Random but I've always admired women in their thirties a lot/quite specifically and I'm excited to be one but also disappointed in myself, if that makes any sense?
(Disappointed because of not feeling like I measure up in often the artistry, confidence, and boldness of these women as much as I had hoped. I wasn't planning on being this broken or at best hurt and somehow traumatized again even worse than the first time.)
🎶 DEAR JOHN - Sam Buckingham
Just revisiting this tag tonight:
https://lunar-winds.blogspot.com/search/label/perfect%20stranger%20pact?m=0
"Wednesday, 11 November 2020
Let's make plans to someday pass on the street and exchange a smile.
It'll be our small celebration for making it.
Sincerely,
A stranger on the internet"
~~
Today I met a kind stranger, named Er[-]s. And interacted with a kind sort of/once stranger, the girl/ young woman who works at the pharmacy who is about my age.
They are kind strangers I am very appreciative for.
I'm not going to tell her what to do, I told (another person).
And it's not out of fear of telling her something that ends up leading to an outcome that is my fault for advising them over.
It's out of recognition of what is not in my knowledge to be speaking on. Nor my place in that way at a major decision making moment quite like this one.
In another time, yes.
But this is her life and it only has to be her own. But she's the only one lives it.
~~
I don't know if I could say I am the main character in my own story. Maybe I could and I'm just not self-aware enough for it.
But I don't feel like my happiness or satisfaction or contentment in life comes from being the main character of my own story.
If someone were to ask me plainly without baggage of implication for a suggested response like, “ main character of one's own story”, I would say I am happy and proud of being part of something bigger than myself.
In this whole universe, the motion that occurs and beauty that transpires, Wars that are fought and one, and lost, what is one and what is mourned, with sacrifice and gain.
In the cosmic scandal things I am not nothing; I am part of a beautiful something. God's universe; his creation. A who's great is unfathomable to me, I get to be part of this and whatever way I do.
I want to use it well, this life of my. I appreciate the good things I get to enjoy.
And even if I or to die tomorrow, or tonight it hasn't been for nothing.
That is something beautiful. That is why I'm happy just by sadness.
And I can be happy and sad at the same time. In fact, I always am And in this reality I wouldn't have it any other way.
It's a complex thing, compared to an idea of only one thing happening at a time.
So nothing is ever really like that to that extent.
I'm part of a cause ,, a cosmic art project, and a universal community. Even should I disappear,
No longer experience the fox I do or anything (though I don't like the sound of that), how beautiful of a thing that is?
Being not one with as in the same person as, being but being part of the collective of conscious, sentient beings; influencing one another. I includes others, too, and I want that one to be a good one as much as I can.
We all part of each other for better or worse. And it needs dynamics we find forgiveness, love, friction, what we may call fate even when deliberation, and flow.
I've had my share of unhappiness. Disproportionately, some would argue. Those you know do say it.
But life is a beautiful thing; and, it is worth living.
I am a depressed optimist by philosophy and emotional state (simply because I am in fact sane, in my mind; it is a mental illness that is more injury than from within who could be so heartless as to see the things I have seen and feel overwhelming and be happy all the time?) theist by worldview, writer along with some other things by creative art; and something like a leaf that produces energy in the world, along with my flowers too.
What a garden, what a forest, what a place and a biome that this Galaxy is.
I would not let it go on purpose. Even though I am sad, often.
If only people could understand how happy it made me, no matter how the rest of things are seeing what I see:
Main character or not, it matters not to me which way to look at this.
But being Part of something bigger than myself, in the ways I perceive with my eyes of physical senses and of faith and mind and emotion; It is something everyone deserves to feel, In my opinion, by default.
The world would be a better place. Probably if we did two a higher degree; if we did more than it feels this world may allow at a time.
But that doesn't make someone hopeless.
If your eyes are closed or your heart is tired, that doesn't mean you will feel nothing at all forever.
It doesn't mean you will only feel bad things forever.
And I need people to know that. That hope is not a silly feeling way. It's sometimes to say use or sounds.
But I silly it is to remember the stars on a night where we can't see them, obstructed by clouds, or something else, that this is what Faith means.
You have looked up in seen them so many times.
Don't doubt at all, because of the moment.
And I don't say the word moment flippantly as to diminish or wave away whatever one feels right now. For there is no past nor future in the physical off and feels; there is movement and and time in the way we call it. But it is all movement in our universe.
This beautiful, beautiful universe, you deserve to be aware of and feel by default, and embrace being a part of it the way you made. The way you were made too simple to put good things in this cosmic evolving creative project, That is the experience of our lives.
