If You Want to Change the World, Love a Man - by Lisa Citore

If you want to change the world, love a man, really love him.
Find the one whose eyes are like blazing suns,
that make you look away the first time,
that pierce right through you,
blinding you to everything but the moment,
melting you into a puddle of soft pastel light,
even though you cringe at the color, pink.

The one who stops your thinking,
who sends your lashes fluttering
and all the blood rushing to your cheeks.
The slow-to-speak-one,
whose smile is like a flute,
who summons honey bee songs,
blossom songs and morning bird songs
with his listening.

The fallen-sky-one with the mark on his back,
where he lost his feathers from flying too close to a star.

The broken one in search of his wings,
who tells you the story of how to make fire.

If you want to change the world, love a man
beyond your fear of being burned.

Beyond unforgiveness and the walls you’ve built
to protect your sovereignity and anonymity.

Love him beyond old wounds and lies
you believed to be truth,
the hole in your heart from an absent father,
the scar on your sacred flower left by thieves.

Beyond past lives and the memory
you keep like a shrine to betrayal
when you fell to your knees in the ashes of your village,
and love became a field of bones.

Lift your darkened face to him who stands before you.
Take his hand and let him raise you to your feet.

Trust him to hold you as you tremble and weep in his arms for all that has been lost and found in this holy instant.

If you want to change the world, love a man
Beyond your faithlessness
and your secret hatred of humanity
Beyond all your judgment and self righteous projection.

The stone on your heart is as ancient
as the thought that you had to deny His existence
to know your power.

You are no less God than you ever were.
Man is no more guilty than Woman is innocent.

Love him for bearing the burden of desire in his sex
so your temple could remain whole unto itself-
for taking on the split aspect of mind
that seemed to abandon the oneness of heaven
so that you might know the joy of Its extension.

Love the ecstatic, primal root
castrated by religion as the root of all evil-
the channel of divine creative impulse-
that sparks the seeds of life, death and birth
from the womb of space and time.

Love the humble guardian and warrior
Man has been to Woman
even as he hunts her,
even in his drive towards self gratification,
which ultimately is the portal to soul union.

Love the violator who holds the mirror
to everything you have disowned within yourself-
so that all your desire, your creative impulse
may be freed
from the chains of separation, lack and guilt
and you can finally trust your Self.

If you want to change the world, love a man
in all his instinctual animal nature,
in all his hunger and devotion to beauty.

Love him beyond your vanity and pridefulness,
your gilded possessiveness and need to special-
beyond your well thought out conditions for safety
and all your concepts of how a man
should be in relationship.

Love him beyond your anger at not getting your way,
beyond your terror of not knowing or being in control.

Love him in his relentless pursuit
to penetrate the deepest sanctuaries within you,
that hold the chaos of your strongest emotions,
your carefully guarded secrets of separation
between light and dark, virgin and whore,
man and woman, spirit and form.

Love him for opening the door to sensuality,
to your primordial self that is beyond duality,
for binding you to pleasure
even as the air closes in around you,
even as you writhe with madness,
cursing your incarnation as the enemy-
even as you contract and claw,
crying out in despair, such joy it brings.

Love him for not yielding
to your resistance to surrender-
for standing in his masculine power
even as you threaten to destroy him.

If you want to change the world, love your man
for leaving you to live his purpose,
whether it’s for a day, a week, months or years.

Love him for breaking his own heart over and over-
for holding the tension and balance
of polarity and intimacy,
of distance and closeness.

Love his need for silence and solace-
for keeping some of his mystery to himself-
not that he has anything to hide,
but so you will always have surprises!

Love his evolutionary nature
that seeks new experiences,
that can never be satisfied-
for his boundless curiosity,
that if allowed to be free
might be your own liberation
from complacency.

Love him for shining independently
from the seat of his own majesty-
for not needing, yet choosing you
from a place of knowing his magnificence.

Love him for being your patient direction and destiny-
for returning to you
your own brightness through the dark night-
for helping you to remember
the one and only relationship you’ve ever had
and tried to forget-
for bringing you to that vulnerable, powerless
abiding place of surrender
you’ve been afraid of and waiting for all your life-
where you can finally be consumed by Love-
where you can finally be claimed by God.


http://lisacitore.com/if-you-want-to-change-the-world-love-a-man/

Re-connect: Manifesting your dreams

Today, someone asked about the differences between and fantasy and manifesting our dreams. I for me a fantasy is not guided, is something that happens naturally, an expression of our desires.

Manifesting has very concrete steps, they are deliberated:

• you dream/vision what you want - create a mental picture
• you use spoken words to define your ideal situation - taking care of not putting limits to the Spirit and or describe how things will happen
• you trust the Spirit -  what you asked for will be granted, and this also means that you behave as if you have it already
• you understand that you are an expression of the Divine and interconnected with everything and everyone. Also, taht you deserve what you want and that this is a world of abundance
• you repeat the affirmations for some time (in my case for a month) until it resonates within you
• finally, you keep this process private (do not share it with other, as this will "dilute" your energy) and  you let go the process

Your prayer is not to ask for what you want, the Spirit knows that, you prayer is needed to change your attitude towards acceptation and receptivity.

We need to thank first for something we haven't seen manifested yet in the reality. Everything we need has been given already.

It is important to remember that the divine law doesn't accept failures or defects. There is only perfection in the spiritual world. We're spiritual beings, children of spiritual beings: we're not separated from them. Abundance is part of our divine legacy. 

As Louise Hay says, the more you connect to the Power within you, the more you can be free in all areas of your life. 

Shamans say that co-creating has two parts: the intention and the attention.

The intention is the vision, the signals of what you want to manifest. The definition of the objective as clear as possible, but without adding the how. The Spirit has its own ways of working.

Then, the attention component involves being attuned with the Spirit, a daily request during meditation (or at a special moment), the repetition of the same prayer, and finally, faith and trust that what you asked exists already in the spiritual world. 

A metaphysical law says that you will receive what you're certain you want. It will be given as much as you want it.

But I have asked, and I'm not getting what I want!

Some times, there is an important lesson we need to learn first. Everything has its right time. Perhaps our vibration pattern is not the right, we're not ready to receive. Or, what we asked doesn't fit the vibration of our desires. Another reason for this delay, is that we may be changing our picture, we're not sure of what we want. Finally, we may be trying to limit or condition the Spirit, saying how exactly things should be happening. 

It's important to remember that we're part of the Energy Source and cannot be separated. We cannot be completely separated from the source, however, we can resist your connection with the Source.

We need to be aware of our thoughts. We need to learn to wait for the things that are flowing to us with confidence, optimism, faith, without irritation, distrust, or disappointment that hinders what is flowing.

To do this, we need to remember that our emotions are the interpretation of our vibration. Our attention to certain things generate a vibration, and this vibration is what will attract certain events. If we're always thinking that we don't have money, for example, we will never get it. Our attention is going to the absence of money, not to the abundance.  This is very simple, we cannot watch a movie if we're watching the Sports channel. 

Metaphysics teachers say that after 17 seconds of being focused on a thought, you activate a vibration to that thought. The more intense and clearer your thoughts are, the more similar thoughts you will receive that will increase your focus. After 68 seconds, of focusing, the vibration will be enough to start manifesting it. When you focus frequently in a thought at least for 68 seconds, you will soon make it a dominant thought.

Finally, allowing things to happen is an art. We should learn to give ourselves permission to receive what we want. 

So, just to summarize: 

• What you think or say, it will come back to you as an experience. Our mind has no sense of humor, you cannot say: I don't have money, I don't deserve this new car, etc. 
• Do affirmations. Say what you want and act accordingly. 
• Check your emotions and deal with the negative ones in positive ways. 

