Here You Are...Wondering...About Earthquakes and Hurricanes - Band Of Brothers

Best Report from Japan out of all YouTube videos - Thank You, AlJazeera! These boys are my youngest son's age. A great and noble band of brothers, indeed. Love and Compassion will conquer all suffering!

Here You Are...Wondering...About Mountains and Oceans - Love Poems

"Mountains and Oceans" interestingly  took me mostly to blogs. People writing about the vastness of experience, the ups and downs of life...

Here is one of my favorites - a lovers blog with lots of poetry and wonderful photos of mountains and oceans.

Here You Are...Wondering...About Sunshine and Rain...The Day Before

Sunshine and Rain make Rainbows ! I will never forget this day. 

The next day my neighbor's healthy and vibrant mother, who was visiting from Hawaii, fell down the stairs carrying a laundry basket, and was paralyzed for life. The day before, the day this picture was taken, we had all been standing on our decks enjoying this beautiful rainbow for a long time - a kind of neighborhood meditation.  

Both my neighbor and her husband have cancer and are struggling through Chemo while faithfully visiting and taking care of her perfectly healthy, but paralyzed mother, at her nursing home. This accident moved the mother from Hawaii to California, and mother and daughter see each other far more than they would ever have seen each other otherwise during what maybe the last years of their being able to do so. Happiness and sadness weaving the rainbow of our existence.

Here You Are...Wondering...About Winter And Summer...Antonio Vivaldi

A little Antonio Vivaldi for today -

The minds that can compose this kind of music, or can play this kind of music are truly astounding. Music is my favorite kind of math - as in "The Language of the Universe". Music may be the bridge between religion and science, silencing the preacher as easily as the evolutionist.

Silence is the only way to "describe" both infinity and eternity, or God, if you will, although music can come close, while mathematicians as well as philosophers get very confused at this point.

Even the most exquisite music therefore - I am always glad when it ends, and returns me to silence. Like a mother kissing her baby "Good Night".

Winter -



Summer -

Here You Are...Wondering...About Friends And Enemies...Best Friends, Worst Enemies

This line in Here You Are, every time I read it to five-year-olds in Kindergarten or in First Grade, makes everyone sit up straight. Eyebrows go up, mouths open, accompanied by wriggling and looking around the classroom. It seems to be the main thing to wonder about at that age, while out in the big wide world for the first time on a regular basis. It is quite something to have to figure out who is on your side and who is trying to hurt you when you are five years old, and suddenly find yourself among dozens, if not hundreds of strangers every day at school.

Here You Are's magic does not come from clever advice on the subject of friends and enemies or any other questions raised, but from confirming this "wondering" about things, that we all do. Readers who do not wonder about anything, or who, if they do, want others to give them answers, find Here You Are boring, if not "offensive". Those who wonder and try to see with their own eyes and decide with their own hearts, on the other hand, are often so deeply touched that they start crying and putting their hands on their hearts.

Some Christians wrongly assume this book is based on Hinduism or Buddhism when it clearly is about "the kingdom within" we all share and that all religions talk about. Nobody is closer to it than children, no matter their religion. People forget this major teaching of Jesus. And he did not mean only Christian children. This kingdom within is the answer to all questions arising in the material world of opposites. Here You Are shows the way - which has been called the long journey from here to here. That's what's so much fun about it. Here we are, and nowhere else for all of eternity, no matter whether "here" looks like heaven or looks like hell or like nothing at all. "Here" is the truth that sets us free. A person who can remain "here" fully, without wanting to be anywhere else, even in the middle of being crucified, like Jesus, is home, free, and "at-one" with God. God is here, eternal, infinite, perfect. And it is so simple, and so obvious, that you have to chuckle.

Here You Are...Wondering...About Animals And Trees...Shearwater Bird Japan

Sometimes even birds have to climb trees before being able to fly.

It reminds me of my sister's divorce last year, and the promising new life ahead for her.



And it reminds me of the present struggle of the Japanese people. What a tall, and difficult tree to climb. May the Cherry Blossoms of spring soon bring hope to everyone. Life is so fragile. Every moment we are given is just that. A precious moment in time that contains all of eternity. What good messengers these Cherry Blossom are!