Kiss The Earth
Walk and touch peace every moment.
Walk and touch happiness every moment.
Each step brings a fresh breeze.
Each step makes a flower bloom.
Kiss the Earth with your feet.
Bring the Earth your love and happiness.
The Earth will be safe
when we feel safe in ourselves.
~ thich nhat hanh
Tonight a collections of mindless happy images to help you raise a smile and have a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane
Happy Birthday your holiness!
Chorten at Namche Bazaar
Image for a mindful day
Sunset in the Himalayas
Rev Kane in his first year at Burning Man
Jumping for joy in the sunshine!
Galway Cathedral
Ama Dablam
Solitude is not the same as loneliness. Solitude is a solitary boat floating in a sea of possible companions. ~ Robert Fulghum
Over the last couple of years there has been a lot of research on the impacts of loneliness on people’s health. The effects have been seen across of range of factors, blood pressure, immunity and even heart disease. Studies have shown the impacts of increasing loneliness in older citizens, and even with Millennials. In fact, this has become such an issue that England has appointed a Minister of Loneliness. This is a significant reflection of how serious this problem can be for people.
For older folks a major factor in loneliness is physical isolation. People after retirement are often cut off from the social circles they formerly participated in for relaxation. The death of a partner, living alone, family moving away can all contribute to people becoming socially isolated and lonely. Add to that issues of decreasing mobility due to physical issues or lack of transportation and you can see how older folks can become socially isolated.
A more surprising area where there has been a rise in loneliness is with Millennials. In an increasingly crowded world, when you’re still surrounded by others in school a rising number of younger people are starting to feel lonely. This occurs even though people this age spend a ton of time interacting on “social media.” The term social media would lead you to think that in fact, this generation would be less lonely, but it turns out these interactions are not of the type of quality that combat loneliness. This issue also shows that very often people are very lonely, even when constantly surrounded by others. It’s not about the amount of interaction, but the depth and quality of the interactions.
This really drives home what the core of loneliness is for people. Loneliness is the feeling that there isn’t anyone you can turn to talk to, no one who will understand you. As well as feeling like no one else cares. These feelings can lead to a person further socially isolating themselves which reinforces the feelings they are having. It’s a vicious cycle that can lead to extreme loneliness and the health impacts that can accompany that reality. What is so incredibly dangerous about this, is that often these socially isolated folks are less likely to get medical treatment exacerbating the damage.
I think all of us, no matter what age, are somewhat susceptible to becoming lonely. In our world where we spend time in far too many surface level interactions we can come to crave and truly miss deeper connections. Think about it, you used to connect with your friends via phone calls. A form of communication, that although not in person, is still rich and deep that allows for a level of communication where it is easier to feel like the person you’re connecting with cares about you. Contrast that with the most common of form of communication today, the text message. The messages are short, at times hard to interpret, almost always at a shallower level than an email or a phone call. In an ever busier world this has become our primary form of communication. The corresponding loss of depth makes it easier for people to feel less cared about and more lonely.
There is a difference between solitude and loneliness, solitude can actually improve your health. Solitude is a comfortable feeling, it’s when you’re at home with being alone. Solitude is taking time alone to do things for yourself. It can be giving yourself time to write, to think, to exercise or for an introvert a time to recharge your internal battery. Solitude even at the level of meditation or silent retreats can be time for you to make discoveries about yourself.
I’m someone who spends a lot of time alone. Honestly, if you were to do a calculation I would guess I spend 90% of my time outside of work alone. However, I’m not a particularly lonely person. Sure, I have my moments but in general I’m not lonely. First, I’m an extreme introvert, I am social but those interactions are generally very draining for me. During my time alone I’m generally writing, watching TV, hiking, doing photography or traveling to new places. Although engaged in solitary activities, the key is that I’m engaged, I’m not alone because I was looking for companionship and couldn’t find it, I’m alone because I’ve chosen to be and am fully engaged in what I’m doing. This is easily contrasted to wanting companionship, not finding it and then choosing not to engage in activities you like because of it.
There are a lot of articles on how to fight loneliness on the web. I’ll be honest most of them are pretty weak. Not that the advice is particularly bad, but the articles read a lot like pieces I’ve read on depression. Things like, acknowledge but don’t focus on your negative thoughts, take a class, join a group. The problem with a lot of this advice is that it doesn’t address the space lonely people are in, they are not likely to just make those types of leaps.
