December 21, 2005 Issue: #329

HO HO HO . . .

. . . and HAPPY HOLIDAYS

. . . plus Are You a Peacemaker?

. . . and Soul Strength

. . . and Daring Rescue - Whale says Thank you

and other News, Humor & Fun Stuff

"Christmas is not a date. It is a state of mind."
--- Mary Ellen Chase (American scholar, teacher, and writer, 1887-1973)

"Remember, if Christmas isn't found in your heart, you won't find it under a tree."
--- Charlotte Carpenter (Celebrated American author and poet)

* Skip to Are You a Peacemaker?
* Skip to Soul Strength
* Skip to Inspiration: Making Music
* Skip to Daring Rescue - Whale says Thank You

Greetings!

DID YOU KNOW?

In order to deliver all his gifts in one night, Santa would have to make 822.6 visits per second to each house while sleighing through the skies at 3,000 times the speed of sound.

At that speed, Santa and his reindeer would burst into flame instantaneously !

ho ho ho

Message to all

This issue is a special Holiday Edition. Therefore, in lieu of the usual newsletter format you'll see a bit more focus on the spirit of the season with inspiring, heart-warming thoughts, stories and news plus some silliness, too. What the heck ... 'tis the season to be jolly.

Subscribers of this newsletter are all over the world - currently more than 49 countries - which means that there are lots of ways in which readers are honoring the Holidays.

Regardless of religion or beliefs . . . and whatever you may be doing this time of year to celebrate this special season . . .

Do enjoy yourself . . .

. . . and may peace of mind and the spirit of love and kindness be with you and your loved ones the whole year through.

And don't forget to HO HO HO !

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all! ~ Paula Peterson

(The usual features - HUMOR BREAK, FUNNY PHOTOS and other FUN STUFF - are further below)

ARE YOU A PEACEMAKER?

What will it take for peace to prevail on earth?

Inner Peace

We can only help make our lives and our world more peaceful, when we ourselves feel peace.

Peace already exists within each of us, if we only allow ourselves to feel its comfort.

Peace of mind begins when we stop thinking about how far we have to go, or how hard the road has been, and just let ourselves feel peace.

Peace of mind gives us the strength to keep trying and keep walking along the path that we KNOW is right for our lives.

The life of a peacemaker is a daily decision to refocus and rededicate ourselves to put peacemaking first in our list of priorities.

We refocus and rededicate our lives by allowing ourselves to feel inner peace so that we can once again see our greater purpose and know that our lives as peacemakers are making a difference. We are part of a movement that has worked throughout history towards humanity's greatest goal - creating peace on earth.

Peace is a way of life

What is "peace"?

Peace is not just the absence of war. It is a balance, a state of mind in which we feel good about ourselves, our lives, our families, our friends, our communities, and our future.

Peace is about how we handle problems and how we get along with others.

Peace is about community -- about working together, encouraging each other, helping each other to live better, more fulfilling lives. Most of all, peace is about respect -- respect for ourselves, each other, and the planet we share.

When we convince the people and the nations of the world to make peace on earth our priority and shared goal, we will create a culture of peace, and living peacefully will become the most natural way to live.

A PeaceMaker's Life

As peacemakers, the first thing we must realize is that every word we speak and every action we make has the potential to change the direction of a relationship. Every moment is an opportunity to build bonds of peace.

The key to being an effective peacemaker, is to be able to step back and monitor the things we say and do. With the goal of building bonds as our guide, we can choose words and actions that make our relationships stronger.

Dedication to peacemaking is only half the battle to being effective peacemakers. There are tools and skills that we can learn to make it easier to get along. With practice and determination, these skills can become integrated into our lives so that peacemaking comes more naturally.

Imagine a World . . .

Where governments respect the rights of all their citizens and settle disputes by the rule of law for the common good.

Where all people have food, shelter and access to medical care, and children are born into and raised by healthy families and communities.

Where literacy and education for all are accomplished facts.

Where economic practices create well being for all stakeholders, including communities and the environment.

Where beauty, the arts, and media inspire the best in people.

Where the benefits of science and technology enhance all circles of life.

Where tolerance and appreciation of diverse religious beliefs is the rule, spiritual practice is encouraged, and reverence for life fostered.

Where the earth in all her natural beauty is treasured and its resources utilized in a sustainable manner, for this and future generations.

This is a world at PEACE.

May Peace Prevail On Earth

WE WANT PEACE ON EARTH:

http://www.wewantpeaceonearth.com/book/p-ch8.htm

"Christmas gift suggestions: To your enemy, forgiveness. To an opponent, tolerance. To a friend, your heart. To a customer, service. To all, charity. To every child, a good example. To yourself, respect."
--- Oren Arnold (Novelist, journalist, and humorist)

(The usual features - HUMOR BREAK, FUNNY PHOTOS and other FUN STUFF - are further below)

READER'S COMMENTS ....

