Monthly Archives: April 2009

Tap Your Intuition

Some have called it universal intelligence. Others have referred to it as the super conscious mind, a powerful storehouse of all the information in the universe accessible to all who know it’s secret.  A few have called it intuition. Edison used it. Einstein used it. You can use it.

You can not only easily learn now to tap this incredible power, but if you do so on a consistent basis you will develop your skill of intuition to levels unheard of in common men. What happens when you imagine the insight you’ll gain when you learn to listen to what Rumi, the 13th century Sufi Poet referred to as “your friend” when he said:

“Listen to your friend. When you are obedient to that one, you will be free.”

I’ve written a few articles about the power of this source of information on my blog, but I’ve never given such clear steps to access it as I’m about to give. You will be surprised how simple they are. How easy they are to harness to give you answers to life’s most complicated questions. And one of the most strangest things, is the more you practice this simple technique, the stronger your “intuition” muscle will get, so you will notice that you will just “know” things, without really knowing how you know.

The magic in this technique lies in the persistence you will use to get through the critical, logical part of your brain in order to uncover the wisdom within. It may take a while, but once you get there, you’ll know. Here’s how you do it.

Think of a problem that you are having. Its’ good to start of with a minor problem, so it will be easy to do. This way, you’ll not only prove to your deeper self that it really works, but you will begin to get the hang of it rather quickly.

Phrase the problem as specifically as you can. Let’s say you want to lose five pounds. So your problem would be losing five pounds. So you create a question that begins with either “How” or “What.”  The following questions would be a good start for this particular problem:

How can I lose five pounds easily and without effort?
What is the easiest way to lose five pounds without changing my lifestyle?
How can I easily lose five pounds without extra willpower?

Once you get the question set up that feels right, here’s what you do next.

Get a blank piece of paper, and write, in long hand, as typing isn’t nearly as effective, your question at the top of the sheet.
Then ask yourself the question, and as quickly as you can, write the first thing that comes to your mind as soon as you ask the question. Many of the response you get will be obvious, like “eat less.” Duh. Many will not make any sense, like “green plants need water.” The important thing is to write everything thing down as soon as it pops into your brain. Once you get down past ten or twenty answers, you’ll start to get to the good stuff. You’ll want to keep writing until you get a few “aha” answers that you really “feel” are the right answers. It’s as simple as that. Of course, it’s up to you to carry out with the solution. Usually the ‘right’ answer has such a powerful impact that the knowledge alone will cause you to automatically follow through. Once you begin to use your inner intuitive voice as the guiding force in your life, you will, as Rumi predicted, be free.

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Power Affirmations that Work for YOU

Affirmations can be the quickest and easiest to apply method to powerfully transform not only what you think is possible about your capabilities, but about the world that you live in. All of us have unconscious thoughts and messages that we pick up from teachers, coaches, adults in authority, or even from ourselves that play over and over again. Whether you know it or not, you use affirmations on a daily basis. Unfortunately, messages give to us by adults to keep us safe, can also keep us from achieving the goals we desire later in life. Messages of guidance can easily transform into messages of limitation.

There is a way to change these messages to give yourself incredible confidence, self esteem, and personal power. When you finish reading this article, you’ll easily be able to create simple affirmations that you can use to propel yourself to automatic success. There are three simple rules to learn, so that your affirmations will have a maximum effect.

Rule Number One: State Them in the Positive.

You want to focus on what you want, rather than you don’t want. Instead of focusing on losing five pounds, focus on being your ideal weight. Instead of focusing on quitting smoking, focus on breathing fresh, healthy air with every breath. Instead of focusing on quitting eating ice cream for breakfast, focus on eating healthy foods that support a healthy body.

Rule Number Two: State Things in the Present Tense.

Instead of saying “I want to weight 150,” pounds, say “I weight 150 pounds.” Instead of saying “I want to cut back on the number of sweets,” say “I only eat healthy food.” Instead of saying “I will quit smoking next week,” say “I only breath fresh clean air with every breath.”

Rule Number Three: Avoid “Be” verbs and use Powerful Action Verbs

Instead of saying “I am confident,” say “I behave confidently in every situation.” Instead of saying “I weigh 150 pounds,” say “My behavior easily supports a healthy weight of 150 pounds.” Instead of saying “I am a non smoker,” say “I treat my lungs and body with respect and always inhale clean, fresh air.”

