Advent Calendar: Tue 8 Dec-The Gift of Christmas Cheer!

I have to tell ya...Meady's Musings Production's House was a real riot after the Friendship blog yesterday...the mouse invited all his family...and they all wanted to see the cartoon kahani (story) about their ancestral mice and the elephants. So I had a whole room of mice watching Youtube on one end of the house. And on the other end...well the purple elephant kept apologising to me and trying to ward off elephants from north, east, west and south...just all about! You see they too came...running up to one another in delight but the vibration it caused almost cracked the foundation of the house! I know it was all meant with friendship and love though...but the Purple Elephant I've never seen him so filled with glee but yet apologetic you see! :)Eventually trumpets died down and they all got the message that yes indeed they were loved but they simply couldn't converge on one small human house! LOL!

So this author is all tired out...knackered if you like! And she was preparing the customary three part blog...a main blog with a bit of different perspectives for each of her three blogs...and it was to be to talk about the gift that are bears! BUT...BUT...

The thought of the likes of Goldilocks and the Three Bears rummaging through her house...and perhaps Pooh tinkering in her kitchen looking for honey and heavens forbid getting stuck in a window or door after stuffing himself with fluff! OR OR...a grizzly at her door!??? Or other real liFe bears on her already shaken roof...well...it was enough for one day...so...that story was shelved for another day...more than likely tomorrow if all my readers promise...promise...NOT TO FEED THE BEARS! :)

So to fill my calendar with cheer today as I refuse to leave it bear...oops I mean bare! :) I salute Sesame Street as this is the year of its 40th anniversary and I've always loved their muppet cousins as well...and indeed you readers might know that John Denver and the Muppets singing together is some of my favourite Christmas music each year! And well no news to the whole blogosphere but we also lost MJ this year...gone too soon some say...say say! :) So he also forms part of the gift of cheer!

Advent Calendar: Mon 7 Dec 09-The Gift of Friendship!

Today on the Advent calendar we will be celebrating the gift of Friendship! The same blog post on all three blogs today since like the Ghost of Christmases Past, Present and Future I believe on this particular posting all three of my blogs swirl into ONE!

I was inspired to give this gift here on the calendar because I’ve been touched by many great acts of friendship in the blogosphere this year. And I count myself lucky enough to have been on the receiving end so many a time! To be honest I’ve been giving too but to recall the cliché here… “Self praise is no praise”. So I won’t be recalling what I’ve done but what has been done for me! But of course all great friendships aren’t about keeping score anyway. All the same I have to single out some people who have been making my blog posts all the more decorative or more inspirational all year long! And also my followers (I don’t have the application up and I don’t keep score) but I know I have a handful of people. Those who if not always at least from time to time read my posts and even comment if not on the actual blogs, perhaps on Intent where I re-post or on Facebook where I might even get a thumbs up!

But first a drum roll please for these two who have contributed directly to the creativity and or spirituality of this blog this year! Ladies and Gentlemen…Elephants and Mice! :
A big round of applause for…ADRIANA OCHOA and Brother/Deacon GREG KIRK!

Adriana is the seamstress…Oh yes! Oh yes! She is the one who has clothed my animals if you didn’t notice they now have their Santa hats…we decided to let the animals remain more au naturel after all we are not trying to be the new Disney here! And the amount of cloth it was taking to cover the Purple Elephant we decided to use some for other draping which you will see about the sites and then give the rest of the cloth to that wonderful man from India the calendar celebrated last year when we learnt about him from the Global Oneness Project …you can reminded of his lovely work here! (NOTE: This donation is only in spirit for now but if I or you are ever in India or have a way to get cloth to this lovely drive…I would do so in the material world and perhaps you should consider doing so too…)

But back to the seamstress…she is more than that…she is the one who based on my ideas for these blogs and Meady’s Musings Production breathed new life into my old Meady’s Musings Production logo and also designed my UCP-Universal Collective Prayer banner. And yes all free of charge only paid for in friendship. This given that she is a professional at her job as you can perhaps see from the great work she does displayed here. She also did the poster for my Holi blog earlier this year. If you need to reach her to create something for you email us admin@meadysmusings.com

So in a sense she is the co-mother of the Purple Elephant and his little mouse friend. Although again the Purple Elephant and the little mouse well really they have a long line of ancestral friendship you know…you can check out this story to understand a bit more about their bond…but they have also daily been working together on their personal bond…and let this be said they would lay their lives down for each other as well as either one of their mothers! :


