“Devote yourself to loving others, devote yourself to your community around you, and devote yourself to creating something that gives you purpose and meaning.” – from Tuesdays with Morrie, by Mitch Albom.
January 28, 2014 – Today, a lot of people will bemoan the loss of Pete Seeger, as they should. It’s not that Pete’s gone that saddens me. The old man was a very old man. He could play the banjo and he lived in the Hudson Valley. He inspired not one but a small flock of musical “folkslingers” as another recently-lost hero called them. Truthfully, the pedantic folk was never my style, that’s what I call Pete’s style. Those were the guys who didn’t hold anything back, per se, they just called a fascist a fascist. None of this “Royals” shit. I’m not gonna miss Pete. I do miss that we don’t build em like Pete anymore. We can’t build em like Pete anymore. We’re too far gone. Imagine a wide-eyed picker with a gumption for equality, justice, love having more than one great big Grammy moment. Imagine that. You can’t. You know, as do I, that Macklemore is already being shredded for winning the other night, already deemed a poser, a rapper-lite. Maybe some of that criticism is from musical geniuses. But most of it’s not. Most of it’s bubbling up from our inbred cynicism, this gnawing feeling that there’s no reason to hope or love or give a god damn. Pete cared. Pete’s dead. Choose love. Today, choose love. Choose hope. Today, choose hope. Choose a melody and sing it. Choose anything, but to be a shithead today. Can we do that for Pete? For ourselves? (From the Facebook status of Mary Rohfling)
What sounds good to me today (and everyday). To be the slightly wacky woman living at the ocean, with cats, perhaps a dog. Run a coffee shop/ bookstore with real books. Travel to Latin American to acquire the tastiest coffee beans, serve up a perfect berry cobbler. Friends, family come visit; you can write, play music, dance, pontificate, plan the revolution. The biggest bonus, great coastal skin and big, soft hair. (from a clever FB Status)
At Winco in Meridianland,I had an absent-minded, tired moment, and could not find my car. A wonderful woman offered to check back in an hour and if I was still wandering, looking for my car, she would call me a cab to take me home. I thought that was a funny, quirky offer. Thank you! ((from a clever FB Status)
“Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most importantly, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.” – Steve Jobs
In 2012 nature and the mad nature of some human beings caused us to wonder how can we go on. From super storm Sandy to the Colorado movie house shooting and the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School, we have been pressed to find some answers to the question, why, me why us, why now? As we come into 2013, we bring with us the need to find answers and the hope to find what can we do to prevent the recurrence of these despairing occurrences. I think we must commit to a commitment to all human beings and a decision to accept our responsibility to nature’s outpouring and human misbehavior. I wish that we could say with Horace Mann that each of us should be “ashamed to die until you have won some victory for mankind.” I think we must surrender the despair of unexpected cruelty and extend the wonder of unexpected kindnesses to ourselves and to each other. 2013 can bring us the chance to be kind to each other and kind to ourselves. We deserve each other and each other’s generosity. Maya Angelou
From Yoga Class:
2500 year old loving kindness meditation: May I be filled with loving kindness. May I be well. May I be peaceful and at ease. May I be happy. The first step in changing the world is to change yourself
From random conversations:
If you want to manifest change, you must expect it of yourself.
Why are you seeking the spark – don’t you know you are the spark!
From a coworker who will be graduating this spring with an MBA. I asked him what he was going to do. His response “I don’t know what I am going to be doing, I just know how I want to feel.” The yearning to do something to feed the soul also drives this guy.
Ran into friend who is enjoying a wonderful relationship for the first time in years. She said that they are not focused on “making a plan.” Rather, “We are two puzzle pieces that have found each other and fit, and we just let other pieces add themselves and then will see what picture is created.”
Excellent Articles:
(I know I’m a pedantic hot mess, but this essay needs some attention from us. In hopes of enticing you to take 10 minutes to read it, I’ve excerpted a portion for my musician, activist, filmmaker, performance artist, writer, sculpter, photograher, painter, sketcher, intellectual, commerical graphic friends, and the rest of us shmucks trying to live a creative life well lived. It will inspire you. I dreamt last night of nothing else but how we all matter so dearly – by Mary Rohfling)
HOW YOU LEARN TO LIVE ALONE (From Trouble and Love, by Mary Gauthier)
“After years of being taught that the way to deal with painful emotions is to get rid of them, it can take a lot of re-schooling to learn to sit with them instead. But learning how to live alone, sitting with difficult feelings is like panning for gold. Those who have slept in the wilderness know things that those who sleep in comfortable houses may never know. This song is about learning how to sleep in the wilderness.”
You see, sometimes you just have to sit with the feelings. It is a step in faith and hope that something better, vibrant is just around the corner.
Seeking the Spark 