"Shine! Shine! Shine!

Pour down your warmth, great sun!

While we bask, we two together.

Two together!

Day come white, or night come black,

Home, or rivers and mountains from home,

Singing all time, minding not time,

While we two keep together."

--Walt Whitman

'Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking'

Perhaps one of the main quests of life is to see if you can truly live up to the bright saturated vision you hold for yourself. The great chase of becoming oneself. -- September 21, 2015

"Color me colors that haven't been named

And build me with pieces where none are the same

And fill me with dreams that are wilder than reason

And make me a person that folks will believe in"

Fill my relationships with thoughtfulness and care
And let me create with feelings I can't help but bare
And enlighten the parts of me that have been pained
And grace me with the knowledge aged trees have gained
--August 19, 2015

"Until this skin becomes a perfect home

Weathered and worn over time

A perfect home whose walls I know well

Whose staircase and old floors creak my favorite song

I am my own favorite song

That I am just now learning the words to

But I want to sing you until the song sticks

I have a beautiful body"

http://www.upworthy.com/a-boy-said-she-was-too-ugly-to-touch-she-believed-it-for-10-years-heres-what-she-has-to-say-now?c=ufb1

One day Buddha was walking through a village. A very angry and rude young man came up and began insulting him. "You have no right teaching others," he shouted. "You are as stupid as everyone else. You are nothing but a fake."

Buddha was not upset by these insults. Instead he asked the young man "Tell me, if you buy a gift for someone, and that person does not take it, to whom does the gift belong?"

The man was surprised to be asked such a strange question and answered, "It would belong to me, because I bought the gift."

The Buddha smiled and said, "That is correct. And it is exactly the same with your anger. If you become angry with me and I do not get insulted, then the anger falls back on you. You are then the only one who becomes unhappy, not me. All you have done is hurt yourself."

"If you want to stop hurting yourself, you must get rid of your anger and become loving instead. When you hate others, you yourself become unhappy. But when you love others, everyone is happy."

The young man listened closely to these wise words of the Buddha. "You are right, o Enlightened One, "he said. "Please teach me the path of love. I wish to become your follower."

The Buddha answered kindly, "Of course. I teach anyone who truly wants to learn. Come with me."

Thought of the Day: DON'T LIVE SOMEBODY ELSE'S DREAM.

Dear Ones -

I found this picture today that my husband took of me in 2011, doing research for THE SIGNATURE OF ALL THINGS. This photo captures exactly what I did for three straight years. I sat in a chair, reading books about botany, evolution, abolition, women's history, missionaries, Dutch 18th century commerce, and more...in order to fill my brains (and index cards) with enough information to write that novel.

There is no situation in which I could possibly be happier than this — submerged in the vocation that I love, vanishing for hours a day into my work.

Un-showered, greasy hair, eyes tired, totally falling down the rabbit hole of research...this is me, living my dream.

I was thinking today about all the other paths that I did not take in life, no matter how shiny and appealing they may have looked. I've had the possibility of living so many different kinds of life that could have been a dream for somebody else. I never choose those lives. I've never lived the dreams that other people wanted for themselves — nor have I lived the dreams that other people may have wanted for me.

I never had children...because that's somebody else's dream.

I never took the opportunities that were offered to me after the success of EAT PRAY LOVE to have a TV show of my own...because that's somebody else's dream.

I never took a good steady job teaching writing at a nice college...because that's somebody else's dream.

I didn't remain in Bali or Rome, gorgeous as those places are...because that's somebody else's dream.

I turn down 99% of the invitations I get to attend to fancy parties and stellar gatherings...because that's somebody else's dream.

I sold my big beautiful house with its fabulous gardens and lovely library...because one day I looked around at that gorgeous home and realized: "This is somebody else's dream." (Happily, I sold the house to the family whose dream it actually was. So we all win.)

I never hired a team of personal assistants and staff and consultants to help me "grow my brand"...because that's somebody else's dream.

I know what makes me come to life — working on my books — and this picture tells the whole story. Knowing what makes me come to life has helped me to distinguish between my dreams and the dreams of others.

WHAT MAKES YOU COME TO LIFE?

Ask yourself this question, whenever you are given any choice or opportunity. Ask: "Will saying YES to this path bring me closer to the source that brings me to life? Or will it take me further away?"

No matter how alluring, no matter how beautiful, no matter how sparkling and fancy and delicious — do not say YES to other people's dreams.

