Friday, December 11, 2009

Walking North - Mark Nepo


No matter how I turn
the magnificent light follows.
Background to my sadness.

No matter how I lift my heart
my shadow creeps in wait behind.
Background to my joy.

No matter how fast I run
a stillness without thought is where I end.

No matter how long I sit
there is a river of motion I must rejoin.

And when I can’t hold my head up
it always falls in the lap of one
who has just opened.

When I finally free myself of burden
there is always someone’s heavy head
landing in my arms.

The reasons of the heart
are leaves in wind.
Stand up tall and everything
will nest in you.

We all lose and we all gain.
Dark crowds the light.
Light fills the pain.

It is a conversation with no end
a dance with no steps
a song with no words
a reason too big for any mind.

No matter how I turn
the magnificence follows.

Mark Nepo

Thursday, November 26, 2009

Thank you


"If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, 'thank you,' that would suffice." ~ Meister Eckhart

Thursday, November 19, 2009

Sometimes...



"Sometimes we have to lose what we have to make an opening for what is to come."


All I Have Seen....


"All I have seen teaches me to trust the Creator for all I have not seen."


~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Saturday, November 14, 2009

Grace


...an affirmation from the Unity Church...

I am supported by the unconditional love of God.

Mistakes are a natural part of learning--just as falling down is a natural part of learning to walk. But when I make a serious mistake, I may find it hard to forgive myself for what I have said or done.

I cannot make amends if I remain stuck in a cycle of self-blame or criticism. Instead, I remember that God loves me unconditionally. I take responsibility for my actions, and with God's grace, I do my best to resolve the situation. This may require a heartfelt apology, a change in my behavior or another step. I trust God to guide me to the best response.

As I open to the grace of God, I am able to forgive myself and accept God's unconditional love.
Now I commend you to God and to the message of his grace, a message that is able to build you up.--Acts 20:32

Friday, November 13, 2009

True Healing

"True healing is not the absence of disease, but the presence of insight. What story is being told by our behaviors, symptoms, and illnesses?"

Christine Jette - Tarot Shadow Work

Thursday, November 05, 2009

Keep Showing Up....



Keep showing up, looking deeply, and asking questions....


by Me

The Upside of Stress

by Gary Zukav
Copyright © 2008 by Gary Zukav. All rights reserved.

Change is not stressful. Resistance to change creates stress. It creates stress frequently and sometimes continually in millions of individuals – stress in the form of anger, jealousy, resentment, despair, and many other painful emotions. The global economic downturn/meltdown/ implosion/catastrophe has temporarily transformed the myriad diverse experiences of resistance to change in billions of individuals into a global shared experience of resistance to a change that no one wants.

It is, metaphorically speaking, a spiritual laser. A laser transforms light waves, such as those radiating from a light bulb,into a single beam of phase-coherent light. The global economic dysfunction has transformed countless simultaneous experiences of resistance to change in billions of individuals into a single phase-coherent experience of stress. We all feel it and we all attribute it to the same cause – the economy. This massive shared experience obscures the underlying cause of all stress – resistance to change.

Foreclosure, job loss, declining investment and home values, disruption of plans to retire, educate children, buy a home, or move are each stressful – changes that no one wants, painful experiences of stress that, shared simultaneously by billions, generate a painful collective consciousness of resistance to change. As stressful as resistance to these changes is, it is not as stressful as resistance to the ultimate change that no one wants and all will encounter. We are all on a journey toward death regardless of how much we resist it, and most of us spend most of our lives resisting it. That means that most of us spend our lives distracting ourselves from the work of bringing our full potential into being and enjoying ourselves.

The dynamic is the same whether the change appears minor, major, or ultimate – resistance to change, not change, creates stress. Every stressful experience – whether it is resistance to a divorce, failure of a business, an illness, economic dysfunction, or death – is an opportunity to heal an interior source of your pain instead of focusing your attention on the external circumstances that appears to be causing it. If you look closely (experience attentively) you will discover that every pain of resistance to change is familiar, an old agony returning yet again, activated by yet another external circumstance. In other words, the sources of your painful experiences, including resistance to change, are internal (not external) and are older than the circumstance that appears to cause them (such as losing your job, or the thought of losing your job).

Healing the interior causes of your pain and cultivating the interior causes of your joy is the creation of authentic power. It begins with directing your attention inward to your interior dynamics instead of outward to exterior circumstances. Every painful experience of stress can help you, if you choose.

