Is anyone else an atheist with BC besides me?
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Maya2 - I'm so sorry for all you've been through. Life sure isn't fair!!!
* passes you a freshly made glass of "Tea" *
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Like they say, you play the hand you are dealt, the way you want to..
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Hey SoCalLisa, you getting any floating or swimming time in? That's the worst thing about the winters here. I like outdoor pools. Indoor pools smell too strong for me and living here I've got awhile before I can swim outside.
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not yet river rat...pool is still cold..I could go to the Y, maybe I should if I could get motivated..it is cold getting to the pool though from the locker room
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I think I'd have a hard time getting motivated to run through the cold to get to the pool too. Here's looking forward to warmer weather!
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I can't remember a winter I have hated more than this one. It just seems endless. The sun finally came out today and I just sat on the porch and soaked up the sunshine. The temps are heading towards 60 this weekend! Yahoo! I actually miss mowing the lawn and my fields. I miss my flowers and the smell of the grass. I even miss being all dirty from working in the yard and digging in the dirt!
River .. I'm toasting with you looking forward to warmer weather!
Bren
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Oh wow, I swear I got a whiff of dirt and I can barely wait. I've been leafing through gardening catalogs and I want to grow everything.....unfortunately my yard is a postage stamp, well it's like the Swiss Army knife of postage stamp yards. I've got a lot shoe-horned in and I'm thinking of ways to fit more in.
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Spring is coming!!
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Thanks Lisa .. I can smell the rose!
River .. I love looking through gardening catalogs and planning. I also get rose catalogs too .. although they don't do well here cause the deer eat them. My avatar is a pic of my zinnias from last year.
Bren
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We can't grow lilacs here Bren..can't have everything
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I am soooo ready for spring. Even though that means unsettled weather in the Rockies and tons of snow! It also means arugula in the cold frame, and sunny days, and bike rides in between snows!
And daffodils in April and lilacs in May. Thank goodness we can grow lilacs. We just have to protect them from the deer!
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Daffodils in April and lilacs in May.....just like our season here at the top of new York State, across the river in southern Ontario. sigh.....I went to Colorado once, long ago, to Colorado Springs, and out into the country there - was smitten by the scenery - the strange rock shapes, there was a zoo - and you suddenly started climbing up the mountains, yet looked back to see the plains - it was all so sudden. loved it, and hope so much to return.
Nonviolence requires much more
courage than violence.
- Mahatma Gandhi
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I miss lilacs so much down here in SC. Was so dismayed when I found out they just won't flower here -- our winters aren't long or cold enough, apparently. When I was a girl, we had a huge lilac bush outside our back door and they've always been my favorite flower. We do have crepe myrtle trees which have beautiful flowers, but there's nothing like the fragance of a lilac.
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If spring ever gets here, I'll post pics of my lilacs. I've got two different kinds! We have lots of crepe myrtle here too and I love them. They are so colorful.
Arlene .. thanks for today's quote. It's a good one.
Hope everyone is having a good day!
Bren
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Arlene, River rat, Maya
Thank you SO MUCH for the civil discussion of such a painful, "hot button" ( for me) issue of folks telling me to be positive - as if my emotions had "something" to do with my having breast cancer. And then there's' the crowd that tells me to "keep fighting"- thank goodness there are dear, dear, dear understanding friends, who ask "what are you doing to give yourself pleasure" - and the genuine "how are you?" - "anything I can do to help."
This thread is uplifting in a very "positive" way - authentic! We get to be who we are, and who we are is always changing. There are still days, now 4 years since diagnosis, when I wake up startled to realize I had breast cancer. And then days when I really don't think about it at all, unless one of the SE's of Armidex is kicking in.
Really wanted to thank all of you for creating this space, this refuge, SMELLING of Roses, oh SoCalLisa, thata rose I am really loving ( LOVING) learning to paint with soft pastels, and flowers are my favorite subject. THANK YOU. Will print the rose. Any one have an Anemone? ;-))))
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Thanks to all for listening. Sometimes I feel really impotent in my work. We're all set up to heal (fix) the women who come to us. We help them feel confident about what they are doing and then a family member or friend comes along and says something that completely undoes them. It's nearly always the "positive attitude" statement, but there are others. Seeing their pain, causes me pain--and anger, but of course, I can't show it to them. So I wait until I get home, light candles and cry for them--and sometimes for me--alone. Not everything can be fixed. Some wounds never heal and a family who doesn't support their own during a frightening illness is a life-long hurt.
