Wednesday, August 31, 2005

Smoky Mountains
Source: Terra Galleria
"Mindfulness is...

the aware, balanced acceptance of the present experience. It isn't more complicated that that. It is opening to or receiving the present moment, pleasant or unpleasant, just as it is, without either clinging to it or rejecting it."

--Sylvia Boorstein
Wednesday Thought: Sense and Nonsense

"Just as the highest and the lowest notes are equally inaudible, so perhaps, is the greatest sense and the greatest nonsense equally unintelligible."

--Allan Watts

Tuesday, August 30, 2005




















The Apple of My Eye
Source: Ecomagic.com
One for the road...

"If words come out of the heart, they will enter the heart, but if they come from the tongue, they will not pass beyond the ears."

--Al-Suhrawardi
Tuesday Thought: Helping Friends

"If a friend is in trouble, don't annoy him by asking if there is anything you can do. Think up something appropriate and do it."

--Edgar Watson Howe

Monday, August 29, 2005

















Crop Circles
Source: Great Dreams
One for the road...

"....all things share the same breath....the beast, the tree, the man....the air shares it's spirit with all the life it supports."

--Chief Seattle, Dwamish
Monday Thought: Think in Circles

"You have noticed that everything that an Indian does is in a circle, and that is because the Power of the World always works in circles, and everything tries to be round....The Sky is round, and I have heard that the earth is round like a ball, and so are all the stars. The wind, in its greatest power, whirls. Birds make their nest in circles, for theirs is the same religion as ours....Even the seasons form a great circle in their changing, and always come back again to where they were. The life of a man is a circle from childhood to childhood, and so it is in everything where power moves."

--"Black Elk" Oglala

Sunday, August 28, 2005

One for the road...

"If you talk to the animals they will talk with you and you will know each other. If you do not talk to them you will not know them, and what you do not know you will fear. What one fears one destroys."

--Chief
Dan George
Sunday Thought: It's All Sacred

"From Wakan-Tanka, the Great Mystery, comes all power. It is from Wakan-Tanka that the holy man has wisdom and the power to heal and make holy charms. Man knows that all healing plants are given by Wakan-Tanka; therefore they are holy. So too is the buffalo holy, because it is the gift of Wakan-Tanka."

- Flat-Iron (Maza Blaska) Oglala Sioux Chief

Saturday, August 27, 2005

Saturday Thought: How Should We "Be"?

"Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, and beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a strange ... Show respect to all people and bow to no one ... "

~Tecumseh, Shawnee~
Late Summer Flowers
Source: Natural Insights

Friday, August 26, 2005

One to think about...

Spend some time in Nature. Allow Mother Nature to bring out your "untamed" side. Who knows...you might discover an opportunity to re-invent your life.


--Don













Friday Thought: Think Creatively

Try thinking....how? What does the picture tell you?

Thursday, August 25, 2005

Thursday Thought: Nature's Music

... everything in nature is lyrical in its ideal essence, tragic in its fate, and comic in its existence.

--George Santayana
















Wildflowers
Source: Oregon Scenics

Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Wednesday Thought: God's Love

"Who has not found the heaven belowWill fail of it above.God's residence is next to min,His furniture is love."

--Emily Dickinson
















August Wildflowers at Yellowstone
Source: National Park Service

Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Tuesday Thought: Do We Really Need More

"Nature is just enough; but men and women must comprehend and accept her suggestions."

--Antoinette Brown Blackwell














Grand Canyon
Source: National Park Service

Monday, August 22, 2005

Monday Thought: Mother Nature as Artist

"Nature is painting for us, day after day, pictures of infinite beauty."

--John Ruskin
















Wind-swept sand dune
Source: National Park Service

Sunday, August 21, 2005

Lightning Bugs
By Don Iannone


Hot summer night.
Boys playing outside well past their bedtime.
Waiting and watching;
and suddenly
one appears
and then another, and ANOTHER!
Soon the yard is filled with those amazing blinking yellow bugs.

Lightning bugs.
Fireflies.
Magical flying illuminations.
Twinkle, twinkle little star
but how about those lightning bugs?

At first
we are content to just chase them
then the temptation grows beyond control.
Then there is the matter of the empty jelly jar
that beckons to be filled with the glorious flying Edisons.

Grass!
The bugs must have a few blades.
And they need air
so the jar's lid receives a few well-placed stabs
from our new Boy Scout pen knives.

