Exercising Happiness

19 Jalal 163 B.E. – April 26-27, 2006 A.D.

Exercising Happiness

The word for today, Thursday April 27, 2006 from Daily Power Word is Happiness. The journal exercise is to answer the following questions: (1) “When you think of joy does it feel distant to you?” (2) “Is it centered around things or other people?” (3) “Are there conditions placed on it?” and (4) “Today, allow yourself to discover true happiness.”

“When you think of joy does it feel distant to you?”

What do I feel when I think of joy? I feel peace, certitude, tranquility and laughter. I feel the warmth of the morning sun on a cold December day. I feel cool wetness of snow on my skin on a hot June afternoon. I feel the tranquility of a gospel song flowing through my mind. When I read a table revealed by Baha’u’llah, joy is not a distant echo but a beloved voice whispering in my ear.

“Is it centered around things or other people?”

For me happiness is a spiritual condition. I am much happier when I say my prayers regularly. Happiness is chanting The Most Great Name ninety-five times, happiness is saying the obligatory prayer, happiness is reading the scriptures revealed by the Bab and Baha’u’llah, happiness is reading the Writings of ‘Abdu’l-Baha. I am happy when I go to the Nineteen day Feast, I am happy when I take a Ruhi book, I am happy when I write poetry about Baha’u’llah, I am happy when I place everything in God’s hands.

“Are there conditions placed on it?”

The physical conditions of happiness are a cup of hot coffee, a piece of chocolate, a warm spring morning, or a brisk winter afternoon. The spiritual conditions of happiness are centered around the sacred scriptures and prayers revealed by Baha’u’llah, the Bab and written by ‘Abdu’l-Baha.

Discovering True Happiness

True happiness is a spiritual condition rather than a physical or material condition. I discover rue happiness in the sacred scriptures. True happiness is a gift from God. I exercise happiness when I pray or read the sacred scriptures. True happiness overcomes fear, because once an individual discovers the individual fears nothing. True happiness is realizing the immortality of the soul

Thoughts on the Phases of Life

18 Jalal 163 B.E. – April 25-26, 2006 A.D.

The End of a Solar Day:

Thoughts on the Phases of Life

Sunset approaches, the end of one solar day and the beginning of the next. This is the cycle of life, the phases of existence. When the end of one phase of life occurs another begins. There is not time, no space between beginning and ending. Life and the seasons move forward. A planet orbits its star, a moon orbits its planet, nature moves through phases.

From earth, we watch the moon move through repeating phases, from the moon we see the earth move through phases. Our lives moves through phases, as individuals we change and grow, become mature. Our lives move toward, what appears from this side of the veil as, death. The body dies, the soul passes into the after life. What does the soul take with it into the next world? It takes the attributes developed in this life. All a person has in the next world is the spiritual attributes it developed while on this plane of existence. How do we develop spiritual attributes: prayer, meditation, tests and difficulties; bringing oneself to account.

Sunset approaches, the end of one solar day and the beginning of the next and the one thing that is always constant is the love of God.

Entry in My Gratitude Journal

17 Jalal 163 B.E. – April 24-25 2006 A.D.

NOTE: Glory is the name of my Gratitude Journal

Dear Glory,

I know you didn’t expect me to make an entry until Thursday, but I’ve found there are a few things I’m thankful for today. It’s a beautiful day, there is a bit of a wind but it is warming up. The weather isn’t hot and the price of regular gas is not $3.00 a gallon. Then there is chocolate cheesecake. Chocolate cheesecake is scrumptious.

Glory, I have decided to post this entry to my poet999 blog today. My blog is another thing I’m thankful for, it gives me a chance to express myself. My blog is part of the reason I’m emerging from the shell I’ve hidden ever since childhood. I won’t go into why I was in a shell right now, I’m not sure I’m ready to write a lot about that as yet.

I am also thankful for you, Glory. I’m not sure where the idea of creating a gratitude journal came from, several sources I think. The idea of giving you a name was to make it easier to write about the things I’m thankful for, it’s easier if I’m talking or writing to someone rather than in an ordinary journal. That seems to work, so far writing to you, Glory, is easier than simply making entries without addressing a “person”.

