Year Of The Dragon 2012

"The Chinese ancients believed that if you breathe life and energy into your spiritual dragon, or your greater self, you create change that breathes life and energy into all, allowing you to ride the dragon’s expansive spirit to a zenith of endless possibilities."

Albert Einstein

"Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet."

JOHN L.

"When you find love, you find peace."

Rule #6: Don't take yourself so damn seriously.

"But we are clay as well as spirit. We exist, earth bound, for some seventy or eighty years. The problem I have always had with any overly 'spiritual' path is that it sometimes denies life. We have an eternity to exist in the soup of universal energy, but just a few precious decades to savor rich coffee, whether it's bad for us or not. To plant zucchini; to people-watch in a subway car; to love jazz. To love others, even if it gets messy."
-William Powers-

William Powers

"The difference between actually very serious and actually very funny is actually very thin."

Nietzsche

"For happiness, how little suffices for happiness!...the least thing precisely, the gentlest thing, the lightest thing, a lizard's rustling, a breath, a wisk, an eye glance - little maketh up the best happiness. Be still."

kerouac

"the point being that we know what IT is and we know TIME and we know that everything is really FINE... Now you just dig them in front. They have worries, they're counting the miles, they're thinking about where to sleep tonight, how much money for gas, the weather, how they'll get there—and all the time they'll get there anyway, you see. But they need to worry and betray time with urgencies false and otherwise, purely anxious and whiny, their souls really won't be at peace unless they can latch on to an established and proven worry and having once found it they assume facial expression to fit and go with it, which is you see, unhappiness, and all the time it all flies by them and they know it and that too worries them no end. Listen! Listen!"

JFK

"All of us must consider our own responsibilities for the physical vigor of our children and of the young men and women of our communities. We do not want our children to become a nation of spectators. Rather, we want each of them to be a participant in the vigorous life."

Ed Abbey

"I'm not an atheist... I'm an earthiest"

The Dancing Wu Li Masters

"What is out there apparently depends, in a rigorous mathematical sense, as well as a philosophical one, upon what we decide in here. The new physics tells us that an observer cannot observe without altering what they see."

Hesher

"Life is like walking in the rain... you can hide and take cover or you can just get wet."

the incontrovertible union of contradictory truths

"In the mixture of starlight and cloud-reflected sunlight in which the desert world is now illuminated, each single object stands forth in preternatural though transient brilliance, a final assertion of existence before the coming of night: each rock and shrub and tree, each flower, each stem of grass, diverse and separate, vividly isolate, yet joined each to every other in a unity which generously includes me and my solitude as well.
Or so it seems at the moment, as my fire dies to a twist of smoke and a heap of rubies, and for a moment I think I've almost caught a falling star: there is no mystery; there is only paradox, the incontrovertible union of contradictory truths. A falling star which melts into vapor as I grasp it, which flows through my fingers like water, like smoke."
ed abbey

Another Abbey

“How to Overthrow the System: brew your own beer; kick in your Tee Vee; kill your own beef; build your own cabin and piss off the front porch whenever you bloody well feel like it.”

Ed Abbey

“One final paragraph of advice: do not burn yourselves out. Be as I am - a reluctant enthusiast....a part-time crusader, a half-hearted fanatic. Save the other half of yourselves and your lives for pleasure and adventure. It is not enough to fight for the land; it is even more important to enjoy it. While you can. While it’s still here. So get out there and hunt and fish and mess around with your friends, ramble out yonder and explore the forests, climb the mountains, bag the peaks, run the rivers, breathe deep of that yet sweet and lucid air, sit quietly for a while and contemplate the precious stillness, the lovely, mysterious, and awesome space. Enjoy yourselves, keep your brain in your head and your head firmly attached to the body, the body active and alive, and I promise you this much; I promise you this one sweet victory over our enemies, over those desk-bound men and women with their hearts in a safe deposit box, and their eyes hypnotized by desk calculators. I promise you this; You will outlive the bastards.”

Sweet Grass

Lying, face down
in the sweet
green grass

Breaths coming
in gasps

she is dying.

she has fled
the confines of
her bed, her prison.

she has shed
the robe
that had bound her
too tightly.

and, now,
here she lies.

naked and bare
exposed to the earth.

voices from
another time
shouting....

"no" "rise"
"keep fighting"
"stay with us"

she raises her
single index
finger...

as if to say
"give me a minute"

knowing that a
minute is all
she has.

she whispers.

"be quiet
and I will describe
death to you"

her eyes dilate.

the intense light
feels dark.

the earth is
humming.

and she hums with it.

in tune
in the moment
she wonders
if she has ever
been this alive
before?

one with the earth
and at peace with
herself.

she dies.

Wendell Berry

“Eating with the fullest pleasure - pleasure, that is, that does not depend on ignorance - is perhaps the profoundest enactment of our connection with the world. In this pleasure we experience our dependence and our gratitude, for we are living in a mystery, from creatures we did not make and powers we cannot comprehend.”

Pollan

“Don't eat anything your great-grandmother wouldn't recognize as food.”

Emerson

"You have just dined, and however scrupulously the slaughterhouse is concealed in the graceful distance of miles, there is complicity."

Dyer

"How people treat you is their karma; how you react is yours."

philo

"Be Kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle"

Kahn

"everything eventually morphs into the way the world is"

Pollan

"Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants."

Henry David Thoreau

"If a person does not keep pace with their companions, perhaps it is because they hear a different drummer. Let them step to the music they hear, however measured or far away."

Alan W.

"If you ask me to show you God, I will point to the sun, or a tree, or a worm. But if you say, 'You mean, then, that God is the sun, the tree, the worm, and all other things?' - I shall have to say that you missed the point entirely."

Watts

"If happiness always depends upon something expected in the future, we are chasing the will-o'-the-wisp that ever eludes our grasp, until our future, and ourselves, vanish into the abyss of death."

Dalai Lama

"People must realize that even with all these comforts, all this money and a GNP that increases every year, they are still not happy. They need to understand that the real culprits are our unceasing desires. Our wants have no end."

Believe

"Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders. Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations. But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it."
- Siddhartha Gautama Buddha

John

"It matters not
Who you love
Where you love
Why you love
When you love
Or how you love
It matters only that you love."

- Nelson Mandela

"Our biggest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our biggest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? You are a Child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't be insecure around you. We were born to make magnificent the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us, it is in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fears, our presence automatically liberates others."

Lakota

"Honor the sacred.
Honor the Earth, our Mother.
Honor the Elders.
Honor all with whom we
share the Earth:-
Four-leggeds, two-leggeds,
winged ones,
Swimmers, crawlers,
plant and rock people.
Walk in balance and beauty."

Albert E.

“We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.”

Miss Beautiful Tulip

"You can't make unreasonable people be reasonable."

"So Shall They Live; When Ends Our Day"

"This is their temple, vaulted high
And here we pause with reverent eye.
With silent tongue and awe-struck soul;
for here we sense life's proper goal.

To be like these, straight, true and fine.
To make our world, like theirs, a shrine;
Sink down. Oh traveler, on your knees,
God stands before you in these trees."

Joyce Kilmer

"I think that I shall never see
A poem lovely as a tree.
A tree whose hungry mouth is prest
Against the earth's sweet flowing breast;
A tree that looks at God all day
And lifts her leafy arms to pray;
A tree that may in Summer wear
A nest of robins in her hair;
Upon whose bosom snow has lain;
Who intimately lives with rain.
Poems are made by fools like me,
But only God can make a tree."

Not my words - But my thoughts

"I sometimes feel like an alien creature
for which there is no earthly explanation
Sure I have human form
walking erect and opposing digits,
but my mind is upside down.
I feel like a run-on sentence
in a punctuation crazy world.
And I see the world around me
like a mad collective dream.
An endless stream of people
move like ants from the freeway
cell phones, pc's, and digital displays
"In Money We Trust,"
we'll find happiness
the prevailing attitude;
like a genetically modified irradiated Big Mac
is somehow symbolic of food.
Morality is legislated
prisons over-populated
religion is incorporated
the profit-motive has permeated all activity
we pay our government to let us park on the street
And war is the biggest money-maker of all
we all know missile envy only comes from being small.
Politicians and prostitutes
are comfortable together
I wonder if they talk about the strange change in the weather.
This government was founded by, of, and for the people
but everybody feels it
like a giant open sore
they don't represent us anymore
And blaming the President for the country's woes
is like yelling at a puppet
for the way it sings
Who's the man behind the curtain pulling the strings?
A billion people sitting watching their TV
in the room that they call living
but as for me
I see living as loving
and since there is no loving room
I sit on the grass under a tree
dreaming of the way things used to be
Pre-Industrial Revolution
which of course is before the rivers and oceans, and skies were polluted
before Parkinson's, and mad cows
and all the convoluted cacophony of bad ideas
like skyscrapers, and tree paper, and earth rapers
like Monsanto and Dupont had their way
as they continue to today.
This was Pre-us
back when the buffalo roamed
and the Indian's home
was the forest, and God was nature
and heaven was here and now
Can you imagine clean water, food, and air
living in community with animals and people who care?
Do you dare to feel responsible for every dollar you lay down
are you going to make the rich man richer
or are you going to stand your ground
You say you want a revolution
a communal evolution
to be a part of the solution....
maybe I'll be seeing you around."

