Relaxation

I've been waiting a long time for a break. I kept 'dreaming' about the day I'd be able to just relax, I've had two days and they've been medicinal. Seriously it feels like I've had an injection of goodness or something. It only seems to work in contradiction to lots of work/school though, it is definately having diminishing returns each extra day of loafing around. Though I have to say I wish I could keep a Sabbath and just have a day to rest once a week. I think we all just need alot more relaxation time. I love just sitting in peace and breathing deeply and listening to a great song like John Mayer's No Such Thing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ya93JWrdxFc

It's been a good Christmas gift to just relax, I think as Aristotle would say a part of the Essence of man involves rest. I mean God even rested on the 7th day (what specific part of the 14.5 billion years that was I don't know). But I was reading my Catechism yesterday and it said something nice:

"2171 God entrusted the sabbath to Israel to keep as a sign of the
irrevocable covenant. The sabbath is for the Lord, holy and set apart for the
praise of God, his work of creation, and his saving actions on behalf of Israel.

2172 God's action is the model for human action. If God "rested and was refreshed" on the seventh day, man too ought to "rest" and should let others, especially the poor, "be refreshed." The sabbath brings everyday work to a halt and provides a respite. It is a day of protest against the servitude of work and the worship of money."

Sunrise

I decided to put up a sunrise for the photo on this blog because right now I'm just enjoying the dawning of a new day. The semester is over, I've worked as hard as I could, and I am once again strongly feeling Catholic and orthodox. I feel like I'm ready again to be happy for a while and am enjoying the little bit of time I have between today and my tuesday exam, and then after that winter break.

I think I would've made a good pagan because I LOVE astronomy and planets and stars and the sun. Stars are my favourite. But I think the Sun helps me to survive. (aside from the whole heat keeping the temperature right etc) But every morning there's a new sunrise and it makes me realize that - as the phrase goes - today is the first day of the rest of your life (unless it's the day you die - as American Beauty pointed out). There is something refreshing about nature and for me something comforting about the fact that we are a speck in the universe and that the cosmos will continue even if I ended up dropping out of school or dying or anything, life will go on. That comforts me, and to quote Will Ferrell as Harry Carey - I guess I'm just a worrier. ...that's why my friends call me whiskers ... (watch the SNL clip and you'll get it).

Have a good day, may the Sol Invictus (the Unconquerable Sun - who's festival is on Dec 25) shine on you - in a purely metaphorical and unpagan way. Or just to use the phrase of the Ancients and World of Warcraft - May the Eternal Sun Shine on You.

Only In Dreams

I woke up this morning and was so angry, I had been having the best dream of my life and I thought it had come true. 2 guys who had been my best friends but are now far away had somehow ended up at my university and we all had classes together and some girl was randomly being nice to me in the hall outside history class and asked me out (that should've given it away as a dream). And the four of us (2 friends, me and mystery girl -who's name I couldn't remember) all decided to go somewhere fun and then the dream ended. It's always so pathetic to explain dreams, sometimes my friends will tell me a story from their dreams and I will just get really confused and bored out of my mind. I think dreams must be like some kind of mythological thing that only the person they are revealed to will understand them. Once God actually spoke to me through a dream, that was cool. Wow... I miss those days. Anyway, this probably sounds like nonsense, but then I began thinking about all of this and figured I should re-read the lyrics to "Only in dreams" because Weezer is apparently the soundtrack of my life.

You can't resist her.
She's in your bones.
She is your marrow
And your ride home.

You can't avoid her.
She's in the air... in the air
In between molecules of
Oxygen and Carbon Dioxide.

Only in dreams
We see what it means.
Reach out our hands.
Hold onto hers.
But when we wake
It's all been erased.
And so it seems
Only in dreams.

You walk up to her.
Ask her to dance.
She says, "Hey, baby, I just might take the chance."
You say, "It's a good thing
That you float in the air... in the air.
That way there's no way I will crush your pretty toenails into a thousand pieces."

Only in dreams
We see what it means.
Reach out our hands.
Hold onto hers.
But when we wake
It's all been erased.
And so it seems
Only in dreams.

