My Own Special Kinda Advent Calendar for My Readers!

I’m launching my own kinda Advent calendar on all three of my blogs today! I know it’s half way into the Advent month of December and less than 10 days away from Christmas but as I said it’s my own kinda Advent calendar and as such I start it and end it in my own way…I’ve decided to start it today and to let it run into the 12 days of Christmas instead of on Christmas day. So the calendar starts today and ends on the day of the Epiphany or in places where the Epiphany is not celebrated- 6th Jan which normally marks the end of the Christmas season.

So here’s how my Advent calendar is gonna run…first of all for once I’m gonna be posting daily…now this is not my day job and so if I falter be meek and mild with me…but at least I plan to post everyday…and hopefully I won’t falter. And won’t let down the guy singing to the kids on this post! :)

So here is how the calendar goes…on each of my blogs I’m gonna put something up about Christmas but from focusing on different aspects of the celebrations. So on my Meady’s Musings Blog….this one….I’m gonna talk about some favourite treat associated with the holidays. However the treat will not be utilizing any of ‘The Little Ones’ in ‘em and I defined what ‘The Little Ones’ are on my Universal Collective Prayer blog a couple days ago here in this post. But to put it simply it means it will be vegetarian meals but using dairy since as far as I can tell locally here the milk obtained isn’t from mega farms by and large and so the cows aren’t suffered for the milk. The cheese is available in animal rennet free versions and supposedly the cows that make ‘em stroll the lovely country sides of New Zealand. And the ones that give the butter play in the pristine Irish meadows. So for now like how the Verizon guy makes everyone say- Good!-I’m good cause I checked it out! Anyway by and large I feel I will be following in the tradition of putting a chocolate on each date in the actual Advent calendars so I will be symbolically giving you a new chocolate everyday by reviewing something with chocolate in it! Mmmmm…yum!

My semi-raw thing didn’t work out for many reasons this time and I had to curtail it. One of the reasons I had to was of the hectic schedules these days and so not much time to make right choice less write about the wrong ones! I’ve been posting on Universal Collective Prayer but that just flows as it is prayers you know….So just letting you know in case you are wondering how I’m eating the chocs when I was suppose to be all healthy till Christmas day…next year for sure though! :) No seriously I plan to approach it again when I’m more settled.

So now, back to the Advent calendar…On my Universal Collective Prayer blog I will be including a favourite quotation, tune or writing about Christmas and the Nativity and sometimes a film clip although it is not a film blog. While on my less known and rarely updated The Books and Films Corner blog I will be talking about well…a book or film relevant to the holidays. I still owe my blog on V.S. Naipaul on that blog and my blog series on Reincarnation on this Meady’s Musings blog so in between you might see posts on those too but there will be two posts on that day if that happens-one for the Advent calendar and one for the normal postings. My blogs don’t close for the Holidays and so we still have normal posts to churn out there as well! And if you want to see more of my blogs in the New Year well you might just have to be clicking away on those Google Ad Sense ads so you can pay me enough pennies to plug on!:)Merry Christmas and a Bright and Prosperous New Year Everybody! with love and compassion from Meady's Musings Production:)Advent calendar here we come!

Your Advent Calendar: Tue 16 Dec 08-Nestle's After Eight

Today I’m gonna talk about the delightful treat that is Nestle’s After Eight. It’s a thin dark chocolate strip with a strong minty filling. It's really lovely and every Christmas I like to get myself a box. Now Nestle seems to like it so much as a seller over the decades they have even given it its own site! So I'm not gonna mouth off much about it here. Only to let you know that if you like strong minty dark chocolate it's the one! And I hope you enjoy on this day of Advent! I tend to eat two in one go. Each dark choc mint is really exquisitely wrapped too and I tend to get the 300 g box as shown above on Nestle's site for it- I'm sure they won't mind me re-publishing the pic here cause it's all good publicity for their brand.


I've also attached for your healthy or not info its nutrional info. And really if you do like me and have two a day well you are really only putting just about 80kcal not bad for a decadent treat! :)And as the name says-After Eight...it really is good to have that time just after dinner...it's a nice alternative to a plain mint...it gives you a nice feel like you have chocolate but at the same time the mint cuts off your taste buds for the night so you don't crave...So you see not all things decadent are that bad! You can have fun and not be totally madly unhealthy at the same time! You think?

NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION
Typical Values Per 4 sweets (7g) Per 100g
Energy 657KJ 1912KJ
157kcal 456kcal
Protein 1.4g 3.6g
Carbohydrate 22.2g 66.2g
of which sugars: 19.2g 55.4g
Fat 6.9g 19.6g
of which saturates: 3.7g 11.9g
Fibre 0.3g 0.8g
Sodium Trace 0.1g
Salt Equivalent 0.1g 0.2g

My First Difficult Trek into The Shoes of the Other!

The trek took the form that it fits into my Universal Collective Prayer blog but I wanted to let those of you on here to know about it. So please come follow the link and check it out here! I'll warn you it wasn't an easy walk!

To Walk in the Shoes of Another...

By now anyone following my blogs or who have read one or two might have read that I hang out on this online community call Intent. One of the things on there is you can set an Intent for yourself and have others support you in 'mind' and discuss things to help you go about achieving them.

Today I set mine as follows:
"To Walk in the Shoes of Others Who are Very Different from Me"

I came to this realization after the recent Mumbai Terror Attacks and base on some of my interactions with co-workers too...but for now the main things I want to explore are more spurred on by the terror attacks and on a more general level. Later on I will try to tackle more specific things for instance with co-workers etc. Although I may not be able to share them in detail on here without it being too personal for the others involved...on the off chance they read my blog and realise its bout them! And in that there is the realization that not everyone is like me and as open and would be horrified of having a blog in their true identity for all the world to see in the first place! These shoes...so different they can be!

Anyway for now I will be exploring on this blog and wherever/whenever more applicable on my Universal Collective Prayer blog this walking in other people's shoes business...And here is what I want to explore in the first instance:

-the Islamic mind (cause it is one of the religions that I know little bout or according to their believers I understand wrongly and didn't hit me how important a religion it is to understand till Deepak Chopra said it is 25% of the world's population!)

-the terrorist mind (cause I know not all terrorist are Muslim)

-the Islamic terrorist mind (but many terrorist are Muslim)

The closest I've come to understanding it is from these books and my own perception of things on the earth otherwise:

-Among the Believers- V.S. Naipaul (fellow Trinidadian by birth and for first 18yrs of life at least not matter what is said)

-Shalimar's Clown- Salman Rushdie (of fatwah on head fame!)

So I'm not sure how I'm going to further explore these shoes of others but I'm hoping others on the Intent community will be of help perhaps in particular Gotham Chopra whose work in the past has taken him into investigative reporting of some of these global issues.

Anyway let me try on these shoes...

"Thank You India...Thank You Terror"-Alanis Morissette

The night before Thanksgiving day in the US this year...just a few days ago really Mumbai in India underwent a 'terror attack'. On Thanksgiving day fellow blogger Elspeth Duncan put up this post about how she was talking with a friend in the car on the way to an event and they decided to honour the North American festival in a sense by saying thank yous to each other...then right after they said their thank yous...well guess what?...Alanis Morisette's Thank You came on the radio!

That got me to thinking bout how often when were are chatting or reading or saying something the word is then said right after on TV...what's up with that? coincidence or some kinda of network or fabric in the universe that hooks us all up in some way...transcending space and time and all of that! And Elspeth's post came up just after I had done two posts one, about how things seem to be just coming together in some way like I guess it is what can be called networking but I just kept meeting this person or doing this thing that leads to this thing and I visualized it like water droplets coming together. And another one bout the power of visualization and how I had visualised or perhaps even in a sense had a premonition of a tree!

Then within all of that I read Elspeth's blog and looked at the words she pasted for Alanis Morissette's lyrics for the song-Thank You. And just makes you wonder...can all these things further be linked to the fact that just the night before India had the terror attacks...pure coincidence? A terrorist fascinated with her music? Or the same thinking that India representing a land of peace especially to so many Americans nowadays with the New Age religion etc and being the land of Ahimsa-Non-Violence and Mahatma Gandhi and all was it the terrorist sick way of contrasting peace versus terror...putting them side by side on America's Thanksgiving? And in doing so they coincidentally expressed with actions what Alanis expressed in song? You know Thank You India-as it has given us the Mahatma and Ahimsa and Satyagraha...Non-violence and the practice of using non-violent resistance started by the Mahatma to resolve political issues versus Thank You Terror-as in being the total opposite in this is the use of violent acts against civilians to resolve political issues and God knows how resolution is sought by this anyway. But I guess in song it is Alanis Morissette's way of embracing the opposites...the yin and the yang and thanking them all for it is all that propels her and the universe itself to unfold as it should?

