The Perfect Pause - A Beginner's Meditation Guide and Journal

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My meditation book (eBook version) is now only $1.99 for a limited time. Newly revised and expanded edition! Did you ever wish that life came with a pause button? The secret is that it does! With this book discover the key to making life more manageable. With three months of dedicated practice and journaling you will learn how meditation can greatly improve the quality of your life by:

• Easing and improving your ability to handle stress.

• Allowing you to sleep more restfully.

• Teaching you to appreciate the beauty that surrounds you.

The Perfect Pause is a clear, concise meditation guide and journal that will give you the basic tools necessary to discover life's "pause button". Included in the book is a three-month journal to chart your progress. This comprehensive guide provides the reader with a launch pad for a fulfilling lifelong spiritual journey!

Here's the link -

http://www.lulu.com/shop/eric-vance-walton/the-perfect-pause/ebook/product-17534486.html

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Give the Gift of Words!

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The eBook version of my children's book, "The Land of Things We Wish For" is currently on sale for $2.99! Save an additional 20% at checkout with the code, "FELICITAS" (ALL CAPS). The savings end December 14th! Happy Holidays Facebook friends and thank you for your interest in independent publishing. Link to the book -

http://www.lulu.com/shop/eric-vance-walton/the-land-of-things-we-wish-for/ebook/product-17501090.html

Ascendancy

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Drink in the sanguine hush
and seek out the lushness of life,
that has been there all along

beyond all whims and aspirations
it lies in waiting with zealous eyes
wishing to awaken us by the sheer weight of its stare
hoping to be the catalyst of our rediscovery

time is not at all contrite in its
eagerness to erase 
all memory of us
but, in truth, time can be beaten 
squarely at its own game.

The Green Mill (Chicago 8/19/2004)

in

We took the redline to Lawrence

and checked the world at the door

in the footsteps of all those before

who found solace in sax and

draped themselves in neon dreams

I must confess

how easily I acquiesced

to the Gresik groove

hundreds moved

as broad shoulders unloaded

some say this swing-style’s outmoded.

It don’t mean a thing

Brother, I felt the pulse

The heart’s still tickin’

after all these years

And I’m the first to say

That I’m blown away

If relics we are, I accept it

This hurried world, I reject it

As I go back in my mind

to a simpler time

learn a new step and perfect it.

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Early Morning Savior

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Fingers stained purple
vanilla's essence fills the air
small bubbles effervesce
as you cure to a rich mocha

buckwheat blueberry pancakes
crowned with a dollop of whipped cream
dusted with cinnamon and paired
with a cup of strong dark roast

filling the hollows of a cold morning hunger
warming the soul if ever so transiently and
properly dispelling the depths of midwinter's darkness.

Truth

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Everything flies 

away eventually

 

a finite succession 

of crystalline 

moments in time

are all that we 

really have here

 

choices allow us

to shape each of them before

they are frozen in form

 

In this moment

I choose to be grateful,

happy and to be kind to you

 

I will never understand

your struggles and

mine you can never know

 

not hallow kindness 

born of pity

from some bleeding heart

 

but honest kindness

that comes from a place

of solemn respect

for a fellow traveler

whose twisted path

will eventually lead

them to the fringe

of very same Truth.

 

Looking Back at 39

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Here at the glint

of my dream's unfolding

Placing the final pieces so deliberately

As this time I want to 

experience the full crescendo  

And savor the fruits of my labor

With those whom I love.  

 

Life thus far has been magnificent

the greatest of fears, slain

Wisdom gleaned from 

attuning to the hush of nothingness,

a Peace of stillness near

 

to me it has been proven many a time

That this Universe is a place 

of both infinite miracles and tough love

ever ready to take us into its arms 

and guide us, dutifully like a child 

through the audacity of our sorrows

to stand reborn

in the untouched light of a new day

 

This year I have learned

not to despair 

for not getting everything

I want

But to rejoice in the fact that I’m 

receiving exactly what

I need. 

 

SNL - Is There Hope?

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I remember watching SNL as a child in the seventies. It was cutting edge, current. Now, when I have enough courage to tune in, I wince every since time at how bad it is. For the sake of nostalgia, I'll watch ten, maybe fifteen minutes longer than I'd want to but it never gets better.

I have two weeks until I have to start the rewrite of my novel after the editing is done. In the next two weeks I'm going to draft a few skits to send into the show. Probably a couple times per month my wife and I are driving along in the car or going for a walk and something sparks an idea for a spoof of a commercial or some other humorous skit. Believe me, the world provides plenty of material for this.

Just on our walk around the neighborhood lake alone we've come to know a cast of characters who entertain us every night. Just a small sampling of the cast of characters is as follows:

1. The Angry Jogger. A man who appears to be in his fifties and is wound way too tight. He has literally cursed me out, without ever turning around, for not getting out of this way;

2. The Poop Patrol. An elderly gentleman who rides his bike around the lake, keeping a watchful eye to make sure dog walkers pick up after their animals. If, God forbid, he sees a spare turd and you happen to have a bag in your hand he will ask you to pick up said turd. He's done this to us.; and

3. The Monkey Man. A man who walks around the lake with a real live monkey on his shoulder (I'm serious). The man gets his hair cut to mimic the monkey's hair (again, I'm serious), a close cropped flat top. Real Twilight Zone stuff here folks.

