Blessing must arise from within your own mind. It is not something that comes from outside. When the positive qualities of your mind increase and the negativities decrease, that is what blessing means. The Tibetan word for blessing … means transforming into magnificent potential. Therefore, blessing refers to the development of virtuous qualities you did not previously have and the improvement of those good qualities you have already developed. ― Dalai Lama XIV
Friday, January 31, 2014
Thursday, January 30, 2014
Great Inspiration by someone who quit drinking 30 years ago
Great inspiration, several vets I work with have a drinking problem, so I will share with them, thanks Bunni!
My love is my state of being. I simply love.
Bunni Vaughan Healy
Thanks Bunni, very poignant right now for me!
"I love, because my love is not dependent on the object of love. My love is dependent on my state of being. So whether the other person changes, becomes different, friend turns into a foe, does not matter, because my love was never dependent on the other person. My love is my state of being. I simply love." Osho
Thanks Bunni, very poignant right now for me!
"I love, because my love is not dependent on the object of love. My love is dependent on my state of being. So whether the other person changes, becomes different, friend turns into a foe, does not matter, because my love was never dependent on the other person. My love is my state of being. I simply love." Osho
True Generosity
That's what I consider true generosity. You give your all, and yet you always feel as if it costs you nothing.
Simone de Beauvoir(gratefulness.org)
Seeing the Divine Presence in All (best way to make friends)
Behold. how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity. --Psalm 133:1
The best way to make friends is to realize that we meet Life in everyone. The God in us meets the God in others. Proclaiming the Divine Presence, believing in It, we shall meet It. Love will find a perfect way. Our faith in the Divine Presence in others will overcome the fear of being misunderstood or hurt. If the mind is calm and serene, there will be less liability toward pain. Therefore, at all times we should be serene and poised.
Confidence and love alone cast out fear. The person without fear is the only truly whole person. It is ours to decide whether we shall live in fear or in faith. Let us decide to live in faith. Let us learn to practice faith until all fear disappears, until life ceases to be a funeral dirge and becomes a song of joy. To find peace in the midst of confusion, we must realize our center in pure Spirit. To reach this place of confidence and faith in the midst of doubt and uncertainty, we should consciously unite our thought with the Divine Mind.
I know that God is within me. I know that the Spirit within me is perfect. I enter into It's peace and secure in It's protection. The unerring judgment of Divine Intelligence directs my way. The Presence of Love uplifts me and light my like today. Ernest Holmes
The best way to make friends is to realize that we meet Life in everyone. The God in us meets the God in others. Proclaiming the Divine Presence, believing in It, we shall meet It. Love will find a perfect way. Our faith in the Divine Presence in others will overcome the fear of being misunderstood or hurt. If the mind is calm and serene, there will be less liability toward pain. Therefore, at all times we should be serene and poised.
Confidence and love alone cast out fear. The person without fear is the only truly whole person. It is ours to decide whether we shall live in fear or in faith. Let us decide to live in faith. Let us learn to practice faith until all fear disappears, until life ceases to be a funeral dirge and becomes a song of joy. To find peace in the midst of confusion, we must realize our center in pure Spirit. To reach this place of confidence and faith in the midst of doubt and uncertainty, we should consciously unite our thought with the Divine Mind.
I know that God is within me. I know that the Spirit within me is perfect. I enter into It's peace and secure in It's protection. The unerring judgment of Divine Intelligence directs my way. The Presence of Love uplifts me and light my like today. Ernest Holmes
Wednesday, January 29, 2014
\Pete Seeger, the Sower of Seeds
Farm Aid was positively blessed to have hosted one of the last public performances by Pete Seeger at our annual concert event on September 21, 2013, in Saratoga Springs, New York.
Planning the concert in his backyard, we knew we wanted to invite Pete to be part of the event, and we were lucky that his friends and neighbors reached out to us to make it happen. It was right for Pete to be there -- he was an inspiration to the artists on our board, to the many artists on the Farm Aid stage, and to the family farmers who fight for the same values which Pete stood tall for his whole life.
