is salt water – sweat, tears, or the sea
Most things that matter take time. Most things that are good don’t happen overnight. And most of the time the things that are worth waiting for really will require you to wait, to persist.
“No matter how great the talent or efforts, some thing just take time. You can’t produce a baby in one month by getting nine women pregnant.”- Warren Buffett
Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.
Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life. It turns what we have into enough, and more. It turns denial into acceptance, chaos to order, confusion to clarity. It can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend. Gratitude makes sense of our past, brings peace for today, and creates a vision for tomorrow.
The revelation that we have everything we need in life to make us happy but simply lack the conscious awareness to appreciate it can be as refreshing as lemonade on a hot afternoon. Or it can be as startling as cold water being thrown in our face. How many of us go through our days parched and empty, thirsting after happiness, when we’re really standing knee-deep in the river of abundance
I think one of the most valuable things I was ever taught was this: you are what you do, not what you’ll say you do. I’m quiet, so I have plenty of time to observe. Yes, I do listen, but I compare the word with the deed, and if they frequently fail to match up, I lose trust.
Your word is your bond. Be certain your words match your actions. Keep your word and fulfill your promises. Your character is more important than your reputation.
“Be Impeccable With Your Word. Speak with integrity. Say only what you mean. Avoid using the word to speak against yourself or to gossip about others. Use the power of your word in the direction of truth and love.” -Don Miguel Ruiz
“I want a love like Johnny and June
Rings of fire burning with you
I wanna walk the line, walk the line, ‘til the end of time”
I grew up listening to Johnny Cash. Let me rephrase that: I grew up hanging around my dad all the time, and my dad listens to Johnny Cash. Johnny’s version of Nine Inch Nails “Hurt” was on the radio this morning and I started thinking about his older music.
In a 1981 Mike Douglas interview, June Carter Cash explained, “He asked me to marry him in front of 7,000 people, but I would have liked it if he had gotten down on his knees and proposed to me, you know, but that wasn’t the way it was. It was a great big production…” Johnny continued the story, “We had just sung a song called ‘Jackson’, and I stopped the show and said, ‘Will you marry me?’ on the microphone. She said, ‘Go, sing another, sing another, sing another!’ I said, ‘I’m not gonna sing until you answer me. Will you marry me?’ And she says, ‘Sing a song. Sing a song.’ She turned her back, you know, trying to get somebody in the band to play some music or something. [It] kept going until she finally said, ‘Yes.’ And I said, ‘Okay, next song.’ So, we set it up. We got married March 1, 1968.”
“There’s unconditional love there. You hear that phrase a lor but it’s real with me and her. She loves me in spite of everything, in spite of myself. She has saved my life more than once. She’s always been there with her love, and it has certainly made me forget the pain for a long time, many times. When it gets dark and everybody’s gone home and the lights are turned off, it’s just me and her.” (Johnny Cash, Rolling Stone)
The simple answer to this is that we forget. We forget the door is wide open. We even forget there’s a door. But it’s there just the same. Eventual we stumble around enough to find it and then summon the courage to walk out.
“Over the past two years I’ve become increasingly concerned that we’re raising children who have little tolerance for disappointment and have a strong sense of entitlement, which is very different than agency. Entitlement is “I deserve this just because I want it” and agency is “I know I can do this.” The combination of fear of disappointment, entitlement, and performance pressure is a recipe for hopelessness and self-doubt.” Brené Brown
This is probably far truer than we want to believe. Isn’t it easier to tell yourself that you can’t do this or that because you’re married (or not married). Or you have kids. Or a house. Or blah, blah, blah. Insert excuse here.
Many people believe they are trapped in situations and they cannot get out. (Hey, I’ve been there.) And they truly believe it was not their fault. The truth is, every situation you get yourself into is to some degree is your own fault. Yes there are some exceptions, but most things that happen in our lives happen because of what we do. It’s all about personal responsibility. The beauty of it is, you also have the power to get yourself out of anything you get yourself into.
You are free to choose, but you are not free from the consequences of your choice.
Remember this skit from SNL last fall? Life imitating art, and frighteningly so. We all know Cheeto doesn’t care about dead Syrian children, so what’s the impetus here?
I never thought I’d agree with Senator Rand Paul, but what he said last night was spot on.
Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said Thursday night that President Trump needs congressional authorization for military action in Syria after Trump ordered an airstrike in retaliation for a deadly chemical attack earlier this week.