And by “our”, by I really do mean every single one of us near and far. For who we are, who we were and existed as when we did, and will be when we do in what is called “later”.
Things will change. But our cousin purpose remains the same and its absence though always different, beautifully different in the moments it is painted.
I am one to say we are more the same than we are different. But not in a flattening way, But one of gross, Beauty, meaning, love, feeling, and purpose and experience that is worth being had with heart, heart and appreciation. And I believe it is our place to do so.
~~
^Grocery store thoughts, vacuuming thoughts, bus spots, shower thoughts, whatever one may call them.
:)
~~
I once said to a friend, no not once, many times have said to friends, that death is the drawing because it doesn't make sense according to our reality as we have experienced it. This can be interpreted in more than one way but one particular way I do. We need to talk about it. Is that if something in the physical world just disappeared and I don't mean to change, but truly disappeared. Ceased from existence in a moment, we will be freaking out.
It could be a mountain, it could be a can of Coke. It could be energy, but hearing that it was not simply transferred or changed or went somewhere else, but simply cease to exist.
That doesn't add up with everything we know.
Of course we would be freaking out.
I cannot make claims on a state I've can yet to be in from first-hand experience, but these dots and as well as what is said in many faiths regarding it, makes sense to me.
Of course, if we'd be scared of amount and disappearing, we would lose our minds when it's something even more important. Life. What could be more important than this? Energy and energy can either be created or destroyed.
And I can respect that.
But I cannot say I "think" life is energy.
I think energy is something used in or by life; experienced in consciousness. We experience interacting with matter and energy.
I don't know if I would say or come to arrive from my experience that consciousness falls simply within the concept of matter and energy.
Spirit, maybe. I would be inclined to say so or that feels or sounds consistent with something my body understands.
But soul?
That is different. That is different, to me, in the way that I mean.
No matter how we may continue on this, we might agree together readily that in itself conscious soul is a precious thing.
Of course grief is real; of course love is.
It makes sense, though I wouldn't dare reduce it to such.
More importantly, it matters. And that is enough me to feel for others and oneself. And the law developed for what we must, for what we do hold dear; in specialty (or speciality? Tbh I don't know which word is correct here), *who* we hold hear.
~~
Life is beautiful. Cherish it, fight in it, fight for it. Be the one, the lady you want to be and were made for.
~~
Flowers in the store, and I love that they have potted ones in the rack for gifting flowers by main intention, it seems.
#flowers #love #nature
An artist named Jael posted to Instagram today
[07-07, 1:11 a.m.] Melody: Led me to study Jael tonight
[07-07, 1:18 a.m.] Melody: Also read to the part about that battle's connection to Armageddon, in the link at the end
[07-07, 1:21 a.m.] Melody: Reminded me of this, for you and Kenny:
[07-07, 1:21 a.m.] Melody: https://www.jw.org/finder?srcid=jwlshare&wtlocale=E&prefer=lang&docid=1102016838
[07-07, 1:23 a.m.] Melody: The worst day of one's life does come
[07-07, 1:25 a.m.] Melody: 1 Peter 5:10 points this out:
"But after you have suffered a little while, the God of all undeserved kindness... will *himself* finish your training. He will make you firm, he will make you strong, he will firmly ground you."
[07-07, 1:25 a.m.] Melody: In the part with the "..." It includes saying, "...who called you to his everlasting glory in union with Christ"
[07-07, 1:26 a.m.] Melody: It is easy for us to say and remember the words that Jehovah is with us. But this scripture can remind us of some points on that
[07-07, 1:29 a.m.] Melody: 1) It tells us not only that he will be there for you in your trials but one way how:
"He himself will *finish your training.*"
He will train you. And as a result, you will grow, and with Jehovah's training he will make you more capable than before, and more strong than before.
This is distinct from his miracles. He does answer our prayers and he does make what must happen, happen. But you will not be as lost as you might have ever been before once his hand in the matter has done it's work.
He affects not only your situation, but who you are. Your strength, qualities, and discernment, and other skills.
[07-07, 1:35 a.m.] Melody: 2) "He *himself* will finish your training."
He does not even delegate this to Jesus.
Jehovah himself does this.
We could have a variety of emotional reactions to this thought. But no matter how we feel about it, it is the choice of the God of all *undeserved kindness* who has decided it is his will to train you himself, not matter what you feel about yourself in a given moment.
[07-07, 1:37 a.m.] Melody: 3) "He himself will *finish* your training."
This does imply that he does not step in and take over to force you to do everything right every step of the way.
But even so, the training you need will be completed, not only covered partially or somehow left ambiguous. Jehovah himself will make sure of it.
