Tag Archives: meetups

a new theme

6 Replies

well, folks, i finally have my new theme up and running. what do you think? i still need to iron out all kinds of little kinks and realize that i want to re-write all my pages (as opposed to the posts) – but all in all, i think my new “house” is ready. please feel free to kick the tires and tell me what works and what doesn’t.

here are my thanks:

first of all to my readers. thanks for sticking around through all these changes and experiments!

i also want to thank SBI, the host for my counselling in vancouver website for two years, for stellar service. unfortunately, their system didn’t work out for me but that is absolutely not due to them. i would highly recommend them. great service, tons of information and advice, a really nice community. the main reason why i switched away from them is because i wanted to amalgamate my web site and my blog, and that didn’t fit with their technology.

thanks also to my friend zoe neill-st. clair, one of the most intelligent people i’ve ever met. she’s been my main technical advisor and has made the cutline theme into this good-looking babe of a site. originally, we were going to use tiga. the main reason why it took forever to make the change from the old theme (about two months) is because we kept wracking our brains trying to find a way to fix a permalink problem with tiga. it turned out that with my server, we simply couldn’t use the already existing permalink structure, which i needed to keep because of all the existing links to this blog. so good-bye, tiga. too bad. it’s a really nice theme.

also, thanks to 1and1, the host of this blog for about 18 months now. they’ve always been helpful, have sometimes gone way beyond their scope, and the few times when their advice wasn’t quite accurate, were always quick to correct things.

finally, i want to thank my friend robert sanzalone, who i consider to be my blogging “godfather”, and all the friendship and support i continue to receive from my blogging friends – too many to list here – and particularly my buddies from the vancouver bloggers meetup.

connecting through childhood memories

2 Replies

yesterday at the vancouver meditation meetup, our guest presenter, tsuneo yamazaki, led a visualization in which he had us imagine a happy childhood memory.

one person simply remembered her state of well being and contentment as a child. another person didn’t recall a specific event but reconstructed a memory that he was quite sure must have happened during one of his many happy summer vacations. my memory was of the many hikes i took with my grandfather, a minister and avid naturalist.

at the end, yama, as he is often affectionately called, suggested that this happy memory tells us something of our true nature.

what i found most interesting, however, were the observations that ensued. we talked a bit about the various memory processes we had experienced – and then about how connecting with pleasant childhood memories does not only bring back lost treasures of a personal nature but it also helps us connect with others.

“when there is a block in communication with someone,” yama suggested, “it always helps to go back to childhood experiences.” no matter how difficult we may perceive the other person to be – when we share experiences of being 5 years old or being in grade school, we’ll probably find some commonalities.

in 12-step programs there is a saying, “it is weakness that binds us together, not strength.”

perhaps some of it is at the essence of this, too. perhaps the sense of innocence and fragility that accompanies memories of being a small child can help build a bridge among people who would otherwise have a hard time communicating through strength and bravado.

(this post was part of the 10th carnival of meditation, yoga and spiritual growth)