The Gift of an Open Heart

 Full lyrics HERE.

Live!

 

 

And that made me think of this:

 Full lyrics HERE.

And that made me think of this, which is actually more in line with the original quote:

 Full lyrics HERE.

And Tell No One

 

 

I'm unable to confirm this quote, so take the attribution with a grain of salt.  It's one of those quotes that's all over the internet, but never with a primary source; when nobody knows what book or speech it came from, that makes me suspicious.

But I think it's a useful quote, regardless of who said it first.

It's human to want to share things, and that can be a very good thing.  When we experience something that sparks joy, our first impulse is to find someone to share it with.  We experience the joy a second time through them.

It can be healing to share a trauma.

But sometimes, I want to keep it to myself. I want to control the narrative.

Anything shared becomes communal.  When you share something, you're going to get feedback, and that can't help but mold the experience into something new.  

I remember sharing a song with my friend Mary years ago, and instead of hearing how much she liked it, her response was just the opposite.  She told me that it was a horrible song, poorly done, and it made her sad to listen to it.  Well, that might not have "ruined a beautiful thing," but it certainly changed it for me in a way I wish she hadn't.  (FWIW, here's the song:  YouTube Link)

Most things I share.  

Some things I share only with Mona.  

And a few things I keep just for me.

 

A Prayer of Harmony

From Wikipedia:

Mitákuye Oyás’iŋ (All Are Related) is a phrase from the Lakota language. It reflects the world view of interconnectedness held by the Lakota people of North America. This concept and phrase is expressed in many Yankton Sioux prayers, as well as by ceremonial people in other Lakota communities.

The phrase translates in English as "all my relatives," "we are all related," or "all my relations." It is a prayer of oneness and harmony with all forms of life: other people, animals, birds, insects, trees and plants, and even rocks, rivers, mountains and valleys.

Art

Mona asked me who my favorite artist is, and I couldn't narrow it down.  It's ephemeral; I don't really have one artist who visualizes my every mood.

But I can name three artists who had a major impact on me.

Andy Warhol made me see the whole world differently.  The soup cans were designed by artists, they were arranged by human beings, and he painted them.  He showed me that everything everything everything is art, if you look at it the right way.

Pablo Picasso opened up to me new ways of expression.  

I remember when I was just a kid I asked my father why Picasso painted that way.  He told me it was because he wasn't a very good painter.  Then I asked him why so many people liked his paintings.  He told me it was because they were idiots.

Well.  When you're a kid you tend to believe what adults tell you.

But one day in the library I opened up a book of Picasso's works, and saw that in his younger days he painted in a very realistic and traditional style.  That meant he actually could have painted like everybody else, but chose not to.  So the obvious question was, "Why?  What does he want to show that can't be shown in a classical interpretation?"  And that opened up delicious new possibilities.

And my last influence wasn't a single artist, it was an exhibit of Egyptian art I saw the Kimbell in Fort Worth.  It was mostly very practical things-- inkwells, combs-- but nothing was purely functional.  The combs had carvings on the handle, the inkwells were tinted and geometric.

Whenever I need to make a purchase for my own home, I try to follow their example.  A comb is going to last me for many years, so taking the time to find one I enjoy looking at will make my life a little more pleasureable.

The Only One

Wouldn't you love to hear Cher sing this song? 

Full lyrics HERE.

One Thing Differently

And that made me think of this:

 Full lyrics HERE.

Beingness

"Seeking happiness is a form of ignorance. You think you are lacking, something is wrong with your life but your own simple beingness needs nothing, it is completely at ease and content as is. Get to know it, relax, there is no need to run around when the treasure is in your pocket."  ~Nisargadatta Maharaj

Treasurable Ilusion

Excerpted from The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin,  ©1969:

“Sometimes as I am falling asleep in a dark, quiet room I have for a moment a great and treasurable illusion of the past. The wall of a tent leans up over my face, not visible but audible, a slanting plane of faint sound: the susurrus of blown snow. Nothing can be seen. The light-emission of the Chabe stove is cut off, and it exists only as a sphere of heat, a heart of warmth. The faint dampness and confining cling of my sleeping-bag; the sound of the snow; barely audible, Estraven’s breathing as he sleeps; darkness. Nothing else. We are inside, the two of us, in shelter, at rest, at the center of all things. Outside, as always, lies the great darkness, the cold, death’s solitude. In such fortunate moments as I fall asleep I know beyond doubt what the real center of my own life is, that time which is past and lost and yet is permanent, the enduring moment, the heart of warmth. I am not trying to say that I was happy, during those weeks of hauling a sledge across an ice-sheet in the dead of winter. I was hungry, overstrained, and often anxious, and it all got worse the longer it went on. I certainly wasn’t happy. Happiness has to do with reason, and only reason earns it. What I was given was the thing you can’t earn, and can’t keep, and often don’t even recognize at the time; I mean joy.”

