Happy Dogs
Good evening friends, our weekly tour around the net to see what we can find to help us on our path, have a happy day ~ Rev Kane
Nine happiness lessons we can learn from dogs.
What makes us happy? A piece from the Atlantic Magazine
Are extroverts happier than introverts? A piece from Psychology Today
And finally a little Bob Marley to make us all a bit happier
All experience is an arch wherethrough gleams that untravelled world whose margin fades for ever and for ever when I move. ~ Alfred Lord Tennyson
So it’s been a crazy few weeks. I’ve driven a couple of thousand of miles while I’ve been driving up and down the state of California interviewing for jobs, drove 800 miles over two days last week. I’ve got a little break, hopefully this all wraps up soon, and so I decided to float down to one of my favorite places Anza-Borrego State Park. I checked the weather and it’s unseasonably cool for late April, highs in the low 90s, lows in the high 50’s. It is still the desert and so you hunker down when the sun is high and you emerge in the mornings and in the late afternoons. There are almost no tourists here right now, it’s the beginning of the hot season and they have, for the most part, all fled.
So it’s absolutely beautiful and absolutely quiet here right now. This morning I went out to the pool, had it all to myself, and got my allotted 10 minutes of sun after a little swim. Then just laid in the shade for an hour and took in the silence, no book, no phone just me and the breeze and the palm trees.
As the sun slid behind the mountain I went out for a walk and headed into town to get some dinner. There’s a place here that makes an amazing Enchiladas Verdes and I stop in every time I come through Borrego Springs.
I love the desert, especially when it’s quiet and uninhabited. There is something here, at sunset, at the margin of everything that brings me peace. My head clears, I feel a bit more alive and a bit more connected here, at this time, than anywhere else except maybe the ocean. So a quick little post tonight about peace and quiet and how important it is to find it and just stop for a bit. Have a peaceful and happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane
The main thing is to be moved, to love, to hope, to tremble, to live. ~ Auguste Rodin
Tonight we revisit some of my favorite art posts, enjoy and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane
Happiness is Art: Storytelling
Happiness is Sculptural Weaving
A hug to be happy
Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. ~ Leo Buscaglia
There is something we all learn when we are children. There are people in our lives who when they show up, bring us presents but don’t pay much attention to us. Children are happy to see them, but only for the few minutes when they first arrive. There are other people in our lives who show up, with or without presents, who make the time to pay attention to us. We love those people dearly and are always excited when they arrive.
When I was a child I knew exactly who these people were. My Granny was someone who gave attention, affection and appreciation and I loved her dearly. My Uncle Mikey was someone like this as well, as a very young child Uncle Mikey always had some gum or candy in his pockets. As I got older he had the house with the pool where we would all go swimming a place where his attention was nearly unlimited. I also had people in my life as a child who were supposed to care about me, but they gave cash or toys, but rarely their time or attention, even when we spent time together. Attention breeds affection and demonstrates caring and without that, no matter what your relationship, your connection to that person fades over time.
Attention, Affection and Appreciation
Remembering and knowing this I have really tried to make sure that I focused on attention, affection and appreciation with my nieces and nephews. Not just because I should, but because I want to, they are really amazing little people. I really and truly enjoy nothing more than having conversations with them about their lives and what they think about things. Living 3000 miles away from them there is never quite enough time. I was blessed for a while a couple of years ago to spend a lot of time with some of them and it was fantastic. Of course part of the joy is the absolute two-way street of the situation, in return for my attention I get their attention as well and it’s absolutely wonderful.