"I'm coming," we shout in unison
as our Moms bellow from the back porch for us to get in the house.
One final decision must be made:
keep the bugs, or let them go?
It's a split vote
meaning we do the opposite of what we did last time.

So, the mysterious winged
twinkle-bugs are freed
at least until tomorrow's night falls:
and then, who knows?












Fireflies (Lightning Bugs)
Source: Grave of the Fireflies
Sunday Thought: What is Life?

"What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset."

--Eagle Chief (Letakos-Lesa) Pawnee
One for the road...

"Treat the earth well: it was not given to you by your parents, it was loaned to you by your children. We do not inherit the Earth from our Ancestors, we borrow it from our Children."

--Ancient Indian Proverb

Saturday, August 20, 2005















Saturday Thought
Red Rose

Source: Whistler Reservations
What Does It Say to You?















Cherokee National Forest, Tennessee
Source: Cherokee Forest Voices
One to ponder....

"Blessed are the flexible, for they shall not be bent out of shape."

--Jack B. Nimble

Friday, August 19, 2005




















Lupines
Source: Cort Bassett Photography
One to ponder...

"Repentance is another name for aspiration."

--Henry Ward Beecher
Friday Thought: Listen

Listening is the beginning of awareness. It's not really thinking. Listen to the world that meets you today. Listen with all your heart.

--Don

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Thursday Thought: Smile

"When the water reaches the upper level, follow the rats."

--Claude Swanson
One for the road...

"He had occasional flashes of silence, that made his conversation perfectly delightful."

--Sydney Smith

Monday, August 15, 2005















Clover Field
Growing up in Martins Ferry, we loved to play in a magical clover field near Old County Road. It was a favorite summertime place we visited often. Some times to playfully taunt the old bull who stalked the field. Other times we enjoyed lying on our backs in the cool sweet clover and watch wispy clouds pass across the sky. For some reason, we always learned something about ourselves while visiting the clover field.
How can you reach your soul?

One way is to meditate on a regular basis and allow the silence within you to grow. Your soul will speak to you amidst this silence; once the inner clamouring and noise settles down some.

Don't know how to meditate. That's ok. Meditation isn’t some sort of magical panacea. It is a direct and powerful way to engage in your own growth and evolution. Learn more
here.

Don't know what to say to your soul. Try saying nothing. Your soul knows what you want, need, and intend. Trust your soul to tell you what you need to know.

If I want to ask for guidance from your soul, what and how do I ask? Simply ask your soul to show you, or help you see, who you really are today. Then, watch carefully. I guarantee you will gain some new insight into who you are spiritually.

--Don
Monday Thought: See Others Fully

"When we perceive human values in our colleagues, even if they seem to be covered up at times, it helps us to see them in a new light, and gives us a way to connect even when there are differences."

Read more here.

Sunday, August 14, 2005

Sunday Thought: Memories

As much as we try to live in the present, we still need our memories to round out our lives. Often our memories are about events, both happy and sad. As I inventory my memories, which come and go into my consciousness, I keep reminding myself to remember who I am. Let a favorite memory light on your shoulder like a beautiful butterfly and remind you who you really are.

--Don
You're My Butterfly
Lyrics/Song By Lenny Kravitz

Your are the most beautiful thing
I've ever seen
You shine just like sunlight rays
On a winter snow
I just had to tell you so

Your eyes sparkle as the stars
Like the moon they glow
Your smile could light the world on fire
Or did you know?

Your minds full of everything
That I want to know
I just had to let you know
I just had to tell you so
Your're my butterfly
Fly high
Fly fly fly














Just like those in Mary's Garden

Saturday, August 13, 2005















Peonie
Source: Parco Apuane
One to ponder...

"Meditation brings wisdom; lack of meditation leaves ignorance. Know well what leads you forward and what hold you back, and choose the path that leads to wisdom."

--Buddha
Saturday Thought: Believe in Yourself!

No, I don't mean the usual high school football coach pep talk about increasing our self-confidence to do something.

I'm referring to the need to believe in our soul--the innermost aspect of each of us that defines our authentic being.

Believe in your soul.

Friday, August 12, 2005






















"I was at the last Dead concert. Totally cool!"
Source: For Pet's Sake
Somebody today needs you as a mentor. This person may be too afraid to ask, and maybe you are not assured of your own abilities to teach. Trust yourself. Reach out. A miracle will happen.

--Don
Friday Thought: True Alchemy

"True alchemy does not consist in the spectacular transmutation of base metals into gold, but in the spiritual transmutation of man's own matter. "

--Omraam Mikhaël Aïvanhov
America
By Robert Creeley

America, you ode for reality!
Give back the people you took.

