Posted in Abundance, Human Spirit, Joy, Life, tagged Being, Discovery, Flourish, happiness, Harmony, Living, Meaning on May 18, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
My third nomination for the WordPress Family Award is to Lori at http://donnaanddiablo.wordpress.com/ whose blog, “ Donna and Diablo” shares her story as lady-in-waiting to two great dogs: Lola & Beau, also known as Donna & Diablo. As a hopeless dog lover, I look forward to her adventures. Lori’s place provides a wonderful respite to stop by and see what is the next greatest adventure with Lola and Beau, with a pinch of life thrown in.
Thanks Lori for your wonderful stories.
Be well, Bill
Posted in Human Spirit, Life, Time, tagged Giving, Hope, Joy, Life, Meaning, Reflection, Smile, Thought on May 18, 2013 | 3 Comments »
My second nomination for the WordPress Family Award is to Mimi Krumholz at http://waitingforthekarmatruck.com/ whose blog, “ Waiting for the Karma Truck” leads you through her thoughts and observations of this thing we call life. As a seasoned human resources professional, she has seen it all, and will put a smile on your lips, or a tear in your eye.
Every post is worthy of this award. Only Mimi can write with such honesty and clarity. You will truly enjoy her blog as much as I do.
Thanks Mimi for sharing your wonderful odyssey .
Be well, Biill
Posted in Human Spirit, Life, Nature, Time, tagged Hope, Life, Meaning, nature, Reflection, Smile, Thought on May 18, 2013 | 2 Comments »
“Sun’s up, uh huh, looks okay
The world survives into another day
And I’m thinking about eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me
I had another dream about lions at the door
They weren’t half as frightening as they were before
But I’m thinking about eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me
Walls windows trees, waves coming through
You be in me and I’ll be in you
Together in eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me
Up among the firs where it smells so sweet
Or down in the valley where the river used to be
I got my mind on eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me
And I’m wondering where the lions are…
I’m wondering where the lions are…
Huge orange flying boat rises off a lake
Thousand-year-old petroglyphs doing a double take
Pointing a finger at eternity
I’m sitting in the middle of this ecstasy
Young men marching, helmets shining in the sun,
Polished as precise like the brain behind the gun
(Should be!) they got me thinking about eternity
Some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me
And I’m wondering where the lions are…
I’m wondering where the lions are…
Freighters on the nod on the surface of the bay
One of these days we’re going to sail away,
going to sail into eternity
some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me
And I’m wondering where the lions are…
I’m wondering where the lions are…”
~ Bruce Cockburn
Posted in Abundance, Human Spirit, Joy, Life, Time, tagged Abundance, Joy, Letting-go, Meaning, Optimism, Smile, Thought, Time on May 17, 2013 | 3 Comments »
Well it’s all right, riding around in the breeze
Well it’s all right, if you live the life you please
Well it’s all right, doing the best you can
Well it’s all right, as long as you lend a hand
You can sit around and wait for the phone to ring
Waiting for someone to tell you everything
Sit around and wonder what tomorrow will bring
Maybe a diamond ring
Well it’s all right, even if they say you’re wrong
Well it’s all right, sometimes you gotta be strong
Well it’s all right, as long as you got somewhere to lay
Well it’s all right, everyday is judgment day
Maybe somewhere down the road aways
You’ll think of me, and wonder where I am these days
Maybe somewhere down the road when somebody plays
Purple haze
Well it’s all right, even when push comes to shove
Well it’s all right, if you got someone to love
Well it’s all right, everything’ll work out fine
Well it’s all right, we’re going to the end of the line
Don’t have to be ashamed of the car I drive
I’m just glad to be here, happy to be alive
It don’t matter if you’re by my side
I’m satisfied
Well it’s all right, even if you’re old and grey
Well it’s all right, you still got something to say
Well it’s all right, remember to live and let live
Well it’s all right, the best you can do is forgive
Well it’s all right, riding around in the breeze
Well it’s all right, if you live the life you please
Well it’s all right, even if the sun don’t shine
Well it’s all right, we’re going to the end of the line
~ The Traveling Wilburys
Posted in Abundance, Human Spirit, Life, Time, tagged Flourish, Giving, Hope, Meaning, Reflection, Smile, Spirituality, Thought, Time on May 16, 2013 | 2 Comments »
“Spirituality is not just about religion, or church attendance, or fidelity to one or other legal requirement. Spirituality is understood to be an innate wisdom of the human heart that enlivens a zest for life, a search for meaning and purpose, a love for all that is good and beautiful, a passion to create a better world, a sensitivity to the life-energy (God, if you wish) that permeates the entire cosmos.” ~ Diarmuid O’Murchu, Our World in Transition: Making Sense of a Changing World
The Starry Night (Dutch: De sterrennacht) is a painting by the Dutch post-impressionist artist Vincent van Gogh. The painting depicts the view outside of his sanitarium room window at Saint-Rémy-de-Provence (located in southern France) at night, although it was painted from memory during the day. It has been in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, part of the Lillie P. Bliss Bequest, since 1941. The painting is among Van Gogh’s most well known works that has inspired thousands of artists, some have even made the painting in their own style. Many years ago I was fortunate to view it in person. This was a moment I will never forget.
Posted in Abundance, Joy, Life, Time, tagged Harmony, Letting-go, Living, Meaning, Optimism, Reflection, Smile, Thought on May 15, 2013 | 12 Comments »
“I’m at a day-long meditation retreat, eight hours of watching
my mind with my mind,
and I already fell asleep twice and nearly fell out of my chair,
and it’s not even noon yet.
In the morning session, I learned to count my thoughts, ten in
one minute, and the longest
was to leave and go to San Anselmo and shop, then find an outdoor cafe and order a glass
of Sancerre, smoked trout with roasted potatoes and baby
carrots and a bowl of gazpacho.
But I stayed and learned to name my thoughts, so far they are:
wanting, wanting, wanting,
wanting, wanting, wanting, wanting, wanting, judgment,
sadness. Don’t identify with your
thoughts, the teacher says, you are not your personality, not your
ego-identification,
then he bangs the gong for lunch. Whoever, whatever I am is
given instruction
in the walking meditation and the eating meditation and walks
outside with the other
meditators, and we wobble across the lake like The Night of the
Living Dead.
I meditate slowly, falling over a few times because I kept my
foot in the air too long,
towards a bench, sit slowly down, and slowly eat my sandwich,
noticing the bread,
(sourdough), noticing the taste, (tuna, sourdough), noticing
the smell, (sourdough, tuna),
thanking the sourdough, the tuna, the ocean, the boat, the
fisherman, the field, the grain,
the farmer, the Saran Wrap that kept this food fresh for this
body made of food and desire
and the hope of getting through the rest of this day without
dying of boredom.
Sun then cloud then sun. I notice a maple leaf on my sandwich.
It seems awfully large.
Slowly brushing it away, I feel so sad I can hardly stand it, so I
name my thoughts; they are:
sadness about my mother, judgment about my father, wanting
the child I never had.
I notice I’ve been chasing the same thoughts like dogs around
the same park most of my life,
notice the leaf tumbling gold to the grass. The gong sounds,
and back in the hall.
I decide to try lying down meditation, and let myself sleep. The
Buddha in my dream is me,
surrounded by dogs wagging their tails, licking my hands.
I wake up
for the forgiveness meditation, the teacher saying, never put
anyone out of your heart,
and the heart opens and knows it won’t last and will have to
open again and again,
chasing those dogs around and around in the sun then cloud
then sun.”
~ Susan Browne
Posted in Change, Human Spirit, Life, Time, tagged Being, Letting-go, Living, Meaning, Reflection on May 14, 2013 | 7 Comments »
“Nothing can ever happen twice.
