You have no idea how hard I've looked

for a gift to bring You.
Nothing seemed right.
What's the point of bringing gold to
the gold mine, or water to the ocean.
Everything I came up with was like
taking spices to the Orient.
It's no good giving my heart and my
soul because you already have these.
So I've brought you a mirror.
Look at yourself and remember me.

Rumi

Silence is a source of great strength.

~ Lao Tzu‎

The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them.

- Thomas Merton  ♥

The Real Life Is Within.

~Kahlil Gibran

Perhaps the most important thing we bring to another person is the silence in us, not the sort of silence that is filled with unspoken criticism or hard withdrawal. The sort of silence that is a place of refuge, of rest, of acceptance of someone as they are. We are all hungry for this other silence. It is hard to find. In its presence we can remember something beyond the moment, a strength on which to build a life. Silence is a place of great power and healing.

~Rachel Naomi Remen~

ON AN UNRELATED NOTE.....

Nothing will take the place of persistence; talent will not: nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not: unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not: the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination are omnipotent.

~Calvin Coolidge~

hold to our loving center -- patience

Being infinitely patient means having an absolute knowing that you're in vibrational harmony with the all-creating force that intended you here. You know that everything will happen at just the right time, at just the right place, with just the right people

 ~ Dr. Wayne Dyer

I will meet you there

Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing

there is a field. I will meet you there.



When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase each other

doesn’t make any sense.

~Rumi, translation by Coleman Barks

Always go with the choice that scares you the most, because that’s the one that is going to require the most from you.

 ~ Caroline Myss

Love is a great mystery that has been inspiring artists and poets for thousands of years, and will probably continue to do so forever.

On some level it is innately human to crave to be met in relationship, to feel connection to others, to be held by another.  Always seeking communion with the Divine.  Always seeking to feel received, to feel warmth, love, passion. Is it an unquenchable desire to be completed by another?

“When you reach the end of what you should know, you will be at the beginning of what you should sense.” ~ Kahlil Gibran

Attraction is something we sense—something we feel—it is not always logical.  When we “let go” and surrender to the feelings, allowing them to wash over us, and indulge in their pure intensity, we open ourselves to experiencing life to its fullest.

Alone

Remember: the time you feel lonely is the time you most need to be by yourself. Life’s cruelest irony.
~ Douglas Coupland

In order to be open to creativity, one must have the capacity for constructive use of solitude. One must overcome the fear of being alone.
~ Rollo May

I love to be alone. I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude.
~ Henry David Thoreau

And you should not let yourself be confused in your solitude by the fact that there is something in you that wants to move out of it.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Consider this a time to learn something new about yourself.

Get out your art supplies.

Meditate.

Get lost in a novel.

Don’t allow wallowing.

Set new goals.

Contemplate those who are lonelier than you.

Reach out to others.

Volunteer for those in need.

Write a letter to an old friend.

Learn how to be your own friend and do something special for yourself.

Take a bubble bath.

Cook a healthy meal.

Get a massage.

Take a walk and notice nature.

Move:

Wake up your senses with plenty of exercise.

Remember, nothing lasts forever.

Heart Opener

‎”We could learn to stop when the sun goes down and when the sun comes up. We could learn to listen to the wind; we could learn to notice that it’s raining or snowing or hailing or calm. We could reconnect with the weather that is ourselves, and we could realize that it’s sad. The sadder it is, and the vaster it is, the more our heart opens. We can stop thinking that good practice is when it’s smooth and calm, and bad practice is when it’s rough and dark. If we can hold it all in our hearts, then we can make a proper cup of tea.”

~ Pema Chodron

We Dance...Gabrielle Roth

Freeing the body leads inevitably to freeing the heart.

— Gabrielle Roth, Maps to Ecstasy

Through the rhythms, she taught us to surrender to that which moves through everything, and tap into the intelligence embedded deep within our cells. To return home to the rhythm of who we really are, and into a place of profound healing. The practice is, quite literally, a technology for finding God:

“We dance because it’s the fastest, most direct route to the truth—not some big truth that belongs to everybody, but the get down and personal kind, the what’s-happening-in-me- right-now kind of truth. This is not always easy for us to access—we have to navigate some very deep past, as well as the probable futures we drum up to feed the fear that drives us round the same circles, day in and day out.

