Mastermind Blog

  Prayer Most people are familiar with prayer in some form.   Even people who do not call themselves Christian often reach out in a form of prayer that expresses what their desire is.      If you want to learn to pray the way someone else does, you can research prayer books, listen to people pray, and discuss prayer with those who do a lot of it.   You will find a variety of methods and beliefs that will astonish you. There are a lot of people who pray out of habit and not desire.   Some people pray from a sense of guilt and even when they don’t feel guilty, they pray exactly as if they are.   Some people close their eyes in prayer and others talk to God, eyes open, staring into sky.   Some people kneel and others stand. The topic I am addressing today is very touchy to those who believe prayer is a demanding litany.   A lot of disappointment comes to those who treat God as if he is their earthly father.   If your prayer is si...

  Dear Readers, This is an acknowledgement of your successes both current and future.  I even have a smile for your past successes. I want to see you succeed. I hold space for your successes in my heart.  I see your bright future full of happiness, success, and love. I see you shining brightly, holding your torch up high, illuminating the hidden treasures that in the dark we all thought were traps. I acknowledge each of you as you dove deep into yourselves when you thought you were in a bottomless pit and pulled your true love self into your own arms and hugged her. I see how all of us have taken some of our fears and turned them into love.  I see how we opened our eyes to our true hearts and began sweeping out the corners and removing the cobwebs of criticism, hate, manipulation, and discontent, that we had accumulated from outside sources. As I face fear, I uncover truth.  I don’t always like that truth in the moment, but eventually I see “re...

  A State of Pain I am in a State of Pain.   This is a particularly rough time for me because I feel as if I am being thwarted, especially since I did not publish a September Post.   I have not been able to even type with two hands for 4 days.    I will go to a Sports Medicine doctor on Wednesday for a diagnosis of my left shoulder pain.   X-rays at Urgent Care showed no breaks or any serious problem.   There was just a little bit of arthritis that the doctor was certain would not cause this much pain.   She’s the one that’s sending me to Sports Medicine.   I will either be given an ultra sound or an MRI.    The only two things that I can research after that appointment are bursitis and torn tendons.   I hope it is bursitis!   I wish to be healed, but I am in this state of pain for a reason.   If that reason isn’t attended to, there will not be much healing.   I did not fall.   I did not have an accident...

  Releasing Old Beliefs I recently released a belief that a lack of money was going to keep me from fixing or finishing some things that are important to me.   I was unaware that I was busily outlining the chain of events as I perceived they had to happen.  I cannot remember what I was listening to that brought this understanding to me but as I turned my problem over to a higher power, along with the words where I allowed that my needs would be met without me limiting or defining how it would be done, but that it would happen with ease, the process began.  Those aren’t my exact words.  I don’t remember what my exact words were but I do remember the relief I felt as I released the belief that I must struggle to have my needs met.  I released the belief that my dreams were too big for my circumstances. I was guided to ask a person who could and would give me a hand at no charge.  In order to do this, I had to release my belief that I shouldn’t ...

  Writing Writing is a way to express something in a way that simply talking cannot do.   I relate it to fermentation. Fermentation is a process extracting energy from carbohydrates without oxygen.   I put my fruit juice in a stainless-steel bucket, add yeast and sugar, and stir twice a day.   As the yeast begins to transform the sugar, foam begins to build up, growing, growing, growing, and then poof, it all begins to shrink.   To me this is very much like the discussion of an idea with other people.   When the foam shrinks below the scum line on the sides of the bucket, it is time to pour the liquid into a carboy and make an airtight seal with a trap which I top with a sulfur dioxide solution.   Fermentation shifts inward as gasses created by the process push the oxygen up and together, they escape the trap without allowing more oxygen to enter.   The fibers of the fruit fall to the bottom of the jug and the juice begins to clear. (Clarify...