I still can't Thank Terror cause of the hurt it causes but perhaps those souls involved it was their purpose on earth to take part in the dance so that the universe could unfold...perhaps such acts are what propels us forward for it makes us wake up as a world and look, listen, feel and causes us then to be the change we want to see...so perhaps what we do now post terror will decide how things will continue to unfold...? And I leave you with that Alanis song that leaves us with much more to think about too...

Visualizing The Tree of Peace...

I thought I had blogged this on one of my blogs but based on interactions I had in response to comments made about my last post on my Meady's Musings blog I realized I just never got about to doing it. One of the things too is I think this post is applicable to both my Meady's Musings blog and the Universal Collective Prayer one so I'm going to do a dual entry and post it on both. So here is what I want to say...

Last month as part of the Diwali celebrations in work we had a photography competition I was a major driver of the competition and I was a major player in setting up the structure of the competition, developed judging templates, sat as a judge and also had the immense pleasure of presenting the awards too! :)One of the guys on our organizing committee was at loggerheads with me of a severe kind cause he didn't and still does not believe that if one wanted to show the concept of peace or what we called the 'human value of peace' for the competition they could take a serene scenery or a picture of a tree say to show it!I don't know why he couldn't see it but I don't want to go into all of it...I took the higher road I think and felt he should still be a judge cause it was good to have opposing ideas on such a panel. But I stood my ground as also being a judge. He however took that idea to the judging matrix and so as far as I'm concerned all such entries had a major handicap in that judge's eye. Luckily there were three judges and so an almost perfect picture of a water pond/dam in our refinery area surrounded by beautiful Samaan trees was able to cop third prize representing 'Peace'. Had it just been two judges or a third judge who felt differently it may have came first.

The Third Prize winner is at the bottom of the picture:


Now when I was visualizing how the structure of the contest would flow I kept seeing this tree in my head when I thought of peace...I didn't have the picture locked down to location but I had a general idea of it's shape, size and type although in the visualization I never knew what type of tree it was I cleared saw it...and I sometimes visualized me or just an arbitrary human (no identifying features at time) sitting in Yogi position under the tree and usually dressed in white or sometimes just under the tree not necessarily in any Yogi pose. Weeks past and then I had to go to Tobago for the weekend with some friends (it's when I had the Gran Couva chocolate) and that Friday although I was off from work and in Tobago was when the entries for the competition was closing. And so I kept being excited to get back into to work to see how the entries would end up! :) Although I also relished the time for relaxation and the company of friends. And guess what...as I walked into the yard of the home I would be staying in for the weekend...I saw the tree! The said tree...very similar in shape and size...it is only then it occurred to me on the prompting of a friend that the tree was what we call an Almond tree in Trinidad...although it's not the actual almonds that people eats as nuts I think...although the fruit is huge and green and shaped like a big Almond i.e. almond shaped. I don't know much about the details of the fruit of the tree and how it is treated to be honest...but there was the tree! And in saying that it reminds me of something I read when I was 14 or so by J. Krishnamurti bout how man names trees and label things and in doing so gets so caught up in that, we miss the beauty of the thing. So let's not get into the name of the tree and I was glad that in my visualization I never named the tree type as in label it and I myself although come to think of it knew it was 'an Almond tree' never clicked into that until the friend named it...I was just caught up in the tree for being all that it is!

So there was girl and her tree...All weekend long as we sat in the porch looking out...I kept thinking there was the tree! And just as I had visualized it...if someone had told me that could happen or it happened to them I'd think them crazy...even now people can say it is just coincidence and who knows perhaps it is? But it had a huge impact on me! So imagine I did end up spending many hours just lounging with friends looking at this tree! :)Perfect bliss...Satchitananda...Perfect Peace...Harmony...a thing of beauty is a joy forever...and so much more...just me and my tree!

And here is looking at your tree!Pics taken by me and one of friends think was Ian Graham not sure who snapped what...And if it was Ian he knew nothing bout the visualization story as I didn't share that story with him so going to flag him in this writing to let him know now...:

Smile! It's All Coming Together...

