Inspiration

Our Miracle Universe, absolute darkness. Not a hint of light. No stars anywhere. No sounds of any kind. Nothing of any kind. Nothing at all.

Then suddenly a huge explosion like the universe has never known before, and probably will never know again.

In a matter of seconds, the universe was engulfed in a huge cloud of hydrogen gas.

The Big Bang had just occurred. From a tiny point called a singularity in the universe, the universe as we have come to know was born.

In summers, during most of high school and college, I worked in a summer camp. My assignment was, pretty much, to protect and entertain a cottage full of three-to-five-year-olds. It was such fun that I decided I’d like to teach children as a career.

After graduating from the university, our certificates covered: nursery, kindergarten, and grades 1-8.

As luck would have it, before graduation I was hired to teach in my hometown. The year was 1969, a year of many problems and few jobs. So this was a blessing.

What’s that sound
The sound of my dog
Missy as she is howling and growling away
playing with her toy
Having such joy with this stuffed animal
Is the sound ferocious?
is the sound she is making an expressing
Delight
Frustration
fun
there are so many sounds we hear in life
And the meaning we put behind the sound
And the expression of the sound
I can tell she is having a lot of fun
Running around
Enjoying this toy of hers
Just having a really good time
Getting up in the day
Appreciating her meal
Her time with me

Introduction by Philip:

We all have a box or a bag of trinkets, pictures and memories of our lives somewhere.
This song celebrates how precious these memories are.

   The actual song itself is available only in spoken form, as requested by Philip.

   The actual song itself is available only in spoken form, as requested by Philip.

When our children were young, and we would go to a restaurant, we’d make pepper drawings while waiting for our food.

We would turn over the paper placemat, revealing a nice white piece of paper, and shake some pepper randomly on the paper. Then we would take turns connecting the dots.

It’s like the pepper held the essence of a picture that we slowly revealed to ourselves. They really enjoyed this, and so did I.

There’s just enough structure to prod you on, but ultimately, it is your own imagination that creates the picture. It’s really fun to see what emerges.

I thrive being around people with imagination.

People who can see things that aren’t there yet and talk about them as if they are real right now. Like cars that fly, a practical end to hunger and healing sounds that work infinitely better than chemical drugs.

People who can create – pictures, music, dance, inventions.

People who can see the world in a better way.

Without these people, I feel lonely. Yes, my wife and children fill a kind of loneliness, for which I am very thankful.

There is something really special about a candle flame.

It feels alive. It actually glows.

I like to eat dinner with a candle. There’s a moodiness that just seems so right, like we’re in a higher presence.

I tried an interesting meditation practice. I stare at a candle as long as possible without blinking, and then close my eyes. I was surprised to see the yellow flame, with my eyes closed, turn into a deep purple box. It was so clear. It was amazing.

How you value life. How I value it is, if you can put your shoes on each morning, you’re ahead of the game.

I come from an era of people being crushed by polio, either killing them or dismantling their ability to walk, talk, work, because the virus attacked their nervous system and they weren’t able to function.

Some when people say to me, “How are you doing today?” And I say, “I can put my shoes on today.”

I look at it very basically, and I can function.

I really enjoy looking at tree bark - the whorls and swirls of bark as it moves up the trunk of the tree. It overlaps like house shingles. And it eddies around limbs and around the stumps of fallen limbs. You see the tree holes, and the flow of the bark around them.

The patterns are mesmerizing, like watching water that is stopped.

It really seems like something is written on the tree, by the tree, over and over again.

And when a vine climbs the tree, it is even more beautiful, especially in the autumn when the vine turns red.