Tumultuous Thursdays: Wondering if that Elusive Happy Place Exists in a Parallel World?

"Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder...-Henry David Thoreau"

Photo copyright of Meady's Musings Production 2009.

Since we've started back actively blogging and on our last Maniac Mondays posting we recalled that elusive happy place when we were talking about work/life balance and so we thought that on this Tumultuous Thursday we'd retrieve and complete this blog posting we started to write exactly one year ago but never completed. So let's pick it back up where we left off one year ago...


Today on Tumultuous Thursdays we are wondering about Parallel Worlds again! And we think it's all coming together too...you see we can now see the merging between two blogs we wrote in the past one in 2009 and one in 2010. One of the blogs is about parallel worlds/lives and the other is about 'finding that elusive happy place'.


-Parallel Lives...Parallel Worlds?
-Finding that Elusive Happy Place!


And we have been thinking all day long of the trains of thought colliding i.e. does our elusive happy place exist in a parallel world? Is our longing for that elusive happy place rooted in our need to return to that world? It makes sense really...no wonder the happy place is elusive...it's always escaping from us into a parallel world! And it's why the longing is so real and deep to find it back...go back to it...

Now the guys over on the UCP desk will no doubt call this parallel world...heaven or the spirit plane and we're not disputing this...indeed one parallel world might indeed be heaven or for that matter hell. But here on Meady's Musings Tumultuous Thursdays we are proporting something else!

Suppose just like in the TV series 'Sliders' there exists infinite worlds where basically every possible outcome is played out...

So...if the plate broke in this world you are in now...there is some parallel world where it didn't...and these worlds are infinite so a new world would exist for every little tangentially different thing that happens! But it's not the little differences we pine over...it's the big ones although granted as how the web of the universal space time continuum is everything is connected...and it is little effects that lead a chain of events that create the big ones...well...


Hmmm...so in one parallel universe you're married to someone else or attended a different school or you are a world class athlete because you didn't fall and damage your knee like you did in this universe etc. But of course those big events were triggered by little things...like someone knocked down a bottle of water on the floor and you skidded thus damaging your knee...and the reason the person knocked down the water is because a mosquito was buzzing in his ear and he was trying to swat it away when he accidentally knocked the bottle of water over.

Hmmm...what is funnier is how we are even by all coincidence recalling and thus retrieving this blog post exactly one year to the date and now trying to go into it and complete it and now realizing that to some extent we perhaps even conflict with it one year later...

I mean because as much as the elusive happy place could exist in another parallel world...so too there must be worlds that are sadder than we would like? And rally wouldn't all the worlds be like this one...dynamic?

So what we are saying is that one year into the unfolding of the Universe called life is it possible that we here at Meady's Musings Production have also changed in our beliefs? Hopefully we've become more enlightened? But we think now...we really do more believe in the Buddhist or Zen-like 'Power of Now' and so now we think that no matter which parallel world you are in 'that elusive happy place' can be in it and it can be right here and right now! :) And like the it is said by Henry David Thoreau in one of our favourite quotes of all time:

"Happiness is like a butterfly; the more you chase it, the more it will elude you, but if you turn your attention to other things, it will come and sit softly on your shoulder..."

But now that kinda of talk is more what you'd expect of us on our Maniac Mondays postings...after all this is Tumultuous Thursdays and you want to hear us talk about parallel worlds not just quote beautiful things...so let's consider the idea again...

Can that elusive happy place exist in a parallel world?

And our answer to that would be yes! But if we lived daily in that parallel world...it would not be our elusive happy place anymore...in that if we always wanted to be a movie star and it always eluded us but we have that fame and fortune there in a parallel world...the movie star we are in that parallel might then crave our world...as she might for instance want not to be famous and have a more private life like the one you might have now...

So you see no matter which part of the Universe you sit in your elusive happy place will always be just that...'elusive'! :)

Unless you take the wise advice of Henry David Thoreau and not let your happiness be elusive by simply letting things be and not chasing it...

So immerse yourself into your work like us for instance...like how we put our noses to the grind on a Studious Saturdays and write as we must...the little mouse sharpens all the pencils and the Purple Elephant hoses down the house with his trunk to keep it clean so that we can spend hours writing...and in doing the very thing we love by the end of a few hours of writing we are happy again because while we were doing the thing we love the elusive butterfly of happiness came and sat on our shoulder! And that just makes us smile! :)

But yes there must be parallel worlds where things we wish for here exist there...and perhaps who knows some of the fluid from there leaks into our world here and vice versa...

