Monthly Archives: November 2013

Mayflies, Pumpkin Pies and #Impermanence

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Mayflies live their entire adult lives during only a few hours or perhaps up to three earth days. They belong to an entire order of insects, Ephemeroptera, which means lasting a day in Greek.

Adult Mayfly

Pumpkin pies also usually last only a few hours or up to perhaps a couple or three earth days (depending on how many are baked and how many are eating them).

Pumpkin Pie

With these and so many examples of #impermanence surrounding us, how is it that we can be so surprised when someone leaves us through choice, accident or death? We ask, “Why?” as if there would an answer different than this, just for us, just for this occasion: “because everything ends.”

Why are we so caught up in our illusions of continuation that we neglect to recognize the preciousness of each moment, each hour, each day we inhabit these fragile, ephemeral bodies? We meet, greet, hang out with friends, family, colleagues, groups of loved ones and leave without realizing that one or more of us may never see one another again in these bodies, in this lifetime.

I am struck at this time of year especially by how much we take for granted, how many of our days we deny the temporary nature of the license any of us has to go on living. I feel lucky that, as a #Buddhist, I intentionally spend a part of each day in an integral part of my practice reciting and recalling the truth of impermanence. We do this whether we are #Zen, #Theravadan, #Vipassana, #Mayahana, Vajrayana or non-sectarian practitioners.

Impermanence is one of the key concepts we learn as beginning students of #Buddhism and we contemplate it repeatedly: everything is impermanent and bound to die. Everything that exists ends. Everyone who is born dies. Nothing earthly lasts. No one escapes this fate. Relationships, jobs, activities, emotions, diseases, meals, sexual encounters, pleasures and pains of all descriptions eventually end.

I am in a state of melancholy. I am ebullient and filled with hope. I am curious. I am anxious. I love. I fear. I receive. I give. I end.

During my mini-#retreat I begin each day with the Ngöndro, the preliminary practices for #Vajrayana #Nyingma #Tibetan #Buddhist #meditation. These practices themselves begin with “The Four Thoughts That Turn the Mind,” and one of these is the contemplation on impermanence.

The way this contemplation affects me has changed over the the 17 years I’ve done this practice daily. At first, I was resistant, looking for the loophole. Maybe everyone ELSE dies, but I will not. Maybe YOUR relationship, YOUR job, YOUR life ends, but MINE continues. On and on, denial after denial, to the point of absurdity.

At one point, some friends and I joked that one of us was the “designated dier,” meaning, the one we chose would die on all of our behalves so that the rest of us, i.e., we, would not have to die. We volunteered D. He objected, but we prevailed. We kept telling him this for many years. Luckily, he’s still alive, so I do not feel guilty about this. However, I do remember feeling a tremendous sense of relief that the group had not chosen me to be the designated dier; I do feel guilty about that relief.

Regardless of anyone’s guilt or innocence, being chosen or not, D could not take my place or anyone else’s. We all die.

More than many people I know, I have lost friends and relatives to death, starting when I was 7 years old and was with one of my great-grandmothers when she died while getting dressed. Since I didn’t know she had died at the time, I was not afraid, merely puzzled that she would choose to lie back on her bed to take a nap while putting on her stockings.

When I was given to understand that she had died, I realized that I hadn’t been scared because there had been nothing frightening or startling in her death. One minute, she was talking with me (in Yiddish), putting on her clothes. The next minute, she stopped talking, laid back, her stockings in her hands, and was silent, the stockings resting on her body. No clutching at her heart or head, no screams or moans. Just gone.

While the dozens of others who have died around or right in front of me did not go so silently or easily, I still do not find death frightening. Sad, often. Feeling sorrow and compassion for those in pain or suffering, surely. But afraid? No. I often miss the person who dies for many months or years, grieving with great sobs, laughing and reminiscing about those I yearn to see again.

But, I never think: “Oh, why did s/he die?” I know the answer.

We all die.

The best any of us can hope for is to appreciate one another while we are alive. So, this is what I try to do. I tell people I’m grateful. I say “I love you.” I give them what I can of mine: time, stories, gifts, resources, help, support, encouragement. I let them know often, not just when they’re sick or I’m in pain, how much they mean to me.

Many call me “sappy,” or “sentimental.” I prefer to view my actions as realistic. We truly never know when we are going to die, which of our loved ones will die and when, between one visit or encounter and the next. Not knowing this, I treasure each call, each visit, each email, even when I don’t tell them this.

What else can we do? You tell me. Comment here. And, go tell someone you love that you love them. Again.

#Buddhist #Meditation #Retreat part 4: Animal Realm contemplations

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Some of you know I’ve been doing an at-home, part-time #Buddhist #meditation #retreat in the #Vajrayana #Nyingma #dzogchen tradition of #Tibetan #Buddhism for about two months and plan to finish on Tibetan New Year (#Losar) on March 2, 2014. This retreat consists of the preliminary practices, or #Rushan, for #T’högal. Some of what I’m learning and doing are only to be discussed with dzogchen teachers or similarly or advanced practitioners, but some I can talk about. I share what I am able and wish to in these blog posts.

This portion’s contemplation and prayers are on beings of the Animal Realm. Of all the 6 #Realms, as Tibetan Buddhists conceive of our shared illusory reality, the Animal Realm is the closest akin to ours, so close that Humans can co-exist consciously with Animals. This means we can readily see, smell, hear, feel, and taste Animals in our everyday existence. For most Humans, our senses are not so easily stimulated by beings of the other Realms.

The first time I heard teachings on the 6 Realms, as I mentioned in a previous post, I thought the teacher was being metaphoric or joking. I was so stuck in my senses’ ordinary experiences that I could not believe the other Realms actually co-exist with ours.

There are some Buddhists who do treat the 6 Realms as a metaphor. These meditators prefer to use these concepts to recognize the ways that humans experience all of the Realms’ conditions while being human rather than believing that there are actual beings living in each of the Realms. I leave it up to you as to how you conceive of the Realms and the beings’ experiences.

For me, it’s more important to contemplate those experiences and generate empathy and compassion for them, regardless of how they occur. The main characteristics that Tibetan Buddhists assign to Animals as distinct from Humans are explained in this way by Barbara O’Brien in her article on the Buddhist Wheel of Life (samsara, in Sanskrit):

“Animal Beings (Tiryakas) are solid, regular and predictable. They cling to what is familiar and are disinterested, even fearful, of anything unfamiliar. The Animal Realm is marked by ignorance and complacency. Animal Beings are stolidly un-curious and are repelled by anything unfamiliar. They go through life seeking comfort and avoiding discomfort. They have no sense of humor. Animal Beings may find contentment, but they easily become fearful when placed in a new situation. Naturally, they are bigoted and likely to remain so. At the same time, they are subject to oppression by other beings — animals do devour each other, you know.”
http://buddhism.about.com/od/tibetandeities/ig/Wheel-of-Life-Gallery/Animal-Realm.htm

I don’t happen to agree with this conceptualization of animals; I never have. I do not see all animals as “ignorant,” and some definitely have a sense of humor! They are certainly a lot less bigoted than most humans I know and know of. As for the being “subject to oppression” part, even devouring each other, we’d have to include humans in that activity, wouldn’t we?

Animals are also most certainly NOT “un-curious,” and many employ what Temple Grandin calls “seeking” behavior in their everyday lives. (Animals Make Us Human: Creating the Best Life for Animals , Temple Grandin and Catherine Johnson, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2009). In fact, Grandin’s research proves that animals need more than their basic physical and psychological requirements to be met. Yes, animals need (or certainly would prefer) to be free from hunger, thirst, discomfort, pain, injury, disease, fear and distress. However, Grandin proves resoundingly that animals respond positively when allowed to use “seeking behaviors” and “play.” Some animals, particularly pigs and primates, can malinger, become self- or other-injurious, kill or even die without these outlets.

I spent a few weeks listening to this amazing book on CD this past summer, not yet knowing I’d be doing this retreat or contemplations this fall. Generally, I have not had a close relationship to animals or pets (except for others’ pets I happen to live with or encounter over the years). However, forging new relationships with animals via interspecies communication devices and aliens-humans encounters and relationships are central to my sci-fi novels in The Spanners Series, so I listened to Grandin’s book and watched the biopic about her early life (“Temple Grandin,” starring Clare Danes as Grandin; great movie) as research for my series.

Now that I’m in this section of my retreat, I find myself remembering many parts of both the film and the book, considering animals from Grandin’s perspective rather than Tibetan Buddhists’ concepts. Her philosophies, attitudes and understandings are closer to my own. I go further than she does, though: I am more in harmony with Douglas Adams, the late, sorely missed and amazing author of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a five-book “trilogy.” One of these volumes is entitled: So Long and Thanks for All the Fish. In this, Adams posits the superiority and other-worldly origins of dolphins, which I have no trouble believing.

I also believe in the superiority or at least equality with humans regarding intelligence, compassion and creativity, of all forms of cetaceans, elephants, wolves and many primates, cephalopods and others in the Animal Realm. To me, it’s impossible to ignore or deny the ways elephants grieve and remember, wolves communicate with their packs, whales gather intentionally for fun and protection, and many other examples of animals’ social, altruistic, creative and communicative behaviors not at all inferior to humans’ activities. I also can’t ignore or deny how disappointed I am in the selfish, unintelligent and socially perverse ways of humans.

