I have been practicing “being still” over these last few weeks. I recently began re-studying the Seth materials as well as Charles Haanel’s The Master Key System. It is still amazing to me that someone born in 1866 could have such knowledge of the levels of Mind. The interesting aspect of the Master Key System material is that you cannot move on to the next chapter until you have mastered the exercises in the previous one. It can take as long as 30 days (or more) to move from one chapter to the next, IF you indeed set your intent for mastery. So far, I have reached 20 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes at night; and the insights from this have been nothing short of amazing! 

--Michael McLane--

I came to car ownership late. I used to ride my, not so common, Olmo, an Italian road racing bicycle. I even rode from Pasadena to Bakersfield and back because I was so entranced with a young lady's - - - -ah, well her stuff.

I made that ride with another insane friend in early July 1959, the day after my birthday. It was after completing my first year of college. Oh, this is getting into a story.

OK, my first car was given to me by my uncle after I got out of the Army. It was a 195??? Opal. I soon found out that Buick bought the company the year it was built. It's fame was that it was made of parts from the US and Germany. Guys might imagine what fun it is to work on cars that are made of both metric and US nuts and bolts. That was fun. Also, my uncle was a tinkerer. He made one of the first propane conversions to a Chevy pickup with help from an article he found in Popular Mechanics magazine. More stories here to bypass. Before he gave me the Opal, he converted it back to sanity for me (sort of). He did a lot of desert driving so I think he had increased the engine oil capacity to about 150 gallons.

The Opal's paint was light flat oxidized, blue and later spotted with a kind of Leprosy white. The spotted white came from parking it in the last spot available to me at our family home—under a sycamore tree, a favorite of the neighborhood birds, hence it's name: "Toilet."

Toilet's rear view mirror was mounted on the top of the dash and from that mirror hung an old tie. The tie also supported a kind of a mock critter which was about the size of a tennis ball, covered with fur. it also had feet that looked like a part of a Shmoo. Remember Shmoos?

Anita Burns--

I received a beautiful email from Nancy Senior about her gratitude for 2013. I love Nancy's sense of humor blended with inspirational, thought-provoking goodness. It started me thinking. I have a tendency to be a bit acerbic at times and I have been known to rant about things I feel are important. What is so easy to push into the background are the good things, large and small.

Nancy mentions a Gratitude Jar. I'm not sure if she meant this literally or figuratively, but I am going to take it literally. Today, I am putting a large jar on my kitchen counter labeled, "Gratitude." I'll leave a sticky-note pad and pencil on top. Every time something happens that I feel good about, grateful for, or inspired by happens, or a miracle comes into my life, I will note it, date it, and put it into the jar. At the end of the year, I will look at and, probably write about them.

I think I might also have a Gripes and Rants jar. I will put into it all the disgruntlements, not-for-polite-society rants about the way things are. I might also put in my hurts, griefs, and sadness.

If I had done this in 2012, I know I would have written a tome about my feelings when my mother died and my favorite kitten died. But those are double-edged issues. Both sadness, grief, guilt, and anger coupled with relief, gratitude, and other mixed emotions.

As I write this my Tech-head self is suggesting virtual jars on my computer. "You know you won't actually take the time to write with a pencil, in long hand. What are you thinking? Use the computer. Who ARE you anyway? Have I taught you nothing?"

Tech-head has a point. I am more likely to keep it up for 12 long months if I can type it instead of write it.

Then again, the Get Real part of myself is yelling  in my head, "Don't listen to Tech-head. She is just lazy. The act of writing it out with your fingers wrapped around an actual pencil will make it more real, more valued. Be a woman. Write it out and see the jars filling up. Much more satisfying."

My head parts are fighting. I think I will have an actual jar but type out the entries and print them. Then I can cut them apart and place them into the appropriate jars. "Okay Tech-Head and Get Real? Will that do?"

"Yes."

So the first thing going into my jar is Nancy Senior for her email that inspired me. Thanks, Nancy.

Happy 2013 to Everyone.

Anita Burns
anitaburns.info
metastudies.com
anitasrealfood.com
rehutek.com

As a cardiologist for over a quarter century, I dealt with life and death circumstances on a daily basis. I came to fully appreciate how precious and tenuous life can be; it can change in an instant. On June 30th of 2009 such a dramatic shift occurred in our family when our son, Tyler, was involved in an automobile accident sustaining a severe spinal cord injury that left him paralyzed.

As John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.” In a Nano-second, our entire family was thrust into the midst of one of the fiercest storms imaginable.

Why do disruptive, terrible things like this happen? Why must there be such anguish? Does it serve any purpose?” These were questions that had answers . . . but it would take quite some time for me to sift through the quagmire in order to uncover them.

There were three things that helped me navigate the storm:

John tightened his grip on the control bar and said, "Are you still pissed at me for all the shit I did to you when we were kids?" I just mumbled, "Time to find out."

Well, back then, when we were kids, John had been a bully but I did not put that together then. His main mode of operation was  baiting and intimidation.

My first memory of his strange sense of brotherly love was when I was 3 or 4 years old. He was 2 years older than me and liked to play house with his playmate friend. I had to play the part of their baby.

OK, so John can complain about my having an overactive imagination but I remember floating in the bowl of water, crushed oleander leaves, which he says was really grass. It was supposed to be my dinner and refusal to fall for that meant that I had to be punished. There was a barn behind our house that had the biggest bench vice that I have ever seen, but then I was only 3 or 4 years old. Anyway, my head went between the jaws and I was not going to knuckle under - - - until I felt the jaws touch both sides of my head.