Old Grumpy in the Magic Forest

Yes, Virginia, animals do have feelings...

I saw this article tweeted and was so impressed I needed to share it.  It comes from a Blog: 

http://quippd.com/tag/culture - Yoasif - Inside the Minds of Animals: Can animals think have consciousness?

But one by one, the berms we’ve built between ourselves and the beasts are being washed away. Humans are the only animals that use tools, we used to say. But what about the birds and apes that we now know do as well? Humans are the only ones who are empathic and generous, then. But what about the monkeys that practice charity and the elephants that mourn their dead? Humans are the only ones who experience joy and a knowledge of the future. But what about the U.K. study just last month showing that pigs raised in comfortable environments exhibit optimism, moving expectantly toward a new sound instead of retreating warily from it? And as for humans as the only beasts with language? Kanzi himself could tell you that’s not true.

All of that is forcing us to look at animals in a new way. With his 1975 book Animal Liberation, bioethicist Peter Singer of Princeton University launched what became known as the animal-rights movement. The ability to suffer, he argued, is a great cross-species leveler, and we should not inflict pain on or cause fear in an animal that we wouldn’t want to experience ourselves. This idea has never met with universal agreement, but new studies are giving it more legitimacy than ever. It’s not enough to study an animal’s brain, scientists now say; we need to know its mind.

A Very Old Being of the Forest

Doing what you find your self doing

Over the years of inter-acting with those who are seeking to evolve spiritually it seems the concept that they have the most difficulty in grasping is understanding that the concept of free will is a myth.  Now I didn't just come up with this idea and presto put it into a philosophy.  Nope, it only happened after my life crushed my ego to a pulp and I felt I had no other choice except to turn my life and my will over to my higher power.  Now again this wasn't my decision to make, I was forced into it by none other than my life which created situations beyond my control.  No it wasn't bad luck.  I do admit though that I contributed by my own actions that helped bring this situation to a climax.  However, I have no idea why I acted in the ways I did.  People hearing this will say, oh he made bad decisions.  True, and yes I made them, but I was meant to make them and that is the crutch of this piece of philosophical puzzle.  Why was I meant to make those decision and not others you might ask?

Well the answer is Karma, or you might say You Reap What You Sow, or you might even say Cause and Effect.  No such thing people still say to me today.  Well I understand that those people believe strongly in their Free Will, and their Egos, the Earth Self, a creation of the mind constantly reminds them of this.  I also understand that many and perhaps most humans walking this planet currently may not be ready to accept such a concept.  However there are also many who are in the stages of overcoming their Earth Egos and find their higher Chakras (Energy Centers) located in the physical brain opening up allowing for the understanding of the Spiritual Universe.  Eventually this leads to the person walking on this planet with her or his head in heaven and their feet on Mother Earth Ship.  She or he achieves this by giving up this false concept of Free Will and understanding that we are all here to serve, irregardless of whether or not we know it.

If this were not so, we would not have made it this far.  The initiation of this moment is the Surrender of One's Will to their concept of God, not to a person on this planet.  Once this happens, you will find yourself in a world of great beauty and will experience a world of great peace.  It matters not where you stand, whether that be on a battlefield or the worst place on earth, because you will understand that it is all God's making and you are none but an observer and any actions you do perform, you are simply doing what  you find yourself doing.

Jim Ainsworth

Late Fall in the Meadow Brush of the Magical Forest

Grazing on Federal Lands

One of the unknown travesties in the United States is the Federal Government's subsidies to large Corporate Ranches to allow grazing on Public Lands and little or no cost.  I just don't understand why this is necessary especially since this land was set aside to preserve it in its natural state.  However, for those folks who are not familiar with the issue, when cattle graze they destroy the natural plants that took thousands of years to build and lay waste by dumping in the streams and waters, polluting them.   Recently, being a member of Sierra Club's Grazing Team I received a video which outlays an even greater tragedy.  It seems these Corporate Ranchers who no doubt are the buddies of the politicians are supposed to control breeding and predator control (you know foxes, wolves, mountain lions, coyotes, prairie dogs etc. who are supposed to be free on these public  preserves.) get the Federal Government to do it for them.  Here we are trying to save Mother Earth Ship from destruction and our government is doing its best to destroy it.  You can see the video on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNH1IR94gls

Whats it all about

As I ponder this gray November morning which has a beauty all its own I am thankful that I am awake today at the age of 72.  I ran four miles yesterday as I do every other day.  I've been running for almost twenty years.  This type of exercise is not only good for your body, it also allows you to release daily stress.  You see every incident in your daily life, good or bad, enters your nervous system through all of your senses touch hearing, eyes, smell, taste and then picks a spot to lodge in your muscle system.  It also enters your mind body which is your soul (no not your brain, your brain is simply a computer that transmits instructions to your body) and much like a digital audio video camera captures the scenes in color.  That is why you can remember things.  It is also why you can visualize things you have not seen before.

