Birth...Life...Death...

Today marks the end of the Founder's KMSA birthday season...having celebrated Sir Bowie's surprise 50th last month at our newest Sacred Watering Hole...Legends, Sir Dayvd's this past Friday...where unofficially we believe he celebrated with his good Mates in Liverpool...and today with this errant Knight.

Birth...Life...Death...the triune cycle we are pushed into...screaming naked while our buttocks are being slapped by strangers...holds many adventures, disappointments, lessons learned and lessons given.

I've often wondered what it would be like to actually remember the traumatic journey through the birth canal into this strange new world? I have heard of those who claim to do so. I guess it's possible?

On this day, my birthday, I seem to focus more on my mother's life and death, than my own day of birth. Today I turn 53...and I have lived 11 years longer than my mother did. See seemed so old and wise when she was 42 and I just 17. Now I realize how much life she missed and how hard it most of been to give up the ghost at such a young age.

So today, the best birthday present you could give, is to love your mother...if you're lucky enough to still have one. And if not, remember and cherish the woman who carried you inside her for 9 months (hopefully) and launched you towards your destiny!

Sir Hook the Life Cyclist of Warrick

Do Your Work & Step Back

From Zen Habits: The Tao of Productivity

Fill your bowl to the brim.....

and it will spill.

Keep sharpening your knife.....

and it will go blunt.

Chase after money and security.....

and your heart will never unclench.

Care about people's approval.....

and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work, then step back.

The only path to serenity.

Sir Hook Who's Still Practicing of Warrick

When Life Gives You Beer, Make Whoopee

Some of the stranded guests outside the Tan Hill Inn - Guests snowed in for New Year at UK's highest pub

Guests celebrating new year at the highest pub in England had a longer than expected stay, after heavy snow left them stranded for three days. About 30 people arrived at the Tan Hill Inn in North Yorkshire on New Year's Eve to welcome in 2010. But the wintry weather conditions meant the residents were snowed in for a further two nights. Resident DJ Peter Richardson said: "We've kept our spirits up. It's actually been quite heart-warming." The Tan Hill Inn stands 1,700 feet (520m) above sea level in the Yorkshire Dales. Mr Richardson, from Richmond, North Yorkshire, said there had been a strong sense of camaraderie among the guests, who had come from across the UK. "People have been helping peel veg for the dinner and pitching in," he said. "We've also held quizzes." Guest Paul Manson, who lives near Alnwick in Northumberland, said: "Everyone's been chipping in by doing the washing up, peeling potatoes, getting cars out of the snow and keeping the generator going." A manager at the pub said morale had remained high. "It snowed heavily throughout the night on New Year's Eve, but no-one gave it a second thought until the morning when they couldn't move their cars," he said. So There you have it Ladies and Knights. A KMSA Dream for you to dream of tonight....stranded in a Pub and .....Judging by this website below.... I know where I'll be this time next year. http://www.tanhillinn.com/ Sir Dayvd ( anything for an excuse ) of Oxfordshire

Life is a Gift...Live It!

1. Throw out nonessential numbers. This includes age, weight and height.

2. Keep only cheerful friends. The grouches pull you down.

3. Keep learning. Learn more about the computer, crafts, gardening, whatever. Never let the brain idle. 'An idle mind is the devil's workshop.'

4. Enjoy the simple things.

5. Laugh often, long and loud. Laugh until you gasp for breath.

6. The tears happen. Endure, grieve, and move on. The only person, who is with us our entire life, is ourselves. Be ALIVE while you are alive.

7. Surround yourself with what you love , whether it's family, pets, keepsakes, music, plants, hobbies, whatever. Your home is your refuge.

8. Cherish your health: If it is good, preserve it. If it is unstable, improve it. If it is beyond what you can improve, accept it.

9. Don't take guilt trips. Take a trip to the mall, even to the next county; to a foreign country but NOT to where the guilt is.

10. Tell the people you love that you love them, at every opportunity.

AND ALWAYS REMEMBER:
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.

P.S. Pass it On!

