Everybody has a story

You Don't Say

On this day of your life, I believe God wants you to know...

...that love is sometimes shown in the things you don't

say, don't keep track of, and don't notice.

The greatest kindness is often shown in letting things go.

None of us is perfect, but we can all be perfect friends

and perfect parters by allowing those that we love to 

be imperfect.

Give those around you the "break" that you hope the 

world will give you on your own "bad day" and you'll

never, ever regret it.

Neale Donald Walsch

Do you want more Love?

 With That Moon Language
 

Admit something: Everyone you see, you say to them, "Love me."

Of course you do not do this out loud, otherwise someone would call the cops.

Still though, think about this, this great pull in us to connect. Why not become the one who lives with a full moon in each eye that is always saying, with that sweet moon language, What every other eye in this world is dying to hear?

-Hafiz

a response after reading the above poem....

I learned from this to ask and answer questions like this: Max, do you want more love? Be more loving. Do you want more abundance? Recognize the abundance you are, be grateful, and be abundance. Do you want better health? Stop dwelling on ill health or the possibility. Put your focus on what is healthy and be grateful for that. These question and answer sessions changed my life and I became happier, more abundant and healthier.

....MaxWell

Accept the Gift

EACH MOMENT A WHITE BULL STEPS SHINING INTO THE WORLD
by Jane Hirschfield

If the gods bring to you
a strange and frightening creature,
accept the gift
as if it were one you had chosen.

Say the accustomed prayers,
oil the hooves well,
caress the small ears with praise.

Have the new halter of woven silver
embedded with jewels.
Spare no expense, pay what is asked,
when a gift arrives from the sea.

Treat it as you yourself
would be treated, brought speechless and naked
into the court of a king.

And when the request finally comes,
do not hesitate even an instant –

stroke the white throat,
the heavy, trembling dewlaps
you’d come to believe were yours,
and plunge in the knife.

Not once
did you enter the pasture
without pause,
without yourself trembling,
that you came to love it, that was the gift.

Let the envious gods take back what they can.

Gate C22

Gate C22

At gate C22 in the Portland airport
a man in a broad-band leather hat kissed
a woman arriving from Orange County.
They kissed and kissed and kissed. Long after
the other passengers clicked the handles of their carry-ons
and wheeled briskly toward short-term parking,
the couple stood there, arms wrapped around each other
like he'd just staggered off the boat at Ellis Island,
like she'd been released at last from ICU, snapped
out of a coma, survived bone cancer, made it down
from Annapurna in only the clothes she was wearing.

Neither of them was young. His beard was gray.
She carried a few extra pounds you could imagine
her saying she had to lose. But they kissed lavish
kisses like the ocean in the early morning,
the way it gathers and swells, sucking
each rock under, swallowing it
again and again. We were all watching —
passengers waiting for the delayed flight
to San Jose, the stewardesses, the pilots,
the aproned woman icing Cinnabons, the man selling
sunglasses. We couldn't look away. We could
taste the kisses crushed in our mouths.

But the best part was his face. When he drew back
and looked at her, his smile soft with wonder, almost
as though he were a mother still open from giving birth,
as your mother must have looked at you, no matter
what happened after — if she beat you or left you or
you're lonely now — you once lay there, the vernix
not yet wiped off, and someone gazed at you
as if you were the first sunrise seen from the Earth.
The whole wing of the airport hushed,
all of us trying to slip into that woman's middle-aged body,
her plaid Bermuda shorts, sleeveless blouse, glasses,
little gold hoop earrings, tilting our heads up. 

...Ellen Bass

How you made them FEEL

"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."                                               - Maya Angelou

