.....treasure island

I spent part of beautiful Saturday afternoon with my daughter and a friend of ours 

at the Treasure Island Flea Market near San Francisco.

Treasure Island is an old naval base with a few homes and lots of empty buildings and an amazing view...and a flea market

don't ask

I didn't..

spoons

cool collars

an outfit made of different things taken apart and sewn together in a new way

no...won't eat any of this!

Spam...a food truck featuring Spam?

crystal energy

another budding designer

beautiful bangles

ahhhh, Bliss Dance

This blissful dancing goddess was the signature piece for

 Burning Man 2010 @ Black Rock City 

the artist is Marco Cochrane .

She stands 40 feet tall and weighs 7000 pounds,

at night she is lit from the inside by a complex array of l.e.d. colored lights..

now she dances on Treasure Island

in all her glorious colors she dances

beautiful Bliss

...a memorable day

making agreements.....

Have you read the book by Don Miguel Ruiz, The Four Agreements? I bought it and read it when it first came out a long time ago. I was so taken with the simplicity of what he shares that I gave it out as gifts to people I care about. I say I was taken with the simplicity of it, but really there is nothing simple about them for me.

Hah! Not so easy.

In the past couple of weeks the book keeps surfacing in my life...seeing quotes, dusting the book shelf and there it is, a friend mentioning it. 

 So I decided to sit down with it and read a little.

The agreement that jumped out at me was the third agreement...

Don't make assumptions. 

Oh, how I fall down on that one. It's not that I assume that things will go on tomorrow like they do today. I recognize that change can come in a split second. 

But I do assume things about people, who they are, what they will do, what they won't do. What they believe. 

I was with a friend I've known for many years. We travel the same circles. We were talking about our President and she said a truly racist thing. I was so taken aback that I was actually speechless. How did I not know this about her? 

I had assumed she felt we were all equal.

I know this man...a cowboy...seems hard as nails. Gruff. I didn't like him much. One day we saw each other and exchanged greetings. I asked how he was doing. He told me about having to have his dog put down. He started crying. And from there he moved on to talking about the loss of his wife and his estrangement from his daughter...crying throughout his story. He became a very soft and loving man right before my eyes, when I had assumed he was was hard and harsh to the core...

I am amazed out how often I misinterpret people I have thought someone was snooty or didn't that didn't like me, only to discover they are shy. Oh that someone had a full life, only to find out they were lonely. It goes on and on, my assumptions.

I even make assumptions about you, my readers and fellow bloggers. Based only on what you reveal on your blogs, or on comments, I have filled in the gaps with my own assumptions about your lives. 

I assume a lot with people I love too...that they will behave in a certain way. That they think like I do. How else could it be?...they are part of my tribe. But it isn't true...we very often have deep and divisive ways of seeing and doing things. 

My assumptions have caused some serious pain.

And so often I have built a dream around one of them only to discover they are on a totally different track. I end up angry and hurt when they don't follow along with my plans because I assumed that they want the same things as I do. I get upset because something I expected someone to do isn't going to happen, yet I had assumed they could have, should have done it, would do it, when maybe I never asked for what I wanted...or maybe I didn't express myself as clearly as I could have. Maybe they just didn't read my mind that day. 

Or maybe somewhere along the line I let them believe something didn't matter, 

when really is mattered a lot and I assumed that they would come around.

Maybe I spoke without integrity....out of my truth.

Maybe I wasn't impeccable with my words.

Ruiz says we have to ask questions. Lot's of them. And that we have to be impeccable with our own word so that people aren't making assumptions about us. He points out that we tell little lies or half truths here and there, not being impeccable with our word and that creates assumptions about us. About who we are and what we want.  

Oh how often I leave things out when speaking...maybe not saying what I think you want to hear, but often omitting what I know you don't want to hear.  

My life would be different had I not made some critical and incorrect assumptions...

or let others have them about me.

And then there is this ....Ruiz says to ask question until everything is clear... and then assume that the person answe

ring is being impeccable with their words. 

and Ruiz challenges us to take nothing personally. 

sigh.....

xo

,,,,a promise?

                      

Always, the strong carry the weak, the rich carry the poor, the healthy carry the sick, 
and the happy carry the sad. 

And whether or not they remember it, this was once their promise, 

to thank those who carried them. 

I'm totally goose bumped, 

The Universe

xo

Happy Tuesday!