My advice on loneliness really comes at it from a different direction or more accurately two directions. Being lonely can lead to really negative effects, solitude doesn’t. So why not attack your loneliness on two fronts. First, adopt some strategies related to solitude. Focus some of your alone time on a project, exercising, getting out in nature. Do something that focuses you when you’re spending time alone. Take up something like meditation or yoga if you feel comfortable doing something like that.
Then on the other side also try to address your social isolation. Do less texting and more calling. Take the time to do things in person you ordinarily would do in other ways. For instance, instead of ordering something through Amazon, go out and buy it at a store. Become a regular someplace. Whether it’s a coffee shop, a bar, a gym or anything else you do regularly, become very regular. Show up every Saturday morning at that coffee shop to get a cup of coffee and stay there to do some reading. Over time, you’ll come to know the staff, you’ll also likely become familiar with other regulars. This won’t solve the issue, but it will begin to reduce the feelings of isolation you are having. That, combined with more time alone that is focused should begin to improve things and over time, and hopefully make you feel less lonely.
Finally, take some risks. we’ve talked about risk taking and getting out of your comfort zone before on this blog. Once you’ve taken some of the small steps and you begin to feel a little better it’s important to push and take a bigger risk. At that point, taking that class or joining a group, no matter how uncomfortable that may be is the right thing to do. Even if it doesn’t work, the act of pushing beyond your comfort zone will help you feel less lonely and happier. It’s all a progression, then, when you are ready, make a really big jump. For me, that was hiking the Appalachian Trail, what will it be for you? No matter what it is, it will help you have happier days my friend. ~ Rev Kane
Find a place inside where there is joy, joy will burn out the pain
~ Joseph Campbell
It sounds so simple doesn’t it, just stay positive. How many times in your life, when things are going terribly wrong have people said to you, just keep your head up. I always try and be honest with you my friends, there are no pat, easy solutions in life, being happy takes effort. That work is more easily done when things are good so that is when we need to start.
So tonight I’m offering up some small suggestions and the first is to smile. We all need to smile more because not only does it keep us positive but it makes other people feel good about us, they smile back and we get a nice positive feedback loop.
My second suggestion is for all of us to laugh more. I recently read a statistic that said children laugh hundreds of times a day, adults less than a hundred times a day. The statistic is likely totally unreliable as it makes for a good social media meme. I think the real point is that we know there are tremendous benefits to our mood and possibly even our health from laughing. So we need to laugh more, whether that means watching a comedy clip or pushing a button on a toy Big Lebowski key chain, we need to find ways to laugh more. I’ll go one step further and as you to laugh when you want to get angry or frustrated. I’m working on this myself right now, it was very forced at first but the act of laughing at those moments seems to give me a little more perspective and help me find the true humor in most situations. I’m not good at it yet, but I’m working on it.
Finally, try to be more grateful, it’s not that hard, just stop for a minute each day and be thankful for the things you have, especially at those times when you’re upset about the things you don’t have.
All in all, if we can be more positive my friends, we can make ourselves and the world a better place and have happier days ~ Rev Kane
Related Posts
Smiling and the Art of Positivity
Laughter is the best medicine: The health benefits of Humor and Laughter
Happiness & the benefits of Gratitude
The 31 benefits of Gratitude that you didn’t know about: how gratitude can change your life
Trying to be happy, Rev Kane sporting his new hairdo
Be happy for this moment, for this moment is your life ~ Omar Khayyam
Well tonight my friends I want to talk about what I always talk about, how to be happy. Over the last couple of weeks I’ve been in a bit of a funk, and as I’ve often talked about during those times it is important to go back to the basics. Are you eating right, sleeping, exercising and do you feel safe. So as usual, I checked off the boxes and this time things really didn’t improve at all. You hope after you make a change like that you will quickly be happy again, or at least happier and in a better place.
When the basics fail it means there is something else working on your mood and for me that was true. I have something deeply personal weighing on my mind, something I’m not quite sure how to deal with, but something that shouldn’t have the impact on my mood that it is having. That also is telling, you see when things are good, and the basics are in order you have resilience. The definition of resilience, using less impressive vocabulary, is that you have a buffer to your mood. You can take some bumps and bruises and because of this buffer, your emotional reserve, you can handle the bumps and bruises and still be happy. So, even though I’m doing some deeper mental work on myself, I should be doing better, obviously I hadn’t isolated the problem.
