Testing Testing

Book of poetry and prose - " Endless Echoes " now in publication. Next book will be about working my way through culture.

Bahamas - January 1988

First trip to Harbour Island (also known as Briland) with my retired school teacher friend and former massage client, Miss Elodie Jocelyn Ling. Met many interesting people including a Canadian man who took me on a little boat exploring all the cays and beaches around Briland where I collected sea shells and marine things.

Checking in!

Rolling Rolling Rolling
I just keep rolling
It's easier to roll than hang in there.

Listening to media is not rolling
Too much negativity

My world is amazing
As I am working on projects
that have been on the back burner
for way too long.

Books are being written, photos processed,
papers organized
and perhaps a poem or two or three.

Happy Valentines!

Sunrises, Sunsets and Flowing Water

Love, Hearts and Sweet Baby Cakes

These are a few of my favorite things.

Howdy! Howdy!

Here's my recent attempt to update the only blog that has been stable these past years that I've been blogging.

Happy Holidays! – 2007

Dear Family & Friends:

2007 – The year of the summer that almost didn’t happen - the year of the summer that never was. Wow! Unprecedented coolness and wetness in Central Texas. My lack of excessive utility bills was the bonus, but fields of standing water were everywhere. Now we have an above average, warmer than usual Fall. Go figure!

2007 was/is another year of travel as Tommy and I visited San Diego, California, Round Top, Texas, the Rainbow Gathering in the Ozark National Forest in Arkansas, Palmetto State Park near Luling east of Seguin, a cabin in New Braunfels and soon to be in San Francisco for the week of Christmas. I also got to several Yoga retreats near Brenham.

2007 – The year I taught Kundalini Yoga at the Texas State Capitol. I am now a certified Yoga Instructor and hope to be teaching yoga classes in my studio at the house on Monday evenings at 7 p.m. and Saturdays at noon. After each class, I will serve yogi tea made with ginger, cinnamon bark, cardamom pods, cloves and black peppercorns and a bit of soymilk and sweetness using agave syrup. Yummy! As good as any chai tea.

2007 - Oh joy! We are here again celebrating and imagining our lives together. I am remembering holidays past spending time with family and friends whether it was in front of a fireplace watching the logs burn and feeling cozy and warm, in a Catholic Church, at Grace Cathedral on Nob Hill in San Francisco, visiting relatives near Big Foot, Texas, or at any beach (my favorite place to commune with nature) on the Gulf coast, the West Coast, in Hawai’i or on Harbour Island, Bahamas.

One Christmas when I still believed in Santa Claus, I remember Mom & Dad taking my sister and me out to fill gas in the car. When we arrived back home, Santa Claus had arrived and brought us a 33 rpm record player with Andy Williams and Tennessee Ernie Ford singing their hearts out.

I am reflecting on what I would like the holidays to be – my perfect holiday season. No rushing! And not so much food! When I was growing up and still in the aura of my parent’s home, I imagined how my lifestyle would be. Getting up early in the morning was part of that vision. After 57 years of searching I’ve finally found that semblance of a lifestyle. For the past 3½ years, I have been getting up around 3:30 a.m. and joining the people who may or may not have shown up at 4:30 to do yoga at the Westgate Yoga Yoga studio. We pray, do some yoga for 1 hour and then chant for another hour. I lead the group on Thursday mornings. The benefits of doing this “sadhana” are immense. It keeps me going all day long without getting dragged out and tired.

One immediate result of sadhana is the remembrance of "who we are" rather than "what we are". Repetitively remembering our inner essence nature is at the heart of all spiritual growth. One day we will all remember our spiritual essence in every moment. Sadhana is whatever you do consistently to clear your own consciousness so you can relate to the infinity within you. I choose to do it through my daily discipline of meditation at dawn.

On a final note: We finally got rid of the upstairs neighbors when we heard way too much fighting going on and found one dead a few days later. We called the exterminator and they sealed up all the ways the critters could get in the attic and gave the squirrel a decent burial.

