At a loss for public words.
My heart aches.
Be loved.
At a loss for public words.
My heart aches.
Be loved.
This winter I realized that I was craving for some things from my past, like video games from my childhood. And I found a way to start playing some again, and it’s been great 🙂
I noticed once, in my very cold apartment, that thinking fondly of things from the past, from my warm past, actually made me feel warm physically and as if I was not alone. It was a beautiful moment and revelation.
Here is a brief online article about how nostalgia has been found to literally reduce mild pain: https://neurosciencenews.com/nostalgia-pain-20114/
And here is a New York Times piece on many benefits of nostalgia which I personally found very surprising: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/26/briefing/nostalgia-oscars-mardi-gras.html
If you don’t have access to the New York Times article you can look at the Wikipedia entry for nostalgia which mentions a lot of the psychological benefits I found surprising: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nostalgia
Cheers to a warm past reaching out to give us comfort, security and hope in the Present.
“The secret of the world is this:Â The world is entirely circular and you will go round and round endlessly, never finding what you want, unless you have found what you really want inside yourself.“
-Jeanette Winterson
How do you appreciate something beyond being grateful? En-joy it. Live it. Liiiiiiiiiiive it.
Our health is connected to our neighbor’s health.
I heard this statement somewhere on the radio, some days ago.
It’s a reminder that we are all connected.
“Patience, understanding, and helping each other is the best thing we can do at this time” –Z, the landlord
Sometimes what is needed and feels better is not necessarily to look on the bright side, but rather to see that the not-so-bright side is actually ok; a natural, normal, human part of life…acceptance.
Very imperfect beings we are.
-Myself accidentally doing a Yoda impression
I recently heard Deepak Chopra and Anoop Kumar both speak their opinion that “God” is the same as the infinite, which is the same as consciousness.
I found this idea interesting – here are some quotes:
“…What we call Life, really doesnt have an opposite. The opposite of birth is death, and the opposite of death is birth. But Life doesnt have an opposite.” – Anoop Kumar
“Consciousness is primary, and what we call ‘matter’ is an experience in our consciousness. Now if consciousness is primary, it’s also infinite….Not only is consciousness infinite, but the infinite has always been the ultimate description of what we call God. The more common notions, the more familiar notions, they are aspects of God. So there is infinite, but then we talk about infinite wisdom, infinite compassion, infinite mercy, infinite understanding, these are aspects of infinite. And this infinite shows up, not only in religion, but it shows up in mathematics, and philosophy, as different aspects, different approaches. Each of these is a unique perspective, and therefore each has unique data, to contribute about something that’s beyond all concepts. The more we evolve, the more we see the infinite underlying nature of all things. Call it religious, call it spiritual, call it secular, or simply the practical experience of knowing ourselves and eachother more deeply.” – Anoop Kumar
“Consciousness, or God, is all-knows, all modes of knowing, and all experiences known. Consciousness is invisible. Why? Because it has no form. But without consciousness there is no experience of that which we call visible. Consciousness is beyond perception. Why again? Because it’s formless, it’s boundless. You cannot imagine consciousness, you cant imagine God because if you imagine God it’s not God. The infinite cannot be imagined. But without consciousness there is no imagination.” – Deepak Chopra
The quotes above are from this debate on NPR.
Jim Carrey has been going through an “existential discovery” for some years
“I used to be a guy who was experiencing the world, and now I feel like the world and the universe experiencing a guy.”
-Jim Carrey
“Here’s the thing, if we have goals and dreams, and we want to do our best, and if we love people and we don’t want to hurt them or lose them, we should feel pain when things go wrong. The point isn’t to live without any regrets…We need to learn to love the flawed, imperfect things that we create and to forgive ourselves for creating them.”
–Kathryn Schulz
Gratitude starts NOW.
The infinite depth of Gratitude:
Each moment must be submerged in Gratitude:
If this moment cannot, no other moment will suffice.
“It is not length of life, but depth of life.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson
“This moment is not life waiting to happen, goals waiting to be achieved, words waiting to be spoken, connections waiting to be made, regrets waiting to evaporate, aliveness waiting to be felt, enlightenment waiting to be gained. No. Nothing is waiting. This is it. this moment is life.”
-Jeff Foster
Happy with what you have now,
is a precursor to having what you want…
“Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you.”
-Nathaniel Hawthorne
I want to Be Happy
Where I am Now.
Nothing else can come and
Give me Happiness.
The Key to Happiness is only found
In this Moment.
Open,
OPEN,
OPEN UP to the Beautiful Life I have Now.
“…have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”
-Rainer Maria Rilke, from Letters to a Young Poet
“Be open to all the universe has for you.
And be confident that you’re ready.”
-Zoraida Diaz
Last year in April I walked the labyrinth at the basement of Marble Collegiate Church.
This is what I wrote during that walk:
Go forward in sacredness
You do not go forward
without the sacredness /
unless you invite the sacredness
How sacred and special
this Life is
Every part is just as
valuable as every other part
Before you know it,
you’re there.
It’s the journey that is sacred
There is no piece that is more valuable than any other
It is all sacred space
This is a sacred walk.
Life, is a sacred walk.
Stand still, until you
feel, acknowledge,
Breath the sacredness
with every breath:
If the breath is not sacred,
stand still until it is,
until you can walk with
sacred breath again.
The path will always have
difficulty, that is the
nature of the path.
Feel appreciation. Don’t look just to think it. Feel it;
without words.
Literally.
Find the bubble of fun and appreciation,
Of where you are right now.
Where you are in life. How your life is.
Your space. It’s like a bubble of comfort, humor, adventure, relief, ease, flow.