Part of what I came to realize was that I’ve had a real lack of any kind of downtime or relaxation lately. Although I do well in social situations I truly am an introvert. An introvert. Being an introvert, the way I charge my batteries is with time alone, time to think and write and not be drained by dealing with people. I don’t get drained by the one on one good conversation dealings with people, but the general small talk, business interactions that we all have at work. So what to do?
The wisdom of change
So what’s necessary to a time like this is to make some change and break the routine. So one change that I’ve obviously just made was to shave my head. And please, people, I’m not recommending everyone go out and shave their head or even radically alter their appearance. This was actually something that I had planned on doing for months but was just waiting for the right time. I do have to admit though, it’s impossible not to feel the change completely and totally every time I walk by a reflective surface. I come to calling myself the space monkey, after a line in the movie Fightclub.
But I have made changes, I tweaked the way I’m working a little bit. I’ve pushed myself to find opportunities for kindness like shuttling some hikers back to the Pacific Crest Trail (PCT) whenever I can make it happen. Most importantly I’ve been finding little ways right now to just, stop, rest and be happy for a few minutes.
Moving forward to be happy
One of the other things I’m doing right now is trying to stay mindful of the present but keeping my eye on the prize. Basically trying to do things where I’ll be happy but preparing and spending some time thinking about my next big adventure which is less than 2 years away.
Do something that scares you and be happy
Finally tonight I want to talk about something that I’m not doing nearly enough of these days and that is getting out of my comfort zone. I see a quote often on Twitter than says do something that scares you every single day. I love that idea, I fail miserably at it, but what I know is that in my life, every single time I’ve pushed past my comfort zone and done something that scared me, I’ve gained great rewards. Rewards in the sense of accomplishment or a hell of a lesson. I’ve learned so much about myself when I’ve done that. When I set off on the Appalachian Trail two years ago to attempt a 2200 mile thru-hike I had never done anything like that. It taught me so much, I wrote a book about it Appalachian Trail Happiness. But we don’t have to do big things that scare us, even the little things pay dividends. Going up and talking to that person you’ve always wanted to. Speaking up in a meeting and putting your ideas forward when you’re usually silent. Doing things out of the ordinary and out of your comfort zone, more often than not, produce interesting and positive results.
So take a chance today, be happy, and have a happy day my friends. ~ Rev Kane
Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love. ~ Mother Teresa
November seems to have become the unofficial month of gratitude and why not given that Thanksgiving and Veterans Day fall squarely in the middle of this month. We take this time to give thanks for all of the things in our life that are good and in return make ourselves a little happier, but why not do this all of the time, so today some points about gratitude, so take to the time to give thanks and have a happier day my friends ~ Rev Kane
Why living a life of gratitude can make you happy from our friends at Zenhabits
Giving thanks, the benefits of gratitude from Psychology Today
Ten reasons why being grateful is healthy for you from the Huffington Post
Thirty-one benefits of gratitude from Happier Human
The benefits of gratitude for stress relief from About.com
A practical guide to gratitude from unstuck.com
When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace. ~ Dalai Lama
Image from The Kindness Wave Page on Facebook
So a quick little post today, it seems that sometimes themes seem to organically develop in your life. Recently, as is evidenced by several of the last few posts, kindness has been that theme. The thing about being kind is that it’s a two for one payoff, you feel good giving it and someone feels good receiving it.
So today just a note to relay a little circle of kindness. When Hurricane Katrina hit I was at Burning Man in the Nevada Desert, there at the event, a group of amazing individuals decided on the spot to help. Shipping containers were brought in, donations solicited and after the event, people saddled up and took those supplies to Louisiana to help. With that act Burners without Borders was born.
So a friend is helping out with a charity auction for Burners without Borders in Seattle and I agreed to send up a couple of photo pieces to be auctioned off. This morning I went to UPS and sent the pieces off and in the process explained to the clerk why I was sending the package. After the order was complete he told me to hold on and dashed out to the backroom, he came back and handed me 53 cents. Now I was confused, the price had been $16.53 and I’d paid by credit card. He smiled and explained that he personally paid the change on all charity shipments, or for those people he saw being helpful or kind to other customers, his personal little kindness policy.
