Tag-Archive for » love «

What I Know For Sure…

19 Dec 2011 -

 

Lighten Up!

A friend of mine has this list posted in her bathroom so she can remind herself every single morning about what is truly important.

When I asked her where it came from, she was pretty sure it was from Oprah so I finally looked it up. It is.

Here’s the link to the original. But it also bears repeating over and over, so I’ve copied it below.

This is a great list of things to remember on these dark and grey Canadian short days.

Please be kind to yourself as we head in to these last nights before Christmas.

Take time to breathe deeply and slowly, reflect on all that we’ve been blessed with and read this as many times as necessary.

1. What you put out comes back all the time, no matter what.

2. You define your own life. Don’t let other people write your script.

3. Whatever someone did to you in the past has no power over the present. Only you give it power.

4. When people show you who they are, believe them the first time. (A lesson from Maya Angelou.)

5. Worrying is wasted time. Use the same energy for doing something about whatever worries you.

6. What you believe has more power than what you dream or wish or hope for. You become what you believe.

7. If the only prayer you ever say is thank you, that will be enough. (From the German theologian and humanist Meister Eckhart.)

8. The happiness you feel is in direct proportion to the love you give.

9. Failure is a signpost to turn you in another direction.

10. If you make a choice that goes against what everyone else thinks, the world will not fall apart.

11. Trust your instincts. Intuition doesn’t lie.

12. Love yourself and then learn to extend that love to others in every encounter.

13. Let passion drive your profession.

14. Find a way to get paid for doing what you love. Then every paycheck will be a bonus.

15. Love doesn’t hurt. It feels really good.

16. Every day brings a chance to start over.

17. Being a mother is the hardest job on earth. Women everywhere must declare it so.

18. Doubt means don’t. Don’t move. Don’t answer. Don’t rush forward.

19. When you don’t know what to do, get still. The answer will come.

20. “Trouble don’t last always.” (A line from a Negro spiritual, which calls to mind another favourite: This, too, shall pass.)

Category: Musings, Photos  Tags: , , , , , , , , ,  8 Comments

You Know You’re A Writer When…

09 Nov 2011 -

 

Polished Rocks

Consider last night…

I was almost asleep, in that lovely no-mind zone where I would soon slip into that ethereal world; where streams run uphill and horses have wings. Suddenly, my eyes snapped open and a thought I had no idea I had been thinking, came complete and unbidden.

It flashed across my brain like a lit-up sign in Times Square. “That’s not how you spell strait jacket!”

And then, followed closely behind, came, “He wasn’t my uncle, he was my cousin…or something.”

I moaned inwardly. Once again, I was rewriting what I had already written.

Today, I went back to yesterday’s post and struck out the word ‘straight’, replacing it with ‘strait’.  I didn’t change the uncle part.

My father was one of nine boys and I think (?) there were six sisters. I never met any of my aunts, so they made no impression on me. The story goes that his older sister came home pregnant, and her son was then raised as one of the younger boys around that huge table where everyone was vying for a scrap of food and attention.

I don’t know what happened in his life, but I assume it wasn’t that great for him. Apparently my grandfather wasn’t entirely pleasant.

All I know is, that the one and only time I met him, he was in a strait jacket in a Winnipeg hospital. His suicide attempt had failed but the drugs had sufficiently messed up his mind and ability to speak. His mouth moved and squiggled around but he was incoherent. It was like Mumbles in a Dick Tracy comic strip.

However. He is the uncle I referred to yesterday. Is he actually a cousin? I guess so but considering he was the tenth boy, maybe he should be an uncle. It doesn’t matter. He’s gone now. To (I hope) a happier existence.

He is one more cautionary tale on why we need to take care of ourselves and each other and how I know writing is so woven into my life.

This is how this whole writing thing goes now. I find myself polishing sentences unconsciously. I’m not focused on writing a particular article, but then I’ll find myself with full sentences showing up in my brain…sentences for a story that I had no idea I was working on until that exact moment.

It’s kind of like having a constantly running rock tumbler on my brain’s back shelf. It’s just humming along, doing its job. It doesn’t need me in the way.

Do you remember those things? I would have died if I had ever received a genuine rock tumbler for Christmas. Polished rocks were the coolest.

