Pushing the rock

From my short term point of view: Freemasons accept all men (& In some jurisdictions women) by their character not by their external manifestations. To me that means that my relationships should be based upon not the externals of a person, but rather by what they do. We all push the rock as far as we are able, for some that is leagues, for others one inch, both have value and worth, both contribute. If you have the ability to push the rock but won't that is were your character is truly shines through.

The Starfish Story By City Year
A young girl was walking along a beach upon which thousands of starfish had been washed up during a terrible storm. When she came to each starfish, she would pick it up, and throw it back into the ocean. People watched her with amusement.
She had been doing this for some time when a man approached her and said, “Little girl, why are you doing this? Look at this beach! You can’t save all these starfish. You can’t begin to make a difference!”
The girl seemed crushed, suddenly deflated. But after a few moments, she bent down, picked up another starfish, and hurled it as far as she could into the ocean. Then she looked up at the man and replied,“Well, I made a difference to that one!”
The old man looked at the girl inquisitively and thought about what she had done and said. Inspired, he joined the little girl in throwing starfish back into the sea. Soon others joined, and all the starfish were saved. - adapted from the Star Thrower by Loren C. Eiseley

I volunteer for two adaptive ski programs, in one we deal exclusively with people with vision issues (VIs, Visually Impaired, from high partials to totals). In the other we work with people with very other disability under the sun. In one I am on the Ski School, on the other I am a mule (a helper, lifter), I push the rock of these endeavors different amounts, I receive smiles for pay. It is well worth the aches, pains, etc. The rock is moved, it made all the difference in the world to that starfish.

Religious intolerance

Religious intolerance is the bane of our society. People point fingers at "them"; speak cruelly about each other based upon their unique interpretation of what a higher power is; I call it The Creator. Call that power what you will, for it truly matters little whether you believe or not, or how you believe, The Creator does not need you to believe, its existence is not dependant on your opinions.

What I have found is that the more we become myopic upon our interpretation of The Creator, the more we determine that our way the ONLY way, the more we will determine that everyone else's interpretation is wrong and needs to be diminished, destroyed, belittled.

To determine a person’s worth by what they are, they do, some title they carry, some honor they earned, by their belief system, is no different than determining a person's worth by their race, color, creed, net worth or any other measuring stick. They are all equally separatist, divisional, and counter-productive.

I feel like that story about teh cat in captivity

Day 9,356 of my captivity, except its 3423 days since I was Reduced In Force (laid-off) from 3Com. In that time I have worked in alot of retail, meet my love, moved out of Illinois, become a ski instructor, an adaptive ski instructor, and taken my ceremony officiant business to a more than busy passtime. I am happy, healthy, and well liked.
So losing my "good paying" job was the best thing that ever happened to me. I have a 40 hour a week job at Home Depot, it is interesting work, some routines, some surprises every day, just not enough money to fly anymore, but thaqt is okay too.
There is a new adventure in my future, it starts Monday night. Looking forward to it. I'll chat about it after I have been there.

DailyOM. Keeping Things in Perspective - ////mountans

From a distance, mountains remind us of how small we are, which often comes as a wonderful relief.
Mountains have always captured our imaginations, calling us to scale their heights, to circle and worship at their feet, and to pay homage to their greatness. Mountains can be seen from thousands of miles away, and if we are lucky enough to be on top of one, we can see great stretches of the surrounding earth. As a result, mountains symbolize vision, the ability to rise above the adjacent lowlands and see beyond our immediate vicinity. From the top of the mountain, we are able to witness life from a new perspective—cities and towns that seem so large when we are in them look tiny. We can take the whole thing in with a single glance, regaining our composure and our sense of proportion as we realize how much bigger this world is than we sometimes remember it to be.
Mountains are almost always considered holy and spiritual places, and the energy at the top of a mountain is undeniably unique. When we are on top of a mountain, it is as if we have ascended to an alternate realm, one in which the air is purer and the energy lighter. Many a human being has climbed to the top of a mountain in order to connect with a higher source of understanding, and many have come back down feeling stronger and wiser. Whenever we are feeling trapped or limited in our vision, a trip to our nearest mountain may be just the cure we need.
There’s a reason that mountain views are so highly prized in this world, and it is because, even from a distance, mountains remind us of how small we are, which often comes as a wonderful relief. In addition, they illustrate our ability to connect with higher energy. As they rise up from the earth, sometimes disappearing in the clouds that gather around them, they are a visual symbol of earth reaching up into the heavens. Whether we have a mountain view out of our window or just a photograph of a mountain where we see it every day, we can rely on these earthly giants to provide inspiration, vision, and a daily reminder of our humble place in the grand scheme of life.