That is the upside of stress.

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Fortune Cookie Fortune


"The small steps you take will ultimately bring you great fortune."

Moving from Stage to Audience

....from Be the Person You Want to Find, by Cheri Huber

The practice of passive awareness, awareness without a goal, shows me my blind spots, the places where I thoroughly believe the stuff that goes through my head, the unexamined nonsense that runs great portions of my life.

I am in a relationship and my partner or spouse:
is usually late
is inordinately tidy
is tight with money
isn't affectionate enough
is too lenient with the children
sulks instead of talking
___________________ (add your own)
We struggle until I finally get to the place where I am just going to be aware and see if I can know what is going on. This is ruining our relationship and a part of me knows it's silly that a relationship could be ruined over something like this. So I watch, I pay very close attention.

These are the kinds of things a person might see:

I notice that I feel chaotic when this is going on. I feel out of control, disrespected. "You know how much this means to me. If you loved me you would ________. But you don't, and so it is obvious that you don't care about my feelings, and you don't love me."

As I watch, I begin to realize that these things are not true. It's all conditioning.
Feeling chaotic is conditioning.

Believing that tidiness/punctuality/discipline/talking/___________ is superior is conditioning.

Concluding that you don't love me because we have different standards is conditioning.

Feeling disrespected because you won't do what I want you to do is conditioning.

And, ultimately, having an attachment to one side of ANY issue is conditioning.
And at the deepest level, I realize that my conditioning is my responsibility. It's what causes me to suffer. It's not actually anyone else's beliefs or behaviors. It's not how the world works, or how life is. It's my conditioning that makes me suffer, that causes me to close my heart, that gives me problems in relationships. At the deepest level I know it is my responsibility to deal with this.

How do I "deal with this," you might ask?

I see that the sensations in my body, the thoughts in my head, and my emotional responses to the sensations and thoughts

are all conditioned -- I learned ALL of it.

I walk in and the house is a mess...

I watch the sensations arise and realize they don't mean what I have thought they mean. (Ah, looking for someone to blame)

I feel the emotions arise and know I don't have to act on them. (Ah, sadness; ah, anger)

Many of you are thinking, This is all very nice, Cheri, but what do I do?

The exciting news is that

when you no longer believe your conditioned responses, you are free to do or not do anything.

Suddenly, you have options. The whole world of possibilities is open to you.

And as we say in Zen, keep paying attention.

Sunday, November 01, 2009

No Prayer Goes Unanswered



No prayer — and a prayer is nothing more than a fervent statement of what is so — goes unanswered. Every prayer — every thought, every statement, every feeling — is creative. To the degree that it is fervently held as truth, to that degree will it be made manifest in your experience.

Conversations With God, Book 1
Neale Donald Walsch
Page 12

Saturday, October 17, 2009

Quote from Agnes de Mille


No trumpets sound when the important decisions of our life are made. Destiny is made known silently.

-- Agnes de Mille

Sunday, October 04, 2009

I Got a Feelin'....

Sunday, September 20, 2009

Our Journey - by James Hollis


Art by Deborah Koff-Chapin, The Center for Touch Drawing

Even when surrounded by many others, your journey is solitary, for the life you are to choose is your life, not someone else's. Alone, we nonetheless move amid a community of other solitudes; alone, our world is peopled with many companions, both within and without. Thus, this paradox stands before each of us, and challenges: We
must be alone if [we] are to find out what it is that supports [us] when we can no longer support [ourselves]. Only this experience can give [us] an indestructible foundation. Jung, Psychology and Alchemy
Finding what supports you from within will link you to transcendence, reframe the perspectives received from your history, and provide the agenda of growth, purpose, and meaning that we all are meant to carry into the world and to share with others. The soul asks each of us that we live a larger life. Each day this summons is renewed
and leaves you, unspeakably, to sort out
your life, with its fearsome immensities,
so that, now boundaried, now limitless,
it transforms itself as stone in you and star.
Rilke, "Evening"


--- James Hollis, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life







Saturday, September 19, 2009

Journey, Risk, Conflict - James Hollis


By Deborah Koff-Chapin - The Center for Touch Drawing


"Remembering that our ego's central project is maintaining itself and privileging its own narrow position, we can see that without some challenge to that agenda, we would never grow larger than the messages of childhood and the limits of the familial and cultural environment into which fate placed us. The ego's agenda of reinforcement, comfort, order, control, security is not to be judged but rather to be recognized as potentially limiting our humanity. We all have a fantasy of arriving at a conflict-free plateau or a sunlit glen without struggle, without the demand for increasing consciousness, without being pulled deeper and further than we wish to travel. Interestingly, there is such a place -- it is called Death. Without journey, risk, conflict, we are already spiritually dead and are simply waiting for the body to drop away as well. Then we will have missed the meaning of our being here in the first place."


Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life, by James Hollis

Friday, September 11, 2009

Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life


from http://www.jameshollis.net/books/finding.htm


Your life is addressing these questions to you:

What has brought you to this place in your journey, this moment in your life?

What gods, what forces, what family, what social environment, has framed your reality, perhaps supported, perhaps constricted it?

Whose life have you been living?

Why, even when things are going well, do things not feel quite right?

Why does so much seem a disappointment, a betrayal, a bankruptcy of expectations?

Why do you believe that you have to hide so much, from others, from yourself?

Why does life seem a script written elsewhere, and you barely consulted, if at all?

Why have you come to this book, or why has it come to you, now?

Why does the idea of your soul trouble you, and feel familiar as a long lost companion?

Is the life you are living too small for the soul’s desire?

Why is now the time, if ever it is to happen, for you to answer the summons of the soul, the invitation to the second, larger life?

Monday, September 07, 2009

Chop Wood, Carry Water


Work. What does the word mean to you? Is it something to be avoided? Is it a means to an end? Is it the only appropriate focus of your attention and energy? Is it a way to avoid the rest of your life? Is it a joy? Is it a part of your spiritual practice?

There is a Zen saying, "Before Enlightenment chop wood carry water, after Enlightenment, chop wood carry water." What’s the difference? The tasks are the same. The need is the same. What about the frame of mind? Who is chopping? Who is carrying water?

When you labor, stay awake. Notice the frame of mind you bring to your work. Do you approach your work as if it were a nuisance? Do you remove your consciousness from work so that you are filled with resentment or worry? What would you need to do to be more fully present in your work?

Practice mindfulness in work. It does little good to attain clarity of mind on your meditation cushion if you lose it as soon as you become active. Start with simple activities like brushing your teeth, ironing clothes, or washing dishes. Be fully alert as you move. Notice the position of your body in space. Notice the feelings in your body as you move. Pay attention to the thoughts that enter your mind when you do the task. See if you can let them go and just focus on the work itself.

If you are cleaning a countertop, feel the sponge in your hand. Feel the wetness. Feel the texture. Observe how the sponge moves in your hand from the sink to the counter. Sense your movements as you scrub. What do your eyes see? What do you hear as you work? Clean that countertop as if it were the most important thing you could do. Move with fluid motions. Waste no energy. Allow yourself the grace of economy of motion. Be grateful for the countertop, the sponge, the water, the soap. Be grateful for the hand, the arm, the whole body that can move a sponge. Be thankful for the floor you stand on and the roof that protects you. Without letting your mind wander too far, be grateful for all the circumstances that put you where you are at that moment with that sponge and that water and that countertop.

We travel to the ocean or to mountains, rivers and canyons, in part to escape the mundane world of work, but also to experience the awe that arises more spontaneously in nature’s magnificence. We give ourselves an incredible gift when we can experience some of the same awe in the mundane world of our daily lives. The weed that grows in the crack of a sidewalk is a phenomenon as miraculous as the redwood tree that towers into the sky. The raindrops that streak the window are no less an occasion for awe than the spray that dampens our face at the waterfall. The fingers that tap a keyboard are as worthy of praise as the feet of a ballet dancer.

When we open awareness to the tasks in our lives they become lighter. When we are able to be in the moment, we no longer feel compelled to watch the clock. Whatever your work might be, bring all of yourself to it. When you are fully present, you may find that your labor is no longer a burden. Wood is chopped. Water is carried. Life happens.

from http://www.interluderetreat.com/meditate/chop.htm

Sunday, September 06, 2009

Unconscious Patterns - James Hollis


"No one awakens in the morning, looks in the mirror, and says, 'I think I will repeat my mistakes today,' or 'I expect that today I will do something really stupid, repetitive, regressive, and against my best interests.' But frequently, this replication of history is precisely what we do, because we are unaware of the silent presence of those programmed energies, the core ideas we have acquired, internalized, and surrendered to. As Shakespeare observed in Twelfth Night, no prisons are more confining than those we know not we are in." (18)

