Issue #1534 -
Monday, August 25, 2003 - Editor: Jerry
Steve
Tagliere - Shaker chair and candle
www .winggallery.com/Steve_Tagliere_4.html - link
no longer active
Spare rooms
simplify and clear the mind
By
Deanna Larson, dlarson@nashvillecitypaper.com
August 26, 2003
Less
can be so much more when it comes to interiors. Aside
from the savings on elaborate window treatments, rooms
stuffed with furniture, and hundreds of knickknacks,
spare rooms are easier to clean and harder to clutter.
Spare doesn’t mean cold and minimal. Rather, spare
interiors have deliberately chosen pieces that are
beautiful, functional and have personal meaning, or
they’re weeded out. In Room Recipes
(Rockport) the ultimate spare interior is described as a
19th century Connecticut or Pennsylvania farmhouse built
for a “gentleman farmer.” The house has the
bare but functional essentials: bed, sink, dining table.
Each room is painted a “beautiful, soft, light,
elegant color. The rooms are infused with light from
uncovered or veiled windows. The combination of color and
light make the walls luminous. The effect is not minimal,
it is simple.”
Scandinavian and Shaker interiors embody this aesthetic.
The opposite of overdone, Scandinavian interiors let the
charm of homespun and the elegance of the well designed
speak for themselves. Shaker furniture is imbued with the
spiritual principle with which it’s created, one
that reflects “the Creator of all things in the
beauty of the wood and the simplicity of design,”
according to the Sabbath-Day Woods, a Shaker furniture
company in North Carolina.
A simple chair set against the wall, with a piece of art
or beloved object above, sums up the uncomplicated beauty
of the spare look, according to Room Recipes.
Working, resting, eating and reading take place on these
“platforms” 18 degrees off the ground, but the
rest is embellishment. Nowhere is need vs. want more
evident than in our interiors, and stripping away the
extraneous can be freeing.
http://www.nashvillecitypaper.com/index.cfm?section_id=12&screen=news&news_id=25979
Warren Zevon:
Lessons in leaving
Rocker's humor, life on display in VH1 documentary
Viewed this documentary
last evening...
something that struck me was his simple answer to David
Letterman.
Zevon was invited to be on the show, a special
edition, with no other guests.
He was interviewed and he
performed.
He appeared on the show with only one month
left to live (according to the doctors who had diagnosed him with
terminal cancer.)
When Letterman asked him,
"Is there something that you now know about life and death
that I don't?"
Zevon paused for a moment, and then answered simply:
You do not need to leave
your room.
Remain sitting at your table and listen.
Do not even listen, simply wait.
Do not even wait, be still and solitary.
The world will freely offer itself to you
to be unmasked, it has no choice.
It will roll in ecstasy at your feet.
-Franz Kafka
Daily Dharma
"The Buddha in his
travels encountered a Jain, whose practice
consisted of standing still on one leg. The Buddha asked him,
`Would
you tell me please why you are doing this? What will this
practice
of standing on one leg do for you?'
The Jain replied,
`Through this practice, I am working out my karma.
It will free me of all past karma.'
The Buddha asked him,
`How much have you worked out so far?' The
Jain replied, `I could not say.' The Buddha then asked, `How much
karma do you still have to work out?' The Jain again replied, `I
do
not know.' Lastly, the Buddha asked, `But how will you know when
you
have finished working out your karma?' The Jain could only answer
again, `This I do not know.'
At this reply, the
Buddha spoke to him saying, `It is time for you
to set aside this practice and to understand the path to the end
of
suffering. It lies within the truth of each moment, here and
now.'"
~ Jack Kornfield
From the book, "Soul Food," published by Harper San
Francisco.
First of all, we must acknowledge that it is God's grace that you
feel an urge to study Vedanta.
For a beginner of Vedanta, from my personal experience, I would
like to suggest "Gita Home Study" course devised by
Swami Dayananda Saraswati. It is in very simple English and in
great detail, and can be followed very easily. I do not know
where you are located. If you are in the U.S.A. you may get the
course from Arsha Vidya Gurukulam, Instt. of Vedanta and
Sanskrit, P.O. Box 1059, Saylorsburg, PA 18353, http://www.arshavidya.org
You can also get a list
of books and tapes, CD etc. published by the Instt., and select,
in consultation with learned people in Vedanta, the ones, which
you can start reading. Reading itself may not be helpful. Try to
hear the lectures/satsang by the disciples of Chinmaya Mission,
Swami Dayananda Saraswati, etc. if they are held in your area.
When you proceed with commitment, and total devotion to the
subject, in due course you will be drawn to a Guru. It may not be
that some Sanyasies will come personally to you and help you, but
opportunities will come themselves for you to be in touch with a
Guru. This has happened to many.
Vedanta, to my understanding, is the process of dropping all
notions/knowledge we have had all through since birth, about
ourselves and others (all other than ourselves i.e. any seen or
unseen objects, etc.) including God, as they will not at all help
in attaining or getting what we are all really seeking in life;
and getting the right knowledge about them. The Phala or result
of this will be, we will in due course have inner leisure and
peace, as the mind slowly, but definitely, gets freed from all
agitations, by start looking at everything including ourselves,
and God, afresh, in the light of the ultimate knowledge
i.e. Tattwamasi etc.
Hari Om
R.S.Mani
JPNDS
You really are one lucky
fella!
You are obliged by the
Terms and Conditions of NDS to share
all lottery winnings with the rest of us.
Your winnings are our
winnings.
Trust me.
I hope - we all hope - that
you are willing to win real big
or if not - lose it all.
I'm a freelance heretic, so
don't worry about the buddhist
name thingy. Call me JP.
You can call me anything
you want. Just don't call me a
'dirty slut' because that would insult me and turn me on at
the same time.
You're Turkish. I'm part
Greek. I'm supposed to hate and kill
you. I'm also part Armenian, so I'm sorry, but I have no
choice but to really hate your guts for wiping out my
ancestors.
I have learned that in this
beautiful microcosmos of NDS,
what we put out boomerangs right back to us.
If we have an intention to
direspect others who are trying to
share their wisdom with us, or fry others in hot oil like
old-fashioned English style fish and chips and then eat them
with a creamy tartar sauce and a tangy malt vinegar- we will
end up being forced to float in a vat of our own sizzling
bubbling Crisco and will be forced to chew and swallow our
own battered fish flesh without cutlery or chopsticks.
I have learned that it is
unhelpful to underestimate the
intense ferocity of the blazing heat we will experience if we
intend to set others on fire.
May I suggest a size XL
crushed blue velvet Armani asbetos
suit for you.
Anything tighter than that
will just make you look fat.
And for extra panache and
style, you can tuck a
fire-extinguisher under your arm.
