The Quote

On this day of your life

I believe God wants you to know...

...that mastery is not measured by the number of terrible

things you eliminate from your life, but by the number of

times you eliminate calling them terrible.

The Buddha brought suffering onto himself, to look into

the face of it, to see if he was that, and, if not, to see

who he then was. Jesus allowed himself to be crucified,

to demonstrate who he was. And what do you think

you are doing here?

Why bother with this relative world if not to know yourself

in your own experience? And how else to do that except

through the encountering of that which you are not?

Be Open (OM)

by Madisyn Taylor As we live we will go through the processes of opening to new information, integrating it, and stabilizing our worldview. Living in an information age, it is easy to become overwhelmed by the constant influx of scientific studies, breaking news, and even spiritual revelations that fill our bookshelves, radio waves, and in-boxes. No sooner have we decided what to eat or how to think about the universe than a new study or book comes out confounding our well-researched opinion. After a while, we may be tempted to dismiss or ignore new information in the interest of stabilizing our point of view, and this is understandable. Rather than closing down, we might try instead to remain open by allowing our intuition to guide us. For example, contradictory studies concerning foods that are good for you and foods that are bad for you are plentiful. At a certain point, though, we can feel for ourselves whether coffee or tomatoes are good for us or not. The answer is different for each individual, and this is something that a scientific study can't quite account for. All we can do is take in the information and process it through our own systems of understanding. In the end, only we can decide what information, ideas, and concepts we will integrate. Remaining open allows us to continually change and shift by checking in with ourselves as we learn new information. It keeps us flexible and alert, and while it can feel a bit like being thrown off balance all the time, this openness is essential to the process of growth and expansion. Perhaps the key is realizing that we are not going to finally get to some stable place of having it all figured out. Throughout our lives we will go through the processes of opening to new information, integrating it, and stabilizing our worldview. No sooner will we have reached some kind of stability than it will be time to open again to new information, which is inherently destabilizing. If we see ourselves as surfers riding the incoming waves of information and inspiration, always open and willing to attune ourselves to the next shift, we will see how blessed we are to have this opportunity to play on the waves and, most of all, to enjoy the ride.

Love

"Let there be spaces in your togetherness." Kahlil Gibran

As an alcoholic, I demanded love and was possessive of others. I selfishly treated people as possessions and made them responsible for my own satisfaction and survival. My fear of being alone caused me to blackmail people with my needs and emotions. Today I love people while allowing them to breathe. My program entails healthy detachment. I take responsibility for me and allow others to take responsibility for themselves. I give those I love the space they need. Sometimes, I must love people enough to let them go. I am beginning to understand that to be free, I must give freedom to others.

God, in the spaces of my love is the growth experienced.

Four Steps to Give Back what We Continuously Take from our Precious Environment.

Via Eva Gisburne

The most important relationship I have in my life is the one I have with nature.

She and I have a deep emotional and physical connection. It is not mutual. While I can’t live without nature, she can certainly live without me.

Living in a city for too long suffocates my soul. Dark concrete, the smell of sewage and pigeon turds at every step make me long for my days spent horseback riding through aspen groves in the wilderness of Colorado.

To make the smell of urban decay bearable, my mind wanders to the scent of slightly acidic thunderstorms building up in the high altitudes of the Rockies. Disinterested mellow dogs on leashes and people passing me without acknowledging my existence in the city make me want to live in solitude in a cabin in the woods.

A few weeks ago, when I was fulfilling my twice-a-year need for a road trip, I thought a lot about the relationship we have with nature. During the time I was looking for a multi-million dollar treasure right on the border of Yellowstone National Park, these questions wouldn’t stop haunting me: What does seeing Yellowstone mean to tourists that visit it? Do we come here to check one of the wonders of the world off our list? Or is it to take a selfie next to a bison despite all the warnings not to approach wildlife?

Yellowstone was the first designated National Park in the world. It was founded in 1872, before Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana were states. The numbers of visitors of the park have been increasing annually. The park reached a record number of 4.2 million visitors last year.

I’ve visited Yellowstone three times now, but I decided on my last visit this past summer that I am never going back again. Being there is not any different than living in a big city. There are traffic jams everywhere because visitors randomly stop in the middle of the road. Mostly because they see an animal and want to take a photo of it or with it.