In consequence, the sorry fact is
that we arrive here improvised
and leave without the chance to practice.
Even if there is no one dumber,
if you’re the planet’s biggest dunce,
you can’t repeat the class in summer:
this course is only offered once.
No day copies yesterday,
no two nights will teach what bliss is
in precisely the same way,
with precisely the same kisses.
One day, perhaps some idle tongue
mentions your name by accident:
I feel as if a rose were flung
into the room, all hue and scent.
The next day, though you’re here with me,
I can’t help looking at the clock:
A rose? A rose? What could that be?
Is that a flower or a rock?
Why do we treat the fleeting day
with so much needless fear and sorrow?
It’s in its nature not to stay
Today is always gone tomorrow
With smiles and kisses, we prefer
to seek accord beneath our star,
although we’re different (we concur)
just as two drops of water are.”
~ Wislawa Szymborska
Posted in Abundance, Human Spirit, Life, Nature, tagged Discovery, Flourish, Imagination, Life, Living, Meaning, Reflection, Thought, Time on May 13, 2013 | Leave a Comment »
“There, don’t you hear it too?
Something is calling, although
The day is blank and gray.
The eye fastened on nothing,
The ear undistracted
And we with nothing to say.
But still that sense of calling,
Of something seeking attention
Beyond our consciousness.
That voice in voiceless things
When they cease to be themselves,
Losing their choice and purpose.
Joining the indiscriminate
Otherness which surrounds us
At our own times of withdrawal.
It is then that the world calls us
As if to reinterpret
Or to reconfigure.
Whose is this voice? A god’s?
Surely not. It seems
To be the voice of duty
That speaks of origins
And of relationships
Between things grown apart.
And I remember the muezzin
Singing every morning
Raptly, as if for himself.
Singing in the dark hour
At a distance, over all,
And yet outside our door.
His practised lilt spoke more
Of the puzzles of night than of
The determinations of morning.
As though the light had still
To be charmed into being
And each day a reward.
The voice is much like his,
A commanding meditation
Rising from the blankness.
Of a sleeping senselessness,
Thoughtful, improbable,
But stirring us to beauty.
And like his, the voice
Links us for a while
In its reiterations
Then ends abruptly, as if
Distracted by something else
Of no great importance.”
~ John Fuller
Posted in Abundance, Human Spirit, Joy, Life, Time, tagged Abundance, Giving, Kindness, Love, Meaning, Smile, Thought on May 12, 2013 | 1 Comment »
“Our mother is the sweetest and
Most delicate of all.
She knows more of paradise
Than angels can recall.
She’s not only beautiful
But passionately young,
Playful as a kid, yet wise
As one who has lived long.
Her love is like the rush of life,
A bubbling, laughing spring
That runs through all like liquid light
And makes the mountains sing.
And makes the meadows turn to flower
And trees to choicest fruit.
She is at once the field and bower
In which our hearts take root.
She is at once the sea and shore,
Our freedom and our past.
With her we launch our daring ships
Yet keep the things that last.”
~ Nick Gordon
Posted in Life, Nature, Time, tagged Discovery, Flourish, Hope, Living, Meaning, Reflection, Self Awareness, Thought on May 11, 2013 | 12 Comments »
“When the mind is clear
and the surface of the now still,
now swaying water
slaps against
the rolling kayak,
I find myself near darkness
paddling again to Yellow Island.
Every spring wildflowers
cover the grey rocks.
Every year the sea breeze
ruffles the cold and lovely pearls
hidden in the center of the flowers
as if remembering them
by touch alone.
A calm and lonely, trembling beauty
that frightened me in youth.
Now their loneliness
feels familiar, one small thing
I’ve learned these years,
how to be alone,
and at the edge of aloneness
how to be found by the world.
Innocence is what we allow
to be gifted back to us
once we’ve given ourselves away.
There is one world only,
the one to which we gave ourselves
utterly, and to which one day
we are blessed to return.”
~ David Whyte
