Can it seriously be a week since I last posted? - what's up with that?!?
POEM: For the Unknown Self by John O'Donohue
OPTIMISTIC VOICES You're out of the woods, you're out of the dark, you're out of the night. Step into the sun, step into the light. Keep straight ahead for the most glorious place on the face of the earth or the sky. Hold onto your breath, hold onto your heart, hold onto your hope. March up to the gate and bid it open...
Can it seriously be a week since I last posted? - what's up with that?!?
Posted by Susan at 12:25 PM 4 comments
Labels: Charles Richards, Fr. Alfred D'Souza, John O'Donohue, Leo Babauta, Star Maker Machine, Streets
It's been pretty whirlwind since I last posted - we presented a lovely concert Satuday night for Valentine's Day, with tables (rather than our rows of chairs), candles, chocolate-covered strawberries, champagne and amazing music. My husband, who has not attended in the four years I've been doing this, came... and stayed... and loved - we went (still on an adrenalin high) with the musicians and a few others friends, to the traditional post-show diner afterwards (Athenian omelet - yum!).
Posted by Susan at 1:00 PM 2 comments
Labels: Cris Williamson, DailyOm, Mary Oliver, Meg Wolitzer, Star Maker Machine, surrender, Toni Morrison
Posted by Susan at 11:59 PM 2 comments
Labels: Bruce Springsteen, Joshua Knelman, love, Pablo Neruda, Rosalind Porter, Rumi, Star Maker Machine
Dedicated to myself (featuring a song written by my dear friend Laurie... who just happens to be playing my concert series this Saturday night... :-)
I've been working very hard on my Word of the Year vow to take care of myself - every day is far from perfect, but I've made progress and I'm becoming the person I want to be. Thanks, heart... lungs... legs... arms... spirit... brain... etc. for hanging in there with me - it will be worth it, I promise...
SONG: The Ocean of My Heart by Jennings and Keller (lyrics unavailable, but you can listen here...)
BOOK: The Answer is Simple...Love Yourself, Live Your Spirit! by Sonia Choquette
POEM: Love after Love by Derek Walcott
The time will come
when, with elation,
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror,
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
QUOTE: "Love is love. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love." ~ Leo Tolstoy
Posted by Susan at 7:40 PM 0 comments
Labels: Derek Walcott, Jennings and Keller, Leo Tolstoy, love
Posted by Susan at 11:50 AM 0 comments
Labels: Greg Trooper, heart, Inbal Kashtan, Kate Knapp, love, Lucy Kaplansky, Mimi Guarneri, Star Maker Machine, Tom Russell
This morning was the funeral and interment of my friend M's mom Phyllis - I of course needed to be there, for myself as well as for the family. My daughter Sarah met up with me, as did our friend R (who introduced me to M about 14 years ago) - my husband and son both had to work, and my other son is away at college 4 hours away, or else they would have been there too...
There are few things more helpless than witnessing another family's grief - we paid our respects before everything started, and then stayed for a lovely service - the highlight for me was when the minister asked if anyone had anything to say... and K (M's daughter) got up to share. She spoke of her grandmother's love of, and aptitude for, crafts... and asked how many people in the room had in their possession anything Phyllis had made - over 90% raised their hands (heartwarming)... and it made me vow that the Santa she gifted to our family many years ago will hold a prominent place of honor for years to come...
Much love to M - may she be surrounded by the love and support of her family and friends during this most difficult time... and beyond...
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On Star Maker Machine this week, the theme is 1989... although, since Saturday is Valentine's Day, there was a last-ditch possibility of changing it to Hearts... which was quickly squashed - I figured I could issue myself the Hearts challenge here instead... and, in a two-for-the-price-of-one anarchic/conciliatory move at SMM, all my 1989 songs will include Love in the title (ha!)...
P.S. SMM...
SONG: Keep Me in Your Heart by Warren Zevon
BOOK: Feathers Brush My Heart: True Stories of Mothers Connecting with Their Daughters After Death by Sinclair Browning
POEM: A Rescue by John Updike
Today I wrote some words that will see print.
Maybe they will last "forever," in that
someone will read them, their ink making
a light scratch on his mind, or hers.
I think back with greater satisfaction
upon a yellow bird--a goldfinch?--
that had flown into the garden shed
and could not get out,
battering its wings on the deceptive light
of the dusty, warped-shut window.
Without much reflection, for once, I stepped
to where its panicked heart
was making commotion, the flared wings drumming,
and with clumsy soft hands
pinned it against a pane,
held loosely cupped
this agitated essence of the air,
and through the open door released it,
like a self-flung ball,
to all that lovely perishing outdoors.
QUOTE: "Oh heart, if one should say to you that the soul perishes like the body, answer that the flower withers, but the seed remains." ~ Kahlil Gibran
Posted by Susan at 10:50 PM 4 comments
Labels: death, John Updike, Kahlil Gibran, life, Sinclair Browning, Star Maker Machine, Warren Zevon
DailyOM
February 5, 2009
As Blessed As You Want to Be
The Power Of Staying Positive
Our thoughts are not simply ethereal pieces of information that enter our minds and then disappear. The words and ideas that we think can shape our lives and drive us toward success and happiness or failure and distress. How you think and feel can have a profound effect on your ability to recognize opportunity, how well you perform, and the outcome of the goals that you’ve set for yourself. When you maintain an optimistic outlook and make an effort to harbor only positive thoughts, you begin to create the circumstances conducive to you achieving what you desire. You feel in control and few of life’s challenges seem truly overwhelming because it is in your nature to expect a positive conclusion. An optimistic mind is also an honest one. Staying positive does not mean that you ignore difficulties or disregard limitations. Instead, it means spending time focusing only on the thoughts that are conducive to your well-being and progress.
Positive thinking dramatically increases your chances of success in any endeavor. When you’re sure that you are worthy and that achievement is within your grasp, you start to relax and look for solutions rather than dwelling on problems. You are more likely to imagine positive situations or outcomes and disregard the thoughts related to giving up, failure, or roadblocks. What the mind expects, it finds. If you anticipate joy, good health, happiness, and accomplishment, then you will experience each one. Thinking positively may sound like a simple shift in attention – and it is – but it is a mind-set that must be developed. Whenever a negative thought enters your mind, try immediately replacing it with a constructive or optimistic one. With persistence, you can condition your mind to judge fleeting, self-defeating thoughts as inconsequential and dismiss them.
It is within your power to become as happy, content, or successful as you make up your mind to be. Staying positive may not have an immediate effect on your situation, but it will likely have a profound and instantaneous effect on your mood and the quality of your experiences. In order for positive thinking to change your life, it must become your predominant mind-set. Once you are committed to embracing positive thinking, you’ll start believing that everything that you want is within your grasp.
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My friend Melanie noticed (and dropped me an e-mail about) the new Day 1 logo on the right sidebar of my blog - my response to her:
"Rather than beating myself up (Day One... again... sigh), I'm going to start being grateful for the opportunity (Day One... again... yay!) to do it differently - I love the mindset of gift as opposed to guilt - switching gears now...
It all came about (long story short) through re-discovering a book, Life is a Verb (which I mentioned on my blog this past week) - I ordered a copy for myself and my mom... and will most definitely be gifting it to all my friends over the course of the next few months. '37 days to wake up, be mindful and live intentionally' - Day 1... again... bring it on... :-) "
Posted by Susan at 2:05 PM 0 comments
Labels: Mike Robbins, now, Richard Carlson, Smashing Pumpkins, Steve Kowit
I'm taking a bit of a break from the weariness of the world (which will still be here tomorrow) to celebrate the joyfulness - three really amazing things have happened/are happening and I had to honor them...
First of all, I finally took the online Jeopardy test - my friend Judi told me about it at book club the other night, and there was one more evening left to try out. For as long as I can remember, I've watched the challenging game show and tested my wits against the three nightly contestants - I always remember to phrase my answer in the form of a question, even in the informality of my family room... and, considering I don't have that pesky eye-hand-coordination buzzer to contend with, I do a respectable job of appearing knowledgable. I'm not claiming to be that smart but I have a font of useless information cluttering up my brain - every once in a while it comes in handy, such that, whoever is in the room usually says with enthusiastic awe, "you really should try out to be on the show!".
So.. as soon as I got home from book club, I registered and read the rules... and logged on the following evening 20 minutes beforehand to test out my Flash player, get settled, etc. Thirty seconds before the test was scheduled to begin (8 PM Pacific, 11 PM Eastern), the familiar Jeopardy theme song began... as did my stomach butterflies - they tell you in advance to pay attention to the category, you do not have to follow the in-the-form-of-a-question format and you have 15 seconds to type in your answer, at which point you can hit Enter or allow the test to capture whatever you've managed to type thus far.
It was fun, in that weird, stressful, time-limited kinda way - some felt like no-brainers (who wrote the Oz books? - jackpot!)... a few others were above my level of comprehension (something about x, y, domain, function?!?). A few I totally blanked on, and most I tried to at least submit *something* - you quickly find out that 15 seconds feels like no time at all to process much less enter trivia, and I tried to allow my intuition to take over (don't second-guess) and not get discouraged if I didn't know something (which could have affected my answers following). They say that they will not disclose your score, one way or the other and that they will notify you if chosen - the next step would be an in-person tryout in the city of your choice (Miami, in my case). Out of 50 questions, I actually think I got more than half right - wish me luck (oh, to be able to meet Alex Trebek is one of my heart's desires!).
Secondly, Boyhowdy at Cover Lay Down has been suffering from inner ear problems for a few months and, in his words, "last week, in a spate of concern about losing a week of posting to my continuing tinnitus, I asked a few of my favorite folkbloggers to donate 'a fave coversong or two, and a short write-up to accompany it'. The plan was to collect coverfolk from bloggers I trust, on the likely chance that I could not blog as my best self for a while, and have it ready to share with you as a celebration of my blogging peers and influences." - I was one of the people he asked to submit a guest blog (!). Big honor (major understatement) - part 1 can be found here...
Thirdly (be still, my heart!), I will be leaving the house shortly for the Dar Williams concert at the Culture Room in Ft. Lauderdale - we've organized quite a contingent of South Florida folks and I've been promoting the show like crazy. It's at a local rock club and we may end up standing all evening - we're troopers and she's worth it (win/win!).
SONG: I Lost on Jeopardy by Weird Al Yankovic (a parody of the song Jeopardy by the Greg Kihn Band)
BOOK: Brainiac: Adventures in the Curious, Competitive, Compulsive World of Trivia Buffs by Ken Jennings
POEM: Follow Your Bliss by Joseph Campbell
The divine manifestation is ubiquitous,
Only our eyes are not open to it.
Awe is what moves us forward.
Live from your own center.
The divine lives within you.
The separateness apparent in the world is secondary.
Beyond the world of opposites is an unseen,
but experienced, unity and identity in us all.
Today the planet is the only proper "in group."
Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world.
We cannot cure the world of sorrows,
but we can choose to live in joy.
You must return with the bliss and integrate it.
The return is seeing the radiance is everywhere.
The world is a match for us.
We are a match for the world.
The spirit is the bouquet of nature.
Sanctify the place you are in.
Follow your bliss. . . .
QUOTE: "Life must be aromatic." ~ Gwendolyn Brooks
Posted by Susan at 3:30 PM 0 comments
Labels: Gwendolyn Brooks, Jeopardy, Joseph Campbell, joy, Ken Jennings, Weird Al Yankovic
My dear friend M has been sitting vigil with her mom today - I know I used this same picture over at Star Maker Machine last week, but it suits here as well. All my candles (purple and otherwise) remain burning for M, Phyllis and their entire family for the strength to accept the next step in their journey - sending love along with the light...
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Posted by Susan at 11:59 PM 4 comments
Labels: death, Jane Kenyon, life, Patti Digh, Star Maker Machine, Tom Dundee, Warren Zevon