I unfortunately didn’t get his name, but gave him the site address and hopefully he’s reading this at some point. This was such a small act but it completed a circle of kindness with tendrils as far away as Nevada and Louisiana, and that 53 cents has kept me smiling all morning. So thank you Mr. UPS man for your kindness policy, I’m certainly having a happy day my friends ~ Rev Kane
The beautiful spring came; and when Nature resumes her loveliness, the human soul is apt to revive also. ~ Harriet Ann Jacobs
It was time for an adventure and the one I had set my sights upon was Havasu Falls on reservation land just outside the boundaries of the Grand Canyon. I first discovered this place on an online post, one of those bucket list places post. The comments people made about it were that it was one of the most beautiful places they’d ever been. I will say that I agree with that statement. I’ve been all over the world and the falls and rivers at Havasu are some of the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. I’ll be following up tonight’s post over this week with some posts containing a lot more photos, including one of my favorite photos I’ve ever taken. It took me three weeks from when the permit phone lines opened, calling multiple times per day, in order to get the reservations but the effort was well worth it.
The trip started at the Hualapai Lodge about 70 miles from the Hilltop trailhead. I drove out of the lodge at 4:30 in the morning. I’d read lots of comments about horses and cows on the road and that it was really advisable to take the road more slowly than you could. I did see some cows, happily off the road. However, the road should be named suicide rabbit run. There were no less than five jack rabbits that attempted suicide by car as I drove. I’m happy to say none were successful and that I saw one of the weirdest things I’ve ever encountered on that road, a bat. A bat that was sitting on the road and leapt up into flight as my car approached. Otherwise the road was uneventful and I eventually had to pull over to shoot an amazing sunrise.
I hit the trailhead and checked in, I didn’t realize you needed to check in there but the very nice lady smiled and mentioned the potential for weather and recent mountain lion sightings as a reason for the dual check in. So good luck with the flash floods and predators! I’d realized the night before I’d forgotten my rain gear and I was eyeing the clouds. I was happy they were there to keep the sun off me but they really looked like they were dissipating. The hike in and out of Havasu Falls is a 10 mile run each way. On the way in it’s a 2400 foot descent, a good thousand foot or so drop in the first mile and a half, and then an easy downhill run the rest of the way. So of course, uphill all the way out, with a really good climb at the end. Essentially a helluva quad workout on the way in and a glute fest on the way out.
Eight miles in you hit the Supai village where you happily find a store, a cafe and the tourist office where you need to check in. The village is a fairly typical remote reservation village. So unfortunately a good deal of poverty and trash and lots of roaming, begging dogs. The tribe members involved in the tourist trade are quite friendly, but the rest of the tribe members are a bit aloof. This isn’t surprising, I mean can you imagine having thousands of people coming to camp in your backyard all year-long, many who unfortunately are not as respectful of the sacredness or majesty of the place. It has to at some level be a tough existence and I’m grateful that the tribe keeps the area open to the public. I’m not sure I’d be so generous in their shoes.
As anyone who has hiked with me knows, I’m great on complicated trails but often, I mean really far too often, get lost on the easiest of trails. So yes, I got lost leaving the village, I absolutely saw the sign to the campground, got distracted and went the wrong way. I crossed over a lovely little bridge and ran into an old man from the tribe. I asked, “which way to the campground?” He stared at me blankly, “this way to the campground I pointed?” Finally after looking at me with a look that said, “what the hell are you doing here?” He said, “yeah, down that way.” I got similar looks from people in the yards of the houses I past and finally pulled out my map and realized my error. I saw that there was a loop trail that crossed back to the campground and made my way back to the right trail.
A short time after crossing the river again I got my first glimpse of the pools above Navajo Falls and was absolutely stunned. Then I tripped and the buckle on my pack’s strap exploded. So it was MacGyver time and after getting my pack rigged up I moved on down the trail which followed along the river to Havasu Falls.
Pools above Navajo Falls
I made my way down to the campground and as you come down the hill you look to the right and get the view in the first picture. The falls are magnificent and in a good rain year are flowing really well. I made my way down into the campground and saw the first thing I wish I had known. Nowhere in my reading did anyone mention that there is a little frybread hut in the campground, which meant I would have carried less food. But I walked around and found a great site for my hammock and strung up. Shortly thereafter a storm came in, I was happy to be in camp given I’d forgotten my rain gear. So I resolved to take a little nap in the hammock and wait through the storm, just one thing. I had tied off to a slightly thin tree and it swayed a bit in the wind. Of course when you’re in a hammock if your tie off tree moves your hammock moves up or down. Unfortunately, the wind was blowing the tree toward my hammock, so during gusts my hammock would crash to the ground. So, in the middle of forty mile an hour winds I had to re-tie my hammock to another tree, no picnic whatsoever. But I got it tied off after a time and had to do some additional rigging, but after a time I got things set up well. The storm wrapped up and I was able to get some good shots of the falls.
