Wednesday, September 3, 2008

People that make me smile


These people make me smile.
front is Steve, Matthew on his lap, Leslie, Charlotte on her lap, Mira, Marko
and Mark, Me, and Macy in the back.
I met Leslie in the 7th grade...and Mark lived with Steve for a while.....long time friends.
This picture was taken in front of the hotel Lenhart (click here for link: hotel Lenhart)
It is located on Lake Chautauqua and is like 128 years old.
have a great day.....hang out with people that make you smile.
read the quote below.
Love,
Michele


Not everyone is healthy enough to have a front row seat in our lives. There are some people in your life that need to be loved from a distance. It's amazing what you can accomplish when you let go of or at least minimize your time with draining, negative, incompatible, not-going-anywhere relationships. Observe the relationships around you. Pay attention. Which ones lift and which ones lean? Which ones encourage and which ones discourage? Which ones are on a path of growth uphill and which ones are going downhill? When you leave certain people do you feel better or feel worse? Which ones always have drama or don't really understand, know, or appreciate you? The more you seek quality, respect, growth, peace of mind, love and truth around you...the easier it will become for you to decide who gets to sit in the front row and who should be moved to the balcony of your life.
~
Anonymous

Tuesday, September 2, 2008

connection to spirit


below is part of this really powerful poem by
Jennifer Welwood.....boy is it powerful....well to me it is.
all the things I wanted to ask but stuffed inside my self somewhere and can't express it.
hope you like it to....and Macy took the picture above also.
love,
Michele


Did you make me to realize a freedom
I can't fully embody?
Do my heart and soul burn for a truth
That I can't fully live?

I commune with you in the heavens --
It's not hard to find you there;
But I need you down here,
In the marrow of my bones.

You can't turn away now -- stay here;
I will have this out with you.
You started something with me,
And now I want it finished.
Yes -- I will wrestle with you on this one,
Beloved torturer;
I will wrestle you all the way down
To the very ground

And not rest till I stand
With the soles of my feet upon you,
And not rest till I feel you infuse
My every cell.

Truth





Macy took this picture too.

I really like this one.

hope you like the words below.....kinda helps me to trust the process.

to let go and enjoy the ride....cause I (my ego) am not in charge anyway.

love,

Michele



The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur

when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled.

For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort,

that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.
~M. Scott Peck

Monday, September 1, 2008

precious life




This is a picture of some rocks I painted while camping this weekend.....and a two other pictures from camping. I love being out in nature....I feel renewed.
a friend of mine gave me this poem....below is part of it..
.....one of my favorite gifts to get is a poem.
hope you like it below.
Have a great day!!!
Love,
Michele


Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life? --Mary Oliver

Friday, August 29, 2008

letting go




above are more pictures that I like of our kids at Omega Institute.
I like the words below.....it reminds me to let go and not hang onto stuff that I can't control anyway.
have a great day.
love,
Michele




What worked yesterday doesn't work today-and what works tomorrow may not work today. Just being present here, just being right here, right now means that you leave the past and you leave the future.

This can be painful. Being present, you let go of the ideas that you have about your children when they're not the way you want them to be. Life itself is one big preparation for the big let-go at the end. As you age and as you grow, you've also got to let go of your parents. and, too, there's your self-image you have to let go of -like your ability to get out of bed...and stand up straight, without that pain in your lower back. Then, finally we've got to let go of it all into this mystery that we've had these glimpses of. It's pretty clear nobody gets out alive.

so, what do you do in the meantime? You get ready and then you catch these glimpses of where you've already let go of everything-and then death itself isn't as scary anymore. Being present, you act more in the accordance with the spontaneity of the universe, God, or self.

