~Maple Poplar~: January 2016

Sunday, January 31, 2016

~ Winter and, then, summer~

Yes, it was a blizzard last week....8 inches....and 65 this weekend.....with a stormy Tuesday as I sit with a hum of background noise and rain and write. Tornadoes possible. It is a nice rainy night....just right. This weekend our team played their last game. We lost by 1 point!

Then, we left for Gatlinburg to take the boys skiing. Cooper misses Vermont the most........out of all the kids. He misses his new experiences he had there....especially the skiing part - the brotherly love on the mountain....the chocolate waffles....the unsupervised moments......terrain park. It was about a year ago we had our fire! That is something I won't soon forget!

Below are some pictures as of late.

Peace....and Feel the Bern....lol

Hilly and Coop- at dusk sledding

Me .....with Precious and Vandy at sunset

Our trip with Hilly and Maddie

Ferriswheel

She always manages to get that money on our trips......lol

Paisley - Amy and Ej's wee one....Hilly loved taking care of these younger ones.

Kayla & Jo Jo

Our Team

I'm so happy I can offer her a reason to write......:)

The prompt.....What is something that disappoints you?

LOL really loud

Sunday, January 24, 2016

~ winter flow ~

I've read in the last five years on some Buddhist philosophies regarding the state of flow. Acceptance. To understand there are seasons for everything. These winter days have brought me in harmony with this ideal: with my kids, family, hearth, myself, nature, and home. Each season - whether the hottest or coldest bring us closer or dig deeper for the understanding and flow of existence. I've enclosed this excerpt for reading:

"According to the teachings of the Buddha, life is comparable to a river. It is a progressive moment, a successive series of different moments, joining together to give the impression of one continuous flow. It moves from cause to cause, effect to effect, one point to another, one state of existence to another, giving an outward impression that it is one continuous and unified movement, where as in reality it is not. The river of yesterday is not the same as the river of today. The river of this moment is not going to be the same as the river of the next moment. So does life. It changes continuously, becomes something or the other from moment to moment.

Take for example the life of an individual. It is a fallacy to believe that a person would remain the same person during his entire life time. He changes every moment. He actually lives and dies but for a moment, or lives and dies moment by moment, as each moment leads to the next. A person is what he is in the context of the time in which he exists. It is an illusion to believe that the person you have seen just now is the same as the person you are just now seeing or the person whom you are seeing now will be the same as the person you will see after a few moments.

Even from a scientific point of view this is true. We know cell divisions take place in each living being continuously. Old cells in our bodies die and yield place continuously to the new ones that are forming. Like the waves in a sea, every moment, many thoughts arise and die in each individual . Psychologically and physically he is never the same all the time. Technically speaking, no individual is ever composed of the same amount of energy. Mental stuff and cellular material all the time. He is subject to change and the change is a continuous movement."

"Life is comparable to a river".......