The Art of Becoming Yourself

The Dance - Oriah Mountain Dreamer

2004-09-18T13:45:00.000-07:00

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What if it truly doesn't matter what you do but how you do whatever you do?

How would this change what you choose to do with your life?

What if you could be more present and openhearted with each person you met if you were working as a cashier in a corner store, or as a parking lot attendant, than you could if you were doing a job you think is more important?

How would this change how you want to spend your precious time on this earth?

What if your contribution to the world and the fulfillment of your own happiness is not dependent upon discovering a better method of prayer or technique of meditation, not dependent upon reading the right book or attending the right seminar, but upon really seeing and deeply appreciating yourself and the world as they are right now?

How would this affect your search for spiritual development?

What if there is no need to change, no need to try to transform yourself into someone who is more compassionate, more present, more loving or wise?

How would this affect all the places in your life where you are endlessly trying to be better?

What if the task is simply to unfold, to become who you already are in your essential nature - gentle, compassionate, and capable of living fully and passionately present?

How would this affect how you feel when you wake up in the morning?

What if who you essentially are right now is all that you are ever going to be?

How would this affect how you feel about your future?

What if the essence of who you are and always have been is enough?

How would this affect how you see and feel about your past?

What if the question is not why am I so infrequently the person I really want to be, but why do I so infrequently want to be the person I really am?

How would this change what you think you have to learn?

What if becoming who and what we truly are happens not through striving and trying but by recognizing and receiving the people and places and practices that offer us the warmth of encouragement we need to unfold?

How would this shape the choices you make about how to spend today?

What if you knew that the impulse to move in a way that creates beauty in the world will arise from deep within and guide you every time you simply pay attention and wait?

How would this shape your stillness, your movement, your willingness to follow this impulse, to just let go and dance?

Well-Being From Head to Toe

2004-09-17T10:32:00.000-07:00

::Products::
Namaste, which is the Sanskrit word for "I honor the place in you in which the entire universe dwells." Isabella Catalogue offers a Namaste carved plague that hangs over my doorway to remind me every time I pass through that all the power is in me.

::Books::
Imagine A Woman In Love With Herself, by Patricia Lynn Reilly

Imagine A Woman In Love With Herself

2004-09-10T10:47:00.000-07:00

Imagine a woman who believes it is right and good she is a woman.
A woman who honors her experience and tells her stories.
Who refuses to carry the sins of others within her body and life.

Imagine a woman who trusts and respects herself.
A woman who listens to her needs and desires.
Who meets them with tenderness and grace.

Imagine a woman who acknowledges the past's influence on the present.
A woman who has walked through her past.
Who has healed into the present.

Imagine a woman who authors her own life.
A woman who exerts, initiates, and moves on her own behalf.
Who refuses to surrender except to her truest self and wisest voice.

Imagine a woman who names her own gods.
A woman who imagines the divine in her image and likeness.
Who designs a personal spirituality to inform her daily life.

Imagine a woman in love with her own body.
A woman who believes her body is enough, just as it is.
Who celebrates her body's rhythms and cycles as an exquisite resource.

Imagine a woman who honors the body of the Goddess in her changing body.
A woman who celebrates the accumulation of her years and her wisdom.
Who refuses to use her life-energy disguising the changes in her body and life.

Imagine a woman who values the women in her life.
A woman who sits in circles of women.
Who is reminded of the truth about herself when she forgets.

Imagine yourself as this woman.

By Patricia Lynn Reilly

A new attitude...

2004-05-19T10:12:00.000-07:00

We are fortunate that the only thing we need to change in our lives is somthing we already have.. ourselves. We do not need a new job, a new relationship, or anything else... the only "new thing" that we may need is a new attitude and expectations come new possibilities and a new life.

We do not even need what many of us feel we are lacking... extra time. We only need the present moment... that moment right now when we can choose to be aware, to pay attention to the internal messages, as well as the external.

We already have what we need to live a life of bliss... we simply need to open up, let go of the past, be mindful of the present, and listen to our inner voice... and all this is done simply in the "now". It does not require any fancy gadgets or even "enlightened teachers". As we listen to the words of wisdom around us, it reminds us to listen to the words of guidance and wisdom of our own inner teacher.

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I am passionately involved in life: I love its change, its color, its movement, to have houses, music, paintings, it's all a miracle.
- Arthur Rubinstein

Wonderful Links: Updated Frequently

2004-05-18T10:56:00.000-07:00

www.sabrinawardharrison.com
www.sark.com
www.soulfulliving.com
www.kerismith.com
www.innerselfmagazine.com
www.openwindowcreations.com

"I believe in you. You have something, you have an eye."

2004-05-18T08:32:00.000-07:00

"These are the days that must happen to you." - Walt Whitman

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Excerpted from WOMEN OF COURAGE: Inspiring Stories from the Women Who Lived Them by Katherine Martin (New World Library, Fall 1999)

Twenty-three-year-old Sabrina Ward Harrison opens her recent book, Spilling Open, with a quote from the poet Walt Whitman about "washing the gum from our eyes and dressing ourselves for the dazzle of the light". Witness to the struggles of women and men, Whitman threw them a challenge: "Long have you timidly waded holding a plank by the shore, now I will you to be a bold swimmer, to jump off into the midst of the sea, rise again, nod to me, shout! and laughingly dash with you hair." With this, her first book, Sabrina let go of the plank and dove deep, opening herself for all the world to see.

Attaining Liberation

2004-05-17T17:45:00.000-07:00

You have no idea how radiant and powerful you really are. The world you live in has buried you and your light in an ornate and viscous web of thoughts, traditions, conditioning and ideologies. It covers the earth like a great blanket of intricate and resolute knots. You have inherited and learned to accept this network of beliefs, definitions and language, as innocently as you accept one Sun and one Moon in the sky.

There is nothing on earth that is not woven into this network. It is in your religions, your cultures, your governments, your schools. It is in your language and the way you communicate.

Theorists point to racism or classism, ageism or lookism, gender roles and homophobia. Psychologists purl about archetypes and childhood conditioning. Educators and sociologists pour over history, books and words. Politicians address the definition of family and economic imbalance by making conciliatory offerings of reproductive rights, equal wages and equal opportunity.

You have become experts,trying to organize the knots. Some of you have no idea that the knots can be rearranged at all. A few insist there are no knots. Others believe that the knots are a good idea and stand firm, guarding their safety.

I want you to know that there is a way out. It is time to find the way out. All creative energy; the arts, the animals, the oceans, the forests, the children, the future depend on it. You must discover who you really are. It is vibrant, real and radiant. It is within your mind, waiting to be discovered. I want you to live in a world of beauty, grace, will and power that no one can corrupt. It is well within your reach. You only have to begin.

This article was excerpted from Matri Letters from the Mother, ©2003, by Zoe Ann Nicholson.

My mission...

2004-05-17T13:08:00.000-07:00

At the end of my life, I want to be able to say that I gave everything I had to give. I want to live each day in gratitude for true gratitude will guard against selfishness, envy, self-pity, and pride. I will explore my every gift and talent, never wasting my potential to bring goodness, beauty, laughter, and light to my life and the world around me. I will persue moments of joy and passion, living each day fully and freely, always seeking exciting new experiences and conquering my fears.

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Dear Child-

Clear yourself of all those negative thoughts running through your mind. Clear yourself of all the self-doubt that you can't do it, you are not good enough.

See yourself for the wonderful human being that you are. Free yourself to act from your highest potential.

Leave doubt and fear behind. Hold nothing back. Go for it with your arms, mind, and heart wide open.

Journal Of A Solitude

2004-05-16T10:05:00.000-07:00

Artist: Elizabeth Baderina

I am here alone for the first time in weeks, to take up my "real" life again at last. That is what is strange-- that friends, even passionate love, are not my real life unless there is time alone in which to explore and to discover what is happening or has happened.

-May Sarton

"It"

2004-05-15T10:28:00.000-07:00

IT IS THAT THING A WOMAN HAS WHEN ALL EYES ARE DRAWN TO HER. IT IS WHEN A WOMAN HAS AN UNDEFINABLE THING CALLED IT. IT IS WHAT EVERY WOMAN CAN BE. IT IS NOW. IT IS ME. IT IS IS. YOU IS IT. IS IT.

-PETER THOMAS ROTH