-David Parks-Ramage

Thursday, August 28, 2008

Inspriation






above are more pictures by Macy that she took at Omega Institute. These inspire me to keep on my path of practicing mindfulness. hope you are having a great day...and I hope you enjoy the quote below. Namaste, Michele




"When you feel inspired, more than ordinary thinking is involved. There is a sense of being uplifted, of suddenly breaking through. Old boundaries fall away, and one feels, if only for a moment, a rush of liberation" ~Deepak Chopra

Tuesday, August 26, 2008

coming home to ourselves



do you like this picture? Macy made this and then took a picture of it.
Macy made my day today....she came home from middle school and said her and her friends went and ate with this boy who was eating lunch all by himself.
She said they talked to him and he seemed happier.
He said he really did not like school much.
I find myself really missing the meditation time at Omega Institute.
I have been scheduling times to meditate daily at home...but it is hard getting a whole hour to devote to this.
I just take what times I have to meditate...to just be here.
that is what calms me down and helps me to let go of things that I can't control.
....well a lot of the time anyway.
hope you like the quote below!!
Namaste,
Michele

Anyone can build a house of wood and bricks, but....that sort of home is not our real home; it's only nominally ours. It's a home in the world, and it follows the ways of the world. Our real home is inner peace. An external, material home may well be pretty, but it is not very peaceful. There's this worry, and then that; this anxiety, and then that.....It's external to us and soon or later we'll have to give it up. It's not a place we can live in permanently, because it doesn't truly belong to us; it's part of the world. Our body is the same: we take it to be self, to be "me" and "mine," but in fact it's not really so at all; it's another worldly home.
-Ajahn Chah

Monday, August 25, 2008

The wonder of the earth

Marko riding Matthew's ATV....before he tipped it over.







These pictures above are from our visit to Chautauqua Lake on our way home from vacation.
We stayed with our friends Steve and Leslie and their kids.
It is so beautiful and relaxing there.
After spending time on the lake on Saturday, they invited us out to their "barn" to ride four wheelers on Sunday. It was only 15 minutes away....and I had it pictured as a field with a four wheeler......I had no idea we would be riding around in heavy duty polaris vehicles on greater than 300 acres that look like a state park.
It was so beautiful and so fun and I found a lot of joy there!!!
hope you enjoy the quote below.
Love,
Michele


"I am so absorbed in the wonder of the earth and the life upon
it that I cannot think of heaven and the angels.
I have enough for this life.
-Pearl S. Buck

Sunday, August 24, 2008

life


above is a picture from Macy and Marko's photography class at Omega.
They had so much fun.
hope you like the quote below!!
Namaste,
Michele




have come to believe that the whole world is an enigma,
a harmless enigma
that is made terrible by our own mad attempt
to interpret it as though it had an underlying truth.
-Umberto Eco

Saturday, August 23, 2008

Heaven on Earth



who is that lady standing in the doorway??
now this lady seems to be an expert at the crow pose.....ha..ha....no now.all I see are lots of ways to improve this pose.

above are pictures that Macy took during my yoga class at Omega.
Macy took a photography class and came into my class and took pictures.
have a great day and enjoy the quote below.
sometimes I feel the heaven on earth...and other times I don't feel it....still working on that one.
love,
Michele



Heaven on earth means you are absolutely delighted with your life just the way it is. You aren’t trying to fix yourself, manifest more money, a better job or a bigger house. You find the sacred right here and right now. That is also where you connect with the creative energy that wants to express in your life.
Abundance comes as we learn to trust the Creative source inside us. We can’t do that when we are busy finding fault with our lives. (IE: thinking that my butt looks big in the crow pose picture)

-Paul Ferrini

Friday, August 22, 2008

Nonconformity


Macy took this picture at Omega last week.
These were drums that some of the kids used during the week.
hope you are having a great day.
read the quote below!!...it kinda reminded me to go ahead and be who I am...I needed this ...esp. after last night....I walked up to Giant Eagle and bought groceries and then walked the mile home with my canvas bags...people probably think that I am a weirdo....well I am.
Namaste,
Michele


If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured and far away.
-Henry David Thoreau
(1817-1862)

Thursday, August 21, 2008

The Mystery




Today was the first day of school!!
hard to believe that it is time for new school beginings!!
hope you like the quote below.
Namaste,
Michele




