http://www.fuzzyfinking.com/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S40DdlD9JxI&feature=user






"There are various means which may serve as an occasion to awake us to reality,
that this waking is a strictly personal experience, as personal as eating and drinking. 
All external things are but  a reflection of our 'original face', and all external teachings are but an echo of the true music of our self-nature.  Let no one identify him/herself with mere reflection or echo; it is only by seeing self-nature that one becomes what one is in essence."

~John C.H. Wu

 
And there it is on the sidewalk, at the foot of a skyscraper,
~gently I cup the flailing yellow finch, in its death throes;
soft feathers, eyes glassy, heart racing--so beautiful--
I whisper: "it's okay, you'll be okay..."
(who am I reassuring? me or the bird?)
walk across the busy street to a park,
and place it under a shady tree in the cool grass. 
'Om Mani Padme Hum...grant thee to thy rest, little one. sleep now.'
then, another day, same spot, a dead sparrow.
then, another day, different street, another dead yellow finch but this one has
been stamped upon and crushed, bloody.
the city is cruel.

all these little deaths.  when do we not feel?
(if never we meet in this life, I will surely feel the lack...)


                                          ~


"Is that what eternity is for, to muck over a lifetime's minutiae??
Who could've imagined that one would have forever to remember
each moment of life down to its tiniest component?....And the
judgment is endless, though not because some deity judges you,
but because your actions are naggingly being judged for all time by--

yourself."

~Phillip Roth, from  Indignation






"Leaving home to try to recapture it~
      one of those philosophical conundrums of the human condition...
There's also a sense of emotional exile (not just geographic and cultural)
an exile from innocence and belief,
an exile from value.
Can we find our way back
to the way things were, or, better--
forward to the way they should be?"

~Rose Tremain, from   The Road House



"Quid hoc ad aeternitatem?   ~St. Bernard of Clairvaux

"Do you know what they will find when they reach Mars???
They will find Americans out there in the red desert hunting for oil."

~King Abdul Azia of Saudi Arabia, 1939





"To recognize one's own insanity is, of course,
the arising of sanity,
the beginning of healing and transcendence."

~Eckhart Tolle, The New Earth


I compost my neighbor's garden all winter and spring,
now his cukes and 'maters and lettuce are in--and taste yummy.
I can't even eat tomatoes from the store (--'cept them ugly ones).

lately, I eat Nutella right out of th' jar...and I can't stop.
damn Canadians.

the biggest problem I face every day stares back at me
from my bathroom mirror....and then I laugh.

"We cannot be cured apart from the planet."    ~James Hillman





(photo by ligeia scabbia--actually, Eva's mum :)



"We carry this mistaken belief that enlightenment means we do not suffer anymore.
But it is possible to suffer with a calm, loving heart.  These two are not mutually exclusive.

Enlightenment for me is about growing in compassion, and compassion means 'suffering with'.  Enlightenment has something to do with not running from our own pain or the pain of others.  When we don't turn away from pain, we open our hearts and are more able to connect to the best part of ourselves and others--because every human being knows pain.

I'm not sure what enlightenment is,
but I'm sure it has something to do with turning pain into love."

~Miriam Greenspan

(photo by Bernat Casero http://www.flickr.com/photos/bernatcg)


I am jealous of those who do stupid things and feel no shame.
I am jealous of the dead for their reduced workload,
jealous of newborn babies for their clean records.
I'm jealous of those older than me for what they know,
and those younger than me for what they don't.
I am jealous of dogs who don't think about living, or dying,

they just do.

~Dave Morrison

I understand the wounds that have not healed in you.
They exist because God and love have not yet become real enough
To allow you to forgive the dream.
               
                      You still listen to an old alley song that brings your body pain.

How did the rose ever open its heart
And give to the world all of its beauty?

                    It felt the encouragement of light against its being--
                                 otherwise we all remain too afraid.
~Hafiz                           




 



It is our destiny to realize our full potential.
It is the recognition that we are more than our thoughts and feelings.
In so doing, we are able to die into life.

We move from self-centered awareness (body/mind) to
Life-centered awareness (body/mind/spirit) becoming
fully integrated into the bonds of love that never end,
merging with that essence which never dies.

~Sam Oliver,   Integrating the Feminine Spirit

It is our quest for security, on every level, that perpetuates cruelty and violence--
from the judgment and hate women hurl upon their bodies to the pathological
need for control that fuels greed, rape, and war.

I sometimes have anxiety.
I have bouts of terrible low self-esteem.
I feel lonely on occaision, but mainly,
I feel alive, FREE.
I feel myself.

Consider what would happen if security were not the point
of our existence.....
Freedom can come only from contemplating death,
not from pretending it doesn't exist. 
Not from running from loss, but from
entering grief, surrendering to sorrow.

~Eve Ensler, Insecure at Last: A Political Memoir






(flickr collage, by Sighthound)





Our time cries out for the qualities of all that has been repressed (the Feminine)
and the inclusion of those qualities in a vaster, more integrated awareness of being.
    At the end of the dominance of agency, we need to integrate the communion
     of relatedness.
   At the end of the exclusivity of reason, we need to integrate the balance of
     intuition and other forms of non-conceptual knowing.
   At the end of heirarchical control, we need to integrate mutually nurturing
     co-existence.
And, at the end of being lost in the outer world,
     we need to integrate awareness of the radiance, peace, and confidence
     offered inwardly.

~Kathleen Singh, from Integrating the Feminine Spirit  (Sam Oliver)

"Freedom is not elsewhere--it is right here, right now, in front of our noses.
Awakening does not require us to abandon the conventional world to live in
some otherworldly state.
We need to bridge both worlds and all apparent dualities in order to keep our head in the clouds and our feet on solid ground.

As the Arab sages once advised: "Trust in God, but tie your camel."

A bridge exists between worlds; it is right in front of us, around us, inside us, in this present moment.  To cross it we need only inquire into and profoundly trust our own true nature, to see the transcendental perfection of this world.  When we open our eyes in this way, in this moment, we find within us the truth that sets us free.

Even when the sky appears at its darkest, know that the sun shines upon you,
that love surrounds you, and that the pure light within you will guide your way home.
So trust the process of your life unfolding, and know with certainty, through the peaks and valleys of your journey, that your soul rests safe and secure in the arms of Spirit."

~Dan Millman

"In an April paper, the U.S. Army War College wrote,

'it is time to abandon the assumptions of a clash of civilizations between Islam and the West, which are funding a well-meant(?) but arrogant and misconceived program for rehabilitation of the Islamic world based on the idea that the West knows best.'

It is an appealing part of the U.S. character that we want so much to help others.  But it's about time our policymakers recognized that the high-handed idea that only America knows the best way to transform the Islamic world into a place of modern progressivism is itself hampering change."
(~Elizabeth Sullivan, The Cleveland Plain Dealer, 6/1/08)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------







PROGRESS

I see people in another country
at the touch of a button,
hear them instantly.
I fly at the speed of sound;
electronic marvels work for me.
I am educated, entertained,
and rebuilt by technology ...

Science is flying.

I see the bold power of authority
crushing old truth--and the
new flower of creativity,
individual candle flames doused,
pure energy hamstrung,
and ancient games, called
tradition, twisted into piety ...

Humanity is plodding.

~Delma Luben