Do your own thing. Live in your own waking dream. Stubbornly.

Even if it means not washing your hair for a week. (ESPECIALLY if it means that!)

ONWARD,
LG

Dear Ones -

Some of you may remember these lines from EAT PRAY LOVE.

These are the words I said to myself (wrote to myself, actually) when I was lonely and scared in the middle of the night in Rome, far away from all who loved me.

This was a practice I had started about a year earlier, when I was in the worst of my depression — to write compassionate and loving letters to myself in a notebook, saying to myself everything I had always wished somebody else would say to me.

Until I learned how to speak to myself this way, I had no chance of peace.

Other people can love you. Other people can comfort you. But other people often come and go. And if you can't soothe and reassure yourself in your darkest, loneliest hour, nobody can.

There were nights when I sat up for hours, writing words like this to myself again and again, through a scrim of tears and waves of panic. And often another (angrier) part of me would scrawl at the bottom of the page: "This is bullshit. I don't believe in you." Then I would patiently begin writing again at the top of the next page, "But I believe in YOU. And I will not leave your side. I will love you and take care of you forever..." On it would go, until I could finally fall asleep.

Then again the next night...and so on.

That's how I walked through my darkest valley.

I will tell you this — there are STILL hard nights sometimes when I take out the old notebook and ask, "Are you still there?"

"I am still here," I will start writing, "I'm not going anywhere. I'm right here with you. I love you and I will take care of you..."

My promise to myself is this: I will walk beside myself for as long as I live, holding my own hand, taking care of the soul with which I have been entrusted.

I will do that always, whether anybody else is in the room with me or not.

You must learn how to tell yourself that you are loved. You must tell yourself this again and again until slowly you learn to believe it. Start writing yourself love letters. It feels weird at first, but keep going. Practice. Practice more. Practice EVEN more. You'll need it someday — or you may need it right now.

Life can be hard, but without your own certain love for your own tenderest self, it is simply impossible.

Be good to you.

ONWARD,
LG

The Creator gathered all of Creation and said:
“I want to hide something from the humans until they are ready for it. It is the realisation that they create their own reality.”
The eagle said, “Give it to me. I will take it to the moon.”
The Creator said, “No. One day they will go there and find it.”
The salmon said, “I will bury it on the bottom of the ocean.”
The Creator said, “No. They will go there, too.”
The buffalo said, “I will bury it on the Great Plains.”
The Creator said, “They will cut into the skin of the earth and find it even there.”
Grandmother Mole, who lives in the breast of Mother Earth, and who has no physical eyes but sees with spiritual eyes, said “Put it inside of them.”
And the Creator said, “It is done.”
- Creation Story from the Hopi Nation, Arizona, North America

I'd like to be many persons in my one person. I'd like to feel infinite but aware that I am finite, though in the end I may indeed be infinite. Because once I'm met by you aren't you a little bit of me and I a little bit of you? We're all particles in motion exchanging bits and energy perhaps.

--Oct 22 2014

GOODNESS: http://markmanson.net/life-purpose

THE MOST STRANGELY REASSURING ADVICE I EVER RECEIVED.

Long ago, when I was in my desperate and confused 20's, a brilliant, independent, wonderful woman in her 70's gave me this incredible piece of life wisdom.

She said:

"We women spend our 20's and 30's so worried about what everyone is thinking about us. Then we get into our 40's and 50's, and we finally start to be free, because we decide we don't give a damn what anyone thinks of us. But you will not be completely free until your 60's and 70's, when you will finally realize this liberating truth — NOBODY WAS EVER THINKING ABOUT YOU, ANYHOW."

They aren't. They weren't. They never were.

People are just thinking about themselves — all caught up in their own dramas, their own fears, their own regrets and tasks and insecurities and distractions.

"You aren't on anybody's mind," my friend told me. "They don't have room in their minds to be worried about what you're wearing, what you're doing, how you're living..."

While it may seem lonely and horrible at first to imagine that you aren't on anybody's mind, there is also — as my wise older friend told me — a great liberation to be found in this idea.

I wrote down her message in my lucky notebook, and I've kept it nearby forever (along with my plucky, self-confident little fox totem.)

You are free, because everyone is too busy worrying about themselves to worry about you.

Go be who you want to be, then.

Do what you want to do.

Dress how you want to dress.

Love who you want to love.

