Monday Meditative Picture Blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

More about personal equanimity

Quite a number of the people I have worked with individually over the years have experienced suffering because they don't live up to what I call the "idealized self image". They have the mistaken belief that if they judge themselves harshly that somehow they will do better. Well, not long ago I came across a wonderful quotation that speaks to that:

Be patient with everyone, but above all with yourself. I mean do not be disheartened by your imperfections, but always rise up with fresh courage. How are we to be patient in dealing with our neighbor's faults if we are impatient in dealing with our own? He who is fretted by his own failings will not correct them. All profitable correction comes from a calm and peaceful mind.

-- St. Francis de Sales

Well, he's talking about equanimity, isn't he? I like the point that we will not really correct our faults if we fret about them. That's been my experience - with both myself and in observing others. Deep acceptance is paradoxically what helps us change.

~~~

Making friends with ourselves

I see so very much suffering when there is an unshakable attachment to "getting it right":

"As long as our orientation is toward perfection or success, we will never learn about unconditional friendship with ourselves, nor will we find compassion. "

— Pema Chödrön

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

~~~

Something about empathy

Empathy is the capacity to feel what another is feeling, to be in genuine solidarity with another, to lose the sense of separateness between yourself and another. Now it's relatively easy to have empathy for someone who is grieving or who has been hurt by another, but what about having empathy for someone who does wrong - who is cruel or unkind? Here's an excerpt from The Power of Empathy: A Practical Guide to Creating Intimacy, Self-Understanding, and Lasting Love by Arthur P. Ciaramicoli and Katherine Ketcham:

Empathy leads us to tolerance, for only with empathy can we build bridges to others who seem so unlike us. Only with empathy can we reach out to people we initially want to push away because we imagine that in their brutality or their simplicity or their stupidity they are not like us. Empathy reminds us that the evil in others is a potential that we also carry within our own hearts. The capacity to hate, to exact revenge, to refuse forgiveness, even to take a life is in you as it is in me as it is in all human beings. That humbling realization and acceptance of our own shadow inevitably and unfailingly leads us to tolerance.

It is so easy to judge another. If I realize that I, too - under the right circumstances - am capable of that for which I judge another, I will have not only tolerance but true compassion.

~~~

The moving landscape

This is from 1,001 Meditations by Mike George:

Sit quietly and reflect on your life right now. It is changing. The future is unknown; some of your hopes will not be realized - but neither will some of your fears. Also, you are getting older. You are on a journey, moving in a landscape that itself is in constant flux. All these changes constitute "home". Take a few minutes to appreciate where you are now in your life... and feel grateful for it.

This is a meditation about impermanence. Often we perceive impermanence to be something we don't like. But think about it. Without impermanence we could not grow or develop. We would not be able to change in the ways we want to change. So let's cultivate an appreciation for the fact that things continually change.

~~~

Sunday art blogging

Artist: Waldemar Flaig

Image from Wikimedia Commons

~~~

Saturday prayer blogging

This is a re-posting from some time in 2007:

May we be united in heart.
May we be united in speech.
May we be united in mind.
May we perform our duties
As did the wise of old.

May we be united in our prayer.
May we be united in our goal.
May we be united in our resolve.
May we be united in our understanding.
May we be united in our offering.
May we be united in our feelings.
May we be united in our hearts.
May we be united in our thoughts.
May there be perfect unity amongst us.

From the Rig Veda

Wednesday life form blogging

Photo by Cynthia Burgess

A big fear about meditation

Many people resist meditation because they're afraid of what might "come up". Well, stuff is supposed to come up:

Spiritual progress is like detoxification. Things have to come up in order to be released. Once we have asked to be healed, then our unhealed places are forced to the surface.

--Marianne Williamson

Why would you prefer to have toxic stuff inside you that you don't even know about? Only if we know what's there can we do anything about it. Otherwise, it will rule our lives and we won't even understand why.

