tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73670208399972950952024-03-05T03:03:45.358-08:00A Buddha A DayEllen Sandbeck's blog for her year-long project, A Buddha A Day. Winners' entries from the writing contest will be posted here, along with pictures of the papercut Buddha images they have won.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13493055390818640244noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367020839997295095.post-85812733561189278212010-12-08T13:46:00.000-08:002010-12-08T13:46:23.022-08:00Winning entry from Sarah Phoenix<!--StartFragment--> <br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">How Buddhism Came to Me</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB6skQ0E8iycfKbQcwfzuSkuByuHddjbDlPu9iWYDigelIbJbfEK_a2nLjYcUibVfJ55QxQfGl23mfL6V6jnwk18tixUdiZNO6CAZqJNCQYjP9Hc4gd2kHxgJX2J2grCAomr_wFBMC2-E/s1600/260+BUDDHA_0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgB6skQ0E8iycfKbQcwfzuSkuByuHddjbDlPu9iWYDigelIbJbfEK_a2nLjYcUibVfJ55QxQfGl23mfL6V6jnwk18tixUdiZNO6CAZqJNCQYjP9Hc4gd2kHxgJX2J2grCAomr_wFBMC2-E/s640/260+BUDDHA_0001.jpg" width="491" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">I remember no religion until I started going to church with the black people in my neighborhood. considering the family that I came from, this isnot surprising. I lived in Watts and the “mamas” of the neighborhood were mothers to one and all. The fact that I was the lightest face in the neighborhood meant nothing.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">What a joy those meetings were. Singing, dancing in the aisles, clapping and swaying, I loved it. It gave me the basis for music and community even if I had no idea of Jesus and God and everything else that came with it. All I knew was when the meeting was over there would be baked macaroni and cheese, greens, fried chicken and ham at a table where no one else looked like me.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">A few years later, my mother married John. The Catholic. And the requirements of that situation were that I had to convert to Catholicism. It is a testament to that experience that the only thing I recall today of it is my slap for calling the priest a magician (he wore big black cloaks, spoke in magic language and could turn blood into wine) and the Act of Contrition. I became sincerely disillusioned upon learning that my friends weren’t going to get into heaven because they weren’t Catholic. My questioning of this and other tenets soon had me back into the world of no religion and no expectations.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Hippiedom became my “hood” after I reached the age of consent. That meant reading, moving outside of myself and into what else was out there…including “The Autobiography of a Yogi” by Paramahansa Yogananda. Whoa! Karma became a reality. Now a lot of things made sense. But, without running off to join an ashram, my education into Hinduism was halted.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">With my eyes open to other choices, and an obvious hole in my spiritual development, I started to read about religion. This eventually led to the study of Judaism. With my background, I was immediately drawn to the sufferings of the Tribe of Israel, and converted to Judaism. The God of the Old Testament was familiar. Very clear rules, a history of Diaspora and great food. I had learned that the better the food the closer the “feeling” of religion was to my heart.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 24.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">Of course, all of this was just a step on the way to Buddhism discovering me. When I learned of the Buddha and the meaning of the teachings, I knew that there was an inevitable truth to it all. Of course, the nice thing about Buddhism is that the statement “<span style="color: #333333;">People with opinions just go around bothering each other.” That took care of the exclusionary rule of other religions.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: "Trebuchet MS"; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: "Trebuchet MS";">But wait, I had converted to Judaism and while not the greatest Jew in the world, there was much there that I was loth to abandon. I kept this running around in my head for quite a while: How could I accommodate my belief in Judaism with my belief in Buddha? The answer came to me in a way that made my life and my spirituality come together in the best way possible. I’m a Buddhist, but in this life, I am supposed to be a Jew.</span></div><!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13493055390818640244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367020839997295095.post-65908599907271053902010-11-10T08:42:00.000-08:002010-11-10T08:42:40.334-08:00winning entry from Patrice Clark Koelsch<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9kSMhLzmPgmqmmo88jbFsZnVtnkoFaZ4aoeZxXxjFPGMc9DfDQscQVz4J2lxf05vlUr1BL8kvfCRSX20dx6uZMqeov6pIs-rfRhHLJnqjn61oPRBT2GzFgahr5Fm5atu6upMdqaOZezw/s1600/16+Buddha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi9kSMhLzmPgmqmmo88jbFsZnVtnkoFaZ4aoeZxXxjFPGMc9DfDQscQVz4J2lxf05vlUr1BL8kvfCRSX20dx6uZMqeov6pIs-rfRhHLJnqjn61oPRBT2GzFgahr5Fm5atu6upMdqaOZezw/s400/16+Buddha.jpg" width="310" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 1.0in; text-indent: .5in;">Taking Refuge in the Buddha</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Buddham saranam gochami</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>-- “I take refuge in the Buddha.” This is the first of the three refuges traditionally invoked by Buddhist practitioners.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Refuge is taken sequentially in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha – the Triple Gem. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">What does it mean for this Western woman – a feminist schooled in the empiricist philosophy – to take refuge in the Buddha? It was easiest to first understand taking refuge in the sangha -- a community of others aspiring to live without harming themselves or the planet. And then understanding the deep wisdom of the dharma – of seeing things as they are – not as I want them to be – became another resting place for my heart and mind. But taking refuge in the Buddha – that was elusive.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">First, there’s the story of the Buddha – a tale of a boy born into noble privilege and great expectation. It was said that he emerged from his mother’s side and that she died within the week. A sage predicted that he would either be a great king or a great spiritual leader, so the boy’s father made every effort to keep the young prince isolated and entertained by the pleasures of an aristocratic life. When he became a man, he was given a beautiful wife who bore him a son. Then, overcome by curiosity, he ventured outside and saw the ravages of old age in a crone, the suffering of disease in a sick man, the lamentations of grief around a corpse. Finally he encountered a mendicant with an untroubled visage and was determined to emulate him. Abandoning his wife and son and father, he cut off his hair and began the spiritual journey that would fulfill the prophecy at his birth.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">This is of course just a story, an archetypal myth for a great religious leader. The prince’s quest was valorized, there was no acknowledgment of what this might have meant for his wife and child. Her perspective was irrelevant to the story, just as the death of the Buddha’a mother seemed a convenient way of minimizing any maternal influence. So in the early years of meditation practice, I simply drew a sort of spiritual parentheses around the Buddha and focused instead on the ethical and psychological insights of taking suffering as the primary reference point. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">During this time, I was encouraged and supported by teachers who lived exemplary but unpretentious householder lives and by other practitioners who also struggled with jobs and domestic obligations and spiritual longing. So the sangha was my first place of refuge. Then, after I sat more and longer in formal daily and retreat practice, I began accompanying a long-time practitioner in leading simple self-awareness meditation groups in prisons. The practice was to use the breath <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>to stay with present-moment experience, to let go of the judging mind and the stories we continually tell ourselves. A decade of sitting in maximum security prisons, witnessing the transforming power of self-awareness, of seeing clearly how things are, broadened and deepened my understanding of the power of taking refuge in the Dharma. </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Still, taking refuge in the Buddha, seemed the least tangible of the refuges. I would tell myself that taking refuge in the Buddha was simply taking refuge in the possibility of waking up in my life. But I would have nagging qualms about the historic Buddha. Especially since he was initially reluctant to admit women to the monastic life. As I read more deeply in the suttas, I found words that often spoke directly to my own spiritual confusion. But usually I felt the way I did reading Plato in graduate school. As a woman I was on the margin. This was a guy primarily speaking to other guys. At least that’s the way it seems in the tradition that was passed along from one generation of monks to another. The Buddha of the suttas is no laughing, all-embracing Dalai Lama </div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Then I the encountered the voices of the women who were the Buddha’s disciples in the Therigatha -- the poems of the early nuns. They were vivid, joyful expressions of spiritual freedom, nothing marginalized or second class about them. The work of Feminist scholar and Buddhist practitioner Rita Gross made a huge difference. She observes that the historical Buddha never held that women were less able to awaken than men and suggests that his reluctance to ordain women may simply have been pragmatic. The Buddha’s already radical community of caste-less renunciate men disrupted the traditional family and clan-based system of propriety and property, and admitting women ran the risk of putting a lighted match to kindling. The Buddha included famous courtesans among his followers and accepted their hospitality. Karen Armstrong, a scholar of religions but not a Buddhist herself, wrote about the tremendous social and political upheaval during the Buddha’s own lifetime. The Buddha had detractors and enemies outside and inside his community. There were even attempts on the Buddha’s life by renegade monks.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">Most recently, Steven Batchelor undertook a geo-political exploration of the life of the Buddha. In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Confessions of a Buddhist Atheist</i>, Bachelor literally goes over the ground of the Buddha and his disciples, and tries to understand what the shifting constellation of political alliances, clan allegiances, social conditions and geographic constraints meant for the year by year situation of the Buddha. The kings who consulted the Buddha were victims of parricide, the Buddha’s cousin set out to usurp his leadership and caused a major schism in the sangha. The Buddha survived several assassination attempts, but eventually succumbed to food poisoning – which may have been intentional. Batchelor goes back again and again to the Pali canon – the suttas and the early commentaries – finding in them a wise and pragmatic human being dealing with difficult circumstances and great responsibility. The actual Buddha offered a down to earth path for meeting life’s vicissitudes, and, as a way of life, that path is liberating.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;">It’s this very humanizing of the Buddha that makes me able to finally, fully take refuge in the Buddha. To take refuge in the possibility of waking up and really paying attention in my life, but also to take refuge in the realization that, like the Buddha, I can only act from a sincere intention and then do the best I can in complex and confusing situations. I take refuge in the fact that the Buddha took his leadership responsibilities to heart and walked very delicately through political minefields. I can take refuge in the Buddha’s example of not succumbing to bitterness when demagogues seize power. I can take refuge in the Buddha’s acceptance of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the body’s deterioration with equanimity, and in the poignancy of the Buddha on his deathbed, mindfully experiencing not only the agony of his illness but the keen disappointment of those who had hoped he would have a more glorious demise in a better location. On a visceral level I can appreciate what a liberation it would be to be fully present without any ill-will in these circumstances. Thus I wholeheartedly take refuge in the Buddha.</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 200%; text-indent: .5in;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Patrice Clark Koelsch</div><!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13493055390818640244noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367020839997295095.post-3185342040333607382010-09-13T13:20:00.000-07:002010-09-13T13:20:19.377-07:00Winning entry from Patricia Ohmans<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"> <!--StartFragment--> </span></span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><i>This is from a record I kept of ten months spent in Cochabamba, Bolivia's third largest city. While it is not specifically about Buddhism or the Buddha, it is about paying attention...in this case, to smells.<o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br />
