“To seek approval is to have no resting place, no sanctuary. Like all judgment, approval encourages a constant striving. It makes us uncertain of who we are and of our true value. Approval cannot be trusted. It can be withdrawn at any time no matter what our track record has been. It is as nourishing of real growth as cotton candy. Yet many of us spend our lives pursuing it.”

wolfdyke  Rachel Naomi Remen  "Feelings of worth can flourish only in an atmosphere where individual differences are appreciated, mistakes are tolerated, communication is open, and rules are flexible – the kind of atmosphere that is found in a nurturing family." — Virginia Satir

Isabel Behncke: Evolution's gift of play, from bonobo apes to humans | Video on TED.com

Isabel Behncke: Evolution's gift of play, from bonobo apes to humans | Video on TED.com

You are me and I am you.
Isn’t it obvious that we inter-are?
You cultivate the flower in yourself
so that I will be beautiful.
I transform the garbage in myself
so that you do not have to suffer.
I support you you support me.
I am here to bring you peace

you are here to bring me joy.


~ Thich Nhat Hanh
(again, thanks to Love Is A Place)

Harvey Fineberg: Are we ready for neo-evolution? | Video on TED.com

Harvey Fineberg: Are we ready for neo-evolution? | Video on TED.com

John Hunter on the World Peace Game | Video on TED.com

John Hunter on the World Peace Game | Video on TED.com

Dave Meslin: The antidote to apathy | Video on TED.com

Dave Meslin: The antidote to apathy | Video on TED.com

There is a kindness that dwells deep down in things; it presides everywhere, often in the places we least expect. The world can be harsh and negative, but if we remain generous and patient, kindness inevitably reveals itself. Something deep in the human soul seems to depend on the presence of kindness; something instinctive in us expects it, and once we sense it we are able to trust and open ourselves. Here in Conamara, the mountains are terse and dark; left to themselves they would make for a brooding atmosphere. However, everywhere around and in between there are lakes. The surface of these lakes takes on the variations of the surrounding light to create subtle diffusions of color. Thus their presence qualifies the whole landscape with a sense of warmth and imagination. If we did not feel that some ultimate kindness holds sway, we would feel like outsiders confronted on every side by a world toward which we could make no real bridges.

The word kindness has a gentle sound that seems to echo the presence of compassionate goodness. When someone is kind to you, you feel understood and seen. There is no judgment or harsh perception directed toward you. Kindness has gracious eyes; it is not small-minded or competitive; it wants nothing back for itself. Kindness strikes a resonance with the depths of your own heart; it also suggests that your vulnerability, though somehow exposed, is not taken advantage of; rather, it has become an occasion for dignity and empathy. Kindness casts a different light, an evening light that has the depth of color and patience to illuminate what is complex and rich in difference.

Despite all the darkness, human hope is based on the instinct that at the deepest level of reality some intimate kindness holds sway. This is the heart of blessing. To believe in blessing is to believe that our being here, our very presence in the world, is itself the first gift, the primal blessing. As Rilke says: Hier zu sein ist so viel — to be here is immense. Nowhere does the silence of the infinite lean so intensely as around the form of a newly born infant. Once we arrive, we enter into the inheritance of everything that has preceded us; we become heirs to the world. To be born is to be chosen. To be created and come to birth is to be blessed. Some primal kindness chose us and brought us through the forest of dreaming until we could emerge into the clearance of individuality, with a path of life opening before us through the world.

The beginning often holds the clue to everything that follows. Given the nature of our beginning, it is no wonder that our hearts are imbued with longing for beauty, meaning, order, creativity, compassion, and love, We approach the world with this roster of longings and expect that in some way the world will respond and confirm our desire. Our longing knows it cannot force the fulfillment of its desire; yet it does instinctively expect that primal benevolence to respond to it. This is the threshold where blessing comes alive.

.

~ John O'Donohue

from To Bless the Space Between Us

via the beauty we love

artwork by Ivan Bilibin, 1899

Kevin Spacey on Crucial Impact of the Arts

via Creative Living Art Blog: Marked by the Muse

It is useless to try to make peace with ourselves by being pleased with everything we have done. 
In order to settle down in the quiet of our own being 
we must learn to be detached from the results of our own activity. 
We must withdraw ourselves, to some extent, 
from effects that are beyond our control 
and be content with the good will and the work 
that are the quiet expression of our interior life. 
.
We must be content to live without watching ourselves live, 
to work without expecting immediate reward, 
to love without instantaneous satisfaction, 
and to exist without any special recognition.

.