What other gratitude’s do I have? I’m grateful to Baha’u’llah for all the blessing I’ve received. I thank I’ll wait until Thursday’s entry to tell you what else I’m thankful for, Glory. So, Glory, I’ll say “So long for now.”

Sincerely,

Poet999

Spring Is

16 Jalal 163 B.E. April 23-24, 2006

Spring is a new age, the soul inhaling the glory of God. I set looking out my front window, the limb of a stone pine tree moves slightly in the wind. The garage door is closed and the sun is low in the western sky. I get up from the computer and walk to the picture window. Across the street, in a neighbor’s yard, red roses bloom. In the setting sun, the roses are especially beautiful. The sun highlights the roses scarlet petals, the flowers are beginning to open.

Spring is a blues sky adorned with white clouds. April is the first full month of spring, when showers are supposed to bless the earth. This April is windy rather than rainy, this year it is April winds. Winds blowing across mountains and descending into the valley; chilly winds, some may even say cold, caressing the blooming roses and the budding tulips. The neighbor next door has tulip beds, which bloom every year. The tulips are red, red tulips blooming in the desert. Even with a water shortage, the tulips bloom every year. Red roses, red tulips, green grass and trees; spring is a red dress adorned with emeralds, sapphires and pearls.

Spring is a city in the desert attracting tourist and seekers. Las Vegas is a city of bright lights attempting to outshine the stars at night. Las Vegas is a tourist city in the desert, a city worried about the shortage of water. Las Vegas is a city of casinos, elaborate show and locals trying to survive in the desert. Las Vegas is a city of locals planting trees, roses and tulips; locals waking up, going to work, coming home, and going to sleep; locals going to church, to synagogue or to masque or other spiritual services.

Thoughts on a Solar Day

15 Jalal 163 B.E. April 22-23, 2006

“And the evening and the morning were the … “a solar day begins and ends at sunset. I am attempting to write another poem about a solar day. How do I begin? An intriguing question, right now I am only brain storming. This urge that appears in early spring or early fall, about the time that Day Light Savings time begins or ends. It is the length of the day that reminds me the Baha’is celebrate feast an evening after sunset, when the Feast day begins. And during the day before sunset when the first day of a Baha’i month ends.

Jalal the month of Glory is nearing an end. Jamal the month of Beauty begins in a few days. I am look forward to the Feast of Beauty. I looked forward to the Feast of Glory and the Feast of Splendor. I look forward to the Feast all year long. The feast fall nineteen days apart, so I do not have long to wait for the next, but I begin this write on the subject of a solar day. Maybe I will use this approach. Write about the evening and then in the morning write about the Feast Day.

Notes on Ridvan

14 Jalal 163 B.E. April 21-22, 2006

Greatest of all Baha’i Festivals
Public declaration of Baha’u’llah’s mission
12 days beginning on April 21
First, ninth and twelfth Holy Days – work suspended
Garden in Baghdad where Baha’u’llah lived before his departure from the city in 1863
Roses and nightingales always remind me of the Festival of Ridvan
Prayers and the sacred writing
Tablet of Visitation read at 3:00 p.m.
Days to Remember pages 31 to 58
Music and food at celebrations of Ridvan
Joy and happiness
Glory and Beauty
I am creating a poem
Rose water scents my hands
Rose water gives flavor the sweets and deserts
Paradise echoes with the voice of the Beloved
Roses scent the morning air
Heaps of roses hide the face of the Beloved
Prayers chanted echo through the garden

The First Day of Ridvan

13 Jalal 163 B.E. April 20-21, 2006

Happy Ridvan

Baha’u’llah In the Garden of Ridvan

He walks among the blossoms,
the rose and vagrant vine
that wander through the garden
perfuming paradise.

His violet scented words
proclaim a new day

and revealed to us a new vision;
a new view for humanity.

Through the Glory of God’s pen
our vast differences vanish,
replaced by unity.

He walked among the blossoms
in the Garden of Paradise;
we celebrate His declaration,
intone the verses of His tablets
and put cut roses in a crystal vase.

Thoughts on Thursday

12 Jalal 163 B.E. April 19-20, 2006

I Am the Water

I am the water flowing over stone,

washing them clean

and polishing their surface.