</i></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkMG2Ex4NV6WjHpYqkge8z72miF4J54eRHmmYPNhaVCLGKine-RtdeFmZeyVuXHneb45nUwK5GL3PQ0DzHEsVBNMYVlwBo7HKOYw55YwWK7gYgmK1Uv6vRbWiiDH7f1ZDIWVAPy5Md3VA/s1600/265+Buddha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkMG2Ex4NV6WjHpYqkge8z72miF4J54eRHmmYPNhaVCLGKine-RtdeFmZeyVuXHneb45nUwK5GL3PQ0DzHEsVBNMYVlwBo7HKOYw55YwWK7gYgmK1Uv6vRbWiiDH7f1ZDIWVAPy5Md3VA/s320/265+Buddha.jpg" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">SMELLY<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">A while ago, in a strange reaction to sinus medication, a friend of ours lost her sense of smell almost completely. Although Bonnie has since recovered, months of not being able to sense either fragrance or odor affected her deeply. She’s is a great cook and an avid gardener, but both of those pleasures shriveled along with her ability to—literally—stop and smell the roses.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Almost the inverse has happened to me, since moving to Cochabamba. Here, from dawn to dusk, one’s nose is alternately seduced, soothed, ambushed, intrigued or assaulted. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">In the morning, there are the smells of breakfast: fresh-ground Caranavi coffee beans; a whiff of peaches ripening in the fruit bowl (it’s peach season); my daughter Anna’s shower-clean hair; and through the open window, last night’s rain, already drying on the clay tile steps. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">At the #3 micro-bus stop I smell: potatoes sauteeing in an oily pan (lunch for the drivers, cooked up outdoors under a plastic tarp, alongside the idling buses, which chuff exhaust); sweat, dirt and soapy water in the buckets wielded by the ragged, deaf-mute man who swabs the buses clean after each run; cologne from the slick-haired, diamond-earringed college boy climbing aboard ahead of me. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The Saturday market is overwhelming in its smells: wheels of stinky cheeses; bunches of lilac-y <i>nardos</i> (ubiquitous white flowers that people buy to offer up to church saint statues); dry seed hulls from the dusty, caged birds for sale: sticky blood glistening on piles of chicken, beef, and fish. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Of course, there’s always the jolt of urine, or even shit, if you breathe too deeply when you’re picking your way on a narrow sidewalk downtown. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">But far more often, when I’m walking down a Cochabamba street inhaling dust and ozone, I’ve simply got to whip around, stop short, and breathe deep, and try to pinpoint which flowering tree or bush (behind which thick, stucco wall) is wafting that elusive, siren scent. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Jasmîn? Gardenia? Eucalipto? Retamo?</span></i><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> Something I cannot name in either Spanish or English, but am deeply grateful for, nonetheless?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p><i>Patricia Ohmans</i></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #888888; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13493055390818640244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367020839997295095.post-35611604338532457632010-09-10T07:20:00.000-07:002010-09-10T07:20:43.316-07:00Another winning entry from Linda Glaser<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_tqzX1hVmxCQ_X_xZvwuOC-e1TY2xUoBKgfWA1jt-nNnSiVe3nM8sJuSS5qe5IyoVNxs6VyZ-eGQ6SjVLijFJT_PBJ-OxdWRS0Ye4_jytrjjs3-KM_bd026ezjvriuUmlBsayvg9ouPc/s1600/176+Buddha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_tqzX1hVmxCQ_X_xZvwuOC-e1TY2xUoBKgfWA1jt-nNnSiVe3nM8sJuSS5qe5IyoVNxs6VyZ-eGQ6SjVLijFJT_PBJ-OxdWRS0Ye4_jytrjjs3-KM_bd026ezjvriuUmlBsayvg9ouPc/s320/176+Buddha.jpg" /></a></div><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Hands of Buddha <o:p></o:p></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Dancing hands</div><div class="MsoNormal">holding the next breath</div><div class="MsoNormal">of the Universe</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Blossom fingers</div><div class="MsoNormal">lifting heart buds </div><div class="MsoNormal">of promise</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Hands of grace</div><div class="MsoNormal">unfolding the gift</div><div class="MsoNormal">of now</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13493055390818640244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367020839997295095.post-86298649726618257622010-07-06T08:38:00.000-07:002012-12-02T07:15:18.518-08:00A Winning Entry from Ian Graham Leask<div class="MsoNormal">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizFW1_iXOJTvtG0d3r7dVq39jZdBqrBn945wAwMkzbfXEkqPeEjKcYEVC8cMYX8tHP-CVxYWdMBjkwyZDn8m7EIW8mMynwNc9Pp-ieFE43e3HiPN0dEe_usMS229YH849dmu7SwnwhMhk/s1600/315+Buddha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="492" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizFW1_iXOJTvtG0d3r7dVq39jZdBqrBn945wAwMkzbfXEkqPeEjKcYEVC8cMYX8tHP-CVxYWdMBjkwyZDn8m7EIW8mMynwNc9Pp-ieFE43e3HiPN0dEe_usMS229YH849dmu7SwnwhMhk/s640/315+Buddha.jpg" width="640" /></a></div>
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Buddha Piece<o:p></o:p></div>
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We were a British family like many in the mid-fifties: parents who could barely believe WWII had ended a decade ago, “God, how time flies;” a four-year-old lad who considered himself the center of the universe, and whose much older half-siblings simultaneously adored and despised him; aunts and uncles of every degree, mostly war-torn, colonial rejects: one-eyed, one-armed, and pennilessly bourgeois.<br />
I, of course, was the center of the universe, the baby king, the milk-scented miniature of my big bald, blond blue-eyed failed engineer of a father. Mother was a blonde too, a Betty Davis look alike with a pukka accent. When I was<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>a little older I saw the film version of Edward Albee’s play, “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” and I had to laugh; Burton & Taylor were my mom and dad to a T. They tore each other apart but they were in love. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My own progression towards an unsteady manhood was a punctuated by their vile acts of betrayal, violence and disrespect. One exceptionally memorable occasion involved the Buddha himself...</div>
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I <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>was conceived in Bombay during a particularly mad period in my parents’ lives, when they gambled and lost everything on an international business venture that failed. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the midst of all the wining and dining; the shiny black cars; <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the “Yes Sahib,” and “No Memsahib,” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“May we lick your arses clean, you rich white bastards?” and dinner jackets and pink gin; a man called Peter fell in love with my mother and tried to steal her away. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He paid for this Olympian violation with several broken ribs and a very puffy face one night at the dark end of Colaba.</div>
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Peter had given my mother a beautiful porcelain sitting Buddha: round bellied, smiling, saffron robed and bald. She had promised to leave this gift behind when my parents retreated from Bombay--or better still sell it, since they were broke--but she loved it and hid it in the portmanteaux that followed her by sea after they had flown <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>back to London, with tadpole me--somewhat dented from kicking spermatozoon butt all the way to the egg--gestating inside a drinking, smoking, madwoman.</div>
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Despite all the mayhem, I loved my little life with my two fabulous parents, hated it when they were not around, and closely observed everything they did. They called me Ian the Wean, Naughty Knave, and Lucky Laddie, and home was always filled with laughter, flowers in vases, and music playing.<br />
Until one day when my mother, assuming my father would have forgotten Peter and his porcelain<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Buddha, got the shining beauty out of storage and put it on the mantelpiece above the fire a few hours before the National Memorial party to commemorate the five year anniversary of V-Day, <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> which</span> my dad was hosting.</div>
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I helped <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>my mother take the Buddha out of the tissue paper, which smelled strongly of something I liked but could not identify. When the shining creature emerged, she let me hold him in my arms: a four-year-old holding a god. He was the heaviest object I had ever held and she would not allow me to stand while holding it. “Can I have it, please?” I asked. “No, darling. He belongs to the family now. He’ll bring us luck.” </div>
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I remember looking at his smiling face and feeling a lovely glow, knowing exactly why he would be lucky for us, and boy did we need a change of fortune. Mum had a proclivity for buying flowers instead of food. Apparently flowers were better for morale. I lived on Birdseye Fish Fingers. In the trunk with our Buddha was a big carved knife with a bejeweled handle, some weird looking clothes and lots of clunky shoes which reminded me of policewomen. I was perpetually hungry, and was also on the look- out for old toffees or boiled sweets, but no such luck.</div>
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I felt desolate when she removed the gleaming god from my protection and placed him carefully in the middle of the mantelpiece. She lit candles on either side of him, since this was late in the year and the Christmas tree had already been put up and decorated.</div>
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I felt elated and wanted Dad to come home and see the Buddha, whose broad back reflected in the big mirror. Dad came home rather late and smelling of the pub. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When he saw the Buddha, he dropped his briefcase and said: <br />
“What the bloody fucking hell is that doing here?”</div>
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I sat in the huge chair by the fire and did not <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>run to him as usual, since he looked menacing, and besides I had my army men set out in battle formation across my lap and the arm of the chair. My mother had left some nice classical music on the radiogram--violins chunking along. I think it was “Clare de Lune,” and the room smelled of Pledge.</div>
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“Judy,” Dad yelled.<br />
“Yes, darling,” we heard from the kitchen. “Coming!”</div>
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He stood in the doorway; twitching, neck bulging, eyes like Jehovah’s sky, and glancing <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>back and forth from me to the god on the mantelpiece.</div>
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I began disassembling the battle formation in my lap, but mother <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>entered the room before I could finish. She simultaneously pushed past <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Dad and pulled him into the room by <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>the arm. She was happy. She picked up his nearly empty briefcaseand held it in front of her. </div>
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He pointed, and said: “That.”<br />
“Oh, I’d hoped you’d like it. The fellas’ll like it when they get here. It’ll remind them of India.”<br />
“It reminds me of India.”<br />
“Oh, darling, come on now, that was years ago.”<br />
“Not to me.”<br />
“Well you got your pound of flesh, didn’t you?”</div>
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She still looked happy, teasing him, her red mouth up to his. She said, “Where’s my kiss?” But she <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>held the briefcase in front of her.</div>
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Dad’s face <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>went pale and he looked old all of a sudden. He dodged her kiss, strode to the mantelpiece, swept the beautiful god onto the fireside carpet, and stomped on it with all his weight. It broke into three parts.<br />