Sir Hook the Guru of Warrick

If Not Now...Zen

Good to see Zen and Haiku's make a reappearance on the KMSA blog, so lets not waste space on what I think.... just read on.

If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?

The obstacle is the path.

First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is

No snowflake ever falls in the wrong place.

We shape clay into a pot, but it is the emptiness inside that holds whatever we want.

The quieter you become, the more you are able to hear.

Before enlightenment, I chopped wood and carried water.
After enlightenment, I chopped wood and carried water.

The only Zen you find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you take up there.

Zen opens a man's eyes to the greatest mystery as it is daily and hourly performed; it enlarges the heart to embrace eternity of time and infinity of space in its every palpitation; it makes us live in the world as if walking in the garden of Eden.

In Zen, poverty is voluntary, and considered not really as poverty so much as simplicity, freedom, unclutteredness.

Begin to see what is in front of you, rather than what you learned is there.

Zen ... does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes. Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes.

Zen is not some kind of excitement, but concentration on our usual everyday routine.

Zen is mind-less activity, that is, Mind-ful activity, and it may often be advisable to emphasize the mind, and say, Take care of the thoughts and the actions will take care of themselves.

Not to be bound by rules, but to be creating one's own rules--this is the kind of life which Zen is trying to have us live.

Zen says: be empty. Look without any idea. Look into the nature of things but with no idea, with no prejudice, with no presupposition.

Zen is not a philosophy, it is poetry. It does not propose, it simply persuades. It does not argue, it simply sings its own song.

For Zen, man is the goal; man is the end unto himself. God is not something above humanity, God is something hidden within humanity. Man is carrying God in himself as a potentiality.

Do not seek the truth, only cease to cherish your opinions.

Zen lives in the present. The Whole teaching is: how to be in the present; how to get out of the past which is no more and how not to get involved in the future which is not yet, and just to be rooted, centered, in that which is.

When the pupil is ready to learn, a teacher will appear.

Zen says everything is divine so how can anything be special? All is special. Nothing is non-special so nothing can be special.

The tighter you squeeze, the less you have.

The future of humanity will move closer and closer toward the approach of Zen, because the meeting of the East and West is possible only through something like Zen, which is earthly and yet unearthly.

Sir Dayvd of Zenobia

35 Years Riding the Big Bang

35 years ago yesterday my mother died. I was 17. No matter your age, the loss of your mother is a very traumatic event. The holy womb...love incarnate...source of human life...compassionate anchor...wall of safety...gentle encourager...rabid protector...GONE! Having lost both my mother and my father, it is still the death of my mother that has without a doubt challenged and created the man I am today. It was my Big Bang!

What's your Big Bang in life...an event so traumatic, so powerful, that the energy it releases will either destroy you or free you?

The flash of light and intense energy literally ripped my life apart that September afternoon in 1974. "Behold...all things are new!" Before me was the choice to create a new life using this energy or die a slow death inside...becoming a shell of a man lost in the vast universe...a black hole that sucks all the energy from your soul.

It took time, but I eventually chose life!

I became a Cosmic Surfer...riding the waves of energy released from my Big Bang...always on the edge of creation and destruction...which are like kissing cousins...closely related.

I embraced the chaos of creation and became a creator. Sometimes I emerge slightly burned...sometimes it seems effortless...sometimes you know if you fall off the board your dead...but the experience is always thrilling and rewarding.

I remember the day that I arrived as this new creation from my chaotic past as clearly as the day of my Big Bang. It was Easter in 1979. I wrote a song about the experience tittled, "Spring Day". I am releasing it finally on my new CD later this year. I'll share some of it with you now:

Easter...Spring Day

Stain Glass Colors My Skin

Hand on Tomb

Mother's Cry

The Wind Caresses Me

There's A Power

That Lives Inside Me

If Only I Listen...It Tells Me My Needs

Riding Fast...On Cosmic Waves

Souls Awakened...Spring Day

Old Life Forsaken...For Better Ways

Winter's Broken...Spring Day

Before you always are the choice of life and death...choose wisely!

Sir Hook the Cosmic Surfer of Warrick