This whole idea is something I think a lot of us understand with children but forget with the adults in our lives. The reality is what works with children in this respect also works with adults. So remember this my friends with the children in your life. A toy through the mail brings a smile, a chat on the phone or over Facetime or Skype is attention and it brings affection. Your time matters, give it to them. Of course this is exactly how it works with adults as well, conversation is giving your time and attention. Interact with the people you care about, don’t just assume they are there for you. Sure, those who you have the most connection with will hang on the longest, but without the time and attention, affection decreases, don’t let that happen with the people who are important to you. Because perhaps, that is the true measure of who really is important. Reach out, connect and have a happier day my friends. ~ Rev Kane
Happy Anniversary – Ministry of Happiness: Our Best Posts
Fear is Killing Your Happiness
Appalachian Trail Happiness: Acceptance is the Way
Tonight we feature the poet Frank O’Hara, another recommendation from Suzanne Burns. Give these pieces a read and enjoy! ~ Rev Kane
AVE MARIA
Mothers of America
let your kids go to the movies!
get them out of the house so they won’t know what you’re up to
it’s true that fresh air is good for the body
but what about the soul
that grows in darkness, embossed by silvery images
and when you grow old as grow old you must
they won’t hate you
they won’t criticize you they won’t know
they’ll be in some glamorous country
they first saw on a Saturday afternoon or playing hookey
they may even be grateful to you
for their first sexual experience
which only cost you a quarter
and didn’t upset the peaceful home
they will know where candy bars come from
and gratuitous bags of popcorn
as gratuitous as leaving the movie before it’s over
with a pleasant stranger whose apartment is in the Heaven on Earth Bldg
near the Williamsburg Bridge
oh mothers you will have made the little tykes
so happy because if nobody does pick them up in the movies
they won’t know the difference
and if somebody does it’ll be sheer gravy
and they’ll have been truly entertained either way
instead of hanging around the yard
or up in their room
hating you
prematurely since you won’t have done anything horribly mean yet
except keeping them from the darker joys
it’s unforgivable the latter
so don’t blame me if you won’t take this advice
and the family breaks up
and your children grow old and blind in front of a TV set
seeing
movies you wouldn’t let them see when they were young
*************************************************************
A TRUE ACCOUNT OF TALKING TO THE SUN AT FIRE ISLAND
The Sun woke me this morning loud
and clear, saying “Hey! I’ve been
trying to wake you up for fifteen
minutes. Don’t be so rude, you are
only the second poet I’ve ever chosen
to speak to personally
so why
aren’t you more attentive? If I could
burn you through the window I would
to wake you up. I can’t hang around
here all day.”
“Sorry, Sun, I stayed
up late last night talking to Hal.”
“When I woke up Mayakovsky he was
a lot more prompt” the Sun said
petulantly. “Most people are up
already waiting to see if I’m going
to put in an appearance.”
I tried
to apologize “I missed you yesterday.”
“That’s better” he said. “I didn’t
know you’d come out.” “You may be
wondering why I’ve come so close?”
“Yes” I said beginning to feel hot
wondering if maybe he wasn’t burning me
anyway.
“Frankly I wanted to tell you
I like your poetry. I see a lot
on my rounds and you’re okay. You may
not be the greatest thing on earth, but
you’re different. Now, I’ve heard some
say you’re crazy, they being excessively
calm themselves to my mind, and other
crazy poets think that you’re a boring
reactionary. Not me.
Just keep on
like I do and pay no attention. You’ll
find that people always will complain
about the atmosphere, either too hot
or too cold too bright or too dark, days
too short or too long.
If you don’t appear
at all one day they think you’re lazy
or dead. Just keep right on, I like it.
And don’t worry about your lineage
poetic or natural. The Sun shines on
the jungle, you know, on the tundra
the sea, the ghetto. Wherever you were
I knew it and saw you moving. I was waiting
for you to get to work.
And now that you
are making your own days, so to speak,
even if no one reads you but me
you won’t be depressed. Not
everyone can look up, even at me. It
hurts their eyes.”
“Oh Sun, I’m so grateful to you!”
“Thanks and remember I’m watching. It’s
easier for me to speak to you out
here. I don’t have to slide down
between buildings to get your ear.
I know you love Manhattan, but
you ought to look up more often.
And
always embrace things, people earth
sky stars, as I do, freely and with
the appropriate sense of space. That
is your inclination, known in the heavens
and you should follow it to hell, if
necessary, which I doubt.
