THE MANIFESTO OF ENCOURAGEMENT

Just reading this brings a sense of relief... I am struggling with a recent terrible diagnosis on one of our beloved dogs, who seems to have a disease akin to ALS and MS in humans.  The desired care can be daunting.  But I do believe in so many possibilities in this world, the practical, as well as the spiritual and magical...  -jd




THE MANIFESTO OF ENCOURAGEMENTBy Rob Brezsny
Right now:
There are Tibetan Buddhist monks in a temple in the Himalayas endlessly reciting mantras for the cessation of your suffering and for the flourishing of your happiness.
Someone you haven't met yet is already dreaming of adoring you.
Someone is writing a book that you will read in the next two years that will change how you look at life. 
Nuns in the Alps are in endless vigil, praying for the Holy Spirit to alight the hearts of all of God's children.
A farmer is looking at his organic crops and whispering, "nourish them." 
Someone wants to kiss you, to hold you, to make tea for you. Someone is willing to lend you money, wants to know what your favourite food is, and treat you to a movie. Someone in your orbit has something immensely valuable to give you -- for free.
Something is being invented this year that will change how your generation lives, communicates, heals and passes on.
The next great song is being rehearsed.
Thousands of people are in yoga classes right now intentionally sending light out from their heart chakras and wrapping it around the earth. 
Millions of children are assuming that everything is amazing and will always be that way.
Someone is in profound pain, and a few months from now, they'll be thriving like never before. They just can't see it from where they're at.
Someone who is craving to be partnered, to be acknowledged, to ARRIVE, will get precisely what they want -- and even more. And because that gift will be so fantastical in it's reach and sweetness, it will quite magically alter their memory of angsty longing and render it all "So worth the wait."
Someone has recently cracked open their joyous, genuine nature because they did the hard work of hauling years of oppression off of their psyche -- this luminous juju is floating in the ether, and is accessible to you. 
Someone just this second wished for world peace, in earnest.
Someone is fighting the fight so that you don't have to.
Some civil servant is making sure that you get your mail, and your garbage is picked up, that the trains are running on time, and that you are generally safe. Someone is dedicating their days to protecting your civil liberties and clean drinking water.
Someone is regaining their sanity. Someone is coming back from the dead. Someone is genuinely forgiving the seemingly unforgivable. Someone is curing the incurable.
You. Me. Some. One. Now.  
                   
From PRONOIA IS THE ANTIDOTE TO PARANOIA 
{copied from an email sent out by Lea Walters of the AIM program}

Problem-solving, Norman Vincent Peale

"Believe that problems do have answers. 

Believe that they can be overcome. 

Believe that they can be handled. 

And finally, believe that you can solve them."

- Norman Vincent Peale

Different yet the same

Take some time today
to celebrate your uniqueness
while honoring our Oneness.

~Theresa Rose

Let life happen... R.M. Rilke

"Let life happen to you.
Believe me: life is in the right, always."

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Life is Grace...

Listen to your life.
In the boredom and pain of it,
no less than in the excitement and gladness:
touch, taste, smell your way
to the holy and hidden heart of it,
because life itself is grace.

- Frederick Buechner
SBNR.org via Facebook

Be Patient...

"Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart.
And try to love the questions themselves."

- Rainer Maria Rilke

Photo, c. 2009 - Jan Davies

Kindness...

c. 2009 HeartMath

Choices

"Inside the big world that you cannot control, you have the small world of you that you can control. In that small world, if you look, you can see whether to go this way toward good, or the other way toward bad."

Breakfast with Buddha, Roland Merullo. 2007

Don't Wait

Quantum Intech, Inc. Copyright © 2009, HeartMath LLC All rights reserved.

Powerful message to healthcare providers & patients

"Of the patients you see, one-third will not improve no matter what you do, one-third can improve with your help and one-third would improve without you. Your responsibility is to help the middle third improve as much as possible without harming the third that would improve without you."

Quoted from a retiring chairman of a prestigious teaching university hospital, this message was given at grand rounds to the class of incoming cardiology residents. Counseling Today October 2008, p. 50

Though this is a broad generalization, I am caught by the focus on not harming the third of patients who will get better on their own! How does that happen? As a patient, is it the lack of understanding of how the human body is designed to heal itself? Is it the overwhelming Big Pharma media budget convincing us we are sick with a multitude of "syndromes" and need drugs to survive? Are we driven by such fear of illness and death that we are willing to be experimented on? Are healthcare providers so stressed and pressured by bottom-line administrators that they are taking shortcuts to our health, sometimes with tragic results? Or, have we lost contact with our inner voices of healing, to connect with nature, to believe in a power greater than ourselves....?

I could also extrapolate that only one-third of the time will I benefit from healthcare... perhaps the first question a receptionist should ask is, which third are you today? jcd

What do we live for;

if it is not to make life

less difficult for each other?

~ George Eliot

Spiritual practice of shadow

An Excerpt from The Spontaneous Fulfillment of Desire: Harnessing the Infinite Power of Coincidence by Deepak Chopra

Bestselling author Deepak Chopra discusses the miracles that can happen when we come alive to attention, intention, and coincidences. Here is a teaching story on the spiritual practice of shadow.

"A man entered a village and went to see the Sufi master, the wise old man of the village. The visitor said, 'I'm deciding whether I should move here or not. I'm wondering what kind of neighborhood this is. Can you tell me about the people here?' The Sufi master said, 'Tell me what kind of people lived where you came from?' The visitor said, 'Oh, they were highway robbers, cheats, and liars.' The old Sufi master said, 'You know, those are exactly the same kinds of people who live here.' The visitor left the village and never came back. Half an hour later, another man entered the village. He sought out the Sufi master and said, 'I'm thinking of moving here. Can you tell me about what kind of people live here?' Again the Sufi master said, 'Tell me what kind of people lived where you came from.' The visitor said, 'Oh, they were the kindest, gentlest, most compassionate, loving people. I shall miss them terribly.' The Sufi master said, 'Those are exactly the kinds of people who live here, too.' "

A Practice for Dealing with Emotions

"The practice is called the Nonmanifestation of Negative Emotions. I do this practice one full day a week, starting first thing in the morning and continuing until I go to sleep. The practice involves making a conscious effort not to manifest any negative emotions for the entire day, through either external behavior or internal ruminations. This does not mean, however, that anger and other negative emotions will not arise, because they surely will. What it does mean is that as soon as we become aware of them, we make the conscious effort to refrain from indulging the thoughts that fuel those particular emotions."
— Ezra Bayda in Zen Heart: Simple Advice for Living with Mindfulness and Compassion

Go to the edge of the cliff and jump off.

Then build your wings on the way down.

Ray Bradbury

It takes one a long time
to become young.

-- Pablo Picasso

“If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind,
of what, then, is an empty desk?”
-Einstein

Self Control

"One can make a day of any size
and regulate the rising and setting of his own sun
and the brightness of its shining."

- John Muir

HeartMath 2008

Patience

"Have patience with all things, but chiefly have patience with yourself. Do not lose courage in considering you own imperfections, but instantly set about remedying them - every day begin the task anew."

-Saint Francis de Sales

Understand everything

Look deep into nature, and then you will
understand everything better.

Albert Einstein
April 24, 2008. Muttscomics.com

Define what you are for...

"To work in the world lovingly means that we are defining what we will be for, rather than reacting to what we are against."

- Christina Baldwin