Monday, December 31, 2012

Babies Don't Come with Insructions

     Yes, as the title says, babies do not come with an instruction manual, nor the rest of a child's upbringing all through to adulthood, just like marriage, relationships, friendships...  
    The first time I had a baby, I was twenty-one, and going home from the hospital was scary.  The second time I had a baby, I was twenty-seven and not scared, but still I made little mistakes once in awhile.
     I put my baby, when he was a few months old, in a sleeper that I had not washed yet.  I did not know that the flame retardant chemicals can cause a severe allergic reaction.  I should have known to wash it first.
     He got an awful rash on his hip, and I had to take him to Dr. Mac.  She said it was the sleeper, and she prescribed cortisone cream.  It got better.
     I just thought of that, because I saw a post about keeping chemicals off of babies.  
     I shared a picture of my sons to show they made it to adulthood.  Now, it is up to them to find their own way.  I will always offer help, love and guidance, but now it is time to let them learn about life, and hope that it will never be as crazy as my life was.

The Lantern

At dusk, I followed the light of the lantern,
that lit the tavern door.
I heard another seeker's despair, under the new moon's dark downpour.

And in the warmth of light I heard you laughing, drawn close to the wine.
And once more I longed for you,
your singing, a nightingale divine.

Inside this prison, felt not alive,
and I needed air to breath, to strive,
And, out at sea drowning again,
in this whirlwind I am in.

Out to sea, like broken glass,
no ship to hold, ah but alas,
and once more the moon shone,
the water's light I found you on.


Friday, December 21, 2012

Unnecessary Glorification of Suffering

     I agree with Marianne Williamson, that there is too much glorification of suffering.  If we focus on the crucifixion and not the resurrection, including our own suffering, we miss something.  I believe in the resurrection.  I know Baba followers don't for the most part, but I am not a traditional Baba follower, and I do believe in the resurrection.
     I also believe in Christmas in the Course in Miracles sense.  It is the birth of Christ our brother, and our own birth in the Holy Spirit.  
     I too have had a dark night of the soul, but that is not where I choose to dwell, and I do not demand spiritual points for this, a ridiculous notion in my opinion.  However, I do feel that the pain has brought me to read books like Return to Love, while a Course in Miracles was just something I was brought by a friend to, and it really made sense, so I kept coming back, as they say in Alcoholics Anonymous.
     I thought all my past which I wanted healed would suddenly be cured, but it is not like that.  It is still difficult, not a magical or sudden cure.  I know though, that the light is somewhere at the end of this tunnel, my physical eyes and metaphorical eyes as well. I know someday, maybe when I die, I will finally heal.  I do not know.  One day I think I have found all the answers and it all makes sense, and then I will get sad again or angry or resentful, so I am far from enlightened in some ways, but I am enlightened in that I know that this is illusion, and all that exists is love, and this suffering is nil.  It is bullshit.  I can meditate, clear my mind, and this pain is meaningless.
     I believe in the resurrection in my own life, because I almost died near Easter in 2003.  I was in intensive care in the Loris hospital and then at M.U.S.C. in Charleston, where I spent Easter Sunday.  I could have died, but I was supposed to live for a reason, perhaps for my children.  I feel God let me live, gave me another chance.  And, that it was Easter, is no coincidence.  Nothing is, really.
     All that is is love, Heaven, God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit thought system.  When I say Jesus, I mean Jesus, our perfect brother.  
There are many names of God, all are perfect, and He hears them all.  We all have our own God of our understanding.  What matters most is what they call in AA, step 11, a couscous contact to God through prayer and meditation.
     So, now in the spirit of Christmas, I celebrate the birth of Christ and my own birth in the Holy Spirit, oneness, and the innocence of the Christ child is our own innocence reflected back in this new birth, this newness, not to be construed with 'born again' in a fundamentalist sense, but a new life in oneness.  And, forgiveness or corrected perception, which is synonymous with forgiveness is atonement.  The Course in Miracles uses Christian terminology in a more eastern type of philosophy, and words like atonement have a slightly different meaning.  This way, the western mind, whether Christian or Jewish can understand. I have known a few Jews, including Marianne Williamson, who I do not know personally, but is Jewish, who had very little problem with the idea of Jesus.  I guess, deep down, people from Jewish backgrounds really want to love Jesus, a Jew himself, our brother once again.  On the other hand, I knew one guy, who was really into A Course in Miracles and kept coming to classes, but he said, "I'm Jewish, so I cannot relate to the Christian terminology."  But, even he really accepted it.  According to the story, Helen channeled Jesus, and dictated to Bill throughout the writing of the book.  This happened in New York City in the '60's, but I do not think the book became available until the '70's.  Return to Love by Marianne Williamson came out around '92.  I am amazed how enlightened people were compared to me, back then, looking back, even though I was at the '69 Darshan when I was seven years old, spent time with Mehera, and was in India when I was twelve, singing on Mehera's porch and again at twenty-five during problems in my marriage, when I was a young wife and mother.  Happy Birthday Dearest Mehera J. Irani, Meher Baba's Beloved, tomorrow.  Tomorrow is also my son's wedding day, but I will unfortunately not be there, because he is living in Peru.  (Just found out my son David's wedding is postponed, just to be accurate.)  {note added on December 22, '12}
All my love and happy holidays, my beloveds.

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Cougars and Paint Brushes

     It was a gorgeous day today, here in the south, warm and sunny.  I went to the hardware store for supplies, including white enamel and brushes for touching things up, like corrosion, and I found the most beautiful arts and craft brushes made of pony hair.  
     At first I just bought a set of just three, but later walked back and exchanged them for a more extensive set.  I am dreaming of all the beautiful things I can do with the brushes if I just get some colorful paint.  I could paint on paper or wood.  Most of my furniture and walls, I have already painted all over, well really mostly the kitchen.  I would like one wall a heavenly blue, but I imagined painting porcelain dolls and things, you know quaint stuff.
     A guy no more than twenty-five looked me up and down.  I was wearing my skinny jeans and combat boots with my Kelly green sweater.  Also, I had my hair in a ponytail and had earrings and green eye shadow.  Maybe I was just standing out too much.  I am not a cougar anymore. 
     No, those days are over.  Now I am over fifty, over the hill, fifty-one, legally blind.  I am more like a grandmother now, even ask for a senior discount if I'm short on cash.  No, I am not a cougar anymore.  I never really was, and I suppose I still could be if I wanted to, but my psyche is changing, as I run wild with the wolves, as in Women Who Run With the Wolves, I have become a bit of a lone wolf.  I lost my tribe years ago in a sense.  Some of us dropped out of the sky to the wrong family, the wrong religion, the wrong everything.  I feel I did.  I feel I belonged to someone else, somewhere else, and never found my lost tribe.  Oh, my children are my tribe, and although I know this is a textbook narcissistic symptom, but I feel like my kids are a part of me, my people.  
     A guy who knew my son David, saw me for the first time and said, "you look so much like David."  That was a compliment.  Sometimes people think my kids are my brothers.  Well, so much for self-flattery.  On to more important matters of the day.  Namaste.  

