A better world.

Here's another quote I like.

"You cannot hope to build a better world without improving the individuals. To that end, each of us must work for our own improvement and, at the same time, share a general responsibility for all humanity, our particular duty being to aid those to whom we think we can be most useful."
- Marie Curie
I believe that those most useful are our children, but the work of improvment begins within ourselves. Our children can not be expected to feel compassion and understanding for each other or the Earth if we can not...

Still on hols and getting a bit home sick... Family back home are celebrating Midsummer today! :) Happy Midsummer!

My soul gave me good counsel

An early start to the day so I'm taking some time to share more words with you. :) This time a quite lenghty poem (the one which gave its name to my blogger address... :) ) from "The Vision" by Kahlil Gibran.

Ah...! How I dream of having a long conversation with this awesome person! He's definitely at the very top of my "If you meet X amount of people, dead or alive, who would it be?"-list!! :D

For Gibran, no single religious tradition revealed the truth, so he wove together insights from Eastern Christianity, Islam, Buddhism, American Transcendentalism and folklore from his native Lebanon.

Nowadays we are fairly free to choose our own Path but (almost) a hundred years ago it was not as easy... To be that open minded and shining so bright... it can't have been an easy path for Gibran to walk. I'm in awe of the depth of his spirit and his knowledge, which he didn't get surfin' the web! ;) I think I read a lot but this man must have read more than I can even begin to imagine!

Read this and read it again...! The words become more beautiful and more radiant each time I read them...

I've marked in bold the passages that touch me the most...
"My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me to love what the people abhor and to show good will toward the one they hate. It showed me that Love is a property not of the lover but of the beloved. Before my Soul taught me, Love was for me a delicate thread stretched between two adjacent pegs, but now it has been transformed into a halo; its first is its last, and its last is its first. It encompasses every being, slowly expanding to embrace all that ever will be.

My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me to find the beauty concealed in a face, a color, a complexion, and to gaze intently at what the people think ugly, until it shows me its comeliness. Before my Soul taught me, I saw beauty as quivering flames between pillars of smoke; but it faded and I no longer see anything but the kindling that bursts into flame.

My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me to listen to the voices not produced by tongues, nor shouted from throats. Before my Soul taught me, my ears were weary and ailing, and I was conscious only of uproar and discord. Now I sip at silence and listen to its inwardness that chants songs of the eons, reciting praises of the sky, announcing the mysteries of the Unseen.

My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me to drink wat has not been squeezed or poured into cups, what is not raised by the hands nor touched by the lips. Before my Soul taught me, my thirst was a faint spark in a mound of ash, which I would quench with water from a pool or with a sip of freshly squeezed juice. Now, however, my yearning is my cup, my burning thirst is my drink, and my solitude is my intoxication; I do not and shall not quench my thirst. But in this burning that is never extinguished is a joy that never wanes.

My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me to touch what has never taken corporeal form or crystallized. It made me understand that touching something is half the task of comprehending it, and that what we grasp therein is part of what we desire from it. Before my Soul taught me, I contented myself with heat when cold, and with cold when hot, and with either if I was listless. But now my once-cramped sense of touch is scattered everywhere, having metamorphosed into a fine mist that penetrates everything that appears from Being, so as to mingle with what has remained hidden from it.

My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me to smell the fragrances that neither aromatic herb nor incense has diffused abroad. Before my Soul taught me, whenever I craved a scent I sought it in gardens or in perfume bottles or censers. But now I have begun to smell what does not burn or spill, and I fill my chest with pure breaths that have never passed through a garden in this world and have never been carried aloft by a breeze belonging to this sky.

My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me to say, "Here I am!" when the unknown and the perilous call me. Before my Soul taught me, I refused to arise save for the voice of a caller I recognized, and I never fared upon any ways save those I had tried and found easy. Now the known has become my mount, which I ride toward the unknown, and the level plain has become my stairs, whose steps I ascend to put myself in jeopardy.

My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me not to measure time by saying, "It was yesterday, and will be tomorrow." Before my Soul taught me, I imagined the past as an era not to be met with, and the future as an age that I would never witness. But now I know that in the brief moment of the present, all time exists, including everything that is in time - all that is eagerly anticipated, achieved, or realized.