~ Thomas Merton

from  No Man is an Island

with thanks to the beauty we love

artwork: andy paciorek

The most wonderful of all things in life, I believe, is the discovery of another human being with whom one's relationship has a glowing depth, beauty, and joy as the years increase. This inner progressiveness of love between two human beings is a most marvelous thing, it cannot be found by looking for it or by passionately wishing for it. It is a sort of Divine accident. — Sir Hugh Walpole
Artwork by Francois Schuiten

It helps us remember that what’s most important is to love each other, to be there for each other, and to treasure each moment we have that we are alive. This is the best that we can do for those who have died: We can live in such a way that they can feel they are continuing to live in us, more mindfully, more profoundly, more beautifully, tasting every minute of life available to us, for them.~Thich Nhat Hanh
artwork by Federico Bebber

.

In this torn desert world there is no love because pleasure and desire play the greatest roles, yet without love your daily life has no meaning.  And you cannot have love it there is no beauty.  Beauty is not something you see - not a beautiful tree, a beautiful picture, a beautiful building or a beautiful woman.  There is beauty only when your heart and mind know what love is.  Without love and that sense of beauty there is no virtue, and you know very well that, do what you will, improve society, feed the poor, you will only be creating more mischief, for without love there is only ugliness and poverty in your own heart and mind.  But when there is love and beauty, whatever you do is right, whatever you do is in order.  If you know how to love, then you can do what you like because it will solve all other problems.

.

So we reach a point:  can the mind come upon love without discipline, without thought, without enforcement, without any book, any teacher or leader - come upon it as one comes upon a lovely sunset?  

.

It seem to me that one thing is absolutely necessary and the is passion without motive - passion that is not the result of some commitment or attachment, passion that is not lust.  A man who does not know what passion is will never know love because love can come into being only when there is total self-abandonment.

.

~ J. Krishnamurti

from Freedom from the Known

via the beauty we love

“In a time of drastic change one can be too preoccupied with what is ending or too obsessed with what seems to be beginning. In either case one loses touch with the present and with its obscure but dynamic possibilities. You do not need to know what is happening, or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and challenges offered by the present moment, and embrace them with courage, faith and hope. In such an event, courage is the authentic form taken by love.”

- Thomas Merton

"Don’t expect others to treat you better than they treat themselves. If you choose to deal with them (or must), it is best to come from a place of compassion toward their ignorance and lack of love. Be solid enough to deal with it or step back to work on yourself first." —Danielle Marie Crume
Photograph "As You Walk Away": http://www.bardamuphotography.com/

2012 - The Revolution Has Begun

"Perhaps we don’t like what we see: our hips, our loss of hair, our shoe size, our dimples, our knuckles too big, our eating habits, our disposition. We have disclosed these things in secret, likes and dislikes, behind doors with locks, our lonely rooms, our messy desks, our empty hearts, our sudden bursts of energy, our sudden bouts of depression. Don’t worry. Put away your mirrors and your beauty magazines and your books on tape. There is someone right here who knows you more than you do, who is making room on the couch, who is fixing a meal, who is putting on your favorite record, who is listening intently to what you have to say, who is standing there with you, face to face, hand to hand, eye to eye, mouth to mouth. There is no space left uncovered. This is where you belong."
Sufjan Stevens
(via CarrollBlog)

JR's TED Prize wish: Use art to turn the world inside out | Video on TED.com

JR's TED Prize wish: Use art to turn the world inside out | Video on TED.com

Krista Tippett: Reconnecting with compassion | Video on TED.com

Krista Tippett: Reconnecting with compassion | Video on TED.com

A letter to his ex-wife

I have lots of things to teach you now,
in case we ever meet,
concerning the message that was transmitted to me
under a pine tree in North Carolina
on a cold winter moonlit night.

It said that Nothing Ever Happened, so don’t worry.
It’s all like a dream.
Everything is ecstasy, inside.
We just don’t know it because of our thinking-minds.
But in our true blissful essence of mind is known
that everything is alright forever and forever and forever.
Close your eyes,
let your hands and nerve-ends drop,
stop breathing for 3 seconds,
listen to the silence inside the illusion of the world,
and you will remember the lesson you forgot,
which was taught in immense milky ways
of cloudy innumerable worlds
long ago and not even at all.
It is all one vast awakened thing.
I call it the golden eternity.
It is perfect.
We were never really born,
we will never really die.
It has nothing to do with the imaginary idea
of a personal self,
other selves,
many selves everywhere,
or one universal self.
Self is only an idea, a mortal idea.
That which passes through everything, is one thing.
It’s a dream already ended.
There’s nothing from staring at mountains months on end.
They never show any expression,
they are like empty space.
Do you think the emptiness of space will ever crumble away.
Mountains will crumble, but the emptiness of space,
which is the one universal essence of mind,
the one vast awakenerhood,
empty and awake,
will never crumble away because it was never born.

The world you see is just a movie in your mind.

--Jack Kerouac

Shame & Empathy by Dr. Brené Brown