Now speaking of cloth we come to a man of the cloth…my brother in UCP-Universal Collective Prayer…Deacon Greg Kirk! Sometimes when I speak of him or communicate with him tears comes to my eyes…and I’m not ashamed to say this…after all we are both UCPers and so unashamedly surrender onto the divine in all! However I was so excited to work on this Advent calendar with both him and my soul sister Adriana that I was in excitement and Universe inspired tears daily! If you thought the Purple Elephant was excited well you can’t imagine how it was for his mother!
So over this weekend as both animals got their clothes and thanked the seamstress and the prayers by Bro Greg had already been said…I really felt moved to sing this song of friendship…when my nieces and nephew (as we listened to it) explained to me about it…it is from the 2009 Hindi film New York…Hai Junoon! The Youtube vid comes with translations and I hope you enjoy it!

I also dedicate it to all my friends from Intent…many of whom are now part of my experimental virtual book writing café on Facebook-The Deliciously Divine Café. Also some other friends who avidly read me like Maria and Neerupa and just all my other friends who have been there for me always even if they hate to read or won’t read my blog! And for those who come and read here and in your own way forge a bond with me by reading my words, thoughts and of my deeds without making our bond known…and others who for several reasons won’t be mentioned here but are dear to the Mother of the Purple Elephant’s heart.

OK so now I’m sounding like if I’m getting an Academy Award or something…(do I need to put the little copyright symbol when I write that?) LOL! But really I should also name some others dear to me…I know how it goes you name some and leave out others and then….TROUBLE even if your readership is not that large at all! But you know I love you all…after all one of these here blogs is UCP-Universal Collective Prayer so it encompasses the one in the all and the all in the one! But before I cue Hai Junoon! I must bow and then shout out too to some other marvelous Intenters and Deliciously Divine Café goers…

Ruch- You always seem like a partner in crime…perhaps we might be the real life purple elephant and mouse!

Grandpa Ed- Enough said…I mean you are my new Grandpa now since all my blood related grandparents are out of the material plane. Your wit and metaphysical talks…your walks in the English countryside…I hope you one day meet Winnie the Pooh!

Noreen- Your Irish accent so breath taking…you are a quiet listener…always the supporter…a deliciously divine tea drinker indeed!

Garima and Shweta- Like new found sisters…

Tim- The ever present and eternal supporter…thumbs up to you too my friend!

So many more…Yogi Rajesh, Vashi, Brother Dom, Mr. Phillip Zeuner, Danes and Raj Aurora. Glad to make your acquaintance Sirs!

Elspeth- not an Intenter nor in the virtual café but we have exchanged many a thought and gift and I’m delighted that in this international mix of Delicious Divinity there is at least one other Trini face! Of course I’m sure there are more to be found…but for sure you would have been one of those faces that made me see that also a Trini can blog like this you see! And thank you for the Freedom speech at the local candle4tibet event last year which as you will know was one of the events that led to the creation of the blog UCP!

And My Fairy Godmother was Sara now Kara we all so miss you!

And just like those Academy Award winning speeches I’m sure I’ve left out many…and of course as I said there are some that I’ve not mentioned here on purpose but the connection and thankfulness is understood…after all just like the three ghosts swirl into one…sometimes when one is so close they are not distinct from you when giving praise as to give praise to them would be the same as that tricky self praise business…so I’m sure you guys know who you are! ;)

Luckily unlike the Academy Awards I can cue my music whenever I like but let me cue it now…Ladies, Gentlemen, Elephants and Mice…Beings on the Material plane and those in the Spirit world too…here it is my Friendship song to you…Hai Junoon!

Advent Calendar:Sat 5 and Sun 6 Dec 09-Trees and Elephants for Christmas!

This week on Meady's Musings Production's Advent Calendar we gave the gift of trees and elephants. So as we relax on the weekend let's have some music! Join us dancing and singing to some of our odes to trees and elephants for our Christmas fun! :)

Advent Calendar: 4 Dec 09-The Gift that are Elephants!

Today on the Advent calendar we will be celebrating (yes, you got that right)…elephants! Of course my purple elephant has been calling up his elephant friends world wide to come read the story on The Purple Elephant’s Advent calendar here so the elephant world is all abuzz! You see my purple elephant is a dear friend and a few lunches ago earlier this week I was aghast to hear someone say that at some resort they had elephant meat!

I felt a big blow in the stomach for my purple elephant …I have to tell you….I explained about how elephants have feelings…they are very sentient beings (I mean just look at my purple elephant if you don’t believe me) and I had read once in National Geographic that they have funeral rites and rituals and stuff and scientist believe they mourn and grieve for their dead. The individual more went on about how elephants are attacking! Well of course they are wouldn’t you defend your home and family if people came to kill you!? My purple elephant has had many a pink, green and grey elephant cousin killed!