If you can, try this now. Choose something that you want  to create in life, and apply these three rules, and say it out loud. How does that feel? The more empowered you feel, right now, as you say your affirmation is an indication of how you will take it as your truth the more you say it. When you say something that causes you to feel a strong emotion, your brain will be much more likely to accept it.

The best time to say these is as you fall asleep at night. This can be a golden opportunity to powerfully program your subconscious for automatic success generation. Ideally, you want to live your life so that you can naturally and easily get what you want without a lot of effort. For more articles to easily help you achieve greater success like this, you can join many others like you, and read some more articles here.

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The Monkeys’ Discovery

Once upon a time there was a large group of circus monkeys. They had previously worked for a circus. Not really a circus, more like a traveling carnival. And the owner of the carnival wasn’t a very nice person. He was always treating the monkeys and the other employees rather unkindly. Because he had purchased the monkeys at a very young age from a monkey farm, they didn’t really realize how bad they had it. One thing about monkeys is they adapt very well to their environment. If they grow up in the snow, for example, they will get really good at building igloos, and not be aware that they may have cousins on another island that may be writing Shakespeare to disprove a popular theory of social randomness. But these monkeys didn’t live in the snow, nor did they know anything about Shakespeare or any other social theories. They did know, however, that their life in the traveling carnival wasn’t the way things were supposed to be. They kind of had a feeling.

Feelings are interesting. I was reading a book the other day that was talking about feelings. The book was saying that feelings are really the brains’ way of communicating with us in a simple format. Because they are so many millions of calculations going on inside our heads at all times, it would be impossible for our brains to make sense of it all. So the job of the unconscious mind, according to this book, is to sort through all the data, and compare it to what we’ve decided is what is important to us, and then present us with a feeling. Some call this feeling intuition, some call it a gut instinct, others ignore it altogether, and claim to be enlightened, rational thinking beings. I don’t know how logical you can be if you ignore over 99% of your brains extensively thought out calculations. Of course, in our society, claiming that you base your decisions on your feelings probably won’t get you very far.

Which is interesting in and of itself. If you really think about it, people have feelings, and then later come up with a rational, plausible reason. They explain those reasons to us, which we accept or reject based on our own feelings, which we immediately cover up with rational plausible logical reasons. It’s interesting that as advanced as humans are, we tend to let our logic get in the way sometimes. If you can just trust your feelings, you’ll be amazed how well you can communicate with others. Some argue that because the whole purpose for the evolution of the unconscious is for high-level communications with others on an emotional level, which is the true measure of our humanness. Your ability to communicate with others on congruent emotional level. When you can do this, you really are able to realize your potential. When you can just let go, and fully trust your unconscious, you will be amazed at how much the world opens up for you. Perhaps I’m wrong. Maybe you won’t be amazed.

Many scientists have used this instinct to help them in their discoveries. Edison, Einstein, and Kekule among many others knew the true power of being able to tap your creative genius that lives in everybody. Logic can be helpful, but sometimes it just gets in the way.

After they’d wandered for a few days, the monkeys got another feeling. They saw a forest, or what they thought was a forest. They had been walking for a while, and then just out of nowhere, it appeared. And as it turns out, they forest had many other monkeys of the same kind living in it, so it was like a big homecoming for them. It feels good to finally come back to where you belong, where everything is familiar for the first time, isn’t it?

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The Sheepherder’s Discovery

As you sit there, and read this page, you might feel certain sensations in your body. Some of these sensations might be familiar, and some of them might be one’s that you’ve felt before. Either way, you can let these feelings remind you of those wonderful memories from before. You know the time I’m talking about. The time you had that experience, the one that made you feel just that way. And it doesn’t really matter if you can remember it completely; because one thing about experiences is that they are completely up to you to remember them any way you like that, right?

So as you let those thoughts that you are thinking circulate in your thought-sphere that exists some place in the realm of ideas, I’d like to borrow your attention for a few moments. Don’t worry; I’ll give it back when we’re finished here. Just relax, because you know that those experiences that you enjoy are really up to you to discover them here, now.