My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me not to define a place by saying 'here' or 'there'. Before my Soul taught me, I thought that when I was in any place on the earth I was remote from every other spot. But now I have learned that the place where I subsist is all places, and the space I occupy is all intervals.

My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me to stay up late while the inhabitants of the quarter slumber, and to sleep while they are awake. Before my Soul taught me, I never experienced their dreams while unconscious, and they never shared my dreams in their heedlessness. But now I only swim, arms fluttering, in my sleep with them as my companions, and they do not soar in their dreams save that I rejoice in their liberation.

My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me never to delight in praise or to be distressed by reproach. Before my Soul taught me, I doubted the value of my accomplishments until the passing days sent someone who would extol or disparage them. But now I know that trees blossom in the spring and give their fruits in the summer without any desire for accolades. And they scatter their leaves abroad in the fall and denude themselves in the winter without fear of reproof.

My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me and demonstrating to me that I am not exalted over the panhandler nor less than the mighty. Before my Soul taught me, I thought people consisted of two types: the weak, whom I pitied and disregarded, and the powerful, whom I followed or against I rebelled. Now, I have discovered that I was formed as one individual from the same substance from which all human beings were created. I am made up of the same elements as they are, and my pattern is theirs. My struggles are theirs, and my path is theirs. If they do wrong, I am culpable, and if they perform a good deed, I am proud of their act. If they arise, I arise with them, and if they remain seated, so do I.

My Soul gave me good counsel, teaching me that the lamp which I carry does not belong to me, and the song that I sing was not generated from within me. Even if I walk with light, I am not the light; and if I am a taut-stringed lute, I am not the lute player.

My Soul gave me good counsel, my friend, and taught me. Your Soul, too, has given you good counsel, and taught you. You and I are similar and alike, and the only difference between us is that I speak of what is within me and my speech is somewhat insistent, whereas you conceal what is within you, and from your restraint shines forth the face of virtue."

Enjoying my holiday,
xx

Leavin'...

(Set by gypsy_soul cropped by me)
:D The family's going away for a few weeks and I'm not sure if I'll get any leisure time ;) online :) during those weeks... I will be back, I hope you will too! :)

"The family is always the family but during vacations it is an extended family and that is exhausting." - Gertrude Stein
;P
With love,

In Sweden, the Men Can Have It All

I always find it interesting to read about Sweden and "Swedish phenomena" from other parts of the world. Here's an interesting article from the New York Times - In Sweden, the Men Can Have It All, about the Swedish model of parental leave and its benefits and possible disadvantages.

It is a subject of much debate here... How much should the government have to say about our parental leave...? What right have they got to meddle about the equality in our own homes...?? etc. and so on.

I can see both advantages and the hindrance that governmental meddling can have and I realise too that there isn't an easy 'fix' or answer for these kinds of things... Generally though, I feel that change isn't anything that can or should be forced upon people and that change, especially in terms of equality, in society should initially start from 'the top'. Changing the mindset/attitude about women's influence/place/value/etc. in board rooms and other places of power rather than how ordinary people on "grass root"-level decide to manage their lives in accordance to the narrow-mindedness of the people 'on top'...

We do our best with what we have been given and forcing equality in the home to change the attitudes 'above' is harsh and unfair, for the most part. Yes, there will be certain benefits from people having no choice but to stand up to old worldly traditions but... The fact that men, in 'men trades' generally have full time employment whilst women, in 'female trades', only have part time work or even just temporary employment... To force the man in this "stereotypical" couple to stay at home whilst the woman scrambles to get more hours of work or even work at all will not change the mentality in stiff all male board rooms! ...it'll only means an earlier start at nursery for the child, I feel 12 months is already too early, and parental days gone unused at this early, most essential time for both parents and child...

Well, I'm not going to delve any deeper, than I already have ;), into this specific subject. It's an interesting read and please feel free to give me tips of other articles you may find on "Swedish-ness"! :)

Everybody's Free...

The lyrics are taken from the article "Advice, like youth, probably just wasted on the young" written in 1997 by Mary Schmich, a columnist with the Chicago Tribune.

