Reflecting On Our Words - Part 2

My! My! Time Flies! as Enya so beautifully sings.

Here we are at the end of another month. How has everyone been travelling?

Have you been reflecting on YOUR WORD for the year?

Well Annemarie, AVT Coach, Octamom, Roban and I have. At the end of January we simultaneously posted acrostics using our WORDS....if you would like to revisit that post click here.

This month we have decided to use the music of a favourite song and add a new verse reflecting on our WORD.

I have added each song to my play list so if you like you can play the applicable song while reading each of our attempts at songwriting.....it will make it more meaningful.

Once again please feel free to join us in the fun by commenting or writing your own post......the more the merrier!

Drum roll please maestro......

Me, myself I (Peggy - Miruspeg) - BALANCE is my word and I chose the song:
"Where is the Love" by the Black Eyed Peas.

"Where is the Balance"

Listen to what your body and feelings are telling you
Like most things in life,
It takes practice and experimentation.
We need to make adjustments,
As we go along.
We need to stop and reflect,
To see which parts of our life,
Are out of Balance.
Then take the steps,
To put them back in Balance.
So remember to stop and ask yourself,
Where is the Balance.....
Where is the Balance.....
Where is the Balance......


Annemarie who's word is DISCIPLINE chose the song:
“A Few of My Favorite Things”.

"A Few of My Discipline Needs"

Disciplined living – for this I am searching
“Fly by the seat of my pants” isn’t working
Making a list of the things I must do
This just might help locate my left shoe

Grading my papers as soon as I get them
Clearing my desk off so I won’t forget them.
Grocery shopping for healthier things
These are of few of my Discipline Needs

When I’m tired
I don’t want to
pack a lunch for sure
But when I remember my Discipline needs
A healthy lunch is ... in store!!!


Coach who's word is ABUNDANCE chose the song:
"A Wonderful World" written by George David Weiss and Bob Thiele.
Louis Armstrong recorded the song in 1968.

“An Abundant World”

I hear songs of love…devotion too
I sing along…a few notes for you
And I think to myself….what an abundant world.

I whisper prayers…for friends in need
Some who are joyful…some really grieve.
And I think to myself….what an abundant world

The words of a loved one….so dear to my ear
Are just what I needed…..to take away my fear
I hear people sharing…and it’s more than a few.
They’re really sayin’…I love you.

I see my children….I’ve watched them grow
They work and play…independence they show
And I think to myself…what an abundant world


Roban who's words are FAITH and JOY chose the song:
“Edelweiss” the Rodgers and Hammerstein hit from The Sound of Music.

“Words of the Year Song”

Faith and joy, faith and joy
These two words will sustain me
Through the year, far and near
Faith and joy will be mine.

Faith that God will see me through
With joyful days His voice rings true.

Faith and joy, faith and joy
Are blessings for me to gather.


Octamom who's word is EXCELLENCE chose the song: "Excellence" sung by two of her beautiful children.....Octamom always thinks outside the square!


Excellence Song from Octamom on Vimeo.


Famous playwright Shakespeare once said, "If music be the food of love; play on."

Music touches our souls in strange ways. People have different tastes in music. Some like jazz, some like hard rock, while some others like country music or classical. But I have yet to find someone who does not like music of any kind. What does music mean to you?

In July 2008 when in France on holidays we stopped off at a small village called Xouaxange in the Alsace-Lorraine region and had an Irish coffee. After a little while we all started singing........

We'll All Be Rooned!

The Australian media, the world media has become obsessed with headlining every tiny piece of economic bad news. Picking up the newspaper is like hopping on the ghost train: with every turn of the page, someone tries to scare you witless. Turning on the radio or television is worse: the news is an endless catalogue of pain; reasons to be cheerful, parts one, two and three.

Can we get this straight: we all know things are going badly. We don't need to be told again and again and again.

The world economy may look like a car crash but do we really need to slow down and stare so hard at the site of the accident? Just as on the roads, the more we stare, the worse we jam up the system.