—Woody Harrelson

Holtz

"A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer, it sings because it has a song."

-- Swami Beyondananda

"There are no sides, only angles ... and when we see things from the proper angle, we see we are all on the same side."

Earth day is every day....

"The circle has healing power. In the circle, we are all equal. When in the circle, no one is in front of you. No one is behind you. No one is above you. No one is below you. The sacred circle is designed to create unity. There is a place for every species, every race, every tree and every plant. It is this completeness of life that must be respected in order to bring about health on this planet."
~Dave Chief, Oglala Lakota

Hopi

“We are the Ones we have been waiting for.”

Bored?

Bored people make rules. Idiots follow them.

Abbey

"Are people no better than sheep or cattle, that they must live always in view of one another in order to feel a sense of safety?"

Dogen-zenji

"Do not think you will necessarily be aware of your own enlightenment."

Freudian Slip

"The whole human race spends too much emotion on itself. The happiest and freest person is the scientist investigating nature or the artist admiring it, the person who is interested in things that are not human."

Eckhart

"The eye through which I see God is the same eye through which God sees me."

Suzuki-roshi

"Our life can be seen as a crossing of a river. The goal of our life's effort is to reach the other shore, Nirvana. 'Prajna paramita,' the true wisdom of life, is that in each step of the way, the other shore is actually reached. To reach the other shore with each step of the crossing is the way of true living."

Merton

"Let me seek, then, the gift of silence, and poverty, and solitude, where everything I touch is turned into prayer: where the sky is my prayer, the birds are my prayer, the wind in the trees is my prayer, for God is all in all."

Swami Beyondananda

"If you think nuclear power is fool proof, that is proof enough you are a fool."

charla hermann

"BE ALERT, pay attention to what is going on in the world, ABOVE, BELOW AND WITHIN. Watch the Stars and see what is happening in the skies and within the wind. Watch the core of the earth and the shadows of your fears and be mindful to seek balance. Look within your heart and soul and decide what is really important right now. Hold the love, make good memories and cherish that best of the past. Be willing to carry it forward. KNOW THE ALTAR OF THE EAGLE TO RISE ABOVE THE SITUATION AND LOOK DOWN INTO THE WORLD FOR THE RIGHT SOLUTION.

BE COURAGEOUS, and be willing to step outside the box. Be willing to gather what is important and move on, if need be. Know that you may loose loved ones or financial security. You might be forced to let go of all kinds of things. (As someone in Japan today what is the most important thing they take from their homes. They won’t be able to go back and get things covered with radiation. What they take is what they get to start over again.) Imagine how hard it is for a junkie to get a fix in a city that is shut down. Best to deal with addictions before we get to that place. I know I can’t carry enough chocolate to get from one home to the other right now. (HAVE HUMOR, WE WILL NEED IT!) KNOW THE ALTAR OF THE BUFFALO AND BE STRONG AND ABLE TO MAKE HOME WHERE EVER YOU GO.

BE ABLE TO ENDURE, the possibility of going without food for a few days, or rations of food that isn’t on our special food group. Be willing to go without our suitcase full of medications or supplements. Be willing to endure sleeping in a place without that special mattress, or lots of space to hold all of the stuff you no loner need. Wear comfortable shoes, have good backpacks and dry foods. Carry toilet paper. Be willing to endure. KNOW THE ALTARS OF FUNERAL, GRIEVING AND TRANSFORMATION. KNOW THE POWER OF THE SACRED FIRES. KNOW HOW TO DANCE WITH COYOTES AND RISE LIKE A PHOENIX INTO THE WINDS OF CHANGE.

SHOW WISDOM, There is no room for EGO in this dance. We must all stay connected to soul. We must all come to know how to trust instincts beyond fear. We need to trust that we have the tools and the skills to go with the flow. One must have a very clear mind to tap into the serious wisdom of these times. Don’t try to work it through a fog. Be clear, be mindful, show compassion and be flex-abled. There is wisdom in all experience of the past. Know which thing to RE-member when it is most needed. Chances are it is more important to know how to build a fire and gather food, than to hang on to that lost prom date from High school. Just guessing!

KNOW THE ALTARS OF HEALING AND TRANSFORMATION. KNOW HOW TO RETRIEVE THE SOUL AND RENEW WITH NEW SEEDS OF HOPE."