This week, as many vegans rail against humans eating turkeys as well as pigs, fish, chickens, cattle and whatever other animals humans eat, I have to remind myself and others of the inherent suffering in all existence, the nature of samsara, according to my Tibetan Buddhist teachers. Humans can’t survive without killing, even when it’s unintentional. We kill billions of beings every day in service to providing us with shelter, food (even vegan food), clothing, work, transportation, education, tools and entertainment. We can’t plow fields or harvest their bounty without killing. We can’t breathe or walk without killing. Every day and every night, all twenty-four hours of every day of our existence, we are murderers.

Contemplating this and Grandin’s book and life make me want to mitigate the suffering of animals, for sure. However, I do not pretend I or any human can eliminate it. We can’t eliminate our own suffering, either. What we can do is change the ways it occurs, lessen or alleviate it, and feel compassionate about it enough to respond appropriately and less selfishly.

So, if you are NOT a vegan, here is my advice: do not waste your animal food. Only purchase, cook/prepare what you and your loved ones will consume. Honor the spirits of the animals who gave their lives to feed you with prayers, thoughts, songs, smoke, herbs: something sacred. Be conscious as you spend your time this week and every week hereafter of the gifts animals give us and the ways we exploit these gifts. Be humble. Be grateful. Be caring.

I will try. I hope you do, also.

Pre-orders and Release Date for “This Changes Everything” free coupon!

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Please share: Now in Pre-orders @ 50% $1.99 on Kobo, iBooks and nook, Sally Ember, Ed.D.’s first sci-fi/romance/paranormal novel, is getting 4- and 5-Star Reviews in pre-pub: see snippets from Reviews, below and full reviews on Goodreads. This Changes Everything, Volume I of <em>The Spanners Series release date is 12/19/13 via Smashwords to Amazon and all ebook retailers. Book club members, teachers and readers of THIS press release, contact Sally for coupon for free download from Smashwords to use after 12/19 – 12/31/13, sallyember@yahoo.com.
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/376197

What others are saying about This Changes Everything,
Volume I, “The Spanners Series” by Sally Ember, Ed.D.

“[This Changes Everything] is highly-imaginative, but for so many different reasons, and outside of the normal scope. There are times when I felt that I was reading an actual research report of true to life events. Honestly, I’m sitting at my laptop, questioning if Clara has provided this work to Ember, or if the two are one in the same. The experience is mind-altering, and would challenge readers to think beyond the bubble that we live in. I would surely recommend ‘This Changes Everything’ to anyone that enjoys a a well-written and researched Sci-Fi series. I will point out that it pushes the envelope, and toys with one’s perception. Well done! 5 Stars.”
–Janice G. Ross, author, 11/11/13
http://jgrwriter.wordpress.com/2013/11/11/review-this-changes-everything-by-sally-ember-3/

“This Changes Everything by Sally Ember is a well-written, complex work that is going to add a strong title to a genre that can sometimes become bogged down with the same old, same old. ‘This Changes Everything’ is a book that I am very happy to have had the chance to read and I would recommend it to any sci-fi/fantasy fan.”
–Zach Tyo, Indie Reviews, 10/4/13
http://indiebookreviewer.blogspot.com/

“You have created your characters very well. I feel for Clara, I imagine her alienating a lot of people because her enthusiasm and drive and ability to push herself makes her someone who doesn’t suffer fools gladly. I would have liked more of the reporter’s life and I didn’t like Epifanio at all. He sounded arrogant and selfish. I loved that the aliens were chosen by lottery. You had so many good touches like that, which made the book a continuing surprise. I…have to say it is one of the most challenging, exciting and original books I’ve read.”
–(Mary) Josephine O’Brien, author, ‘Sharing Skies,’ 9/14/13

“You have written a wonderfully imaginative and original story with plenty of twists and turns. I really like your multiuniverse setting with different timelines and the concept of the ‘Many Worlds Collective.'”
–Sophekles, author, ‘The Serotonin Transfer,’ 10/8/13

“I love your sense of humor. I literally laughed out loud when Clara said that she had given him the name ‘Led.’ I also like that this is an alien story where the aliens are helping, rather than trying to take over the world. It’s a refreshing angle.”
–S.M. Koz, author, ‘Pangalax,’ 9/4/13

[after reading 1st 20 pages only] “…In a lot of ways I’m at a loss to critique this because it’s quite different than what I’m used to encountering. It’s a more immediate version of ‘Stranger in Strange Land’ by Heinlein. Now, what I say next is strictly speaking off the cuff at 11 PM after a couple of rum and cokes, but as it stands I’d probably rate this either three or four stars, depending on how it develops. Once I got into the ideas behind it all, I found it personally fascinating. I’m not sure how that would translate to a broader readership, but it’s nifty stuff. I like alternate timelines and the like…”
–Alexander Crommich, reviewer @ Crommich Industries

“The writing is complex and done extremely well….There were times when I almost forgot I was reading a work of fiction and not a news account of real events, and I would consider that to be skilled writing indeed….[D]id I enjoy more of it than not? Yes. Four stars. Did I like the overall content? Most of the time. Three stars. Was the writing of good quality? Oh, definitely yes. Five stars. My overall rating: four of five stars.”
–Lynda Dietz, Easy Reader, ilovetoreadyourbooks.blogspot.com, 11/4/13

About the Author
Sally Ember, Ed.D., is a published, nonfiction author and produced playwright (children’s theatre, Crystal Dreams; Grading System for adults) whose sci-fi romance/speculative fiction, YA, New Adult and adult series, The Spanners, starts with Volume I, The Changes Everything, uploaded in e-book format by Smashwords and for sale December 20, 2013. Volumes II – X are planned (see Appendix A, below). Volume II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, is coming out in Spring, 2014, and the others are in various draft stages. Sally also has some short stories and articles published in ‘Out of the Kitchen,’ a journal available in the 1980s in print format only. She has co-written, edited, and proofread many nonfiction books and worked for a some magazines in the early 2000’s.

Sally was raised Jewish and is a practicing Buddhist meditator. She is also an almost-daily swimmer, a mediocre singer/pianist, avid feminist, dreamer, and devoted mother/ sister/ aunt/ daughter/ cousin/ friend.
Her website includes a blog: visit and comment, follow, “like,” and share! sallyember dot com.

In her “other” professional life, Sally has worked as an educator and upper-level, nonprofit manager in colleges, universities and private nonprofits for over thirty-five years in New England (every state), New Mexico and the San Francisco Bay Area (where she now lives). Sally has a BA, a Master’s (M.Ed.) and a doctorate in education (Ed.D.).

Interacting With and Finding Sally Online
Please write a review and give This Changes Everything a rating on SMASHWORDS, iBooks, Kobo, nook, whatever retailer you use for ebooks, as well as many other sites that bring readers to this book: Authonomy, Wattpad, Indiebooks, https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7237845.Sally_Ember, her blog, http://www.sallyember.com. Help bring people to ‘The Spanners Series’ via any other website that invites readers to post comments and reviews of Sci Fi novels, especially if you LOVE it!

Sally would be delighted to visit your Book Club or class in person or via SKYPE to talk about ‘The Spanners Series.’ Ask her to co-develop curricula, projects and activities for your group/class members!

You will want to check on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheSpannersSeriesbySallyEmber or her website to find out when the next Volume will be available.

Follow Sally on Twitter @sallyemberedd and please Tweet about this book and series! She will be posting excerpts of the upcoming Volumes on the Series’ FB page. Notices of those postings will be on Twitter.

For photos, images, music, bios and other memes relevant to Sally as an author and directly to ‘The Spanner Series,’ please visit her ten boards on Pinterest: “‘The Spanners Series’ includes…”; “Inspirations for the Earth locations in The Spanners Series”; “Music of ‘The Spanners Series'”; “Space Shots I like”; “Books that changed my life”; “TV shows and movies I actually like”; “Writers I Love”;”Resonating Pins” (from others’ boards); “Blog Posts”; and, “Flora and Fauna that amaze me.” She also puts up promos for her own and other authors’ books on occasion via “Book Billboards.” Please follow her Boards on http://www.Pinterest.com/sallyember gets you to her boards.

Cover Art by Willowraven: willowraven-illustration.blogspot.com

This Changes Everything cover

Recently Deceased #Buddhist May Attain Rainbow Body

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This article is quite amazing in its description of what happens when an accomplished Tibetan Buddhist practitioner leaves the physical body. Those of you interested, follow this link and read about what’s happening to this particular Lama and what is possible.

This type of current occurrence is rare and rarely discussed so openly. It inspires faith and renews my commitment to practice.

“Auspicious News: My Teacher Lama Karma Attains Rainbow Body!
Composed by His Eminence Dzogchen Khenpo Choga Rinpoche and his disciples on the 23rd of November, 2013, the auspicious day of Lha Bab Duchen, the Buddha’s Mother’s Day, at the auspicious place of the Dzogchen Retreat Center, USA.”

https://www.facebook.com/notes/dzogchen-khenpo-choga-rinpoche/auspicious-news-my-teacher-lama-karma-attains-rainbow-body/10151794778007773

Happy #Thanksgivinkah: #eBooks = Great #Gift Idea

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Happy #Thanksgivinkah! Want to give a great gift and spend almost no money? #eBooks are free or absurdly inexpensive. Support authors like me!

