Stephanie Pui-Mun Law

Seeking Beauty

To seek after beauty as an end, is a wild goose chase, a will-o'-the-wisp, because it is to misunderstand the very nature of beauty, which is the normal condition of a thing as it should be.  Ade Bethune

I get a daily meditation from a website called Living Life Fully and this morning's meditation was just too good not to share....I hope it's not copyright infringement but I decided to share it with you in it's entirety. If you'd like to read more meditations or inspiring quotations you can go to Living Life Fully . You could also sign up to receive their daily email like I do. Give this meditation some serious thought...

Today's Meditation:

We all are beautiful. It's just too bad that most of us can't see the beauty in each other, or in ourselves. We've been taught to look for flaws, so our personal searches for beauty have become searches for flawlessness rather than searches for the beautiful. If our goal is to make ourselves beautiful, we're wasting our time. We're already beautiful, whether we're willing to admit it or not. We've just put up so many barriers to our beauty over the years in the form of biases and beliefs and walls to protect ourselves that our beauty simply isn't the part that's most obvious--our protective layers are.

Our normal condition is beauty. There really isn't more to it than that. What we tend to believe is beauty, though, is what our society deems to be beautiful, some sort of ideal that only a very few reach. This is a crock, quite simply. Some of the most beautiful people I've ever met have been those who are completely fine with themselves the way they are, and they focus on things other than trying to reach that ideal--things like helping others and nurturing themselves and giving and caring.

Are you seeking beauty in yourself? Well, it's already there, and it's fabulous. Are you seeking beauty in others? Again, if you're not seeing it then it's not because it isn't there, because it most certainly is there. And if you can't see it, then you must ask yourself: are you seeking beauty, or are you seeking an ideal? Because there's plenty of the former, yet very little of the latter.

When we misunderstand what beauty is, then we doom ourselves to looking for something that we'll never find. It's like searching for diamonds, but not knowing what they look like. We may see many of them, but never recognize them. When you really do open your mind enough to actually see the beauty in the people and the world around you, and in yourself, your world will transform, and you'll find that your life will transform, also.

Questions to consider:

From where do we get our ideas of what beauty actually is? Why do most of us not recognize true beauty when we see it? How can we go about learning to understand more clearly and accurately just what beauty is?

For further thought:

The fact that we can't see the beauty in something doesn't suggest that it's not there. Rather, it suggests that we are not looking carefully enough or with a broad enough perspective to see it.  Richard Carlson

Again, give a thought to signing up for the daily meditations. I've found myself eager to read mine each morning.

Living Life Fully

Tending The Garden

If I imagine my mind to be a garden, I would have to say that it is a work in progress like any garden. A garden is never quite "done." You are always rearranging, adding new things, and there's the day to day maintenance that you have to take care of. In the garden of my mind I think the weeds are ferocious and sometimes they get away from me. At the moment I have them under control, but I am constantly having to get rid of them. It's a lot easier to get rid of them as they sprout rather than later when they have taken hold and resist being pulled out. There's also an empty spot in my garden of the mind....waiting to be filled with something I haven't found yet. I keep putting things there to try them out but they never take hold and grow to fruition. I keep searching...

How's your garden growing?  

Dariusz Klimczak

Her Name Is Alice

                               ("If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense")

("Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't")

I invite you to a world where there is no such thing as time
And every creature lends themselves to change your state of mind
And the girl that chased the rabbit, drank the wine, and took the pill
Has locked herself in limbo to see how it truly feels

To stand outside your virtue
No one can ever hurt you
Or so they say

Her name is Alice (Alice)
She crawls into the window
Through shapes and shadows
Alice (Alice)
And even though she's dreaming, she knows

Sometimes the curiosity can kill the soul but leave the pain
And every ounce of innocence is left inside her brain
And through the looking glass we see she's painfully returned
But now off with her head I fear is everyone's concern

You see there's no real ending
It's only the beginning
Come out and play

Her name is Alice (Alice)
She crawls into the window
Through shapes and shadows
Alice (Alice)
And even though she's dreaming
She's unlocked the meaning for you

This kingdom,
Good riddance,
Good freedom
And innocence
Has brought this whole thing down

Her name is Alice (Alice)
She crawls into to the window
Through shapes and shadows
Alice (Alice)
And even though she's dreaming
She's unlocked the meaning

("Red nights, white knights, marching into the fight")
("Drink me, shrink me, fill me to sink me")
("Red nights, white knights, marching into the fight")
("Drink me, shrink me, fill me to sink me")

She's unlocked the meaning for you

("And contrariwise, what it is it wouldn't be")
("And what it wouldn't be it would")
("You see?")

Shinedown

The Hand Of Fatima

The Face Of Your Fellow Man

"Your fellow is your mirror. If your own face is clean, the image you perceive will also be flawless. But should you look upon your fellow man and see a blemish, it is your own imperfection that you are encountering - you are being shown what it is that you must correct within yourself."  Baal Shen Tov

Henry David Thoreau

The price of anything is the amount of life you exchange for it.