I've enlarged the words I love the most! ;)

"Wear sunscreen.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it. The long-term benefits of sunscreen have been proved by scientists, whereas the rest of my advice has no basis more reliable than my own meandering experience. I will dispense this advice now.

Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded. But trust me, in 20 years, you'll look back at photos of yourself and recall in a way you can't grasp now how much possibility lay before you and how fabulous you really looked. You are not as fat as you imagine.

Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.

Do one thing every day that scares you.

Sing.

Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.

Floss.

Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.

Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults. If you succeed in doing this, tell me how.

Keep your old love letters. Throw away your old bank statements.

Stretch.

Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.

Get plenty of calcium. Be kind to your knees. You'll miss them when they're gone.

Maybe you'll marry, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll have children, maybe you won't. Maybe you'll divorce at 40, maybe you'll dance the funky chicken on your 75th wedding anniversary. Whatever you do, don't congratulate yourself too much, or berate yourself either. Your choices are half chance. So are everybody else's.

Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it. It's the greatest instrument you'll ever own.

Dance, even if you have nowhere to do it but your living room.

Read the directions, even if you don't follow them.

Do not read beauty magazines. They will only make you feel ugly.

Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings. They're your best link to your past and the people most likely to stick with you in the future.

Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle, because the older you get, the more you need the people who knew you when you were young.

Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel.

Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.

Respect your elders.

Don't expect anyone else to support you. Maybe you have a trust fund. Maybe you'll have a wealthy spouse. But you never know when either one might run out.

Don't mess too much with your hair or by the time you're 40 it will look 85.

Be careful whose advice you buy, but be patient with those who supply it. Advice is a form of nostalgia. Dispensing it is a way of fishing the past from the disposal, wiping it off, painting over the ugly parts and recycling it for more than it's worth.

But trust me on the sunscreen."

I LOVED this "song" way back when and I still love it... :) It's just, SO FAB! True... It's similarity to "Desiderata" is unmistakeable, and quite possibly the reason why I love them both so! :)

Rainy Regards,

Ian Brown - F.E.A.R.

A favourite. Listen to the lyrics...! :)



Be Safe,

Desiderata

A while back I, by 'chance' ;) , came across this poem by Max Ehrmann. As a signature on a forum I visit someone had quoted "You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here." and being a Lover of Words that I am I just had to find out Who had written these Beautiful Words. My search led me to Max Ehrmann and 'Desiderata' and these words are...the Truth! :) ...or at least from the perspective I have on Life and my Journey. ;) Be kind, listen, be (gentle with) yourself, nurture your spirit, Love, don't fear old age or what Life brings you...it's a beautiful world and you deserve happiness...

Me finding Max's words (that's right, we're on first name basis! ;)) led me to recieve more beautiful words by him, this time from my bosom buddy N! ♥
Funny thing about 'Chance' isn't it...it always happens right when you need it...! Hmmm... ;)

Desiderata
Go placidly amid the noise and the haste,
and remember what peace there may be in silence.

As far as possible, without surrender,
be on good terms with all persons.
Speak your truth quietly and clearly;
and listen to others,
even to the dull and the ignorant;
they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons;
they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others,
you may become vain or bitter,
for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble;
it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs,
for the world is full of trickery.
But let this not blind you to what virtue there is;
many persons strive for high ideals,
and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection.
Neither be cynical about love,
for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment,
it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years,
gracefully surrendering the things of youth.
Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune.
But do not distress yourself with dark imaginings.
Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline,
be gentle with yourself
You are a child of the universe
no less than the trees and the stars;
you have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God,
whatever you conceive Him to be.
And whatever your labors and aspirations,
in the noisy confusion of life,
keep peace in your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams,
it is still a beautiful world.
Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.
by Max Ehrmann
The Universe is unfolding as it should,

Praying

I don't pray. :) At least not in any sense of the word that I've experienced... I don't bow my head or clasp my hands, I don't dance, kneel or do spells...

