neighbourhood watch

the face of oneness

love bursts forth

If I'm going to die, the best way to prepare is to quiet my mind and open my heart. If I'm going to live, the best way to prepare for it is to quiet my mind and open my heart.

-- Ram Dass (1890-1925)

"treat" yourself often

The aspects of things that are most important to us are hidden because of their simplicity and familiarity. -- Prof. Ludwig Wittgenstein

soul food

The Invitation Oriah
Mountain Dreamer
Canadian Teacher and Author

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.
It doesn't interest me how old you are.

I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love
for your dreams
for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life's betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed
from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain
mine or your own
without moving to hide it
or fade it or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy
mine or your own
if you can dance with wildness
and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your
fingers and toes
without cautioning us to
be careful
be realistic
to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me
is true.
I want to know if you can
disappoint another
to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal
and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless
and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty
even when it is not pretty
every day.
And if you can source your own life
from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure
yours and mine
and still stand on the edge of the lake
and shout to the silver of the full moon,"Yes."

It doesn't interest me
to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up
after a night of grief and despair
weary and bruised to the bone
and do what needs to be done
to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know
or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand
in the center of the fire
with me
and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom
you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you
from the inside
when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone
with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep
in the empty moments.


© 1995 by Oriah House, From "Dreams Of Desire"

comin back from underworld

The spiritual path -- is simply the journey of living our lives. Everyone is on a spiritual path; most people just don't know it.-- Marianne Williamson

palenque, maya entrance to the underworld

temple of inscriptions

One of the most renowned iconographic monuments in the Maya World was found within the Temple of the Inscriptions: the sarcophagus lid depicting Pakal at the moment of his death, falling into the Underworld, symbolized by a monster's jaw. Above the dead King rises the Wakah Kan, the World Tree and the Center of the Universe- with Itzam Ye, the Celestial bird perched on top representing the heavens. In order for the deified king buried here not to be cut off from the world of the living, a psychoduct -or a hollow tube in the form of a snake- runs off the side of the staircase, from the tomb to the temple.
http://www.palenquepark.com/inscriptions.htm

as above, so below

Go confidently in the direction of your dreams! Live the life you've imagined. As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler. Henry David Thoreau

messages come in many forms

One of the widespread beliefs is that hummingbirds, in some way, are messengers between worlds. As such they help shamans keep nature and spirit in balance. The Cochti have a story about ancient people who lost faith in the Great Mother. In anger, she deprived them of rain for four years. The people noticed that the only creature who thrived during this drought was the hummingbird. When they studies his habits, the shamans learned that the hummingbird had a secret passageway to the underworld. Periodically, he went there to gather honey. Further study revealed that this doorway was open to the hummingbird alone because he had never lost faith in the Great Mother. This information inspired the people to regain faith. After that the Great Mother took care of them.

http://www.shawcreekbirdsupply.com/native_american_beliefs.htm

butterfly effect

Everything you do counts forever. You are an expression of the whole process of creation; you are a cocreator. -- Barbara Marx Hubbard

"We delight in the beauty of the butterfly, but rarely admit the changes it has gone through to achieve that beauty. "
~Maya Angelou

breatharian

Permanent non-eating, inedia or breatharianism are states which usually appear as a side effect of expanding one's sphere of the Consciousness. However there are also many cases that this state happened unexpectedly and lasted for months or years.

http://breatharian.info/

density layers lifting and falling away

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power. -- Alan Cohen

dancin' in the dawn

soaring

A truly creative person rids him or herself of all self-imposed limitations. -- Gerald G. Jampolsky

the heart path around obstacles will reveal itself

"You never change the existing reality by fighting it. Instead, create a new model that makes the old one obsolete." -- R. Buckminster Fuller

every moment offers a shift of view

being guided

"Everything in the universe is within you. Ask all from yourself."~Rumi