“Oh Henry. Please.”</div>
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He stomped it again. Then again and again, shouting: “Fat bellied bastard!” He stomped until there was nothing left but a pile of white dust crushed into the carpet. He was crying.</div>
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When I looked for my mother, she was gone. Then Dad went out. </div>
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I don’t remember ever having any luck after that.<o:p></o:p></div>
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<o:p><i> </i></o:p><i>Ian Graham Leask</i><i> </i><i>April 26, 2010</i></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13493055390818640244noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367020839997295095.post-91579553435986144472010-06-28T14:28:00.000-07:002010-06-28T14:28:58.978-07:00Another winning entry from James Noah<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA7KueH8rNSeQ0xYpxCcpv2RjMR9QUI3nAd1apPZ6p56ILcJnKgoohcbV9B-WtJK1BA-mweYzKeYKewCS8KxCJy07LJHFYnziQUXPkmH2r9avHUwsNOY6GFgvbcyiF7lYQWgaf-d1yW7E/s1600/350+Buddha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA7KueH8rNSeQ0xYpxCcpv2RjMR9QUI3nAd1apPZ6p56ILcJnKgoohcbV9B-WtJK1BA-mweYzKeYKewCS8KxCJy07LJHFYnziQUXPkmH2r9avHUwsNOY6GFgvbcyiF7lYQWgaf-d1yW7E/s320/350+Buddha.jpg" /></a></div><h3><br />
</h3><h3><br />
</h3><h3><a href="" name="7000021200967479757"></a><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia;"><a href="http://jamesbnoah.blogspot.com/2008/12/obaa-chan.html">Obaa-chan</a>* <o:p></o:p></span></h3><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia;">Obaa-chan, your childless carriage pushed with a back bowed by a meager war diet and the weight of a post-industrial society that has moved from feudal to digital in your lifetime. Where have your children gone?<br />
Was it a .50 caliber round through the chest on Mindanao? His youthful, pensive face staring back through the smoke of your prayer incense. Or perhaps it was a Bullet-Train out of town when she could no longer stand the smell of the farm?<br />
Where have your children gone?<br />
Maybe off to the <i>Juku</i>, or the sex club? Your knowing, patient hands still cooking meals for a generation no longer interested in waving the Rising Sun, dusting off pictures of the Emperor, or toasting victories in Canton.<br />
Obaa-chan, I know you were once young, but do your grandchildren know that you had hair as shining and skin as soft and fair as any who now peddle their flesh in Ginza on a cell phone? Do they know that the <i>takuwan </i>pickles in their bento are from a recipe you learned as a girl at a time when you weren't allowed to speak in the presence of your father without permission?<br />
Do they know you are day-care to a generation, and rain-swept, roadside grime and mud labor to a nation?<br />
I know, but I could never have endured as you have through wars, famine, and now isolation. I know, because you once showed me your picture as a young girl in <i>monpei, </i>bidding your brother farewell at the train station. So handsome in his uniform; you bowed stoically as he headed to his grave in the Pacific.<br />
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But I will not bother you now for a story. You are too busy knocking the snow off rows of long, white radishes drying in the winter sun and setting up an offering of rice for your brother's long awaited return.<br />
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*When I first visited Japan almost 35 years ago, I often saw Obaa-chans (grandmothers) in the Japanese countryside with terribly bowed backs. Purportedly caused by a calcium poor war diet and long hours stooped rice fields. They would often be pushing a cart that looked something like a cross between a baby carriage and a shopping cart. It struck me that this nation would truly have been lost after the war had it not been for these stout, resolute women.</span><span style="color: #333333; display: none; font-family: Georgia; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hide: all; mso-no-proof: yes;"><!--[if gte vml 1]><v:shapetype
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>James Noah</i></div><!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13493055390818640244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367020839997295095.post-80947058880733348842010-06-28T14:19:00.000-07:002010-06-28T14:19:18.903-07:00Winning entry from James Noah<!--StartFragment--> <br />
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<b>To the Green Sea</b> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
Author's note: <br />
When I have written about my experiences as a Zen monk in Japan, I often receive feedback that my stories are not very Zen-like, or filled with soul-searching philosophy. I would agree, but I am not really sure what is meant by <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Zen-like</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>So I gently tell them, “If you want reflective meditations on peace and harmony, don't go to Japan for Zen training.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If you want to know what one day was like?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Read below.” I'm not saying this is the only way, I'm just telling you how it was.<br />
'nuff said?<br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /> <br style="mso-special-character: line-break;" /> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It was one of the coldest and snowiest winters that anyone could remember. Even the old monks who came by on occasion remarked that it reminded them of the meager days after the war when the monasteries were one of the only places with food and young men became monks out of necessity. Those winters were cold they said. Blankets were scarce and discipline severe. I knew they were right. I counted seventy-five hand written names above the worn wooden shoe box in the entry hall.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Almost three times the number of training monks on hand now. It would have been hard to feed that crew on donated rice and roots pulled from under the snow.<br />
It was my second winter at the training temple in the quiet port town of Onishi. January was the month of <i>kangyo</i>, the winter training. Regardless of weather we would march ten to fifteen kilometers through the nearby villages each day to collect alms in support of the temple. Normally we would take the same course in and around the town, but once each season we would walk through town, cross the river, and visit the remote fishing village of Nishimura. No one minded going out there in summer, but the winter trip was hard, and we would be exposed to a piercing, biting wind most of the way.<br />
On the morning of the march into Nishimura, I woke to the coldest day so far that winter. I slept next to an old, ill-fitting window and the wind in the night had blown the snow in through the cracks to form small drifts on the top of my blankets and across the floor. Yet I'd learned that a few degrees below freezing were better than above for marching because the slush on the road would freeze hard keeping our feet dry a bit longer. Feet and hands suffered the worse.<br />
<br />
Meditation started at five, chanting at six, and rice at seven. At seven forty-five the roll call began with a monk beating a steel plate which hung in the entrance to the temple. We rushed to get ready. The steel plate sounded out in a jagged, steadily rising clang as we assembled on the hardened dirt floor of the Entry Hall. The head monk shouted,<br />
"Everyone going out today must stand at attention to receive the day's instruction and recite the chant." Our nickname for him was <em>The</em> <i>Apache</i>. He would not have looked out of place in a maximum security facility.<br />
It was cold, yet it seemed that the tighter I bound my garments the warmer I felt. One man would pull the chin straps on his <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">kasa</i> so tightly there would be marks on his face for hours. We all had our little ways of keeping warm, but it wouldn't matter for an hour into the march warmth was something months away in a dream. In the Entry Hall we stood at sharp attention, heads up, looking strong. It was easy to look tough now, our feet were dry. The head monk spun towards us and barked,<br />
"Move."<br />
We marched into Nishimura to a bitter cold wind rolling off the ocean like a giant wave, dashing against the corrugated metal houses and blowing the cold even deeper into our bones. At the moment I thought, <br />
<i>this is what it really is to be cold.</i> Who cared if I couldn't feel anything from the knees down? Someone had to break a trail in the two-foot deep snow drifts. It was so cold I became euphoric. Without gloves in the cold we lost control of the muscles in our hands. It would start slowly with the little finger then move on to the next until the whole hand curled into a weak fist. It was a daily ritual watching men try to straighten out a frozen hand with the still good fingers from the other.<br />
Each year important townsfolk in Nishimura held a formal meal for the monks at a local inn to commemorate our visit. After our morning march through the village we stopped at the appointed place-a spacious, seaside inn with very gracious people. But there would be a price to pay for indulgence in food and wine. The problem was that our frozen feet would swell from the indoor heat and when it came time for the return march, we could no longer get our now wet, stiff <i>tabi </i>socks on without great and painful effort. Some walked the 5 km back to the temple barefoot.<br />
Dinner that night was instant Ramen-if anyone wanted it. Most recovered in their rooms huddled around small <i>hibachi</i>. Some of us sat quietly in the Meditation Hall. I would stuff a thin blanket under my robe to stay warm. Body heat would keep me reasonably comfortable in the still air-and my feet were dry. Not a bad day after all.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times;"><i>© James Noah 2008</i></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaEfajJK_JP-GLRX0bcBEhAWw7nOKyvX0ev7UtUz21kuFTmdIrCUhLGbVso9HNOKWNMieLilwcAHz3FVkKPgWxSJfJ495xQlVu2HNCJYswxS986Arabdzm5Ee6cUiV6qtOdJ_TmD0y27Y/s1600/300+Buddha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="305" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaEfajJK_JP-GLRX0bcBEhAWw7nOKyvX0ev7UtUz21kuFTmdIrCUhLGbVso9HNOKWNMieLilwcAHz3FVkKPgWxSJfJ495xQlVu2HNCJYswxS986Arabdzm5Ee6cUiV6qtOdJ_TmD0y27Y/s400/300+Buddha.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #333333; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
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</i></span></span></div><!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13493055390818640244noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367020839997295095.post-69717277481906720152010-06-28T14:07:00.000-07:002010-06-28T14:07:39.901-07:00Winning entry from Ellie Schoenfeld<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn5DaT_fy8SB5SgcXBSl6SOUsEvmG0C8RKr8Ev0Dq0RVSrLg7yR4P2AV5VNk3PedvhG0Iy67ZxVouGo7eyg9m1HBORs_3ZefWeL71ftqDeH2fkNxmU3jnMWv7ojodcrOFIi64D-4at1cM/s1600/341+Buddha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn5DaT_fy8SB5SgcXBSl6SOUsEvmG0C8RKr8Ev0Dq0RVSrLg7yR4P2AV5VNk3PedvhG0Iy67ZxVouGo7eyg9m1HBORs_3ZefWeL71ftqDeH2fkNxmU3jnMWv7ojodcrOFIi64D-4at1cM/s320/341+Buddha.jpg" width="243" /></a> </div><div class="MsoNormal">THE BUDDHA LEANS BACK</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Buddha leans back</div><div class="MsoNormal">and contemplates the dawn,</div><div class="MsoNormal">the way the streaks of pink</div><div class="MsoNormal">fingering the horizon</div><div class="MsoNormal">remind him of stalks of rhubarb</div><div class="MsoNormal">merging with a strawberry sun,</div><div class="MsoNormal">to set the daily fire.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Buddha leans back </div><div class="MsoNormal">and contemplates rhubarb,</div><div class="MsoNormal">the pink stalks like long fingers</div><div class="MsoNormal">longing for the sweetness</div><div class="MsoNormal">of somebody’s mouth.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Buddha leans back</div><div class="MsoNormal">and contemplates the wind</div><div class="MsoNormal">as it rustles through</div><div class="MsoNormal">the rhubarb leaves</div><div class="MsoNormal">and makes them wave </div><div class="MsoNormal">like fan dancers,</div><div class="MsoNormal">like prayer flags.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">The Buddha leans forward</div><div class="MsoNormal">and begins the ceremony</div><div class="MsoNormal">of lowering the fork to the pie.</div><div class="MsoNormal">He contemplates the colors</div><div class="MsoNormal">which reprise the sunrise.</div><div class="MsoNormal">He raises the fork to his mouth</div><div class="MsoNormal">and wishes all beings could be</div><div class="MsoNormal">so lucky.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He savors</div><div class="MsoNormal">the auspicious sweet.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i>Ellie Schoenfeld</i></div><!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13493055390818640244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367020839997295095.post-6734077800237849762010-06-09T08:13:00.000-07:002010-06-09T08:13:03.228-07:00Live and Learn!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihK2oPyxNOtYn72903vvnSswEvn_XvKlCbFAJ97lmyD-CTp5czj-T71rX95NGtXtHMgrvLv5SAd93oy5kqG5V7cyaKjv3Mfl7L42eG5Louh8UtbUvXbvEboY507goLMPvEBJsB_oSNhWQ/s1600/120+Buddha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEihK2oPyxNOtYn72903vvnSswEvn_XvKlCbFAJ97lmyD-CTp5czj-T71rX95NGtXtHMgrvLv5SAd93oy5kqG5V7cyaKjv3Mfl7L42eG5Louh8UtbUvXbvEboY507goLMPvEBJsB_oSNhWQ/s320/120+Buddha.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div>I have just begun reading "Gems of Wisdom from the Seventh Dalai Lama," translation and commentary by Glenn H. Mullin. I was drawn to this book by this sentence in the forward, which was quoted in the book catalogue: "All of the vast and profound teachings of the Buddha, as well as of all earlier Buddhist masters of India and Tibet, are elucidated through similes and metaphors that employ such earthy images as smelly farts, body odor, wild horses, slimy monsters, mindless lunatics and so forth." How could anyone possibly resist such a book?<br />
