Author: EvansGarden

Bar Codes and Produce Codes
I published this data but long enough ago that it would be good to do it again. I refer to this data while shopping, always…and not willing to trust my possibly faulty memory on something so important, carry along in my purse a cheat sheet.

It is OUR responsibility to get educated and to make good choices. Don’t expect governments to provide the info obviously.

I look for products, food, anything, made in the US to support Americans and our USA economy even in this small way. Searching at most big stores shows that virtually everything is sourced, by the really big stores, Walmart, Target, Sam’s, Costco, and on and on, from China. This ticks me off so much, as it is an unmistakable indication of an only selfish interest and lack of caring for the American people. We need jobs and business flowing through our own economy.

Many products no longer show where they were made, only give where the distributor is located which is probably going to be US company. It is important to read the bar code to track the country of origin, of cultivation or manufacture. Continue reading How to Shop Safely

There is an action that our bodies do that is automatic and to which we usually give little conscious attention: breathing. There is, however, a way of breathing that’s terrifically more efficient and more relaxing than the way many of us breathe most of the time. We probably don’t want to bother placing any attention on how we are doing our breathing; yet there is a way to take in air that supports well-being and it is quite different from how we normally do breathe. Learning (or re-learning) and practicing this breathing technique can bring us deeper and more full-body relaxation and considerably improved health.

Not that all breathing is the same. It suits the situation: when we’re tense, our breaths might be shallow or gasping. As we approach sleep, our breathing slows and deepens. When we do aerobic exercise, we tend to breathe from the chest, just as when we’re frightened or excited.

But take a look at the way that small children breathe (when they’re relaxed). Next time you have the chance to observe a child peacefully sleeping, watch for what on the child’s body rises and falls with breathing. It’s the abdomen, not the chest. Continue reading Natural Breathing

Tonight I’m heading later into the music studio. Art and imagination are on my mind. The weather is cool and windy in Clearwater. The wind is a presence but not strong enough to be a threat to anything that would best not uproot. This wind is blowing with a feeling of freedom and pleasure.

Remembering when I was three years old…at the start of recess, standing on the back porch landing of our spacious house-school building, about 6 feet up from what I ought to use steps to descend to, and a thought came to me. The wind blew in strong gusts, yanked at my little body. My coat could be like wings. I CAN fly! The wind seemed to support me as I threw myself expectantly into the air. For a moment, I was suspended and soaring before falling and landing, gently.

Or so it seemed.  Sheer exhilaration. I had flown.

There was no plan to make flying a vocation, but when Martha, a schoolmate, became my flying apprentice a few years later (I was 7), I had myself convinced. Almost. See, by then, the physical universe, which brings us too quickly to the ground like a stern, impatient schoolmaster, had begun to teach me. I was tainted with facts. Holding a bit too insistently to the concept that I could fly, I was partly faking my creed. Though we were wild with the fun of it, I felt deceitful since Martha believed that I could teach her to fly. Who knows, perhaps I might have…but a sensible approach to living had begun to permeate my viewpoint.

I have since become either more lax or more in adherence to my philosophy, depending upon how you view things. The way I prefer to see it now, imagination may deem itself or anything to be valid, to exist, for oneself or others, without further proof, agreement or reasons to justify its flights. It’s free to the degree that we can poof stuff into being without having to explain. When one is bonded to the reference points of the objective world and adheres only to previous logicians and authorities, breaking free to fly into the vast expanses of one’s own thought may seem brash, maybe a bit rude, egotistical or irresponsible. How so? How often have we either heard and perhaps ourselves at off-times been the stern voices of stern people chanting the foolishness of “impractical” things like musing or experimenting into the unknown.

The world, if you follow its harsh lessons, warns us not to reach too far, differ too much, sing too loud, create too spontaneously. One has to slip out of that mud to live.

Continue reading Views on Art

Halloween is a real break from the other 364 days. During non-Halloween days, unless we go to a masquerade party, we’re expected to be only the person we last were, the last time we checked.

Who we are takes some daily upkeep if we are to portray well the unique message of “me.”  We maintain the character in careful detail. There’s a set of appropriate and a set of inappropriate behaviors, determined maybe by the individual, maybe by a long gone elder. It’s a good thing to look at the agreements we make. Anyway, we behave normally within narrow confines of expectation. Our behavior depends for its guidelines (and I am not putting up to question whether or not this is valid) on protocol, opinions, attitudes, schedules, locations, mannerisms, etc.

Sometimes we define our ranges of choice as per what is acceptable and within common acceptance. Like magazine subscription – I’ll take Bazaar, you’ll take Fly Fishing. It’s the material we use, be it from sheer creative thought or borrowed concepts, the material we use to create and project “me.”

The very thought of playing with this whimsically in “real” life can be unsettling. A doctor coming to work in a coconut bra and a grass skirt like in the movie musical, South Pacific. Uhhhh, Doctor? People might think you are mad. Continue reading Halloween and Thoughts about Change

Ode to a Dead Cockroach

 

Had you not entered this very moment this room

I’d not have squished you bang! with the broom

but since you did and left not, although I bid

I smashed you flat…and that was that.

 

Oh, roachie dear, little did I know

that I caused you to leave a million or so

little roaches behind without their hero.

It nearly makes me shed a salt tear-o.

 

Do I earn a pat for courage or a slap of reproach

For having killed this large and stately roach?

Ne’er knew his history, family or scope

Still the very thought of him prancing on my soap

 

Erases all pause and tender thought.

I’m glad I walked in and this roach I caught.

 

Evan Symonds

July 5, 2011

 

© 2011-2012 by Evan Symonds. All rights to this ridiculous piece reserved to silly people. Just mention my name, despite the indignity.