Waiting in a line for the restrooms is common. If we want to see Old Faithful erupt, then we better get there early to find a parking spot. We have to be careful when we are looking for a place to sit because someone might yell at us that the spot is already taken. In my observations, visiting Yellowstone is not any different than going to a football game. The mentality of the visitors is the same: We pay to get in, therefore we are going to get what we want out of the visit.

It is not nature that gets the $30 fee we pay. All nature wants is to be respected. The free roaming wild buffalo want to be left alone. They are an indigenous animal population in the picturesque river valleys and endless green meadows of Yellowstone. Unfortunately, their grazing time in the warm months of the year is constantly interrupted by hundreds of tourists driving through the park. The Yellowstone bison put up with the chaos until winter comes around and some of them migrate across the boundaries of the park in search of winter habitat and spring calving areas. That is when they get brutally slaughtered.

The Buffalo Field Campaign, an organization which is trying to protect the last wild bison, explains the senseless reason for hazing, shooting, or slaughtering the buffalo that step across a line into Montana, Idaho, or Wyoming:

“The undocumented claim by the state of Montana and Yellowstone National Park is grazing cattle in the buffalo’s range are at risk of contracting brucellosis—a disease introduced by exotic cattle to native elk and buffalo before 1917. Buffalo calves captured from the wild were “mothered with domestic bovine cows” and pastured with cattle that were brought into Yellowstone to feed park tourists.

Recent investigations of brucellosis transmission to cattle in the Yellowstone ecosystem indicate that elk, and not buffalo, are the source of infections in Montana, Wyoming, and Idaho.

There has never been a documented case of wild buffalo transmitting brucellosis to livestock.” 

During the winter of 2016/17, the Interagency Bison Management Plan directed to cruelly take 1,300 wild buffalo lives. The buffalo were slaughtered because they followed their natural instinct and migrated to ranges following the Yellowstone and Madison Rivers. Little did they know, they approached a state line and got punished for it. Not only did they approach an invisible line, they also came dangerously close to Montana’s cattle (which only make up less than one-quarter of one percent of total U.S. beef production).

Every year the Interagency Bison Management Plan and Montana Department of Livestock inspectors are capturing wild buffalo in a slaughter program that has taken 6,000 lives since 2000.

The Interagency Bison Management Plan is funded by federal and state agencies, meaning that we as taxpayers are forced to support and invest in the destruction of the last wild buffalo herds each time they approach the state line between Wyoming and Montana.

We can’t directly decide where our tax money goes. However, we can decide what kind of food we buy. I am not a vegetarian or a vegan, but researching the plan that the U.S. has for our last wild buffalo made me reconsider my dietary decisions. Beef raised in Montana, Idaho, or Wyoming is definitely the first thing I am crossing off my grocery list forever.

If you don’t like what you’ve just read, then it’s time to act. Here are a few steps we can take to establish a more mutual connection with nature:

1. Let’s think about the connection we have with nature. Do we like jogging in a nearby park? Do we love going camping on the weekend? Or taking our closest ones to Yellowstone National Park for a family vacation?

What does nature give us?

2. Imagine that nature could talk. If she was in an interview on a national television program and she was asked an opinion about us, what would she say? Would it be something like: “Dick just uses me all the time to take pictures and post them on Instagram, but I never get anything in return.” Or would it be more like: “Jane is a remarkable friend. She goes out on hikes and picks up plastic bottles all the time. On top of that, she even puts them in the right recycling bin. I love her, and she is always welcome.”

What do we give to nature? Are you a Dick or a Jane?

3. Let’s remember that big changes start with small steps. How we as individuals treat nature does matter. Even by setting a good example, we will automatically pull in people around us.

I used to be indifferent about recycling until my mom got two extra bins and kept repeating what goes in each bin. My husband used to not have a recycling bin at his house. Since we’ve been living together, our recycling bin is always overfilled.

4. If you’d like to help the wild buffalo, I strongly advising you not to put them in your SUV like this guy did. You can contact the Buffalo Field Campaign to see how you can help.

