What You Can Carry

Own only what you can carry with you; know language, know countries, know people. Let your memory be your travel bag.
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
Russian author & dissident in US (1918 – )

His Hands

I threw my cup away when I saw a child drinking from his hands at the trough.
~Diogenes quote

Photograph by Peter Essick, National Geographic

Reach Out & Touch Someone

It's hard not to consider what has recently happened in Japan and it not effect you at some level.  Even if it is to realize that what we spend out time on is quite insignificant.


You may or may not feel that there is anything that you can do to help the Japanese at this time (there are lots of organizations to donate to like Salvation Army or  Tzu Chi)but there is something we can do in all circumstances, every day of our lives.  


“I’ve learned that every day you should reach out and touch someone. People love a warm hug, or just a friendly pat on the back.” -- Maya Angelou


It may seem insignificant, but in somebody's life it may make a huge difference. 


If you aren't walking in their shoes, you have know idea how uncomfortable to them their shoes are.

Be a Blessing to Someone Today.

Laughter

Learn laughter from little children
by thinking their thoughts,
dreaming their dreams,
and playing their games.

~Wilfred A Peterson

Watch Your.....

Watch you thoughts;
they become your words.


Watch your words; 
they become your actions.


Watch your actions;
they become habits.


Watch your habits;
they become character.


Watch your character;
it becomes your destiny."


~Frank Outlaw

The Use of Fire

"It can be said that the greatest single cause of degeneration in man is the use of fire in the preparation of foods."
~ Arnold De Vries

The Least

“He has the most who is most content with the least”

~Diogenes 

One Thing at a Time

Like I quoted from Kevin Gianni here we actually need to be just trying to change One Thing at a Time.

Look back at all the New Years Resolutions you've probably made over the years, and how many have you actually succeeded at?  I would venture to say that most of them fell by the wayside.  You worked really hard at change for the first couple of weeks in January, and by February you were probably feeling guilty that you failed yet again.  You want change, but you don't successfully achieve it.

If we keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting a different result.....isn't that the definition of insanity?

Well, I agree with Kevin G, that we need to be making just one change here, making it successful, and then building on it.  Don't try and fix your life all in one sweep.   "The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." The journey of changing oneself also begins with a single step (change).

Take for example, Diet.  Many people start the New Year with the intentions of changing their eating habits in some way.  Maybe its to lose weight. For a few people it might be to actually put some weight on. Or it could be that you want to improve your eating habits, or incorporate super foods, or eliminate sugar.  All of those are somewhat interrelated, but just start with one.  One thing that you will focus on, make a change, make it a permanent way-of-life for you now.  Get it under your belt, so to speak, before you move onto another thing to change.

HINT: eliminating the bad things out of your diet is actually more important usually, than trying to put the good things in.  What I mean by that is that although its great to start putting super foods into your body, it will be of greater importance to curb your sugar addiction.  Tame the sugar monster.  Then do the next step which might be to incorporate super foods, or drinking more clean water, or starting your mornings with fresh juices.

What One Thing are you planning to change in your life this year?  I'd like to hear from you.

Catching Your Heart

There are many things in life

that will catch your eye,

but only a few will 

catch your heart...

pursue those.

~Michael Nolan

Doing Something Wrong

"When we do something wrong, 

we downplay our mistake as best we can.

When we are the ones who are wronged, 

we exaggerate the offense."

  ~by Marla Taviano in "From Blushing Bride to Wedded Wife"

Friends

I didn't find my friends.....

God gave them to me.

~Emerson

Thinking

"Nothing pains some people more than having to think."
~ Martin Luther King, Jr




I like to think of myself as a thinker. (Pat myself on the back)
I don't live my life like the herd, I don't consider myself a sheeple.

But it literally hurts my head some days, physically a squeezing sensation or an over-stuffing feeling.  

I just need to stop the merry-go-round of thoughts, those electrical sparks from over-heating.

I wish I had A Nothing Box to go to.

  

The Past is Powerless

The past is as powerless to darken the present moment, as is a shadow to reach up and drag down the form that casts it.

                                                                                                    

Unattended Children

Add caption

Unattended children

will be given

an espresso

and a free kitten.

photo by Saleh Al-Ghaith



~Quote from a plaque at the coffee shop where Rauchelle works

Your Judgment

Your judgment of me 

         is powerless 

to punish or otherwise belittle me 

             without my own 

                       mistaken belief 

 that you are the keeper of all things valuable!