This will be a fun project. If nothing else, we can use the material for another project at a later date.

The Heiress and the Pea 

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ONCE upon a time there was a prince who wanted to marry an heiress; but she would have to be a real heiress. For nowadays, with inflation and all, being a prince wasn’t what it used to be. He traveled all over the world to find one, Saks 5th Avenue, the Hamptons and many other spots where heiresses tended to congregate, but nowhere could he get what he wanted. So he came home again and was sad, for he would have liked very much to marry a real heiress and have his own reality TV show. One evening a terrible storm came on and the rain poured down in torrents. Suddenly a knocking was heard at the city gate, and the old king went to open it.

It was an heiress standing out there in front of the gate with her camera crew in tow. What a sight the rain and the wind had made her look. The water ran down from her hair and clothes; it ran down into the toes of her Prada shoes and out again at the heels. And yet she said that she was a real heiress.

“Well, we’ll soon find that out,” thought the old queen. But she said nothing, went into the kitchen, prepared a meal fit for a royal feast but placed one single conventionally-grown pea among the organic, heirloom peas heaped upon her plate.

The meal was presented with lavish style and grace. The heiress totally ignored her gracious hosts. She talked on her cell phone, flipped her hair and admired herself longingly in any reflective surface. She was making a very good impression but the prince still wasn’t completely convinced that she was a real heiress.

All of a sudden a blood-curdling shriek broke the silence! “Ewww! You idiot! I cannot believe you had the nerve to serve me this conventionally grown slop!”

Nobody but a real heiress could be so abrasive and self-absorbed. So the prince was smitten and asked for her hand in marriage, for now he was sure that he had found a real heiress.

Moral: Given enough time, sooner or later people will get what they deserve.

Verbal Rebellion, Free Wee Fee and Corporate Size Reinvention

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I've learned that most writers are born people watchers and I'm no exception. We find fascination in the most unlikely of experiences, the whole world is a library...each person a book. It could be a conversation overheard, a story told to us or some slight idiosyncrasy that we might witness first-hand. The other night one of my best friends and I were across the table talking about an upcoming trip to Chicago. Keep in mind my friend grew up in the late 60's, before technology completely ruled our lives. He was reading the description of the hotel that were staying in and said, "Look, they have free wee fee!" After a few moments I realized that he meant wi-fi.

Once you get to a certain age I think people start getting completely fed up with certain aspects of life and consciously start calling things by slightly different names as a kind of protest to conformity. My father was way ahead of the curve on this one. He's been verbally rebelling as long as I can remember. When I was a kid, I had a friend named Sean and my dad always referred to him as, "John" which you could tell dumb-founded Sean but for some reason he never said anything about it. To dad socks are "stockins", immaculate is "immaculace", prostrate is "pole-straight" (which must baffle his doctors) and fish has always been "feeesh". But you know what? That's okay and to tell you the truth I wouldn't want it any other way, it's part of what makes him "dad" to me and I relish this uniqueness.

It's already begun for me. When ordering at Starbucks I refuse to buckle under to their "corporate size reinvention". In today's society we have far too many things to remember already without having relearn something that we learned in kindergarten. I have no idea how large became Venti and I want no part of it. When I order a cappuccino, I call it what it is and say "small" not "tall". The cashier usually will tilt their head and flash and inquisitive look, appearing for a second that their whole belief system has been threatened while calling out to the barista, "TALL skim cappuccino". As I approach 36 it's time to step up my game. The next time I'm in a coffee shop I'm going to march up to the counter with head held high, compliment them on the immaculaceness of their establishment and ask if they have free wee fee.

Fugitive

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shiftless moods breed certain fools

who lose their way when darkness falls

wandering souls who’ve lost their way

and fall from grace when duty calls

 

away they run to foreign lands

that call them so invitingly

to begin the cycle once again

until a problem arises, then they’ll flee

 

until their woes weigh them down

and begin to slow their tired feet

their heads are buried in their hands

their tired eyes filled with deceit

 

for all their lives they’ve been a fugitive

running from an awful ghost

this apparition that dwells inside them

they are almost sure to boast

 

is the source of all they’re problems

all their ills and woes

but they are not caused by this apparition

but by a far greater foe

 

this beast that dwells inside them

and their soul, he’s surely bought

this fierce and ugly beast

is none other than negative thought

 

All That Really Matters

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a perpetual stranger

traveling down 

this dark and narrow, twisted trip

of blissful contradiction 

with heart wide open

 

absorbing all this life 

has to give while

wandering the razor's edge

in peace and harmony

 

ever so thankful

for wounds that sting 

and the laughter that heals

 

in all these many years

I've never lost faith

that each step

brings us closer 

to that place of perfect completeness

 

where we wake up in wisdom

to cast all aside

all of our favorite demons

and finally realize

that love is all that really matters.