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Stop with the Lie, Don't Be One Way this Day and...

     OK, so I got talked into going to see a movie I hated, Flight, don't get me wrong I love Denzel Washington.  I Just don't like manipulation.
OK, I know some need help, but where were you friend when I asked for help, when I offered help?  Don't give me this crap now, please.  I get it.  I really do.  But, I've been that route, been down every route, and just when I was getting on track.  I had ordered Return to Love by Marianne Williamson, because finally my mind is ready to wrap itself around the truth of the only thing I ever knew that truly made full sense, A Course in Miracles, and then I am proselytized to with twelve step crap.  I am only mad, because I have been there done that, and it is a load of crap. 
    I was beginning to see clearly, and this just stood in my god damn fucking way.

     

Saturday, December 15, 2012

The Right Thing to Do

     Sometimes doing the right thing can feel so bad, so wrong.  Just because it is hard, that does not mean it is wrong.  Sometimes when you have to make a change, because a certain situation is not serving anyone, especially you, you have to break the viscous cycle.
     I have been on a viscous cycle, a few in my time, and perhaps there was something I was getting from it, at the time.  Finally something snaps, and you think, "I don't want to do this anymore."  At least that is my experience.
     There are levels of how bad the cycle could be, speaking in duality terms, which is really not real, but you know what I mean, I guess.  One might even get some pleasure or purpose or excitement, as well as some basic need met in a certain situation, but then one might say one day, "I want to do things different.  I want to pave a space for something in my life, that I am not leaving space for, because I am cluttering it with these patterns I have lived for years, because they are what is comfortable to me, what I am used to."  It could even be a self-esteem issue to some degree, or maybe just staying in one's comfort zone.
     I feel like I am at one of those crossroads now, where I have to make changes.  Change is hard.  I used to find it almost impossible, until I 'got my head on straight.'
     I think we all have an inner guidance, but sometimes it can be helpful to seek the counsel of a wise and trusted person, who is on the spiritual path, to help show the way with their powerful bright light.  We all have a bright light, the crown chakra when aligned with the heart chakra, like a silver thread that goes all the way from the root, through the sacral, solar plexus, heart, throat, third eye and finally the crown, which is white or gold.
     If I have the peace of God, then I am never alone, never empty, but whole.

Friday, December 14, 2012

I Realized What Bothered Me

     Recently I got a resentment, which is not unusual, but it took me a while to figure out what really bothered me and why.  What bothered me, I guess, was that when I was at any type of open program at the Meher Center, when people got to talk, that no one ever asked me in all the years and years, since I grew up at the center since I was five, just turned five, and had parents who met Baba and had special permission to build a house on the center, why or how my parents came to meet Baba, how old I was, what growing up at the center was like, especially in '66 before they all came.  No one ever asked me anything.
      I know in the Course in Miracles, no one is 'special.'  The thing is they all act like they are so important and special, singing at programs, working at the center.  It seems everyone has a holier than thou attitude towards me, and treat me like a I am to be shunned, and exclude as well as ostracize me.  I do not really care, and I know I am not a conformer, but it is not like I am a bad person, who does bad things, etc..
     So, I have just given up.  They do not want to see me, know me, hear me, and I feel this way mutually now.  It is like you grow up at the Baba Center, and everyone assumes that that is a privilege when really there were many draw backs to that.  
     My parents built and payed for the road that goes from Patterson Drive into the Center through my mother's house, Sheriar Gate House, and they just have their special keys to that chain, because they are very important, but they are so not interested in what my family was ever doing there, or why.  It is the strangest thing.  It is so strange. 
     The picture shows right to left, my late father, Lyn Ott, my sister Mimi and me in either the late '70's to early '80's.

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Love Holds No Grievances (a Course in Miracles)

      There is something to be said about unconditional love, whether you believe in it or not.  It does exist, but not usually in romantic love.  Love never dies, or is killed, not if it is real.  Many times romantic love is finally killed, and well it should be, because romantic love has expectations, romance, sex, 'specialness,' 
a Course in Miracles term, a term which, when I use, is underlined in red, because in the world or the average dictionary, the term does not exist.  "Love holds no grievances."  ACIM  
     We all know what this means.  Many years ago, I made the worst decisions of my life.  Some may have suggested other decisions.  But, we all know where we fully went wrong, and I do as well.  A psychic predicted everything that happened, and yet, I still followed the progress of what was to come.  It was as though I was under a spell, and I could not help myself, but with knowledge and know how, I could have made better decisions.  I was a mature woman, a mother, a divorcee, but still I made stupid decisions based on ego, etc..  Some want to know where my new age learning began.  I wish it were with Meher Baba, and as much as I love Mehera, his beloved, and her part in my life, my marriage and my children, with all her love and kindness, it came later than that.
    It came when the pain was too long and too great.  It came when I was tired, tired of trying to carry all that baggage on my own, when nothing could take away the way I felt.  
     I was bringing up two kids alone, and I found the I Ching, astrology, the Course in Miracles, yoga, meditation, Reiki, which I became a master of, and I learned about what Jung talks of, 'the shadow', myself, my dark self, the self that society may or may not accept, where I was liberated from the need to be spiritual, to be what others expected, and then only then could I be myself.  That is why I love the book Women Who Run With the Wolves so much, because I am not Mehera, and I am not perfect and I was exhausted, sick and virtually tired of being perfect.  I could not do it anymore.  I had to be everything I am, and not just one part, I had to be parts I did not even know.  
    Now, I no longer have to pretend to be anyone or anything, but who and what I am, and that person, woman, she-wolf, canine lupus or canine rufus, that free spirit, is who and what I am today and am proud, a brave, a squaw, a warrior, medicine woman, artiste, craftswoman, home maker, administrator, mother, friend, sister, daughter, dancer, singer, teacher, scientist, all things I am, but I am no longer what you try to make me be.  Not ever, ever again.  The cost to my soul is too great.  The suffering too severe, the emergency too dire.  Here I stand before you, and I am.  I just am, for love holds no grievances towards myself or anyone.

























































