Once up a time there was a sheepherder. His job was to take his sheep from pasture to pasture, and let them graze. When the time came for him to sell their wool, he took them into town to the place that bought the wool. They would sheer the wool from the sheep, and take the wool to make various things. Clothing, blankets, rugs, and other things. The sheep were happy, because they didn’t really have to do much except eat, and get a haircut periodically. The sheepherder didn’t have an overly difficult job, because he just found natural grass for the sheep to eat, made sure the wolves stayed away, and had to find a market for the wool from time to time. All in all, it was a happy life for all of them.

As the character in most stories do, our sheepherder boy encountered a problem one day. He had grown bored with his sheep herding life. At first, when he first got into it, it seemed fantastic. Travel, no boss, make your own hours, it was a young man’s dream come true. But the more the years passed, the more he realized as he traveled from town to town that he was missing out on something. It seemed more and more apparent that the townspeople were enjoying a happiness that wasn’t available to him.

Despite his freedom and detachment from the world, he longed for human companionship. He longed for the touch of a woman, and the warmth of a fire in the fireplace of his own home, and the smell of fresh bread from his own kitchen.

But he didn’t want to lose his sheep. They had served him well over the years, and he couldn’t bring himself to just abandon them. So he decided to have a meeting with his sheep. He hired a sorcerer from a nearby town, as he would have to find a way to communicate his intentions to the sheep, and gauge their responses. The sorcerer claimed to have experiences in these matters. After a long discussion, he was convinced that the sheep would be able to govern themselves, and find their way into town to get their usual haircuts, as they’d been accustomed.

The sheepherder had agreed to take the profits generated by the self governing sheep, and set up a wolf free zone, so sheep could live in safe environment, free from predators. The money would be used to buy special minerals and mix them into a special recipe known only to the sorcerer, thereby keeping the wolves from encroaching on their territory.
When they had finished making the arrangements, everybody was happy.

The now ex-sheep herder boy set off to find the girl of his dreams, and start the exciting journey of his new life. As he was leaving, the sorcerer pulled him aside, to give him some last minute wisdom:

“Life is a long journey. It can be easy or hard, depending on what you make of it. You can find peace, or you can find pain. The greatest secret does not lie in how to get money or how to seduce the most beautiful daughter of a shopkeeper. Nor does it lie in conjuring magic to keep away the wolves. The secret lies in seizing your own power to choose. Once you fully realize that you have always had that magnificent power, the world becomes yours.”

The ex-sheep herder boy thanked him, and wandered off, open to the bliss that was in store for him, and you.

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Unconscious Guidance

The other day I was walking somewhere and got sidetracked. Has that ever happened to you? You will have this clear goal in mind, this clear outcome that you’ve decided is what you want to do. You set out to achieve this goal, sure that you will achieve it. But then something happens, and either because you didn’t allow yourself to see all the possibilities, or maybe your original goal was well formed enough, you just kind of end up in another place.

One way to get around this is to be aware of what your underlying intentions are. It helps to be able to dig deeper to find the real reason behind your goals. When you search beneath what is pretending to be the important part, you’ll be surprised to discover that many of your goals fall under the same basic categories. Safety, comfort, recognition, personal growth.

As I got off the streetcar (yes they have street cars where I live) I saw my goal in sight. The coffee shop where I had intended to relax and spend an hour or so writing in my journal. As it happened, the weather was particularly nice, and there were a fair number of people out and about. There is a street going just past that I’ve always kind of wondered about. There was a steady stream of people walking up this street, that looked as if they were going to some kind of event. You can sort of tell when people are going to find something special here. Because of the way they are dressed, many of them carrying water bottles, cameras, other things that make it appear as if they are on a mini-trek that might take a few hours.

But something funny happened. Usually when I’ve made a choice, (other than to wander around without a clear choice) and I see a distraction, I have at least a few moments of indecision. Should I go this way? What about my other plans? Which is better? Hmm. But not this time. My coffee shop plans instantly disappeared as I followed the crowd up the street. When I emerged back about two hours later, much richer for the experience, I never even gave my abandoned coffee shop plans a second thought.

