put into practice at home—without expert skills or a lot of money.

Start a Home Compost
Home composts aren’t just for tree huggers and eccentrics anymore. They’re a simple way to considerably green up your home, by reducing the amount of waste you send to the landfill. Instead of putting those food scraps in the garbage, just throw them into a small outdoor bin. Composting takes little effort: Sprinkle some water on your bin of old food, stir it up, and nature will take its course, turning your waste into free yard fertilizer. And, you’ll be saving money by reducing your garbage bill. Here’s a quick guide to getting started.

Collect Rainwater
Why waste money paying for water when you can get it for free? Just set a barrel or old garbage bin under your gutters when you’re expecting a rain shower, and you’ll be doing mother nature a favor. Instead of leaving your sprinklers on all throughout the year, you’ll be able to water your yard with the barrels you collect. This water is a lot easier on the earth because unlike tap water, it’s not being diverted away from streams and natural reservoirs to get your house.

Join a CSA
CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture, a type of organization that lets the local community support nearby growers who practice sustainable farming. When you join a CSA you’re essentially buying into a farmer’s harvest—helping fund the costs of getting the crop into the ground and tending it. In return, you get a share of their harvest in the form of a weekly produce delivery to your home or a distribution point near you. Use this page to find a list of CSAs in your region.

Use DIY Home Cleaners
Many home cleaners contain noxious chemicals that are harmful to manufacture and pollute our water supplies when they run down the drain. For most daily cleaning jobs you don’t even need those harsh chemicals; you can actually make cheap, nontoxic solutions from ingredients you already have at home. Vinegar, baking soda, and lemons are some examples. National Geographic has a roundup of the essential DIY household cleaners.

Eat Less Meat
Did you know that if you cut out one meal of chicken every week for a year and replaced it with vegetarian food, it would be equivalent to taking half a million cars off the road? Even if you can’t imagine yourself going vegetarian, removing just one meal of meat a week can drastically cut down the greenhouse gases that result from raising livestock. These simple veggie recipes can get you started.

Buy a Power Strip
Some electronics are real energy suckers—they keep drawing energy from the wall, even whey are turned completely off! Plugging all your electronics into a handy power strip is a simple way to ensure that they’re cut off from the power source and won’t be wasting energy when you’re not using them. It’s a handy way to be frugal and save energy.

Tumultuous Thursdays: Kundalini Yoga, the Shiv and Shakti and Shiv as Potential Energy

2011-02-17T23:29:00.003-04:00

UCP/Meady's Musings Production does not own the rights for this image.

A friend came over to the Meady's Musings Production House and the Purple Elephant quickly threw his long purple trunk forward to open the door. The friend entered and said hello and then quickly went over to the guys at the UCP desk and asked them if they were interested in a course in kundalini yoga. It was quite an interesting course but seeing as the owner of the Production House hardly ever pays the guys at the UCP desk a single penny even...no one unfortunately could afford the fees! :( But it got the guys at the UCP desk who are currently writing about this Festival of Shiv 2011 to thinking and they went over to the guys who write the Tumultuous Thursdays blog posts on Meady's Musings and well...this joint blog that is both about religion and metaphysics was born and today appears on both UCP's Festival of Shiv and Meady's Musings' Tumultuous Thursdays! :)

Now kundalini yoga and yoga as a whole is often associated with Baba Shiv as he is seen as the mahayogi and in the image at the start of the post you can see where Shiv's iconography itself can be used to describe the elements of Kundalini yoga and as a whole the key body/energy points in yoga. And this website titled Kundalini Awakening appears to be a very good research source for anyone wanting to know more about the theories behind kundalini yoga.

However the rest of the blog post will delve more into the shiv/shakti relationship that comes out of the study of kundalini yoga and more so the concept that shiv is potential energy and shakti kinetic energy.

Let's define the two terms in Physics as defined by the Free Dictionary:

POTENTIAL ENERGY: (noun)The energy of a particle or system of particles derived from position, or condition, rather than motion. A raised weight, coiled spring, or charged battery has potential energy.

KINETIC ENERGY:(noun)The energy possessed by a body because of its motion, equal to one half the mass of the body times the square of its speed.

Now in Hinduism it is not only seen that Shiv is like potential energy and Shakti like kinetic energy...it is also seen that both Shiv and Shakti are one...so really it is one being that is at one point potential energy and then at another point kinetic energy.

So let's see it as if Shiv is sitting there in meditative post and then while in meditation he thinks up Shakti as this moving dancing female being...then after she manifests from his thoughts as dancing kinetic energy before him he eventually is also aroused and starts to dance with her...his potential energy is converted to kinetic energy!

Seen in the dance of Shiv and Shakti it would look something like this:

Seen in the metaphysical sense as it's impact on the creation and/or destruction it would be something like this:

Think about it is all the potential energy is eventually converted to kinetic energy ...it you have a coil of string and it has this potential energy in it as it is all coiled up but then begins to unravel as its potential energy converts to kinetic energy...what happens when all the string is unraveled? Well you no longer have a ball of string?

Hey but this is no doom's day blogpost or anything...after all this is a joint blogpost on Tumultuous Thrusdays and UCP i.e. Universal Collective Prayer...but we are just analysing some of the aspects of Shiv here and realising more so now how he might be seen as the God of destruction and how his cosmic dance of destruction...or the Nataraj dance has become so world famous...as he gets up from his coiled potential energy position and dances uncoiling as kinetic energy flows! But remember that energy is neither created nor destroyed so the kinetic energy again can become potential as another ball of string or the cosmos is reformed....Jai Bholenath! :)

Slumbering Saturdays....ahmm...Studious Saturdays: Here We Write!

2011-02-05T23:05:00.002-04:00

OK so today is the day that Slumbering Saturdays was suppose to have become Studious Saturdays...but it didn't go as well as planned and after a hard week of full time work and a late Friday night...well most of Saturday was spent Slumbering and then Erranding...but as we get to the end of what was suppose to be a Studious Saturday...we are filled with little reproach!

You see we still plan to fill the last hours of the night with some writing and continue to have a strong visualization for next Saturday...us getting up in the wee hours of the morning...sitting at our writing desk...writing away...a few thousand words even before the sun comes up! :)

But for tonight we still did a little bit write...so we will call it a truce and say it is still the launch of Studious Saturdays if you like!

Look forward to blogs on other days of the week as normally themed i.e. Maniac Mondays, Tumultuous Thursdays and even Funtastic Fridays if we might!

And on our sister blog UCP we shall be launching this year's festival of Shiv! So look for that this Monday!

So until then...to all a good night!

And hope you all enjoyed the cartoon above and the associated movie clip below! :)

Maniac Mondays: Announcements and Starting Over!

2011-01-31T23:26:00.001-04:00

First of all Happy New Year! We know it's late in the announcing but we've just not been up to the blogging until now...but here we are again so there! We also want to apologize for abruptly ending the Christmas Adventures of the Purple Elephant and the Little Mouse and not completeing it but it seems we had our own monkeys to deal with! But we plan to complete it for completeness of story sake and leave it up...so if you want to finish reading the stories even though Christmas has past look for it soon! And hey it's never too early to start planning for the next Christmas! :)

So here we are about to get into February 2011 already and as time passes by on the wheel as it goes spinning...we are wondering...we thought about making some changes to the blog's format but for now it will probably remiain the same as will UCP our sister blog. Well except for one major thing...

Slumbering Saturdays will now be active more often except it won't be Slumbering Saturdays anymore but will become Studious Saturdays! As every Saturday we plan to be nanowrimo like all year round and keep those words to novels yet to be written coming! :)

So join us as we contemplate our HCM-Heart Clutching Moments as we churn out a hopefully most marvelous plot! :)

But all this talk about wheels and time flying by makes us recall one of our favourite Journey tunes as seen here! :)

Advent Calendar 2010: The Christmas Adventures of the Purple Elephant and the Little Mouse-Days 10 to 11

2010-12-11T01:20:00.001-04:00

In loving memory of Tessa and taken from this CBC article.

ADVENT CALENDAR DAY 10:10 DEC 2010

As we come to Day 10 of the Advent calendar and the Christmas Adventures of the Purple Elephant and the Little Mouse we find the animals busy fixing up the house for the arrival of the Purple Elephant's herd. As the Purple Elephant explained again this year although most of us were at the Production House last year and had seen them and heard this explanation already...not all the elephants in the Purple Elephant's herd were purple! Well some were blue...some grey like your typical elephant known to man and some were even red...others brown and yes the elephants explained to us...some were even white! And no not just albinos but actually white for you see it was not just a fable...indeed the legend of the Maharaja's white Indian elephant was true! The Purple Elephant's herd also transcended geographical borders and species and so the herd consisted of Asian elephants as well as African ones and they both learned traits from each other! However the greatest kept secret of the herd that we are about to reveal only on this year's Advent calendar since he did not visit the Production House last year...is this!:

One of the members of the Purple Elephant's herd is not even an elephant at all! He is actually a wooly mammoth! Yes indeed! And no your ears aren't playing tricks on ya! The elephant herd found him one day when he had wandered down from Alaska where he had remained frozen but then thawed due to global warming in 2008 and had roamed down to Canada where the elephant herd had gone to the Toronto zoo to visit a relative there. The wooly mammoth then asked since he had learnt from the other elephants that he was the last of his kind...if he could join their herd? The leader of the herd a blue elephant called Akash said then that yes indeed he could join them and the wooly mammoth was very excited and grateful and has been with the herd since then! He was particularly aggrieved when he learnt of the passing of Tessa at the Toronto zoo the following year! As she was the first elephant he had spoken to when he had gotten to the Toronto zoo! We at the Production House had heard of her passing through the Purple Elephant who had left for Toronto when he heard the news together with the Little Mouse! And we had sent our condolences to all at the zoo but in particular to the relative of the Purple Elephant's herd who lived there.

So anyway as the Purple Elephant continued to talk about his relatives and the elephant herd approached all the animals (Purple Elephant included since he talked but also worked)scrubbed and cleaned and casted reinforcements to the Production Houses' foundation.

And so Day 10 of the Adventures of the Purple Elephant and the Little Mouse came to an end with the animals scrubbing and cementing well into dusk...

ADVENT CALENDAR DAY 11:11 DEC 2010

The elephant herd was almost upon the Production House oh dear me! Loud and large orchestras of animal trumpeting could be heard in the nearby with the accompaniment of heavy 'footsteps' thumping forward! The owner of the Production House looked at bit nervous but the Little Mouse reassured her that the foundations were strong this year....the monkeys had really given their all in that respect and she needn't worry! :) And the noises got closer and closer until finally!...

The elephants arrived!

A bigger portion of the herd had come to visit the Purple Elephant this year but you could see the owner of the Production House relax as the foundations seem to hold up! In fact after she relaxed a bit more she grabbed one of the monkeys and kissed them on the head! For really it couldn't have been done without the full corporation of the monkeys!

But enough of the monkeys everyone wanted to hear about the elephants! There were really in all the different colours, shapes and sizes! The wooly mammoth was indeed with them but was very, very hard to recognise as he stood there next to Akash at the head of the herd...you see they had shaved his fur off because he was coming to the tropics and so my friends the wooly mammoth had succeeded where the Canadian bears had failed! In fact you could see the Canadian bears mumbling and whispering under their breaths about you see how they had wanted to do the same thing and they were stopped by the Winnie the Pooh related bears! But then the Purple Elephant explained to the Canadian bears that it was a different case. You see elephants have non-hairy skins...and so because the wooly mammoth is suppose to be officially extinct he had to adapt significantly to continue to remain alive now that he thawed. So he had to try to be like the other elephants in this case. Also his wooly fur was much thicker and longer originally than their bear coats were!

So in the end all were happy...humans, monkeys, bears, elephants and well the little mouse but of course there still remained the matter of the cats...but at least for a while as Day 11 of the Christmas tales of the Purple Elephant and Little Mouse came to an end all of the Production House was at peace for a while as they gathered around and sang along to this john denver song...that they felt suited them all!:)

Advent Calendar 2010:Maria's Pastelles!

2010-12-09T20:53:00.001-04:00

One of Maria's lovely and delicious pastelles. You can like Maria's Pastelles on Facebook by clicking here.

As promised during the Advent calendar this year in between The Christmas Adventures of The Purple Elephant and the Little Mouse we will be breaking for a treat or two or well sometimes three! :) So keeping to our promise today the Purple Elephant minus the little mouse talks about a recent visit to a friend of the Production House...Maria! The visit was to hear all about her lovely and delicious pastelles. Why minus the little mouse? Well...you see...the Purple Elephant had to explain to the little mouse at length about the stigma society continues to have about little mice and their presence near food...in terms of the health of humans etc. But the little mouse argued he thought such a stigma was cleared up by now...he knew Mickey Mouse did little for mice everywhere in this regard but of recently there was Ratatouille and in particular the Tale of Despereaux would no doubt have done wonders for removing this stigma! But the Purple Elephant said no...despite there being many clean, well behaved, disease free mice like the little mouse humans still didn't like them near their food. And so it was...so it was...and so the Purple Elephant journeyed off on his own to interview Maria about her lovely and delicious pastelles and here is how it all unfolded!

The beautiful Maria of pastelles fame!

The Purple Elephant did his own version of Q&A on Maria and so from here on in we refer to the Purple Elephant as PE and Maria as well Maria! Also writing in brackets () under Maria's answers are things the Purple Elehant jotted in for explanation or just his thoughts:

PE: So when was the first time you made pastelles?

Maria:I've been cooking with my mother and grandmother since I was allowed to use a knife at age 6...pastelle making is a tradition in our family...we made pastelles at our home and my grandmother's home every November and December. My first memory of making pastelles was probably around age 6. When I moved to my own home in 1995 we moved the pastelle making to my home. The entire family would come over and help to make the two household's pastelles for the season.

PE:And did they come out perfect then or is the product you have today...tried, tested and honed over the years?

Maria: My grandmother's and mother's pastelles were always perfect...the recipe has been handed down and tweaked by myself but I've never had a bad pastelle making experience.

PE: When did you first realise you had something here that was great...like was it you just knew it from your own taste and smell of it...or was it from the response you got from friends and relatives on their tasting it? And when you realised your pastelles were a hit what was your first reaction to this? Or do you remember say the first Christmas when you realised perhaps..."Hmmm...Maria you can really make a mean pastelle girl! :)"

Maria:Friends came to our home our first Christmas in 1995 (in our own house i.e. my husband's and I). And I'd have to send pastelles home with them(as they liked them so much). I also took my pastelles to my husband's family in New York in 1995 and they loved them...they all agreed they were the best they had ever had. They shared them with others there...who said the same. I love pastelles...my family love my pastelles...and if I can say so...they are pretty darn good. I love to cook and feeding people makes me happy so I was so happy that people enjoyed the pastelles. We make pastelles maybe twice a year when the supply runs low...not just for Christmas.

PE: Do you have a secret ingredient?

Maria: It wouldn't be secret anymore if I told you! I believe in using Promasa cornmeal, good fresh seasoning, prime meat (the Purple Elephant does not eat meat and so for that there is soya) and a lot of love! (that the Purple Elephant can handle!)

PE: OK...OK...but then is there one thing that makes your pastelles special...that would make them bear your signature? For example the way you wrap them?

Maria: I've been told by restaurant owners , chefs and family members that my corn is absolutely superb...the texture and flavour is unique and amazing! My husband is the wrapper here...he does a great job of folding them and sealing them.

PE: What was the thing that finally inspired you to take your pastelle making to the next level i.e. move from making it for family and friends into a made to order business-Maria's Pastelles?

Maria: My dream is to own and operate my own restaurant/diner. I have been told so many times that I should market my best skill...cooking! I decided to get into the business of selling my pastelles because I knew we could make a superior product at a very good price and to start building my experience toward my dream. I wanted to share a good thing with others who don't have the time to make them also.

PE: And is Maria's Pastelles just pastelles or do you bake other holiday treats for order? Or can you see yourself doing so in the future?

Maria: Right now I'm just doing the pastelles but I hope to add to my products in the very near future.

PE: Do you have any special kinks in making your pastelles...like one particular place where you get your ingredients...or like their must always be this way or that?

Maria: It's a very exact process for making them and we never deviate from that. Locally grown pimentos are a necessary ingredient...they make a huge difference. And they must be wrapped in banana leaves...the flavour that comes from the leaf and the moisture it keeps in...very necessary.

PE:And before I leave you Maria...other than pastelle making what makes the Christmas holidays or Advent special for you?

Maria: Christmas has always been for us a time for family and enjoying each other. My family business never closed for any period of time other than Christmas...it became a time for us to be together and enjoy the holidays...the food, the decorations, the gifts and just being together. We are also Roman Catholic so for us...the celebration of the birth of Jesus is extremely important to us...reminds us of new beginnings and the importance of the family.

And then the Purple Elephant thanked Maria for giving him such a detailed Q&A session on the thoughts behind the making of her tasty treats! He explained to her about how sad he was to have had to leave behind the little mouse and she was very empathetic about it but explained about how it was with the regulatory bodies and all of that!

The Purple Elephant then tasted a bit of her soya pastelle and trumpeted for they were that good! And they he wished Maria the best of sales for the rest of the year and for many years to come. And again trumpeted as he then proceeded to sing this parang tune by way of trumpets and wished her and her family and friends a Merry Christmas and Bright and Prosperous New Year from all at the Production House but in particular on behalf of the little mouse!

If you need to find out how you can order Maria's tasty pastelles go to her Facebook page and be sure to order before Wed 15 Dec 2010 if you need them for Christmas this year!

Advent Calendar 2010: The Christmas Adventures of the Purple Elephant and the Little Mouse- Days 8 &9

2010-12-09T19:08:00.011-04:00

Darn...we really need to get those monkeys off our backs! LOL! As much as we promised to keep updating here daily we keep slip sliding away! But today you are indeed in for a special treat as we will have two blog posts! One will cover day 8 and day 9 in terms of the Christmas Adventures of the Purple Elephant and the Little Mouse. And there will be an entirely separate one talking about a special Trini Christmas treat!:)
THE CHRISTMAS ADVENTURES OF THE PURPLE ELEPHANT AND THE LITTLE MOUSE

ADVENT CALENDAR DAY 8:8 DEC 2010

Now as our story left off on Day 7 we were telling you about the intention of the animals and humans at the Production House to use Satyagraha on the cats who were after the little mouse...

Now the Purple Elephant had pulled down books from the top shelves with his trunk while the little mouse scurried below trying to catch them all. And the owner of the Production House went online pulling down and saving to file relevant documents on Satyagraha. Until some of the books before the animals and humans were as follows :

-The Bhagavad Gita
-The Holy Ramayan
-The Holy Bible: Old and New Testaments
-Khalil Gibran’s The Prophet
-The Upanishads
-The Kalpa Sutras of the Jains

And among some of the websites the owner of the Production House had bookmarked were these:

o http://www.quietspaces.com/satyagraha.html
o http://www.satyagraha.org.za/current/

However the animals and humans refrained from using Wikipedia in their research because they got fed up of seeing the image of its founder Jimmy Wales begging for donations and really no one in the house earned cash except for the owner of the Production House and the guy who worked the UCP desk but then he was paid by the owner. So really only one bread winner and so many mouths to feed and they felt it wrong to just go to the site too you know especially when researching such a topic like satyagraha as it made them feel so guilty somehow…and Jimmy Wales looked even cuter in a begging sort of way than the Winnie the Pooh related bears when begging for his pennies so…they refrained.

Now as the animals explored Satyagraha and how to use it on the cats they realised it was indeed going to be a lot of work and for sure they would need all the animals in the house to pull together...so they first needed to contrive how to enlist the help and support of the twenty odd monkeys of the house! They knew they'd be unruly and perhaps they'd even have to use Satyagraha on the monkeys first to get them to cooperate let alone use it on the cats!

So they called in the monkeys one by one or in pairs if they had coupled monkeys...and asked them if they were willing to cooperate and be part of the Satyagraha on the cats...they explained how the Satyagrahi should behave...and really it all went something like this...as the Purple Elephant and other animals and humans in the room took turns talking to each monkey or pair of monkeys:

"As a satyagrahi monkey/s we will expect you to stand for the truth...infact follow your famous Buddhist monkey friends and say no evil, see no evil and speak no evil! Then monkeys you must commit to the satyagraha such that if you are not happy with the Purple Elephant, the little mouse or any of the animals or humans here whose mission you follow you will bring it to this sangam (confluence/meeting) and it should be honestly and openly addressed here. We must our monkey friends commit to the same cause. We must first be satyagrahi(s) onto ourselves before we try to apply the principles of satyagraha with the cats..." And so the speeches went on and on...till one or two monkeys fell asleep but they quickly pulled themselves out of it and apologised for their nodding off with immediate effect!

And stories aside on this Day 8 of our calendar of stories we recall this famous speech given by the apostle and inventor of Satyagraha himself...Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi aka Gandhi Ji aka the Mahatma or simply the Great One!

ADVENT CALENDAR DAY 9:9 DEC 2010

The speeches and briefing of the monkeys continued for two days such that on Day 9 of the Advent Calendar it was still going on. Then finally the Purple Elephant got up from his desk and said:

"Hey guys it's almost been two days enough of these peanuts I need some fresh grass and air! Besides I think I hear steps of an elephant herd on the move and so I suspect some of my elephant relatives must again be visiting us this year!"