Fans of #sci-fi/#romance, #multiverse/multiple timelines, #aliens and space travel, #paranormal skills, several narrators (ages 16 through 81), world #history, #politics, family and intimate #relationships, #Buddhism, #Judaism, #GLBT identities and more will LOVE #The Spanners Series.

Volume I, This Changes Everything, available NOW! ebook links for TCE: free excerpts and more info now and sales @$3.99 after 12/18 at Smashwords.

Pre-orders @$1.99 through 12/18 at
iBooks
nook
and Kobo after 11/23/13,

TCE will be on Amazon and other ebook sites after 12/18/13 (links to come then).

Reviews and more info on Goodreads

and right here on my website, Sally Ember, Ed.D.

Visit! Browse the ebooks sites and leave comments, rankings, brief reviews for This Changes Everything and other ebooks.

Follow my blog and leave a comment, then contact me for a coupon for a FREE copy of TCE, any ebook format, via Smashwords, usable after 12/19/13.

This Changes Everything cover

Cover art by Willowraven

Enjoy!

#SallyEmber reads aloud from #ThisChangesEverything”

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Come hear Fremont Area Writers (chapter of California Writers) read from our works at the next “Open Mike” at BookSmart, NewPark Mall, Newark, CA, tonight, Monday, 11/25/13, 7 PM, FREE!

I’ll be there reading from This Changes Everything, Volume I, The Spanners Series, which is now available for pre-order on #nook, #iBooks and #Kobo and is in wide release on #Amazon, #Smashwords and other ebook sites beginning 12/19/13. Free excerpts on all sites.

If you can’t come, check out my reading on youtube (see below) or here! Share, comment. Thanks!

http://youtu.be/_xynpNaSeKc

Author Interview at Amethyst Eyes’ site!

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Thanks, “Amethyst Eyes” site author, Debbie Brown, for hosting an Author’s Interview that went live today, 11/22/13! Please visit and comment!

http://amethysteyesauthor.blogspot.ca/2013/11/sally-sue-embers-and-this-changes.html

iBooks joins B and N nook with pre-orders for TCE!

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This Changes Everything ebook pre-orders thru 12/18 @ 50% off $1.99. Share!

on iBooks!

https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/this-changes-everything/id746840776?mt=11&ls=1

on nook!

This Changes Everything cover

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/this-changes-everything-sally-ember-edd/1117444256?ean=2940045417921

#Contemplating my deceased father

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Feeling stuck in this Human Realm section of my mini #Buddhist retreat on beings of the Six Realms is definitely part of being human. I find the uniqueness of the human experience involves many complicated emotions and conditions I don’t recognize as occurring (although they certainly might) in other Realms’ beings.

The difference between simple desire or lust and attraction mixed with yearning, for example, comes to my contemplation during this phase of my meditation. Also, complicated grief, i.e., mourning someone we also despise or fear, feel resentment for or otherwise experience relief at the passing of, doesn’t seem to happen among animals. I always think of complicated grief this time of year since both of my father’s parents died in their nineties in November and he died in February in the 1990s.

My father, Ira Fleischmann, incorporated a volatile mixture of bravado, greed, insecurity, rage, brilliance, humor, tenderness, violence and fear. He was extreme in his swings and mercurial in his moods. He could make people roar with laughter and cower in terror within minutes.

Ira 1959 Dad, around age 21, 1950.

After he had been dead for about five years (he died at almost 62 of a sudden heart attack in 1991), new research and study I was doing in graduate school led me to realize that he had suffered from depression and anxiety, unmitigated and unmedicated. Western men often exhibit rage and violence instead of the underlying melancholy, grief or depression.

He had been bulimic for a few years when I was in high school, so his brain was definitely mis-firing, as we now know bulimia indicates. From when I was about three and my brother, four, he had been violent and abusive toward both of us and spent much of our childhoods and adolescence beating on one or both of us, pulling my hair and yelling at everyone in our household except my youngest sister. I used to say I grew up in a war zone, but as I got older, I refrained from using that metaphor, knowing more about actual war zones.

Many people thought my sociopathic father was charismatic and appealing. He was brilliant but largely unrewarded and unnoticed for it, short in stature and on money. His creative application of the law and business ethics often veered over into criminal behavior. He was dishonest, easily bored, restless and dissatisfied.

Because of his unmet desires and lust for wealth and status, he changed jobs or started (and failed in) several careers (corporate attorney, insurance salesman, CLU/CPA, pension fund and investments manager). We found out after his death that he had created a second identity, maintaining an office and business cards in that name for who knows what nefarious purposes. My sisters and I went to look at it in the days after his death, shocked into giggling at the empty office with the fake name on the door just a few miles from his home.

He was also a hobbyist architect, constantly re-drafting his dream house after taking the family on Sunday drives to inspect mansions that were under construction. We’d pick our ways carefully through the unfinished homes as he’d proudly point out the master suite, the living room, the kitchen as if these were his designs and his houses, strutting through what appeared to be an undifferentiated maze of debris and open framing, to me. He was always hopeful that his ship was coming in, but ready and willing to steal the cargo, even from friends, when it didn’t arrive.

After his third wife had revealed her secret of alcoholism about two years into their marriage, they had both gotten into co-dependent/AA-style support groups and reading materials. These experiences and information-gathering had helped my father enormously even though he wasn’t addicted to any substances himself. Learning from the books and meetings, my father had developed some insight into his own violent, frightening and financially insecure childhood, coming of age during the Great Depression and World War II (he was born in 1929) as a Jew in the Midwest, USA.

He adored his grandchildren (my brother gave him four and I one before he died) and was beginning to appreciate his life and the rest of his family when he abruptly died. Because of his re-education and intense self-analysis and my own years of therapy and meditation, he and I had been having our first period of peace since my early childhood, enjoying a tentatively harmonious relationship at the time of his death.

I had loved and even admired my grandfather and did not know how much he and my grandmother had hurt and abused my father before he started talking to me about that while examining his childhood. If he had died even a few years earlier, my grief for him and later, for them, would not have been complicated.

Knowledge and insight are useful, but they did instill other feelings into my mourning. Even today, over twenty years after his death and about that long after they died as well, I continue to puzzle over their lives and my own. I see my irritability and quick judgments, tendencies to be arrogant and disparaging toward others, as coming from that side of my family. I am ashamed and humbled by my failings and theirs, unfortunately passed down through generations, even if somewhat improved in each successor.

Like my father, I am quick to anger and resentment, condescending and insecure. I am also untrusting of authority and unwilling to be obedient without question. Unlike him, I have never hit my child or disparaged him verbally, I have not lied, cheated or stolen to acquire money or possessions, and I do not suffer from depression, bulimia or anxiety.

Like my father, I am funny, brilliant, tender and creative, holding down a variety of jobs and having had several successful careers but easily bored and ready to move on frequently. We both were teachers and public performers, good at both math and languages. We both enjoyed knowing a lot of information about many topics and playing softball and tennis. He taught me to swim, play chess, and love the piano. He had a great voice, singing along with popular and operatic songs with equal ease, and I love to sing as well. He also screamed and terrorized people with just a few words; I can do that. I have done that.

What have I learned in these weeks of contemplating my deceased father and myself, indeed, all humanity? How complicated, and, as Sting sings, “how fragile we are.” I wish we could have known each other at these ages. I am close to the age he was when he died; he would have been 84 right now.

Sting sings: “Nothing ever comes from violence; nothing ever could.” But, a lot of learning comes and spontaneous compassion arises from facing our foibles and mistakes and meditating on the Human condition.

We might have talked about all of this for these past twenty years and more. Miss you, Dad. You would have liked Sting’s song. Listen, now.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLdJwzSbM-E

Visit Bits, Bites and Books Cafe today and in a week or so for comments about “This Changes Everything” and a full review

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This author makes me blush! “Dr. Ember is a delightful person, full of energy and ideas. I do recommend her book [This Changes Everything] because it is a delightful mix of fiction, fantasy, stream-of-consciousness, and humor. She is the Alice Walker of the Spanner[s] generation.”

Visit using the link, below, for more of her opinion and later this fall, a full review!

Thanks, Ria!

http://bitsbitesbooks.weebly.com/blog.html

Dilemmas while #meditating on being human

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During each of the current days I am #meditating during this mini-#Buddhist, at-home #retreat, I #contemplate what it means to be human. I examine the emotional, physical, interpersonal, mental experiences I am familiar with myself and then I attempt to empathize or at least sympathize with others’ experiences as deeply as possible: the pains and pleasures, sorrows and joys, defeats and successes, fears and hopes, worries and excitements. What motivates every being is clear: each of us wants to be happy.

However, as I know for myself and observe in others, we often are extremely inept, even self-sabotaging in our attempts to achieve happiness. Furthermore, this happiness is only ever temporary. Impermanence is a fact of existence.

Spending so much time and focusing so such keen attention on humanness intensifies my recognition of these failed attempts on my own part and for others. Also, I become more acutely conscious of my failures to acquire even a bit more comfort.