We dance to hook up to the true genius lurking behind all that bullshit—to seek refuge in our originality and our power to reinvent ourselves; to shed the past, forget the future and fall into the moment feet first…

We dance to reclaim our brilliant ability to disappear in something bigger, something safe, a space without a critic or a judge or an analyst. The beat is a lover that never disappoints and, like all lovers, it demands 100 percent surrender. It has the power to seduce moves we couldn't dream. It grabs us by the belly, turns us inside out and leaves us abruptly begging for more… We dance to fall in love with the spirit in all things.”

http://www.gabrielleroth.com/

“Shed the past, forget the future and fall into the moment feet first”

Why do we dance? We dance because it’s the fastest, most direct route to the truth — not some big truth that belongs to everybody, but the get down and personal kind, the what’s-happening-in-me- right-now kind of truth. This is not always easy for us to access — we have to navigate some very deep past, as well as the probable futures we drum up to feed the fear that drives us round the same circles, day in and day out. We dance to hook up to the true genius lurking behind all that bullshit — to seek refuge in our originality and our power to reinvent ourselves; to shed the past, forget the future and fall into the moment feet first. You remember being fifteen, possessed by the beat, by the thrill of music pumping loud enough to drown out everything you’d ever known. Of course you do.

We dance to reclaim our brilliant ability to disappear in something bigger, something safe, a space without a critic or a judge or an analyst. The beat is a lover that never disappoints and, like all lovers, it demands 100% surrender. It has the power to seduce moves we couldn’t dream. It grabs us by the belly, turns us inside out and leaves us abruptly begging for more. The beat is bad, wicked, sick –whatever the word is now.

“Dance to fall in love with the spirit in all things”

We dance to fall in love with the spirit in all things, to wipe out memory or transform it into moves that nobody else can make because they didn’t live it. It’s a sacred thing, the beat. We love beats that move faster than we can think, beats that drive us ever deeper inside, that rock our worlds, break down walls and make us sweat our prayers.

We dance to survive and the beat offers a yellow brick road to make it through the chaos that is the tempo of our times. Chaos is the way of the mind when it is free-styling , winging its way back to an instinctive, intuitive intelligence, the kind we need to survive — not only the real shit going down, but the massive amount of stuff we insist on making up to insure our suffering. God provides, and god don’t need no help. God is the dance and the dance is the way to freedom and freedom is our holy work.

So get down and find out what your hands, your shoulders, your elbows, knees and, most importantly, your hips and feet have to say about it. There is a dance only you can do, that exists only in you, here and now, always changing, always true. Are you willing to listen with fascination? If you are, it will deliver you unto the self you have always dreamed you could be. This is a promise. 

Love

Love Raids are sacred rampages of total kindness and uninhibited fervor in your being to let someone know how gorgeous they are and all the ways you want the world to remember that it’s very nature is ecstasy. 

Love Raid

You are Perfect
You are Grace
You are Love

Everything about you is perfection becoming more perfect
There’s no end to your perfection
You Are That
You are the Great Expanse
Of Perfection becoming more perfect

How can Grace fall from Grace?
You cannot fall from Grace
You are Grace
Grace falls as Grace
It’s too big of a burden
To carry around..
Thinking that you’ve fallen from Grace
She has not deserted you
She has not cast you out
You cannot catch her
She never ran away from you
She is You
And when She does fall
It’s just like perfect ripe fruit
In the flow of gravity
Cracking open on this earth
Offering nourishment to all

love me

You are seen.
You are known.You are loved.

~ Nadia Narain

Remember

Sometimes, the one bright spot in a dark sky makes all the difference.
The desolate field has its own beauty, and its own purpose, like the times in our lives where things change and fall away so new things can grow. The dark things in life aren't the bad things. Usually, they are necessary things, things that shape us.

But that one spot of bright red bursting forth in the midst of all of it? Don’t forget that you are that spot.

Let life amaze you, when everyone around you has succumbed to jaded boredom.

Startle people with your smile, even when it’s raining.

Hug someone; let go last.

Practice gratitude—out loud.

Tell people you love and appreciate them.

Be radically honest—especially with yourself.

Use that “20 seconds of insane courage” and do that thing that’s dancing around the edges of your heart, waiting to be done.

Let go of who you think you should be or who you think you want to be and be who you actually are, because when you do that, you become the bright red leaves against the dying field.

You are extraordinary.

Promise Yourself

“Promise Yourself
To be so strong that nothing
can disturb your peace of mind.
To talk health, happiness, and prosperity
...to every person you meet.

To make all your friends feel
that there is something in them
To look at the sunny side of everything
and make your optimism come true.

To think only the best, to work only for the best,
and to expect only the best.
To be just as enthusiastic about the success of others
as you are about your own.

To forget the mistakes of the past
and press on to the greater achievements of the future.
To wear a cheerful countenance at all times
and give every living creature you meet a smile.