We all know we are in a recession; we also know the stockmarket is stuffed. The answer to both is a return of confidence, so why do we work so hard to knock confidence on the head? The misery-mongers would rather indulge in a festival of wailing and gnashing of teeth. Suddenly Hanrahan is back, dominating the conversation: "We'll all be rooned......"

I'm not arguing we should live in a fool's paradise, cotton-wooled from bad news. It's just that there's so much real bad news, we could be spared the made-up stuff.

Lobby groups are saying to the Government: "Give us what we want or something really terrible will happen." The honest headline would be: "Lobby groups post begging letters to Government." Instead, the media goes with the lurid threat: "Jobs to fall by third."

The aim of a quality news service is to give people an accurate sense of the world in which they are living. The aim is not just to yell "boo" with such force that everyone chokes on their Weet-Bix.

To be given an accurate sense of reality, we need to be exposed to a fair amount of bad news, that's true. But there comes a point where it is overplayed. By reporting every protection-racket threat as if it were already fact, the world becomes a darker place than it really is.

This represents a serious failure of reporting - of giving people an accurate and nuanced sense of the world. More importantly, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. It leads to more job losses; further drops on the stockmarket; more human misery.

Human beings have an inbuilt tendency to stick with the crowd; we lurch as a group towards optimism, and then we stampede towards pessimism.

It's why stockmarkets always overshoot both on the upside and on the downside. It's why Warren Buffett has made a fortune through following the adage: "Get greedy when others are fearful and fearful when others are greedy."

The media has to report the news, good or bad. But it also has to try to rise above the mood of the moment, rather than simply reinforce it. The easiest thing when presented with a stampede is to join it.

How did Kipling put it? "If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs . . . "

Blues Point Reserve, Milsons Point, Sydney - Feb 2007 - Tree roots struggling against the odds to find water and succeeding.

Contradictions - Part One

I am Miruspeg. My name is derived from the Latin adjective MIRUS meaning wonderful, remarkable, amazing, surprising, extraordinary. This is the name I have given to my home that I bought back in 1980 as I felt it was a very fitting name for the place where I have lived on and off for nearly 29 years. If this house could talk it would probably agree with the following statements about myself.

I am an Introvert with Extrovert tendancies.





I am middle aged BUT very very young at heart.

I adore children even though I don't have any of my own.



I am a follower who occasionally takes the lead.

I live alone BUT never feel lonely. (This hasn't always been the case, but thankfully it is now).

I love learning and own many books BUT read very little...I would love to rectify this.

I am a rebel BUT I have a cause, which is a lightworker. Lightworkers are people who signed up for a "green beret" type of mission when they were on the spirit plane (before being incarnated on Earth). What the mission is, in short, is to hold as much Light as possible, as strongly as possible, on this planet.

I am a good listener who also enjoys talking a great deal.

I love my girlfriends BUT I am not very keen on my sister. Having said that, I would be the first to bail her out if trouble came her way...the old saying "blood is thicker than water".





I love music BUT cannot hold a tune and couldn't sing to save my life.

This concludes Part One of my contradictions.....stay tuned for more insightful revelations next week!

Rainbows, Happiness and Risk

The more money and material goods we have, the more we want - and the less they bring us satisfaction.

The real key to feeling good it seems is to give and keep on giving.

When we stop putting a monetary value on what we do, it is immensely liberating.

We also have an obsession with happiness as though it were yet another purchasable product.

As a child I once tried to stand in the end of a rainbow to feel the colours on me. I ran back and forth across a wet field with friends shouting directions across the cow pats.

But rainbows can't be seen from close up.

And the irony of happiness as a product is that it disappears when we look directly at it, as ephemeral as that rainbow.

When we are young we jump into a pool whether we can swim or not.

We have no fear.

Either we swim or we drown.

Before the age of thirty important things happen to us which shape the rest of our lives.

The first is:

We become aware of ourselves and our own thinking. We reach the age of reason.

The second is:

In our new-found maturity we begin to think in a more adult way.

We become grown up.

Recklessness and risk are not compatible with age.

