whoa, man

outside the box

Cultivating Harmony in Nature ~ Inner and Outer

Designing systems which demonstrate the naturalness of self-sustaining physical spaces and species

and also with economic structures, encouraging individuals

to become enterprising, with consciousness,

further sustaining the earth and all its inhabitants.

~ ~ ~ 

We are individuals

and we are unquestionably inter-connected.

Many of us have become

disconnected from ourselves and each other.

May these two videos inspire a change, a shift toward deeper, broader connections.

Never underestimate the power of the

Ripple Effect....

It begins with YoU.

My definition of INNATURE:

Honouring ones’ own innate qualities while cultivating harmonious relationships with the broader community and all its inhabitants. Magic ensues.

gratitude taproot

taproot:  the main root of a plant, growing straight downward from the stem, usually stouter than the roots that grow laterally from it.

a selfish way to save the world: foundation of self esteem and gratitude taproot; meeting human needs, and

bringing your greatest gifts forward

...to become aerodynamic by supercharging natural strengths

a great talk on this concept by Giovanni Cavalieri:

 

step one: get your fundamental needs met

        step two: give your greatest gift

step three: receive the gift of a life well lived

step four: let the whole world receive the gift of

your life well lived

~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~     ~

Let us rise up and be thankful

for if we didn't learn a lot today

at least we learned a little

and if we didn't learn a little

at least we didn't get sick

and if we got sick

at least we didn't die

so, let us all be thankful.

~ Buddha ~

belonging

"....the moment you've uttered the exact dimensionality of your exile,

you're already taking the path back to the Way,

back to the place you should be,

you're already on your way home"

kintsuji

parallel ally

David Whyte

HAUNTED

is a word that denotes an unresolved parallel, a presence that is not quite a presence; a visitation by the as yet unspeakable - it is also emblematic of the longing for incarnation, of an unbearable substrate of wanting, of not finding a home in this world or in the next, someone or something that walks the halls of our house or our mind looking for what will help to lay its own self to rest.

What haunts us is something that seeks its own disappearance, it wants to become fully itself and so depart. If we feel continually haunted over time we begin to become ghost-like ourselves and roam with intent whilst not quite knowing the object of our intention. Looking in the mirror, our face begins to look like our not quite incarnated life. We walk not exactly existing in the world we visit. Like the spirits and half-beings we imitate at Halloween, we roam the streets as if looking for an abode on this earth we are unable to locate, demanding tribute from those who dwell within. The exorcism of an unwanted spirit is consistent the world over: an invitation to return home; for it and for us to find our way back, to cease our restless ways and to quit disturbing others lives or walking their houses by night.

We cease to be haunted when we cease to be afraid of making what has been untouchable, real: especially our understandings of the past; and especially those we wronged, those we were wronged by, or those we did not help. We become real by forgiving ourselves and we forgive ourselves by changing the foundational pattern, and especially by changing our present behavior to those we have hurt. A fear of ghosts, or a fear of our own haunted mind is the measure of our absence in this world. We cease to be afraid when we give away what was never ours in the first place and begin to be present to our own lives just as we find them, even in facing what we have banished from our thoughts and made homeless, even when we do not know the way forward ourselves. When we make a friend of what we previously could not face, what once haunted us now becomes an invisible, parallel ally, a beckoning hand to our future.

We banish the misaligned when we align with what we are called to, we become visible and real when we give our gift and stop waiting for the gift to be given to us. We wake into our lives again, as if for the first time, laying to rest what previously had no home through beginning to speak, beginning to make real and beginning to live, those elements constellating inside us that long to move from the invisible to the visible.
…

‘HAUNTED’ From CONSOLATIONS: The Solace, Nourishment and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words. © David Whyte

colourful

Haruki Murakami's colourful expression in words..... sigh.

