A warning for you, kind and gentle reader: this post is completely and utterly unplanned. When I realized this morning that it was Tuesday, but that I also was two days behind on Reverb12, I thought there was no way this post was going to happen. I had no idea what I wanted to say (this is pretty typical) and Eric walked the dogs for me this morning, so that strategy for coming up with something wasn’t going to happen, and I wrote off this post. And then, just a little while ago, thinking about maybe starting to work on my second reverb post, my fingers started itching to tell some truth, so here we are…who knows what’s going to happen.
1. Truth: Waiting for your life to happen, for the magic to work itself, for your fairy godmother to arrive and fix everything is a bad plan. Your invitation isn’t in the mail, an owl isn’t going to show up to take you to Hogwarts, you don’t need another degree or a fancy set of letters after your name, you shouldn’t wait until you’ve lost 10 pounds or have more money or time. If you are waiting for something to happen, stop waiting and happen.
2. Truth: Resisting, refusing, or even running away from the thing you know you want, the work you long for, the experience you dream of, the life you’ve always wanted generates suffering. That suffering grows in equal measure to your denial, your rejection. That hunger will demand to be fed by something, that longing will find satisfaction somehow, and as Brene’ Brown says, “Unused creativity is not benign. It turns into grief, judgement and shame.” Unexpressed love becomes toxic, turns to poison.
3. Truth: You can start now, you should. There is nothing else you need to wait for, nothing can stop you from taking that first step. The obstacles have no real power, you may begin, you can start now, start over now, take one tiny step. If you need permission, here it is: Go ahead. This is who you are meant to be. You know what to do. Deep breath and go.
One wish: That you know, from this moment on, that what Tulku Thondop says is true, “Every person has a unique view, need, and ability,” and you realize that because this is true, the world needs you, we need you to manifest your ability, embody your unique view, the world needs you to open your heart and give your gift. If you don’t, it will be lost to us forever. Do what you came here to do. We are all counting on it.
2. This quote: We’re in a giant car headed toward a brick wall and everyone’s arguing over where they’re going to sit. ~David Suzuki. This is Buddhist wisdom I’ve heard before, the idea that we we’ve all bought a ticket on a ship that’s sinking, that we are boarding a plane that’s guaranteed to crash, that this is the reality of life (death), but the additional wisdom here is that even knowing this, we spend our time on the dumbest things, like worrying what to pack or complaining about the snacks.
4. Ayurveda at a Glance I am working on a guest post about meditation for Niight’s blog.
5. This wisdom from Tulku Thondup
The key is to make meditation a part of your life, like part of the fabric of a tapestry. Bring an attitude of enjoyment to your meditation, that helps tremendously. Also, bring the peaceful feelings of meditation into your daily activities. That is how to begin tasting the fruits of your efforts. When the healing of mind becomes a habit, our minds become like a great river. The river may not always appear to be moving. But if we look closely enough we will see how the water is slowly, slowly making its way to the sea.
And this:
Meditation is a way of training ourselves to develop a more peaceful mind. Everyone has different capabilities and needs when it comes to this training. We don’t want to push ourselves or be too forceful, but we also want to avoid being slack or lazy. Each of us needs to develop a sense of what’s best for us.
7. Fiona Apple recently canceled her South American tour, because her sweet dog is dying. If you’ve ever loved a dog, lost a dog, the letter she wrote in explanation will break your heart. This comforted me, “she is coming close to the time where she will stop being a dog, and start instead to be part of everything” and this wrecked me:
I wish we could also appreciate the time that lies right beside the end of time. I know that I will feel the most overwhelming knowledge of her, and of her life and of my love for her, in the last moments. I need to do my damnedest to be there for that. Because it will be the most beautiful, the most intense, the most enriching experience of life I’ve ever known. When she dies.
