For eternally and always there is only now, one and the same now; the present is the only thing that has no end." Erwin Schrodinger

I've been reading and journaling through a very practical and interesting book, Quantum Success by Sandra Ann Taylor. The quote above comes from this book that is surely one of the most important "self help" or insiprational books out there today. The chapter I'm working with is The Energy of Presence where Taylor opens with "Today is a gift; that's why they call it the present." She says there's an energetic truth within that old adage: "Energetically, we create our reality every moment that we live....in terms of our consciousness creation, we never have any other opportunity to do so. That's what makes each second so precious, so much of a gift. The present is our window of opportunity. It opens us to our options of choosing a new approach that will make a difference in our lives...Every single second is a Universal gift."

When I read that this morning I stopped. Picked up the book, journal and my laptop. Took myself out to our beautiful, tranquil and cool backyard with the morning sun just peeking over the house behind us. We work long and hard on our yard, making it as pretty as we know how, watering the plants, fertilizing and nurturing all we've chosen to grow. We've fruit and nut trees, dahlias, rhodies, mums, vines, honeysuckle,roses, fuchsias, various annuals for color and containers of herbs that are going leggy and to seed. I can't possibly use all the basil and flat parsley in the containers on the patio. I just enjoy the heavenly fragrance and ever changing shapes, the tiny white flowers. Today is going to be warm, about 80 and sunny. I can tell by the light quality that changed about August 1st that the season is due to change soon. Before sunrise I watered the back garden and went inside to meditate and start my work day. When I read the quoted material above, I looked out the window at my heavenly garden and thought, "Why the heck am I in here looking out?" This is that precious, eternal moment. I can choose to spend it inside with my to-do lists or I can go uncover the swing, sit and enjoy what other inspired now moments have created in my life.

Too often we're driven by our programmed to-dos. We'll work hard to get the right things and make the perfect home. Then we'll move on to the next to-do and the beauty and good that we've created may drop to a sort of "maintenance" level on our living to-do list. We clean the house, wash the car, mow the yard and on and on. Pretty soon we may not even enter that perfect livingroom except to dust or vacumn. The garden and the swing become another job to be checked off the to-do list so we can go do something else. But not today.

Today I've chosen the opportunity of the present moment to get inpsired by the sound of the water bubbling in the fountain on the patio as I swing in the sunshine and drink in the glorious colors and scents of the garden. I've chosen to gift myself uplifting and empowering enjoyment of the present moment. May you do the same.

MMMMMMMMMMMMMMmelinda

I've been called a born teacher. As the eldest of three children, I constantly taught my sister and brother, and anyone else who would pretend to listen to me. The acting thing worked for me too, but I eventually staged other performances as a junior high teacher, university lecturer, teacher trainer, corporate trainer, creativity coach and workshop presenter. I love to do it and consider myself a pretty darned good talker. I can get up in front of hundreds of complete strangers and talk/teach, thoroughly enjoying myself. Over the years I've trained people to overcome their fears and the number one horror, fear of public speaking.

Sure, not all my public speaking gigs have been stellar or terribly enjoyable. Sometimes it's just hard work. Back in the day when I was a research project director and teacher trainer at UNLV in Las Vegas, I moonlighted for a training corporation out of Utah. Once a week I'd teach Rapid Reading for the Professional, a spin off of the Evelyn Woods method majorly reworked according to my reading specialist and curriculum development training, at a local government office building. At 6:30 p.m. a busload of accountants and engineers would arrive at my classroom from the Nevada Test Site where they'd been toiling at who knows what since about 5:00 a.m. that morning. They were dead tired, hungry, and did I mention they were accountants and engineers--the most difficult sort of ultra-careful and conservative personality in the world? Getting those guys to relax and let go of their creeping, dogged and iron grip on each individual printed word to up their reading speed and comprehension was HARD if not impossible. I had to trot out my best dog and pony show to even keep those guys awake. Thank goodness I was young, cute and damned determined! In any case, it all worked out great and I can report that ALL of them increased their performance and eventually had a good time, too. The company I worked for was so jazzed at their documented increase in performance that I was asked to train their other instructors on my method. Yeah, I'm bragging. But it's important to always remember the wins, the good times because the really horrific ones can easily make you forget them and focus on the negative.

A writer friend of mine, B.L. Morgan, who writes the famous John Dark horror/thrillers, has a new series coming out later in the fall. To promote his new book, he decided that he'd appear at a local open mic. And here's his really DARK public speaking tale:

I went to the open mic night on Friday night and well, I probably better just describe what happened. I do gotta say that you did warn me about who I let read my stuff and I guess that includes who I read in front of. Anyway here goes:

I went to the open mic night at a local independent bookstore. Anybody who knows my short stuff knows that I write extreme horror and that I pull no punches. I took with me a story that's named Life And Death In The West. It's a post-nuclear war story that built up to an ending that is really devastating. I know it's strong because it appeared in SavageNight (an ezine that's now long gone) and I got a lot of good feedback. It's STRONG!!!