To give so much time to the improvement of yourself
that you have no time to criticize others.
To be too large for worry, too noble for anger, too strong for fear,
and too happy to permit the presence of trouble.

To think well of yourself and to proclaim this fact to the world,
not in loud words but great deeds.
To live in faith that the whole world is on your side
so long as you are true to the best that is in you.”

― Christian D. Larson

I wish I could show you,
when you are lonely or in darkness,
the astonishing light of your own being.

♥  Hafiz

Still here...

Patience is not sitting and waiting, it is foreseeing. It is looking at the thorn and seeing the rose, looking at the night and seeing the day. Lovers are patient and know that the moon needs time to become full.

~ Shams Tabrizi

Healing is what we are doing-all the days of our life

Healing means coming into wholeness by simplifying our thoughts, finding peace within the circumstances we face, and opening our deep heart and Spirit to mend our disconnection from the essence of all life- Love.

Love is the energy of Spirit, God, the Great Mystery, the Source of all life and beyond, that is meant to blossom our life. Our healing is a continuing process, as our physical health waxes and wanes and our mental and emotional well-being rises and falls. Healing means we become more aware of when we feel off-balance and then become equally present to the practices and shifts in our attitude that returns us to balance. Balance is obtained only when our life is aligned with our inner still point.

Our physical healing is promoted as we shift our perspective from pain, fear and loss to inner strength, joy and opening to Grace.

Our mental and emotional healing comes from rebalancing out thoughts and feelings to be in touch with our wisdom mind rather than our self-critic. Through this process we become more aware of the true power and presence we possess. We recognize that we are completely safe and have authority to engage in our life journey.

Our spiritual healing comes from opening our deep heart to love, joy and meaning, which allows us to love all and serve all. All healing is a process of waking to our innate goodness, our potential, and our means of living a complete and fulfilling life.
Healing is what we are doing-all the days of our life.

~ from Spirit Heals, Meridith L. Young-Sowers

Even In The Struggle

You are being loved not in spite of the hardship, but through it. The thing you see as wrenching, intolerable, life’s attack on you, is an expression of love.

There is the part of us that fears and protects and defends and expects,
and has a story of the way it’s supposed to turn out.
That part clenches in fear, feels abandoned and cursed.

There is another part, resting at the floor of the well within, that understands:
this is how I am being graced, called, refined, by fire.

The secret is, it’s all love.
It’s all doorways to truth.
It’s all opportunity to merge with what is.

Most of us don’t step through the doorframe.
We stay on the known side.
We fight the door, we fight the frame, we scream and hang on.

On the other side, you are one with the earth, like the mountain.
You hum with life, like the moss.
On the other side, you are more beautiful:
Wholeness in your bones, wisdom in your gaze,
the sage-self and the surrendered heart alive.

- The Real Life, poems by Tara Mohr

Top 10 Foods for Better Sex

Top 10 Foods for Better Sex.

Sex needs blood. Food builds blood.
Food is primary. Sex is elementary.
Sex is ecstasy. Food is delight.
Food is contemplation. Sex is meditation.

1. Avocados. Give me anything avocado and I’ll turn it into bliss. To those who ditch avocados because they’re “too fatty”, let me tattoo this on your fridge door:

Not all fats are evil. What’s wrong with us is called “unhealthy fats” or “the lack of healthy fats”.

Avocados are packed with healthy, unsaturated fats that keep your arteries clean and your blood flowing to all the right places.

In fact, men suffering from underlying heart disease, are also likely to experience erectile dysfunction.

But hey, if you don’t believe me, take it from the Aztecs (some of the strongest, smartest and healthiest warriors in history), who referred to avocadoes as… testicles.

Another benefit you get from fatting up on avocadoes is a lot of Vitamin E, which (gently) invites your sex hormones to take over and stimulate your sexual response.

2. Leafy greens. Broccoli, arugula, Swiss chard, kale, Brussel Sprouts… They’re high in minerals (calcium and magnesium, impatient to be absorbed) and pretty much all the essential nutrients you can imagine. They purify your blood, and make it flow like it means it.

3. Bananas.  Let’s be adults here for a second. Bananas are the Kings of Potassium, a mineral necessary to build muscle strength—and muscles are… you know, those things that contract during an orgasm. So, if you say no to orgasm, you can still use you banana strength for other types of workouts.

4. Chocolate.  Skip the sugar and keep it dark (at least 70% cocoa) to experience its full power.

Chocolate contains a stimulant—phenylethilamine, if you’re fluent in science—that gives you a natural high and releases the same endorphins triggered by sex. It’s like opening a door to a sunny day and saying: Yes! I think I’m ready to go for a walk!