"Dear Paula:

Thank you for the Earthcode newsletter, which always seems to arrive with Perfect timing, when I am feeling most dis-connected and somewhat in need of validation of how I'm feeling internally.

Thank you for your wisdom and your compassion to me personally - especially this week. Thank you for being a divine and sacred human-being here on earth."

with love

Louise

SOUL STRENGTH

The life-embracing capacity of the highly developed soul comes directly from the transformative spiritual experience of oneness, wholeness, and completeness. When the self has directly seen that its own deepest depths are absolutely full to overflowing, all existential doubt is extinguished and we are freed to embrace the life process without reservation.

But even then, our conviction and our surrender will be tested, again and again and again.

How much love do we have in our hearts, even when we are being challenged?

How strong is our integrity, even at those times when it seems that the whole universe is conspiring to tempt us to compromise?

How alone are we willing to stand in what we know to be true?

Soul strength is spiritual strength. It is the ultimate source of dignity and self-respect. And it is exactly this position of unwavering conviction that we so desperately need to cultivate if we're going to change the very fabric of the emotional, psychological, philosophical, and spiritual field that we all share.

----- Andrew Cohen (Leading-edge spiritual teacher, cultural visionary, scholar, mystic, and activist)

Talk about "Soul Strength" . . . Here's an inspiring message in making the best out of the difficulties in our lives . . .

MAKE MUSIC WITH WHAT YOU HAVE LEFT

On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the internationally celebrated violinist, came on stage to give a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City. If you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that simply walking on stage is a huge achievement for him.

He was stricken with polio as a child, and so, as an adult, he still has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches. To see him slowly and painfully walk across the stage, one step at a time, until he reaches his chair is an awesome sight. And yet, he walks majestically.

Then he carefully sits down, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward. After that, he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to play.

This is the "ritual" by which Perlman fans have grown accustomed. And on this night, they once again sat quietly while he made his way across the stage to his chair. They remain reverently silent while he undoes the clasps on his legs. They wait until he is ready to play. But this time, something went wrong.

Just as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin snapped --- and it went off like a gun shot across the concert hall.

There was no mistaking what that sound meant. There was no mistaking what he had to do. Those in the audience assumed that he would have to get up, put the clasps on his legs again, pick up the crutches and limp his way off stage to find another violin or else find another string for this one. But he didn't.

Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then signaled the conductor to begin again. The orchestra began, and he played from where he had left off. He played with tremendous passion, power and purity --- as the audience had never heard before.

Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings: I know that and you know that. But on this night, Itzhak Perlman refused to know that.

He modulated, changed and re-composed the piece in his head. At one point, it sounded like he was de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them that they had never made before.

When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then people rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary explosion of applause from every corner of the auditorium. All were on their feet, screaming and cheering, doing everything they could to show how much he was appreciated what he had done.

He smiled, wiped the sweat from this brow, raised his bow to quiet the audience, then said - not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent tone, "You know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left."

What a powerful line that is.

Perhaps that is the definition of life - not just for artists but for all of us. Here is a man who studied, practiced and worked all his life to make music on a violin of four strings, who - all of a sudden, in the middle of a concert - finds himself with only three strings; so he makes music with three strings. And the music he made that night with just three strings was more beautiful, more sacred, more memorable, than any music he had ever made before with four strings.

So, perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world in which we live is to make music: at first with all that we have, and then - when that is no longer possible - to make music with what we have left.

Itzhak Perlman ---- Regarded as one of the great violinists of the 20th century, and is certainly one of the most famous of all times.

Perlman was born in Jaffa on August 31, 1945. He contracted polio at the age of four, leaving him on crutches, and confining him to play the violin seated even today. He studied at the Academy of Music there. He moved to the United States to study at the Juilliard School, and made his debut at Carnegie Hall in 1963.

Soon, Perlman began to tour extensively. He has made a large number of records, and from the 1970s began to appear on shows such as The Tonight Show and Sesame Street, as well as playing at a number of functions at the White House.

He was also the soloist for the score of the movie Schindler's List by John Williams, which subsequently won an Academy Award for Best Score.

Perlman has received many honors, including Kennedy Center Honors in 2003. His version of Paganini's 24 Caprices is among his best known recordings. Perlman plays on the famous Soil Strad violin.

Awards and Recognitions

� � Grammy Award for Best Chamber Music Performance
� � Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist(s) Performance (with orchestra)
� � Grammy Award for Best Instrumental Soloist Performance (without orchestra)
� � Grammy Award for Best Classical Album
� � Grammy Award for Best Engineered Album, Classical

(The usual features - HUMOR BREAK, FUNNY PHOTOS and other FUN STUFF - are further below)

A big THANK YOU goes to Sandra Lee for sending this in!

Daring Whale rescue - Whale says "Thank you"

Humpback nuzzled her saviors in thanks after they untangled her from crab lines, diver says

San Francisco Chronicle

December 2005

A humpback whale freed by divers from a tangle of crab trap lines near the Farallon Islands (California coast) nudged its rescuers and flapped around in what marine experts said was a rare and remarkable encounter.

