CRISIS: A crucial or decisive point or situation; a turning point.

Most people think of a crisis as a terrible situation that could really disrupt or destroy their life. We have been trained to think of a crisis as something horrible, but the actual definition from the dictionary points us in a different direction.

The dictionary actually defines a crisis as a decisive point or turning point. When you think of a crisis in this way, it has a completely different meaning.

A turning point can be a good thing, depending on how you perceive it. As with most "problems," how you think about the issue plays a major role. 
When you change your thoughts concerning a specific situation, you start to see things in a different way. 
A turning point can be good or bad, depending on how you handle it and how you look at it.

In The Noble Eightfold Path, we are told that one of the eight most important traits is right concentration. And, we know from more modern, as well as other ancient, teachings, that what we focus our thoughts on expands. 
So how you look at the "crisis" is very important.

Next time you find that you, your family, or your friend is facing some type of crisis, try to see things from a different perspective.
Turn the "crisis" into a positive turning point instead of a horrible situation. 

When you do this, you will find that, what most of us see as a terrible crisis, can be looked at from a different perspective, and can be mentally changed into a "turning point" or "decisive situation" instead of something horrible. 

Your thoughts have more power than you think.

ps/smoh

Waiting.....

To wait when waiting feels unbearable
When action seems imperative
But there is nothing to be done.

To trust that what is needed will be provided
When human resources are limited and needs are great
And distrust is more available, but divisive and destructive.

To accept
What is unacceptable
Because to fight with what is adds suffering to pain.

To be attentive
When the mind is clouded with exhaustion
So that opportunities to hold with tenderness are not missed.

To be with the anxiety that arises in muscle and bone
Not letting it drive action or paralyse
Allowing breath to create mercy around the anguish.

To take a break
When the fear-driven mind screams for constant vigilance
So the mind and heart and body can find respite and rejuvenation.

To receive the help offered
From others and from the Great Heart that holds us all
Letting gratitude temper grief,
fullness counter fear,
and compassion carry us all.


Namaste

The Call

I have heard it all my life
A voice calling a name I recognized as my own.

Sometimes it comes as a soft-bellied whisper.
Sometimes it holds an edge of urgency.

But always it says: 
Wake up. You are walking asleep.
There’s no safety in that!

Remember what you are and let this knowing
take you home to the Beloved with every breath.

Hold tenderly who you are and let a deeper knowing
colour the shape of your humanness.

There is no where to go. What you are looking for is right here.
Open the fist clenched in wanting and see what you already hold in your hand.

There is no waiting for something to happen, no point in the future to get to.
All you have ever longed for is here in this moment, right now.

You are wearing yourself out with all this searching.
Come home and rest.

How much longer can you live like this?
Your hungry spirit is gaunt, your heart stumbles. All this trying. Give it up!

Let yourself be one of the God-mad,
faithful only to the Beauty you are.

Let the Lover pull you to your feet and hold you close,
dancing even when fear urges you to sit this one out.

Remember, there is one word you are here to say with your whole being.
When it finds you, give your life to it. Don’t be tight-lipped and stingy.

Spend yourself completely on the saying.
Be one word in this great love poem we are writing together.

ps/smoh

Condemnation without investigation is the height of ignorance. Einstein

People today seem to have a very bad habit of jumping to conclusions and condemning someone, without taking the time to get the facts. 
Whether this comes from laziness or blind trust in others, it is, as Einstein told us, the height of ignorance.
 It is just plain unwise. 
This is the very same attitude that a lynch mob has.

"Look beneath. For ordinary things are far other than they seem...The false is ever the lead in everything, continually dragging along the fools: the truth brings up the rear, is late, and limps along upon the arm of time." Baltasar Gracian

People like this act on their emotions without giving the situation any intelligent or rational thought. What's more, the vast majority of the time, people who condemn others without finding out the facts first, and rarely change their opinions, even when their opinions are proven wrong.

"Nothing is more disagreeable than a majority; for it consists of a few powerful people in the lead, rogues who are adaptable, weak people who assimilate with the rest, and the crowd that trundles along behind without the slightest notion of what it's after." Goethe

The true being looks beyond what is first presented as the truth. Go the extra yard to find out the facts and then makes up your mind. 
You need to understands that there will be many who will want to distort the facts, or spin them in a way that cloaks the truth, and so questions what they say rather than take their words as the gospel truth. 

Never blindly go along with the crowd; always take the time to find out the truth for yourself. 

ps/smoh

Elizabeth Gilbert- "Embrace the glorious mess that you are."