How to Stop Making a Big Deal About Your Problems - by Pema Chodron

How to Stop Making a Big Deal About Your Problems - by Pema Chodron

"Meditation teaches us how to let go. It’s actually a very important aspect of friendliness, which is that you train again and again in not making things such a big deal. 

When you have pain in your body, when all sorts of thoughts are going through your mind, you train again and again in acknowledging them openheartedly and open-mindedly, but not making them such a big deal.

Generally speaking, the human species does make things a very big deal. Our problems are a big deal for us. So we need to make space for an attitude of honoring things completely and at the same time not making them a big deal. 

It’s a paradoxical idea, but holding these two attitudes simultaneously is the source of enormous joy: we hold a sense of respect toward all things, along with the ability to let go. So it’s about not belittling things, but on the other hand not fanning the fire until you have your own private World War III.

Keeping these ideas in balance allows us to feel less crowded and claustrophobic. In Buddhist terms, the space that opens here is referred to as shunyata, or “emptiness.” 

But there’s nothing nihilistic about this emptiness. It’s basically just a feeling of lightness. There is movie entitled The Unbearable Lightness of Being, but I prefer to see life from the view of the Bearable Lightness of Being.

When you begin to see life from the point of view that everything is spontaneously arising and that things aren’t “coming at you” or “trying to attack you,” in any given moment, you will likely experience more space and more room to relax into. 

Your stomach, which is in a knot, can just relax. The back of your neck, which is all tensed up, can just relax. Your mind, which is spinning and spinning like one of those little bears that you wind up so it walks across the floor, can just relax. So shunyata refers to the fact that we actually have a seed of spaciousness, of freshness, openness, relaxation, in us.

Sometimes the word shunyata has been translated as the “open dimension of our being.” The most popular definition is “emptiness,” which sounds like a big hole that somebody pushes you into, kicking and screaming: “No, no! Not emptiness!” 

Sometimes people experience this openness as boredom. Sometimes it’s experienced as stillness. Sometimes it’s experienced as a gap in your thinking and your worrying and your all-caught-up-ness.

I experiment with shunyata a lot. When I’m by myself and no one’s talking to me, when I’m simply going for a walk or looking out the window or meditating, I experiment with letting the thoughts go and just seeing what’s there when they go. 

This is actually the essence of mindfulness practice. You keep coming back to the immediacy of your experience, and then when the thoughts start coming up, thoughts like, bad, good, should, shouldn’t, me, jerk, you, jerk, you let those thoughts go, and you come back again to the immediacy of your experience.

This is how we can experiment with shunyata, how we can experiment with the open, boundless dimension of being."
(From Pema's book-How To Meditate)

Date a girl who writes

Date a girl who writes.

Date a girl who may never wear completely clean clothes, because of coffee stains and ink spills. She’ll have many problems with her closet space, and her laptop is never boring because there are so many words, so many worlds that she’s cluttered a midst the space. Tabs open filled with obscure and popular music. Interesting factoids about Catherine the Great, and the immortality of jellyfish. Laugh it off when she tells you that she forgot to clean her room, that her clothes are lost among the binders so it’ll take her longer to get ready, that her shoes hidden under the mountain of broken Bic pens and the refurbished laptop that she’s saved up for, ever since she was twelve.

Kiss her under the lamppost, when it’s raining. Tell her your definition of love.

Find a girl who writes. You’ll know that she has a sense of humor, a sense of empathy and kindness, and that she will dream up worlds, universes for you. She’s the one with the faintest of shadows underneath her eyelids, the one who smells of coffee and Coca-cola and jasmine, green tea. Do you see that girl hunched over a notebook. That’s the writer. With her fingers occasionally smudged with charcoal, with ink that will travel onto your hands when you interlock your fingers with her’s. She will never stop, churning out adventures, of traitors and heroes. Darkness and light. Fear and love. That’s the writer. She can never resist filling a blank page with words, no matter the color of the page.

She’s the girl reading while waiting for coffee or tea. She’s the quiet girl with her music turned up loud (or impossibly quiet), separating the two of you by an ocean of crescendos and silence as she’s thinking of the perfect words. If you take a peek at her cup, the tea or coffee’s already cold. She’s already forgotten it.

Use a pick-up line with her if she doesn’t look too busy.

If she raises her head, offer to buy her another cup of coffee or tea. She’ll repay you with stories. If she closes her laptop, give her your critique of Tolstoy, and your best theories of Hannibal and the Crossing. Tell her your characters, your dreams, and ask if she’s gotten through her first novel.

It is hard to date a girl who writes. Be patient with her. Give her books for her birthday, pretty notebooks for Christmas and for anniversaries, mole skins and bookmarks and many, many books. Give her the gift of words, for writers are talkative people, and they are verbose in their thanks. Let her know that you support her every step of the way, for the lines between fiction and reality are fluid.

She’ll give you a chance.

Don’t lie to her. She’ll understand the syntax behind your words. She’ll be disappointed by your lies, but a girl who writes will understand. She’ll understand that sometimes even the greatest heroes fail, and that happy endings take time, both in fiction and reality. She’s realistic. A girl who writes is not impatient; she will understand your flaws. She will cherish them, because a girl who writes will understand plot. She’ll understand that endings happen for better or for worst.

A girl who writes will not expect perfection from you. Her narratives are rich, her characters are multifaceted because of interesting flaws. She’ll understand that a good book does not have perfect characters; villains and tragic flaws are the salt of books. She’ll understand trouble, because it spices up her story. No author wants an invincible hero; the girl who writes will understand that you are only human.

Be her compatriot, be her darling, her love, her dream, her world.

If you find a girl who writes, keep her close. If you find her at two AM, typing furiously, the neon gaze of the light illuminating her furrowed forehead, place a blanket gently on her so that she does not catch a chill. Make her a pot of tea, and sit with her. You may lose her to her world for a few moments, but she will come back to you, brimming with treasure. You will always believe in her, in the two of you, invincible in the dimly lit darkness.

She is your Shahrazad. When you are afraid of the dark, she will guide you, her words turning into lanterns, turning into lights and stars and candles that will guide you through your darkest times. She’ll be the one to save you.

She’ll whisk you away on a hot air balloon, and you will be smitten with her. She’s mischievous, frisky, yet she’s quiet and when she has to kill off a lovely character, when she cries, hold her and tell her that it will be alright.

You will propose to her. Maybe on a boat in the ocean, maybe in a little cottage in the Appalachian Mountains. Maybe in New York City. Maybe Chicago. Baltimore. Maybe outside her publisher’s office. Because she’s radiant, wherever she goes. Maybe even outside of a cinema where the two of you kiss in the rain. She’ll say that it is overused and clichéd, but the glint in her eyes will tell you that she appreciates it all the same.

You will smile hard as she talks a mile a second, and your heart will skip a beat when she holds your hand and she will write stories of your lives together. She’ll hold you close and whisper secrets into your ears. She’s lovely, remember that. She’s self made and she’s brilliant. The names she’ll choose for your children may be terrible, but you’ll be okay with that. A girl who writes will tell your children fantastic stories.

Because that is the best part about a girl who writes. She has imagination and she has courage, and it will be enough. She’ll save you in the oceans of her dreams, and she’ll be your catharsis and your 11:11. She’ll be your phoenix and your warrior queen. She will become your world, in the curve of her smile, in the color of her eye, the half dimple on her cheeks, the words pouring out of her soul, a torrent, a wave, a crescendo… so many sensations that you’ll be left breathless by a girl who writes.

Maybe she’s not the best at grammar, but that’s okay.

Date a girl who writes because you deserve it. Because she’s witty, empathetic, enigmatic at times and she’s lovely. She’s got the most colorful life. She may be living in New York city or a small cottage in the country. Date a girl who writes because a girl who writes also reads.

