my romantic tryst with cancer

Wherever a lamp goes it sheds its light. Wherever a flower goes it sheds its fragrance. So also spread your love wherever you go. Try to live your life like that. Just love. Wherever you go, just spread your love. Just keep your candle of love going. Wherever you find a candle unlit,light it up. Get it going everywhere. There's no other way than that. Remember this principle. Hold on to this principle. All answers lie with love. Suffering is all that's left after losing love. - Swami Kripalu

"Our Deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same." - Marianne Williamson (Shared with me by Ryan A)

Read Lighthousekeeping -- yet another one of Jeanette Winterson's wonderful books and wanted to share a few excerpts from it that moved me. I try not to seek out her books, so that from time to time I might chance on them, and always feel like I haven't yet read them all. "Try and put your finger on the solid thing and it scattered into separate worlds." "... this past would have to be dragged into the future, because the present had buckled under me, like a badly made chair." "... a man may know himself, but he prides himself on his character, his integrity -- the word says it all -- integrity -- we use it to mean virtue, but it means wholeness too, and which of us is that?" "He doubted her. You must never doubt the one you love. But they might not be telling you the truth. Never mind that. You tell them the truth. What do you mean? You can't be another person's honesty, child, but you can be your own. So w

The sun is in the sky in LA, and have just read excerpts from Alan Watts' meditations on being present. Sitting here in a ubiquitous Starbucks, very much present and at peace (or what passes for it), I want to share one of those excerpts.  "To put it still more plainly: the desire for security and the feeling of insecurity are the same thing. To hold your breath is to lose your breath. A society based on the quest for security is nothing but a breath-retention contest in which everyone is as taut as a drum and as purple as a beet."

As I sit here, trying to mediate instead of just letting go, I can hear a million hearts across the world break even while they heal. Winter arrived a long time ago, but it takes a brush with ice for the skin to know it's here. This bus trundles on, and all of us, strangers to each other, watch the world pass us by, all unaware that we share more than we don't...

I never saw so sweet a face As that I stood before. My heart has left its dwelling-place And can return no more. - John Clare

So much of who we are, is about what we've experienced, and who we've experienced it with. In every partnership, in every relationship, we must acknowledge that there are always more than the two of us in the room. Standing around us, are the ghosts of those that have come before-- the ghosts of those who have hurt us, who have loved us, those who we have made plans with and those who disappointed us, those who are no more, and those who still survive. Those who have touched us in ways we only know later on in life in a moment of apparent happiness, surprise or grief. We need to recognise those ghosts in the room. We need to hear their voices lest we forget ourselves, but also put them at the distance that they belong so that we might know ourselves. And then patiently remind ourselves, that sometimes, that most times, it isn't about the person you are sitting across from, the person you are loving or wondering if you love, or holding or lying with, or talking to or

Take care of your Thoughts because they become Words. Take care of your Words because they will become Actions. Take care of your Actions because they will become Habits. Take care of your Habits because they will form your Character. Take care of your Character because it will form your Destiny, and your Destiny will be your Life. There is no religion higher than truth. - The Dalai Lama

So different, this man And this woman: A stream flowing In a field. by William Carlos Williams

"An honorable human relationship – that is, one in which two people have the right to use the word "love" – is a process, delicate, violent, often terrifying to both persons involved, a process of refining the truths they can tell each other. It is important to do this because it breaks down human self-delusion and isolation. It is important to do this because in doing so we do justice to our own complexity. It is important to do this because we can count on so few people to go that hard way with us." - Adrienne Rich (1929- 2012) Excerpted from a short essay in  Brain Pickings source: The Reconstructionists project