The little mouse looked a bit scared and the owner of the Production House started to pull a bit on her head of hair...because they both recalled what happened last year to the house when the elephants came! OMG!

The Purple Elephant seemed to sense this and gave the little mouse a glaring look and then rushed outside to graze in the cool tropical December fresh air. He always likes it this time of year as it's not cold but not hot...just cool...

Whilst the Purple Elephant was out ....the others in the room quickly convened and whispered to themselves that the plan of using satyagraha on the cats would have to be on a hold for a while. Since if the elephants were coming there would be much work to do...much! As last year the house's foundation started to crack when they neared...never mind they stayed outside the house and grazed as the house is only retrofitted enough to allow for one Purple Elephant and not a herd of elephants! But all the same their stampeding still rocked the house...literally!

So they quickly hatched a plan of how to:

1. Prepare for the arrival of the elephant herd.
2. Tell the Purple Elephant what they were up to without hurting his feelings whilst at the same time not being bad satyagrahi(s) themselves...i.e. they could not violate the rule of 'sat' truth!

Anyway the little mouse said he'd handle the Purple Elephant's feelings...and so it was planned that for the next two days while the elephant herd was on the move and nearing the Production House everyone would help plaster additional building blocks and erect certain strategic props such that the house would not shake on their arrival!

And so it was the ninth day of the Christmas Adventures of the Purple Elephant and the Little Mouse ended...

Advent Calendar 2010: 2,3,4,5,6 and 7 Dec 2010

2010-12-07T00:02:00.002-04:00

We're sorry for not updating our Advent Calendar on time after unveiling it but we plan to keep it daily from here on in and to make up for the lost days today by doing a post today that has six stories one for each day!

As we promised at the unveiling...yes from time to time we will talk about something we like to eat or some extra special treat...but generally inspired by our nanowrimo experience and the fun we had at the Production House last year with all the animals staying over and the three wise men and the birth of a baby boy...this year we will mostly post stories about the Christmas adventures of the Purple Elephant and the little mouse as daily installations on our Advent Calendar 2010! So let's begin our six stories for today-one for today and one for each day we've missed!

THE CHRISTMAS ADVENTURES OF THE PURPLE ELEPHANT AND THE LITTLE MOUSE!

ADVENT CALENDAR DAY 2: 2 DEC 2010

The Purple Elephant was a bit anxious today as he hadn't a clue where the little mouse had disappeared to and he was for some reason worried. You see this Christmas there seems to be quite a proliferation of cats in town...some say they were caught and let loose from another town. So the Purple Elephant has been warning the little mouse not to go out to town alone because in addition to all the people who get scared when they see the little mouse in the market so much so that he has to hide behind the Purple Elephant's big ears well now there are cats! But does the little mouse ever listen to his big purple friend? Well if he does it's less times than more! And so the Purple Elephant had been searching far and wide for the little mouse. He even went in to ask the monkeys who same as last Christmas were watching DVDs in the entertainment room all piled in a hoard of them...twenty odd or so...and guess what DVD they had on? Well no wonder the Purple Elephant's big ears began to flap and his little tail twitch because it was 'Tom and Jerry Special-The Night Before Christmas'! OMG! The Purple Elephant just ran out of there making the whole house shake until he got to the front door and was about to trumpet when he saw the little mouse walking with a bunch of bananas for the monkeys followed by the owner of the Production House with two bags of things from the market in her hands!

The Purple Elephant was never happier to see his little friend than then! He didn't scold him as after all he didn't go out alone but with the owner and lady of the house and he couldn't meddle there! But he was so glad to see him, he started to tickle him with his trunk and the little mouse then slid up his trunk and perched where he normally is… behind his ears.

Then the Purple Elephant complained about those monkeys for being so riot filled in the house...piled up in there all day watching DVDs...but then the little mouse slid down from his ears down his trunk on to the floor before him and gave a long soliloquy about the spirit of Christmas that made him sound a bit like Linus out of the Charlie Brown Christmas special. The speech went something like this:

"My Purple Elephant listen to this message from the little mouse. It is the spirit of Christmas to be giving to all. The monkeys are our friends and part of the animal kingdom. Monkeys will monkeys be and you see as part of the Christmas spirit of giving and sharing we've even gone out to the market to buy them bananas you see. But my purple elephantine friend we've not forgotten you either! For here a bag of peanuts for thee!" the little mouse tossed the peanuts up for the Purple Elephant to catch in his trunk and then he curtsied!

And the owner of the Production House applauded and to that the Purple Elephant then trumpeted and the monkeys actually lo and behold came out to see! They apologized for scaring the Purple Elephant by putting 'The Tom and Jerry Christmas Special-The Night Before Christmas' into the DVD player when he came in. And all forgave them for they said monkeys will be monkeys you see!

ADVENT CALENDAR DAY 3: 3 DEC 2010

The cats continued to be in town and the Purple Elephant continued to be worry about the little mouse. So much so that he took to dialing up a dog security firm to protect the little mouse. The monkeys couldn't help but be cheeky and although they had promised not to taunt and tease the Purple Elephant again they went and cue up this Tom and Jerry episode where Jerry gets a dog to protect him from Tom if only for a little while! :)

It was then and there that the Purple Elephant said Christmas or not the monkeys needed to earn their keep around the house and so it would from now on be up to them to protect the little mouse...no dog security firm necessary! Also he reminded the monkeys of how they had reformed for Christmas last year and should recall this and try to again be on best behaviour. Additionally as it was quite a hoard of them not all were needed to guard the little mouse and the others should start building extensions to the production house. After all going from last year's expectancy three not so wise men might show up and that lady could very well be back with her male companion to a baby make. But for sure the bears would be coming they had already sent word via e-mail!

So ten monkeys were put to work on construction and ten were put to take shifts guarding the little mouse. The remaining odd few were to help with odds and ends around the house like cleaning up after all the monkeys and buying bananas for them. Now monkeys… the Purple Elephant explained to them are said to be very smart among the animals in the animal kingdom and if they were to hone their talents and try not to engage in delinquent ways they could for sure devise brilliant ways to protect the little mouse even if the monkeys could not physically fight off the cats. Also they could develop monitoring and tracking devices to keep up with where the little mouse was. After all monkeys were smarter than the average bear!

So the monkeys all lined up with bent heads and listened and amazingly went to work right away obeying the Purple Elephant...well at least for now...

ADVENT CALENDAR DAY 4: 4 DEC 2010

As we said yesterday the monkeys were listening to the Purple Elephant but...yep as you might expect the monkeys being monkeys by nature started a set of mayhem as soon as the Purple Elephant had gone to the airport to pick up two bears from the Ashdown Forest in Sussex, England. These bears were distant relatives of the famous Winnie the Pooh and often like Pooh did not know what to do. So the Purple Elephant had a hard time tracking them down in the airport but finally got them on his back and brought them to the Production House. But when the poor Purple Elephant thought he was about to see the new extension completed for the two bears to sleep well... oh bother! What you think? The ten monkeys working on construction for the extension to the house had all gotten into a big gigantic pillow fight with each other! There were down feathers everywhere! And where were the one or two odd monkeys who were there to clean up after all the monkeys? Well oh well...what again do you think? They had felt that there wasn't enough work for them earlier (when all the monkeys were on best behaviour) and so had made some banana splits for themselves and had locked themselves back up in the entertainment room and were looking at this DVD of one of the classic and favourite Christmas movies of all times where a house was being up heaved as well but for other reasons...‘Home Alone’:

And having seen that DVD on the Purple Elephant realized it was best he from now on never leave the monkeys home alone!

ADVENT CALENDAR DAY 5:5 DEC 2010

Now the Purple Elephant made the monkeys clean up things and get back to work...he even had the other ten who were in charge of guarding the little mouse come and help since the little mouse was safe at home. This way the extensions were eventually completed such that the two bears could have their own room. However it left another dilemma...none of the pillows in the Production House had any down in them now! So the poor Purple Elephant had to set off to get some from the birds. The birds gave them some but not enough for all the pillows and when the Purple Elephant inquired as to why this was the case he was told because the ducks were on strike and so the volume of down being produced was reduced. From there he went to the bees to get some honey for the bears and luckily so far this year they weren't on strike!

When the Purple Elephant came back to the house the monkeys again had a dawning of enlightenment and were heads bent low. They came up to the Purple Elephant fidgeting and said that they had heard of the duck strike and figured as much… that the Purple Elephant would not get enough down for all the pillows so that the monkeys would be willing to first of all re-stuff all the pillows...well as much as they could with the down that was got. And they would then forfeit sleeping with pillows since monkeys didn't need them as such anyway as they slept in all sorts of contortionist's positions hanging from a tail here and there!

The Purple Elephant was very proud of the monkeys of the house and for their regret, gratitude, seva (service to fellow man or animal as you have it) well he just trumpeted and he and the little mouse made every monkey in the house a banana split while the bears had some honey and said cheerio!

ADVENT CALENDAR DAY 6: 6 DEC 2010

The monkeys were really earning their keep now and the house extensions were all complete. And they had moved on to building a crèche outside in case the lady were to show up again this year although really if she did there would be plenty of room inside but then if she came with a donkey he might wish to stay out in the crèche and feed on some hay. Two other bears had also arrived …Canadian Black Bears. They kept complaining about the tropical heat and one started to wonder if they were about to replace the monkeys with mischievous behaviour when they tried to shave all their fur off to beat the heat! The Winnie the Pooh related bears had to stop them and said that they too were from a place not this warm and they weren't complaining or looking to shave off all their fur! Luckily after that talking to between all four bears…good sense prevailed and the Canadian Black Bears began to acclimatize.

But as is known the Production House always has some drama or the other and it normally peaks at Christmas time so if it's not one thing it's the other! The monkeys set up to guard the little mouse had invented a contraption that would send off an alarm if the cats had come within a two metres perimeter of the little mouse however it blew up! And sadly two of the monkeys got injured! Now all the animals were very, very sad and as such they all took turns taking care of these little two injured monkeys. It was surprising here to see how caring the Canadian Black Bears turned out as neither left the side of the monkeys and they used their Canadian health care plan to have medicines shipped to administer to the monkeys.

Luckily the monkeys were on the mend...

ADVENT CALENDAR DAY 7: 7 DEC 2010

After the incident with the two monkeys being injured the Purple Elephant, the little mouse, the owner of the Production House and a few of the guys in the Production House who write from the desk of UCP…Meady's Musings sister blog agreed and hatched a plan that instead of trying to ward off or combat the cats from attacking the little mouse...i.e. fighting violence with violence or counter violence...they'd try out the Gandhian principle of satyagraha on the cats!

So off they went to the library to study and research the principles and then the ten monkeys were called in to see how this satyagraha business could be strategized and implemented in the battle of the cats against the little mouse!

Stay tuned for Day 8 of the Advent calendar...tomorrow Wed 8 Dec 2010 when you will find out how this plan of satyagraha fared!

The Grand Opening of Meady's Musings Advent Calendar 2010!

2010-12-01T20:40:00.008-04:00

Nanowrimo is done and we are pleased to say we were declared a winner (look to the left for our banner) and have come out of the process with some very key and critical learnings about the writing process, procastination, self discipline and how writing can be done effectively and not so effectively but still the words be done! You see Nanorwrimo is about getting the word out...sure you might have a heck of a task editing after but it sure does get the word out but more so your creative juices get kicked out of you! We were so glad that with the kick we were able to cough up a cast of lovely characters-one of them this gorgeous little four year old girl on whose dress we got a grip of and flew to a parallel world with. You will be sure to hear more from her when we're done with the book and be sure that some of the topics in the book are normally discussed on Tumultuous Thursdays and vice versa! Also the book might even turn into a set of chronicles now since our creative juices are so flowing! So thank you Nanwrimo for giving us the big kick we needed to let her (the four year old in my book) come forth!

But guess what as nanowrimo is through guess what we have to do?

Well open the Advent calendar of course! Now the seamstress is a bit slow and she promises us she is working on lovely new clothes for the animals this year but for now they have donned last year's things because they are so lovely still and they know that the lovely seamstress will be done soon and make them even more aglow!

Brother Greg couldn't come to say an opening prayer over on UCP so we will say one of our own and declare the Advent calendar open there too. But we are sad to say that this year we will not be opening the calendar on the Books and Films Corner...

Here is how our Advent calendars will run this year. We will instead this year run it as a real bonafide Advent calendar in that is will start today 1 Dec 2010 and end on Christmas Day! And it will run only on Meady's Musings and UCP as follows:

-Meady's Musings

As we have so been inspired by Nanowrimo to stories and stories, write and write and last year we really did have fun telling Christmas stories in a sense when we had the monkeys over and this and that...so this year each day we will feature a story about the Purple Elephant and the Little Mouse and how they are preparing for Christmas. In the stories they may talk about specific things they like to use, eat, cook, read, watch or listen to but it will always be a story about them and what they are up to and whoever chooses to drop by the production house. And as last year I suspect they will have many guests!:)And who knows at the end of it we may even compile their adventures into a little e-book for you to have a constant continuous look! :)

-UCP:Universal Collective Prayer

We will keep it true to the name of the blog and explore the spiritual themes and meaning of the Advent each day on UCP's Advent calendar. Of course expect too to see Christmas Carols...good ole John Denver and all the angels and earthlings you love to join in UCP with during the Advent and all year through! And of course expect Brother Greg to join us for a special prayer on Christmas Eve night! :)

Now we ordered our lego calendar last minute so we don't have it delivered as yet...you can sure grab one last minute if you like too at Amazon as it sounds so exciting to build a Lego a day until you get to Christmas day!

And we also can't wait to get our copy of the deluxe edition dvd Peanut's Holiday Collection

So on that note...here's a tune from one of those classics!

But that Charlie Brown can be so depressing...come to think of it he ranks right up there with Melvin the depressed robot from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh! We know how it is as this feeling down thing happens to lots of us around the production house and sometimes more so at Christmas time. But hey you gotta cheer up too so here is a funner tune bringing in the Advent too!

Slumbering Saturdays: Gearing Up for Nanowrimo 2010!

2010-10-30T20:35:00.005-04:00

We're sorry for not posting any blogs on Maniac Mondays, Tumultuous Thursdays or even Funtastic Fridays this week but the Production House has just been a beehive of activity! Everyone's been swamped with their day jobs (which are needed to bring in much needed cash to buy honey and bread) and with Diwali activities...just check out UCP! So to make up for that we bring you a Slumbering Saturdays post today! Of course the house will be even more a buzz next week because some of us are going to be doing the Nanowrimo challenge for 2010! I think the cartoon says it all though! :)

So on Mon 1st Nov 2010...Nanowrimo 2010 here we come! :)

Funtastic Fridays: Auras Rising!

2010-10-22T05:40:00.005-04:00

Today on Funtastic Fridays we decided to take a break from all the talk about writing, writers and novels, and dabble into some fun of a Metaphysics kind! Many or you readers must have heard of or read of auras before...but even though it's a Friday of fun let's get the definitions clear...after all there is no work without play and so if we flip it around play can be funner if it involves and challenges the mind at times too no? Hey it must be...after all why is sudoku and other puzzle games so famously fun then?

So let's have our own kinda metaphysical puzzle fun here today on Funtastic Fridays...

According to Wikipedia an aura can be defined as follows:

Aura: "In parapsychology and many forms of spiritual practice, an aura is a field of subtle, luminous radiation surrounding a person or object (like the halo or aureola in religious art). The depiction of such an aura often connotes a person of particular power or holiness. Sometimes, however, all people, or all living things, or all objects whatsoever are said to manifest such an aura. Often it is held to be perceptible, whether spontaneously or with practice: such perception is at times linked with the third eye of Indian spirituality.[1][2] Various writers associate various personality traits with the colors of different layers of the aura.[3][4][5]

Skeptics such as Robert Todd Carroll contend that auras may be seen for reasons such as migraines, synesthesia,[6] epilepsy, a disorder within the visual system, a disorder within the brain, or due to the influence of psychedelic drugs such as LSD.[7][8] Eye fatigue can also produce an aura, sometimes referred to as eye burn."

Now let's say two people of auras of very high intensity of light meet...and well if auras are light well then according to Physics they will have some wave properties and as you study Physics at higher levels such that you bypass Newton and get to Einstein well then you have to deal with wave-particle duality but let's just stick with good ole apple falling on our heads Newtonian Physics then! :) So let's say auras are light and so then they are waves...

So if two beings with high intensity auras were to meet well if their auras were to collide that would be one very bright light! :) Wouldn't it? And wouldn't that be exciting...a meeting of auras...a meeting of minds...such that two very bright auras got even brighter...wow northern lights watch out for that natural fireworks display! :)

So let's look at it as wave theory for some puzzle fun...you see if the two auras meet to do positive i.e. for a greater good it can be seen that they meet as waves interfering in a constructive manner as oppose to a destructive manner...and the Physics of it goes well like as described on this site...

"Let us now consider two waves A and B, such that A moves to the right, and B will move to the left. At any point, the displacement is the sum of the separate displacements due to each wave. This is called the principle of superposition.

Observe what happens as the two waves move towards each other. Note that the maximum displacement of a particle in the medium is the sum of the amplitudes of the waves. If the displacement is in the same direction, as is the case here, we have a superposition called CONSTRUCTIVE INTERFERENCE."

"Consider a special case where two waves have the same amplitude and wavelength (you only see one because the one obscures the other) travelling at the same speed from left to right. The two waves are in phase, since their maxima and minima coincide exactly. The resulting wave is simply one with the same wavelength but double the amplitude:

So you get...that if two big large bright silver auras collide we'd get one big gigantic silver aura of good! :)

And according to those who claim to see, read and analyse auras like on this site...silver auras mean:

SILVER:This is the color of abundance, both spiritual and physical. Lots of bright silver can reflect to plenty of money, and/or awakening of the cosmic mind.

Often when you see a silver aura it is hard to distinguish if you are not also seeing a lot of white...so here is what white auras means as well...

WHITE:Reflects other energy. A pure state of light. Often represents a new, not yet designated energy in the aura. Spiritual, etheric and non-physical qualities, transcendent, higher dimensions. Purity and truth; angelic qualities.

White sparkles or flashes of white light: angels are nearby; can indicate that the person is pregnant or will be soon.

So sounds good huh?! :)

Maniac Mondays: Doing the Nanowrimo Thing Again!

2010-10-18T22:29:00.005-04:00

Yep we're back to talking about writing here again on Meady's Musings...the blog action is over and done...we've had our water and cleaning fun and all animals are safe, clean and dry within the house again. Some are tucked into bed...some are watching DVD after DVD in the den while others like the Purple Elephant and Little Mouse included have made it back to the library to get back pen to paper or paw to laptop!

So as readers would know some members of the Meady's Musings Production House are writing a novel...in fact one such member is the leader of the Production House herself and as crazy monkey madness as it might be she's decided to give Nanowrimo a whirl again this year! She sort of signed up for Nanowrimo in 2006 but it was more for the fun of the experience then...she had donated on behalf of the production house, bought the T-shirt and the cool poster but didn't really write much...as really 50,000 words all in the month of November...November Nonsense! But she's decided to be as mad as a March hare...crazy monkey mad and try again this year!

You know why? Cause the monkeys convinced her no doubt! LOL! But nope it's not that...it's cause Nanowrimo might just be the kick start she needs to get those words coming! If she makes the 50,000 words or not that we'll all follow and see!

In the mean time check out Nanowrimo which is a competition held every year in November where writers try to churn out 50,000 words all in the month of November...the prize being...simply meeting your goal or achieving the milestone at the end...and who knows bragging rights for your blog?

Anyway it's not quite November yet so the official word count is yet to begin so in the mean time you can catch us sharing peanuts between the Purple Elephant and the monkeys...not sure if blogging on here will count in the word count or if it must be on a specific writing project but we'll see in November...until then look for our Tumultuous Thursdays posting and remember our Funtastic Fridays blog was completed since last week but held for publishing to this week...so make sure and catch it this Friday!

Blog Action Day 2010-Water for All and Global Handwashing Day!

2010-10-15T19:33:00.006-04:00

Copyright Meady's Musings Production 2010

OMG! It's finally here...Blog Action Day 2010 and Global Handwashing Day! But if you look above you'll see the Purple Elephant and Little Mouse have been at it cleaning a while now...you see we at the production house luckily have water but not everyone is so lucky and it's what this Blog Action Day 2010 is about!

However we have a bit of another kinda housekeeping to do before we blog on about it! The Purple Elephant and Little Mouse are all a cleaning today courtesy a member of the production house that doesn't exactly live in the house but comes over ever so often to decorate things! It's the lovely Adriana Ochoa ladies and gentlemen! Thank you again so much Adri for your always fantastic and fantabulous artwork! OMG!And such a Mexican diva you are! Just look at mi elephante morado y mi ratoncito! Aawww...so hardworking are those two! :) Also there will be no Funtastic Fridays posting today although we are still having some fun with a message today but just in a different format on Blog Action Day 2010! But look for Funtastic Fridays next week as we already had a treat prepared but opted to publish this blog instead...so here it goes...