Why if it’s OK to eat elephants well what’s the biggy with eating people too…I mean elephants are really sensitive creatures…I was pretty irritated that the individual then went on to claim elephants have small brains compared to their size when well they had no scientific evidence to back it up…in fact I understand elephants are quite smart...but apart from my personal relationship with my lovely purple elephant here are some scientific facts out there…

Read what Marc Bekoff, a professor in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado in Boulder has to say in his commentary Do Elephants Cry? By clicking on this link here.
Now I know this is an Advent calendar and my objective of it is to bring fun, comfort and joy. So I’m not going to go on about the gory details of the pain that my purple elephant and his relatives can be subjected to…instead I’m going to celebrate the purple elephant and his kind…it is what the purple elephant wants too…he really just wants to live in peace and harmony with other beings in the universe…and for his family it’s Christmas time too…so here is how we are going to celebrate the Purple Elephant and Elephants at large and their gifts today on the Advent Calendar.

- Meady’s Musings-Some scientific facts that show the loveliness of the nature of the elephant…their ability to show love and compassion for each other and even for species other than their own!
- UCP-Elephants have long been revered in Hinduism and Buddhism…and we will explore that…
- Books and Films Corner-Many movies and books have been made about elephants we will talk about one of my favourite elephantine characters!

SOME SCIENTIFIC TIDBITS THAT POINT TOWARDS THE LOVING AND COMPASSIONATE NATURE OF ELEPHANTS
From an October 2006 New York Times Magazine article: "Decades of poaching and culling and habitat loss ... have so disrupted the intricate web of familial and societal relations by which young elephants have traditionally been raised in the wild ... that what we are now witnessing is nothing less than a precipitous collapse of elephant culture.
... [B]efitting of an animal with such a highly developed sensibility, a deep-rooted sense of family and, yes, such a good long-term memory, the elephant is not going out quietly. It is not leaving without making some kind of statement, one to which scientists from a variety of disciplines, including human psychology, are now beginning to pay close attention."

Here are some compelling facts about the true nature of elephants as contained in the a summary of information put forward on the PBS show Unforgettable Elephants-What is the Depth of Animal Emotions? And to be honest after reading this I had to admit to my purple elephant that indeed some elephants are greater ‘human beings’ than many human beings are…to that he just trumpeted!

"Joy

In the wild, joy is an emotion that elephants have no shame in showing. They express their happiness and joy when they are amongst their loved ones-family and friends. Playing games and greeting friends or family members all elicit displays of joy.

But the one event that stirs a level of elephant happiness beyond compare is the birth of a baby elephant. In UNFORGETTABLE ELEPHANTS, the birth of Ebony is one such occasion. The excitement of several of the females in Echo's family can't be contained as they are heard bellowing and blaring during the birth of the new baby.

During an elephant reunion, the excitement visibly flows down the sides of elephants' faces.
Another highly emotional occasion in an elephant's life is an elephant reunion. This joyful meeting between related, but separated, elephants is one of exhuberance and drama. The greeting ceremony marks the incredible welcoming of a formerly absent family member. During the extraordinary event, the elephants about to be united begin calling each other from a quarter a mile away. As they get closer, their pace quickens. Their excitement visibly flows as fluid from their temporal glands streams down the sides of their faces. Eventually, the elephants make a run towards each other, screaming and trumpeting the whole time. When they finally make contact, they form a loud, rumbling mass of flapping ears, clicked tusks and entwined trunks. The two leaning on each other, rubbing each other, spinning around, even defecating, and urinating (for this is what elephants do when they are experiencing sheer delight). With heads held high, the reunited pair fill the air with a symphony of trumpets, rumbles, screams, and roars. Bliss.

Love

There is no greater love in elephant society than the maternal kind. Nobody who observes a mother with her calf could doubt this. It is one of the most touching aspects of elephant social customs. The calf is so small compared to the adult that it walks under its mother, who, incredibly, does not step on it or trip over it. Mother and child remain in constant touch. If a calf strays too far from its mother, she will fetch it. The mother often touches her child with trunk and legs, helping it to its feet with one foot and her trunk. She carries it over obstacles and hauls it out of pits or ravines. She pushes it under her to protect it from predators or hot sun. She bathes it, using her trunk to spray water over it and then to scrub it gently. The mother steers her calf by grasping its tail with her trunk, and the calf follows, holding its mother's tail. When the calf squeals in distress, its mother and others rush to its protection immediately. It is easy to see why the bond between mother and daughter lasts 50 years or more.

