Tuesday, November 30, 2010

boycott bluefin tuna

A US environmental group on Tuesday urged consumers to boycott bluefin tuna after a conference of major fishing nations left the eastern Atlantic catch largely unchanged.

The Center for Biological Diversity launched a campaign asking people to sign a pledge not to eat bluefin tuna or to patronize restaurants, among them some of the ritziest sushi joints in the United States, that serve the fish.

- AFP via Yahoo News

Maguro in sushi restaurants is decimating this species.  Please stop ordering it!

Monday, November 29, 2010

the more love we give, the more we receive

Our highest power is love, and it is one thing each of us has an unlimited amount of. How much love do you give to others in one day? Each day we have an opportunity to set out with this great, unlimited power in our possession, and pour it over every person and circumstance.

Love is appreciating, complimenting, feeling gratitude, and speaking good words to others.

We have so much love to give, and the more that we give, the more we receive.

- lessons from The Secret

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

40th birthday memories (3)

Sunday, Nov. 21. Began with the Breakfast of Champions...
Micheladas (beer with tomato juice, Lea & Perrins, lime, salt, and pepper sauce) for hangover relief!

Sunday evening. First, the Universe gave us the most spectacular moonrise! Then, Jim showed up with cool party lights that were the perfect touch to the evening! The photos are amazing...
Thanks for the magic, Universe and Jim!

We wrapped up the weekend with a beautiful dinner. This birthday was definitely well and thoroughly celebrated! What awesome love, fun, and friendship!

Lordy, Lordy! Ana Isabel, Davinci, and Hugo are forty!

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

quote of the day

Always say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is? What could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say “yes” to life — and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.

- Eckhart Tolle

40th birthday memories (2)

Saturday, Nov. 20. Sunset Cocktails and Full Moon Party at Paya Bay...
Hugo, Ana, Bertha, and Davinci.

Mom hugs her two children! (Ana's part of our family).

A beautiful full moon was rising as we took these photos!

Feel Good, Be Happy people!

Love, love, love!

Susanna's energy is indescribable. She's a magical woman!

What can you say? Lot's of love, beauty, and magic all around! Just the way we like it!

Monday, November 22, 2010

deposit some joy

Every day, or at the very least once or twice a week, take a few minutes and focus on seeing yourself in joy. Feel yourself in joy. Imagine only joy ahead in your life and see yourself basking in it. As you do this the Universe will move all people, circumstances, and events to bring you that joy. You can't be in joy if you have money worries, or health worries, or relationship problems with friends or family. So deposit some joy in the bank of the Universe as often as you can. There isn't an investment that is more worthwhile.

- lessons from The Secret

Sunday, November 21, 2010

40th birthday memories

What an AMAZING WEEKEND we've had!

Friday, 5PM. Friends arrive from La Ceiba. A welcome tailgate party in the airport parking lot was a great way to get things rolling...

Friday, 7 PM. ...Which evolved into a blissful evening of partying and bar-hopping in West End. Here Susanna aptly expresses the sentiment of the weekend!...

Friday, ??PM. There were moments like this...

... and moments like this...

 ... and this...

Thursday, November 18, 2010

presents!

I LOVE presents!

Margaret and Peter you guys are beyond words! Loving, sweet, kind, thoughtful, and wonderful are words that just barely begin to describe you. Thank you so much for the gifts and the beautiful energy you share with me. Much love to you, my friends.

D.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Monday, November 15, 2010

forty and holding the future in my hand

I turn 40 this coming Friday, November 19th... AND MAN, WHAT A SPECTACULAR RIDE IT'S BEEN! The people! The experiences! The places! The beauty! The emotions! The lessons! The knowledge! The courage! The accomplishments! The moments! The thrills! The pleasure! The pain! The wisdom! The feelings! The scents! The flavors! The textures! The colors! The sounds! And - most of all - ALL THE LOVE! And to think this mind-blowing Life I've experienced up to this point has just been preparation for D's Life - Part 2.  Which, of course, is just going to be that much more fabulous and that much more amazing! I know this because I follow the Path of Truth, which leads ever upward, and ever outward.

the server of the universe

Imagine writing an email of what you want to the Universe. When you are happy that your email is very clear, you hit "Send" and you know your request has gone into the ethers. You also know that the Server of the Universe is an automatic system, and it doesn't question email requests. Its job is simply to fulfil every request.

If you begin to worry and stress that you haven't got what you wanted, then you have just sent another email to the Universe to stop your order. And then you wonder why you haven't received what you asked for.

