The Dalai Lama Renaissance

Mark and I went to see this movie at the independent film festival in Cleveland that Balanced Living Magazine sponsored today. It was a very beautiful movie.
below is a link to the trailor, and a link to the website where you can order a dvd.
beautiful documentary......about opening our heart.
Dalai Lama Renaissance Trailer

Dalai Lama Renaissance Website



“Dalai Lama Renaissance is an 80 minute documentary film about forty of the world’s most innovative thinkers who travel to India in the Himalayan Mountains to meet with the Dalai Lama to solve many of the world’s problems. What happened was surprising and unexpected. Narrated by actor Harrison Ford, the film also features Quantum Physicists Fred Alan Wolf and Amit Gowami from “What the Bleep Do We Know,” and Michel Beckwith and Fred Alan Wolf from “the Secret.” Winner of 9 awards at film festivals around the world, it is the official selection of over 30 international film festivals.” Director Khashyar Darvich on “Dalai Lama Renaissance” which screens at this year’s Victoria Film Festival.

Jacob's gift

This is an odd picture. Perhaps I should explain.
Somehow....I got connected with this family in Wisconsin who had a little boy that was on
palliative care for a brain tumor (which is comfort focused, no longer cure focused.) His name was Jacob.
I was asked to call the mom and talk to her about glyconutrients.....(I have two friends of our family that were to the palliative care point, one with breast cancer and one with renal cancer, that are now thriving and cancer free after starting on glyconutrients) anyway....I talked to this mom several times on the phone and really tried to help him. but he was already starting to shut down and I don't think they could ever get enough of the product in him.
Anyway for some reason I felt really bonded to him even though I had no idea what he looked like. Anyway on the day that Jacob died...I got phone message of his passing by a friend of their family......this is what appeared in my cup of coffee that morning.
I figured it was his way of saying hi.
I sent a copy of this picture to his mom, along with a framed poem that Mark wrote about him on a picture that Macy drew for his mom. He was the same age as Macy.
She later sent me a thank you note with Jacob's picture inside a star......it had this quote below in it......and that is why I am sooooo deeply drawn to the little prince.
Happy Mother's Day.
Love,
Michele

At night, when you look up at the sky,
since I shall be living on a star,
and since I shall be laughing on a star,
for you it will be as if all the stars are laughing.
You alone will have stars that can laugh!
And when you have got over your loss
(for we always do),
you’ll be happy to have known me.
You will always be my friend.
You will want to laugh with me.
The Little Prince

On needing each other

A few years ago my room mate from college, Sangita, and her beautiful family came
to visit. It was the first time I got to meet 3 of their 4 kids.
Aren't they beautiful?
I wish they lived closer.....They live in Danville, California.
Enjoy the words below!!!
Namaste,
Michele


Alone, all alone

Nobody, but nobody

Can make it out here alone

--Maya Angelou

Divine Mystery

My dad took this picture on his phone last week when they were on vacation and sent it to me. It is a kind old tree!! Namaste, Michele

Love the animals, love the plants, love everything. If you love everything, you will perceive the divine mystery in things. Once you perceive it, you will begin to comprehend it better every day. And you will come at last to love the whole world with an all-embracing love.
--Fyodor Dostoyevsky

on old habits

Marko doesn't want these paintings on his wall anymore.
He says they are for babies.......well they were painted for his nursery.
guess we might be painting walls this weekend.
love,
Michele



Not choice, but habit rules the unreflecting herd. --William Wordsworth

beauty

Isn't this picture beautiful? I got to talk with some good friends last night.
I never seem to get to see them much anymore now that our kids are getting older
and we are all working.
Anyway, these are my dear friends Laveena, Anil and Natasha.....not sure where their other daughter was at the time I took this picture.
Laveena is like the best cook in the whole world!!! I love Indian food!!

Speaking of beautiful....read this poem below....I stumbled across it when I went looking for
something else by Robert Bly. (the truth is something you stumble into when you think you are
going somewhere else-Jerry Garcia)
It is one of the most beautiful poems I have read in a long long time.
Namaste,
Michele





Looking at Stars
by Robert Bly


I still think about the shepherds, how many stars
They saw. We owe our love of God to these sheep
That had to be followed, or companioned, all night.
What else could we do? You can't let them run.

Sometimes people like you and me took over
At midnight, after the stars had already become
Huge talkers. That's how we got our love of the intan-
Gible, so that sheep turds didn't seem all there were.

Those of us who are parents, getting older,
Long, as tonight, for our children to stand
With us, looking at the stars. Here it is,
Eight thousand years later, and I still remember.

What god are bad people?
A man told me once that all the bad people
Were needed. Maybe not all, but your fingernails
You need; they are really claws, and we know
Claws. The sharks-what about them?
They make other fish swim faster. The hard-faced men
In black coats who chase you for hours
In dreams-that's the only way to get you
To the shore. Sometimes those hard women
Who abandon you get you to say, "You."
A lazy part of us is like a tumbleweed.
It doesn't move on its own. It takes sometimes
A lot of Depression to get tumbleweeds moving.
Then they blow across three or four States.
This man told me that things work together.
Bad handwriting sometimes leads to new ideas;
And careless god-who refuses to let you
Eat from the Tree of Knowledge-can lead
To books, and eventually to us. We write
Poems with lies in them, but they help a little.