The Way We Treat People

I  want to share something with you I stumbled across several years ago. You may or may not have read it before. It is called "5 Lessons About the Way We Treat People." The author us Unknown but the wisdom is timeless... 1. First Important Lesson – Cleaning Lady During my second month of college, our professor gave us a pop quiz. I was a conscientious student and had breezed through the questions until I read the last one: “What is the first name of the woman who cleans the school?” Surely this was some kind of joke. I had seen the cleaning woman several times. She was tall, dark-haired and in her 50’s, but how would I know her name? I handed in my paper, leaving the last question blank. Just before class ended, one student asked if the last question would count toward our quiz grade. “Absolutely, ” said the professor. “In your careers, you will meet many people. All are significant. They deserve your attention and care, even if all you do is smile and say “hello...” I’ve never forgotten that lesson. I also learned her name was Dorothy. 2. Second Important Lesson – Pickup in the Rain One night, at 11:30 p.m., an older African American woman was standing on the side of an Alabama highway trying to endure a lashing rain storm. Her car had broken down and she desperately needed a ride. Soaking wet, she decided to flag down the next car. A young white man stopped to help her, generally unheard of in those conflict-filled 1960’s. The man took her to safety, helped her get assistance and put her into a taxicab. She seemed to be in a big hurry, but wrote down his address and thanked him. Seven days went by and a knock came on the man’s door. To his surprise, a giant console color TV was delivered to his home. A special note was attached. It read: “Thank you so much for assisting me on the highway the other night. The rain drenched not only my clothes, but also my spirits. Then you came along. Because of you, I was able to make it to my dying husband’s’ bedside just before he passed away… God Bless you for helping me and unselfishly serving others.” Sincerely, Mrs. Nat King Cole. 3. Third Important Lesson – Always remember those who serve... In the days when an ice cream sundae cost much less, a 10-year-old boy entered a hotel coffee shop and sat at a table. A waitress put a glass of water in front of him. “How much is an ice cream sundae?” he asked. “Fifty cents,” replied the waitress. The little boy pulled his hand out of his pocket and studied the coins in it. “Well, how much is a plain dish of ice cream?” he inquired. By now more people were waiting for a table and the waitress was growing impatient. “Thirty-five cents,” she brusquely replied. The little boy again counted his coins. “I’ll have the plain ice cream,” he said. The waitress brought the ice cream, put the bill on the table and walked away. The boy finished the ice cream, paid the cashier and left.. When the waitress came back, she began to cry as she wiped down the table. There, placed neatly beside the empty dish, were two nickels and five pennies.. You see, he couldn’t have the sundae, because he had to have enough left to leave her a tip. 4. Fourth Important Lesson. – The obstacle in Our Path In ancient times, a King had a boulder placed on a roadway. Then he hid himself and watched to see if anyone would remove the huge rock. Some of the king’s’ wealthiest merchants and courtiers came by and simply walked around it. Many loudly blamed the king for not keeping the roads clear, but none did anything about getting the stone out of the way. Then a peasant came along carrying a load of vegetables. Upon approaching the boulder, the peasant laid down his burden and tried to move the stone to the side of the road. After much pushing and straining, he finally succeeded. After the peasant picked up his load of vegetables, he noticed a purse lying in the road where the boulder had been. The purse contained many gold coins and a note from the King indicating that the gold was for the person who removed the boulder from the roadway. The peasant learned what many of us never understand! Every obstacle presents an opportunity to improve our condition. 5. Fifth Important Lesson – Giving When it Counts… Many years ago, when I worked as a volunteer at a hospital, I got to know a little girl named Liz who was suffering from a rare & serious disease. Her only chance of recovery appeared to be a blood transfusion from her 5-year old brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease and had developed the antibodies needed to combat the illness. The doctor explained the situation to her little brother, and asked the little boy if he would be willing to give his blood to his sister. I saw him hesitate for only a moment before taking a deep breath and saying, “Yes I’ll do it if it will save her.” As the transfusion progressed, he lay in bed next to his sister and smiled, as we all did, seeing the color returning to her cheek. Then his face grew pale and his smile faded. He looked up at the doctor and asked with a trembling voice, “Will I start to die right away”. Being young, the little boy had misunderstood the doctor; he thought he was going to have to give his sister all of his blood in order to save her.
"People will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel."                                               - Maya Angelou

Saying YES to the Universe

Saying Yes to the universe opens the gate to receiving what your soul really wants.

The hardest thing about saying yes to the universe is that it means accepting everything life puts in front of us. Most of us have a habit of going through our days saying no to the things we don’t like and yes to the things we do, and yet, everything we encounter is our life. We may be afraid that if we say yes to the things we don’t like, we will be stuck with them forever, but really, it is only through acknowledging the existence of what’s not working for us that we can begin the process of change. So saying yes doesn’t mean indiscriminately accepting things that don’t work for us. It means conversing with the universe, and starting the conversation with a very powerful word—yes.

When we say yes to the universe, we enter into a state of trust that whatever our situation is, we can work with it. We express confidence in ourselves, and the universe, and we also express a willingness to learn from whatever comes our way, rather than running and hiding when we don’t like what we see. The question we might ask ourselves is what it will take for us to get to the point of saying yes. For some of us, it takes coming up against something we can’t ignore, escape, or deny, and so we are left no choice but to say yes. For others, it just seems a natural progression of events that leads us to making the decision to say yes to life.

The first step to saying yes is realizing that in the end it is so much easier than the alternative. Once we understand this, we can begin examining the moments when we resist what is happening, and experiment with occasionally saying yes instead. It might be scary at first, and even painful at times, but if we continue to say yes to every moment through the process, we will discover the joy of being in a positive conversation with a force much bigger than ourselves. 

............Madisyn Taylor

Let it Shine

Clothe Yourselves

Clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.