Saturday, December 8, 2012

I Can Choose Peace

     If I had known years ago, all I know today, it would have saved me a lot of time worrying and suffering, as well as drama.
     When the Course in Miracles talks about enlightenment, we are not talking present God realization necessarily, but about seeing less illusion or realizing it is all illusion, thus suffering less.  This is not to say that one does not suffer at all.  Too many religions, including Baba followers' interpretation of his teachings, are focused on suffering, equating this with spirituality.  This is bullshit, pardon the expression.  I can choose peace over my suffering.  I have a choice.  We all do, even those with mental illnesses to some degree, have the ability if they are open and willing to learn, to control one's thinking.
     Eckhart Tolle says, "your situation is only your thoughts about it."  If you change a thought, move a muscle, everything can be seen differently.  You may also say this little ACIM prayer: God, help me see this differently.  Also, I am never upset for the reason I think.  And a very wise person once said to me, "all suffering is caused by lies you tell yourself."  That helped me a lot.
     Now, I would like to bring up the ego.  Of course, in order to survive we must have an ego in a Freudian sense, but I am not talking psychology, but spirituality.  The ego, once hysterically trying to run the show, control, etc., is a dangerous thing.  We run to it, to save us, but it is our own worst enemy, causing us to attack, accuse, resent, be selfish, jealous and all other character defects.  The best way to function, for a better life and good fortune, is through innocence.  If we look at life through the Holy Spirit thought system, and stop separating ourselves from God, we can be happy.  If we can look at our brother or sister, even those we cannot love, through heaven, love and the Holy Spirit, we can see differently, through love.  Then, our problems are still there, but perhaps we can deal with them differently, without all the complications of the ego.
     I hope this is helpful to someone.  It certainly has been to me.  In '96, a very hard year for me, I only owned one book, Marianne Williamson's Return to Love, based on A Course in Miracles.  I hope to get that book again.  The library for the blind does not have it, but I would like to just own a copy, a print copy.  At the time, I was in so much pain and had zero coping skills, although I did stop with my son, going across country, in Columbus Missouri, to talk to a counselor I either found from a hot line from the motel, or the phone book.  Still, once I landed in Colorado, I kept trying to read this book, but it just was not sinking in.  My mind was too laden with so much stuff.  Still, something about the book, kept causing me to gravitate to it, and read it anyway, bits and parts.
     For me, it took a long time to come to a place of any true understanding of the principles of A Course in Miracles, when in my forties, I finally began studying in a class, and still am.  It has helped me so much, I cannot even begin.  I hope some of this is helpful.  Love and namaste.  Shanti, shanti.

Monday, December 3, 2012

Suffering vs Peace

     While everyone, or most people have suffered from one degree to another, mentally, physically and all have handled it differently, some needing medical intervention and some not, our suffering does not define us.  That is unless that is what one wants one's definition to be.  
     I am not my story.  I may have suffered, maybe still suffer, and may yet to suffer, but it is not what or who I am.  If you build your whole existence around your past, present or future suffering, what is that?  Dead bones.  I have suffered too, even in a clinical way at times.  Does this mean that I think I suffered more than anyone?  NO!!  Does it mean I am that, that I identify with my pain?  Absolutely not!
Do I think it is bringing me closer to God?  I have no idea.
     All I know is that I can choose peace now and anytime over anything else.  Recently, I was so worried about my younger son, I literally was physically and mentally ill over it.  Still, even then, I could have chosen peace over that.  I have a choice.
     I realize many people have emotional imbalances, even me, but I do not center my life and identity around that.  I choose joy and happiness.
     Sometimes I think Meher Baba followers put way to much emphasis on suffering, like it is a part of the religion.  I find this somewhat unfortunate.  Most people have suffered at one time or another.  The truth is that enlightenment brings less suffering, because the enlightened individual knows that it is just illusion.  Baba followers do not like this concept for the most part.
     Truthfully, I am tired of people wallowing in self-pity.  I have done it, do it too sometimes, but when you think about it, it is such a major turn-off.  It is like, 'I have such a hard life...  I suffered the most...'
     I am half blind and I do not carry on like this.  Frankly, I am getting tired of it.  I know someone close to me who is constantly suffering over everything.  I feel like saying, "for crying out loud, get over yourself."
     There are soldiers coming back with injuries and PTSD and people have died in war camps, and people have lost their homes in storms, and people have had their child die of cancer.  Wake up and smell the coffee.  As Phil Collins says in a song, 'oh, think twice, it's just another day for you in me in Paradise...'
     The other thing that really annoys me for lack of a better word, is 'specialness,' which in A Course in Miracles does not exist.  No one is special.  My parents met Baba.  I spent a bit of private time with Mehera and corresponded with her, even grew up on the Meher Center and my mother still lives there with Meher Baba's permission (in a house my parents bought, built, and payed for, as well as the road they built that everyone uses, and the land, which the center selfishly and incredulously wants for themselves, even though I have no house.  Screw the Meher Spiritual Center).  This does not make any one of us special.  When I hear people talk of their 'special' relationships with the Mandali, Baba's close ones or household, I want to...  I will not say, but I guess you know where I am going with this.  I am sorry if you find me irreverent, but this is where my spiritual training, post Baba upbringing, has brought me, and I do not understand the old ways.  My ego will never be invested in these types of things.  And, yes I choose peace.  If you do not like hearing the truth about the center, that is your choice.   I still choose peace over resentment and anger. In fact a lot of people will not like a single thing in this blog, but that is alright too.

