Do all the good that you can.

I am lucky, this is the park that I get to walk through every morning.
this is the portion that did not recently get cut down.
anyway, nature has taught me a lot....and is still teaching me.
The biggest thing that it has taught me over the past 12 years is that everything in the physical plane changes form and is constantly changing.
Everything. so I decided not to fight the change anymore......instead just to enjoy the ride.
well I try to anyway.
hope you enjoy the quote below.
love,
Michele


"People give what they can.
Some have more ability than others.
It's not the size of the sum that's
truly important.
Any gift is very important.
No matter how much you
give, you always get more."
- Beth K. Stocker
2002 Ohio University Graduate

Art

- Sergei Bongart

Embody spirit!!

Mira and two of her friends, Taylor and Amanda.


"God speaks to each of us as he makes us, then walks with us silently out
of the night. These are the words we dimly hear: You, sent out beyond
your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me."
- Rainer Maria Rilke

When You Come

I love this poem...and here it was written today on the sidewalk behind the high school.
I saw this on our walk up to the school where Macy had her choir concert tonight.
hope you enjoy this poem too.
Love,
Michele

When you come to me, unbidden,
Beckoning me
To long-ago rooms,
Where memories lie.

Offering me, as to a child, an attic,
Gatherings of days too few.
Baubles of stolen kisses.
Trinkets of borrowed loves.
Trunks of secret words,

I CRY. 

-Maya Angelou

simplicity

Mira took this picture at her friend Taylor's house.

There is more to life than increasing its speed. --Gandhi

Reality

God hated reality, but realized it was still
the only place to get a good steak.
-Woody Allen

Having a sense of calm

Mark and I got to go on Marko's field trip today to Mr. Knight's farm.
(his principal).....it was very fun and very beautiful.
When we were there, Marko said "this is the best day of my life."
He had a hard time falling asleep last night because he was so excited for today.
hope you like the quote below.
love,
Michele
Ps click on the link below from Cyrus's blog...watch the video on spirituality and the brain!!
It is a very powerful video...and really resonated with me!!:
http://cyrusrumi.blogspot.com/

"You do not seek peace by looking into the lives of others
and wishing that they would change
so that you could become more peaceful.
Rather, you bring your own sense of calm to everyone you encounter."

Wayne Dyer

Beautiful night!!

I heart baseball
beautiful night for a game
Marko loves the game!!
baseball fields are a twinkle in my eye (Mira took this picture)
beautiful sunset Monday night!!!
Macer and me


Jim and Mark
calling the bullpen
Mustard won the race....go mustard!!
Ben, Marko and Mira
the dessert cart......it stops at the loge.....this is Mira's number one reason for wanting to go to the Indian's game.....yum!!

Jim and Gail invited us to the game Monday night in the loge.
It was a beautiful night.....thank you so much Jim and Gail and Ben!!!
Love,
Michele


Hope you like this one below!!:

This is the beginning of a new day.
You have been given this day to use as you will.
You can waste it or use it for good.
What you do today is important because you are exchanging a day of your life for it.
When tomorrow comes, this day will be gone forever;
in its place is something that you have left behind
...let it be something good.
--Author Unknown

humbling awareness

picture by Macy


"There's nothing more humbling than an awareness of death. Death is the opponent that every single one of us will lose to. It's not a pretty fact, but once you get it through your head, you begin to live more honestly."
-Peter Barton

When things around you seem too noisy, hectic and out of control, be extra calm, peaceful and patient. If the people in your life seem too greedy and selfish, that's the time to be extra loving, giving and sincerely compassionate.

When the world seems a bit too confused and aimless, be extra focused and purposeful. For the world outside will soon reflect back to you the energy you give it.

If you don't like what you see, you have the opportunity to change it by changing the way you are. If there is darkness all around you, that's an opportunity for you to shine your own special light.

Even a small beacon in the darkness will shine for a long, long way. Choose to be the difference that makes a real difference, and your efforts will bear abundant fruit.

When things around you seem to be at their worst, that's when you can accomplish the most by being your best. That's when you can truly make a valuable, much-needed positive difference.

When trouble and confusion surround you, see the situation as the opportunity that it is. Shine your positive light in the face of negativity, and you will change your world.

-- Ralph Marston

bursting

freedom

When I was fourteen

When I was a boy of fourteen,
my father was so ignorant
I could hardly stand to have the old man around.
But when I got to be twenty-one,
I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years.
--Mark Twain

the little things

Marko's guitar...taking a rest.



