Large Spiral Rose-Like Galaxy - New Hubble Image

The newly released Hubble image shows a large spiral galaxy, known as UGC 1810, with a disk that is distorted into a rose-like shape by the gravitational tidal pull of the companion galaxy below it, known as UGC 1813

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2077549/Nasas-Hubble-telescope-shows-space-rose-2-galaxies-colliding-300m-light-years-away.html#ixzz1hMVcDBax

Jesus's Life - Jung as quoted by Rob Brezsny

The whole point of Jesus’s life was not that we should become exactly like him, but that we should become ourselves in the same way he became himself. Jesus is not the great exception but the great example. 

—Carl Jung as quoted by Rob Brezsny in Pronoia

The Cruise - A Documentary

Watched this the other night. Loved the whole thing - especially what he says about relationships at the 6:45 minute mark!

Teaching, Teachers, Passion - Matt Damon Speaks

YES! Matt Damon speaks about teachers, standardized testing, and passion in the two following videos:

Solstice Joy - by Gary Zukav

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

... from Gary Zukav's Seat of the Soul Institute Blog

The winter solstice has always been special to me as a barren darkness that gives birth to a verdant future beyond imagination, a time of pain and withdrawal that produces something joyfully inconceivable, like a monarch butterfly masterfully extracting itself from the confines of its cocoon, bursting forth into unexpected glory. The death of a friend, an incapacitating illness, or a tragic loss are such times – times of hopelessness and despair, pain and confusion, when all bearing disappears and the void engulfs everything without mercy. These experiences are the soil in which the Universe plants the seeds of your potential for you to cultivate no matter what, and somehow you do, even in those times when you feel you have nothing left to give and no one to give it to.

Now I see more. The coming and going of the seasons give us more than the springtimes, summers, autumns, and winters of our lives. It reflects the coming and going of the circumstances of our lives like the glassy surface of a pond that shows our faces radiant with joy or contorted with pain. It also shows us our amazing independence from our circumstances. In cold or warmth, light or dark, deprivation or abundance, we can choose to respond with love or react in fear. Who could have dreamed such a choice is possible? When a child dies, we grieve and despair until we can see the change in our lives as a gift instead of a loss. Now millions of us are beginning to see the painful AND the joyful circumstances of our lives as opportunities to expand in love or contract in fear. We can experience anger, jealousy, loss, rage, or resentment without acting on it. We can act in love instead, even while we are immersed in anger, fear, jealousy, or rage. We can choose. We can cultivate care, patience, gratitude, and contentment each time we feel them. We can choose.

Each solstice shows us that we can choose. We cannot stop the winter or the summer from coming. We cannot stop the spring or the fall or make them other than they are. They are gifts from the Universe that we cannot refuse. But we can choose what we will contribute to Life when each arrives. We have always done that, and we always have. Now we have a new and liberating awareness. We can greet all the experiences of our lives joyfully and use them all wisely.

Love,
Gary

Philip Glass & Lou Reed at Occupy Lincoln Center: An Artful View

Visible Shape (Philip Glass & Lou Reed occupying Lincoln Center) from jaune! on Vimeo.

Behind the Urgency - Mark Nepo

When feeling urgent,
you must slow down.

I learned this, over and over, during the many crises of cancer. Unless someone is bleeding or can’t breathe, unless there is some true physical requirement to act swiftly, a sense of urgency is a terrible illusion, a trick that happens, again and again, because life inside our skin and outside our skin are forever different.

It is as hard as it is humbling. When feeling like I can’t sit still, I need, more than ever, to sit still. When feeling like I will die if I don’t have your approval, I need, more than ever, to die to my need for your approval. What we need is always harshly and beautifully right before us, disguised in the wrapping of our nearest urgency. We just refuse to accept this, because it feels so difficult to face.

The doorway to our next step of growth is always behind the urgency of now. Now more than ever, when all feels urgent, you must cut the strings to all events. Now more than ever, when the weights you carry seem tied to your wrists, you must not run or flail. Now more than ever, when you feel that being who you are is a knife to those you love, you must be strong inside where no one has seen you, for loving from there can only make those you love grow. Now more than ever, when feeling that you are the source and recipient of all pain, you must bow your head till the ancient channel from sky to heart can reopen, till you remember that you are a blessed piece of spirit-dust in spirit-wind. Now more than ever, you must breathe till your ounce of breath becomes the sky, again and again.

In this way, pray to know your place in the human family like you’ve never known it. In this way, pray to have your True Self inch through your turmoil. In this way, love yourself the way you love the emptiness of time. Love yourself the way you love your children or your dog or your dearest friend, without reservation. In this way, today with all its hardships will spill into tomorrow, and decisions will become as clear as streams thawing.

~Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening

Quote from "Spiritual Alchemy" by Dr. Christine Page

I love this:

"Now is the time to remove the veils of separation, dissolving the myths that to be human is to belong to a lesser race or that each of us isn't in a position to know Divine consciousness. So I ask you, What part of your soul is waiting in the shadows to be acknowledged? What dreams, aspirations or beliefs about yourself have you carried from childhood but now lie dormant, marginalized by a busy schedule or, in my case, because they don't make sense?