I had been meaning to share with my readers something that happened to me last week as it happened but in all my excitement as a part-time, at night after my full time job blogger...well I...I fell asleep! I was excited bout the whole thing and then got all so worked up checking out the film, the related sites and processing all of it in my head and this and that...and so I expended so much of my remaining of the day's energy I just fell asleep...didn't even have dinner...and then the next few days the excitement wasn't there...this was last week Tues 18 Nov I only know the exact day cause I had saved the link to the film on a word document under the title smile not to lose it and the document was created on that day. The thing is then as the days rolled on even more things unfolded but I was just too tired to blog it! But perhaps it was the universe's way to allow more to unfold before I got up to blog about it! Who knows...q'est que c'est...who knows what it is...? However as I didn't blog it right away another event occurred that could be seen as totally random and meaningless or as very serendipitous etc. Although I yet don't know what is the greater plan or meaning...so now here's the story...

Fellow blogger Elspeth Duncan who many times inspires me to go off on something in my own way after she has posted it...had posted up this link to a film that was sent to her by a friend. She had said the film was just bout 19 mins long I think it was and how her readers should view it...it seems the title of the film is Validation cause I can see it being the title although Im not 100% sure now if the title appeared anywhere. As a result she had titled her blog that too. However on watching the film I more thought of it as Smile! I'd call it Smile! if I had to name it...SMILE!...and though in many ways the film can be seen as corny it really was a lovely film! And it made me think too how true it is for all of us in life really? And how many of us are somewhere along that journey the man was on in the film...and at what point are we? I guess we can all ask ourselves these questions...our stories might not be exactly the same and of course the film strips it down to the very basic and generic core which is what makes it a bit corny but of course also simple. I mean maybe we again find love or a smile from another person but we do in the end...or maybe many of us are grumpy cause of the same thing that happened to that man in the film or the girl...but it's so cool that when he got his smile on again even after her refusal he inspires again and what was meant to be then unfolded on its on in its own time...that little film has a multitude of little lessons if you go into it...it's very lovely and powerful! Of course me going on about it so abstractly might have lost you but you just have to watch the film which I'm going to link below.

However before I do that I want to let you know the serendipitous or synchronous things that happened to me after checking out this film. I realized that the film's origin is on this site Spirtual Cinema Circle and it was so lovely to find that! If you check it out you will see why...then I realize one of the founders of it, Stephen Simon had his hands in some way involved in some of my really fav films like What Dreams May Come and, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure. Of course I also find Deepak Chopra reviewing the site positively but he is all over the place in spiritual media stuff so perhaps not such a coincidence but still since I'm a member of the Intent community as well so even that was already another synchronicity perhaps? Then I realize that there is another online community affiliated with this cinema site called Gaia. I was too sleepy and information overloaded to join which is by the way one of my Intents on Intent...to not suffer from information overload! So I must have fell asleep but then a few days later on Intent a guy joins on first as a community member blogger but then quickly moves to the Intent Voice side of the page...I find his stuff interesting...but guess what?! It's only a while after and as more information about him comes up I realize that he, Brian Johnson is actually the founder of a company called Zaadz which he has now sold and is which is now Gaia! So what you think? Coincidence? Or Serendipitous? Or Synchronous? Or just plain and simply nothingnous? :) I don't know...Je ne sais pas...Hum na jaane...But in my mind the whole thing keeps being visualized as a set of water droplets or like moving celluloid type beads sort of just merging together till they form bigger and bigger droplets...and it reminds me of the Big Blue Marble song that I dedicated to Mallika Chopra and the Intent community in the past and was also reminded of by Elspeth..."closer...getting closer" Whatever it means or not interesting isn't it? N'est pas? Non?

I've tried to find a pic that best illustrates my visualization cause a good visual might also be how water droplets on a well polished car start sliding into each other...or if you excuse my engineering terms here, like how water in emulsions separate from the oil say and coalesce together...like attracting like I guess and being repelled from the unlike? Dunno? Plus I'm not for segregation...Anyway I can't find any of my own pics that would best show it so I've burrowed this pic...it doesn't say it is copyrighted and it's from this link http://www.scalestotails.net/images/WaterDroplets.JPG also I'm not using this pic to for any profit so hope it is OK.

WaterDroplets.
JPG (JPEG Image, 640x426 pixels)

And finally you can go off and enjoy the lovely little film and let me know what you think if you like...
Smile!

Closer...getting closer...