Enjoy the little things, for one day you may look back
and realize they were the big things.
--Robert Brault

you are that

--Papaji

taking risks

so here is what Mira and I did tonight.....we got our belly buttons pierced.
We went with my friend Traci and her daughter.
We went to dinner at Panera bread after...yum!!
It was fun.....and here I am being brave...and putting it up here...stretch marks and all.
hope you like the quote below.
love,
Michele


Be brave enough to live creatively.
The creative is the place where no one else has ever been.
You have to leave the city of your comfort
and go into the wilderness of your intuition.
You can't get there by bus, only by hard work, risking,
and by not quite knowing what you're doing.
What you'll discover will be wonderful: yourself.

--Alan Alda

stuff

star lotus art



What do I get for this? I said
& the angel gave me a catalog filled with toasters & clock radios & a basketball signed by Michael Jordan
& I said, But this is just stuff & the angel smiled at me
& swallowed me in her arms. I'm so glad you said that, she whispered to me.
I knew you still had a chance.
-Brian Andreas

The Healers Prayer

Play Ball

When I was pregnant with Marko, Mark wanted to find out the sex of the baby
and I did not want to know. so, during the ultrasound, the tech told him by secret code
she typed it to him. I just wanted it to be a surprise. I tend to be very intuitive on a lot
of things....but I was sure this baby was another girl. My mom and I washed all of Mira
and Macy's pink clothes and had everything all ready for HER. (but we painted the room
yellow ...just in case) Well you should have seen my face when He came out......I was shocked.
I was so sure that our third was a girl.
Anyway, after Marko was born and I was drinking my honey brown....(I always brought a bottled beer with me for all three deliveries and had it right after I delivered to celebrate
9 mos. without an icy cold beer)......Mark called my dad and said "Hey Clay, we got us a little Indian. (ie: cleveland indians)"
Well Marko is not exactly an Indian this year.....his team is the Mets.
(ironically Marko's team last year the DC Nationals beat the mets for the championship)
Anyway, Mark is an assistant coach again this year. Tonight was their first game....above is
a picture of Marko at the game.
They won......not that it matters who wins or looses....but they had a lot of fun.
My dad (the biggest baseball fan ever) and mom were there cheering him on.
I hope you like the quote below. I think it is beautiful.
Love,
Michele



Your opponent, in the end,
is never really the player on the other side of the net,
or the swimmer in the next lane,
or the team on the other side of the field, or even the bar you must high-jump.
Your opponent is yourself, your negative internal voices,
your level of determination.
--Grace Lichtenstein

on awakening

our shattered table top.





Just when you give up
the whole process
begins again

and you are as pure
as if you had confessed
and received absolution.

You have done nothing
to deserve it, you have merely slept

and got up again,
feeling fine
because the morning is fine;

sufficient reason surely
for faith in a process
that can perform such miracles

without assistance from you.
Imagine what it would do
with a little assistance from you!

--Nissim Ezekiel (1924 -2004)

An Illusion

The Man in the Coffee Beans

The "illusion" below is that this is just a picture of coffee beans;

but it is not. Can you find a man's face among the beans?

Some say that if you find the man in 3 seconds or less,

the right half of your brain may be more well developed than most.

PS: This is not a trick. A man's face is really hidden among the beans.

On being playful

I walked up to get Macy and Marko after school on Monday instead of driving because it was so beautiful out. They ended up rolling down a hill over and over on the way home with some friends. They were having so much fun! It made me smile!!! reminded me of the quote below!! Have a great day.


I do not know what I may appear to the world;
but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore,
and diverting myself now and then finding a smoother pebble
or a prettier shell than ordinary,
whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
--Isaac Newton

beautiful!!!

Well this was the highlight of my day......long day at work..I worked in a department that I don't usually work in...they were switching to a new computer program and many people were
irritable and out of their element. Anyway, I went outside this morning to say
goodbye to Marko because he was down by the lake and I saw this flower. I picked it and put it in my vase in the vw bug. By the time I got to work, it was blooming. I took this picture
.....isn't it beautiful????
.....and it was still this beautiful on the ride home tonight!!!
Hope you like the quote below!!!
Namaste,
Michele

The moment one gives close attention to anything,
even a blade of grass, it becomes a mysterious, awesome,
indescribably magnificent world in itself.
--Henry Miller

all is well

do you like my lunch box???
how about the words below?
I think they are beautiful.

Namaste,
Michele


The world is not imperfect or slowly evolving along a long path to perfection.
No, it is perfect at every moment; every sin already carries grace within it,
all small children are potential old men, all sucklings have death within them,
all dying people ... eternal life.
Therefore, it seems to me that everything that exists is good
-- death as well as life, sin as well as folly.
Everything is necessary, everything needs only agreement,
my assent, my loving understanding; then all is well with me and nothing can harm me.