Water!

Everyone needs it to live...the human body is roughly 60% water and ideally we should drink 8 glasses a day...roughly 64 ounces...but the truth is most people can't get that much to drink in many parts of the world...and if they are lucky to even get one glass well they aren't always lucky enough that it is safe for drinking...i.e. free of waterborne diseases! Aaaw and that statement just made my purple elephant's ears droop! :(

The catch too is that disease can also spread not just in water but due to a lack of water and also soap! As many diseases are spread when germs get from one person to another who has not washed their hands properly and to do that you need soap and water! Unfortunately many people have neither!

Which is why we here at the production house are so proud of the Clean the World people for getting soap to the world and celebrated their niceness on Monday last. We hope they continue the good work...and there is always a need so keep those bars coming as they are six million bars and counting! And as a result we are joining with them today to mark Global Handwashing Day!

However the problem of water still remains adrift on the sea of need...last year we here at Meady's Musings blogged quite a bit about water for Blog Action Day 2009 as it was about Climate Change but we figured they were interconnected issues...and we have also explored the fact that water is such a great need that some religions and people of the world have chosen to deify and worship it! Check out our sister blog UCP's posting on the God series about God as Water!

So how we resolve the issue of water though?

Well for starters sign the Blog Action Day 2010 petition that appears on the top left of our screen which lends a positive voice to the UN's work to bring clean, safe water to millions.

Then...well it gets harder but here are a few suggestions from the Purple Elephant and Little Mouse who are all serious now but still having fun cleaning...but they aren't wasting water at all...you see how they are using buckets and not hoses...so there!

But here is the list seriously now of a few charities involved in getting water to the world!

Clean Water for Haiti

Project Clean Water's Give a Drop

The Water Project: Clean Water to Africa and India

Give Water, Give Life

Tumultuous Thursdays: Getting into Character

2010-10-14T19:40:00.005-04:00

We slip back into the library for today until we head back out again tomorrow for Blog Action Day 2010. And as we sit here those characters are in our head again as this week on Tumultuous Thursdays we continue our Writing series (producing the blog we should have last Thursday when we ended up slipping down that rabbit hole for too long and never came back in time to write it) So here it is this week...
So recall first of all our cartoon from that Funtastic Fridays posting...

Now recently J.K. Rowling aka Jo shared this on Oprah:
"At age 25, Jo was riding on a delayed train from Manchester to London when one single idea flashed into her mind: Boy doesn't know he's a wizard, goes to wizard school. After that, Jo says her mind was flooded with ideas for Harry Potter.
"I don't think I had ever felt so excited. I thought, 'I'd love to write that,'" she says. "I'd never thought about writing for children—I'd never thought about aiming anything at that age group. And yet it was the thing that I was meant to write."
"
And the lady who wrote the Twilight series, Stephenie Meyer says this about her inspiration to write on the bio of her official website:
"woke up from a dream featuring seemingly real characters that she could not get out of her head.
"Though I had a million things to do, I stayed in bed, thinking about the dream. Unwillingly, I eventually got up and did the immediate necessities, and then put everything that I possibly could on the back burner and sat down at the computer to write—something I hadn't done in so long that I wondered why I was bothering." "

So it's making us here at the Meady's Musings Production House wonder if could it be that this post is very fittingly written on a Tumultuous Thursdays slot? Because could it be that these characters in the heads of these others are really people and beings in parallel worlds trying to make a connection here with our world through the hands and minds of our authors? Could it be?...

So our authors here on earth in this world are merely like mediums they are just the vessel...the conduit through which the message comes...well that's not so farfetched a thought as many authors officially write as mediums...they tell you up front they are 'channelling'...and then of course there is the concept of the muse...so maybe it's a combination or a bit of this and a bit of that...

So maybe it's not one thing but perhaps at least three! Either one or the other or a combination of the three as below that makes writers write!:

1. Mediums: authors who really are just challenging some being's thoughts through their pens...or typing fingers!

2. Semi-Mediums: authors who get these thoughts or flashes or ideas or characters popping into their heads but still are very much in control of their own thoughts when they have them...and then combine their thoughts or are just inspired by the one off flashing idea or thought to put forward their thoughts as stories.

3. Muses: Celestial or spiritual beings or animals or things that just come before authors and enable them to write. Their very presence or passing through the author’s however momentarily enables the author to write. And we here at Meady’s Musings Production House have our share of those we will tell you so! Apart from the Purple Elephant and Little Mouse that lives with us...there is the little manicou that started it all...and he doesn’t live with us...as one can really never entrap a muse...it is a free flowing being that comes and goes as it pleases...so he sometimes comes to the production house but doesn’t not live with us like the Purple Elephant and Little Mouse as they aren’t exactly muses but our animal characters that more represent the spirit of the house...our mascots or logo so to speak...different from our manicou muse!

Now as to whether these beings come from parallel worlds well it could be quite true you know...well look at how many authors even write of parallel worlds in a way...Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland....C.S. Lewis’s Narnia Chronicles...and even in Harry Potter they go off into this parallel world no? So it must be true...it must be true we think!

So what are the characters in your head? Come on...you can tell us...can’t you?

Maniac Mondays: Let's Clean the World!

2010-10-11T05:25:00.001-04:00

Photo courtesy the Clean the World website

The Purple Elephant and the Little Mouse have stepped away from their writing desks and come out of the library as today on Meady’s Musings we take a break from our writing themes as we join tails, whiskers, trunks and hands with a worthy cause! However before we go on about the cause let’s first apologize for missing last week’s Tumultuous Thursdays post but we had slipped down a rabbit hole and couldn’t return in time to write. So this coming Thursday for sure you will hear about those ‘characters in our heads’ as we continue our series on writing! But for now on with the cause…

Since the head of our Production House was off on vacation in Shanghai earlier this year she had emailed the production house to let the entire house know that when she was back we would be sure to do a post about this marvelous charity she had found out about but we’ve not put paw to keypad or trunk to pen since! She had stumbled across this charity while searching online travelling sites to find fun and interesting things and places in Shanghai…and here is what our lovely leader found…

SOAP!

Yes readers…SOAP…lots and lots of it! For years our leader and others at the production house had often ourselves wondered what to do with the little bits of soap that remain before the bar is all done…many of us tried to use it right down to the end…but so many of use don’t and what about all that extra soap and shampoo at hotels? It’s why these people could be found advertising on travel sites because hotels must be the biggest source….after all many guests don’t stay to use the bars to the end and well most guests won’t continue to use old bars…no siry they want new ones…so what can a hotel do with all the extra left over used soap and shampoo?

Well send it to these people if they don’t already!

The lovely people at CLEAN THE WORLD!

Six Million bars and counting! :)

And already all these hotels as listed on this linked page are Participating Partners with Clean the World.

Clean the World and their Participating Partners make us here at the Meady’s Musings Production House so happy!

And we here at the Production House are going to be stepping away from our writing desks this Friday as well to join other bloggers to celebrate Blog Action Day 2010! And guess what we are talking about...water…getting water to all the world over…aah and you know what they say about soap and water …so it’s quite fitting that those guys at Clean The World are also celebrating Global Handwashing Day on Fri 15 Oct 2010 as well! Aah…anyone for a bath?! The purple elephant is washing...he already has his scrubby thingy in his trunk!

But the reality is that many in the world don’t have clean and safe supplies of water nor enough soap! And if they did it could help reduce the risk of many a disease!

So get those pens out or fingers to keyboard and sign those petitions, send those emails, blog on! As we gear up to celebrate Blog Action Day and Global Handwashing Day to get water and soap to all the people of the world! The Purple Elephant already has his spongy thingy in his trunk as I told you and the little mouse is gathering all his old rags and buckets to collect water...as we hear the news that the UK Foreign Office and the White House also plan to join in on Fri...HURRAY...WATER FOR THE WORLD! :)

Maniac Mondays: On Writing and Location

2010-10-04T18:01:00.018-04:00

As promised in our Funtastic Fridays post today we plan to explore the impact that the location at which you're at has on your ability to write.

Members of the production house themselves have been considering the pros and cons of it and here are some of their thoughts...

First of all location can affect our writing ability in two ways and so we shall analyze it as such:

1. A location's ability to inspire us to write. (Sometimes the location also ends up in the story as a result.)
2. A location's ability to enable us to write or not write i.e. based on it's comfort, noise level etc. (this can be summarised as a writer's workspace)

Of course often a location can serve both purposes as well...but for now let's look at point one first...

LOCATIONS THAT INSPIRE WRITERS

A. A. Milne himself had his enchanted place that the head of our production house herself visited earlier this year...see picture below....

And the place not only inspired him to write but it also appeared as the Enchanted Place in his literary works about that silly ole bear called Winnie the Pooh!

It must be true that awesome sights and sounds of nature can inspire writers...especially the ones who are writing about nature or animals in children books say...surely it was the significant time that Kenneth Grahame spent in the English countryside that enabled and inspired him to write about a toad, a river mouse, a mole and a badger! :) And it would have been that same countryside that inspired the stories that Richard Adams told to his children which became Watership Down! (and at the mention of that book several members of the production house screw up their faces after having to labour through its study in high school...can't say it's a fav here at the production house but certainly The Wind in the Willows and Winnie the Pooh are!)

LOCATION AS IN A WRITER'S WORKSPACE

Now everyone is not the same (just recall this blogpost that we keep having to draw reference to time and time again)...we are all unique and here for a unique purpose! So in the same way each writer is different and writers aren't all writing in the same genre. So one writer might be able to write comfortably on a train while one might need a comfy desk...one might be fine writing on a beach while one may prefer to be in a log cabin in the Canadian Rockies...some can write at home while others need to be away in a separate space...away from everyday distractions...

So here's a look at the writing spaces of some popular artists as it appears in a Guardian series called Writer's rooms.

But just remember in the end the most important space or location is the one in your head or that virtual space that you visualize where your novel pans out...where your characters meet in your head! Just remember that J.K. Rowling made do with writing her novel where ever she could afford to...because in the end what's important is...them...the characters...in your head like zombies! LOL! It's why they will form part of our Tumultuous Thursdays blogpost later this week...look for it...as we plan to combine two blogs into one in a way...we will still keep metaphysics in mind yet talk about writing...you can't miss it! :) But in the meantime those characters are getting into you head...ZOMBIE! "Oh no...I'm not the same as I was when I woke up this morning" (and that just reminds us so much of something Alice said while in Wonderland! LOL!)So we leave you to it until Thursday...ZOMBIE!

Funtastic Fridays: I'm Writing a Book and Getting Into Character!

2010-10-01T05:37:00.010-04:00

We're sorry for this late edition of Funtastic Fridays (back dated and really done on a Sunday) and that we've not posted anything else on Meady's Musings for the week. We've been thinking, researching, travelling about a bit (perhaps looking for ideal writing locations) and as a whole wondering about two main things:

1. the location from where writers write

2. the ability of writers to become the characters which they write about while they are going through the writing process!

Our Maniac Mondays and Tumultuous Thursdays blog posts this coming week will cover our thoughts and experiences on these two topics but until then we thought we'd lead up to it with these two hopefully at least slightly funny cartoons you see above! Which we did using the Hasta Milan website:)

Maniac Mondays: On Reading and Writing

2010-09-20T21:58:00.007-04:00

Copyright Meady's Musings Production 2009

The animals are all excited at the Meady’s Musings Production House. The Purple Elephant is using his giant trunk to pull books down from the highest shelves while the little mouse is scurrying around picking up the ones that his sometimes clumsy trunk may drop...but luckily so far...no injuries!

You see we’ve decided to write an experimental novel here at Meady’s Musings and allow our readers to join in the process. Perhaps you can even drop by the Deliciously Divine cafe! We know it's been open in the past but it was closed for renovations and has re-opened once more! :)

Now most great writers will tell you they are also avid readers though...and so we’ve been following suit and pulling down the books to peruse...but we’re just passionate readers anyway and to be honest sometimes when we write not a word we instead read many! But seriously, we doubt you’ll find many writers who aren’t also readers and so today on Meady’s Musings as we start the experimental writing process we share with you our top ten fav reads ever! We may have shared them somewhere or the other before...perhaps when we had our Books and Films Corner blog active (which by the way may become active again for our 2010 Advent calendar so it's not altogether dead) but here are those books again!

-Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie
-Red Earth and Pouring Rain by Vickram Chandra
-Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame
-The Narnia Chronicles by C.S. Lewis
-The Road Less Travelled by M.Scott Peck
-Joy: The Happiness that Comes from Within by OSHO
-From Sex to Superconsciousness by OSHO (aka Sex Matters...the truth is you can just check out the whole OSHO library in a virutal way here and save some of those trees!)
-By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept by Paulo Coelho
-The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
-The Witch of Portobello by Paulo Coelho

Also you might want to check out this book on Amazon where famous writers talk about their favourite reads!

We've also asked several of our monkey friends to come over who hadn't visited since Christmas as their prehensile tails (you know we've always wanted one btw) can come in handy to move those books around! :)

And guess what most and foremost we've taken out the Meady's Musings reading and writing bears if you look above! :)

Dreams and Dreaming Series: Creative Visualizations and What 's Next at the Meady's Musings Production House

2010-09-16T20:28:00.000-04:00

A man sits during a break from his work admist the bustle that is Shanghai's main Financial Centre...in a small park...meditating...it was whatto us here at Meady's Musings something we took away as a hallmark of the city!:) Meady's Musings Production 2010.

Today on Tumultuous Thursdays we bring the Dreams and Dreaming Series to a close at least for now...we hope it was fun and this post will send it off with a bang! We know we never did do any cartoons or Funtastic Fridays postings during the series and so from time to time we may put a cartoon up on a Friday that has the same theme as the series if we feel so inspired to create one...but for now let’s say goodbye to the Dreams and Dreaming series folks!

As promised when we daydreamed on Maniac Mondays we said we’d continue on about Creative Visualizations today on Tumultuous Thursdays. Now what we were saying on Monday is that Creative Visualizations can come about as a result of a form of day dreaming or we can be in a dream like state when have creative visualizations. In fact not only that though some of us can have creative visualizations in our fully asleep dreams as well...just look at how Kekule had dreamt up the benzene ring and remember one of the our dreams over on the UCP desk...here about Shiv?

So for sure in the dream like state we can create...you see here we are free from the restrictions of the ‘real world’ and so our mind feels freer to challenge the status quo, innovate, bend the rules and push the envelopes. So for sure it is a place where the newest and grandest things can be born...

Many of the great achievements of the world must be born in this state...some of us call it meditation but as we were saying on the day dreaming blog post...sometimes day dreaming in its highest state can be meditation...because you see to meditate we don’t have to officially sit in yoga position and close or eyes and all of that...although it is a sure fire and grand way to do it and Shiv is always our friend and the supreme yogi to learn that from if we so desire...but there are many pathways that can bring us to ‘the state’ and it is ‘the state’ that is important not the path that we take to get there. ‘The state’ we refer to is when we think of nothing and our minds are totally blank and then...creation just rushes in and flows through us and what we see then is the ultimate in creative visualizations....

So here at the Meady’s Musings Production House we are going to be very busy and so the blog is going to take a different turn...for the next few weeks we are going to finally use the inspirations we had in the dreams and dreaming series and in particular our day dreaming fest over last weekend (that we blogged about on Monday) and all the things we have pondered on and learnt about over the years and our creative visualizations are going to be bursting forth as we finally start work on our book!

As we are working on it we will give you snippets of it and the process on Mondays and Thursdays and from time to time we will still shoot you a cartoon or some Purple Elephant and Little Mouse fun on a Friday. We will on a Thursday from time to time still get metaphysical so don’t worry you metaphysics fans...the Reincarnation Series is still there to carry forth and we will visit many a Parallel World yet...so in fact we might mostly confine our writing blogs to Mondays and on Thursdays we’ll try as much as possible to keep up with the metaphysics! As aah...it can be so much fun! And will try for some fun on the Friday too OK so do continue to tune in!

Maniac Mondays:Dreams and Dreaming Series-Day Dreaming!:)

2010-09-13T03:00:00.001-04:00

So far on the Dreams and Dreaming Series we've only focussed on the kinda dreaming we do when we close or eyes...but what about the kind that we do with our eyes open...day dreaming?!:) In fact that to me is the most beautiful kind of all!:)And if you couple it with the kinda sleeping we like to do on a Slumbering Saturday i.e. like you day dream then you doze off a bit for 'cat nap' or a 'doggy doze'...well it's just oh so sweet!:)It must be so much fun for cats and dogs...but I feel it's even funner for us people folks if it is true that our brains are bigger...although who knows if we are really smarter but if we are with all that extra activity going on in there...boy the fun!:)

So today on Maniac Mondays when let's face it we more feel like the song says... 'It's just another Manic Monday' and who wants to get out of bed at 6 o' clock... and in reality many of us at the Meady's Musings Production House need to get up well before that o' clock...so it's a fitting post isn't it?

So here we go dancing and spinning into it...

When we doze off into the dreaming state it can be oh so lovely...

DAY DREAMING OF NOTHING-THE HIGHEST FORM OF MEDITATION?
First of all day dreaming in it's highest sense is to us here at Meady's Musings when you think well...of nothing really...and this kind of day dreaming can happen well whenever...it has happened to one of us at the Production House here already...we were just standing in a line and waiting and not knowingly we just started to stare at a spot on the floor and twirling the hair we sort of drifted away well into the spot...we don't know how long we were 'there' and had not a clue what we were thinking about so it must have been 'nothing' when we were aroused by it seems someone staring away at us staring away at a spot in the floor...hmmm...perhaps could it be that...that person was day dreaming of us as we day dreamed? Hmmm...it is something we will never know...but what we have since read and heard of is that this kind of thing can be the highest form of meditation...you just slip into a place of thinking of nothing really...now the funniest thing is people who are all into meditation, strive and aspire for this highest form of meditation...when really look at some of us at the Production House...we just twirl our hair away and slip there without even adopting a yoga position even! :) You see we've since experienced and read as well that some do consider the twirling of hair to be a deeply relaxing, meditative kinda thing...yep I know people might also consider it an 'air headed girly bad habit' or something girls do or even grown women do to let men know they are interested i.e. flirt...or some see it as a sign of distraction...but really it could also just be the nicest, sweetest, twirliest thing to do while we slip away into nothingness and come out of it all brand new!:) Also tough, twirling the hair can be done when we are at the deepest points of contemplation so nothing 'air headed' there! :) Also no twirling of hair is necessary of course...the point is sometimes we can dream of nothing at all and when we do this we are perhaps experiencing what is the highest form of meditation!

DAY DREAMING OF THE DIVINE OR SOMEONE OR SOMETHING SIMPLY SUBLIME!:)
Now secondly there is the kinda day dreaming where we focus solely on this one thing or person or some of us like the guys who work the UCP desks over on our sister blog perhaps the Divine Infinite One it/him/herself!:)On one end of the spectrum this kinda day dreaming might take the form of infatuation,lust or obssession but on the other end of the spectrum it can be seen as the ultimate form of love! So perhaps this kinda day dreaming...hmmm...is a kinda yoga in itself too...well at least when done on the love end of the spectrum especially when it's for love of the Divine Infinite One then for sure it is Bhakti (Love) Yoga...but what of it on the other end of the spectrum? Dunno...I guess then it can be bad if it gets out of hand...I mean it can't be good to obssess so much on one thing or person...funny thing though...it's not good to do it unless it's the Divine Infinite One...but this makes sense you see...because when you day dream about the Divine Infinite One you are then seeing 'all as one and one as all' so you are really not at all obssessing on one thing anymore because you are seeing this one thing in everything so you end up just into it all and that can't be a bad thing! But let's face it most of us are obssessing on one thing and one person...but we'll not beat up on ourselves here...and if done with control and we can come out of it with a clear head without harming anyone or ourselves...it's great to do it sometimes...once not for very long! LOL! And yes indeed sometimes as we do that we exhalt these things or people so much that we make them something of the sublime! Even when sometimes they're not...in fact sometimes they're total weirdos that we make out to be all of this and that...LOL!...but hey that's the fun of existence isn't it? Aaah...to be in love even if in the end it is all in vain...aah!:)

DAY DREAMING AND CREATIVE VISUALIZATION!
Finally the third kinda day dreaming is the kind where we don't just sit in awe and wonder about a thing or a person or the Divine Infinite....no we dream up things...activities...actions...whether it be with the things or persons we discussed in the second kinda day dreaming above or just all and all out 'movies made up in our head' of just totally arbitrary or imaginary things and people! Now in a sense this can be seen as the lowlest level of day dreaming...if we are looking at it from the point of view that in this realm of day dreaming you are really furthest away from the realm of 'spirit' when compared to the other two types discussed above...because in this type of day dreaming you interact the most with the material world...it is the most 'real' kinda day dreaming you can do...so in one sense it's 'low' in that it is the most materialistic. But in another sense it can be seen as the most productive kinda day dreaming in that it is with actions and plans and this and that...it is the most 'real' kinda day dreaming...it is the realm of day dreaming where you can get the most 'realisitic things' coming out of it. We believe that it is on this realm of day dreaming where we can do our most and best creative visualizations as well! :) So really in a sense it has to be the funnest kinda day dreaming! Here we can think up things we want to see happen...we can build castles in the air even!:) And on that note we leave you to your day dreams of whatever kind you like as on our Tumultous Thursdays blog post this week we shall explore more of creative visualizations...

