Mont Saint Michel 1

Mont Saint Michel 1
Originally uploaded by Nana S

Nighttime Suns

Nighttime Suns
Originally uploaded by Nana S

Tata Marie-France Sainton, Chanel, & Fabrice Sainton in Saint-Malo, Ille-et-Vilaine, France

Tata Marie-France Sainton, Chanel, & Fabrice Sainton in Saint-Malo, Ille-et-Vilaine, France
Originally uploaded by Nana S

Sunshine

Sunshine
Originally uploaded by Nana S

Clouds Over the Highrises in the Paris Suburbs

Clouds Over the Highrises in the Paris Suburbs
Originally uploaded by Nana S

We Had to Get Off the Freeway so the Tire is Shot

We Had to Get Off the Freeway so the Tire is Shot
Originally uploaded by Nana S

Since we were on the expressway, with no emergency lane and no exits, we had to drive a couple of miles on the flat tire. Oh well.

We Got a Flat tire on the Way Home

We Got a Flat tire on the Way Home
Originally uploaded by Nana S

We had a flat tire on the way back from Normandy, just outside of Paris.

L’Apéritif à Fabrice

L’Apéritif à Fabrice
Originally uploaded by Nana S

Roses & Dew

Roses & Dew
Originally uploaded by Nana S

La Beauté d’une Rose Rose

La Beauté d’une Rose Rose
Originally uploaded by Nana S

Une Rose Rose Chez Adrienne

La Rose Rose Chez Adrienne
Originally uploaded by Nana S

Chanel

Chanel
Originally uploaded by Nana S

Chanel went with us to take Jeanne to her friend's house in Normandy, yesterday. It was a good trip there, and we enjoyed a fantastic lunch with Jeanne, her friend, Adrienne, and Adrienne's grandson, Guillaume. Chanel stayed in Adrienne's shady backyard during that time, and manned, or should I say, womaned, the fort.

Jeanne's Rose / La Rose de Jeanne

Jeanne's Rose / La Rose de Jeanne
Originally uploaded by Nana S

Jeanne's Flowers / Les fleurs de Jeanne

Les Fleurs de Chez Tata Jeanne / Flowers at Aunt Jeanne's 4

Les Fleurs de Chez Tata Jeanne / Flowers at Aunt Jeanne's 4
Originally uploaded by Nana S

Les Fleurs de Chez Tata Jeanne / Flowers at Aunt Jeanne's 2

Les Fleurs de Chez Tata Jeanne / Flowers at Aunt Jeanne's 2
Originally uploaded by Nana S

2008 Edition of Getting to Know Your Friends

Welcome to the 2008 Edition of Getting to Know Your Friends. Copy my post, below, change all the answers so they apply to you, and then post this to your blog. The theory is that you will learn a lot of little things about your friends that you might not have known!

1. What time did you get up this morning? 8:27
2. Diamonds or pearls? Diamonds
3. What was the last film you saw at the cinema? Super Hero Movie
4. What is your favorite TV show? Ellen
5. What do and you usually have for breakfast? Green tea and a slice of baguette
6. What is your middle name? Anne
7. What food do you dislike? Veal
8. What is your favorite CD at the moment? Anything Bob Dylan, always!
9. What kind of car do you drive? Fabrice's Mom's old FIAT
10. Favorite sandwich? Roast beef and Swiss cheese
11. What characteristic do you despise? Racism
12. Favorite item of clothing? A really comfortable shirt I have
13. If you could go anywhere in the world on vacation, where would you go? Mexico
14. Favorite brand of clothing? Eddie Bauer
15. Where would you retire to? Carmel Valley, CA
16. What was your most recent memorable birthday? 18
17. Favorite sport to watch? Ski jumping

20. When is your birthday? July 22
21. Are you a morning person or a night person? Morning
22. What is your shoe size? 9
23. Pets? Morgan's dog, Chanel, and her two cats, JakeJake and Kitty
24. Any new and exciting news you'd like to share with us? I am going home in two months!!!!
25. What did you want to be when you were little? A writer
26. How are you today? Tired of packing
27. What is your favorite candy? Twix
28. What is your favorite flower? Dahlias
29. What is a day on the the calendar you are looking forward to? October 29
30. What is your full name? Danielle Anne Pensec Sainton
31. What are you listening to right now? The evening news on TV
32. What was the last thing you ate? A ham sandwich and no-fat cherry yogurt
33. Do you wish on stars? Occasionally
34. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Blue
35. How is the weather right now? Mostly cloudy, smells like rain, 70 degrees
36. The first person you spoke to on the phone today? Fabrice is the ONLY person I have spoken to on the phone today - I despise talking on the phone
37. Favorite soft drink? Dr Pepper
38. Favorite restaurant?
39. Real hair color? Light brown
40. What was your favorite toy as a child? My Barbie camper
41. Summer or winter? Summer (but Fall is even better!)
42. Hugs or kisses? Hugs
43. Chocolate or Vanilla? Vanilla
44. Coffee or tea? Depends

46. When was the last time you cried? A couple of weeks ago
47. What is under your bed? A box and a 12-pack of Coke (They don't have Dr Pepper in France)
48. What did you do last night? Talked to my daughter and had an IM conversation with Sandrine
49. What are you afraid of? Flying
50. Salty or sweet? Salty
51. How many keys on your key ring? 4
52. How many years at your current job? I'm waiting to go home to get a new one.
53. Favorite day of the week? Thursday
54. How many towns have you lived in? 25
55. Do you make friends easily? Yes

My Progress on the Christmas Stocking I am Making for Fabrice / Progrès sur la chaussette de Noël que je fais pour Fabrice

I Ain' Never Seen Anythin' Like it!

