Archives

To breathe in
You must first breathe out
Let go

To hold
You must first open your hand
Let go

To be warm
You must first be naked
Let go

---Timothy Leary, Psychedelic Prayers

"When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint.
When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist."
---Dom Helder Camara

"Allow each soul to walk its path."
Neale Walsh, "Conversations With God", pg. 47

"Each of us has a unique talent;
however we do not own it but serve as trustee;
our talent must be used as much for the sake of others
as for ourselves."
---Mahatma Gandhi (The network, Journal of the Center for World Networking

NEW BEGINNINGS

By doing what needs to be done right now,
we make the most of each present moment.
As long as we are alive,
we are always free to begin again.
Instead of following an old, worn-out habit,
make a frest start this moment on the rest of your life.
Each day is a new start.
Each moment is a beginning.

Do not seek God before you find self,
Nor claim salvation yet blame another;
Your own biggest problem is yourself,
Conquer that before any other!
---My name is a declaration of my life: Rob (WIth EcK) WiEK
"Life is a matter of attitude, I will live mine with gratitude!"

ATTITUDE IS EVERYTHING
---By Francie Baltazar-Schwartz

Jerry was the kind of guy you love to hate. He was always in a good mood and always had something positive to say. When someone would ask him how he was doing, he would reply, "If I were any better, I would be twins!"

He was a unique manager because he had several waiters who had followed him around from restaurant to restaurant. The reason the waiters followed Jerry was because of his attitude. He was a natural motivator. If an employee was having a bad day, Jerry was there telling the employee how to look on the positive side of the situation.

Seeing this style really made me curious, so one day I went up to Jerry and asked him, "I don't get it! You can't be a positive person all of the time. How do you do it?"

Jerry replied, "Each morning I wake up and say to myself, 'Jerry, you have two choices today. You can choose to be in a good mood or you can choose to be in a bad mood.' I choose to be in a good mood. Each time something bad happens, I can choose to be a victim or I can choose to learn from it. I choose to learn from it. Every time someone comes to me complaining, I can choose to accept their complaining or I can point out the positive side of life. I choose the positive side of life."

"Yeah, right, it's not that easy," I protested.

"Yes, it is," Jerry said. "Life is all about choices. When you cut away all the junk, every situation is a choice. You choose how you react to situations. You choose how people will affect your mood. You choose to be in a good mood or bad mood. The bottom line: It's your choice how you live life."

I reflected on what Jerry said. Soon thereafter, I left the restaurant industry to start my own business. We lost touch, but I often thought about him when I made a choice about life instead of reacting to it.

Several years later, I heard that Jerry did something you are never supposed to do in a restaurant business: he left the back door open one morning and was held up at gunpoint by three armed robbers. While trying to open the safe, his hand, shaking from nervousness, slipped off the combination. The robbers panicked and shot him. Luckily, Jerry was found relatively quickly and rushed to the local trauma center.

After 18 hours of surgery and weeks of intensive care, Jerry was released from the hospital with fragments of the bullets still in his body.

I saw Jerry about six months after the accident. When I asked him how he was, he replied, "If I were any better, I'd be twins. Wanna see my scars?"

I declined to see his wounds, but did ask him what had gone through his mind as the robbery took place. "The first thing that went through my mind was that I should have locked the back door," Jerry replied. "Then, as I lay on the floor, I remembered that I had two choices: I could choose to live, or I could choose to die. I chose to live."

"Weren't you scared? Did you lose consciousness?" I asked.

Jerry continued, "The paramedics were great. They kept telling me I was going to be fine. But when they wheeled me into the emergency room and I saw the expressions on the faces of the doctors and nurses, I got really scared. In their eyes, I read, 'He's a dead man.'

"I knew I needed to take action."

"What did you do?" I asked.

"Well, there was a big, burly nurse shouting questions at me," said Jerry. "She asked if I was allergic to anything. 'Yes,' I replied. The doctors and nurses stopped working as they waited for my reply. I took a deep breathe and yelled, 'Bullets!' Over their laughter, I told them. 'I am choosing to live. Operate on me as if I am alive, not dead."

Jerry lived thanks to the skill of his doctors, but also because of his amazing attitude. I learned from him that every day we have the choice to live fully. Attitude, after all, is everything.

You have 2 choices now:
1. save or delete this mail from your mail box.
2. forward it to anyone you care about.

* Hope you will choose choice 2.
(Copyright Permission is given as long as this e-mail remains unchanged.)

"There is no exercise better for the heart
than reaching out and lifting people up."
---Author Unknown

This is an Indian Proverb:
When you were born,
you cried and the world rejoiced.
Live your life in such a manner that when you die
The world cries and you rejoice.