Ya it's a good song, I don't get the whole crushing toenails thing...Rivers is pretty screwed up, marrying Chinese women and locking himself in closets...it's not normal. (I say as I recall locking myself in a closet this week in order to finish Aristotle).

But the Bass riff for the song is cool. I'm going to go play it now on the Bass I stole from Dan's brother/the one Dan lent me.

No exams till Tuesday, Life is GOOD!!!!!

Good Times this Week

Three really good things that happened this week.

1. Breakfast with Dad: Tuesday morning I got up at 6:30 so I could practice for my driving test and I was by Dad's shop so I stopped by and he took me out to Timmies for breakfast.. It was nice.

2. Tuesday Evening-Wednesday : I passed my driver's test and went to go see James Bond: Quantum of Solace with Andrea and got to sleep a bunch and had fun watching L4yer Cake and Lord of War.

3. Family Guy clip - Stewie: "I'll be almost as cool as the cheeto guy" *Chester Cheeto Cat guy listening to 'Tom Sawyer' by Rush and cutting up cheetos with a razor blade and then does a line of it. Then he screams 'there is no better drummer than Neil Peart!!!' and smashes his hand on a glass.

VICTORY!!!!

I passed my G test -just barely - and now I don't have to take a drivers test for another 60 years.

In celebration I have posted this kick ass video which was the coolest song of 1980 ...if the category was songs in 1980 filmed in a bank...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNJYHD3gjXo

I was right, bad things do give meaning to my life, I'm very happy right now. There will be the impending crash, but right now I'm good.

Ocarinas, Lullabies, and Nirvana

I'm pretty nervous about my G test but in 11 hours it will be over. Something that has helped me relax though is investigating about Ocarinas - which are like little flutes. Zelda got me thinkin' about them. I found an Ocarinist on YouTube who is pretty amazing -He's a Christian too, you can tell from his shirts and what he says about the hymns he plays. Anyway this song brings me alot of peace, I've always loved lullabies. It's Zelda's Lullaby: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyPlQJQvUC4&feature=related

When I listen to him play the songs it just makes me feel so comfortable like I'm at complete peace. I feel like Nirvana-the eternal destination (or rather lack of destination) - not the band. I was reading about Nirvana the other day which is technically not so much a place as a ceasing of everything and a peace. I was thinking about how I love sleeping and how amazing it would be to just be that peaceful all the time. When I think of Nirvana I think of floating down a river listening to a lullaby on an Ocarina. If the Buddhists and/or Atheists (they're like Buddhist universalists, in that they think everything stops at death - so everyone 'goes to' Nirvana) are right then I guess it wouldn't be so bad.

Smile at the oncoming storm

I've been off school for 3 days now. All my time by myself I have wasted, I haven't even done the stuff I planned on doing. I don't really know what to do. I've spent my pre-exam vacation up now. I guess I'll study. Well I've described my life in horrifying terms before. Most of it is spent anticipating dread or sitting alone waiting for some new dread to anticipate. When I think about how much time I am afraid (I use fear in an equivocal way, sometimes just meaning stress or worry or anxiety or frustration) I realize that my life will never be empty. I was thinking of going over the last things I was afraid of and got through. Hmm. Dentist, Essays, Work (I become very devout on the car-ride to work, for some reason it always makes me afraid).

Tomorrow I have to take my G drivers test. Driving tests for me always go terrific - by terrific I mean they induce alot of terror into my life. They are up there with Dentist and Driving somewhere far away, and airport customs in my list of fears. So I have brewed over all that could go wrong tomorrow, and all the worst things that could happen. Even tonight, I'm just hanging out with an old friend and I'm afraid because I won't know what to say or do.

But if there's anything that I've learned in all of this, it's that actually suffering and fear gives my life meaning. Perpetual loneliness does seem to happen to me, but when I'm doing things I'm afraid of there are ups and downs, unexpected good things happen as well. In short, my life has meaning in those times.

So I look at the oncoming storm of stress - (within 24 hours I'll have failed my drivers test and be worrying for the next one and then worrying about exams.) I just need to look at the storm and smile. Eventually all of this will be washed away by the peace of the grave and I can imagine long slow humming of a familiar song that will sooth me throughout eternity.