Report Card (14-20 Dec ’09)

weight: 140.6
exercise: 0
blogs written: 0
photographs edited & posted: 0
books read: The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh (see below)
my wife’s deathtrap car: someone else’s problem now

…

It is becoming fairly obvious that this web space will likely remain on autopilot for the remainder of 2009.  The only way I can be at peace with that fact is if I look forward to developing new ways to stay consistently productive throughout 2010.  That is the new goal.  One of my ideas is to restructure the grammaticaster site in such a way that will feature each of my distinct creative interests – wherein this blog will be just one of four or more individual sections (the others being, tentatively: photography, poetry and the daily snapshots) – and will present each focus area in an appropriate and intellectually stimulating manner.  Right now I am stuck on designing a flash menu for the front page.  Perhaps having a few days off around Christmas will give me more time to devote to the project.  My goal as of this moment is to go live with the new design on 1/1/2010.  Stay tuned.

This week’s evenings were spent reading Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh’s The Miracle of Mindfulness – the translation of a letter written in exile to his fellow Vietnamese social workers and Buddhists in 1974.  It is a short work, but one that begs to be absorbed slowly and deliberately.  If only I could put into practice the ideals Hanh so elegantly lays out in this beautiful text, I am certain I would find my life happier and more peaceful… and perhaps impart some peace and happiness to those whose lives my life touches as well.  An excerpt:

I like to walk alone on country paths, rice plants and wild grasses on both sides, putting each foot down on the earth in mindfulness, knowing that I walk on the wondrous earth.  In such moments, existence is a miraculous and mysterious reality.  People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle.  But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air, but to walk on earth.  Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child – our own two eyes.  All is a miracle.

Tonight I tried sitting in the lotus position and almost shattered both my knees.

Finally, in the spirit of the holidays, I present a Christmas classic:  ‘O Holy Night’.  I must here give due credit to my father-in-law, who first shared it with my wife who then shared it with me.  I will never hear this song the same way again.  I am, as it were, forever changed.  Listen:

O Holy Night