<br />
So far, I have not been disappointed. I have learned that there are six root delusions or afflicted emotions: anger, attachment, instinctual behavior, arrogance, jealousy, and complacence. I was very pleased when I read this list, because so far, I seem to be immune to one of these root delusions, jealousy. I have a bit of work to do to root out the other five delusions, however. Complacency may prove to be especially difficult to root out though, now that I have discovered that I am immune to one of the other five delusions.<br />
<br />
The introduction to the book includes very short biographies of the first seven Dalai Lamas, and I decided to search for Buddha images from the monasteries that were founded by some of these early Dalai Lamas (the current Dalai Lama is the Fourteenth). When I looked up the monastery at Litang, which was established by the Third Dalai Lama in the mid-sixteenth century, I was astonished to find photos of the giant Buddha carved out of a mountain, which, over the course of this year of doing papercuts of the Buddha, I have already done several times. This 1,300 year old Buddha is 71 meters tall, and is by far the biggest in the world, which makes it very very famous and very frequently photographed, yet I did not recognize the name "Litang." There is a very good reason for this. This mountain of a Buddha, according to the official Chinese map, sits in western Sichuan Provence, in a town called "Leshan," but according to the Tibetans who have always lived there, they live in the small town of Litang in Kham Provence, Tibet.<br />
<br />
Over the past year, I have seen hundreds of photos of this Buddha, all of them labeled, "Leshan, China." It was not until I looked specifically for "Litang," that I learned that "Leshan" is actually part of occupied Tibet, and a particularly troublesome part of Tibet, at that. The Tibetan citizens of Litang have put up particularly strong resistance to the Chinese occupation of their land. In 1956, the Chinese People's Liberation Army bombed the Litang Monastery, destroying it, and there was an anti-Chinese riot at the horse racing festival in 2007. It is illegal to possess pictures of the Dalai Lama in Litang, and there is a strong Chinese police and military presence in the town.<br />
<br />
Be skeptical of official governmental and/or industrial accounts. Approach all questions from every imaginable direction, and you may find that the object of your inquiry becomes virtually unrecognizable from your new vantage point.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13493055390818640244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367020839997295095.post-57174301113863298262010-06-04T16:40:00.000-07:002010-06-04T16:42:06.586-07:00Winning Entry from Daphne Woll Shapiro, Destiny vs Free Will<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-bottom: 13.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15pt;">Destiny vs Free Will<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-bottom: 13.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15pt;">“Your destiny could arrive sooner than you think!” (Source: Anita, the Online Psychic Facebook Application)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-bottom: 13.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15pt;">My destiny<span style="color: #fb0007;"> </span>has already arrived.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-bottom: 13.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15pt;">It came in the form of an all-you-can-eat Pig Feed at the local Portuguese Immigrant Society Social Hall during which I enthusiastically and singlehandedly consumed an obscenely overflowing plate of oink prepared from multiple (and in some cases, unspeakable) pig parts. I did it one sitting, in the space of less than 30 minutes. I would have totally gone for seconds, but the buffet line was too long. You’re not looking at a football player here, by the way. I am 53 years old and weigh 135 pounds. I tend towards vegetarianism.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-bottom: 13.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15pt;">That said, if I were to deny the hand of destiny, there would be no other explanation for my behavior at the Pig Feed other than free will. In that case, I have no choice but to take full responsibility for the events of Saturday evening, January 23</span><sup><span style="font-family: Calibri;">rd</span></sup><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15pt;">, 2010, starting from the moment I got dressed, withdrew a $20 bill from ATM machine, drove to the Immigrant Society Social Hall and then turned that same $20 bill over to the nice Portuguese lady at the ticket table.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-bottom: 13.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15pt;">Wait a darn minute here. No way. Never. I’m not that type of person. The only possible reason for what went down at the Portuguese Pig Feed is the intervention of The Master Architect. I was following His Plan for me down to the last fried pork rind, Preacher.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-bottom: 13.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15pt;">The baffling part of this entire scenario is that I am Jewish and we are forbidden to eat pork – either by free will or divine design and I know it. We also don’t have Preachers. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-bottom: 13.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15pt;">But I digress.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-bottom: 13.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15pt;">The extrapolations to this are fascinating and possibly life-altering. Is the consumption of three cake donuts in quick succession (two with chocolate, one with red and blue sprinkles on a white frosting base) ultimately a guilt free experience after all? What if it was already preordained by larger forces that I should find myself last Tuesday after work in front of the day old bakery shelf at the local supermarket? Was the fact that I spent Saturday in bed reading back issues of the National Enquirer instead of going to the gym my divine destiny? More importantly is my tendency towards shameless flirting simply a manifestation of cosmic forces beyond my control? And believe me, I’m talking about really SHAMELESS flirting. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-bottom: 13.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15pt;">I believe it is God’s Plan. All of it and more. You believe so, too. After all, what other explanation is there for perfectly rational people such as ourselves going off the rails with such predictable frequency? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-bottom: 13.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15pt;">Only destiny explains it. Problem solved. Me? I was just following orders, Sergeant. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-bottom: 13.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15pt;">So go ahead and have yourself another pork knuckle or a cake donut or a wild affair. Whatever. Go for it. Don’t bother fighting the universe. It will only bite you back.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 17.0pt; margin-bottom: 13.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: x-large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 20px;"><i>D</i><i>aphne Woll Shapiro</i></span></span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13493055390818640244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367020839997295095.post-70509993899809709342010-06-04T16:38:00.000-07:002010-06-04T16:38:07.609-07:00Winning Entry from Daphne Woll Shapiro, Menopause<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Menopause<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">My partner just told me that he read a really good book on menopause and suggested that I read it too. He thought it might be helpful. I don’t understand why he felt that was necessary, after all, DO I LOOK LIKE I HAVE A PROBLEM? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I didn’t think so. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The truth of the matter is that my menopause was actually done and over with years before I met him. What he thinks is a temporary hormonally induced aberration is actually the real me. Oh well. Full disclosure is for amateurs and people who appear on the Oprah show. That’s what I say.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">And WHAT’S WRONG WITH OCCASIONALLY YELLING ANYWAY? It sets up a vibration in the body which purifies and encourages healing. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Wait a minute. Never mind. I was confusing yelling with Yoga chanting. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">But it was very sweet of him to care enough about me and our relationship to actually research the subject. I will indeed go to the library and check the book out. It will work perfectly as a giant coaster for my tea when I’m stretched out on the sofa bitching on the phone.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><i>Daphne Woll Shapiro</i></span></span></div><!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13493055390818640244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367020839997295095.post-23785806128224365842010-05-12T11:19:00.000-07:002010-05-12T11:19:18.895-07:00Winning Post from Mark Kreitzer<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 18pt;">Lullaby, Don’t You Cry<a href="http://files.me.com/markkreitzer/av88sz.mp3"> </a></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 18pt;">Mark Kreitzer ©</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 18pt;">At the end of another day,</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 18pt;">Your weary thoughts all drift away</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 18pt;">You take your leave from all your cares,</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 18pt;">Happy dreams will greet you there,</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 18pt;">So lullaby, don’t you cry</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 18pt;">Let me close your weary eyes</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 18pt;">And I’ll be there by and by</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 18pt;">When you come back home</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 18pt;">Happy thoughts await you now</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 18pt;">You don’t need to worry how</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 18pt;">As your ears shut out the crowd,</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 18pt;">Lay your head upon the clouds</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 18pt;">So lullaby, don’t you cry</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 18pt;">Let me close your weary eyes</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 18pt;">And I’ll be there by and by</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 18.0pt; mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 18pt;">When you come back home</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 24px; line-height: 24px;"><a href="http://files.me.com/markkreitzer/av88sz.mp3">http://files.me.com/markkreitzer/av88sz.mp3</a></span></span></span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13493055390818640244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367020839997295095.post-31893997202151419672010-05-12T11:15:00.000-07:002010-05-12T11:15:38.407-07:00Winning entry from Diane Hellekson<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn2oHAOvY0oRArbX2wph4YDTBYdAdOo7XiQGl7fl5xlJbA-4WOvAW7dT9WJDQS_7Ip0AwnlBw-uTkqturWG7eFSbgtDUkMOFZtg4UN2KW3woAePDy7ly90AWaqok3PnwAoS62asJMeTFs/s1600/213+Buddha_0001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhn2oHAOvY0oRArbX2wph4YDTBYdAdOo7XiQGl7fl5xlJbA-4WOvAW7dT9WJDQS_7Ip0AwnlBw-uTkqturWG7eFSbgtDUkMOFZtg4UN2KW3woAePDy7ly90AWaqok3PnwAoS62asJMeTFs/s320/213+Buddha_0001.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">For Ellen Sandbeck’s “A Buddha a Day”</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I am not a woman of faith.