Gone Gardening: My First Harvest!

OK sorry for not sharing with you as it happened but for those of you following my gardening blogs...here it is My First Harvest! :) It actually occurred on as the picture tag will show... 20 April 2009!



It wasn't reaped by me but then my gardening project has always been community based. It was reaped by one of my uncles- no pictures attached. The said uncle who one morning secretly weeded my garden and I figured...hmmm...someone has been weeding my garden?...and figured it was him...but then he came to say the "He had done it like Rumpeltstiltskin" his words!...so you see those nursery rhyme terms run in the family! :) But he didn't expect anything in return...in fact he then proceeded to pick the first harvest and leave it with my mother!:) As you can see it pictured above it was the Cherry Tomatoes he picked...they're definitely delicious to eat just raw and yep can definitely make up part of a raw or semi-raw diet if I decided to go back along that road! I've since had them both raw and just tossed into other dishes semi-raw or all cooked up...delicious all ways...and yep it does taste like a cherry a bit mixed with a tomato and is a burst of flavour! I've even since gotten a second batch as pictured below:

And my sunflowers seem to have almost completed their cycle...sorry was a bit taken up to do more pictures also my mum has been accusing me of going picture crazy and perhaps she is right...although yep it is to share on the blogs but...and yep I will do more sunflowers soon and will this time shoot more pics when they are all in their full bloom...some marigolds are springing too so that should be good...

Definitely more photos should be in the works since I'm planning to acquire new tech toys soon and will be blogging in more style come the end of June or so just wait and see! :) One tech toy which I am excited to test out soon on a trip to a certain cavernous place is as below. Check it out I thought it was an excellent Amazon buy! :):


As I leave you I'll have you know that not a single fertilizer was added on this grow and my little Ratna eggplants have borne fruit...also even my tiny bell peppers are now flowering for so!:)

Easter Sunday!- Morning has Broken...My Refinery Walks, My Sunflowers and a Butterfly

On this Easter Sunday morning many of us think about rebirth...a fitting song for this is one already featured on my blogs in the past...I particularly felt that way on New Year's Day this year and so dedicated the song on the blogs then- Morning Has Broken by Cat Stevens and other versions of it.

However you can feel that way on any day of the year of course. Last Diwali morning (08) I had this beautiful and marvelous dream that to me was the opening up of a very new beginning and birthing to me...of course Diwali is also the start of the Hindu financial year but again I think this can happen on any day...the dream was so beautiful but its contents and details I'd rather keep to myself in a way for now...although I believe I've discussed it on those famous dream blogs we had back on Intent a few months ago...aaahh so beautiful to recall that dream...

Of recently I've been taking many walks and perhaps I'll share the details about my steppy thingy a.k.a my pedometer on this blog soon but very recently I took a walk in my company's refinery. The refinery has parts that hold living quarters called bungalows from the times of the British, golf courses, artificial lakes that were created to collect water that can be used as cooling water in the refinery...and perhaps then the birds came...but would you believe it the refinery also has a Wild Fowl Trust that is housed on its grounds...of course all of this is a good way away from the actual refinery itself but to me our refinery is living testament to sustainable development.

I particularly like the number of Samaan trees that it preserves one of the most beautiful and blessed trees on the island and an ecosystem in itself. My family used to have one in our living area for many, many years (>50 I think) until one relative who owned the portion of the land that it was on saw it fit to chop it down...it was wood to him...a living ecosystem to many others who lobbied for him to keep it standing...when that tree was chopped for months I saw it still like the ghost of a lost love it appeared on the skyline...I had grown so accustomed to seeing it there for the 20+ years of my lifetime back then...a true loss...and you know as a child I use to swing from that tree...I shall have to scan the pic of that and share one day...you must see that tree...such a sad story really...but some people see the world differently no doubt...

However I'm glad my current employer sees the need to keep those Samaans...even admist tanks and pipelines...and refinery cooling water! :) So onto the resurrection as we speak of the trees that live! :) Here are the pics I took on my refinery walks followed by my sunflowers...my suraj mukhi and their surprise visitor whom I captured in digital form! :)

A grove of trees...


A pipeline and a tree...sustainable development maybe? :)


Into the Woods I go...


This is the path I took...


As I walked a lake I met...


There were some pelicans on the lake...


Then I walked some more till I stopped...


