Authentic Confidence

Be like the bird who, pausing in her flight awhile on boughs too slight, feels them give way beneath her, and yet sings, knowing she hath wings. - Victor Hugo


🌊 From a like-hearted connection, Experience:

There's a Place:

"Full Circle"

Hold it up
Fill your cup
Look out to sea
Feel what I see

Hold it up
Fill your cup
Look out to sea
Respect what I see

And I reason with you now,
Trying to find my way out
As she's singing all these songs
Oh, she's singing to heal my soul.
Find my place, find my reason
Oh, I been here so long
Oh, she's singing with the trees
Oh, she's singing to heal me

✨ espírito afim _/|\_

weirdmaste _/|\_

♥︎

the one, the only

Leonard Cohen Makes It Darker

At eighty-two, the troubadour has another album coming.

Like him, it is obsessed with mortality, God-infused, and funny. 

By David Remnick

Leonard Cohen at home, Los Angeles, September, 2016.

Photograph by Graeme Mitchell for The New Yorker

October 17, 2016 Issue

from the article: When I asked him if he intended his performances to reflect a kind of devotion, he hesitated before he answered.

“Does artistic dedication

begin to touch on religious devotion?” he said.

“I start with artistic dedication.

I know that if the spirit is on you it will touch on to the other

human receptors.

But I dare not begin from the other side.

It’s like pronouncing the holy name—you don’t do it.

But if you are lucky, and you are graced, and the audience is

in a particular salutary condition,

then these deeper responses will be produced.”

 

 (blessed to have been at the show in Charlottetown, P.E.I. on his 2008 tour)

by far, the most powerfully moving live performance I have ever experienced...

♥︎ thank you ray ♥︎

...give ourselves a breather

get out of our own way

we are startust

....He told me he had journeyed all over the world

trying to find himself,

and that wasn't enough to feed his restless heart.

So he journeyed into outer space,

still seeking something he couldn't quite pinpoint. 

...no outer journey will ever fulfill you.

It took going into outer space for him to realize that

we must all

make this inner space journey

back to Oneness.

~ Lissa Rankin sharing about a conversation she had with Edgar Mitchell

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 ~

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

we are...

Humankind has not woven the web of life.

We are but one thread within it.

Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves.

All things are bound together.

All things connect.

~ Chief Seattle, 1854

♡

sidewalks

♥

There is no way to peace.
Peace is the way.
A.J. Muste

Gentleness is a complex and powerful tool, and learning to work with this tool can be a slippery slope. To many of us, it's counter-intuitive to be gentle with ourselves, and gentleness is often wielded only as a soothing balm, when
its full potential is so much more.

Learning to use gentleness
in a skillful way is important work.

Gentleness when it comes to change is vital. This little story precisely describes the process, may it inspire some gentleness toward yourself and empower you to move through to your next chapter...

Autobiography in Five Short Chapters
Portia Nelson from There's a Hole in My Sidewalk

Chapter 1

I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost ... I am helpless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

Chapter 2

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place.
But it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.

Chapter 3

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in ... it's a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.

Chapter 4

I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.

Chapter 5

I walk down another street.

"Solvitur en modo, Firmitur en rey"

Gentle in what you do,

Firm in how you do it

~    ~    ~
Disciplined Meditation is a How...
~    ~    ~

“Meditation is about seeing clearly the body that we have, the mind that we have, the domestic situation that we have, the job that we have, and the people who are in our lives. It’s about seeing how we react to all these things. It’s seeing our emotions and thoughts just as they are right now, in this very moment, in this very room, on this very seat. It’s about not trying to make them go away, not trying to become better than we are, but just seeing clearly with precision and gentleness.”

— Pema Chodron

my mama's garden
♥

win win

i give it two (enthusiastic, heartfelt) thumbs up.

According to Matt Berninger, the band wrote this song after watching the film "Win Win" and becoming inspired by Tom McCarthy's themes of

"very normal and good people
trying to do their best
and the struggle to be good."

Lyrics:

I was drifting, crying
I was looking for an island
I was slipping under
I'll pull the devil down with me one way or another

I'm out of my mind; think you can wait?
I'm way off the line; think you can wait?

We've been running a sleepless run
Been away from the baby way too long
We've been holding a good night gone
We've been losing our exits one by one

I'm out of my mind; think you can wait?
I'm way off the line; think you can wait?

Did I?
(all I have is all)
Think you can wait?
Did I?
(all I have is all)
Think you can wait?

What I'm thinking is simple
I'll sell apples and ice water at the temple
I won't make trouble
I'll pull the devil down with me one way or another

We've been running a sleepless run
Been away from the baby way too long
We've been holding a good night gone
We've been losing our exits one by one

I'll try.
I'll try, but I couldn't be better.
(all I have is all)
I'll try, but I couldn't be better.
(all I have is all)
I'll try, but I couldn't be better.
(all I have is all)