GOOD FRIDAY

If ever rain should sing a hymn

throughout and through in;

if ever unfolding buds with tiny pain

should bloom big over meadows;

if ever hearts in deepest pain

should find a silver light—

let it be on Good Friday,

our day of holy surrender to

more than we know,

our bow of reverence to

more than we are,

our wail of grief for

all that might have been,

our needed emptying

of the cup of self to

find an inner morning—

an Easter wherein

the Sun of Love

will rise again

GRIEF IS A THIEF

Grief is a thief

you have urged

to take you away

but with your own

key locks you,

wet with tears,

inside your musty

woolen closet and

turns out the light.

Dark in your trap

shared with moths

you cry long past dry

and choke on all why.

When you know it’s

time (and you will):

burst

the closet open

into a room,

burst

the room open

into a sky,

settle for no moons,

pray past all suns,

inhale from Cosmos.

Not earth are you

but the damp wick

of a future shining.

Strike your match

and light the way.

INNERNESS

How potent is the silent voice within the heart—

like roses screaming quietly

at the top of their scents.

Our inner self turns a valve here,

flips a switch there,

rechannels a thought, all undetected,

guiding the mind with commands never heard by ears.

We inhale a vital force sent up from the sun,

full of planetary power, star strength,

universal unity.

We exhale such love as we can muster from our

little microverse,

radiating peace into nearest air

and farthest galaxies.

We breathe our relentless ripples

onto shimmering oceans of spirit.

Each star hears our silence.

Our mental voice imprints itself

on a forgetless tablet of inner space,

indelible as a baby’s first cry.

When we listen, the cold wind carries

the moan of mother earth

and the rising moon reflects

the sighs of setting sun.

Those who hear the universe

humming its silent symphony

learn to love each lento chord.

Strum my heart, you silent waves of love,

with your tuneful touch,

and help me sing the song of space

in the sanctum of my skull.

TO HIS LOVE

THE island dreams under the dawn

And great boughs drop tranquillity;

The peahens dance on a smooth lawn,

A parrot sways upon a tree,

Raging at his own image in the enamelled sea.

THE island dreams under the dawn

And great boughs drop tranquillity;

The peahens dance on a smooth lawn,

A parrot sways upon a tree,

Raging at his own image in the enamelled sea.

THE FALLING OF THE LEAVES

AUTUMN is over the long leaves that love us,

And over the mice in the barley sheaves;

Yellow the leaves of the rowan above us,

And yellow the wet wild-strawberry leaves.

The hour of the waning of love has beset us,

And weary and worn are our sad souls now;

Let us patt, ere the season of passion forget us,

With a kiss and a tear on thy drooping brow.

EPHEMERA

‘YOUR eyes that once were never weary of mine

Are bowed in sotrow under pendulous lids,

Because our love is waning.’

And then She:

‘Although our love is waning, let us stand

By the lone border of the lake once more,

Together in that hour of gentleness

When the poor tired child, passion, falls asleep.

How far away the stars seem, and how far

Is our first kiss, and ah, how old my heart!’

Pensive they paced along the faded leaves,

While slowly he whose hand held hers replied:

‘Passion has often worn our wandering hearts.’

The woods were round them, and the yellow leaves

Fell like faint meteors in the gloom, and once

A rabbit old and lame limped down the path;

Autumn was over him: and now they stood

On the lone border of the lake once more:

Turning, he saw that she had thrust dead leaves

Gathered in silence, dewy as her eyes,

In bosom and hair.

‘Ah, do not mourn,’ he said,

‘That we are tired, for other loves await us;

Hate on and love through unrepining hours.

Before us lies eternity; our souls

Are love, and a continual farewell.

BUILDING A GOOD RELATION WITH YOUR PET DOGGY

From the moment you choose your puppy, there is some considerable urgency regarding socialization and training. There is no time to waste. Basically, an adult dog's temperament and behavior habits (both good and bad)are shaped during puppyhood—very early puppyhood. In fact, some puppies are well on their way to ruin by the time

they are just eight weeks old. It is especially easy to make horrendous mistakes when selecting a pup and during his first few days at home. Such mistakes usually have an indelible effect, influencing your pup's behavior and temperament for the rest of his life. This is not to say that unsocialized and untrained eight-week-old pups cannot be rehabilitated. They can, if you work quickly. But while it’s easy to prevent behavior and temperament problems from the beginning, rehabilitation can be both difficult and time-consuming, and it is unlikely that your pup will ever become the adult dog he or she could have been. Learn how to make intelligent choices when selecting your pup. Learn how to implement a course of errorless housetraining and errorless chewtoy-training the moment your puppy arrives at her new home. Any house soiling or chewing mistake you allow your puppy to make is absolute silliness and absolute seriousness: silliness because you are creating lots of future headaches for yourself, and seriousness because millions of dogs are euthanized each year simply because their owners did not know how to housetrain or chewtoy-train them.

