Thinking like my dogs and understanding my neighbours!!!

Have you ever felt the need to totally understand those souls that live with and around you. I find myself at the age of fifty-six living in a small rural village where we are the only English speaking family in the street and that although neighbours greet us whenever we see each other there is never any attempt to form neighbourly friendship from either side.
Although my curiosity usually leads my nose in the direction of finding things out I feel that here there is such a huge invisible barrier around our property that there is no way that we can ever overcome language differences and get to swap jam recipes and gardening tips with our fellow street dwellers.
Even the dogs seem to keep separate and to themselves and although they bark and do the perimeter wall run when anyone or thing passes they show no signs at all of ever forming friendships themselves with the neighbourhood animals.
That brings me to the point of what do my animals think about different nationalities and different peoples life styles. Do they cast rolling eyes at passers by wondering how they can walk their pets with such a strange array of winter doggy clothing that my dear ones would be ashamed to wear as pyjamas when only the family is at home? Perhaps my little dears are far too spoilt and therefore do not have to wear castdowns from some dark and dismal about to go bankrupt shop in the middle of the hommadullas (a place of not much of anything where no one wants to be).


Have we had such a great influence over our pets that they have adapted to our tastes and ways? Or do they do things to please us which maybe in their doggy minds ensures weekly bones and daily biscuits, finished with an anchovy paste sandwich for bedtime snacking.
Does there happy tail wagging session when we return from anywhere really mean they are happy to see us again or are we misinterpreting their body language to suit our own short- comings in that we have this strange human desire to always be wanted and needed by whoever and whatever comes into our lives?
Provided of course all is in our own mother tongue and to our tastes and standards. As animals cannot or will not talk back to us and foreign speaking neighbours could not care about us one way or the other, no wonder that it is so hard these days to find friends other than our always faithful pets.

Cold to the bone!!!

Come winter I am the one who does not complain about the chilly winds and frosty mornings, but rather tend to sit long hours in the pleasant outdoors, feet in the sun and head in the shade. I love winters crispness and the feeling of soft velvety cold air on bare arms and feet.
Winter foods that make ones mouth water and the warm comfort of hands around a large mug of coffee.
Never have I been able to work out how or why I ended up being born in the Southern Hemisphere in a hot, dry climate. I dodge the Sun all summer long and cannot wait for autumn to bring in her cheer of falling leaves and dappled shade, chilling evening air and the blood orange sunsets that smother the western skies with the promises of starry clear nights.
I enjoy taking the dogs out last thing before bed and as we wander together around the garden the distant smell of other peoples fires and pollution does not deter me from sniffing in the cold air and gazing up at the starlit skies and being amazed by the vastness of the small amount of the Universe that is visible to me.
Why do the Heavens of a winters night always look so freshly washed and hung up to dry? Each star sparkling like a distant diamond catching the rays from some far off Sun.
I love the cold, I love feeling cold and breathing in cold air. I love the energy that autumn and winter bring into my life each year and the promises they both hold that other life is only sleeping for now.
As the rush of spring comes and the days warm up so I tend to slow my pace down and dodge the sunshine for indoors and shady havens in the coolest spots that I can find. Spring with all its beauty gives too much of a warning of the heat that is to come and therefore when September arrives and the first spring rains fall then I go into my own form of hibernation and sit through the heat longing for the first leaf to fall and the miracle of the end of summer and the beginning of autumn to be here once again.

Chewing on metaphors!

SYDNEY HARBOUR BRIDGE

There is something about metaphors that make me go into a metamorphosis state of a mind filled with a kaleidoscope of words rather than colours. Almost like a jigsaw puzzle that is done upside down and one only sees the true and real picture when the puzzle is turned the right way round and then displays all its glory and the meaning becomes suddenly clear.
How lovely too it is to see picture conundrums where one has to look and think hard before the riddle of circles and lines becomes clear. To improve the mind, just like any muscle in the body, one must exercise it to the extreme to get the Goliath type image without the Achilles heel of weakness. How easy it is to fall off the band wagon of braininess and into the quagmire pit of the ignorant in their bliss.
To be illiterate must be similar to being colour blind in the world of words and although often when one is unable to read or write they do have a great understanding of words and their meanings they still might have an immense feeling of lack when they open a book and are unable to decipher the beauty of what is written within.
I thank my luck stars for gracing me with an education and the ability to think and react in my own way about what goes on, in and around me.

Blue meditation, when the owl calls my name.

Heaven only knows why I link the colour blue to peaceful happiness in a perfectly still world. To me there is nothing nicer than to put on soft chanting music and climb into a warm foamy bath in the knowledge that the next few hours are for yourself alone.
I love to lie in water and forget the world around me and it is then I find that I am just "me". Being myself is very important, it is at these times when I am "me" that I find I can discover more about all that is around me and affects me.
If blue is brought into this equation then an acceptance of self follows and peace on all levels is maintained. It then matters not if one does not show the human outlook of perfection in the physical, nor the mental capabilities expected from those around one who only seek to criticise .
It is when immersed in soft comforting warm water, almost like the foetal womb, that the calling of the owl is heard. The wisdom of the owl and his calling of one's name are the combining of human and animal ancient intelligences and therefore when the two are brought together they bring about an almost total understanding of all that is and all that was.
To know and accept the calling of one's name by the owl is to realise that the soul is what controls our existence, not the physical body. When this fact is realised then one can only grow forward in the total knowledge that yes, perhaps man can be immortal, but only his soul and when physical importance falls away true meaning of everything will become as clear as the proverbial mountain stream and all false thoughts and ideas will filter away and the pure truth will be known.