At the pool, I have my “favorite” swimming lanes. These are the ones I prefer because of their proximity to the inflow jets, which act like those in a hot tub. The pressure from this inflow eases the tightness in my back when I hang in front of it. Or, these are the ones I like because they’re closer to the ropes and have more room around the “lane” (this pool, for unknown reasons, does not rope off lanes, only sections). Or, I like this or that lane because, when I do the backstroke, the line on the ceiling’s architecture exactly matches the line I am supposed to follow that represents my lane (which is faintly painted on the pool’s floor), so I have a fighting chance to stay in my own lane (appreciated by all).

Seems so silly, so trivial, so selfish and absurd when I lay it out like this. Yet, as I enter the pool building every morning, I feel a tightness in my chest and my breathing increases, signaling anxiety. Worried questions hum beneath the surface of my thinking: “Will I get a ‘good’ lane?” “Will I get a lane at all?” “Will the people in adjacent lanes bump into me?” Luckily, swimmers can pre-select our lanes as soon as we arrive, before we get into our suits. My anxiety is relieved as soon as my lane is chosen.

I am told the policy is to choose the lane I want and show my choice by placing an item on the floor above it, signaling that this lane is taken. Then, I go change and return to my “saved” lane and get in to swim.

This system works well enough, usually. When I get into the pool area, I choose a “good” lane, which is empty. I put a kickboard down and go to change. But, yesterday I approached my saved lane and saw that someone else was swimming in it. I waited until she was at the wall and I tapped her: “Excuse me,” I said, “You’re in the lane I saved.”

“Oh, no,” she replies. “There was no one here when I got here.”

I pointed to the blue kickboard on the floor in front of the lane and say, “This is my kickboard. I put it here a minute ago and went to change.”

She looks at the kickboard and up at me and says, “You’re supposed to put something else on the kickboard. How do I know that it’s really saved and not just abandoned by the previous swimmer?”

I look at her, dumbfounded, feeling my anger and irritation rising. This stupid, selfish woman is ruining my swim and my swimming time is elapsing as I stand here and discuss her mistake with her. I am also laughing at myself, inside, and pitying her. But, I am mostly fuming. “I don’t have anything else to put there. Just me.”

“You could have have put your goggles down,” she says.

“Look,” I say. “You made a mistake. Please just find another lane.”

“You could find another lane,” she points out.

“I could,” I say, “but this is the lane I saved and you didn’t. So, please move.” Now, I feel as if we’re in grade school arguing over who got here first. I feel ridiculous, but this is the lane I like, remember? I really prefer it.

“Oh, fine,” she says, irritably. She moves to an adjacent lane and swims off in a huff (I didn’t know that was possible, but she did it).

I get in the pool, hang in front of the jet which is now “mine” and feel horrible. Terrible. Anxious, embarrassed, selfish, tight, ridiculous. What kind of a Buddhist am I? A shitty one, obviously. Completely self-absorbed. Small-minded. A failure. Am I happy now, in my favorite lane? Of course not. I feel bad.

I want to apologize. I want to give it back to her. Even that seems silly. I just swim, meditating on humanness and foibles, mine especially, as I swim.

Eventually, I get into the rhythm of it and calm down. I look over and notice she’s gone already. She probably only swims 20 minutes to my 45 and I could have just waited.

Feeling even more ridiculous and small, I continue my swim. I attempt to offer myself compassion, tenderness, amusement. My attempts are mostly failures.

Few choose the Tibetan #Buddhist or other culture’s #Vajrayana path, even though it makes it possible for practitioners to attain long-lasting, many lifetimes’ happiness in one lifetime. Why? Because we practitioners become unflinching observers of our own minds and behaviors. We commit to, we must continue facing ourselves every day, all day (and all night), in every situation, not just while “formally” meditating. It’s frightening, or at least humbling, to notice day after day what I have not achieved after meditating on this path since 1996. Sheesh.

I have a long way to go in my practice. Good to know. I plan to keep going. And, keep swimming.

#Meditation: it’s not for wimps.

Author interview with Sally Ember, Ed.D. on Houston Writers’ Guild website

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Thanks, Houston Writers’ Guild for posting my Author’s Interview last week. Sorry I didn’t know until this week!

http://houstonwritersguild.org/category/indie-authors/

Appreciating Lia London’s: “12 Things You Should Know about Indie Authors…”

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I was NOT going to go the indie route. I was an indie snob, myself, having grown up around “Vanity” presses and other such unprofessional ways that previous self-published writers had become authors. Their books were objects of scorn, their accumulated unsold volumes gathering dust in their garages, basements and storage areas, testimonials to their misplaced pride, I thought.

Then, the internet and ebooks led to this revolution in publishing. In the last several years, according to many reports, ebook sales have gone through the roof and indie publishing has more than quintupled x 100. Really.

This explosion, which has made available SO MANY books written, edited/proofread (or not), and distributed outside of or alongside of (often, while using) the traditional publishing houses’ and online stores’ routes, means several things:

1) My sci-fi concept, The Spanners Series, which languished in my computer and as various printed-outs in boxes of drafts that never made it past the query stage, is now getting PUBLISHED (well, ebook, This Changes Everything, Volume I is, and I plan to publish the other 9 Volumes as well, via Smashwords.com: thanks, Mark Coker!) mostly due to my own hard work rather than waiting for luck.

2) There is a lot of variety in what is being distributed. Quality is hard to detect. You CANNOT judge the book by the cover, since many indie authors are on tight budgets and covers are expensive. Also, authors purchase or accept only “good” reviews. Paid armies of PR people or an author’s family and friends game the rankings’ and stack the reviews’ “ballot boxes.” PR hacks generally mess with readers. Authors can buy Twitter followers. Marketers blow many other false trumpets to herald a book that is actually HORRIBLE (or might be wonderful). How can any reader separate the wheat from the chaff?

3) Many millions of ebooks are now available. MOST are made free or ridiculously low-cost (under $5) for some or all of their “sales” periods. The sheer quantity and bewildering array flooding the market with cheap and free books make it even harder for any one book or author to get noticed, even those of high quality.

4) Getting our books noticed is made both more and less difficult by the fact that the author has to do all the marketing. I can tell you: it’s exhausting. And, doing all the marketing means it’s hard to carve out time to write, which is ironic, at best and extremely frustrating, at worst. Yes, we are motivated. Yes, we know our book best. Yes, we are committed to its success. However, most of us DO have (or, in my case, SHOULD soon have) other paying jobs and other books or stories to write!

Please read this great article (link, below) by Lia London about the trials and tribulations of and reasons to admire indie authors like me.

THEN: Help out us indie authors! Read reviews, read excerpts, shop around, engage with us. Finally, BUY OUR BOOKS! We need readers to rank us, write comments, recommend and refer to our books. We need readers, reviewers and bloggers! Thanks!

http://lialondon.net/about-indie-authors

The Human Realm: Agony and Ecstasy in my Buddhist Retreat, Realm 3

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I honor my root and heart teacher, Lama Padma Drimed Norbu, and thank him during this week of the anniversary of his current human birth most especially for being my precious teacher. May he live a long, healthy, beneficial life filled with ultimate happiness and joy and may all beings benefit.

Glad to leave the weeks devoted to the “Jealous” or “Demi-” gods’ Realm. Too much warring and fighting going on in my dreams those nights! On to the Human Realm.

I would imagine that most of us believe meditation and contemplation about beings in the Human Realm would be the easiest because we are human. Perhaps that’s true for some practitioners, but most of us are trapped in the singularity of our own perspective, only knowing our individual experiences intimately and lacking motivation or empathy to uncover others’ lives.

We also take our privileges and good fortune for granted. This is a chance to be more alert to what it means to be human. A great teacher who recently (July, 2013) passed out of this incarnation, Lama Tarchin Rinpoche, gave a teaching I am quoting, here, and link to at the bottom of this post. Please read, contemplate, meditate, share. Valuable reminders.

“…[Y]ou should be very happy with yourselves. Why? Because you have attained that which is very difficult to get in this world: that is to say, a precious human life. And in this human life you have met with that which is difficult to meet: the tantric teachings. You have met with qualified spiritual masters…

“[A]nd you have the opportunity to practice. These are signs of incredible merit on your part. So you should feel overjoyed at yourselves. You are the vessel for these teachings. You have the opportunity to practice….

“For us to have this kind of good fortune and not make a serious effort to practice would be a big loss. You know we have this precious human life. Human life is more precious than devas or gods.

“People think the deva or god realm is better than the human realm, but actually that’s not so. In terms of temporary experiences of pleasure, happiness and joy, yes, devas have all that. But to reach the final, long-term happiness and joy of complete enlightenment, human life is more powerful even than the gods’.

“Why is this? It’s because of our motivation. We develop the motivation to benefit all sentient beings equally under this blue sky. How many sentient beings are there? Wherever sky pervades, there are sentient beings. Wherever there are sentient beings, there’s karma. Wherever there’s karma, there’s suffering. That’s samsara. We think that we want to empty this samsara and liberate all sentient beings from their suffering. We develop that kind of vast motivation.

“Plus we have the skillful wisdom aspect of Vajrayana, these teachings. And the most powerful is the human body because while normally beings have five elements; humans have one extra called the element of the wisdom of exaltation.

“Though devas do temporarily have some kind of joyful, light body that’s not solid, still that body is based on karma. When this karma is exhausted, they can be reborn in other realms within samsara because they’re not enlightened.

