I love Olive Garden. I love raspberry ice cream in a big waffle cone with sprinkles. At my old house, we had a garden, we had a huge garden. We grew string beans and pumpkins and mint and huge, juicy tomatoes that Arden and I would just pick and eat right there, like you eat an apple. I love tomatoes.

I once cooked an entire box of macaroni and cheese and ate the whole thing. It was one of the best macaroni and cheeses I have ever had.

I went out to brunch with a friend once and had the most incredible breakfast I have ever had. It was triangular pieces of coconut-encrusted French toast topped with strawberries, and bananas, and blueberries, and raspberries. And it was served with the sweetest freshest syrup, and butter, but not just any butter… maple butter. I love maple.

I like lettuce, it tastes like water and like wet.

I like ginger ice cream from the Thai restaurant.

I like crepes, the kind with nutella from France.

I love crispy baguettes with cheese, or a light spread of butter. When I was in Scandinavia on a music tour – I play the violin – I remember being in Norway and having the best cup of hot chocolate I have ever had. Never before had I drank hot chocolate from a super wide mug, the kind of hot chocolate with decorated swirls on the top. And it was perfect.

I love s’mores, and camping with my family on Assateague Island and Blue Rocks campground. I love veggie dogs that remind me of the fourth of july, and biting in to one and mustard squirting out on to my lips, and wearing tank tops by the pool, and fireworks, and grills, and the woods. I love vanilla fudge from the Fudge Kitchen in Stone Harbor, NJ, where I spent many summers with my family. I love my Aunt Trish’s green bean casserole, and Thanksgiving, and Christmas, and my cousins and aunts and uncles, and my Grammy and Grampy. I love avocados and guacamole, that remind me of my friends, and Jason Mraz, and studying for final exams this May in Callie’s backyard.

I love the pancakes my dad makes.

I love the Double Stuf Oreos and crackers and Havarti with Dill cheese I always have at Hilary’s house.

Sometimes it seems like no one is probably even reading this; why am I writing about all of this stuff that seems meaningless; why just ramble about all the foods that I like to eat? But I guess my point is that I love limeade and I love avocado sushi and I love strawberries… oh I love strawberries. I love food. Some days I dream of being a chef, of owning a restaurant and cooking and baking and making people smile, like food makes me smile. Some days I dream of working for Kashi and touring the world searching for cocoa beans or chili peppers or new exotic flavors. I’m the kind of person that can’t say no; I can’t say no to the last bite, I can’t even say no to the first bite. For me, it’s worth the nauseous full feeling a few minutes later. I’m the kind of person who can be having a day where nothing is going right, but when I bite into a blueberry bagel toasted with cream cheese, everything seems alright.

Find what makes you smile. Because it is these little and seemingly meaningless things that are truly full of meaning, that let you enjoy a little moment of perfection, that bring you back to family and summer and parties and other countries and moments where you were filled with sublime joy.

Enjoy,

be happy,

☼Brooke

i have eaten at least one hundred cookies, i have read about Rome and about romance, i have slept for about a week straight.

i have pretty much been in isolation, not seeing really any friends at all but instead going to the park with my dad, an art gallery with my mom, shopping with my sister, the movies with my aunt and cousin. i enjoyed stepping back from that world into the separate world of my family.

i spent my new years snuggled under my covers struggling to stay up until 12 to say “happy new year” to myself and then drift off to sleep amidst sirens, firecrackers, and my parents’ snoring.

and while it was one of the worst breaks because i was sick once again, it gave me a new perspective on life, a new chance of life, and it forced me – and now i like to say it permitted me – to do nothing. and i guess i enjoyed this nothing.

today my sister came downstairs to see me drinking water slowly and reading a travel book while listening to blaring bob dylan. she said, aren’t you bored of doing nothing? no, rather, i am reveling in la dolce far niente, the sweetness of doing nothing.

and while this break was much much short of extravagant – i miss christmas already, i never went to nyc like i wanted to, i never did hot yoga, i never enjoyed cheese like i wanted to, and yes i do miss my friends very much – i did get to watch the movie elf way too many times, i got to sleep, i got to eat chocolate covered pretzels for breakfast, and i got to experience the sweetness of doing nothing.

and instead of getting down on myself and sulking because i accomplished technically nothing of great importance this break, i am instead choosing to celebrate that i had this opportunity and security to truly rest.

a while ago superforester mathew wrote to me in response to one of my posts, telling me “to make meaning out of the seemingly mundane and useless.” for some reason, those words stuck with me. and that is what i did this break, i found meaning in those pretzels and bob dylan and i love it.

you can do anything

i fell in love with this tiny flower in the windowbox outside of my bedroom. after the snow melted away and everything else around it was beyond dead, this purple and yellow was revealed, and it still persists. persist, superforesters. persist. you can do anything. 2011 is here and we will make incredible changes, and one day we will come to truly appreciate la dolce far niente, in which we may find our happiness.