If you are thinking this is completely platitudinous and futile, maybe you’re right. The thing that struck me was the speed at which I’d abandoned my coffee shop plans for an unknown trek up the street, merely using the crowd as my guidance. Which leads me to suspect that something told me that the underlying reason I wanted to hang out at the coffee shop would better be served by following the crowd up the street. On  an unconscious level, the change in plans didn’t even warrant a the token elevation into consciousness. My desire just shifted, without any conscious thought.

Maybe because I’ve been doing a lot of meditating lately, I was able to not need to question the greater wisdom of my unconscious. I just went with it, and had a much richer experience because of it. Of course I wasn’t doing brain surgery, or walking across a tightrope over the grand canyon, I was just wiling away a Sunday afternoon. But in that moment I experienced an unconscious guidance that I don’t usually experience.

Thank you unconscious, whatever you are. That was fun.

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Revelation of Ages

Once upon a time there was a fellow who didn’t really see things the way other people did. Most people were content to kind of drift through life, doing the same thing every day, day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. But not this guy. This person demanded to see things from a different perspective. This person didn’t accept the average plate of existence that was handed to him every day. This person didn’t accept that life was largely up to fate of a group of unseen god’s who seemingly rolled the dice to see who succeeded and who didn’t, who was happy, and who wasn’t. This story is about a man who would not accept the averageness anymore. Who would not believe in the average beliefs any more.

This person could understand that the secret of life was not in waiting for things to happen, but to make them happen. This person realized that there was  a large amount of randomness in everyday life, but the secret was not in what you received, but in what you did with it.

Of course, you may have already realized this well known but rarely applied truth. You may have heard that this is the secret behind the success of everyone who has actually applied this rule on a consistent basis. And you are probably already aware that this is not really a rule, or a law, rather than a particularly useful hallucination that if applied correctly, can lead to untold happiness and achievement not thought possible under the way that you used to look at things.

Mystics and Guru’s throughout time have well understood that the ability take what appears to be real and mold it according to your intentions is the metaphysical truth that lies beneath all bliss. When you take on this truth as your own, you will be well on the way to achieve dreams beyond comprehension.

This person was aware of this, on a deep level, but not consciously. He lived for a long time, according to the old model of reality. Until one day, he stumbled across a truth that was at once overwhelmingly simple and extraordinarily powerful. With one simple thought, he was able to adjust his perception of reality just enough to see the truth. That reality is really a reflection of your thoughts. What you think, becomes your reality. Your thoughts are your world.

When this person realized this, the world changed from an overbearing system of rules and regulations and fears to a vast playground of opportunity and bliss.
Never again was this person able to live life according to the old model. Because once this person saw the way things really worked, it was inconceivable forget the new found freedom.

If you are feeling a bit of familiarity, like a dream that you swear you’d had before, don’t worry. It is meant to be that way.

Because the time of revelation is now, and this person, is you.

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The Fisherman’s Dream

As you read this and sink into that chair that you are sitting in, you might become aware of the thoughts that are running round your head. You know that ones I’m talking about. Those thoughts that are the most familiar to you. The ones that you think the most often. I’m going to ask you to put them aside just for a moment. Don’t worry, you can have them back when we are finished. Of course, they might never be the same. But then again, they never were to begin with, right?

When the old man suddenly realized that the sun had been up for several minutes, he quickly rolled out of bed. He noticed that his alarm hadn’t gone off as he’d hoped. That was ok. He still had plenty of time. He noticed that the fish he’d caught the day before were still where he’d left them. That wasn’t particularly surprising, as it was getting late in the season, and most of the bears had probably found a place to hibernate already. He checked his tackle and set out for another day of fishing.

As he was walking to the lake, he came across a rather large beaver dam. He didn’t recall seeing it yesterday, so he stopped to take a look. He noticed that the beavers were acting particularly strange, but how he knew this he couldn’t really put his finger on it. He decided to stop and watch. He’d been walking for about an hour when he came across the new dam, so he decided it would be as good a place as any to enjoy a quiet break. Something about these beavers was not quite right. The more he watched them, the more he became determined to find out exactly what it was about them that was so intriguing.

He set his bags down, and found a nice spot on the ground to sit. He leaned up against the hard bark of a sycamore tree, and began what was to be the most interesting afternoon of his life.