I try to make nature think she needs me so we can create a deeper connection, something that’s more mutual. So I pick up plastic bottles and cans on my hikes, preach about recycling, and leave no trace. The only thing I leave in nature is a sincere thank you and a promise that I’ll be back as soon as I can.

~

~

~

Author: Eva Gisburne

How to Find your Voice.

Via Walk The Talk Show

Walk the Talk Show with Waylon Lewis presents:

The Quote

All Is Very, Very Well (EC)

Never try to run away from life for you can never run away from yourself. It is you who make life what it is. Always see the bright side, count your blessings, be ever grateful for all the good there is around you. See the very best in everything and stop fighting and resisting and go along with all that is happening. All is very, very well. Simply know this and accept it, and find real joy and contentment in your life and living.

On this day of your life

I believe God wants you to know...

...that there is a solution. There is. But you must keep

going to find it. You cannot stop, you cannot give up.

This is about more than just patience. This is about

more than just persistence. This is about absolute

knowing that God is on your side.

When you know this, you never give up...and the

sense of struggle goes away. You simply keep moving

forward knowing that, in the end, all will work out.

And that along the way there will be great insights

and wonderful remembering.

Focusing Our Energy (OM)

BY MADISYN TAYLOR
Focused attention on one thing at a time can make the most of our life-force energy and bring about the change we want. 

As modern life makes a wealth of information and opportunities available to us, we may find ourselves torn between a wide variety of interests and projects. Our excitement may entice us to try all of them at once, but doing so only diffuses our energy, leaving us unable to fully experience any of them. Like an electrical socket with too many things plugged into it, we may be in danger of overheating and burning out. But if we can choose one thing at a time to focus all of our attention upon, we can make the most of our life-force energy, engaging ourselves fully in the moment so that it can nurture us in return. 

Our attention can be pulled in many directions, not only in our own lives, but by advertising, media, and the hustle and bustle of our surroundings. But when we take the time to listen to our inner guidance and focus our thoughts on the goals that resonate the most strongly within us, the rest of the world will fade away. This may mean focusing the spotlight of our attention upon developing one aspect of our work, one course of study, or one hobby to pursue in our free time, but it doesn't mean that we have to stay focused on only one thing forever. We may never know which of our interests is best suited to our abilities and heart's desires unless we give it a proper chance. By being fully present with all that we are and all that we have, we can experience each choice fully and make the most fulfilling choices for our energetic investments. 

Because we are multi-faceted beings, we are perpetually involved in many aspects of life in every moment. Our work in the world is necessary to attend to our physical needs, and our relationships are important for our emotional needs, but when we engage our spirit as well, we can choose the area that will nurture body, mind and soul. Staying focused in each moment allows us move with the rhythmic flow of the universe and harmonize all aspects of our being into balanced whole. 

Does Time Really Heal our Wounds?

Via Yolette Baca

 “It has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’ I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.” ~ Rose Kennedy
~

Tick Tock…

When our hearts are broken, a profound realization of time awakens. Metaphysics teaches us that time does not really exist. Though ask anyone going through heartbreak, and they will disagree.

We become profoundly aware of its existence—how slow it is.

Our memory of specific events are burned into our minds with pinpoint accuracy—right down to the number of days, hours even. Suddenly, we have new “anniversaries,” but these are not celebratory. These mark the stages of the loss, when a disease was first identified in the relationship, the dates of decay, and, ultimately, the date of its death. If betrayal was involved, we could describe the moment we became aware of it in infinite detail.

Tick Tock…

We want to sleep a lot, wish that we would never wake up, and hold conversations in our heads. We blame our exes and blame ourselves. Regret may even come to visit—regret for the relationship, regret for staying so long, regret for putting up with more than we would ever advise a friend to tolerate, regret for things we said, and regret for things we didn’t say.

When we find sleep, our dreams may be worse than our waking moments.

Tick Tock…

Please hold on.

Know that we will survive this.

I cannot tell how long it will take to feel whole again.

Only that we will.

Use this time to heal.

To repair.

To learn.

And to honor the relationship for what it brought to us.

Through these four practices, we will begin to find our worth, our value, our truth.

We can learn to hold ourselves only with the eyes of love and not allow any internal conversations about criticizing ourselves. If one slips in, take a breath, simply let it go, and say, “I’m human. I did the best I could, given the tools I had at the time.”