From James Hollis, Finding Meaning in the Second Half of Life

Friday, August 14, 2009

A Beautiful Mess -- Jason Mraz


Lyrics | Jason Mraz lyrics - A Beautiful Mess lyrics

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

All is Well



Nothing needs to be fixed. Everything is unfolding perfectly. So when you stand in your now accepting that all is well, then from that vibration, you become surrounded by more and more evidence that all is well. -- Abraham-Hicks

Wednesday, August 05, 2009

Wide Open Spaces - Dixie Chicks

This morning I found myself singing this song:

Sunday, August 02, 2009

Language of the Body

Ignorance or indifference toward the keen intelligence of the matter that houses soul leaves us buffeted by gale-force emotional winds stirred by our neglect. Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist, warned that when a culture loses contact with the divine, the desire to relate to the Ineffable is carried by the body as disease. The last language left to the ignored body is the physical symptom, and the final act of defiance may be addiction. Deaf to the invitation to evoke embodied consciousness, we are more likely to proceed mechanically, ignoring our images, "curing" the symptoms while dismissing our intuitive messages. Inevitably when we ignore what matters most to us that then becomes the matter with us.
-- Women's Intuition by Paula M. Reeves, Ph.D.

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Renewed Desire for Life


There will be a time, not so far from now, that you will look back on this phase of your life and instead of condemning it or beating up on it... Instead of blaming or guilting, you will feel appreciation for it, because you will understand that a renewed desire for life was born out of this time period that will bring you to physical heights that you could not have achieved without the contrast that gave birth to this desire.

--- Abraham

Excerpted from the workshop in Boston, MA on Saturday, October 4th, 1997

Friday, June 26, 2009

Adversity - Shakespeare


“Sweet are the uses of adversity, which like the toad, ugly and venomous, wears yet a precious jewel in its head.”

As You Like It by William Shakespeare

Sunday, June 07, 2009

Alvin Ailey's Revelations - Section 1: Pilgrim Of Sorrow

Sunday, May 31, 2009

Last Night As I Was Sleeping - Antonio Machado

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a spring was breaking out in my heart.
I said: Along which secret aqueduct,
Oh water, are you coming to me,
Water of a new life
That I have never drunk?

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that I had a beehive
here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
were making white combs
and sweet honey
from my old failures.

Last night as I was sleeping,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that a fiery sun was giving
light inside my heart.
It was fiery because I felt
warmth as from a hearth,
and sun because it gave light
and brought tears to my eyes.

Last night as I slept,
I dreamt—marvelous error!—
that it was God I had
here inside my heart.

(TRANSLATION BY ROBERT BLY)

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Quote from "Letters to a Young Poet" - Rilke




"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and...try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer."

Saturday, May 16, 2009

The Holy Longing -- Goethe


Tell a wise person, or else keep it silent.
Because the massman will mock it right away.
I praise what is truly alive,
what longs to be burned to death.

In the calm water of the love-nights,
where you were begotten, where you have been begotten,
a strange feeling comes over you
when you are the silent candle burning.

Now you are no longer caught
in the obsession with darkness,
and a desire for higher lovemaking
sweeps you upward.

Distance does not make you falter,
now, arriving in magic, flying,
and finally, insane for the light,
you are the butterfly and you are gone.

And so long as you haven't experienced
this: to die and so to grow,
you are only a troubled guest
on the dark earth.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

When They Revolutionize the Cocktail Parties

By Marilyn Sandberg

"Hello, what are you afraid of?"
"Death."
"Me too."
"When you hear a Mahler symphony?"
"No, when I wake up in the night."
"Me too."
"Nice meeting you."
"Same here."

Thursday, May 07, 2009

Spiritual Partnership Guidelines - Zukav/Francis

Practice using these Guidelines everywhere – at home, with family, at work.
And remember to enjoy yourself!

COMMITMENT – MAKING MY SPIRITUAL GROWTH (CREATING AUTHENTIC POWER) MY HIGHEST PRIORITY

  • Focus on what I can learn about myself all the time, especially from my reactions (such as anger, fear, jealousy, resentment, and impatience) instead of judging or blaming others or myself.
  • Notice my emotions (by feeling the physical sensations in my energy centers).
  • Notice my thoughts (such as planning my reply, judging, analyzing, comparing, day-dreaming, etc.)
  • Notice my intention (such as blaming, judging, needing to be right, wanting admiration, escaping into thoughts (intellectualizing), trying to convince, etc.)

