oh say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
o'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

jack kornfield on mindfulness

Mindfulness and meditation are two things that I'm working on...hoping to learn...hoping to one day make into a regular part of my life. Jack Kornfield has been working on this for a long time and has some wisdom to share.

Let's begin with a basic question: What is mindfulness and why is it important?

Mindfulness is an innate human capacity to deliberately pay full attention to where we are, to our actual experience, and to learn from it.

Much of our day we spend on automatic pilot. People know the experience of driving somewhere, pulling up to the curb and all of a sudden realizing, "Wow, I was hardly aware I was even driving. How did I get here?" When we pay attention, it is gracious, which means that there is space for our joys and sorrows, our pain and losses, all to be held in a peaceful way.

FINDING MY RELIGION
Buddhist teacher and author Jack Kornfield on mindfulness, happiness and his own spiritual journey - SFGate

stereo in the air

Here's something fun you can do on your next flight: take stereoscopic photos from your airplane window. It's not hard. Maybe your cameraphone will work, too!
Stereo from the Air - TeamDroid

The Science of Sleep

Provocative set of articles on what we know about sleep, from Nature magazine. And atypically, it's free!.
Sleep : Insight : Nature

survival-in-a-box

Field and Stream has a set of instructions to make a tiny survival kit. I like the idea, but don't get over confident--kits like this just might be enough to make you overconfident and get into real trouble.

Make a Survival Kit out of an Altoids Tin - Field and Stream

at last! my own helio

i want my own personal coaxial helicopter. i bet you do too.

GEN H-4 Helicopter

create your own personalized map of the USA
or check out ourCalifornia travel guide

Visited Countries Map from TravelBlog

CURRENT MOON moon info