My Earliest Election Day Memory

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Dad had rushed through his shower and the whole house reeked of Right Guard deodorant and the thin pork chops that mom had fried for dinner. My brother and I were being tightly bundled up. Fall was already firmly entrenched. It was pitch dark and the air was a few degrees beyond crisp. This was election day 1976 and our little family, all four of us, made the two block walk down the street to the Fairmoor elementary school gym so my parents could do their civic duties. Even as a five year old I recognized the gravitas of the moment. My parents, younger than I am today, so realized the importance and privilege of what they were about to do and I could actually feel it. My heart beat a little faster than normal as we stood in line to enter the gymnasium. As the line inched towards the double doors our breath gushed plums of fog against the orange glow of the sodium light on the old brick school bell tower.

Finally, after what seemed an eternity for a five year old we entered the gym. I noticed how the glaring lights reflected off the highly polished linoleum tile of the floor as my parents signed in with a couple of scary older ladies with beehive hairdos and cat-eye glasses. We took our spot in yet another line. The large gray mechanical voting machines were instantly fascinating to me.

My dad took my hand as we entered the wondrous machine, that seemed like something out of Willy Wonka's factory, and he pulled the lever. The polyester curtains closed behind us with a loud ratcheting noise creating an instant alcove of privacy. Then something magical took place. I stared in awe as my father carefully studied his choices and began flipping the tiny levers. It felt to me as though my dad believed he was choosing the winners himself.

In contrast, the world has changed so much in so many different ways this experience already seems like it happened lifetimes ago but I revisit it again every election year. One advantage of having survived over four decades of such drastic change is it allows us to use these memories as a yardstick. Through my five year old eyes, the world of 1976 seemed less cynical. The 1976 I remember wasn't a perfect place but a moment in time where more people resided comfortably in the middle than the outer fringes of the extremes. Once we were greater than Democrat or Republican, we were American.

#Distracted

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The sunlight was quickly disappearing behind the tree tops as the smell of kettle corn filled the air. In the distance the carnies barked with their husky voices, “C’mon win the lady a prize!” Their unofficial anthem, the Eye of the Tiger, blared setting the mood of their hustle perfectly from dozens of tinny speakers. The Canfield fair drew all kinds of folks, people who wouldn’t normally think of venturing outside their own four walls. This was the one event that most felt compelled to experience every year but minutes after they arrived they often asked themselves why.

This particular moment had arrived precisely the minute Elliot handed his paper stub to the ticket taker at the gate. It had been an extremely stressful week at work and all he wanted his comfortable chair and a beer. As usual, within seconds his wife and seven year old son were already a good distance ahead of him.

“Daddy? Daddy? Hey daddy, let’s ride the Scrambler!” his boy pleaded with the very best puppy dog eyes he could muster.

“Ride this one with your mother, I’ll ride the next one.” Elliot smiled as he waved them on. Soon they were lost in the crowd and leaned with his back comfortably against a tree. Elliot sighed and slid his phone out of his back pocket and became instantly glued to the screen. His thumbs moved like lightning, he couldn’t get to the night’s baseball scores and stats fast enough.

Elliot slapped his thigh, “Ahhh, come on Cubs is one win too much to ask for?”

“It is when they’re playing the White Sox!” he heard a voice pipe up from around the side of the tree.

Elliot was first going to ignore this unsolicited remark as he continued to catch up on the scores but his love for the Cubs, once again, outweighed his better judgement.

“The White Sux? Please! I curse the day Comiskey brought them to town.”

Out of the corner of his eye Elliot could see the man peek from around the tree. “I guess we’ll have to agree to disagree on that topic.”

“So, if you don’t mind my asking, who do you like in this election?” the man asked.

“Buddy, umm, you know...I don’t mean to be rude but I.T. world is brutal and I’ve had a really rough week.”

The voice answered, “I can respect that.”

Elliot ruffled his brow as he logged onto Facebook and checked in at the fair updated his status with ‘funnel cakes are calling’!

“But since you mention it, at this point I’m one of the six percent that are still undecided. I’m worried that Romney just can’t sympathize with the struggles of average person.”

“Then there’s Obama. Four years he’s had and here we are.” Elliot said as he scrolled down his Twitter feed to catch up on the news.

“Look, it’s been nice talking with you. Good luck on your choice.” the man said.

Elliot absentmindedly answered, “Huh? Oh yeah. Thanks.”

Suddenly Elliot looked up and noticed a group of people walking towards him. A nervous man hoisted a television camera onto a tripod just a few feet in front of him as a local news anchor fixed her hair. The blaring lights switched on.

“This is Liz Saunders live from the Canfield fair where President Obama paid a surprise visit after speaking at a nearby auto plant. This man, umm, what is your name sir?” She asked.

“Elliot?” he answered.

“Elliot, can you share what you and the President discussed?”