~~~

Monday Meditative Picture Blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Interconnectivity

This is from a very brief article on meditation:

In the movie “Powder,” there is a beautiful scene at the county fair, where Powder and Maxine are having a conversation. Powder says: “We are part of everyone and everything.” Maxine: “Are you telling me that I am part of this tree, a part of the vast ocean, a part of a man in jail thousands of miles away?” Powder: “Yes, you don't believe me?” Maxine: “It's hard to believe.”

Can we believe that we're all connected, that we are one with each other? Would that change the world? What if we no longer judged a person whether that person was a heterosexual or homosexual, not judge a person because of his/her religious background, or the color of their skin? Would that change the world and would that change us?

You can find the whole piece right here.
~~~

Recommended:

Wednesday life form blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

The fabric of the universe

I've experienced much benefit from the writings of Elizabeth O'Connor for many years now. Here's something she said that is particularly focused in expressing what reality is all about:

An inner truth always has a corresponding outer reality. Our interdependence is woven through the fabric of the universe. The painful, fearful, wonderful message of the modern world is that we are members one of the other, and that we cannot live if we are not in communion with each other. The world, even for the hard of learning, is turning out to be one great household - every woman, my sister, every man, my brother.

Monday Meditative Picture Blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

The simplicity of skillful practice

Here's a very short talk that I can really recommend:

Gil Fronsdal: Practice Notes: Keep It Simple

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Visualize blowing bubbles

There's some good stuff here:

Some people imagine a calm scene to help them wind down at the end of the day. There are no rules about what you should imagine, so long as it's calming. Although clouds, the ocean, and mountains are common choices, you can focus on something as general or as specific as you want.

"I had a patient who liked to picture his office—brushing everything off his desk and going to sleep," Walsleben says. "Other people enjoy visualizing that they're blowing bubbles. They put the stick in the jar and watch every bubble go over a field until the jar is empty."

I found it right here.
~~~

Wednesday life form blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Something that's just lovely

Right here:

The best things in life are nearest: Breath in your nostrils, light in your eyes, flowers at your feet, duties at your hand, the path of right just before you. Then do not grasp at the stars, but do life's plain, common work as it comes, certain that daily duties and daily bread are the sweetest things in life.

-- Robert Louis Stevenson

~~~

Adversity

In this evening's ongoing meditation class, we talked about a skillful approach to dealing with hardship. Later, I found the following. I really do like it!

Some luck lies in not getting what you thought you wanted but getting what you have, which once you have got it you may be smart enough to see is what you would have wanted had you known.

-- Garrison Keillor

Mind you, this doesn't speak to every kind of adversity but it does speak to some. And it really helps with perspective.
~~~

Yes, this is possible:

Some time ago I signed up for a thirty day subscription to Kristin Noelle's trust tending sketches. The above is one of them that I particularly liked. Now I'm not thinking this means that we are supposed to cultivate some sort of split within ourselves at all. Rather, I think it is reminding us that, even when we're freaking out, there is a place of calm within us that we can access and thus alleviate our suffering.

~~~

If I stay "in the moment", can I still make plans?

Here is some more wisdom from friend-of-the-Center, Larry H. It's originally intended to be self-coaching encouragement for people who are in recovery but it's completely consistent with meditative principles and can definitely help us all:

Plan, but don't plan the outcome.

It is all right to make plans, but it is not okay to insist on a particular outcome. Sometimes I may do things expecting particular results, but in focusing on the goal instead of the things I should do to reach that goal I may create a set up for disappointment. I can take action, but I cannot rigidly determine the results. When my mind is not set upon the end state, I can be sanguine about failures by saying I did my best (returning the focus to my behavior). With emphasis on what I'm doing instead of emphasis on where I'm going, I will be able to handle the times when things didn't work out.

~~~

Illusions

Oh, my. This is so, so good:

Illusions commend themselves to us because they save us pain and allow us to enjoy pleasure instead. We must therefore accept it without complaint when they sometimes collide with a bit of reality against which they are dashed to pieces.

~ Sigmund Freud

Smooth versus rough

Well, the Nazarene Church down on the corner has come up with another good one for their marquee:

If the mountain were smooth, you couldn't climb it.