After I listened to the first few poets read I decided that this just wouldn't be the crowd to do L&D for but out of politeness I was going to hang around and listen. I know how bad it makes someone feel when someone gets up and leaves in the middle of what they are doing.

The woman who organized the thing approached me and asked my name. I told her and she wrote it down and I told her I wasn't going to be reading that night. I explained that what I had wouldn't be right for this crowd and that I just didn't want to.

Five minutes later she announced my name and said that I was would be reading some prose. I told her loud enough for everyone to hear that I write horror and that I figured that this would not work for this crowd. She said, "We're adults. I think we can handle anything you can throw at us."

Evidently they couldn't. During the reading I got chuckles during the correct moments and total silence when I was done. I looked up and saw a lot of jaws hanging open. There was silence. I just leaned forward into the mic and said, "That's why they call it horror."

Afterward I went and sat down the organizer said. "Well, I've never been speechless before. That concludes tonight's event."

Nobody seemed to want to talk to me as they left. At first it ticked me off. But the more I thought about it the better I felt about the experience. If you write horror you do try to SHOCK the readers.

I had just shocked an entire room into silence. Mission accomplished.

Yeah, I will be more careful where I read from now on. To try to put a positive spin on it, I was happy with how I read the piece and in front of an audience of Horror fans I think it would have been well-received. I did it a lot smoother than I expected. Performance-wise I don't think I did bad. For that audience I probably gave some people nightmares. I'm not going to let myself get pressured into doing something again.

I did learn from the experience.

Yeah, Bob, we've all learned from your experience--eeeeeeeeeeeeeee. This is one of the best, and funniest, horror stories I've ever read. Thanks!

Mmmmmmmmmmelinda

When I was about ten or so my dad built a track and pink "jelly bean" or quarter-midget racer that he stuck me in with a minimum of instruction and said, "Drive!" And I did, resplendent in my matching pink helmet against some real pro kids from Las Vegas. They'd had instruction and some heavy track time, too. I really didn't understand the racing or lapping thing. I just drove like hell to stay ahead of those kids chasing me until I caught up with them. Then I didn't know what to do. Didn't matter anyway, as I dipped a left front wheel over the infield white line and was promptly DQed. Another thing Dad neglected to mention. Such was the extent of my preteen racing career.

I'd been looking for something fun to gift the DH for his birthday and came up a one day high performance driving clinic at Pacific Raceways in Kent, WA. And to make it really fun, I signed up too as a co-driver in our CLK. The school was underwrittern by Barrier Motors and taught by a gaggle of instructors at ProFormance Racing. The August morning dawned more like a late September one, grey and cold, and stayed that way all day with a nice biting breeze. We were ordered to arrive at the track at 7:30 for a light breakfast with class instruction starting at 8:00 a.m. After an hour and a half of classtime, we sallied forth in our cars to do battle with orange plastic cones.

The DH drove first with Mmmmm in the passenger seat. Then I got to drive, which worked out great as I learned from his experience. On the slalom course we aimed the car through the cones at different speeds. A flagman would pop up a flag at some point to signal us to skip a cone. We did great and all cones stayed up right. Then we proceeded to the full ABS stop within the cone area. We accelerated from a dead stop to 60 mph and squeezed the brakes on the moment we passed through the cone gate. On my first go, I got to about 50 and started braking before the gate. The next passes I spooled up and did all just right. As we learned and experienced success, the really great staff of instructor/drivers encouraged us to increase speed a couple of miles an hour. And they always told me to breathe. Said it was underrated and I should try it. Showed me ways to consciously drive and breathe to relax and perform better. It worked.

Back in the classroom we learned about the smooth application of power, braking and steering inputs to keep the car balanced and stable to avoid crashes and get the best performance. Back out to the cars to apply what we learned, followed by a great lunch and Mmmmmm won the big door prize of the day: a paint protector for the car. The rest of the day was spent applying and tuning our newfound driving skills on the two mile Formula 1 track with an instructor riding shotgun. FUN! But very intense, too. We were both exhausted by 5:00 and the drive home. Speaking of the drive home, while at the clinic a young guy driving a C32 AMG kept text messaging and interrupting the start of the debriefs talking on his cell phone. The instructor asked him politely to turn it off. The guy turned his back on the group and said, "But this is work calling." And we waited until he got off the phone. Of course we were all told to turn of phones and really concentrate on the class. Cell phones and driving are a big no no. In any case, the drive home--that guy passed us, weaving in and out of traffic, head bobbing to music, cell phone glued to his ear and way over the speed limit. Maybe the training will kick in eventually . . .

Mmmmmmmmmmm