Have a meltdown. It can be purifying, as long as we don’t unpack and live there. Let it out, all of it. Find a non-biased ear to help gain more clarity.

Celebrate the little things: the first time having a full meal, laughing, and getting a peaceful night of sleep.

Try to find a way to connect with others. The cast members of the brokenhearted are literally anyone we meet.
It is common to be self-focused as we try to survive what may be one of the most painful experiences we ever go through in our lives.

Everyone has a story, just as everyone has a first love. We just don’t wax nostalgic about heartbreak. One of the most healing things we can do for ourselves is to reach out to others. Listen to them, feel the compassion for other humans who also suffer.

Will we ever be the same? No. We will love our exes until we no longer do.

Will we love again? I cannot say.

Is our heart broken? Absolutely.

Will it survive? In time.

Tick Tock…

~

~

~

Author: Yolette Baca

The Low-Blow that led to a Spiritual High.

Via Emily Shearer

Dear struggler, human being, and user of the ladies restroom, who relieved me of all the cash in my wallet while I practiced hot power flow at a popular Houston yoga studio on Tuesday,

I don’t know exactly what to call you.

Not friend, because friends don’t empty friends’ wallets without permission.

Not sister, blood or soul; my sisters have my back. You are not “chica”—that presumes a culture I would not ascribe to you. And you are not a yogini. I don’t care how lithely your body moves through poses, or how you glisten and glow on the outside. On the inside—not so much.

I thank you.

Andy, my meditation guru, speaks with a lovely British accent that sounds like what thick, puffy scones with apricot jam would sound like if rich, baked butter and sweet, orange fruit could speak. Andy says the source of our negative emotions is blameless. Notions like impatience, resistance, pain and anger come from within, not without. And when we feel those emotional reactions arising in response to situational clouds in an otherwise clear, blue sky, we must not look to blame the situations. We must look for the ever-present blue behind the stormy reactions.

People and places that elicit impatience, resistance, pain, and anger are gifts, Andy says, little opportunities to practice coming back to blue-sky breath.

For that gift, I thank you.

Tuesday was a rainy, cloudy day. It had taken me an hour and a half on the freeway that morning to make what should have been a 50-minute drive to a schmancy charity function at a schmancy downtown hotel. During the function, I parted ways, via plastic, with approximately the same amount of money you helped yourself to, and I didn’t blink an eye.

The cause was education: in general, one I will gladly support. Specifically, it was a fundraiser for a foundation that promotes literacy, teaching the teachers to teach those with learning differences—not only to read, but to build a lifelong love of literature.

The keynote speaker, a famous TV actor of bygone happy days, regaled us with his touching life story, one in which he was ridiculed and relegated to failure by those who didn’t acknowledge his challenges, the very same challenges my daughter faces. I fought back tears. I vowed to find new ways to help her and others like her, starting with larger support of this foundation. With that promise came an implicit pledge to renew my efforts to help all those who suffer in silence.

For allowing me to keep my promise, I thank you.

I support lots of foundations, ranging from indigent health care in my faraway hometown to refugee relief in farther away Syria. I give generously to Annie’s List of Texas and the Women’s Shelter of Montgomery County, and when I lived in the Czech Republic, I gave my time, talents, and money I earned from teaching yoga to the local women’s shelter. I write checks to Greenpeace, Habitat for Humanity, African libraries, and upstate South Carolina land conservation organizations.

My policy is that if I am asked to give to people who need help, I give.

I have always said, with a vigorous nod to Dorothy, that we don’t have to wander much further than our own backyards to find those people—or talking lions who walk upright. Whatevs. I guess I needed to be reminded.

For the reminder, I thank you.

I have copious amounts of money to drop in the buckets as they pass. I know how lucky I am to have been both charmed and blessed in this life.

I have a big house to which everyone is invited. I drive a big car, which I load up with donations and drop them off at shelters. What you took from me would have been $25 more if I hadn’t paid that much to valet park, simply because I didn’t want to walk in the rain in my luncheon shoes. My husband is a highly paid executive at a merther-ferking oil company for God’s sake, on whose dime I have traveled extensively. Whose dimes I have, alm by alm, donated away.

