Belief???

This reading impacted me deeply this morning.

“What is the role of the established religions in the arising of the new consciousness? Many people are already aware of the difference between spirituality and religion. They realize that having a belief system-a set of thoughts that you regard as the absolute truth-does not make you spiritual no matter what the nature of those beliefs is. In fact, the more you make your thoughts (beliefs) into your identity, the more cut off you are from the spiritual dimension within yourself. Many “religious” people are stuck at that level. They equate truth with thought, and as they are completely identified with thought (their mind), they claim to be in sole possession of the truth in an unconscious attempt to protect their identity. They don’t realize the limitations of thought. Unless you believe (think) exactly as they do, you are wrong in their eyes, and in the not-too-distant past, they would have felt justified in killing you for that. And some still do, even now.”
-Eckhart Tolle

Another Great Quote

"You were born an original. Don't die a copy." - John Mason


I believe when you stand before God you will not be asked;

"why were you not more like (pick whatever name)

instead you will be asked "why YOU were not YOU."

Hope For My Cynicism

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."

-George Bernard Shaw

Great Speech

Truth...

The reading below is from Neale Donald Walsch in his book Conversations With God. Think about it, I would love to hear your thoughts on this. Has this been your experience? I know that many people do not like to post on blogs when the topic is deep or serious so feel free to drop me an email instead if needed.

"A true Master is not one with the most students,
but one who creates the most Masters.

A true leader is not one with the most followers,
but one who creates the most leaders.

A true king is not the one with the most subjects,
but one who leads the most to royalty.

A true teacher is not the one with the most knowledge,
but one who causes others to have knowledge.

And a true God is not One with the most servants,
but One who serves the most, thereby making Gods of all others.

For this is both the goal and the glory of God: that His subjects shall be no more,
and that all shall know God not as the unattainable, but as the unavoidable."

What do you think?

The Reef

Here are some of my favorite creatures we were able to see.

This is a parrotfish. They were all over the place and beautiful.


This is a Great Barracuda. Swam with many of these guys. They are amazing when they are four to five feet away!


This is firecoral and it will do to you what the name implies...make you burn like fire. It looks like coral but I learned its more closely related to a jellyfish.


Saw a couple of these guys. It's a Nurse Shark. Once in my Kayak I was floating in some really shallow water when the back of my boat raised up and dropped down with massive force. Chad who was behind me in his kayak saw a huge Nurse shark shoot out from underneath my boat for deeper water. I must of coasted over him while he was taking a nap. It was awesome.


This is a hogfish. Supposed to be really good eating.


This is a Lemon Shark. When we were night snorkeling one night we had one of these guys following us around. He got really agitated when we shined our lights at him.


Saw many tiny permit fish in the shallows. I hear they are incredible fly fishing.

More Pictures

Here I am getting the dried out coconut shells ready for a fire. These make great hot coals. The problem is there are not near enough of them. That and it rained off and on the whole time we were there so all the wood was soaked.


Goofed and put the picture side ways. Oh well turn your head. This was right before the first dive. Again I must say, the reefs were amazing.



Each day we had off and on periods of really nasty weather. It would be bright and beautiful, then a wave of massive clouds would roll in from the North East and about blow you over with wind and rain. This was the start of one of those rain fronts coming our way. A couple of the nights camping we were exposed to winds and driving rain like I have never seen, and we are talking eight hours straight. I truly thought one night the tent and I were heading for the ocean. Camping on windy, exposed cliffs which I have done before ain't got nothing on this little island. TAKE GREAT care should you ever do this trip to secure your tent.

Silke Cayes

Here are some more photos. The first two are of the island that we lived on the whole time. The small building you see is actually a bathroom the marine conservation group built on the island which is nice. Although it did not work. As I said before its a small island. It was perfect. It truly is out in the middle of the ocean. This little island is surrounded by some of the most amazing reefs.

The last picture is me drinking a coconut. Each day we went to work getting the coconuts out of the trees and cutting through their husks all for a tasty drink and snack.

Un-Belize-able

Here are some pictures from an adventure Chad and I took. We went to Belize for six days for a little expedition time. Chad had free airline miles for us to use, so months ago we began planning our journey. We picked Belize because it is home to the second largest reef in the world. There are hundreds of Cayes (pronounced keys) dotted all up and down this reef. Those are little islands. We found a spot that had some Cayes grouped together that we could camp on called the Queen Cayes. The island we picked was maybe one acre in size. It had exactly 13 palm trees covered in coconuts which was awesome as we ate and drank a great deal of them. They are NOT easy to break into. Right now I am writing the short summary of our trip with some pictures, but over the next few days I will post more about the trip and what we did, saw, and learned.

We paid for a shuttle to boat us and all of our gear to these Cayes. They are 25 miles off the coast of Belize so once we got there we were out in the middle of the ocean. We did not see another soul until the very last day, it was awesome. We spent our time Kayaking from island to island and snorkeling the many incredible reefs that surround the islands. It was incredible!!! For five days we had the ocean and islands to explore. Enjoy the pics and I promise details soon.




This is the amount of gear that we had to figure out how to get into two back packs! We actually had more gear than this. Now that we have been there we know what gear we could have left behind, but since it was our first time we took heavier loads because we wanted to be sure we had all that we needed. We planned for almost every scenario we could think of. A wise teacher once told me, "failing to plan is planning to fail." So we took extra gear...and I am thankful we did. More info on that on another post.



Once we flew in to Belize we then had to take a bus ride south to Placencia. It took us six and a half hours to get there.


We had a boat shuttle from placencia to the islands. It was 25 miles out and took about an hour and twenty minutes just to get to the islands.


I had the pleasure of sitting next to the boats which kept shifting into me and pinching my legs like crazy, that and I was sitting in the middle of the boat in the worst spot imaginable so every time the boat crashed down on the waves my spine felt like it would shoot through my skull. That part was rough.

Here we are on an open water paddle.