“Walden is a perfect forest mirror; set round with stones as precious to my eye as if fewer or rarer. Nothing so fair, so pure, and at the same time so large, as a lake, perchance, lies on the surface of the Earth. Sky water. It needs no fence. Nations come and go defiling it.. it is a mirror which no stone can crack, whose quicksilver will never wear off, whose gilding nature continually repairs; …” An excerpt from Walden by Henry David Thoreau in 1854..
If you read your tea leaves and find rocks, according to The Complete Guide to Psychic Development by Cassandra Eason (2nd Edition) “Care and Tact are needed…”
“I do not ask to walk smooth paths/ Nor bear an easy load./ I pray for strength and fortitude/ To climb the rock-strewn road.
“Give me such courage I can scale/ The hardest peaks alone,/ And transform every stumbling block/ Into a stepping-stone.” -Gail Brook Burkett from Fields of Gold published by the C. R. Gibson Company.
In one of my very early blogs is a photograph of some of the decorative stones my wife and I have collected and placed around our huge ornamental pond. We also have stepping-stones on the lawn and by the pond itself. I received a rather unusual Father’s Day gift from my children one year. They found a kit for making stepping stones, and created their own unique gifts including their handprints.
Speaking of stepping stones, I thought this poem appropriate. It’s called A Bag of Tools by R.L. Sharpe, “Isn’t it strange/ That princes and Kings,/ And clowns that caper/ In sawdust rings,/ And common people/ Like you and me/ Are builders for eternity?
Each is given a bag of tools,/ A shapeless mass/ A book of rules;/ And each must make-/ Ere life is flown-/ A stumbling block/ Or a stepping-stone.”
In 2007, The Boston Globe reported that The International Olympic Committee has refused to make Rock Paper Scissors an Olympic event. The game has been around for a very long time, this is not a game that only surfaced a few decades back. Many people are unaware that The World Rock, Paper, Scissors Society was created in 1918. Graham Walker, is the author of The Official Rock Paper Scissors Strategy Guide. He gave me some advice on the game in Men’s Journal some time back. This is what he said: “Against a beginner, play as paper. The Reason? Most people pick rock. Against a seasoned player, tell your opponent what you’re going to throw and then actually throw it. Most people won’t think you’re crazy enough to telegraph your throw.” A U.S. National finalist, Matt Corron, believes that throwing a rock right off the bat is a mistake.
“There is a time to speak and a time to keep quiet. There are things to tell and things not to tell. But it is an excellent rule to practice frankness in all dealings and associations with others, whether in business or socially. The frank person treads a firm bridge crossing a river, while the secretive person charily steps from stone to stone.” -B.C. Forbes from Forbes and featured in the Points to Ponder column of the March 1996 issue of The Reader’s Digest.
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Don Jackson
