The Guardian for this meeting was Eos Amaterasu. The comments are by Eos Amaterasu.

Eos Amaterasu: Hi Storm
Storm Nordwind: Hi Eos

--BELL--

Eos Amaterasu: That's a beautiful and powerful Avalokiteshvara in your metta-karuna space!
Storm Nordwind: Yes. Thousand armed form. A wedding gift from friends.
Storm Nordwind: It is also the centerpiece of our altar at home.
Eos Amaterasu: (eos handed storm a Padmapani Lokeshvara texture)
Storm Nordwind: Nice - thank you!
Eos Amaterasu: for several hundred years there was a strong Lokeshvara following all over SE Asia
Eos Amaterasu: maybe longer
Eos Amaterasu: That statue is from around 800 AD, in Swat Valley
Eos Amaterasu: a favorite
Storm Nordwind: Very nice.
Eos Amaterasu: a counterpart to Rodin's Thinker
Eos Amaterasu: :-)
Eos Amaterasu: and very simple
Storm Nordwind: haha
Eos Amaterasu: He has his finger pointed back at himself (him, not a her so much yet)
Eos Amaterasu: to observe the observer....

Storm Nordwind: Lokeshvara is the name that Amitabha wanted me to use for Avalokiteshvara/Chenrezig/Kuan Yin
Eos Amaterasu: Hi Ewan
Storm Nordwind: I hadn't heard it before.
Storm Nordwind: Of course it is quite common it seems, at least once
Eos Amaterasu: When was that?
Storm Nordwind: When? In the last few months.
Storm Nordwind checks the date and finds it as November 17th last year
Eos Amaterasu: hmm!
Eos Amaterasu: "once you discover the management, the only thing is to go work for it"
Eos Amaterasu: - Wavey Gravey
Storm Nordwind: haha - yes!
Storm Nordwind: So true. No messing around then!

Eos Amaterasu: Hi Raffie!
Ewan Bonham: Hi Raffle..
Storm Nordwind: Hi Raffie, Ewan
Eos Amaterasu: We're waiting for people to finally say truth
Raffila Millgrove: hi everyone . i am few minutes late cause i was screwing about admiring this fab scale that Storm scripted for me. i am so exicted. it came out Perfect. Ty so much Storm.
Storm Nordwind smiles broadly
Eos Amaterasu: scale?
Raffila Millgrove: hehe. oh you're waiting for people to say the truth? Well, Storm's a very talented, generous person. There's a truth.
Eos Amaterasu: me and Diogenes :-)
Storm Nordwind: You're very kind to say so Raffie. :)
Raffila Millgrove: scale--medical scale.. couldn't find the one i wanted. made one.. and Storm script the way i wanted.. so i am thrilled.
Eos Amaterasu: cool
Storm Nordwind: It's a nice build. Very in keeping.
Raffila Millgrove: ty. i fuss on it a lot. it is so exciting to build when it comes out the way you'd envisioned.
Storm Nordwind: Very true. Though an artist knows when (eventually) to leave alone!
Raffila Millgrove: hehe. I wanted to be PIcasso or Proust. it was kinda hard to accept that i couldn't be that good, so i tended not to want to build as I couldn't be "the best" but i got pretty good so i am glad i didn't quit trying to learn it.
Ewan Bonham: Hmmm..and maybe 'pretty good' is a perfect mind...:)
Eos Amaterasu: 90 secs approaching : drop (or build) your scripts!

--BELL--

Storm Nordwind: Being the best at any one thing is very hard. And very time consuming. And you don't get to do anything else. I'm happy instead to be second best (or "pretty good") in a whole bunch of things. So much more fun!
Raffila Millgrove: wow is that true.
Ewan Bonham: Nodding yes...:)
Eos Amaterasu: few people are as cool about it as Roger Federer
Eos Amaterasu: even bestness is transitory
Raffila Millgrove: my criteria on what to try.. when you know it's not going to be tops.. is if you enjoy.. if doing your best.. and you enjoy the process--then.. i say go for it. but if you're going to suffer your way thru.. better to skip it.
Storm Nordwind: Quite so! People used to ask me how I was (apparently to them) into so many things. Aprt from not watching TV for years, I think the answer was I wasn't afraid to take risks and fail. The things I didn't fail at I got good at and enjoyed.
Eos Amaterasu: "fail often, fail early"
Storm Nordwind nods
Storm Nordwind: And very often, move on. Rinse and repeat.
Raffila Millgrove: dunno if you have children. but a tip.. they always have to do these projects for school that involve art.. supplies Buy the best materials you can afford cause it makes a difference in success of final project.
Storm Nordwind: Good tip. But I'm an old man Raffie. My kids are all in their 30s!
Raffila Millgrove: ah. well.. maybe you can use on grandchildren.
Raffila Millgrove: i don't have any yet.
Raffila Millgrove: i am waiting.
Storm Nordwind: 4000 miles is a long way to send materials! ;-)
Raffila Millgrove: oh no. it's a great gift thing.. for xmas.. to send some really good brushes.
Raffila Millgrove: or birthday or whatever holiday come along.
Storm Nordwind: Indeed. My wife's a professional artist, so she could give me some hints.
Raffila Millgrove: oh totally.
Raffila Millgrove: like send a littlle package of Make your Own valentines.. that's a great idea.
Storm Nordwind: Same goes with cooking. Never stint on ingredients. :)
Raffila Millgrove: yes. best quality for anything you make.. helps in outcome.
Eos Amaterasu: what makes for quality?
Raffila Millgrove: well in food. you want fresh of course.. and if it's balsamic vinegar.. don't say.. oh apple will work cause it sure will not.
Raffila Millgrove: this is in working with kids i mean.. to help them get best outcome.
Eos Amaterasu: we are such discriminating beings!
Eos Amaterasu: the Padma realm (speaking of Amitabha and Lokeshvara....)
Raffila Millgrove: later when they get better .. they should experiment and do whatever they think might work.
Raffila Millgrove: as cooking is so.. flexible and fun to experiment in it.
Raffila Millgrove: what is the Padma realm Eos? how does it apply here?
Eos Amaterasu: Padma (lotus) as term often used to designate the realm of passion, discrimination, discriminating awareness wisdom
Eos Amaterasu: tastes, sounds.... doing provocative things with those
Eos Amaterasu: (this in northern buddhist traditions)
Raffila Millgrove: ah. so. in cooking.. you would be flexible and having fun.. this would put you in a padma realm?
Eos Amaterasu: yes, delighting in things
Raffila Millgrove: oh good! i spend a lot of time there.. now i know what to call that. being in the Padma realm. ty.
Eos Amaterasu: still wondering about quality
Eos Amaterasu: will feel the quality of upcoming 90 secs

--BELL--

Raffila Millgrove: ok. well i mention the brushes... if you use a real cheap art brush. you cannot control your paint.. you end up with making messes that wouldn't have happened if you had the brush suited to task. it tends to be more expensive to get right brush.. the quality isn't based in price--as much as in the workmanship of the tool. Good tools. need good tools for work you are proud of.
Storm Nordwind: Yes. When something does its job and you don't have to compensate with anything else, that can be quality of material or ingredient or tool.
Eos Amaterasu: Little reading present: http://c2.com/cgi/wiki?QwanYin
Eos Amaterasu: re QWAN : Quality Without A Name (Christopher Alexander)
Storm Nordwind: The programmer's buddha!
Raffila Millgrove: heh. is that great or what! ty Eos.
Eos Amaterasu: "If a man is surrounded by wild PointyHairedBosses whose blunt intellect and memos are to be dreaded, let his thought dwell on the power of QwanYin, and they will quickly run away in all directions."
Raffila Millgrove: that was my favorite line too!
Raffila Millgrove: this goddess. she is a boddistiva.. like a minor buddha? you could meditate on her? does she hear you.. could you pray to her too?
Storm Nordwind: Many questions there!
Storm Nordwind: :)
Raffila Millgrove: well obviously i don't know very much on this and it's very interesting.. and Eos seem to know a lot.
Storm Nordwind: To some she is a goddess. To some she is a bodhisatva. But I revere her as a close friend... and as a buddha
Raffila Millgrove: close friend. you mean your close friend. or a close friend to the big Buddha?
Storm Nordwind: She/he is a personal close friend.
Raffila Millgrove: really? gosh. what a beautiful woman to have as a friend compassionate and very pretty too
Eos Amaterasu: also carries lots of tools :-)
Storm Nordwind: She is very beautiful... but she was only popularly cloaked in female form for the first time around 1000 years ago. Before that, she was a he. With many names in different countries.
Eos Amaterasu: she has a different instrument or tool in each hand, to help in a particular way, and in some forms has thousands of hands
Eos Amaterasu: as many as there are situations :-)
Eos Amaterasu: that's the way to be, eh?
Raffila Millgrove: ah.
Storm Nordwind: In my little temple on my guardian plot, there is a statue of her in male form. On my land 250m to the west, there are many female form statues.
Raffila Millgrove: oh so for you.. she is a fluid gender.
Storm Nordwind: He still is known as Avalokiteshvara in India, and Chenrezig in Tibet. And was Kuan Yin as a male at first in China.
Storm Nordwind: You may even own a piece of electronic equipment named after her!
Eos Amaterasu: heh heh
Ewan Bonham: Yes, now the name is familiar..
Ewan Bonham: Had a staue that actually produced tears..
Eos Amaterasu: in you?
Raffila Millgrove has to wait for it to come....as she doesn't know which piece of electronic equipment they are referring to...

--BELL--

Storm Nordwind: There was a Japanese company that named their first ever product after her. When that was successful, they named their entire company after that first product... (I'm such a tease ;-)
Storm Nordwind: That was in the 1930s.
Storm Nordwind: They named it after Kannon - the Japanese name for Kuan Yin.
Storm Nordwind: And in the 40s changed the name to Canon.
Raffila Millgrove lets out sigh of relief as she looks at her Canon printer.
Storm Nordwind chuckles
Raffila Millgrove: what was their first product. was it a camera?
Eos Amaterasu: Raffie must now see Canon with different eyes
Storm Nordwind: yes it was a 35mm camera
Raffila Millgrove: in Japan... they have a Fuji museum in Tokyo.. it's phenomenal.. see if if you visit there. they also have super photo exhibits.
Storm Nordwind: Ah... so many things to do in Japan. But my visits were paid for by others. I doubt I shall return there.
Raffila Millgrove: no?
Raffila Millgrove: i have an excuse to go because my daughter lives there.
Storm Nordwind: How wonderful!
Storm Nordwind: I do have friends there.
Storm Nordwind: There is a Kira Japan... a bustling offshoot of Kira, of which PaB is a project.
Storm Nordwind: And I still remember visiting Sensoji.
Storm Nordwind: But finances do not allow in the near future at least.
Raffila Millgrove: is Sensoji.. a temple?
Storm Nordwind: Yes. A Kannon temple :)
Raffila Millgrove: where is it? i send my girl to see it and photo for me... if it's near Tokyo..?
Storm Nordwind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sensoji
Storm Nordwind: Asakusa
Raffila Millgrove: oh of course.
Eos Amaterasu: She should use a Canon, of course
Raffila Millgrove: i went there many times.
Storm Nordwind chuckles
Raffila Millgrove: i didn't realize i was ... seeing the Kannon.
Raffila Millgrove: i was there last on Buddha's birthday. wow... what a crowd and so much excitement.
Storm Nordwind: Wherever she is venerated, people tend to do so with immense love and enthusiasm, building huge buildings or 100ft statues of her!
Raffila Millgrove: so.. in celebrating Buddha's birthday... were they honoring her too.. as you say you think of her as Buddha?
Storm Nordwind: I cannot answer that question for others. There are many buddhas. The one known by many as The Buddha is Buddha Shakyamuni (or one of several other names).
Raffila Millgrove: coming from a tradition of one god, it's a bit confusing to the layman to follow this plethora of major/minor buddhas. and different names. but it's good to learn more.
Storm Nordwind: That's understandable, yes. I come from a tradition that recognizes many gods... and also now many buddhas! ;-)
Eos Amaterasu: probably the quality without a name that is in many things has something to do with that
Raffila Millgrove: well we have to contend with a Trinity in most Christian faiths. and who is the Holy Spirit is usually problem since they didn't get give that ghost or spirit a gender.
Storm Nordwind: Ah... yes I remember those problems from my schooldays.
Raffila Millgrove: yes. average person just does not want to explain what is the HOly Spirit. they have no idea.

--BELL--

Eos Amaterasu: the holy spirit can fill males and females alike
Eos Amaterasu: Well, thank you Storm and Raffie and Ewan, good night!
Storm Nordwind: Bye Eos!
Raffila Millgrove: Oh the time flies. I see you rise Eos. Good night. i must dash too. bye Storm and Ewan.
Ewan Bonham: Thank you...night Eos..
Storm Nordwind: A crucial point about buddhas is that it is something one can, in time, become oneself. And to become so out of compassion to help others.
Storm Nordwind: But more another time, perhaps!
Ewan Bonham: Night Raffi
Raffila Millgrove: wow yes. i do want to hear more Storm! save for later, hugs...
Storm Nordwind waves
Storm Nordwind: Bye!