“The wide world is all about you; you can fence yourselves in, but you cannot forever fence it out.” (Tolkien)
(Painting by sadmonk)
“Until he extends the circle of his compassion to all living things, man will not himself find peace." (Schweitzer)
HOLD OUT YOUR CANDLE
SO ALL CAN SEE IT
"PEACE, in the sense of the absence of war, is of little value to someone who is dying of hunger or cold. It will not remove the pain of torture inflicted on a prisoner of conscience. It does not comfort those who have lost their loved ones in floods caused by senseless deforestation in a neighboring country. Peace can only last where human rights are respected, where the people are fed, and where individuals and nations are free." (The Dalai Lama)
(by Isaac age 7)
My friends, the video below will touch you and make you think. (Be sure and pause my profile song above before playing the video)
Now friends, if the Free Hugs campaign and all it embodies makes you feel good, watch this next video ... a global version of the "Gratitude Dance" ... and let your soul DANCE along!
LIGHT AND LOVE
Imagine, if you will, that there are only two elements in the universe, and these are love and fear. And love is connected to the light, and fear is the absence of that light, and is therefore cloaked in darkness. And doubt is just a shadowy part of fear.
And your job, in the sphere of human interactions, is to replace fear with love wherever you find it. Your job is to dispel darkness and shine brightly with love and clarity, chasing away fear, so that it exists only in the very corners of life. Your job is to shine so brightly that fear cannot exist around you.
It takes courage to fight for LOVE. It takes courage to replace fear and doubt in your own heart and to act and think and be with LOVE instead. For the framework of your society is built largely upon fear, and fear is taught at the mother's breast and at the father's knee. Fear is an integral part of people's relationship with money, their relationship with work, their relationships with each other. And it is certainly a large part of romantic relationships as well, as people mistake needy jealousy for generous LOVE.
And so, take heart, have courage. Know that this is your job, to recognize fear and to replace it with LOVE. And knowing that there is only fear and LOVE, then you can also see that anger, anxiety and criticism are all part of fear. And forgiveness and compassion are a part of LOVE. Look at all of the human emotions and see to which side they belong, of which element they are a part, and then choose. Choose in every act you perform, choose in every word that leaves your mouth; choose LOVE over fear, over and over, every day, every moment, continually. Choose it for yourself and help others to choose it by shining brightly enough that they feel your LOVE and begin to clear away their darkness.
And so now, fill yourself with LOVE. Fill yourself so full, that the fear and doubt can find no home. Release them completely and invite in the light and LOVE that is there for you, dispelling all emotions from your mind and heart that are not on the side of LOVE.(Author Unknown)
Music
I'm a classic rock fan. Anything from the 60s or 70s makes me happy. I heard the Beatles live in '66, Pink Floyd in '88 (both in D.C.), and Cat Stevens somewhere in between. I guess I could call those my "live concert highlights." I have to stick to recorded or downloaded music these days for economic reasons. Gone are the days when one could take a hundred-mile bus trip, be fed a boxed lunch AND take in a Beatles concert, all for the ridiculous price of $15 (yes, that's FIFTEEN dollars)!
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Movies
I put this little video here, because it makes me and Lilly (the Elephant Lover) laugh, and there's not much in the world that is more delightful than laughing with Lilly.
All of my movie watching, these days, seems to be with my grandchildren. They wait anxiously every week to see what the mailman has brought from Netflix. Our most recent A+ movies have been "Spirited Away", an academy award-winning animated film (strange and fascinating), written and directed by Japanese filmmaker, Hayao Miyazaki, and two other Miyazaki films,"Kiki's Delivery Service" and "My Neighbor Totoro" (our very favorite movie ever). I hope to find some time, soon, to watch some of the recommendations of my own personal film critic, who sends me frequent notes about the movies he watches. I miss the hours we spent watching old classics together.
Television
The only commercial television program I ever care about seeing is "Extreme Makeover Home Edition." Call me crazy. It just makes me feel good to see people lifted up.
