Our weekly tour around the web to see what the media is saying about happiness in the news, enjoy and have a happy day ~ Rev Kane
British Airways determines flyer’s happiness with a blanket
Facebook’s unethical experimentation on users’ emotions.
A great video: Vietnam Vet Builds Carousel of Happiness (6:08)
Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
Tonight, a quick tour around the web to see what’s in the news regarding happiness:
Happiness is finding your own way in life
Commencement speech about Happiness
UC Berkeley’s online Happiness Course
A complete stranger has the capacity to alter the life of another irrevocably. This domino effect has the capacity to change the course of an entire world. That is what life is; a chain reaction of individuals colliding with others and influencing their lives without realizing it. A decision that seems miniscule to you, may be monumental to the fate of the world
~ J D Stroube
So my friends, I was having a bad day, I deleted a file folder I couldn’t recover, a really boneheaded move caused by a lack of attention on my part. A good reminder on the importance of the idea of mindfulness that we’ve talked about before at the Ministry of Happiness. For a time today I let that mistake really ruin my day, I got grouchy and that led to me looking negatively at everything I encountered. A sign at the gym that I really should have expected tweaked me off, the music at the gym was too loud the woman next to me on the treadmill had on too much perfume. This all conspired to really bring me down, beating down my mood and making my workout much harder than it should have been.
However, one of the beauties of exercise is that sometimes the physicality of what you are doing can adjust your mental state. In the middle of my workout as my body started to tire, it freed my mind. It hit me that I wasn’t that upset about things at the gym, that I was driving my mood down because I was mad at myself. I needed to get my mind right and as I did I started to relax, my legs didn’t feel as heavy, I started to feel better, my mood increased.
You see friends, negative things happen in every day but it’s up to us to put them in their proper place. We must accept them, deal with them as we can and then move on. What we can’t do, is let the bad things be the first domino that leads to another and another. If we do, we create a self-fulfilling prophecy of negativity that will ruin our day and destroy our happiness. We have to emphasize positivity, even if it is nothing more than smiling and looking on the bright side of things. So put a smile on your face and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane
The soul is healed by being with children ~ English Proverb
I’ve always found that in addition to the pure joy of just hanging out with them, children can often teach us something profound about ourselves and our lives. So some bits of wisdom from children, have a read and a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane
Here is a great site about children’s takes on proverbs, marriage, sex and deep thoughts.
This site contains wisdom from children that really acts as a mirror for the rest of us.
Another list of great kid quotes.
Kids share their wisdom on love.
Fear is Killing Your Happiness
Our Best Happiness Posts for 2015
Revisiting Some of Our Best Posts & Pictures
There are Angels Among Us: A True Story of Giving & Kindness
Mix a little foolishness with your serious plans. It is lovely to be silly at the right moment. ~ Horace
Hey, have you always wanted a pet but not the responsibility, adopt a virtual pet, not into normal pets well then adopt a unicorn or a fairy.
Really in need of that perfect chicken joke, finally a site, Chickenjoke.com
You know you can be the next great rapper, well go to Create Raps and rock the world by creating your very own rap song.
Ok this is one of those uber addictive sites, Pop Balloons.com
A list of silly 911 calls, definitely check out Granny wants a Beer.
Tonight another selection from one of my favorite authors and his book, 365 Daily Tao Meditations, a book I have read daily now for nearly 20 years. Have a read and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane
Sleek sky of cobalt blue:
Water like nectar satisfies deeply.
Air sweeter than the best perfume;
Sunlight warms a grateful cat.
It is hard to believe that life is all for naught. Can’t we take happiness when it comes?
There is admittedly a great deal of suffering and horror in this world. But if we are to accept life’s sad parts, we must also embrace its good parts. As long as we are in this world, we must accept it all. If what comes our way is occasionally wonderful, no one should deny our enjoyment. We all know that every rise is followed by a fall. Why dwell only on dread of the future? As long as we have behaved responsibly, there is nothing wrong with enjoying the best of what life has to offer.
Look at a cat as she stretches out contentedly in the sun. There is no thought of the next moment, only the sheer enjoyment of the present. Rest assured that she will still be able to clean herself, still be able to catch mice, and still be able to do all of the things that a cat must do. But she is without anxieties, and so she is purely and totally who she should be. She acts as if she were nature’s favorite. And who is to say otherwise?
