StumbleUpon | OliviaB's blog posts

http://OliviaB.stumbleupon.com/review/35843237/

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 05:54:04 -0700

without darkness, nothing is born

without light, nothing flowers

~ gil's ten year old son ~

b/w image via the wondrous trei with thanx.

http://OliviaB.stumbleupon.com/review/35013280/

Wed, 05 Aug 2009 16:45:45 -0700

from The New Yorker with thanx.

http://OliviaB.stumbleupon.com/review/34794537/

Tue, 28 Jul 2009 19:48:42 -0700

I've just got a little el cheapo digital camera
and these are some of my first pics,
taken when I was away recently.
I was on the east coast of Australia,
where it's winter. The pics are at my brother's farm.
I have no idea how to use the camera
so I pretty pleased with the results so far.

my brother's shaving thingy.
It was jus sitting there. I had to snap it.
The bare branches are frangipani.
In summer they will be ablaze with flowers and fragrance.

the sunny kitchen/living room of the converted dairy.

the converted dairy where I stayed just down from the house, above. Peaceful and gorgeous.
Overlooks the paddocks, the river, and the mountains.

a house where my family lived for several years when I was a teenager. At the back is the river.
To do a reccy, we drove in on the crunchy gravel (the memories!), I snapped away, and we vamoosed.

http://OliviaB.stumbleupon.com/review/34569865/

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:33:32 -0700

just back from my travels and having a nice cup of tea.

The relatives exhausted me. Hard yakka but really great.

http://OliviaB.stumbleupon.com/review/34324453/

Sat, 11 Jul 2009 20:33:55 -0700

http://OliviaB.stumbleupon.com/review/34184271/

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 23:20:38 -0700

~

Effort Creates Energy

Effort creates energy.

This is a principle in the practice of meditation, which is also true in life.

But often we think just the opposite -- we think we need energy to make effort.

If you're really tired and you go out and exercise, how do you feel at the end?

Generally we feel quite energized by it because we've made the effort.

In exactly the same way when sloth and torpor are present,

when we make the effort -- through careful noting, through adding more objects, adding more touch-points --

the effort creates the energy and we become more wakeful.

~ Joseph Goldstein ~

http://OliviaB.stumbleupon.com/review/33478240/

Wed, 10 Jun 2009 04:41:14 -0700

:::

cartoons from The
New Yorker Magazine
June 9, 2009, with thanks.

http://OliviaB.stumbleupon.com/review/33225901/

Wed, 03 Jun 2009 03:23:01 -0700

the five hindrances

Brief Introduction to the Five Hindrances

The Five Hindrances are the major forces in the mind that hinder our ability to see clearly or become concentrated. They are universal obstacles, we all experience them. They are familiar states that come up regularly, not just when we are meditating.

They are:

1. Sensual desire or greed
2. Ill-will or Aversion
3. Sloth and Torpor
4. Restlessness, Anxiety and Remorse
5. Doubt

http://OliviaB.stumbleupon.com/review/33127171/

Wed, 27 May 2009 01:40:19 -0700

page link here
Thanks to snail and jude for help solving
inability to "Discover" or "Review" in SU.

Galileo's World

Galileo Galilei. Siderevs nvncivs magna, longeqve admirabilia spectacula pandens Venice: Thomas Baglioni, 1610.

Galileo named the satellites of Jupiter after his patron, Cosimo de'Medici. As the dedication page of the first edition reveals, he initially called these moons the "Cosmica sidera." One week after having written to the Duke's secretary to inquire whether this gesture would be appreciated, Galileo received a response stating that the new satellites should not be called "Cosmica," because readers would think that the term referred to the cosmos rather than to Cosimo de'Medici. As the sheet had already been printed, however, all 550 copies of the first edition had to have "Cosmica" cancelled with a label reading "Medicea."

Nicolaus Copernicus. De revolutionibus orbium coelestium
[On the revolutions of the heavenly spheres]. Nuremberg: Ioh. Petreius, 1543.

This copy of Copernicus's De revolutionibus orbium coelesitum is particularly interesting because it was annotated by two sixteenth- and early-seventeenth-century German astronomers, Johann Hommel and Johannes Praetorius. This was the first published statement of Copernicus's theory that the sun, rather than the earth, lay at the center of the solar system.

~~~

Know All Things To Be Like This

Know all things to be like this:
A mirage, a cloud castle,
A dream, an apparition,
Without essence, but with qualities that can be seen.

Know all things to be like this:
As the moon in a bright sky
In some clear lake reflected,
Though to that lake the moon has never moved.

Know all things to be like this:
As an echo that derives
From music, sounds and weeping,
Yet in that echo is no melody.

Know all things to be like this:
As a magician makes illusions
Of horses, oxen, cats and other things,
Nothing is as it appears.

Buddha

From: Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

~

http://OliviaB.stumbleupon.com/review/33118943/

Tue, 26 May 2009 18:01:54 -0700

I'm having a lot of trouble with SU at present.
Can't thumb a single "Discovery",
which means I can neither log it nor tag it
for my blog records, let alone share it.
And now I can't review this lovely NYT mag story
On the Virtues of Working With Your Hands
because the Reviews page won't open at all.

s i g h

Anyhow, there's the link and here's a pic.
More later, when SU is repaired. I hope.

~

something made by hand by the great stumbler rayliffe