Maya - from the web

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I'll rise.*
Maya Angelou has passed and I'm left with a feeling of deep sadness but also with gratitude. Reading I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings as a young person had a profound impact on me, as she wrote about things I'd never experienced and yet I was the same age as those in the book. Like all of her work, it challenged me, expanded my mind and was relatable and yet unknowable.
To see her speak was to see a woman with such presence, such depth - the embodiment of dignity and inner strength. She commanded attention - when she spoke you simply couldn't look away.
Her legacy is strong and shall provide inspiration for years to come, as she was both a woman of her time and also timeless.
She has spoken and written so many important words, but here are 10 of my favorite short quotes:
1. The only thing is, people have to develop courage. It is most important of all the virtues. Because without courage, you can't practice any other virtues consistently.
2. I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
3. Words mean more than what is set down on paper. It takes the human voice to infuse them with deeper meaning.
4. Those of us who submitted or surrendered our ideas and dreams and identities to the 'leaders' must take back our rights, our identities, our responsibilities.
5. If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain.
6. All of us knows, not what is expedient, not what is going to make us popular, not what the policy is, or the company policy - but in truth each of us knows what is the right thing to do. And that's how I am guided.
7. I'm convinced of this: Good done anywhere is good done everywhere. For a change, start by speaking to people rather than walking by them like they're stones that don't matter. As long as you're breathing, it's never too late to do some good.
8. All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened.
9. If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be
10. Whatever you want to do, if you want to be great at it, you have to love it and be able to make sacrifices for it.
As usual, I've found that 10 was not enough. Here are 6 more:
11. The truth is, no one of us can be free until everybody is free.
12. One isn't necessarily born with courage, but one is born with potential. Without courage, we cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. We can't be kind, true, merciful, generous, or honest.
13. I long, as does every human being, to be at home wherever I find myself.
14. I am grateful to be a woman. I must have done something great in another life.
15. At 50, I began to know who I was. It was like waking up to myself.
16. How important it is for us to recognize and celebrate our heroes and she-roes!
Maya Angeou embraced life and gave a lesson in how to do that well:

What is a fear of living? It's being preeminently afraid of dying. It is not doing what you came here to do, out of timidity and spinelessness. The antidote is to take full responsibility for yourself - for the time you take up and the space you occupy. If you don't know what you're here to do, then just do some good.

When Nelson Mandela passed, Maya Angelou tweeted: "We thank him for coming, we thank him for teaching, we thank him for loving us." Now we can say the same thing about Maya Angelou herself.

Joshua's Yoke

Take care of your thoughts because they become WORDS.
Take care of your words because they will become ACTIONS.
Take care of your actions because they will become HABITS.
Take care of your habits because they will form your CHARACTER.
Take care of your character because it will form our DESTINY -
AND your destiny WILL BE YOUR LIFE. - Dalai Lama

"Above everything else, guard your heart.
It is where your life comes from." Proverbs 4:23

Gratitude

Words cannot describe how grateful I am for your presence in this world.  I hope you realize how important your light is, don't let anyone, including me, tell you differently.  Be true to your unique, amazing, emotional and beautiful self.  Always be true. 


Dear Daughters,
My beautiful girls, right now you are eleven and seven—the stories of your life just beginning, the first few chapters already filled with people who love you, places we’ve explored and experiences that, unbeknownst to you, have already begun to shape your thinking and strengthen your character.
I am beyond blessed to be the mother of you two, each of you so special in your own unique way.


I hope you have examples of women who have modeled what it means to be a beautiful girl. A beautiful girl is kind, hard-working, caring, curious about life, strong yet vulnerable.  Today, I want to tell you about something else that makes a girl beautiful—something important.


Each of you was born with a light inside of you—the light that makes you who you are. All of your talents, all of your gifts, all of the joy and love and enthusiasm you have to give the world; your smile, your laughter, your ideas, your heart is all embodied in that light. Your light is unique to you. There is no other light in the world that looks exactly the same as yours.


So, please. Please. Don’t change that light. The world needs it. Don’t dim it, don’t wish you had a different light, don’t let yourself believe that your light isn’t good enough, don’t listen to anyone who tells you that you need to change. A beautiful girl shines her light, just as it is. Be you, sweet girls. Be you.

The world is a great big place with ideas and voices and images and opinions. They can inspire you or they can swallow you. Let them inspire you. Take what feels good and ignore what feels bad. Don’t let anyone ever make you feel that a girl’s worth lies in anything but her light. It’s not her body. It’s not how much she accomplishes. It’s not her grades or her job or her friends or how many people like her. The most beautiful girl knows that her worth lies in the most precious thing she has to offer—being herself. Shining her light.