I think that emotional content is an image’s most important element, regardless of the photographic technique. Much of the work I see these days lacks the emotional impact to draw a reaction from viewers, or remain in their hearts. ~ Anne Geddes
So tonight friends a collection of sites for your eyes, including my own photography site ZDBlue Images – tasting life with your eyes not that I put myself on the same level with the work I’m pointing you to, but I thought you might enjoy a look at another part of me tonight. So check out the sites and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane
First a site from an Rich Krissel an impressive photographer from New York, his music work is really amazing, but check out the rest of his site. Full disclosure, I’m a bit biased since we’ve shot together.
A truly magnificent site from Steve McCurry, you really need to take some time and go through this site, it’s truly magnificent.
A celebrity photo site from photographer Jason Bell.
A site by Brent Stirton, the photojournalism images are startling and heart wrenching and may not be for everyone, you’ve been warned.
Polar Bears and Northern Lights!
Happiness is Photography: The Himalayas
Happiness is Photography: Burning Man
A young outlaw poet stretching her wings
I never wanted to be a poet. I still don’t want to be a poet. I just want to live my life. The thing is that the working class, given the chance, would relate to poetry, but they have all this football, baseball, and television. They’ve never had a chance to see a real poet that relates to their own way of life. In America, everything is profit motivation. It’s the spirit that I relate to. ~ Jack Micheline
Jack Micheline
I make no secret that I have no great love for establishment or government. What is important to me is individual people and this idea is at the heart of all outlaw poetry and why I like those writers who have are called outlaw poets. One of the best poetry books I’ve ever read is the American Bible of Outlaw Poetry and Jack Micheline is featured in it. So take a look at a few pieces, have a read and a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane
POEM FOR THE CHILDREN
By Jack Micheline
A child walks in a dream
her eyes dance in the night of stars
someday when the moon is full
the gypsies come home and they will dance forever
and all the ships that never sailed will sail forever
and all the flowers that have not bloomed will bloom forever
A child walks in a dream
and all the stars that have not shown will shine forever
and all the children that could not dance will dance forever
A child walks in a dream
(Amsterdam, Nov. 19, 1982)
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I got no smile cause I’m down
I carry a horn to blow in all these streets
A solo riff out of my head
How could your ever know I feel
So high on life and feet and ass and legs and thighs
That I can rise and dance with all the stars
And I can eat the moon and laugh an I can cry
The dark caves of cities hungry streets
The tired faces dark and dreary bent
and all the death it dies
I let it die
I lift my horn and blow some sounds
some sound for kids to come
Some unborn sun
in darker streets than mine
Magicians carry wings so they can fly
Let’s blow a horn and love
Let’s get on it and ride
and laugh and dance and jive
Let’s shake the dead and let the downers die
The magic of the singers warms the earth
A song
A poem
Some paradise of mind
I got to smile now
I’m feeling good
The city street
The palace of my mind
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POET OF THE STREETS
By Jack Micheline
I walk east of Bleecker
the sky is blue
on this Sunday evening
there is something deeper than the earth
there is something deeper than the stone cities
there is something deeper than our existence
than all the robes of power
power and the night bleeding gutters with crutches
power and the night and the neon vibrating
the night and thirty moons and sharpies
the night and the railroad yards gleaming
the night and the sky
the night and billboards and darkness
across a nation skeletons and machinery
jaundice, joints and lips of connivers
burnt Christmass trees
jazz horns and drummers
above concrete
above whimpering voices
above calculators
riders with tokens in their hands
riders to the sea
a nation of cowards
cowards wrapped in academic cloth
over all in darkness
over all who live in deserts
over all shells covering
over all that are wasted
burying all in nothingness
burying all that is soul
burying all with layers of armour
burying herds with still voices
burying all in the nowhere of silence
herring and fish in cans
turkey and chicken in cans
humans in cells of unknowing
there is more to life than the lights of savage civilizations
there is more to life than all the words spoken
there is more to life than the eye can see
I see the sun of angels
hemp and sugar and wheat
blood and sinew within the flesh
ticker tapes, grey hair, jowls on faces
dollars and gods and people sold and traded
people dying for nothing
people selling their minds and bodies
people without courage
people with no teeth in drug stores
death loaded with goods
givers of death and more death
cranes and deep hookers
cutting shears for the young
newspapers stunting the mind
dollars the spoiler of ships of bananas
I see your faces as I stroll through the cities
the wind touching the faces of whores
the vision of poets encompassing all
song of children outside the brick houses
there is nothing deeper than life and the livers of life
mankind raped in the bank vaults of steel
dead soldiers, battlefields surrounded by iron and ironies
a million lost sunsets
a poet unconquered with the legacy of Whitman and Lorca
a poet unconquered by stone, by glass, by greed, by madness
the lights blaze on in the night
lights and the cold wind
visions above all death
cows milked dry, golden crosses
the sky blazing with miracles
a poet walks in the cold wind
his head raised humble and unafraid
death around him filled with waste and banners
death all around him
walking alone with birds above the canoe shaped moons
sounds are heard and the sky glows in darkness.