http://discuss.dailyom.com/cgi-bin/discuss/displaytopic.cgi?tid=3326

Jeffersonian Constitutionalism

I am a Jeffersonian Constitutionalist.

That philosophy is summed up by this statement from Thomas Jefferson on interpreting the Constitution.

"On every question of construction [of the Constitution] let us carry ourselves back to the time when the Constitution was adopted, recollect the spirit manifested in the debate (federalist papers) and instead of trying what meaning may be squeezed out of the text, or intended against it, conform to the probable one in which it was passed."

Grief is a wound

Grief is a wound of sorts, occasionally physical, but mostly emotional and mental. Like a physical wound, grief takes time to heal and it heals differently in all of us.
In some the wound heals over and life seems to go on, but the wound is still there underneath, healing away, concealed from casual view. This kind of wound can be dangerous if it decides to fester rather than heal, but usually heals with little scarring.
In others the wound heals bottom up, working along with the help of a bandage and perhaps some salve. In the end it looks quite like the first wound, a faint scar and nothing more.
Then there are the wounds that refuse to heal; the ones that require professional care to make them heal properly.
All these kinds of wounds injury us, cause some sort level of discomfort and can, if left uncared for, be life threatening if ignored.
That is my charge and my concern, that we all deal as we must with this wound called grief. That we each take the proper steps to heal our personal grief wounds as only we know how, to process the grief and heal it as best we can so that we go on living again, changed somewhat, scarred to some intent, but living. By ignoring this grief we set forth on a path of self-destructiveness, denial, and pain.It should be noted that each new wound will heal differently, require different kinds of aid to heal, and take a different amount of time to heal. There is no one “proper” path to this healing, it is our healing that we need to do, and it need to be done our way.

Odd space

Today I am officiating a funeral for Kathe, the partner of Mellon. Mellon preceded Kathe a year ago June. I am in this sad space as Nancy and I have lost 4 people in the past 2 months. I need revitalization that only I can provide. I seek that which can only come from interaction with my Creator.

giddy over jeans

To quote my wife: giddy with delight...two pair of jeans too long...

It is interesting that she is correct. I am happy, lo even giddy over jeans that are long enough that I don't feel like "high-water" guy.

However, the truly insight here is that I am happy, truly happy probably for the first time ever in 57+ years of existence. I have a good wife, good friends, I am employed with a multi-national corporation with good insurance (which is a feat in this economy), I have hobbies, passions, and things that challenge my creativity.

Life is good and I have jeans that are long enough.

Chris W.

Went to a memorial service for a friend last night. She was described as many things, all of them good. This one hurts for some reason that I have not identifed yet. Somewhere in between Mom's passing (horrible week) to Dad's (relief). Chris called me 'Jamie' from The Outlander books, I am Nancy's Jamie and Chris wanted Chuck in a kilt so bad.

Chris, The Summerland called and you stepped into the heaven you expected, journey well, be free from the crap cancer that took you, we'll take care of Chuck for you.