A girl who writes will understand reality. She’ll be infuriating at times, and sometimes you’ll be angry with her. Sometimes she’ll be angry with you too. But a girl who writes understands human nature, and she will understand that you are weak. She will not leave on the midnight train the first moment that things go sour. She will understand that real life is not like a story, because while she works in stories, she lives in reality.

Date a girl who writes.

Because there is nothing better than a girl who writes.

(I don't know the author's name).

Dejar ir / Let go

Mucho del resentimiento que guardamos se debe a la inhabilidad para comunicar nuestros sentimientos y la falta de receptividad de la otra persona involucrada. Esta mañana tuve un sueño muy interesante, en el que le expresaba con toda sinceridad y respeto a alguien los errores que él cometió hace ya muchos años. El escuchó con apertura, ni siquiera tuvo tiempo de decir nada, ya que mi sueño terminó, pero me dejó con un sentimiento de paz. Esta paz no la cambio por nada.

A lot of the resentment we keep is due to the inability to communicate our feelings and the lack of receptivity the other person shows. This morning I had a very interesting dream, where I expressed with all honesty and respect to someone, the mistakes he made so many years ago. He listened with openness, and although he couldn't say a word, as my dream finished, this fact let me with a feeling of peace. These peace, I won't trade it for anything. 

Regresé / I'm back!!

Finalmente después de una ardua labor, estoy de regreso. Como algunos saben, estuve terminando mi maestría, trabajando con mis clientes y decidiendo qué hacer con mi vida. Parece que mi vida en vez de unificarse en unas cuantas actividades, se diversifica constantemente. Además, con el tiempo y las diferentes experiencias, me he vuelto dolorosamente consciente de que la vida transcurre mientras hacemos otros planes. Mi intención es hacer una contribución, aunque sea pequeña, al mundo y dejarlo un poquito mejor de como lo encontré. Pienso que la mejor manera de hacerlo es seguir descubriendo más de mi misma y ayudar a otras personas a descubrirse también, para poder transformar lo que ya no  sirve.

Por el momento, solo quiero re-inaugurar mi blog y decir que estoy de regreso y contenta de haber salido en este viaje.

*************

Finally, after a lot of work, I'm back. As you mayknow, I was finishing my masters degree, working with clients and deciding what to do with my life. It seems that my life is becoming more complex and diverse, instead of becoming simpliers. Besides, time and some experiences have made me painfully aware that life is what happens as you are making plans. My intention is to contribute, even in a small way and leave it a little bit better than I found it. I think that the best way to do it is to know more about myself and to help other people to be aware of themselves, in order to transform what is no longer useful.

At this point, I only want to re-open my blog and say that I'm back and happy from my journey.

Imagen: math.byu.edu

Re-connect: Happiness

Our second Re-connect session this last Thursday was about Happiness.

I was surprised to see mostly guys in this gathering, but their participation and exploration of the topic was very interesting, too.

We started talking about how we felt at that moment, as well as recalling when was the last time that we felt happy. All of them had experienced happiness in the last week. We also described the different levels of happiness we experienced, from the quiet and peaceful calm to the exhilarating joy.

Happy comes from happ, icelandic for luck or chance. The Dalai Lama says we can train the psique or the spirit (also includes the mind) to be happy. Personal happiness can manifest as a simple willingness to reach out to others., create a feeling of affinity and goodwill.

Happiness is a mental state of well-being characterized by positive emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy. Philosophers and religious thinkers often define happiness in terms of living a good life.

Happy people tend to be sociable, flexible and creative and are able to tolerate life-s daily frustrations more easily. Happy people tend to reach out and help others. Happiness is contagious.

People are happiest when are in flow, with other people, focused in another activity, focus on loved one, discovering, when they forget about themselves. Unhappy and suicidal people feel alone, isolation, hopelessness. self-focused attitude brings mood down.

Thinking about the blessings we have had through our lives brings us satisfaction, while thinking of what we don't have yet will bring us dissatisfaction. Notice how different is to say: I'm glad I'm not a (I'm glad I'm) ... vs. I wish I were...

We naturally try to be happy. When we are not able to be happy, we get drugs and anti-depressants. Depression and anxiety are rising, by 2020, depression will be the 2nd cause of disability. It's easier to notice the negative things: have a conversation with a co-worker, praise her work for 5 minutes, tell her 1 single little thing that she could do to improve, and all she will think will be that "negative" comment.

The same for a relationship. Researcher Nancy Etcoff says we should keep a 5-1 ratio for a good relationship. Say 5 positive things for each negative thing you need to point out.

If keep focusing in the negative things we perceive or are afraid of, we may soon enter in a mood of sadness, anxiety or anger, which, in turn may have an impact on everything else we "experience" as emotions change the way we perceive or remember things.


Some advices to live a happier life (found in http://en.wikiversity.org/wiki/Happiness_and_Life):


1. A Proactive Life is a Happy One
Happy people have positive goals and positive tasks. Proactive people are 15% more satisfied with their lives than more passive people. Happiness researcher Ed Diener explains, “happy people set goals for themselves again and again.”

2. An Active Life is a Happy One
Regular physical activity keeps the body healthy and makes the spirit happy. Daily walks raise the level of happiness 12%. David Niven says, “people who stay fit via sports are healthier, more positive, and more successful.”

3. Doing Good for the World is a Source of Happiness
Those who regularly do good things for others are 24% happier than those who only live for themselves. John A. Schindler wrote, “live as a giving person. Those who give are happier than those who only take. Those who give to others discover the beauty in the world.”

4. Rest and Relaxation Bring Happiness
The central point of a healthy and happy life is to find the balance between rest and activity. Besides, work, physical activity, and time spent with others, we need time to rest and relax. We need to get enough sleep. Scientific research shows that relaxed people think more positively and are happier. Every hour of sleep missed lowers the positivity one can experience during the day.
Where that point of balance between rest and activity lies, must be decided for oneself. Everyone needs to experiment a little to find this correct balance. We have to figure out who much sleep we need and how much relaxation time we need and at what speed we function at our best. We in the western world of „go, go, go“ who wish to stay happy and healthy, must also live extra clever. We need to organize our lives in an intelligent way to facilitate inner happiness and find one’s personal way to inner balance.

5. Positive Thinking
Those who think positively double their chance to realize happiness. Those who wish to be happy should think positively. The positive characteristics of wisdom, love, peace, inner power and joy in life should be set as the central point of one’s life. One should exercise a conscious decision to be positive. Fo example, we can ask ourselves, “ how can I go through the day in a positive way?”

6. Too Much Television Makes You Unhappy
Scientific research states, „ every hour of television lowers the general quality of life by 5%“. TV orients people around superficial things, and the concept of superficial happiness. It raises desire, increases aggression, and creates sorros. Those who would like to grow in terms of happiness, should stop watching TV. (David Niven: Die 100 Geheimnisse glücklicher Menschen. München 2000, Seite 32 f.)
The way to positive TV viewing consists of : a) choose your programs carefully. Avoid negative films. B) Find the correct amount of TV. Children should watch a maximum of one hour per day of television. C) After watching TV, one should practice some form of spiritual exercise (such as yoga, meditation, walking, reading, contemplating the meaning of life).

7. Foster Friendship
Build on your positive circle of friends. Women who talk to others reduce their worries by 55%. Cancer stricken women who met with a group once a week raised their survival chances to twice as high as those who didn’t meet with a group. In the western world, there is a strong tendency towards isolation. There are many single and lonely people. People who have a good circle of friends are happier and not isolated. We should take care of our friendships and practice positive activities with them.

8. Facilitate Joy
Those who can find little elements of joy in their lives can raise their overall happiness by 20%. Nils once felt bad and in order to raise his spirits, he ate a lot of sweets. His spirit brightened more and more. Then he visualized the sweets in his stomach and awakened his kundalini energy. He awakened a strong energy which quickly brought him back into the light. Nils learned to thus connect outer enjoyment with spiritual exercises. One then needs less sweets. Just a bit of outer enjoyment is enough for inner happiness.

9. Humor
Those with a good sense of humor raise their positivity by 33%. We should foster our sense of humor and learn to not take things so seriously. We should learn to laugh at our selves. Those who are able to do so, can live lighter and brighter. It is good to see cheerful films, read funny books, and to visit joyful people.

10. Self-Confidence
Happy people believe in themselves. They believe in their goals, their wisdom, and their power. They see themselves as winners. They know they will prevail in the long term. In a world of doubt, all followers of the way of bliss need inner strength in order to go about their way successfully. The followers of inner happiness need a clear anchor in terms of wisdom, self-discipline, and self-confidence to avoid being brought back by materialism and doubt.


After talking a little bit about the ways to increase happiness, we decided to be more practical and start experiencing with laughter. We did some simple exercises laughing with the sounds of the vowels, putting the hands together in front of the chest. Then, we repeated the laughter sensing it in the body. We started with hahaha, moved to hehehe and so on. Each exercise took us around two minutes per vowel.

If you want to try it out, look at this practice from Laughter Yoga.

Do not take things too seriously. Concentrate on the funny side of life. Go laughing through the day. Practice Laughter Yoga. Laughter is healthy.
1. Clap your hands = We clap our hands in front of the heart chakra. We focus on the stomach and laugh "Ho, ho." We focus on the chest and laugh "Haha." Third, we change constantly between the abdomen and the chest up and down and shout, "Hoho, Haha, Hoho ...

2. Body = We lay our hands on the head and laugh in the head "Hehehe." So we can clean the head of tension. Then we lay hands on the chest and shout "Hahaha". We lay hands on the stomach and yell "Hohoho". We concentrate on the feet and trample with our feet on the ground: "Huhuhu".

3. Laughing Wave = We bow the upper body to the earth. The hands are facing down. We focus on the ground. The hands go to heaven. We wail like a siren: "Hahahaha." We make the laughing wave several times. We connect through our laughter heaven and earth.

4. Welcome laughter = Within a group, we keep eye contact and laugh, until all people are happy. At home we look in the mirror and welcome ourselves. When we look into the mirror there is always something to laugh about.

5. Hands to heaven = We extend our hands to the heaven, concentrate on our chest and laugh a minute "Hahaha."

6. Happy Mantra = We think the mantra: "May all beings be happy. Let there be a world of laughing." We see all people in the world and ourselves as a laughing Buddhas, laughing gods or laughing holinesses.

7. Om Song = At the end of our Laughter Yoga we sing one minute the mantra "Om". We sing it in own our melody. We sense in which part of our body Om resonates best. We sing the Om until we are calm. Then we go optimistic through our lives.


I hope you enjoyed it.

Re-connect

I'm hosting a weekly discussion session to re-connect with our spiritual purpose. If you would like to participate, please, contact me and I'll give you all the details.

Here is this week topic: Re-Connect

“Why am I afraid to tell you who I am? I am afraid to tell you who I am, because, if I tell you who I am, you may not like who I am, and it's all that I have...”
― John Powell

We are born with the need to connect. When a baby is born, his interaction with the world makes him strive. We continue connecting with our parents, family, friends and later with colleagues and strangers. However, there are moments when we feel disconnected. The feeling of being different and unrelated from the rest of the world takes away our power.

According to Brene Brown, shame is a fear of disconnection. The fear of being perceived as flawed and unworthy of acceptance or belonging. Shame keeps us from telling our own stories and prevents us from listening to others tell their stories. We silence our voices and keep our secrets out of the fear of disconnection. We are wired for connection.

Our need for connection is about survival; this is one of our most basic needs. Babies that are not touched or held don't thrive. Everyone is longing for connection and by being available, we connect to the world.

We say we are aware of the importance of connection, but nowadays, real connection seems increasingly difficult. People seem to be connected all the time to different gadgets that are supposed to increase connection but keep contact to a minimum level.

However, we are also afraid of connection. Probably because if I let you catch just a glimpse of my entire being, you won't know who I am and I won't disappoint you. It seems contradictory that nowadays, when more means of communication are available, we are even more disconnected. Disconnection, or at least a selective connection is the way we cope with the anxiety or fear of rejection. We see now people twitting or blogging about every single activity they do through the day.

We seem to be longing for real connection.

The first step to re-connect with other people is to re-connect with myself. I need to be aware of my thoughts, feelings, needs, fears and desires to be able to connect with someone else.

Then, I need to see the other person. I need to understand that she has different thoughts, feelings, needs, fears and desires. The Zulu greeting, "Sawubona" means "I see you" and the response "Ngikhona" means "I am here".

Inherent in the Zulu greeting and our grateful response, is the sense that until you saw me, I didn't exist. By recognizing me, you brought me into existence. A Zulu folk saying clarifies this, "Umuntu ngumuntu nagabantu", meaning "A person is a person because of other people".

To connect with someone else means to understand, accept and respect the other person. This is easier said than done. When we realize everyone is different, we may either accept the other person or reject her. If we want to connect we need to develop empathy.

Empathy is the capacity to recognize and, to some extent, share feelings (such as sadness or happiness) that are being experienced by another sentient or semi-sentient being.

Dalai Lama suggests to approach others with compassion. Empathy is an important factor for compasion. The ability to appreciate another's suffering. When dealing with others at any level, if you are having some difficulties, its extremely helpful to be able to try to put yoursel fin the other person'as place and see how you would react to the situation. Temporarily suspend your point of view.

Self Portrait by David Whyte

It doesn't interest me if there is one God
or many gods.
I want to know if you belong
or feel abandoned.
If you can know despair or see it in others
If you are prepared to live in the world
with its harsh need to change you,
If you can look back with firm eyes saying
"This is where I stand."

I want to know if you know how to melt
into that fierce heat of living
falling toward the center of your longing
If you are willing to live day by day
with the consequence of love and the bitter unwanted passion
of your sure defeat.
I have heard in that fierce embrace
even the gods speak of God.

Practice:

CS Lewis says: You dont have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body.

Remind of yourself we are all human beings. We all have a contract with each other. There are no friends or enemies, just teachers.

Some time ago, I found this exercise online:
"One must not do this breathing exercise mechanically. This has to be done with the awareness of what it really brings you.

"First do three inhalations and exhalations with consciousness, i.e. inhale Light and exhale any shadow which still dwells within you. Do this three times.

"Then with a large deep inhalation, inhale Love. Hold your breath as much as possible to conserve the Energy of Love you have integrated, then exhale anything within you which is not Love. Do this three times as well.

"Thus, three times, you do three small inhalations and exhalations where you inhale Light and exhale all the shadow which still dwells within you, as well as three deep inhalations and exhalations where you retain Universal Love and exhale anything within you which is not Love.

"Do this exercise with awareness because it will have no value if you do it while breathing normally."



2. Connection with the Divine Self :

Connecting Oneself with the Divine Self
"Visualize your body of matter. Try to see your face, as if you were seeing yourself from an external projection, as if you were facing yourself. First mentally, say to your body that you love it. Utter your first name and say: 'I love you'.

"Then visualize within yourself a white room that is extremely luminous. The room is totally luminous although there are no doors and there are no windows. Inside of the room you will find someone who is sitting and waiting for you. This being is the Divine within you, he is the being who holds absolute power. Your consciousness is facing him and you will ask him for his help. Ask him to regenerate your body, to restore energy to any parts that are deficient. Still facing the wonderful being, remind yourself that your human consciousness is next to the Divine Being who is within you.

"You will now see emanating from yourself, from the Divine Child, a magnificent golden radiation. This golden radiation, this immense love will spread through your physical body, and your energetic bodies as well. This Love will permeate all your cells and absorb any vibratory frequencies which are too low.

"You may have a sense of being double, the experience of being both inside and outside your body, being yourself and something else. You may feel a gentle heat spreading through your body, an energy of Love which transforms anything. Try to keep your consciousness within yourself facing your Divinity, as long as possible.

"This exercise allows connection, connection between human being and Divine Being, vibratory harmonization, recognition.

"Say to the Divine within you, to this magnificent presence, how much you love him, thank him for regenerating your body and tell him that you will visit him back in your meditations to commune together in a mutual experience of love. Tell him, as well, how much you trust his immense power of Love and his potential to transform your physical body and your consciousness. He can act on all levels, whether they be physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual extending beyond the limits of time and space.

"Now put your consciousness back in front of you. If you cannot see it in front of you, try to visualize it. Once again, say that you love yourself by mentally uttering your first name followed by the words: ‘I love you'. "

A final word on connection:

An invisible red thread connects those who are destined to meet, regardless of time, place, or circumstance. The thread may stretch or tangle, but it will never break. -Ancient Chinese Belief

Red tent temple in Montreal

Please, join us for the first Red Tent Temple reunion I'm organizing. Here is our group page: https://www.facebook.com/groups/324046704281321/

Take a look to more RTT info: http://www.starofishtar.com/red-tent/


Participa en la primera reunión del Red Tent Temple que estoy organizando. Este es nuestro grupo en Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/324046704281321/

Revisa más informacion sobre el RTT: http://www.starofishtar.com/red-tent/

We are all one - another post

Please call me by my real names

Thich Nhat Hahn
_________________________________

Don't say that I will depart tomorrow --
even today I am still arriving.

Look deeply: every second I am arriving
to be a bud on a Spring branch,
to be a tiny bird, with still-fragile wings,
learning to sing in my new nest,
to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower,
to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone.

I still arrive, in order to laugh and to cry,
to fear and to hope.

The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death
of all that is alive.

I am the mayfly metamorphosing
on the surface of the river.
And I am the bird
that swoops down to swallow the mayfly.

I am the frog swimming happily
in the clear water of a pond.
And I am the grass-snake
that silently feeds itself on the frog.

I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones,
my legs as thin as bamboo sticks.
And I am the arms merchant,
selling deadly weapons to Uganda.

I am the twelve-year-old girl,
refugee on a small boat,
who throws herself into the ocean
after being raped by a sea pirate.
And I am the pirate,
my heart not yet capable
of seeing and loving.

I am a member of the politburo,
with plenty of power in my hands.
And I am the man who has to pay
his "debt of blood" to my people
dying slowly in a forced-labor camp.

My joy is like Spring, so warm
it makes flowers bloom all over the Earth.
My pain is like a river of tears,
so vast it fills the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can hear all my cries and my laughter at once,
so I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names,
so I can wake up,
and so the door of my heart
can be left open,
the door of compassion.

We are all one

A short story:
"The Egg" by Andy Weir

You were on your way home when you died. It was a car accident. Nothing particularly remarkable, but fatal nonetheless. You left behind a wife and two children. It was a painless death. The EMTs tried their best to save you, but to no avail. Your body was so utterly shattered you were better off, trust me. And that’s when you met me.

“What… what happened?” You asked. “Where am I?” “You died,” I said, matter-of-factly. No point in mincing words. “There was a… a truck and it was skidding…” “Yup,” I said. “I… I died?” “Yup. But don’t feel bad about it. Everyone dies,” I said. You looked around. There was nothingness. Just you and me. “What is this place?” You asked. “Is this the afterlife?” “More or less,” I said. “Are you god?” You asked. “Yup,” I replied. “I’m God.” “My kids… my wife,” you said. “What about them?” “Will they be all right?” “That’s what I like to see,” I said. “You just died and your main concern is for your family. That’s good stuff right there.” You looked at me with fascination. To you, I didn’t look like God. I just looked like some man. Or possibly a woman. Some vague authority figure, maybe. More of a grammar school teacher than the almighty.

“Don’t worry,” I said. “They’ll be fine. Your kids will remember you as perfect in every way. They didn’t have time to grow contempt for you. Your wife will cry on the outside, but will be secretly relieved. To be fair, your marriage was falling apart. If it’s any consolation, she’ll feel very guilty for feeling relieved.” “Oh,” you said. “So what happens now? Do I go to heaven or hell or something?” “Neither,” I said. “You’ll be reincarnated.” “Ah,” you said. “So the Hindus were right,” “All religions are right in their own way,” I said. “Walk with me.” You followed along as we strode through the void. “Where are we going?” “Nowhere in particular,” I said. “It’s just nice to walk while we talk.” “So what’s the point, then?” You asked. “When I get reborn, I’ll just be a blank slate, right? A baby. So all my experiences and everything I did in this life won’t matter.” “Not so!” I said. “You have within you all the knowledge and experiences of all your past lives. You just don’t remember them right now.”

I stopped walking and took you by the shoulders. “Your soul is more magnificent, beautiful, and gigantic than you can possibly imagine. A human mind can only contain a tiny fraction of what you are. It’s like sticking your finger in a glass of water to see if it’s hot or cold. You put a tiny part of yourself into the vessel, and when you bring it back out, you’ve gained all the experiences it had. “You’ve been in a human for the last 48 years, so you haven’t stretched out yet and felt the rest of your immense consciousness. If we hung out here for long enough, you’d start remembering everything. But there’s no point to doing that between each life.” “How many times have I been reincarnated, then?” “Oh lots. Lots and lots. An in to lots of different lives.” I said. “This time around, you’ll be a Chinese peasant girl in 540 AD.” “Wait, what?” You stammered. “You’re sending me back in time?” “Well, I guess technically. Time, as you know it, only exists in your universe. Things are different where I come from.”

“Where you come from?” You said. “Oh sure,” I explained “I come from somewhere. Somewhere else. And there are others like me. I know you’ll want to know what it’s like there, but honestly you wouldn’t understand.” “Oh,” you said, a little let down. “But wait. If I get reincarnated to other places in time, I could have interacted with myself at some point.” “Sure. Happens all the time. And with both lives only aware of their own lifespan you don’t even know it’s happening.” “So what’s the point of it all?” “Seriously?” I asked. “Seriously? You’re asking me for the meaning of life? Isn’t that a little stereotypical?” “Well it’s a reasonable question,” you persisted. I looked you in the eye. “The meaning of life, the reason I made this whole universe, is for you to mature.”

“You mean mankind? You want us to mature?” “No, just you. I made this whole universe for you. With each new life you grow and mature and become a larger and greater intellect.” “Just me? What about everyone else?” “There is no one else,” I said. “In this universe, there’s just you and me.” You stared blankly at me. “But all the people on earth…” “All you. Different incarnations of you.” “Wait. I’m everyone!?” “Now you’re getting it,” I said, with a congratulatory slap on the back. “I’m every human being who ever lived?” “Or who will ever live, yes.” “I’m Abraham Lincoln?” “And you’re John Wilkes Booth, too,” I added. “I’m Hitler?” You said, appalled. “And you’re the millions he killed.” “I’m Jesus?” “And you’re everyone who followed him.” You fell silent.

