“As the legend goes, when the phoenix resurrects from the flames, she is even more beautiful than before.” ~Danielle LaPorte ♥
Art by Karol Bak
“For each of us as women, there is a deep place within, where hidden and growing our true spirit rises…Within these deep places, each one holds an incredible reserve of creativity and power, of unexamined and unrecorded emotion and feeling. The woman’s place of power within each of us…it is dark, it is ancient, and it is deep.” ~Audre Lorde
“The goal of the future is full unemployment, so we can play.” ~Arthur C. Clarke
A worthy goal 🙂
“A journey is a person in itself; no two are alike. And all plans, safeguards, policing, and coercion are fruitless. We find that after years of struggle that we do not take a trip; a trip takes us.” ~John Steinbeck
Art by Delmary
HOW TO BE FEARLESS ~ Don’t try to be free from fear. Fear is not something you need to escape at all. It is a very natural energy that just wants to move in you, a beloved wave in the vast ocean of life. Fear is a friend. It reveals that you are still alive, willing to feel powerful energies. You are close to your raw edge, exploring, dancing with the unknown, opening to possibilities. Fear will always be nearby. Just don’t use it as an excuse for inaction. Fear can never block you, or knock you off your path, or stop you from doing anything, when you commit to meeting it on its own terms. So many of our fears are about something that will or will not happen in the future. So many of our fears are never, ever realized. But remember, whatever happens in the future, you’ll be able to forge on with courage, you’ll be able to handle it all, because you know how to be present. However powerfully the storm of life rages, you will be able to come out of your story, release your tight grip on past and future, find your breath (it is always close), and remember your presence, your anchor, your root, your Home. You will never be overwhelmed by events because you will remember to slow down, to focus, to breathe, to connect with yourself in the deepest way. You will remember to say YES to where you are, and so you will never be a victim of circumstance, but a courageous co-creator, an ally of life. You cannot go wrong, friend, because even if you go wrong, and you find yourself walking down a strange path on a strange day, you can become curious, follow your breath, explore bodily sensation. You can allow whatever energies need to be allowed in you. You can stop calling the moment ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ and embrace its suchness, its unique flavours. You can learn from your mistakes, get more clear about what you want or don’t want, find gratitude for where you are, find something worth living for, find beauty in your lostness. So make mistakes! There is nothing to fear when you know that you cannot go wrong. Fail. Fall to your knees. It doesn’t matter, because you know that life will hold you, fearlessly. ~ Jeff Foster
Ferguson protesters interrupt a concert to sing a Requiem for Mike Brown. Powerful stuff. Love all the beautiful trouble makers out there.
Michael Brown protesters interrupted the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra’s concert on Saturday night, causing a brief delay in the performance at Powell Symphony Hall.
The orchestra and chorus were preparing to perform Johannes Brahms’ Requiem just after intermission when two audience members in the middle aisle on the main floor began singing an old civil rights tune, “Which Side are You on?” They soon were joined, in harmony, by other protesters, who stood at seats in various locations on the main floor and in the balcony.
The protesters then unfurled three hand-painted banners and hung them from the Dress Circle boxes. One banner listed the birth and death date of Brown, who was shot by Ferguson police Officer Darren Wilson on Aug. 9.
“Stop measuring days by degree of productivity and start experiencing them by degree of presence.” ~Alan Watts
Post from Evolver Social Movement.
“Never forget your real identity. You are a luminous conscious stardust being, forged into the crucible of cosmic fire”. ~Deepak Chopra
Art by Nychole Owens
TODAY IS NOT DECISION DAY ~ If you are trying to choose, if you are confused now about what to do, think, say or feel, and unable to come to a restful conclusion, wonderful! Celebrate how alive you feel; honour the sacred mess of this moment, how it does not match any image of how it ‘should’ be. Today is not Decision Day. Today is Curiosity Day. Today is a day of staying close to the moment, breathing, feeling all sensations in your body, watching the mind spinning, trying to be the one in control, trying to know the future. Stop. Breathe. Come out of the story “I have to choose right now”. Take away all pressure. Remove time. Don’t label this ‘indecision’. Your stress is your attempt to fast-forward from the current scene of the movie of your life (this present scene of ‘uncertainty’) to a future scene of certainty and rest. The invitation? Find rest where you are. Be here. Turn towards the present scene, this very alive moment. Befriend uncertainty, not-knowing, wonderment. Allow all the images, thoughts, memories, suggestions, voices of the mind, to arise, stay awhile, and pass when they are ready. Know they are not who you are. Know that it is not the mind that will get you to the real answers. At some point, you will just know what to do. Or you will find yourself just doing it, without effort. At some point, maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe next week, the confusion will drop, and action will occur. It has always been this way. It always will. The biggest illusion is that you are in control. ‘When there is no confusion, there is no choice.’ From a deep embrace of where you are, from a love of uncertainty and impermanence, great certainty can grow. Trust your way towards decisions. Don’t fight the moment. You cannot get ‘there’ from here. Sometimes true answers emerge when our questions are given space to breathe. ~Jeff Foster
“When there is freedom… when one is very clear in one’s capacity to think subjectively, impersonally, very precisely, not sentimentally… there is no need for choice. When there is no confusion, then there is no choice.” – J. Krishnamurti
Under The Blue Door 