                                                                                ~Guy Finley

Sadness & Rememberance

You can't go on feeling sad without first consenting to stand in the ashes of some past event and then rubbing the memory of it all over yourself.


~ Guy Finley

This statement really struck me. 


It struck me alot because I've been practicing Living in the Now!


And when I Live in the Now, I'm not living in the past event which isn't even occurring other than in my mind.  The past doesn't exist.  That moment is gone. And neither does the future exist....Other than in my mind.


I only have Now.  And when I'm present in my Now, I have no need to be sad.


I breath deeply Now, and I come back to being present Here & Now.  And Life is Good.

I choose to spend less energy and time on what's gone and what hasn't even come yet.  And give that saved energy to the moment.

Do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?

 Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?

 "And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?

 "And why are you worried about clothing? Observe how the lilies of the field grow; they do not toil nor do they spin,

yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory clothed himself like one of these.

"But if God so clothes the  grass of the field, which is alive today and tomorrow is thrown into the furnace, will He not much more clothe you? You of little faith!

 "Do not worry then, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear for clothing?'

 "For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for  your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things.

 "But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.

 "So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own."

Matt 6:25-34

Choose the Positive

from Little House on the Prairie

Pa has just had a conversation with Mr. Edwards and Mr. Scott about the soldiers coming out to force the homesteaders to move because they supposedly are 6 miles within Indian Territory.  Pa quickly decides to move his family on his own accord, rather than waiting it out to be physically escorted off the land.

After a feast of potatoes for supper because "We've been going without potatoes, saving them for seed.  Now we'll eat 'em up!" 

Everyone was quiet that night.  Even Jack felt that something was wrong, and he lay down close to Laura when she went to bed.

It was now too warm for a fire, but Pa and Ma sat looking at the ashes in the fireplace.

Ma sighed gently and said, "A whole year gone, Charles."  But Pa answered, cheerfully:  "What's a year amount to?  We have all the time there is." 



Pa and Ma and the 3 girls (and Jack, the dog) are now traveling to Independence to set up a new homestead.  Ma was disappointed about the sudden move, and the abandonment of their house with real glass windows, and the fields that Pa had worked so diligently on, and the plow that he had just traded furs to acquire.

They set up camp, chained the livestock to the feed-box at the end of the wagon and fed everybody their supper.  The girls are tucked into their beds, and Ma sits down by the fire alongside Pa who begins to play his fiddle.  Pa stopped singing "Oh, Susanna, don't you cry for me," to comment "Do you know, Caroline, I've been thinking what fun the rabbits will have, eating that garden we planted."

"Don't, Charles," Ma said.

"Never mind, Caroline!" Pa told her.  "We'll make a better garden.  Anyways, we're taking more out of Indian Territory than we took in."

"I don't know what," Ma said, and Pa answered, "Why, there's the mule!"  Then Ma laughed, and Pa and the fiddle sang again.



That's the kind of attitude I want to have.  Although undesirable things happen to all of us, can we focus on the good in the situation, rather than wallowing in the bad?  Can we even say that it is 'bad'?  It might just be the thing that moves us, motivates us, propels us toward something we would not normally choose but might be a true blessing in disguise.

Because of them or in spite of them I am not sure.  Does it matter?

Dark States

Don't Get Dragged Down by 

the Dark States of Others

Hoping to help someone -- who loves to be negative -- see the harm of being identified with dark states, is like trying to teach a bat to appreciate sunlight, or a mud hen to preen in fresh clean waters.

~Guy Finley

Live Simply

Live simply so that others may simply live.

A simple quote (not sure where I heard it from) but so true.  In our western 'civilized' society we are such huge consumers that we barely bat an eye at all the materials (natural & un-natural) we use to build and then fill not only our houses but also our garages and sheds and whatever space we have.  (We are always amazed at how many Public Storage places are around (and more are 'needed') full of all the 'extras' people have!!) And the environment is never the same, because we have either diminished  the resources, and/or created unnecessary waste both in production and in throw-away.

This video may seem a bit extreme to many, but the concept is so simple.  We really can live with a whole lot less stuff, and even "conveniences" if we were more careful about our actions, where we put our money, and where even our time goes to maintain all that stuff.
 

God Made Families

“God didn’t create classrooms, He created families.”

~Mary Hood