Wood Floor Pro

Wake-Up Calls

2009-10-14T08:34:00.000-07:00

My problem was, I wasn’t listening when God called the first time. Truth is, I’m not listening way too much of the time. I’m so involved doing whatever it is I’m doing to remember to listen when God calls. If you’re like me, the only time I’m absolutely sure to be listening is when I’ve got one of those life changing events going on.

Sooner or later we all get one of those spiritual wake-up calls. What do we do with it? Do we even recognize it as our chance to change things…to make something of ourselves or to avoid making a big mistake? All too often we keep on doing whatever it is we think we’re doing without bothering to listen. By that I mean, we do what we think we have to do to keep from changing too much from our original tack. It’s our life, right? God won’t interfere with free will. What we do with ourselves is our business. Change can be really scary.

As it turns out – God really doesn’t give much of hoot one way or another what we do or when we do it, especially if we’re not interfering in somebody else’s space. Sooner or later, we’ll all come around. It’s only a matter of time – or rather, pain. As it turns out, pain is God’s great “fixer”. It’s how we learn best. The way I see it, we’re all here to learn and that’s why God created pain. God knows how much pain hurts us. So why pain, if it weren’t the best way for us to fix ourselves?

Free will and pain go hand-in-hand. Sooner or later after lots of lifetimes we finally start putting it together. You don’t have to beat us over the head…well, maybe so. In truth, most of us have to take a real licking before we listen up. Worse yet, when we finally do listen and learn, we have a nasty habit of back sliding again and again and again. If we learned from our mistakes the first time, that would take a miracle. But no, usually we have to learn, then make the same mistake again and learn again. We keep making the same mistakes so often we get calluses on our calluses. Some of us make the same mistake so often we make an absolute spectacle of ourselves. But that’s another story. God knows we need an infinite amount of patience to listen and learn for good. Imagine how much patience it takes for God to put up with us.

Patience you see is one of the next big things God is trying to help us understand about ourselves. We need to exercise patience in ourselves and in other people as well as all other life forms (Souls) throughout all of God’s creation. Along with patience comes tolerance and compassion. More on this later.

Our capacity to feel and express unconditional love is constantly expanding in all of us. As our capacity to give and accept love expands, so does the macrocosm. It’s always expanding. When God created that spark that is life, it caused the macrocosm to start expanding. It’s been expanding ever since and will continue expanding infinitely into infinity.

Soul exists because God loves it. So as Soul grows in its capacity to love, so grows the worlds of God. It’s a never ending story. Sure there are peaks and valleys. All things down here in the worlds of creation are pro tempore. They’re periodically destroyed and recreated. But out there…or more correctly…in here, in the pure worlds of God, things don’t exist, like our minds. Our minds are simply another creation in the worlds of matter. Placing our attention outside (or inside) the worlds of matter and in the pure worlds of God, our consciousness is not impeded by limitations. We are free to move about, loving, caring and experiencing all things real and each other as SOUL…as PURE FREE SPIRIT.

To quote a great spiritual master and compassionate healer, Kata Daki: “I gave my heart to God long ago and I haven’t taken it back.”

Don Bollinger

Viewpoint & Soul Traveling

2009-09-01T07:45:00.000-07:00

Most folks pay little if any attention to their viewpoints about things. It’s more common to believe that our viewpoints are created by the words or actions of others rather than our viewpoints being at the root of cause.

We are each our own architect. We are for whom the bell tolls. By attaching blame, we play a game of flim flam with ourselves…a cruel, ageless and pitifully painful process that must be continuously overcome if we are to extract ourselves from the eternal turning of the wheel.

To change our viewpoint, it would be well to understand more of its meaning.

Our viewpoints can expound to all those around us, our family, friends, co-workers and acquaintances, who and what we are. Our viewpoints can direct our thoughts, our words and our actions. To the skillful controller, our viewpoints can be turned against us. They can be used to encourage us to think, say or act in a certain manner supportive of or in opposition to an opponent’s position.

Many believe their “views” say a lot about them. I say, having views about things, says a lot about them. The stronger their views, the more it says.

Having a viewpoint is similar to taking a snapshot. We take a picture of ourselves, another person or a thing or of a set of circumstances as we perceive them. It’s not unlike pulling over at a mountain road lookout and stopping to take a look at what’s beyond. We evaluate who, what and where we are by perceiving what surrounds us. This gives us perspective, some measure of where we’ve been and where we might go. Most of all, it affords us some perception of where we are on our path through life.

Perception is a variation of viewpoint. By changing our perception, our viewpoint changes with it. An open perception accommodates an uncluttered or clearer viewpoint. Messages move like emails with few or no attachments.

Most must perceive something before being able to form a viewpoint about it. To form a viewpoint about something which we cannot perceive tends to baffle the mind.