I am the ocean deep and dark

hidden within my womb

the secrets of the universe.

That is all that I have on this poem, I think its going to be a form of a riddle. I don’t know where it is going right now. Therefore, I’ll let it rest for a while.

Maybe I should start doing my blog entry the first thing of a morning, because then I have no problems thinking of something to write. But after I’ve worked a while my muse decides to go to sleep. That sounds like a good idea for a write: My Muse is Asleep. That’s it for today, I have to be at the Baha’I center at 7:00 p.m. so I think I’ll finish this entry for today.

My Personality Profile

11 Jalal 163 B.E. April 18-19, 2006

Your Personality Profile

You are elegant, withdrawn, and brilliant. Your mind is a weapon, able to solve any puzzle. You are also great at poking holes in arguments and common beliefs. For you, comfort and calm are very important. You tend to thrive on your own and shrug off most affection. You prefer to protect your emotions and stay strong.

The World's Shortest Personality Test

Random Thoughts on an April Morning

10 Jalal 163 B.E. April 17-18, 2006

For this entry random is defined as chance, accidental, haphazard, arbitrary, casual, unsystematic, hit and miss, or indiscriminate. The intriguing idea about random thoughts that flow in and out of my mind is where they originate. Some of the random thoughts results from something I have read or witnessed. For instance this one - The reason history repeats itself, is that we didn’t listen the first time it spoke. - was generated by a quote I read from Mark Twain. Twain’s quote had to do with history not repeating itself, but rather rhyming.

There are trees, two stone pine trees, an olive tree and an elm, in my front yard and today the wind is blowing, not quite, as bad as it blew Sunday or Monday, but it is blowing hard enough to move the limbs on the trees. Two mated pairs of birds that nest in the trees; one pair of mourning doves and the pair of black birds. The black birds fly around and chase each other while the mourning doves eat olives that fall on the ground. Now getting back to random thoughts, I wonder how different this scene would be if cats could fly. If cats could fly, would they build nest and live in trees like birds.

Speaking of cats flying, I have a small statuette of a cat with wings. It was given my by one of my sisters-in-law for either my birthday or Christmas. I found it the other day and put it on a bookshelf, but I think now I’ll take it off the book case and put by the computer. It would make a nice decoration on the desk, right now the only decoration I have on this desk is an empty glass or crystal candleholder. The Empty Candleholder sounds like a good title for either a piece of flash fiction or a poem. Actually, If Cats Could Fly sounds like a good title as well.

Obviously, my muse is working overtime today. I am coming up with lost of good ideas to write about, now all I have to do is the write. The questions to answer on both those ideas is who, what, when, where, why, and how. You know, I think Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem about those six words called Six Honest Serving Men or something similar.

Your Name in Chinese

9 Jalal 163 B.E. April 16-17, 2006

My Name in Chinese

I have found a amazing website, this site gives you your name written in Chinese (http://www.merechina.com/yournameinchinese). I went to the site, got my first and middle name written in Chinese characters. I tried to get my last name, but it was not in the database.

Mother’s day is coming up in May, so I went back to the website and got my mother’s first and middle name in Chinese. This is part of the mother’s day present; I am giving to my mother. The rest of the gift is not decided yet, but it will probably be a poem, or maybe a blank book. My mother is in her middle eighties and she did not start writing poetry until a few years ago. Therefore, I thank maybe a journal, with the Chinese characters of her name on or just inside the cover and a poem.

If you want to go to the sit, click on the title of this entry to go to that site.

Today is Easter

8 Jalal 163 B.E. April 15-16, 2006

Today is Easter! I have started to write this post three times and cannot get past the first two sentences. I was going to write about Easter Trivia, there is a lot of little known and unusual facts about Easter. If you would like to know them, just type the phrase Easter Trivia into the Google search bar. I did that and found a number of interesting websites that contain information on Easter.

Today is Easter, so I wish a Happy Easter to everyone who celebrates this holiday. To everyone who celebrates a holiday this time of year, have a happy and joyous holiday.

