Beauty

I stole this quote from a facebook friend, Emily.
I loved it.
I hope you have a great day.
Namaste,
Michele





"Every man who has shown the world the way to beauty,
to true culture, has been a rebel, a 'universal' without patriotism,
without home, who has found his people everywhere."

-Chaim Potok

Distractions

Blue man on the wall of House of Blues.


Most people are so distracted
by their thoughts,
so identified with the
voices in their heads,
they can no longer feel
the aliveness within them.
To be unable to feel the life
that animates the physical body,
the very life that you are,
is the greatest deprivation
that can happen to you.

-Eckart Tolle

join the dance!!!!!

Mark and I ate at the House of Blues last night and this picture was on the wall there.
I love it...and the words below!!!!!
have a great day!!!
Namaste,
Michele


"The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance."
-Alan Watts

DSO

Paul and I look like old people.......
Nikki, Nikki, Nikki....you are so fun!!!!

Well I can't find the setlist from last night...but it was an awesome show.
Dark Star Orchestra is one of my favorite bands..........
Always a good time.
I will put the setlist on this post when I get it.
Namaste'
Michele

Show: 1650 • 02/25/2009 House of Blues Cleveland, Cleveland, OH Setlist: 7/25/74 - International Amphitheatre, Chicago, IL Set 1: Me & My Uncle, Loose Lucy, Black Throated Wind, Loser, BIODTL, Sugaree, Mexicali, Brown Eyed Women, El Paso, Row Jimmy, WRS Prelude> WRS Part 1> Let It Grow> Around & Around
Set 2: Scarlet Begonias, Big River, Roses, Jack Straw, Dark Star> Slipknot> Stella Blue, Johnny B. Goode, Uncle John's Band> U. S. Blues, Saturday Night
Encore: Ship Of Fools
"Filler:" You Ain't Woman Enough



"Don't throw anyone out of your heart." Neem Karoli Baba

The long and winding road

do you like this poem??????

The Path

You enter the forest
at the darkest point,
where there is no path.

Where there is a way or path,
it is someone else's path.

You are not on your own path.

If you follow someone else's way,
you are not going to realize
your potential.

It takes courage
to do what you want.
Other people
have a lot of plans for you.

Nobody wants you to do
what you want to do.
They want you to go on their trip...

- Joseph Campbell

love

what did one coconut say to another???




In the end these things matter most;
How well did you love? How fully did you love?
How deeply did you learn to let go?
– Buddha

does it hurt???

I think Marko took this picture at Omega Institute.

I was driving Marko to school yesterday and he asked me, "mom does it hurt to have a baby come out from inside you." I told him yes, but the pain was so worth it.

so, he says, "well, I am glad that I decided to be a boy. Girls get a lot of advantages in this world, but I am glad I don't have to have a baby." "I am also glad that I am not a seahorse because the boy seahorse has the babies."

have a great day!!!

love,

Michele

WHEN YOU TOUCH ONE THING
with deep awareness,
you touch everything.

– Thich Nhat Hanh

distractions

Mira and her friend, Lauren


It makes no sense to resist quietude, yet we create distractions all the time because we fear the consequences of guidance. Paradoxically, we pray for stillness and seek it because we yearn to quiet our distractions. – Caroline Myss, “Entering the Castle: An Inner Path to God and Your Soul”

On our growth

"Growth is demanding and may seem dangerous,
for there is loss as well as gain in growth. But why go on living if one has ceased to grow."
-May Sarton

Sonnet XVII: Love

This is a picture of the new stadium in Arizona that the Cleveland Indians play in now during spring training.
It just opened up this week and my parents are there for spring training.
My dad keeps sending me pictures......lots of pictures.
hope you enjoy the poem below...very beautiful.
peace,
Michele



XVII
I don ’t love you as if you were a rose of salt, topaz,

or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:

I love you as one loves certain obscure things,

secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom but carries

the light of those flowers, hidden, within itself,

and thanks to your love the tight aroma that arose

from the earth lives dimly in my body.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or

from whereI love you directly without problems or pride:

I love you like this because I don’t know any other way

to love,
except in this form in which I am not nor are you,

so close that your hand upon my chest is mine,

so close that your eyes close with my dreams.

—Translated and © Mark Eisner 2004, from City Lights' The Essential Neruda

Dark Star Orchestra

Dark Star Orchestra is going to be at the House of Blues in Cleveland on Wednesday at 7pm!!!
Hope to see you there!!!
They are amazing!!!!



“There is a road, no simple highway, between the dawn and the dark of night, and if you go, no one may follow, that path is for your steps alone”- lyrics from the song: Ripple

the dance of life

doesn't this tree look like a dancer???
ohhhhh so cool!!!
read below and have a great day!!!
Peace,
Michele
We must pass through solitude and difficulty, isolation and silence, to find that enchanted place where we can dance our clumsy dance and sing our sorrowful song. But in that dance, and in that song, the most ancient rites of our conscience fulfill themselves in the awareness of being human.
--Pablo Neruda

on coming alive again

Sometimes our light goes out but is blown into flame by an encounter with another human being. Each of us owes the deepest thanks to those who have rekindled this inner light.
-Albert Schweitzer

Why I Sit

Why I Sit
--Paul Fleischman


This morning, the first thing I did was to sit for an hour.
I have done that regularly for twenty years, and
have spent many evenings, days and weeks doing the same.

I would like to know myself.
It is remarkable that while ordinarily we spend most of our lives studying,
contemplating, observing and manipulating the world around us,
the structured gaze of the thoughtful mind is so rarely turned inwards.
This avoidance must measure some anxiety, reluctance or fear.

Most of our lives are spent in externally oriented functions
that distract from self-observation. This relentless, obsessive
drive persists independently of survival needs such as food and warmth,
and even of pleasure. Second to second,
we couple ourselves to sights , tastes, words, motions
or electronic stimuli, until we fall dead.
It is striking how many ordinary activities,
from smoking a pipe to watching sunsets,
veer towards, but ultimately avoid,
sustained attention to the reality of our own life.

Sitting helps me overcome my deepest fears.
I become freer to live from my heart and to face the consequences,
but also to reap the rewards of this authenticity.
Much of what I called pain was really loneliness and fear.
It passes, dissolves, with that observation.
The vibrations of my body are humming the song that can be heard
only when dawn and dusk are simultaneous, instantaneous, continuous.
I feel that a burst of stern effort is a small price to pay to hear
this inner music- fertile music from the heart of life itself.

I sit to anchor and organise my life around my heart and mind,
and to radiate out to others what I find. Though I shake in strong winds,
I return to this basic way of living. The easy, soothing comfort
and deep relaxation that accompany intense awareness in stillness,
peel my life like an onion to deeper layers of truth,
which in turn are scoured and soothed until the next layer opens.
I sit to discipline my life by what is clear, simple, self-fulfilling
and universal in my heart. There is no end to this job.
I have failed to really live many days of my life,
but I dive again and again into the plain
guidance of self-containment and loving receipt.
I sit to find and express simple human love and common decency.

--Paul Fleischman