Golden Rule Day Kick Off

Karen Armstrong, founder of the Charter for Compassion, kicks off the week leading up to International Golden Rule Day (April 5, 2011). Let me know what you think about the Golden Rule, about compassion. I'd love to hear your thoughts!

Learn more about Golden Rule Day, 5 April, on http://www.facebook.com/CharterforCompassion

1 made, a million (or so) to go!

Yep. I've made one this past week, I've made a decision. It's one that's been brewing for a while now and that I've finally realised as ready-brewing and actually needing to be made...so...I made it! I decided, and realised that I neeeeed to make more 'cause it feels kinda good to have made one. :) It sort of forces me to take that next step and plan ahead on the step taken, rather than be stuck and pondering or what would/will/might happen if I take the step or not. My foot was tired and needed putting down and now the other foot can be tortured for a wee while 'til I've made yet another decision... I think that perhaps making one decision will in turn make making another one less difficult and perhaps it is making decisions is what will get the snowball rolling...? ...or (which I much more prefer than the winter symbolism) the Light shining...??

What decision did I make then you might wonder...? Well...it was probably one of the hardest ones I think I've ever had to make, one I never thought I'd make.

I decided that with all things going on right now studying at university is just too damn hard. It broke my heart, more than a little bit, to realise this but I also realised that it's OK and it wouldn't be breaking my heart if I was on the wrong path. I know now, for sure that I want to teach and I'm going to teach...but... it'll have to wait for a little bit.

I need a break.

I need to find my footing again and find a way for studying to give me energy the way it has been previously. Recently I've just felt unfocused and drained, unexcited and...drained. The usual energy boost that studying has given me has just been lost with all that's been going on at home so...

I've given myself a break.

I'm going back to work ('til next year) where my mind doesn't have to be ON all the time (sad but true) and where I can just go and do and I don't have to plan and figure things out or stress and worry about exams and papers etc. that are due and so on and so on. Planning, figuring, stress and worry I get plenty of anyways at home at the mo and I need home to be much less stressful to have and get energy from my studying...

It was a difficult decision to make (why start easy, eh?)...but, maybe, hopefully (?) it was necessary to make this one to be able to take the next step ahead. I am by no means thrilled about it but it does feel necessary and making it has made it easier for me to breathe and I desperately need some breathing space right now...

:)

So, I'm finally getting to a point where I'm as old as I feel. :) I'm almost there...! ;)

30.
The Big 3-0! :) I think I've been 'here' since I was about 14... :) Plans...? None at the mo. I'll have a b-day bash at some point ahead but since I'm still at mum's (and the weather still sorta sucks) I'm postponing it for a bit, just a bit! :)

unwell.

*sniffles*

*shivers*

*fever*

*phlegm*

Fried Brain...!

Okiedok...this thinking stuff (with all other the other stuff) just about made my head eXpLoDe so I've taken a break, a breather, some 'space'. I had lil'sis come and pick me and kiddos up and take us to Mum's.

Not sure how it's going to help me make decisions but...I just had to do something! Which is the complete opposite to how Husband copes with things. He surrenders (gives up!) and I don't know how to...I wish I did (to a point at least) but I just can't...I physically don't know how to give up/give in... why is that...? :/

He doesn't know how to do and I don't know how to stop doing. Can you imagine that we've got some issues...?

I'll have a 4 minute hysterical break-down where I loose it, I literally 'go away' and in the midst of cRaZy I think that I'd like to stay here for a little while and that thought automatically brings me to...this isn't taking me anywhere so what's the point...? ...and I put myself together, wipe my nose and tears...'cause who else would? (now that's harsh! 'cause I do have people to hold me together but this is how I reason) I keep thinking that this time I'll truly loose it, I'll get stuck, not be able to come back but...I keep coming back, keep putting myself together, keep wiping the tears... 'cause I don't know what else to do! All worn, torn and broken I still keep putting one foot in front of the other and I keep moving/doing...

Is it crazy to not 'be able' to be crazy...?