If your pup is ever left unsupervised indoors he will most certainly chew household articles and soil your house. Although these teeny accidents do little damage in themselves, they set the precedent for your puppy's choice of toys and toilets for many months to come. You should treat any puppy house soiling or house destruction mistake as a potential disaster, since it predicts numerous future mistakes from a dog with larger bladder and bowels and much more destructive jaws. Many owners begin to notice their puppy's destructiveness by the time he is four to five months old, when the pup is characteristically relegated outdoors. Destruction is the product of a puppy's boredom, lack of supervision, and a search for entertainment. Natural inquisitiveness prompts the lonely pup to dig, bark, and escape in his quest for some form of occupational therapy to pass the day in solitary confinement. Once the neighbors complain about the dog's incessant barking and periodic escapes, the dog is often further confined to a garage or basement. Usually though, this is only a temporary measure until the dog is surrendered to a local animal shelter to play the lotto of life. Fewer than 25 percent of surrendered dogs are adopted, of which about half are returned as soon as the new owners discover their adopted adolescent's annoying problems. The above summarizes the fate of many dogs. This is especially sad because all these simple problems could be prevented so easily. Housetraining and chewtoy-training are hardly rocket science. But you do need to know what to do. And you need to know what to do before you bring your puppy home.
As soon as your puppy comes home, the clock is running. Within just three months, your puppy will need to  meet six crucial developmental deadlines. If your puppy fails to meet any of these deadlines, he is unlikely to achieve his full potential. In terms of your dog's behavior and temperament, you will probably be playing catch-up for the rest of your dog's life. Most important of all, you simply cannot afford to neglect the socialization and bite inhibition deadlines.

UPON GOD

I PASSED along the water’s edge below the humid trees,

My spirit rocked in evening light, the rushes round my knees,

My spirit rocked in sleep and sighs; and saw the moorfowl pace

All dripping on a grassy slope, and saw them cease to chase

Each other round in circles, and heard the eldest speak:

Who holds the world between His bill and made us strong or weak

Is an undying moorfowl, and He lives beyond the sky.

The rains are from His dripping wing, the moonbeams from His eye.

I passed a little further on and heard a lotus talk:

Who made the world and ruleth it, He hangeth on a stalk,

For I am in His image made, and all this tinkling tide

Is but a sliding drop of rain between His petals wide.

A little way within the gloom a roebuck raised his eyes

Brimful of starlight, and he said: The Stamper of the Skies,

He is a gentle roebuck; for how else, I pray, could He

Conceive a thing so sad and soft, a gentle thing like me?

I passed a little further on and heard a peacock say:

Who made the grass and made the worms and made my feathers gay,

He is a monstrous peacock, and He waveth all the night

His languid tail above us, lit with myriad spots of light.

A 10.30pm WALK

A 10.30pm walk

Tonight at 10:30 I went out

for my walk. In the distance

I heard a major commotion

of geese. At first I thought

a flock might fly overhead,

though the hour was far too late

for geese to be aloft.

But the sound wasn’t moving.

I heard a train’s rumble,

then its mournful horn.

A freight was crossing

the railroad bridge

over the Fox River

close to where the geese

were over nighting.

As I turned around toward home

I still could hear them fret and scold

in chaotic counterpoint with

the diesel’s basso continuo.

And the stars tonight burned

bright holes in the sky, decorating

bare tree branches overhead

like lingering holiday lighting.

After the train had rumbled off

to where nocturnal trains all go,

the neighborhood assumed a hush

perturbed only by my footsteps.

Hardly anything is quieter

than distant sleeping geese

and star-bespeckled trees.

SPEED OF ELECTRICITY

Speed of electricity

Free electrons in a conductor material are pulled from one atom to another one and so on. By moving that extremely short distances in the case of being forced through electricity, the electricity itself develops a speed of around 320,000 km/h.

