IT'S A NEW DAY !!

WARNING: exposure to happiness is contagious and can cause one to erupt in spontaneous acts of kindness, which then cause bouts of laughter and hugging, accompanied by realisms where people see each other as divine and blessed to know one another as friend. :-)

Some say love, it is a river
that drowns the tender reed.
Some say love, it is a razor
that leaves your soul to bleed.

Some say love, it is a hunger
an endless aching need.
I say love, it is a flower
and you its only seed.

It's the heart afraid of breaking
that never learns to dance,
It's the dream afraid of waking, that never takes the chance.
It's the one who won't be taken,
who cannot seem to give
and the soul afraid of dying, that never learns to live.

When the night has been too lonely
and the road has been too long,
and you think that love is only
for the lucky and the strong.

Just remember in the winter, far beneath the bitter snows
lies the seed
that with the sun's love
in the spring
becomes the rose

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zf5UfOuvQHQ&feature=related

"When we heal, our history ceases to be the sole arbiter of reality." Jason Shulman

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCCdGUDw16Q&feature=related

TO A MADONNA by Charles Baudelaire

MADONNA, mistress, I would build for thee
An altar deep in the sad soul of me;
And in the darkest corner of my heart,
From mortal hopes and mocking eyes apart,
Carve of enamelled blue and gold a shrine
For thee to stand erect in, Image divine!
And with a mighty Crown thou shalt be crowned
Wrought of the gold of my smooth Verse, set round
With starry crystal rhymes; and I will make,
O mortal maid, a Mantle for thy sake,
And weave it of my jealousy, a gown
Heavy, barbaric, stiff, and weighted down
With my distrust, and broider round the hem
Not pearls, but all my tears in place of them.
And then thy wavering, trembling robe shall be
All the desires that rise and fall in me
From mountain-peaks to valleys of repose,
Kissing thy lovely body's white and rose.
For thy humiliated feet divine,
Of my Respect I'll make thee Slippers fine
Which, prisoning them within a gentle fold,
Shall keep their imprint like a faithful mould.
And if my art, unwearying and discreet,
Can make no Moon of Silver for thy feet
To have for Footstool, then thy heel shall rest
Upon the snake that gnaws within my breast,
Victorious Queen of whom our hope is born!
And thou shalt trample down and make a scorn
Of the vile reptile swollen up with hate.
And thou shalt see my thoughts, all consecrate,
Like candles set before thy flower-strewn shrine,
O Queen of Virgins, and the taper-shine
Shall glimmer star-like in the vault of blue,
With eyes of flame for ever watching you.
While all the love and worship in my sense
Will be sweet smoke of myrrh and frankincense.
Ceaselessly up to thee, white peak of snow,
My stormy spirit will in vapours go!

And last, to make thy drama all complete,
That love and cruelty may mix and meet,
I, thy remorseful torturer, will take
All the Seven Deadly Sins, and from them make
In darkest joy, Seven Knives, cruel-edged and keen,
And like a juggler choosing, O my Queen,
That spot profound whence love and mercy start,
I'll plunge them all within thy panting heart!

                                  REFUGIUM

Jami Sieber - Tree of Love lyrics

too many roads
things are changing too fast
and cowardice is everywhere
selfishness is eating up the world

who can dream a good road
and live to travel on it
who can give birth to herself
and then be her own mother
her own father

who can live in the future
and live in the present
and not go crazy

who can live among the spirits
and live among the humans
without dying

who can sleep with their own destiny
and still know the happiness
of a beautiful thing
these are the riddles of the trees

when people keep running
something keeps chasing them

In this life we have seen
how sweet sorrow can be
sometimes life appears as sad music
and we cry to the hidden angels
"we did not make this strange bed
that we have to sleep on"

We have sorrow
but sorrow is the sister of hope
and the mother of music (water the tree of love)

we are the miracles that god made
to taste the bitter fruit of time
we are precious and one day
our sufferings will turn
into the wonders of the earth
(water the tree of love)