“The human body is the most powerful thing we have for practice. It’s our good fortune to have this precious human life. And according to our positive circumstances, you can see what kind of teacher and teachings we have. We’re unbelievably rich. Then, when we take that essence of our precious human life, it’s most powerful.

“But without recognition, we lose that essence. Of course, we have to have faith. Generally speaking, on an external level, you have to have faith in the Triple Gems [Buddha, Dharma, Sangha].

“And from the point of view of tantra, you first must have faith in your own enlightened nature, your Buddha nature. When you have that faith, then naturally you will have manifestation of Triple Gems, of inconceivable Buddha phenomena, externally manifesting unobstructedly. When these two, your faith and Buddha’s manifestation, come together, it’s very powerful.

“When you’re doing practice, then even though your life is one day longer, it’s most meaningful.”

So, I say (Sally, again, here): If we don’t practice when we know how, when we are capable, we will be horribly regretful when we die. The physical and emotional but temporary agony of practicing, of retreat, of all the thoughts, emotions, distractions and dismay that arise, do not compare to that kind of regret.

So, PRACTICE! Please.

http://www.vajrayana.org/retreats/lama-tharchin-rinpoche-s-talk-on-drupchen/

Author Interview, Sally Ember via Andrea Barbosa

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Another great opportunity, this time on Andrea Barbosa’s website, for an Author Interview! Check it out and share! Thanks, Andrea!

http://magictrendsreview.blogspot.com/2013/11/books-interview-with-author-sally-ember.html

Lynda Dietz Review of “This Changes Everything” 4 & 5 Stars

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Review of This Changes Everything by Sally Ember, Ed. D.
11/4/13
Easy Reader, Lynda Dietz

I was recently given a pre-pub e-copy of This Changes Everything , Volume 1 of The Spanners Series, in exchange for an honest review.

What if the world as we know it isn’t exactly as we’d always believed? What if we’re not the only sentient beings in the universe? What if the universe were not “only” a universe, but a “multi-verse” where many timelines occurred simultaneously?

The book’s title really says it all: this changes everything. Clara Branon is visited by the holograms of alien beings one night in her home, and her life from that point on is forever changed. She’s chosen as Chief Communicator, the contact person between the Many Worlds Collective and the Earthers, as they’re known by other species; it becomes her job to tell the rest of the world about the MWC and to help them accept it in order to transform our world into a better place for future generations.

I like the way opportunities for “re-sets” are available—how many of us would go back and change certain events if we could?—but are also shown as not always being the best option. Our life experiences shape us into who we are, after all, and if one or more of those is altered, we may not get what we want in the way we think we want it. I also appreciate the nods to authors like Douglas Adams, with the language-interpreting “fish” reminiscent of the Babel fish in his Hitchhiker’s Guide books.

Because Clara is writing/telling of the events occurring in multiple timelines, all the narrative is in the present tense, even for past or future events, which, as an editor, drove me crazy at first. Eventually, I got used to it, but it was occasionally a distraction…after all, past events require past tense verbs, unless the past is happening during the present or the future, in which case…oh, forget it. You’ll get used to it too, after a few pages.

Since the book is essentially a documentation of the initial visitation and transition time, there’s a lot of narrative with little dialogue, which slows down the pace in many spots. I’m a dialogue person, so the long stretches of complex details in the form of transcripts were a lot to absorb and at times felt like too much for one book. (Note: after contacting the author about this, I was informed that the manuscript had been revised and more dialogue had been added to the version that will be published in December.)

At times felt like it had a definite political slant, with a lot of liberal push, demonizing those who are staunch in their religious or moral beliefs as inflexible and unenlightened, classifying the wealthy as greedy, etc. I have to admit, I didn’t really care for that aspect of it, but that reflects my own personal beliefs and has nothing to do with the quality of the book itself. The novel also has a lot of Buddhist practices and teachings in it, including reincarnation (or ReInvolvement, as the MWC refers to it). I feel the need to mention these things because they’re so present within the book, and many readers prefer to be made aware of any controversial topics or religious leanings prior to reading.

There were parts that really tickled me, such as the explanation of crop circles: teenage alien graffiti, not much different than Earth teens taking a joyride and spray-painting the sides of bridges or boxcars, then racing back home before the authorities catch them. A recounting of an exchange between Clara and her son, Zephyr, over speakerphone had me giggling out loud, because it reminded me so much of phone conversations with my own mother.

The writing is complex and done extremely well. I didn’t see an editor listed, and I’m happy to say that Ms. Ember is excellent at self-editing. Grammar, punctuation, and spelling were non-issues, which was very refreshing in an indie book. There were times when I almost forgot I was reading a work of fiction and not a news account of real events, and I would consider that to be skilled writing indeed.

Because different book sites have different meanings to their ratings, I think of the star system as looking at a scale: did I enjoy more of it than not? Yes. Four stars. Did I like the overall content? Most of the time. Three stars. Was the writing of good quality? Oh, definitely yes. Five stars.

My overall rating: four of five stars.

http://ilovetoreadyourbooks.blogspot.com

“This Changes Everything” gets 5 Stars from Janice G. Ross

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Thanks, Janice, for a thoughtful, enthusiastic, complimentary review of This Changes Everything, Volume I of The Spanners Series!

Some quotes, here, and the a link to the entire review:
“What Ember has created is a fascinating concept that addresses the what ifs of the world that we know. Not only has Ember written an exceptionally detailed Science Fiction novel that incorporates all the proper elements, she’s brought it to life in a remarkable manner. This Changes Everything does not follow a standard outline for a novel, as it chronicles the experiences of Clara Branon. The writing is very complex, causing readers to pay close attention; however, it is very intriguing.”

and, “I would surely recommend This Changes Everything to anyone that enjoys a a well-written and researched Sci-Fi series. I will point out that it pushes the envelope, and toys with one’s perception. Well done!

“As I consider the rating, I am torn between 4 and 5. I’ve considered five stars because of the quality of research and overall planning that has evidently been put into this work, also the fact that it is well-written. Four stars because of its complexity.

Then, Janice reconsidered and sent me an email changing the ranting to 5 stars, explaining:

“I decided to change the rating to 5 stars. The review is still
the same…. I welcomed the complexity, but was not sure that everyone could appreciate that fact….Your work has allowed me to raise the bar and increase expectations for future reviews. And that is a big compliment!… your work is exceptional.”

★★★★★

http://jgrwriter.wordpress.com/2013/11/11/review-this-changes-everything-by-sally-ember-3/

COVER REVEAL!

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COVER REVEAL!

Ebook

This Changes Everything, Volume I, The Spanners Series. Cover art by Willowraven. http://willowraven.weebly.com/

Thank you, Willowraven!

The five #alien delegates from the Many Worlds Collective (MWC) come in hologram form to the selected liaison for Earth, Clara Branon, 58, for the first time on December 21, 2012, after several millennia of mostly secret visits and contact with Earthers. Members of the MWC InterGalactic Council decide that a liaison, dubbed the Chief Communicator (CC) must be contacted and that this contact must be made public in order to avert multiple types of disasters on Earth.

As a “Spanner,” Branon is one of millions of “Baby Boomers” who survive across two centuries and bridge the divide (hence, “Spanners”) between nonpublic and public contact with the MWC and many other major changes that occur during these decades.

Because most Earthers are not prepared to accept this type of reporting or storytelling as nonfiction, this first and some other volumes of the series are of the realistic fiction/science fiction/fantasy/ romance genres. Many of the characters, events and locations are actual; some are not, or haven’t happened (yet) at the time of first publication.

In This Changes Everything are: a love story, spanning about 40 years; dialogue and scenes of the relationships among the CC and her mother and siblings; communications between the CC and her adult son; dialogue between the CC and some friends; info about the selection and identity of the chosen media contact for the CC, with excerpts from her journal; news stories about the CC and the MWC events from Earth media as well as MWC media; background about the CC and the reasons for her being selected; excepts from minutes of meetings of the InterGalactic Council of the MWC; and much more.

After the MWC educational resources and information become widely available, in 2013, all time is now known to be simultaneous. Writing from any point in time and timeline means that the love story and other aspects are depicted in multiple versions. Will Clara and her Future or Fictional Husband, Epifanio Dang, be together? Which “Re-set” of the Transition After Public Contact prevails?

Tone is humorous/serious; mode is #utopian. Narrative and themes include #aliens, history, poetry, literature, music/lyrics, science and technological advances, #psi phenomena/ #paranormal skills, law and government, #Buddhism and other religions, #meditation, social-emotional intelligence, multiverse/multiple timelines and space travel, interspecies communication, and social/futuristic depictions of the Earth, post-MWC public contact.

This Changes Everything is the first of The Spanners Series, which chronicles the public contact between the CC and the MWC and the impact of these contacts on Earthers and the MWC over the almost 30 years that Branon is the CC. Chapters are written from several perspectives. Some Volumes in series are purported to be nonfiction or have nonfiction sections, as this one is.

Sci-Fi/Romance/Speculative Fiction, Adult/ New Adult/YA novels are in the 10-volume series.

Published by Smashwords. Pre-orders via Smashwords https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/376197 and also on iBooks, Kobo, and nook, 11/9 – 12/19/13 @ 50% off, $1.99. Release/sales via Amazon Kindle and other ebook retailers 12/20/13 @ $3.99. Buy links posted on this blog starting 11/12/13.

