Imagine A Woman

Imagine a woman who believes it is right and good she is a woman.
A woman who honors her experience and tells her stories.
Who refuses to carry the sins of others within her body and life.

Imagine a woman who trusts and respects herself.
A woman who listens to her needs and desires.
Who meets them with tenderness and grace.

Imagine a woman who acknowledges the past's influence on the present.
A woman who has walked through her past.
Who has healed into the present.

Imagine a woman who authors her own life.
A woman who exerts, initiates, and moves on her own behalf.
Who refuses to surrender except to her truest self and wisest voice.

Imagine a woman who names her own gods.
A woman who imagines the divine in her image and likeness.
Who designs a personal spirituality to inform her daily life.

Imagine a woman in love with her own body.
A woman who believes her body is enough, just as it is.
Who celebrates its rhythms and cycles as an exquisite resource.

Imagine a woman who honors the body of the Goddess in her changing body.
A woman who celebrates the accumulation of her years and her wisdom.
Who refuses to use her life-energy disguising the changes in her body and life.

Imagine a woman who values the women in her life.
A woman who sits in circles of women.
Who is reminded of the truth about herself when she forgets.

Imagine yourself as this woman.
- Patricia Lynn Reilly

Freedom

From this hour, Freeedom!
From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines
Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute,
Listening to others, and considering well what they say
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating

Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.

I am larger, better than I thought;
I did not know I held so much goodness.

-Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road

Authenticity and Listening

"If I don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god
home, we may miss our star."

William Stafford

Solitude

"You need not leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen, simply wait, just learn to become quiet, and still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet."

- Franz Kafka - from Senses

Solitude and Solitary

"You need not leave your room. Remain sitting at your table and listen. You need not even listen, simply wait, just learn to become quiet, and still, and solitary. The world will freely offer itself to you to be unmasked. It has no choice; it will roll in ecstasy at your feet."  Rumi

Why Not Be Polite

Everyone
Is God Speaking.
Why not be polite and
Listen.

Hafiz

The Sun In Drag

You are the Sun in drag.
You are God hiding from yourself.
Remove all the "mine" - that is the veil.
Why ever worry about
Anything?
Listen to what your friend Hafiz
Knows for certain:
The appearance of this world
Is a Magi's brilliant trick though it's affairs are
Nothing into nothing.
You are a divine elephant with amnesia
Trying to live in an ant
Holy Sweetheart, O Sweetheart
You are God in
Drag

Aspirations for Living

"To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury, and refinement rather than fashion; to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy, not rich; to listen to stars and birds, babes and sages, with open heart; to study hard; to think quietly, act frankly, talk gently, await occasions, hurry never; in a word, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common--this is my symphony."   William Henry Channing, 1810 - 1884

When You Can Endure

WHEN YOU CAN ENDURE

When

The words stop

And you can endure the silence

That reveals your heart's

Pain

Of emptiness

Or that great wrenching - sweet longing.

That is the time to try and listen

To what the /Beloved's

Eyes

Most want

To

Say.

Hafiz

Listening

"When you sit down to listen, you say, 'I listen like this with one purpose: to allow him or her to speak out and to suffer less." -Thich Nhat Hanh

Listening

"For every action we take, God leaves little messages about its wisdom and folly.   All we have to do is quiet down and listen closely.  Usually we are too opinionated, or defensive, or frightened to hear the message. We judge our experiences right away as situations we like or don't like, or people as being for or against  us, or ideas as being ones we can embrace or fear."  Elizabeth Lesser

New Story

"The new story we want to help birth is hidden under the louder story of our own self-doubts and the story of history.   If you want to hear a new voice you have to listen very carefully.  Another world is not only possible she is on her way. On a quiet day I can hear her breathing."  Elizabeth Lesser 

Heartfelt Work

"Heartfelt work is the cessation of avoidance. It is about waiting, listening and trusting."  Elizabeth Lesser

Wisdom

Wisdom is the reward you get for a lifetime of listening when you'd have preferred to talk. ~Doug Larson

Knowing

"Stop thinking and talking about it and there is nothing you will not be able to know."  Zen Paradigm

Listening

“Only that in you which is me can hear what I'm saying.” Ram Dass

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

Junk Food for the Mind

"The sound of one another's voices is so often background noise, as though life were a never-ending cell phone call.  Mirroring a junk food diet for the body, we have developed a junk-talk diet for the mind.   The cure for junk food is not to stop eating but to eat consciously.   The cure for junk talk is not to stop talking, but to speak and listen and write and read consciously, carefully determining our communication."   Christina Baldwin

Listening and Loving

"Sometimes it is a great joy just to listen to someone we love talking."  Vincent McNabb

Gift Me

 GIFT ME

Gift me with your presence
Show up fully, but only when you really want to
Not out of obligation or fear of disappointing.

Gift me with your stories
Of joy and pain, for through them you grow
To love life and learn wisdom
And in hearing them from you, I deepen too.
Tell it all, every detail...
What was said, felt and discovered
And how it changed you

Gift me with honesty
Tell me when I hurt or disappoint you
When I make you proud or just that you love me.
Tell me the truth, as you see it,
In me, the world and life
As the unfolding Mystery


Gift me with forgiveness
An honest attempt to give
Not only me, but all you meet
The benefit of the doubt
That even in my faults and frailties
You see the inherent worth and Light of God
Most of all...

Gift me with a chosen silence
When it would be easier to judge
Or you feel you can't resist the urge
To share with another the latest amusing, confusing
Insane thing you saw me do...or refrain from
For time has a way, of bringing all things full circle

Gift me with a compassionate, listening ear
When I seek a witness to my life and experience
And open your heart even wider,
That it may take it ALL in
And love me even more when I most confuse you

Gift me with a place at your table
A phone call just because
An invitation to adventure
And the assurance that
Not a day goes by without a smile lifting your lips
In fondness for memories we have yet to create

Gift me with patience
As time slows my steps
And mind's edges dull
Allow me the dignity and freedom of which I am capable,
But if the time comes that I am not safe or sane enough,
Care for me, as I tried to do for you
when you still fit in my arms
And needed a shoulder to sleep on.

Valerie Wilkins Alder