Have a Bright and Happy Day!

Fabrice dans son parre-balle lourd / Fabrice in His Heavyweight Bulletproof Vest

Fabrice dans son parre-balle léger / Fabrice in His Lightweight Bulletproof Vest

(Tolle, 1999, p. 14, 15)

"[A]ll the things that truly matter -- beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace -- arise from beyond the mind." (p. 14)

"Many people live with a tormentor in their head that continuously attacks and punishes them and drains them of vital energy. It is the cause of untold misery and unhappiness, as well as of disease." (p. 15)

Website Extracts from The Power of Now

I have little use for the past and rarely think about it; however, I would briefly like to tell you how I came to be a spiritual teacher and how ‘The Power of Now’ came into existence.

Until my thirtieth year, I lived in a state of almost continuous anxiety interspersed with periods of suicidal depression. It feels now as if I am talking about some past lifetime or somebody else's life.

Awakening

One night not long after my twenty-ninth birthday, I woke up in the early hours with a feeling of absolute dread. I had woken up with such a feeling many times before, but this time it was more intense than it had ever been. The silence of the night, the vague outlines of the furniture in the dark room, the distant noise of a passing train – everything felt so alien, so hostile, and so utterly meaningless that it created in me a deep loathing of the world. The most loathsome thing of all, however, was my own existence. What was the point in continuing to live with this burden of misery? Why carry on with this continuous struggle? I could feel that a deep longing for annihilation, for nonexistence, was now becoming much stronger than the instinctive desire to continue to live.

‘I cannot live with myself any longer.’ This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought it was. ‘Am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, there must be two of me: the ‘I’ and the ‘self’ that ‘I’ cannot live with.’ ‘Maybe,’ I thought, ‘only one of them is real.’

I was so stunned by this strange realization that my mind stopped. I was fully conscious, but there were no more thoughts. Then I felt drawn into what seemed like a vortex of energy. It was a slow movement at first and then accelerated. I was gripped by an intense fear, and my body started to shake. I heard the words ‘resist nothing,’ as if spoken inside my chest. I could feel myself being sucked into a void. It felt as if the void was inside myself rather than outside. Suddenly, there was no more fear, and I let myself fall into that void. I have no recollection of what happened after that.

I was awakened by the chirping of a bird outside the window. I had never heard such a sound before. My eyes were still closed, and I saw the image of a precious diamond. Yes, if a diamond could make a sound, this is what it would be like. I opened my eyes. The first light of dawn was filtering through the curtains. Without any thought, I felt, I knew, that there is infinitely more to light than we realize. That soft luminosity filtering through the curtains was love itself. Tears came into my eyes. I got up and walked around the room. I recognized the room, and yet I knew that I had never truly seen it before. Everything was fresh and pristine, as if it had just come into existence. I picked up things, a pencil, an empty bottle, marvelling at the beauty and aliveness of it all. That day I walked around the city in utter amazement at the miracle of life on earth, as if I had just been born into this world.


Bliss

For the next five months, I lived in a state of uninterrupted deep peace and bliss. After that, it diminished somewhat in intensity, or perhaps it just seemed to because it became my natural state. I could still function in the world, although I realized that nothing I ever did could possibly add anything to what I already had.


Understanding

I knew, of course, that something profoundly significant had happened to me, but I didn't understand it at all. It wasn't until several years later, after I had read spiritual texts and spent time with spiritual teachers, that I realized that what everybody was looking for had already happened to me. I understood that the intense pressure of suffering that night must have forced my consciousness to withdraw from its identification with the unhappy and deeply fearful self, which is ultimately a fiction of the mind. This withdrawal must have been so complete that this false, suffering self immediately collapsed, just as if a plug had been pulled out of an inflatable toy. What was left then was my true nature as the ever-present I am: consciousness in its pure state prior to identification with form. Later I also learned to go into that inner timeless and deathless realm that I had originally perceived as a void and remain fully conscious. I dwelt in states of such indescribable bliss and sacredness that even the original experience I just described pales in comparison. A time came when, for a while, I was left with nothing on the physical plane. I had no relationships, no job, no home, no socially defined identity. I spent almost two years sitting on park benches in a state of the most intense joy.

But even the most beautiful experiences come and go. More fundamental, perhaps, than any experience is the undercurrent of peace that has never left me since then. Sometimes it is very strong, almost palpable, and others can feel it too. At other times, it is somewhere in the background, like a distant melody.