As the electrons are moving they temporarily rotate around each new centre. We already know an electron carries a negative charge of electricity and so the electron flow (current flow) is assumed to be from negative to positive.

Electron drift

The rate of drifting of the free electrons from atom to atom determines the amount of current. To create a drift of electrons through a circuit we must have an electrical pressure, the voltage. The more electrons the stronger the current.

That means i.e. in the case of a starter battery, the greater the concentration of electrons at a battery, the higher the pressure between the electrons and the greater that pressure is, the greater is the flow of electrons.

Volts, Amperes, Ohms, Watts

The pressure between the electrons, namely voltage, is measured in volts (V).

One unit of volt is the Potential Difference (P. D.) between two points of a conductor by a constant current flow of one ampere (1 A) when the power dissipated between these points is equal to one watt (1W).

The flow of electrons, the current, is measured in ampere (A).

One unit of ampere is that constant current (I) that (if maintained in two parallel rectilinear conductors of infinite length of negligible cross section and placed at a distance of one meter apart in vacuum) would produce between the (these) conductors a force equal to 2 × 10−7 Newton per meter length.

Opposing the flow of electrons is the resistance of the conductors measured in ohms (?).

One unit of electrical resistance (R) is the resistance between two points of a conductor if a constant

Potential Difference of one volt (1 V) applied between these points produces a current of one ampere (1A) and the conductor isn’t the source of an electromotive force.

Some materials offer a bigger resistance to the electron flow than others. For example the resistance of iron is higher than the resistance of copper, but the resistance of silver is less than the one of copper.

Also the length and the size of a wire are important facts to look for in that case.

The electric power (P) is the product of voltage (E) and current (I) and is measured in watt (W).

P = E × I; (P = U × I)

Electrical loads such as i. e. electric motors, coils and bulbs will consume power.

Ohm’s Law

The Ohm’s Law is the understanding of the mathematical relationship between voltage (E), current (I)

and resistance (R) in an electrical circuit. Each and every one affects the other one.

All that is the same and that means:

The Potential Difference (PD = voltage) in a conductor is under constant conditions equal to the current flow multiplied with resistance (oppose directed to the current) of the conductor.

The current through a conductor under constant conditions is proportional to the difference of potential across the conductor.

Types of electrical circuits:

We do know three general types of electrical circuits:

Series circuit; Parallel circuit; Series−parallel circuit. For all circuits there are a need for an electricity source (battery), electrical equipment (switch, bulb, etc.) and electrical conductors (wires) to connect the equipment with the source.

Series circuit: The current passes from the power source to each device in turn and then flows back to the other terminal of the source (only one path has the current). The amount of current will be the same in all

parts of the circuit.

Parts of a simple electrical circuit:

− source of electricity

− switch

− cable

− consumer

Parallel circuit: One terminal of each device is connected to a common conductor, which leads to one

terminal of the source. There is more than one path for the current to flow and therefore each and every

path has a separate amount of current flow depending on the equipment by forcing a weaker current flow or

stronger one.

Parts of a circuit:

− one source of electricity

− cable and eventually cable connectors

− the quantity and kind of switches and consumer depends on the kind of the circuit

Series−parallel

Series−parallel circuit: Such kinds of circuits have electrical devices connected in series and others connected in parallel. That means we do have more than one path for the current to flow.

Measuring resistance

To find the total resistance (RT) of a series circuit is to add the resistance of each device.

This means as well, when a number of resistance’s are connected together in series the current is the same in every part of the circuit.

In series the P. D. (Potential Difference) across each resistance is in general different. The overall P. D.

is equal to the sum of all P. D. across the individual resistances

In a parallel circuit we do have more than one path for the current flow. Therefore the total resistance of all the devices will be less than the resistance of any single device. Resistance is the ability of any wire or electrical component to oppose the flow of current.

Conductance is the reciprocal (opposite) of resistance.

PORTRAIT OF A GOOD THINKER

1. Find a Place to Think Your Thoughts

If you go to your designated place to think expecting to generate good thoughts, then eventually you will

come up with some. Where is the best place to think? Everybody’s different. Some people think best in the

shower. Others, like my friend Dick Biggs, like to go to a park. For me, the best places to think are in my car, on

planes, and in the spa. Ideas come to me in other places as well, such as when I’m in bed. (I keep a special

lighted writing pad on my nightstand for such times.) I believe I often get thoughts because I make it a habit to

frequently go to my thinking places. If you want to consistently generate ideas, you need to do the same thing.

