10 years ago

I spent Monday with my sister, laughing non-stop.
I spent that night staring at an orange moon after setting my alarm for 3:12 a.m. and then racing downstairs to spot the lunar eclipse, barefoot on my cold deck.

Yesterday when I woke up I remembered something else I had done the day before. It was my mom’s annual “cookie exchange” when neighborhood friends come together to share Christmas stories and batches of homemade cookies. During our preparation, she had asked me to go downstairs and find a particular white plate that was missing. I couldn’t find it.

But I found this.

A time capsule. A time capsule created in 2000, the NEW MILLENNIUM! But best of all, it was MY time capsule. The time capsule of Brooke Simone, age 6. I thought it had been lost in our two moves, but it had not. It had been patiently waiting on the top shelf in a long row of dusty bookcases in my basement. I wanted to open it up immediately. I remembered being 6 and 7 and 8 and wanting to open it soooo badly, but telling myself I had to wait until 2010. And that’s now here, and almost gone too.

So I opened it up this morning. And inside I found….

• a green hairclip, the kind I always used to wear to pull my bangs back
• a smiley face sticker that had long since lost its stickyness
• a 33 cent holiday stamp with a reindeer and the word “Greetings” across a red background
• a tiny angel pin
• a gold party horn, or party tooter as we used to call them, boasting the word 2000 and splashes of black fireworks
• a “Commemorative Issue” Newsweek Magazine from January 10, 2000 titled: “Welcome to the 21st Century”
• a drawing of a bluebird I made on January 1, 2000
• my tiny, tiny handprint traced out on a piece of flimsy yellow paper
• a long letter I wrote to Jesus, telling him he would “always be my first friend” and that “when I feel the wind, see the flowers, hear the birds, and taste the wonderful fruit that your Father made, I think of you!”
• our Christmas card from December 1999
• a piece of paper with “facts all about me!”

These facts included:
favorite book: The little house series
favorite hobby: Science experiments and reading
favorite sport: Gymnastics, soccer
favorite school subject: History
favorite artist: Leonardo DiVinci
favorite composer: Bach
What I want to be when I grow up: gymnast, soccer, architect and athlete, paleontoligist and violinist and egyptologist
Where I want to live when I grow up: in a house in the mountains by the lake in a forest in Maine – [NOTE: my 4-year old sister said: in a house on stilts]
When I grow up, what I am going to do to make the world a better place: stop littering, pray for people, and be nicer
What I think the world will be like in 2010 (in ten years):
happy, fun, modern, and interesting!

I copied my answers above word for word, letter for letter, from the original sheet. Not much has changed, but at the same time, a lot has changed – and not just the spelling. History is still my favorite subject, I still love to watch soccer (though I don’t play it any more), I still love to read, part of me still wants to be an architect and paleontologist and egyptologist when I grow up, I still want to live in a house in the mountains by a lake in a forest (though not necessarily in Maine), and I want to stop littering, pray for people, and be nicer. But I have grown up and I have changed, and looking back at what was important to me when I was 6 years old was almost a wake-up call. How much time has changed me, how much time has changed.

I almost don’t even know why I’m posting this – sometimes I feel like I share so much about myself but who cares! You guys probably don’t care about what my favorite book was when I was 6 years old, you probably don’t care about half of the stuff I ever write about. But if you do care about even one sentence here and there of what I write, or if you stumble across one post from Miracle Mile Mind that is of interest, then maybe I and maybe we can change your philosophy on life, or cause you to think, or act, and lead you on to a waterfall of beautiful connections and you may even become a Superforester in your own right… I guess I’m posting it because even it it seems like no one else cares, I care, and I’m saying YES to the past and the present and the future. And I’m publishing this particular post about my time capsule for the entirety of the Internet to see because I urge all of you to think about where you were 10 years ago, what you felt, what your favorites were, who you were with, and who you really were back then. And then when you’re done that, think about where you were when you were 6, what you felt, what your favorites were, who you were with, and who you really were. And who do you want to be when its 2020 and you’re looking back?

Peace to all
☼Brooke

Swedish Treehotel!

Already finding myself “bored” on my holiday break, I was searching around CNN for some interesting and non-depressing news. Even just browsing through the pictures of this awesome and eco-friendly hotel, I got my fill of good news for the night.

Swedish Treehotel

Enjoy!
loove and happy holidays!
Akela

two questions

I am subscribed to the Gratitude Question of the Day and I get daily emails asking me two questions to ponder. Today I had two interesting ones……

What are you worrying about?

I’m worried about my friends, and my friendship with my friends. I am worried I don’t have any real friends. I am worried about tomorrow. I am worried I will never find out what I am meant to do; I am worried about my future. I am worried about my Calc test on Tuesday. I am worried about all of the people in the world that will never understand what I want them to understand. I am worried about all of the people in the world who will never care. I am worried about the environment. I am worried I will die. I am worried about all of the people that are in pain right now, and especially those who no one else seems to care about. I’m worried my alarm won’t go off in the morning. I’m worried I won’t make the difference I want to make on the world. I am worried about the darkness. I’m worried that I’m not going to be happy.

