Robert C. Day's Blog, page 41

All is Water

Some Greek chappy called Thales (c. 624-546 BCE)thought up the idea that all matterhas water (rather than water, earth, wind&fire)as its basic substance. This is kind ofsignificant because it turned thoughts of origins and explanations away from the supernatural. And it was all pretty much downhill from that point on.

Okay, all is not water. There’s some water in pretty much everything, but that doesn’t mean that it is all water. Thales was perhaps a really nice guy, but he probably ate chees...

Unmasked

I used to tell everyone that I was really shy and that this was why I didn’t mix well with people.

Now, instead of this, I think of myself as basically happy and radiant, with my shyness being a superficial layer on top.

This has made it much easier for me to effect change within myself. At the end of the day, taking off a mask is aheck of a lot easier than changing my fundamental nature.

Aqueduct

I’ve decided that water is love. It’s just one of those things I do – I associate a non-material thing (love) with a material thing (water). I can now watch the movements of water as if it is the embodiment of love.

An ocean is an abundance of love.A drippingtap is love escaping and being wasted. A stream is healthy love – flowing from one place to another, the way love should. An aqueduct is amanmade device for carrying love to where it is needed, as is the romantic novel you’re just burnin...

Continual Progess

The belief that humankind is in a continual state of self-improvement.

Can you believe that the first time humankind recorded the notion of continual progress was about 700BCE? How odd! I wonder what they thought before that date – that humankind was regressing? Or perhaps they didn’t think about it all.

I remember as a teenager being very confused about the subject. It seemed to me, from my narrow perspective as an English boy, that people were better off on a material level – they were liv...

My Sense of Humour

Many people comment about My Sense of Humour (MSoH) and so I thought it might be nice if Itried to explain somethingabout it. And this is it: MSoH is not my own – I stole (okay – borrowed)it from The Pythons.

Back in the late 1960s there came upon the world a thing known as Monty Python’s Flying Circus (MPFS).An yea verily, in the fullness of time, this surreal British comedy group known as MPFSdid take MSoH, inject it with growth hormones and release it back into my life, and after that –I...

Walking Away

Cry – Your slap startled tears from my eyes
Raise – Rain fell uponastiffly upturned face
Dream – Something inside me failed,then died
Ground – Green shoots sprang frommy salty pain
Meaning – And as I walked away, it all became clear.

(as part of the Weekly Writing Prompt at https://charlypriest.wordpress.com/2016/06/20/your-sweet-spot-shadorma/)

Ancient Olympic Games

A series of athletic competitions held near Olympia in Greece.

You fancy winning a bit of money with your writing? Then why not try entering a writing competition or two!

Here’s how to win big in the writing game:

Write some stories. Forget thaterudite book about the Lesser Spotted Hairless Grape that you’ve been working on for the last 6 months and get yourself back to writing fiction. You know thatthis iswhat you love doing, so treat yourself – write some dark tales of derring-do, today....

All-powerful God

An all-powerful God is a single being who has total presence, knowledge, benevolence andpower. That means that God is in your head (and in everyone else’s head and intheir pockets, big toe nails and cups of tea, in fact – everywhere and everywhen, all simultaneously), knows about that thought that you just had (and the next one you will have and all the other stuff that did andwill happen –ever), is okay with that thought (and all the other stuff) andhas the power to change any single part of...

Halloween

The veil between life and death is thin at Halloween, and as it splits there comes forth asoul in shrieking haste, with frightful power over the living.

To ward off our fear we carve scary faces into pumpkins and we dress up as ghouls and monsters. We hope to panic that soul back to the realm of those who have lived and lost. But what are we doing by making these plans? At the end of the day, we are resolving to frighten our future self. Oh dear!

Here are a few of the things that you could wr...

I Ching

The way of nature reveals itself through the oscillation between the forces of darkness and light. If you can determine the relationship between the forces of negative and positive at a given time, you can understand how to move forward harmoniously.

If you can’t determine where you are in life, then specialised dice can now be used to determine where your particular balance of dark and light is. I have some doubts myself, but the compelling draw of the chance element involved here does speak...