Deepening

"Often our fear misleads us to stay close to the shore, when the safest place is in the deep, if we can get there. Any swimmer knows: Stay to close to the shore and you will be battered by the surf and undertow. We must swim past the breakers if we are to know the hammock of the deep. Stay on land or make it to the deep. It is the in-between that kills." Mark Nepo

Trans-formation

Living long enough we all find ourselves surrounded by an old way of thinking, being or loving that is going up in flames.    In that unexpected moment, we usually find ourselves full of fear, feeling trapped by an old way of life coming in on us.  But this is the passage of rebirth that we must move through if our lives are to unfold.  It is the momentary and painful crossing from what is old into what is new.  We must trust that the greater sea we are jumping into will douse whatever catches fire as we move through.   This is what faith is all about.   Mark Nepo

Love and Commitment

"Love does not put everything at rest; it puts everything in motion. Love does not end all risk; it accepts every risk which is necessary for its work. Love does not separate the good people from the bad, bestowing endless bliss on one and endless torment on the other. Love seeks the reconciliation of every life so that it may share with all the others." -Daniel Day Williams

Resistance

"Resistance won't kill you right away. No it won't, it slowly crimps the hose of life force, a little bit everyday so that we don't notice until one day we find we can barely get out of bed! Embrace change! Experience the new energy that gets released when we do." From the book "The Thank You Economy"

So Much Happiness

So Much Happiness




It is difficult to know what to do with so much happiness.

With sadness there is something to rub against,

a wound to tend with lotion and cloth.

When the world falls in around you, you have pieces to pick up,

something to hold in your hands, like ticket stubs or change.



But happiness floats.

It doesn't need you to hold it down.

It doesn't need anything.

Happiness lands on the roof of the next house, singing,

and disappears when it wants to.

You are happy either way.

Even the fact that you once lived in a peaceful tree house

and now live over a quarry of noise and dust

cannot make you unhappy.

Everything has a life of its own,

it too could wake up filled with possibilities

of coffee cake and ripe peaches,

and love even the floor which needs to be swept,

the soiled linens and scratched records…..



Since there is no place large enough

to contain so much happiness,

you shrug, you raise your hands, and it flows out of you

into everything you touch. You are not responsible.

You take no credit, as the night sky takes no credit

for the moon, but continues to hold it, and share it,

and in that way, be known.



Naomi  Shihab Nye

Silence

"If you could only keep quiet, clear of memories and expectations, you would be able to discern the beautiful pattern of events. Its your restlessness that causes chaos."   Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj.

Change

"Things are always ending and arising and ending.  But we are strangely conditioned to want to experience just the birth part and not the death part...We have so much fear of not being in control, of not being able to hold to things.  Yet the true nature of life is that we're never in control; we can never hold onto anything.  That's how life is.  Although we can accept this intellectually, moment by moment it brings up a lot of panic and fear.  So my path has been learning to relax with this lack of control and the panic that accompanies it, learning to stay in the space of uncertainty, learning to die continually."   Pema Chodron

Leadership

"I learned that leadership was not about the warrior journey only, but about showing vulnerability as well.  Only when I stepped forward and showed my vulnerability, I cannot tell you how many women came and told me their own story and broke their silence.  It's ok to show vulnerability because we are not perfect and actually our imperfection is the beautiful thing about us; our struggle; it's not necessarily an easy dance.  It's a wobbly dance sometimes

It's like a black stone (she points to her chest) that dissolved from me and became a crystal.  That's the physical feeling that I literally feel.  I can tell you all of this and not cry.  It is out of my system.  My demon is out of me, but it took me years.  It was quite a painful journey and it took quite another kind of courage.  The courage to speak our inner truth, the courage to break our inner silence, the courage to show our vulnerability, the courage to say something as simple as 'I'm not happy' .  Courage is not planned.  Sometimes you have to jump off the cliff and just do it."  Zalnab Salbi

Expectation

"Expect your every need to be met, expect the answer to every problem, expect abundance on every level, expect to grow spiritually."  Eileen Caddy

Perspective

"It makes no difference how deeply seated may be the trouble, how hopeless the outlook, how muddled the tangle, how great the mistake. A sufficient realization of love will dissolve it all." - Emmet Fox

Perspective

Perhaps everything terrible is, in its deepest being, something that needs our love. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

Transition

"People in transition often disregard their appearance.  You may have to allow this kind of transition in others.   When you're going through a significant change of life, your good habits may fall apart.  You may do things that distance you from your family and community.   The insanity of a dark night makes some people less civil and controlled, and yet, at the same time, they may be more present."  Thomas Moore