“Every time you victimized someone,” I said, “you were victimizing yourself. Every act of kindness you’ve done, you’ve done to yourself. Every happy and sad moment ever experienced by any human was, or will be, experienced by you.” You thought for a long time. “Why?” You asked me. “Why do all this?” “Because someday, you will become like me. Because that’s what you are. You’re one of my kind. You’re my child.” “Whoa,” you said, incredulous. “You mean I’m a god?” “No. Not yet. You’re a fetus. You’re still growing. Once you’ve lived every human life throughout all time, you will have grown enough to be born.” “So the whole universe,” you said, “it’s just…” “An egg.” I answered. “Now it’s time for you to move on to your next life.” And I sent you on your way.

source: http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread617475/pg1

Why is wise to worship a woman? by Arjuna Ardagh

A few days ago, after a particularly exquisite evening with my wife Chameli, I put this post up on Facebook before going to bed:
"I have had many, many great teachers in my life. A super abundance. No one and nothing comes close to the woman who is now asleep in the bedroom. My marriage has become the guru, the salvation, the muse, the crack through which the divine shines through."
When I woke up the next morning, there were the usual offerings of people who liked the post as well as comments. One man had the vulnerability and courage to post this on facebook:
"Thank you Arjuna for this sharing, I feel like [I'm] in front of a choice which is between feeling envious of what you have and I don't, or instead to decide that 'I want that too,' and, as you show, it is possible..."
I was touched.
Over the next days, I got several more messages like this from men: vulnerable men, honest men, rare and courageous men. They came in as private messages on Facebook or through our website, and they all said basically the same thing:
"I read your Facebook post. I want what you have. Show me how to get it."
So, friends, here it is. The short guide on how to worship a woman, and why it's the wisest thing that a man can do. First of all, lets pop a few very understandable doubts that you might have. I'm familiar with all of them.
1. "I'm wounded and damaged in my relationships to the feminine."
So am I, dear brother, so am I. My parents divorced in a messy way when I was four. I grew up alone with my mother. She did her very best to provide for me, but she was unhappy and insecure. By the time I started to have relationships with women myself in my early teens, I discovered that I had a mountain of resentments, fears, and separation in my relation to the feminine. The conscious practice of worship can become a part of healing the wounds.
2. "Arjuna, you're lucky. You've got an incredible partner. I'm together with a woman who's not like Chameli."
I really don't have the ultimate answer to that doubt or question. It certainly could seem to be the case that I've been lucky in finding a great woman, but here's how it happened for me. I've had a lot of less lucky connections in my life. I've experienced my share of the manipulative side of the feminine: the victim, the rageful, the vengeful. And I have seen the ugly side of the masculine psyche in myself. A few weeks prior to meeting Chameli, my wife, something deep and profound shifted in me, which I believe can shift for anyone in the same way.
3. "I don't have a partner at all, and I sometimes doubt if I'll ever meet anybody."
Being with a partner where worship is not flowing, or not being with a partner at all, are basically two aspects of the same situation: you've had an intuition or a glimpse of the possibilities of a deeper love, and you want more of it. The solutions are the same.
4. "I feel my heart is closed down. I live in my head a lot, and I wouldn't even know what worship was if it broke into my house at 2 o'clock in the morning and held me at gunpoint."
That's where the whole thing starts for all of us, when we realize that we don't yet know how to love. And that's that the big question that you have to consider: "Is that okay with me?" Never mind how much money you make, or how many friends you have on Facebook, no matter how nice a house you live in, or no matter how big a car you drive, no matter how impressive your partner's bust size, or how much you meditate and become spiritual... have you loved for real, in a total and undefended way? If not, and here's where you have to be honest with yourself, is that OK with you? Is it OK to die one day without the heart's gift having been fully given?
Eight or nine years ago, I came to that question in myself, exactly that, and I discovered that the answer was, if I was was raw and vulnerable and uncomplicated, that it was actually not OK. If I died one day without having fully loved, it would not have truly been a life well lived.
Many many years ago, I went to Bali for a vacation, on my own. I met up with some other young travelers there and we hired a Jeep to take us on a tour of the island. We drove up right to the highest point of the island, where Tourists don't usually go. Our guide took us to one of the most sacred temples. It was surrounded by a big brick wall with an ornate entrance. After removing our shoes and wrapping scarves around our heads, we stepped together through this entrance. Inside, there was a short courtyard and then another brick wall with another entrance. After more preparations of lighting incense and giving offerings, we stepped through the second entrance. We were allowed to go through the opening in one more wall, but that was it. All together there were ten walls around the deity in the middle. Hindus could go beyond the fourth wall. Devotees of that particular deity could go beyond the fifth wall, and so it went on. The only people allowed to approach the deity directly were those who had given their lives completely and totally to its worship. Everyone else could come a little closer, a little closer, to the innermost beauty, but not all the way to the center.
I'm not a big believer of the worship of statues, but there's a beautiful symbolism to what I saw there, because a woman's heart is just like that. At the essence of every woman's heart is the divine feminine. It contains everything that has ever been beautiful, or lovely, or inspiring, in any woman, anywhere, at any time. The very essence of every woman's heart is the peak of wisdom, the peak of inspiration, the peak of sexual desirability, the peak of soothing, healing love. The peak of everything. But it's protected, for good reason, by a series of concentric walls. To move inwardly from one wall to the next requires that you intensify your capacity to devotion, and as you do so, you are rewarded with Grace. This is not something you can negotiate verbally with a woman. She doesn't even know consciously how to open those gates herself. They are opened magically and invisibly by the keys of worship.
If you stand on the outside of the outermost wall, all you have available to you, like many other unfortunate men, is pornography. For $1.99 a minute, you can see her breasts, maybe her vagina, and you can stimulate yourself in a sad longing for deeper love.
Step through another gate, and she will show you her outer gift-wrapping. She'll look at you with a certain twinkle in her eye. She'll answer your questions coyly. She'll give you just the faintest hint that there is more available.
Step through another gate with your commitment, with your attention, with the small seedlings of devotion, and she'll open her heart to you more. She'll share with you her insecurities, the way that she's been hurt, her deepest longings. Some men will back away at this point. They realize that the price they must pay to go deeper is more than they are willing to give. They start to feel a responsibility. But for those few who step though another gate, they come to discover her loyalty, her willingness to stick with you no matter what, her willingness to raise your children, stick up for you in conversation, and, if you are lucky, even pick up your dirty socks now and then. And so it goes on. You've got the gist by now.
Somewhere around the second wall from the center, she casts the veils of her personality aside, and shows you that she is both a human being and also a portal into something much greater than that. She shows you a wrath that is not hers, but all women's. She shows you a patience that is also universal. She shows you her wisdom. At this point you start to experience the archetypes of women, who have been portrayed as goddesses and mythological figures in every tradition.
Then, at the very center, in the innermost temple itself, all the layers of your devotion are flooded with reward all at once. You discover the very essence of the feminine, and in a strange way that is not exactly romantic, but profoundly sacred all the same, you realize that you could have got here with any woman if you had just been willing to pass through all the layers of initiation. Any woman is every woman, and every woman is any woman at the same time. When you love a woman completely, at the very essence of her being, this is the one divine feminine flame. It is what has made every woman in history beautiful. It's the flame behind the Mona Lisa, and Dante's Beatrice, and yes, also Penelope Cruz and Heidi Klum. You discover the magic ingredient which has lead every man to fall in love with a woman.
When you learn how to pay attention to the essence of the feminine in this way, you fall to the floor in full body prostration, tears soaking your cheeks and clothes, and you wonder how you could have ever taken Her, in all of Her forms, for granted even for a second.
So just a couple small questions remain. First, do you get what I'm talking about? Does it jive for you? Does it make sense? And second, if yes, how are you going to get from where you are now to being able to the full capacity of your heart to love for real? I'd be glad to share more about this if we get to know each other better, but here's how you get started.
First, do what I did, and create an altar in your room dedicated to Divine Feminine. Put only symbols of the feminine on it. I have a painting called "Beatrix" by Dante Gabriel Rossetti. I have a statue of Quan Kin. Populate your altar with anything that reminds you of the feminine, and spend a few minutes of the day in worship. Yes, worship. Adoration. Devotion. Offer up rose petals. Offer poems. Offer everything, and beg Her to reveal Her innermost essence to you. This will work miracles whether you're single and waiting to meet the right woman or whether you're already in relationship and long to meet your woman in a deeper way.
The second way to get started: make a practice, a discipline, of telling your woman, or any woman, ten times a day something which you adore about her. "I love the smell of your shampoo." "I love the way you laugh." "The color of your eyes is so beautiful." Of course, you need to keep it appropriate. You can go as far out on a limb as you like if you're in relationship with a woman, but with anyone else remember the gates. Keep you communication appropriate to the gate number that you find yourself at. Appreciation the curve of a woman's breast, for example, if she happens to be the cashier at the supermarket, would equate more to harassment than worship.
So here's enough to get started. Of course, there's a lot more we can say about this. Feel free to post your comments below, and I'll use them as the foundation for future blogs.

See original post here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mobileweb/2010/07/29/goddess-worship_n_660896.html

Sexualizacion de la infancia

De nuevo, otro video que nos muestra la explotación sexual de las niñas.

Misrepresentation

Newest Miss Representation Trailer (2011 Sundance Film Festival Official Selection) from Miss Representation on Vimeo.

Todavia estoy en shock al ver esto. Unete a los diferentes movimientos para lograr el cambio!

Inspiring women

Here is a link to some documentaries to inspire women.

http://www.tressugar.com/Documentaries-About-Powerful-Women-18793252

Carta de Clarissa Pinkola Estes

Mis estimados: Do not lose heart. We were made for these times. I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world right now... Ours is a time of almost daily astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.

You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet, I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement...

I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able crafts in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind... Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.

We have been in training for a dark time such as this, since the day we assented to come to Earth. For many decades, worldwide, souls just like us have been felled and left for dead in so many ways over and over brought down by naivete, by lack of love, by being ambushed and assaulted by various cultural and personal shocks in the extreme. We have a history of being gutted, and yet remember this especially - we have also, of necessity, perfected the knack of resurrection. Over and over again we have been the living proof that that which has been exiled, lost, or foundered can be restored to life again.

In any dark time, there is a tendency to veer toward fainting over how much is wrong or unmended in the world. Do not focus on that. There is a tendency too to fall into being weakened by perseverating on what is outside your reach, by what cannot yet be. Do not focus there. That is spending the wind without raising the sails. We are needed, that is all we can know. And though we meet resistance, we more so will meet great souls who will hail us, love us and guide us, and we will know them when they appear. Didn't you say you were a believer? Didn't you say you pledged to listen to a voice greater? Didn't you ask for grace? Don't you remember that to be in grace means to submit to the voice greater?...

Understand the paradox: If you study the physics of a waterspout, you will see that the outer vortex whirls far more quickly than the inner one. To calm the storm means to quiet the outer layer, to cause it to swirl much less, to more evenly match the velocity of the inner core - 'til whatever has been lifted into such a vicious funnel falls back to Earth, lays down, is peaceable again. One of the most important steps you can take to help calm the storm is to not allow yourself to be taken in a flurry of overwrought emotion or desperation thereby accidentally contributing to the swale and the swirl.

Ours is not the task of fixing the entire world all at once, but of stretching out to mend the part of the world that is within our reach. Any small, calm thing that one soul can do to help another soul, to assist some portion of this poor suffering world, will help immensely. It is not given to us to know which acts or by whom, will cause the critical mass to tip toward an enduring good. What is needed for dramatic change is an accumulation of acts, adding, adding to, adding more, continuing. We know that it does not take "everyone on Earth" to bring justice and peace, but only a small, determined group who will not give up during the first, second, or hundredth gale.

One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires, causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these - to be fierce and to show mercy toward others, both, are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.

There will always be times when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it; I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate. The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours: They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But that is not what great ships are built for.

This comes with much love and prayer that you remember who you came from, and why you came to this beautiful, needful Earth,
Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Ph.D

A mis amigos / To my friends

Sal con una chica que no lee (Por Charles Warnke)

Sal con una chica que no lee. Encuéntrala en medio de la fastidiosa mugre de un bar del medio oeste. Encuéntrala en medio del humo, del sudor de borracho y de las luces multicolores de una discoteca de lujo. Donde la encuentres, descúbrela sonriendo y asegúrate de que la sonrisa permanezca incluso cuando su interlocutor le haya quitado la mirada. Cautívala con trivialidades poco sentimentales; usa las típicas frases de conquista y ríe para tus adentros. Sácala a la calle cuando los bares y las discotecas hayan dado por concluida la velada; ignora el peso de la fatiga. Bésala bajo la lluvia y deja que la tenue luz de un farol de la calle los ilumine, así como has visto que ocurre en las películas. Haz un comentario sobre el poco significado que todo eso tiene. Llévatela a tu apartamento y despáchala luego de hacerle el amor. Tíratela.

Deja que la especie de contrato que sin darte cuenta has celebrado con ella se convierta poco a poco, incómodamente, en una relación. Descubre intereses y gustos comunes como el sushi o la música country, y construye un muro impenetrable alrededor de ellos. Haz del espacio común un espacio sagrado y regresa a él cada vez que el aire se torne pesado o las veladas parezcan demasiado largas. Háblale de cosas sin importancia y piensa poco. Deja que pasen los meses sin que te des cuenta. Proponle que se mude a vivir contigo y déjala que decore. Peléale por cosas insignificantes como que la maldita cortina de la ducha debe permanecer cerrada para que no se llene de ese maldito moho. Deja que pase un año sin que te des cuenta. Comienza a darte cuenta.

Concluye que probablemente deberían casarse porque de lo contrario habrías perdido mucho tiempo de tu vida. Invítala a cenar a un restaurante que se salga de tu presupuesto en el piso cuarenta y cinco de un edificio y asegúrate de que tenga una vista hermosa de la ciudad. Tímidamente pídele al mesero que le traiga la copa de champaña con el modesto anillo adentro. Apenas se dé cuenta, proponle matrimonio con todo el entusiasmo y la sinceridad de los que puedas hacer acopio. No te preocupes si sientes que tu corazón está a punto de atravesarte el pecho, y si no sientes nada, tampoco le des mucha importancia. Si hay aplausos, deja que terminen. Si llora, sonríe como si nunca hubieras estado tan feliz, y si no lo hace, igual sonríe.

Deja que pasen los años sin que te des cuenta. Construye una carrera en vez de conseguir un trabajo. Compra una casa y ten dos hermosos hijos. Trata de criarlos bien. Falla a menudo. Cae en una aburrida indiferencia y luego en una tristeza de la misma naturaleza. Sufre la típica crisis de los cincuenta. Envejece. Sorpréndete por tu falta de logros. En ocasiones siéntete satisfecho pero vacío y etéreo la mayor parte del tiempo. Durante las caminatas, ten la sensación de que nunca vas regresar, o de que el viento puede llevarte consigo. Contrae una enfermedad terminal. Muere, pero solo después de haberte dado cuenta de que la chica que no lee jamás hizo vibrar tu corazón con una pasión que tuviera significado; que nadie va a contar la historia de sus vidas, y que ella también morirá arrepentida porque nada provino nunca de su capacidad de amar.

