Category: Daily Posts

October 25 – Daily Feast

October 25 – Daily Feast

Though summer still lingers in the last of vegetables in the garden, cooler air pushes down from the North and with it the subtle changes that color sumac and woodbine with brilliant reds. Some song birds stay during the winter, but their songs are different. This is the season of tart red apples and wood smoke twirling through the tops of tall evergreen trees. It seems only yesterday that spring broke through with her wild colors and thunderstorms. And it will seem only another day until this season has passed and the woods will green once more. Use this tranquil time to rest and walk and to enjoy seeing nature in her bare bones.

~ The Indian, essentially an outdoor person, has no use for handkerchiefs; he was practically immune to colds, and like the animal, not addicted to spitting. ~

LUTHER STANDING BEAR – LAKOTA

‘A Cherokee Feast of Days, Volume II’ by Joyce Sequichie Hifler

Live beyond it

Live beyond it

Don’t live with the disappointment. Live beyond it.

You cannot stop what has already happened. However, you can let it make you  stronger and more determined.

Instead of dwelling on the pain or injustice of what has happened, imagine  the best possible outcome. Then get busy moving yourself steadily and  passionately toward that outcome.

Life has the power to disappoint. Yet you have the power of life, and the  power to move on to bigger and better things.

When you have been disappointed, it means you truly care, and that’s a very  positive thing. Zero in on what you care about, and put your energy into  advancing those things in your life.

Look ahead, and look at all the good and valuable things you can do. Look  ahead, and step confidently forward with a renewed sense of purpose and  determination.

— Ralph Marston

Daily Motivator

Daily OM for October 25th – Big Steps On Life’s Path

Big Steps On Life’s Path

Being Aware is the First Step

by  Madisyn Taylor

There is freedom that comes with awareness, because with it comes the opportunity to make a choice.

Life is a journey comprised of many steps on our personal path that takes us down a winding road of constant evolution. And each day, we are provided with a myriad of opportunities that can allow us to transform into our next best selves. One moment we are presented with an opportunity to react differently when yet another someone in our life rubs us the wrong way; on another day we may find ourselves wanting to walk away from a particular circumstance but are not sure if we can. Eventually, we may find ourselves stuck in a rut that we can never seem to get out of. We may even make the same choices over and over again because we don’t know how to choose otherwise. Rather than moving us forward, our personal paths may take us in a seemingly never-ending circle where our actions and choices lead us nowhere but to where we’ve already been. It is during these moments that awareness can be the first step to change.

Awareness is when we are able to realize what we are doing. We observe ourselves, noticing our reactions, actions, and choices as if we were a detached viewer. Awareness is the first step to change because we can’t make a change unless we are aware that one needs to be made in the first place. We can then begin understanding why we are doing what we are doing. Afterward, it becomes difficult not to change because we are no longer asleep to the truth behind our behaviors. We also begin to realize that, just as much as we are the root source behind the causes for our behaviors, we are also the originator for any changes that we want to happen.

There is a freedom that comes with awareness. Rather than thinking that we are stuck in a repetitive cycle where there is no escape, we begin to see that we very much play a hand in creating our lives. Whether we are aware of them or not, our behaviors and choices are always ours to make. Our past and our present no longer have to dictate our future when we choose to be aware. We are then free to move beyond our old limits, make new choices, and take new actions. With awareness, our paths can’t help but wind us forward in our lives while paving the way for new experiences and new ways of being. It is through awareness that we can continue to consciously evolve.

 

Daily OM

I Have A Question

I would like to ask you a question. I don’t know what your opinion of me is but I do not wish to offend anyone. I am very easy going till made mad. I am a nice person, honest.

I would like to know if the joke I just put on here offends you. Material like that I find funny. I know others might find it offensive. I don’t know how far I can go with you is my point. I don’t want to cross the line. I want to keep the material were you enjoy it. Do you mind just a little adult humor? Nothing nasty like the “f” word, I mean like ass and mild words like that.

The site we use for our jokes had a cute joke I started to use. Then I stopped because I didn’t know how you would feel about it. It showed how to make different butts with your computer keys. Then it had what the butts meant beside them. One of them was a kiss my a** butt and that is what it said out beside it. But I didn’t use it because I want to know how you feel about such material.

I would appreciate your comments about this topic. Do you like strictly clean jokes or do you mind a little mild adult humor every now and then?

Thank you,

Annie

Laugh-A-Day for 10/25: How Not To Get Invited Back To A Circle

How Not To Get Invited Back To A Circle

  1. Take the ritual sword from the altar and make sounds like Darth Vader — “Luke, I am your father!” — and start making light saber noises.
  2. Start skat-singing when chanting.
  3. Take the ritual athame from the altar and start cleaning your nails with it.
  4. When taking a sip of the ritual wine, act like a wine snob and comment on it.
  5. When doing the spiral dance, make it a Conga line.
  6. Call down the Goddess with “Get your ass down here, Big Momma!”
  7. Call down the God with “Our father, who art in heaven …”
  8. When chanting the names of the Goddess, randomly include Pokemon names.
  9. When being smudged, complain vehemently about second-hand smoke.
  10. In a drumming circle, laugh insanely and start drumming the beat to Wipe Out!
  11. Ask the people in the circle “When are we all gonna git nekked?”
  12. When in a skyclad circle, randomly point and laugh.
  13. When the ritual wine goblet is passed to you, chug it and ask for more.
  14. Invoke Satan.
  15. Take out a Bible and start evangelizing.
  16. Light-up a cigar.
  17. Bring a cute furry creature and offer it as a blood sacrifice.
  18. Talk a lot about casting spells for revenge against people who have offended you.
  19. At a handfasting say “Thank God! Maybe now i’ll get some grandchildren!”
  20. When in circle, answer your cell phone.
  21. Respond to “So Mote it Be!” with “Amen!”
  22. Invite people to “Come to the dark side.”
  23. Bring you kids and ask the group to invoke the baby sitting Goddess.