So until then keep building Castles in the Air and being a Day Dream Believer! ENJOY! :)

Tumutuous Thursdays:Dreams and Dream Series-Do the Blind See in Their Dreams?

2010-09-09T05:00:00.001-04:00

Approximately a year and a half ago when Meady's Musings Production in the persona of Babita Dubay used to hang out tons on the Intent online community. An interesting discussion emerged on the topic: Do the Blind See in Their Dreams? So today as part of our Dreams and Dreaming Series we thought we'd re-blog this post for you as it for sure was a very insightful discussion and most fitting metaphysically for a dreams and dreaming series on this a Tumultuous Thursday! :)

Enjoy!

"You need to go here to view it as all the discussion takes place on the Intent community itself. However below is the introductory post we wrote that got it all started! :)

Here is something I want to ask of the Intent community. I'm not posting this from any of my blogs just asking here...Do the Blind See in Their Dreams?

I got to wondering about it today...I mean I know people who are currently blind but at one point could see I've been told that they see in their dreams. What they see are memories of when they were sighted. I've not met anyone who is blind in person and asked them so I get this information only from what I've read about it etc. So it would be interesting to hear about this.

Because was now reading about something where a person who was blind all his life describes his dreams as being in sound only like listening to the radio...although in his dreams he didnt need to be helped he just got to one place from the other automatically when he wished it.

Then it got me to thinking if dreaming is like that for someone who was blind all their life on earth doesn't it bring into question how metaphyhsical a dream can be? I mean if there is a level of dreaming where we can connect with the divine and or the spirit world wouldn't we then be able to see?

Would love to hear what you all think about this or experiences or information you may have about this..."

Maniac Mondays:Dreams and Dreaming Series-Healing in Our Dreams!

2010-09-06T05:33:00.002-04:00

'Guardian Angel'-copyright free reprint of a work of art.

Recently a friend dropped by the ‘Production House’ with sad news and a wish that all at the house-the little mouse, Purple Elephant and all other animals included would say a prayer to heal the grief of someone close to them. You see that person had just lost a pet. One of us at the Production House recalled this prayer on losing a pet from Doreen Virtue's book-‘Healing with the Angels’:

‘Dearest God,

I know that no one and nothing can truly ever be lost, since You are omnipresent and can see everything and everyone.
I affirm that nothing is lost in the eyes of God.
I ask that You, Archangel Michael, Archangel Raphael, the nature angels, and my guardian angels help me reunite with my pet right now.
I call upon the guardian angels of my pet to send a signal so I may find my pet.
I now relax, knowing that God, the angels and my higher self are already communing with my pet.

Thank you.’

And then recalled when they had lost their pet German Shepherd and a few days after his passing dreamt him playing at the foot of a green, grassy hill. He was at the peak of health in the dream and he was tossing this brick and playing with as he did in real life pretending to growl, attack and tug at it! There was a little house atop the hill and it made the dreamer feel that their pet was all safe, healthy, happy and sound at home where he belonged! It was the ultimate healing dream for the dreamer!

Upon hearing this dream another person at the Production House popped up their hand into the air and exclaimed that they too also had something to share. Not about a pet this time but something that to them was the ultimate healing dream ever! The Maximus of Maximuses! The real McCoy! :)

It was a dream that totally washed them and they have not been the same ever since! Born afresh…finally shedding years and years of baggage and resentment, pain, suffering and loss all in one dream! They asked that we not shared the details of the dream here and so we must respect this wish. However, here were some of the symbols the person had in that dream:

-An old priest (who was also very dear to them) sat with a glow to him
-A new born baby also glowing sat on the old priest’s lap
-A stream with a clear distinction that things were on one bank and over the water on the on the other bank were all these new things.

And this dream was dreamt on the morning of Diwali which Hindus consider to be the start of the financial New Year. Again a new beginning...and notice the water presence in this dream too…

So until our Tumultuous Thursdays posting in the Dreams and Dreaming Series…Dream On! And keep healing in your dreams too just like everyone at our Production House…human and animals! :)

And while you pass by our house look atop to see our new welcome mat! It has the Purple Elephant’s name all done up together with that inseparable little mouse! :)

Tumultuous Thursdays:Dreams and Dreaming Series-Water as a Conduit to Other Worlds

2010-08-12T21:01:00.000-04:00

Stock Photo: Young girl coming up from underwater in a pool.

We dream...we all know that...some of us recall them...some of us don't at least not all of the time...some are said to dream in black and white others in colour...some of us have even go as far as to dream lucidly but do any of us know for real what these dreams are made of? There are Freudian and Jungian twists on dreams and their meanings and these must be the most famous views on dreams out there...but what do you think of all of this?

On this Tumultuous Thursdays' installation of the Dreams and Dreaming series we on Meady's Musings delve into our understanding of the role of water as a conduit to other worlds while in the dream state! Hopefully we won't get into deep!

WATER

Photo of girl underwater published from this site

To us it is the conduit between this world and others...and sometimes when we dream we can gain access to these worlds...however these are very rare and powerful dreams where the dreamer can cross into a world that is not really meant to be accessed while in the flesh...as a result the dreamer can only visit this world for a fixed small window of a time.

A human member of the Meady's Musings Production House had a dream like this once...where like the girl in our opening picture she emerged from the surface of the water at the start of her dream after pushing upwards against the surface tension of the water coming up for strong pulls of air! The dreamer then stepped on 'land' which was this place with white floors, an aisle with many doors at each side. This white place was perched where for instance the sand on the beach would be have been if you emerged from an ocean onto an island! The dreamer was in no beach scene however and was in a very big hurry...rushing out the water still breathless...running up and down the aisle trying to open door after door but not being able to as much as they tried to pull it open with all their force and might! At this stage the dreamer was panicked and very disturbed...heart racing...for the dreamer knew they were in a hurry and needed to get the door open...get behind one of the doors any one before they shut close...

You see the night the dreamer had this dream someone very close to the dreamer was in a critical condition at hospital...the person did stabilise the morning the dreamer woke up but later in the morning passed on shedding the mortal coil to join the great divine!

In retrospect, the dreamer believes in that window of time she was trying to catch the soul of her loved one while it was 'travelling' to this other world...but the dreamer wasn't allowed to see or enter that world...however the dreamer was so emotionally attached...so connected to the person who was journeying and this was a mutual connection that the dreamer was able to go just that far! Right up to where a person who were to stay alive on this material plane/world and continue to human flesh embody could go! You see we believe it was the dreamer's soul that had journeyed too up to where its loved one's soul was going but for it to remain in flesh and remain alive unlike its loved one...who was dying and would eventually die...well it couldn't see...it couldn't go past the door! Based on the close connection the loved one and the dreamer had too...we believe it was a mutual desire for both the dreamer to go as far as they could go and for the loved one to have the dreamer stay with them and accompany them up to there as well!

Weeks after the loved one's death itself the dreamer again had these kind of dreams where it appeared the dreamer was accompanying the loved one up to a point...that particular dream however involved a tunnel not water...and we will talk about tunnels in our next Tumultuous Thursdays session...but it is also interesting to note on closing that it appears too that water is a conduit to a world where souls have not yet left the mortal coil...but is 'travelling' i.e. in transit out of the mortal coil to only be in soul form but not quite yet...whilst by the time you cross the door and get to tunnels well you have died...souls in tunnels have already left the mortal coil...ones on the other end of water are leaving the mortal coil but have not quite done so i.e. died yet!

Whoops! Seems we really did get in too deep! But on to more shallow waters and dreamers do dream! :)

An Apology on a Wednesday...

2010-07-28T05:34:00.002-04:00

AN APOLOGY TO READERS YET AGAIN!

Oh dear! We’ve not done as we planned or promised last week and that cannot be a good thing or a reader’s treat! We’ve not blogged on Tumultuous Thursdays about dreams and dreaming nor made fun of them on Funtastic Fridays...to be honest we really don’t know what to say…

But we aren’t almost even here this week too…the muse the muse always blame the muse…the Purple Elephant and the Little Mouse they are firmly planted though-Thank you! But the muse he is actually flashing right now as I speak or type! Not flashing as going naked after all he is a manicou so already au naturel so no…no…I mean he seems to be here for a second and then disappears another but he slips back and forth from here to not here so quickly that he almost appears to be going on and off like a blinking light! Oh dear!…I’m told it happens when you travel too often and in close succession across parallel worlds…there comes a time when you are neither here nor there or anywhere…oh dear! Unless perhaps you’re everywhere!

Luckily as of this morning… the Little mouse came to my door…he was perched on the shoulder of the Purple Elephant so he could reach up to the level of my ears so I could hear him. “Aaaaww!” was my first cry when he incredibly bashfully bestowed onto me a bouquet made of four purple flowers and three sunflowers with sprigs of this twig or the other all wrapped together in a bow and said,

“Miss Dubay this will make him stay for sure!”

then the Purple Elephant trumpeted unfortunately waking the whole house up! You see we have guests, not as many as last Christmas but quite a few monkeys are with us but they luckily weren’t in bad spirits and instead decided to have an early breakfast scratching their heads while they peeled their bananas as they also tried to solve the problem of my manicou muse for me! Mouse, elephant and monkeys all poured over the ‘Book of Words and Light’ where they read of the use of purple flowers, sunflowers but more so that the use of love and light and yep UCP-Universal Collective Prayer could help me! So we followed the book and then ‘poof’ and as I looked up from where I knelt with sunflower pollens glistening from my cheeks…there it unfolded before me…and Lo and Behold there was my muse again fully formed standing all solid, not blinking, safe and sound before me!

You see in all seriousness and reality I recalled that all my words and speech come from the Divine Mother upon whom I ought to surrender! It’s not like I’ve not done so time and time again in the past as I’ve often shared on UCP but of lately I think I needed to be reminded…reminded that she is the speech…in the form of the Vedic Goddess Saraswati she rides a swan and is the ‘vac’ which translated from the Sanskrit means the speech, the word…the spoken word…the voice… However she is also the Goddess of learning and so really one cannot have even any writing without her since when we type it comes forth from an inner voice…so I had lost my voice both inner and outer…but me and all the animals sat in UCP and surrendered onto the Divine Mother in the form of Saraswati who according to this lovely Vedic prayer sits in the middle of our palms…she was always there… if we only had looked to see! …with the Goddess Lakshmi at our finger tips and Govinda at the base of the palms...

So too in the words of Don Henley in the movie Michael…it came through our hands!

Don Henley - Through Your Hands Lyrics
"You were dreamin'
On a park bench
'bout a broad highway somewhere
When the music from the carillon
Seemed to hurl your heart out there
Past the scientific darkness
Past the fireflies that float
To an angel bending down
To wrap you in his warmest coat

And you ask
What am I not doing
He says
Your voice cannot command
In time you will move mountains
And it will come through your hands

Still you argue for an option
Still you angle for your case
Like you wouldn't know a burning bush
If it blew up in your face
Yeah, we scheme about the future
And we dream about the past
When just a simple reaching out
Might build a bridge that lasts

And you ask
What am I not doing
He says
Your voice cannot command
In time you will move mountains
And it will come through your hands
Through your hands

So whatever your hands find to do
You must do with all your heart
There are thoughts enough
To blow men's minds
And tear great worlds apart
There's a healing touch to find you
On that broad highway somewhere
To lift you high
As music flyin'
Through the angel's hair

Don't ask what you are not doing
Because your voice cannot command
In time we will move mountains
And it will come through your hands"

So I post to you really today on a Wednesday but I will back track the blog post I’m about to do on Meady’s Musings and it will read as a Maniac Mondays post to keep with the format of the blog. While on UCP, I will be publishing as of today. So now I am all good thanks to the Goddess Saraswati and will continue my dreams and dreaming series on Meady’s Musings and today on UCP will launch that God series! Shiv it is as we launch that series! And on Meady’s Musings get those pillows out…it’s dream time! (Of course this post will appear as if it was done the Monday before)

Maniac Mondays:Dreams and Dreaming Series-The Subconscious?

2010-07-26T05:32:00.004-04:00

OK over the weekend while we were filled with worries over the state of our muse we decided to take a break from it all and see if we could cheer ourselves up so we went to the movies. Now coincidentally this ‘Dreams and Dreaming’ series is going on while at the cinema, dreams are having their heyday as well! As the movie ‘Inception’ is on the loose! It’s no doubt a very entertaining Hollywood flick and no doubt made with the right formula so soon it will be a video game if one doesn’t already exist for all we know! And there are the four levels and the idea of a little piece of gadgetry that could make people not just have a shared dream on one level but take them down to various levels of each other’s dream further and further to their core and get this not only can it do that but it can do it selectively because you see at each level they had to leave someone behind to hold on to the gadgetry and make sure they stayed ‘all safe’ at that level! LOL! Now seriously it was a great film though…the kind that very rarely happens where you are glued from start to end! But this is not a film review…we just thought it made sense that we give hats off to the film or perhaps try to let our little mouse catch hold of the tail end of it’s cloak so it can enjoy a bit of the magical wind as this film soars at the box office! LOL! After all it is this blog that is virtually unknown and the film ‘Inception’ is on every twittering twit’s lips! LOL!

However there is something potent we took away from the film apart from pure entertainment and we will discuss it today as part of the dreams and dreaming series but before we go there let’s look at the landscape set for dreams in Inception and compared it to two other films we’ve enjoyed with dreamy landscapes. You see we don’t think dreams would unfold like it did in this film at all…although they get the idea that dreams are indeed unbounded creation we think the way they portrayed ‘said unlimited creation’ on film was very limited. You see they were more trying to rake in the audience with the whole action thriller thing mixed up in there you know the chase against guns and time! LOL! But in doing so they missed truly capturing the boundless world of creation dreams can be! We think this is best portrayed in the films ‘What Dreams May Come’ and the more recent ‘The Lovely Bones’ although of course these films are more showing us the world after the ultimate dream that is death we think their portrayals are a lot like the dreams we have while alive too! And after all for centuries many have alluded that our dreams are a portal world to the afterlife! But really it must be how dreams unfold instead in these two films and not like in Inception…dreams aren’t clinical like that…having said that we have a group of friends who engage in lucid dreaming and perhaps their dreams must more be like in ‘Inception’ then? We plan to have them on here blogging in one of our Tumultuous Thursdays spot so look for lucid dreaming as a topic her on the series soon!

But here at the Meady’s Musings Production house everyone has dreams that are more like in ‘What Dreams May Come’ and ‘Lovely Bones’ and yes the Purple Elephant and Little Mouse they too experience dreams! Just ask them one of these days and they will give you an earful of them! We also find that water seems to be something potent and perhaps a conduit between this world and other worlds in dreams and one of us at the house once had this very profound dream where she was swimming underwater and then came up for air in this place with doors and a corridor only and she kept trying to open each door but it was locked to her! Incidentally she had this dream the night someone very dear to her at the Meady’s Musings Production house was dying and so we staunchly believe that was her attempt to travel into the afterlife to see where he was going but of course she wasn’t allowed to enter! And I guess rightly so…as it was not yet her time…

However now back to topic…let’s discuss that potent thing we took away from the film ‘Inception’. The idea of the subconscious fiercely looking in at ‘others’ in the dream and eventually wanting to kill them in the dream hence ending it and so eliminating them from their dream world! Well and here comes in the picture we have up today that we took while in Suzhou in China!

People watch me shoot them watching me as I ride on the boat in the canal. Suzhou, China June 2010. Copyright Meady’s Musings Production 2010.

It’s always funny to take pics of people who are taking pics of you or taking pics of some tourist site this way while you are taking another pic of some other tourist site that way! OMG! But what we found even funnier was while we were riding the boat in the canal at Suzhou folks were looking at us at the side so when we took the pictures from the boat it looked as if they were looking at us in this kind of who are these strange people be gone from our realm away already! LOL! And that’s just like how in ‘Inception’ the people in the dream who represents the dreamer’s subconscious wanted to attack people who invaded its dreamers dream! It’s funny no? Don’t you think they look that way in this pic?

It also makes us wonder just how much are our dreams really are about this subconscious. And what really is going on in our subconscious anyway? Can it really be that easily manipulated and is it ’who’ we really are? All at the Meady’s Musings Production house have a large headache now on both the conscious and subconscious level pondering that! So we give it up to these folks at Yale who the New York Times wrote about here…coffee anyone?

Until next time dream on…

Maniac Mondays on the Dreams and Dreaming Series: Let's Get this Slumber Party Started Right Now!

2010-07-19T22:36:00.000-04:00

Portrait of Quan Yin as it hung in my bedroom while on vacation, Jun 07

It's time to dream on this Maniac Monday...now as followers of this blog will know on Maniac Mondays we normally discuss things that affect our day to day lives or things we are up to and as we promised in our introduction to this Dreams and Dreaming series we are going to run this series for a while (possibly a month) however it will run on each of our normal blog days-Monday, Thursday and Friday and on each of those days take on the slant of that blog day. So today we will look at Dreams and Dreaming from the Maniac Mondays point of view.

So here it is...here it is!

Of recent weeks since our return from vacation we have been in dreams galore...night after night we recall our dreams something that doesn't always happen for us...perhaps during our time in China we were blessed by the goddess Quan Yin and she has opened us up to the world of dreams and dreaming...we for sure had a lovely first meeting with her when she made us feel so at peace and protected back in 2007 while on a visit to San Francisco. And we took a picture of her back then...we didn't know her name then as we had only met her by iconography then but from the image we felt her sailing on a dragon...sailing on the sea of our dreams with magic potion in her hand guarding us from the bad dreams that we felt the dragon symbolised, and soothing and healing us into lovely restful happy dreams sleep!:)

So as we explore dreams and dreaming from our personal experiential slant today on Maniac Mondays we will share with you a dream I had just a week after returning from vacation...however I was rudely awaken in the middle of it! By my mother no doubt! LOL! But it deeply bothered me because I so so wanted to know what would happen next...I even had it up as my Facebook status as I was so ticked! And I began to get advice from others on how to deal with it! I also specifically asked friends who I had met on the Intent online community and gotten to know there that they were into lucid dreaming, their opinion...and if they also knew if I could somehow get back to the dream to find out what happened to that guy in the brown suit! Aaawww! If only! But most of them told me you can't get back to a dream by use of lucid dreaming... Aaawww! :(

But the most marvelous conversation was triggered off as a result of this dream as three of my friends from Intent(now also my friends on Facebook) and I pondered on who this guy in the brown suit could be...

You see my re-collection of the dream went something like this!

-Well when I was awoken from the dream this guy was in a brown suit...when I say suit I don't mean like a men's suit as in your normal clothing no siry! It was something like a costume...the kind someone would wear if they were going to dress up as a cartoon character say at a children's party...the kind that covers your whole head! :) However I just knew he was wearing the suit up to his neck and still getting dressed so he hadn't put on the head part as yet. But for sure he was walking around in this brown furry suit...couldn't tell what character he was going to be...but on writing this I somehow feel it could have been a dog...a big warm friendly dog! Now the guy was getting dressed but he was very nervous...very nervous...it was the key feeling I recalled...for a brief moment I had a slight worry that he was some kinda sad, sad scary psycho killer...won't even repeat the thought again here as it is so awful but I quickly ruled that out! As I more observed the guy I started to get the idea that nope this guy was indeed as nice, warm and friendly as the dog he was about to portray! His nervousness then more seemed to be about impressing a girl as he was humming a tune (don't recall the tune) and we was scrubbing himself in the face basin...looking at himself in the mirror and preening and grooming! He was moving in and out of the bedrooom area itself and the bathroom area getting dressed and I could also feel his excitement building...it was beginning to take over his nervousness and he more and more felt elated to me than anything else! For sure it more and more seemed that he was getting ready to meet a girl whom he really really liked and wanted to impress her badly...as in his estimation she was very very important indeed! And he was just like the nicest nicest fella a girl could ever meet! I also knew the girl was going to be showing up at his door so she was in a way coming to meet him not him going to meet her but they were suppose to then head off somewhere together! Thing is I was awoken before I could have the rest of the story unfold...in particular I really wanted to know where he was actually headed and more so who was this girl then???

I've not since met the guy in my dream at least not so far...but he and the dream continues to intrigue me...and as I solicited and considered advice from my Intent friends who have now become part of my Facebook network...the most fasicinating thing that came up was that one of them felt that 'a man in a brown suit' means the guy was a time traveller! From there the most marvelous daliance of our dreams and imagination unfolded...could this guy be then travelling back in time to meet this girl! :) OMG! And then it all seemed so coincidental that the friend who was suggesting the time traveller concept was also the wife of the guy whose first film ever is about a guy who travels through time to meet his beloved! And get this the actor who plays the guy in the film is Christopher Reeves - Superman! So in a sense he is a costumed actor albeit in a different role! :) So I've decided to watch the film she was talking about...'Somewhere in Time'. I will let you know how it goes as soon as I get my dvd shipped to me from Amazon and I watch it! :)

So 'What Dreams May Come' which was incidentally produced by the same guy ...as we move forward to our next blog which will be in the Tumultuous Thrusdays slot where we will talk a bit about the metaphysical thought out there on dreams and dreaming.