Let the sun shine again
on the four corners of the world

you thought of first but do not
own, or keep like a convenience.

People are your own word, you
invented that locus and term.

Here, you said and say, is
where we are. Give back

what we are, these people you made,
us, and nowhere but you to be.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Red Beauty Rose
Source: Art.net
















Yellow Lilies
Source:
www.usd253.org
One for the road...

"Happiness is an angel with a serious face."

--Amedea Modigliani
Thursday Thought: With Feeling

"A work of art which did not begin in emotion is not art."

--Paul Cezanne

Wednesday, August 10, 2005

August Water
Source: Freezing Point
One to ponder...

"Jesus similarly spoke of the "narrow way," esoterically referring to the ascent in meditation of the life force and consciousness through the gateway at the base of the spine (muladhara chakra) and the narrow passageway of the sushumna: "Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go in thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it" (Matthew 7:13-14)."

--Paramahansa Yogananda, in The Bhagavad Gita: God Talks With Arjuna
Wednesday Thought: Intuitive Experience

"The true basis of religion is not belief, but intuitive experience. Intuition is the soul’s power of knowing God. To know what religion is really all about, one must know God.”

— Paramhansa Yogananda from The Essence of Self-Realization

Tuesday, August 09, 2005

Could this be the story of your life?
Source: Henri D. Grissino-Mayer's Ultimate Tree-Ring Web Pages
Tuesday Thought: The Really Great People

"Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great."

--Mark Twain
Message From The Past
By Lance D. Smith

You've kept me close
While trying to escape from me
I am the past that you run from
But today I come in peace

I influence your decisions
Created your personality
I am the same old script
That hides the truth you seek

I've caused you anger
I’ve created pain
I told you “What’s the use”
Life was just the same old thing

There’s no need to resolve or change me
To hold on or forgive
You have the key to your freedom
And how you truly want to live

I offer you this secret
Because you gave me life
I no longer want to hurt you
It's time to set things right

We hold each other prisoners
Locked together in a vault
Simply release me from your memory
My only power is in your thoughts

You can let me go
I’ll be on my way
Unless you want to live in me
I no longer have a say

There’s no need to justify me
There’s no case to defend
Send home all the witnesses
And begin your life again

Life is Love
Expressed new in you each day
It flows through you
Like a river on its way

You can create
More than I can contain
I’ll only hinder you
By holding onto the same

So the secret I offer
My only power is in your thoughts
You have to think hard to create me
I’m not real at all

You’ll find new life
Turning your thoughts away from me
And I’ll die from this secret
Now that I’ve set you free
Hands
By Siv Cedering

I

When I fall asleep
my hands leave me.

They pick up pens
and draw creatures
with five feathers
on each wing.

The creatures multiply.
They say: "We are large
like your father's
hands."

They say: "We have
your mother's
knuckles."

I speak to them:
"If you are hands,
why don't you
touch?"

And the wings beat
the air, clapping.
They fly

high above elbows
and wrists.
They open windows
and leave

rooms.
They perch in treetops
and hide under bushes
biting

their nails. "Hands,"
I call them.
But it is fall

and all creatures
with wings
prepare to fly
South.

II

When I sleep
the shadows of my hands
come to me.

They are softer than feathers
and warm as creatures
who have been close
to the sun.

They say: "We are the giver,"
and tell of oranges
growing on trees.

They say: "We are the vessel,"
and tell of journeys
through water.

They say: "We are the cup."

And I stir in my sleep.
Hands pull triggers
and cut
trees. But

the shadows of my hands
tuck their heads
under wings
waiting
for morning,

when I will wake
braiding

three strands of hair
into one.

Monday, August 08, 2005

A Memory for Mary
Kirk Middle School, East Cleveland, Ohio
Source: National Trust




















Source: University of Wisconsin
One final one...

"You give but little when you give of your possessions. It is when you give of yourself that you truly give."

--Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet
Monday Thought: Truth

"Truth, like surgery, may hurt, but it cures."

--Han Suyin
One to ponder...

"A ruffled mind makes a restless pillow."

--Charlotte Bronte
A Memory and a Legend
TIME, December 22, 1980

Sunday, August 07, 2005

Soul Consciousness

"As in the region of knowledge so in that of consciousness, man must clearly realise some central truth which will give him an outlook over the widest possible field. And that is the object which the Upanishad has in view when it says, Know thine own Soul. Or, in other words, realise the one great principal of unity that there is in every man."