And I felt motivated to write an explanation because I feel that she had essentially summed up what all spirituality points to. 
(Please note- this is my take on it and it may or may not be what she meant.) 

If what she says happens for you - if you can "Embrace the glorious mess that you are"- almost every thing that is troubling you now will simply loose it's bite- guaranteed! 

If you can stop looking at your life from and observer's point of view - judging, blaming , editing and simply...just ...simply fall into it... just like you sink into a BIG bean bag! 

Because at the end of the day , what gets us is not the pokes from life , but our discomfort with ourselves. 
Accept it, be it, love it. 
It may not be perfect. 
And that's perfect too! 
Because 'It' will always be a 'glorious mess' - life is work in progress! 

So there cannot be a finish line as long as you live. 
There cannot be a straight line. 
Actually, here can't be any line. 

What is , is. 
It simply is. 
Be OK with that and the rest is peace.

ps/smoh

It isn't what it isn't, it is what it is.

And here are trees and I know their gnarled surface, water and I feel its taste. 

These scents of grass and stars at night, certain evenings when the heart relaxes-how shall I negate this world whose power and strength I feel? 

Yet all the knowledge on earth will give me nothing to assure me that this world is mine. 

You describe it to me and you teach me to classify it. 

You enumerate its laws and in my thirst for knowledge I admit that they are true. 

You take apart its mechanism and my hope increases. 

At the final stage you teach me that this wondrous and multicoloured universe can be reduced to the atom and that the atom itself can be reduced to the electron. 

All this is good and I wait for you to continue. But you tell me of an invisible planetary system in which electrons gravitate around a nucleus. 

You explain this world to me with an image. 

I realize then that you have been reduced to poetry: I shall never know. Have I the time to become indignant? 

You have already changed theories. 

So that science that was to teach me everything ends up in a hypothesis, that lucidity founders in metaphor, that uncertainty is resolved in a work of art. 

What need had I of so many efforts? 

The soft lines of these hills and the hand of evening on this troubled heart teach me much more. 

I have returned to my beginning. 

I realize that if through science I can seize phenomena and enumerate them, I cannot, for all that, apprehend the world. 

Were I to trace its entire relief with my finger, I should not know any more. 

And you give me the choice between a description that is sure but that teaches me nothing and hypotheses that claim to teach but that are not sure. 

A stranger to myself and to the world, armed solely with a thought that negates itself as soon as it asserts, what is this condition in which I can have peace only by refusing to know and to live, in which the appetite for conquest bumps into walls that defy its assaults? 

To will is to stir up paradoxes. 

Everything is ordered in such a way as to bring into being that poisoned peace produced by thoughtlessness, lack of heart, or fatal renunciations 

ps/smoh

What would it be like to experience life directly, vividly, without the presence of an explanatory and intervening story?

The need for certainty is the only prison that locks us away from the spontaneous joy of living.

I'll tell you a little secret if you promise not to freak out. *whispered*

The door has never been locked.

Just walk through the door into a friendlier dimension...

I no longer base life on the words in sacred books although I was a student for many years. Direct experience is the best teacher, I feel.

I have found that life and relationships are simply too "squiggly" to fit within the confines of any given theoretical, philosophical, or theological template.

Launch out alone from the Shore of Certainty and see what wonders await you in the hidden depths of unknowing and dress accordingly

One surveys the religious and spiritual landscape becoming well acquainted with all, until the day arrives when you pack it all up and drop it in the shit can and walk away naked.

We are bound only by our own imaginary fears until we realize one day that certainty is the prison that holds us.

I had some "heavy mystical experience" with a few aftershocks later, but they were dropped in an ego that was unprepared to hold them in balance, so it took be decades to recover my balance...a blessing and a curse, these "mystical experiences."

Which is probably why our parents warn us of the dangers of ego inflation after such experiences of altered consciousness?

There is no 'spiritual life' without first establishing a reasonably healthy psyche. The new crop of spiritual teachers perhaps a few exceptions never did their homework and now covers this up by pretending to know psychology.

Regarding the spiritual quest, there is ultimately no help to be found outside of yourself. But then, there really is nothing outside of you too.

ps/smoh

Not Even Close

remotely
not a piece in view
around an edge around an edge

way behind
real far that a way
farther than I can point
or see

back there
other side of the island
[a world of worlds]
a stones throw
from this here side

'as the crow flies'

no straight lines
on a sphere
nor a crow.

"oh, ya think that's straight do ya?
what if i do this to it?"