Sharing

Later, people would occasionally come up to me and say: ‘I want what you have. Can you give it to me, or show me how to get it?’ And I would say: ‘You have it already. You just can’t feel it because your mind is making too much noise.’ That answer later grew into my book, ‘The Power of Now’.

What the Website Says

Here is what the website says about The Power of Now:

The Power of Now has been widely recognized as one of the most influential spiritual books of our time. A #1 New York Times bestseller, it has been translated into over 30 languages. The book has helped countless people around the globe awaken to the spiritual dimension in their lives, find inner peace, increased joy and more harmonious relationships.

To make the journey into The Power of Now we will need to leave our analytical mind and its false created self, the ego, behind. From the beginning of the first chapter we move rapidly into a significantly higher altitude where one breathes a lighter air, the air of the spiritual. Although the journey is challenging, Eckhart Tolle offers simple language and a question and answer format to guide us. The words themselves are the signposts.

For many of us there are new discoveries to be made along the way: we are not our mind; we can find our way out of psychological pain; authentic human power is found by surrendering to the Now. We also find out that the body is actually one of the keys to entry into a state of inner peace, as are the silence and space all around us. Indeed, access is everywhere available. These access points, or portals, can all be used to bring us into the Now, the present moment, where problems do not exist. It is here we find our joy and are able to embrace our true selves. It is here we discover that we are already complete and perfect. (Emphasis added)

Many of us will find that our biggest obstacle to this realization is our relationships, especially our intimate relationships. But again, we are in new territory and all is not what it had seemed before. We come to see that our relationships are yet another doorway into spiritual enlightenment if we use them wisely, meaning if we use them to become more conscious and therefore more loving human beings. The result? Real communion between self and others.

If we are able to be fully present and take each step in the Now; if we are able to feel the reality of such things as the inner-body, surrender, forgiveness, and the Unmanifested, we will be opening ourselves to the transforming experience of The Power of Now. (Emphasis added)

Current Reading - The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

"Enlightenment consciously chosen means to relinquish your attachment to past and future and to make the now the main focus of your life." (Emphasis added)

I just got started reading this book, that was recommended to me by my brilliant son, Mikaël, and I already know that it's a "must read," as my old friend, Frank Teti, always said, may he rest in peace.

As I read, I will share certain passages, which particularly strike me.

For example,

'I cannot live with myself any longer.' This was the thought that kept repeating itself in my mind. Then suddenly I became aware of what a peculiar thought that was. 'Am I one or two? If I cannot live with myself, than there must be two of me: the 'I' and the 'self' that 'I' cannot live with.' 'Maybe,' I thought, 'only one of them is real.' (Tolle, 1999, p.1)

And, also,

'The word Being explains nothing, but nor does God. Being, however, has the advantage that it is an open concept. It does not reduce the infinite to a finite entity. It is impossible to form a mental image of it. Nobody can claim exclusive possession of Being. It is your very essence, and it is immediately accessible to you as the feeling of your own presence, the realization I am that is prior to I am this or I am that. So it is only a small step from the word Being to the experience of Being.' (Tolle, 1999, p. 11)

I hope you read and learn along with me.....

NYT Editorial: A Second Chance for Gorillas

For so long now, there has been almost nothing but bad news about the likely fate of gorillas. They have been the victims of deforestation and incessant warfare in Central Africa. They have been hunted for meat. They are susceptible to the Ebola virus. Estimates in the 1980s suggested that there were roughly 100,000 western lowland gorillas — one of four subspecies. Since then, that number was thought to have declined by half.

But a rigorous new census of western lowland gorillas conducted by scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society has found as many as 125,000 of them living in two northern regions of the Congo Republic — more than double the number thought to exist elsewhere throughout their range.

This news is that rarest of things: a second chance for a critically endangered species. The number itself — and the scientists’ confidence in it — is the result of an intensive search of inaccessible rain forests and swamps. It also resulted from counting gorilla nests, rather than the secretive creatures themselves.

These gorillas have been protected by their remoteness and by the inaccessibility of their habitat. But remoteness will ultimately be no deterrent to the threats that have decimated them elsewhere. This extraordinary discovery should be a powerful incentive to create new protected areas to help western lowland gorillas the way other national parks in the Congo Republic have already done. But it will take more than that. Without careful management of the forest resources that surround protected areas — and strict enforcement — a national park is nothing more than a line on a map.

This news is an utter exception to the fate of primates across the globe. A recent, comprehensive survey, presented at the same conference as the news of the gorilla census, indicates that more than half of primate species face extinction. Scientists are finding new species — 53 since 2000 — but too often finding a new species simply means having a chance to watch it die away.

JakeJake Took Over Kitty's Spot in the Wooden Wheelbarrow!! / JakeJake a pris la place de Kitty dans la brouette en Bois!!

Kitty in the Wooden Wheelbarrow / Kitty dans la Brouette en Bois

Progress I've Made on Fabrice's Christmas Stocking

Morgan and Friends on 8th Grade Graduation Day

This is my favorite of the group pictures from Morgan's eighth grade graduation.