Then on my walk back I looked at that lake some more and...
Was that mangrove I did spy?...


And surrounding the lake were so many beautiful trees...


Then I looked across the lake and saw a bungalow...


As I walked back on the other side of the path I saw another lake and on the banks of it were trees littered not with white paper but with egrets! :)


Then I saw some egrets perched in a nearby tree...


Then I looked at those same egrets but more closely...


Then I walked on and took this pic to summarise what I was pondering on...
Here in a refinery so much nature and beauty this could only one thing be
Admist tanks and pipelines
Trees and vines
And so yet still sustainable development could be mines! :)


And a few evenings earlier when I came home from work to my surprise here were my
sunflowers...my suraj mukhi along with a definite and beautiful surprise!:)


PS: At the upcoming 5th Summit of the Americas next week the wives of all the delegates including Michelle Obama will be visiting our refinery to see the staff club and the Wildfowl Trust! :)

How Does My Garden Grow-Sunflowers...Suraj Mukhi and My Theme Song!

This is just a short, light check in to let my readers know that I got my first sunflowers bloom on Sat 14 Mar 09! It was also on a day I decided to play Phagwa/Holi- an Indian, Hindu festival that when celebrated in India tends to relate to the celebration of Spring but celebrated here in Trinidad since my ancestors time. I wrote about it in some detail on my Universal Collective Prayer here. Of course we are in the Tropics so no Spring! So having my first sunflower bloom appear on that day was like a touch of Spring in the Tropics in more ways that one! :) Aaah...the sight and feel of a first bloom! :) My mum tends to like to call the Sunflowers...Suraj Mukhi instead which I guess is the Hindi name for it and kinda sounds even nicer when you think of it that it would then translates roughly to Face of the Sun or well literally Sun Face! Of course they are my fav things as I went on about in this blog! :) And guess what? :) I searched Suraj Mukhi and here is another serendiptious thing in a way...it seems that in the search comes up that this is a specialty Holi sweet in India! :) Badam Pista Suraj Mukhi...a kinda barfi sweet with the decoration at the top made out of almonds and stuff but to look like a Suraj Mukhi...a sunflower! :)Check out this link to read more about this specialty sweet! :)

Also I've been playing around on Intent again and their question of the day a few days back (sorry I can't find it to link you back to it!)...inspired me to answer but also reminded me that way back when I also had this group up on Facebook...What is Your Theme Song? It really was created for pure fun...So here it is my theme song...I am the One and Only by Chesny Hawks...I know it sounds so well self serving! :) But really it is a lovely song in words too if you think about it and it is interesting that I've loved this song and considered it deep since I was like 18 or so! I recall that is when I first heard it ...it was released around then...1991/92/93 I think...it would probably align well with this other blog I wrote late last year too...perhaps it was what was welled up inside me since back then at 18 but I was only able to elucidate it like this now...And by the way I miss that scribblings guys Aaron Ross who used to blog on Intent and I mentioned in that post...

Anyway here are the lyrics:

I am the one and only,
Oh yeah!
Call me, call me by my name or call me by number,
You put me through it,
I'll still be doing it the way I do it,
And yet, you try to make me forget,
Who I really am, don't tell me, I know best,
I'm not the same as all the rest,

Chorus:

I am the one and only,
Nobody I'd rather be,
I am the one and only,
You can't take that away from me

I've been a player in the crowd scene,
A flicker on the big screen,
My soul embraces one more in a million faces,
High hopes and aspirations, and years above my station
maybe but all this time I've tried to walk with dignity and pride

Chorus

I can't wear this uniform without some compromises,
Because you'll find out that we come,
In different shapes and sizes,
No one can be myself like I can,
For this job I'm the best man,
And while this may be true, you are the one and only you!

And here is the tune! Enjoy! :)

Gone Gardening Again!

I have to apologise for being away again...as usual I've been playing on the Intent online community though and you can check out this link to see my last well responded to question that I posed only for the community there and it got 50 comments in all-Would You Choose Pain Over Non-existence? I plan to soon install my 2nd post in the reincarnation series so you can also look forward to that but for now here I go gardening again!

I went Gardening Again on Tues 24 Feb 09. It was Carnival Tues on the island and while some would have no doubt engaged in mud mass I had to me a more beautiful experience with the earth! But of course to each her own...