'sources are telling us'
according to sources
sources have said
as of late that...'

come on.
i can't see. move.
i can't see. move.
move.
you' re in the way.
move your head.
move your feet.
i can't see.

obstruction of just this.
road block.
stuck in traffic.
bridge out.
lane closed.

"why don't they think about what they are doing?"
"probably because no one's in there."

accidents never happened.
what happened
was
inevitability,

fully in view;
plain sighted.

no cue.
no line.
no take-a-number.

no other kind of waiting
besides the real kind.

ps/smoh/bs

I was surprised that I was so touched by this story.

Bill’s intentions had done the job. 
Love filled that room. 
This simple little story found its way to the Child

 William Samuel taught mostly through stories.  It was a great way of teaching that worked well with me.  Stories, like music, went straight to my heart.

 William was giving a talk in White, Georgia, back in 1993.  My husband and I were among a little group of people who had come to see him.

During the talk William told the story of  an old song  called “Scarlet Ribbons”.  How the father hears his child ask in prayer for scarlet ribbons.  Wanting to answer her prayer, the father goes out into the night to buy her some red ribbons.   But it is late, the stores are closed; He finds no ribbons. 

Then, sweet mystery, in the morning there are scarlet ribbons laying on the bed of the young child; 

I peeked in to say goodnightWhen I heard my child in prayer Send dear God, some scarlet ribbons, Scarlet ribbons for my hair. All the stores were closed and shutteredAll the streets were dark and bare In our town no scarlet ribbons Not one ribbon for her hair. Through the night my heart was achingJust before the dawn was breaking I peeked in and on her bedIn gay profusion laying there I saw ribbons scarlet ribbons Scarlet ribbons for her hair. If I live to be a hundredI will never know from where Came those lovely scarlet ribbons Scarlet ribbons for her hair…

 Well by the end of the story the whole group was in tears. Bill truly touched our hearts. Clearly the Child had come alive in that room of well insulated, sophisticated grown-ups. 

For the first time it seemed I really understood what Bill was talking about when he told me to find the Child. A memory stirred deep within me.  I remembered who I was, I remembered the little girl I used to be.   She was pristine, credulous, beautiful, alive, well and awaiting my return.

Then Bill talked about death, he said to look for signs and wonders after a loved one dies, look for synchronicity, look for birds or lights or butterflies.  He said the tangible evidence that our loved ones are still with us will show up for us in a way we will understand. 

Bill addressed one gentleman who had recently lost his wife saying that Ruby was not really gone, that Ruby was right there with the man.  He said that just thinking of someone is a way to bring them to us. Life, Consciousness, Awareness, Identity, which includes Ruby, does not die.  That imagination is closer to Reality than the tangible forms are. 

Bill added that if we watch and listen and are open to miracles, our loved ones who pass on will contact us in special ways to let us know they are not really gone.

I didn’t know it fully at the time, but I had been transformed by that talk.  Something happened deep in my soul. Something very powerful and very beautiful was awakened in me.

So impressed by what had transpired during the weekend talk, that when we returned home I wore scarlet ribbons in my hair in honor of the Child that was coming alive again.

But, here is how the story continues.

 I jump now to three years later.

 I was in my home which was in the Rocky Mountains.  I was sitting on my living room floor sorting a box of things to throw out.  The TV was on.  I was listening to Regis and Kathy Lee.  It was a beautiful spring day, fresh and warm.  The front door was wide open.

The phone rings and it is Rachel, William’s wife.  Rachel was calling to tell me that William had passed away.  

I hung up the phone, adrift in emotions; sorrow, tears and love– knowing all is well, trusting what Bill had said so many times, knowing Life does not die, Awareness does not go anywhere.

When, praise God and behold –I tell you the living honest truth.– After I hung up the phone I walked back into the living room –

– and I hear, coming from the T.V. sweet and clear, Regis say;

“And now Harry Belafonte will sing that favorite song Scarlet Ribbons”

Yes, there it was.  The Love comes to us in ways we can and do understand. 

 A miracle, pure magic, the divine synchronicity. I knew this was a sure sign, a confirmation, no doubt about it; Bill telling me he lives!  There is no death!

I soaked in the moment fully.  I let Mr. Belafonte gently sing “Scarlet Ribbons” to me, tears running down my face.  

I knew this was William’s way of telling me honest and true that everything is alright and that I can trust and know the goodness of Life and that Love prevails.

 Now, if you don’t think this is wonder enough, I cross my heart and tell you honest and true — as the song ended—.

—Glory to God — a bird walked in the front door.

A little bird walked right into the house. This little robin, it stood calmly, deliberate, with eyes sparkling, looking at me.