--Herman Hesse in 'Siddhartha'

letting go

Dive down into your self,
and there you will find the steps
by which you might ascend.
-Saint Isaac the Syrian

Perception

Jonathan Lykes was outstanding on Sunday. There is something about his presence that made me start crying...he is so alive and full of passion.
The energy that he exudes was so powerful to me.
I really believe if there were 50 Jonathan Lykes in this world..that the world would change and would be more peaceful and more united.
I am serious.
He is only 18 and just a senior at Shaw High School in East Cleveland, but yet he had so much wisdom.
His poetry was beautiful and his music and guitar playing were amazing.
He was like he was 30 years old.
He moved up here like three years ago from Atlanta.
He was living with his dad there.
He moved up here into the inner city of Cleveland to help care for his mom who has Lupus and is in kidney failure I believe. He said the first thing that he noticed when he moved up here was the segregation between blacks and white.
He talked about the unity of all people and how we are really more alike than we are different.
Below is a link a video of one of the poems that he read.
I posted the poem below this post.
The poem is called Perception
http://www.facinghistory.org/node/175

He is just tremendous.....he talked about the drugs and the violence that surrounds him in the projects where he lives.
How kids are happy to drop out of highschool and settle for trying to get a GED later in life and about kids having kids...etc...very very powerful.
Love,
Michele

Perception

by Jonathan Lykes
How do they see me?

How do I see them?

For I noticed that there is this thing called perception
that gives people the opportunity for acception
or, on the flip side,
to be in the circle of rejection.

All different types of sections and cliques
making fun of that person and talking bad about this person,

so I ask you what is your outlook on things?
So many different stereotypes
and all types of legal rights
being violated just because you look this way or act that way,
and you're telling me it's OK
to give a blind eye to the less fortunate
simply because they're beneath you.

TEST: You're in a dark suburban alley alone,
you see a black man who looks like he's far away from home.
Fear runs down your spine,
and your thoughts roam as you say in your mind,
"this little teenage black boy is up to no good and should be picked up by the police."

But, would you believe that boy was me and
what you didn't see
was I was coming home from youth group?

So, tell me why the mode of predetermined thought towards me?
I'm not in that percentile; I'm trying to be all that I can be,
and you still stone me with your misconceptions about black men.
I tend to understand
that you assume I'm into miss-conjugated verbs, over-sized pants and hip hop,
and when I say I'm not,
its said I am not a real black person.
Perception many times leads to the open door of deception.

Stop. Rewind: I'm here to make a correction
that everything that seems true might not be true.
What you need to do is stop judging others or you will be judged
and release your grudge of a whole race just because of one bad experience,
for I sense a bit of biasness in your presence.

Perception. For one second make an exception
and listen to a person younger than you,
not really wiser than you.
Give me a minute I just might surprise you.

Let's evaluate the date of 1933.
For this is the day [year] that Hitler came to be
the ruler of a country called Germany.
Now let's look back and see
the repercussions that someone could have stopped,
yet, no one dropped their personal business
to help the bigger picture.
Now 12 years later 12 million people are dead;
the year is 1945,
as we attempt to look ahead.

Why do you think no one said stop all these horrible actions?
No reaction until it was too late,
yet the fate of the holocaust we all regret
and we made a bet never to let it happen again.
But, in the mid-90s genocide appears to us again,
and when this happens no one even stops to step in.
So, I ask, does it ever end?

Location... Country of Rwanda and no one even chose to send any hospitality,
so when this happened they had to fend for themselves.

Perception. Now I see people plagued with this lasting infection
of carelessness once we face history and look it in the eye.
It's an embarrassment.
Yes, I do realize good intentions meant, but we still went wrong on our courage to have the right perception.

TEST: You see an Arab man; he comes and sits next to you on a plane.
Your heart pounding, your mind going insane,
you automatically think he's there to bring pain,
out to terrorize all for "Allah's" gain.
But what's going to put you to shame is that he never hurt a soul in his life,
has three kids and a wife.
And, on the Fourth of July, with everyone else he sings, "I'm proud to be an American..."

Wrong perceptions...
tend to hurt more than just peoples affections.
It can damage your mind, body and soul.
So, before you say let's roll,
you should turn back and make sure your heart's in the right place.
Let your misconceptions disappear without a trace,
for in this instance, not knowing seems to be the case.
So let me educate you for ignorance is not all that bliss.
Now though the apartheid ending over decades ago, we again miss
the lessons that the good Lord showed.
It was like an episode of one problem ending,
another one beginning.

For now we have people killing people in Sudan,
and you say to me friend,
how do we help them
when someone down the street is still recovering from "Katrina"
we see how the government put them in the back seat
and the old woman next door is crying and weak
and they're trying to cut off her welfare.

Question:
Is it fair or not fair?
For it is my understanding that none of us have ever been stripped bare,
for the whole world to see,
but what I want us to be,
is a society free from all the detrimental mentalities.

