Coming in from the cold

Ripples

Macy took this picture at the zoo at few weeks ago.
I thought that it looked pretty cool!!!
I hope you like the words below!!
Namaste,
Michele




I want to remind us all that the world is listening, all the time.
How we are ripples out from us into the world and affects others.
We have a responsibility-an ability to respond-to the world.
Finding our particular way of living this responsibility,
of offering who we are to the world, is why we are here.
We are called because the world needs us
to embody the meaning in our lives. God needs us awake.
The world we live in is a cocreation,
a manifestation of individual consciousness woven
into a collective dream. How we are with each other as individuals,
as groups, as nations and tribes is what shapes that dream.
-Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Truth

Macy took these pictures in her photography class at Omega Institute this past summer. These are pictures of the "joy of play .....it is never too later to have a happy childhood class."
and as you can see...they had a lot of fun!!! They made this big water slide on one of the hills.
This week was kind of emotional for me....just crazy stuff...like Mira dealing with some mean girl stuff because she refused to wear her cheer uniform to school and then me putting up with a meeting at work where there was a lot of meaningless fighting and finger pointing was going on, then we got some extra bills that we did not need because our van was having problems.
but then I think about what is really real for me ......like different friends coming out of the woodwork to help for our Christmas projects we have going on(...bringing stuff over for Macy's homeless project.) , and my friend that is really sick and dealing with cancer but she is busy gathering stuff for Macy's project and wanting to go with us to deliver them even though she is really short of breath and feeling lousy, and then there is my dad stopping down Wednesday night to see our dog Dusty.....and he took him home for a "sleep over".....the joy in both of their eyes when they see each other is pretty powerful..............and then there is my cousin Chad who has come back home and decided to live a sober life.....and talking with him about his new sponsor and his love of writing and his struggles to stay sober......and I now realize what TRUTH I want to focus on.....and what I want to let go. I see so much beauty in the world........and that is what gives me hope and faith.
hope you like the quote below.
love,
Michele




"I have faith in the truth, in its ability to find us....
If the truth often seems elusive when we seek it directly,
perhaps it is some consolation that it also relentlessly
reveals itself to us in our lives, our dreams,
and the stories we tell one another."
~Oriah Mountain Dreamer

Prelude

Doc (Mark's dad, Marko) and I

Prelude
by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

What if it truly doesn't matter what you do but how you do whatever you do?

How would this change what you choose to do with your life?

What if you could be more present and open-hearted

with each person you encounter working as a cashier in the corner store,

a parking lot attendant or filing clerk than

you could if you were striving to do something you think is more important?

How would this change how you want to spend your precious time on this earth?

What if your contribution to the world

and the fulfillment of you own happiness is not dependent

upon discovering a better method

of prayer or technique of meditation, not dependent upon reading the right book or attending the right seminar, but upon really seeing and deeply appreciating yourself and the world as they are right now?

How would this effect your search for spiritual development?

What if there is no need to change, no need to try and transform yourself into someone who is more compassionate, more present, more loving or wise?

How would this effect all the places in your life where you are endlessly trying to be better?

What if the task is simply to unfold, to become who you already are in your essential nature - gentle, compassionate and capable of living fully and passionately present?

How would this effect how you feel when you wake up in the morning?

What if who you essentially are right now is all that you are ever going to be?

How would this effect how you feel about your future?

What if the essence of who you are and always have been is enough?

How would this effect how you see and feel about your past?

What if the question is not why am I so infrequently

the person I really want to be, but why do I so infrequently want to be the person I really am?

How would this change what you think you have to learn?

What if becoming who and what we truly are

happens not through striving and trying

but by recognizing and receiving the people

and places and practises that offer us the warmth of encouragement we need to unfold?

How would this shape the choices you have to make about how to spend today?

What if you knew that the impulse to move in a way

that creates beauty in the world will arise from deep

within and guide you every time you simply pay attention and wait?

How would this shape your stillness, your movement,

your willingness to follow this impulse, to just let go and dance?

The Dance

The Dance
by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

I have sent you my invitation,
the note inscribed on the palm of my hand by the fire of living.
Don't jump up and shout, "Yes, this is what I want! Let's do it!"
Just stand up quietly and dance with me.

Show me how you follow your deepest desires,
spiralling down into the ache within the ache.
And I will show you how I reach inward and open outward
to feel the kiss of the Mystery, sweet lips on my own, everyday.

Don't tell me you want to hold the whole world in your heart.
Show me how you turn away from making another wrong without abandoning yourself when you are hurt and afraid of being unloved.

Tell me a story of who you are,
And see who I am in the stories I am living.
And together we will remember that each of us always has a choice.

Don't tell me how wonderful things will be . . . some day.
Show me you can risk being completely at peace,
truly OK with the way things are right now in this moment,
and again in the next and the next and the next. . .

I have heard enough warrior stories of heroic daring.
Tell me how you crumble when you hit the wall,
the place you cannot go beyond by the strength of your own will.
What carries you to the other side of that wall,
to the fragile beauty of your own humanness?

And after we have shown each other how we have set and kept the clear, healthy boundaries that help us live side by side with each other, let us risk remembering that we never stop silently loving those we once loved out loud.

Take me to the places on the earth that teach you how to dance, the places where you can risk letting the world break your heart.
And I will take you to the places where the earth beneath my feet and the stars overhead make my heart whole again and again.

Show me how you take care of business
without letting business determine who you are.
When the children are fed but still the voices within and around us shout that soul's desires have too high a price,
let us remind each other that it is never about the money.

Show me how you offer to your people and the world
the stories and the songs you want our children's children to remember, and I will show you how I struggle
not to change the world, but to love it.

Sit beside me in long moments of shared solitude,
knowing both our absolute aloneness and our undeniable belonging. Dance with me in the silence and in the sound of small daily words, holding neither against me at the end of the day.

And when the sound of all the declarations of our sincerest
intentions has died away on the wind, dance with me in the infinite pause before the next great inhale of the breath that is breathing us all into being, not filling the emptiness from the outside or from within.

Don't say, "Yes!"
Just take my hand and dance with me.

Oriah Mountain Dreamer



By the author of the book THE INVITATION. Excerpted with permission from THE DANCE (to be published September 2001). Copyright (c) 2001 by Oriah Mountain Dreamer. All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in whole or in part without the permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc., 10 E. 53 St., New York NY 10022