Churnings of my mind.

Do you ever get the feeling that some foreign and strange being is trying its hardest to take over your mind by filling your everyday thoughts with the most pathetic trivial matter that can be found? Or perhaps, is it that for the moment you are losing things, particularly sanity, for wayward ideas and almost thoughtless visualisations that cross through the wave patterns of brain matter.
I intensely dislike any form of losing control over my mind, the drug and alcohol induced stupors that so many think helps them find something or loses them in nothingness are not for me. My brain, no matter how good or not, is what I depend on for thought patterns which are my self inflicted form of sanity and how I am able to work through whatever the Universe happens to throw my way.
The biggest part of me is not the overextended waistline caused by an overindulgence in edible matter, but the overindulged brain that is never allowed to be quiet, rest can only weaken the soul, so onward forever in the search of something new and more interesting on the horizon of mental sanity, the hunt for the elusive metaphorical butterfly of perfect human intelligence that will open all doors and windows of my mind and forever refresh it with new and wonderful thoughts.

A comfortable winters armchair.

It's halfway through May already and although the nights are chilly the days are soft and warm and constantly inviting one to step outside the door and see what is going on in the world outside. The air feels like velvet on the skin almost as if one is wrapped in a weightless cloak that does not warm one up, but is there rather as a reminder that soon the time will be upon us to take out the winter warmers and snuggle down into the comfort of the old armchair.
It is past autumn time, but she seems to be hanging around almost as if she has not quite finished all her work for this year, or perhaps she is remaining to play with us as a naughty child that does not want to go to bed would do.
Why I ask are birds so alive in this weather? There is a constant chattering of reminders for me to scatter crumbs and treats out the front door for them and as they float down on pillows of soft air to have their meal there seems to be a laziness about them, a slowing down of the system so that they can almost melt into winter when she finally does arrive.
For myself, I love the feeling of coolness on my skin when I wake up in the middle of the night and stick an exploratory foot out from under the covers. I love the feeling of the cold air as it gently massages, bringing blood to the surface and reminding me that life is good whether or not you have a blanket over you.
That in the end brings me to my armchair, with is high back and wings to snuggle into, to copious cups of coffee, to marshmallows and to good books that have sat on the shelf all summer long patiently waiting for winter to arrive so that they can be dusted down and brought to life just by the turning of their pages.

Genre - the juicy red apple of the day?

Why does some word or other suddenly come to the forefront of spoken word and is thereafter heard on every tongue and in every text until we tend to lose all possible significant meaning and it becomes another of the over-used and over-abused victims of the lazy English speakers repertoire of what is fashionable and in at the moment.
Genre seems to be top of the list at present and one cannot turn on television or radio without someone mentioning it at any given and available opportunity. It is almost as if once the word is tasted as it leaves the mouth the speaker has to keep going back to the juicy apple of it all for just one more taste of fashionable speech. The trouble here is that it might be a delightful word to utter over and over but for the poor listeners the sound, in the end, seems to leave a rather sour and unwanted taste in their mouths.
No wonder that we seem not to be producing Shakespeare, Milton and Burns type literature any more, it is as if we have taken the traditional claymore and shattered the hopes of the English language by following in the footsteps of each others mutterables in the fear of ever sounding even the slightest bit original in our own speech.
Why on Earth did Edison give us the light bulb if he did not intend for each one of us in some way to see some of the light ourselves.
Humans are becoming more followers than leaders by trying to impress others we are oppressing ourselves.

Pins in my bottom

In childhood days often we would have a much younger child to stay and because of the age difference we would often tease him, just because. He would get so cross and then storm out the room informing whoever had annoyed him that they were, "A pin in his bottom". His delightful expression of anger has stayed fresh in our minds and is still used to describe any annoyances that happen in our daily living.
I am feeling at the moment that my bottom is more like a pin cushion than anything as so many things seem to be forcing their attention in a prickly manner towards my rear. Television at the moment is more like a hat pin than a sewing pin and as one floats in channel space looking for something they have not seen in the past week despair seems to creep slowly into the soul as once again the realization is made that there is not one single thing to watch that is new and fresh on the screen. It is almost as if we are being forced to go out and by the entire set of DVD's of, "Little house on the prairie", remember that perfect family that perfected boredom for the viewer.
Then there is the filthy supermarket down the road where on hot days one can smell the meat as they step out of their cars. A bit of personal puzzlement here, why would anyone want to buy meat that is very obviously going off in the first place? However perhaps this is an acquired taste as the meat seems to willingly follow its purchasers out the door, often almost on it's own legs.
Can you remember when last you have made an appointment with doctor, beautician, hairdresser, psychiatrist, manicurist or whatever and they were on time? Do they think that their time is more important than yours? Me thinks they all ought to be doing time management courses instead of playing computer games between appointments.
What about medicines that make you feel worse, or am I an unknowing guinea pig made to suffer for the betterment of human kind or whatever? Why if we keep getting told that we are capable of healing ourselves do so few of us manage to do it? Why are we so important that we think we deserve immortality? But that is another subject that might take me more than one lifetime to discuss.
The more I think about things the more punctured my bottom seems to get so perhaps I will hit the coffee pot of pure pleasure and go off into some mindless world of my own where I can visualize the perfect world and perhaps with a bit of luck manifest it into the physical.
Wish me luck.