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">As a Lutheran child, I went through the motions; as an adolescent, I tried to find Jesus; and as an adult I’ve wanted a spiritual home. But the trouble with faith is that, like love, it only comes unbidden.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I’ve had fiery street-corner preachers tell me I was going to burn, and once I was brought to tears when a friend and Jehovah’s Witness said he heard the devil speaking though me (I had just expressed my belief in social change via political process). But my worst personal encounter with religion was with a Buddhist who briefly loved me.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">He had the motto “Live as though events are dreams” posted near his front door, and a “Don’t believe everything you think” bumper sticker. He felt that figuratively burning the past was one way toward inner peace, and he seemed incapable of anger. I would ask questions about his faith, and sometimes he’d answer them. But while he wore his Buddhism on his sleeve, he also kept it close to his chest, pulling it out only occasionally like a membership card to an exclusive club. It seemed to give him an identity, a way to differentiate himself from others, and from me.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">The night he left me, on a bitter New Year’s Eve, 250 miles north of home, I had my head on his lap as I confessed some of my hopes and fears, and thoughts on resolving them in the coming year. Rather than listening like a lover, his response was to offer a series of prescriptions. With clinical condescension, he told me what I “should” do. Embrace and engage difficult people in my life rather than protect myself from what felt like harm. Practice a particular daylong meditation at my father’s grave to release him-- but only after I had done some unspecified long-term preparations.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I had told him before that I felt like an unenlightened grasshopper around his faith, something he chided me for. Yet here he was suggesting something similar: that I needed to be shown how to approach my own life. Never mind that his religion was not supposed to be evangelical; his message that night was that I could “correct” my New Year’s resolutions by following his Buddhist path.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">In the wake of that, and some cruelty that followed, several people assured me that his behavior was in no way Buddhist. Yet when I noted bits of Buddhism popping up in the months that followed—in a conversation, a posting, an article—I was wary. This man had been so sure of his faith, and his certainty left me feeling so very wrong. If that was how Buddhism worked, it frightened me. I didn’t want ever feel the way I felt that night, judged and quietly belittled for my lack of faith.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">So what I love about all these Buddhas of Ellen’s is that they don’t preach or judge; they guide by the gentlest of examples. Their woozy, contented glances; their hands like calm flowers in their laps; their feet, deep-rooted redwoods. In some of these peculiarly concrete paper cutouts, the Buddha closes his eyes, but still sees from his palms, his nipples, his soles: his whole body understands the world, accepts it, loves it.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I doubt I will ever be a Buddhist, or a devotee of any religion. The closest I get to faith these days is in yoga class, when I find myself standing solidly on one leg, my other arcing skyward, a supple reed in conversation with my hand—a feat I manage only because I fix my gaze on a sliver of light slipping through the edge of the window shade at the back of the room. Or at the end of class when I’m spent, in savasana, my arms and legs heavy on the ground, yet floating like so much energy. </span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">In those moments, my soul is bigger than my body, and it glimmers like the light behind a silhouette of a Buddha.</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Diane Hellekson</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">10 May 2010</span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
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</div><!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13493055390818640244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367020839997295095.post-85769410719047867762010-03-24T06:50:00.000-07:002010-03-24T06:50:53.311-07:00Winning Post from Sophie Ardenghi, plus translation<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuMSPgXfkw9A1vx981VVjMivLoIoPHy4bf6hdNdE0JJD-lKxs880VJWM-KMJKcZbJw69TIUd8TE0b6b3j-l_DShub7ecyJ6DJN_YtXlliqACbpMyvvMTLvWkkUu81O9EbzmNXKSXzf7_Q/s1600/125+Buddha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuMSPgXfkw9A1vx981VVjMivLoIoPHy4bf6hdNdE0JJD-lKxs880VJWM-KMJKcZbJw69TIUd8TE0b6b3j-l_DShub7ecyJ6DJN_YtXlliqACbpMyvvMTLvWkkUu81O9EbzmNXKSXzf7_Q/s200/125+Buddha.jpg" width="153" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="Corps"><span lang="FR" style="font-family: Ayuthaya; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Ayuthaya; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Ellen découpe des bouddhas en papier qui me sonnent de la même force que leurs frères de pierre.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="Corps"><br />
</div><div class="Corps"><span lang="FR" style="font-family: Ayuthaya; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Ayuthaya; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Leur présence est plus épaisse que la fine couche de papier sur laquelle ils se posent et leur regard d’éternité m’attire autant par leur grâce que par leur sérénité.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="Corps"><br />
</div><div class="Corps"><span lang="FR" style="font-family: Ayuthaya; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Ayuthaya; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Ces figures dentelées semblent transcender leur support, qu’il vienne de la fibre légère du papier ou que ce soit une statue gigantesque pesant mille hommes. Les bouddhas d’Ellen s’affirment à moi et me regardent autant que je veux les regarder. Ils sont faits de trous et d’air mais ont le poids de la beauté qui parle à mon âme.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="Corps"><br />
</div><div class="Corps"><br />
</div><div class="Corps"><span lang="FR" style="font-family: Ayuthaya; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Ayuthaya; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Sophie Ardenghi</span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Ellen cuts up paper Buddhas who strike me with the same force as their brothers of stone.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Their presence is thicker than the thin layer of paper on which they rest and their regard of eternity entices me as much by their grace as by their serenity.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">These jagged figures seem to transcend their medium, whether it comes from the light fiber of the paper or a gigantic statue the weight of a thousand men. Ellen’s Buddhas assert themselves to me and stare at me as much as I want to stare at them. They are made of holes and of air but have the weight of the beauty that speaks to my soul.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Translation by Ariadne Sandbeck<o:p></o:p></span></i></div><!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13493055390818640244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367020839997295095.post-88170669398836554002010-03-21T09:25:00.000-07:002010-03-21T09:25:04.979-07:00Winning entry from Sophie Ardenghi<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIvRDJfO4MDKx5cTnSDP_UL_j7WcmG-HoxuCJHkmFqHPcf9RTYvE7e1nqKCu6meNWWVjwwFbmeeJa5_VMe0m247EvWimXCRD7Y9iI5wN7RC5jtWbXT_M4xi5Rd1eMkMJaHTUzXDyC-JnY/s1600/125+Buddha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIvRDJfO4MDKx5cTnSDP_UL_j7WcmG-HoxuCJHkmFqHPcf9RTYvE7e1nqKCu6meNWWVjwwFbmeeJa5_VMe0m247EvWimXCRD7Y9iI5wN7RC5jtWbXT_M4xi5Rd1eMkMJaHTUzXDyC-JnY/s320/125+Buddha.jpg" width="246" /></a></div><!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhIvRDJfO4MDKx5cTnSDP_UL_j7WcmG-HoxuCJHkmFqHPcf9RTYvE7e1nqKCu6meNWWVjwwFbmeeJa5_VMe0m247EvWimXCRD7Y9iI5wN7RC5jtWbXT_M4xi5Rd1eMkMJaHTUzXDyC-JnY/s1600-h/125+Buddha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-decoration: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; font-family: Ayuthaya; font-size: x-large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px;"><b><br />
</b></span></span></a></div><div class="Corps"><span lang="FR" style="font-family: Ayuthaya; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Ayuthaya; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Ellen découpe des bouddhas en papier qui me sonnent de la même force que leurs frères de pierre.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="Corps"><br />
</div><div class="Corps"><span lang="FR" style="font-family: Ayuthaya; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Ayuthaya; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Leur présence est plus épaisse que la fine couche de papier sur laquelle ils se posent et leur regard d’éternité m’attire autant par leur grâce que par leur sérénité.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="Corps"><br />
</div><div class="Corps"><span lang="FR" style="font-family: Ayuthaya; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Ayuthaya; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;">Ces figures dentelées semblent transcender leur support, qu’il vienne de la fibre légère du papier ou que ce soit une statue gigantesque pesant mille hommes. Les bouddhas d’Ellen s’affirment à moi et me regardent autant que je veux les regarder. Ils sont faits de trous et d’air mais ont le poids de la beauté qui parle à mon âme.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="Corps"><br />
</div><div class="Corps"><span lang="FR" style="font-family: Ayuthaya; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ascii-font-family: Ayuthaya; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 10.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><i> Sophie Ardenghi</i></span><span style="color: windowtext; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 10.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman";"><o:p></o:p></span></div><!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13493055390818640244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367020839997295095.post-26989489107490783072010-03-17T10:39:00.000-07:002010-03-18T09:08:05.342-07:00Winning entry from Glenn Gordon<div class="MsoTitle"><span style="font-weight: normal;">Ellen Sandbeck’s Buddha No. 30<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoTitle"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIOOD5wxD5Vk0zy26yaoVHni6-kvk6PGn6jH3p_ZMYP_FHJbtgkEIQy72gcJyiAGxhKoildsiuIjUKiKTCl6pGUK9_WDUgbyAecY31vnuAuop4hZ8BjBZPrPRZhg65fIoKCwT-axSyVXs/s1600-h/30+Buddha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIOOD5wxD5Vk0zy26yaoVHni6-kvk6PGn6jH3p_ZMYP_FHJbtgkEIQy72gcJyiAGxhKoildsiuIjUKiKTCl6pGUK9_WDUgbyAecY31vnuAuop4hZ8BjBZPrPRZhg65fIoKCwT-axSyVXs/s320/30+Buddha.jpg" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">A man who thinks there is no murder in his heart is lying to himself. On the third day of January 2008, a woman whom I loved betrayed me. Rage, bitterness, nausea, and a desire to avenge the waste made of my trust have been my close companions ever since. “Let it go,” people say, “Put it behind you; move on.” No doubt there is a limp wisdom to what they tell me but actually, no one puts anything behind -- ever. Everything goes into the sack of woe you’re dragging to the grave. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Against this, there is art -- this paper cutout, for instance, of a blossom resting in the Buddha’s palm. The graceful contours of the cutout’s segments, the curved pads of the fingertips, suggest an infinitely tender sense of touch, the Buddha’s and the artist’s both. I can feel the palm feeling the very slight weight and soft dampness of the petals it cradles. There is something slightly comic about the petals –- they’re a little floppy.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Last year, Ellen, seeing how miserable I was, invited me to choose a single work from the procession of Buddhas spilling from her scissors. Right away, I fastened upon this one -- my heart, not to put too fine a point on this, lunged for it, seeing in it something it was starved for.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;">Her cutout is one of those rare works the sight of which can calm one’s breathing. I have only to look at it to feel the tension and grief drain from my body. I am grateful to Ellen for the gift she made of it to me. It soothes the beast pacing inside this cage of who I am. It tells me not to kill. It tells me not to die before my time. I have it hung in a place where it’s the last thing I see at night before I turn out the lights.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana;"><i><br />
