Don’t be nice - Jeff Foster

Don't be nice!
Nice is boring.
Nice is fake.
Nice was an adaptation
designed to win you love.

It doesn't work.
Be real instead.

Nice is a mask
which covers up your anger, irritation,
frustration, disappointment
(beautiful energies you learned to smother
when you were young).

Nice will suffocate you
and everyone else around you.

Nice keeps others
from ever really knowing you.

Take the risk of not being nice!
Take the risk of showing yourself.
Be prepared for others to dislike you.
To think you're selfish, cold, mean,
or even worse: "Unspiritual".

Say what you mean!
Say yes when you mean yes.
Say no when you mean no.

Take the risk
of looking after yourself!

Be prepared to feel alive again.
To feel your heart pounding.
To sweat. To shake.
To wonder if you have the right...

To finally feel your guilt and shame
instead of running away from them.

Be prepared for your 'nice' world
to crumble.

Be prepared to lose your
carefully crafted image.

Be prepared to feel
the rush of newness! 

The Sound of the Sea - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The sea awoke at midnight from its sleep,
And round the pebbly beaches far and wide
I heard the first wave of the rising tide
Rush onward with uninterrupted sweep; 

A voice out of the silence of the deep,
A sound mysteriously multiplied
As of a cataract from the mountain's side,
Or roar of winds upon a wooded steep.

So comes to us at times, from the unknown
And inaccessible solitudes of being,
The rushing of the sea-tides of the soul;
And inspirations, that we deem our own,
Are some divine foreshadowing and foreseeing
Of things beyond our reason or control.

Sweet Darkness - David Whyte

When your eyes are tired the world is tired also.
When your vision has gone no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.
There you can be sure you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb tonight.
The night will give you a horizon further than you can see.

You must learn one thing: the world was made to be free in.
Give up all the other worlds except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness
to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you.

Sleeping In The Forest | Mary Oliver

I thought the earth remembered me,
she took me back so tenderly,
arranging her dark skirts, her pockets
full of lichens and seeds.

I slept as never before, a stone on the river bed,
nothing between me and the white fire of the stars
but my thoughts, and they floated light as moths
among the branches of the perfect trees.

All night I heard the small kingdoms
breathing around me, the insects,
and the birds who do their work in the darkness.

All night I rose and fell, as if in water,
grappling with a luminous doom. By morning
I had vanished at least a dozen times
into something better.

My Brilliant Image by Hafiz

One day the sun admitted,
I am just a shadow.
I wish I could show you
The Infinite Incandescence
That has cast my brilliant image!
I wish I could show you,
When you are lonely or in darkness,
The astonishing Light
Of your own Being!

Failing and Flying By Jack Gilbert

Everyone forgets that Icarus also flew.
It's the same when love comes to an end, or the marriage fails and people say they knew it was a mistake, that everybody said it would never work.
That she was old enough to know better.

But anything worth doing is worth doing badly.
Like being there by that summer ocean
on the other side of the island while
love was fading out of her, the stars
burning so extravagantly those nights that anyone could tell you they would never last.

Every morning she was asleep in my bed like a visitation, the gentleness in her like antelope standing in the dawn mist.
Each afternoon I watched her coming back through the hot stony field after swimming,
the sea light behind her and the huge sky on the other side of that.
Listened to her while we ate lunch.

How can they say the marriage failed? Like the people who came back from Provence (when it was Provence) and said it was pretty but the food was greasy.
I believe Icarus was not failing as he fell,
but just coming to the end of his triumph.

Dust If You Must by Rose Milligan

Dust if you must, but wouldn't it be better
To paint a picture, or write a letter,
Bake a cake, or plant a seed;
Ponder the difference between want and need?

Dust if you must, but there's not much time,
With rivers to swim, and mountains to climb;
Music to hear, and books to read;
Friends to cherish, and life to lead.

Dust if you must, but the world's out there
With the sun in your eyes, and the wind in your hair;
A flutter of snow, a shower of rain,
This day will not come around again.

Dust if you must, but bear in mind,
Old age will come and it's not kind.
And when you go (and go you must)
You, yourself, will make more dust.

As I began... Charlie Chaplin

As I began to love myself I found that anguish and emotional suffering are only warning signs that I was living against my own truth. Today, I know, this is “AUTHENTICITY”.