"It felt to me like it was thanking us, knowing that it was free and that we had helped it," James Moskito, one of the rescue divers, said Tuesday. "It stopped about a foot away from me, pushed me around a little bit and had some fun." Sunday's daring rescue was the first successful attempt on the West Coast to free an entangled humpback, said Shelbi Stoudt, stranding manager for the Marine Mammal Center in Marin County.

The 45- to 50-foot female humpback, estimated to weigh 50 tons, was on the humpbacks' usual migratory route between the Northern California coast and Baja California when it became entangled in the nylon ropes that link crab pots.

It was spotted by a crab fisherman at 8:30 a.m. Sunday in the open water east of the Farallones, about 18 miles off the coast of San Francisco.

Mick Menigoz of Novato, who organizes whale watching and shark diving expeditions on his boat the New Superfish, got a call for help Sunday morning, alerted the Marine Mammal Center and gathered a team of divers.

By 2:30 p.m., the rescuers had reached the whale and evaluated the situation. Team members realized the only way to save the endangered leviathan was to dive into the water and cut the ropes.

It was a very risky maneuver, Stoudt said, because the mere flip of a humpback's massive tail can kill a man.

"I was the first diver in the water, and my heart sank when I saw all the lines wrapped around it," said Moskito, a 40-year-old Pleasanton resident who works with "Great White Adventures," a cage-diving outfit that contracts with Menigoz. "I really didn't think we were going to be able to save it."

Moskito said about 20 crab-pot ropes, which are 240 feet long with weights every 60 feet, were wrapped around the animal. Rope was wrapped at least four times around the tail, the back and the left front flipper, and there was a line in the whale's mouth.

The crab pot lines were cinched so tight, Moskito said, that the rope was digging into the animal's blubber and leaving visible cuts.

At least 12 crab traps, weighing 90 pounds each, hung off the whale, the divers said. The combined weight was pulling the whale downward, forcing it to struggle mightily to keep its blow- hole out of the water.

Moskito and three other divers spent about an hour cutting the ropes with a special curved knife. The whale floated passively in the water the whole time, he said, giving off a strange kind of vibration.

"When I was cutting the line going through the mouth, its eye was there winking at me, watching me," Moskito said. "It was an epic moment of my life."

When the whale realized it was free, it began swimming around in circles, according to the rescuers. Moskito said it swam to each diver, nuzzled him and then swam to the next one.

"It seemed kind of affectionate, like a dog that's happy to see you,'' Moskito said. "I never felt threatened. It was an amazing, unbelievable experience."

Humpback whales are known for their complex vocalizations that sound like singing and for their acrobatic breaching, an apparently playful activity in which they lift almost their entire bodies out of the water and splash down.

Before 1900, an estimated 15,000 humpbacks lived in the North Pacific, but the population was severely reduced by commercial whaling. In the 20th century, their numbers dwindled to fewer than 1,000. An international ban on commercial whaling was instituted in 1964, but humpbacks are still endangered. Between 5,000 and 7,500 humpbacks are left in the world's oceans, and many of those survivors migrate through the Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary.

Whale experts say it's nice to think that the whale was thanking its rescuers, but nobody really knows what was on its mind.

"You hate to anthropomorphize too much, but the whale was doing little dives and the guys were rubbing shoulders with it," Menigoz said. "I don't know for sure what it was thinking, but it's something that I will always remember. It was just too cool."

Humpback whales hold a special place in the hearts of Bay Area residents ever since one that came to be known as Humphrey journeyed up the Sacramento River in 1985. The wayward creature swam into a slough in Rio Vista, attracting 10,000 people a day as whale experts tried desperately to turn it around. Humphrey went back to sea after 25 days of near-pandemonium and worldwide media attention.

In the fall of 1990, Humphrey turned up again inside the bay in shallow water near the Bayshore Freeway, finally beaching on mud flats near Double Rock, just off the Candlestick parking lot. He remained stuck for 25 hours, until volunteers, helped by a 41-foot Coast Guard boat, pulled him free and sent him back to the ocean. He has not been seen since.

Humpbacks like Humphrey do seem to relate to people more than other whales, according to Stoudt. "You do hear reports of friendly humpbacks, whales approaching boaters, especially in Baja California," Stoudt said, "but, for the most part, they don't like to be interacted with."

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/12/14/MNGNKG7Q0V1.DTL

(The usual features - HUMOR BREAK, FUNNY PHOTOS and other FUN STUFF - are further below)

INSIGHTS . . . . with Paula Peterson

Clairvoyant and intuitive astrology for over 16 years: specializing in health, relationships, animal/pets, spiritual direction and much more . . .

Clients throughout the United States, Canada and overseas . . . by phone.

View a complete description of personal sessions,
how to make an appointment and payment guidelines:

http://www.paulapeterson.com/about_paula_peterson.html