How about that? It's true, isn't it?

~~~

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Careful about those"goals"!

Today I found myself picking up a book again that I've valued very highly over the years. It's called Breath by Breath by Larry Rosenberg.

Here's a brief passage that reminds us not to get attached with the results from meditative practice that we imagine ought to happen:

Most of the time that people get discouraged with practice, they do it to themselves. They've heard time and time again that the practice is being nobody and going nowhere, then they sit down and try to be somebody getting somewhere. Thoughts arise around that wish and they suffer.

Isn't that an intriguing paradox?

I think this is why the Zen folks say we need to have perpetual "beginner's mind".
~~~

Our choice, I'd say:

How impatience emerges

This principle can be difficult to take on board, I know. Nevertheless, it's an important one to ponder as understanding how impatience really arises can truly contribute to our ongoing happiness:

Other people can’t cause us to be impatient unless we let them do so. In other words, others don’t make us impatient. We make ourselves impatient, through our expectations and demands, fixated attachments and stuckness.

-- Lama Surya Das

Embracing the present moment

I think sometimes we get into this "waiting to start living" mode almost unconsciously. And so it's valuable to cultivate the sort of mindfulness that helps us recognize whether or not we're allowing ourselves to "lose the present."

Are you waiting to start living? If you develop such a mind pattern, no matter what you achieve or get, the present will never be good enough; the future will always seem better. A perfect recipe for permanent dissatisfaction and non-fulfillment, don't you agree?
...
Waiting is a state of mind. Basically, it means that you want the future; you don't want the present. You don't want what you've got, and you want what you haven't got. With every kind of waiting, you unconsciously create inner conflict between your here and now, where you don't want to be, and the projected future, where you want to be. This greatly reduces the quality of your life by making you lose the present.

-- Eckhart Tolle

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

All too true

This is dedicated to the Saturday morning meditation class!

I found it right here.

~~~

Experience and expectation

Oh, my goodness! Do read this and give it some careful thought. It's an amazingly powerful observation:

When we look back at our experience, we can see so clearly its ephemeral, dreamlike nature. Yet when we look ahead, when we look to the future, somehow (and this is the great enchantment) we get dazzled by all the possibilities that are there waiting for us as if the next event in our lives, the next sitaution, the next project, the next reationship, the next meal, even on meditation the next breath ... we live our lives in anticipation of the next hit of experience as if the one that's coming will finally do it for us. What's so strange is that nothing up 'til now has brought that sense of real completion or fulfillment. So why are we so seduced into thinking that the next one will? This is a very strange phenomenon.

-- Joseph Goldstein

Monday Meditative Picture Blogging

Portrait of a monk, Japan, 16th Century

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Facing our pain

I just learned today that Charlotte Joko Beck died last month at the venerable age of ninety-four. She was one of the meditation teachers I admired the most. Here's something she said that actually says a lot:

We have to face the pain we have been running from. In fact, we need to learn to rest in it and let its searing power transform us.

A few simple words, really. With a meaning that bears careful and deep pondering.
~~~

Our attitudes toward ourselves

I suppose in all my years of pastoral counseling, meditation therapy and spiritual direction, I am most grieved by the tendency of people to reproach themselves - even condemn themselves - when they make mistakes:

If we fall, we don’t need self-recrimination or blame or anger – we need a reawakening of our intention and a willingness to recommit, to be whole-hearted once again.

-- Sharon Salzberg

She's right, you know.
~~~

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Peace - the real thing

The craving for control gives rise to more suffering than anything else I've ever observed:

Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control. We can love and care for others but we cannot possess our children, lovers, family, or friends. We can assist them, pray for them, and wish them well, yet in the end their happiness and suffering depend on their thoughts and actions, not on our wishes.

-- Jack Kornfield

Wednesday life form blogging

An important observation for us all

Ah. So very, very true:

The little things? The little moments? They aren’t little.

-- Jon Kabat-Zinn

Yes, yes, and yes, again:

Monday Meditative Picture Blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Inside - Outside

Here's something Alan Watts said that I had not come across before today:

Really, the fundamental, ultimate mystery -- the only thing you need to know to understand the deepest metaphysical secrets -- is this: that for every outside there is an inside and for every inside there is an outside, and although they are different, they go together.

Now that's going to take some pondering. But it's very appealing, isn't it?