And so it is with Soul Travel. We can look out and beyond, but without perception, we can usually form very little understanding of it. Soul Travel, like our dreams, means little until we can establish ourselves there consciously. Learning to become aware of ourselves in our dreams can help us learn to Soul Travel. By becoming more conscious of consciousness, we can know ourselves better in our dreams and in our Soul Travels.

If you would like a snapshot of who and what you are…look to your viewpoints.

Caution should be exercised as constantly measuring and analyzing ourselves as some do, can be extremely counterproductive. Insightfulness is one thing but studying ourselves and constantly challenging our shortcomings in attempts toward improving who and what we are, is quite another.

We’re all here as indispensible and entirely unique aspects of our creator. What we have to offer each other and to God is wholly our own and unique throughout all the worlds of God or the entire macrocosm. Our essence is without measure, an unconditional spark of the infinite and all mighty.

We can learn who and what we are, by direct experience, traveling throughout the ethers and beyond. By direct first hand experience we know, not just imagine. Still, imagination is a great starting point. But first, we must choose. We must choose to know and choose to go. We can choose by taking that first step…then another…and another. Eventually we become fluid in all the worlds of God.

The biggest hurdle for many is fear. Like it or not, most of us fear the unknown. Indeed, to all but a few, the unknown is synonymous with fear. Is it any wonder we are so shy of change? When we embrace change, when we accept it as inevitable and an affirmative outcome of all our decisions, our very spirit changes and we begin the process of acceptance becoming one with ourselves.

DB

Recall

2009-07-23T10:19:00.000-07:00

The subject of responsibility came up recently in an email communiqué with an old soul mate. You know, one of those long time partners of life’s adventures that spans epochs of existence. Soul is ageless, beyond the reach of mind and memory – corporeal memory that is. Soul has its own unique form of remembrance. Mostly unaffected by time except through association with other life forms, Soul is free to create, to be. Sometimes we forget that. Just like we occasionally forget who we are and what we’re doing here.

My old friend’s words conjured up recollections of a lifetime long past where we shared a mutual respect for each other in another form. We watched each other’s backs in an age of greater necessity. Our mutual respect and responsibility for one another helped pull us both through on more than one difficult occasion. To quote my friend, “someone you’d choose to help you get down the river.”

Life’s adventures with a clear unfettered mind and an open heart fluently translate challenges into excitement and can fashion wholesale seasons of fun. It makes mundane magical and freeform. Everything comes more effortlessly as life evolves in meaningful expressions.

Becoming the best at who you are takes hard work, diligent thorough attentive and honest puissance, ever mindful of your goal – improving each day in every way. If you truly seek that which you love, you’ll feel no real toil in what you do. Every effort is from the heart. There’s exquisite artistry for all to see in all you do.

Don Bollinger

The World Is Full of Victims

2009-06-25T11:23:00.000-07:00

For years I wandered around drinking myself silly and feeling sorry for poor little ole me.

The world is full of victims. What we are is what we choose to be. We're our own architect. We're the sum total of our every thought, our every word, our every action, every moment we been alive.

Life has lots of followers and a few good leaders but precious few truly superlative teachers.

We’re all here to help each other. Like it or not, we’re all students and teachers. We’re here for one another as much as for ourselves.

Learning to accept others is part of the plan. We can fight it or we can allow it. It’s up to us…everything is.

At the end of the day the sun sets. But it will rise again and so will we.

We have a choice. We can choose to learn and rise above…or not.

Only time separates our knowledge of who and what we are. As time unfolds, so do we…wiser and more aware of who and what we really are.

On thing rises (exists) above all else. It’s what all life seeks in all its different ways. When everything is spent…when all is tried and failed…when we finally give up, give in and allow...there is love…waiting for us. It’s been there all the time, patient and caring, expecting us at any moment to accept who we really are. It will happen. It’s only a matter of time. Love can wait us out.

Don

One Act of Kindness

2009-06-02T13:50:00.000-07:00

Among my many treasured friends are some from counties often called “under developed”. Still, the love I sense from many of them cannot be described as anything less than highly spiritually evolved.

I find it intriguing how advanced we sometimes see ourselves in our so-called “highly developed” or “technologically advanced” parts of the world, when there are so many “under developed” or “less civilized” cultures where it is considered a very serious infraction or breech of behavior to know about something good or be aware that something exists that could potentially benefit something or some one and NOT tell them about it or make them aware of it somehow.

It’s easy these days to get caught up in the act of self preservation. When times are tough, everything in life seems more difficult. All the things we think we need for survival run low or suddenly seem in short supply. We hold on firmly to “THINGS”, not sure why. Yet in many countries where self-preservation is always day-to-day, serving and protecting abounds.

To the anxious mind, the plate is full. The more we focus, the more it grows. Only fear may be gathered from the anxious mind. Nothing can be added to a plate that’s full, it simply falls away.

