Monday ~ November 13, 2017

I acknowledge the commonplace in my life and my surroundings. I have been letting life grow dingy on my sleeve. Often it is easy to take all things for granted. This I do with my friends; often also with the joys that are inherent in much of my living; also with the blessings and graces of life without which much of living would be utterly beyond the springs of my endurance. I acknowledge the commonplace in my life and my surroundings.

(Howard Thurman, 1900 - 1981)

Tuesday ~ April 25, 2016

We each we have the choice in any setting to step back and let go of the mindset of scarcity. Once we let go of scarcity, we discover the surprising truth of sufficiency. By sufficiency, I don't mean a quantity of anything. Sufficiency isn't two steps from poverty or one step short of abundance. It isn't a measure of barely enough or more than enough. Sufficiency isn't an amount at all. It is an experience, a context we generate, a declaration, a knowing that there is enough, and that we are enough.

in our relationship with money, it is using money in a way that expresses our integrity; using it in a way that expresses value rather than determines value. Sufficiency is not a message about simplicity or about cutting back and lowering expectations. Sufficiency doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to aspire. Sufficiency is an act of generating, distinguishing, making known to ourselves the power and presence of our existing resources, and our inner resources. Sufficiency is a context we bring forth from within that reminds us that if we look around u and within ourselves, we will find what we need.

(Lynne Twist, b. 1945)

Friday ~ March 3, 2017

It is often very difficult to make up one's mind. The difficulty may be due to complexities of the issues involved, or to the limited number of facts available for consideration, or certain fears that overshadow the horizon, or a general habit of indecision that has developed over the years... Of course, one must never forget that postponing a decision may be to decide by default. It is the nearest illusion to think that, if I do not make up my mind, events that are contingent upon me and my decision will await my pleasure.

( Howard Thurman, 1900 - 1981 )

Sunday ~ February 26, 2017

Silence is helpful, but you don't need it in order to find stillness. Even when there is noise, you can be aware of the stillness underneath the noise, of the space in which the noise arises. That is the inner space of pure awareness, consciousness itself. you can become aware of awareness as the background to all your sense perceptions, all your thinking. Becoming aware of awareness is the arising of inner stillness. Pay attention to the gap - the gap between two thoughts, the brief, silent space between words in a conversation, between the notes of a piano or flute, or the gap between the in-breath and the out-breath... What is wisdom and where is it to be found? Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and just listen. No more is needed. Being still, looking, and listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct your words and actions.


( Eckhart Tolle, 1848 - )

Saturday ~ February 25, 2017

No pessimist ever discovered the secrets of the stars, or sailed to an uncharted land, or opened a new heaven to the human spirit.

( Helen Keller, 1880 - 1968 )

Wednesday ~ February 22, 2017

Thou hast nor youth, nor age,
But as it were an sfter-dinner's sleep
Dreaming on both; for all thy blessed youth
Becomes as aged, and doth beg the alms
Of palsied eld: and when thou art old and rich,
Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb, nor beauty
To make thy riches pleasant.
What's yet in this
That bear's the name of life?

( William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616 )

Monday ~ February 20, 2017

Rumour is a pipe
Blown by surmises, jealousies, conjectures,
That the blunt monster with uncounted heads,
The still-discordant wav'ring multitude,
Can play upon it.

( William Shakespeare, 1564 -   )

Sunday ~ February 19, 2017

That light we see is burning in my hall.
How far that little candle throws its beams!
So shines a good deed in a naughty world.

( William Shakespeare, 1564 - 1616 )

Saturday ~ February 19, 2017

Why are we suddenly a nation and a people who strive for security above all else? In fact, security is essentially elusive, impossible. We all die. We all get sick. We all get old. People leave us. People surprise us. People change us. Nothing is secure. And this is the good news. But only if you are not seeking security as the point of your life. Here's what happens when security becomes the center of your life. You can't travel very far or venture too far outside a certain circle.You can't allow too many conflicting ideas in your mind at one time as they might confuse you or challenge you. You can't open yourself to new experiences, new people, and new ways of doing things. They might take you off course. You cling desperately to your identity... Real security cannot be bought or arranged or accomplished with both bombs. It is deeper. It is a process. It is the acute awareness that we are all utterly interdependent and that one action by one being in one town has consequences everywhere. Real security is the ability to tolerate mystery, complexity, ambiguity - indeed hungering for these things.

( Eve Ensler, 1953 -    )

Sunday ~ February 12, 2017

The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. Those to which this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, are as good as dead. Their eyes are closed.

( Albert Einstein, 1879 - 1955)

Sunday ~ February 12, 2017

I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous, or a buttonhole, not because it did anything spectacular, but because it never forgot what it could do.

( Naomi Shihab Nye, 1952 -   )

Friday ~ February 10, 2017

I become more and more certain, as the years go by, that whatever friendship is destroyed, or homes are broken, or precious ties are severed, there is a failure of imagination. Someone is too intent on justifying himself, or herself, never venturing out to imagine the way things seem to the other person. Imagination is shut off and sympathy dies. If we know what it is that makes other people speak or act as they do, if we know it vividly, by carefully imagining all that may lie behind it, we might not quarrel. We might understand. often we could heal the wounds.

(A.Powell Davies, 1902 - 1957)