The beavers seemed to notice him watching, although they didn’t change the procedures, at least as far as he could tell. He was almost mesmerized by their methodical efficiency, scurrying off into the forest and coming back with pieces of tree that were the exact same size that they needed. They would carefully place the piece in just the exact place. Everything in order. It was amazing, the old man thought.

Trees would grow, taking different elements from the ground and the soil and the air and the rain. They would grow over the years, then these animals would come and chew down the trees to dam up the water to build their house. Did the trees mind that they were being taken to build a house? Did the water mind that its course was being changed? Were the beavers aware of all that they were doing?

The man remarked at the impressive way in which things so naturally fit together. So peacefully. So perfectly. Did he belong? Did he really? It was as if the earth itself was giving of one part of itself to help out the other part. As if it were taking resources from one area, that were becoming almost superfluous, and somehow using itself to move those resources to another more helpful self. Like it was constantly rearranging itself to rebuild itself, so it would more easily sustain itself.

The old man wondered why he never had the ability to see things from such a clear perspective. He realized then that everything was cyclical. From the earth to the tree to the water to the ocean back to the sky to the earth. He wondered how this cycle ever began, and how it knew how to sustain itself. Surely there must be some underlying pattern that lies beneath that which is seen?

The old man awoke, after having dozed off while watching the beavers. Their dam was complete. The sun had begun to set off in the west. The old man realized that he’s missed his opportunity to catch more fish. That was all right, he had enough to last him through a couple of weeks, and a couple of weeks would be enough to allow him to catch enough to keep for the winter.

As he walked back to his cabin, which would soon be warmed by the fire he would build, he wondered vaguely how the bears were doing. It will be good to see them again in the spring, he thought.

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The Lumberjack and the Printing Press

Once there was an old lumberjack. He had been a lumberjack for most of his youth, starting when he was around thirteen. If that sounds a bit young to be earning a living from hard labor, you might consider that back in his day, those that didn’t work, didn’t eat. So naturally, this person decided to choose the best course of action, which was to maximize skills that he’d been given. And his particular skills were in swinging an ax. There was a group of lumberjacks who were passing through town when he was a boy, and asked around where they were going. He hadn’t known anything about lumberjacks at that time. He just became incredibly curious at the sight of all these big powerful men rumbling through town.

He asked what this was, and he was told that it was a crew going up to the forest to cut down some trees. They were building another town nearby,and they needed the wood. So the young lumberjack to be decided to follow this, to see where it would lead. He followed them long enough for them to notice him, and when they saw how well he could swing an ax, he naturally joined them. He followed them around for several years, chopping different kinds of trees to get wood, so they could build more houses, because the population was quickly growing.

As he started to get older, he noticed that his group of lumberjacks was slowly becoming smaller and smaller. There were less and less young boys that wanted to join. They had other, more modern interests. And as the group of lumberjacks began to shrink, so did the need for wood. They would spend seemingly endless nights arguing whether the decrease in lumberjacks was causing the decrease in demand for wood, or if the shrinking demand for wood was the reason for the dwindling group of lumberjacks.

That had been long ago, and this lumberjack was growing old. He still carried around his ax, the one they’d given him when he chopped down his one thousandth tree. That was not an easy milestone to reach, so they gave him not an easy ax to lift. It was heavier than all the other ax’s he’d carried with him before. But how, as he became older with every passing day, the ax seemed to be getting heavier and heavier. A small voice kept telling him to get rid of it, because it wasn’t worth anything. But he knew that if he did that, he might well die, because lumber jacking had been his life, and getting rid of this old ax would have meant throwing away a lifetime of memories. He just couldn’t bring himself to do.

As time passed, the ax became more and more an embarrassing burden. He started to question it. He started to question the value of the old ax. Everywhere he went, people would point and whisper. They had never seen a real lumberjack. They all thought they only lived in stories. The lumberjack became more and more distressed. Each day that passed, each chuckle he heard behind his back would cause him anxiety. What to do with this old ax?