Tumultuous Thursdays:Life is But a Dream!

2010-07-15T11:06:00.001-04:00

Picture taken at Suzhou sometimes called the 'Venice of China' or 'Venice of the East'. Copyright Meady's Musings Production, June 2010.

Since we here at Meady's Musings Production returned from China to our homeland we have been dreaming and dreaming and remembering our dreams in details and they have been stepping into our real life almost even! :) Perhaps it's all the row, row, row your boating that took place when we visited Suzhou in China as seen in picture above or perhaps we're just at that place in time...

But first of all I shall answer the question I left you all with last...where exactly is that muse? Well he's a bit shaken and still not himself 100% but I was able to track him down...he did indeed slip into a parallel world...in fact in that world no one ate manicous and he told me he feels as a result he found the answer to the question 'Me Eat Manicou?' LOL! But really I'm thankful to all the scientists who showed up to help me find him...with all their PhD glory! The professor from Sliders came, Doc from Back to the Future finally showed up (apparently he was in the year 2012 and not too happy as usual...he had some disturbing news for Marty!Awww!...what we would give to glimpse 1985 again!)but I was particularly impressed that he also went back in time and brought back to the future for me the original professor from Gilligan's Island! OMG!

But anyway now that my muse is at hand let me get on with the topic at hand...Dreams and Dreaming and to ponder the question is life but a dream? Like the nursery rhyme goes...

" Row, row, row your boat,
Gently down the stream.
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily,
Life is but a dream. "

Now as I said my muse is back but still not 100% so there is much for me to say on this topic and I won't try to say much today or about all of my adventures in one go! So we're going to start another ongoing series on Meady's Musings! Yippy! It's going to be called 'Dreams and Dreaming'

So for tonight on this Tumultuous Thursday I will leave you to your dreams...whatever they may come but hopefully they are sweet! :) And I will simply give you a taste of things to come in the new series.

-Stories from my dreams

-Discussions on the ever going philosophical question...is life but a dream? For when I wake up having dreamt a butterfly...am I a woman dreaming I am a butterfly or a butterfly dreaming I'm a woman?

-Lucid dreaming and I might ask some of my friends to guest blog for this as they are more expert on it than I!

-Are dreams a connecting place? For past lives? Parallel worlds? The infinite divine? What about telepathic connections during dreams...do estranged lovers truly meet in their dreams?

So tune in folks to my dreams that is! :) And for now the series will take place under Maniac Mondays, Tumultuous Thursdays and Funtastic Fridays until all the dream stories are done! But each day will capture the topic in the normal style in which it is written so for instance on Funtastic Fridays expect cartoons on the topic and lighthearted banter, while on Maniac Mondays expect more of the dream stories and on Tumultuous Thursdays expect us to dive deep into the metaphysical and technical side of dreams and dreaming...so you might learn the most about lucid dreaming for instance on that day!

Anyway goodnight my dear readers and sweet dreams to you my friends! :)

So let's discuss our dreams! You are welcome to write in and tell us about yours too! :)

We're Back! Well...arhmm...sort of?!

2010-07-12T23:28:00.007-04:00

A tree in Greenwich Park-London,UK
Copyright Meady's Musings Production 2010

We here at Meady's Musings Production said we'd be back to blogging by the end of June...but...seems someone has stolen our muse! Or he has simply slipped off without us into some parallel world...you know how slippery these muses and manicous can be!

The Purple Elephant and Little Mouse were most welcoming to us on our return home though...in fact we opened the door with our luggage at feet to see a spanking clean house and a warm, freshly cooked meal being served up for us to sit at the dinner table to eat! You just can't beat those two as a team!

However we've called in whatever spare scientists are still around nowadays...after all most of them are fully occupied with the BP oil spill...so it's tough...but they are trying to tap into a worm hole here...a space time continuum over there to see it they can locate and bring back our muse! Where is Dr. Emmett Brown from Back to the Future when you need him?!

Hopefully though we should be back in full swing here on Meady's Musings by this Tumultuous Thursday and over on our sister blog UCP by this Wednesday as we share some Buddhist cheer!

Maniac Mondays: Finding that Elusive Happy Place!

2010-05-24T00:11:00.001-04:00

There's this scene in the movie 'Quiz' where the lead goes home to his parents' house and although the scene is filled with so many different meanings...the relationship between a son and a father...the lead not being able to tell his dad that he was cheating on the show...etc...etc...what always remains with me from this scene is when the lead says at about 3:08 mins into the clip below:

"You know what I just had the strongest memory...coming home from school...going to the fridge...ice cold bottle of milk...a big piece of chocolate cake...it's just the simplicity of it...I can't think of anything that'll make me that happy again!"

And doesn't it make you wonder where is your happy place? And doesn't it really seem to become elusive after a while...in fact in today's busy, changing world I think we don't even know where our happy place is anymore! We can't even recall it as the lead in 'Quiz' did...of course it took him to be in a spot and in a point of deep brooding reflection to recall it but...can we...do we...ever recall our happy place? And is it elusive or can we find it and capture it again?

In my opinion it is elusive...as change is inevitable...if we were to find the same happy place again it won't be the same and hence is why I say it is elusive...but don't get me wrong I'm not saying happy places aren't necessary or aren't fun or don't make us who we are right now...and for sure I'm not saying it isn't fun to recall our own happy places! :) So I dare you! Go on...discover your own happy places...the one from your childhood and the ones in your 'nowhood' and even dare to project and visualize the happy places and spaces you want to see in your life in the future...and I dare you they will become reality! In fact when they happen you will feel a sense of deja vu because you would have already been there in your mind you see...

Believe me?

Even if you don't let's just have some fun and think about all our happy places! :)

Hmmm...let me see if I can find some of mines....

-Saturday morning cartoons!
-Watching the 'A-team' while having a big plate of macaroni and cheese with baked beans...didn't have to worry about carbs or calories then!:)
-Watching Mission Impossible re-runs on a Sunday afternoon while eating curried pigeon peas and rice. (you can perhaps tell I grew up vegetarian)
-Playing in large sand heaps!
-The first time I laid eyes on my pet German Shepherd...perhaps that's the son phenomenon mentioned here on the 'Quiz' movie clip since I'm not a parent myself.

Hmmm...seems most of them relate to 'comfort food', childhood or childhood games and TV and then parenting...hmmm...is there a link?

Now please share some of yours with me!

Until end of June folks keep being the change you wish to see in this world! :)

Soulful Sundays: Apologies and a Post to Go!

2010-05-23T18:03:00.009-04:00

We've come in the company of the Purple Elephant and Little Mouse to let you know that we're sorry, sorry and more sorry for not blogging for weeks and weeks...not a single Maniac Mondays or Tumultuous Tuesdays, Funtastic Fridays or even Slumbering Saturdays blog have we posted...and not a single word of prayer was said on our sister blog UCP-Universal Collective Prayer...so now here's the thing...

We've been caught up in the Hustings here on the islands of...Trinidad and Tobago...the place of our birth and citizenship...you see we've been working for something we believe in here...CHANGE! So we've been rallying changemakers across the land to vote for it...so got caught up in volunteering...you see we believe that the party that has evolved the People's Partnership echoes some of the things we talk about on these here blogs...or at least they represent hope for it in the land where the ruling party does not show a window for it and even the manifesto that the ruling party has put forward shows they have no interest in change but in just going full steam ahead as is! So we hope for...

-sustainable development
-unity in diversity

And we here at Meady's Musings Production are always about being the change you want to see! So it was easy for Meady's Musings Production to want to blog for them as they to us represent the change we want to be and see!

We don't know what the outcome will be at the general elections tomorrow on Mon 24 May 2010 but we wish for it to be free, fair and peaceful and of course we hope that change will win! :)However no matter who wins the elections on the islands tomorrow Meady's Musings Production will be willing to work with them as a citizen interested in being the change they wish to see in their homes, their community , the islands, the region, the world and quite frankly the Universe and beyond! :) Purple Elephant and Little Mouse always at our side! :)

However right after the election results we will be heading off on vacation to China via London and so we felt it necessary to drop in and apologise and leave you with a farewell Maniac Mondays post we were preparing before we got drawn into the hustings. We also wish to let you know that we will be back around the end of June and our normal Monday, Thursday and Friday installations will return more frequently then. On UCP we will be starting something called the 'God' series where we will be discussing different perceptions of God in various religions, minds and hearts! Of course we will be sure when back from China to share notes on our adventures there both from the Meady's Musings point of view and UCP as we plan to visit the world fair on in Shanghai and some Buddhist temples while there! And for fans of animal muses like us we more than likely will be dropping in on Winnie the Pooh land while in the UK. So look for it!:)

And look for the Maniac Mondays posting tomorrow on Meady's Musings it's about finding 'That Elusive Happy Place' and see you at the end of June! Until then keep being the change you wish to see!:) And if you want you can always ask our Purple Elephant and the Little Mouse to help you out...you know they are always willing!:)

Tumultuous Thursdays: The Law of Exposure, Randomness or Attraction or what in the name of Metaphysics is it?!

2010-04-08T18:03:00.002-04:00

Copyright Meady's Musings Production 2010

Since I was <10 years old I've observed that if you are talking with someone and the television is on basically seconds after you say a word it will be repeated on TV. Now I asked lots of people about it and they say it's just something that happens...I guess the 'logical' explanation might be that it is some word like 'the' or something common in conversation so the mathematical likelihood of it being repeated right after is high...but I figure it's not just 'the' and 'and' and 'you' you find repeating...I'm not saying that there probably really isn't just a simple logical explanation for it but I sure have always wished someone would log the data or take it seriously and discuss it with others instead of just brushing the phenomenon aside...wish someone would tally the data...why not me??? Well...ahmm...I have better things to do...and I guess so do you...but you do know the phenomenon I'm talking about right? And regardless of what when it happens everyone in the room notices it! But just brushes it off and move on...

Then I also discovered that when I learnt a new word as a child...to spell it or its meaning...I found it popped up all over! At that time there was no in vogue terms like 'Law of Attraction' and I was told by adults that well because I know the word now I'm aware of it when I see it is all...and before I'd have not been aware of it...but now myself an adult raging forward towards middle age I look back at it and wonder would you call that a 'Law of Attraction' effect? Or maybe it could be called a 'Law of Exposure' effect...i.e. once I was exposed to the word and its meaning I would always now see it but not before I was exposed...dunno???

But just yesterday a similar phenomenon happened to me and I have to say...it made me recall all these things...well I was going to this new place and I missed the turn off road as I 'Google Earthed it' but the road had no sign on this lovely isle so I should have asked someone for a landmark! So I went into some terrain I'd never been to before at least not in a very very long time...so then after finding my destination spending hours there and driving off back to my home again...well on the radio all they can talk about are the places and sites I had seen! Events were happening all over there, this organization whose headquarters I passed by was hosting something! And these are remote locations on the island so they aren't popular and commonplace! Granted on the logical side the island is small so maybe...but GOSH! What was that? Law of Exposure or Law of Attraction again?

So what's it to you? Is there some metaphysics behind all of this or pure mere coincidence and I should be off to dance with 'The Purple Elephant' instead? Would love to hear your thoughts on this!

Tumultuous Thursdays:The Lunar Effect! Not All Bad?

2010-04-01T05:13:00.000-04:00

The moon...the moon! So many poets have written about you, so many scientists have studied you...romantics...astrologers...werewolves...so what can we possibly write afresh!:)

But you are so magnetic and upon you at your fullest for the last two months we've pondered. Aaah yes the full moon!:)

Now many call the effect the full moon has the 'Lunar Effect'. And much has been written about this but most of it bad...We guess hence the words 'lunatic' and 'lunacy' and anyway most people consider the concept of the 'Lunar Effect' to be pseudoscience but here today on Tumultuous Thursdays we want to look at the full moon in a positive light!:) We guess the romantics have already done that...but really to us all this talk about the full moon isn't it just simply wonderful so much so beyond words?! :)

Aaah...! We don't know what it is maybe it is purely romantic and not grounded in any science or pseudoscience or metaphysics at all...but whatever the sceptics may say when we view the full moon we are simply in awe! We can't take our eyes off it whether we're on one of our evening walks (not a moonwalk) or whether we've moved to photograph it! It's just full moon full moon full moon...can't take our eyes off of you!:)

Now the moon is one of many moons in the Universe and Galaxy blah blah so what we call the moon is Earth's moon or perhaps we can call it the other way and say we are the Moon's earth!:) But the point is one orbits one and according to scientists the moon is not a planet. However under Tumultuous Thursdays thoughts...now let's consider the moon not in a pseudo scientific or metaphysical way but in the way all those straight suit NASA types see it as extracted from this site where you can visit for more details:

"The Moon is the only natural satellite of Earth:

orbit: 384,400 km from Earth
diameter: 3476 km
mass: 7.35e22 kg

Hardcopy

The New Solar System
Summarizes what we've learned from interplanetary explorations in the last 25 years. My primary reference for The Nine Planets.

Full Moon
Very high quality reproductions of Apollo images of the Moon. If you think the Moon is boring ("been there, done that") then you haven't seen this book!

The Once and Future Moon
An overview of what we know about our Moon, how we came to know it and how we might go back to learn more.

Called Luna by the Romans, Selene and Artemis by the Greeks, and many other names in other mythologies.

The Moon, of course, has been known since prehistoric times. It is the second brightest object in the sky after the Sun. As the Moon orbits around the Earth once per month, the angle between the Earth, the Moon and the Sun changes; we see this as the cycle of the Moon's phases. The time between successive new moons is 29.5 days (709 hours), slightly different from the Moon's orbital period (measured against the stars) since the Earth moves a significant distance in its orbit around the Sun in that time.

Due to its size and composition, the Moon is sometimes classified as a terrestrial "planet" along with Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars."

I dunno but in closing we here at Meady's Musings will have to say we agree with the romantics about the status of the full moon and no one else so we leave you with a poem ...by none other than the supreme lunatic of love himself...RUMI!:)

"May this marriage be blessed.
May this marriage be as sweet as milk and honey.
May this marriage be as intoxicating as old wine.
May this marriage be fruitful like a date tree.
May this marriage be full of laughter and everyday a paradise.
May this marriage be a seal of compassion for here and hereafter.
May this marriage be as welcome as the full moon in the night sky.
Listen lovers, now you go on, as I become silent and kiss this blessed night."

Maniac Mondays: My Absence, My Apology and My Parallel Worlds!

2010-03-29T05:39:00.000-04:00

We here at Meady's Musings would like to apologise for no blogs on Tumultuous Thursdays for the longest while and also for no Funtastic Fridays post last week. It's not for want of thought I can tell you that...I had the whole Funtastic Fridays blog conceptualised in my head and everything and had also planned to blog last Thursday but it's that wormhole you see! It keeps getting to me! And it usually hits on a Thursday is why Tumultuous Thursdays have been so infrequent! It tends to pull me into some Parallel World or the other but usually spits me out by Friday so I can do a Funtastic Fridays post but this week it kept me longer I was jumping portal to portal just like on 'Sliders' but just couldn't get back in time! So we apologise today as part of our Maniac Mondays post and sit back and view a clip of the intro of 'Sliders' and hope to deliver on a Tumultuous Thursdays and Funtastic Fridays blog this week!:)

Maniac Mondays: To Have a Prehensile Tail?

2010-03-22T23:12:00.004-04:00

For weeks and weeks as mad or wacky as it sounds (hence its entry under Maniac Mondays!) this Meady's Musings author has been wishing to have a tail and not just any ole tail but a prehensile one! LOL! It's the craziest thing and it wasn't just a thought in my head I'll have you know but I felt it in my body in my bones...my muscles...I was walking around almost missing it like a 'false limb'! And also walking as if it was right there coming out of my back and curled up over my head...I even postured my body as such!:)

And nope I'm not one of those people who want to be those people from the Avatar movie uh...uh no sirry! This is totally different from being 'a Navi want to be' since to be honest I find the film highly overrated and I didn't need James Cameron to tell me what was already going on ever since just check my UCP blog for heavens help! :)Plus I'm strictly vegetarian thank you so no Navi hunting and growling for me...I'm no cat!

But the prehensile tale...I WANTED IT! :)

Now as curious as this may sound it gets even curiouser cause guess what? Unlike tiggers I'm not the only one! I'm found on a google search for prehensile tail that others want it as well! And I'll bet you long before Navi fame! Check this out! or here!

Now I'm no cat lover and would you say they really have the prehensile tail? Tails yes but prehensile? For sure my muse...the baby manicou that many of you may not recall but I present below...he has such a tail for sure...so perhaps it is he who is again with me?

But dunno my tail it didn't feel like a manicou one neither! It felt like a very humanoid prehensile tail like I was very firmly upright back straight as a pin...in true homosapien style...no neantherdal slump! LOL! And as I said the tail grew out of my back and then curled above my head. What a tale about a tail?

I wish I could accurately draw what I felt...but I'm not much for doodling right now...

But what did all this mean when the feeling? Funny thing is my need, feel or visualization of the tail...well it was purposeless...more I wanted it like to feel proud strutting about with it! I also knew I wanted for it to be prehensile but guess what I had no intention in my visualization of using it! I just wanted to show off with it...now that's mad ego for you!

And it has left me wondering "What the tail is wrong with me!!!"

All I can think of is perhaps I'm being inspired by my beloved UCP friend then?

Image re-published from here.

Funtastic Fridays:Platonic Love?

2010-03-19T10:46:00.002-04:00

Our current global society is pretty mixed up about this whole love business so no doubt it's also mixed up about this whole platonic and platonic love (spelt with lower case) or Platonic love(spelt with upper case)business as well...

We here at Meady's Musings would like to say on this Funtastic Friday that love is...and really then it is simple...we just choose to express it in several forms and fashion...operative word CHOICE! But there is no need for adjectives then...and we think that to be honest is what Plato meant to say too...we just went off on it and started to use a dead man's name without his permission in all the wrong adjectives!

However Plato's name becomes convenient for all to use in today's world since it is filled with manipulation and games...competitiveness, greed, cheating, scams...you name it! From the board room to the bedroom to unfortunately as innocence continues to get lost even in the sandbox! But then of course none of these things are love anyway...

So what we are wondering here on Funtastic Fridays (which seems to be overlapping into the realm of Maniac Mondays and Tumultuous Thursdays as well)...

Is the purest form of love between a man and a woman in today's society best borne from platonic roots? That is have a good friendship first and then have something romantic? Or should it be the other way around as most dating rituals in society portray it? Have a romance and then if the relationship lasts long term...out of it realise you are also good friends so that if you didn't even have romantic feelings you'd still be friends? Or perhaps the best approach is a mix of the two? We're not 'love gurus' so we will leave it up to you to decide and after all this was suppose to be a Funtastic Fridays post not therapy! LOL!

If you ask us though as a whole society could do with way lot more...LOVE! It is perhaps the root of all our problems today...as naive as it may sound...you see the need and longing everywhere! So we cue this song...as cheesy as our readers may find it! :)

And what we will also say is that we believe who really had love in its purest form down pat was Rumi of Sufi mystic fame! Check him here...

Of course it doesn't mean that people shouldn't be in sexual relationships that meets the approval of all concerned whether it be marriage and all...we're just really asking...

WHERE IS THE LOVE?! LOL!

Maniac Mondays: To Be a Leader Again! Follow a Tree?!

2010-03-15T23:04:00.012-04:00

We've pondered about being a leader here on Meady's Musings before but we've never dug into what it is to be a good or a bad one. And for good reason! And we still hold firm to the fact that a thing is only good or bad depending on the viewer's perception...it depends on where you put your eyes!:)However I guess generally speaking societies define things as good or bad through I guess their collective societal eyes and perhaps as a globe we have certain universally accepted things that we consider good and bad...similar to how on my sister blog we can engage in UCP-Universal Collective Prayer! So here here to that! All the same I will still not explore good or bad leadership but instead explore this thing call leadership some more!

However before I go on I'll have you know that the reason I'm discussing leadership at all here on Maniac Mondays is to do with the fact that I'm about to launch a new festival over on my sister blog UCP-Universal Collective Prayer! You see as of tomorrow the Spring Navratri or the Vasant Navratri kicks off and in fact it's already started over in India! It's a nine night festival, 'nav' meaning 'nine' in Sanskrit and 'ratri' meaning 'night(s)'. And well I concluded my festival of Shiv on UCP in Feb and all through that festival the female universal form of God (Shakti) in Hinduism was sitting quietly next to Shiv (the male form)in her incarnation as either Parvati or Sati. You see Hinduism is not only a religion of exploring both the big and the small at the same time as I pointed on during my festival of Shiv it is also good at exploring the male and the female forms of the divine, by themselves, side by side and even as a collective in the ShivShakti form!

However my festival of Shiv was mostly about Shiv as the male form. So as Vasant Nav Ratri dawns upon us I felt the need to celebrate the Divine Mother once again on UCP i.e. the Universal form of God as female. And then it dawned on me as I myself am female and have been contemplating my leadership duties quite a bit of lately and well hear this some more...Well in the United States the month of March is declared Women's History Month also the UN celebrates World Women's day on 8 Mar every year. So I was thinking women...women...women...leadership...the divine form. It dawned on me too that we were in the Catholic season of Lent and I thought the Divine Mother in Catholicism...The Holy Virgin Mary...and well so on and so on...