Nevermind that no matter how carefully orchestrated my exit plan from the hotel ballroom, and despite my “Ocean’s 11” heist-like strategy, I still got lost on the way to the yoga studio. I drove by the place five times, executing an enviable series of U-turns and traffic maneuvers that would have made Danica Patrick proud. Frazzled, I finally arrived at 2:01 for a 2 o’clock class, hence necessitating my hasty sign-in and my careless throwing-my-sh*t-in-an-unprotected-ladies’-room-cubby rather than stashing it behind lock-and-key in the facility lockers, which I walked right by but didn’t have the time or presence of mind to notice.

Where were we? Oh yes. Luncheon shoes. Faux calf-skin, leopard print. Blech, you say. Spoiled, you call me. Values-skewed at best, valueless at worst. Go ahead, point your finger at me. Add hypocrite to the list while you’re at it. You wouldn’t be wrong. Yesterday, I stole too.

For naming me, I thank you.

Without asking, I took two magazines from my kids’ orthodontist office. By definition, that is stealing. And by definition, yoga has eight limbs, only one of which is asana, or physical practice. Another one of the limbs, or yamas, is asteya: non-stealing.

The next morning, I returned the magazines after having copied down the websites, recipes, and cute outfit ideas that I had convinced myself were of more value to me than to other patients who might also be entertained or gratified by the very same one-month-old recipes, websites, and cute outfit ideas. Remember that list of epithets we were throwing down? How about selfish? Self-centered, single-minded? Decidedly non-yogic.

Sometimes it takes the mistakes of others to open our eyes to our own.

For revealing me, I thank you.

Yoga is more than exercise. Asana is the physical frontside. We go to our mats to practice, and we stretch beyond our limitations. As the makeup is sweated off, the to-do lists are forgotten; what’s in or not in the fridge, who’s coming to dinner, where we’ll be in five years, hell, where we’ll be tomorrow—all of it distills into the moments when we come back to the natural self and kiss an intimacy with the interiority of the body.

And that distillation then crystallizes into magnifying laser beams of light, which we are able to use to spotlight other areas of our lives and see more clearly where we can refine, define, lean-in, and sharpen a keener sense of wellness—holistic, emotional, and spiritual. Asana is only one-eighth of the full yoga immersion. Among the other seven yamas, the values, principles, and observations to which we aspire and through which we hope to achieve enlightenment are the aforementioned asteya: ahem, non-stealing, and aparigraha: non-possessiveness, non-greed, detachment.

For enlightening me, I thank you.

I can do without the money. You need it more than I do. (Although, when I proffered that philosophy at the dinner table later that night, my sage and succinct 17-year-old son declared, in a way that only 17-year-olds can, “That’s bullsh*t.” Maybe so, my son, but I will continue to make it my life’s work to shine the light on the truth of that way of seeing.)

There were years in my life when every dollar to my name was carefully accounted for. Now, I honestly don’t know how much money had been in my wallet. A hundred bucks? Two hundred? Thereabouts. For me, a hundred bucks could be the difference between valet parking or not. For you, it could be rent. Or food. Or yoga.

Remember, I had been late, and the receptionist had scurried me in, providing water, a hair tie, and a towel. I had yet to pay for any of that. When I opened my wallet after class and found it as empty as Jesus’ tomb, an echo chamber, a cartoon moth could have flitted out of its voided chambers, my first thought was: I know how lucky I am. Believe you me. And I know how I sound to you, with my charity luncheons, suede sandals, and valet parking.

But make no mistake. If you think my yoga is bogus, you underestimate us both.

I’ve been practicing yoga in all its limbs for 32 years, just as often off the mat as on. Clearly, I need more exposure to some of its finer points. You taught me aparigraha. You reinforced asteya. Additionally, you acquainted me with ahimsa: non-violence, non-harming, non-injury. Inasmuch as we can be, we’re all about that in our family. Even though I can count on two hands the number of times I’ve gotten my husband and three kids to practice yoga with me on the mat, off the mat we model (or try to—see section on waiting room magazine-theft) karma yoga, wishing all others well, acting in service to others, and paying respect to the divinity of nature.