Then one day he was walking down a rather large street. His ax was slung over his shoulder, and his head was drooped down low. He knew people were staring, but he couldn’t bear the embarrassment of meeting their eyes. Then, for some reason, which he would later describe as divine inspiration despite the fact he’d never been inside a church, he immediately spun around. He saw people frantically trying to help a man who appeared to be partially inside a printing press. There had recently been a newspaper in town, and the printing press had printed out a newspaper three times a week. They man’s arm was caught in the machine, and the people helping him were desperately trying to pull him out. It didn’t appear they were having much luck. The lumberjack realized that if they didn’t help him, he would be killed.

“Stand back!” He yelled in his booming voice. The people parted, and the lumberjack swung his ax over his head, and heaved it towards the machine. It swirled through the air, end over end, until the head was buried into the printing press with an ominous metallic clank, as the onlookers gasped in horror. The machine was stopped, and the man was freed. The crowd looked at the lumberjack in awe.

“You saved my life,” the man meekly said to him.
“I guess I did,” said the lumberjack, who smiled, closed his eyes, and breathed his last.

The townspeople took the ax which saved their mayors life, and put it up in the center of town, in honor of the unknown lumberjack, where it remains to this very day.

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The Courage of the Crow

Once there was a small crow. He lived in a decent sized town, where there was plenty of food. Normally crows that live in the jungle have to worry about other birds, especially young crows like this one. But because this crow lived in the city, he was really only worried about other crows getting the food before he did. He didn’t have any brothers or sisters, so he still depended on his dad to show him where the food was, and to help him get it. One day, his dad landed quietly next to him on the telephone wire where he was sitting.

“Son, we need to have a talk.” His father began.

The young crow didn’t’ like this one bit. You know how it is. When somebody sits down with you and starts with “we need to have a talk,” it never is to tell you that you’ve won the lottery, or school has been canceled or anything else good like that. It’s usually when you got in trouble or some other bad thing is about to happen. You know the feeling.

The young crow gulped. “Yea? About what?”
“Well, son,” the father began, putting his wing around the boy. “You are getting pretty old. I know it’s hard with your mom gone and all, but you need to figure out how to get your own food.” The young crow gasped in shock. Get his own food? That would mean fighting with the other, older bigger crows, wouldn’t it? They would never let him get near the good stuff. He’d have to eat the stuff they didn’t want. His mind instantly swirled with thoughts of being outcast from the crow community, not having any friends, not having any respect. Never being able to grow up and develop a crow family. He became nervous, scared, afraid. Like he was when he still lived in the nest, and his mom would bring him food. He missed her.

“But why can’t you help me?” he asked his dad.
“You need to learn how to get food for yourself.” The dad said, and prepared to fly away.
“Where are you going? How will I know what to do?” the young crow asked in desperation.
“You will find a way. You are a crow. You will know.” With that he left.

For the next few days, the young crow was too afraid to go down where the other, bigger crows were pecking through the trash and having their fill of large pieces of discarded food. The more he watched the other crows, the more frightened he became. He hadn’t eaten in several days, and he was becoming weak. Surely if he tried to get some of the food, even the leftovers that the crows didn’t want, they would easily chase him away. Even worse. He noticed that the crows were starting to look at him, and he was sure they were talking about him.

After another couple days of sitting, and watching, and imagining the certain horrible death he would experience if he tried to get some food, he reached the breaking point. The point that you realize you have to do something. You have to make a choice, and follow through with your choice. Because if you don’t act, you will certainly fail. The young crow got to the point where the pain of inaction was getting larger than any imagined pain of action. Summoning all of his energy and courage, he opened his wings and glided down, landing clumsily next to the trash heap. He was more than a little surprised when a couple of bigger, stronger crows jumped, startled, when he landed. The young crow took a deep breath, expanding his lungs, making himself appear slightly larger.

The two nearest crows hopped back, just a little bit, eyeing him carefully. One of them bent down and leaned toward a piece of meat. The young crow immediately hopped forward, not questioning where his sudden strength and courage came from, only accepting them. He reached the piece of meat before the other crow and stood, meat in beak, staring at them defiantly. He quickly gobbled the meat down. He looked around the trash heap, and found a piece of meat, then another, and then another. Finally having eaten his fill, he hopped back into the shade, and watched the other crows feed.

When the other crows were finished eating, they hopped over into the shade. After exchanging introductions, they explained the schedule.