“While we all condemn the atrocities in Syria, the United States was not attacked,” Paul said in a statement shortly after reports that the U.S. had launched more than 50 Tomahawk cruise missiles against an airfield in Syria.
“The President needs congressional authorization for military action as required by the Constitution, and I call on him to come to Congress for a proper debate,” Paul said. “Our prior interventions in this region have done nothing to make us safer, and Syria will be no different.”
While all intention is unique in its content, there’s a pattern and sequence–steps that repeat. If we learn these, our lives change. We manifest change in our lives with frictionless flow.
Seek desire. Genuine desires often defy logic and make no sense, making it easy for us to dismiss them as a passing whim. But beginning with desire, responding to the creative energy that comes from within can lend itself to being unafraid of going after what we truly want.
Express yourself. Beginning a statement with “I intend to…” creates a moment of purpose and is much clearer that “I may…” With our language, both internal and external, we send a signal. Be clear, direct and speak with kindness.
Be decisive. Making decisions isn’t easy for some people and even the most decisive people need support now and then. To realize our intentions, we need to make decisions. Don’t be afraid to give or receive advice and suggestions. Talk through possibilities.
Release control. There are those moments when we need to step aside and get out of our own way. When we are following our true selves, it feels like life is flowing along. We choose our battles with ease and obstacles dissolve.
Let go. This can be a huge challenge for me and one where we most likely trip up. Stubbornness can lead us to believe that our plan is the only one. Be open to being surprised. Let go and allow our intent to unfold. Be flexible with your preferences. Stay alert, keep our eyes open and enjoy the dance!
I feel those winds of change a-blowing. I don’t know in what way just yet, but I feel it. Do you ever have that sense? It’s a strange sensation when it’s so vague and nebulous. But, hey, it is what it is. Change can be a good thing, if we let it be. I have been feeling boxed in and really dissatisfied with many aspects of my life, so perhaps change is in order.
We live in difficult times. Life sometimes seems like a roiling and turbulent river threatening to drown us and destroy the world. Why, then, shouldn’t we cling to the certainty of the shore, and to our familiar patterns and habits? Because, as Pema Chödrön teaches, that kind of fear-based clinging keeps us from the infinitely more satisfying experience of being fully alive. The teachings she presents that are known as the “Three Commitments” provide a wealth of wisdom for learning to step right into the river: to be completely, fearlessly present even in the hardest times, the most difficult situations. When we learn to let go of our protective patterns and do that, we begin to see not only how much better it feels to live that way, but, as a wonderful side effect, we find that we begin to naturally and effectively reach out to others in care and support.
Alan Watts & David Lindberg – Why Your Life Is Not A Journey from David Lindberg on Vimeo.
Wait. What? Life isn’t a journey? That’s so contrary to most of our life teaching. Alan Watts’ basic message is that our cultural conditioning and standardized system of “education” keeps us in a rat race. From kindergarten to high school, college to graduate school, to career promotions to…retirement in old age.
Resisting and ignoring your own feelings and emotions does not serve you. It leads to stress, illness, confusion, broken relationships, fits of anger and bouts of deep, dark depression. Anyone who’s experienced any of the above knows that these states of mind are horrifically unhealthy… and when you’re in the habit of self-neglect, it’s nearly impossible to escape.
Refuse to ignore your inner siren any longer. Refuse to neglect yourself. Choose to take up lot of space in your own life. Choose to give yourself permission to meet your own needs. Choose to honor your feelings and emotions. Choose to make self-care a top priority.
Here are a few simple ways to choose yourself today:
Those that have must bear the moral responsibility for those who have not. Whether it be food, shelter or equality. We are our brother’s keeper. The survival of a Democracy depends on staying involved in politics.The privileged have a responsibility to help those who are less fortunate, for whatever reason, to get the tools they need to be aware of what goes on “in politics.” I think the general electorate is very capable of understanding what’s going on politically but they sometimes need a leg-up to get the impetus to vote. That’s what privilege is about.
We need to understand that “staying out of politics” or being “sick of politics” is privilege in action. Privilege allows you to live a non-political existence. Your wealth, your race, your abilities, or your gender allows you to live a life in which you’ll likely not be a target of bigotry, attacks, deportation, or genocide. You don’t want to get political, you don’t want to fight, because your life and safety are not at stake.
Yes, it’s hard and it’s exhausting to bring up issues of oppression (a.k.a. “get political”). Yes, the fighting is tiring. I get it. But if you find politics to be annoying and just want everyone to “be nice”, please remember that there are people who are literally fighting for their safety and their lives. You may not see it, but that’s what privilege does.
