Tag Archives: heaven

Do animals have souls?

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Alice had crabs for dinner a couple nights ago.  A vegetation – I did not partake.  Sawyer was steaming the little guys and I was reminded of the time Andy, Casey and Randy went crabbing at Kemah.  I had pretty much given up meat and was almost a total vegetarian when they caught  a mess of Blue Crabs in Clear Lake by our home.  I told them I just couldn’t clean them live and would just chunk them in the boiling water to cook.  Do you know when you toss something live in boiling water it screams?  Well it does!  Crabs or what ever?  There I was with a huge pot of boiling water and I threw those live crustaceans in.   Crab legs were flailing, little voices hollering, and I am cramming a lid on the pot trying to not hear or see the entire thing.   As soon as all the blue crabs were in the pot, lid on, silence from within, did I realize they were dead.   Within an instance their poor souls are scurrying up my arms and pinching me.  It was quite a metaphysical visual and at that point I became a total vegetarian.

I know I have told this story to many of you and some of you think I am unrealistic in my belief  about animal souls.  But believe me they have souls.  You really shouldn’t kill them or eat them.  They will come back and haunt you or in my case pinch you.  Don’t really like the whole thought of it.  I just send them to animal heaven, when I see dead animal on the road or in the market.  I have a huge “road kill” animal heaven awaiting me when I get there.

Dead animals.  Think about that, what do you believe?

“You shall not kill or murder!”  One of those commandments, Moses found.  Poor old Moses and his ten commandments God gave him on a stone tablet up on a mountain.   Ever really thought about that one?  Don’t kill or murder, killing an animal is murder.  Take it seriously and don’t kill anything, including animals.  At least don’t make excuses if you do.

Tian Qi Shan–Do you have a picture of heaven?

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Describe heaven?  What do you think it looks like?  The mountain I climbed in Tonglu was called Tian Qi Shan, meaning Heaven Place Mountain!  The misty fog was heavy Sunday morning when started our climb, all 200 teachers, children and spouses!  It was like a sidewalk up the hill with steps and stops to have tea, look at coy fish, run through the bamboo forest, take pictures of children and adults acting like children.

Heaven do you picture it in the clouds, well then I was there.  The light poured through like shimmering crystals onto the sparkling river flowing in and about the mountains.  The light bounced and played on the tall grasses growing out of the cliffs.  Amazingly beautiful.  The Chinese ink watercolor landscapes I had seen over the years had clouds weaving in and out of the pictures, little did I know today I would see the inspiration for these paintings.  I took picture after picture trying to savor the moment, research for future paintings.

Today I read up on ink paintings.  One artist described the paintings as having a life of their own.  He was commissioned to paint four dragons and did, but left their eyes off.  The buyers wanted to know why.  The artist said if he painted the eyes it would come alive.  The buyer persisted and the artist painted two sets of eyes on his finished dragons and to the buyers surprise the dragons came alive and jumped off the paper.   The artist refused to add eyes to the other two dragons and the painting is as it was, two dragons no eyes.  An artist that can create the moment, the feeling, the life he feels can make the viewer feel that same moment in time.  Today I will paint a landscape of heaven, the heaven I saw in the mountains.  Probably no dragons though.  They might come alive and mess up my apartment!

China is heaven!

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September 4, 2010

Just got in from a night on the town, ok it is 10:15 pm and that is late for me, but I did have dinner and hit two bars with my colleagues.  We met up at McDonalds, the Aussie Peter, Brit Michael and youngster Brit John (he has lived here six years and is the one married to a Chinese woman) plus my American friends Daniel, Paula and their little sweet daughter.  We had a lovely Chinese dinner across the street from the University for 141 RMB, not quite $20 for seven of us!  Dinner was served family style in a private room, red walls and gold chairs and a gold table cloth.  Only chopsticks are allowed!  Got a proper lesson on how to hold them from John, the bottom stick doesn’t move only the top one!  Since John is Vegan, life if good for me, as he orders in Chinese and most all we have to eat is Vegetarian.  Michael says that the Chinese will eat everything that has four legs except the table!  E-gads…. Gad I am vegetarian.  I see chicken feet, turkey necks and all sorts of meat products we would toss in American, that are scrumptious morsels here in China.

After dinner we head to the Youth Hostel for a beer.  Just the guys and I go; Paula has to put the wee one to bed.  A Snow beer 2.5 alcohol content, and tastes like a girl beer from Texas with bubbles!  So this is really nice for me, the guys hate it.  Then after one beer, John wants to move on to another bar.  Off we go, this time to a college hang out, have a lager, and listen to the cute Chinese girl sing hits from the Carpenters!  That was eerie!   Played pool with the guys, felt like I was 19 and in college.  Had a few lucky shots, but let the Aussie and Brit win!  Yes I am good at pool, but guys need to win!  Then about 10 pm decided it was my bed time and they all walked me back to the hotel.   Someone tell me where I went wrong in America?  These guys actually care about my warfare.  How delightful is this??   I so love China, John told me I would never leave, I fit in so nicely.  It is a really unusual feeling, like I belong here.  Someone told me I must have lived a past life here, duh….. I think many past lives.  I am so comfortable here, everything makes sense.

During the afternoon I looked at an apartment near the school where I teach.  It was perfect… 27th floor about 2 blocks from campus and will be available in a couple weeks.  It is more than the school allotment provides but it will be wonderful for me.  All the appliances are so not typical American, very “old school” Chinese, but hell with a pent house view

who cares.  It is something like 100 meters square, God what size is that?  It has 2 bedrooms, a kitchen and a living room and a bath and a half.  Total cost 38000 RMB for one year… about $519 a month…. And the school will pay 2/3rds of that. I am so ok with a penthouse view. (It is really not a penthouse, I am just calling it that and it is split level) Too cool for this American Art girl.

What is a”Carrefour” store?  Went to one of those today and found green olives, hot damn!  I am in heaven, plus a jar of Pesto!  (Patti, it is really good, almost as good as I make!) OK don’t laugh too hard, but I had McDonalds French fries too!  Tasted just like the states!   And they had ketchup, yew haw!  Motor bicycles are 1299 up too 1899RMB which is about $200+.  Someone tell me how cheap that is!!!!  Peter is going to buy one and I will ride on the back.  I don’t think I have the nerve to drive one with all the traffic!

Stopped in a tea shop and sat down at a tree truck table, with a Buddha carved in it.  Ok that was the best Karma ever.  The guy boiled up some Oolong tea, oh my god, best I ever drank.  I sat there looking at his little Buddha clay trinkets for sale and found one with a frog on it.  Yes I have this frog thing going now.  He sold it to me for 30 RMB ($4) then he took it and soaked it in water and it somehow filled up!  Next he poured boiling water on it and the frog magically spit water out its mouth.  Omg, I started laughing so hard, I could hardly stand it.  Then he had a water buffalo figurine and he poured boiling water on him and low and behold he turned red!  I thought I was in magic heaven!  I am so going back to this place and having tea during school lunch break.

China is heaven!