COURAGE – STRETCHING MYSELF BEYOND THE LIMITED PERSPECTIVES OF THE FRIGHTENED PARTS OF MY PERSONALITY.

  • Take responsibility for my feelings, experiences, and actions (no blaming).
  • Practice integrity at all times (often requires action, such as speaking when frightened parts of my personality don’t want to speak and not speaking when they feel compelled to speak).
  • Say or do what is most difficult (sharing what I notice, if appropriate, when someone speaks or acts from a frightened part of her personality; sharing about myself what I am frightened to say and know that I need to say.)

COMPASSION – SEEING MYSELF AND OTHERS AS SOULS WHO SOMETIMES HAVE FRIGHTENED PARTS OF THEIR PERSONALITIES ACTIVE.

  • Change my perspective from fearful to loving (choose to see myself and others in a loving or appreciative way).
  • Release any distance I feel from anyone.
  • Be present while others are speaking (not preparing replies, judging, etc.)

COMMUNICATION AND ACTION STRIVING TO MAKE ALL MY INTERACTIONS CONSCIOUS AND LOVING.

  • Consult my intuition.
  • Choose my intention before I speak or act.
  • Act from the healthiest part of my personality that I can find (rather than caretaking, fixing, teaching, judging, blaming, gossiping, etc.)
  • Speak personally and specifically rather than generally and abstractly (use “I” statements rather than “we” or “you” statements).
  • Release attachment to the outcome (trust the Universe). If I find myself attached, begin again with Commitment, Courage, Compassion.

Monday, May 04, 2009

Thought Manifests as Word


Thought manifests as word.
Word manifests as deed.
Deed develops into habit.
And habit hardens into character.
So watch the thought and its ways with care.
And let it spring from love
Born out of concern for all beings.


The Buddha (563?-483? B.C.E.)Siddhartha Gautama
Indian philosopher and founder of Buddhism

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Passover - by Neville Goddard

The Passover in the Holy Family: Gathering Bitter Herbs
Dante Gabriel Rossetti (1828-1882)

********************************************************
The Passover does not take place at a certain time of year, like Easter. The Passover takes place every moment of the day, if we are willing to pass over into another state. There must always be a passing over from one state to a higher state. So, which will you have me release, the robber or Jesus? Which will you let go of, and to which will you hold fast? I must release the robber, for I am housing him. Who is he? If this moment you want something and reason tells you that you cannot have it, then you are entertaining the thief that robs you of being what you want to be in this world. This is the "son of Satan," something in me that robs me of that other Son who will save me. The thing that will save me from what I am is Christ Jesus, and what is keeping you from what you want? Barrabas.
Neville Goddard - Awakened Imagination & The Search Neville Goddard - Awakened Imagination & The Search Mirko "My mystical experiences have convinced me that there is no way to bring about the outer perfection we seek other than by the transformation of ourselves. As soon as we succeed in transforming ourselves, the world will melt magically before our eyes and reshape itself in harmony with that which our transformation affirms."

Friday, March 20, 2009

The Soul's Purpose


"There is a purpose to your life. You were born to fulfill that purpose in a way that no one else can. You bring to life talents, gifts, and experiences like no other. Every experience is a key to your purpose, every talent a tool for your purpose, every person in your life a coach for discovering or refining your purpose. Each life has a natural built-in reason for being. Purpose is the creative spirit of life moving through you from the inside out. It is the deep mysterious dimension in each soul, which carries with it a profound intuitive sense of personal identity. "

The Keys of Jeshua, "The Soul's Purpose"

Sunday, March 15, 2009

Centered



Trusting in God, I am fulfilled.

When events do not turn out as I planned, I don't let myself become bogged down in disappointment or allow my enthusiasm to wane. In prayer, I bring myself back to center. I turn my perspective around so that I see things in a new way and celebrate the good that is always there for me.

The more I trust God, the wiser I become. My expectations help me navigate through the detours of life and onto new roads of discovery. As I continue along on my journey, I rely on the guidance of Spirit so that I keep my steps steady. At each crossroad, I know the path I take leads to blessings ahead.

Turning around to face my good, I realize that what might have at first discouraged me will prove to be the dawning of a greater, more fulfilling experience.