  Expectation One of the most powerful tools that we can add to our toolbox is to release expectation .     There are some positive uses for expectation, such as sending your child off to school expecting them to have a good day.   There are some perfectly rational expectations such as expecting water to flow when you flush the toilet.   But we frequently use expectation as a weapon which can lead to sabotage of ourselves and others and we don’t know we are doing it.   Most of us are familiar with planning a day out, possibly where we go to the park and expect to be able to play on the swings, only to find that the swings are all occupied.    We can wait for a turn or we can find something else to play with.   At least that is what we would tell our children when we arrived at the park and found no swing available.    When a child has an emotional melt down over not being able to find an empty swing, we teach them how to pu...

  Fertility “The state of being fertile or fruitful; the quality of producing in abundance: fecundity; productiveness: as, the fertility of the land, or (more rarely) of a breed of animals, a race of men, or an individual.” --American Heritage Dictionary   My highest priority at this time of year is fertility.  All things that require fertility must be considered when growing a garden, a lawn, a park, or just a terrarium.  Then of course, I want eggs that can be hatched into baby chickens.  Fertility means high levels of productivity.  I also want the daffodils and the crocus to multiply, the fruit trees to bloom so that they can be pollinated. I am struck by the incredible balance of nutrient rich soil.   I am also spellbound by the cycle of nature.  I have literally watched Hardpan Hill Farm transform into Emerald Aisle Farm.  There is another form of fertility that is in full swing around here and that is my abundance of c...

  We all have deeper aspects to our personalities than we might want to admit.  I found better words to describe myself than I got from the people around me.     Meyers and Briggs Personality Test There is some information on the Internet that shines a negative light on the Meyers and Briggs Personality Test.   This first one makes me laugh.   “The Meyers and Briggs personality test is not predictive.”   Predictive is a word that suggests the complainer expected the test to tell fortunes.   The test does not tell your future or your fortune.   The next one says, “Phycologists don’t use the Meyers and Briggs test.” This one also makes me laugh because psychopathology which is explored by therapists is not about standardized personality traits.   My therapist did not treat me based on a test.   She treated me based on the issues that were rife in my life.   Another comment, Meyers and Briggs test rates at 50% after a 5-wee...

Human Rights  In 1906 Upton Sinclair published a book called The Jungle.   Upton Sinclair was called a muckraker because he went into the depths of Chicago and wrote about the unspeakable things that were being done to immigrants and the poor.  I suggest that you read this book or at least read a synopsis of it. Jacob Riis photographed slum life and wrote an essay called How the Other Half Lives.  Yep, it's an old essay.  If you think things are bad today, take a look at this piece.  It is another reason that the US strives to have regulations and services to lift people beyond this sort of poverty.   Ida Wells, a black journalist, documented lynching in America.  Nice to know that you could take a black person out and hang them if you had a good reason, or not. Ida Tarbell was incensed after reading an article that said women were not intelligent because there were only 300 patents introduced by women.  She traveled to the US paten...

  GMO's, Glyphosates, Gut Health Good morning!  Welcome to February 2021. What does an overweight cat have to do with anything?  Gut health is the answer to that.  People and animals have the same reactions to GMO's and antibiotics.  This is a deep topic where I could go on and on but instead of me doing it, I have inserted a link just below the picture of my parent's adopted cat, to one of my favorite pod casts.  Rich Roll interviews a broad range of people on health issues, about the books they've written, and much more.  This interview of Zach Bush, M.D. is extraordinary and can be easily listened to while you drive, do housework, or clean the garage.   Sincerely, Carmen Davis

  Happy New Year! I will start the new year of 2021 with a new pair RockRooster work boots! They will arrive in the first week of January.   I have tried a few expensive brand boots and many pairs of cheap boots.   The boots that work best for me are wide boots, with a zipper and laces.   Steel toes are nice but not essential.   Big 5 has had tan Quick Response boots in men’s size 9.5 for several years.   I go through a pair in a little over 6 months with daily wear outdoors in all weather. I need high tops for ankle support, zippers to get them on and off quickly so that I can run to the bathroom without tracking mud through the house, and laces so that I can create the custom fit to support my ankles and not squeeze the bone spur protruding up from my left foot.   I need the width for my bunions and room to install my bunion support insoles.   Even though it is possible that my bunions are a genetic issue, they don’t seem to be handed to me by...