Grief

One of the most moving displays of elephant emotion is the grieving process. Elephants remember and mourn loved ones, even many years after their death. When an elephant walks past a place that a loved one died he or she will stop and take a silent pause that can last several minutes. While standing over the remains, the elephant may touch the bones of the dead elephant (not the bones of any other species), smelling them, turning them over and caressing the bones with their trunk. Researchers don't quite understand the reason for this behavior. They guess the elephants could be grieving. Or they could they be reliving memories. Or perhaps the elephant is trying to recognize the deceased. Whatever the reason, researchers suspect that the sheer interest in the dead elephant is evidence that elephants have a concept of death. In UNFORGETTABLE ELEPHANTS, when Erin is wounded, Echo and the family never wander far from her over the course of several days, leaving only to drink. After Erin's death, her family touched and smelled the bones, as filmmaker Martyn Colbeck says, "as if they were trying to understand what had happened."

Researchers have described mother elephants who appear to go through a period of despondency after the death of a calf, dragging behind the herd for days. They've also witnessed an elephant herd circling a dead companion disconsolately. After some time, and likely when they realized the elephant was dead, the family members broke off branches, tore grass clumps and dropped these on the carcass. Another researcher noted a family of African elephants surrounding a dying matriarch. The family stood around her and tried to get her up with their tusks and put food in her mouth. When the rest of the herd finally moved on, one female and one calf stayed with her, touching her with their feet.

Compassion/Altruism

In UNFORGETTABLE ELEPHANTS, viewers witnessed a desperate mother who just gave birth to a premature calf. The mother and several other females refused to abandon the baby, even in its desperate state. They clustered around the nearly-dead calf while, in a touching display, the mother tried with all of her might to move the calf using her tusk and trunk. Her inability to maneuver the limp baby may have been heartbreaking but her determination and compassion for the newborn was remarkable. Compassion is not reserved for offspring alone in elephant society. Elephants appear to make allowances for other members of their herd. Observers noted that one African herd always traveled slowly because one of its members had never recovered from a broken leg. And in another case, a park warden reported a herd that traveled slowly because one female was carrying around a dead calf. One perplexing report was of an adult elephant making repeated attempt to help a baby rhinoceros stuck in the mud. She continued to try to save the baby rhino despite the fact that its mother charged her each time. Risking her life for the sake of an animal that is not her own, not related to her, or even her own species is remarkably altruistic in nature.

While there is a great deal more to learn about what elephants feel, such accounts are astonishing. They reveal a creature that weeps, revels, rages and grieves. They lead us to believe that the depth of elephant emotional capacity knows no limit. They are striking for they suggest that elephants act on feelings and not solely for survival."

Advent Calendar: Wed 3 Dec 09-The Gift of Trees!

Meady’s Musings Production is always celebrating the trees and you can expect to see many references to them as this year’s Advent calendar progresses. Today on the calendar we’d like to feature trees on each of the blogs in this manner:

- Meady’s Musings-The beauty of trees
- UCP-The spirit that can be found in trees
- Books and Films Corner-Yes we kill trees to make books but hopefully it is a willing or worthy sacrifice and may blogs, kindle downloads and e-books be the books of the future so we can save them trees! But for now we will celebrate some poetry about trees!

THE BEAUTY OF TREES

The Purple Elephant loves to wrap his trunk around trees while the little mouse scurries around in the leaves below looking for something to munch on. This year on Meady’s Musings we took many a beautiful walk among the trees and as the year draws to a close on our Advent calendar we’d like to remember those walks…as well as some other tree memories over the years…

Refinery walks Apr 09

Refer to this blog post for more pictures from that refinery walk…



Bamboo cathedral, Red Earth Eco-Arts Festival, Chaguaramas National Park, May 09 TRINIDAD.



Cheraw State Park, Jun 09


Visualizing the Tree of Peace, Oct 08


Yosemite National Park, Jun 07

Advent Calendar 2nd Dec 09-Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol: The Ghosts of Past, Present and Future.

Advent Calendar 2nd Dec 09-Charles Dickens’ a Christmas Carol: The Ghosts of Past, Present and Future.

Since the beginning of the Meady’s Musings blog we’ve been exploring themes like reincarnation and parallel worlds…things metaphysical as a whole. Today as part of the Advent calendar I felt it would be interesting and exciting to explore the concept of the ghost of Christmas Past, Present and Future as featured in the Dickensian classic- ‘A Christmas Carol’ with a Meady’s Musings slant! As a result I will discuss it as follows:

-On Meady’s Musings- the metaphysics of it.
-On UCP- a certain metaphysical being whom I’ve been a big fan of since the inception of that blog whom I believe has the whole past-present-future concept down pat!
- On Books and Films Corner- I will keep true to the name of the blog and just celebrate some of the potent quotes said by the ghosts in the Classic itself.