Maybe we’ll
speak again in Africa, of which I too
am specially fond. Go back to sleep now
Frank, and I may leave a tiny poem
in that brain of yours as my farewell.”
“Sun, don’t go!” I was awake
at last. “No, go I must, they’re calling
me.”
“Who are they?”
Rising he said “Some
day you’ll know. They’re calling to you
too.” Darkly he rose, and then I slept.
**************************************
SONG
I am stuck in traffic in a taxicab
which is typical
and not just of modern life
mud clambers up the trellis of my nerves
must lovers of Eros end up with Venus
muss es sein? es muss nicht sein, I tell you
how I hate disease, it’s like worrying
that comes true
and it simply must not be able to happen
in a world where you are possible
my love
nothing can go wrong for us, tell me
**************************************
Finally a video of Frank O’Hara, from 1966 reading his poem, Having a Coke with You.
Happiness is Poetry: Pablo Neruda
Happiness is Poetry: William Blake
Happiness is Poetry: Even More Bukowski
The sensation of energy expands with increasing relaxation. ~ Ilchi Lee
I think today’s post falls into the category of duh philosophy. You know it’s like when people tell you exercise is good for you, duh. But we all need time to decompress, I think we all get this from the vantage point of taking vacations, although I think many of us take vacations that stress us out more than our non-vacation lives. A bit of advice, if your vacation includes multiple schedules and destinations, if you’re concerned about how things will work or if they will time out, then your vacation is liable to make you more stressed than relaxed.
However what I’m talking about today is more of the daily relaxation. We all need to find that few minutes or bit of time each day to relax. Some people meditate in the morning or at night, others go to the gym or for a run. Some people find fifteen minutes a day just to sit somewhere quiet or take a walk away from work or home. Heck, take a ten minute walk to the store and get a piece of chocolate everyday, whatever will give you peace and a little bit of a break. I see lots of articles about how having a drink or two each day is good for you, in my opinion it’s not the drink, it’s that the people who do that take a little bit of time to relax each day, we should follow their example with or without the alcohol.
For me, photography is one of the ways I relax, shooting pictures and even the organizing and sharing them is very relaxing for me. Photography is usually a big part of any time off I take and this past couple of weeks was no exception. So, in hopes of giving you a reason to take a couple of minutes to relax and hopefully raise a smile or two, here are a few shots from an arts festival in the Nevada desert, enjoy and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane
Acceptance is the way
Happiness can only exist in acceptance ~ George Orwell
“Acceptance is a beautiful thing, but it’s also something that I’ve struggled to master. Acceptance, the opposite of resistance, is simply allowing things to be as they are, and acknowledging internally that they are what they are. Nothing more, nothing less.” This is a quote I took from a blog post on happiness. I feel this concept is of major importance to all of us, which is why when I started this endeavor I named the church, the Church of Abnormal Acceptance and the ministry the Ministry of Happiness, I really feel the two are ultimately intertwined.
Acceptance is essential to personal happiness, in order to be happy you have to accept yourself. This for many people is not an easy thing. The very concept of looking into the mirror and saying hey I’m ok, or even better, hey I’m great, is not something that a lot of us can do and believe. But it is imperative that you get to that point in order to be happy.
Very simply what these means is that you need to accept yourself as you are right at this moment. Yes, you have faults, none of us are perfect and accepting your faults is part of the process. Accepting your faults is not the same as condoning your faults. Acceptance is the first step to improvement and change. We’ve talked before about the importance feeling safe and the safest you will ever feel is when you’ve accepted yourself and realized you’re a good person. One who can get better, but is good none-the-less.