It was the day of my big transplant and to be honest I wasn't sure which way to go!
I even asked Grandpa Ed from the Intent community for some last minute tips as he was a gardener in his day but in the English countryside not the tropical sun. Grandpa Ed said the herbs that didnt sprout perhaps I was right in thinking they weren't suited for the climate and if I put them in the fridge perhaps they will spring. Here are those none springing pot of herbs here followed by the things that did sprout I admit I need to do some weeding in the tubs but nothing long term is planted there.

The Herbs that didn't


The Herbs that did-



Those little seedlings assorted


Those Little Hot Peppers-


Some of the Sunflowers-


So it was one of those really cool days that we've been consistently having in Trinidad again and so it was pretty easy for me to actually work at midday! Who would have believed it but in my little opinion I believe on the island were are having island cooling not warming! Just ask my good friend Dave from on intent by clicking on this link. But really in the coolish midday sun I hadn't a clue how to get started with my transplanting project. Here is me to be honest a bit confused asking my mum for advice which she could not give in any convincing, detailed way and neither could she convincingly use the camera so she shot me half way in all of this confusion...though it would be funny to include! :) After all if we can't laugh at ourselves well...



So still not knowing what to do I plodded along and created this:



Then my aunt came along and started chatting with my mother and remarked that:

1. "This was no hour to be doing gardening."

2. "They did some work in their garden this morning and now my uncle was resting
but if I waited until around 4 he would be able to help me."

Now I remarked but yea the place is really cool though...but then I contemplated that I really wanted the best for my seedlings and there was no point being hasty and then botching things up for them and their growth big time! Even if I knew what I was doing which I obviously did not, the energy that would go into the whole project would be negative if I let conflict into the whole picture! Perhaps my intent to explore this thing call Satyagraha kicked in then! :) So I waited...by the way all through this I got various onlookers remarks about what I was doing and many were amazed at my big foray into so much manual labour. Now I had expected to get hired help on the project but like is often the case in Trinidad they got ill!

My uncle did show up at 4 though and he said he also thought I was going to get hired help is why he didn't think I'd need the help from him as such. Anyway I did and it was a good thing I waited cause he transformed the bed into this!:



And then both he and I plodded on for some hours. He did the vegetables:



While I did the sunflowers:


And I also threw in some marigold/gainda seeds at the back of the sunflowers:


I started off with gloves but then took them off and was digging holes and things to put the seedlings with my bare hands. It reminded me of playing in the sand as a child. And it made me again think of the Carnival season and people playing mud mass...made me wonder...I mean don't we all just want to be a child again and play in the sand? Perhaps a lot of what we do in society is rooted out of this need to return to childhood...to go back to the basics...as I always tell my mother with all this financial crisis and stuff people forget all they need are the basics...one of those basics is to eat...and so despite the ridicule of me doing hard labour and the all night pain that ensued in both my arms...there I was ensuring myself of one of my basic core needs...food.

I wish I had pics to show of my labourious struggles but my neices and nephews refused to show on this day even as photographers! The things I had to say to them! :)My uncle remarked that it was probably the hardest I worked in my life! He may be right at least in a very long time...even my Habitat dig was easier!

The dog did make an appearance though but among people who I know would not want to be made famous on this blog so I have cropped him out to show him off! :) And he did try to kiss and try to hug me and even throw me on to the sunflower bed for sure! But only have the pic of him like this!:




The next day my sis in law put up these two scarecrows to mark the area in case cars parked on it and to perhaps ward off birds. Although they don't look scary to me more like little girls in pastel dresses! :) Kiddies have been dropping by to look at the little stick people! :) And so finally here is how my garden grows! :)



And I leave you with two songs that feel applicable as I write these words...Return to Innocence by Enigma and All You Need is Love by my fav although some find odd for my age The Beatles! As I felt like a child again planting returning to the earth...to innocence. And food is a basic need but so is love as Jesus said "Man cannot live on bread alone!" Enjoy the tunes! :)

My Sunflowers Story!- Do Things Just Manifest When We Truly Follow Our Hearts?

By Bruce Fritz and thanks for the free non-commercial use.