I wish you no ill will. I do sort of hope you had a sh*tty night’s sleep, tossing and turning in the restlessness that comes from a guilty conscience. But beyond that, I suffer no grievances toward you. I am not angry. I am ahimsa. I am blue sky.

You stole money from me. The laws of double indemnity prevent me from trying you for the same crime twice. So I will not let you steal from me again. I disallow you to take from me my peace of mind or my joy or my love. They are not yours for the taking.

For showing me that only I hold the keys to my inner calm, I thank you.

So you made off with my money. You can have it. In exchange you gave me this story. For the lessons, I thank you.

I turn to the great yogi and writer Max Strom to tell you how I intend to sally forth:

“So, in our daily lives, when we see tragedy, when we see evil, when we see suffering, we have two choices: we can take that suffering into us and become upset, or we can direct our joy and love and send them out into the suffering in order to heal it.”

Detach me from my worldly goods and I will still be generous with my time and energy, giving of beneficence in many forms—cookies and breads, poetry and praise, heart of a servant, heart of a servant, heart of a servant.

My money won’t heal you. Only love can heal. I send you mine, along with the light of my spirit, which still and always and in spite of your dick move, bows humbly to the light of yours. Namaste.
~

Author: Emily Shearer 

The Quote

Thought

If you want to truly understand something, try to change it. -Kurt Lewin

This saying makes you ponder. It is a thought that challenges us to think outside of the box. It forces us into explanation. You cannot really change something without first understanding what it is you want to change. You probably want to change something because you don't agree with it or you think that you have a better solution. And so you really need to understand what it is you want to change. I am an alcoholic.Only after years of trying to change my behavior and attitude concerning alcohol have I eventually come to an understanding of alcoholism: the denial, manipulation, sarcasm, family history, and mood swings.My efforts at change produced a profound understanding.

I cannot change without thinking.

On this day of your life

I believe God wants you to know...

...that fun is not defined as the absence of challenging

circumstances, but as the absence of anger about them.

Of course, it is natural to become "fed up" with some

of the worst conditions of physical life. Yet the fun of

life is in embracing a perspective that allows you to

look into the face of those conditions and demonstrate

Who You Are in spite of them.

"Where is the fun in that?" you might say. The fun is in

the victory, my friend. The fun is in the victory.

You will not have to think but a second to know

exactly why you received this message today.

NUGGETS OF WISDOM - 99

·        “Allow your life to unfold naturally. Know that it is a vessel of perfection.” — Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

• ·        “Pray not for easy lives, pray to be stronger men.”—John F. Kennedy
  ·        "The morality of the religions of evolution drives men forward in the God quest by the motive power of fear. The religions of revelation allure men to seek for a God of love because they crave to become like him."
  ·        "In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me
  lay an invincible summer." -Albert Camus
  ·        “Real strength is not just a condition of one's muscle, but a tenderness in one's spirit.”—McCallister Dodds
  ·        “Health, wealth, beauty, and genius are not created; they are only manifested by the arrangement of your mind— that is, by your concept of yourself, and your concept of yourself is all that you accept and consent to as true.”— Neville Goddard
  ·        "As pertains to eternal survival, God has decreed the sovereignty of the material and mortal will, and that decree is absolute."
  ·        Truth is great and its effectiveness endures – Ptahhotpe
  ·        It is better to look ahead and prepare than to look back and regret. – Jackie Joyner-Kersee
  ·        “Strength does not come from physical capacity. It comes from an indomitable will.”—Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
  ·        "My life has no purpose, no direction, no aim, no meaning, and yet I'm happy. I can't figure it out. What am I doing right?"~Charles Schulz
  ·        "The love of the Father absolutely individualizes each personality as a unique child of the Universal Father, a child without duplicate in infinity, a will creature irreplaceable in all eternity."
  ·        “Storms make trees take deeper roots.”—Dolly Parton
  ·        "Following your inner guidance often involves making changes which seem like endings, but are really new beginnings."
  ·        "From its earliest inception the soul is real; it has cosmic survival qualities."
  ·        "When we let go of our battles and open our hearts to things as they are, then we come to rest hearts to things as they are, then we come to rest in the present moment. This is the beginning in the present moment. This is the beginning and end of spiritual practice." - Jack Kornfield