Saturday, November 24, 2012

Back to My Center; Back to God

     Yesterday, I was really upset.  Perhaps I had good reason to be.  I have experienced a lot of losses like many people have, and I kind of fell apart.
     I called a friend.  Usually I handle things on my own.  She reminded me of my other name 'Sage', aka Sage,lol, which means wise.  She also reminded me to get back to my own center.
     I was not grounded.  I got off center and off balance.  After pulling myself back together and back up from my bootstraps once again after a big cry, I meditated and did Reiki on myself as well as yoga and alternate nostril breathing.  I also held my chakra stones for a while.  I have a set of seven stones that match the chakras.  I cannot tell the ones with yellowish tones apart anymore, so I just hold them.  I can see the amethyst, turquoise, and rose quartz.  And of course, one is black.  I know the root chakra is often red, but it can be represented by a black stone which I forget the name of, garnet perhaps.
     I listened to one of my talking books and got the laundry done before bed, as well having some nutrition and doing a full yoga session on my own.  I did what my friend said.  She reminded me of my wisdom, and I had forgotten my own self.  In Baba, people probably think that is what you are supposed to do.  Even in twelve step programs, there is an expression, "get out of self", but the actual meaning of that is doing service work, or karma yoga, so as not to dwell on one's own problems, which can be obsessive and nonconstructive.
     However, there are times when one needs to get inside oneself, one's essence, once again.  This helps, because believe it or not, even if all is gone it seems, and it seems like no one cares or you have no one and nothing and no one loves you, you have yourself.  I have myself.  I may have just about no one who appreciates me, but I can love myself, period, without permission.  
     The next right thing to do, doing the next right thing, another twelve step expression, is letting go.  Sometimes, one must let go of all that is no longer serving you.  Let others come and go as they will, and maintain alliance with the Tao, the true Sage, your higher power and higher self, the Holy Spirit thought system as A Course in Miracles says.  Whatever you call your higher power, is the same, whether it be Baba, Jesus, Buddha, Yahweh, etc.. 
     Meher Baba said that if you call out to God with all your heart, He will help you.  I am not quoting verbatim, which is why I did not add quotation marks.  I'll leave Baba's words to my brother.  
     Also, growing up at the Baba Center, I see how ineffectual it was, that everything I really learned, I learned after growing up there, not during, I am sorry to say, although the eastern thought system I admit I did learn, but not to love myself or yoga or meditation, all of which came from further seeking on my own for what was missing from my early faith.  Everyone has their own path, journey, to follow, and no one can judge another's.  We are all unique and yet all one, a collective, yet different.
     All I know is, I must stay on my path, or I will not survive this crazy world, which I can make crazy all on my own if not careful.  We all can.  Also, remember as I often forget, feelings are not facts.  Last night I said a mantra from A Course in Miracles.  It is actually a workbook lesson which says, "in my defenselessness my safety lies."  No matter how the world assaults you, you are safe in being defenseless.  This does not mean that one should not defend oneself, but if I lash out at others and do not let it be, I am only compounding the problem for myself.  Therefore, the safest place for me to be is defenselessness.

Friday, November 16, 2012

Recognizing the Need to Heal; the Most Evident Sign of Healing

     There are so many self-help movements, including twelve step programs.  I know the steps.  Been there, done that.  For those who find healing, true healing there, more power to you, but healing goes deeper than all that.
     When you finally realize that you cannot go on being abused by someone, ex: in your own family, like a toxic mother who may have NPD, narcissistic personality disorder, and you research help, no longer wanting to play the game, you are ready to heal.  I am not a counselor, therapist or doctor of any kind, accept a Reiki Master, but I have no credentials in psychology.  Still, the pain was bad enough for me to start doing the work, the research, looking for answers, being pragmatic.
     Society tells us that our mother loves or loved us.  This may be true for some.  I do love my children more than life itself, for they are my life.  However, some mothers really do not love their children.  Many self help books address this to daughters, but there are also mothers so sick, they cannot love sons either, nor grandchildren except on their own terms.  They may be meanest to the weakest, in their eyes, the single daughter, the disabled offspring, the female, the male, or the youngest, even the grandchild.  In other words, she goes down the food chain, so to speak, to whoever she finds most vulnerable.  This is a type of sadism.  She may not realize she is doing this, and it is nearly impossible to get inside her head.  I do not think that even she understands herself, except that she is a narcissist, and she is not well, although she thinks she is and can fool many people into thinking she is well, even to think her kids are the bad ones, but if outsiders have any sense, they can see through this.
     She also may have charisma, and be able to charm people, impress them with her wit, accomplishments, attractiveness, wealth, etc., and she sucks people in with it, but in reality it is all a farce.  She may have all these asserts, and will be nice to people when it suits her, so that they do not know what she really is like, or how cruel she really is, for ex: Joan Crawford in Mommy Dearest, written to expose her after her death by her children.  We see Joan Crawford on the movie screen and see a gorgeous actress. She even played very nice people in movies like Mildred Pierce.
     It is not these mothers' fault entirely.  They are toxic (sick), because someone in their upbringing, usually their mother, was sick, enabled by their father.  Perhaps we should feel compassion for them, but first and foremost we must feel compassion for our own suffering inflicted by this lack of love and genuine kindness from our own mother.
     Symptoms of daughters of 'mean mothers', (and I recommend the book, Mean Mothers, Heal the Legacy), are 1) feelings of being less than or inferior, even self loathing, 2) not being able to stand the sight of childhood pictures, because it reminds one of the lack of being loved and is repugnant to oneself,  3) feeling guilty, like it was our own fault our mother did not love or like us, 4) being swayed off guard at the slightest portrayal of kindness from our mother, in hopes again and again that things would change and she would finally love us once and for all, 5) eating disorders and self doubt, because our mother says we are too fat, not pretty enough, not thin enough, etc... 6) being an overachiever or underachiever, because we may be trying to prove ourselves, but our mother may have given us such a low idea of who we were, that we gave up, 7) she may manipulate us with false compliments or gifts, 8) she may be nasty when receiving a gift from us, because it is not good enough, even if we put a lot of thought and money into it, 9) she may out and out lie about inheritances that do not exist, promise to buy us a house, etc., but always fall through and never go through, 10) no matter our age she will throw us out, if we live with her, without warning or notice, even if we have no where to go, and even if we are a minor, under seventeen or eighteen years of age, 11) she is warped about sex, and may even encourage you to lose your virginity before ready, claiming something is wrong with you, and the next minute be insinuating that you are a promiscuous slut.
     The first sign of healing and growth are looking for answers, not just believing we are wrong, that we are unlovable, worthless, ugly, fat, etc..  It is not us.  It is them.  And, now we have the tools to heal through books like Mean Mothers..., meditation, deep breathing and yoga.  Reiki can help as well as acupuncture.  
     You also have to at one point, just stop all communication, because that is where boundaries begin.  Do no feel bad about not being there.  She was not there for you.  She did not love you, and any dictate of society is a lie.  You owe her nothing.  She may threaten about inheritances that as I said really do not exist, and even if you are an angel to her, she will treat you like crap in the end anyway, because that is what she 'gets off' on.  That is her thing.
      So, let go and be your own mother.  She did not love the little girl or boy you were, and she may not love you at all, but you deserve to love yourself.  You are a beautiful child of God, who does not need her approval to live.  You are beautiful, smart, and important.
     If I were to believe my mother, I would not be able to love the little girl in the picture attached to this article, but she is wrong.  I no longer need what is not serving me, and nor do you, male or female.

