still water

Lot long ago I heard someone described as having a peaceful air about them. To my way of thinking, that was one of the most complementary adjectives I have heard used to paint another person.  Especially since I was under a considerable amount of stress at the time.

Most that know me best might be surprised to learn that I had come to a place where stress was beginning to affect my life. Like so many predators in our life, stress crept up on me and had a good solid hold before I had a chance to realize anything was out of the norm.  You see, was like a snowball, at first I begin to have poor sleep at night. Science tells that inadequate sleep promotes a certain hormone that craves large meals. So eating and drinking too much along with not getting enough rest my fitness pretty well evaporated. So now on top of the original stressors my body begin to not feel or look good which lead to more stress.  …And I’m back to the top of the circle.

As the saying goes, “when the student is ready the teacher appears” and as it turns out; there is an app for that. Like all major questions that we wrestle with, in today's smartphone world I  turned toward Google, iBooks, and YouTube in search of a road towards peace.  After several books and videos that produced enough positive results to motivate more searching I found Headspace and Andy.

For about 8 weeks I have been experimenting with Headspace and a couple of Meditation books. Not the kind of meditation that promise spiritual enlightenment with crystals and candles, but mindfulness practices that help train the mind to understand the brain more clearly (read that sentence again).   Amazingly, since this journey began, most of the problems that were causing so much stress have been repaired. I have to acknowledge a strong correlation to resolving the stressing issues and being able to deal with them from a new mindful perspective. Also, my fitness is improving again and my body feels and looks better. Sleep comes easier. So I think maybe I have discovered that wellness can snowball much the same way stress does.

My purpose for this writing is not in anyway to be boastful about my own personal journey and problem resolution. Instead, my hope is for the reader to be encouraged to begin your own walk without prejudice or judgment, toward mindfulness. Download the headspace app and give it the 10 days it ask for. If at the end of 10 days you find it is not for you all you’ll have invested is 100 minutes and about 90 MB of space on your phone.  If however, you land on the other side of the coin, you can begin to find still waters and blue sky that will lead to peace. Peace is a good thing.

https://www.headspace.com/

Saint Andrew's Cross

It been almost a year to the day that I have felt inclined to write, but after watching the headline of today I feeling like maybe I should express myself a little.

It seems that the horrible act by one individual  in Charlestown has turned a nation's attention to the Confederate Battle Flag flying in South Carolina's Capital. News Channels today are full of experts explaining how the Southern Flag represents hatred and racism. They then explain how 1,264,000 men died in an effort to clear up the issue of slavery in Civil War.  

Read that number again: ONE MILLION TWO HUNDRED SIXTY FOUR THOUSAND men.  Each side sustained roughly the same amount of casualties. 

So these experts are basically telling us that 620,000 southern boys charged bravely to their deaths in order to keep a race enslaved. Given that only about 6% of southerners owned slaves at the peak of slavery, it seems odd to me that that more than half a million boys would offer their lives defending a practice that was restricted to the uber rich. To my way of thinking most of those boys died defending their homes and families from an aggressive army from the north. Defending their fields from being salted, defending their livestock from being killed, defending their homes and towns from being burnt. 

So for the experts that have never walked through "The Cedars" or down the Union line at "The Hornet's Nest" I disagree with your assessment of why those boys fought the war. I and also disagree that the Confederate Battle  Flag is a symbol of hatred and racism. For most all true southern people the flag is a reminder of those ancestors that died in defense of the homeland.

However, the shame of the situation is that it only takes a few bad apples to ruin the bunch. It is absolutely undeniable that for years now a radical element has perverted that battle flag. The point is most easily highlighted by the shootings in Charlestown. Dylann Roof, clearly is a sick and misguided individual with hate in his soul. I don't think it would be unfair judgement to go as far as calling his soul evil. 

Due to the fact that so many radicals and racist seemed to have adopted the Confederate Battle flag, I can understand how so many people view differently than I might. It is too often the case;  a silent majority allows vocal extremist to taint a symbol or (more importantly) an idea. As evidence, I give you hundreds of thousands of peaceful muslims that have been grouped unfairly with ISIS and terrorist.  How many Mexican people have gone through the legal process of immigration only to find that most all people assume they are illegals?  The same is true now with southerns; those of us who respect our history are not necessarily card carrying members of the Klu Klux Klan.

 

My point in a nutshell is this: Let us be understanding of those people that see the Confederate flag as a symbol of hate and racism.  I can't believe that the boys who carried it proudly into war would want to be used in this perverse way. I think the correct course of action it to take it down and place it in a museum that will treat it with the proper reverence and respect.  Maybe by doing so we can lessen the hatred that so many have for it, and begin to educate again on it's true meaning. I think thats what the boys that carried would want.

Here are a few other thoughts:
1. The picture that brought all of this contivery to light shows Dylann Roof wearing a Golds Gym shirt. I think maybe we should start a campaign to have these removed from the nation's dress code.

2. Our neighbors to the west have no plans on abandoning the flag. So go job Alabama and Mississippi

3. The flag in question never flew above the sovereign nation of the Confederate States of America. Instead this one did. 

 4. This is not good for any of us. Anyone displaying this or anything like it should have their ass kicked

    

honor roll

Tonight is the hottest night of the year so far. Even at 9:00 the heat of the day is still heavy like a wool blanket, and no breeze anywhere to help ease the oppression. But… it’s the first night in a week that I have had time to myself to reflect on the last few days. So with the help of a good smoke and a pint of Jack Daniels I’m sitting by a hotel pool in Perry, GA USA doing my best to think back on Bob.

I really don’t understand why when you want to remember someone its so hard, but when your not expecting to think about them their face, and voice won’t seem to leave your head. Maybe something about a place years ago lines up with the place where you are now. Maybe the light at sunset; maybe a small smell of something, maybe something else can take a person back 15 or 20 years. Maybe if I had some fence paint …   Who knows???

Apparently not me

Anyway, I’m trying to conjure an old teacher of mine, and for what ever reason tonight its seems hard to do. But I do remember a weekend in Conyers GA rather well.  The horse park there was still new and the reining horse folks in Georgia were just beginning to get their feet underneath them. The weather was much like this, typical southern oppression.  I was probably just a freshman and college and more of a punk kid than anything else.

Nothing happened at that show that I could be proud of really happened personally. In fact quite the opposite happened. I don’t remember exactly but I neglected some sort of care that the my horse  needed. I think maybe I didn’t cool her down well enough on a hot day or something of the sort and some of the folks in the barn took time to tell me about it.  And it seems the lesson took; I’m still thinking about it 12 years latter.  Probably at the time I was able to laugh it off the way kids do when they don’t fully understand the opportunity that has been handed to them. Now it seems sad.

Thanks for the Memories Melisa

That show was the first time I got to see Bob show a horse too. I think he might have been riding horse named Happy Jack, but I’m not sure. AND it doesn't really matter what horse it was. What matters was Bob Anthony owed Conyers GA for about 2 and a half minutes. Everybody stopped what they were doing to watch an artist paint. And he and that horse did not disappoint. 

Every stride and every breath that horse took was mirror of how the best should look in my minds eye. From where I watched, the pattern was silhouette and the sun shown through the dust creating a Hollywood glow throughout the arena. For a moment in time all the gods watched Bob and that horse. It was something to behold. I wish now that Faulkner had been there to watch. He could have written a prose that would do it justice. I’m afraid I can’t find the words to describe a perfect union such as that.

Here is what I do know:  part of what I am now is owed to that weekend and others like it. 

So here’s to you Bob. Sorry I never got to say thanks for all you did for me.