Binary

Excerpted from The Master Game: Pathways to Higher Consciousness by Robert S. de Ropp, ©2003:

In the Gurdjieffian system, the labeling part of the intellectual brain was called the “formatory center,” concerning which P. D. Ouspensky frequently stated that “it could only count up to two.” This is the chief characteristic of that form of defective mentation called “formatory thinking.” Formatory thinking has played, now plays and is likely to play in the future a large and disastrous role in the life of mankind. This form of “thinking in absolutes” generates human conflicts because it creates opposing systems and represents one as totally good, the other as totally evil.

The current pair of opposites, “Capitalist versus Communist,” is as good an example of this division as was the equally disastrous duad, “Catholic versus Protestant,” that so preoccupied our ancestors and lured them into one of the most disastrous conflicts of all times (the Thirty Years War). The emotion-loaded words of the present age – “Communist,” “Imperialist,” “saboteur,” “Fascist,” “Marxist” – carry political overtones. Those which haunted our ancestors – “heretic,” “witch,” “the Devil,” “Papist,” “unbeliever” – carried religious ones. Both have justified hideous doings, the record of which is sufficient to convince any impartial student that something is terribly amiss in the psyche of man. Only a “fallen being” or a very badly constructed one could allow itself to be so deluded by shadows of its own creating.

An Uncluttered Life

 

She was born in spring, but I was born too late…

Full lyrics available at BobDylan.com.

My Heart Can Still

"No matter how old I get… no matter how feeble, short of breath, incapable of walking more than a few blocks… with all these symptoms of age and decrepitude, my heart can still leap for joy as I read and suddenly assend to some great truth enunciated by some great mind and heart."  ~Dorothy Day, from her diaries

After You're Dead

“We thought of life by analogy with a journey, a pilgrimage, which had a serious purpose at the end, and the thing was to get to that end, success or whatever it is, maybe heaven after you’re dead. But we missed the point the whole way along. It was a musical thing and you were supposed to sing or to dance while the music was being played.”  ~Alan Watts

On Thee Depend!

From The Daily Graphic, Pine Bluff, Arkansas, November 17, 1904:

Lady Sunbeam

 

(clicking imbiggens)

My Mom had one of these when I was a kid, and I loved to use it.  

It was a lousy hair dryer, but it was very comfy and soothing to use; warm air surrounded your head while the white noise of the fan drowned out the world.

My Place

Feeding the Worms
by Danusha Laméris

Ever since I found out that earth worms have taste buds
all over the delicate pink strings of their bodies,
I pause dropping apple peels into the compost bin, imagine
the dark, writhing ecstasy, the sweetness of apples
permeating their pores. I offer beets and parsley,
avocado, and melon, the feathery tops of carrots.

I’d always thought theirs a menial life, eyeless and hidden,
almost vulgar—though now, it seems, they bear a pleasure
so sublime, so decadent, I want to contribute however I can,
forgetting, a moment, my place on the menu.

Monastic

 

(clicking imbiggens)

They found a 1,400 year old Christian monastery in the United Arab Emirates.  You can read about it HERE.

There's something about that story that gives me pause.

This was a site that would have been very important to the people who lived there, and in a relatively short period of time, at least geologically, there's nothing left but the foundation.

A few stones arranged rectangularly.  Nothing left at all of the men who worshiped there, laughed there, cried there.  No record of what thoughts they had, what lessons they learned, what friendships they formed.  

Did they love the sea?  Did they love the sand?  Were they awed by the sunrises and sunsets?

Someone would have been the last one to leave.  Did he look back?  Did he intend to return?

There's just something unspeakably sad about it all.

Are we having fun yet?

 

I think the key is mindfulness.

We've all had the experience of scrolling mindlessly through sites on the internet, only to look up and be surprised how much time has gone by.  We're not refreshed, we aren't happy, we didn't learn anything, and part of our life is now gone forever.