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/376197

Jackson Peterson writes about Realization and Liberation

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Jackson Peterson, teacher of Non-dual Traditions: #Dzogchen, #Advaita, #Zen and #Mahamudra at #Meditation Teacher and Life Coaching, posted on Facebook today something so inspirational I have to share it before I devote some of my day to its contemplation. Find him at: http://www.wayoflight.net/‎

“The Five Principles of Realization and Liberation”

“The first principle is becoming aware of our thoughts and the nature of thought.
“By taking the position of just being an observer of the thoughts and images that come and go, we discover all thoughts are the same: they are temporary appearances that come and go like clouds in the sky. Give no importance to one thought over another.
“If we pay no attention to any thought but remain in the ‘observer’ role, it seems the space of awareness becomes more open and thoughts less demanding of attention. We discover all thoughts are without substance and importance. We could say our thoughts are ’empty,’ like clouds: appearances without any core or entity.

“The second principle is recognizing our stories and emotional dramas are structured only from thought, our ’empty’ thoughts.
“In continuing to observe our thoughts, we should notice how they tend to link together in chains of meaning and particular significance. It is this linking together of thoughts that creates our stories, beliefs and emotional dramas in a convincing and powerful way. As a result, we may spend most of our time going from one mini-daydream to another. It is this trance-like state of mind that we need to break up again and again, as often as possible.
“We do that by shifting our attention from thought to the presence of the five senses in immediate now-ness. Just notice your physical environment and the direct sensory experience, free of analysis. Practice this shifting away from mental engagement in thought to noticing your physical environs as often as possible. Hopefully the trance-like habit of living in your thoughts constantly will be broken.
“In this way, we can free ourselves from anxiety and emotional suffering as both are caused by the mind’s stories that are rarely challenged. It is possible to discover that our stories and emotional dramas are as empty as last night’s dreams. In fact, our daydreams and stories are no more real than our dreams at night. We discover our stories are also just as empty as the clouds that group together in the sky in various formations that disperse and disappear in the next moment, leaving no trace.

“The third principle is recognizing that one’s sense of self is also only an empty story made of thought. [Self is] a mental construction without an actual identity as an entity that exists independently and with self-determinism.
“Studies have determined that our coherent sense of personal identity doesn’t appear until about the ages between 18 and 24 months. That means, previous to that time, there was no personal ‘me’ story or self-image. That also means the newly appearing sense of ‘me’ is totally the result of thought-stories that the mind constructs about identity. There is no personal self present other than this make-believe ‘me’ story.
“Even science makes clear there is just one unified field of energy as the universe without separate parts. The entire field is interdependent without any breaks or splits in the unity. The sense of being an independent entity. like a ‘personal self,’ is just an illusion and has never existed in fact.
“By observing the ‘me’-thoughts that arise from moment to moment, we can notice the ‘personal me’ is nothing more than a chain of linked thoughts about identity that are supported by memories and imagination. Seeing this directly and clearly, not just intellectually, the emptiness of personal identity becomes obvious to the mind. [A]t [this] point, the illusion ceases. But that cessation will only occur according to the degree of the depth of this self-inquiry.
“If it doesn’t occur, the understanding is too shallow and not convincing enough to the deeper levels of mind grounded in conditioning and habitual ‘selfing.’ In such a case, one should revisit the first and second principles again and establish a deeper state of observation regarding the experience of the ‘me’-thoughts arising and dissolving until it becomes clear that no personal self exists outside of the mind’s belief otherwise.
“When recognition arises, it becomes clear [to the meditator] that the notion of there being a personal self is as empty as a single huge cloud that dominates the sky yet disappears in the next moment without a trace.

“The fourth principle is recognizing what exactly is the nature of that which is observing and experiencing the empty nature of thoughts, stories and personal selfhood.
“What is doing the ‘recognizing’? What is this impersonal aware consciousness that perceives and knows? In these recognitions, there seems to be an ever-increasing evolution or revelation of wisdom. As a result, one’s cognitive space seems expansive, open and vividly transparent without a center.
“What exactly is this state of impersonal consciousness? It clearly has a sense of being aware, empty and knowing. Can we be aware of being aware? Is this aware consciousness present in all experience, inseparably so?
“Let’s look directly at this impersonal, aware knowingness: In a well-lighted room, close your eyes. Notice at your eyelids that the light of the room shining on your eyelids creates an inner glow upon your closed, translucent eyelids. You will see an orangey-red color at your eyelids. What is it that is observing this color?
“It will seem as though your aware consciousness occupies a place a few inches behind the eyes and its attention is directed at the eyelids in front. Notice your aware presence as being the place from where you are looking forward at the orangey color. Are you ‘aware’ of the color?
“Now be aware of your awareness just as it is. Does this awareness have any color, shape, substance or dimension of its own? Or is it simply an empty presence of aware knowing?
“Review these last two questions again and again until it becomes clear that ‘you’ are actually this empty, clear and aware knowing. When this is seen clearly, instead of recognizing the emptiness of thoughts and self as the empty nature of the clouds that appear in the sky, the empty nature of the sky itself is recognized: the empty cognitive space in which all appearances appear and disappear.

“The fifth principle is recognizing the inseparable relationship between one’s empty, aware ‘seeing’ and the five senses.
“One can’t find awareness separate from one’s sensory perceptions. There isn’t first a sensory perception and then an awareness of it. The five senses are this ‘knowing awareness’ seeming to be split up into five separate sensory components.
“These sensory capacities are not limited to the physical five senses. ‘Knowing awareness’ can perceive independently of the five physical senses with no limitations regarding time and space.
“Merging our attention fully with the five senses instead of with the mental phenomena of thoughts, stories and beliefs in personal identity, reveals a state of total ‘nowness’ beyond thought and mind. A limitless vista of knowing transparency and Clear Light reveals itself to be our true nature, beyond any descriptions or assumptions of mind. In merging our attention totally with the five senses, the luminous nature of appearances reveals the empty vividness of our Aware and Knowing Space.

“If one incorporates and integrates these five principles into one’s daily practice, in my opinion, no other methods or practices should be considered necessary.”

I appreciate Jackson Peterson’s clarity and analysis enormously. I do take exception to his final paragraph, however: only someone who already had spent many years with at least one if not more other practices could attain this clarity and be able to meditate successfully with these 5 principles. Therefore, it is specious and disingenuous, in my opinion, to recommend to people who may be beginners or who are probably less experienced than he that doing these meditations is all they would ever need. Not so.

Skye Callahan’s Fractured Legacy Release Tour

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fracturedlegacySkye Callahan's Fractured Legacy Release Tour

Check it out!

Book Details:

Fractured Legacy by Skye Callahan
(Darkness Bound #1)
Publication date: October 22nd, 2013
Genres: New Adult, Paranormal, Urban Fantasy

Goodreads

Synopsis:

Kaylyn Anderson’s fascination with abandoned places and dark creatures kindled her work as a paranormal investigator. But when dreams begin to distort reality, she questions what is real and pulls away from everyone she trusts. The opportunity to investigate the Teague Hotel–a long-abandoned landmark that has always piqued her curiosity–provides a chance to redeem herself. Unraveling the hotel’s secrets won’t be easy, but Kaylyn soon finds herself the target of a dark entity that has been trapped in the building for decades.

If Kaylyn stands any hope of defeating the spirit, she’ll have to accept that her fears are real and convince fellow investigators that she hasn’t lost her mind.

Check out the full schedule of tour participants.

Available on Amazon

About the Author: Skye Callahan

Skye Callahan was born and raised in Ohio and has seen enough unbelievable stuff to feed a lifetime of paranormal stories. When not writing or working at the day job, she hangs out with her ethnomusicologist husband and pet ferrets, reads, and takes long walks through the cemetery.

Authors and Google+

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Great for newbies to Google + and even some “old-timers,” if you’re trying to increase your use of its components. Thanks, Kobo!

Kobo Writing Life

By Evo Terra

Google has built an interesting and useful platform that’s designed to be approachable. Many elements baked into Google+ make it the ideal social property for an author. But like anything, it takes a little learning to understand all the moving pieces. Even those familiar with other social properties or the inner workings of Google+ can get a little tripped up with some of these terms.

Google+ is a social network based on shared interests and people you want to know rather than friends and people you already know. If you’re familiar with other social networking sites, many of the bells and whistles will be familiar to you. Some terms have the same or similar meaning on Google+ as they do anywhere else, but there are often subtle nuances you should be aware of.

Profile (for people): This is you and the things you’ve chosen to display to…

View original post 1,157 more words

Great Writing Tips from Roger Colby via Jonathan Gunderson

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Great stuff, here. Not sure what I’ll do about the ISBN thing, but if my ebooks sell enough, I would want a print version, also, and CreateSpace is getting good comments by users, so far. We’ll see!

A #job I already have: wish it PAID!

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A #job I already have: wish it PAID!

Please click on the link, above (the title is “live”), and read the entire post, which explains each requirement and you’ll know that I and many people I know and am related to qualify in all the following areas!

Excerpts from the post:
We are seeking unlimited clandestine bodhisattvas for immediate employment in the universe.

