Uniqueness

"We can be unique without being better than anyone else, without being special."  Unknown

We Have Come To Be Danced

We have come to be danced
Not the jiffy booby, shake your booty for him dance
But the wring the sadness from our skin dance
The blow the chip off our shoulder dance.
The slap the apology from our posture dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the monkey see, monkey do dance
One two dance like you
One two three, dance like me dance
but the grave robber, tomb stalker
Tearing scabs and scars open dance
The rub the rhythm raw against our soul dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the nice, invisible, self-conscious shuffle
But the matted hair flying, voodoo mama
Shaman shakin’ ancient bones dance
The strip us from our casings, return our wings
Sharpen our claws and tongues dance
The shed dead cells and slip into
The luminous skin of love dance.

We have come to be danced
Not the hold our breath and wallow in the shallow end of the floor dance
But the meeting of the trinity, the body breath and beat dance
The shout hallelujah from the top of our thighs dance
The mother may I?
Yes you may take 10 giant leaps dance
The olly olly oxen free free free dance
The everyone can come to our heaven dance.

We have come to be danced
Where the kingdom’s collide
In the cathedral of flesh
To burn back into the light
To unravel, to play, to fly, to pray
To root in skin sanctuary
We have come to be danced
We have come.

by Jewel Mathieson

Parenting

"Accept the children the way we accept trees—with gratitude, because they are a blessing—but do not have expectations or desires. You don’t expect trees to change, you love them as they are." ~ Isabel Allende ♥

Soulmate

A soulmate is an ongoing connection with another individual that the soul picks up again in various times and places over lifetimes. We are attracted to another person at a soul level not because that person is our unique complement, but because by being with that individual, we are somehow provided with an impetus to become whole ourselves.
~Edgar Cayce

Retreat

"Retreat is an extraordinary opportunity, where all your attention is turned toward  liberation, freedom, and truth.  It is a rare privilege to be able to withdraw for a period of time, to be in a place of beauty, to be well fed, to have the attention on the truth of who you really are."  Shree Ma

Fundementalism

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."

Friedrich Nietzche

Individuality

"The only people for me are the mad ones,
the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk
mad to be saved; desirous of everything at the same time.
The ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing."

Jack Kerouac

Uniqueness

"We can be unique without being better than anyone else, without being special."  Unknown

Resilience

"Despite early injury and all the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, we bear the image of a definite individual character with some enduring traits."  James Hillman

Individuality

“Seek out that particular mental attribute which makes you feel most deeply
and vitally alive, along with which comes the inner voice which says,
‘This is the real me,’ and when you have found that attitude, follow
it.” ~William James

Perfection

"The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself." ~ Anna Quindlen

Discovering our Gifts

"We will discover the nature of our particular genius when we stop trying to conform to our own or other people's models, learn to be ourselves, and allow our natural channel to open."  Shakti Gawain

Individuality

"To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying 'amen' to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive."  Robert Louis Stevenson

Identity

"It is important not to take care of or be taken care of all of the time.   They [mothers/women] are always caring, always wanting care.   They are stuck, fixated on the nurturing mother-child archetype.  But you don't always need to be cared for.  You don't have to justify your existence by caring for others.   Instead of making mutual care an absolute principle, you could understand that need, absence and ignorance allow wonder and new life.  You need to feel your own essence - who you are when you are not acknowledged and supported by someone else.   This empty underworld of your identity is an important ingredient in your reality, and when you are learning this lesson you may think you are in a dark night."  Thomas Moore

Projection

"If only I could throw away the urge to trace my patterns in your heart, I could really see you." ~ David Brandon

Opinion

If they don't have any room for your opinions step outside of the circle and the world is ready to hear you. ~ Dodinsky

Individuality

"Whether he is wealthy or poor, the Rebel is really an emperor because he has broken the chains of society's repressive conditioning and opinions. He has formed himself by embracing all the colors of the rainbow, emerging from the dark and formless roots of his unconscious past and growing wings to fly into the sky. His very way of bei...ng is rebellious - not because he is fighting against anybody or anything, but because he has discovered his own true nature and is determined to live in accordance with it. The eagle is his spirit animal, a messenger between earth and sky. "    OSHO.

The Woods

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach me, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived."  HDT

Story

"The practice of story creates a social net that makes us capable of seeing each others unique contribution and incapable of simply dismissing someone as "not like me"  Christina Baldwin

Journey Home

"The Journey"

One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice--
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations,
through their melancholy
was terrible
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen
branches and stones.
But little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world
determined to do
the only thing you could do--
determined to save
the only life you could save.