What do you love about the present moment?

I love that I am alive on this earth to have these worries. I love that I have a sister and a mother and a father and a dog lying at the foot of my bed. I love that I have a Christmas tree downstairs with some presents already under it. I love that I just had pesto for dinner. I love that tomorrow I get to play field hockey. I love that I have a house, and a home. I love that I am wearing an Eagles jersey with a puffy vest and my favorite ripped jeans. I love that I am warm. I love that I am young, and that I have the rest of my life to live. I love that I have possibilities. I love that I am so incredibly lucky. I love being love.

Think about these for yourself… Have a lovely night… and Go EAGLES

☼Brooke

Om Mani Padme Hum

I wear a ring on my finger with a peculiarly uncommon inscription. From the moment I saw the ring, I was drawn to it. I asked the woman working at the store what the inscription meant, and she told me: “Love and compassion for all.” I thought about these words, internalized them, and for some reason I wanted that ring more than anything. But I did not buy it.

When I returned to the store a second time, I made the purchase.

I wear the ring every day. Every time I look down at my hands that create I am reminded to truly be love and pass the love along to all. When people ask me what it means, and I tell them, and they are intrigued.

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This summer, I was in the ocean and I found myself curiously murmuring the words “Om Mani Padme Hum.” The melody of sounds just flowed out of my mouth and I had no control over where they were going. I did not know where these noises came from or why they suddenly sprung up into my head, it was as if someone planted those words into my brain and they had been slowly growing until they came to the forefront. Despite the spontaneity of the subconscious verbalization, I knew I recognized the sounds from somewhere; it must have been some research I did on the Internet spurred by my interest in Buddhism, for indeed the chant sounded Buddhist to me. I must have read it somewhere and now, for some reason, it was coming back to me. Even though I did not yet know what it meant, I found it soothing, so I continued to repeat the mantra whenever I was feeling stressed or in pain. Om Mani Padme Hum.

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Then suddenly all of the pieces came together. I looked up Om Mani Padme Hum once again and delved deep to find out what it really meant, what it really was, why it soothed me, and tried to figure out why it had appeared in my mouth without any of my own thought. And at the same time, I continued to spin my ring around my finger, until a realization burbled forth.

I saw a picture of the mantra written out, and it looked familiar.

The inscription on my ring is in the language of the majestic lands of Tibet and Nepal and India, a language called Ranjana, and it is from the root of Buddhism.

It is Om Mani Padme Hum.

An incredible joy spread throughout every inch of my aura when I made this discovery. The inscription on my ring is Om Mani Padme Hum. I continued to read, and as I suspected, the idea of “love and compassion for all” does not even scrape the surface of the mantra’s profound meaning.

He who is Buddha discovered through the course of his meditation and growth that suffering is unnecessary. We, as humans, must first face that suffering is inevitable and then discover its cause and conditions and then work tirelessly to change these conditions, thus eliminating suffering. The great Buddha believed that the most efficacious and potent method to eliminate this suffering is through compassion. By replacing the idea that you are you with the idea that you are compassion, you will remove your fixation on your personal self, which in turn takes your attention away from your own pain and simultaneously expands your capacity to be compassionate and love and care for others. Because of this concern for others, you will gain all the wisdom in the world and you will no longer suffer.

The mantra Om Mani Padme Hum not only envelops the ideal that the end to personal suffering is to train your eyes toward love for others, but it also encapsulates in its six syllables the six paramitras, which are the six “perfections” needed to achieve nirvana. These paramitras are: perfection of generosity, of ethics, of patience and tolerance, of joyous perseverance, of concentration, and of wisdom. In this way, the mantra Om Mani Padme Hum, if practiced and truly lived and embodied, will lead one to enlightenment and nirvana through these six paramitras.

It is thought by Buddhists that this mantra and blessing cannot come from an outside source but it must come from within, because only you can train yourself to think of others compassionately before you think of yourself. His Holiness Tenzin Gyatso The Fourteenth Dalai Lama of Tibet said: “all beings naturally have the Buddha nature in their own continuum.” This speaks such great possibility for mankind – we all have the potential to be Bodhisattvas! However, we can’t look for this enlightenment from outside of us, but since we have these necessary components already within our own continuum, we just need to identify them and live them starting from within ourselves. And that is indeed where this mantra came from; without my even knowing, it came from within the gut of my soul into my stomach into my heart through my lungs and blood coursing through me and up my throat into my mouth where I verbalized all of the love I have for the world. It came from within me and appeared in my mouth without any of my own thought, because it has always been within in me. My questions were answered.

The Dalai Lama said: “Thus the six syllables, Om Mani Padme Hum, mean that in dependence on the practice which is in indivisible union of method and wisdom, you can transform your impure body, speech and mind into the pure body, speech, and mind of a Buddha.”

Someone, somewhere, somehow… or was it the Buddha within me… spoke the exact song out of my mouth that I now hold to be the key to the Universe:
Om Mani Padme Hum.

compassion to you all
☼Brooke

For more about the six Paramitas, click here.
For the Dalai Lama’s lecture on the mantra, click here.