January 31, 1960, East Bleecker
This poem turned the tide of my death,
written on First Avenue off the Bowery
In an alley of great souls.
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If we couldn’t laugh we’d all go insane ~ Robert Frost
Tonight some laughter from sources that you wouldn’t ordinarily expect. So have a laugh and a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane
First, McDonalds Happy Meals
From people trying to be nice to foreigners in their own language
Art can never exist without naked beauty displayed. ~ William Blake
So tonight I bring you several works of a poet whom I’m ashamed to say I’ve read little of his work, especially since a friend in graduate school was doing her dissertation on Blake. So here are a few pieces, enjoy and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane
Ah Sunflower
Ah Sunflower, weary of time,
Who countest the steps of the sun;
Seeking after that sweet golden clime
Where the traveller’s journey is done;
Where the Youth pined away with desire,
And the pale virgin shrouded in snow,
Arise from their graves, and aspire
Where my Sunflower wishes to go!
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Broken Love
MY Spectre around me night and day
Like a wild beast guards my way;
My Emanation far within
Weeps incessantly for my sin.
‘A fathomless and boundless deep,
There we wander, there we weep;
On the hungry craving wind
My Spectre follows thee behind.
‘He scents thy footsteps in the snow
Wheresoever thou dost go,
Thro’ the wintry hail and rain.
When wilt thou return again?
’Dost thou not in pride and scorn
Fill with tempests all my morn,
And with jealousies and fears
Fill my pleasant nights with tears?
‘Seven of my sweet loves thy knife
Has bereavèd of their life.
Their marble tombs I built with tears,
And with cold and shuddering fears.
‘Seven more loves weep night and day
Round the tombs where my loves lay,
And seven more loves attend each night
Around my couch with torches bright.
‘And seven more loves in my bed
Crown with wine my mournful head,
Pitying and forgiving all
Thy transgressions great and small.
‘When wilt thou return and view
My loves, and them to life renew?
When wilt thou return and live?
When wilt thou pity as I forgive?’
‘O’er my sins thou sit and moan:
Hast thou no sins of thy own?
O’er my sins thou sit and weep,
And lull thy own sins fast asleep.
‘What transgressions I commit
Are for thy transgressions fit.
They thy harlots, thou their slave;
And my bed becomes their grave.
‘Never, never, I return:
Still for victory I burn.
Living, thee alone I’ll have;
And when dead I’ll be thy grave.
‘Thro’ the Heaven and Earth and Hell
Thou shalt never, quell:
I will fly and thou pursue:
Night and morn the flight renew.’
‘Poor, pale, pitiable form
That I follow in a storm;
Iron tears and groans of lead
Bind around my aching head.
‘Till I turn from Female love
And root up the Infernal Grove,
I shall never worthy be
To step into Eternity.
‘And, to end thy cruel mocks,
Annihilate thee on the rocks,
And another form create
To be subservient to my fate.
‘Let us agree to give up love,
And root up the Infernal Grove;
Then shall we return and see
The worlds of happy Eternity.
‘And throughout all Eternity
I forgive you, you forgive me.
As our dear Redeemer said:
“This the Wine, and this the Bread.”’
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The Tiger
Tiger! Tiger! burning bright
In the forest of the night
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?
And What shoulder, and what art,
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand? and what dread feet?
What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? what dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?
When the stars threw down their spears,
And watered heaven with their tears,
Did he smile his work to see?
Did he who made the lamb make thee?
Tiger! Tiger! burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?
The Ministry of Happiness 