Thursday, November 15, 2012

Yoga Breathing

     Recently I forgot to do conscious breathing along with my yoga practice.  I was very stressed out about family issues.
     I went through the motions of my yoga practice, minus the deep breathing and meditation.
     I ended up in severe pain in the entire chest area from collar bone, to sternum, to my whole rib cage.  I was in pain for hours with a heating pad, intermittently, sometimes waking up from the pain.  I feared it was my heart, but I never called an ambulance.
     Instead, the day we voted when my older son came home from Colorado, I finally went to the doctor where I went through extensive tests, including ECG, xrays, and blood tests. The doctor said I was very sore in the chest bones from not breathing deeply, due to stress.
     Now I am doing deep breathing during yoga, as well as whenever I remember.  I am also doing alternate nostril breathing, starting on the left for energy, right for relaxation.  You use the thumb and second finger of right hand, close off one nostril, breath in for four, hold both nostrils for six and breath out the other nostril for eight.  You start and end with the same nostril.  This gives clarity and groundedness and should be done in lotus, or Indian style position on the floor, yoga mat, bed or wherever you are most comfortable without noise or distraction, unless it is soft new age music.
     Penny, my yoga and Reiki Master teacher may correct me on anything pertaining to the yoga alternate nostril breathing, but that is how I remember being taught by her and others.  Namaste.  Remember to breath.  Shanti, shanti, shanti.

Saturday, November 10, 2012

No More Course in Miracles

     Never put anyone on a pedestal.  It never works.  I know.   I have tried it, and it always ends in disaster.  I do not mean in romantic relationships, but in one on one human relations of any kind.  I have seen it objectively and experienced it subjectively many times.
     I have lost interest in the Course in Miracles, because although there are wonderful people who lecture, write books, speak, give classes, etc., but they are just people like you and me, including the writer of the book.
     Yes, I am sure Helen was inspired by Jesus, and perhaps he was with her, but the truth is, Jesus died and suffered on the cross. Baba followers will beg to differ.  I do not care. 
      Many Jews were crucified by the Romans.  Just read about Masada.  Jews were crucified in concentration camps during WWII.  Still I believe Jesus suffered for man and womankind and no one can ever compete with that, not even Meher Baba.  If so, why would Mehera, his beloved have to suffer so?  Just my opinion.
     Also, I am constantly asked why I don't come to India, especially by Indians who do not realize that some Americans are poor.  Are the people who get to India all the time because they are 'loaded' any more spiritual than the poor who can't go?  Or the disabled?  Look at this, liberal Baba followers.
     Not all Americans are the stereotype you think.

Thursday, November 8, 2012

Breath, Just Breath

     I was experiencing crushing pains in my chest and sternum, solar plexus area for hours, thinking I was having a heart attack, but not wanting to call 911, because my son was coming home, we had to vote,....  
     After sleeping with a heating pad and using a hot water bottle at a friend's house where there was a dinner party, I finally went to the doctor.  
    They did an ECG, and the doctor found my ribs, sternum, and collar bone, all my chest bones tender when pressing.  Then they took two vials of blood to check for some kind of infection that starts with a c or something, some big long word I cannot pronounce, and did chest xrays.
     Everything was fine, thank God.  He said it was sore from stress, not breathing.  He demonstrated slow deep breathing.  I asked if I should stop doing yoga and working out, push-ups, etc..  He said keep exercising, and do deep breathing and yoga, then come back in a week.  I told him the things I was stressed about, which are too personal for my blog, and he gave me advice about my personal life.  
     I was really happy to leave without a prescription, to know what the pain was, to know it was not my heart or anything serious, felt I had gotten really good care, and was impressed that a doctor told me to do deep breathing and yoga.
     Truthfully, I had been forgetting to breath, even while doing yoga, because I do yoga at home, not in a class, because I cannot get to one.  I was just not breathing.  Since, I started breathing, I do not have any pain.  I know I was breathing, but not deep enough.
     I learned something.  I was afraid to exercise, though, and I still do not want to do push-ups and sit-ups yet, until I am sure the pain will not come back, but I started my yoga practice back, with deep breathing to go with it.  I should probably go back to my meditation practice, and pausing.  Sometimes, you just have to remember to discipline yourself to do these things, because there are so many things to do each day, even if you do not go to work.  You still have to run a house, shop, cook, pay bills, etc..  Namaste.

Saturday, November 3, 2012

Exhausting Dreams

     I am exhausted from my dreams.  My dad died almost fifteen years ago, and he was blind and then sick in the end, and I took care of him in part til the end.  A month ago or more, my boyfriend, Alan, died.
     Alan, my father, and my grandfather who died when I was twenty were all in my dream.  Three people in my life who have died, all in the same dream.
     The theme with Alan was jealousy and insecurity, because I was jealous believe it or not when Alan had stage four cancer.  I did not think I was, but I said, "why don't you just hang out with Angela?"
     Alan said I was jealous, and I was like, "what are you talking about?"

     Alan said, "English is both of our first language."
     Well, in my dream, Alan was feeling rejected by Angela and told me she was more attractive than me.
     The next thing I know, I am helping my blind, sick father down these steep, dangerous swinging stairs, and I am visually impaired now in my dreams, so I am having trouble seeing, and my grandfather who has been dead for thirty years is walking behind us.  We all made it down safely, but it was really scary.
     It is obvious, I am insecure about my looks, especially since I am getting older.  I felt rejected and jealous about Alan, and I am still processing his death.
     Helping my father and grandfather represents my care giving nature, and the fact that I did have to help them both, and now I feel I have to take care of them, and I am disabled myself now.  Also, it has always been the males in my family who have needed me, my grandfather, my father, my sons and my brother.  Also, some boyfriends, including Alan who died.  I used to give Alan Reiki while we waited for the heavy pain medication to kick in.  He was in so much pain, it made me cry.  
     Alan and I were broken up, but still close when he died, so he was no longer technically my boyfriend.  Also, he was still married to this woman in Germany he had kids with.  Whenever she would bring the kids to visit him, before we knew he was sick, I would break up with him until she was gone, because I felt their relationship was awfully close, and it made me suspicious.  
     I feel I rejected Alan when he was dying, because he was at my house and I said, "I have a date."  What kind of person tells her dying ex boyfriend of six years she has a date.  My date came while Alan was there, and I introduced them.  My date dumped me that night, and the next night Alan and I were lying down together and I was crying.  I don't know if I was crying because Alan was dying or because I got dumped by my new romantic prospect.
     Alan said, "he was so insensitive.  I told him I had cancer, so he would not see me as a threat.  Then the whole time you were getting ready, he just kept looking at your but.  I thought 'what a lustful person.' "
        