Dariusz Klimczak

Life Path Number 7

Recently I had trouble trying to come up with a way of introducing and describing myself online. It's a weird coincidence that when I did an online numerology reading today I got a bit of a shock. The reading describes me completely. It's almost uncanny. So I decided to write a description of myself using the information I received. Here we go...

I am a searcher and a seeker of the truth. I have a clear and compelling sense of myself as a spiritual being. As a result, my life path is devoted to investigations into the unknown, and finding the answers to the mysteries of life. I am well-equipped to handle my task. I possess a fine mind; I am an analytical thinker, capable of great concentration and theoretical insight. I enjoy research, and putting the pieces of an intellectual puzzle together. Once I have enough pieces in place, I am capable of highly creative insight and practical solutions to problems.

I enjoy my solitude and prefer to work alone. I need time to contemplate my ideas without the intrusion of other people's thoughts. I am a lone wolf, a person who lives by my own ideas and methods. As a result, close associations are difficult for me to form and keep. I need my space and privacy, which, when violated, can cause me great frustration and irritation. I associate peace with the unobtrusive privacy of my own world. Therefore, intimacy is difficult for me, because I guard my inner world like a mother lion does her cubs.

All this privacy and aloneness causes isolation and loneliness, however. I am aware of emptiness in my life, the part of me that yearns for company and close companionship is unsatisfied.  

For what it's worth, I'm working on the isolation business. I felt like writing tonight but couldn't think of much I wanted to say so I came up with this little exercise just to have something to do....

Enjoy Life!

Leisha Monet

Walking The Path

"...Through constant engagement, the gates of Light and doors of wisdom will appear to all who walk on the path of God in wholeness, whose soul craves nearing the King's Hall. Hence, blessed will be all who volunteer to engage in his wisdom for even an hour or two a day, every day. The Creator adds an act to a good thought, and it will be regarded as standing, always and everyday, in the Lord's Court and His Abode..."

The Rav Raiah Kook

Amy Markham

Take Flight

I took a nap after I posted my last post and I had an incredibly lucid dream. In the dream I was confronting a large group of people that were giving me a hard time because of my stand on a conflict that was going on. They were also making comments about the fact I was gay and shouldn't be listened to. In the dream I stood up on a ledge in front of all of them and loudly told them exactly how I felt and ended by telling them all to go to hell. Something that in real life I could never, ever do. I am afraid of any form of conflict. But here's the incredible part...instead of storming off, I took flight and flew off. It felt completely natural. I knew exactly how to turn my body to navigate above the crowd, houses, trees. It was awesome! It felt so exhilarating and liberating. I was in complete control.

I woke up as I was beginning to soar above a beautiful forest. I immediately sat completely upright and said aloud, "Oh my god, I just had a flying dream!"

The excitement and joy I felt has stayed with me all day. I decided to research what flying dreams might mean. I could already kind of figure out what the dream had meant because of the parallels between the dream and my real life, but I wanted confirmation. I was exactly right and then some. On one dream interpretation site it said that the ability to control my flight is representative of my own personal sense of power. The flight might suggest that I am on top of a situation, that I have risen above something. A liberation from something that's been troubling me. It might also mean that I have gained a new and different perspective on things.

I found that the sky might symbolize consciousness and spirituality so to dream of flying might represent the expansion of my awareness and the unfolding of my higher self. The thought of which is really exciting and encouraging.

Take it with a grain of salt, but I've always felt that our dreams hold the key to what's really going on with us. Our subconscious releasing itself and working things out for us in our sleep. Most of the time I'm unable to figure out what my dreams mean other than to know, "Oh, well that was just a stress dream" as I put it. But with a dream like I had last night it is obvious to me that this was one that had a lot of meaning. I hope all of you get a chance to fly in a dream sometime in the future. Even if you don't, do like I'm going to try and do...

Take flight in your life!

Experiment IX

Erlend Mork

The Point In The Heart Awakens

I just finished watching my third lecture on Kabbalah and I think I might have stumbled onto something that will resolve the spiritual conflict I've felt for so many years. I'm taking a twelve week course from the Bnei Baruch Kabbalah Education Center. The word Kabbalah means "to receive" and it is a method to develop a direct, conscious connection with the Creator. In the first lecture we were taught that there comes a time in a man's life when he becomes aware of a desire to know and connect with God. In Kabbalah this is called "the point in the heart". When this "point in the heart" is awakened his desire for spirituality increases and he begins his journey to connect with his Creator. According to Kabbalists this eventually leads us to Kabbalah. Tonight I sat down and tried to pinpoint when I first became aware of my "point in the heart" and the journey I've been on that has lead me to where I am today.

