Author: Neal Saye

Posted in Hello, Anxiety.

Hello, Anxiety. “500”

Posted on by Neal Saye

This blog category is the journaling and journey-ing of my quest to say (with cautious sincerity) “Hello, Anxiety” and to take a look at the condition from my “me-andering” views.

From my NPA (Neal’s Protocol for Anxiety) …

• Meditation — Any of my saved meditations from “10% Happier,” “Buddify,” “Apple Fitness+” or meditation on my own without guidance.

I reached a milestone in my meditation practice today …

Seriously? I’ve done 500 days of meditation? Shouldn’t I be like a Meditation Master, Guru or something? And not still a mess.

Posted in The Artful Dodger, Unexpected Art

“The Artful Dodger“ #13

Posted on by Neal Saye

A blog category about finding “art” in unexpected places and situations.

So I was walking down the hall, mindfully minding my own business, when I looked over and saw Boopers perched in what seemed to be a deep transcendental meditative trance.

I looked closer, behind the meditating cat, and saw … this.

Her? Him? They? A … being, with two eyes, both upper and lower noses, a tongue-y mouth, not to mention hair that could use a shampoo.

I waited impatiently until Boopers finished with a Downward Dog and an ardent “Namaste!” and asked if he knew who that was behind him.

“All I can tell you,” Boopers coyly purred in Zen-like calmness, “is that her name is Cordy and I find her smile electrifying.”

I walked away, satisfied with his answer, then turned around to see Boopers standing intimately close to Cordy, staring into her eyes.

Posted in Five Friday Happy Bringers

Five Friday Happy Bringers 8/26/22

Posted on by Neal Saye

1. Realizing that some broken things CAN be fixed.

My special wooden “N” (for Neal) that I somehow dropped and splintered.

But now it’s back on the top of my Desires Board, next to Mr. Happy and down just a bit from my Yes Stick. (Okay, I can see your furrowed brow. During the pandemic, HR and I traveled to a bunch of Georgia State parks, where we went on many a hike. I would often see a Y-shaped stick or tree branch on the trail and tell Robert it was a Yes Stick, to pause and think of something to say “Yes!” to. On one marvel-ous hike at Tugaloo State Park, HR saw this Y Stick, brought it home and shellacked it for us. Yes! TMI?)

2. The incredible ability to walk (which I usually just take for granted). To be able to put one foot in front of the other … and go forward! Try it!

3. Finally finishing with Robert this week the eye-, mind- and heart-opening A New Origin Story: The 1619 Project.

A difficult but so important read about the role that slavery and racism played in our nation’s founding—and continues to play in the U.S. today.

I wish its meticulously documented truths could be taught in every high school.

5. Butterflies

Callaway Resort and Gardens, Pine Mountain, GA

Species: HR

4. Soap. (For sensitive skin)

I wish you a joyfully clean weekend ahead.

Posted in Seeing Race and Racism

The Difficult Truth of 1619 — #10

Posted on by Neal Saye

A blog category examining the difficult yet enlightening truth found in The 1619 Project.

A major contributor to the prosperity of the United States …

“The prosperity of this country is inextricably linked with the forced labor of the ancestors of more than 30 million Black Americans, just as it is linked to the stolen land of the country’s indigenous people.

Though our high school history books seldom make this plain, slavery and the hundred-year period of racial apartheid and racial terrorism known ad Jim Crow were, above all else, systems of economic exploitation. To borrow a phrase from Ta-Nehisi Coates, racism is the child of economic profiteering, not the father.” p. 458