     

— concept by Azriel LittleHawk, with edits and ammendments by Turok and contributors

 

Turok Cabana

Today’s Quiz for October 25th: What Your Music Taste Says About You

What Your Music Taste Says About You

Mel, selected from DivineCaroline

Which came first—the music or the melancholy? In the movie High Fidelity, the  narrator, Rob, thinks about the countless people out there listening to songs of  heartbreak and loneliness. “Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable?  Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?” he wonders. Given how  certain personality types seem drawn to particular kinds of music, it’s a fair  question to ask. For example, I’d probably look and feel out of place at an  Insane Clown Posse concert, but plop me down in the middle of a Death Cab for  Cutie crowd, and I’d blend right in. Our taste in music can influence everything  from the way we act to the way we dress—or is it that the music we choose to  listen to reflects our personalities?

Most well-rounded people enjoy a variety of music, their MP3 players a highly  individualized assortment of multiple genres. But they also have a particular  genre or two that speaks the most to them. And those genres, according to some  studies, speak the most about them, too.

Different Musical Tastes, Similar Personality Traits

Think about a time when someone insulted your favorite musician or band. Did it  feel like a personal attack? Professor Adrian North, of Scotland’s Heriot-Watt  University, believes that’s because we use music as an extension of our  personalities. We’re drawn to certain genres because we relate to them in some  way. Over the past few years, he’s conducted a worldwide study linking musical  taste to personality traits. In an online survey, North asked participants to  rate more than one hundred genres and then answer personality-based questions.  He’s used the thirty-six thousand–plus responses he’s received so far to form a  few hypotheses about fans.

North’s findings reveal some truth in stereotypes, such as that dance fans  are creative and classical fans are introverts, but they also challenge a few.  For instance, rock/heavy metal people are often thought to be rough around the  edges, but surveys suggest they’re actually gentler and calmer. There are also  quite a few similarities between genres that aren’t thought to mesh well, like  rock/heavy metal and reggae. The genre types may vary wildly, but that doesn’t  mean their fans can’t find some common ground, at least personality-wise.

Finding Truth in Fan Stereotypes Peter Rentfrow, an assistant professor  at the University of Cambridge, also thinks that personality has much to do with  music preferences. In a 2003 study called “The Do Re Mi’s of Everyday Life: The  Structure and Personality Correlates of Music Preferences,” he and Sam Gosling,  a professor at the University of Texas at Austin, came up with four categories  for music: Reflexive and Complex (blues/classical/folk/jazz), Energetic and  Rhythmic (hip hop/dance), Upbeat and Conventional (religious/country/pop), and  Intense and Rebellious (heavy metal/rock/alternative rock). They found that  those who fell into one group over another had a few common characteristics.

• Energetic and Rhythmic: confident, liberal-minded,  gregarious, athletic, feels attractive

• Upbeat and  Conventional: trusting, hardworking, feels attractive, helpful,  politically conservative

• Reflexive and Complex:  open-minded, politically liberal, creative, intelligent, tolerant, enjoys  aesthetic experiences

• Intense and Rebellious: athletic,  energetic, adventurous, intelligent, inquisitive

Rentfrow and Gosling have conducted a number of joint studies concerning  music and personality. In 2007, they tested whether stereotypes about music  genres and fans have any truth to them, the results of which were published in  the journal Psychology of Music. First, they asked seventy-four people a series  of personality-related questions and afterward told them to list their ten  favorite songs. (Volunteers also had a week to change their choices.)  Seventy-four CDs of the participants’ top-ten songs were made and distributed to  eight people, who were then asked to guess the nature of the volunteers based on  their song selections.

Interestingly, the eight observers accurately predicted congeniality,  forgiveness, openness to experience, creativity, and emotional balance. They did  better than respondents in previous studies in which people used pictures and  videos as personality indicators.

Songs That Stand the Test of Time

Since the participants  were college students, it’s possible that age makes a difference when it comes  to genres predicting personalities. As we age, music tends to define us less,  and our tastes vary more. And that probably has much to do with the fact that  our personalities change as get older, too. As we develop, our musical tastes  evolve along with us. But though we branch out into different musical genres, I  think we all have at least one that carries more significance for us than  others. It’s the kind of music that we relate the most to, be it through  heartfelt lyrics, aggressive tempo, or the soft twang of a single guitar.

Anything we willingly incorporate into our lives could be considered a  personality indicator, but most of us hold music a lot closer to our hearts than  we do clothes or interior decorations. So think twice before you question or  insult others’ taste in music. Chances are, they’ll take it personally—and based  on the aforementioned studies’ findings, they might be right.