So I came to the point where I felt I wanted to do a series on UCP about the Divine Mother in Hinduism and Catholicism but in particular focus on her role as a leader and how these religions view her in leadership roles...

But you see before I did that I had to explore women in leadership and before that leadership as a whole...I had explored it before as I said in my opening paragraph but I felt I wanted to do it some more...I have to say I don't see the need to spilt it as women in leadership versus a man in leadership...because just like nothing to me is good or bad only thinking makes it so...well I don't really see the difference between a man or a woman...I mean yea there is the biology the good ole Y chromosome is present or not and some different biological roles...But that's just the mortal coil and to me leadership in its real and true sense or for that matter anything in its real and true sense doesn't come from the mortal coil but from a higher place. In fact if we go back to this blog I wrote about all of us being little pods that feed into this big universal mother or let's say father fluid (to be fair now) well then we are all just part of one and so not separate at all...so what's in a chromosome?! In fact in that thinking we are just popping our little mortal heads or faces out to see what's going on to feed it back to the great big mother/father fluid...just checking things out for information! Momentary pearls of the Universe are we!

However we all must wear the mortal coil and be those momentary pearls however we are formed...so as we wear it and live in this material and mortal world I'll call it as I should and we will celebrate the male sometimes the female sometimes the Divine Father sometimes the Divine Mother...but having said that let's get to the heart of the matter and talk about leadership already! :)

What is it about? Well I was wondering and wondering you see and then I looked at a tree...seriously! I did...and there it was...the very epitome of leadership for all to see...if they at least thought like me?! Right there in my front yard a majestic peepal tree or as some called it the sacred fig or the banyan fig or lo and behold the bodhi tree ...that famed tree of Buddha englightenment fame!

The particular tree has been in my family's yard for >60 years and has itself rejuvenated and reincarnated itself, since almost 2.5 decades ago before the death of my maternal grandmother it had become very dry as if it too was ready to die...it was up to that time a very tall sprawling tree...and then it was cut to that of a trunk and its dried wood used to make the funeral pyre of my grandmother. Said tree eventually sprung afresh from the trunk but most amazingly when it regrew it only remained a certain size...a size that made it such that no one needed to prune it from reaching electricity and phone lines....nor was it big and branching to harbour weeds and snakes...and it remains like this to date! What amazes me more is in this current incarnation this tree although the island is experiencing drought is ever freshly springing new leaves...you see its roots run deep...very deep...as large as the giant tree it once supported that now looks small...and in viewing this tree and its story of growth, death, re-birth and never ending (hopefully) rejuvenation...it made me realise it had all the properties of a good leader...and now I'll tell you how...

It can be big...but it can also be small...
Its roots run deep to a strong foundation make...
While its branches need not be very sprawling and large but it can be large too if need be...
It knew when to die and when to be re-born...but most of all it knows how to adapt...
It restructures to fit the needs or the space it is allowed...
In times of hardship it digs deep to get what it needs to stay alive...
But most of all it does all of this while staying sturdy and still!
And last but not least it knows how to propagate itself...
Because like any good leader it knows how to mentor and teach...
So that if this tree one day dies it would have left its little underlings to carry on its legacy to carry on its line!

Funtastic Fridays:Fishbone Diagram Behind It!

2010-03-12T22:57:00.005-04:00

Click on diagram to see in full size

All week long we here at Meady's Musings Production have been busy like a bee and working like a dog to take a few phrases out of this week's Maniac Mondays post! Not on creative stuff here but at our full time day job as an engineer. The most interesting and marvelous thing happened though...while working on a Fishbone diagram to do Root Cause Analysis (RCA) as part of our job as an engineer...well we got a bit carried away...our creative juices that weren't being blended out here on the blog instead went into the day job's project and well it was like engineering meeting art! And while we are hardly yet Da Vinci nor have we developed the Pushpa-Viman of Hindu fame well we can say we have been having a lot of fun!

So while we contemplate perhaps being off to see Alice in Wonderland again this weekend but this time in 3D! Well we thought we'd share the Fishbone diagram showing the Root Cause Analysis for Funtastic Fridays! :) Hope you enjoy!

Maniac Mondays: As Mad as a March Hare or maybe a Hatter!

2010-03-08T00:01:00.003-04:00

This installation is the first Maniac Mondays installation for the month of March as we at Meady's Musings Production have been busy as a beaver at the full-time day job! And so here we are for the first time posting an installation on Maniac Mondays and it makes us feel as mad as a March hare! :)

You see we are just fresh out of the cinemas after seeing Disney's and Tim Burton's latest take on Lewis Caroll's Alice in Wonderland(aka Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) and we feel as mad as a hatter and a March hare all rolled up in one! Oh Dear! Seriously it was an interesting movie and a fun enough ride all the way...and we didn't even see it in 3D or IMAX just plain ole Dolby Surround Sound LOL! I think!

For sure the film to us adapts the tale for the modern day audience, making Alice the kinda girl we think Charles Dodgson aka Lewis Caroll would have wanted Alice to be had she lived in today's world and had to go back in time and stand up to a 19th century English aristocratic crowd...you see she always questions things you see...and it gets curiouser and curiouser...so we think if Lewis Caroll saw the movie today with its own spin and twist on his 'Alice in Wonderland' and 'Through the Looking Glass' tales he would have quite frankly liked it!

Which brings us on Maniac Mondays today to explore this funny English thing...the concept of saying...

As 'x' as 'y'

Oh My! Why?! :)

Well...there you have it as in our title lines...

As mad as a March hare!

As mad as a hatter!

And then right after in our opening lines I said:

As busy as a beaver.

But what else...what else?

As busy as a bee.

As quiet as a lamb.

As quiet as a mouse.

As quiet as a Church mouse.

As quiet as a lamb.

As quiet as mice.

As soft as silk.

As white as milk.

But now before we really turn into a Mad Hatter we will tip my top hats and bid you adieu until another Maniac Mondays, Tumultuous Thursdays, Funtastic Fridays or Slumbering Saturdays installation we might write! :)

And on this Maniac Monday...don't forgot to have a cup of tea while considering six impossible things before breakfast! Here are some we'd consider:

1.That animals can speak!
2.That plants and trees can speak!
3.That we can fly!
4.That we'd one day meet a real March Hare that would then speak to us like in impossible thing #1! :)
5. There will be no more countries just planet earth!
6. And that we would all one day live as one! :)

And if you like go see the real Mad Hatter if you please on 3D, IMAX of just plain Dolby like us! But watch out for the appearance of that sneaky Cheshire Cat! OH DRAT! Nothing can prepare you for a cat like that!

Funtastic Fridays: The New Rain Dance!

2010-03-05T18:50:00.009-04:00

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This is a late edition of Funtastic Fridays really done on a Slumbering Saturday but I decided to back date it as after all it wouldn't be a Funtastic Friday if the post date reads Saturday!:)

A bit of explanation to the cartoon for those who may not know all the cartoon characters off hand or the issues being discussed...especially the Bollywood overtones and who is Sri Sri?

To be honest I've only myself heard of Sri Sri a few years now and only when doing this cartoon did I research him some more...you see I have to also petition Pratish Mistry whose Hasta Milan website only allows me to make cartoons with Bollywood types and one or two others like Sri Sri! So when I decided to use Hasta Milan for making this cartoon...well it probably serves me right since Hasta Milan is actually a 'Portal providing free messaging services for Indian matrimony, online dating, shaadi relationships advice for Indian singles worldwide' and not primarily a cartoon making site. Although you can do it for fun too, perhaps to meet people over cartoons? So yep I was a bit restricted...to props and persons for dating themes and celebrity fantasty dates! LOL! But I felt it was an easy way to get the cartoon I wanted to do and perhaps if I impressed Pratish Mistry I'd get to graduate to being a full fledged cartoonist and get to use the tools on Wonkie Cartoons with more panels and options and everything...LOL!

But really I've been wanting to do a Rain Dance...I've been contemplating it all week long...even had it up as my personal Facebook status...and found that other women have tried it before like here. But ahmmm...I can't say I am willing to go that far...but it's really not rained all February long and not a March Moisture in sight in Trinidad! And then I thought I'd make a cartoon of our Prime Minister here in Trinidad and Tobago and another MP in his party-Colm Imbert doing the rain dance but out of fear of political persecution and for other reasons I deflected from the funny thoughts of good ole Colm dancing in a hula skirt...LOL!

So there it was the cartoon I ended up with...and for the record here is some more information about things and persons mentioned in it:

1. Sri Sri: you can read more about him here. But many say his claims to work with the UN are exaggerated or taken out of context but it made him a fitting character as a result.

2. By now most people must have heard of the IPCC and they have a working group III (wg3) and they do most of the well...work of the IPCC that focuses on the mitigation of climate change but you can read more about them here.

3. And well my fascination with rain dances and my restriction to characters of Bollywood fame made me recall their obesession to well not really do dances that bring rain but to dance in the rain! But this one by Raveena Tandon in the movie Mohra to me always epitomises 'the Bollywood Rain Dance' and perhaps a dance like that can bring rain! So here it is to add to the Friday fun to see what I'm talking about...

And on a closing note Raveena Tandon got married in 2004 or there abouts and like most Bollywood actresses have stopped acting or gone on a go slow...can't see her doing this dance again though...so it will remain as a rain dance classic! She currently says she will only do roles that are fitting to her age and won't embarass her children! But dunno I guess maybe Sri Sri can convince her yet if it is a matter of saving the world for her children...

Slumbering Saturdays: Apologies and such but most of all REST!

2010-02-27T08:39:00.007-04:00

Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
Copyright of Meady's Musings Production

Apologies...apologies and Welcome to Slumbering Saturdays! :) I've apologised this week already on UCP as my 'Festival of Shiv' didn't have as many posts as I would have liked to ideally churn out...so here it is my apology now for Meady's Musings where I've not posted a single blog this week! No Maniac Mondays...nor Tumultuous Thursdays but sadly not even a Funtastic Fridays cartoon or something funny maybe!

It's not like I didn't have it in me this week...but it's like I said on the UCP apology the full time job has just been getting to me! So no evening free to blog! I've been working like a dog and so now on a Saturday I must be left to slumber but figure I should let all my gracious readers know! Next week is also gonna be a tough week but I'll try to blog all the same and for at least give you some Funtastic Friday cheer! :)

Also I've been yearning for another long vacation like the one I had to the US in June last year where one of the places I visited was the famous Myrtle Beach in South Carolina ...and I'm feeling like it might be good to be a Senorita Frog you see...or some sought of animal right now...a slumbering dog or a lazy cat even although as some might know I hate them quite a bit...YUCK! MEOW! LOL!

But you see animals they sure know how to relax...and it is what I must this weekend...I think it is why in yoga and stuff you have all those great animal positions...hmmm...and so I leave you with some of them! :)

Funtastic Fridays: Parvati Wins Shiv!

2010-02-19T04:29:00.007-04:00

How to Win a Guy in 10 Days! Ahmmm...well OK maybe 10 years! LOL!

We at Meady's Musings have to apologize for no Maniac Mondays or Tumultuous Thursdays blog postings this week but perhaps we were so taken up with our Festival of Shiv over on our sister blog UCP that well we had no time for mania and didn't feel tumultuous! :)

It is no wonder the inspiration for today's Funtastic Friday blog posting comes from the ongoings on the Festival of Shiv where Shiv and Parvati recently got married and are celebrating their honeymoon!:) We burrowed some of the pics to create the cartoon from places about the web and we hope the owners won't mind...if you do however mind and see your photo up here and want us to take it down...please feel free to contact us and we will take 'em down! But we figured it's all good advertising for you and we list you here as a source:

The beautiful illustration of Parvati meditating in the forest (in the 2nd panel of the comic strip) is taken from this site and you can buy the poster there! It sure looks like one beautiful poster to have!

The gorgeous painting in the 3rd panel of the comic strip appears to be a reprint of a painting that is displayed on this site.

For those of you further interested in the story behind this comic check out this article...believe you me it's a proper story in Hinduism and we are not mocking the religion in any way especially since if you read our UCP postings you will know that the image in panel 1 of the comic strip has been a source of much inspiration for us over the years and for this author Shiv is the supreme yogi and my ultimate guru for whom I have the greatest respect and awe so I'm not trying to make fun of him in anyway in this comic strip but just telling the Shiv Parvati Katha(story) in a more light hearted manner and in the hope that we can all have Universal fun in a way I'd like to think Shiv would will it too!

However please accept my apologies if I've offended you in any way by publishing this cartoon though...and do write and tell me Shiv willing if you like! :)I'm assuming if Shiv doesn't like it himself he'll tell me in the kindest and hopefully nicest of ways...perhaps a dream...hopefully with no snakes...please no snakes Shiv...just a nice dream! :) But some how upon reflection I can't see how such a cosmic being would too much too care whether I blogged about him in a comic strip or whom out there it may have vexed...after all there's a whole Universe...Cosmos even for him to get about with!

Funtastic Fridays: Apology

2010-02-12T10:51:00.007-04:00

Image of a sundial courtesy this site

We apologise for no Fun on Funtastic Fridays this week...be assured we will be back with more laughs or other comparable fun next week! :)

Tumultuous Thursdays: My Reincarnation Series-Can People Reincarnate as Animals or Trees or Other Assortment of Flora and Fauna?

2010-02-11T19:37:00.002-04:00

Image of Green Twist Fractal courtesy this site

Today on Tumultuous Thursdays I'm turning about a question in not only my head but also that of a commentator's head. Someone choosing to remain anonymous asked on my The Works of Dr. Brian Weiss Reincarnation blog if we at Meady's Musings and whoever reads us ever wonder about if humans could reincarnate as animals or trees or plants...or well you get the picture! :)

So today I answer...from a personal point of view which is perhaps always the best place although of course most of our perceptions and points of view are usually moulded by some other thought out there...we're all an interconnected web...not just in the blogosphere or on the Internet but in the Universe at large! But either way all we can have is our point of view...wherever it currently stands in time...it is at that point what it is...so here it is...here it is:

I do believe trees have souls...and I think this is something that I would have grown up believing growing up Hindu but it is a feeling I have from them too...it perhaps is no doubt influenced from my Hindu upbringing but they seem to have such presence...especially the majestic ones they seem like they have grand souls in them! A belief I also draw from Hinduism is the souls that choose to incarnate into trees must be great spirits! First of all the ones in the grand trees have to have the patience to stay in one incarnation for hundreds of years! And trees are considered to be ultimate seva (Hindu concept of service) givers! And I mean they don't take much and give back so much more...shade, shelter, food, all sorts of things for hundreds of years! :)

But hmmm...to answer the question can a human say, incarnate eventually as a tree? I'd say YES! Since to me we are all just the same spirit in essence but it seems for some reason unknownest to me...some souls they don't see this...they think they have to be different, separate...individualistic even...away from the oneness of spirit...some think they are better while others think they are lesser...some think they are smarter...some think they simply don't belong...

I think one of my favourite quotes that is Buddhist in origin best explains it...

'A myriad bubbles were floating on the surface of a stream. 'What are you?' I cried to them as they drifted by. 'I am a bubble, of course' nearly a myriad bubbles answered, and there was surprise and indignation in their voices as they passed. But, here and there, a lonely bubble answered, 'We are this stream', and there was neither surprise nor indignation in their voices, but just a quiet certitude.' - Ask the Awakened by Wei Wu Wei

So all the souls that are like these nearly myriad bubbles well they by their prakriti (nature in Hinduism) start to accumulate individuality...matter starts to cloud their matterless souls...and they take on bodies...they come to a place like here on earth where they can hoard matter, manipulate it, design it, create things with it...it's not necessarily 'evil' but just what must be...so they can learn their lessons...mete out their karma until they themselves realise they were simply part of the greater spirit and at that time they rejoin...it makes sense from a metaphysical point of view to me...they come on earth to let out their steam so to speak...sometimes it is anger but sometimes it can be nice things too like sometimes you want to create something so you come to the material plane where you can let out that energy too...like on a sculpture or a building or to write a book so others can be guided say to come back to the big spirit...or a beautiful piece of music that would inspire this...but one thing in common with all great creations like that is they are aligned with the greater spirit and you can see the greater spirit echoed in them...they are the great ones and they also inspire and guide souls back to 'the oneness' that is the greater spirit!

Because you see sometimes such creation is needed to guide some souls that are so away from spirit and lost in matter that they have totally forgotten their original and true spirit forms! :(

So as a whole souls fall off and come to the material and earthly planes...they land so to speak...and start up their business...the bodies they take up are based on what they are meant to explore here based on their prakriti (nature of their spirit)...sometimes they must come to help out others or because they were attracted to others who chose to land and all sorts of things...but they land!

And the form they take up yes I believe can be a myriad of flora and fauna...I also believe it might be very possible that there are many other planets on the same material plane as earth where souls take form...so souls more than likely exist not only as all the flora and fauna on Planet Earth but on other material planets in the Universe!

I think the material forms our souls come into that simply start to grow on our souls as we land on the material planes...well of course there is the biology of it so this happens in a way we can see and study in the material plane i.e. pregnancies etc...but for the soul it is just matter coiling around it!

And I think the choice of matter is based on what we need to work out here on planet earth...so if we are just a noble soul who wants to give, give and give and is willing to give up its free dancing spirit and sit on the material plane for years and years we come as a giant tree! It is why we should salute our trees as they contain such great spirit or perhaps spirits!

Then I think some spirits that just want to test out earth comes as insects and stuff so is why they come in such forms that have short life spans...or it could also be great souls that had this one thing left to sort out before they rejoined the great spirit so they come as an ant for about a few hours before they are crushed by a human. Or maybe they had to come as the ant so the human could crush it and learn some lesson or mete out some karma that existed between both souls.

I think you can go on and on about this choice of soul and what life form it manifests as here on earth...but I think for sure whatever form it takes on earth is exactly the form it needed to mete out its karma! So it is in the human form that coils around us too...so like I came on earth as a woman of just over five feet with the desire to write perhaps etc etc...after this lifetime I may have found that I didn't relax enough say and I'd come back as a silly, stretchy cat for a few years...lazing about all over the place because I wanted to see how it would be to be like that...of course I'd then also have to deal with all the fear and aggression that exists in a cat's body too! YUCK! Please Universe don't let me come back as a nasty, ole cat...LOL!

But yes I do believe us souls can exist in any form of flora or fauna or as humans or as other beings on other planets no yet known to man! And also if I hate cats say I might really come back as one say to understand their nature better? Also I get from Hinduism that whatever is on our minds when we die and are being chosen to move forward plays a big part as to where our soul will land...I think is why in Hinduism they say to die with the lips of God on your mouth but I think God is the Universe itself so we will end up somewhere in the Universe based on the thought, wishes, desires, unfinished business we have...and we get the exact body to deal with it!

So when we come on earth or other material planes we should try to find out why we came here and get to using the body...because hey why mess around?! But even if we don't do it right...well we'll just get another body! As much as others will not have you believe...the Universe is infinite and time is irrelevent so just go on and have fun! It's just not nice to be stuck in a rut though so try not to be too reckless in the Universe as it can sometimes be uncomfortable if we take too many wrong turns in a row...but be assured it will all work out in the end! :)

Maniac Mondays: What's with My Johari Window Already?!

2010-02-08T21:57:00.008-04:00

Maniac Mondays is back this week after all blogs were suspended due to a death in the family. As a result my vegan journey is now put off to March and the festival of Shiv on UCP is only running for 3/4 of Feb instead of all Feb long!

But the beat marches on...so it is...so it is...perhaps the impending death was the feeling I was feeling all through the first week in Jan but couldn't put a finger on it! But here I am starting at it again...

And what a place...my Johari Window?!

The first problem I have with this Johari window business well to be honest is its squareness...why a square?! I felt so restricted why did I have to put things in one box and then another box here...after all I am me! I am a whole full circle really! I'm not dissected into four and certainly not squared! I just wanted to burst through those Johari window panes and be the full energy flow that I am! :)

After all remember my primary and sub-primary theme songs! :) Shall I cue them? :)And I'm always: 'To thine ownself be true'

I like the circle because to me we are all in a transition and a cyclic doing and then reflecting and then doing again...being born...then dying then being born again...it's always a circle...something hidden today is revealed tomorrow...something revealed today can again be hidden tomorrow...you can figure you know this today but upon reflection in two weeks you think you are wrong again...we're all just spinning around and around and trying not to drop the ball while racing on and on but going no where on each of our very own hamster wheel! :)

So STOP! And when the spinning wheel comes to a stand still just get off! Realise that you are just this big burst of energy and you can burst through any square Johari window and if your beam of light is so strong...it will impinge on the edges of your Johari window pane till it will become circular too! And then as your beam grows brighter and brighter and larger and larger it will burst the whole house open and you will be seen simply as love and its pure clear light! :)

PS: Check out the Festival of Shiv on UCP for more talk about shapes and light! :)

Funtastic Fridays: Who were you in a Past Life?