Once you Ask, know that the Server of the Universe is an automatic infallible system that never fails, and expect to receive your request!

- lessons from The Secret

Sunday, November 14, 2010

quote of the day

Accept - then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it.

- Eckhart Tolle

Friday, November 12, 2010

happy herbs

The organic herb garden at Paya Bay has been loving the recent rains! Happy herbs means great flavors from our kitchen.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

honduran poverty in the latin american/caribbean context (2)

Gallup Question: Do you currently have a job or work, either paid or unpaid?
  • Only 26% of Hondurans responded 'yes' to this question. It's the lowest percentage for all Latin America and the Caribbean. No other country even comes close. A shocking statistic!
  • The other end of the spectrum: Paraguay (60% said 'yes'), Bolivia (55%), Trinidad (53%), Brazil (52%), Argentina (52%).
Source: Gallup Worldview 

This helps explain why people are the biggest export of Honduras. 25,000 Hondurans who illegally entered the United States were deported in 2009 (this number of deports probably only represents 25-33% of the ones who "made it.")  While the U.S. is the destination of choice of most emigrating Hondurans, many others move to Canada, Spain, Mexico, and other Central, South American, and European countries. One of the government's marketing campaigns refers to Honduras as "The Heart of the Americas." If one can imagine these pulsing streams of people constantly leaving the country's territory in northerly and southerly directions, the metaphor becomes that more vivid.

Is there an upside to this? Maybe. El Salvador and, to a lesser degree, Guatemala were scenes of a similar massive migrations of their people in the 1980s (escaping their countries' agonizing civil wars.)  Today, the remesas (hard currency transfers) from the Salvadoran and Guatemalan diasporas supply a vital lifeline of economic stimulus that continually invigorates their economies. The same phenomenon is already happening in Honduras, where remesas from North America, Europe, and elsewhere already play a key role in maintaining economic and social stability.

    the spirit of paya

    A view from the new Sky Trail. Paya Bay Resort, Roatan, Honduras.

    Photo: Williams Perera of worldphotographystudio.com

    Monday, November 8, 2010

    feel good now

    Whether you know it or not, today you are placing an order for your tomorrows from the catalogue of the Universe. Your predominant thoughts and feelings today are creating a frequency that is automatically determining your life tomorrow.

    Feel good now and for the rest of the day, and make your tomorrows magnificent.

    - lessons from The Secret
     

    Sunday, November 7, 2010

    honduran poverty in the latin american/caribbean context

    Most people are aware that Honduras is considered a "poor country." What exactly does that mean? How does it translate into the day-to-day lives of 8 million Honduran people? I thought I would make use of some of the graphs and data in Gallup's Worldview to help reveal the Honduran reality in the context of the rest of Latin American and Caribbean states. The data is from 2009.

    Gallup Question: Has there been times in the last 12 months when you have not had enough money to buy food you or your family needed?
    • Honduras: 51% responded 'Yes.'
    • Other countries with similar response rates are Nicaragua (49%), Dominican Republic (55%), Haiti (60%), Ecuador (58%), and Peru (46%).
    • The other end of the spectrum: Brazil (20%), Uruguay (20%), Argentina (24%), and Costa Rica (23%).
    Source: Gallup Worldview

    killer sushi

    The craze for sushi has fueled a black market in tuna worth billions of dollars, as governments collaborate with the industry despite fears for the species' survival, an investigation found. A seven-month probe by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists found that fishermen have willfully violated official quotas in order to supply the lucrative tuna market, which is dominated by Japan. The investigation covered 10 nations but found particular violations in France, where it said the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries has joined forces with the tuna industry to doctor catch numbers. "Everyone cheated," said Roger Del Ponte, one of the six French fishing captains facing criminal charges. "It's like driving down the road. If I know there are no police, I'm going to speed," he said in the report.

    Tuna black market worth billions of dollars, AFP

    Disgusting. Sickening. In addition to the obvious greed, what else is wrong with these people? What about future generations? I say boycott the sushi industry until it gets its act together. No stakeholder sends a stronger message than the collective end consumer.

    photo of the day

    Glorious morning sunlight awakens Secret Cove, Paya Bay Resort, Roatan, Honduras.