☼Brooke

i would like to add my congratulations to jason and tristan, two amazing hearts

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

Enjoy!
loove and happy holidays!
Akela

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

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.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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.

What I heard was everyone shouting back and forth about boys, wild escapades, drinking, parties.. And nothing else for a solid half hour. And of course these shouts were littered with cursing. Now I’m not necessarily condemning these topics, but it got me thinking, these topics seem to be the overwhelming banter and focus of discussion every single day. Is this really all that matters to them? Are these things the most important, what they value most, in their lives? It seems like it just from listening. And people do listen, they are constantly forming opinions and perceptions on others based on what they hear – so speak how you want to be regarded and speak about what you want to be associated with.Yes, its perfectly fine to discuss these things occasionally, but it seems like its the only thing anyone talks about. It seems like every time I step into the lounge, people are telling stories about their weekend or reminiscing about past “hookups,” all things that these people get caught up in that distract them from their actual life and meaning here on earth and who they really want to be. And during these conversations, nothing is gained, nothing is learned, nothing is understood or appreciated.

So today in the lounge, I realized: I want nothing to do with that. I don’t want to sit here and listen to people telling stories of crazy nights, and I certainly don’t want to be a part of those crazy nights any more. In our English class on existentialism we have been discussing the fact that modern language is meaningless. This came true right before my eyes today; I realized that the majority of conversation is substanceless yells about foolish topics that just aren’t of interest to me – maybe they used to be, but they’re not any more. There are still ways to have fun without participating in these promiscuous or illegal or even just wild events every single weekend without fail. I hope those who focus their lives around these petty concerns can realize that there is more to life out there, there is more to experience and certainly more to talk about.

Though we just got back from Thanksgiving break, only a few people were discussing their time with family and all the food they ate. Maybe we could have chatted about our dogs or had a group talk about the environment or discussed the cool TV show I watched about Burma – anything!!, these are all random topics! Do we really not have a common thread running so deep that we can’t make small talk or even discuss bigger issues, but instead we have to resort to these stupid topics and surface chat with our fellow classmates?

And is this what our generation is spending their time concerning themselves with and talking about? Let’s change that around!!

I know I’m rambling and I might not be making any sense since I’m super tired right now and I hope I’m not being too negative in all of this, but I hope that as a world we can learn a lesson from this. SPEAK WITH MEANING, INFUSE YOUR WORDS WITH VALUE, and speak to tell about yourself (how you want to be perceived and who you are should be the same person), and listen to learn about others. Ask “how are you?” and really truly care how that person is, and then delve deeper and have a conversation full of substance and life and make it your goal to find out who they really are. Because in the end, asking and caring is good manners, and good manners are what is going to save the world.

Just thinking
☼Brooke

Posted with WordPress for BlackBerry.

I watched this talk from TED today and I love it. Click the link here. This is the summary provided: Join John Hardy on a tour of the Green School, his off-the-grid school in Bali that teaches kids how to build, garden, create (and get into college). The centerpiece of campus is the spiraling Heart of School, perhaps the world’s largest freestanding bamboo building.

simply beautiful

Even from the very beginning when Hardy said he ran away to Bali at the age of 25, I knew I loved this man. Yes, he’s a little crazy and eccentric, and he truly takes green to the extreme, but at least he is doing something to make a change. As he says, the Green School is a model that we should all strive for in our communities and we need to adapt to incorporate its techniques into our schools and societies. My Environmental Studies class is currently working to revamp our entire school – particularly in areas of waste management and energy consumption. We’re not going to be as amazingly green as Hardy’s school, but it’s a step in the right direction!

I am also amazed by the fact that the Balinese builders could build such incredible buildings using “age-old techniques and mostly by hand,” instead of using blueprints and giant cranes and jackhammers. But even more so, I am filled with such hope by the fact that this Green School didn’t just stop with one school, but it is now spreading into a huge community.

As he says:
Be local.
Let the environment lead.
Think about how your grandchildren might build.
For more information, the link to the Green School’s website is here.

have a lovely lovely evening and a great tomorrow
☼Brooke

Maybe it’s from finally really getting into Jack Kerouac’s The Dharma Bums, or from reading the most recent MMM and Superforest posts, but I’m feeling a very refreshing clarity of mind.

Drake’s latest post “On Time” helped me to stabilize my newest view of an otherwise stereotipically stressful and unorthodox situation. I had come to an understanding with myself that any stress or uneasiness that I felt in the particular situation had been a projection of my own preconceptions and habitual worries. Drake’s words grounded me in the truth that every moment is the new now, and true enlightenment and true being are manifestiations of us being present and receptive to the flow of now.

To be truly enlightened, he wrote, is to understand the essence of the absence of a future and a past. To be so grounded to the reality of the present moment and the truth of your feelings in the present moment that any pressures you’ve been putting on reality dissolve into the void from whence they came.

