THURSDAY 14th JANUARY 2016 08:09 GMT

Read my book - ENLIGHTENMENT FOR ORDINARY FOLK
 
Also available - EMOTIONAL MANAGEMENT FOR ORDINARY FOLK
 WISDOM, HUMOUR, AND LOTS OF OTHER INTERESTING STUFF CAN BE FOUND ON MY PINTEREST PAGE and FACEBOOK PAGE
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1. ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY
14th January 1967
The "Human Be-In" Event - birth of Hippie culture
The event took place in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park on January 14, 1967. It was a prelude to San Francisco's "Summer of Love", which made the Haight-Ashbury district a symbol of American counterculture and introduced the word "psychedelic" to the English dictionary.

The Human Be-In was announced on the cover of the fifth issue of the San Francisco Oracle as "A Gathering of the Tribes for a Human Be-In". The occasion was originally intended as a protest demonstration against a new California law banning the use of the psychedelic drug LSD that had come into effect on October 6, 1966. The speakers at the rally were all invited by Bowen, the main organizer. They included Timothy Leary in his first San Francisco appearance, who set the tone that afternoon with his famous phrase "Turn on, tune in, drop out" and Richard Alpert (soon to be known as "Ram Dass"), and poets like Allen Ginsberg, who chanted mantras, Gary Snyder and Michael McClure. 

Other counterculture gurus included comedian Dick Gregory, Lenore Kandel, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and Jerry Rubin. The Hell's Angels, at the peak of their "outlaw" reputation, corralled lost children. Music was provided by a host of local rock bands including Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and Quicksilver Messenger Service, who had been staples of the Fillmore and the Avalon Ballroom since February 1966. "Underground chemist" Owsley Stanley provided massive amounts of his "White Lightning" LSD, specially produced for the event, to the revellers. 

The event united various separate counterculture movements behind a common cause and the extensive media coverage produced the stereotyped concept of the hippie - long-haired, sexually liberal, bead-and kaftan wearing, pacifist and the use of hallucinogenic drugs to "expand consciousness".

2. TODAY IN MY LIFE
Blogging
Minor errands
Quality time weekend prep
Meditation
Me Time
Missus Time

Twitter Followers = 2,065 (down 1)
Non-followed eliminated = 3
@dfdghh3 +2 untraced
Unfollowers eliminated = 0
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New Followers followed back = 2
@billbelew_com, @ScrivenerCoach
Spammers not followed back = 0
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3. TODAY'S SELF-OBSERVATION

The Discipline of Acceptance is essential to my wellbeing! It doesn't just exist without effort - I require continually well-exercised sharp focus to prevent dissolving into dark resentment. For all the benefits I derive from it that I wouldn't otherwise get, the fact that I am a carer is a heavy burden of responsibility, made heavier by a malevolent narcissistic Daughter, completely devoid of kindness and generosity, who has no interest in caring for and nurturing her mother, only possessing and dominating.

As a carer I have to do stuff I'd prefer not to, stuff that no one else realizes, making me feel lonely, embarrassed and humiliated. At the same time I have to be on guard against parasites, vampires and predators. The resentment this generates would overwhelm me were it not for the Discipline of Acceptance - you stop struggling, relax, accept where you are and get on with it. Paradoxically, to relax calls for effort! You have to be continually focused when your preference would be to let your straining consciousness off the lead - where it would end up run over or in a ditch if you did.

MOST OF THE TIME however, life at home is Shangri-La - but I am vulnerable to emotional vampires - Daughter in particular. Once my buttons are pushed, and primal override kicks in, it takes some time to regain composure, though due to my training, considerably less time than in previous decades. For a while focus wobbles, and resentment, loneliness and melancholy escape from their cages, until focus reasserts itself.

It is important to realize the difference between being repressed, where you're trying to pretend the elephant-in-the-room isn't there, and composure, where you're fully in acknowledgement of the elephant and you've got a chain on it.

4. TODAY'S QUESTION FOR YOU
Are you managing or repressing your dark emotions?

5. TODAY'S WEATHER IN BRADFORD

Moon

Weathertrack:

6. TODAY'S ONELINER
Home is where you can say anything you want, because nobody listens to you anyway :D

7. NOW THAT'S FUNNY!
Not another teenage movie - The vibrator Scene

8. TRIVIA
Researchers found that every two hours spent watching television was associated with a 14% increase in diabetes risk.

9. ZEN WISDOM
As we work for the greater good, we build happiness for ourselves and others. The more we do for other people, the more the path of our own happiness will open up. In realizing this, we discover a sense of gratitude in being able to help them.