To one degree or another, everybody is connected to the Mystery, and everybody secretly yearns to expand the connection. That requires expanding the soul. These things can enlarge the soul: laughter, danger, imagination, meditation, wild nature, passion, compassion, psychedelics, beauty, iconoclasm, and driving around in the rain with the top down. These things can diminish it: fear, bitterness, blandness, trendiness, egotism, violence, corruption, ignorance, grasping, shining, and eating ketchup on cottage cheese.
- Tom Robbins

Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Letting Go

Bud Preston's website: click here
Hello!!
Above is a picture from Mira and Marko's guitar lesson yesterday evening.
They both started lessons this summer.
I was so crushed when Mira wanted to quit playing her violin.
She had played the violin for the last 5 years and I enjoyed hearing her play.
However, she was tired of orchestra, tired of the rules and tired of not playing modern songs.
I tried to convince her to stay in it for high school, but then I realized it is not about me.
(hard for me to do.....because I wanted her to be a violin player...I had plans that she would travel with the Medina Orchestra to Russia during high school and that I would go to her concerts throughout her four years at the high school......but it is not my life....and she must follow her own passions....not mine)
so guess why she quit......because she wanted to learn how to play the guitar.
so now Mira and Marko take guitar lessons together.
Mira plays Mark's guitar.....and Marko plays his new "Gibson."

Below are words from Pema Chodron.
She offered these five pieces advice at a retreat this year.
I found them very fitting......have been going through some major stressors lately....those of you who know me well know that.
I have been practicing on learning to "let go."
at times it works really well and at other times I am filled with a lot of anger and feelings of being betrayed.
Last week at Omega Institute, I meditated each morning for an hour and each evening for an hour. which consisted of sitting on these cushions with our legs crossed in total silence...just keeping your mind blank, then at the end the instructor would lead us through a "loving-kindness" meditation where you send love to yourself, love to a teacher in your life, love to someone close, love to someone you have issues with, and you keep stretching it until you are sending love from you heart to every living entity on the planet.
On the last day of meditation, the meditation leader, gave me this piece of paper and told me that it was a gift from her to me.
did you ever notice how the words from someone can be exactly what you needed to hear?
It is really weird....well not really....(truth is something you stumble into when you think you are going someplace else-Jerry Garcia)
but it was like it was really written for me.
so now I will share it with you...read below and have a great day!!!
Namaste,
Michele


At the close of the rainy season retreat at Gampo Abbey this year, Pema Chodron offered these five pieces of advice.

1. The mundane details of our life eat us up. Therefore it is important to keep asking
ourselves again and again: What is the most important thing? Since death is certain and the time of death is uncertain, what is the most important thing? Let that perspective be your guide.

2. Don't be afraid to challenge yourself. At the gut level, you might want to go for the most comfortable thing. Always go for the stretch. Sometimes the stretch is to stay,
sometimes to go. Sometimes to say, Yes, sometimes to say, No. You don't always know. The key is to be willing to go through the shedding and unmasking process.

3. Rest in the insecurity.
Remember that when we lose ground we habitually panic and look for something solid to
hold onto: that's a description of samsara. Go at your pace. And don't push it.
But continue to train in resting and with insecurity.

4. Don't believe everything you think. If you can follow this advice, you will be in good shape.

5. Take exactly what appears as your path.

this last one means, wherever we are, this is our awakening, our sacred space. Listening deeply, we open the doors of our true nature, which is called Buddha nature or God nature
or Allah or the Tao. The mind is clear and bright. Compassion arises. We find our way.

Monday, August 18, 2008

Being Real


Some of my highschool friends were in town last night and we had a mini reunion.
They came over just as we pulled in from our nine day vacation......our house was a mess and we were a mess but they did not seem to mind the chaos.
I love to get together with old friends that know your past and still like you anyway.
Above is a picture of them......Katie is standing beside me, Leslie is below me and Chris is below Katie.
Have a great day.
love,
Michele

When They Revolutionize the Cocktail Parties
by Marilyn Sandberg


"Hello, What are you afraid of?"
"Death"
"Me too."
"When you hear a Mahler symphony?"
"No, when I wake up in the night."
"Me too."
"Nice meeting you."
"Same here."