Rhythm of the heart

photo by Mira and her friend Chloe



I need to recover a rhythm in my heart that moves my body first
and my mind second, that allows my soul to catch up with me.
I need to take a sacred pause,
as if I were a sun-warmed rock in the center of rushing river.

—Dawna Markova

Why?

this is Mira and Macy about 9 years ago at my friend, Leslie's cottage
on Lake Chautauqua.....I have been going there with her since I was about 14.
It is beautiful there.....right on the lake....very relaxing!!
lots of questions below to ponder.

Love,
Michele




"Why is man the most restless, dissatisfied of animals? Why do wandering people conceive the world as perfect whereas sedentary ones always try to change it? Why have the great teachers - Christ or the Buddha - recommended the Road as the way to salvation? Do we agree with Pascal that all man's troubles stem from his inability to sit quietly in a room?"
From the flyleaf of "The Songlines" by Bruce Chatwin


I do for sure believe the last quote is true and can tell when I have not meditated.
I start letting outside illusions get to me then....sitting in silence somehow connects me to the real stuff and centers me.
-m

Fear

"Fear is deception.

It attests that you have seen yourself as you could never be.

and therefore look upon a world which is impossible.

Not one thing in the world is true.

It does not matter what the form in which it may appear.

It wittenesses but to your own illusions of yourself.

Let us not be decieved today.

We are the Sons of God.

There is no fear in us, for we are each a part of Love itself"

Lesson 240 "A Course In Miracles"

On Evil

An evil little cock-a-poo

KatherineHonts from San Jose, California, writes:

Do you believe in the devil?

Dear Katherine,

No!

Evil is real, but an external being who causes it is a human projection of part of our own reality into the external world of being. The devil is an excuse, someone to blame, part of the system of control that religious institutions set up to keep themselves dominant.

Belief in an external devil has done more harm than we can imagine. Executing the witches of Salem, Massachusetts, is only one of them.

It is time for the human race to grow up and let go of these childish ideas.


- John Shelby Spong

The spirit of love

My friend Shelley got me this candle holder. I love it .....and I love the quote below.
...so true....so true.
have a great day.
love, Michele





You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments that stand out, the moments when you have really lived,
are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.
—Henry Drummond

On being unique

look, Mira is a princess.
(dress up day at the middle school...you could be any character you wanted.)
I always knew she thought she was a princess..(ha-ha)
Namaste,
Michele



We can copy others, we can live to please others,
or we can discover that which is unique and precious to us,
and paint that, become that.
It is a task which takes a lifetime.



—Carl Rogers

Play Ball!

This is my dad at Cleveland Indians' Fantasy Camp.
He is a baseball fanatic.
It is good to get excited about something!
Have a great day!!
Namaste,
Michele


I believe in the human race. I believe in the warm heart.
I believe in man's integrity. I believe in the goodness of a free society.
And I believe that the society can remain good only
as long as we are willing to fight for it
-- and to fight against whatever imperfections may exist.

My fight was against the barriers that kept Negroes out of baseball.
This was the area where I found imperfection,
and where I was best able to fight.
And I fought because I knew it was not doomed to be a losing fight.
It couldn't be a losing fight-not when it took place in a free society.
--Jackie Robinson

Jim's toast

A Toast To The Fun Couple

by Jim Kelly

May 6, 1989


You have been together now
for over five fun filled years
It's been a lot of memories
it's been a lot of beers.

I noticed it first in 1983,
at a campaign function for Ferris Brown
There was this little blond haired girl
and she was following Mark around

But that following soon reversed itself
at a later date
When it was Mark, following Michele
every weekend down to Ohio State

And they say that long distance relationships
don't have a snowballs chance in hell
But I was observing this one pretty close
and I know that soon time would tell

Because they seemed to compliment each other's madcap antics
along with acquiring friends wherever they go
and laughter seems to always surround them
along with their practical jokes, that we all know

Because with these two, you never really know
when you' re going to end up looking like a fool
Like getting calls from the bedwetting institute
or being enrolled in the Mid-West Truck Driving School

But the inevitable finally happened
and in the Gazebo, Mark gave her the ring
And they announced the Big Event
would take place the following Spring

And as the Big Day drew closer
they became an even more inseparable team
To the point where their bachelor and bachelorette parties
they shared the same bowling theme

Michele, at hers, invited along this nerd bowler
which was just his luck
And Mark, well he introduced his bowling team
to his new best friend Chuck

but now here we are, it's Wedding Day
and people have come from miles and miles
To share in your friendship, to share in your love
and to share in all of your smiles

And even in these turbulent times
full of all of its toils and trouble
It's good to know, God can still show us
there is such a thing, as a perfect couple.

so in the words of Bob Dylan-
"May God bless and keep you always
may your wishes all come true
may you always do for others
and let others do for you
May you build a ladder to the stars
and climb on every rung
and may you stay
Forever Young"