It also increases your overall sensitivity, making your skin fully receptive to the slightest touch.

5. Maca. Some call it the “Natural Viagra”. It’s one of the most powerful medicinal plants available. Originally from Peru, this magic root tops the list of the so-called superfoods.

It acts as a strong libido enhancer, helps regulate hormones both in men and women and improves overall sexual function, among other amazing properties. It usually comes in powder form and it tastes like a strange, moon-dust cookie dough. You can add it to smoothies, juices, desserts… or take it as a supplement.

6. Strawberries & other berries.  First of all, they are red and, according to recent experiments, red is subconsciously sexy (to most of us, consciously too). Secondly, they are high in folic acid, an essential B vitamin that prevents birth defects and keeps your arteries clean and clear.

They’re also high in antioxidants, which protect your blood from free radicals (chemical leakage interfering with your natural hormone production). But I’m sure that, based on deliciousness alone, you’re already converted to Berryism.

7. Citrus (oranges, kiwis, pomegranates) and Peaches.  Other than antioxidants and folic acid, they’re high in Vitamin C, a strong libido booster. Vitamin C increases sperm counts and keeps your stuff alive and moving.  (Via Nature’s Health Foods)

8. Celery.  According to Alan Hirsch, M.D., author of Scentsational Sex,

“When you chew a stalk of celery, you release androstenone and androstenol odor molecules into your mouth. They then travel up the back of your throat to your nose… Once there, the pheromones boost your arousal, turning you on and causing your body to send off scents and signals that make you more desirable…”

Other than this sexy-scent production, celery is a detox food with great cleansing properties. It’s also filled with trace minerals, it lowers blood pressure and it contains silicon, essential to bone strength. (Funny fact: bones are 23% sodium, just like celery.)

9. Oatmeal and other gut-friendly, whole grains (brown rice, barley, etc.).  Your gut is like your second heart in terms of body functions. What suits your gut, pretty much suits your heart and vice versa.

You know what else is also a mix of heart + guts + a little bit lot of brain? Yep, love.

More scientifically speaking, whole grains like oatmeal, increase your testosterone levels and they provide L-arginine, an amino acid that reduces stiffness in your blood vessels, frequently used to treat erectile dysfunction.

10. Almonds.  They’re rich in trace minerals, especially zinc, which is found to increase libido and sexual desire.

Courage

Learn to love yourself enough so that when someone enters your life that treats you negatively, you can stand up for yourself and have the strength to let them go. You can learn that it is okay to say no to anyone who is not willing to treat you with the love and respect you not only want, but also deserve. Have the courage to walk away from anything that does not serve you well. Search for your highest good.

via Lessons Learned In Life

In A Tree House

Light
Will someday split you open
Even if your life is now a cage,

For a divine see, the crown of destiny,
Is hidden and sown on an ancient fertile plain
You hold the title to.

Love will surely bust you wide open
Into an unfettered, blooming new galaxy

Even if your mind is now
A spoiled mule.

A life-giving radiance will come,
The Friend's gratuity will come-

O look again within yourself,
For I know you were once the elegant host
To all the marvels in creation.

From a sacred crevice in your body
A bow rises each night
And shoots your soul into God.

Behold the Beautiful Drunk Singing One
From the lunar vantage point of love.

He is conducting the affairs
Of the whole universe

While throwing wild parties
In a tree house- on a limb
In your heat.

~ Hafiz

Hurt

You Learn


After a while you learn the subtle difference
Between holding a hand and chaining a soul,


And you learn that love doesn’t mean leaning
And company doesn’t mean security.


And you begin to learn that kisses aren’t contracts
And presents aren’t promises,


And you begin to accept your defeats
With your head up and your eyes open
With the grace of a woman, not the grief of a child,


And you learn to build all your roads on today
Because tomorrow’s ground is too uncertain for plans
And futures have a way of falling down in mid-flight.


After a while you learn…
That even sunshine burns if you get too much.


So you plant your garden and decorate your own soul,
Instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.


And you learn that you really can endure…


That you really are strong


And you really do have worth…


And you learn and learn…


With every good-bye you learn.


~ J. L. Borges


Love yourself—accept yourself—forgive yourself—and be good to yourself, because without you the rest of us are without a source of many wonderful things.


~Leo F. Buscaglia

Love Day ♥ February 14,2012 ♥ I am love...still I dream of more ♥

Saint Valentine's Day, often simply Valentine's Day, is a holiday observed on February 14 honoring one or more early Christian martyrs named Valentinus. It was first established by Pope Gelasius I in 496 AD, and was later deleted from the General Roman Calendar of saints in 1969 by Pope Paul VI. It is celebrated in countries around the world, mostly in the West.