this boy is at my feet right now, doing his own dying–slowly but for certain, while I do my damnedest to be here for it
Why do you judge yourself when you feel tired? Why do you allow fatigue to turn into a story about how you’re not [something] enough? Have you ever thought that perhaps I speak to you through feelings of tiredness, that perhaps, you’re not hearing my whispers, telling you to slow down, and fatigue is the spell I slap on you to help you listen? If you’re tired today, what do you think I might be telling you? Listen up. I have a message for you…
And this one:
Sometimes the longings of your heart feel crazy, don’t they? You wonder how you can possibly trust desires that are so outlandish, impractical, out of control, fickle, and passion-laden. Yet what can you trust more than the stirrings of the heart? Stay there, with your heart wide open. This is where I live, not in your mind, but in the interior spaciousness of pure possibility and divine love.
9. This from Marianne Williamson: “Let there be a ceasefire in all our hearts. Let’s make peace with ourselves, our God, our past, and each other. Let’s all together declare peace on earth.” And this, “Now, in this moment, you are who you have always been and will always be. All spiritual practice — forgiveness, meditation and prayer — is for the purpose of training the mind to see through the illusions of a world that would convince you otherwise.”
…be comforted in the fact that the ache in your heart and the confusion in your soul means that you are still alive, still human, and still open to the beauty of the world, even though you have done nothing to deserve it. ~Paul Harding
13. Emerging Icons: Demystifying the Process from Jen Lee
14. This quote: If you want to be happy, be. ~Leo Tolstoy
15. This quote: Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind. ~ Henry James
16. This quote: Underneath it all, we are wild and we know it. ~Reggie Ray
17. This quote from Mary Gaitskill:
Writing is…. being able to take something whole and fiercely alive that exists inside you in some unknowable combination of thought, feeling, physicality, and spirit, and to then store it like a genie in tense, tiny black symbols on a calm white page. If the wrong reader comes across the words, they will remain just words. But for the right readers, your vision blooms off the page and is absorbed into their minds like smoke, where it will re-form, whole and alive, fully adapted to its new environment.
20. Shirley and Jenny: Two Elephants Reunited After More Than 20 Years, which I’ve seen before, but was reminded of this morning by Sas, and is why I drank tear flavored coffee.
23. Every time I read Ken’s story, I am amazed at how similar it is to my own.
24. This sweet interview. “Joshua Littman, a 12-year-old boy with Asperger’s syndrome, interviews his mother, Sarah. Joshua’s unique questions and Sarah’s loving, unguarded answers reveal a beautiful relationship that reminds us of the best—and the most challenging—parts of being a parent.”
25. This quote from Geneen Roth:
Right here, this exact moment, is the doorway to the peace and the joy you want. No matter how much you ate in the last few days, no matter how much you did or didn’t do, can you stop your mind’s nattering? Can you, are you willing to, take in the fact that you have a body, arms, legs, eyes. That you can see, hear, touch, taste. Are you willing to break the trance of unworthiness right now?
26. PicMonkey. I love photo editing, adding quotes, and this site makes it so easy. I can’t wait to waste some serious time with this.
29. This quote: “When another person makes you suffer, it is because he suffers deeply within himself, and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need punishment; he needs help. That’s the message he is sending.” ~Thich
Nhat Hanh
30. No Shit from Whatever, Etc. Every woman who has ever cried in a dressing room, or wanted to when she looked in the mirror, or thought she would lose her mind shopping for a swimming suit or pair of jeans that fit needs to read this.
A warning for you, kind and gentle reader: this post is completely and utterly unplanned. When I realized this morning that it was Tuesday, but that I also was two days behind on Reverb12, I thought there was no way this post was going to happen. I had no idea what I wanted to say (this is pretty typical) and Eric walked the dogs for me this morning, so that strategy for coming up with something wasn’t going to happen, and I wrote off this post. And then, just a little while ago, thinking about maybe starting to work on my second reverb post, my fingers started itching to tell some truth, so here we are…who knows what’s going to happen.
Open Space Practice, (AKA: A Thousand Shades of Gray) 