Tagged by Hedgewitch

OK - a new challenge sent to me by Hedgewitch on her Earth and Tree blog. BTW, if you haven't yet gone to Hedgewitch's sites, I'd highly recommend it - lots of lovely environmentally focused crafts and tidbits of information and musings - a really good read.

Here is the deal: you pick up the nearest book set in a foreign country and then . . .
1) Open page 123
2) Find the fifth sentence.
3) Post the next three sentences.
4) Tag five people and acknowledge who tagged you.

My book is The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying by Sogyal Rinpoche.

p123 from the 5th sentence:
Now ego poses as the righteous arbiter of all conduct: the shrewdest position of all from which to undermine your faith, and erode whatever devotion and commitment to spiritual change you have.
Yet however hard ego may try to sabotage the spiritual path, if you really continue on it, and work deeply with the practice of meditation, you will begin slowly to realize just how gulled you have been by ego's promises: false hopes and false fears.
Slowly you begin to understand that both hope and fear are enemies of your peace of mind; hopes deceive you, and leave you empty and disappointed, and fears paralyze you in the narrow cell of your false identity.

Wow, pretty heavy stuff for a Monday evening. Funnily enough, I was just talking to some colleagues at work this morning about the only two true emotions - love and fear.

Now I am seriously in danger of waxing philosophical and don't really want to bore you with my ramblings, but I wonder how this applies to us all at the moment with respect to topics such as food and energy crises? Although I am sure we are right to read the signs as we are, maybe we need to implement our plans for survival with a lighter heart and not one based on fear; to rejoice in what we are collectively achieving day by day to reduce our footprint on dear Mother Earth; and to be grateful for her bounties.

As I said, a bit heavy for a Monday night . . . . .

As for those lovely people I would like to tag - I think I'll just pick two (given I've recently tagged a bunch of you):
The Crone - who provides us with such entertaining reading of her journey in reducing consumption and impact on the planet and
Molly - who finds such terrific information on what is happening in the world that she almost single-handedly keeps us up to date

love and light
naturewitch

I've Been Tagged Again!

The dear Crone has tagged me again, so here goes:

1. What was I doing 10 years ago?
I was living on a 360-acre (144ha) property, trying to do the self-sufficiency thing while working full-time and building a house - I don't believe I was actually trying to do all that!

2. What were five things on my "to-do" list today?
Making goat milk yoghurt
Making goat milk cottage cheese
Cooking oat cakes (ala Apprentice Domestic Goddess) for breakfast
Straining two herb tinctures that have been sitting there brewing (Plantain and Solomon's Seal)
Vacuuming the house

3. Snacks I enjoy
Chocolate (who doesn't?)
Fresh fruit - especially figs and persimmons
Fresh dates with cheese
Oat cakes
Left overs

4. Things I would do if I were a billionaire
Definitely ensure family and friends were setup financially
Finish my course and do healing for free
Work for charities
Keep gardening, especially growing fresh food
Help others to establish their own food gardens
Establish a national food seed bank that was accessible to the public
Buy up heaps of land and save it from developers

5. Places I have lived
Australia - SE Queensland (mainly Brisbane); NSW; ACT
London (3 months)

6. People to tag
Hedgewitch
Naturegirl
One Busy Mama
My Wildlife Sanctuary
Erbe in Cucina

love and light
naturewitch