Tales @ MindSay


 

   
Carrots, Eggs, & Coffee beans - a parable
A young woman went to her mother and told her about her life and how things were so hard for her. She did not know how she was going to make it and wanted to give up. She was tired of fighting and struggling. It seemed as one problem was solved, a new one arose.
 
 Her mother took her to the kitchen. She filled three pots with water and placed each on a high fire. Soon the pots came to boil. In the first she placed carrots, in the second she placed eggs, and in the last she placed ground coffee beans… She let them sit and boil; without saying a word.
 
 In about twenty minutes she turned off the burners. She fished the carrots out and placed them in a bowl. She pulled the eggs out and placed them in a bowl. Then she ladled the coffee out and placed it in a bowl. Turning to her daughter, she asked, ’ Tell me what you see’.
 
 ‘Carrots, eggs, and coffee,’ she replied…
 
 Her mother brought her closer and asked her to feel the carrots. She did and noted that they were soft.. the mother then asked the daughter to take an egg and break it. After pulling off the shell, she observed the hard boiled egg.
 
 Finally, the mother asked the daughter to sip the coffee. The daughter smiled as she tasted its rich aroma. The daughter then asked, ‘What does it mean, mom?’
 
 Her mother explained that each of these objects had faced the same adversity: boiling water. Each reacted differently. The carrot went in strong, hard, and unrelenting. However, after being subjected to the boiling water, it softened and became weak.The egg had been fragile. Its thin outer shell had protected its liquid interior, but after sitting through the boiling water, its inside became hardened.The ground coffee beans were unique, how ever. After they were in the boiling water, they had changed the water.
 
 ‘Which are you?’ she asked her daughter. ‘When adversity knocks on your door, how do you respond? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?
 
 Think of this: Which am I? 

  • Am I the carrot that seems strong, but with pain and adversity do I wilt and become soft and lose my strength?  
  • Am I the egg that starts with a malleable heart, but changes with the heat? Did I have a fluid spirit, but after a death, a breakup, a financial hardship or some other trial, have I become hardened and stiff? Does my shell look the same, but on the inside am I bitter and tough with a stiff spirit and hardened heart? 
  • Or am I like the coffee bean? The bean actually changes the hot water, the very circumstance that brings the pain. When the water gets hot, it releases the fragrance and flavor. If you are like the bean, when things are at their worst, you get better and change the situation around you. 
 When the hour is the darkest and trials are their greatest do you elevate yourself to another level? How do you handle adversity? Are you a carrot, an egg or a coffee bean?

Author unknown
 
 
   
 

Breaking the glass

 

Dear World,

 

 

Are things taking a turn? I finalized myself with rational thoughts to get myself in a finished mindset, and something just falls into my lap to change all of that all over again. Is this irony? Karma? Fate? I'll have to see. At least now, though, I think I'm finally breaking through the glass that's holding me in place. Maybe now, I'm finally able to see.


This entry wasn't supposed to make sense.

 

 

Sincerely,

      Nikolas

 
 
 

   
Keeping Their Record
What can I say about my journey? I want to write, but every time I sit down to describe my experiences I just can't quite get it out. Yesterday I sat down to write about the little Chinese woman in the Malaysian  post office who was so kind to me. But how do I describe her tiny voice and Chinese accent, how she batted my hands away and insisted on repacking my boxes so I would get a better rate and, when the weight was just a tenth of a gram over, she ignored it and wrote that it weighed just 5kgs instead.

How can I explain the things I've seen and been a part of when they are such tiny moments every day. So many tiny moments and I don't know if you would "get" them--or if I can even describe why they are so profound.

And also, there is this sense that the outward journey isn't the importent part. That as great and amazing and wonderful (and sometimes terrible, uncomfortable and frightening,) as it all is that these things are only ephemeral and that the really importent journey is that which is occuring  within myself. I've compared my journal with that of the other bloggers and worried that I wasn't giving enough detail to the outward features of my journey. What exactly it was like to spend ten hours on a government bus from jodhpur to jaisalmer.  How I sat with five other people on a metal bench made for three and how a kind man tried to kill me by forcing me to eat uncounted bananas.

How I sat next to an old man with a little girl, no more than eight or nine years old man who I thought was his daughter until I noticed the toe rings, anklets and gold bangles of a bride. She had the mehendi, too. How I camped in the desert with the Raika, in the center of 200 men and was never hassled (but they prayed outside my tent at 4AM every morning under the full moon.

How my driver in South India took care of me like a daughter. Or how I lived for a month in a hotel in the family's apartment, taking my meals with them and helping their daughter with her homework. Why haven't I been able to put these stories into words? I'm so afraid their record will be lost.
 