I have not shared it so far on my blogs but late last year one of the Questions of the Day on Intent.com posed by Dave Traeger went like this:

What is you Dream Job?

and it really made me think so I'm glad Dave asked it. One of things I realised I wanted to do was gardening. Although when I was a bit younger I thought it was something only older, bored people do...but in recent years (dunno it could just be I am slowly but surely falling into that category!)I've felt like it must be the most loveliest of things to do...to feel your hands in the soil...to be at the center or what will eventually nourish you in the form of food. I've for about five years now really wanted to have an elaborate home garden set up at least for starters and who knows from there...At first my mum was interested in planting but she mostly liked to do the flowers and I kept urging her to do vegetables too or mostly instead cause they had pretty colours too and they were sustenance as well not just decorations! Of course you can have the one or two flowers here and there for good cheer too no doubt! Anyway my mum kinda listened on and off but just isnt strong enough to keep up with gardening full time at her age anyway. So...we've on and off had things...But then I started to think I can do it too! But never have...but here was my response to Dave's question:

What is you Dream Job?

'I also want to be a vegetable farmer of course it just means I can start my own garden cause where I currently live I do have the space for it...but I dont have the physical strength/stamina or where with all etc...I think I just like the idea of the finished product like picking fruit digging in the earth and pulling up your own food etc....but I'm not game for all the additional work it would take to be your own gardener from scratch...so perhaps what I need is to hire someone to assist me and then do the polished part of the gardening...hmm...there's a thought...but good help so hard to find...hmm I'm also thinking that if I start off slowly it could be good exercise and eventually I just might build the stamina too...'

So guess what a few weeks ago I decided I was going to do some organic farming and when I tried to find out about organic farming in the tropics I found this blog run by a Trinidadian woman - A Caribbean Garden it really inspired me further and she gave me all this good advice! She is quickly becoming The Oracle of Gardening for me! She gave me all this advice on 'to what in my garden grow!:)' and I decided on vegetables and herbs which I will let you know more about it subsequent blogs but I also got Sunflower seeds to have those around to cheer me up! :)

So this was my first time thinking about Sunflowers in a long time cause I really like them they are my favourite flowers and as we all know so useful too as a flower as it is not just decorative but can be used for its oils! But even if it were just decorative it would be my fav! So was my first thought about it in years! Although a few years ago I had bought some seeds and my mum had planted some of them for me but she didnt plant them deep enough or anchor them in any other way so the wind blew them down easily...a point I will have to note on this new planting expedition. But yep then shortly after I bought the seeds online which are yet to be shipped I go on to Elspeth Duncan's post on her blog and I see flowers! Immediately I think of Sunflowers cause she didnt plant sunflowers but she called her post Sunny side up. Here are my comments there:
'That's nice... I personally like sunflowers but once my mummy planted up some seeds I bought and they blew down when they grew up...I've gotten some more in the batch I bought two days ago so looking forward to getting the seeds and seeing them bloom soon...will need to find a way to keep them more grounded than how my mum did in the past...

I got the sunflowers to brighten up the whole planting fest but I'm really going to try the kitchen gardening kinda thing...tomato, sweet peppers, hot peppers, herbs and baigan. I've even found a trini blogger tropical organic farming guru! She is like the oracle of gardening! She is from Trini but now lives on another island her blog won the best gardening award for latin american or something.

You can check her out at
http://caribbeangarden.blogspot.com'

'oh I know these in the pic werent sunflowers just meant I like sunflowers as in these are flowers and they made me think of other flowers as in sunflowers and how much i like sunflowers...you know now that just made we realise that even one of my favourite perfumes are Sunflowers by Elizabeth Arden'

And then just around the time of that post in work someone smelt my perfume and commented on it! Sunflowers that is...I've been wearing it for at least ten years as one of the perfumes I wear and yes I've gotten comments before but this is the first time in a long while my scent has been discussed and the person went:

"You wearing Sunflowers?"

Then I go onto Intent and they are featuring a cover story since Fri about Happiness and they choose to use pics of Sunflowers!:) and to top it off last night I went to an event and they have minimal decorations but behind the speakers there are you guessed it Sunflowers! And you have to note that Sunflowers aren't a very common used flowers here in Trinidad especially not for something like that so...!Here is the pic of those sunflowers below kind droopy as they dont do well in the tropical heat. However a field of sunflowers in North America can sometimes be intimidating like if they plan to take over the world!:

And that's it my Sunflower Story perhaps totally meaningless and just me describing a chain of coincidences that happened to me over the last two weeks or so or it is true- 'Whatever me truly love and think about manifests itself in our lives literally! or If we go with the flow which is when we find our true passions it just naturally unfolds with little or no effort on our parts?!:)' You be the judge to be honest I don't know and would love to hear what you think about this! :) So please share your thoughts...