THE METAPHYSICS OF IT

Is there really anything as past, present and future? I know a lot of Buddhist tell you and perhaps some Hindus and Jains will even tell you there is only the present…always live in the present. Then there is the famous new age guru Eckhart Tolle and his even more famous ‘Power of Now’ book. But does the present even exist either?

My point is…I think none of it really exists…as a distinct space or time by itself. I feel in this whole space-time continuum business that the past, present and future are all whirled together! They are all really just one ghost not three distinct ones! At any one point in time we are really a manifestation of all three of them? What do you think?

I mean you see what we did in the past is what makes us what we are in the present. Even if we forget about the past and live in the all gracious and holy ‘Power of Now’…which I really believe is all great and good…well we really would not have been there if it wasn’t for what we did in the past. And as we all well know how we behave in this great ‘Power of Now’ is what determines our future. Of course I can see why the Asian religions and New Agers push the ‘Power of Now’. For sure at that moment it is all we have the power to change…but really now let’s get all Christmasy as an Advent calendar should be and look at the Dickensian ghost concepts. Indeed in the end all Scrooge had was the Power of Now but didn’t the ghosts show him the whole spectrum of the space-time continuum he Scrooge existed in? And really the decision that Scrooge then made in the present in the classic book was based on the information that he gathered from past, present and future. The book is more realistic and simplistic than one of my fav sci fi flicks which by the way I bought in its entire trilogy form from Amazon recently-Back to the Future.


Because you see in true metaphysical style in the Dickens book Scrooge is not really interacting with any of the scenes even when he is with the Ghost of Christmas present is he? He is just viewing it just like a spirit with these ghosts! And I feel we all can eventually travel through time like this…we all have a spirit form and that spirit form can exist beyond or be not bounded by space or time. Therefore for that spirit there is no past, present or future…it is just leaping about all boundaries of space and time and for it- past, present or future does not exist!

That spirit form that we all truly are in essence can never have any ghost of Christmas past, present or future ever taunt it! For you see that spirit just simply exists…beyond space or time…it has always existed and always will…time and space does not bound it…

What do you think?

The Grand Opening of Meady's Musings Production's Advent Calendar 2009!

It gives me much glee to kick off Meady’s Musings Production's Advent calendar today on all three blogs…yes indeed I’m resurrecting the Books and Films Corner blog too…although I’ve not posted on it since Feb of this year…thought it would be a good thing to do…and it might leave the year in good cheer! So here it is! The Purple Elephant plans to put on a Santa suit or some sort of Christmasy wear and he is such a gracious and giving elephant has even sprung some gold coins to get an outfit for his little mouse too! However he is still waiting on the seamstress you see as she has never sown for an elephant before and it’s taking cloth beyond compare! Also a nativity scene is being created for the UCP blog but again carpenters are so hard to find even in this economy but hopefully it will be created soon! Who knows it might even be created by the magic carpenter overnight perhaps the same one who worked on that miraculous staircase UCP visited earlier this year in New Mexico!

But Here ye! Here ye! Let’s call it to order in prayer! And for that I have asked my brother in UCP-Universal Collective Prayer Bro Greg as I call him but in his official capacity a Deacon. So here it is the lovely opening words of prayer by Deacon Greg Kirk:
“Divine One:

The dawning of Advent beckons people everywhere to enter into the Silence, the Silence you inhabit and pervade. In the Silence, we rediscover the gift of Your Love, enfolding us and emboldening us to live with gratitude for your Spirit, expressed in all we have been, all we are and all we will become.

Christ consciousness is the core of our being. The Light of Christ Consciousness is wisdom, love and peace. They permeate the deepest part of who we are. Journey with us during these coming Advent days. Be our Light, guide us to a deeper and richer experience of the lasting peace that lives within us and support us as we grow from seeds to trees, reflecting your Essence and offering shelter to all.

In the midst of the darkness and challenges of these times, something new is emerging, something new is being born: the possibility of community, unity and divinity. One will come to bring the fulfillment of this promise. This One includes your people everywhere. May we become one, together, in the wonder and Oneness of You.

Amen”

AND MAY WE ALL BE GUIDED TO THAT PERFECT LIGHT! Sung of course by those Three Wise Men that I’ve been waiting all year long to dance with!