I have heard the singing of the dead
and they tell me that life is good
and that the ocean is full of songs

life is good
live it gently and with fire
and always with hope
destiny may be our only friend
(water the tree of love)

misery once filled me
like a deep well after a heavy rain
and all over the world
thugs with fire in their brains
were pounding each other
in the weird delirium of history

and someone tapped on the door of my spirit

I may have found happiness
but it is not what I

thought it would be

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s4Xr_kVKRok

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0THcqRtJ8c&NR=1

A NEW PRESPECTIVE

Accept our emotional state and find strategies to allow us to ride the wave of the feeling state.  Once our emotional states moves to a feeling state which is less intense we can think more analytically and so we can then express and develop self awareness.

Mindfulness is a practice of noticing our experiences. In mindfulness we observe our thoughts, emotions and body sensations without necessarily getting lost in them so that they define our self concept. Such as, "I am anxious, I am sad, " rather than I am a person who feels anxious at the moment." Our mind chatter can be the biggest destructive force that we get lost in and we believe every thought as the ultimate truth. Mindful is the practice whereby we notice our thoughts as just a thought, a set of words that our mind will continually produce because that is what it does. However, we can choose whether to engage in this mind chatter or not when we can notice the thoughts as separate from ourselves.   We can then have the power to not live our lives in a detached, non- present way and we can make choices whether to engage with our thoughts. Mindfulness also helps to change our attitude and perspective to our inner private experience by being curious, using descriptive self talk, non-judgmental, open and flexible.

Living a life filled with our values gives us direction, even while going through a difficult  life phase. When we have got lost in our pain we turn inwards and believe we first need to "fix" ourselves before living. Some of us get caught in a holding place as in eating disorders, "my body is my enemy and the behavior is the solution, " or even get caught in an alternative life of escapism and numbing through drugs, alcohol, materialism and even food.  By identifying what is truly important to each one of us as individuals, we can then take the steps to living each day a life that is full and  rich.

When the Clear Light dawns, you will recognize it ....
in that moment, when the Clear Light of the Path and Clear Light of the Base merge and become inseparably united is spoken of as the meeting of the Mother Clear Light and the Son Clear Light. This is like a child recognizing his own beloved mother after a long separation due to his wandering off and becoming lost. --commentary from The Golden Letters, by John Myrdhin Reynolds

"Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul and sings the tune without the words and never stops at all" ~Emily Dickenson

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEh7ar6QZL0&feature=relmfu

The Empowered Woman, she moves through the world
with a sense of confidence and grace.
Her once reckless spirit now tempered by wisdom.
Quietly, yet firmly, she speaks her truth without doubt or  hesitation
and the life she leads is of her own creation.

She now understands what it means to live and let live.
How much to ask for herself and how much to give.
She has a strong, yet generous heart
and the inner beauty she emanates truly sets her apart.
Like the mythical Phoenix,
she has risen from the ashes and soared to a new plane of existence,
unfettered by the things that once that posed such resistance.

Her senses now heightened, she sees everything so clearly.
She hears the wind rustling through the trees;
beckoning her to live the dreams she holds so dearly.
She feels the softness of her hands
and muses at the strength that they possess.
Her needs and desires she has learned to express.
She has tasted the bitter and savored the sweet fruits of life,
overcome adversity and pushed past heartache and strife.

And the one thing she never understood,
she now knows to be true,
it all begins and ends with you.

Laughter is the best medicine.
~ Proverbs

Laughter is puzzling. We don't know where it comes from, but we do know that we like it. Babies like to laugh; we like to laugh at them laughing, don't we? We certainly don't work to discover in a scholarly way what laughter is or the benefits of laughter. We just enjoy the power of laughter and accept it as part of our life experience. We like it and when we haven't experienced it for a while, we miss it. We feel so good after a good belly laugh that makes tears come out of our eyes.