We don’t know how many we have already hired, since they’ve gone undercover, but we know we have space for more. Our mission is simple: Support all beings to be connected and free from fear. Our method is simple:

Enlighten yourself.

Here are a few requirements for the job. [Applicants/Workers must be/know/have the attitude of]:
Allow-er
Everpresent
Divining Bod
Galactivated
Wounded healer
Epiphantic
Mathemagician
Loco-motive
Humilitarian

Application requirements:

1) Decide, from this moment on, that every moment is holy.

2) Clarify your ultimate purpose: to enlighten yourself in support of all beings.

3) Connect to the world around you. Find peace in yourself, and radiate it outwards.

Compete, much? “Jealous Gods Realm” section of my #Buddhist #Retreat

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Out of the “God Realm” into the “Jealous Gods Realm” for this next portion of my at-home #Tibetan #Vajrayana #Nyingma #Dzogchen #Buddhist #meditation/#contemplation #retreat. Week 3 of about 20 weeks.

The basic practice during these “Realms” weeks is to contemplate enough to “get inside the experience” of each of the Realm’s beings as if I am one, to recognize and inspire compassion in me for their suffering. Then, when I meditate on these experiences, I pray to alleviate their suffering, to purify their and my karma for rebirth in that realm.

I went to online teachings for inspiration so that I can share excerpts here. Check this out for a great explanation of the trials and tribulations of being a Jealous God, from a teaching by Jetsunma Ahkon Lhamo (link below):

“[Jealous Gods are filled with]…competitiveness, egocentricity, and jealousy….[J]ealous gods do nothing all day long but … compete with one another….[T]hey are constantly waging war with one another….

“There is actually a terrible and immense suffering that comes with the jealous god realm. Even though you know you are powerful, you are powerful in an odd way… like the person who has built a fortress, an impenetrable fortress, and nothing can come in….[B]ut everybody knows you really can’t build an impenetrable fortress… [b]ecause death can come in, sickness can come in….Their kind of suffering is like that.

“…[They know] that the other gods are just as powerful and can come in…so they are jealously guarding their safety….[which] only increases the jealous god’s need to go out and attack the other guy, compete with the other guy, and get on top of the other guy. Their experience is warlike…. You win, you lose, you win, you lose….That is the experience of the jealous gods. They love to dominate others. That’s their habit.

“In the realm of the jealous gods, they are so concerned with their own safety and jealously guarding their safety, as well as competing with others for that safety, that they have not one moment with which to practice #Dharma. Dharma would be to them the same as if you were to, say, talk to a warrior type that was schooled only in being a warrior.

“Okay, back to Star Trek, whaddya say? Let’s say you talk to a Klingon, like Warf, and you say to Warf, ‘Yo, Warfy-baby, here’s what we need to do. Instead of you being a warrior with all your stuff on’ (you know, he wears all this stuff and looks pretty powerful) ‘why don’t you sit down and meditate gently, like a little girl? Why don’t you sit down and meditate very quietly, and in that way you can be very strong.’ What would Warf say about that? Warf would say, ‘Pleeease!’ Warf wouldn’t have time to hear about this.

“Neither would any warrior who was trained to think of being strong and protecting one’s turf, and only thought like that. Neither could a person like that ever think that meditation or Dharma practice or anything like that is strength… so they will push that away, not having time for it…. They simply don’t have the instinct and they will not practice Dharma. They just will not practice Dharma. They’re too busy.”

Since I’ve already established that this practice inspires intense identification with the beings of the realm being contemplated, I plan to invoke silence as much as possible when interacting with others to avoid getting into fights!

Wish me luck! No, CHEER ME ON! I WANT TO WIN! LIBERATION FOR ALL!

http://www.tibetanbuddhistaltar.org/the-realm-of-the-jealous-gods/

#Tibetan #Buddhism: “God Realm” characterized/plagued by lethargic pleasure.

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My teacher, the amazing Lama Padma Drimed Norbu, gave me this caution just before our interview/his teaching ended last month: “You may experience some of the same things each realm experiences as you #contemplate and #meditate intensively on each realm.” I blithely nodded, thanked him, went on my merry way.

Why is the teacher always right? Are we so predictable? Are these practices so powerful, so thoroughly reliable that they affect everyone pretty much the same way? Guess so, if I’m any example.

Started my home #retreat, as some of you know, two weeks ago. My first topic, as you may also know, for #contemplation and #meditation, is the “God Realm.” Went OK for the first few days. Then, I began to feel, oh, I don’t know, LETHARGIC. That is not my normal state.

I have been increasingly focused on the wonderfulness of my life. Food: I’ve gained 5# in these 2 weeks, despite walking over an hour and swimming 45 minutes almost every day, usually BOTH, which is the wrong direction for me to be going! Sleep: I LOVE my bed, my pillow, my blankets, snuggling into it (yawn yawn yawn). Sex: not having any, but very intensely wish I were. Weather: sunny, rainy, overcast, windy all make me so happy! Into music, movies, TV shows, internet games, so many ways to have pleasure and lose track of time.

I’m realizing these last few days that I’m veering into overly indulgent, almost successfully talking myself out of “working too hard,” “meditating so much,” “getting up so early” daily. My counts (I have to attain 100,000 repetitions of the mantra before I move on to the next Realm) have been slower and lower each day.

I am usually ferociously self-disciplined; some have termed my commitment and maintenance of my practice, my work, whatever I choose to do, scary. What is going on?

Ahhhh. Ohhhh. God Realm karma manifests as indulgence, lethargy, pleasure-seeking, “I’ll deal with everything tomorrow” attitudes.

Damn Damn Damn. CAUGHT. Hoisted on my own petard. So obvious. Why did it take me over a week to figure it out???

Lethargic mentally as well?

THIS ENDS NOW. Still have 30K to go, but I’m getting those mantras and meditations done this weekend. NO EXCUSES. Got to move into the next realm ASAP.

Wish me luck. No, wish me ENERGY and COMMITMENT. I have too much LUCK!

BTW: next realm involves being suffused with jealousy, dissatisfaction, arrogance and insufferable selfishness, overlaid with incredible power and status. Guess who’s going to be the life of every party for a week or more?

#Free #ebook if you have class or Book Club and want to co-develop a #curriculum using Volume I, “This Changes Everything,” “The Spanners Series” (or any future Vol.)

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Volume I, This Changes Everything, The Spanners Series
could be free to participants in your class or Book Club!

Are you a teacher or curriculum developer? I have worked in those fields a lot! Do you belong to or moderate a Book Club?

Let’s co-develop discussion questions, activities and projects for your classes/group to inspire your students/participants to read parts or or all of my ebooks, starting with Volume I, This Changes Everything, The Spanners Series.

Middle/high school and college teachers of English or science fiction literature, world history, ancient art and artifacts, physics, astronomy, social science, communication, art, psychology, sociology and writing could use this Volume and the others in the Series as jumping-off points for great projects, further research and discussions. Volume II, This Changes My Family and My Life Forever, is due out in spring, 2014.

Appendix D in each Volume provides the actual individuals, by category, that are referred to in the Series. In several chapters, there are also specific political, artistic, geographic and historical references and descriptions related to the themes and topics in the Series.

The novels are in the science/speculative fiction/romance genres for a mixed audience of adults, new adults, and young adults. The Series’ themes, characters and plot points incorporate Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, physics, astronomy, multiverse/multiple timelines, social speculation, sexual orientation and gender identity, psi/paranormal skills, aliens/life on other planets and orbs, politics and government, Nazca lines, pyramids Roswell and Area 51, and much more. (Synopsis and Table of Contents for TCE at the end of this post.)

Volumes II – X coming in 2014 and soon after. Alternating (even-numbered) Volumes utilize narrators and points of view from young adults, teens and children.

I will provide Volume I or any of the Series’ ebooks free to students using my ebook in a class and to Book Club members as long as one copy is purchased (usually by the leader/teacher).

Also, I live in northern California and am willing to travel if you’d like the “author visit” or “author reading” or “author Q & A” session for your group. Since I used to teach middle and high school as well as college and graduate school and have been a reader since I was 3 years old, I would be delighted to speak with students and readers anywhere, any time, about my books, about writing, and about the themes in The Spanners Series.

Pre-order at half-price or purchase after 12/20 (see below). Then, if you are interested, email me to discuss! sallyember@yahoo.com

Pre-orders at $1.99 11/5-12/19 on iBooks, B & N nook and Kobo via Smashwords; release date via Smashwords and on Kindle and other sites starting 12/20/13, @ $3.99.

Contact me here any time after December 20, 2013, to download the free ebooks (I will give you a code).

Meanwhile, review this TOC, below, and check out excepts via this website or on The Spanners Series by Sally Ember Facebook page (which has more!), and let me know what you think of using this book for your Club or class.

This Changes Everything, Volume I, The Spanners Series
Synopsis
After several millennia of mostly secret visits and contact with Earthers, members of the Many Worlds Collective (MWC) Council decide that a Liaison, dubbed the Chief Communicator (CC) must be contacted and that this contact must be made public in order to avert multiple types of disasters on Earth. The visiting members of the MWC come in hologram form to the selected CC (Clara Branon, 58, living in northern California) for the first time on December 21, 2012.

As a “Spanner,” Branon is one of millions of “Baby Boomers” who survive across two centuries and bridge the divide (hence, “Spanners”) between nonpublic and public contact with the MWC and many other major changes that occur during these decades.