I swear it seemed almost human.

This bird was not in a panic being in the house, this bird was perfectly at peace and seemed assured of just what it was doing. It was about three feet away from me. It looked at me with its twinkling eyes and stayed for a few minutes, and I kept holding to that little birds eyes. We looked at each other, our eyes contacting each other. It was astounding. The whole room seemed to be glittering and sparkling.

The bird stayed just long enough to let me know that it knew very well what it was up to.

And then the little robin turned around, serenely, easily, confidently knowing exactly what it was doing, and walked out my front door.  Did not fly, no, just very sweetly it walked right out the door and then reaching the edge of the porch steps it took off across the sky.

 I had been given all the signs and wonders that day.

It was true, everything Bill had said and all I had come to know in my heart.  There It was– Love and this tender heart of myself were entwined as Life Everlasting

So it was clear; Life has no opposite.

My Life was changed and I was free, the Child was born again.

Now, these years later, many of my dearest loves have left my life in tangible ways, but I celebrate this Living Truth of God’s Everlasting Light and Love everyday.  I know Life is eternal and I know for certain Life and Love and all that we are, our soul, our self,  and the beauty and Truth of the ones we love will never die. 

It’s all still here, perfect and whole and right.

I have found the Child, and the Child has found Me.

You and I know it is true. You and all those you love are this Infinite Light that Lives as you and me and them.  Everything is alright. 

Trust and Love, you will see for yourself, you will.

I love you my Love, always and so very much

The ugliest thing that I have ever seen is compassion without humanity.

What people need to realise is that 'compassion' isn't just giving your two bucks to charity to fulfil your immediate sense of obligation or guilt or whatever or squirming seeing negative things on the news, compassion is in everyday life. 

The way you speak to people, 

friends – never ever talk down about the people you call friends, family, 

and 

your intentions for doing the things you do... 

they should be positive and of integrity... 

think good,
speak good, 

act good...

ps/smoh

Whenever you need direction, call to mind the decision, concern, or topic you’re wondering about and ask your heart to guide you on the best course of action. 
Next, voice out loud each option you’re considering. 

If the decision, thought, or course of action you expressed is aligned with your heart and your greatest good, your body will feel a warm, 
energetic confirmation flowing from your heart and throughout your body. 

If the course or direction you’re considering is not in alignment with your heart, you will feel a very subtle dissonance or agitated energy in your heart and
throughout your body. 

Either way, resonant or dissonant, the response from your Higher Self will be subtle, at least as you are first becoming connected. 
With attention, and with consistent awareness of, and connection with, your heart, its guidance will become stronger and stronger. 

Finally, it will become the primary and eventually, only energy that moves you throughout each day.

Namaste 
*__*

I often see the stress and defensiveness that comes with ownership. What many see as success I see as compromising an inner sense of freedom

If it has a price tag on it, what is it really?

Really? 

What is it? 

Isn’t it owned? 

And what is it that is owned? 

What is it? 

Isn’t a feature of the universe? 

Does someone own the features of the universe? 

Who has the right to private property, given the facts of all we know about the material around us, within us, as us? 

Isn’t it all us? 

Isn’t everything us? 

Are we doomed to remain savages separated by illusion of separateness or are we fated for something else? Isn’t it a pipe dream, no matter what hope it is? 

And yet, how much do we cost? 

All of u$? 

Aren’t we free already?

ps/smoh

( •_•)
\) (>
/ \ Respond;
Without using memory as a basis for continuous identity, nothing happened.

just feeling it
'nothing happened'
reveals the simplicity of it
nothing happened.

anything I use to say something happened
is memory.
if I don't take it seriously,
this is unbearably simple,
sitting here,
knowing nothing.

"Cease to believe you ever saw it as it really was and you won't see it now, either."

It's simple. eyes are open now and where is what is being looked at?

If I can't know where what I see now is, what could I know about anything else I think I saw? Just what I see or hear this instant.......
No way to quantify memories non-arbitrarily, not discounting, actually looking.

Memory whispers that something happened:
Like today I was thinking....about my father
And I was 35 years old
And 2 weeks after becoming a grandfather
And now it's been 17years,
He's been gone
Which all is just a memory or series of,
Outside of which,
It never happened.

Without using memory as a basis for continuous identity, even "nothing happened" never happened and on and on and on...
Funny ad-infinitum is a 'logical fallacy' even though it is the actual nature of event. It is certainly a nagging habit.