[07-07, 1:46 a.m.] Melody: And that is an English word, so to help strengthen a sense of what Jehovah Promises to do:
• καταρτίσει (katartizó) - "adjust down" - to complete thoroughly, i.e. repair or adjust
{literally or figuratively}; fit, frame, mend, restore.
• στηρίξει (stērixei) - "fix firmly", perfect, establish, strengthen - also used in 2 Thess 3:3
• σθενώσει (sthenoó) - "to strenghen", from sthenos, meaning "bodily vigor" ;
"4599 sthenóō(from sthenos, "strength") – properly, make strong so as to be mobile – i.e. able to move in a way that achieves something in the most effective way." -HELPS Word-studies
Sources:
• Kingdom Interlinear Translation
• https://biblehub.com/greek/2675.htm
• https://biblehub.com/greek/ste_rixei_4741.htm
• https://biblehub.com/greek/4599.htm
[07-07, 1:53 a.m.] Melody: Brings to mind from there, 2 Corinthians 4:8-10
"We are hard-pressed in every way, but not cramped beyond movement; we are perplexed, but not absolutely with no way out; 9 we are persecuted, but not abandoned; we are knocked down, but not destroyed. 10 Always we endure in our body the death-dealing treatment that Jesus suffered, that the life of Jesus may also be made manifest in our body"
[07-07, 1:54 a.m.] Melody: There is reason for optimism, no mat
ter how hard things maybe get in times of our lives
I think also of “let your light shine”.
I remember a friend illustrating This, or passing on the illustration that we are like little shards of glass on the moon. Maybe small on our own, but together reflecting Jehovah's light can be a light in the dark. Meaning more than the some of our parts. We are not insignificant.
Taste and see that Jehovah is good.
Nobody in this world is perfect. Only God is good, Jesus said. (Not even Jesus).
That does make sense. For Jehovah. Our creator is not only righteous, but good. And everything we have he gave to us first. Everything we could give to him. Comes from him; but he doesn't mind. He doesn't hold that against us as if it is less true. Because he is love, he made us with love.
And nothing can separate us from that.
Nothing can separate us from Jehovah's love. #faith #love #bible
Keep your eye focused and your whole body will be bright.
Keep your eyes fixed on the things. Unseen for the things seen are temporary, but the things unseen are everlasting.
God is love.
Man was made in God's image.
The former things will not be called to mind, in the paradise.
He will hold you, grasping you firmly, with his right hand of righteousness.
There is no fear in love.
(^This exonerates me, for loving; even when I put myself down for it).
Only God is good.
Our “Heavenly Father”, that title for our Creator, speaks to the relationship with him he holds out to us. I remember examining even with the nation of Israel, the wordings that were used at different times uswd to denote more of a legal relationship, and another time one of tenderness and intimacy. Both relationships, both secure; but the intention for warmth and love is there.
Draw close to God and he will draw close to you.
~~
Let your love be without hypocrisy, keep on blessing those who persecute; bless and do not curse.
Return evil for evil to no one. Vengeance is God’s, he will repay. But “if your enemy is hungry, feed him; this will reap fiery coals on his head.
Do not let yourself be conquered by the evil, but keep conquering the evil with the good.
Tonight's tortilla pizza, With homemade pickled artichoke :)
(Had this tonight with family, made while going back watching episode 2 of star wars)
The longest thing to prepare was definitely the pickled artichokes. Had to start yesterday.
The artichokes got unreduced, cleaned them, boiled them for about 30 to 40 minutes. The next time I probably wouldn't go all the way to 40, also added in a whole head of garlic (there were six artichokes) And some salt in the water.
The garlic cloves were cut in roughly thirds.
The next day in the morning I put the cooled and cut pieces into brine to white vinegar ratio of one to about 1.3.
I added oregano to the (cool) brine with the vinegar, And topped the jar with olive oil.
Walking the artichokes I took off the tough outermost leaves, and chopped the top third of the whole artichoke, then more clinically used a pair of kitchen scissors at Grandma's suggestion to cut off pointy tips that were still left and anything that I just felt were probably going to be too tough.
After marinating all afternoon, these made the main topping up the tortilla pizza!
For the tortilla pizza, in addition to the artichokes I topped with tomato sauce, oyster, mushrooms, and tomatoes. Extremely thinly sliced. It's important that things are thinly sliced enough, otherwise it weighs in soggies down the tortilla.
For the tomato sauce, I just took the Primo crushed tomato puree and mixed it with some Berry, very finely chopped pieces onion the way my mom showed me to cut it, making it very thin, as well as minced garlic. I put about 1/3 of an onion, and maybe three cloves of fine lie, minced garlic straight into about one cup of the tomato puree. Maybe a bit more.
I salted with seasoning salts just a little bit and regular salt to taste. Put in a little bit of black pepper, and some oregano, and some garlic powder for dispersion.
I mixed in olive oil
This was sitting at least an hour before being used is topping, and in that time the fragrant juices seeped in.
To top it, if putting in the toaster oven, I would avoid putting cheese all the way to the ends, but otherwise in the traditional oven on top of a pizza pan with holes at 425° f they're baked for about 8 minutes and you can put cheese all the way to the ends. In either case, I do suggest putting the thin layer of tomato sauce all the way to the end. It does look quite thin compared to usual, but keep in mind this is just for tortilla. I put slightly less tomato sauce in the middle to avoid middle sogging.
Shredded mozzarella cheese comes after the tomato sauce, and then the cut oyster mushrooms, pickled artichoke pieces, and the very thinly sliced tomatoes.
These should be distributed to keep in mind that moisture should not be piled into the middle. If anything, I actually move moist things slightly away from the middle since it will largely end up there anyway.
Fake at 425° f for about 8 minutes in the oven, 5 minutes in the toaster oven with nothing on the bottom. However, it is much better in the oven on top of the pizza pan with holes.
Important note, the sauce is not cooked at all.
While vacuuming with the awesome vacuum cleaner.
Write about the awesome vacuum cleaner, too.
As of now "bus thoughts" will also be combined with "vacuuming thoughts" or "vacuum thoughts."
"Vacuum thoughts" is funny because they tend to be on very core principles working from different situations to understanding of concepts purely as if in a hypothetical vacuum.
Could not be more glad I read June 21's reading so close to today's, Jeremiah 11.
Jeremiah 11:16
Jehovah once called you a thriving olive tree, Beautiful with fine fruit. With a great roaring sound, he has set her on fire, And they have broken its branches.
~~
Also, Daniel 4:25, 26 is another time imagery of a tree is used in the Bible to makes point or illustrate something happening:
25 You will be driven away from among men, and your dwelling will be with the beasts of the field, and you will be given vegetation to eat just like bulls; and you will become wet with the dew of the heavens, and seven times will pass over you, until you know that the Most High is Ruler in the kingdom of mankind and that he grants it to whomever he wants.
26 “‘But because they said to leave the stump of the tree with its roots, your kingdom will be yours again after you come to know that the heavens are ruling.
~~
Conversely, scriptures that are assuring of stability, using tree imagery:
(June 21st's)
“For there is hope even for a tree.” - Job 4:17
Also, Matthew 21:
"18 While returning to the city early in the morning, he felt hungry. 19 He caught sight of a fig tree by the road and went to it, but he found nothing on it except leaves, and he said to it: “Let no fruit come from you ever again.” And the fig tree withered instantly. 20 When the disciples saw this, they were amazed and said: “How is it that the fig tree withered instantly?” 21 In answer Jesus said to them: “Truly I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only will you do what I did to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, ‘Be lifted up and thrown into the sea,’ it will happen. 22 And all the things you ask in prayer, having faith, you will receive"
This was an emotionally resonant thing that day especially, feeling peace 🤍
~
Isaiah 65:22
"They will build houses and live in them, And they will plant vineyards and eat their fruitage. 22 They will not build for someone else to inhabit, Nor will they plant for others to eat. For the days of my people will be like the days of a tree, And the work of their hands my chosen ones will enjoy to the full."
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZncYMBx-9G/?igsh=YjlpNW80emE0eWRv
(Images of an idyllic life in the country, around horses, with a dog, an earthy home, quiet in nature)
This is what I wanted from the start. But the older I get, the more I let it go, and the more I embrace what seems to be inescapable life of conflict for cause.
“For there is hope even for a tree.” - Job 4:17
~~
My tree isn't on fire anymore.
And not only is it not on fire, it is restored, healed. As if it was never burned to begin with.
For the record, before the environmental toll was known to me, I was getting into StarWars and Chat GPT told me I am most like Pbi-Wan Kenobi, and also some Ahsoka Tano.
I saw Ahsoka the cartoon charter on the tv at my cousins' place summaries as a kid,. I had no idea what was going on but always liked her the most.
I also liked Padme, Obi-Wan, and Jarjar,but still without a sense of who they are in the plot. I liked the different kinds of sincere ways they came off, though.
Didn't understand what the big deal was that Chat GPT kept telling me I am most like Obi-Wan (I was almost frustrated just wishing the answer sound be simply Ahsoka)... but dang 😂 I get the big reactions now and and very, very flattered to have them both lol.