"Keep my steps steady according to your promise."--Psalm 119:133

The Daily Word -- March 15, 2009

Thursday, March 12, 2009

Success

"Success is taking the next step." - Sonia Choquette

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Thich Nhat Hanh -- Mindfulness

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Ken Wilber -- Englightenment

Sunday, February 15, 2009

God's Truth (Part 1) - Neale Donald Walsch

Hear Me, everywhere. Whenever you have a question, simply know that I have answered it already. Then open your eyes to your world. My response could be in an article already published. In the sermon already written and about to be delivered. In the movie now being made. In the song just yesterday composed. In the words about to be said by a loved one. In the heart of a new friend about to be made.

My Truth is in the whisper of the wind, the babble of the brook, the crack of the thunder, the tap of the rain.

It is the feel of the earth, the fragrance of the lily, the warmth of the sun, the pull of the moon.

Conversations With God, Book 1
Page 210

Monday, February 02, 2009

Humanity Ascending

Oneness -- Marianne Williamson

Thursday, January 29, 2009

Rilke on Solitude and Transformation

From Rilke's Letters to a Young Poet, "Letter 8"

This is in the end the only kind of courage that is required of us: the courage to face the strangest, most unusual, most inexplicable experiences that can meet us. The fact that people have in this sense been cowardly has done infinite harm to life; the experiences that are called “apparitions,” the whole so-called “spirit world,” death, all these Things that are so closely related to us, have through our daily defensiveness been so entirely pushed out of life that the senses with which we might have been able to grasp them have atrophied. To say nothing of God. But the fear of the inexplicable has not only impoverished the reality of the individual; it has also narrowed the relationship between one human being and another, which has as it were been lifted out of the riverbed of infinite possibilities and set down in a fallow place on the bank, where nothing happens. For it is not only indolence that causes human relationships to be repeated from case to case with such unspeakable monotony and boredom; it is timidity before any new, inconceivable experience, which we don’t think we can deal with. but only someone who is ready for everything, who doesn’t exclude any experience, even the most incomprehensible, will live the relationship with another person as something alive and will himself sound the depths of his own being. for if we imagine this being of the individual as a larger or smaller room, it is obvious that most people come to know only one corner of their room, one spot near the window, one narrow strip on which they keep walking back and forth. In this way they have a certain security. And yet how much more human is the dangerous insecurity that drives those prisoners in Poe’s stories to feel out the shapes of their horrible dungeons and not be strangers to the unspeakable terror of their cells. We, however, are not prisoners. No traps or snares have been set around us, and there is nothing that should frighten or upset us. We have been put into life as into the element we most accord with, and we have, moreover, through thousands of years of adaptation, come to resemble this life so greatly that when we hold still, through a fortunate mimicry we can hardly be differentiated from everything around us. We have no reason to harbor any mistrust against our world, for it is not against us. If it has terrors, they are our terrors; if it has abysses, these abysses belong to us; if there are dangers, we must try to love them. And if only we arrange our life in accordance with the principle which tells us that we must always trust in the difficult, then what now appears to us as the most alien will become our most intimate and trusted experience. How could we forget those ancient myths that stand at the beginning of all races, the myths about dragons that at the last moment are transformed into princesses? Perhaps all the dragons in our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us act, just once, with beauty and courage. Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our love.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

R.I.P. Abbe


I attended the funeral of a dear friend on Friday. This was a favorite quotation of hers which was included in the bulletin:

Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away into the next room. I am I, and you are you. Whatever we were to each other, that we still are. Call me by the old familiar name, speak to me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference in your tone, wear no air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Pray, smile, think of me, pray for me.

Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without effect, without the trace of a shadow on it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same as it ever was; there is unbroken continuity. Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am waiting for you, for an interval, somewhere very near, just round the corner. All is well.
Harry Scott Holland
1847-1915 Canon of St. Paul's Cathedral

Friday, January 02, 2009

...every day is a new beginning....

[Thanks, Casie!]

A new cycle begins this day, yet a new cycle begins

every day. Indeed, every moment. So if you recognize

anything on this day, recognize what it symbolizes: The

miracle of the endlessly continuing Cycle of Life.


What a grand day! What a time for celebration! We

begin again today! We turn the page! And so, let go

of all that you do not wish to carry with you any further.

Any fear, any sadness, any anger, any resentment, any

disappointment, any lament...let it all go. And now,

using the specialness of this day as a springboard,

let's get on with Life!


~Neale Donald Walsch