When we were making arrangements for Pete's surprise performance at Farm Aid 2013, his daughter Tinya, over the course of several conversations, essentially told me the following: Pete is nearly deaf, his voice is almost gone, he can hardly play his banjo and his memory is spotty. But when Pete took the stage, he transcended all that. To quote Ronnie Gilbert, the soaring female voice of The Weavers, "You got the sense that he was saying and singing way beyond the moment that he was in, the place he was in... Everybody got it. Everybody got his passion for music. People absorbed his passion and his ideals."
Transcendent is the best description of Pete Seeger's performance at Farm Aid. As John Mellencamp introduced him, Pete stood straight and tall offstage with his trusty "machine," that long neck banjo. Those of us backstage -- seasoned artists, longtime music industry execs, farmers and gruff stagehands -- stood hushed and reverential in the presence of a hero. When he took the stage the 25,000 concertgoers at Saratoga Performing Arts Center rose to their feet, many with tears streaming down their face, applauding, cheering and soaking in the tangible energy that Pete brought to the venue.
Taking the mic he said, "Friends ... friends, at age 94 I don't have much voice, but here's a song I think you know, and if YOU sing it, why, we'll make a good sound." He began to pluck out "If I Had a Hammer," singing in a low, gravelly voice. But when the time came to call out the next lyric in that trademark way of Pete's that involves the entire audience, his voice swelled and rang clear as a bell. The entire crowd sang along. Earlier in the evening it had started raining but Pete's grin, pure joy and strength warmed the whole place up.
Then the Farm Aid board artists, Willie Nelson, Neil Young, Dave Matthews and John, joined Pete for "This Land Is Your Land," which has long been the unofficial song of Farm Aid and our mission to keep family farmers on the land. Pete's added lyric, "New York was made to be frack-free," ("A verse you never heard before," he called it), brought down the house. With these five iconic artists together onstage, each singing and playing with their shared values and belief in the power of music, every singer in the house was part of making history.
Photo credit: Paul Natkin/Photo Reserve, Inc.
Pete once said, "There's not dozens of people now doing what I try to do, not hundreds, but literally thousands ... The idea of using music to try to get the world together is now all over the place." One of those places is Farm Aid. We remain humbled to have been in the presence of Pete Seeger, and to continue his work. We will keep doing what we do, chipping away at the power structure, the inequity, the industrial machine that threatens family farmers, our food system and all of us. For as Pete said, "It's all these relatively little things which are going to save the human race."
Pete Seeger created the current in a river where Farm Aid is one drop -- a river of shared beliefs. Beliefs in the importance of recognizing how connected we all are, in the power of standing up for what you believe, and in refusing to compromise your values, no matter the forces upon you. Like many of the people Pete Seeger sang for, family farmers have long been overlooked as the bedrock of our democracy and the essential caregivers of our land and food.
As we work with our hammer, we'll reflect often on a parable Pete shared with us backstage at Farm Aid 2013 about the sower of seeds. It's a powerful metaphor for the work we do with family farmers. The sower freely broadcasts seeds so they fall where they may in the spirit of faith and generosity. Those that land on good soil, he said, will be fertile and grow, while others remain furled in darkness for now. The thing, I think he meant, is not to have exact expectations for change, but to have the faith to sow seeds widely and let them sprout.
Social change is the cumulative result of this constant sowing, handful by handful, lyric by lyric, person by person. Pete Seeger was a fearless fighter for social justice -- for peace, for civil rights, for workers' rights, for the environment. He is an American hero who makes us stronger when we hear his voice and raise our own.
Planning the concert in his backyard, we knew we wanted to invite Pete to be part of the event, and we were lucky that his friends and neighbors reached out to us to make it happen. It was right for Pete to be there -- he was an inspiration to the artists on our board, to the many artists on the Farm Aid stage, and to the family farmers who fight for the same values which Pete stood tall for his whole life.