I've left two threads here where things get very heated, insulting and mean, so I too appreciate civility. Pain is bad enough without twisting the knife.
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Stumbled on this interesting article: Why You Will Always Exist: Time Is 'On Demand'
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-lanza/biocentrism-why-you-will-always-exist_b_820183.html
Makes me feel a bit better about dying. I eventually may not exist in the present, but I will continue to exist in the past. I've been struggling with the end of the biological/biochemical reaction (i.e. me). Trying to figure it out...yah, impossible task I set for myself.
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"The most important thing I learned," said Billy Pilgrim in Kurt Vonnegut's novel "Slaughterhouse Five," "was that when a person dies, he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist."
Elizabeth .. I copied the last paragraph of the article you posted. It gives me comfort. But I still cry when I lose someone I love.
Bren
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Me too.
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'In Robert Heinlein's "Stranger in a Strange Land," Jubal said we're prisoners of our early indoctrinations, "for it is hard, very nearly impossible, to shake off one's earliest training." '
Thanks Konakat. I took this away. It's so difficult, even when your mind is telling you it can't be, then your childhood formative years jump in and remind you of what you were taught first, before you were able to think for yourself.
When I was diagnosed I asked my therapist what do I do to get through this? I refused to carry around a bible like other members of my family did. She said you spend time with your pets, with your husband, do things you enjoy. I continue to pass that on as it did work for me. I also like to light candles, not in a religious way, just as a light in the darkness.
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Bren, I'm with you on this winter....ready for it to end!
Lisa, thanks for the lovely rose.
AnneW, can you really already start arugula in a cold frame there? Neat.
Flannelette, thanks.
Julie, sorry you can't have lilacs.
Caerus, perhaps I may still have anemones this year it the snow load doesn't kill them.
Konakat, loved your link, thanks.
Maya, good advice.
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Oops, I forgot to post the quote I ran across this morning.
"Question with boldness even the existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of the homage of reason, than that of blind-folded fear."
-Thomas Jefferson0 -
River Rat
IJust noticed your sig line - liked it so much I googled DN - think he was the co-writer for my al time favorite movie: Bringing Up Baby - is it the same DN???
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Caerus, yes one and the same.
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I am not an athiest, but my faith is very weak lately. VERY weak.
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I am sorry that you are having a crisis of faith. You might want to read back in this thread to see if you feel comfortable here. I wish you luck in whatever direction your journey takes you.
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Fearless .. I went through a crisis of faith about 2 years ago. And I never got it back. I have moved on to accept that I am most likely agnostic now. It was a hard journey for me .. but this is where I am today. I guess having cancer changes us all in different ways.
Sending best wishes to you that you are able to find your way.
Bren
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It's not even just the BC, it's been so many things in my life. I suppose I would be considered agnostic at this point....
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Happy Valentine's Day!
More valuable than treasures in a
storehouse are treasures of the body,
and the treasures of the heart
are the most valuable of all.
- Nichiren
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Since it's Valentine's Day, I thought I would post the Metta Sutta, a version I modified slightly. It is a very old teaching from the Buddha, perhaps the oldest. It is meant to be a meditation but now reads as an affirmation or a "prayer" to oneself. I hope everyone enjoys it.
The Metta Sutta ---Sn1.8 (modified)
This is what should be done
By one who is skilled in goodness,
And who knows the path of peace:
May I be able and upright,
Straightforward and gentle in speech,
Humble and not conceited,
Contented and easily satisfied,
Unburdened with duties and frugal in my ways.
Peaceful and calm and wise and skillful,
Not proud or demanding in nature.
May I not do the slightest thing
That the wise would later reprove.
Wishing: In gladness and in safety,
May all beings be at ease.
Whatever living beings there may be;
Whether weak or strong, omitting none,
The great or the mighty, medium, short or small,
The seen and the unseen,
Those living near and far away,
Those born and to-be-born -
May all beings be at ease!
Let none deceive another,
Or despise any being in any state.
Let none through anger or ill-will
Wish harm upon another.
Even as a mother protects with her life
Her child, her only child,
So with a boundless heart
I cherish all living beings;
Radiating kindness over the entire world:
Spreading upwards to the skies,
And downwards to the depths;
Outwards and unbounded,
Freed from hatred and ill-will.
Whether standing or walking, seated or lying down
Free from drowsiness,
I sustain this recollection.
This is said to be the sublime abiding.
By not holding to fixed views,
The pure-hearted one, having clarity of vision,
Being freed from all sense desires,
Is not born again into this world.
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