25 posts from May 2008

We love this kind of rebellious thinking; the kind of thoughts that allow for the appreciation and validation of all kinds of creations without needing to compare them to others or parse them down so they will fit into previously established  pigeon holes.  There is something to be said for just liking what you like and making what you want regardless of what 'they' might say.

'I thought, Well isn't that what the state of art is right now?  It's not so easy to define.  "Oh yeah, they're a painter, they're a sculptor...."  It's just labels.  When you go into a record store and it says "alternative" to describe a sort of music, isn't every music an alternative to another type of music?  These labels are ridiculous.  I think the need to label things and have things fit so nicely into their boxes is just old.'

'I don't know the history of art, but I got over intimidation from the art world when I realized that I was allowed to feel whatever I want and like whatever I want.'

- Marc Jacobs via Interview Magazine.

Sometimes you like an artist for what they make.  Sometimes you like what they stand for.  Sometimes it's both.  Such is the case with ourselves and the divine Becky Stark of Lavender Diamond.

'Did you know that this is the beginning of the era of true love? The end of oppression? Of the self or the other. It's true. True love can only exist in the absence of oppression and where true love exists there is no oppression.

This is the moment of the invention of peace on earth. Like the moment just before the invention of the printing press. Or the day after, or the week of. Imagine the sun going down and you pass a window and someone inside is writing notes (and that someone is you) and those notes are about a letterpress- or an airplane- or the that the world is round- or that peace will come to earth. We will look back on this moment with astonishment and wonder how we lived in the time of war- much the same way we look back with astonishment at a time on earth without humans- or birds- or clouds- or at a time when dinosaurs lived-
But do not forget that everything on earth and in heaven may come and go. There was a time before humanity. There was a time before America. There was a time before the sky, there was a time before earth. And this is the time before peace.
I declare that the age of war is over and that soon it will be a memory.
War is now extinct and peace is the new species.
Imagine this. And Invent this with the full force of your soul, your mind, your heart, your voice.
Earth is heaven, the water is magic, the ground is magic, your voice is magic, you are pure magic. Remember yourself. Bring peace.
Peace to all the children of the world, forever and ever and now,
Love.'
 - Becky Stark via LavenderDiamond.com/news.html

'Just below the heart chakra is a tiny lotus of eight petals, the Anandakanda Lotus, within which is the "celestial wishing tree" from the Heaven of Indra, the Kalpataru.  This magic tree, in front of which is a jeweled altar, is said to hold the deepest wishes of the heart - not what we think we want, but the deeper longing of the soul within.  It is believed that when we truly wish upon this tree, and release those wishes, the Kalpataru bestows even more than is desired, leading to freedom (moksa).'
 - From the wonderful Wheels of Life, A User's Guide to the Chakra System by Anodea Judith, Ph.D.

'A normal human being inhales between 18,000 and 20,000 breaths per day, totaling an average of 5,000 gallons of air.  In weight alone, that is thirty-five times as much as we take in from food or drink.  We can go weeks without food, days without waater, hours without heat (in extreme cold) but only minutes without air...
...The full importance of the breath cannot be expressed by these simple facts.  Aside from maintaining basic life functions, the breath is one of our most powerful tools for transforming ourselves" for burning up toxins, releasing stored emotions, changing body structure and changing consciousness.  Without breath we could not speak, for air is the force behind our voice.  We could not metabolize our food without oxygen.  Our brain could not think.  Breathing is a grossly underestimated source of life-giving, healing, purifying energy.'
 - from Wheels of Life by Anodea Judith, Ph.D.

'We imagine that waking-life is real and that dream-life is unreal, but there does not seem to be any evidence for this belief. Chuang Tzu, in the third century B.C., put it in an amusing way; having dreamed that he was a butterfly flitting from flower to flower, he stated that he was now wondering whether he was then a man dreaming he was a butterfly or whether he was now a butterfly dreaming he was a man.' - Wei Wu Wei, Fingers Pointing Toward the Moon

'Dreams pass into the reality of action. From the actions stems the dream again; and this interdependence produces the highest form of living.' - Anais Nin

This is your moment to love your friends, your family, strangers, the whole wide world.  Now is the time to enjoy every thing and every one and show them all how much you care.   Trust us, it is even more fun than it sounds and really feels so good.

'Well I'm done searching now,
I found out what this life is worth
not in the books that I find,
but by searching my mind.
I don't condemn, I don't convert,
this is the calling, have you heard -
bring all the lovers to the fold,
no one is gonna lose their soul.
Love is my religion.'
- Ziggy Marley, "Love is My Religion"

'This is the only moment.
This is the only day.'
- Thich Nhat Hanh

We present the lighter-than-air seventeenth Citrine talisman for you to enjoy in any fashion you choose; meditate on it, start a new day looking at it, print it out and color it with crayons, hang it over your bed, hide it in your friend's car or just read it and let it go to work for you...

"In the right light, at the right time, everything is extraordinary."  ~Aaron Rose

"When you possess light within, you see it externally."  ~Anaïs Nin

"For light, go directly to the source of the light, not any reflections" - Fortune Cookie

Tal·is·man       (tāl'ĭs-mən)  

1.  An object marked with magic signs and believed to confer on its bearer supernatural powers or protection.
2.  Something that apparently has magic power.

(Quotes via QuoteGarden.com., Fortune Cookie message from ???)

After I can no longer see her
she says to me For a while there is all
that asking about how the body becomes
itself as it goes and what it is becoming
what is happening to it where it is going
step by step one moment at a time
and then all that falls aside like a curtain
and the body is gone with its worn questions
hollow joints marrow and breath and instead there is
the way whatever lived in it goes on as itself
neither before nor after neither moving nor still
and while the body was going somewhere
the way was there to begin with in the feet themselves
wherever they went and you know the sound

--W. S. Merwin via our perennial favorite, The Wit of the Staircase - http://theresalduncan.typepad.com/witostaircase/2007/05/known_sound.html

"When Bodhidharma was asked, "What is the first principle of the holy teaching", he didn't say suffering. He said, "Vast emptiness. Nothing holy." This is what the Heart Sutra says, too. The Heart Sutra says, "Things are founded on emptiness." This means really that things don't truly have a cause. Things have a virtue in themselves beyond anything we can say that causes them. So you have a virtue in yourself beyond anything that brought it about. Any suffering that arises in you because of your history, any gifts you have because of your history, these are strong things, yet they are also just a pure appearance of Buddha nature. Even your suffering and also your joy. I think in some sense we can't take credit for either. We just have to learn to love our lives so deeply that we welcome whatever comes."
- John Tarrant
Poison and Joy
via WhiskeyRiver:  http://whiskeyriver.blogspot.com/2008/05/when-bodhidharma-was-asked-what-is.html