2010-01-29T22:08:00.005-04:00

It's time for fun again as it's Funtastic Friday! Today, just like last week Friday I can't stop thinking about the Tumultuous Thursday blog post and it has inspired today's fun blog post! So here it is folks...Katrina Kaif appears on the reality TV show on NDTV...raaz pichhle janam ka...where participants undergo past life regression live!

Note: It also marks my debut as a cartoonist!;)

Tumultuous Thursdays: My Reincarnation Series-'Past Life'- A New Series on Fox!

2010-01-28T11:00:00.001-04:00

As promised on Thursdays I continue to talk about all things metaphysical...and following through on my Reincarnation Series would be one of those things. However today I have this wonderful surprise for ya! I'm going to let you know about the exciting news for those of you who want to dabble into the realm of reincarnation from another perspective not just by books and blogs and hard core research but to have a bit of fun with it...to tickle your imagination or entertainment buds!

And the news is...Fox is premiering their own entire series on reincarnation this Feb in the form of the TV series "Past Life"! Now I have to tell ya at first I was a bit skeptical about doing this blog...I mean I wondered was this making all the stuff about reincarnation light? But I did my research about this series and it changed my mind...

My first glance at the previews for this series gives me the feel of a mix between Ghost Whisperer and Cold Case with a touch of Medium...all series that I can enjoy from time to time...

It seems like the supernaturalness and sensitivity of Ghost Whisperer meeting the crime solving parts of Cold Case with the nostalgic (back in time) pulls they have on Cold Case you know where they show you how the people looked then and how they look now...when the case is solved etc...I always liked that bit of Cold Case the best. And well I can see this series having a lot of nostalgia...how it was back then and how it is now...except this time you aren't just going back in the person's lifetime but into a next! It's like Cold Case on steroids then! :)

And in terms of its similar elements to Ghost Whisperer while from the previews I can't say if it is going to be as sensitive and sweet as that series...I mean you really feel the love and emotion in that show...and the hurt...for sure this series is going to be exploring that. The preview seems to suggest where families are going to be searching for answers to what happened to their dead loved ones...and they are going to be finding it with the help of science and pseudo science...metaphysics. Families will reunite and get these answers and then say goodbye again as the persons move on in their new 'clothes' or reincarnations so to speak! :)The team helping them will consist of a detective, a psychologist with a knack for reading people and a smart ass medical doctor (neurologist)!

But I have to tell ya what had me more than hooked to giving this series a whirl is that same smart ass medical doctor! Not while in his character but whilst talking about his character in his real life form as Ravi Patel!:) Check this interview out about him talking about his character in the show. And in terms of his views on reincarnation...being Hindu myself too I can so relate to his point of view about it...

However do you believe in reincarnation?

Don't forget to continue participating in the poll on the left! And keep checking this space for further talks on Reincarnation!

And you can catch the series PAST LIFE two-night premiere on Tuesday, Feb. 9 at 9/8c and Thursday, Feb. 11 at 9/8c on FOX!

Manic Monday or Maniac Monday?

2010-01-25T05:00:00.001-04:00

Many in my age group for sure would know how the tune goes...although it seems kinda retro by now...since way back in 1986...

Yesterday a friend on Facebook suggested we coin a day in between Sunday and Monday...Schumday!:) Sounded good to most...in fact a petition might even be coming out soon to make it an official day...look for it! LOL!

But what if instead of Manic Mondays we could make it Maniac Mondays?!:)Now don't get me wrong...many people misinterpret the meaning of that word maniac...here's the definition I'm referring to here according to Merriam Webster online dictionary

Maniac:a person characterized by an inordinate or ungovernable enthusiasm for something

So really a maniac isn't such a bad thing is it!? And we would especially all wish we could be maniacs for our jobs come Monday morning so hey why not...Maniac Monday! But for it to become Maniac Monday well you got to find the thing to be a Maniac about...and there lies the challenge! Now I'm not here to give advice...these blogs are always about my own journeys not to advise others...just for me to discuss my experiments in life...I know some things I'm passionate about people tell me I am or I can tell I am cause people tell me I'm only talking about it all the time and my face lights up when I talk about it and I can feel my own blood pressure rise slightly I guess due to the slight adrenaline rush? We're all passionate about something or someone or some thing thing....I guess it's also easier to find it than to incorporate in our daily lives...

So there lie the questions:

What's your passion?

But more importantly...

How do I incorporate my passions into my daily life?

Now as I said not an advice columnist...so go out their my friends and answer you own questions! :) And please please don't go latching on to unsuspecting co-workers and making then your you know what! NOT GOOD! Don't be that kinda maniac please if it is the one advice I do try to give is that! LOL!

But Hey I've got enough problems trying to figure out the answers to mines! :) But be certain that I'll share some of my own passion or my junoon (which I find is an even cooler word for it that is of Sufi Arabic origin and it refers to an obsession or madness) next week on Maniac Mondays...same cyberspace, same time...maybe it will be about my writing...about how my garden I may just again grow...sunflowers anyone?...but for sure in Feb and all Feb long it will also be at times about my Vegan experimentation again and at other times linked to my UCP blog about my meditations with Shiv...but for now ask yourself...

What is your Junoon and how do I live it daily?

Funtastic Fridays-You say Centrifugal...I say Centripetal?

2010-01-22T10:05:00.002-04:00

All this talk about Planet Earth Turning...and them forces yesterday...here is an ex-NASA guy's (according to the site) funny look at it...the site xkcd says you can repost their cartoons on blogs...so I figure I'd reproduce it here as my first installation of Funtastic Fridays...

Tumultuous Thursdays:Does Planet EarthTurn Slowly?

2010-01-21T05:36:00.015-04:00

Amazing Photo taken by James Neeley. All rights reserved. Check out his profile on flickr

I've been wondering this for some time now...and then came the start of this New Year 2010 and to the strain of that Fireflies song more than ever I was wondering if it was just that "I'd liked to make myself believe that planet earth turns slowly"...but does it or doesn't it?

Well first of all if it doesn't turn slowly I think for sure we need to make ourselves believe it does...else if we didn't we'd feel just like how I was feeling at the start of 2010 until I was able to have my talks with Shiv in the meditation cave and be all centered again...Shiv does it for me...but really we have to forget the true nature of the Universe...make ourselves believe or perhaps the Universe itself or the Universe pictured in the form of Shiv makes us believe it...else if we took in the full awesomeness of it...well...we'd feel like a runaway cablecar careening through outerspace dodging cosmic blasts!

I mean think about it just like that magnifique pic I have up from Mr. Neeley where people are being pulled in by centripetal forces on a ferris wheel...well as we stand on planet earth the number of forces tugging at us are immense! And really planet earth is not moving slowly at all infact according to this site planet earth moves 1040 mph! It reminds me so much of well when I'm driving on the highway sometimes...if I pull myself out and try to think about the dynamics of what is going on I freak! But when I slightly switch off and just go with the flow of the traffic I move into it like a cosmic dance in a way...so I think it's the same thing with us on planet earth as a whole or more so us as part of this larger space that is made up of matter and antimatter...you have to make yourself believe it's slow and center yourself else well you gonna FREAK OUT!

I mean but even if you switch off and go into it...isn't it amazing just the kinda speeds this little human body has to go through being bombarded by all these bigger bodies in the Universe and all these forces tugging on us...according to Newton's law of universal gravitation here are the forces bearing down on little us!

Diagrams republished from this site.

And on planet earth that little g also known as gravity works up to be 9.8 meters per sec squared!And the big G is a fella for equality he is the same everywhere in the Universe barging in at a grand approximation of 6.673×10−11 N m2 kg−2 What a ride! Damn no wonder on some days I feel so tired or upheaved...tumultuous even...hence from here on these Thurs talks will be themed Tumultuous Thursdays!

And no wonder our poor little bodies are just crumbling away at the mercy of these forces! So yep you can make yourself believe planet earth turns slowly but for sure them forces are taking their toll! So what is a little body to do? I say the most you can do is surrender to it! Go into it with no resistance...as Deepak Uncle coins it...the Law of Least Effort...so just jump in and go with the flow...merge with the cosmic soup and learn its dance well so you aren't part of its fall out but instead in tune with the dance...

How to learn the dance?...well last I heard them fireflies or lightning bugs were teaching...

"'Cause I'd get a thousand hugs
From ten thousand lightning bugs
As they tried to teach me how to dance"

Here it is...Here it is and Here It Goes!

2010-01-18T19:19:00.007-04:00

I've been in the meditation cave with Shiv...and I had some insights...then I had to go through some invites and welcome back ins...then some unforeseen news I was to bear...oh dear! But then was what some call the Indian New Year! (Makar Sankranti as celebrated in UP/Bihar ...the states of my ancestors) And I think it finally brought closure to my thoughts...

So here it is...here it is...before my heart grows heavy and my lights grow dim... and here it goes...my New Year's resolutions of sorts...my plans for these here blogs and the sections of my life through which they trisect (seeing as they are three and all!)

On Meady's Musings

-Mondays: a blog of choice but this year I plan to focus on my experiments in veganism again and I will be going vegan for all of Feb to coincide with another event (I will be covering on UCP). So you can expect to see some of that thrown in with my stepping and meditation retreats to my Shiv cave!

Also I will again attempt to another garden grow and as I see fit I'll let you know how it grows after you've had your Monday Morning cup of Joe to go! :)

-On Thursdays: Expect an offering from either my reincarnation series then or some dabbling into lucid dreams or anything metaphysical of sorts! ;)We'll go slipping through time tunnels, jump into parallel worlds and fall into a flower garden filled with our dreams! I'm so excited! :)

-Friday Fun: Friday will be for fun...I will attempt to pull out a page from my book literally! Yours truly has been writing a book and I will throw out a bit of it from time to time here...but that's not necessarily fun you say? Or come on now my friends it will be :( Please bear with me! :)

However I'll not only pull out the pages for ya...from time to time I'll whip out something special...let it be a surprise for now until it unfolds...hmmm...a lot like Mr. Universe from those tumultuous Thurs metaphysical talks you say...indeed! :)

And expect to get some visits from my Purple Elephant and little mouse often on these days...I tell ya they are rearing to go! :) The bears may also bless us with a visit or two and we will even sometimes check to see what those mischievous monkeys are up to...hopefully they are still on the straight and narrow since our Advent calendar adventures...you think?

On UCP-Universal Collective Prayer

I won't fix the days here but all February long I'll be celebrating Shiv for sure and during that month just like when I did my Advent calendar I will attempt to blog daily on his exploits...when things overlap you might find I will share of Shiv on the other two blogs too! And of course the big Shiv hoo ha of all will fall on Maha Shiv Ratri and UCP will be there to give you the scoop! :)

That's the only thing I've fixed for this blog thus far...other than that I will continue to explore this thing I call Universal Collective Prayer with you and blog as my exploration demands of me to share it with you! And continue to welcome you to come share in Universal Collective Prayer with me!

OM NAMAH SHIVAY!

On Books and Films Corner

I'll try to blog here at least once a week more than likely on a Friday. I will not rehash what is already out there in the mainstream but try to share with you what I find unique to me and what defines me out there in the great big world of books and films! :) STAY TUNED!

Advent Calendar:The Last Day of Christmas!

2010-01-06T00:24:00.009-04:00

Oh well...here it is...here it is...Christmas comes to an end and so too does my Advent calendar...my animals are about to take off their Santa hats which they had donned and they seem to wear a bit of a frown...but chin up my friends as we join Brother Greg in Universal Collective Prayer and then look towards this here new year! :)

Dear God:
Christmas and Epiphany have passed but the spirit of generosity, light and love go on. May we enter into the story of the Magi bearing gifts. Bless us with the wisdom to honor you with gifts. May our gifts include the essence of who we are. May we never fail to offer the gift of our time, our attention, our care, our compassion, our love, especially to the marginalized among us. The star still shines, leading us to peace and truth. The star shines within us, it is the light of our deepest truth and self. Lead us to realize this Truth, this Self. May we never be parted from your light and your love.
Amen

Now taking off from Brother Greg's prayer I've been thinking about this here new year...

In fact ever since Google blessed me with awakeness on Mon by having that apple drop on my head...when F had equalled to ma courtesy the dead Sir Isaac and the F then equalled to me being awakened for the first time into 2010 and so there I went! :)

Wondering and wondering...and it made me think had I just been chasing my tail? Now this is not always a bad thing mind you...I mean we were in the dream state just before and well didn't Kelkule dream up the benzene ring by seeing in a dream a snake chasing its tail and catching it? Indeed he did! So perhaps it's not a bad thing...but I've been wondering as I step forward into 2010 as it unfolds as it should...Have I really moved forward or simply just come full circle again? In fact how I've been feeling is perfectly summed up in R.E.M.'s "Stand"...funny thing I found the perfect song to explain my feelings and it was also sung by a band whose named was R.E.M...yep you got that right the same R.E.M. used to describe the rapid eye movement stage of sleep where we do the most vivid dreaming! :)

So here it that vid of the song "Stand" while I contemplate its lines written by Michael Stipe who on this MTV video stated that he considered the lyrics inane but hey sometimes weird creative types hate their very own creations or what can I say or maybe just fresh out of the dream state we enjoy a lot of things others consider inane! :) But I really did think:

"Stand in the place where you live
Now face North
Think about direction
Wonder why you haven't before
Now stand in the place where you work
Now face West
Think about the place where you live
Wonder why you haven't before"

So as I "Stand" I've been thinking what to do in this new year...hopefully I've not just come full circle in vain just to start all over again...perhaps it is more I've completed a circle and now I shall go off on a tangent from it to create an even bigger circle! As one of my friends pointed out on facebook perhaps if I weren't just being an observer and I took things into my own hands...now I told her but yea but you see I'm not the dancer just the dance...and Shiv is the dancer you see! :) So perhaps I should go to he and ask him what dance he plans to do this year so I can prepare to be part of his wake! (A wake is the region of recirculating flow immediately behind a moving solid body, caused by the flow of surrounding fluid around the body.) So off I go again to sit at my guru's feet...but heading into the meditation cave these are the things with which I shall enter:

-Plans to blog at least twice a week on all three of my blogs.

-So yep indeed it means I will be reviving the Books and Films Corner fully! :)

-Plans to go even further into this thing I call UCP-Universal Collective Prayer which means less and less I will cover actual rites and rituals since I'd have accumulated quite an archive of those by now...so you will continue to see more questioning...and I will be trying to get more povs (point of views) as much as I can get...but don't lose heart it will still continue to be my journey into this thing I call Universal Collective Prayer and I will always surrender unto the Divine Mother! :)

-Plans to perhaps another garden grow? (blogs about it will appear on Meady's
Musings)

-Plans to explore Veganism some more... (blogs about it will appear on Meady's
Musings)

But all these things will be Shiv willing and I will be heading into the mediatation cave with him tomorrow...When I come out I will tell you what things go and what if any stay and if things on the list above stay they should be better honed and planned by the end of tomorrow!

But after talking about going to see such a serious being let's come back to the matter at hand and close this calendar with a bang! :)

Those magi three they have as always come to sing for me...and I am with gifts as today is the official olden calendar's Epiphany when children are given gifts to commemorate the gifts those gentlemen three gave to the Christ child. However often in modern day times the Epiphany is celebrated on the Sun before which was Sun last Sun 3 Jan 2010 but unfortunately I was in the dream state then and did not blog it! But Bro Greg did come and left my three gifts for me(as I'm but a 4 yr old you see!)He said my three gifts were:

Peace

LOVE :x

and tan tana!

JOY!

So until Advent 2010 take care my friends my Purple elephant and little mouse tip their Santa hats to you and the bears send their love...of course we will blog on! As all the elephants just trumpeted and the monkeys continue to stay reformed!
But of course it will now be in a different light us you will see! :)

Don't forget to take those Christmas decorations down after all we must move on! And come on wipe off those frowns as we sing and dance one last time here!:

Advent Calendar:11th Day of Christmas-The Gift of Dreaming! :)

2010-01-05T22:00:00.001-04:00

Here at Meady's Musings Production we love to dream...not just the day dreaming,inspirational kinda thing...although we love that too! But I'm talking about the kind you have when the scientists say you are in the REM part of your sleep cycle...the time when you tend to have the most memorable and vivid dreams! :)

The purple elephant and little mouse are indeed very tired after all the Christmas rush, activities and fun and indeed can do with some sleep and the dreaming always makes it just that more fun!:)So throw us a pillow and let's go!

So today on the Advent calendar we celebrate the 11th and penultimate day of Christmas with the Gift of Dreaming! :) As we also apologise for missing quite a few days of Christmas on here but as we said on Old Year's day we all had had great, big colds so could really have done with the rest and dreaming. In fact we only woke up from the dream state yesterday when Google did the lovely apple animation to honour Newton and F was equal to ma and the force of the apple hit us on our heads and we woke up for the first time into 2010...the apple fall for us was our equivalent of the ball drop in Times square! So thankfully we are here in the New Year! :)

And here is how we'll do it on each blog:

-On Meady's Musings: We will discuss some of the science and metaphysics of dreaming and perhaps where both of them cross paths! We will also recall past talks this year on Meady's Musings about the topic of dreaming!

-On UCP: In all the great religions of the world divine revelation often comes to the mortal coil during the dream state! We will recall some of our favourite such moments!:)

-On Books and Films Corner: We will recall some of our favourite movies out there that involve dreams and explore the line between that world and the waking state! :)

So grab those pillows and let the dreams begin!

THE SCIENCE AND METAPHYSICS OF DREAMING

Well there is that famous quote about the butterfly and the dream state!

"We imagine that waking-life is real and that dream-life is unreal, but there does not seem to be any evidence for this belief. Chuang Tzu, in the third century B.C., put it in an amusing way; having dreamed that he was a butterfly flitting from flower to flower, he stated that he was now wondering whether he was then a man dreaming he was a butterfly or whether he was now a butterfly dreaming he was a man." - Wei Wu Wei in Fingers Pointing Toward the Moon

And really can we ever know? Just the other day I wondered if I was in the movie Vanilla Sky and I always recall my friend from Intent-Dana Shields when I think of lucid dreaming. And I always wonder if I'm in the Matrix! I've also wondered earlier in 2009 just under one year ago...

Do the Blind See in Their Dreams?

And with 80 comments on the post...people sure did get into their dreaming! And I began then to realise just how much Dana Shields and Mr. Phillip Zeuner were into this dreaming business! :)

It still amazes me how much work people put into this lucid dreaming thing! I mean to me I prefer to dream like in the Never Ending story...I just grab my pillow and use it as a float as I soar and sink through the air pockets of my dreams or imagination! :)Or perhaps I take a ride on the Luck Dragon-Falcor that is so sweet and friendly in that movie I recall from my 1984 childhood days! :)He really was like a great big fluffy pillow! Ride wherever the winds will take me! :)

Advent Calendar:7th Day of Christmas and Old Year's Day-Reflections!

2009-12-31T15:19:00.020-04:00

Meady’s Musings Production apologizes for not keeping up with the calendar and the twelve days of Christmas from the 4th to 6th days of Christmas. However she (Meady herself), the Purple Elephant and even the little mouse have all caught some great big colds! The Purple Elephant believes we got it from Rudolph’s red, runny nose as we were nursing sick reindeer while Santa used our donkey with cart instead this year!

However with a whole house full of sick it’s hard to figure out who should nurse who? And so we were all very unclear as to what to do! Also in an attempt to keep bread on the table for all at the house Meady still had to go out to her full time job so it was near impossible to put up gifts of blog posts. Most of the house guests will be gone by the end of today as the 7th Day of Christmas and Old Year’s Day is here…and all are excited to usher in the New Year!

So, on the today calendar we have made it here, to give you a gift of a blog post olé! As we present…Reflections!

Here is how it will be presented on all three blogs our Reflections on 2009:

-On Meady’s Musings: Our favourite blog posts we shared with you or things we did!

-On UCP: Some of our most profoundly divine and moving moments in UCP!

-On Books and Films Corner: We recall some of the movies we enjoyed this year!

OUR FAVOURITE BLOG POSTS OR THINGS FOR 2009!

Before I look at the details in general I'd like to say this was the year new life was breathed into my Meady's Musings logo and my Purple Elephant and the little mouse really came to life thanks to my friend Adriana Ochoa! :)

JAN: In Jan things manifested as we followed our heart and we had Gone Gardening!

FEB:In Feb we took a jab at our reincarnation series again and heard of the works of Dr. Brian Weiss. Be sure we will be taking further jabs at that series in 2010!

MAR:We asked American President Obama How Does His Garden Grow? Enjoyed the beauty of our Sunflowers aka Suraj Mukhi and discovered our (Primary) Theme Song!

APR:We asked To Be a Leader? as we rolled over in laughter at the antics of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and his wing men Evo Morales and Daniel Ortega as they attended the Summit of the Americas here on our island under the watchful eye of US President Barack Obama who was all smiles and charm as he received arepas...ahem...we mean that infamous book from Chavez!:) As we asked that question we discovered we not only had a theme song but we had two! So from then on one would be called our primary theme song and the other sub-primary theme song! We also had those lovely refinery walks and saw a butterfly!:)

MAY: We volunteered at the Red Earth Eco-Arts Festival 2009 and made some new friends...