From Soul Consciousness by Tagore
Not Now Kid
Source: Sivann Funny Pictures
Sunday Thought: Being Now

"The Place you are right now God circled on a map for you."

— Hafiz quoted in Marrow of Flame by Dorothy Walters
One to ponder...

"Since you've looked at this review, 10 persons have died worldwide, on the average of 1.76 persons per second, to be precise. For every 1000 persons alive today, 8 will die within the next year. If you live in a midsize American town, that means an average of 3.5 deaths per day. In metropolitan areas the size of Boston, Denver, and Seattle, the daily mortality rate rises to almost 40 persons. In North America, accidental or sudden catastrophic illness accounts for only about 20 percent of all fatalities — 80 percent of Americans die in bed. The majority of us will die a natural death due to long-term disease or the aging process." More here.

Saturday, August 06, 2005


















Sunset in Israel
Source: POTD.com.au
Saturday Thought: Babies

"A baby is God's opinion that the world should go on."

--Carl Sandburg
One to ponder...

"Civilization is hideously fragile [and] there's not much between us and the horrors underneath, just about a coat of varnish."

--C.P. Snow

Friday, August 05, 2005

Heaven
Source: Get Religion

One to ponder...

"Ideals are like stars; you will not succeed in touching them with your hands, but like the seafaring man on the desert of waters, you choose them as your guides, and following them, you reach your destiny."

--Carl Schurz
Friday Thought: Things That Matter

"Things which matter most must never be at the mercy of things which matter least."

--Goethe

Thursday, August 04, 2005

Clarion River
Clarion, PA
Thursday Thought: Wisdom For What?

"The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain."

--Aristotle

Wednesday, August 03, 2005

Haiku Moment
By Don
been a while since

i felt poetic drama

but it has returned

Dream Song 1
By John Berryman


Huffy Henry hid the day,
unappeasable Henry sulked.
I see his point,--a trying to put things over.
It was the thought that they thought
they could do it made Henry wicked & away.
But he should have come out and talked.

All the world like a woolen lover
once did seem on Henry's side.
Then came a departure.
Thereafter nothing fell out as it might or ought.
I don't see how Henry, pried
open for all the world to see, survived.

What he has now to say is a long
wonder the world can bear & be.
Once in a sycamore I was glad
all at the top, and I sang.
Hard on the land wears the strong sea
and empty grows every bed.




















Zozobra
Source: Kiwanis Club of Santa Fe
Here's a good one...

"Man improves himself as he follows his path; if he stands still, waiting to improve before he makes a decision, he'll never move."

--Paulo Coelho
Wednesday Thought: Real Family Connections

"The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life."

--Richard Bach

Tuesday, August 02, 2005

Flowers on a Sunny Day
Source: 7-Art Screensavers
Wise words...

"World peace today, is at the nadir. There are wars and violence on every continent. Most of them are inspired by fanatic religious ends or greed for power and wealth. Suffering in the form of hunger, poverty, disease, exploitation, drug abuse, environmental pollution, natural disasters and mental stress is rampant all over the world. Life of the common man is filled with stress, suffering and danger. The spiritual effort of the sincere devotee is filled with obstacles. The world, which is the stage for the Cosmic Drama, is damaged. The individuals, who are the actors in this Cosmic Drama, are unable to perform their roles properly. The time has come when each person has to ask himself as to why world peace has been disturbed to such an extent. A detailed and systematic analysis of the situation will reveal that the answer to this question is not in science, economics or politics but in spirituality. Let us analyze the causes and solutions of some of the problems facing the world today."

Source:
Shri Datta Swami
On further thought...

"There is no beautifier of complexion, or form, or behavior, like the wish to scatter joy and not pain around us. 'Tis good to give a stranger a meal, or a night's lodging. 'Tis better to be hospitable to his good meaning and thought, and give courage to a companion. We must be as courteous to a man as we are to a picture, which we are willing to give the advantage of a good light."

--Ralph Waldo Emerson
Tuesday Thought: Sparking Our Generosity

"The poor don't know that their function in life is to exercise our generosity."

--Jean-Paul Sartre

Monday, August 01, 2005
















Lotus Blossom
Source: Lotusland Gallery
More on seeing...

"If we could see the miracle of a single flower clearly, our whole life would change."

--Buddha
Monday Thought: How We See Things

"We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are."

--Anaïs Nin
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