Love Lives On ...

Bert, Laura, & Ariel

1982

Settling back in after moving houses at the end of the year. 

Some things in order, others not so much. 

Odds and ends of sacred things that used to have a reliable placement in the previous home pop up to be noticed, wanting to find their perfect setting in this new abode.

Above is one. Tomorrow marks another year gone by without him, without my old-shoes-friend and comrade, my great and terrible love, my irreplaceable children's Dad. We walked through centuries together and no doubt will walk some more before the whole journey is complete.

Wishing you well. 

Wishing you Joy and Freedom. 

Thinking of you, with Love, old friend.

Speak Your Love

Maybe the best present of all on Christmas Morning, every morning ...

"On This Day"

It was hanging on the wall in my chiropractor's office.

I like it very much.

Wishing you all Serenely Joyful Holidays 

and a 

Loving, Harmonious, Fulfilling New Year.

Illuminated Rumi - nations ...

"Your way begins on the other side.

Become the sky.

Take an axe to the prison wall.

Escape.

Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.

Do it now.

~ Rumi

Panda Peace

Panda Peace  

Artist ~ Laura Basha, 2012, acrylic on canvas

The panda is a wonderful teacher for soul development, representing wisdom, peace, diplomacy, and balance. I painted this painting for my granddaughter, Emerson, at her request. She asked me for it over a year ago, and I finally got around to painting it. I have so many paintings to complete for a project I am creating, yet it was bothering me that I hadn't finished this for her since I said I would.

I have been studying new concepts in the field of leadership development, specifically the concept of Integrity, and a new science that is building momentum and gaining credibility in the academic and business fields of leadership. 

One of the basic tenants of this new thinking is that the heart of integrity lies in following through on what one has given one's word to. And particularly following through on what one has given one's word to one's self! So, all those commitments to work out, go on a diet, etc., when we don't follow through on keeping those promises we have made to our self, we lose power; Power being the capacity to influence and empower through Being a clear and focused individual, for ones self and others. 

When we don't cultivate this capacity for keeping those promises to our self, we diminish our capacity to keep our commitments to others, and what we are left with at best is force, posturing as power.

There are no small things. I completed the painting for my granddaughter, and, as simple as this sounds, the feeling of satisfaction and freedom was equally as fulfilling as being pleased with the end result of the painting. And the result was not just a delighted little girl who received it, but a little girl who trusts that her Nona will do what she says she will do. That's worth everything.

So, how much power, fulfillment, freedom is available through the simple act of keeping our promises to ourselves? Maybe we won't just lose those 5 lbs, maybe we lose the sense of failure and will gain a sense of possibility.

What COULD each of us commit to accomplishing for ourselves, and, keeping that promise, experience the freedom, joy, and possibility inherent in authentic power?

Panda is a wonderful teacher for soul development.

"Exploring the Fulfilled Life"

Balloons Over Napa, CA, 

August 2012

What I see when exploring a fulfilled life, is that Fulfillment is equally everywhere present. 

Life Itself is a realm of Fulfillment. 

We have only to choose which forms will express and bring and give that fulfillment ... 

Fulfillment is waiting to express through us, as us!

Silently Thundering the Truth of Oneness

~ Alaskan Fjord ~ 

Clicking the shutter on this stunning serenity just last week while in Alaska, I was so struck by the quiet serenity and profound power of the environment. Otherworldly beauty, and we were trespassing through the sacred waters of the whales and eagles and otters and bears; through Nature's realms.

As I allowed this resonance of majesty to impact me, I became aware that this dreamlike place lives on long after I leave to go back to my daily living. It lives on like this, infinitely generating from past into future a holy integrity that dwarfs my opinions, my concerns, my fascination with myself and with differences between me and others, silently thundering the truth of oneness.

"A single hand cannot know the whole animal at once. The ocean has an eye. The foam bubbles of phenomena see separately: we bump against each other, asleep at the bottom of our body-boats. We should wake and look with the clear eye of water we float on."

~ Rumi

Intuition: The Seventh Sense

 Inward Sky

"You are the soul, the universe, 

and what animates the universe. ...

Why cry for what is closer than voice? ...

Prophets come and go for one reason, to say,

Human beings, you have a great value

inside your form, a seed. Be led 

by the rose inside the rose."

~  Rumi

Have you ever had a thought of someone, perhaps someone you haven't been in contact with for some time, and at that moment the phone rings and it is that very person? Have you ever had a dream about an unidentified or uncommunicated event, and then that event occurs? Have you ever stopped and been very still and reflectd on something of concern to you, and an insight occurs, or even an epiphany, and you are flooded with knowing the solution to your problem?

What if we were to practice listening to the "still small voice" within? What if we listened for the inner wisdom that resonates to our question, and tested the result in the laboratory of our own life? The more we practice, the more audible is the innate wisdom. We can see that it has been speaking all along, we have simply been listening to the cacophany of the external world of our circumstances and conditions, and not paying attention to the permeating flute music. 

The more attention we pay to the Silence within, the more we can avail ourselves to what It is saying, and recognize that It is always available to us. Like Balance, Intuition is a sense that is ours for the cultivation. It is as available as the air.

Taste, Touch, Smell, Sight, Hearing, Balance, and Intuition. 

Seven!