...I
believe the first living cell had echoes of the future in it
And felt direction and the great animals
The deep green forest and whale's track sea.
I believe this globed earth not all by chance and fortune
Brings forth her broods
But feels and chooses.
And the galaxy, the firewheel on which we are pinned
The whirlwind of stars in which our sun is one dust grain
One electron, this giant atom of the universe
Is not blind force
But fulfills its life, and intends its course.
~Robinson Jeffers
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Leave the familiar for a while.
Let
your senses and bodies stretch out
Like
a welcomed season
Onto
the meadow and shores and hills.
Open
up to the Roof.
Make
a new watermark on your excitement
And
love.
Like
a blooming night flower,
Bestow
your vital fragrance of happiness
And
giving
Upon
our intimate assembly.
Change
rooms in your mind for a day.
All
the hemispheres in existence
Lie
beside an equator
In
your heart.
Greet
Yourself
In
your thousand other forms
As
you mount the hidden tide and travel
Back
home.
All
the hemispheres in heaven
Are
sitting around a fire
Chatting
While
stitching themselves together
Into
the Great Circle inside of
You.
Hafiz – 14th century Sufi mystic and poet
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"We've come to believe that the core capacity needed to access the
field of the future is presence. We first thought of presence as being fully
conscious and aware in the present moment. Then we began to appreciate presence
as deep listening, of being open beyond one's preconceptions and historical
ways of making sense. We came to see the importance of letting go of old
identities and the need to control and, as Salk said, making choices to serve
the evolution of life. Ultimately, we came to see all these aspects of presence
as leading to a state of "letting come," of consciously participating
in a larger field for change.
In the end, we concluded that understanding presence and the
possibilities of larger fields for change can come only from many
perspectives-from the emerging science of living systems, from the creative
arts, from profound organizational change experiences, and from direct contact
with the generative capacities of nature. Virtually all indigenous or native
cultures have regarded nature or the universe or Mother Earth as the ultimate
teacher. At few points in history has the need to rediscover this teacher been
greater."
from
Presence by Peter Senge, Otto Scharmer,
Joseph Jaworski & Betty Sue Flowers
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The Guest House
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its funiture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Rumi
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“One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul.
Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it.
Clarissa Pinkola Estes
"Last night, as I was sleeping
I dreamt-oh marvelous error!-
That I had a beehive
Here inside my heart.
And the golden bees
Were making white combs
And sweet honey
From my old failures."
Antonio Machado, trans. By Robert Bly
"It's not about you making your living ..... It's about you living as a human being. That's what it's about... But also be mindful that the world that you want to live in and that you need to live in needs you to create it; needs you to create it. It needs your input. The world needs to hear what you have to say. The last word has not been spoken...The last word has not been spoken." Actress Beah Richards
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Leave the familiar for a while.
Let
your senses and bodies stretch out
Like
a welcomed season
Onto
the meadow and shores and hills.
Open
up to the Roof.
Make
a new watermark on your excitement
And
love.
Like
a blooming night flower,
Bestow
your vital fragrance of happiness
And
giving
Upon
our intimate assembly.
Change
rooms in your mind for a day.
All
the hemispheres in existence
Lie
beside an equator
In
your heart.
Greet
Yourself
In
your thousand other forms
As
you mount the hidden tide and travel
Back
home.
All
the hemispheres in heaven
Are
sitting around a fire
Chatting
While
stitching themselves together
Into
the Great Circle inside of
You.
Hafiz – 14th century Sufi mystic and poet
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Look to this
Day!
- an inspirational poem -
Look to this day!
For it is life, the very life of
life.
In its brief course
Lie all the verities and realities of
your existence:
The bliss of growth;
The glory of action;
The splendor of achievement;
For yesterday is but a dream,
And tomorrow only a vision;
But today, well lived, makes every yesterday a
dream
of happiness,
And every tomorrow a vision of
hope.
Look well, therefore, to this day!
- Kalidasa - 5th century Sanskrit Poet and Dramatist
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| "Center of all centers, core of cores,
almond self-enclosed and growing sweet-
all this universe, to the furthest stars
and beyond them is your flesh, your fruit.
Now you feel how nothing clings to you;
Your vast shell reaches into endless space,
And there the rich, thick fluids rise and flow.
Illuminated in your infinite peace,
A billion stars go spinning through the night,
blazing high above your head.
But in you is the presence that
will be, when all the stars are dead."
Rainer Maria Rilke
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"There is something in all of
us that seeks the spiritual....The spiritual is inclusive. It is the deepest
sense of belonging and participation. We all participate in the spiritual at
all times, whether we know it or not. There's no place to go to be separated
from the spiritual, so perhaps one might say that the spiritual is that realm
of human experience which religion attempts to connect us to through dogma and
practice. Sometimes it succeeds and sometimes it fails. Religion is a bridge to
the spiritual--but the spiritual lies beyond religion. Unfortunately, in
seeking the spiritual we may become attached to the bridge rather than crossing
over it."
Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D.
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"A Universe
without and a Universe within:
Our consciousness
bridges the inner and outer worlds. The nature of that link reflects the
beliefs, the thoughts, the feelings with which we meet our worlds. Yet what is
closest to us is simply Mystery. Behind all words, behind all worlds, The
Life that cannot be known. We dwell in the Wonder of Spirit and that Spirit
speaks as well from the depths of our own beings. On this journey we are
not alone in our questing for the One we are. That One speaks behind each
sensation, each memory, each dream, and whispers through each relationship. We
seek to open to the One we share. We yearn to know the One who calls
through each meeting of I and Thou."
Rabbi Theodore Falcon
(Excerpted from High Holidays: Prayers
and Meditations)
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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.
Naomi Shihab Nye
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