What is your perception?

The Resemblance Between Your Life and a Dog

Dusty Dog


We just had a baby deer born in our yard this morning.
Dusty is not very pleased!!! Mark woke me up at 7am so I could see.....I was
really tired because I just worked evenings and went to bed about 1:45 am....but it was worth the early wake up call. Marko doesn't like me to sleep in either...he was knocking on
our door on Saturday at 7:30am being a goof and saying "housekeeping."
Anyway, the baby and mommy deer were so beautiful....and so is the poem below!!
Have a great day!!!
love,
Michele

The Resemblance Between Your Life and a Dog

I never intended to have this life, believe me -
It just happened. You know how dogs turn up
At a farm, and they wag but can't explain.

It's good if you can accept your life - you'll notice
Your face has become deranged trying to adjust
To it. Your face thought your life would look

Like your bedroom mirror when you were ten.
That was a clear river touched by mountain wind.
Even your parents can't believe how much you've changed.

Sparrows in winter, if you've ever held one, all feathers,
Burst out of your hand with a fiery glee.
You see them later in hedges. Teachers praise you,

But you can't quite get back to the winter sparrow.
Your life is a dog. He's been hungry for miles.
Doesn't particularly like you, but gives up, and comes in.

~ Robert Bly ~

opening the heart

Consider the trees that allow the birds to perch and fly away without calling them to come or longing for them not to leave. If your heart can be like a tree, you will be close to the way.
--Langya

Now I become myself

The picture above is of Mira and her friends.
I love this poem below!!! I hope you do too.
love,
Michele




Now I become myself. It's taken
Time, many years and places,
I have been dissolved and shaken,
Worn other people's faces,
Run madly, as if Time were there,
Terribly old, crying a warning,
"Hurry, you will be dead before-"
(What? Before your reach the morning?
or the end of the poem?
Or love safe in the walled city?)
Now to stand still, to be here,
Feel my own weight and density!...
Now there is time and Time is young.
O, in this single hour I live
All of myself and do not move
I, the pursued, who madly ran,
Stand still, stand still, and stop the Sun!
-May Sarton

Jonathan Lykes!

I am very excited to go hear him speak tomorrow....I am taking Mira with me....hopefully, Mark, Macy and Marko will come too....
Mark says it will be a gameday decision.
Namaste,
Michele

click on the link below to read an article about Jonathan:
Article about Jonathan Lykes

Here is an even more awesome one:
Another Article about Jonathan Lykes

Jonathan Lykes will be coming to Unity of Medina to give the Sunday message on May 18
Jonathan Lykes is a High School Senior and definitely someone destined to be a very influential person of the future. I encourage all Medina youth to come hear him....he is Amazing!
Jonathan was on the front page of the Cleveland Plain Dealer twice recently. He also gave the speech in Medina at the Martin Luther King, Jr. community service. He was beyond outstanding and received a standing ovation.
Here are some of his words: "I am excited about coming and speaking at Unity of Medina. I will be weaving my speech into singing, playing guitar, and poetry. The title [is] 'A Charge for Change.' "
Jonathan Lykes is a member of the National Honor Society, student council president and a two-year participant in the inter-national Poetry Competition.

In May 2006, Lykes was one of over 100 high school students from across Ohio who gathered in Columbus to present their minimum wage petitions to the committee
of petitioners. A mere 10th grader at the time, he electrified the crowd with an original poem. The refrain “$5.15 is an injustice” captured the theme for the day of the student-led gathering in Columbus.
Lykes rhythmically inspired young people to stand up against poverty and economic injustice.

In May 2007, he was one of the featured speakers to about 2,000 educators, religious leaders, parents, politicians and students at the Governor's Conference on Increasing the High School Graduation Rate for African American Male Students May 30, 2007.

Lykes is also a part of the Ohio Youth Agenda, a new project that helps urban and rural high-school students find roles in our civic maelstrom. Their motto: Get together. Find a purpose. Talk. Listen.
Take action. He recently won the 2008 ACLU student activist of the year award for his work with youth voices.

He will be attending University of Chicago in the fall.

Peace

On becoming

Spread Love

above are pictures from a dance performance that Mira and Macy got to participate in
with their dance company
at a nursing home here in Medina.
I think the nursing home residents really enjoyed it.
It feels good to do something for others that makes them smile.
hope you like the quote below!!
love,
Michele






Spread Love

Spread love everywhere you go:
first of all in your own house.
Give love to your children,
to your wife or husband,
to a next door neighbor . . .
Let no one ever come to you
without leaving better and happier.
Be the living expression of God's kindness;
kindness in your face,
kindness in your eyes,
kindness in your smile,
kindness in your warm greeting.

~Mother Teresa~