I don't know...it's hard when my spirituality is something that has grown on "it's own" and where I don't have a clear definition on What/Who I believe in. I do believe in the power of positive thinking (both for myself and for others) and I do send many thoughts that think/believe as "charged" - something I guess a more religious person than myself would possibly call praying, but I don't have a specific routine/ritual to go with it. Because surely that's one of the 'requirements' for praying, a ritual of some sort? I 'just' do 'thought-sending'. ;) Anyway... I'm rambling...! :) If it's isn't a nonsense warning it'll be an rambling one! ;)

I wish I could/did pray more, because words mean so much to me and on occasion I come across (or receive! ;)) a prayer that I read over and over again, feeling it, being strengthened by it... Other times I find words that say the things I feel in my heart, that speak the words of my soul and just now I found one of those kinds of prayers so tonight I'll go to bed with my spirit singing these words...

"May all beings everywhere plagued with sufferings of body and mind quickly be freed from their illnesses. May those frightened cease to be afraid, and may those bound be free.
May the powerless find power, and may people think of befriending one another."
~ The Buddha

Good night,
Sweet Dreams,
- still not praying...!

Where to begin...?

A new blog with new ideas of what I want to do but not really sure where to start... :)

Haud Ignota Loquor - I speak not of unknown things, sort of sums up my thought about this blog... I don't believe I'm a carrier of any new knowledge or revolutionary ideas, but I do believe that words have power and that all things are connected in some way.

I have many times 'by chance' come across thoughts, words and inspiring deeds that have changed, or more correctly deepened and given more colour to my already existing knowledge. I LOOOVE reading, learning, figuring things out, trying to get the why's and what for's of things.

I believe that I know myself quite well and that I'm good at reading people but I aspire to constantly learn more...to grow.

That's what I want to do here! :D I want to wonder, question and talk about lots of different issues with the aim of growing...!

By sharing what inspires and guides me in life perhaps I in turn might give someone else another variation of colour to their own ideas... Possible?? I don't know! :) There a very few things in life I know for sure...so maybe this blog will end up being a load of nonsense babbling about nothing and everything! ;)

My soul sister over on The Postulations of an Iconoclast wrote an awesome post a while back, about what she knows now. She spoke words right out of my own heart, I guess that's why we're soul sistas! ;) She wrote "the more I learn, the more I don't know" "I don't know shit. And I'm okay with that. Really. Because that means there's still room in my Brains for New Learning, New Thinking, New Ideas." (forgive me Cora for butchering your post!) and the sum still being the empowered "I don't know shit, but I *know* my shit" :D and that's SO true for me too!! ♥

And that brings the "If Anthem" to my mind!! :D Nonsense babbling-warning! ;) From the National Geographic Channels "Live Curious" 'campaign'.



If you are, you breathe.
If you breathe, you talk.
If you talk, you ask.
If you ask, you think.
If you think, you search.
If you search, you experience.
If you experience, you learn.
If you learn, you grow.
If you grow, you wish.
If you wish, you find.
And if you find, you doubt.
If you doubt, you question.
If you question, you understand
and if you understand, you know.
If you know, you want to know more.
If you want to know more,
you are alive.

I am alive! :) ...and this place is mine... So join me or leave me to my nonsens... ;)

Be safe,

If...

If a child lives with criticism, he learns to condemn;
If a child lives with hostility, he learns to fight;
If a child lives with ridicule, he learns to be shy;
If a child lives with shame, he learns to feel guilty;

If a child lives with tolerance, he learns to be patient;
If a child lives with encouragement, he learns confidence;
If a child lives with praise, he learns to appreciate;
If a child lives with fairness, he learns justice;
If a child lives with security, he learns to have faith;
If a child lives with approval, he learns to like himself;

If a child lives with acceptance and friendship,
he learns to find love in the world. ♥

by Dorothy Law Holte (?)

About raising children...

All My Babies Are Gone Now
By Anna Quindlen, Newsweek Columnist and Author

All my babies are gone now. I say this not in sorrow, but in disbelief. I take great satisfaction in what I have today: three almost-adults, two taller than I am, one closing in fast. Three people who read the same books I do and have learned not to be afraid of disagreeing with me in their opinion of the them, who sometimes tell vulgar jokes that make me laugh until I choke and cry, who need razor blades and shower gel and privacy, who want to keep their doors closed more than I like. Who, miraculously, go to the bathroom, zip up their jackets and move food from plate to mouth all by themselves. Like the trick soap I bought for the bathroom with a rubber ducky at its center, the baby is buried deep within each, barely discernible except through the unreliable haze of the past.