Today is Easter! Today I will eat a solid chocolate bunny with a cup of hot tea. Sometimes I have a cup of coffee with my chocolate bunny on Easter, but this year my mother and I are going to have hot tea. This is a personal tradition with my mother and me. Every year on Easter we eat a chocolate bunny, sometimes it is a hollow bunny and sometimes a chocolate egg, but most of the time it is solid chocolate bunny.

Today is Easter! Today in Las Vegas, the wind is blowing and howling in through an open window. Lion, my yellow cat, is sitting at the window with his nose to the screen. He is listening to the wind and smelling the air, he seems to be enjoying himself. Usually there are mourning doves, other bird flying around outside, but the wind is stronger then normal, and they are in their nests. When the wind stop howling through the screen, Lion jumps down from the ledge, but then jumps back up when he hears the wind again.

Today is Easter! When I was a child in Blackwell, Oklahoma, there was a small airport across from my Grandparents’ house. Every year there was an Easter Egg Hunt at the airport. My Mother and Grandparents’ would take us (my brothers, sister and me) to the airport to so we could participate and find Easter Eggs.

Today is Easter! The memories of past Easters flood my mind, good times with my family. One Easter tradition in our home was the Easter baskets that the Easter Bunny left, for my siblings and me, the night before Easter. There were small candy eggs, color chicken eggs and in each basket a solid chocolate Easter Bunny. In addition, we children colored chicken boiled chicken eggs, we never worried about the colored dye we used on the eggs. After the eggs were colored, we would peel the eggs and eat them. If there were any left over then my Grandmother would make Deviled Eggs.

My Inspiration

5 Jalal 163 B.E. April 12-13, 2006

Where do you get your inspiration? That is one of the questions people ask me, when the find out I write poetry. My answer is from various sources, because at the time I am looking at the specific impetuous for a particular poem or group of poems. Lately, however, I have tried to trace the impulse to write an individual verse to its root and then back to the seed.

When you look up the word inspiration, the dictionary gives a number of definitions, but many of those definitions refers to the spiritual. This got me to thinking when I started to write poetry seriously. I did not begin earnestly composing poems until I became a Baha’i, before I accepted Baha’u’llah my poetry was hit or miss. After I became a Baha’i, my poetry and the desire to write it changed dramatically. I wanted to write poems about the Bab, Baha’u’llah and ‘Abdu’l-Baha. I aspired to write poems about the Nineteen Day Feast and the Holy Days. I longed to write poems about divine unity and the three onenesses. I wrote poems and am still writing poems on those subjects. In addition, I write poems about every other subject I can find or desire to write about.

Baha’u’llah is the root of my inspiration; His writings inspire me to write. As a result, all the other sacred scriptures and the messengers who revealed them inspire me; because they all are revelations sent by God.

I Don’t Know What to Write

3 Jalal 163 B.E. April 10-11, 2006

“I don’t know what to write.” This is the thought that keeps running through my mind this morning. However, I think the problem is that I have so many things I want and need to write and I do not know where to start. Ordinarily I would simply start at the beginning, but with so many things to write about where is the beginning. Maybe it would help if I listed some of them.

OK, my mind is a blank, I start to make a list and I stare at the screen. The idea is to accomplish a specific amount of writing during the allotted time. This is something that sets my inner critic off, a specific amount of time to accomplish a goal. Then I start noticing distractions in my surroundings and on my computer. My world is full of distractions background noise, a cat that seems to think the computer is another animal I am paying too much attention to, the thought running through my mind, the stress I have or create for myself, and the list goes on and on and on.

Distractions an unending song, there was a “never-ending song” on a kids show that used to be on channel 10 (PBS) in Las Vegas. I do not remember the words, but I do remember that when the children singing it came to the last verse they would start again. Then there was the “Never-Ending Story”, if I remember that correctly it had a dragon and a child who rode the dragon. When the story ended, it started over. So now I have never-ending distractions, that call me away from writing or interrupt me in the middle of a piece.

Then, of course, there is procrastination, putting off the tomorrow or preferably next week or next year what I “should’ve” did yesterday. Other things that interrupt writing as well, God did not create the human body to set in front of a computer and type all day and all night. My muse will not permit me to create all the time without some type of external input, i.e. I have to take my muse for a walk periodically or it gets hungry and refuses to work.