    Photo: Williams Perera of worldphotographystudio.com

    what we don't know

    Astronomers scouring the heavens with powerful telescopes can see objects that are billions of trillions of miles away. These observations have proven essential to piecing together a fairly refined picture of the history and evolution of the cosmos. Nevertheless, a gaping hole remains in our understanding of a basic question: What is the universe made of? For more than 100 years we’ve known about atoms, and over the past century or so we’ve gone further and identified atomic constituents like electrons and quarks, as well as their exotic cousins - neutrinos, muons, and the like. But there is now convincing evidence that these ingredients are a cosmic afterthought. Current data shows that if you weighed everything in existence, these familiar particles would amount to about 5 percent of the total. Most of the universe is composed of other stuff, which, with all of science’s deep insights, we’ve yet to identify.

    - John Hodgman, Wired Magazine

    This article also discusses other unknowns: What’s at Earth’s Core? Is time an illusion? How does a fertilized egg become a human? Etc. It's very interesting that despite the massive amount of scientific research and investigation that has occurred (starting with the Scientific Revolution in the 16th and 17th centuries, but particularly in the last 300 years) there is still a lot we don't know. Then, of course, there is the stuff we don't know that we don't know, the unknown unknowns.

    Friday, November 5, 2010

    quote of the day

    Life is the dancer and you are the dance.

    - Eckhart Tolle

    Wrap your mind around that one.

    Update. An Atlanta friend responded thus:
    Five-Six-Seven-Eight !! Hop-Shuffle-Step, Fl-LAP, Ball-Change !!

    I love it!

    Thursday, November 4, 2010

    the spirit of paya

    A guest relaxes and enjoys the sea breeze in a colorful hammock on the Main Deck, Paya Bay Resort, Roatan, Honduras.

    Photo: Williams Perera of worldphotographystudio.com

    quote of the day

    Time isn’t precious at all, because it is an illusion. What you perceive as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the Now. That is precious indeed. The more you are focused on time—past and future—the more you miss the Now, the most precious thing there is.

    - Eckhart Tolle

    Wednesday, November 3, 2010

    online booking

    We've teamed up with online hotel distributor Reconline AG of Switzerland to offer online booking of Paya Bay Resort's vacation products. We're testing the system using our popular Rest & Relaxation Vacation Packages. Reconline will also distribute Paya's room inventory via the GDS (Global Distribution System), the database that travel agents around the world tap into. This is a big step for us!

    Ever upward, ever outward!

    Tuesday, November 2, 2010

    quote of the day

    Human happiness and human satisfaction must ultimately come from within oneself.

    - Dalai Lama

    sunsets at paya

    An incredible sunset from Shell Beach (this little beach is located in an area of the property known as "Hollywood"). The western end of Rock Island (yeah, we even have our own little island!) can be seen to the right. Paya Bay Resort, Roatan, Honduras.

    Photo: Williams Perera of worldphotographystudio.com

    Monday, November 1, 2010

    improving your happiness

    I came across the following 'guidelines for improving happiness' in this interesting article. I happily realized that I'm already applying many of these practices in my own life.

    • Make the journey more important than the destination. Daily steps are more important than the grand arrival. Goals, therefore, are valuable in the opposite way they are often used, not to make sure we get to some specific place but to plot the journey. The nineteenth century French philosopher Alain noted: “A man is occupied by that from which he expects to gain happiness, but his greatest happiness is the fact that he is occupied.” Anything, no matter how small, that can improve the journey – a better cup of coffee in the morning, a more interesting route to drive home at night – is likely to bring the greatest amount of happiness to each day. So remember to reward (your kids, your employees, yourself) for undertaking the process as much as for the completion of the goal.

    • Develop good relationships. Daniel Goleman's most recent book Social Intelligence points out how we humans are made to interact with others and to feel good because of those interactions. Getting to know the people at the office and building those and other relationships will only add to your sense of satisfaction.

    • Put things in perspective. Acknowledge the bigger picture and concentrate on the positive aspects of your situation. Yes, your car is a junker and needs to be replaced, but thankfully you have the means to do that.

    naturism in the press

    In recorded history there have always been societies, such as the Romans, that embraced nudity and those that abhorred it—think of the Victorians. The Greeks were big on doffing their togas. The Olympics were nude events—gymnos means nude, so gymnasiums were places of nude exercise. Given America's Puritan origins, we have never embraced social nudity as easily as the Europeans. Still, some notable Americans would have been happy campers at [the nudist camp]. Ben Franklin and Henry David Thoreau both advocated the benefits of naked "air baths," reports the Southern California Naturalist Association. Before there was a Secret Service to put a damper on such frolics, President John Quincy Adams regularly bathed nude in the Potomac.

    - "My vacation at a nudist camp," Emily Yoffe, Slate Magazine (read the comments, too)

    To learn more about naturism at Paya Bay Resort, click here.