Happiest of days yet to come, Love to you all ~ Cynthia Good

Now this is News

Barbara Walters of Television's 20/20 did a story on gender roles in Kabul, Afghanistan, several years before the Afghan conflict. She noted that women customarily walked 5 paces behind their husbands.

She recently returned to Kabul and observed that women still walk behind their husbands. From Ms. Walter's vantage point, despite the overthrow of the oppressive Taliban regime, the women now seem to walk even further back behind their husbands and are happy to maintain the old custom.

Ms. Walters approached one of the Afghani women and asked, "Why do you now seem happy with the old custom that you once tried so desperately to change?"

The woman looked Ms. Walters straight in the eyes, and without hesitation said, "Land Mines."

MORAL OF THE STORY: BEHIND EVERY MAN IS A SMART WOMAN

Howdy! Howdy!

Until recently, I have never been one to be in good physical shape. It’s not that I hated to exercise as much as it was more like I just didn’t have the motivation. It may even be more than that and I’m thinking it may have something to do with me being a total klutz, or maybe I have some inner ear imbalance. I’ve never had it checked out. Most of the fun things I like to do require sitting whether it’s reading, computer surfing, sewing, crocheting and then some of the not so fun things like sitting in an office working.

In grade school, my parochial chums - the girls - were City of San Antonio volleyball champions. I was not. Whenever the ball came to me, I freaked. Here comes the ball, now what do I do? Quick decisions, reaction times, and lack of – , I just did not have the power to hit that ball right.

Finally, at the community college the summer of ‘69 when white man was landing on the moon (I missed the whole thing), I was learning how to swim. I was also taking a biology class and we were dissecting amphibians and crayfish that had been embalmed in formaldehyde. Mistake to take the biology class that summer and a swim class as my fingers/hands were a schribbled mess after I got out of the pool. I did learn how to swim and learned to love the water.

In the mid ‘80s, I joined a YWCA in downtown San Francisco and swam a lot. I’d get up first thing in the morning from my Inner Sunset 9^th & Judah abode and take a bus and then walk up the hill to the YWCA on Sutter St. It was a women’s building and catered to women athletes and also had offices and a hotel. It was at this time that women were attempting to join the San Francisco Firefighters and found a lot of obstacles in getting hired. So we all swam in the pool with the pool filters installed wrong but who knew. There were a lot of things wrong with that YWCA building on Sutter St.

So, fast forward to 2007. I’ll be 57 later this year and not that I’m having a late mid-life crisis (well maybe I am) I decided I’d better get in shape. I have been spinning at the gym and most recently I graduated from Yoga Teacher Training and am now a certified Yoga Instructor. Hooray! It all uphill from here on out.

For the past two years I also join the yogis and yoginis at 4:30 a.m. and get a little yoga action and meditation before I go swimming.

Handstar

Handstar
Originally uploaded by cynthiagood.

Testing Testing

Harbour Island

Bahamas -

Jeez, I hope I get to see you all in 2006. Tommy (who has now been with me practically everyday for the past 4 years) and I have two round trip tickets to the Bahamas. We are going to be in Nassau for the Boxing day Junkanoo parade and then we are going to fast ferry to Harbour Island and stay with a massage client of mine I met in San Francisco, and try do some island hopping later on. I have no idea how to budget for this trip and I may be paying for it late into next year. So, here’s the deal, endless powder pink sandy beaches and two memory cards for my digital camera to record it all. We are going to end the trip with three days and two nights at the Sivananda Yoga Ashram on Paradise Island.

Romance

Romance - A Work in Progress

I spend at least a little part of each day thinking of ways to apply my affection and show my appreciation with gesture that is usually taken for granted - like sweet little nothings. Words whispered in silence. A sweet ransom note left in the kitchen sink. A printed card saying how much I appreciate who you are. A candle lit in darkness. A smile that gets bigger when I see you. Joy to know that you are benefitting from my singing or writing or breathing. Ah, the breath smells so pleasing.

Romance is definitely NOT letting a cluster of roses do the apologizing for you. I hold a high reverence for romance. I apply romance, on a lesser level I guess, to my friendships.