Phobia Website

1 Jalal 163 B.E. April 8-9, 2006

Question about Phobias: If the fear of spiders is arachnophobia and the fear of flying is aviophobia, then what is fear of flying spider? An intriguing question don’t you think? The website http://phobialist.com/ has an alphabetic list of all the phobias that exist on earth or, at least, those that known to exist. This website has phobias for almost everything (except flying spiders). It also gives links to places where a person can get help for phobias. I suggest anyone who is afraid of something check this website out, you may have a legitimate phobia and if you do, there is probably help for you somewhere. However, if you like me (I have arachnophobia) and don’t want help in over coming it, then at least you know what phobia you have.

One of the more intriguing (at least for me) phobias this website list are the fear of cats called ailurophobia. This is a phobia (as my friends can testify) I definitely don’t have. Another fear that I find interesting is barophobia which is the fear of gravity. Can you imagine an astronaut with barophobia? An astronaut with barophobia would have problems with both lift off from earth but coming back to the planet as well. Actually, an astronaut with barophobia sounds like a good character for a science fiction story.

Check this website out; there are enough phobias to keep a fiction writer’s muse happy writing character sketches, stories and poems. I’ve bookmarked this website so that I can return anytime my muse starts to fade. To get to the website immediately, just click on the title to this entry.

Learning about Myself and God

17 Baha 163 B.E. April 5-6, 2006

Inside the cocoon, the larva becomes a butterfly. Specifically how the process of transformation works for the butterfly larva, I do not know. I do know how the process is working for me. Lately I have noticed my self-talk, I have look at the way thoughts flow through my mind, especially concerning what I believe about myself and what I am capable of achieving.

Specifically when I started looking at my self-talk I do not know. I do know that I have a tendency to focus on personal limitations or what I think are limitations. I have found through experience that the limits I set on myself are, in many cases, artificial and none existent. God has a way of proving this, by forcing me to go beyond the limits I have placed on myself. Tests and difficulties push me beyond my artificial limits by forcing me to do things I thought I could not.

The more I focus on self-perceived limitation, the more I encounter situations that force me to go beyond those limitations. So rather than focusing on myself and my limitation, I have learn and still am learning to focus on God and the power of God in my life. As I confront the test and difficulties in my life I am learning not only about myself, but I am learning about God as well. Without God’s help, I could achieve nothing.

Random Thoughts on Various Subjects

16 Baha 163 B.E. April 4-5, 2006

Today’s blog entry covers various subjects, which came to my mind while reading and answering e-mails.

Walls

Walls only separate

and divide us into factions

prevent us from knowing.

My Biggest Struggle

My biggest struggle pale when I read about other members biggest struggles; I know that I am not alone in strive to over come. Some of the members in one of my e-mail journaling groups have monumental struggles.

Young Person’s Rhyme

[Someone] and [someone] setting in a tree,

K-I-S-S-I-N-G

First come love, then come marriage

Then come [someone] with a baby carriage.

I learned this old rhyme in Jr. high (today middle school). It’s been a long time since I thought about this poem. When I learned it we usually put name of class mates in it who had crushes. It’s been a long time since I thought of that particular. A poem in one of my groups wrote and posted an interesting take off on that rhyme.

Diversity

We need to learn more about each other, rather than looking at one or two individual of a particular group and deciding the whole group is like the one or two people we know about. This was brought to mind when someone in one of my journal groups shared a column on diversity he wrote.

A Website to Answer Your Questions

14 Baha 163 B.E. April 2-3, 2006

Are you curious about the Baha’i Faith? Do you ask who are the Bab, Baha’u’llah, or ‘Abdu’l-Baha? Would you like to read verse from the Baha’i scriptures? Then there is a website to answer those questions and many more. This is www.bahai.us, The Official Website of the Baha’is of the United State. If you want to go to that website now just click on the title of this article.

This is a beautiful and informative website. At the top of the home page are links that give more information about the Baha’i Faith and a search box to search the site for formation. On the left side of the home page is a menu with a quote from the sacred scriptures and short cuts. Click on the verse and you go to another page of the website and more information about the sacred writings.