your spiritual growth

This is Macy and her cousin, Eliza

Your Spiritual growth does not happen when you are peaceful and content.
It happens when you get angry, greedy, jealous, critical,or impatient.
It happens when you loose your "spiritual mask" and realize that you are not superman
or -woman, but just an ordinary human being learning how to love.
-Paul Ferrini

Your gift to the world

Individually and collectively, anything we do to resist or postpone the collapse will only make it worse. So stop resisting the revolution in human beingness. If you want to survive the multiple crises unfolding today, do not seek to survive them. That is the mindset of separation; that is resistance, a clinging to a dying past. Instead, allow your perspective to shift toward reunion, and think in terms of what you can give. What can you contribute to a more beautiful world? That is your only responsibility and your only security. The gifts you need to survive and enjoy will come to you easily, because what you do to the world, you do to yourself.

-Charles Eisenstien

Happy 50th Anniversary Mom and Dad

This is a picture of my parents that I took tonight.
We went out to dinner for my mom's birthday tonight.
They are leaving for 3 weeks......flying to Italy on Tuesday then going on a cruise to the Holy Lands....then they end up in Athens Greece....they will spend 3 days there then fly home...just in time for Halloween.
Have a great trip!!
I hope you enjoy the poem that Mark wrote for you below.
We love you!!!!
Michele



for Fran and Clay on their 50th Anniversary
by markk

they say the first 50 years
are the hardest, so it’s all
downhill from here (not to
say you’re going downhill.)
satchel paige said don’t look
back, because something
might be gaining on you,
but we’ll look back anyway:

you can look back and say
you hit a home run with a
daughter like michele, not
to mention three grandchildren
like mira, macy & marko,
you can look back & say you
got to see places like africa,
china, & australia, not to
mention caribbean islands,
continents & countries,
oceans & deserts, mountains,
& rivers, you can look back & say
you’ve gone to a thousand
baseball games, because
after all, like clay’s t-shirt says,
baseball is life, you can look back
& say that you’ve enjoyed
the company of relatives & friends,
worked hard & played hard, helped
people in need, had fun, you can
look back & say you did your
very best, you went the extra mile,
you stopped to smell the roses,
you can look back all day long --

but the next 50 years are
going to be where the rubber
meets the road, because you
have a family who needs
you, not to mention a cock-a-poo
named dusty, & places to go & people
to see, so set off your journey
& go where you will, we will
all be coming along for the ride.

Letting Go

Mira made this and took this picture.
It reminds me to take a deep breath and let go.
hope you like the quote below!!
love,
Michele




"The energy we need is not fear or anger, but the energy of understanding and compassion. There is no need to blame or condemn. Those who are destroying themselves, societies, and the planet aren't doing it intentionally. Their pain and loneliness are overwhelming, and they want to escape. They need to be helped, not punished. Only understanding and compassion on a collective level can liberate us."
— Thich Nhat Hanh in The World We Have

Dance like No One is watching.

Mira took this picture at the "boys like girls" concert or is it the "girls like boys" concert?
I don't know...it is one of those names.


click on the link below to see one of the best videos that I have seen in a long time.
It made me smile and do a little dance:)
click on link below.
gratitude dance video

Connection

“I feel this pang inside—
Is it my soul trying to break out,
Or the world's soul trying to break in?”
~ Rabindranath Tagore

Love

This is our friend, Baby Tess. We met her at Omega Institute....Macy took this picture.


"Time is too slow for those who wait, too swift for those who fear, too long for those who grieve, too short for those who rejoice, but for those who love, time is eternity."
- Henry Van Dyke

Little things?

Marko took this picture at Omega Institute.





Sometimes when I consider what tremendous consequences come from little things
-- a chance word, a tap on the shoulder, or a penny dropped on a newsstand
-- I am tempted to think...there are no little things.
--Bruce Barton

finding stillness

above picture taken by Mira


Today I am posting what my friend, Kristie said in a comment.
She is a friend I met online...and her words always seem to connect with me.
She loves nature and is such a talented photographer.
here is a link to her website and her beautiful pictures:

Kristie's website

and below is a note she sent me and gave me permission to post.
have a great day.
Namaste,
Michele

I just wanted to let you know I've finished reading Eat, Pray, Love...what a wonderful book! One of my all-time favorites! I can really identify with parts of her journey...her words from her website sums up what I feel too, from my life journey..."I do feel that I am changed. There is a small, new holy part of me which I hold onto and treasure very carefully - cupping it in my hands like a freshly lit match. I try to protect that new part of me as much as possible from the sheering winds of 21st Century America. (Generally, this means avoiding particularly spastic invasions of too much television, consumer debt, competition, over-consumption, success-pressure, greed and other forms of our daily cultural life.)" I also liked how she spoke of finding stillness and stepping into our own light. Like finding the marvelous, huh! :)
Namaste,
Kristie

creativity

Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvelous.
--Bill Moyers

Nonsense

Forgive me my nonsense
as I forgive the nonsense of those
who think they talk sense.
-Robert Frost

On Boredom

Macy took this picture.....in a moment of boredom.



One thing that our kids have learned NOT to say in our house is "I'm bored."
They don't say it because they know my typical answer.
which is something like "Can I tap dance for you or Juggle for you?"....then they usually get an extra chore to do around the house to keep them from being bored.



To me, boredom is a good space to explore your creativity or to just be with your feelings.
It is okay to just sit in silence sometimes.
Hope you like the quote below.
Have a great day!!
love,
Michele


I come not to entertain you with
worldly festivities but to arouse your
sleeping memory of immortality.

-----Paramahansa Yogananda

Being Selfless

This is a picture of St. Francis.
It is made out of Stained Glass.
I took this picture at a coffee house at Penn State this summer.
I thought it looked pretty cool and I love St. Francis.
hope you like the quote below....I think St. Francis would like it too.
love,
Michele




My stand is clear; produce to distribute, feed before you eat, give before you take,
think of others before you think of yourself. Only a selfless society based on sharing can be stable and happy.
This is the only practical solution. If you do not want it, then-- fight.
-Nisargadatta Maharaj

Kindness

When I was young, I admired clever people. Now that I am old, I admire kind people.
-Abraham Joshua Heschel