Life.....

“Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”
~ Louise Erdrich

Broken Heart

“God breaks the heart again and again and again until it stays open.”
— Sufi master Hazrat Inayat Kahn

Honoring the Feminine

"Any individual or society that fails to honor or provide the opportunity for women to fully exert their power can never truly prosper.   All creativity, growth, imagination, nurturing-all possibilities are born from the womb of the Divine Feminine.   To deny her a rightful place, either within ourselves or in the world in which we live is to do irreparable harm and endure the loss of countless joys."  Rod Stryker

Health

"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society" - J Krishnamurti.

"If you see yourself
as no one worth looking at;
if you believe you are
not worth listening to,
if they told you,
"That's not what you saw,
not what you heard,
not what you think
you cannot trust yourself"
You are lost.

Don't look to others to find you,
to love and take care of you now.
You'll suck them dry.

No one out there
is responsible.
Go back and find
your soul.
Be mother and father
to yourself,
Until the divine parents
arrive.

Christina Baldwin

Vulnerability of Love

"Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal. Wrap it carefully with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements. Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless-it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. TO love is to be vulnerable." CS Lewis

Perfection

"Perfectionism is a belief that life is broken."  Rachel Naomi Remen

Life

"Coherent, elegant, mysterious, Aesthetic...I would not have described life in this way.    But I was not on intimate terms with life then.   I had not seen the power of life force in everyone, met the will to live in all it's varied and subtle forms, recognized irrepressible love of life buried in the heart of every living thing.   I had not been used by life to fulfill itself or been caught unaware by it's strength in the midst of the most profound weakness.   I had no sense of awe.   I had thought that life was broken and that I, armed with powerful tools would fix it.   I had thought then that I was broken also.   But life has shown me otherwise."  Rachel Naomi Remen

Love

"Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.   If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal.   Wrap it carefully with hobbies and the little luxuries; avoid all entanglements.   Lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.   But in that casket-safe, dark, motionless, airless-it will change.   It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.   To love is to be vulnerable."   CS Lewis

Meditation

"Meditation is the practice of unconditional friendliness toward whatever is happening in the moment; the moment during which we sit in meditation, and all the other moments of life, whether things are going well or falling apart.  Mediation helps us find an internal witness with which to view external events.   Discovering and developing an internal witness may be the most important act of our life.   Being able to observe ourselves honestly, with acceptance and friendliness trains us to do the same with others at home, at work and in the world.   It trains us to be less reactive to whatever it is in life that causes us suffering.  It gives us the ability to experience our own pain without identifying fully with it and therefore to be more free from it.   We begin to fear life's pain less, to contract less around it.

Meditation can be a magnifying glass that lights the fire of happiness in our hearts.  Over time, mindfulness practice sensitizes our capacity for joy so much that even tiny physical and emotional pleasures can bring great happiness."    Elizabeth Lesser

Opening

"May you listen to the voice within the beat even when you are tired.   When you feel yourself breaking down, may you break open instead.  May every experience in life be a door that opens our heart, expand your understanding, and lead you to freedom."   Elizabeth Lesser

Broken Open

"It is in times of brokenness that the soul sings its most wise and eternal song.   I cannot hum you a tune or tell you the lyrics; each person's soul has it's own cadence.   You will recognize it's music though, by the way you feel when you are listening; awake, calm, and suddenly relieved of the burden of control."  Elizabeth Lesser

Broken Open

""A broken heart is not the same as sadness.   Sadness occurs when the heart is stone cold and lifeless.   On the contrary, there is an unbelievable amount of vitality in a broken heart."  Rabbi Scrihu er Zalman