Another Henry....

“Live your beliefs and you can turn the world around.”

J Dean

“Dream as if you'll live forever, live as if you'll die today.”

Aurelius

"Your mind will take on the character of your most frequent thoughts: souls are dyed by thoughts."

Destiny

“Watch your thoughts, for they become words.
Watch your words, for they become actions.
Watch your actions, for they become habits.
Watch your habits, for they become character.
Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.”

Ralph

"Be not the slave of your own past. Plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep and swim far, so you shall come back with self-respect, with new power, with an advanced experience that shall explain and overlook the old."

H D T

"I wished to dive into some deep stream
of thoughtful and devoted life, which
meandered through retired and fertile
meadows far from town. I wished...to
lurk in crystalline thought like the
trout under verdurous banks, where stray
mankind should only see my bubble come
to the surface. I wished to live, ah! As
far away as I can think."

Scully

"Your heart is a place in which only truth can reside. Whenever you speak to another being, a simultaneous conversation takes place in the heart dimension. It is a conversation of truth, and this, from the perspective of your soul, is what truly matters."

Rogue River Journal

"Work that can't be exported and few Euro-Americans are willing to do - picking crops, cleaning our homes and offices, bussing and washing dishes in restaurants, tending our gardens, even raising our children - is performed by poor immigrants, many of them here illegally. We depend on these workers even as we decry their presence, while scarcely slapping the wrists of the many employers who illegally hire and often exploit them. More than a fourth of the food on American tables is raised in the Great Central Valley of California, and almost all of it is cultivated and picked by Mexican-Americans, Mexicans, other Latinos, and Filipinos. We get the fruits and vegetables; they get the meager wages and stooped backs, they breathe and absorb the pesticides of which we consume only traces, and they get the cancer." John Daniel

Ernest Holmes

"The furtherance of evolution depends upon our ability to sense a unity with Nature and her forces. When the knowlege of this unity comes alike to all, the tread of armies will cease and the bugle call will echo the soft notes of brotherly love."

Change

"Just when the caterpillar thought the world was over.........
it became a butterfly."

My Henry

"I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion."

Great Mother

Oh, Great Mother 

Nourish Me 

In Your Embrace 

Lead Me To Your Waters 

So That I May Drink The Eternal Love 

Your Blessings Are from A Well 

That Has No End 

The Depths Of Your Love 

Cannot Be Reached 

We Are All Broken 

And Imperfect Beings 

We All Need People 

To Help Us Fill Our Empty Spaces 

The Most Beautiful Gift 

Is To Not Only Have Your Darkness Filled 

With Light But, 

To Extend The Brilliance 

Of Our Magnificent Flame 

And To Help Others 

See The Sun.

Oscar

"To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance."

FW Faber

“There are souls in this world which have the gift of finding joy everywhere and of leaving it behind them when they go.”

John

"A thing of beauty is a joy for ever:
Its loveliness increases; it will never
Pass into nothingness; but still will keep
A bower quiet for us, and a sleep
Full of sweet dreams, and health, and quiet breathing."

Henry David

"Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake."

MLK

"Life's most persistent and urgent question is: What are you doing for others?"

Voltaire

"Every person is guilty of the good they did not do"

Acupuncture Is Like Noodles

"Wages without profits are fine with us, in part because we feel genuinely queasy about the idea of making a profit while practicing health care. We know that people may find us quaint for saying so, but we believe that there is a moral problem with making money off of human suffering. We need to be compensated for taking care of people, certainly, because it takes up our time and energy and prevents us from earning a living any other way -- but being compensated with a paycheck is different than setting up our business so that sick people pay more than they absolutely have to for care in order for us to accumulate money without working for it. Some acupuncturists whom we otherwise respect keep promoting the idea that everyone should charge their patients lots of money so that acupuncturists can become rich and give money away to charities who will then do good works; we find this a very weird and convoluted kind of altruism. If you want to do good, why not just do it yourself? With people you know? Right now, instead of waiting to accumulate enough money to give away to someone else to do it?"

pema

"To be fully alive, fully human, and completely awake is to be continually thrown out of the nest. To live fully is to be always in no-man's land, to experience each moment as completely new and fresh. To live is to be willing to die over and over again. From the awakened point of view, that's life. Death is wanting to hold onto what you have and to have every experience confirm you and congratulate you and make you feel completely together. So even though we say the Yama Mara is fear of death, it's actually fear of life."

Ancestors

It doesn't matter what you do.... As long as you do it with Love.