</i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 150%;"><span style="font-family: Verdana;"><i>Glenn Gordon, March 2010</i><o:p></o:p></span></div><h1><span style="font-style: normal;"><o:p> </o:p></span></h1><h1><br />
</h1>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13493055390818640244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367020839997295095.post-1256557569076945212010-03-15T12:39:00.000-07:002010-09-10T07:09:46.797-07:00Winning entry from Linda Glaser<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTPqkO3C-YsmWKITQ62ehSUXXAKih69xuSV6TjEZeOg2Y3QlZ9Bx86GlK-AtGVjsfWm3RGm6ErS949qHR64_G5DAgJXZTzxTF0Vzc7lqaqcAbJMDGgNMYkH4e3cRjXPMdt5KufZuWAJ1k/s1600-h/34+Buddha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiTPqkO3C-YsmWKITQ62ehSUXXAKih69xuSV6TjEZeOg2Y3QlZ9Bx86GlK-AtGVjsfWm3RGm6ErS949qHR64_G5DAgJXZTzxTF0Vzc7lqaqcAbJMDGgNMYkH4e3cRjXPMdt5KufZuWAJ1k/s320/34+Buddha.jpg" width="248" /></span></span></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0d6612; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: x-large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span></span><!--StartFragment--></b></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0d6612; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: x-large;"><b><div class="MsoNormal"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Buddha Holding a Bowl<o:p></o:p></span></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Buddha</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">holds an empty bowl</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">patient</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">eager</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">for the soup of the day</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">steeped with insistent freshness</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">the fragrance of basil</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">wraps around</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">hands</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">air</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">nostrils</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">colorful squashes</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">and tomatoes</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Buddha</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> cradles the wonder</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> of roots and stem </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> and living dirt</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> that gave birth </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> to these treasures </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> just picked this morning</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">while memory eyes hold</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">last night’s full honey dew moon</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">lighting itself on the wet naked lake</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Buddha </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> holds a new cup of life</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> each day</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> the possibility of now</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> imbedded in every breath,</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> and hope for a world </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> where all people </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> hold empty bowls </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> for each other</span></span></div><!--EndFragment--> </b></span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13493055390818640244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367020839997295095.post-80275034227397221852010-03-15T12:24:00.000-07:002010-03-15T12:24:54.906-07:00Winning entry from Grace Anderson<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE8izY91pdkMSbKL69Y4ydPKFPRttWFb7LKkFV754zNFVqK7VK6bcpWJqNJvV3mQO44jy1lz_vqSAZQ7vqhHYAUly66xEEGJ2VMo5J-82selskQcTfZs5j9IC5XmxBvGOZbYzREkzhfn4/s1600-h/141+Budddha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiE8izY91pdkMSbKL69Y4ydPKFPRttWFb7LKkFV754zNFVqK7VK6bcpWJqNJvV3mQO44jy1lz_vqSAZQ7vqhHYAUly66xEEGJ2VMo5J-82selskQcTfZs5j9IC5XmxBvGOZbYzREkzhfn4/s320/141+Budddha.jpg" width="246" /></a><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p> </o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">sacred seed- new body, new mind<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">planted where womb & planets <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">merged outside of time<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">to the center of the universe synergized<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">stars mend our blended eyes<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">witnessing our first breath of earthly life<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">our roots growing ever deeply<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">an ancient & infinitely beautiful surprise<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">we age like the old weeping willow<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">always growing & reaching toward the same sky<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">but beyond the hard surface, <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">our helpless inner child still cries <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">we always hold this innocence<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">further than what guilt we claim in this life<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">love is free, & we are blessed to free our minds<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">let your own light shine, <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">and without searching, you will find<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">the integral place <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">where your honest perpetual <o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">truth really lies.<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">it's the fire of our bounty<o:p></o:p></span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">a celestial, eternal prize.</span></b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><i> Grace Anderson</i><o:p></o:p></span></div><!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13493055390818640244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367020839997295095.post-23688929586471283252010-03-07T15:33:00.000-08:002010-03-07T15:59:20.251-08:00Winning entry from Daphne Woll Shapiro<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><b> </b></span></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUI0O0HMi8GrTvhaH-E0LXploCaP5fPrOPjsq3q-nJ5dKWbKKzleaICtDFAobPJsItiix0KnMOBOZnt0pOM6SbPPQoaxGG8v3332DmVLa_3F4RITGYh28HCekP_Q20GTfQbRHiCERqlJQ/s1600-h/valentine's+Buddha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><img border="0" height="244" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgUI0O0HMi8GrTvhaH-E0LXploCaP5fPrOPjsq3q-nJ5dKWbKKzleaICtDFAobPJsItiix0KnMOBOZnt0pOM6SbPPQoaxGG8v3332DmVLa_3F4RITGYh28HCekP_Q20GTfQbRHiCERqlJQ/s320/valentine's+Buddha.jpg" width="320" /></span></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">How to date a werewolf</span></b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">You’re standing around, minding your own </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">business, and suddenly out of nowhere you</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">meet someone. You talk, you flirt, you </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">exchange contact info. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The rest is history.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">True Love. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It all seems so simple, unless of course, you’re </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">dating a werewolf. Then all bets are off. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">In the early stages it‘s no big deal. The usual </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">course of the usual romance. So he’s not always </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">available, it happens. You write it off. Hey, you’re </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">not always available yourself - no red flags here. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">But it gets harder and harder to avoid the topic of </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">why at least once a month, he is totally incommunicado. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Can’t get him on the phone, he doesn’t text, he doesn’t call. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Doesn’t matter where he said he was going to be, what he said </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">he was going to be doing. He’s gone. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It’s a little disturbing and sometimes very aggravating, but it’s </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">hard to stay mad for long. After all, the rest of the time he’s great: </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">sweet, playful, loyal. Waits for you at the end of the day, cuddles at </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">night. He’s pretty much the ideal boyfriend.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Eventually, however, the truth has to come out. Come on, people, </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">you’re dating a werewolf, how long did you think that discussion could </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">be avoided? There’s gonna be some crying and anger. It’s inevitable. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Nine times out of ten there’s a brief breakup, but then you’re back together. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">We’ve all been there at one time or another. Anyway, what the hell. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Couldn’t be much worse than that other guy you were dating, the one with </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">the wife. At least this guy’s single.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">If only it ended there. But let’s face it, dating a werewolf is a mess and it </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">just gets messier. I don’t care what werewolves do in the movies, in real </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">world it‘s not an exact science. That whole full moon thing is only part of </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">the equation. Under the right circumstances, anything can set them off, a </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">bright round light fixture, those nighttime solar globes in the garden, you </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">name it. You’re at home, in the middle of a great dinner, you’ve got the </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">candles going, you’re sharing a bottle of really good wine, and suddenly </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">without any warning, he changes over. Clothes start ripping, shirt buttons </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">pop off and embed themselves in the upholstery. Pants and shoes and </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">socks and underwear and watches and credit cards are strewn across </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">the floor. Not to speak of the coarse grey wolf hair which ends up </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">ALL OVER THE FRIGGING PLACE.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">And that’s not the half of it. In the olden, golden days werewolves </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">usually lived in big isolated castles in the middle of the woods with lots </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">of loyal servants to clean up after them. No problem. Open the gate, </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">let down the moat, they’re outta there. But that was then. Nowadays </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">werewolves are everywhere, including in your apartment right now. And </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">they’re all alike. They stand by the window and howl, they scratch and </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">bite the furniture, they jump on the kitchen table and </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">rip up the left over rotisserie chicken you were planning to pack for </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">lunch tomorrow. They do this ALL NIGHT LONG. And romance? Forget </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">about it. Just put the sexy nightgown right back in the drawer where you </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">found it and break out the vibrator. That’s where its going tonight.