JUN-JUL:We left on a jet plane and toured a certain cavernous place i.e. the Grand Canyon via Route 66, engaged in UCP in New Mexico and walked the Santa Fe Trail of the old wild west! On the whole we also hung out in the American Southlands...confederacy anyone? We didn't blog much though as even on return we had this flu perhaps not swine but nasty all the same! Here are some more pics from that trip to make up for it though!

AUG:We explored Parallel Lives and Parallel Worlds and be sure to hear more about that in 2010 as we continue to follow, contemplate and discuss the works of Dr. Kaku and others!

SEP: Some say we may have slipped off into a parallel world during this month but we didn't blog here then! ;)

OCT: In October despite the busyness of the Diwali festivities we took part in Blog Action Day 2009 and wondered about our Carbon Footprint or was it about The Existence of Bigfoot instead!? We also saluted the beautiful Sarah Maria's book!

NOV: In Nov all month long we tried to be semi-raw again but realised if we couldnt do that we could be Vegan for Sure! We may have lost some weight and for sure gotten a bit healthier especially with use of our steppy thingy!Expect us to try a vegan diet again soon in the New Year!:)

DEC: Christmas was here and it again was time for our Advent calendar which takes us back to here! Ole! Bro Greg said the prayers and Adriana helped my animals don their Santa hats and it has been Christmas fun all the way! :)

Advent Calendar:27 Dec 09-The Third Day of Christmas: These are Some of My Favourite Things!

2009-12-27T23:07:00.013-04:00

copyright Meady's Musings Production 2009

Most of the animals and people are now dispersing from Meady's Musings Production house catching their respective flights, donkey backs or simply on foot like the monkeys heading back to the streets...hopefully reformed especially after witnessing miracles! The purple elephant and little mouse have helped them secure jobs in some tea shops and other places...One of them learnt to be a barber while in the house (trained by a bear). And one decided to go off with the shepherds to help them herd their sheep! So the house is getting quieter and quieter...the baby that was born is still with us but word has come through the shepherds that they too should be on the move soon since people are looking for them!

So things are winding down here on the calendar but we are still celebrating the twelve days of Christmas as promised! So on today the third day of Christmas I share with you three of my favourite things that I've discovered this year relevant to each blog...

-On Meady's Musings:Three things to eat!
-On UCP:Three of my favourite carols/bhajans/chants!
-On Books and Films Corner:Two Books and a Movie!

THREE THINGS TO EAT!

1. Awfully Chocolate!- I found out about this as I got it for a birthday present yesterday! It was bought in Shanghai but seems that the store originates from Singapore! And it was awfully nice! You see I love dark chocolate...the one I got is a tin of tartlets it seems...see pic below...What I also like about the chain when I checked out their site is how they originated...nice story...or innovation! Check their site out on http://www.awfullychocolate.com

copyright Meady's Musings Production 2009

2. Lady Grey Tea- Now I'm yet to taste a cup but some friends have and say it is simply delicious...I was just pleased to find out about its existence this year! I had always heard of Earl Grey tea but never knew there was a lady to it! :) But with hints of orange in there some how I know I'll love it! Might have to wait for March to get a cup out of the UK but know it will be well worth it! :)

3.Vegan Foods!- And one of the last but not least important lovely things I learnt to eat this year are vegan foods! It was great to find out how easily I could live on them...and plan to be vegan again in Jan 2010 I think! :)

Advent Calendar:26 Dec 09-My Birthday and the 2nd Day of Christmas!

2009-12-26T09:30:00.008-04:00

So it's my birthday! What I adore about the Purple Elephant and the little mouse is although they were so busy with all the Christmas celebs and preps and our umpteen house guests of all shapes, sizes and species they found the time to bake me a cake and get me an additional separate birthday gift other than my Christmas one! :) They are such caring animals and friends...a girl can wish for none better than those two! :)

Today is also the 2nd day of Christmas according to the old Twelve Days of Christmas traditions and we will be keeping it up on the Advent calendar. So we won't close until the Epiphany on Wed 6 Jan 2010 when we will celebrate with the Magi for the last time this Advent season! :) And it's been a busy one for me so I've not been able to dance with them as much as I'd have liked this year but I will try at least on that day!

However seeing as it is my birthday and I'm at that landmark that I personally consider to be middle of the road (since average life expectancy is 70)...tethering at the top of the hill...trying for it to not to go all down hill too fast at 35! Aah that thing call time...but it's fictional anyway just ask my metaphysics mentioning friends! :)

But the Purple elephant and the little mouse insisted that I relax today...so I'm going to try...but if I had left my calendar bare...they shan't have existed today you see...since they are imaginary...Oh dear! So I had to blog even today so you could see them appear! :)

So today on the calendar I'm not going to be as presumptuous as on last year's calendar and assume you want the gift of me on my birthday! Although to me that is what it is when you mark your birthday and friends cheer...it is that they are celebrating your entry into existence on the earthly plane and so like on that day you are the gift to them...no?

But instead this year I will just with you share some of the things that define me or are important to me...since I should be relaxing I might mostly reference blogs I've written in the past but with a new slant...so here is how we'll have it!:)

-On Meady's Musings: I will recall my primary and sub-primary theme songs! :)
-On UCP: I will recall my relationship with Shiv and pinch my cute Ishq Devata-Ganesh!
-On Books and Films Corner: I will list my top ten fav books ever and show some clips of some of fav films too! :)

So here it is Happy Happy to me! :)

MY PRIMARY AND SUB-PRIMARY THEME SONGS:

I would have spoken about them on this blog in April:

To Be A Leader?-My Primary and Sub-Primary Theme Songs! :)

And here now are the Youtube clips of them cued again for you here !:

I am the One and Only by Chesny Hawkes (Primary Theme song)

and

Wonder by Natalie Merchant (Sub-Primary Theme song)

Advent Calendar:Christmas Day!-The Gift of the Christ Child!

2009-12-25T07:46:00.009-04:00

Christmas Bread copyright Meady's Musings Production 2009

Well you can just imagine the chaos at Meady's Musings Production house last night! I can say though that all my animals pitched in and it was the most loveliest thing all the same! My donkey (now magical) and his cart went off with Santa and a few of the smaller bears to do the gift giving. My purple elephant and little mouse were busy running a virtual hospital. A lady showed up saying she was the wife of Santa Claus...Mrs Claus if you'll have it...but she was the loveliest thing and she baked us the most delicious bread and other treats for dinner and to have today on Christmas Day!

For Christmas dinner we had invited Deacon Greg Kirk to give the prayers and bring Christmas greetings and that he did and even left us something to say today here on the calendar to ring in Christmas day! We also had some unexpected guests in you guessed it the three 'wise' men! They said they were following a star that had settled just above our tree grove where the animals had set up a carrat (leaf) shed. However my purple elephant had the spare porta camps so they had a place to stay but they kept being agitated about the star and what was to come...

Then just around midnight...we got word that a cousin of our very own donkey of Santa gift giving fame had a cousin in town...some of the monkeys and a few bears (to police them in case they got out of hand again) went out to find him! And that they did but he wasn't alone! He had with him a lady with child and her husband was leading the donkey (our very own donkey's cousin!) They also said they were following the star...and when they got to our house all the animals and people welcomed them and insisted they stay in our tree grove that seemed auspicious in some way! It had this presence about it with the brightest star up above! And we some how felt it so fitting that the lady with child stay at the roots of the great tree...so we made it very comfy as could be! And they really liked the space! Then just after midnight the baby was born...delivered in the loving care of my nurses...the Purple Elephant and little mouse...

All the animals came to see...the three shepherds...the three 'wise' men...all of them...

So today on Meady's Musings Production's Advent calendar we celebrate Christmas Day with just the one big blog post...same on all three blogs...I give you the great prayer by my Brother in UCP Deacon Greg Kirk, Christmas Bread baked by my mom in reality (but Mrs Claus virtually) and Joy to the World! The Lord is come...

Christmas Bread copyright Meady's Musings Production 2009

THE CHRISTMAS PRAYER By Deacon Greg Kirk

The Season of Light

Christmas is Light, the darkness has been overcome by one who came to love. Christmas is more than decorating trees, exchanging gifts and gathering with loved ones. Christmas is an opportunity to embrace the Light - to open to the power, bliss and peace the Light brings.

Jesus of Nazareth desired to know the Light and live within its embrace so deeply, he became one with the Light. He left a path, a way, for you and I to share in this bliss. "Love God with all your being and love your neighbor as you love yourself." Jesus assured us that we are loved completely, unconditionally. He encouraged us to root our lives in the hope and promise of this Love.

My prayer this Christmas is for people everywhere to experience the Light and Love within them, to know more deeply of their beauty and dignity, to experience the Essence or True Self within and to find the freedom to be the people they were created to be.

Darkness abounds in our world, in many circumstances and ways. Embracing the Light -being open to every person's truth, daring to love others, especially the vulnerable and marginalized, causes the darkness to recede and the Light to shine more brilliantly.

Dare to be Light, dare to be Love. Dare to be one with the One who is Light and Love as Jesus did. You will find new possibilities and power. You will find yourself. And you will find yourself within the heart of God.

Love, Greg

Advent Calendar:24 Dec 09-The Gift that is Santa Claus!

2009-12-24T16:19:00.006-04:00

Today the bears went out to the market on their own. They are my house guests and I would not have let them go shopping for food...which I consider myself obliged to supply but they sneaked out! A grizzly kept watch while a Canadian black bear and Polar bear took me to see some supposedly newly installed gadgetry in each of the tricked out mangers where the three shepherds and their lambs sleep. While I was on my way there...a Winnie the Pooh like bear, an Indian sloth bear (supposedly descended straight from the line of Jambhavan the bear king) and two other polar bears left in a donkey cart for the market! I was minorly irritated by the incident but then reconciled with myself that they were after all bears and so ate as such! They were all nice and apologetic about it when they returned and so I accepted the bouquet of sunflowers (two bouquets now) and their apologetic words!

But their whole sneakiness also seemed minor compared to the rest of the story! You see the Purple elephant and the little mouse saw when the bears left and knowing I'd not like it decided to follow them. When the bears realised it they agreed to all shop together in the market...and while they were having fun they heard big screams! They all ran to the spot where the screams came from to find a batch of ladies in tears complaining about a batch of monkeys of varying size, origin and nationality attacking them and taking their bags!

This really got the purple elephant and little mouse mad and the elephant used his towering size and big strides to quickly comb and survey the areas and dispatched the bears to find the monkeys. They were all found and the Indian sloth bear was asked to judge over them. He was chosen based on his royal lineage and the fact that some of the monkeys were also descended from Indian monkeys who were related to Lord Hanuman and other monkeys who worked on the Setu bridge alongside bears! So some of the monkeys felt him a fair choice. In the end all monkeys were found guilty but in tears agreed before all the animals and the ladies to reform their ways! They agreed to return all their stolen goods by going to homes all day long and to come back to the house tonight Christmas eve and to stay with the other animals for Christmas! The animals agreed to build a few tree houses so that they could be accommodated. So there you have it Meady's Musings Production house will now be housing monkeys of every shape and kind as well! :)

So my bears and others have been working on those tree houses since they came back from the market. While they were all busy I decided to take a break under one of the marvelous Samaans that reside in my yard. When at the edge of a nearby pond I heard and saw an old man sobbing! I went up to him to ask him what was wrong and it was then he explained to me that he was indeed (as I had suspected in my magical land this could happen)Santa Claus! But he was sobbing because all of his reindeer including Rudolph were sick...he suspected it could be swine flu but he really didn't know what to do!

Now I was really strained for accommodations at this point and I couldn't put my bears on more projects so the purple elephant agreed to go out and buy a few Porta Camps! In there we agreed to isolate and nurse the ailing reindeer and guess what!?

Santa Claus and I conceived that we could use his magic dust to make my donkey magical and able to fly! And so all the gifts to kids world over this Christmas Eve night are going to be delivered by my donkey! And will be stored in his donkey cart you see! :)

When the Purple Elephant came home with the porta camps an hour ago he said he had spotted the three big camels with the transformed men sitting on them (from yesterday's sighting)and he decided to buy an extra porta camp as he had a strong sense of Elephantitis that they were headed to our house! Hmmm...

By now you must realise Santa Claus is here! And also the Magi are possibly heading our way...so to celebrate the great saint and on the whole the loveliness of gift giving here is how we will give our salutes!:

-On Meady's Musings: I reminisce on the Santa poll that we ran last year on the UCP blog and ask you again to comment or vote in this year if you like.
-On UCP: We re-publish the post we did last year on the great saint...Saint Nicholas...
-On Books and Films Corner: We link to Youtube clips from our all time favourite Santa flicks! :)

SANTA POLL-Do You Believe in Santa Claus?

We asked it last year and this is the re-published results from that poll. Feel free to write in and tell us again this year how you feel...and perhaps some of you have changed your minds?

"I asked the question:

"Do You Believe in Santa Claus?"

to my readers allowing them to choose one response only of the following:

-YES
-NO
-MAYBE

I created the poll on Sat 6 Dec 2008 to compliment my post 'Do You Believe in Santa Claus?- Saint Nicholas Day' which I posted to commemorate Saint Nicholas Day and to join in Universal Collective Prayer with the great Saint who acted out his Universal Collective Prayer by giving gifts to children. I wanted to make his name unsullied from the commercialism that had done so while still embracing the fact that many American traditions that may have gone on to sully his name had also made him into the image he now is and perhaps preserved him so long too. So not all is bad in Americana and commercialism cause perhaps not for that the saint would be dead to our brain's memory although perhaps still in our superconscious hearts or soul...but as the American iconography keeps him so real it also reminds us of him much like iconography in Hinduism and in so doing perhaps opens us up a bit more to his spirit than if he had no form. You see giving him a form keeps him real to us on this material plane as much as an image of Baby Krishna stealing ghee does for opening up the heart of the Bhakti Yogi...one who practises pure love to reach enlightenment. So for this I salute the American Santa Claus! And in so doing I give you the results of the poll:

Out of 11 persons casting their vote here on Universal Collective Prayer...cause others did vote on Intent. Here is the break down:

Yes = 7 votes (63%)
No = 1 vote (9%)
Maybe = 3 votes (27%)

So the 'I s' have it! YES WE BELIEVE IN SANTA CLAUS! :)"

Come on tell us what you think this year! ;)

Advent Calendar: 23 Dec 09-The Gift of the Magi

2009-12-23T18:07:00.006-04:00

A Shopping Centre in Spain (as taken in 2007 from Wikimedia Commons)

"The tradition in Spain and some Latin American countries is that the Three Wise Men are who bring gifts to children at Christmas. In recent years, as an assimilation of the Anglo-Saxon tradition of Santa Claus, they often appear at gift shops and shopping malls, where children have the opportunity to take a picture sitting on their knees and deliver the letter with their demands."

The purple elephant and the little mouse had gone off to the market to stock up on food for all the many house guests that Meady's Musings Production House has been accumulating over the last few weeks when the most funniest thing happened! So funny the purple elephant is rolling on the floor in laughter appearing as if he is in some circus stunt (God forbid he should ever be entrapped in one of those!) as he retells the story with the little mouse...

Apparently the little mouse sat on his shoulder as they went through the market and hid behind his ears every time they noticed a passerby that wouldn't understand that they could be 'clean' mouses in markets. They always do this...and the little mouse advises the purple elephant by whispering into his ear what looks good and what does not...what is too pricey...what is a deal!

So using that tried and tested approach they had already procured honey for the bears (we have since had to buy honey outside our contract after the bee colony strikes earlier on especially to prevent any further Winnie the Pooh impersonations!), bread for the shepherds and even a bouquet of sunflowers for me! :) When that most funniest thing happened!

They saw three men arguing in the middle of the market square! They all had come out of their SUV-sports utility vehicle...each with a smart phone in their hand...arguing that the tallest one who was the driver and the owner of the SUV did not know where he was going as each of their phones gave different directions and that for sure he must have mis-programmed his SUV's GPS! What made it so funny for the purple elephant and the little mouse was the whole scene and antics! The SUV had grinded to a halt right in the middle of the market square kicking up a considerable amount of dust and screeching! And the three men immediately exited from it popping out like if they were compressed hot air inside of there! And all three congregated in a circle pointing at smart phones and then the sky and each trying to out voice the other! But that was not all...

As they argued three large camels seem to appear from no where and used their long necks to scoop a man each up into the air and onto their backs! The expression on each of the men's faces as they all of a sudden grew beards and donned long silky robes is what still has the purple elephant rolling on the floor and I have to tell you my floor tiles are not faring well!

As you might have guessed from that little story the Three Wisemen or the Three Magi or the Three Kings whatever you like to call them are in town! :) And here on the calendar we wish to salute them! :) We had a lot of fun all of last year's Advent calendar long with them and must now again bow to them! And shall do it in this format:

-On Meady's Musings: Who were the Magi? as described on the New Advent (Catholic encyclopedia)and that lovely song with Hugh! ;)
-On UCP: The Time and Circumstances of Their Visit again as described on the New Advent (Catholic encyclopedia).
-On Books and Films Corner: A glimpse of them in the 2006 film The Nativity Story.

So here we go!:

WHO WERE THE MAGI?
As taken from the New Advent
"who the magi were
Non-Biblical evidence

We may form a conjecture by non-Biblical evidence of a probable meaning to the word magoi. Herodotus (I, ci) is our authority for supposing that the Magi were the sacred caste of the Medes. They provided priests for Persia, and, regardless of dynastic vicissitudes, ever kept up their dominating religious influence. To the head of this caste, Nergal Sharezar, Jeremias gives the title Rab-Mag, "Chief Magus" (Jeremiah 39:3, 39:13, in Hebrew original — Septuagint and Vulgate translations are erroneous here). After the downfall of Assyrian and Babylonian power, the religion of the Magi held sway in Persia. Cyrus completely conquered the sacred caste; his son Cambyses severely repressed it. The Magians revolted and set up Gaumata, their chief, as King of Persia under the name of Smerdis. He was, however, murdered (521 B.C.), and Darius became king. This downfall of the Magi was celebrated by a national Persian holiday called magophonia (Her., III, lxiii, lxxiii, lxxix). Still the religious influence of this priestly caste continued throughout the rule of the Achaemenian dynasty in Persia (Ctesias, "Persica", X-XV); and is not unlikely that at the time of the birth of Christ it was still flourishing under the Parthian dominion. Strabo (XI, ix, 3) says that the Magian priests formed one of the two councils of the Parthian Empire.
Biblical evidence

The word magoi often has the meaning of "magician", in both Old and New Testaments (see Acts 8:9; 13:6, 8; also the Septuagint of Daniel 1:20; 2:2, 2:10, 2:27; 4:4; 5:7, 5:11, 5:15). St. Justin (Tryph., lxxviii), Origen (Cels., I, lx), St. Augustine (Serm. xx, De epiphania) and St. Jerome (In Isa., xix, 1) find the same meaning in the second chapter of Matthew, though this is not the common interpretation.
Patristic evidence

No Father of the Church holds the Magi to have been kings. Tertullian ("Adv. Marcion.", III, xiii) says that they were wellnigh kings (fere reges), and so agrees with what we have concluded from non-Biblical evidence. The Church, indeed, in her liturgy, applies to the Magi the words: "The kings of Tharsis and the islands shall offer presents; the kings of the Arabians and of Saba shall bring him gifts: and all the kings of the earth shall adore him" (Psalm 71:10). But this use of the text in reference to them no more proves that they were kings than it traces their journey from Tharsis, Arabia, and Saba. As sometimes happens, a liturgical accommodation of a text has in time come to be looked upon by some as an authentic interpretation thereof. Neither were they magicians: the good meaning of magoi, though found nowhere else in the Bible, is demanded by the context of the second chapter of St. Matthew. These Magians can have been none other than members of the priestly caste already referred to. The religion of the Magi was fundamentally that of Zoroaster and forbade sorcery; their astrology and skill in interpreting dreams were occasions of their finding Christ. (See THEOLOGICAL ASPECTS OF THE AVESTA.)

The Gospel narrative omits to mention the number of the Magi, and there is no certain tradition in this matter. Some Fathers speak of three Magi; they are very likely influenced by the number of gifts. In the Orient, tradition favours twelve. Early Christian art is no consistent witness:

* a painting in the cemetery of Sts. Peter and Marcellinus shows two;
* one in the Lateran Museum, three;
* one in the cemetery of Domitilla, four;
* a vase in the Kircher Museum, eight (Marucchi, "Eléments d'archéologie chrétienne", Paris, 1899, I 197).

The names of the Magi are as uncertain as is their number. Among the Latins, from the seventh century, we find slight variants of the names, Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar; the Martyrology mentions St. Gaspar, on the first, St. Melchior, on the sixth, and St. Balthasar, on the eleventh of January (Acta SS., I, 8, 323, 664). TheSyrians have Larvandad, Hormisdas, Gushnasaph, etc.; the Armenians, Kagba, Badadilma, etc. (Cf. Acta Sanctorum, May, I, 1780). Passing over the purely legendary notion that they represented the three families which are descended from Noah, it appears they all came from "the east" (Matthew 2:1, 2, 9). East of Palestine, only ancient Media, Persia, Assyria, and Babylonia had a