Everything transforms

I watched a show tonight that portrayed His Holiness the Dalai Lama visiting Washington.

It made me remember the time I got to spend with His Holiness the 14th Dalai Lama when he visited Toronto many years ago.  Such gentleness and this overwhelming sense of peace radiated from him.  Then at lunch, he shocked me by telling a dirty joke.  He was an ordinary person doing an extraordinary thing.

In a world where symbols are perverted, His Holiness still represents the struggle for freedom, something we need now more than ever.  Yes, I recognize a free Tibet, but I also recognize everyone’s freedom.  Something that over many years has been and is still being stripped away slowly from us.

I can’t remember the correct term.  It is something like “floating benchmark”, where each generation accepts less of what existed only a few short years ago.  N

 

ever to decide to reclaim what once was for no other reason than the belief it is gone forever.

Another thing I have never realized until tonight is how beautiful the sand becomes as all the colours are mixed as it transitions and fulfils its new purpose.  These stunning works of art; which are built over days or weeks or even longer, built by tapping sand onto a table making the most stunning works of art.  When it is

 

 

created, it is wiped away back to the sand pile it came from.  Just look at the picture above to see how intricate and beautiful a sand mandala is.

I had to include one more of some monks making one.  This dedication to creating something so beautiful knowing it is going to change form is inspiring.

Earlier today my friend apologized for saying I wasn’t a man.  I wanted to yell and scream at them but I just couldn’t.  They are a beautiful human being.  Their apology was sincere and started to change the way I was feeling earlier today.

I’m starting to settle back into my non-exciting and mundane routine.   Although, I ate five doughnuts and drank a lot of Dr Pepper for dinner.  Hours later I still feel gross and bloated.

It will be nice to wake up tomorrow and know my routine.

To keep my mind of things I have started ranger rolling all my clothes and other home items such as towels.

It does take up a lot less space than traditional folding, and the drawers seem so tidy and neat.

 

Towels are complicated, and I haven’t been successful yet.

I’ve been wearing my Fitbit all day.  It feels weird on my arm.  Not having to worry about it for a week was nice.  Next week I’ll get back into challenges and maybe work on winning one in March.

I’m sure my week in HH will be well over 100,000 steps.

Now that I’m decompressing, there is a lack of purpose flooding over me.  I don’t know what to do day-to-day or have any real direction.  Until I got called away, I didn’t realise how stagnant I  had become.  Retirement wasn’t the right choice.  Time to come out of retirement, but doing something much less strenuous.

I’ve been thinking of putting my writing skills to work as a freelancer.  As an example, I used to charge $500 for a press release, and generally, they would take me less than 30 minutes to write.  My starting rate for speech writing was $5,000 and that got a five-minute talk.

I wouldn’t charge anything like that since I would use a website like freelancer to find clients.  I believe the average press release on there costs around $15.

But that is a worry for another day.  Right now I’m going to bed.  I was going to wrap up my doughnut but I’m going to bring it with me.  I’m sure I’ll eat it before I fall asleep.