I'm a do:er...so much so that Husband probably doesn't get a chance to do...even if he wanted to. I'm a talker, he's not...we used to complement each other, now we don't.

*sigh*
So, here I am. At mum's! Thank Goodness :) for her... Coming here is perhaps the least bit of doing I can manage, here I allow myself to just be, to ignore chores/uni/house/'obligations' and just breathe for a bit. Because do I realise that I can't do it all, that at some point I'll be to much in pieces to be put back right and I have to stop doing. I have to find some balance, allow myself to not do too...

Billions of people refused to give up!

I found this (in Swedish) posted on a notice board at Uni. With me being Ms.Indecisive and Ms.Doom&Gloom lately I thought I'd share it with you all to 'prove' that it's not all bad, far in fact far from it. ;)

ღ
Good news in during the last days:
* The planet continued to rotate around its axis as usual resulting in the sun rising all over the world.
* Millions of birds were singing and an infinite number of flowers bloomed.
* The Earth was blessed with 490 000 new precious babies.
* Intelligent, loving and courageous acts were performed every second on the planet.
* Millions of people refrained from saying or doing something unkind.
* Hundreds of thousands of new, really good ideas were hatched.
* Billions of people laughed, learned something new, touched another with tenderness, loved, and refused to give up.
ღ

(Source unknown. translated to English by E.)

Decisions...

*sigh!*
Alrighty then, once again I'm having this getting-nowhere-conversation with myself.
It's decision time! Now. Preferably yesterday but now will work too...

Where to go? What to do? What are the consequences of doing or not doing? Going or not going? What are my options? How do those options work to my advantage or disadvantage? Do I have other options? Pros and cons them...!? Yes or No? Stay or Go? Maybe going is staying or perhaps staying means going...?? :/

What about maybe...? Or...I don't know...!?

This really, really, really is my least favourite thing about being a grown up. I hate it, I don't wanna!

Yet, I have to decide I have to choose and I know that whatever I choose it will be the right one...the certainty of that fact (and I believe it to be a fact!) doesn't make things any easier though...! Whyyyy is it sooo hard to just make a decision?! Just throw oneself into the 'unknown', people do it all the time about all kinds of stuff! Live a little? :P Nah... *sigh*

Things are hard and could so easily be easy. I keep hoping to see a light at the end of the tunnel, for hope to emerge once again yet there's nothing...but wait! Did I see a tiny ray of light?!? ...probably not...or...? No! Yes? ...and here we go again...

At the same time as I feel like the weight of the world is on my shoulders I feel silly 'cause what are my 'worries' in comparison to others? There is no right or wrong! There's just...being, doing, living. Hurts will heal, wounds will mend, the past will be behind us and the future is ahead. I know what is important and that won't go anywhere, whatever I decide...! So DO, LIVE, BE!
...but...what? where? how...? :\

...all the sad world needs.

I went looking for an 'old' quote I was sure I must have posted! Couldn't find it so I went 'hunting'. :) I found it! :) Here it is 'again'(?). ;)


So many gods, so many creeds;
So many paths that wind and wind,
While just the art of being kind
Is all the sad world needs.

- Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Storms Endured - Herman Hesse

Hay Quaker posted the first paragraph on his blog and it led me to read the rest on EarthMamaWeb. I think it's beautiful and so true.
...and very much what I need to read at the moment too...'funny' thing that, don't ya think? ;)



Here, an excerpt from “Wanderings” by Herman Hesse:

For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the forces of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form to represent themselves. Nothing is holier, nothing is more exemplary than a beautiful, strong tree. When a tree is cut down and reveals it’s death wound to the sun, one can read its whole history in the luminous, inscribed disk of its trunk, in the rings of its years, its scars, all the struggle, all the suffering, all the sickness, all the happiness and prosperity stand truly written, the narrow years and the luxurious years, the attacks withstood, the storms endured. And every young farmboy knows that the hardest and noblest wood has the narrowest rings, that high on the mountains and in continuing danger the most indestructible, the strongest, the ideal trees grow.