                   The End     

Sunday, October 28, 2012

Self Pity is Never Helpful

     It is always  damaging to compare oneself to another.  There will always be someone richer, luckier in love, you name it. I do a lot of pity partying and it never makes me feel better.  
     Life as the I Ching says, consists of an ebb and flow.  Sometimes, I think I need to take charge, make something happen for me.  I think, 'something is not right.'  I second guess myself, my life, my decisions and waste time and energy, sometimes lying in bed at night, thinking of all I should have done different.
     If I compare myself to anyone else and start to feel ashamed of who I am or what I have in terms of material possessions, I am not serving myself.  If I appreciate the beauty of life and what I have, I am better off.
     I am a mother, a daughter and a sister.  I am a friend, a woman, a lot of things.  Why should I put myself down?  Why should I think, 'well, I'm not as skinny as... or I am not as tall as... and my hair is not straight but curly...?'  The point is that it is OK for me to feel good about who I am, period.  I do not need to go under a metamorphosis, just be.  Yes, I make mistakes, lose friends, alienate others, have plenty of enemies, but Psalm 23, King David says: ..."He prepareth me a table in the presence of my enemies, He annointeth me with oil..."
     If I make gratitude lists and adhere to true, not false humility, all will be well.  If I live by love and not the drive of the ego, I can be happy.  If I can attack no one, live and let live, be with what is, I can be happy.  And lastly, if I stop chasing my ego's ambition and remember that love for love's sake is why I am here, all will be well.  Shanti.

Saturday, October 27, 2012

Relief From Grief

     I am starting to feel a little better.  I am not feeling as much intensity over Alan's dying.  I have closure now, and I guess our karma for this life was over.
     It has been storming as everyone knows, but I like storms, because of my goth personality, and my vampirishness, although I do not think that is a word.  I am reading Ann Rice's autobiography, her leaving the Catholic church, her era of darkness and writing Interview With a Vampire, and her final return to faith.  It is interesting, because she always felt 'genderless' and was always with only one man in her whole life, her husband who died in 2002.
     It is funny how we leave our own religions, have no religion, and then discover our own faith.  Many people do not understand my attitude towards God and why I am not more of a 'Jai Baba' type Baba lover.  If you grew up at the center like only my brother and I did, and my sisters somewhat, you would understand the disillusionment, not with Baba necessarily, but I will not go into it.  If you have not experienced something, it is impossible to understand it.
     I probably drove away all my friends, or what friends I had, with my anguish about Alan, my fury, my abandoned feelings, making something about me that was not.
     I feel sick physically tonight, but it is better than mental suffering.  So, I am sorry if I was a whiner for a while.  I think that although I will miss Alan, I can stop dwelling on it.  A change in how one sees things can only come from inside, what they call an attitude adjustment.  These are my only wise words, which I have found through this tunnel of bleak darkness.  Namaste.

Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Handling Depression and Grief in Healthy Ways

     I think realizing that I was grieving about Alan, made me able to cry and realize there was cause for my depression.  It is OK to miss someone, to love someone.  
     I think a person can try to be strong for too long, and not allow oneself to feel anything, for fear they might fall apart, that there would be no safety net.  But, I am my own safety net.  It is OK to embrace my own feelings.
     The way I handled it was I threw the I Ching for guidance, which guided me to do nothing aggressive as usual, because that is the way of the Sage.  And, like the Dalai Lama says, if you raise your consciousness, you raise the world's consciousness collectively.
     I cried and listened to music and silence as well as doing yoga and journaling.  I guess what really helped me was a child in the neighborhood needed help.  I answered the door without my glasses and did not recognize him, because I had my glasses off.
But, of course then I did.
     My younger son received a beautiful picture of himself with his father when he was so cute, and his father was handsome as well.  I found a little photo album he could use to put pictures in, because I could not find the right frame.
     I cleaned the house.  I did not give in to the depression.  I got out of self.  If I do not make everything about me, all around me falls into place and I can feel useful, even in small ways.

Tuesday, October 16, 2012

Dealing with Feelings of Inferiority

     Feelings are not facts.  They are merely perceptions of how one believes things to be. That is why just a pill or an alcoholic beverage can alter one's state of mind. But, if you have been around you know that drunk people often cry, because alcohol will not make the feelings go away, only numbs it, sometimes even enhances it.
     Lately I have been dealing with a lot of issues, and I have no one to talk to about them.  I feel like my mind is as loaded as a battle ship.  Sleep is my escape, but then I dream and dream, and the dreams are so intense that I am drowning in dreams.
     I woke in the middle of the night thinking Alan was kissing me.  It was the second time I dreamed of him in a row.  We have not been together in a long time, but he got pancreatic cancer and he came over in pain last spring and slept on my futon.  I gave him Reiki until the meds kicked in.  Now I cannot get in touch with him or even know where he is.
     Last night I wrote down everything that I was thinking no matter how dark, no matter how wrong, no matter how not new age or positive, the truth.
     No one is less than.  No one, and yet I think that I am less than.  I really do in so many ways, I cannot begin.  I have pretended for so long that I felt good about myself, so that I would seem normal, professional, positive, but the truth is it is all just a lie.  I do not even know why I am telling this.
      How to deal with it was my topic.  The truth is I do not know anymore.  I do not know what to do.  It is all so deep rooted.
      I grew up doing and accepting what my parents said.  Then I got married and did the same with my husband and had kids, just like Mary Chapin Carpenter's song, 'He Thinks He'll Keep Her.'  She eventually finds herself, empowers herself after all the years of laundry and carpools, etc..  I did all that.  
     I wish that I could have truly empowered myself.  I tried with all my might to learn yoga, to sing, write, taught school, designed halter tops, you name it.  Now I am at a standstill, a stagnation, nowhere to go from here.
     I feel like I could have been a contender, and now it is too little too late.  The only way I know to handle this is to try to erase unhealthy tapes in my head, and embrace who I am.  The other is to just have acceptance of what is.  I feel misunderstood, and yet I know to just be with that, accept that too.  I know this writing is raw, but it is real and the truth.  