It isn't for proving to someone that you love them. It is giving of yourself for no apparent reason other than to touch a heart because you want to. If I had to use two words to best describe what I imagine is true romance I would have to go with ...Creative Affection!! It is a heartfelt Devotion.

It is affirming my commitment deep from within. This is what I find extremely rewarding.

Just Testing

Wrote an entry earlier today and am still waiting for it to appear. Did it completely disappear or did it get lost in cyperspace?

Making the Move and Other Places to Go

Not sure what happened with the www.modblog.com. Have been waiting and watching other modbloggers make the transition to other sites. Most have found a new service that is well liked:

http://www.efx2.com/

I have been doing the Thanksgiving USA style. I invited my family to my new house and my first ever cooking a turkey! My cousin guided me through the process and it's been a whirlwind of activity preparing for the feast so now I have a refrigerator full of leftovers and only two of here now to eat it all. The turkey was a success.

My brother is such a bubba! He shows up early and is hungry and asks where the food! I am so used to him that he no longer can press any of my buttons. I just appreciate that he drove the one and a half hours up from San Antonio to be with us. My Aunt came and found ways to make the serving area easier. Her daughter and and oldest girl arrived with her husband, the three kids and the husband's sister. It was great fun to be all together and eating and playing and watching DVDs. NO FOOTBALL games on the TV. I was so impressed.

Now it's off to doing the cleanup thing and get ready for the next series of events. Besides the Thanksgiving cleanup, a car that needs to be taken to the repair shop (yes, someone sideswipped me Monday morning as he was going to the hospital to have surgery - Grace - I like all my cars to have names - does not look graceful at the moment), and a new computer setup to put together but first I have to put the desk together since I bought the desk unassembled.

Looks like we have US mail delivery today. Am off to get outside for some fresh air. Good luck to all the - dare I say Xmodbloggers - and wish you all a very wonderful holiday season!

PS: We have two round trip tickets to the Bahamas to enjoy the warmth and festivities of a "foreign" country. Hooray! Please don't be jealous as we have been planning this for years. I'll be sending you all some pink sand and warm sun rays soon.

Fall 2005

Happy Thanksgiving to my friends in the USA!

Some Goods are Better or Best

Last weekend I went camping at the Guadalupe River State Park just south of Blanco, Texas. It seems to be a decent place to camp and the river running through has the bald cypress trees which are quite amazing to see (or at least I thought so). My friends Eve and Peter arrived the day before with my tent and grill cooker so they has an evening and a morning ahead of me.

I LOVE camping. I love being outdoors especially in the Indian Summer weather we had been experiencing. I love hanging out with my friends and have nothing better to do than hike in the woods, explore the river banks and then come back to camp and hang out.

Texas is so funny. One day it can be really warm or even (and usually hot) and then the next day a cold front blows in (this one literally did at 40 mph) and within hours it can be freezing (which it did mid week). But last weekend it was still unseasonably warm and dry.

I was somewhat disappointed with the camp site itself. We have this great state of Texas with all the land one could spread around in, and the camp sites are too close together. I felt like I'd arrived in suburbia. A suburbia filled with overcrowded tenants. The camp site next door was too close to ours and no trees or bushes to filter out the huge trailer attached to a huge truck. People in Texas love to drive huge pick up trucks. There were four dogs; one big enough to saddle and ride; two little black and whites ones that looked like twins; and another terrier. It wasn't so much the dogs, or the kids or the vehicles that were a bother. It was the noise of the leaf blower, the noise of the generator and the blow up kid place scape. I was appalled that a generator was making white noise for way longer than I thought peaceful. And the leaf blower. Wouldn't you think that it being fall and dry and warm, that it would OK for leaves to settle around the camp site? And JFC, just pick up the tent and shake the crumbs out. To use noisy leaf blower inside the tent and around the picnic table is more than I can stand.

Otherwise, I got to hang out with my friends in the Texas hill country and that was a true blessing. Next time, I'm going with the wilderness camp site and walk into camp with a backpack. Maybe.

I have another profile

http://www.blogger.com/profile/7939545

Howdy!

Howdy from deep in the heart of Texas!