Trees are sanctuaries. Whoever knows how to speak to them, whoever knows how to listen to them, can learn the truth. They do not preach learning and precepts, they preach undeterred by particulars, the ancient law of life.

A tree says: A kernel is hidden in me, a spark, a thought. I am life from eternal life. The attempt and the risk that the eternal mother took with me is unique, unique the form and veins of my skin, unique the smallest play of leaves in my branches and the smallest scar on my bark. I was made to form and reveal the eternal in my smallest special detail.

A tree says: My strength is trust. I know nothing about my fathers, I know nothing about the thousand children that every year spring out of me. I live out the secret of my seed to the very end, and I care for nothing else. I trust that God is in me. I trust that my labour is holy. Out of this trust I live.

When we are stricken and cannot bear our lives any longer, then a tree has something to say to us: Be still! Be still! Look at me! Life is not easy, life is not difficult. Those are childish thoughts. Let God speak within you, and your thoughts will grow silent. You are anxious because your path leads away from mother and home. But every step and every day lead you back again to the mother. Home is neither here nor there. Home is within you, or home is nowhere at all.

A longing to wander tears my heart when I hear trees rustling in the wind at evening. If one listens to them silently for a long time, this longing reveals its kernel, its meaning. It is not so much a matter of escaping from one’s suffering, though it may seem to be so. It is a longing for home, for a memory of the mother, for new metaphors for life. It leads home. Every path leads homeward, every step is birth, every step is death, every grave is mother.

So the tree rustles in the evening, when we stand uneasy before our own childish thoughts. Trees have long thoughts, long breathing and restful, just as they have longer lives than ours. They are wiser than we are, as long as we do not listen to them. But when we have learned how to listen to trees, then the brevity and the quickness and the childlike hastiness of our thoughts achieve an incomparable joy. Whoever has learned how to listen to trees no longer wants to be a tree. He wants to be nothing except what he is. That is home. That is happiness.

© Herman Hesse.
From Wandering by Herman Hesse. Published by Picador. 1972.

Cora: Deep thoughts

My soul sis Cora wrote an awesome post yesterday! Made my heart yell Yes! Go here to read it. :) She's just the bestest! ;) Go, go, go!

Time to give, time to receive.

Once again Paulo Coelho's blog makes me smile from the inside out. He just seems to find The Right Things and I'm just awestruck. :)


Henri Nouwen in Bread for the Journey

"It is important to know when we can give attention and when we need attention.

Often we are inclined to give, give, give without every asking anything in return.
We may think this is a sign of generosity or even heroism.

But it might be little else than a proud attitude that says:
“I don’t need help from others. I only want to give.”

When we keep giving without receiving we burn out quickly…there is a time to give and a time to receive.

We need equal time for both if we want to live healthy lives."

Hippo Birdie Two Ewe!

Aristotle

(detail from The School of Athens by Raphael)
Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC). Greek philosopher, scientist, student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. An interesting fellow who's had an enormous impact on how, and even what, we think. Some stuff is spot on and other things are a bit 'off'...and being me, I pass on the stuff that I think is spot on (why bother spreading rubbish when one can pass on gems&jewels?) ! :)


"In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous."

"Anybody can become angry - that is easy, but to be angry with the right person and to the right degree and at the right time and for the right purpose, and in the right way - that is not within everybody's power and is not easy."

"Education is an ornament in prosperity and a refuge in adversity."

"It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it."

"No great mind has ever existed without a touch of madness."

"I count him braver who overcomes his desires than him who conquers his enemies; for the hardest victory is over self."

"It is just that we should be grateful, not only to those with whose views we may agree, but also to those who have expressed more superficial views; for these also contributed something, by developing before us the powers of thought."

"Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber."

"The one exclusive sign of thorough knowledge is the power of teaching."

"We become just by performing just action, temperate by performing temperate actions, brave by performing brave action."

- Aristotle