"Yet it was this pain, and this sense of being choked, that he needed. It was exactly what he had to acknowledge, what he had to confront. From now on, he had to make that cold core melt, bit by bit. It might take time, but it was what he had to do. But his own body heat wasn't enough to melt that frozen soil. He needed someone else's warmth."

"First things first. Build the station. A special station just for her. The kind of station where trains want to stop, even if they have no reason to do so. Imagine that kind of station, and give it actual color and shape. Write your name on the foundation with a nail, and breathe life into it. I know you have the power to do that. Don't forget - you're the one who swam across the freezing sea at night."

"It doesn't matter... it's just a physical phenomenon, no more. The spring on a wound watch gets steadily looser, the torque grows closer and closer to zero, until the gears stop altogether and the hands come to rest at a set position. Silence descends. Isn't that all it is?"

"It was a wonderful thing to be able to truly want someone like this - the feeling was so real, so overpowering. He hadn't felt this way in ages. Maybe he never had before. Not that everything about it was wonderful: his chest ached, he found it hard to breathe, and a fear, a dark oscillation, had hold of him. But now even that kind of ache had become an important part of the affection he felt. He didn't want to let that feeling slip from his grasp. Once lost, he might never happen across that warmth again. If he had to lose it, he would rather lose himself."

A one-mile stretch of Canada and US border

appearances can be deceiving

How.

How to stop time: kiss.

How to travel in time: read.

How to escape time: music.

How to feel time: write.

How to release time: breathe.

~ Matt Haig ~

    

          

            

David Whyte COURAGE

is a word that tempts us to think outwardly, to run bravely against opposing fire, to do something under besieging circumstance, and perhaps, above all, to be seen to do it in public, to show courage; to be celebrated in story, rewarded with medals, given the accolade: but a look at its linguistic origins leads us in a more interior direction and toward its original template, the old Norman French, Coeur, or heart. 

Courage is the measure of our heartfelt participation with life, with another, with a community, a work, a future. To be courageous, is not necessarily to go anywhere or do anything except to make conscious those things we already feel deeply and then to live through the unending vulnerabilities of those consequences. To be courageous is to seat our feelings deeply in the body and in the world: to live up to and into the necessities of relationships that often already exist, with things we find we already care deeply about: with a person, a future, a possibility in society, or with an unknown that begs us on and always has begged us on. Whether we stay or whether we go - to be courageous is to stay close to the way we are made…

"This tiny, ruined, monastic fishing house in Cong, County Mayo, has been a place where, over the years, I have found the needed courage to both make and break promises: promises that have emboldened and promises that have imprisoned. The river flows strongly under its four square solidity, and three of its walls form a private shelter for necessary thought, the fourth wall is gone and looks down stream, where all our promises must flow. It is a structure that, all of its own, holds the courageous conversation between what is actually here and what has already gone." DW

yin yang

horses

live and breathe this way

without apology

~ relationship over territory ~

~ process over goal~ 

~ responsiveness over strategy ~

~ cooperation over competition ~

~ emotion and intuition over reason ~

~ situational assertiveness ~

~ balance of strength and sensitivity ~

yin by nature

yang culture

harmony challenging

...

I can't believe you

if I can't hear you...

❤︎

...inspired by Linda Kohanov's

'The Power of the Herd'

dimmer switch of life

We could say that meditation doesn't have a reason

or doesn't have a purpose.

In this respect it's unlike almost all other things we do

except perhaps making music and dancing.

When we make music we don't do it in order to

reach a certain point, such as the end of the composition.

If that were the purpose of music then obviously

the fastest players would be the best.

Also, when we are dancing

we are not aiming to arrive at a particular place on the floor

as in a journey.

When we dance, the journey itself is the point,

as when we play music the playing itself is the point.

And exactly the same thing is true in meditation.

Meditation is the discovery

that the point of life is always arrived at

in the immediate moment.

- Alan Watts

The Bottom Line ~ Mooji.....

❤︎

“Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not;
and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.”

~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow