One of my compact fluorescent bulbs recently burned out-- with a real fire. Fortunately, it was a small fire that didn't damage anything but the bulb, and not so bad that I couldn't remove the bulb. At first, I didn't know what was happening when it went dark except for a little wave of light. Then I smelled the smoke. Is it really supposed to do that?! I was airing my room out for a couple hours, and it was cold that night.

Have some candy! I remembered getting Hopjes coffee candies as a child. And, you know, a child, and coffee? Well, I won't draw you a picture. Instead, I'll just throw on up some wallpaper I found on the web. Have some Hopjes coffee candy!

Seems I'm having a spot of trouble coming up with new blog entries. It's just that, once I've contemplated Creation and the nature of the Universe, it's tough to build on it. Perhaps I need to go smaller? I probably can't go much smaller than my outside life. The highlight of recent weeks could only be the time I spent at religious services. The home base of my religious services is The Village Temple, but many of our High Holy Days services were in the Great Hall of The Cooper Union due to space-- I mean: capacity-- issues. Then, there was the Tashlich service, which took place at The Hudson River Park off Christopher Street. I usually get at least one chance a week to see different faces and hear different people, so I don't wanna' blow it, especially now, when I don't visit the live music scene anymore. Tashlich, Havdalah, and Shabbat services are usually the most fun I manage to have all year.

Along with having a small outside life, I usually have the predicament of scheduling annual leave (vacation time) throughout the year, but, still, I postpone it until my Use-or-Lose time becomes a problem. This year, I managed to schedule time off for Passover and the High Holy Days already, but I still had lots of time left over that I didn't finish scheduling until earlier this month. I settled on one-day-long holidays every week for the rest of the year, starting tomorrow. My way of commemorating the holiday this time is to donate platelets tomorrow morning, and then see where the day takes me from there.

I played my iTunes copy of Sozin's Comet again, but this time I copied down what the spiritual lion-turtle was saying to Aang. Now I need to figure out what it all means.

Lion-Turtle: The true mind can weather all the lies and illusions without being lost. The true heart can tough the poison of hatred without being harmed. Since beginningless time, darkness thrives in the void, but always yields to purified light.

In the chapter The Guru (near the end of Book Two: Earth), the chakra system was briefly explained to me. Afterwards, I went looking for more information on the chakra system. Now, here comes another guru describing what seems like a way to circumvent the chakra system. Instead of having seven pools of energy, enlightenment could be sought from merely two points, as long as they were "true". What would constitute a true mind and a true heart?

Lion-Turtle: In the era before the avatar, we bend not the elements but the energy within ourselves. To bend another's energy, your own spirit must be unbendable, or you will be corrupted and destroyed.

Does this mean that, if Aang practices this energy bending, he could recruit volunteers to become airbenders and rebuild the Air Nomads? I find that idea fascinating.