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This all gets old really fast. So the main thing is to TALK ABOUT IT. Get </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">it out there. Be kind, but firm. Set boundaries. First order of business</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">immediately following this conversation: buy a leash. Any pet store has </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">them. For best results, I suggest purchasing the equipment together, as a </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">couple. Some folks get all S&M about it and go for the fancy choke </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">collars, others prefer the padded harness approach. But, whatever works </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">for you. The main thing is to work as a team and have a well thought out </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">strategy to get him out of the house and into the great outdoors as soon </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">as possible after the change. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1.25in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">All I want to say at this juncture is “chin up”. If your boyfriend is going to </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">be turning into a wolf on a regular basis, and you are going to have to leash </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">him up and stop at every fire hydrant in town, then let’s make a party out </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">of it already, OK? Life is short, stop obsessing. God has given you a </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">lemon - make lemonade. Better yet, let’s add some vodka and make it </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">a lemon drop. And while you’re at it, go ahead and get an outfit. A really </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">good one. I’m talking a tailored designer jacket, a tight leather pencil skirt, </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">stiletto heels. Invest in a string of expensive pearls and a vintage Hermes </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">scarf and you‘re in business. It’s the classic “walking a werewolf” look </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">for city dwellers. Impeccable. Above reproach. These are tough </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">circumstances and looking good helps, it really does. Of course, people </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">will talk - they always do. The same inane questions over and </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1.25in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">over again like "Where did you get the wolf from?” “How do you fit him </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">in your apartment?” “Can you use a regular-size pooper scooper?” </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The first couple of times out, it’s squirmy. Then you get used to it. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">You have to. You’re in love with a werewolf, deal with it.,</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Before you know it, it‘s dawn. They’re all about sausages and bacon </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">and steak at that point. There won’t be a lot of conversation in the </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">beginning, but after breakfast, over the dirty dishes, he’ll be remorseful </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">and apologetic. Plenty of tears and hugs and “I love you’s” Pretty typical </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">fare. Nothing to see here. Sorry about dinner last night, sorry about the </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">furniture. Later in the day he might bring you flowers, or a small piece of</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">jewelry, or maybe have a new couch delivered. Whatever.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Over the long haul, it’s very difficult to be seriously involved with a</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">werewolf. Not to say that there aren‘t women who won’t put up with this. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Some of these relationships last a lifetime. I say, “hurray for them“. But </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">for the most part, the werewolf/layperson combos just don’t have </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">significant staying power. The statistics back me up on this one. </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Google it and you’ll see for yourself.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Let’s face it, In the end, you will leave him or he will leave you, it </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">really doesn’t matter either way. And after an extended period of </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">scratching around, you’ll end up happily ever after with a nice friendly </span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Helvetica;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">beagle or a lab, just like your mother said you would.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span> </i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Helvetica;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Daphne Woll Shapiro</span></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-right: -1in; text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13493055390818640244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367020839997295095.post-75288497843307378792010-03-06T07:26:00.000-08:002010-03-06T07:26:52.138-08:00Winning entry from Terry L. Johnson<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvVQeDgPpTaQxcvkuGEoZSQrHyr2yMF_mUHW1YILaV9e6ChYPK858kd_iA2lASx753tBvBmxC3oxW9_2-_Tq3QqNLyZ3-6pBrKCqt77qxXHT1yHFWpL2zRKDB6MVPMyY0aG3KsoCdUcn8/s1600-h/162+Buddha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvVQeDgPpTaQxcvkuGEoZSQrHyr2yMF_mUHW1YILaV9e6ChYPK858kd_iA2lASx753tBvBmxC3oxW9_2-_Tq3QqNLyZ3-6pBrKCqt77qxXHT1yHFWpL2zRKDB6MVPMyY0aG3KsoCdUcn8/s320/162+Buddha.jpg" /></a></div><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> Birthing<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> What is hidden shall become manifest--<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> but not yet.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> You are in that pregnant pause before pain<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> and the utter, naked vulnerability of birth,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> When the body will riot<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> and conjoined souls divide<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> to create a new strand <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> in the web of life.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> It takes courage--<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> no one, after all, gives birth with their pants <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> on,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> or is unchanged by the <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> outcome.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> So peace to you, Laurel<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> as you change the history <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> of the world around <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> you,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> And peace to Nate as well.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> The new is ending the old<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> and birthing a new way of being,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> of loving,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> of living.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> It won't be long and it will begin--<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> but patience.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> Today will lead you to tomorrow soon enough.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> For now, breathe deep and long, <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> calm all fears,<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> release control. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"> It's all part of the journey.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><br />
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</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #4f0050; font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;"><i>Terry L. Johnson</i></span></div><!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13493055390818640244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367020839997295095.post-82815938160453547662010-02-24T09:44:00.000-08:002012-12-02T07:26:16.201-08:00Winning entry from Peter Berryman<!--StartFragment--> <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip6cnnrSS2Ym2LZtRq_m9RHqZD7jGBHp_rwy4bDy5FvL9rK9JFVZfaZmOe4whB4S1BkkSVP05zu4pX_pMcMda6sduvGp0XNe9cI9NgJgU4W3I-NYARl0-6kgKJbNbifsuDe3-FO1n45ag/s1600/144+Buddha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEip6cnnrSS2Ym2LZtRq_m9RHqZD7jGBHp_rwy4bDy5FvL9rK9JFVZfaZmOe4whB4S1BkkSVP05zu4pX_pMcMda6sduvGp0XNe9cI9NgJgU4W3I-NYARl0-6kgKJbNbifsuDe3-FO1n45ag/s1600/144+Buddha.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Geneva; mso-bidi-font-family: Geneva;">Myanmar Myopia<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Geneva; mso-bidi-font-family: Geneva;">Behold the bespectacled Buddha of Burma<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Geneva; mso-bidi-font-family: Geneva;">The granddad of geezerly gazing about<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Geneva; mso-bidi-font-family: Geneva;">A keen 20/20 his eyes looking inward<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Geneva; mso-bidi-font-family: Geneva;">But 20/200 his eyes looking out<o:p></o:p></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Geneva;"><i>Peter Berryman</i></span></div>
<!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13493055390818640244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367020839997295095.post-88862724035663970382010-02-20T11:16:00.000-08:002010-02-20T11:24:29.679-08:00Winning entry from LaDonna Robinson<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit8-wN3eXKJc5J9ArT42cq6XJpgLVhIp8OLvxYRhaNbHuVgD1bGJdHrytuqVCW4rAI57gV1VtHzx9SAkFAUXeqSnAoIiGVvNUJaTZLNR4MTo1U0sKaljz_ETlShPkUTDacLovONuJcWKU/s1600-h/35+Buddha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEit8-wN3eXKJc5J9ArT42cq6XJpgLVhIp8OLvxYRhaNbHuVgD1bGJdHrytuqVCW4rAI57gV1VtHzx9SAkFAUXeqSnAoIiGVvNUJaTZLNR4MTo1U0sKaljz_ETlShPkUTDacLovONuJcWKU/s320/35+Buddha.jpg" width="248" /></a></div><br />
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<table border="1" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="MsoNormalTable" style="border-collapse: collapse; border: none; mso-padding-alt: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-table-layout-alt: fixed;"><tbody>
<tr style="mso-yfti-firstrow: yes; mso-yfti-irow: 0; mso-yfti-lastrow: yes;"><td style="border: none; padding: 0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; width: 1000.0pt;" valign="top" width="1000"><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I work in a call center.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">That’s the gentle way of telling my family that I am now a tele-marketer.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">It’s not a glamorous gig, but most days it’s moderately entertaining and it allows me to write and continue eating, something of which I’ve become rather fond.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I work for a really good, progressive company (obviously, they were intelligent enough to recruit and hire me) that provides above industry wages and a full benefits package plus free parking, which in Duluth is a pretty significant perk.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">We have exceptional training in providing exceptional customer service to our exceptional customers and clients.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I would like very much to pass along some of that exceptional training to some of the exceptionally rude people that I am blessed to encounter on a semi-daily basis.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Yes, I do speak fluent Sarcasm, but I really mean it when I say that I am blessed to speak with some of these less-than-pleasant humanoids.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Among other things, they remind me that my husband, his boss and my mother really are nice people.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">They remind me that there are apparently many occupations in the world that I am glad I don’t have.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">And they most frequently remind me that a good sense of humor is an invaluable tool when dealing with anyone.