Books
"Books help us understand who we are and how we are to behave. They show us what community and friendship mean; they show us how to live and die . . . an author makes you notice, makes you pay attention, and this is a great gift. My gratitude for good writing is unbounded. I'm grateful for it the way I'm grateful for the ocean." (Anne Lamott)
Currently reading, "My Sister's Keeper" by Jodi Picoult. Recent reads: "The Glass Castle" a memoir by Jeannette Walls" and "Cry The Beloved Country" by Alan Paton. Took a detour from my 'reading for pleasure' a while ago to take in Christopher Hitchens' "God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything." (a brilliant and thought-provoking piece of non-fiction). Other not-so recent reads include "The Kite Runner" by Khaled Hosseini,"Me Talk Pretty One Day" (Want to laugh out loud? Read it!) and "Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim" by David Sedaris. Also this year: "Living Out Loud" a collection of essays by Anna Quinland. Another favorite and recently read:"I Know This Much Is True" by Wally Lamb. Recently revisited: "A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius" by Dave Eggers. Brilliant! Another "best ever" read was "The Life of Pi" by Yann Martel. Favorite authors include Anne Lamott, Anne Tyler, Louise Erdrich and her late husband, Michael Dorris. I love well-written, engrossing fiction, because every good novel is woven with truth.
"Every reader finds himself. The writer's work is merely a kind of optical instrument that makes it possible for the reader to discern what, without this book, he would perhaps never have seen in himself." (Proust)
I thought it was time I turned these children around, so my friends can see their beautiful faces.
Westover Hills Playground
On the dock - Sunday Park
Visit to the botanical gardens
Richmond Christmas Parade 2007
Computer Time
Ain't Misbehavin'
The Wedding Party
Snack-time at The Playroom
End of Summer snow-cones
Feeding fish at the botanical gardens
Welcoming the New Year 2009!
Inside the amazing Giga Ball
(thanks Aunt Katherine!)
Posing at Maymont Park
Shadow play with butterflies at CMOR
Happiness IS . . .
More summer fun at CMOR ... my, how they've grown!
Summer's End 2009
My roles as mother and grandmother define me. Because I exist in a material world where I require shelter and food, I have a generic occupation that pays the bills. Possessions mean little to me. If my house were burning down, I would rescue my 14 year old cat, my 28+ year old turtle, my grandchildren's goldfish, my photos and my books. My pipe dream is to live in a tiny cottage near the ocean, take long walks on the beach at dawn and support myself working odd jobs in between doing random acts of kindness for other people. That would be a definition of 'heaven' to me.
My likes (in no particular order): Sunshine, the ocean, mountains, the sky on a clear night, music, babies and little children (because they still 'know' EVERYTHING), young adults (because they deserve better than they're getting, but they still have hopes and dreams) traveling, books, writing, poetry,'REAL' people, genuine laughter, watching people dance (wishing I could...sigh), witnessing random acts of kindness, old 'thoughts' made new again ...(to be continued)
My dislikes (in no particular order): WAR, partisan politics and politicians, SNOW (unless I can sit quietly by a window and watch it fall), anything to do with numbers or money, the inadequacies of HUMAN language and the accompanying frustration, platitudes, insincerity (blatant or subtle), outright and deliberate lying (by anyone of any age, but especially by "grownups"), cruelty, selfishness, superiority, racism, classism, intolerance, and unkindness in any form ...(to be continued)
I don't eat animals and they don't eat me.
"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all."
Emily Dickinson
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
"All truly wise thoughts have been thoughts already thousands of times; but to make them truly ours, we must think them over again honestly, till they take root in our personal experience."
C. S. LEWIS
"You don't HAVE a soul. You ARE a soul. You HAVE a body."
DAWNA MARKOVA
"I will not die an unlived life. I will not live in fear of falling or catching fire. I choose to inhabit my days, to allow my living to open me, to make me less afraid, more accessible, to loosen my heart until it becomes a wing, a torch, a promise. I choose to risk my significance; to live so that which comes to me as seed goes to the next as blossom and that which comes to me as blossom, goes on as fruit."
LEO TOLSTOY
“Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and eternal source.”
MARK TWAIN
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover."
HOWARD THURMAN
"Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
GEORGE BERNARD SHAW
"Life is no brief candle to me. It is a sort of splendid torch which I am permitted to hold for the moment, and I want to make it burn as brightly as possible before handing it on to future generations."
WALT WHITMAN
"Love the earth and sun and animals,
Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,
Stand up for the stupid and crazy,
Devote your income and labor to others...