 
   
 

Dark City

DARK CITY

 

I was born in what I use to call a prostitute of a city christened Petropolis, stucked in the middle of the mountains of Rio de Janeiro, which name derives from an aristocratic bastard, whose family flew from Portugal, centuries ago, afraid of Napoleon, and settle in this country, which continues to suffer today with our present leftist government, not exclusively because it is leftist, but because it is dumb and blind and deaf. And corrupt, let us add. (Of course, the people, who still believes, is to blame, also!). 

The family of that aristocratic bastard is still around, charging people for every house or terrain someone buys or sells in this city, their members absolutely mad, victims of the weakness caused by centuries of incest. Of course, the real victims of these vampires are us, the citizens, who did not ask our forefathers to come to this land and make us born here. Well, things are what they are...

You know one of the reasons this ´Imperial City´ is famous? Because, back in the 40´s, a famous Austrian writer, Stefan Zweig, came to live here. Not much of a writer, compared to other heavy names of literature, herr Zweig chose our ´marvelous´ city for a reason: commiting suicide, alongside his second wife, on February 1942, right after Carnival!

Quite a reason to be proud, huh?! The guy comes here, running from the Nazis, only to find a city which surrounding landscapes depresses him even more, leading him to suicide. And people around here are proud of such a thing...!!!

Am I crazy? Am I a bad son of this town, which gave me to light? Whatever. But I tell you this, man, I tell you this...I´m not Jim Morrison but before all the crap hits the fan, I wanna´get my kicks...if I still can, for that matter!

 

 
 
 

   
Holiday Photos and Moms Retirement Shindig! Poetry Too I think of you still.

Howdy Howdy all! Well I totally miss my digital camera and finally went to get my photos from the photoshop and it was expensive considering I am used to just downloading the photos for free so there it is. Well here are some of the pics... Now You should know that we are a hunting sorta crowd so there may be pics of pigs and deer being prepared (like skinned and such).

 

Here is a pic of the many turnip greens that my cousin brought over from his mom's garden. I forgot to get some to bring back with me, darn it!

 

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

 

Here is one of the wretched Hogpin that seems to fascinate the young'uns....

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting Here is a great one of new puppy that my Aunt took in who is named Zapata (don't ask LOL) Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting Here is mom and Aunt Rachel, mom is the one with the Retirement cash on her lapel.... Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

 

Here is one of my Nephew Trey (the kid on the left) 16, mom 53, and Man- his nickname (17) and cousin Marc in the background. They went hunting but didnt bring home anything.

 

  Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

 

Here is one of Mom and my Niece cutting a rug, check out Mom's concentration and the Santa hat (dont ask and NO she isnt drunk LOL)

 

  Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

 

Here is one of my favorite time of the evening in Mississippi, we sit around the fire and tell tall tales. Sorry about the picture quality ya'll, sigh...I miss my digital camera....

 

Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

 

that's all for now ya'll, I'll post some more photos later....

How about some poetry...here...goes...(you're on my mind)

 

How Folklore Starts

It was during the year when masterpiece was not impossible
but increasingly unlikely — this one — when I heard the announcer
say William Berg's Mass for Three Horses instead of three voices.

 

At the time I thought, fabulous, this could turn everything around.

 

The beautiful oven of the August Gulf is seen best from Wisconsin.
Too much hot metal to touch, too many hopes heaped on impossible,
the clippings of which are faded and worn through from your wallet.

 

A good title but hopeless when I heard them actually harmonizing
not like horses at all, but rhymes like little bells ringing in words
to no purpose but attention to themselves, scaffolds, not Appaloosas.

 

What more could be done to prepare that story.

 

After currying, grooming, dressing for dinner in new shoes,
something swirls offshore in overheated uncertainty. You can hear hooves
in the gathering clouds, pawing to begin, a fugue in alternating names.--Allan Peterson

 

Goddess Bless

 
 
   
 

Showing 1 - 5.   [ Next ]
 
Latest Comment
Re: Of Sparkly Vampires and the Women Who Love Them - Yes, it was true. Back in the day Duran Duran was the...

Read...


 
© 2005-2007 MindSay Interactive LLC
| Terms of Service
| Privacy Policy
My Account
Inbox
Account Settings
Lost Password?
Logout
Blog
Update Blog
Edit Old Entries
Pick a Theme
Customize Design
Modify Plugins
Community
Your Profile
Wiki Pages
MindSay Tags
Video & Photos
Geographic Directory
Inside MindSay
About MindSay
MindSay and RSS
Report Spam
Contact Us
Help