Brooke’s last post about giving yourself time to take a break, whenever it becomes necessary, connected to my previous musings as well. Particularly her quote at the end:

And in the middle of all this stress we all live with, I looked up into the sky from my desk, saw the moon, and I knew that everything was okay. No matter what happens, the moon will always be in the sky.

And that is a beautiful little thing.

This really connected with me, as I remember last night in order to ground myself in a situation and to stop my mind from running and analyzing and planning and stablizing, I kept looking at the moon and the clearest stars I’d seen all year, to keep myself grounded in the reality that was the present.

A particular part of Drake’s piece also struck me in somewhat the same manner:

We create so much sadness for ourselves when we put pressure on reality, when we stack mounds of modals — should, would, could — on what beautifully is. Time is. The present is. Life is. Death is. We are.

This groundedness and constant interconnectedness branching from our own sentient selves to the flow of what is around us (but what also is us) – time – is precisely the presence Brooke refers to in the breaks we should all be taking.

What if this break was not just a break, but a frequent step back from “reality” into real reality.

“Reality” refers to the everyday goings on of our lives, encompassing the things we have to do and the things that we so often go about with numbness and a thought process of “well, I have to” or “well, I should”.

Why all this “well” business? I don’t want to get through my daily actions by prefacing them with a soothing word meant to knock me into “accepting the tragic monotony of life”. Why can’t I be present and happy in that present? Is that so unheard of?

Real reality refers to the presence of ourselves that we often mask to get through “reality”. What if the two were molded together? What if you remained present and pressureless and aware of everything and every step you took? What if you were constantly reminding yourself of, and practicing the art of englightenment to the real reality?

Drake refers to Soto Zen,

“enlightenment is being with things as they truly are. One moment of enlightenment dissolves into the next. Let us truly be with what is, both within and without ourselves, if those categories even truly exist. This is what we mean we when say we just want to be“

.

Well everything truly is, in every moment. It is just a matter of how we are directing our consciousness and when we are doing it. If we direct our consciousness to this real reality, and we let go of the pressures and preconceptions and worries about the past and the future, and come to the eternal truth that only what is is, we will find ourselves in the most free-floating, light, blissful place there is – that of real reality.

The past is locked there, and it dissolves once we have danced through it. It’s lovely to reminisce and relive, but in terms of worrying and re-analyzing, why put in the aching? To bring the newly polished lessons and not the dirty old regrets into the next moments of your life is the true secret.

The future is not guaranteed for anyone, and putting pressures and boxes and time frames and constrictions around something you don’t own or posess just creates stress for all. Of course arbitrary planning is somewhat necessary, and dreaming about the future is one of our most beautiful abilities, but I’m talking about the “what if”s and the “shoulds” and “coulds” and “woulds” (thanks again Drake!) that we all find ourselvs muttering about like bafoons. We must remain grounded in the real reality of now. How do I feel RIGHT NOW. Time and space are constantly flowing and changing, so we will always be feeling and thinking new and different things, and therefore our real realities will always be changing and growing and spreading and swirling into the newest and loveliest of places.

Our awareness to these changes, our acceptance and allowance for these changes to pervade every essence of our enlightenment, and our realization of the necessity to flow with this change is the true beauty of the real reality.

When we are awake to each moment in the simplicity of what it REALLY is, we are our most vulnerable, exciting, genuine, and fascinatingly beautiful selves.

The image of enlightenment dissolving from one moment to the next is so juicily real and exciting to me, I’m almost giddy at the simplicity of it.

Of course, my understanding of it now may ebb and flow as do most things in life, and I’ll probably find myself returning to these writings to remind myself of where to direct my conscience and why. But that all comes along with dissolving into each moment right? And it comes with learning and growing into who I want to be: a genuine person present to real reality and indulging in every second of it, carrying my beliefs and inspirations from one dissolving moment to the next.

It’s all quite exciting, living.

Good night – and happy real reality,
Akela

She said, “you have to look him up, Dean Potter…” and as she began to tell me about him I already had his Wikipedia page up. I interrupted, “He’s a BASE JUMPER????”

I was hooked instantly.

And as I read on, I learned that he was a rock climber, an alpinist, a highliner (as you can see by the video), and flies in wingsuits… all things that I dream of doing one day. The way he balances on the thin rope, the way he balances on the edge of “dying and flying,” as he calls it, entrances me. His calm approach to what some people would never dare to think about makes me smile from every surface of my body. I can’t begin to imagine the sensation of grasping the rope with your toes just to dive off into the pool of the canyon and fly and then release your parachute. I love to rock climb, but I can’t imagine ropeless climbing. I am in awe of this man, I am envious of his courage. The things he can do because of the daringness of his mind; the intensity of the climbs he conquers; the precarious equilibrium between risk and precision; all the while physically extending his spirit and strong body…

Seriously, you MUST watch this video from National Geographic here. Even if you have no interest in BASE jumping yourself, you can’t help not being moved by Dean Potter.

keep falling, keep climbing
☼Brooke