Looking back, I can’t tell you how many times I felt awkward growing up. Sometimes I felt too loud and spirited around girls who were shy and alluring. So I shrank into uncomfortable quiet to be more like them. Lots of times I felt embarrassed for who I was and wished I could change things—things like my body or my clothes, what I was good at, what I wasn’t good at.  I wish I could go back and tell that girl just to be herself—that the happiest and most beautiful girls are the ones who shine their light and don’t apologize or feel ashamed for who they are. I wish she knew that she was perfect just the way she was and that she could affect the world and those around her most greatly if she just believed that she didn’t have to be anything but herself.


I love you both so much. I love you just the way you are. I felt your light the moment each of you was placed in my arms, and I’ve been blessed to see that light continue to shine as you’ve grown. You both are different in beautiful ways, and I cherish the things that make you unique. I just want you to value those things as much as I do. The most solid, comforting, truthful, reliable thing in this world is what’s inside of you. Unlike money, you can’t lose it. Unlike appearance, it doesn’t fade. You were born with it. You will die with it. It’s you. The you I’ve loved since the day I met you.
Please.  Love that you.  Be yourself.  You will do great things just by being you.
Never forget that.
I forever celebrate you, support you and love you.
Love,
Mama

Gratitude

I am grateful for the ability to change and grow.


 
I am done with my graceless heart.  Tonight I'm going to cut it out and then restart.
-Annie Lennox

Gratitude

I am feeling a little irked at N's teacher at the moment so this may come off as negative but it is relevant. 


I am grateful for whoever came up with and made mainstream the phrase (was it Eleanor Roosevelt):
What other's think of you is none of your business.


I am also grateful for Honey Badger.


And, while we are at it, I am grateful for the Wisconsin Badgers in keeping my bracket alive!  Final Four baby!  Well done!!

Intimacy & Insects

From conscious uncoupling blog...

To understand what life is really like living with an external shield, we have to examine the experts: Insects. Beetles, grasshoppers, and all other insects have an exoskeleton. The structure that protects and supports their body is on the outside. Not only are they stuck in a rigid, unchanging form that provides no flexibility, they are also at the mercy of their environment. If they find themselves under the heel of a shoe, it’s all over. That’s not the only downside: Exoskeletons can calcify, leading to buildup and more rigidity.
By contrast, vertebrates like dogs, horses, and humans have an endoskeleton. Our support structure is on the inside of our bodies, giving us exceptional flexibility and mobility to adapt and change under a wide range of circumstances. The price for this gift is vulnerability: Our soft outside is completely exposed to hurt and harm every day.
Life is a spiritual exercise in evolving from an exoskeleton for support and survival to an endoskeleton. Think about it. When we get our emotional support and wellbeing from outside ourselves, everything someone says or does can set us off and ruin our day. Since we can’t control or predict what another person does, our moods are at the mercy of our environment. We can’t adapt to the situation if our intimate partner doesn’t behave the way we think they should. Everything is then perceived as a personal attack and attempt to upset us. Up goes our armor and it’s all-out war.
With an internal support structure, we can stand strong because our stability doesn’t depend on anything outside ourselves. We can be vulnerable and pay attention to what’s happening around us, knowing that whatever comes, we have the flexibility to adapt to the situation. There’s a reason we call cowards spineless: It takes great courage to drop your armor, expose your soft inside, and come to terms with the reality of what’s happening around you. It’s a powerful thing to then realize that you can survive it. When we examine our intimate relationships from this perspective, we realize that they aren’t for finding static, lifelong bliss like we see in the movies. They’re for helping us evolve a psycho-spiritual spine, a divine endoskeleton made from conscious self-awareness so that we can evolve into a better life without recreating the same problems for ourselves again and again. When we learn to find our emotional and spiritual support from inside ourselves, nothing that changes our environment or relationships can unsettle us.
There’s a scientific theory by Russian esotericist, Peter Ouspensky, that the creation of insects was a failed attempt by nature to evolve a higher form of consciousness. There was a time millions of years ago when insects were enormous—a dragonfly’s wings were three feet across. So why didn’t they end up being the dominant species on earth? Because they lacked flexibility, which is what evolution is all about, and couldn’t adapt to changing conditions like humans can. The lives of people who imprison themselves in an exoskeleton of anger usually don’t evolve the way they’d like them to, either. Being trapped inside negative energy like anger and resentment keeps people from moving forward in life because they can only focus on the past. Even worse, over time, these powerful emotions often turn into disease in the body.

Gratitude

I am grateful for how life unfolds sometimes...grateful for supportive people.