The Dance....

Happy Thursday my friends.  A re-post worth reviewing...
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by Oriah Mountain Dreamer
Back to The Wisdom Garden

I have sent you my invitation,
The note inscribed on the palm of my hand
By the fire of living.
Don't jump up and shout,
"Yes, this is what I want! Let's do it!"
Just stand up quietly and dance with me.
Show me how you follow your deepest desires,
Spiralling down into the ache within the ache.
And I will show you how I reach inward and open outward
To feel the kiss of the Mystery, sweet lips on my own, everyday.

Don't tell me you want to hold the whole world in your heart.
Show me how you turn away from making another wrong
Without abandoning yourself when you are hurt
And afraid of being unloved.

Tell me a story of who you are,
And see who I am in the stories I am living.
And together we will remember that each of us always has a choice.

Don't tell me how wonderful things will be . . . some day.
Show me you can risk being completely at peace,
Truly okey with the way things are right now in this moment,
And again in the next,
And the next,
And the next. . .

I have heard enough warrior stories of heroic daring.
Tell me how you crumble when you hit the wall,
The place you cannot go beyond
By the strength of your own will.
What carries you to the other side of that wall,
To the fragile beauty of your own humanness?

And after we have shown each other
How we have set and kept
The clear, healthy boundaries that help us
Live side by side with each other,
Let us risk remembering that we never stop silently loving
Those we once loved out loud.

Take me to the places on the earth that teach you how to dance,
The places where you can risk letting the world break your heart.
And I will take you to the places where the earth beneath my feet
And the stars overhead make my heart whole again and again.

Show me how you take care of business
Without letting business determine who you are.
When the children are fed but still the voices within and around us
Shout that soul's desires have too high a price,
Let us remind each other that it is never about the money.

Show me how you offer to your people and the world
The stories and the songs you want
The children's children to remember,
And I will show you how I struggle
Not to change the world, but to love it.

Sit beside me in long moments of shared solitude,
Knowing both our absolute aloneness
And our undeniable belonging.
Dance with me in the silence and in the sound of small daily words,
Holding neither against me at the end of the day.

And when the sound of all the declarations
Of our sincerest intentions has died away on the wind,
Dance with me in the infinite pause before the next great inhale
Of the breath that is breathing us all into being,
Not filling the emptiness from the outside but from within.

Don't say, "Yes!"
Just take my hand and dance with me.

Samalamadingdong...

Happy Monday!

 

There was a time when breakfast in bed meant the start of the week. 

Today I am reminded of those early years when my family was working its way back into a place of wholeness.  A time when we were learning to live, love and communicate through more than just our words.  Mondays always makes me think of Sami, it was her day. 

 

 

Though my little girl is no longer little anymore and has been out of the house for over a year, I still think about her when Mondays role around. 

 

 

To my Samalamadingdong, I am proud to call you mama and your number one fan.  Keep up the great work, you are making a difference in so many little peeps.

 

Love you to the sky and back.

Mom 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

ME TOO...

Welcome, pull up, have a seat, grab your key board, phone or whatever device you use to communicate via virtual community.  Whoever thought that creating an on line Rumpus room could bring the kind of deep connecting and healing that would shift not only the way I see myself but the way I see others? 

 

 

What started out as a fun place to connect, tell stories and laugh out loud together has morphed into a place of healing and hope? Sometimes we ride the waves on boogie boards, laughing, kicking and screaming like children on the beaches of San Clemente, filled with sheer delight of playing together.

While other times we dive deep down into the sea of what use to feel and seem like darkness only to find out that what was so frightful years ago is now freeing.  Deep in the depths of each of our stories, when told together has given a wider lens to look back on the past with a view and perspective that I had not known existed.  

One of my favorite authors, Brene Brown states it well.  “Empathy’s the antidote to shame.  The two most powerful words when we’re in struggle: "Me too.”

I believe the running theme I see throughout the posts in the Rumpus room is: "ME TOO!"  When you grow up in an environment where shame and guilt were spoon fed to you like medicine, one tends to grow up thinking “I am the only one who feel shame and guilt around my stories.”

The connection in the Rumpus Room with the family by birth and choice is burning away the chains of shame and guilt and a bath of empathy and understanding is being soaked up.  ME TOO!!!! Healing words that allow the soul to dance like it has never danced before.  I feel through the power of technology fingers reaching out through my screen touching my hands and holding my heart.  I am, we are not alone.  “ME TOO!”

 

I dedicate this blog post to my siblings, though we are far from perfect, though we have not always done the right things or said the right words, at the core of who we are is pure beauty.  Beauty that has risen out of the ashes, a promise from the creator of the universe. A beautiful tapestry of a messy, crazy childhood that has now taken a turn for the better.   A turn towards love, light and freedom to be just who we were all called to be.  David, Dennis, Patrick, Cristina, Eileen and Michelle, we are ENOUGH, just the way we are!

My gift to you, my on line community, a thank you for cheering me on, as I continue to pour out on the pages of this computer.  I offer to you, like water to a thirsty soul, this powerful poem written by my oldest brother David.  It will captivate your spirit the way a new born baby captivates an audience  through their eyes alone.

Please unwrap this gift with intention, drink in the words and hold it in your heart like you hold the hands of the ones you love the most. 

 

Thank you David for your sharing your gift with the world.

 

 

“ISLAND”

My soul was a crevice,

My heart was a boulder,

My faith was torn sheets in the wind

Such a world made of power,

To lower and tower,

From Evil and Sin.

 

How lost in the desert,

Without maps, without treasure,

And through Pain and False Pleasure,

I was

Simply and Island of Skin.

 

Yet with each passing hour

I grew closer

Not farther

To my God, My Creator,

Yes, My Love, My Beholder,

Forever my All,

My True Kin.

~David John Perez

 

 

 

 

 

To learn more about living in the moments of  "ME TOO", please  leave a comment.  I would love to introduce you to six of the most amazing men and women I have ever known.  As my sister Michelle states well, “we have won the sibling lottery.”

"What I Love" Plus 1

“Let the beauty of what you love be what you do.” 

~Rumi

1.      Laughing with Tony.

 

 

 

 

 

2.     Traveling with my tribe.

 

 

 

3.     Having all my family under one roof. (Or sky.)

 

 

 

 

 

 

4.     Watching the day begin.

 

 

 

 

 

5.     Playing with Cormac.

 

 

 

 

 

 

6.     Hanging with my friends of the alley.

 

 

 

 

 

 

7.     Painting on different canvases.

 

 

 

 

 

8.     One on one time with my tribe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

9.     Visiting the Rumpus Room.

 

 

 

10.  Comfy clothing, long and flowing.

11.  Driving the Pink Ice Cream Cart.

 

True story.
 

Don't Quit

 

by Anonymous

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest, if you must, but don’t you quit.

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow–
You may succeed with another blow.


Often the goal is nearer than,
It seems to a faint and faltering man,
Often the struggler has given up,
When he might have captured the victor’s cup,
And he learned too late when the night slipped down,
How close he was to the golden crown.


Success is failure turned inside out–
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far,
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit–
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.