"I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweat shops."   Stephen Jay Gould

Human Incarnation

" Inevitably, maintaining our authenticity means constantly living within patterns and breaking patterns.  It is not about eliminating our humanness.  Not about eliminating our want to be loved, but curbing the stubborn ways we hurt and disrespect ourselves to get that love.   This involves recognizing the unhealthy patterns we fall into and correcting our course.   It is not helpful to label what doesn't work as bad and then strive to rid ourselves of our human flaws.   The aim is not to make ourselves pure and one-sided in our aliveness, but to inhabit all of who we are, living into the dilatations and constrictions of our strengths and weaknesses.  It is about learning how to live through being human, until the rhythm of being human can be celebrated as the magically imperfect vessel of Spirit that it is."  Mark Nepo

Relationships

The most wonderful of all things in life, I believe, is the discovery of another human being with whom one’s relationship has a glowing depth, beauty, and joy as the years increase. This inner progressiveness of love between two human beings is a most marvelous thing, it cannot be found by looking for it or by passionately wishing for it. It is a sort of Divine accident.
~Sir Hugh Walpole

Eyes So Soft

Don't
Surrender
Your loneliness so quickly.
Let it cut more
Deep

Let it ferment and season you
As few human
Or even divine ingredients can.

Something missing in my heart tonight
Has made my eyes so soft,
My voice so tender,
My need of God
Absolutely
Clear

Obuntubotho

The essence of being human.  You know when it is threatened when it is there and when it is absent.  It speaks about humanness, gentleness, putting yourself out on behalf of others, being vulnerable.  It embraces compassion and toughness.  It recognizes that my humanity is bound up in yours, for we can only be human together. 

Paradise

"Humans are just inches away from paradise, but that last inch is as wide as an ocean."  Elizabeth Lesser

Oneness

"What we reach for may be different, but what makes us reach is the same."  Mark Nepo

The Choice

"A single, simple choice is present in every moment - a choice hardly difficult or confusing. My choice is whether I will see and act on an obvious truth: that another is as legitimate and human as I am."   (The Choice in Teaching and Education) Arbinger

Surviving

"How does one survive cancer? Of course -- good doctors, good insurance, good luck. But the real healing comes from not being forgotten. From attention, from care, from love, from being surrounded by a community of those who demand information on your behalf, who advocate and stand up for you when you are in a weakened state, who sleep by your side, who refuse to let you give up, who bring you meals, who see you not as a patient or victim but as a precious human being, who create metaphors where you can imagine your survival. This is my medicine, and nothing less will suffice."  Eve Ensler

Oneness

"I understand that if I were to look deeply
into Anything I would see You. Then, I would see Me. But the Human Being
runs from flower to flower, never to make love - not even pausing to
kiss those perfumed lips... And we wonder why we Just Can't Seem to
Find God." (From Flower to Flower, Em Claire)

New Consciousness Leaders

"While we will probably never grasp the entirety of God's thoughts or the wisdom of the universe, or whatever you call the vast organizing principle of existence, we can listen more deeply for inklings, we can pay closer attention to the cause and effect of our actions.  We can raise our own standards of behavior toward something kinder and grander. 

What might leadership look like if generated from a wise consciousness?   Here's my stab at some answers.  A New Consciousness Leader knows the difference between strength and force.  Strength comes from a deep, inner confidence; from loving and respecting and expressing one's own authentic self.   That kind of strength opens the gate to real love of others and life itself.  Force comes from a deep inner wound that spawns the urge to dominate and even the score.  A New Consciousness Leader uses her strength.  She is bold, direct and decisive.  She views terror and violence as the tactics of cowards and fools.  A New Consciousness leader also knows the difference between outrage and rage.  I think of outrage as Holy Anger.  Strong emotional responsiveness to the pain of others; to injustice, to ignorance.  Outrage is fierce but it never dehumanizes.  It fills a leaders sails with the winds of action, but it also fills her heart with discernment and compassion.  Rage, on the other hand, is like a forest fire.  It is impatient and it is vindictive and it is short sighted.  A New Consciousness Leader uses the energy of outrage to persuade and guide and include and create."

Becoming Human

"You can transcend our embarrassment and take pride in being a human being."  Chogyam Trungpa

Searching

"No matter where my searching takes me, it always leads me back to my need to face my own true nature, and since I am a human being, my human nature.   It doesn't matter which path we take.  If we bypass our humanness, each path leads back to the same question; WHAT ARE WE HIDING FROM IN OURSELVES AND IN EACH OTHER?

Becoming Human

"It took me a long time to decide to become a human being, and look within my own flawed nature for salvation.   It took mistakes, dark nights of the soul, hard work and help from teachers and friends to fashion a spirituality that respected both my divinity and my humanity, my radiance and my shadow.   It took my own combination of religion and psychology, meditation and physical healing, mysticism and science to forge a path that felt genuine and effective."   Elizabeth Lesser

Humanity and Growth

“Our humanity is not an attribute that we have received once and forever with our conception. It is a potentiality that we have to discover within us and progressively develop or destroy through our confrontation with the different experiences of suffering that will meet us through our life."
—Xavier Le Pichon

Human Body

‎"It's also helpful to realize that this very body that we have, that is sitting right here right now... with its aches and pleasures... is exactly what we need to be fully human, fully awake, fully alive." ~Pema Chödrön

Inspiration

God speaks to each of us as he makes us,
then walks with us silently out of the night.

These are the words we dimly hear:

You, sent out beyond your recall,
go to the limits of your longing.
Embody me.

Flare up like a flame
and make big shadows I can move in.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror.
Just keep going. No feeling is final.
Don't let yourself lose me.

Nearby is the country they call life.
You will know it by its seriousness.

Give me your hand.

Rilke
Book of Hours, I 59

Being Deworlded

"Richard Kearney sums up catharsis as a matter of 'acknowledging painful truths'.   He says it 'stops us in our tracks, throws us off kilter, deworlds us'.  To a person intent on getting somewhere, these are not appealing developments, but to the human soul it is important to get out of the busy life, to be dissuaded from familiar activities, and to step outside the paradigm that has become habitual and taken for granted.   To be 'deworlded' mean you have a rare opportunity to consider a different way of life.   You can't renew life without stepping out of the pattern that is in place."   Thomas Moore

Time

Namkhai Norbu Rinpoche: "You are human. Time is passing."

Perhaps

"Perhaps we wouldn't eat so much or smoke, or drink so much, if we were paying attention to ourselves.   Perhaps we wouldn't talk so much if we were paying attention to each other.   All of these oral activities are trying to meet a need, and perhaps the greatest need is to be seen and heard."  Christina Baldwin