It's easy to confuse thought with sentences. They are and are not the same thing.

bs/ps/smoh

In truth, what all human beings really want in is to have someone witness us accurately…to really see who we are at our deepest, most authentic level. This yearning draws us to other people time and again. 

ps/smoh

he was always going to die
right then
when he did
just like that

'asphyxia'

in the same way
our death is
already on it's way.

'asphyxia',

"a condition arising when the body is deprived of oxygen, causing unconsciousness or death; suffocation."

it's how we all
die,
cardio-pulmonary shut down.

zero pity. one hundred percent dignity.
no one escapes
'asphyxia'.

tick tock tick tock tick tock..

The phrase, "Kids will be kids," is often used to explain bad behavior in teenagers. I think a more accurate phrase might be, "Bad parenting results in bad kids."

If you are a parent, you have a duty to teach your kids. 

Teach them how to be independent,
 teach them manners,
 teach them about honour and integrity, 
teach them how to think for themselves, 
teach them how to live life to the fullest. 

It is your job to prepare them to live a 
successful life, 
full of character, 
courage, and 
honour. 
Prepare them as if your life depends on it; their's actually does.

It seems that most parents today think their only job as a parent is to make sure their kids have food, shelter, and fun. 
While there is definitely nothing wrong with any of these, just providing your kids with a home, some food, and playtime, will not prepare them for the future. 
Yes, it is important for kids to have lots of fun and playtime, but it is even more important for them to grow up prepared to live a happy, successful life.

Don't leave their lives to chance. 

Take the time to prepare your kids. 

If you don't, who do you think will? 
Teachers? 
The government? 
Movies? 
Music? 
Television? 
Other Kids? 

Nobody cares about your kids like you do. It is your sacred duty to prepare your children. 
Don't take it lightly. 

ps/smoh

PS
"If you want to know somebody's character, observe their children."

( •_•)
\) (> 
/ \  Every soul born on this earth comes in with a huge basket filled with gifts embedded in the heart that they wish to share with the world. Some of those gifts are obvious and some are less so. 

No matter what the gift is, however , each is an equally important contribution to the balancing and joy of the world and is necessary to the whole.
On a deep level we feel this gift basket embedded deep within our hearts waiting to be discovered and shared.
Intuitively we know we have something we must contribute in order to feel at peace with ourselves and of service to the world.
We call this longing to contribute our “purpose” and we spend vast amounts of time and energy searching to find exactly what this purpose is."

Purpose isn’t complicated, it’s not what you do that constitutes fulfilment it’s that whatever you do, you do it because you love it and therefore are loving when you do it.....the answer is simple.

Peace light and love

ps/smoh

Balanced statements of the inseparability of relative and absolute truth…

Seek truth with all your heart, mind, soul, and body. 
But don't get too good at it and don't take too much pleasure from the spiritual marketplace or you might get stuck in the process of seeking for the rest of your life. 

Great and accomplished seekers rarely become "finders." 

And isn't that the point of the journey...to come to a point of utter frustration that you have never achieved the glorious awakening you were expecting? 

The earth didn't move and you didn't see God and the angels didn't announce your achievement. 

But in that moment of despair and abject surrender, you may just realize the one truth that every avatar and sage has been pointing to for thousands of years: 
THAT for which you seek is THAT which is doing the seeking.

ps/smoh

I am the Lie, I am the Destroyer...

I have heard the rumours and whispering of discontentment
I have seen the shaking, angry fists and pointing fingers
I have felt the hot breath of heavy arguments raging
I have tasted the bitterness of people divided by lies

And…
I know the joys that set the roots of longing in your past
I feel the desperation in your pleas for promise and hope
I sense the anxiety as you hold tightly onto the present
I believe in your worthy long suffering to shape the future

For
You're the split bodies that bathed distant shores to bloody red
You're the American, born, baptized, and buried dressed in white
You're the desperate hands that hold the stars on waving fields of blue
You're the wish that your bright banner would never fade away

Yet
I will blow down your sacred edifices of long traditions
I will flood your highest towers of hope and progress
I will freeze still the warm affection flowing for your countrymen
I will burn your paper cities to the ground with a thought

For
I am the new inquisition of hope for your salvation
I am the new keeper of peace in your streets
I am the new movement for your security and freedom
I am the new face, walking an old path, to the same place!

I am the essence and energy of love. Knowing this, I can accept all conditions, all events, all feelings, and all people. Nothing and no one can escape my strong embrace or the deep gratitude of my heart. This is the healing of the world to which we can all contribute. 

A dear friend calls this "exquisite vulnerability." 

And so it is.

ps/smoh