Tuckerman's team development theory

Watching a cat and a kitten go through this.
Mel was not a happy cat for 4 days, Oliver could care less he just wanted someone to play with.
Now they had their first supervised play date , then on to Oliver 'finding' Mel and then what would pass for cats playing together.
Mel gets tired of it and we had to give Oliver a timeout this morning so the adults could eat without any 'help'.

http://www.roch.edu/course/spch2214/forming_storming_norming_conforming.htm

"The body is the spacesuit that the soul wears in the rarified atmosphere of time and space." ~ Daily Om

"The body is the spacesuit that the soul wears in the rarified atmosphere of time and space." ~ Daily Om

Personal economic indicator

Of late I have been observing the change in our monitary situation. I have discovered a grass-roots leading economic indicator, the tip jar at the local coffee shops. Just hear me out, of the past 6 months I have noticed and then verified that there is more folding money in the tip jars than before. People are comfortable dropping that $1 and change into the jar, whereas before they were only dropping the change. This is true of me as well. I have no more money than before, however I am not feeling as confined by my economic situation and I too am dropping that $1 and change. Talked to coffee shop people and they too are seeing more bills in the bucket. So there you have it, Russ' leading economic indicator. Check your tip jar and let me know what you see there.

Snow departs

So winter is at an end. Spring is here just today. Skis prepped and stored, poles rest, boots nestled into their summer slumber. A pile of ski clothes lays aside for cleaning as time permits as there is no hurry to be "ready". A season of my illness 21 days down without skiing, opportunities missed, turns not taken. However it was a good season full of new things with adaptive skiing: chasing Dave down a slope trying in vain to keep the tethers loose. Teaching Dan pole touches, asking Scott if he wanted to guide ME as the fog was so thick that sight was of little use. Watching Kirk fight his personal dragons with gusto and verve. Seeing Nancy and Dick 'get it' about Adaptive skiing.

Flying, yoga, and skiiing

I am a low hours private pilot, but I have done some fun things in those 100+ hours. I have flew a BT-13, flew in the company really good pilots, and done formation flying. How does this relate to skiing or yoga? Well there is a thing called spin training, where a pilot goes to learn how to hand an aircraft in unusual attitudes (spinning towards the ground, for instance), in yoga you are taught to spin to center your Chakras. Again the connection is what?

Well I have balance issues from a variety of causes and while I was standing around one day, I connected all the above together. In spin training: getting the inner ear to behave when tumbling around in the sky is huge towards understanding how to fix the spin and that takes actual spins to get the inner ear to be conditioned to the physical spinning. In skiing: dynamic balance is key, again inner ear conditioning. In yoga: spinning to 'center' the Chakras is conditioning the body to expect and accept changes in stance and balance.

So I started spinning around in a circle while at home, just walking around, 'oh there is enough room here' SPIN! as I have done this over the past month or so several things have happened. My balance is much better, my skiing is much better, and I feel better generally, partially because my inner ear is now better conditioned to changes in attitude.

Will this work for you? Probably, try it and let me know. Just spin until you are just slightly dizzy (I could only do a couple turns around at first, so keep at it), then increase the number of spins and see what happens.

Tall people and dynamic skiing

There is a battle that ensues when tall people ski. What is a 18-20" swing from one edge to the other for a person 5'8", is about 20-24" for someone 6'6" tall. This causes some interesting phenomena with edge transitions, turn initiation, and the whole bio-mechanical kinetic chain. All that said (as an engineer), what it means in 'normal-speak' is that it takes more time for someone my height to get from one edge of my skis to the other. I have to work harder to turn my 165cm skis in the 16m radius that they can produce than a shorter person does. So I compensate by rotating or 'helping' the turn happen with a stem (pushing off with the up hill ski or "big-toeing" the turn. I have been working on patience and just lets the skis do the work. Then along comes Adaptive ski instruction and keeping up with your student who is rocking their bi-ski so as not to get tension in the tethers (yanking them into the fall line) is more important than "pretty" skiing, so last Tuesday I am behind a bi-ski with Dave, my trainer, in the ski and he is screaming down the hill at mach chicken (thx Kate Howe) trying to keep up any way I can. Stemming, skating, straight run, whatever it takes and loving it!

So last night (Friday) I am out on Bull run at Sunburst doing fast short radius turns in a corridor defined my my ski poles, doing pivot slips, and hockey stops to improve my Adaptive instruction abilities so I can get signed off to tether bi-skis (step one towards my Level 1 Adaptive certification with the PSIA).