So today was the second day of Grey School's 2010 Illinois Conclave (lovingly nicknamed PopCon) and I had the joy of meeting Dean Stonetalker at a guided meditation session.
I thought I'd walk you through it.
Dean Stonetalker walks us through the introduction to the meditation and beckons us to a grove. We have a guest, an animal.
It was a deer, with glowing red eyes.
Dean Stonetalker continues to tell us the guest has a message for us.
The deer continues to stare wordlessly.
Our guest has someplace to take us. Dean Stonetalker encourages us to follow our animal guest.
The deer hesitates. It eventually leaves the clearing, just past the treeline, where downhill awaits the seemingly endless landscape I escape to in my private meditations. For these two places to be physically connected would be impossible--the landscape is vast. I see it placed in front of me despite knowing this would be impossible in the world of reason.
We return to the grove, and our guest has given us a gift.
The deer regurgitates a large iron bullet, round, about half the size of my fist. It looks nothing like a bullet, but I know it to be fired from a gun.
We take the gift and return to the realm of normal consciousness.
The significance of this I don't know. I'm sure it will become clear in due time--meditations have a way of doing that. But for now, it's a genuine enigma. I have no idea why a deer, and I have no idea why an iron bullet.
Dean Stonetalker was absolutely great, gave me some ideas. I was kind of hesitant in the meditation because, to be quite honest, I just don't go that deeply into trance. In fact, I wasn't entirely sure I had gone into trance at all, maybe that I was just following along with the Dean's words and picturing what came most easily to mind. But I heard the others' stories and they seemed pretty vivid.
Even now, I'm starting to make sense of it all.
Monday, June 14, 2010
Saturday, June 5, 2010
Flower bombing!
So today my sister and I decided to make flower bombs.
Basically you take some dirt, some native wildflower seeds, and some water... mix until thick... and roll them into small balls. Finally, toss out the window of your car.
Fun? YES.
Legal? Mmmmmaybe.
Certainly not on private property, so don't go flower bombing on someone else's land. But it's perfect to spice up any abandoned lots.
The ingredients:
The aftermath:
(Plus some flowers and herbs I planted about a week ago)
I'm just excited to go around and throw these about. If any flowers pop up, I'll be sure to post pictures!
Basically you take some dirt, some native wildflower seeds, and some water... mix until thick... and roll them into small balls. Finally, toss out the window of your car.
Fun? YES.
Legal? Mmmmmaybe.
Certainly not on private property, so don't go flower bombing on someone else's land. But it's perfect to spice up any abandoned lots.
The ingredients:
The aftermath:
(Plus some flowers and herbs I planted about a week ago)
I'm just excited to go around and throw these about. If any flowers pop up, I'll be sure to post pictures!
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Answers from Tofugu's Koichi
So about a week ago I had the opportunity to email Koichi, the writer of popular Japanese culture blog Tofugu and online Japanese textbook Textfugu (plus an English culture blog written in Japanese, Koichiben). He's a pretty experienced blogger, a really cool guy, and definitely a big name in the J-blogger "industry." I asked him some questions about blogging, and here's what he had to say:
Q: First off, I know that Koichiben was created before Tofugu. What blogging platform did you choose to use, or how was Koichiben built?
A: I use self-hosted Wordpress for everything, and I host on Dreamhost. Wordpress takes the nasty backend out of blogging so you can focus on content.
Q: Did you have any previous experience blogging prior to creating Koichiben?
A: Nope
Short and sweet, I like it!
Q: What inspired you to bring Tofugu into the professional world?
A: By professional world do you mean as my actual job? When I was making enough money to live off it, I suppose.
Tofugu just became Koichi's full-time job in tandem with Textfugu.
Q: What advice would you give to aspiring bloggers regarding how to get a start?
A: Network and get to know people - doing what you're doing right here isn't a bad way to do it, actually.
Q: What advice would you give to aspiring bloggers in the J-blog niche?
A: Get active on Japansoc.com and get to know the other bloggers.
Q: How did the knowledge required to write Tofugu come to you? Did you spend a lot of time on research, or did your passion for the subject bring the information to you?