Many of us focus on ourselves, less and less on others…even to those closest. It’s not that we no longer care…of course we do. We just have a whole lot on our minds. It’s so much easier to give when we have more, than when we have less.

There is an old saying: “Those that share without thinking, receive without asking.”

Planning = Planning
Beginning = Beginning
Thinking About Doing = Thinking About Doing
Doing = Doing
For me, as always = It is what it is

DB

Balance

2009-05-18T06:52:00.000-07:00

There is an old saying: “As above, so below”

Everything has a reason – everything.

Everything is in balance. Nothing is where it is not suppose to be.

Every disease has a cure, every right, a wrong.

For every thing, there is an equal and opposite, including thoughts, words and actions…everything.

Without opposites for comparison, we have difficulty understanding limits or defining things. Without limits, most of us are like loose cannons, a danger to ourselves and others.

When we wander outside the realm of balance, we look at things as if they are wrong or don’t belong.

When we form an opinion for or against a thing or someone, we create a bond with it, attached to the discovery of the truth of it.

Time and space separates all things. Without (beyond) time and space there are no limits. The mind exists within time and space. The mind has great difficulty grasping existence outside of time and space. The mind naturally assumes there can be no existence outside the realm of time and space.

The answer is always in surrender. To become one with yourself is to let go and allow. Once you are free from the grip of holding on, you realize the perfection of the moment. The answer always exists in the problem. The beginning and ending co-exist with only the illusion of time separating them.

To find the truth of yourself, you need only look at yourself with the eyes of a child.

A Child of God Living on the Razor's Edge

2009-02-27T09:11:00.000-08:00

More than ever now, I truly feel like a child of God living on the Razor’s Edge.

With all the economic woes going around these days, it boosts my spirits to see the compassion arising from the ever expanding hearts of so many. We’re all children of God – each and every creature. We need only look into the eyes of another living thing to see God staring back at us. Recognizing the loving spirit there that sustains us and all life everywhere, grips the humble heart at once with honest empathy.

The troubles of countless souls, just like me, created out of greed, ignorance and neglect, have come to collect in part or in full. The spiritual cleansing taking place these days is like a giant wind, refreshing and purifying the stale air we’ve all collected here. Still, what pains the heart ultimately encourages compassion, sensitivity and kindness.

Now each moment swells with loving gestures, blossoming souls fill the brave new air with welcome and engaging indulgence. It’s with a truly grateful heart that I surrender to the will of spirit allowing it to carry me where I need to be. I for one am happy in the moment living on the razor’s edge.

Don Bollinger

So, What Is Truth?

2009-02-11T12:30:00.000-08:00

The truth is not simple, nor is it complicated.

The truth isn’t ugly or beautiful.

The truth is neither good nor bad.

It isn’t hard or easy.

The truth is not profound or weighty,
but neither is it superfluous or unnecessary

The Truth just is.

The Truth is what WE perceive it is.

The Truth is what EACH OF US perceives it to be

+*/d1 `

The truth only seems one way or another because of perception.

When we change our perception we change our viewpoint.

Truth doesn’t change.

Truth never changes -- we do.

DB

Acceptance

2009-02-03T12:43:00.000-08:00

I’ve been remiss adding to my blog of late. Attitudes and activities have drawn my attentions elsewhere.

Wow! So much has happened in the past 9 months. Just when you think things can’t get worse – Voila!

So much has been said about tough times making you stronger…and so it is. If we learn just one important thing from periods like these, are they not worth it? We’re in this together. It’s pointless pointing to the obvious and in particular assigning blame. Some are suffering more than others, but most have taken a gut shot of one sort or another.

We can all learn from helping each other. Every time someone provides a service or helps someone else, all of us are helped somehow. No matter our relationship with our fellow beings, we need only look to find love. The act of seeking with an open heart raises our consciousness to accept the love that’s there. All life exists on love…it’s always there. Accepting is the first step to raising ones consciousness. It is said that one’s level of awareness can be measured by ones level of acceptance.

DB

Viewpoint

2008-05-30T07:55:00.000-07:00

The emergence or perception of good from bad can usually be traced directly to one’s viewpoint, and as it turns out, is inevitable. Each incident may be viewed innumerable ways. Each of us is different from the other.

There is symmetry to cause. Every life form is the real time product of all its experiences. The origination of a thing contains within its integral core, its ending. That which is without beginning or end can be called the architect of cause but not a thing.

To focus on a thing gives it life. Ultimately we go where we place our attention. Often we realize we’re there when we least expect it.

There are many names for soul. All life rightfully expresses itself as it sees fit.

I say our problems are love’s chrysalis.

DB

Missy

2008-05-12T09:01:00.000-07:00

Some ladies are always talking. Missy is like that. She has something to say about everything. She came into this life with tough physical issues. There are days, the weight of the world hangs on her. It breaks my heart to feel her pain. I can see it in her eyes.