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">My current work project has me calling business energy accounts to see if they might be interested in receiving a non-binding price quote from another company to supply their power needs.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I’m not trying to get them to buy anything, just offering to have someone who is an energy expert contact them to see if there might be a way to sweeten their bottom lines by helping them reduce costs.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I should at this point mention that while I am a non-Christian, I am not an anti-Christian.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">There is a difference, and I just want to make sure, gentle reader, that you know I am coming from a position of love and acceptance of all belief systems.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Today my phone list blessed me with many calls to religion based organizations.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">I also had a rather large number of public and private schools in the mix.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">For the most part I found the people who answer telephones at schools to be cheerful, pleasant and helpful.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">If the contact name I had was incorrect many of them went out of their way to help me find the person with whom I needed to speak.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">Sadly that was not the case when I found myself on the phone with people from some of the religious institutions on my list.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">At one church the automated answering system utilized Lurch from The Addam’s Family’s voice.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">“You have reached MOST (pause for effect) Sacred Heart Church.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">The office IS closed from noon until 1:00 pm and NO calls are answered.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">IF this is a TRUE emergency, you may dial 555-555-1212.”</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">That was it … no “thanks for calling, have a good day.”</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 19pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">No offerings of blessing for anyone of any religious flavor.</span></span><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13pt;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><o:p></o:p></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;"><br />
</span></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial; font-size: large;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 17px;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: medium;">LaDonna Robinson</span></i></span></span></div></td> </tr>
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13493055390818640244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367020839997295095.post-80675902889204283162010-01-21T09:38:00.000-08:002010-01-21T09:38:17.320-08:00Winning entry from Pedro Albequerque<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjClwTLsCWDlX4x5TexAzP5nIOQvYXk__6LhfIyX7gkRsxXw6hubPWEGTyh8pkj3NP0Bnd_n6a0iY3PPE5Y_9ShVifLNTpdbvDTaVMMq8Rn0_xOYbs87ey5vkmc03wy8TxLlRQf2M8-xZo/s1600-h/7+Buddha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjClwTLsCWDlX4x5TexAzP5nIOQvYXk__6LhfIyX7gkRsxXw6hubPWEGTyh8pkj3NP0Bnd_n6a0iY3PPE5Y_9ShVifLNTpdbvDTaVMMq8Rn0_xOYbs87ey5vkmc03wy8TxLlRQf2M8-xZo/s320/7+Buddha.jpg" /></a><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Morte do Náufrago Amor<o:p></o:p></b><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Como sol que teima em<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">queimar<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Dentro da minha<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">escuridão,<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Que ilumina o meu<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">coração,<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Em cinzas a me<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">transformar.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">E<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>náufrago em mar<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">revolto,<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Que enfrenta batalha<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">insana.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Tenta manter-se à tona!<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Busca respirar afoito…<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Pois amar sem ser amado<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">É Ícaro o sol a tocar,<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Que desce mortalmente ao <br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">mar-<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Cego, pois apaixonado.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">É amor que, quando é <br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">findo,<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Em buraco negro implode<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Com força que tudo pode-<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal">Em novo amor ressurgindo.<br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Pedro Albequerque<o:p></o:p></i><br />
</div><!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13493055390818640244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367020839997295095.post-32985541365159838302010-01-09T09:18:00.000-08:002010-01-11T07:59:21.459-08:00Winning entry from Ed Newman<span style="font-family: 'Lucida Grande'; font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11px;"> <!--StartFragment--> <div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuhz7P3QJhjDI8wT4iWO_iscDrY14PLik5oUSU7loWXKTUJSf5ggOKARU__nZmqhBfoCdHGX1DhK1su5OukP4sANBU6rht01ZwwY8VN_MDxR43wA3IPEKH_16szgnheEDYi3u-JyiScQs/s1600-h/168+Buddha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuhz7P3QJhjDI8wT4iWO_iscDrY14PLik5oUSU7loWXKTUJSf5ggOKARU__nZmqhBfoCdHGX1DhK1su5OukP4sANBU6rht01ZwwY8VN_MDxR43wA3IPEKH_16szgnheEDYi3u-JyiScQs/s200/168+Buddha.jpg" /></a><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;"><o:p> </o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">IT ALL BEGINS WITH A SENTENCE<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">It all begins with a sentence. With so many possible directions to go it’s hard to decide what will follow.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">What is it that makes a good story? Well, part of it is engagement. In a world with so much background noise, with so many distractions, how do we engage the reader, to make him or her stop and take notice?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Oscar Wilde did it by being outrageous. And so it is that rock stars and artists to this day have followed this self-same path. Not all have done so with Wilde’s sense of panache.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Outrageousness is not an essential quality of great art, but at times it is useful for gaining attention. It’s a typical rock star ploy. Artist Francis Bacon took advantage of it. Marcel Duchamp did it especially well with his “found objects” making a mockery of critics and the art scene, without winking or letting on what he was about. The king had no clothes on.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Thus did Dylan sing, “even the president of the United States must sometimes stand naked.”<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">But how far can one go and still get away with it? What if the outrageous and audacious is so far afield that one loses his or her audience altogether? Where are we then? Perhaps in a meadow, more often than not in a quagmire. Muck and mosquitoes and bad lighting, with indigestion, and usually without a compass.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">So it is apparent that invention has its limits. That is, if we are to influence we can’t be arbitrary or so absurd as to be nonsense. Finnegan’s Wake is all we need look at to understand this. Fourteen years to create a meandering epic, strings of loose ends and word games, a postmodern debacle. Yes, this is what happens when literature turns abstract. There is little left to engage. Or an insurmountable mountain of indecipherable rubble to sift through for clues… to what end? We search for meaning at our own peril here…. But then, perhaps that is what Joyce was clowning about. Finnegan’s Wake is a mirror of his world view… Or is it?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">No, nonsense is not our lot. Only when we abandon sense do we lose ourselves in it. But who wants to live there. I much prefer, as do most people, a hierarchy of values, giving a measure of importance to friendship, family, heritage and the hope of a better tomorrow.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">In the end, it all begins with a sentence. And where we go from here is up to us.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="font-family: Helvetica; mso-bidi-font-family: Helvetica;">Ed Newman</span><o:p></o:p></i><br />
</div><!--EndFragment--> </span></span>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13493055390818640244noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7367020839997295095.post-82418407526245226772010-01-08T14:08:00.000-08:002010-01-11T07:59:21.460-08:00Winning entry from Liz Minette<!--StartFragment--> <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBo_0XCuC4-38tdbZjpznhfSQi9PUo-12U5xW5b3D05Fi9IomDYjSahILMUZH2FzUiKfzpuYfQRv0QsKGi9jIdJW7euiDN2cpVWk7v7NRMzodVRE6z_xhSzP_WaHfi6lP4wsqLNKorxb8/s1600-h/147+Buddha.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhBo_0XCuC4-38tdbZjpznhfSQi9PUo-12U5xW5b3D05Fi9IomDYjSahILMUZH2FzUiKfzpuYfQRv0QsKGi9jIdJW7euiDN2cpVWk7v7NRMzodVRE6z_xhSzP_WaHfi6lP4wsqLNKorxb8/s320/147+Buddha.jpg" /></a><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><b><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">A Poem for A Possible Buddha</span></b><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Calling<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Sometimes I am<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">the dog walker<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">of the brindle boxer<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">named Nikolai,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">whose heart shines<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">through his eyes.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">So, I am mindful<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">of this animal,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">as we cross<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">the busy street<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">into the park.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">I gently rein<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">in the rope,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">curl its slack<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">like one step,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">one thought and<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">ask Nik to heel<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">which he does<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">with a sigh.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">We look both ways<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">then enter the<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">winding footpath.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">As I unravel the lead,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">Nik leaps ahead and then<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">side to side - he wants<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">a million smells at once.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">We are just two more,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">dog and I, on this trail<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">shared with bicyclist,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">jogger, other people<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">out with their pets -<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">what about the couple,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">pierced noses and lips,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">with the albino ferret<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">on a leash?<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">There will be others<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">to follow, all of us,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">that are right now<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">headed for home,<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">or on our way<o:p></o:p></span><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: 13.0pt; mso-bidi-font-family: Arial;">to someplace else.</span><br />
</div><!--EndFragment-->Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13493055390818640244noreply@blogger.com0