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November 29, 2005
The Invitation
Here is one of the most beautiful pieces of writing I've laid eyes on.
It was written by Oriah Mountain Dreamer in her book The Invitation:
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living.
I want to know what you ache for
and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are.
I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool
for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon...
I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow
if you have been opened by life’s betrayals
or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own,
without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it.
I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own,
if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes
without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true.
I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself.
If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.
If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.
I want to know if you can see beauty even when it is not pretty every day.
And if you can source your own life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine,
and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon,
“Yes.”
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have.
I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair,
weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done to feed the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here.
I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied.
I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.
I want to know if you can be alone with yourself
and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
Posted by Tom Bodhi at 05:22 PM | Comments (1)
November 21, 2005
The Warm Side
So everybody's gotta deal with some shit sometimes... Things might not always appear like they're going so good, but if you look deep enough through the fog you can see truths in hiding. I get pissed off at my car's heater fan because if I turn it up, it screams at me like a dying banshee. It tears my ears off to hear, but it's the warmest car in town. This automobile needs $2500 of work done in order to get it into decent shape according to the mechanic. According to me it runs smooth, starts every time, the seats are comfortable, there's a futon in the back for nice camping, and it's a Volvo--the very car I hated so much growing up in Waldorf school. I love it.
Last week I got a paycheck for the first time in over a year. It felt good, but extremely small for what I thought was a three-week period. I was worried for a bit that I was living to work, instead of working to live. Turns out the paycheck was only for two weeks. Silly me, I'm going grocery shopping.
I like to stay optimistic, even though I have a habit of accepting the bad news before checking its sources. That's the problem with being an easy-going person, but being one means that there are no problems... ahhhh.
Posted by Tom Bodhi at 12:31 AM | Comments (2)
November 15, 2005
ExxonMobil
"Gas prices are off the charts and this could be the most expensive winter for home heating to date. While we're feeling the pinch of a full blown energy crisis, ExxonMobil is reporting the largest quarterly profits, $9.9 billion, of any American corporation in history. The only answer to the current crisis is investing in a clean energy future and ExxonMobil is the biggest and most powerful obstacle in our way. They spend their record profits fighting virtually all meaningful efforts towards ending our dependence on oil and bankrolling top Republicans to ensure that meaningful progress towards energy independence will always be killed in Congress."
Doesn't that just make you sick? Not that I care about cheap gas all that much, but to make the most money of any US corporation this quarter and then use it to actually fight efforts to prevent global warming... I mean, what the fuck?
Will you help me expose their dirty deeds by signing this petition?
http://political.moveon.org/exxon
Posted by Tom Bodhi at 08:47 AM | Comments (0)