~~~

A reminder

We all need to take a break sometimes:

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

That which we resist persists

It's a well documented meditative principle. If we, for example, try to stop thoughts from arising, they become much more distracting than they were before. It's never helpful to get into an adversarial relationship with ourselves.

Here's a little extremely ironic "quick fact" that illustrates this principle very effectively:

~~~

Mmmm. Nice. Soothing. Calming.

Wednesday life form blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Courage and respect

Oh, isn't this both very wonderful and very true? It's by Pema Chödrön:

"The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently."

We often think we're protecting ourselves by refusing to look within. Actually, just the opposite is the case.
~~~

Online stress relief

Here's an online activity you can try for stress relief and/or focusing purposes:

Online abstract image maker

Just click on the link and you'll see what I mean.
~~~

Monday Meditative Picture Blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

More about discernment

I know so many people who manage to make themselves miserable by trying to do too much:

Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.

-- Lin Yutang

I think I'd agree:

You can get a sign like this right here.

~~~

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Something about finding ourselves

Here's something else from the marquee belonging to the Nazarene Church down on the corner from my house:

You will never find yourself until you face the truth.

That may seem fairly obvious but I think people overlook it a lot. The meditative process, of course, is about facing the truth about how our minds work - how they really work (not how we think they ought to work.)

~~~

Wednesday life form blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Well, yeah....

Said by a very wise lady:

How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

-- Annie Dillard

Please pray and/or send good thoughts

Below is the picture of a wonderful cat named Cookie who is eighteen years old and now in her final illness and very close to death. Cookie's human, a young woman named Casey, is understandably distraught as Casey was only seven years old when Cookie became her cat.

Please do whatever you do: send thoughts, offer prayers, practice compassion meditation for them both.

A sincere "thank you" to all from me.

UPDATE: (Monday, July 11) This wonderful kitty went to her reward a few days ago surrounded by her human family. Never was there a cat more loved or laid to rest with more honor. Thanks to everyone for their concern and compassionate thoughts.

~~~

Independence Day

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Ultimately, freedom is an inside job. Nevertheless, if we, as human beings, are going to create conditions conducive to the experience of freedom, this principle is vital:

Freedom to differ is not limited to things that do not matter much. That would be a mere shadow of freedom. The test of freedom's substance is the right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order. If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith within.

-- Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson

~~~

The benefits of TRUE leisure time

This is from Simplify Your Life: A Little Treasury by Elaine St. James:

I was recently in a meeting with a dozen high-powered professional people. We started talking about our goals for our leisure time, and how seldom we allow ourselves to truly enjoy our own quiet moments. We each decided to make a list of the things we really liked to do.

The lists included things like watching a sunset. Taking a walk. Chatting with a friend. Browsing in a bookstore. Reading a good book. Puttering in the garden. Taking a nap. Spending quiet time with our spouse. Spending quiet time with our kids. Listening to a favorite piece of music. Watching a favorite movie. Sitting quietly in a comfy chair and doing nothing.

I recommend making your own list. I have one!

~~~

Friday cat blogging!

The most recent addition to my household: Murray

A little relaxation help

I've blogged this one before, actually, but it's been quite a long time.

Enjoy. Very soothing:

Our responsibility

One of my private clients told me not long ago that during Oprah Winfrey's long run of her television program, she had the following sign on her dressing table where she could see it before going on the air:

You are responsible for the energy you bring to those around you.

I really like that. Notice what it does not say. It does not say that we are responsible for how other people feel. We can't take that on, really, (although others may try to manipulate us into believing we can or should). We do, however, have some real choice about what we contribute to the atmosphere around us.
~~~

Wednesday life form blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

True freedom

I find myself surprised by how many people think that meditative practice is either a waste of time or a form of escapism or both. Here's the real deal:

“Mindfulness is not an evasion or an escape. It means being here, present, and totally alive. It is true freedom—and without this freedom, there is no happiness.”

-- Thich Nhat Hanh

Monday Meditative Picture Blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Meditation and special challenges

This is a hopeful and inspiring article, I think:

Special-needs students use meditation to control behavior

Here's how it gets started:

Brandon Heinz, an eighth grader in the Bristol Township School District, told occupational therapist Charles E. Gallagher that he had been asked to sit still "millions of times."

The problem is that it's not always easy.

For Brandon, 14, and his classmates - students with autism, attention-deficit disorders, or other special needs - controlling signs of anxiety is often a struggle.

So Gallagher made a suggestion: Breathe.

"In through your nose, and out through your mouth," he instructed. Then, he said, let out a big sigh.

Gallagher went on to teach the students meditation techniques to help them cope when frustration threatens to overwhelm.

Do click on through to read the rest. It's a short piece.

And you know something? We don't have to be diagnosed with "special needs" to benefit from these principles and techniques!

~~~

Sunday art blogging

Artist: E. Phillips Fox

Image from Wikimedia Commons

The heart of effective living

All the great teachers from all the wisdom traditions teach this, really:

Present-moment living, getting in touch with your now, is at the heart of effective living. When you think about it, there really is no other moment you can live. Now is all there is, and the future is just another present moment to live when it arrives.

-- Wayne Dyer

No, this doesn't mean not to plan. We need to live in the moment - not necessarily for the moment. (There's a difference.) We can, however, be thoroughly in the moment while we're making sensible plans for the future - letting the planning be an act of responsibility and not an obsession.
~~~

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Inner peace

Well, this is certainly succinct:

Inner peace is letting go of impatience.

-- Sogyal Rinpoche

You know, I come across people who actually seem to boast of impatience or, at the very least, vigorously justify it. Now that I think about it, they weren't very peaceful sorts at all....
~~~

Recongizing beauty

Here's something a Center participant sent to me. Very true, I would say:

There's so much beauty around you--and not just where one conventionally would look for beauty. In a flower, of course it's there supremely, but even in places you would not be looking for it.

-- Eckhart Tolle

Wednesday life form blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Real equanimity, real peace

It's amazing, really, how ferociously people will often defend the "right" to have enemies, to believe that is is somehow right to see others as enemies. Here's another way:

If there is love, there is hope to have real families, real brotherhood, real equanimity, real peace. If the love within your mind is lost, if you continue to see other beings as enemies, then no matter how much knowledge or education you have, no matter how much material progress is made, only suffering and confusion will ensue.

-- The Dalai Lama

Monday Meditative Picture Blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Sad and often true

This:

People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.

-- Thich Nhat Hanh

Sunday art blogging

"Psyche"

Artist: Arthur Bowen Davies

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Valuing the darkness

Oh, I really, really like this:

“Enlightenment is not imagining figures of light but making the darkness conscious.”

- Carl Jung

Odd that I had not come across it before but I haven't. It's so wonderful that I would have thought it would be picked up more often in a variety of books and websites on the spiritual life.

Well, I've found it now and it will continue, I'm sure, to be a powerful springboard for reflection.
~~~

Acceptance

This beautifully expresses timeless meditative principles:

When we see ourselves in a situation which must be endured and gone through, it is best to meet it with firmness, and accommodate everything to it in the best way practicable. This lessens the evil, while fretting and fuming only increase your own torments.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

A willingness to be still

I would say that there is a difference between a receptive sort of stillness and the "couch potato" kind:

Wisdom comes with the ability to be still. Just look and just listen. No more is needed. Being still, looking, and listening activates the non-conceptual intelligence within you. Let stillness direct your words and actions.

-- Eckhart Tolle

Wednesday life form blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Over-concern with "getting it right"

The following is from an article about meditation entitled "Meditation Is Not What You Think" by Ed and Deb Shapiro.

Meditation invites us to stop, just stop, breathe and be. Just as with a musician playing or an artist painting, when we stop trying to make it happen something occurs, like the radiant sun that suddenly emerges in a cloudy sky. But because we try so hard, we identify more with the technique instead of allowing the meditation to reveal itself.

Many people get frustrated with meditation because they're striving for some sort of idealized technique that will produce a certain feeling. I like the encourage simply to stop, to breathe and to be.
~~~

Monday Meditative Picture Blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Steps

Truly, I tell you, this is the only way to begin and then to maintain a meditative practice:

What saves a person is to take a step. Then another step.

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

By the way, if you've never read The Little Prince, I highly recommend it. Even though it looks like a book for children, it really is for grown-ups.
~~~

Sunday art blogging

Artist: Władysław Skoczylas

Image from Wikimedia Commons

Something about perception

Good old Heisenberg:

What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning.

— Werner Heisenberg

Yup. As I often find myself saying in the Foundations class, "Notice the non-objectivity of perception."
~~~

The effect we have on others

Quite some time ago, someone I respect very much mentioned how important it is that people take at least some responsibility for how they come across. I've never forgotten it. Below is a passage from the Daily Om website that talks about just that:

Most people rarely give thought to the effect they have had or will have on others. When we take a few moments to contemplate how our individual modes of being affect the people we spend time with each day, we come one step closer to seeing ourselves through the eyes of others. By asking ourselves whether those we encounter walk away feeling appreciated, respected, and liked, we can heighten our awareness of the effect we ultimately have. Something as simple as a smile given freely can temporarily brighten a person’s entire world... And small gestures of kindness can even prove to those embittered by the world that goodness still exists.

The complete article is right here.
~~~

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

Authentic silence

Here is one of the sayings of the Desert Fathers and Mothers from early Christian monasticism. What I really like about this one is that it reveals the futility of trying to make interior progress by slavishly following rules or by interpreting instructions too literally. The intention of the heart matters much more than overt ways of evaluating how we are advancing:

A person may seem to be silent, but if his heart is condemning others, he is babbling ceaselessly. But there may be another who talks from morning till night and yet he is truly silent, that is, he says nothing that is not profitable.

-- Abba Pimen

Wednesday life form blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

The truly valuable gift

This story has been around for a while in various versions. Stories on this overall theme go all the way back to the Desert Fathers and Mothers of early Christian monasticism and no doubt exist in other wisdom traditions as well.

Here's the version I found today and it really spoke to me:

A wise woman who was traveling in the mountains found a precious stone in a stream. The next day she met another traveler who was hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him. She did so without hesitation. The traveler left, rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime. But a few days later he came back to return the stone to the wise woman."I've been thinking," he said, "I know how valuable the stone is, but I give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious. Give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me the stone.

-- Author Unknown

Urgent and vital

Well! I certainly agree with this:

Sometimes the most urgent and vital thing you can possibly do is take a complete rest.

- Ashleigh Brilliant

Meditation, of course, is the most effective way of resting the mind. My own teacher used to say that frequently: "Rest the mind; rest the mind." If we are straining in any way when we meditated, we truly aren't doing it correctly.
~~~

Monday Meditative Picture Blogging

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

More about the "now"

This is well spoken:

Truth has no special time of its own. Its hour is now - always.

~ Albert Schweitzer

Schweitzer has long been one of my personal heroes. If you don't know much about him, I really recommend that you read up on this life and work.
~~~

Friday cat blogging!

Photo from Wikimedia Commons

A worthwhile aspiration

Definitely:

My main hope for myself is to be where I am.

-- Woody Harrelson

Blogging interruption

I'll be back soon, folks. I just have a lot going on right now and am a bit tired out. I'll be back Friday at the latest.

Blessings to all!

~~~

Wednesday life form blogging

Gorgeous chameleon

I'm sorry to say that I lost track of where I found this photo.

~~~