So let’s start this week with a simple exercise, before you go to bed tonight, and when you get up in the morning look at yourself in the mirror and say these words, “I’m ok, and I will get better.” In the beginning you may not even believe it, but do it for 21 days, that’s all it takes to form a new habit, and let’s see how you feel after three weeks. You are ok my friends, and so much more than that, have a happy day ~ Rev Kane
A really amazing mural in Little Italy, my favorite piece in the city
Give me such shows — give me the streets of Manhattan! ~ Walt Whitman
Coming home to New York, since the birth of my nephew Yogi, also means a trip to NYC,Little Italy specifically where my little one year-old nephew resides. He’s a magnificently huge child, neither of his parents are large but Yogi is the biggest 1 year-old kid I know. He’s also horribly terrified of his Uncle Mike, he cries when we chat on Skype and he howls when I invade his apartment. It almost makes me long for when he was 3 months old and went right into my arms.
Now I know his reticence is temporary and by time he’s 2 we’ll be fast friends. In the meantime I visit and try to as gingerly as possible invade his space. On my third visit we reached a bit of detente and he even let me pull him around in his inflatable ducky, victory! Well a victory of a sorts, still great to see him, my brother and sister-in-law, really love spending time with them.
Of course they live in Little Italy so a plate of gnocci was in order as well as a fabulous cannoli. I even negotiated myself into a lovely $4 hat featured in the picture below. It was really cold in Manhattan on Saturday and I had forgotten my hat. Putting the new one on I realized I looked like some Norwegian fisherman who had invaded the city.
One of the highlights of this trip was getting to see my friend Erik, someone I hadn’t seen since he left California in the early 90’s. We were first year law students together, he continued on and I walked away after that first year, but we remained friends and it was wonderful to see him, we’ve only recently reconnected via Facebook and his greeting was quintessentially him, “So what have you been doing for the last 20 years and why are you so damn happy!” I couldn’t have hoped for a better opening, the truth is he is pretty happy these days as well, something neither of us could have claimed all of those years ago.Both of us have dealt with some personal demons and are on paths to doing what really makes us happy in life. It was a wonderful conversation and I’m thankful we were able to connect.
Erik and I on a chilly day in NYC
I do love visiting NYC, I love a city where people walk, where there is massive diversity and you can hear 3 languages or more on the same block. I really love how available good pizza is and all of the different food options that are literally everywhere. So it was a great weekend of friends, food and family, I hope you had an equally happy weekend my friends ~ Rev Kane
There are poets who sing you to sleep, and poets who ready you for war, I want to be both. ~ Ashe Vernon
I was sitting in a friends house a couple of months ago and noticed a book of poetry. Knowing we have similar tastes I picked it up and scanned through a few poems. I will admit, not everything I read moved me, but when it happened, whoa, it happened hard. For me, Ashe Vernon, in the baseball sense, is a home run hitter. Like all home rum hitters, she doesn’t hit one out of the park every time she swings, but when she does, you need to get out the tape measures because it’s a monster and there’s nothing more beautiful than a monster home run. You can find Ashe’s books on Amazon and see more of her work at Latenightcornerstore.com.
So tonight, for our weekly poetry post, a few of Ashe Vernon’s home runs. Enjoy, and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane
don’t you dare, for one minute,
believe that my kindness makes me
anything but insurmountable.
i did not unzip my chest to every kind of hurt,
and stagger back, wounded and alive,
just to hear you call me weak for trying.
i opened my door to heartache—
i gave her the fucking key.
my softness for wayward strangers
has made me nothing less
than a halfway house for aching soles.
so when you open your mouth
and call me ‘baby’
understand that i am not your next victim
in a laundry list of broken girls.
you think i don’t know you? people like you?
people with mouths for hands.
i’ve got skin like topsoil
and your teeth could never take root.
so when you go looking to make a plaything
of a sunburst,
you better look for someone with less fire
than me.
because softness or no,
i will eat you alive
before i let you make a meal of me.
*****************************************
You were melt-in-my-mouth—
Tuesdays under the sky.
I picked your words like
fruit from the vine;
we were decadent.
Stretched out in the sunshine-touch
of each other’s lips,
your skin hot like a Texas summer,
I could have spent forever
tucked against the apple orchard of your chest.
My sundress hiked up around my thighs.
The two of us, laughing, with
“Someday” on our tongues—dripping down our chins,
all gold and vibrant.
We were ripe for eating.
We were sticky-sweet.
We were less Forever than we thought.
And when the cold set in,
I was still eating apples
even after you’d dug up your roots and gone.
(You said I held my hands too still.)
I wasn’t doing nothing.
I was putting down seeds
and waiting for Spring.
*******************************
It’s so easy for love to hurt me.
Hate has never cut half as deep,
or ached for half as long.
Hate barely hurts at all.
But love?
God, it blisters. It bruises.
I can’t stop picking the same
old wounds
*******************************
The summer I turned twenty, I cut off all my hair,
got wicked drunk and took shots at the stars,
kissed a girl for the first time.
I didn’t fall in love, but I tried to.
It was the summer where three people died—
where tragedy was never more than
two weeks away from itself.
First, it was Allison’s brother.
Then, Mary’s fiancée.
Then, my father.
One. Two. Three.
The men in our lives, gone in a heartbeat—
too much death under one roof,
too much emptiness for the Texas sun
to lay claim to.
We dug up parts of ourselves we
could never put back in the ground,
that summer.
We learned that sometimes
people wear grief too differently
to hold one another:
that no one knows what to say because
condolences don’t pry nails out of coffins,
that tombstones are not grave-markers for the dead,
but stone slabs the living carry on their shoulders.
We learned that the aftermath of death is
unique as a fingerprint.
Allison’s was brave.
Mary’s was quiet.
And mine,
mine was furious—
I wasn’t done with him, yet.
There were too many battles left unfinished—
this was not how I wanted
to win the war.
Grief looks ugly in the mouth of a girl
still relearning how to love her father.
It is a useless extra limb on the body of someone
with ten years of bad blood to make up for.
When you know your father as little more
than sickness in a skin-suit, there
is nowhere for the rage to go when you’ve lost him.
I didn’t speak at the funeral because
I couldn’t trust myself to be kind and
much as I wanted to be angry at my father,
his memory didn’t deserve that.
My mother didn’t deserve that.
See, there is this impossible love that children carry
even for the parents that hurt them,
and I remember what he was like
before the pain and the medication
got the best of him.
And I just wanted to be good enough
for that man.
To everyone who knew me when my father was alive—
to my mother, especially.
I am sorry for the rage I hung my shoulders with.
I am sorry for becoming
all the worst parts of him.
I’m sorry that I went looking for a place
to bury all that heartache and that
I became graveyard, instead.
But the one who taught me
loud,
the one who taught me
chaos and thunder and boom
was Dad.
And I learned it well.
I didn’t have Dad’s excuse: how
the medication wore my father’s face
for him: shook my home down to its foundations
then left when there was nothing left
to lay waste to.
I just kicked and screamed and rattled
hoping that someone would hear me.
I am quiet, now.
Dad
is quiet now.
And sometimes
I miss the way his voice
could fill the house.”
****************************
Happiness is Poetry: Warsan Shire
Happiness is Poetry: Doug Draime
Look up, laugh loud, talk big, keep the color in your cheek and the fire in your eye, adorn your person, maintain your health, your beauty and your animal spirits. ~ William Hazlitt
So, been thinking, I see a lot of people complaining about how negative social media is and I agree, hell I contribute as a lot of us do.
So how about we do something about it. Monday is often a hard day of the week for folks, so how about we start trying to have Magnificent Mondays. By that I mean a day where we don’t post on politics, religion, violence, etc… including sharing that stuff.
And instead try to make one beautiful post, a photo, a poem, flowers, some art, something funny, happy stuff. We can catch up on the other stuff on Tuesdays.
So I hope you’ll give it a try. I’ll remind you about it again on Sunday. If you like the idea spread the word, would make us all a little happier and a bit less stressed and build #MagnificentMondays.
Thanks, and have a happy day. ~ Rev Kane
The Ministry of Happiness 