The price of apathy towards public affairs is to be ruled by evil men. -Plato
Peggy McIntosh wrote in her now famous essay, White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack “White privilege is like an invisible weightless knapsack of special provisions, maps, passports, codebooks, visas, clothes, tools and blank checks.”
This photo was taken several years ago at a Christmas party. I call this dear woman “Mama” although she is not my mother. She was born and raised in Iran and is a Muslim. According to our President, she is a terrorist, and would not be allowed into the United States today. Ironically, she embodies more of what we would consider “Christian” values than most anyone I’ve ever know. Compassion, kindness, and charity towards all. Muslims are being made to answer for Muslims everywhere. But stop and think if Christians were held to the same. History is full of atrocities committed by Christians for Christ, against not just other religions but against Christian themselves. Let’s take a look at some of them, shall we? The Central African Republic Genocide, the Native American Cultural Cleansing,the Spanish Inquisiton, and nearly everything that the Westboro Baptist Church does.
An excellent read:
Remind me to always lie with you, but never to you, and that hurt only hurts while it lasts. Remind me to hold hands but never hold back.
Remind me of love, remind me of heart, and remind me that life will not tear me apart today, but if it tries and when it does, remind me that I’m good enough to be enough for you.
Remind me that the only way to make it last is to put us first, and remind me that the past is a prelude and pain is a choice, that I’ll get knocked down but I can get up quick, and yes, I’ll get destroyed but I can rebuild again.
When you see me flailing in rough seas, coughing up lungfuls of dark waves, and I’m thinking I’m sinking because my arms are numb and I can’t feel my legs, remind me with a hushed assurance and a knowing grin, “You’ll drown slower if your chin’s up, friend.”
Remind me to have faith.
Remind me why I love you.
Remind me that the stargaze stares we share and the galaxies we wish to explore are inside, not above, that the paths we long to travel are internal, not foreign, and remind me when my dreams seem lost like faraway lands in disrepair, that you’ll hold my hand and always care.
Remind me that it’s me you think about when you wish for happily ever after.
Remind me that not all aches are bad, that black nights still shine light and even in rainstorms or when hail comes and the sky is filled with emptiness we run from, the sun is always out somewhere.
Remind me that I am filled with light.
Remind me why your eyes do such funny things to mine and how, sometimes, time stops in the shadow of your smile.
Remind me that storm clouds are just water up high in the sky, that water is needed, that water gives life, and though it may arrive in drops of sweat or tears of strife, remind me that I can heal.
Remind me to keep you close but to never go too far, and remind me that even if we feel like a lifetime stopped and stuck in its tracks like a frozen statue of our distant past, even if it feels like pointless paralysis or a beginner’s magic trick, even when we resemble an empty well all out of wishes, remind me it will be okay and already is.
Remind me that you are strong, and remind me so am I.
Remind me that you aren’t scared when, can’t run from, won’t hide, and don’t mind my pain when it’s all I know and feel and fear.
Remind me that we’ll never know how it ends until it does, and even then, it doesn’t because what we have and who we are isn’t something we can just pack up and leave behind, like some kind of shooting star in some cold and fleeting night.
Remind me how I love getting lost in you.
Remind me that you are an adventure worth taking and never forgetting.
Remind me it starts now, today, for always in all ways, and remind me to remind you of this, all of it, always in all ways.
-Jeremy Goldberg
I awoke this morning to a total shock. And then I wondered just how naïve I really am – and how much of a bubble I live in. How did I not see this coming? How did we not see this coming?
I am painfully aware that I live within a bubble of privilege. There are so many out there –my friends of color, of different ethnicities and nationalities and religions, my LGBGT friends, my friends with terminal illness or disability, my friends who live in poverty – who do not have the benefit of that bubble.
This vile, misogynistic, racist man has been elected president of our country. Which means that the majority of the people around us believe this behavior to be acceptable. Which means that we collectively excuse and condone it. Which means that we’ve accepted the culture we’ve been raised in and we’re okay with shining a light on it and still refusing to shut it down.
The America I know, the America I believe in, is better than this. We are better than this man and his party built on a platform of divisiveness and hatred. We are better than this rhetoric of division and misogyny and racism.