Over the next two days I led a pretty idyllic existence, hike a little, take some photos, meet some people, eat, take a nap, repeat. My neighbor in camp was a pretty fascinating guy, part of the year he works at Havasu running groups for BG Wild. He spends the rest of the year in the bush in Namibia as a missionary. Their camp set up also had these amazing inflatable couches that were just too comfortable to pass up.
I’d meet lots of really cool people, as you almost always do backpacking. I met a couple of young women doing their first hike ever, some PCT hiker trash and a group of women from Marin County. One of them was absolutely beautiful and stole my heart for the weekend. She reminded me of a younger, prettier version of the actress Molly Parker and was a total sweetheart.
The beauty of a trip like this is a really amazing thing. You’re doing some strenuous hiking, you’re camping and staying for a couple of days in an absolute paradise. I slept better over those two nights than I have in months. Something amazing about being out in nature in a hammock. This is the real life, being out there on the trail, camping and exploring. There are few other places I feel as happy, restful and peaceful as I do on the trial. I hope you find something similar in your life that does this for you my friends. Have a happy day. ~ Rev Kane
Appalachian Trail Happiness: Trail Community
Appalachian Trail Happiness: Reader’s Favorite Posts
Quitting the Appalachian Trail
In nature, light creates the color. In the picture, color creates the light. ~ Hans Hofmann
When I was a child, I saw a book on one of the end tables in my house that my mother was reading. I asked her about it, and then if I could read it, it was called Jaws. The book was fantastic, a spectacular book by Peter Benchley which a few years later would become, at the time, the most popular movie in history. I remember in my home the posters going up, week after week, Jaws held over for 2, 3…20 weeks. It was the first great summer blockbuster of my life. I was also a Jacques Cousteau fan and watched every ocean TV special that I could see. I fell in love with the ocean, I would later train as a biologist and ecologist. I’ve been doing whale watch cruises for over 30 years. Whales and sharks are two groups that I’m absolutely fascinated by and love, I’ve even done a whale shark dive at the Atlanta Aquarium.
Now that I live near San Francisco I’m back to a place where whale watches are plentiful. I live an hour north of the ports for the Monterey Bay whale watching fleets. I also live within 30 minutes of numerous cruises that leave out of San Francisco. As such I investigated my options and found a way to possibly engage both of my loves. A trip with the Oceanic Society cruising out to the Farallon Islands, which this time of year includes lots of sea mammals, whales and of course great white sharks.
Now unfortunately, I didn’t see any great white sharks, it would be an incredibly rare sighting if we had but we did see evidence they were there. At one point a California Sea Lion launched itself completely out of the ocean. Likely that meant it was being chased by a shark. Unfortunately we never saw a dorsal fin, or any sharks passing near the ship.
The cruise was really fantastic, the water was rougher than had been expected, so I got pretty wet a couple of times from ocean spray. But in general it was a wonderful, foggy day and as we came back in the fog broke, the sun came out and inside the bay things were pretty calm.
Out of the boat, we saw harbor porpoises, sea lions, lots of birds, a small blue whale, likely only about 60 feet long and a bunch of humpbacks. Including one that did six full body breaches as we watched. All in all a seven hour wonderful day, enjoy the photos below.
~ Rev Kane
My maternal grandfather looking quite dapper with my mother
This post is a couple of days late, but I’m ok with that since last week I actually flew to NY, hopped a train and had dinner for my mother for her birthday. My mother, as she will freely admit, was not always a perfect mother. There was nothing resembling Leave it to Beaver in the home I grew up in as a child. But it was a heck of a hard job to raise a family as a single mother in the 1970’s. My mother, a woman with a high school education, worked incredibly hard to keep food on the table, clothes on our back and to make sure we had the things that were necessary for us to survive. She made education a huge priority in our lives and that education has helped me have an incredibly blessed life.
In the 70’s, when the economy tanked my mother lost her job, so she hustled. She spent time on unemployment, she ran an day care in our home. We lived for a time, insanely close to the edge, but she never let us go over that edge, no matter what it took. I will always be insanely grateful to my mother for that effort. So happy birthday mother and thank you for all you have done!
The Ministry of Happiness 