Only friends will tell you the truths you need to hear to make the last part of your life bearable.
~Francine Du Plessix Gray (b.1930 - )
French writer
What's terrible is to pretend that the second-rate is first-rate. To pretend that you don't need love when you do; or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better.
~Doris Lessing (b.1919 - )
British writer
Living never wore one out so much as the effort not to live.
~Anais Nin (1903-1977)
American/French writer
This is one of my favorite positive affirmations statements:
The fastest way to become the Master of your thoughts and emotions is through challenging situations. If your life is going along fairly smoothly, there are not the same opportunities that enable you to strengthen your power and become the Master of your thoughts and emotions.
You see, even challenges are beautiful opportunities in disguise.
Rhonda Byrne
Creator "The Secret"
Here is an excerpt from Deepak Chopra M.D. book, Creating Affluence ~ Wealth Consciousness in the Field of all Possibilities
"W" stands for wealth consciousness without worries. Wealth consciousness implies absence of money worries. Truly wealthy people never worry about losing their money because they know that wherever money comes from there is an inexhaustible supply of it.
Once, when we were discussing a world peace project with my teacher, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, somebody asked him, "Where is all the money going to come from?" And he replied without hesitation, "From wherever it is at the moment."
A lovely quote by author Louise L. Hay ~ Here is an excerpt from her book, Heart Thoughts
ABUNDANCE
"The more we dwell on what we don't want, the more we get it."
"I know i am one with all of Life. I am surrounded and permeated with Infinite Wisdom. Therefore I rely totally on the Universe to support me in every positive way. I was created by Life and given this planet to fulfill all my needs. Everything I could possibly need is already here waiting for me. This planet has more food on it than I could possibly eat. There is more money than I could ever spend. There are more people than I could ever meet. There is more love than I could possibly experience. There is more joy than I can even imagine. This world has everything I need and desire. It is all mine to use and to have. The One Infinite Mind, the One Infinite Intelligence always says "yes" to me. No matter what I choose to believe or think or say, the Universe always says "yes" to me. I do not waste my time on negative thinking or negative subjects. I choose my yes's with care. I choose to see myself and Life in the most positive ways. Therefore, I say yes to opportunity and prosperity. I say "yes" to all good. I am a "yes" person living in a "yes" world being responded to by a "yes" universe, and I rejoice that this is so. I am grateful and joyous to be one with Universal Wisdom and backed by Universal Power. Thank you God for all that is mine to enjoy in the here and now.
Have a beautiful day,
Photo: PKM
Joy,
Rena
www.talktotheturtle.com
I am really enjoying the wild writing at Laurie Wagner's creative writing e-course that I am taking through her website 27powers. The five-week course is entitled: Telling True Stories.
The focus is on being the kind of person who makes enough space in their day to notice things.
This story finds me at the corner store with the idea of buying myself some chocolate as a treat. I have chocolate on my mind because I am feeling tired. The last few weeks of work and life have been very demanding. In my talking with friends, I hear several stories of a early season cold virus that has arrived in the city.
I am not sure whether I am fighting a cold bug or I am just brain tired as I stand in front of a large aisle of chocolate and candy merchandise. Kind of day dreaming slightly, deciding whether I want the milk chocolate with hazelnuts or whether I should go for a darker chocolate. A voice pipes up beside me.
"Is the Lindt chocolate on sale today?"
I turn and catch out of the left of my eye a little old lady standing beside me looking at the chocolate. She basically arrived like from nowhere. I was slightly irritated because I am not feeling that great and I was just not up for talking. I guess you could say I was kind of grumpy.
"You know the dark Lindt chocolate is usually on sale, two bars for five dollars. Is it on sale today?" she presses on in conversation.
I grimace slightly and go off my train of thought to look at the Lindt chocolate for this elderly woman beside me.
"No, it is not on sale today." I reply.
"Well, how much is it for a bar of dark Lindt chocolate," she asks.
" It is $3.79 a bar." I say.
Inside I am hoping this with placate her and I can get back on my own path to happiness with my chocolate bar selection.
"None of them are on sale?" she aks. What about the 85% dark chocolate, is it on sale today?" she persists.
I look back up at the rack and reply with authority. "No, the 85% is not on sale and neither is the 70%" I add, because I noticed it beside the other bar.
"Oh, well what about the 90% dark chocolate?" Is there any 90% dark chocolate?"
I stop myself and glance sideways at this older woman just to check if she has sunglasses on and a white cane. She doesn't. In fact she was politely dressed and very with it in her appearance and exuded a happy healthy energy. She did seem really old though and now I am slowly gearing myself down because she clearly wants my attention and help.
"Oh yeah, there is a 90% dark chocolate bar. I guess I never noticed that before," I replied. "Is there one that is your particular favorite" - I ask her.
"Well, I really like the 90% dark chocolate, she replies."
Since she seems to be such a connoisseur in the category of chocolate, I ask her a question now.
"Isn't the 90% solid dark LIndt chocolate bar too bitter?"
"Oh no, not at all. My girlfriend she likes the 85% solid dark chocolate by Lindt but it is just more sugar that is the only difference." she says matter of factly.
Then she adds. "You want to take this every day for your health. It will give you the mental clarity you are looking for and it is very good for your well being." Her voice sounded so familiar and I knew that she was talking with me as if this moment had been specifically designed just for me. It was a voice filled with a deep knowing and a kindness that my memory is familiar with.
"O.K.", I respond.
As I start to pick up one each of the 70%, the 85% and the 90% of the Lindt solid chocolate bars, she starts talking again.
"Are you buying all three?" she asks.
"Yes" I snap quietly back. Thinking to myself - who do you think you are my mother? Thinking fast and yet surrendering to this conversation all as a blur of emotions swirl in my mind.
I fall into a stillness, there in the store aisle with all the chocolate as she spoke to me again.
"You only need to take a few squares a day for your health. That is all. It is the cocoa that is good for you, that is the ingredient you want."
Wait until they go on sale and then buy a few and keep them around at all times and this will help you feel better," she adds.
I am now fully cognizant of the fact that I have not looked at this woman. I have glanced and make some quick assessments as we all do in the urban jungle of life. However I have this sense that I am almost afraid to look at her face. To look into her eyes. I am thinking this all at a lightning speed in my head as I turn and bravely lock eyes that belong to this soul's head of white hair.
There they were. Those beautiful soft brown eyes. That specific light brown eye that only I would know. My mouth is slightly frozen open.
She smiles at me. Kindly. Gently.
"You really should try to wait and buy them when they go on sale dear". With that she turns around and walks away and out the door of the store.
It is an amazing thing - this unique gift of gratitude. I am being shown that if you hold the energy of gratitude in a loving place amazing things can happen in your life. Love ~ put it out there as a gift with no strings attached and situations show up and gift it back to you.
I like this video on John Styn talking at the Tedx forum. His talk is on gratitude and he shares a story of love that is experiences with his Grandpa. I totally get it. My favorite part of this video is towards the end when his Grandfather (now passed on ) speaks of the value in giving.
Have a beautiful day,
Photo: 'Gods Grace' PKM
Joy,
Rena
www.talktotheturtle.com
The month of September holds several birthday celebrations of people I know but none more closer that my one and only sister. This year I actually took the effort of sending Sis a Jacquie Lawson e-card with birthday wishes. Beautifully illustrated themes and stories with a homemade charm woven into every birthday message greeting live on Jacquie's website. Most recent years, with my life schedule birthday cards have turned into an email or a phone call. I am always so humbled when someone takes the time to send me a birthday wish as an card in the mail or an email ecard.
However, this year it simply is not enough to just send an e-card. Maybe because I am not as close to my sister as I want to be, my older sister who I have always looked up to and loved. I always correct myself when I start drifting away like this in my mind, like a piece of wood in the ocean. I take a deep breath in to create a space of gratitude that I even have a sister to talk about. After all, I just want to see her more.
I have friends as well that are September birthday babies and so I am taking this opportunity to wish these autumn miracles of life a splendid day as well. I love my sister. I love my girlfriends who also celebrate September as their party celebration month.
But why stop there? If September is your birthday month, I send you warm wishes of happiness, love, and an amazing year of endless positive surprises merrily finding a path toward you as I write this...
Most recently I was introduced to the work of Santa Cruz California poet Ellen Bass work. Her writing is brave and deep and open. I have included two of her poems for you as a mindful gift to enjoy and ponder. I love poetry. Poetry, in my memory, reminds me of hot summer nights and lemonade and an Indigo sky filled with bright twinkling stars. Good poetry makes my senses stand on end and strokes my heart strings.
Gate C22
At gate C22 in the Portland airport
a man in a broad-band leather hat kissed
a woman arriving from Orange County.
They kissed and kissed and kissed. Long after
the other passengers clicked the handles of their carry-ons
and wheeled briskly toward short-term parking,
the couple stood there, arms wrapped around each other
like he'd just staggered off the boat at Ellis Island,
like she'd been released at last from ICU, snapped
out of a coma, survived bone cancer, made it down
from Annapurna in only the clothes she was wearing.
Neither of them was young. His beard was gray.
She carried a few extra pounds you could imagine
her saying she had to lose. But they kissed lavish
kisses like the ocean in the early morning,
the way it gathers and swells, sucking
each rock under, swallowing it
again and again. We were all watching - -
passengers waiting for the delayed flight
to San Jose, the stewardesses, the pilots,
the aproned woman icing Cinnabons, the main selling
sunglasses. We couldn't look away. We could
taste the kisses crushed in our mouths.
But the best part was his face. When he drew back
and looked at her, his smile soft with wonder, almost
as though he were a mother still open from giving birth,
as your mother must have looked at you, no matter
what happened after--if she beat you or left you or
you're lonely now--you once lay there, the vernix
not yet wiped off, and someone gazed at you
as if you were the first sunrise seen from the Earth.
The whole wing of the airport hushed,
all of us trying to slip into that woman's middle-aged body,
her plaid bermuda shorts, sleeveless blouse, glasses,
little gold hoop earrings, tilting our heads up.
This relaxing video is so nice to drift away with. enjoy~
Another Ellen Bass poem~
If You Knew
What if you knew you'd be the last
to touch someone?
If you were taking tickets, for example,
at the theater, tearing them,
giving back the ragged stubs,
you might take care to touch that palm,
brush your fingertips
along the life line's crease.
When a man pulls his wheeled suitcase
too slowly through the airport, when
the car in front of me doesn't signal,
when the clerk at the pharmacy
won't say Thank you, I don't remember
they're doing to die.
A friend told me she'd been with her aunt.
They'd just had lunch and the waiter,
a young gay man with plum black eyes,
joked as he served the coffee, kissed
her aunt's powdered cheek when they left.
Then they walked half a block and her aunt
dropped dead on the sidewalk.
How close does the dragon's spume
have to come? How wide does the crack
in heaven have to split?
What would people look like
if we could see them as they are,
soaked in honey, stung and swollen,
reckless, pinned against time?
Happy birthday Sis. Happy birthday Yv, and G.
Have a beautiful day,
photo: 'turning' PKM
Joy,
Rena
www.talktotheturtle.com