Sunday, October 7, 2012

Relationship Advice from a Non-expert

     If you are in love with someone, sometimes it is easier to get over them without the crutch of someone else.  I know a new person or rebound person can seem good at the time, if you do not love the person enough or feel safe enough to call them a safety net, old patterns could come back again once the old object of your affection returns.
     Even if you try desperately to make it platonic, to end it, to keep this person of your real feelings at bay, they will once again emerge.  I do not know any other way except to truly fall in love with someone else and not just try to.  And, this means chemistry of course.  And karma.
     How do I know?  Been there done that.  It did not work.  However, once I did really and truly fall in love with someone else, although it did not last either, I was only then ready to say "adios amigo."  Or, "au revoir."  And this time really and truly mean it with all my heart.  
     So, if you ever beat yourself up like I did for falling apart, not handling things well, not making your decisions very gracefully, for being a mess, know that you are not crazy, just human.  Some of us have clear cut paths in love and life and some do not.  For some it takes longer.  Do not ever judge yourself, even though others will and do.  Believe in yourself.  I did not believe in myself, but I do now, and that is what matters.  The answers come in due time, but sometimes it is a long time in coming, and understanding rather than blaming yourself is a wonderful thing, and at this point, who needs therapy?  LOL.  

Saturday, September 29, 2012

Reality Check about Food/ Staying Healthy on Little Means

     Another federal program the Republicans want to do away with, at least ones like Paul Ryan, is snap, the food stamp program.  Many of us are struggling to buy food, with or without them, because they are usually not enough.
     I see many posts about food on fb, and all these foods we need to boycott, etc, however, some people cannot afford organic food.  We can buy lots of fruits and vegetables and some organic, but not all.  
     I know that the meat and eggs are full of hormones and antibiotics, and that we want humane animal products such as cage free chicken and eggs, and never veal, a very non-politically correct, inhumane food I have boycotted for many many years.
     Still, although I am using soy milk now because I am a bit lactose and gluten intolerant, I do buy a small amount of meat, such as ground turkey and some sandwich meat.  I cannot afford organic meat, although when it comes to eggs, I buy cage free when on sale and rarely chicken now.
     For my birthday, I got some organic coffee, a real treat.  If you drink wine at all, you can tell a lot of the wines are full of sulfates which make one feel awful and congested, even sick, at least in my experience.  
     I am doing my best to feed my family in a healthy way, fresh lettuce, home made salad dressing, fresh red onion, garlic, tomatoes, etc..  Yogurt and fresh fruit are staples in my home and the absence of sugar or saturated fat.  
     

Signs of a Toxic Relationship

     When you think you are in love, you cannot see the forest for the trees.  You also may not have enough confidence to know your own worth.  
     I have had a lot of experience and want to share the signs of a bad or toxic relationship. 1) If you are in a relationship where there is 'one-up-manship' meaning that someone has power over you, your life, who your friends are and keeps you in fear in some way of losing them or their love, 2) if the person you are with wants you to change your political or religious views to suit them or puts yours down, 3) if you find that you have no energy for other things because your relationship is taking everything you have in terms of energy to sustain it, 4) if your significant other does not respect your boundaries or privacy or gives you the constant third degree and little to no trust, 5) if your loved one has family that is judging you with no reason and they are holding this against you, 6) when you cannot be yourself and constantly try to be who someone else wants you to be to make him or her happy, 7) if you are feeling insecure about their love for you, because they make ultimatums, 8) if you have no time for others in your life, 9) if the person you are with does not love your children if you have them, and 10) if you are feeling less than or uncertain about your normal everyday habits that always seemed alright to you before.
     I am not saying that one should not try to be a better man or woman or stretch from one's comfort zone, but to completely reinvent oneself or try to to be accepted by another person is outrageous.  I have done it.  I hate to admit it.  I have starved myself to ninety-five pounds to please a guy who wanted me skinny.  That is not healthy.  I have worn long dresses and spoke softly to please another.  I acted like a Stepford wife to please my husband.  I realize this is my bad, my shortcoming, my mishandling and my own failure to empower myself.  I guess now that I am fifty-one years old, I have experienced enough to know what love is and what love is not.  

Tuesday, September 25, 2012

Fashion and Fun/ The Purple Hat

     I was shopping with my son and I found a beautiful lavender purple sun hat with a big brim.  It was stunning and half price.
     I tried it on and Ted said it looked good, but I had had a bad car accident in a big wide rim hat years ago when I used to drive, so we thought it was a bad idea.  However this cotton hat is not floppy.  It is a bit Mary Poppinslike, but I think it is stunning, and I love that color.
     Well, I did not buy it, but eventually I went back and bought it, because I thought it was special.  I went to the beach to try to figure out what to do with my anger and bitterness.  I have no one to talk to, because I am usually the one giving advice, and I feel like no one understands my predicament.  I think they call it terminally unique.  My friend Alan used to say, "can you speak English please?"  That was when we were at the beach at I was doing yoga twists and talking about squeezing out the toxins.
     Ironically, Alan would say "speak English" if he were to hear the way I talk about not getting closure about him.
     Anyway I wore my new hat at the beach. There were too many people there for me to get any answers from the ocean and sky, and it was too hot.  I was wearing a matching purple sundress.  I wish I had a camera, but I haven't in years, and do not know how to use my computer camera, except my web cam.   
     I wanted to start a new blog about fashion, although I was not sure if men would read it, since I do not know enough about men's fashion, except that the owner of Maxim magazine was quoted saying, "GQ is for men who like socks better than sex."  He is the richest man in Scotland and like Hugh Hefner has the U.N. represented in his hot tub.  Well so much for style, and it is OK if men do not read my style articles unless they want to.