Risk becomes something which must be carefully considered.

Or is it!!!



Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi, Sydney, Nov 2004 - Learning to fly

Ron's Drawings

Now aren't I the lucky girl! Look what I received in an email a week ago from a gorgeous Kentucky man called Ron. A charcoal drawing of Joseph. Isn't it absolutely fabulous!





Then to my surprise he sent another one of moi, drawn from a photograph I had posted back in November 2008.






For those of you who don't know OUR Ron, I would like to introduce this beautiful soul who blogs under the name of Troubled Ramblings.



Ron is a multi-talented human being AND I mean MULTI-TALENTED!

Here is a sample of his poetry:

My Friend

You were a stranger
The first time we met
I didn’t know on that day
We were to be friends
We would never forget

We fell in ‘like’
Like a lightning flash
Someone above knowing
This friendship would carry
Through life cinder and ash

Although time and distance
Prevent my eyes from seeing your face
Within my heart
You still, and will always
Reside in that special place

Through thick and thin
Within and without
You have been my beacon
My sounding board, my confidante
My friend, without a shadow of doubt

The word may be well overused
And to some has lost its meaning
But nothing thrills my heart
Quite like this word
For sorrow and pains intervening

We are friends
All the live long day
From uncounted days gone by
To the countless tomorrows
This will never sway

You are
Will always be
My friend

Ron Simpson, Jr.
November 19, 2008


You have already seen what a fabulous artist he is. On top of that he also takes great photographs. Apparently he sings beautifully too.

He is a son, husband, father, grandfather, teacher and friend. And last but not least he is a very kind, caring soul.

He is not on the market girls.....he was snapped up by the lovely Tammy. But that doesn't stop us loving him from afar. I sure do!

Happy Valentine's Day Ron.

Hell on Earth

Photo taken by Jason South

Victoria, Australia - Saturday 7th February 2009 - The worst bush fires in Australian history.

This disaster is unimaginable. The death toll has already reached 181 and is climbing every day. Over 900 homes have been destroyed and 7,000 residents left homeless.

The stories we are hearing from the survivors is that it was like a "flaming cyclone"!

As this heart-wrenching event unfolds, I feel grateful that I do not know anyone killed or injured or who have lost their homes BUT the overwhelming sense of loss these people have endured, their excruciating suffering will stay with all Australians for a long time to come.

The most unsettling, mind blowing thing is that many, many of the fires were lit by arsonists.

There is an irony about the bush fires in Victoria.....the top end in Queensland is being devastated by floods. This country "down-under" is so diverse in it's people and it's environment.

Right Now, This Instant

Joseph - 2 February 2009 - Dee Why, Sydney - We spent the day at the beach and finished it off with an ice-cream and a smile.
I have often thought that we have much to learn from children. They have not yet adapted to the concept of linear time with a past, present and future. They relate only to the immediate present, to right now.

It is my hunch that they do not see the world as fragmented. They feel that they are joined to everything in the world as part of a whole. To me, they represent true innocence, LOVE, wisdom and forgiveness.

As we become older, we tend to accept the adult values which emphasise projecting past learning into the present and anticipated future. It is difficult for most of us to have even the slightest question about the validity of our past-present-future concepts.

We believe that the past will continue to repeat itself in the present and future without the possibility of change. Consequently, we believe we are living in a fearful world where, sooner or later, there will be suffering, frustrations, conflict, depression and illness.

When we hold on to, invest in and become attached to our guilty experiences and grievances from the past, we are tempted to predict a similar future. The future and the past then become one.

We feel vulnerable when we believe that the fearful past is real and forget that our only reality is LOVE, and that LOVE exists this instant.

One way of letting go of our "archaeological garbage" is to recognise that holding on to it does not bring us what we want. When we see no value in recycling it, we remove the blocks to our being free to forgive and LOVE completely now. Only in this way can we be truly happy.

This instant is the only time there is. The future can become an extension of a peaceful present that never ceases. Peace cannot be found in the past or future, but only in this instant.

We teach what we want to learn, and I want to learn to experience inner peace.