“On Tuesdays and Fridays are when they throw away the good stuff.  The rest of the days is glass and other stuff that we can’t eat.”

“What do you do on the days in between?” The other crows looked at each other and smiled.
“C’mon, we’ll show you.” And they all flew of together.

Several months later, the young crow, who was rapidly becoming not so young, happened across his father on telephone wire.

“Father.”
“Son.”

“What did you learn?”

“That fear is only your imagination. As soon as you face fear, it disappears.”
“Very good, son. Do you know why I didn’t just tell you that?”

The not so young crow thought, and remembered how startled he’d been when he’d first discovered his courage.

“The only way to know something like that is to experience it, yourself.”
“Very good, son. You now know the secret.”

They both sat in silence for several minutes, until the not so young crow saw his new friends flying high across the sky. He looked briefly to his father, bowed his head quickly in respect, and then took off.

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The Parable of the Tree and the Rock

Once upon a time there were two friends. They were really good friends, and had been really good friends for several hundred years. One was a rock, a large rock. This rock, in his current, state,was only partially above the ground. There was a lot more of this rock below the surface. Sometimes things are like that, you have this small part sticking up, but you don’t realize that there is a fantastic amount of depth here. And no matter how much you dig into this, there is still more to discover. The other friend was a tree. A big evergreen tree.

The two friends lived high up in the mountains. They lived near the tree line, which is the border between where trees grow, and where they can’t grow. Being on the border is convenient, most of the time. You can enjoy both worlds, because you really live in both. You can enjoy the openness and fresh air of the side where trees don’t grow, and you can enjoy the companionship of other trees and animals and squirrels where the trees grow. The rock of course, doesn’t care, because he is a rock. All he needs is a piece of ground to anchor himself to.

Of course, there are other rocks, that aren’t fixed. They have a whole different set of circumstances. They can roll around, finding themselves sometimes on land, sometimes under water. The funny thing is that rocks that are stuck in the ground sometimes feel envious of the rocks that can roll around, and vice versa. The truth is that you can really enjoy who you are, regardless of your situation.

So one day the tree and the rock were talking. The tree seemed worried. Because he was an evergreen tree, he needed a fairly consistent source of water. The rock, of course, being a rock, didn’t really need that. However, he was kind, and because they were good friends, he would listen to his friend the tree when he had difficulties.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do!” said the tree. “It hasn’t rained in a long time!” The rock could understand the problem, as the trees hadn’t been looking to well lately. It seemed that there had been some kind of change recently, and the water hadn’t been flowing as much as it used to.

“What do you think I should do?” The tree asked.
“Hmm. Let me think about it, and I’ll get back to you.”

A few weeks went by, (of course without any rain) and the tree was getting more and more desperate.

“I think I have something,” The rock said one day.
“Maybe you should try something different?” The rock suggested.

“But I don’t know what to do. I’m only a tree,” he replied. Now the rock was very smart, because he was very old. The tree was only several hundred years old, but the rock had been born in the time of volcanoes, and so he had a lot of experience in these matters. He had watched many things come and go, and many different friends he had made over the years had died.

“All of my old friends, they died, because they all had the same excuse. The dinosaurs said they are only dinosaurs. And look what happened to them. You must be innovative. You must do something different. How else can you find a flow of life sustaining water?”

“But isn’t the rain the only way?”

“No, It is not. Look, over there,” the rock said. The tree wasn’t sure which way he was pointing, because the rock, being a rock, didn’t have any arms to point with. Finally, the trees saw. The lake. The pristine lake off just above the tree line, surrounded by nothing but rocks. Rocks that don’t need water.

“Can you grow your roots over towards that lake?” the rock suggested.

“I’ll try.”

Several weeks past. One by one, the other trees of the forest succumbed to the dryness. One day, the rock woke up, and noticed the tree looked a bit more greener than usual.

“You look like you are feeling better today, old friend!”

“Yes!” the tree happily replied.

“I finally got some water to the lake. Look at all that water! I can drink from the lake for hundreds of years without rain now!”

The rock smiled inwardly.

“You see, my friend? Because you were able to reach out for what you needed, instead of waiting for it to come to you, you have lived, while your friends have died. “

The tree smiled, and nodded his thanks.

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