It's exceeding likely that nobody will even notice.

And that's AWESOME.

ONWARD,
Liz Gilbert

I have been looking for parts of me that I feel like had been gone for so long, this spontaneity, this freedom, this carelessness. It was the Tucsonan energy.

Well I finally have been tapping into it again and I'm glad that dynamic is still alive within my person.  It started with my solo drive to my beloved home state. I finally hit a point in my 7-8 hour drive when I rolled the windows down and in came the desert rain smell and a flood of emotions. It was stunning, that feeling. I pulled to the side of the rode to capture the air in which I was now in and the openness.

Secondly, today. Perhaps the vastness of this city overwhelms me; it's just too much to take on at times. But I went to Little Tokyo by myself, to eat by myself. And I indeed found myself to have a fulfilling conversation with a director/producer. Her concept to her film paralleled a tad with my current life situation with my sister.

What I learned: sometimes you need to put yourself on the back burner/to stay the stable one and put your intelligent/curious self forward when dealing with people and their mental framework. People can lash out on you due to their self-projections. It's more productive to not feel attacked and instead turn the question on them.

They think you are 'x quality' of which you don't think you are? Ask them for examples. If none can be stated, say 'I'm curious, are you 'x quality'?  Seek it out in them when you don't believe you are the one who is 'x quality'.

"Creation is really a sustained period of bliss — even though the subject can still be very sad. 

....Because there’s the triumph of coming through and understanding that you have, and that you did it the way only you could do it — you didn’t do it the way somebody told you to do it, you did it just the way you had to do it. And that is what makes us us."
--Alice Walker

"I'm not afraid of failing, I'm not a failure. I'm afraid of succeeding at living a boring existence... which, to me, is the slow death of allowing myself to fail."
--Marcus Omari of Poetic Reform Party
July 7 2014




"It is the nightly custom of every good mother after her children are asleep to rummage in their minds and put things straight for the next morning, repacking into their proper places the many articles have wandered during the day. If you could keep awake (but of course you can't) you would see your own mother doing this, and you would find it very interesting to watch her. It is quite like tidying of drawers. You would see her on her knees, I expect, lingering humorously over some of your contents, wondering where on earth you pick this thing up, making discovery sweet and not so sweet, pressing this to her cheek as if it was nice as a kitten, and hurriedly stilling that out-of-sight. When you wake in the morning, the naughtiness and evil passions with which he went to bed have been folded up small and placed at the bottom of your mind, and on the top, beautifully aired, are spread out your prettier thoughts, ready for you to put on."

One's life and inner world can move so quickly that we lose sight of genuinely connecting and showing gratitude to all of the loved ones near by, and easily the strangers near by as well. There's always so much more love and appreciation to offer. Everyone is entitled to some even when they are wearing a mask and are quiet about it.

July 3 2014


Being a showcase director gives me the guts to approach some dang remarkable artists. It's a silly feeling to get butterflies quite frequently while sending out emails or talking with them. I'm the one who is providing an opportunity though what an opportunity to work with them, I say!

People say that what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think what we're seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance within our own innermost being and reality, so that the we actually feel the rapture of being alive. -- Joseph Campbell

"Oh, don't take life so seriously!
Because seriousness is a great dis-ease,
and not only a disease but a suicide also.
Be playful -- totally
because that is the only way to be living.
Life is a play, a leela.

If you can act and live as if acting and living in a dream
and still be a witness to it
then you will be in the cosmic flow, the Tao.

And to be in the cosmic flow is to be free --
free from oneself, the Ego.
The Ego is the seriousness, the disease,
and the Tao, the egoless existence, is the bliss,
the ecstasy."

~ Osho

It's interesting. To be in our own little worlds and at certain points we have moments that stop us in our tracks to realize there is so so much more. We are such a tiny dot and our dot is sometimes extremely self-focused.

Robots we are at times. To be efficient and "productive". Life is weird. What is there to know? What is there we need to do? To truly feeling connected, appreciated, and to help one another thrive.

5/8/14

You. You have an abundance of potential inside of yourself. You know you do and you can feel it growing. Water it and let it go. May the flowering of your soul surface and always try to reach the sunlight.

Hm yes, I only am made up of one though perhaps I can do a handful of mighty things in this lifetime. Or even many many mighty little things will do as well. I suppose it doesn't hurt to strive for both.

5/5/2014

“No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit.” - Ansel Adams