And your very flesh shall be a great poem."
ALBERT SCHWEITZER
"Impart as much as you can of your spiritual being to those who are on the road with you, and accept as something precious what comes back to you from them."
GILDA RADNER
"I wanted a perfect ending. Now I've learned, the hard way, that some poems don't rhyme, and some stories don't have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what's going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity."
JOHN F. NASH, JR.
". . . rationality of thought imposes a limit on a person's concept of his relation to the cosmos."
PEARL S. BUCK
"If our American way of life fails the child, it fails us all."
ALBERT EINSTEIN
"There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle."
ANNE MORROW LINDBERGH
"I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness and the willingness to remain vulnerable."
WENDELL BERRY
"When despair grows in me and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be, I go and lie down where the wood drake rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds. I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief. I come into the presence of still water. And I feel above me the day-blind stars waiting for their light. For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free."
ANNE LAMOTT
“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up.”
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
"I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant."
JIMI HENDRIX
"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace."
PEACE PILGRIM
"This is the way of Peace: Overcome evil with good,
and falsehood with truth, and hatred with love."
SOGYAL RINPOCHE
"...when we finally know we are dying, and all other sentient beings are dying with us, we start to have a burning, almost heartbreaking sense of the fragility and preciousness of each moment and each being, and from this can grow a deep, clear, limitless compassion for all beings."
THICH NHAT HANH
"When we come into contact with the other person, our thoughts and actions should express our mind of compassion, even if that person says and does things that are not easy to accept. We practice in this way until we see clearly that our love is not contingent upon the other person being lovable."
AMMA
"Love is our true essence. Love has no limitations of caste, religion, race or nationality. We are all beads strung together on the same thread of LOVE."
MAHATMA GHANDI
"When I despair, I remember that all through history the ways of truth and love have always won. There have been tyrants, and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall. Think of it--always."
GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER
"How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these."
KAHLIL GIBRAN
"Keep me away from the wisdom which does not cry, the philosophy which does not laugh and the greatness which does not bow before children."
JOHN LENNON
"We've got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant. You can't just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it's going to get on by itself. You've got to keep watering it. You've got to really look after it and nurture it."
RAINER MARIA RILKE
"Perhaps everything that frightens us is, in its deepest essence, something helpless that wants our LOVE."
FRED ROGERS
"I feel the greatest gift we can give to anybody is the gift of our honest self."
JIDDU KRISHNAMURTI
"To love is the most important thing in life. But what do we mean by love? When you love someone because that person loves you in return, surely that is not love. To love is to have that extraordinary feeling of affection without asking anything in return."
"My religion is very simple; my religion is kindness."
A. A. MILNE
"Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind. 'Pooh!' he whispered. 'Yes, Piglet?' 'Nothing,' said Piglet, taking Pooh's paw. 'I just wanted to be sure of you.'"
There are moments in your life that make you and sets the course of who you're going to be. Sometimes they're little, subtle moments. Sometimes they're big moments you never saw coming. No one asks for their life to change, but it does. It's what you do afterwards that counts. That's when you find out who you are.
The warrior knows that there are occasional pauses in the struggle. There is no point in forcing things; he must have patience and wait for the two sides to clash again. In the silence of battlefield, he listens to his heart beating. He notices that he is tense, that he is afraid. The warrior takes stock of his life; he makes sure that his sword is sharp, his heart satisfied, that faith still burns in his soul. He knows that maintenance is as important as action. There is always something not quite right. And the warrior takes advantage of those moments when time stops to equip himself better.
Never believe anyone who says we cannot change. Vision is one of the secrets of personal transformation. We are all artists, our mind is the arena of creation and vision is what we are constantly creating. What is your vision of yourself today – patient, relaxed, positive or tense, tight and negative? What do you prefer? So be creative – what does patience look like, feel like, what are you doing that is different when you are patient and you are expressing your power to …wait? Always start with vision not action. See it and you will be it. Be it and you will do it. We don’t ‘get a life’ as some would cynically tell us – we create our life.
"The wild November come at last Beneath a veil of rain; The night winds blows its folds aside, Her face is full of pain. The latest of her race, she takes The Autumn's vacant throne: She has but one short moon to live, And she must live alone."