Colossians 3-12

May all being be released from suffering

Linda Cox shared Sun Gazing's photo.

Heaven's Gate Mountain, China

May all beings be released from suffering

The Best Of My Life

It's really up to us

Quadruple Rainbows

To Serve

Gratitude

Completion

Completion gives you superhero vision, because when you are complete you commit to no longer looking through the eyes of your wounded self, through the eyes of your past, through the eyes of fear. Stand in the present moment, and declare yourself complete.

...Debbie Ford

Changing Myself

Linda Cox shared Drops of Wisdom's photo.

Total Waste of Time

Linda Cox shared ॐ Spiritual Bliss ॐ's photo.

Enough

" Live as if you already are enough and see what happens."

...Geneen Roth

The Time Before Death

Friend, hope for the Guest while you are alive.
Jump into experience while you are alive!
Think... and think... while you are alive.
What you call "salvation" belongs to the time
     before death.

If you don't break your ropes while you're alive,
do you think
ghosts will do it after?

The idea that the soul will rejoin with the ecstatic
just because the body is rotten--
that is all fantasy.
What is found now is found then.
If you find nothing now,
you will simply end up with an apartment in the
     City of Death.

If you make love with the divine now, in the next
     life you will have the face of satisfied desire.

So plunge into the truth, find out who the Teacher is,
     Believe in the Great Sound!

Kabir says this: When the Guest is being searched for,
     it is the intensity of the longing for the Guest that
     does all the work.
Look at me, and you will see a slave of that intensity.

..................Kabir

Be helpless, dumbfounded

Zero Circle

Be helpless, dumbfounded,
Unable to say yes or no.
Then a stretcher will come from grace
To gather us up.

We are too dull-eyed to see that beauty
If we say we can, we’re lying.
If we say No, we don’t see it,
That No will behead us
And shut tight our window onto spirit.

So let us rather not be sure of anything,
Besides ourselves, and only that, so
Miraculous beings come running to help.
Crazed, lying in a zero circle, mute,
We shall be saying finally,
With tremendous eloquence, Lead us.
When we have totally surrendered to that beauty,
We shall be a mighty kindness.


...........Rumi

Row for your life toward it

West Wind #2

You are young.  So you know everything.  You leap

into the boat and begin rowing.  But listen to me.

Without fanfare, without embarrassment, without

any doubt, I talk directly to your soul.  Listen to me.

Lift the oars from the water, let your arms rest, and

your heart, and heart’s little intelligence, and listen to

me.  There is life without love.  It is not worth a bent

penny, or a scuffed shoe.  It is not worth the body of a

dead dog nine days unburied.  When you hear, a mile

away and still out of sight, the churn of the water

as it begins to swirl and roil, fretting around the

sharp rocks – when you hear that unmistakable

pounding – when you feel the mist on your mouth

and sense ahead the embattlement, the long falls

plunging and steaming – then row, row for your life

toward it.

~ Mary Oliver ~

(West Wind)

A Charmed Life

On this day of your life, I believe God wants you to know...

...that you can live a charmed life, and that there is a

formula by which you can make this work.

Here is the formula: You can live a charmed life by

causing others to live a charmed life. That is, be the

source of 'charm' -- of charming moments and

experiences -- in the life of another.

Be everyone else's Lucky Charm! Make all who you

touch today feel 'lucky' that you crossed their path.

                                             Do this for a week and watch things change. Do it

Neale Donald Walsch

Kindness

.......one of my favourite poems!

 

Kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness,
you must travel where the
Indian in a white poncho lies dead
by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you, how he too was someone who journeyed through the night
with plans and the simple breath
that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness
as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow
as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness
that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day
to mail letters and purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.

by Naomi Shibab  Nye

Someone is loving you right now

On this day of your life, I believe God wants you to know...

...that someone is extending love to you this day, and

hoping so dearly that you will receive it.

You have asked for someone to love you right now,

and God has answered your prayer. Look. Listen.

That loving person is right in your world. Open the

door for them to come in.

I promise you, I'm not making this up. Someone is

loving you right now. Look. Listen. Let it in. 

Neale Donald Walsch

There, I've said it twice. God wanted me to make sure

you really got it.

Attittude is Everything

On this day of your life, I believe God wants you to know...

...that you cannot tailor-make your situation in life, but you

can tailor-make your attitudes to fit those situations.

World famous motivational speaker Zig Ziglar said that, and

he was profoundly right. How you shape your attitude is not

a small part of how you shape your life...it is the only part.

Does it sound as if I'm saying that attitude is everything?

Good. Because I am.

Neale Donald Walsch

Only when

"Only when the last tree is cut; only when the last river is polluted; only when the last fish is caught; only then will they realize that you cannot eat money."

Indian, Proverb-Cree