Everything in all the books I once pored over is finished for me now. Penelope Leach, T. Berry Brazelton, Dr. Spock. The ones on sibling rivalry and sleeping through the night and early-childhood education - all grown obsolete. Along with Goodnight Moon and Where the Wild Things Are, they are battered, spotted, well used. But I suspect that if you flipped the pages dust would rise like memories. What those books taught me, finally, and what the women on the playground taught me, and the well-meaning relations - what they taught me, was that they couldn't really teach me very much at all.

Raising children is presented at first as a true-false test, then becomes multiple choice, until finally, far along, you realize that it is an endless essay. No one knows anything. One child responds well to positive reinforcement, another can be managed only with a stern voice and a timeout. One child is toilet trained at 3, his sibling at 2.

When my first child was born, parents were told to put baby to bed on his belly so that he would not choke on his own spit-up. By the time my last arrived, babies were put down on their backs because of research on sudden infant death syndrome. To a new parent this ever-shifting certainty is terrifying, and then soothing. Eventually you must learn to trust yourself. Eventually the research will follow. I remember 15 years ago poring over one of Dr. Brazelton's wonderful books on child development, in which he describes three different sorts of infants: average, quiet, and active. I was looking for a sub-quiet codicil for an 18-month old who did not walk. Was there something wrong with his fat little legs? Was there something wrong with his tiny little mind? Was he developmentally delayed, physically challenged? Was I insane? Last year he went to China . Next year he goes to college. He can talk just fine. He can walk, too.

Every part of raising children is humbling. Believe me, mistakes were made. They have all been enshrined in the "Remember-When-Mom-Did" Hall of Fame. The outbursts, the temper tantrums, the bad language -mine, not theirs. The times the baby fell off the bed. The times I arrived late for preschool pickup. The nightmare sleepover. The horrible summer camp. The day when the youngest came barreling out of the classroom with a 98 on her geography test, and I responded, "What did you get wrong?" (She insisted I include that here.) The time I ordered food at the McDonald's drive-through speaker and then drove away without picking it up from the window. (They all insisted I include that.) I did not allow them to watch the Simpsons for the first two seasons. What was I thinking?

But the biggest mistake I made is the one that most of us make while doing this. I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of the three of them, sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages 6, 4 and 1. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night.

I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less.

Even today I'm not sure what worked and what didn't, what was me and what was simply life. When they were very small, I suppose I thought someday they would become who they were because of what I'd done. Now I suspect they simply grew into their true selves because they demanded in a thousand ways that I back off and let them be. The books said to be relaxed and I was often tense, matter-of-fact and I was sometimes over the top. And look how it all turned out. I wound up with the three people I like best in the world, who have done more than anyone to excavate my essential humanity. That's what the books never told me. I was bound and determined to learn from the experts. It just took me a while to figure out who the experts were.

A Prayer

by Max Ehrmann

Let me do my work each day; and if the darkened hours of despair overcome me, may I not forget the strength that comforted me in the desolation of other times.

May I still remember the bright hours that found me walking over the silent hills of my childhood, or dreaming on the margin of a quiet river, when a light glowed within me, and I promised my early God to have courage amid the tempests of the changing years.

Spare me from bitterness and from the sharp passions of unguarded moments. May I not forget that poverty and riches are of the spirit. Though the world knows me not, may my thoughts and actions be such as shall keep me friendly with myself.

Lift up my eyes from the earth, and let me not forget the uses of the stars. Forbid that I should judge others lest I condemn myself. Let me not follow the clamor of the world, but walk calmly in my path.

Give me a few friends who will love me for what I am; and keep ever burning before my vagrant steps the kindly light of hope.

And though age and infirmity overtake me, and I come not within sight of the castle of my dreams, teach me still to be thankful for life, and for time's olden memories that are good and sweet; and may the evening's twilight find me gentle still.