Story

Children are often closer to the creative spark of God, than we are. One day I was reading a magazine and my seven-year old niece came up to me and said she was bored. So, looking for something for her to do, I saw a picture of the map of the world in the magazine. It took up a whole page.

So, I cut out the picture and then cut it into several small pieces. I told her to assemble the map, just like a jigsaw puzzle. She went away quite happy.

Thinking, she would be gone for some time, I was surprised to see her back in about five minutes with an assembled picture ! I asked her how she did it so quick. She said it was easy, she turned over all the pieces and soon saw that it was a picture of a family. So, she taped all those together and flipped the whole page over, and there she had a map of the world. I thought, how creative!

Then, she turned to me with a sparkle in her eye and said, "When the family came together, the whole world came together" !
---Rich Urmann

12 Symptoms of
INNER PEACE and RECOVERY:

1. Tendency to think and act spontaneously rather than from fears based on past experience.
2. An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment.
3. Loss of interet in judging self.
4. Loss of interest in judging other people.
5. Loss of interest in conflict.
6. Loss of interest ininterpreting actions of others.
7. Loss of ability to worry (this is a very serious symptom).
8. Frequent overwhelming episodes of appreciation.
9. Contented feelings of connectedness with others and nature.
10. Frequent attacks of smiling through the eyes of the heart.
11. Increasing susceptibility to love extended by others as well as the uncontrollable urge to extend it.
12. Increasing tendency to let things happen rather than make them happen.
---Author Unknown

I have inherited a great treasure
... the love in my own heart.
The more I share this treasure with others,
the richer I become.
---Anonymous

I have four things to learn from life:
To think clearly without hurry or confusion;
To love everybody sincerely;
To trust in God unhesitantly.
---Helen Keller

NEW BEGINNINGS

By doing what needs to be done right now,
we make the most of each present moment.

As long as we are alive,
we are always free to begin again.

Instead of following an old, worn-out habit,
make a fresh start this moment on the rest of your life.

Each day is a new start.

Each moment is a beginning.

---Anonymous

PRAYER FOR KEEPING ON

Let us find a way to keep it moving,
to keep it alive and free, where it wants to be.
Let us walk all the way through doubt consistently,
to believe in what we have found in our beginnings.
Let us know what is real, and let us pass it back and forth
between our hands until we are gone from this earth,
and even then, let us remain in this spirit, please.
Sam Woods, American Healing (a little known, fine book from Station Hill Press)

"At a certain level, every religion is a world religion, and in that spirit we can imagine a world Christmas, a holy time where the emphasis is on the mystery of human life and not on sectarian arguments over doctrine and theology. The "real meaning" of Christmas is not what you believe, but how deeply and genuinely you are transformed by the spirit of the festival in the direction of hope, peace and community."
---Thomas Moore, The Soul of Christmas (a 2 CD set with music and Moore talking plus a book)

"O Soul of the Universe
What is more important than knowledge?
'Caring,
and seeing with the Heart,'
said the Soul."
---Kirsten Daiensai, his painting called Emanations

"What if, like a little cat in new territory, we played with our griefs, our losses, our imaginary enemies -- until just by going through the motions of play, we remembered not to take ourselves or our species so seriously."
--- Brenda Peterson "Intimate Nature, the Bond Between Women and Animals" (edited by Linda Hogan)

"The Buddha taught that the forces in the mind that bring suffering are able to temporarily hold down the positive forces such as love or wisdom, but they can never destroy them. The negative forces can never uproot the positive, whereas the positive forces can actually uproot the negative forces. Love can uproot fear or anger or guilt, because it is a greater power."

Love can go anywhere. Nothing can obstruct it."

---Sharon Salzberg, "Loving-Kindness, The Revolutionary Art of Happiness"

Holding on to anger only gives you tense muscles.
---Joan Lunden, "Joan Lunden's Healthy Living" (Crown)

Get your facts first,
then you can distort them as much as you please.
---Mark Twain

"Love is not measured by how many times you touch each other,
but by how many times you reach each other."
---Cathy Morancy

I grew up in the Roman Catholic church and still love the rich traditions in that church. One of them that I was brought up on, was the rosary. Even if you are not Catholic, or even Christian, it is a wonderful method of meditation on the virtues of one's life. I would like to share with you a portion of this medititation:

The rosary begins with the crucifix, and then is a series of beads

JOYFUL MYSTERIES (white roses)
1. The Angel Gabriel appears to Mary. Ask for Mary' humility.
2. Mary visits her cousing, Elizabeth. Ask for Mary's charity.
3. Christ is born in Bethlehem's stable. Ask to beome poor in spirit.
4. Christ is presented in the Temple. Ask for Mary's purity.
5. Christ is found int the Temple after three days. Ask for Mary's love of Jesus.

SORROWFUL MYSTERIES (red roses)
1. Jesus suffers in agony in Gethsamane. Ask for Mary's resignation.
2. Jesus is scourged at the pillar. Ask for the spirit of mortification.
3. Jesus is crowned with cruel thorns. Ask for Mary's meekness.
4. Jesus bears His cross to Calvary. Ask for Mary's patience in trials and sufferrings.
5. Jesue dies upon the cross. Ask for Mary's love of God.

GLORIOUS MYSTERIES (yellow roses)
1. Christ arises on the third day. Ask for Mary's lively faith.
2. Christ ascends into Heaven. Ask for Mary's firm hope.
3. The Holy Spirit descends upon the Apostles. Ask for Mary's zeal for the glory of God.
4. Mary's body is taken into Heaven. Ask for Mary's union with the Heart of Jesus.
5. Mary is crowned Queen of the Angels and Saints. Ask for final perserverance.

You are not a human being having a spiritual experience.
You are a spirtual being having a human experience.
---Dr. Wayne W. Dyer

"Our destiny is the realization of our unique gifts. Whatever we sincerely yearn to do is what we're meant to be doing. In my experience, when people connect to their creative power and act out of it, the impossible becomes possible and the neuroses become irrelevant. Whatever our gifts, it is our responsibility and our priviledge to bring them to life. That means doing whatever is necessary--studying, connecting with people, etc.--to bring your creativity to fruition. Don't be discouraged by circumstances. As Doris Lessing once said, 'whatever it is you're meant to do, do it now. The conditions are always impossible'."
---Unknown

FRIENDSHIP: Soul to Soul
(For the ancient Celts, friendship was a doorway to the eternal)
by John O'Donohue

The human journey is so short. We no sooner realize that we are here than it is already time for us to be leaving. The brevity of life gives a subconscious urgency to our desire to know ourselves. Dostoyevsky said that one of the greatest tragedies is that so many people live their lives without ever finding themselves in themselves. Perhaps this is what a friendship gives us. The real mirror of your life and soul is your true friend. A friend helps you to glimpse who you really are and what you are doing here.

The Celts had a refined and beautiful notion of friendship. In the early Celtic church, a person who acted as a teacher, companion, or spiritual guide was called an anam cara, the Gaelic words for "soul friend." The anam cara was the person to whom one confessed, revealing confidential aspects of one's life, one's mind, and one's heart. This person had a special intimacy with you, and your friendship was an act of primal recognition. It cut across all barriers of convention, morality, and religion. The anam cara could see you from an eternal perspective.

In the contemporary world, we experience so many relationships solely in terms of personality. But the Celts did not get bogged down in the magnetism, refraction, or negativity of personality; they pursued friendship on a deeper level, toward a person's soul essence. The anam cara friendship had a strong commitment to truthfulness. With your friend you could be truly as you are. You were encountered in the place where your deepest individuality lived.

Today, this remains the mystery and beauty of the anam cara. The art of true friendship awakens and calls all that is ancient within you. The clay out of which your body is formed is as old as the universe itself. It has a memory that precedes your mind and journey, both of which are relatively recent. Perhaps this is the deeper, mystical meaning of human friendship. It is the coming together and rediscovery by the clay of its lost memory.

Such a friendship is thus an act of discovery. Friends are not made; they are discovered and recognized. In true friendship an ancient circle closes again. It is unnerving sometimes when you look at your friend and remember how accidental your first meeting was. If you had not gone to that party or that lecture, if you had not walked down that street, you never would have met.

Now in the season of your friendship, it is unimaginable that this person would not have been part of your life. The contingency of the beginning of friendship seems to suggest that there is a Providence that brings friends together.

"Preliminary exercise for the development of intuition: LAUGH! Roar with laughter. There is nothing, no single thing in the whole vast Universe worth taking as seriously as you at present are taking yourself."
--- Christian Humphries, Zen Buddhist

"The soul incarnates to perform certain tasks
and to learn certain lessons.
Everyone has a soul purpose in life and unique gifts
to fulfill that purpose.
The reality of a soul purpose is sometimes clear
in the transformative experiences of life
such as love, work, and family relationships.

The awareness of one's own mortality
and of threats to the collective life of the planet
provides a deeper perspective for fully and self-consciously appreciating
the gift of life and the purpose of the soul."
-----Alex Grey, Sacred Mirrors, the Visionary Art of Alex Grey