We have to pay attention.  And yes, I appreciate the irony, but:

Lifting Me

 

(clicking imbiggens)

And that made me think of this:

 

Full lyrics HERE.

Auspicious

 

I suppose, when you look at it the way he did, that spreading the Maha Mantra is a little like planting flowers:  maybe nobody will join you, maybe nobody will say "Thank you," but the world is a little prettier just the same.

Like the First

 

Aaron Neville could sing you the phone book and bring tears to your eyes.

Full lyrics HERE.

Let It

"No thought, no reflection, no analysis, no cultivation, no intention; let it settle itself."  ~ Tilopa

Is he strong? Listen, bud…

 You don't have to be big into super heroes to really dig this painting:

 

(clicking Imbiggens)

And that led inevitably to this:

 

The Ramones are one of those groups where, no matter how loud you play it, you want to turn it up just a little bit louder.

Full lyrics HERE.

and SHINE!

 

I've heard that phrase all of my life, and for the first time the phrase and shine really resonates with me.  Saying "Rise and Shine!" is conveying a blessing on the recipient.

And if it's paired with a cup of coffee, well that's just an unbeatable combination!

To Be Here Now

 You can take this literally or figuratively, it works either way.

Always

"Always be aware of the fact that the only thing hindering an all-out revolution is your fear of losing the scraps they throw at you."  ~Gore Vidal

Definitely Going to Use This:

 

Cliciking Imbiggens

As an aside:  If you're scanning something and don't want the back of the page to bleed through, put a black piece of paper on the other side.

lol

 

 

Toothpaste for Dinner is on the web at (of course!) ToothpasteForDinner.com.

Consisteth Possesseth

Luke 12:15:  And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.

Blame and blame and blame

"Americans, like human beings everywhere, believe many things that are obviously untrue…  Their most destructive untruth is that it is very easy for any American to make money. They will not acknowledge how in fact hard money is to come by, and, therefore, those who have no money blame and blame and blame themselves. This inward blame has been a treasure for the rich and powerful, who have had to do less for their poor, publicly and privately, than any other ruling class since, say, Napoleonic times."  ~Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five ©1969

An Anvil

“Damn!”
by Cézar A González, from Paper Dance ©1995
(via 3QuarksDaily)

Sometimes he’d be washing the car
… all by himself
and he’d say, “Damn!”
or sweeping the last morsels of leaves
onto an old dustpan
saved just for outside
for when he was alone
in the silence of summer afternoons
he’d say. “Damn!”
He didn’t go to his abuelita’s funeral
He wasn’t there when his father died
He was with somebody else he loved,
and he wasn’t there the moment she died
Y le pasaba, sabes?¹
An anvil of loneliness
would fall onto his chest
and he’d say, “Damn!”

 

¹Y le pasaba, sabes (and it happened to him, you know)

Continue

 

How ya doin'?

 

When I came home from school as a boy my mother would always sit down at the dinner table and have a cup of tea with me, and ask about my day.

She said that her father had always done it for her.

I realize now that the daily life of a ten-year-old couldn't possibly have been the most interesting part of her day, but she always made me feel like it was.

Thanks, Mom.  I miss you.

Up

 

You could see for a very long distance from the top floor, but the view wouldn't be very different than what you'd see from the ground floor.

It's also interesting that they built up instead of out.  I wonder why?  They certainly had enough room.

How to Respond

“Honestly, there’s little hope that he will change because he’s insulated by fame and money and surrounded by yes-people. There is no motivation to learn how to distinguish propaganda from facts. All that’s left is for the world to decide how it should respond to him.”  ~Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on Kyrie Irving

The same could be said of a lot of people.  You don't need fame and money to insulate yourself from the world.

Square Emojis

 

 

(clicking imbiggens)

I tried to find the artist, but-- like so many things on the internet-- after it's been reposted a few times without attribution the creator's name is lost.

It must have fallen out of a hole in your old brown overcoat.

Full lyrics HERE.

The vocals are just amazing.  If you take away the "disco thump," this could be a blues song, an R&B song, a pop song. 

Her voice was timeless.

10/90

 “Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it.”  ~Dennis P. Kimbro

Adult.

 Full lyrics HERE.

Give & Take

The soldier’s business is to take life.

For that he is paid by the State, eulogized by political charlatans and upheld by public hysteria.

But woman’s function is to give life, yet neither the State nor politicians nor public opinion have ever made the slightest provision in return for the life woman has given.

~Emma Goldman