Haz todas estas cosas, maldita sea, porque no hay nada peor que una chica que lee. Hazlo, te digo, porque una vida en el purgatorio es mejor que una en el infierno. Hazlo porque una chica que lee posee un vocabulario capaz de describir el descontento de una vida insatisfecha. Un vocabulario que analiza la belleza innata del mundo y la convierte en una alcanzable necesidad, en vez de algo maravilloso pero extraño a ti. Una chica que lee hace alarde de un vocabulario que puede identificar lo espacioso y desalmado de la retórica de quien no puede amarla, y la inarticulación causada por el desespero del que la ama en demasía. Un vocabulario, maldita sea, que hace de mi sofística vacía un truco barato.

Hazlo porque la chica que lee entiende de sintaxis. La literatura le ha enseñado que los momentos de ternura llegan en intervalos esporádicos pero predecibles y que la vida no es plana. Sabe y exige, como corresponde, que el flujo de la vida venga con una corriente de decepción. Una chica que ha leído sobre las reglas de la sintaxis conoce las pausas irregulares –la vacilación en la respiración– que acompañan a la mentira. Sabe cuál es la diferencia entre un episodio de rabia aislado y los hábitos a los que se aferra alguien cuyo amargo cinismo countinuará, sin razón y sin propósito, después de que ella haya empacado sus maletas y pronunciado un inseguro adiós. Tiene claro que en su vida no seré más que unos puntos suspensivos y no una etapa, y por eso sigue su camino, porque la sintaxis le permite reconocer el ritmo y la cadencia de una vida bien vivida.

Sal con una chica que no lee porque la que sí lo hace sabe de la importancia de la trama y puede rastrear los límites del prólogo y los agudos picos del clímax; los siente en la piel. Será paciente en caso de que haya pausas o intermedios, e intentará acelerar el desenlace. Pero sobre todo, la chica que lee conoce el inevitable significado de un final y se siente cómoda en ellos, pues se ha despedido ya de miles de héroes con apenas una pizca de tristeza.

No salgas con una chica que lee porque ellas han aprendido a contar historias. Tú con la Joyce, con la Nabokov, con la Woolf; tú en una biblioteca, o parado en la estación del metro, tal vez sentado en la mesa de la esquina de un café, o mirando por la ventana de tu cuarto. Tú, el que me ha hecho la vida tan difícil. La lectora se ha convertido en una espectadora más de su vida y la ha llenado de significado. Insiste en que la narrativa de su historia es magnífica, variada, completa; en que los personajes secundarios son coloridos y el estilo atrevido. Tú, la chica que lee, me hace querer ser todo lo que no soy. Pero soy débil y te fallaré porque tú has soñado, como corresponde, con alguien mejor que yo y no aceptarás la vida que te describí al comienzo de este escrito. No te resignarás a vivir sin pasión, sin perfección, a llevar una vida que no sea digna de ser narrada. Por eso, largo de aquí, chica que lee; coge el siguiente tren que te lleve al sur y llévate a tu Hemingway contigo. Te odio, de verdad te odio.


You Should Date An Illiterate Girl (Charles Warnke)

Date a girl who doesn’t read. Find her in the weary squalor of a Midwestern bar. Find her in the smoke, drunken sweat, and varicolored light of an upscale nightclub. Wherever you find her, find her smiling. Make sure that it lingers when the people that are talking to her look away. Engage her with unsentimental trivialities. Use pick-up lines and laugh inwardly. Take her outside when the night overstays its welcome. Ignore the palpable weight of fatigue. Kiss her in the rain under the weak glow of a streetlamp because you’ve seen it in film. Remark at its lack of significance. Take her to your apartment. Dispatch with making love. Fuck her.

Let the anxious contract you’ve unwittingly written evolve slowly and uncomfortably into a relationship. Find shared interests and common ground like sushi, and folk music. Build an impenetrable bastion upon that ground. Make it sacred. Retreat into it every time the air gets stale, or the evenings get long. Talk about nothing of significance. Do little thinking. Let the months pass unnoticed. Ask her to move in. Let her decorate. Get into fights about inconsequential things like how the fucking shower curtain needs to be closed so that it doesn’t fucking collect mold. Let a year pass unnoticed. Begin to notice.

Figure that you should probably get married because you will have wasted a lot of time otherwise. Take her to dinner on the forty-fifth floor at a restaurant far beyond your means. Make sure there is a beautiful view of the city. Sheepishly ask a waiter to bring her a glass of champagne with a modest ring in it. When she notices, propose to her with all of the enthusiasm and sincerity you can muster. Do not be overly concerned if you feel your heart leap through a pane of sheet glass. For that matter, do not be overly concerned if you cannot feel it at all. If there is applause, let it stagnate. If she cries, smile as if you’ve never been happier. If she doesn’t, smile all the same.

Let the years pass unnoticed. Get a career, not a job. Buy a house. Have two striking children. Try to raise them well. Fail, frequently. Lapse into a bored indifference. Lapse into an indifferent sadness. Have a mid-life crisis. Grow old. Wonder at your lack of achievement. Feel sometimes contented, but mostly vacant and ethereal. Feel, during walks, as if you might never return, or as if you might blow away on the wind. Contract a terminal illness. Die, but only after you observe that the girl who didn’t read never made your heart oscillate with any significant passion, that no one will write the story of your lives, and that she will die, too, with only a mild and tempered regret that nothing ever came of her capacity to love.

Do those things, god damnit, because nothing sucks worse than a girl who reads. Do it, I say, because a life in purgatory is better than a life in hell. Do it, because a girl who reads possesses a vocabulary that can describe that amorphous discontent as a life unfulfilled—a vocabulary that parses the innate beauty of the world and makes it an accessible necessity instead of an alien wonder. A girl who reads lays claim to a vocabulary that distinguishes between the specious and soulless rhetoric of someone who cannot love her, and the inarticulate desperation of someone who loves her too much. A vocabulary, god damnit, that makes my vacuous sophistry a cheap trick.

Do it, because a girl who reads understands syntax. Literature has taught her that moments of tenderness come in sporadic but knowable intervals. A girl who reads knows that life is not planar; she knows, and rightly demands, that the ebb comes along with the flow of disappointment. A girl who has read up on her syntax senses the irregular pauses—the hesitation of breath—endemic to a lie. A girl who reads perceives the difference between a parenthetical moment of anger and the entrenched habits of someone whose bitter cynicism will run on, run on well past any point of reason, or purpose, run on far after she has packed a suitcase and said a reluctant goodbye and she has decided that I am an ellipsis and not a period and run on and run on. Syntax that knows the rhythm and cadence of a life well lived.

Date a girl who doesn’t read because the girl who reads knows the importance of plot. She can trace out the demarcations of a prologue and the sharp ridges of a climax. She feels them in her skin. The girl who reads will be patient with an intermission and expedite a denouement. But of all things, the girl who reads knows most the ineluctable significance of an end. She is comfortable with them. She has bid farewell to a thousand heroes with only a twinge of sadness.

Don’t date a girl who reads because girls who read are the storytellers. You with the Joyce, you with the Nabokov, you with the Woolf. You there in the library, on the platform of the metro, you in the corner of the café, you in the window of your room. You, who make my life so god damned difficult. The girl who reads has spun out the account of her life and it is bursting with meaning. She insists that her narratives are rich, her supporting cast colorful, and her typeface bold. You, the girl who reads, make me want to be everything that I am not. But I am weak and I will fail you, because you have dreamed, properly, of someone who is better than I am. You will not accept the life that I told of at the beginning of this piece. You will accept nothing less than passion, and perfection, and a life worthy of being storied. So out with you, girl who reads. Take the next southbound train and take your Hemingway with you. I hate you. I really, really, really hate you.

Love

“When it comes to love,
you need not fall but rather surrender,
surrender to the idea that you must love yourself
before you can love another.
You must absolutely trust yourself
before you can absolutely trust another
and most importantly you must accept your flaws
before you can accept the flaws of another.“
~ Philosophy: Falling in Love

Es imperativo acabar con la pobreza

Dear Woman