Buddha once said “I never see what has been done; I only see what remains to be done.” No matter what world we wake to tomorrow, we have work to do. We have compassion to spread, we have kindness to spread. We have friends to protect, we have families to support. We have understanding to practice, patience to build. We have life, so much life, and we have to shine bright lights on those whose lives and the importance of them, have taken a backseat for far too long. We have rights to fight for and so many people to love. So much light to chase. We cannot heal a wound, a split down our center, by ignoring it, nor by running away from it. Only though the work we must complete can we heal, only by giving our hearts and kindness to all those that need it most, only by loving, openly, wildly, freely, can we progress. At our centers, we are all the same and we must not forget this. We cannot abandon hope when the lights dim low, we cannot sacrifice our tenderness when grace goes unanswered. Love. More. ❤️
“By now many of you have probably heard the tape or read the transcript of the conversation between Donald Trump and Billy Bush. Some people are dismissing it as “guy talk” and “locker room banter.” Let’s be clear: Calling this “guy talk” is an insult to all of the good men and boys out there. This is what rape culture looks like and sounds like. And Billy Bush’s laughing along is also what rape culture looks like. I was raised by a republican and a democrat. This is NOT about politics. There are millions of good men who would never demean women and girls like this.” -Brené Brown
Ever since I listed to the recording, so many thoughts about it have been swirling around in the back of my brain. If Trump was a black man, he’d be called a thug. But because he’s a rich white man, it’s labeled “frat boy behavior”. What? And people are all up in arms about his lewd language. It’s not the language we should be convened with, it’s his deeds. He is describing being a sexual predator. If you left the crude words out and still described the same behavior, it’s still horrible.
Damaged people love you like you are a crime scene before a crime has even been committed.
They keep their running shoes besides their souls every night, one eye open in case things change whilst they sleep.
Their backs are always tense as though waiting to fight a sudden storm that might engulf them.
Because damaged people have already seen hell.
And damaged people understand that every evil demon that exists down there was once a kind angel before it fell.
– Nikita Gill
you can either
keep yourself up at night
wondering
“why me?”
you can hide under your covers
and tell everyone
you’re wrong and you’ll
never be rightor you can see all this
heartbreak
pain
conflict
imperfection
as an opportunity
to emerge from the concealed depths
to the gleaming luminescence
and become strongerit is your choice to decide
whether to drown in your troubles
or to courageously survivebecause the harder the struggle
the more spirited you become in the end
“the deeper the mud
the more beautiful the lotus blooms”-Madisen Kuhn
“The flower that blooms in adversity is the most rare and beautiful of them all.” –Mulan
The lotus flower in the murkiest, darkest of waters, appearing elegantly with a beauty that cannot be denied. These flowers are considered to be sacred in the Buddhist religion; associated with creation, enlightenment, and purity.
A lotus emerges out of muddy, dirty water found in ponds, in a slow manner, over a few days. Once it appears above water, it will only open its petals in the morning and then later closing them in the late afternoon. Regardless of the fact that this flower surfaces out of such dark and muddy water, it is clean and devoid of dirt when it presents itself to the world.
The mud a lotus grows out of can be considered a symbol of the dark, painful suffering that this world inflicts upon the people who inhabit it. We are all born into a world filled with this mud, mud that we must overcome because it is meant to test us. We, as humans, go through many of the same trials and tribulations in life (i.e., illness, death of a loved one, sadness and depression, etc.) But, it is upon us to rise above these hardships and grow from them rather than let them destroy us. By developing compassion, empathy, wisdom, kindness, and resilience, we have the ability to grow just as the lotus does, taking it one step at a time (i.e., opening one petal at a time).
When you are going through a hard time, it may seem easier to just stay within that bud, the cocoon, of the lotus flower, safe from all the suffering. But, in reality, you aren’t really safe from it, you are ignoring it and will never reach the point in which you can truly “bloom.” It’s risky and scary to face life’s toughest obstacles, but we must do so. you may have heard the quote: “A certain darkness is needed to see the stars,” (Osho- The Book of Secrets). The same idea applies in this context–without the mud, there is no lotus. Without suffering and dark times, there would be no chance for us as human beings to rise above hardship; to learn from it, change from it, and grow from it.
The mud will always be there, but we do have the ability to not let the mud ruin us. Rather, we have the ability to flourish and blossom. And, in this, we can find peace, find ourselves, find contentment, and find ways to continuously re-bloom when life throws another obstacle at us. The most beautiful, elegant, and radiantly positive people are those that have learned to live their lives by going through a similar cycle of that of the lotus. These individuals reach new beginnings, reach enlightenment, and have the ability to change and diminish the negativity within themselves.
I took this photo several years ago. Perhaps I need to print a copy to remind me that I am like the lotus flower, too.