Find a place where you can think, and plan to capture your thoughts on paper so that you don’t lose them. When

I found a place to think my thoughts, my thoughts found a place in me.

2. Find a Place to Shape Your Thoughts

Rarely do ideas come fully formed and completely worked out. Most of the time, they need to be shaped

until they have substance. As my friend Dan Reiland says, they have to “stand the test of clarity and

questioning.” During the shaping time, you want to hold an idea up to strong scrutiny. Many times a thought that

seemed outstanding late at night looks pretty silly in the light of day. Ask questions about your ideas. Fine tune

them. One of the best ways to do that is to put your thoughts in writing. Professor, college president, and U.S.

senator S. I. Hayakawa wrote, “Learning to write is learning to think. You don’t know anything clearly unless you

can state it in writing.”

As you shape your thoughts, you find out whether an idea has potential. You learn what you have. You also

learn some things about yourself. The shaping time thrills me because it embodies:

Humor: The thoughts that don’t work often provide comic relief.

Humility: The moments when I connect with God awe me.

Excitement: I love to play out an idea mentally. (I call it “futuring” it.)

Creativity: In these moments I am unhampered by reality.

Fulfillment: God made me for this process; it uses my greatest gifts and gives me joy.

Honesty: As I turn over an idea in my mind, I discover my true motives.

Passion: When you shape a thought, you find out what you believe and what really counts.

Change: Most of the changes I have made in my life resulted from thorough thinking on a subject.

You can shape your thoughts almost anywhere. Just find a place that works for you, where you will be able to

write things down, focus your attention without interruptions, and ask questions about your ideas.

3. Find a Place to Stretch Your Thoughts

If you come upon great thoughts and spend time mentally shaping them, don’t think you’re done and can

stop there. If you do, you will miss some of the most valuable aspects of the thinking process. You miss bringing

others in and expanding ideas to their greatest potential.

Earlier in my life, I have to admit, I was often guilty of this error. I wanted to take an idea from seed thought

to solution before sharing it with anyone, even the people it would most impact. I did this both at work and at

home. But over the years, I have learned that you can go much farther with a team than you can go alone.

I’ve found a kind of formula that can help you stretch your thoughts. It says,

The Right Thought plus the Right People

in the Right Environment at the Right Time

for the Right Reason = the Right Result

This combination is hard to beat. Like every person, every thought has the potential to become something

great. When you find a place to stretch your thoughts, you find that potential.

4. Find a Place to Land Your Thoughts

Author C. D. Jackson observes that “great ideas need landing gear as well as wings.” Any idea that

remains only an idea doesn’t make a great impact. The real power of an idea comes when it goes from

abstraction to application. Think about Einstein’s theory of relativity. When he published his theories in 1905

and 1916, they were merely profound ideas. Their real power came with the development of the nuclear reactor

in 1942 and the nuclear bomb in 1945. When scientists developed and implemented Einstein’s ideas, the

whole world changed.

Likewise, if you want your thoughts to make an impact, you need to land them with others so that they can

someday be implemented. As you plan for the application phase of the thinking process, land your ideas first

with…

Yourself: Landing an idea with yourself will give you integrity. People will buy into an idea only after they

buy into the leader who communicates it. Before teaching any lesson, I ask myself three questions: “Do I believe it? Do I live it? Do I believe others should live it?” If I can’t answer yes to all three questions, then I haven’t landed it.

Key Players: Let’s face it, no idea will fly if the influencers don’t embrace it. After all, they are the people

who carry thoughts from idea to implementation.

Those Most Affected: Landing thoughts with the people on the firing line will give you great insight.

Those closest to changes that occur as a result of a new idea can give you a “reality read.” And that’s

important, because sometimes even when you’ve diligently completed the process of creating a thought,

shaping it, and stretching it with other good thinkers, you can still miss the mark.

5. Find a Place to Fly Your Thoughts

French philosopher Henri-Louis Bergson, who won the Nobel Prize in literature in 1927, asserted that a

person should “think like a man of action—act like a man of thought.” What good is thinking if it has no

application in real life? Thinking divorced from actions cannot be productive. Learning how to master the

process of thinking well leads you to productive thinking. If you can develop the discipline of good thinking and

turn it into a lifetime habit, then you will be successful and productive all of your life. Once you’ve created,

shaped, stretched, and landed your thoughts, then flying them can be fun and easy.