Well when you exercise or meditate which is another form of stress release these muscles release these incident tensions and they flow outward through the same senses they arrived and return to their creator which is not you.  And so, you have one or more less thoughts to think about.  If you keep doing this eventually you won't have any thoughts, and you will stay awake in your life without daydreaming your life away.  This allows you to see the beauty of Mother Earth and see your God at work.  It takes a lot of time, years, sometime lifetimes to accomplish this, but every effort you make moves you forward to what Buddha called Enlightenment or a state of wakefulness.

So, since I have been doing this for forty years, either meditating, doing Hatha or Jnana Yoga, running and other like stuff I stay awake a lot which allows me to see the magic of life here on earth.  I think all forests are magical because when you see them clearly they truly are.  The photos of nature or people on this sight I have taken in the forest, meadows or ocean are all magical.  So I feel truly blessed and thankful every day for my Higher Power's creation of life on this planet and in the universe.

Jim

Deep Forest Light

Possibilities

Post Thanksgiving Musings

It was a nice Thanksgiving with family and friends, but my mind, which is always trying to get my attention so it can pull me away from reality keeps reminding me of the Thanksgiving Myth that I discovered while researching my book A Short Account of the Destruction of Native America.  You see, after getting my consciousness raised by a college professor I was inspired to find out what really happened to them, the Native Americans.  Just can't say Indians and if you read my book on the subject you will understand why.  When the Pilgrims, a sect of Puritans arrived these ex soldiers and merchants who had no farming experience had some basic tenets.  They were:  They believed the bible gave them the right to enslave non-white and non-Christians.  They also despite modern myth believed in pre-marital sex in order to propagate the population and many marriages were performed with a baby in the womb.  So all this talk about the Pilgrims being goody two shoes is just a bunch of rubbish created by their children's children to cover up their genocide of the New England tribes.

In reality, the first official Thanks giving Day celebrated the massacre of 700 Native American men, women and children during one of their religious ceremonies.  "Thanksgiving Day" was first proclaimed by the Governor of the then Massachusetts Bay Colony in 1637 to commemorate the massacre of 700 men, women and children who were celebrating their annual Green Corn Dance...in their own house.  The very next day the governor declared a Thanksgiving Day...For the net 100 years every Thanksgiving Day ordained by a Governor was in honor of the bloody victory thanking God that the battle had been won.  According to the Massachusetts Records of 1676-1677 a day was set apart for public thanksgiving because among other things of moment, "there now scarce remains a name or family of them (the Indians) but are slain, captive or fled.  (Winter Rabbit - American Netroots a forum on Native American issues.)  (Found in a Short Account...)

Well anyways have a nice (Black Friday)

Jim

Holiday Thoughts

Ah, Tofu Turkey and the New England Patriots today.  What a nice pair...

The Beach Walker

Not too long ago on a cool early Fall day I was hiking on an outer beach of Cape Cod and came across this fellow hiker.

This is the start of my hopefully daily posts on this Blog Site.

Staying Awake. Forty years ago after being raised an unbaptized Baptist, I was baptized an Episcopalian, ordained a Buddhist, and became initiated into Transcendental Meditation, all of which I have practiced for the last forty years. You can't just simply practice living this all of this spirituality and not have the results rub off on you. When I started back at the beginning I sort of figured that I would probably experience some sort of cosmic consciousness since that was what I read in several books would happen if you stuck to it. An stick to it I did and during the years that followed I became homeless several times, yet I didn't stop. One of these homeless periods was almost three years. Doesn't that sound awful? "Homeless!" But wait, it wasn't awful. It actually was one of the most beautiful periods of my life. Well, let me briefly explain and on other days I will explain to those who are interested enough to follow my blogs the real nature of our existence.

You see what happened when I started doing all this spiritual stuff I became, well, more spiritual. It wasn't like I stepped from one room to another. Instead I fell from one story to another. First I crashed financially, then I crashed emotionally, and finally I found the answer. It is going to sound crazy to you, but actually it was very simple for me since I was a totally devastated human being. I did nothing... I came to the brilliant conclusion that since every thing I tried to do didn't work. I would do nothing and leave it up to God. Then if nothing worked I could blame it all on God. God would be my paymaster, my lover and my guide and that was that and has been for the last forty years.

Jim Ainsworth

Light at the End of the Tunnel

I started this blog because I had a hardcover book coming out this fall. But after getting the run around I fired my publisher and separated this overpriced by publisher unsalable Tome into three books. Completely re-edited them. Put them Adobe pdf and had them printed by Lightning Source. They came out very professional and Lightning Source was a gift from the Gods. The three books are:

A Magical Star

An American's Journey Through America's Soul

A Short Account of the Destruction of Native America

These books are distributed in the US, UK and Canada by Amazon, Borders, Barnes & Noble, Ingram and also can be ordered on my website http://www.SevenSunsPublishing.com

I also am on Twitter as VeggyJim and you can find me on facebook.

Jim Ainsworth