The day first became associated wi...th romantic love in the circle of Geoffrey Chaucer in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished. By the 15th century, it had evolved into an occasion in which lovers expressed their love for each other by presenting flowers, offering confectionery, and sending greeting cards (known as "valentines").

♥
Come inside
Of the heart's house.
There is peace and solace there.
~ Rumi
♥
You never lose by loving. You always lose by holding back.
~ Barbara De Angelis
♥
A person’s life purpose is nothing more than to rediscover, through the detours of art or love or passionate work, those one or two images in the presence of which his (or her) heart first opened.
~ Albert Camus
♥

Love is a temporary madness. It erupts like an earthquake and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have become so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part.
~  from the movie "A walk in the clouds."
♥

Lovers don't finally meet somewhere,
they're in each other all along.
~ Rumi
♥
The minute I heard my first love story I started looking for you, not knowing how blind that was. Lovers don't finally meet somewhere. They're in each other all along.
~ Rumi
♥
Because when we love, we always strive to become better than we are. When we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better too."
~ Paolo Coelho
♥

from Mother Teresa: "I have found the paradox: that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love."
May we grow the love no matter what...
♥
If you have only one smile in you, give it to the people you love.
~ Maya Angelou

♥

Friends can help each other. A true friend is someone who lets you have total freedom to be yourself -- and especially to feel. Or, not feel. Whatever you happen to be feeling at the moment is fine with them. That's what real love amounts to -- letting a person be what he really is.
~ Jim Morrison
♥
Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.
~ Bruce Lee

♥

Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.
~ Rumi

♥
I believe that two people are connected at the heart, and it doesn't matter what you do, or who you are or where you live; there are no boundaries or barriers if two people are destined to be together.
~ Julia Roberts
♥

Wintery February 10th - Keeping the Light Within

Vision without action is only a dream.

Action without vision just passes the time.
Vision with action will change your life.
~ Joel Barker
♥
If you follow your bliss, you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be.
~ Joseph Campbell
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Affirm
To live and speak our truth. Becoming congruent with who we are, we shed that which is not authentic, true or in resonance with our being. We state our truth with words, deeds and our inner conversation that creates our reality. When we say "I am ..." we are speaking into being that reality. Death and Life are in the power of the tongue, Speak Life!!!!

Affirmation: I am well, I am full of life, i am full of love, i am full of joy, I am present here and now in this place, I am strong, I am wise, I am enjoying my life, I am creating my life in wonder, I am fully receiving every good thing, I am Loved! I Am.
~Keith Allen Kay
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Comparison is the thief of joy
T.Roosevelt.
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I feel blessed to teach yoga and to be a part of this amazing community of Anusara Yoga. We navigate our selfs through the philosophy and practice of our method to have more understanding, clarity and to be more human. Sensitive, compassionate, loving and always honoring the highest in our selfs and others. This community of loving Teachers and beautiful Students is what our teacher John Friend has trained and brought together to celebrate life, the universal and each others heart.

We are humans in all our steps. Let's face the challenges of being human with grace, truth and open heart.
Grateful for the teachings
Gratitude to my Teachers
Namaste - Konstantinos Charantiniotis
♥
Gratitude is the music of the heart, when its chords are swept by the breeze of kindness
♥
the gold in life is in the second chances
♥
No one else can hold your hand or take this voyage of the Soul for you, and yet ...at no time will you be alone, for you can never truly be alone.
~J M Harrison
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The night walked down the sky with the moon in her hand.
~ Frederick L. Knowles
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If you live the life you love, you will receive shelter and blessings. Sometimes the great famine of blessings in and around us derives from the fact that we are not living the life we love; rather, we are living the life that is expected of us. We have fallen out of rhythm with the secret signature and Light of our own nature.
~John O'Donohue
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When you practice forgiveness, and let go of the story - let it fall away - only then can pure emotion begin to transform into pure power within the crucible of the heart. This becomes Kirya Shakti usable to us as positive energy ~ a Gift of the Goddess! "... but even in the dark we orient toward the light. We hold to the highest." ~ Christoper Tompkins
♥

When I was 5 years old my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down: "Happy". They told me that I didn't understand the assignment, and I told them they didn't understand life.
~John Lennon
♥
Imperfection is beauty,

madness is genius
and it’s better to be
absolutely ridiculous
than absolutely boring.
~ Marilyn Monroe
♥