Relationship

"I don't need you for my wholeness.  I want you for my joy."  Unknown

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

What if our religion was each other


If our practice was our life

If prayer, our words.

What if the temple was the earth

If forests were our church......

If holy water - the rivers, lakes, and oceans

What if meditation was our relationships

If the Teacher was life

If wisdom was self-knowledge

If love was the center of our being



~ Ganga White

“to live in this world

you must be able
to do three things
to love what is mortal;
to hold it

against your bones knowing
your own life depends on it;
and, when the time comes to let it go,
to let it go”
― Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems, Vol. 1

and you tried to change didn’t you?
closed your mouth more
tried to be softer
prettier
less volatile, less awake
but even when sleeping you could feel
him travelling away from you in his dreams
so what did you want to do love
split his head open?
you can’t make homes out of human beings
someone should have already told you that
and if he wants to leave
then let him leave
you are terrifying
and strange and beautiful
something not everyone knows how to love.

Warsan Shire

In Love With All

I wonder what would happen if
I treated everyone like I was in love
with them, whether I like them or not
and whether they respond or not and no matter
what they say or do to me and even if I see
things in them which are ugly, twisted, petty,
cruel, vain, deceitful, indifferent, just accept
all that and turn my attention to some small
weak tender hidden part and keep my eyes on
that until it shines like a beam of light
like a bonfire I can warm my hands by...

~Derek Tasker

River of Love

"It is a curious thing.
The river runs free
though it is contained by the banks that it carves,
the way our love runs free,
contained by the things that we love."

Mark Nepo

What Matters Most

"Having without possessing is part of the supreme virtue.   The things that matter most most can be touched but not forced to linger."  Lao Tzu

I Love You

“I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this.”
― Pablo Neruda

Urgency

"The doorway to our next step of growth is always behind the urgency of now.  Now more than ever, when all feels urgent, you must cut the strings to all events.  Now more than ever, when the weights you carry at your wrists, you must not run or flail.  Now more than ever, when each decision feels like the end, you must believe that each question is a beginning.   Now more than ever, when you fear that being who you are is a knife to those you love, you must be strong inside where no one has seen you, for loving from there can only make those you love grow.  Now more than ever, when feeling that you are the source and recipient of all pain, you must bow your head till the ancient channel from the sky to the heart can reopen, til you remember that you are a blessed piece of spirit-dust in spirit-wind. 

In this way, pray to know your place in the human family like you've never known it.  In this way, pray to have your True Self inch through your turmoil.  In this way, love yourself the way you love your children or your dog or your dearest friend, without reservation.  In this way, today with all it's hardships will spill into tomorrow, and decisions will become clear as streams thawing."  Mark Nepo

Lovingkindness

"My aspiration is to water the seed of loving-kindness in order to create understanding so that I can bring joy and happiness to my beloved and all beings."

 -Thich Nhat Hanh

Spiritual Partners

The new female and the new male are partners on a journey of spiritual partners on a journey of spiritual growth. They want to make the journey. Their love and trust keep them together. Their intuition guides them. They consult with each other. They are friends. They laugh a lot. They are equals. That is what a spiritual partnership is: a partnership between equals for the purpose of spiritual growth.
~Gary Zukav

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

Dreams come True

You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.
~Dr. Seuss

Soulmate

A soulmate is the one person whose love is powerful enough to motivate you to meet your soul, to do the emotional work of self-discovery, of awakening.
~Kenny Loggins

Love and Friendship

Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.
~Bruce Lee

Finding Love

You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by seeing an imperfect person perfectly.
~Sam Keen

Self Love

Wouldn’t it be powerful if you fell in love with yourself so deeply that you would do just about anything if you knew it would make you happy? This is precisely how much life loves you and wants you to nurture yourself. The deeper you love yourself, the more the universe will affirm your worth. Then you can enjoy a lifelong love affair that brings you the richest fulfillment from inside out.
~Alan Cohen

Attachment

The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.
~G.K. Chesterton

Relationship

A loving relationship is one in which the loved one is free to be himself – to laugh with me, but never at me; to cry with me, but never because of me; to love life, to love himself, to love being loved. Such a relationship is based upon freedom and can never grow in a jealous heart.
~Leo Buscaglia