Because most Earthers are not prepared to accept this type of reporting or storytelling as nonfiction, this first and some other volumes of the series are of the realistic fiction/science fiction/fantasy genres. Many of the characters, events and locations are actual; some are not, or haven’t happened (yet) at the time of first publication.

In This Changes Everything are: a love story, spanning about 40 years; dialogue and scenes of the relationships among the CC and her mother and siblings; communications between the CC and her adult son; dialogue between the CC and some friends; info about the selection and identity of the chosen media contact for the CC, with excerpts from her journal; news stories about the CC and the MWC events from Earth media as well as MWC media; background about the CC and the reasons for her being selected; excepts from minutes of meetings of the InterGalactic Council of the MWC; and much more.

After the MWC educational resources and information become widely available, in 2013, all time is now known to be simultaneous. Writing from any point in time and timeline is means that the love story and other aspects are depicted in multiple versions. Will Branon and her Future or Fictional Husband be together? Which “re-set” of the Transition After Public Contact prevails?

Tone is humorous/serious; mode is utopian. Narrative includes history, poetry, literature, music/lyrics, science and technological advances, paranormal skills, law and government, Buddhism and other religions, meditation, social-emotional intelligence, time and space travel, interspecies communication, and social/futuristic depictions of the Earth, post-MWC public contact.

This Changes Everything is the first of The Spanners Series, which chronicles the public contact between the CC and the MWC and the impact of these contacts on Earthers and the MWC over the 30 years that Branon is the CC. Chapters are written from several perspectives. Some Volumes in series purport to be nonfiction or have nonfiction sections.

Genres and Audience: Sci-Fi/Speculative Fiction/Romance, Adult/ New Adult/YA novel

Table of Contents
CHAPTER ONE First Contact between the Many Worlds Collective
(MWC) and Clara Branon, Ph.D., in northern California, December, 2012
INTERLUDE I Excerpts from the Chief Communicator’s Occasional Log What is Fiction?
CHAPTER TWO Minutes from the Fission Subcommittee, MWC Intergalactic Council Earth Date: August 5, 1945 Page 6 of 9
INTERLUDE II Excerpts from the Chief Communicator’s Occasional Log Clara Freaks Out
CHAPTER THREE “‘They’ Never Leave: the MWC and Earthers; or, Crop Circles, Alien ‘Abductions,’ Whitley Streiber, Roswell/Area 51 and other MWC Blunders” Opening Remarks given by Dr. Clara Ackerman Branon, Ph.D., Chief Communicator and Liaison between Earth and the Many Worlds Collective Global Unity Leaders Council #1, 6/8/15, The Hague, The Netherlands
INTERLUDE III Excerpts from the Chief Communicator’s Occasional Log Who are “The Spanners”?
CHAPTER FOUR Many Worlds Collective Intergalactic Travel Authority Accident Report Earth Location and Date: Roswell, NM, USA, July 8, 1947
INTERLUDE IV Excerpts from the Chief Communicator’s Occasional Log Ackerman Family’s Adventures in Psychokinesis
CHAPTER FIVE The Mayan and Current Calendars; or, Why First Publishable MWC Contact Occurs on December 21, 2012 Vid Interview given by Dr. Clara Ackerman Branon, Ph.D., Chief Communicator and Liaison between Earth and the Many Worlds Collective January 6, 2014, with Media Contact, Esperanza Enlaces, Interviewer
INTERLUDE V Excerpts from the Chief Communicator’s Occasional Log Clara Develops Trust in The Band
CHAPTER SIX Epifanio’s Version Epifanio Dang Tells His Story
CHAPTER SEVEN MWC Collective Artists’ Guild’s Philosophy and Policy on Off-Planet Installations Approximate Earth Locations and Date: Teotihuacan (Mexico) and Sudan (Africa) Pyramids, 250 BCE
INTERLUDE VI Excerpts from the Chief Communicator’s Occasional Log Clara Describes Her Earlier Timulting Experiences
CHAPTER EIGHT Second Public Contact between the MWC and Clara Ackerman Branon, Ph.D., or, This Is Not a Dream
CHAPTER NINE From Esperanza Enlaces’ private journal entries, February 13 – December 23, 2012
INTERLUDE VII Excerpts from the Chief Communicator’s Occasional Log Confessions of a Bad Poet: How I Become a Writer
CHAPTER TEN How Our Contacts Become Public (thanks to my son, Zephyr Branon, and the 2013 world-wide web [www])
INTERLUDE VIII Excerpts from the Chief Communicator’s Occasional Log “Clara: the Outsider Who Becomes the Ultimate Insider” rehearsal for interview with Espe for May 2, 2013
CHAPTER ELEVEN First Internet News Stories, posted simultaneously on The San Francisco Chronicle’s website as well as salon.com, Reuters.com, slate.com
and hundreds of other sites January 5, 2013 and the Changes Publicizing the MWC Contact Bring
CHAPTER TWELVE Individuals from the Many Worlds Collective: Their Names and Their Worlds (as Earthers know them)
INTERLUDE IX A Compilation from Clara Branon’s Personal Journals All the Epifanios
CHAPTER THIRTEEN Do Solar Storms Make Us Do It? Conflict, Wars, Violence and Other Human Flaws Are Not Our Fault?
CHAPTER FOURTEEN Exploding and Imploding Earthers; or, What the Buddha Taught That Made His Followers’ Heads Explode Public Talk give by Dr. Clara Ackerman Branon, Ph.D., Chief Communicator, new Nobel Laureate Nobel Peace Prize Recipients Ceremony, 12/12/16, Oslo, Norway
CHAPTER FIFTEEN Generated by Events of January, 2013 – March, 2013 Contact-Induced Injuries Report made to MWC Intergalactic Council April 27, 2013 Earth Date
CHAPTER SIXTEEN Whom I Saved and How It Happened; or, “I Told You So, Part I” (for my brother, Dr. Thomas Ackerman)
INTERLUDE X Excerpts from the Chief Communicator’s Occasional Log Being Changed “For Good”
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN MWC Lottery Winners Determine First Public Delegation to Earth Story posted on mwcw.lottery.verse December 8, 2012 Earth date
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN How Ongoing Contacts and My Role as Chief Communicator Change(d) Me
CHAPTER NINETEEN IGC MWC Musicians and Artists Festival, first-ever held on Earth Sydney, Australia, August 15-22, 2022 Earth dates
INTERLUDE XI Excerpts from the Chief Communicator’s Occasional Log Even Social Media Have “Previews”
CHAPTER TWENTY Who Survives and How We All Change: Learning about Re-set
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE From Esperanza Enlaces’ private journal entries, April 18 – May 20, 2013
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“Imagine: The Elimination of Nations, Boundaries, Citizenship, Race, Religions, Politics, Hunger, Poverty and War; or, What John Lennon Knows” Public Talk given by Dr. Clara Ackerman Branon, Ph.D., Chief Communicator, Templeton Prize Recipient for 2014 5/12/14, London, England
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE Minutes from the Jesus Subcommittee MWC Planning Committee Meeting Capernaum, Galilee (Israel, Africa), November 13, 32 A.D. Earth Date Page 2
INTERLUDE XII Excerpts from the Chief Communicator’s Occasional Log Explanations, Appendices and Acknowledgements
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR The Love Story Embedded in This Story; or,
“I Told You So, Part II” (that’s for My Future Husband, Epifanio Dang)
INTERLUDE XIII Excerpts from the Chief Communicator’s Occasional Log When Trouble is not Trouble
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE Interspecies/Interplanetary Marriagebond Laws stories posted on mwcw.laws.verse May 30, 2023 and February 10, 2035 Earth Dates
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX Other versions of Clara and Epifanio’s Love Story (either/ors and both/ands)
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN Sono-Pictorial Languages of Cetaceans, Sign Language and Vocalizations of Primates and Other Species’ Communication Modalities on Earth and Afar
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT There’s No Time Like the Present; or, (as Zephyr Branon coined) Timultaneity: Can’t Live With It, Can’t Live Outside It
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE The Media and Clara POPULAR MEDIA
“Lost and Found: How My Time with the Aliens Helped Me Lose 130 lbs. and Find Love” (interview with Clara Ackerman Branon, Ph.D., by Esperanza Enlaces O Magazine [Oprah Winfrey’s periodical], September, 2014 Earth Date)
CHAPTER THIRTY “The Future of Earth and the Many Worlds Collective,” Panel Discussion at the Ceremony for the Retirement of the Chief Communicator Part I San Francisco, California, USA, Link MediaVerse Studios December 22, 2040 Earth Date
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE What Happens When we Die? Clara Learns About Return and ReInvolvement
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO “The Future of Earth and the Many Worlds Collective,” Panel Discussion at the Ceremony for the Retirement of the Chief Communicator Part II San Francisco, California, USA, Link MediaVerse Studios December 22, 2040 Earth Date
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE Clara Explains Human Relationships to The Band: The Romantic Paradox
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR Photos and Captions
INTERLUDE XIV Excerpts from the Chief Communicator’s Occasional Log Clara’s Apology Letter to Epifanio
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE Even the Chief Communicator Disappoints Her Mother
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX “It’s Not Over ‘Till It’s Over”