Monday, September 24, 2012

How Yoga Saved My Life

     I was on a downward spiral, looking for happiness in unhealthy ways and looking for love in all the wrong places, lol.  I was raising two teenagers alone.  
     I met a guy who happened to be a yoga teacher and I went with him to his classes in North Carolina.  I really enjoyed it.  I had taken yoga in India in '96 when they offered it the last time I was there.
     I really liked yoga.  He said I had amazing balance.  I kept doing it for years and years.  Now, although I cannot get to a yoga class, because of transportation issues, since I live in a town with no public transportation except medical, I do yoga at home every day.
     It helps keep me balanced, teaches me to move correctly without stress on the back and spine, helps me relax and keeps my chakras in alignment, a very important thing to keep the chakras all open.  Our body is like a channel and the chakras move up our body from root to crown, and to have a full sense of well being they must flow and be aligned.  Namaste.  Shanti, shanti.

Saturday, September 22, 2012

My Views on Vaccinations; Why I Believe in Them from First Hand Experience for the Most Part

    Although I am a holistic practitioner, since I do Reiki, I have always leaned a bit towards western medicine.  Mostly, it is just my personal beliefs and also financial, because holistic health is usually not covered.
     When my sons were born six and a half years apart I made decisions.  The second time was easier because I had had a baby before and knew the choices I had made and I made the same again, including having my children vaccinated, which is not done all at once or in the hospital as some people believe.
     My older son had a bad reaction to the pertussis vaccine, so I decided not to have my second son get that one, since you can get the DT, dyptheria, tenitinus, without it, the DPT.  I did not think twice about it.
     When my younger son David was fourteen he came down with a really bad cough that would not clear up.  He also has asthma which made it even worse.  We went to the doctor a few times.  He was not getting better.  They took blood and his white blood cell count was over 50,000, so the doctor hospitalized him.  They found fluid near his heart.  He was tested for everything, TB, cancer, leukemia.  He was in a room where you had to wear a max.  If I was in there without a max, the nurse said, "put your mask back on."
     Finally lung fluid was analyzed and he had pertussis, whooping cough, which is extremely rare.  It was like an episode of House.
     The health department contacted us at the hospital wanting to know everyone who he had been in contact with so they could bring them free antibiotics.  My other son and I had to take them too.
     Back home I looked over his vaccination records, because I did not remember that I had chosen not to have that vaccine for him.
     Sure enough I had not.  It said DT.
     Later I went to see a doctor about some small issue of my own and mentioned that my son had not so long ago had whooping cough.  He asked me who my son's doctor was and I told him.  He said, "Oh, I had dinner with him recently and he told me he had a patient with whooping cough."  It made doctor's dinner conversation, because it is so rare.
     The reason these diseases are so rare and small pox is gone, and we do not see polio, etc. or German measles which can cause birth defects if the mother is effected, is because we have vaccines.  
     I realize there is some reason to believe that the pertussis vaccine could cause autism.  I believe this is highly possible in some cases, but having had my son so sick with whooping cough, it would have been better had he had the vaccine.  The disease also scars the lungs, which is not good.  Thank God Medicaid for children payed for all this, which was 2003.  I hope the Republicans do not destroy health care for poor children.  That would be a tragedy.  
     Well, that is my story and I have my opinions which remain firm from experience and intuition.  You can make whatever choice you want for your kids, but as far as I am concerned, not vaccinating is endangering other children who are too young to be vaccinated yet, for example with the measles vaccine.  Make an educated decision, not one based on popular fads and new age doctrine.  
     The picture above shows me with my son in the winter of 2010, and as you can see, he is a big, strong, healthy, handsome man now. 

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Seeing Through Clear Filters

     OK, I know I am legally blind so who am I to talk about seeing anything anyway?  However, today my eye allergies were bothering me because I needed to change the air conditioning filters and I did.  I had vacuumed them to save money but this did no good.  My eyes feel fine now, but I realized that seeing through clear filters is important.
     Many of us get swayed off our own path by distractions, by things people tell us, but we and only we know our own truths.  For example:  I like many feel very insulted by Romney's words during the 50,000 dollar a plate dinner caught by a waiter, with a cell phone to record his words.
     Whatever your political views, I know you know what is right and wrong.  I have tried to view conspiracy theories to make it all the more complex, but I only find them unpatriotic and lame as I do criticizing the president in a way that is disrespectful.
     I think Obama's foreign policy is perfect. The prime minister of Israel said things have not been as secure for Israel under any administration ever as they are under Obama.  This was on CNN, a neutral channel.  
     I am Jewish and I support the president totally on everything.  I support him being a citizen, a disabled person, a woman, a patriot, a mother, a daughter, a sister.  I support the president of the U.S.A.,  of the people, President Obama, four more years.

Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Life is Not Fair but,...

     Resentment is unhealthy for everyone, and it never leads to anything good.  It is a waste of time energy and will not change anything.
     When I feel a resentment, I take a searching and fearless moral inventory of myself knowing that it is either fear, insecurity, self-esteem or sex relations threatened or destroyed, such as when you are left for someone.
     Sometimes life is unfair.  Some get second chances, and some do not.  I think it is just your karma and impressions.  Perhaps these can be modified, but perhaps not.  I think we can change our future karma, but maybe not our past already made karma from other life times for example or a long time ago in this life. 
     Sometimes I think I am being punished cosmically for something mean I might have said to someone when I was a child not thinking.  I will not tell the thing I am thinking about, because I am ashamed, but I guess I was just a little kid and did get a lecture from my daycare provider.  I was only five or six.
     Still, I do not think it really matters anymore.  Things are what they are.  My life is about family and working on my music and writing and trying to promote a positive world.  Namaste.

Sunday, September 16, 2012

All About Coffee

     I love a good cup of coffee.  I was out of town at a friend's house.  Not characteristically I got up early to go to yoga with her.  I usually am not at all a morning person.  I sleep late, but I came down for breakfast after taking a shower.  There was fruit and fresh smoothies, etc..  I just cannot eat in the morning.  
     "Do you have any coffee?" I asked.  
     "I can make some," she answered, and she made it with a french press.  It was delicious.
     Since I came home our coffee maker broke down and I had coffee making appliances on my wish list, but I did not buy any.  Instead, I got coffee gifts for my birthday, a coffee bean grinder from my mother and arabica organic coffee from a friend.  I also bought Eight O'clock Bean Coffee whole beans.  The taste of fresh ground coffee beans makes so much difference, especially when ground finely.  I do not have a coffee maker, but my sons and I use a cone filter, pot, filters and boil water the old fashioned way.  It really tastes better.  I am a coffee connoisseur now.  However, in the picture I am drinking chai with my food, because I was at an Indian restaurant.  I also like chai, but there is nothing like a great cup of coffee.  Namaste.