 

Category: Musings, Photos, Writing  Tags: , , , , , , , ,  4 Comments

Choosing Happiness – Buddha’s Brain

07 Nov 2011 -

 

Montana Fence

Following the Fence

 

“Equanimity is neither apathy nor indifference: you are warmly engaged with the world but not troubled by it. Through its non-reactivity, it creates a great space for compassion, loving-kindness, and joy at the good fortune of others. For example, the Buddhist teacher Kamala Masters tells the story of taking a boat down the Ganges at dawn. On her left, the sun lit ancient towers and temples with an exquisite rosy glow. On her right, funeral pyres were burning, and the sounds of wailing rose up with the smoke. Beauty to the left and death to the right, with equanimity opening her heart wide enough to include both.”

– excerpt from Buddha’s Brain by Rick Hanson, PhD

I am halfway through Buddha’s Brain and love the practical advice for how to gradually rewire my brain to become a happier, kinder and calmer person.

The premise is deceptively simple; when your mind changes, your brain changes too.

Here’s another quote from the book, “…mental activity actually creates new neural structures…even fleeting thoughts and feelings can leave lasting marks on your brain.”

In other words, you ARE what you think.

Another quote, “What flows through your mind sculpts your brain.” (italics are mine). That word ‘sculpts’ really gets me. We literally lay down track by how we choose to respond and pretty soon we are no longer choosing our responses, they are simply following that known path.

If that path is a negative and anxious one? That becomes the hard-wired response to everything.

Given that? I’m convinced that I’m gaining the tools to build a new model-train set in my brain. Choo-Woo!

A final quote, “Taking in the good is not about putting a happy shiny face on everything, nor is it about turning away from the hard things in life. It’s about nourishing well-being, contentment, and peace inside that are refuges you can always come from and return to.”

 

 

Category: Books, Musings, Photos  Tags: , , , ,  4 Comments

Ride the Whirlwind

01 Jun 2011 -

“No one can predict the future now. No one can make long-range plans. The best we can hope for, to quote Robert Bridges, is, ‘The masterful administration of the unforeseen.’ Ride the whirlwind. That’s the most we can do.”

 - Arthur C. Clarke  

Life, they say, is what happens while we’re busy making other plans. It’s funny how I can blithely go along thinking (sometimes for extended periods of time) that I am actually in control of my life.

I make plans, I start projects, I make appointments and really truly believe that it will all unfold just the way I’ve written it into my daytimer.

I recognize that we need to operate that way. We need to assume we will be around and able to follow through on these things, but sometimes, like on a day like today, it is brought home in a very big way, that I am clearly NOT in charge of anything at all.

I had a completely different idea of what today was going to be about. In retrospect, it’s laughable how off-base I was. In fact, it’s almost quaintly endearing that I actually believed what I thought it would look like.

But you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to write up my plan for tomorrow and I’m going to see if I can make some of it come true. And if Life comes along with another idea?

Well, hell…I’ll just get on board with whatever is being dished up and I’m going to ride that whirlwind.  Because that’s just what you do…

Category: Musings, Photos  Tags: ,  4 Comments

Life and Love

14 Feb 2011 -

Animaris Umerus walking – June ’09 from Strandbeest on Vimeo.

I have linked a more complete video here, which explains a little more about this Dutch artist, Theo Jansen and his amazing kinetic sculptures that are so, quirky, and delightful and yes, magic.  He creates these “animals” that come to life from the wind.

These animated sculptures are also a little disturbing to me.  Wind, breath, spirit, what is it that makes the difference between animate and inanimate?

And then, simply because something is animated…is it alive? Well of course not, you snort. Life is…Yes? Life is what?

Trees respire and expire and synthesize energy and light and yet, they stand rooted and mostly immobile. We would all define them as living because we certainly can identify them when they’re dead. But how is their being alive and our being alive different?

Is it simply having a heart? Then how does human life differ from a whale or a robin or a Chihuahua or does it?

And if, on this Valentine’s Day, we can say it is because we love and that we are also capable of planning and remembering and hoping and that is what sets us apart from our pets – like my dearly departed Dalmatian who loved me so unconditionally but had not a single thought in her head about future plans – than maybe Hallmark is right to remind us of this essential fact of our humanity;

That is, we should remember that love is always the answer, even if most of the time, we’re no longer quite sure of the question.

Category: Musings  Tags: , ,  2 Comments
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