When we were making arrangements for Pete's surprise performance at Farm Aid 2013, his daughter Tinya, over the course of several conversations, essentially told me the following: Pete is nearly deaf, his voice is almost gone, he can hardly play his banjo and his memory is spotty. But when Pete took the stage, he transcended all that. To quote Ronnie Gilbert, the soaring female voice of The Weavers, "You got the sense that he was saying and singing way beyond the moment that he was in, the place he was in... Everybody got it. Everybody got his passion for music. People absorbed his passion and his ideals."
Transcendent is the best description of Pete Seeger's performance at Farm Aid. As John Mellencamp introduced him, Pete stood straight and tall offstage with his trusty "machine," that long neck banjo. Those of us backstage -- seasoned artists, longtime music industry execs, farmers and gruff stagehands -- stood hushed and reverential in the presence of a hero. When he took the stage the 25,000 concertgoers at Saratoga Performing Arts Center rose to their feet, many with tears streaming down their face, applauding, cheering and soaking in the tangible energy that Pete brought to the venue.
Taking the mic he said, "Friends ... friends, at age 94 I don't have much voice, but here's a song I think you know, and if YOU sing it, why, we'll make a good sound." He began to pluck out "If I Had a Hammer," singing in a low, gravelly voice. But when the time came to call out the next lyric in that trademark way of Pete's that involves the entire audience, his voice swelled and rang clear as a bell. The entire crowd sang along. Earlier in the evening it had started raining but Pete's grin, pure joy and strength warmed the whole place up.
Then the Farm Aid board artists, Willie Nelson, Neil Young, Dave Matthews and John, joined Pete for "This Land Is Your Land," which has long been the unofficial song of Farm Aid and our mission to keep family farmers on the land. Pete's added lyric, "New York was made to be frack-free," ("A verse you never heard before," he called it), brought down the house. With these five iconic artists together onstage, each singing and playing with their shared values and belief in the power of music, every singer in the house was part of making history.
Pete once said, "There's not dozens of people now doing what I try to do, not hundreds, but literally thousands ... The idea of using music to try to get the world together is now all over the place." One of those places is Farm Aid. We remain humbled to have been in the presence of Pete Seeger, and to continue his work. We will keep doing what we do, chipping away at the power structure, the inequity, the industrial machine that threatens family farmers, our food system and all of us. For as Pete said, "It's all these relatively little things which are going to save the human race."
Pete Seeger created the current in a river where Farm Aid is one drop -- a river of shared beliefs. Beliefs in the importance of recognizing how connected we all are, in the power of standing up for what you believe, and in refusing to compromise your values, no matter the forces upon you. Like many of the people Pete Seeger sang for, family farmers have long been overlooked as the bedrock of our democracy and the essential caregivers of our land and food.
As we work with our hammer, we'll reflect often on a parable Pete shared with us backstage at Farm Aid 2013 about the sower of seeds. It's a powerful metaphor for the work we do with family farmers. The sower freely broadcasts seeds so they fall where they may in the spirit of faith and generosity. Those that land on good soil, he said, will be fertile and grow, while others remain furled in darkness for now. The thing, I think he meant, is not to have exact expectations for change, but to have the faith to sow seeds widely and let them sprout.
Social change is the cumulative result of this constant sowing, handful by handful, lyric by lyric, person by person. Pete Seeger was a fearless fighter for social justice -- for peace, for civil rights, for workers' rights, for the environment. He is an American hero who makes us stronger when we hear his voice and raise our own.
Live Deeply
The personal life deeply lived always expands into truths beyond itself.
Anais Nin(gratefulness.org)
A Bent Lundberg photo
Iced Van and Love Rules
Unusual bad sleet and ice storm this AM - most ice on this van in many years!
Tuesday, January 28, 2014
Maya,illusions, reality or Reality
Like: Mary Deans have fun on here instead...it never needs to be that serious. thanks Tom Nadeau and Mary!
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