When I was a child I was sent to a Southern Baptist Church every Sunday and, being the good student that I've always been, I learned everything I could and easily believed in the existence of God and Jesus. When I got a little older I was allowed to decide if I wanted to continue to attend church. I was a little tired of the threat of going to hell so I quickly decided not to go. I spent the next thirty or so years pursuing life on my own. However, the things that I had been taught about God were still with me. I just didn't think about them. It was when I became homeless in 1998 that I seriously started thinking about God again. I had to have something, some form of outside strength, to get me through it. I couldn't endure that kind of suffering alone.

I began to examine the protestant beliefs I had been raised with. There were several things that I just couldn't accept; I couldn't believe that all homosexuals were going to hell, I couldn't believe that everyone who wasn't Christian was going to hell, and I had issues with the whole idea of hell anyway. I decided to explore other religions. I studied Hinduism and Buddhism. I became pagan and lived like a hippy for awhile. I went to Native American gatherings and was even acknowledged and honored by the Elders at one gathering for saving the ceremonial fire from going out one night. I got involved with a lot of the new age movement. I collected crystals and stones (which I still do....) and worked on my chakras. I was learning and growing spiritually. 

There was and still is a Protestant Mission in town that runs a shelter for the homeless. I had avoided staying there, but there came a time when I was forced to stay there. Every night the residents have to go to Chapel and have a church service. God, how I hated it. As a consequence, even now, I cringe slightly when I hear the name "Jesus" said in that Southern Baptist kind of way. Anyway, they had a drug and alcohol program there and the "program" guys got to sleep in comfortable rooms as opposed to a communal room with cots. They also didn't have to leave the building every morning at 6:00 regardless of the weather. This might have been wrong of me, but I saw the program as a way to get myself off the streets. I didn't lie about my drug and alcohol abuse but I did lie about my spiritual beliefs.

When I learned that part of the Mission's program required you to find a church and become a member I really got worried. As I look back though I can see that my Creator had a plan. I tried every protestant church in town to no avail. I couldn't stand them and the feelings of living a lie were almost unbearable. Through a set of circumstances that I won't go into now, I was introduced to the Russian Orthodox Church. I was blown away. Their teachings on homosexuality were somewhat more tolerable too. I was taught that it wasn't a sin to be homosexual, but it was a sin to express it. I had been in the closet for years so I thought I could accept that. If I slipped up I could always go to confession and receive absolution. I converted and was baptized into the Orthodox faith. I even went so far as to enter one of their monasteries here in America and almost became a monk. A little of that story is in my profile I think. A lot of the first part of this blog involves the struggles I had after I left the monastery and eventually left the Church.

I didn't realize when I started this post just how long it was going to be. If you're still reading at this point, I appreciate it....thanks! I'm going to try and wrap it up...

After roughly ten years homeless, I finally obtained housing. My body found a home but my "point in the heart" still hadn't. I've been in my apartment for about seven years now. During this time I have tried to incorporate the beliefs I had from all the different faiths into one. It hasn't been easy and I can tell you now that it hasn't been very successful. 

I've finally decided that all religions should be regarded as mythology. I believe that all these spiritual, religious myths are built on a lot of common, undeniable truths. And I also believe that the ideas taught in Kabbalah are the framework upon which all the religions are based. I hope that as my studies continue I find this to still be true...     

Enjoy Life!

With The New Moon In Leo

A journal post is long overdue, so I guess I’ll write one. I should try and describe the feelings I’m having of trying to climb, crawl, scratch, and claw my way out of the wreckage of my life into a life of higher purpose.

Should I tell you all my past regrets? Should I make this a confession of some kind?

   

It’s all between me and the people that I have hurt….My Mother, who I loved beyond description, but with whom I could not develop any type of close relationship with? My Mother passed away quite a few years back, so making amends is impossible. My Father, who might not have passed yet, but who might as well have…for you see, I never knew him…..never even knew his name. I carry my Mother’s last married name. Not even her maiden name, but the last name of a man who was not my Father. My Grandmother, who loved me maybe even more than my own Mother? You might as well say I used all the love see had and then abandoned her. A shell of the person she ever was….constantly looking for me, seeing me even in strangers and other random people until the day she died.

There are other people that I have involved in my egoistic evolution. My regrets cause me to have an intense, almost irresolvable, sense of guilt, shame, and regret. The same strong emotions that have led me to attempt suicide on numerous occasions. Dreadful memories of past events haunt my sleep and flash into my mind during my days. It's almost as if I have PTSD... 

What do you make of it? A melancholy mess…one with no mercy of redemption or resolution because I can't seem to forgive myself, I can't seem to get over the embarrassing things I've done. A situation that won’t be resolved until there is an ending to it.  Death being what I mean.

But, I, as the one who has been the chief player in all these events, would like to know how I am ever to face my creator with all this madness shrouding me, and flowing along behind me like a bridal veil…an eternal cloth covering my stinking, rotting, corporal body…dragging itself to my maker.

I’m throwing myself into the study of Kabbalah in an effort to change my perception of reality, to try and actualize the point in my heart that yearns for my creator. I hope for comfort and peace.

Dirty Little Secret

Sarah MacLachlan

Don't Hold Me Back

Alex Cornish