A: I try not to let information get to me, to be honest. I feel like it saps creativity and I'll accidentally copy someone / repost something. My goal is to post pretty original stuff, so I usually just write about the things I'm interested in learning. I figure if I'm interested in it then some others will be interested as well, and that's worked out pretty well so far. I do spend a good amount of time researching for a lot of posts, though. I don't want to be the kind of blog that posts someone else's content and then has a three line comment on it.
Some great advice!
Don't forget to check out Tofugu if you're even remotely interested in Japanese language or culture. It updates regularly and presents information in a fun-to-read way that's sure to keep anyone's attention. Koichi has a really unique "voice" and certainly uses it to full effect in all of his writing endeavors. I was linked to Tofugu first a few years ago and I'm glad I've been following it ever since!
If you're interested in learning Japanese, I also recommend you stop by Textfugu and take a look at what they have to offer. Expect a full review when the book catches up to my level... but until then, I've been reading every post and I'm still learning new things. I'm trying especially hard to follow along with the Kanji section--Koichi's method is the most painless that you'll find out there. He also recommends some of my favorite language-learning applications that I use as an aspiring linguist. He definitely knows where to go to get the learning done, and I'm glad he's writing his own material now. Textfugu is constantly updated, meaning the material will never become irrelevent or stop at a low level. Plus, if you order the full package, you get these updates free forever. Some teachers have even started using Textfugu in their classes! But hey, I guess that's all for another post, right? I want to write a good solid review of this thing, cause I love its content.
Hope you all enjoyed that little taste of Koichi! See you next post.
Q: First off, I know that Koichiben was created before Tofugu. What blogging platform did you choose to use, or how was Koichiben built?
A: I use self-hosted Wordpress for everything, and I host on Dreamhost. Wordpress takes the nasty backend out of blogging so you can focus on content.
Q: Did you have any previous experience blogging prior to creating Koichiben?
A: Nope
Short and sweet, I like it!
Q: What inspired you to bring Tofugu into the professional world?
A: By professional world do you mean as my actual job? When I was making enough money to live off it, I suppose.
Tofugu just became Koichi's full-time job in tandem with Textfugu.
Q: What advice would you give to aspiring bloggers regarding how to get a start?
A: Network and get to know people - doing what you're doing right here isn't a bad way to do it, actually.
Q: What advice would you give to aspiring bloggers in the J-blog niche?
A: Get active on Japansoc.com and get to know the other bloggers.
Q: How did the knowledge required to write Tofugu come to you? Did you spend a lot of time on research, or did your passion for the subject bring the information to you?
A: I try not to let information get to me, to be honest. I feel like it saps creativity and I'll accidentally copy someone / repost something. My goal is to post pretty original stuff, so I usually just write about the things I'm interested in learning. I figure if I'm interested in it then some others will be interested as well, and that's worked out pretty well so far. I do spend a good amount of time researching for a lot of posts, though. I don't want to be the kind of blog that posts someone else's content and then has a three line comment on it.
Some great advice!
Don't forget to check out Tofugu if you're even remotely interested in Japanese language or culture. It updates regularly and presents information in a fun-to-read way that's sure to keep anyone's attention. Koichi has a really unique "voice" and certainly uses it to full effect in all of his writing endeavors. I was linked to Tofugu first a few years ago and I'm glad I've been following it ever since!
If you're interested in learning Japanese, I also recommend you stop by Textfugu and take a look at what they have to offer. Expect a full review when the book catches up to my level... but until then, I've been reading every post and I'm still learning new things. I'm trying especially hard to follow along with the Kanji section--Koichi's method is the most painless that you'll find out there. He also recommends some of my favorite language-learning applications that I use as an aspiring linguist. He definitely knows where to go to get the learning done, and I'm glad he's writing his own material now. Textfugu is constantly updated, meaning the material will never become irrelevent or stop at a low level. Plus, if you order the full package, you get these updates free forever. Some teachers have even started using Textfugu in their classes! But hey, I guess that's all for another post, right? I want to write a good solid review of this thing, cause I love its content.
Hope you all enjoyed that little taste of Koichi! See you next post.
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