Then, there are the other days. Those days are special beyond compare. Those are the times, the times that make everything else worthwhile. When I look into her eyes, I see how much she enjoys life. There's joy there from all the love that surrounds her.

Now when Missy talks, her buddy Mac listens. He knows how she feels and he returns her love. Sometimes it hurts, but he doesn't care...he's always there with love for her.

There are times we all need comforting...comfort that comes from one of our own kind. Then we know, we're all here for each other. All life lives on love. There can be no greater love than being there for each other.

More Facts < > Acroamatic

2008-05-09T06:00:00.000-07:00

For a less esoteric version of my personal blog, check out:

http://www.woodfloorco.com/bollinger_on_floors/

http://www.theoakfloors.com/bollinger_on_floors.html

Don Bollinger

Misinformation

2008-05-08T05:44:00.000-07:00

So much is available so quickly these days, just a few quick clicks or key strokes and...voila!

Misinformation seems inevitable. How is one to know what's right and what's not? We're not seeking the ultimate truth here -- only one version. No man is wrong in how he sees truth. Truth can be found in the eye of the beholder.

Misinformation usually starts innocently enough. Someone expresses their opinion about something, something they may not know a whole lot about. Another person reacts to a bad experience and instead of accepting responsibility, points the finger at an innocent or benign issue. It's human nature to talk about things. Sometimes we talk about things we know very little about -- things we don't have a lot of first hand experience with. But we go ahead and express out opinions about them anyway.

Once something's written down, broadcast or published, more people talk about it and pass it on. Nowadays, things often get written down and published on the web without independent "experienced" eyes reviewing, contesting or advising on content. Before long, several more folks have read, copied, rewritten and published it again. The next thing you know, it's been institutionalized. It can be as wrong as a bad hair day, but there you have it.

My ole pappy used to say..."the best lessons learned are the ones learned the hard way." So be it. I guess we all sport our fair share of scars. But not everything we learn must come hard. Still, sometimes is seems some folks just don't know another way.

Masochism can quickly turn to a self-professing legacy. Lots of folks are into being victims. The world these days is full of victims. I should know, I held its standard high for far too long. Taking responsibility can be immediately painful and personal. Pushing it off and pointing the finger spreads the blame around – for awhile. It lets us suffer publicly (often in sweet consolation and pity) without assuming the blame. Regardless of author or actors, the Law of Equal and Opposites eventually wins the day. As it turns out, time is just an illusion. Everything lives on love. All beings and all things are in continuous symmetry.

Being a walking talking dichotomy, I've learned I really shouldn't point a finger, unless of course I wet it first and stick it in the air. One never really knows which way the wind blows until you take that first shot. Or, like my ole pappy used to say..."the first liar doesn't have a chance."

Hopefully, as this blog develops, we'll get more input from other self-proclaimed "know-it-alls" so visitors won't have to listen to one lonely voice of symbolic reason.

Every since those hazy days in the '60s in Vietnam on R & R while enduring my first pub crawl with a few of my wiry Aussie friends, I learned its fun sometimes to brawl -- especially among friends. Fights with friends can be healthy and VERY EDUCATIONAL as long as things don't get too personal. If you respect your adversary and work your eyes, ears, and mind as hard as your mouth, you might just pick up a thing are two. The heart has to stay open though. That's the most important thing.

The object of this blog will be getting at small portions of the truth -- at least as it exists for many of us. We'll focus on lessons learned in wood flooring from those who've been doing it a very long time. We'll muse on experiences, real life and real time. There are few things in life as interesting or as educational as a good story well told, especially when related first hand. Opinions are of course important, but as the man said..."opinions are like *******s, everybody's got one and they're always personal, so they're often best kept to ourselves."

Don Bollinger

2008-05-07T11:45:00.000-07:00

Welcome to WoodFloorPro!

Hopefully this site serves a bigger better purpose than just providing a podium for my commentaries, commotions and all 'round general goings on.

I've been writing and teaching all about wood flooring for more than 30 years. In their favor and indulgence along the way, beginners, trades folk, professional wood flooring contractors and my many thousands of flooring clients have generously acquiesced to my rantings. More importantly, they've generously shared their ideas, opinions and experiences molding me into the creature and teacher (for better or worse) that I am today.

That said, I thought it about time to create a blog. Here, I hope to finally find the answers to wood flooring and real life related questions stated in absolute and complete candor, without fear of censure (mostly from self-imposed regimens); ponder possibilities (of new products, features and techniques) bandied about by the (often deep-pocketed) marketeers; speak of ideas, techniques and methodologies (old and new); and finally to tell a few stories, mostly relate first hand experiences but also share with you some of those shared with me from those I know who work (or have worked) in the trade.

Don Bollinger