As I began to love myself I understood how much it can offend somebody if I try to force my desires on this person, even though I knew the time was not right and the person was not ready for it, and even though this person was me. Today I call it “RESPECT”.

As I began to love myself I stopped craving for a different life, and I could see that everything that surrounded me was inviting me to grow. Today I call it “MATURITY”.

As I began to love myself I understood that at any circumstance, I am in the right place at the right time, and everything happens at the exactly right moment. So I could be calm. Today I call it “SELF-CONFIDENCE”.

As I began to love myself I quit stealing my own time, and I stopped designing huge projects for the future. Today, I only do what brings me joy and happiness, things I love to do and that make my heart cheer, and I do them in my own way and in my own rhythm. Today I call it “SIMPLICITY”.

As I began to love myself I freed myself of anything that is no good for my health – food, people, things, situations, and everything that drew me down and away from myself. At first I called this attitude a healthy egoism. Today I know it is “LOVE OF ONESELF”.

As I began to love myself I quit trying to always be right, and ever since I was wrong less of the time. Today I discovered that is “MODESTY”.

As I began to love myself I refused to go on living in the past and worrying about the future. Now, I only live for the moment, where everything is happening. Today I live each day, day by day, and I call it “FULFILLMENT”.

As I began to love myself I recognized that my mind can disturb me and it can make me sick. But as I connected it to my heart, my mind became a valuable ally. Today I call this connection “WISDOM OF THE HEART”.

We no longer need to fear arguments, confrontations or any kind of problems with ourselves or others. Even stars collide, and out of their crashing new worlds are born. Today I know “THAT IS LIFE”!

Still I rise by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history 
With your bitter, twisted lies, 
You may tread me in the very dirt 
But still, like dust, I'll rise. 

Does my sassiness upset you? 
Why are you beset with gloom? 
'Cause I walk like I've got oil wells 
Pumping in my living room. 

Just like moons and like suns, 
With the certainty of tides, 
Just like hopes springing high, 
Still I'll rise. 

Did you want to see me broken? 
Bowed head and lowered eyes? 
Shoulders falling down like teardrops. 
Weakened by my soulful cries. 

Does my haughtiness offend you? 
Don't you take it awful hard 
'Cause I laugh like I've got gold mines 
Diggin' in my own back yard. 

You may shoot me with your words, 
You may cut me with your eyes, 
You may kill me with your hatefulness, 
But still, like air, I'll rise. 

Does my sexiness upset you? 
Does it come as a surprise 
That I dance like I've got diamonds 
At the meeting of my thighs? 

Out of the huts of history's shame 
I rise 
Up from a past that's rooted in pain 
I rise 

I'm a black ocean, leaping and wide, 
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide. 
Leaving behind nights of terror and fear 
I rise 
Into a daybreak that's wondrously clear 
I rise 

Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave, 
I am the dream and the hope of the slave. 
I rise 
I rise 
I rise.

If I could write words by Spike Milligan

If I could write words 
Like leaves on an autumn forest floor, 
What a bonfire my letters would make. 

If I could speak words of water, 
You would drown when I said 
'I love you.'

so you want to be a writer? by Charles Bukowski

if it doesn't come bursting out of you
in spite of everything,
don't do it.
unless it comes unasked out of your
heart and your mind and your mouth
and your gut,
don't do it.
if you have to sit for hours
staring at your computer screen
or hunched over your
typewriter
searching for words,
don't do it.
if you're doing it for money or
fame,
don't do it.
if you're doing it because you want
women in your bed,
don't do it.
if you have to sit there and
rewrite it again and again,
don't do it.
if it's hard work just thinking about doing it,
don't do it.
if you're trying to write like somebody
else,
forget about it.


if you have to wait for it to roar out of
you,
then wait patiently.
if it never does roar out of you,
do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife
or your girlfriend or your boyfriend
or your parents or to anybody at all,
you're not ready.

don't be like so many writers,
don't be like so many thousands of
people who call themselves writers,
don't be dull and boring and
pretentious, don't be consumed with self-
love.
the libraries of the world have
yawned themselves to
sleep
over your kind.
don't add to that.
don't do it.
unless it comes out of
your soul like a rocket,
unless being still would
drive you to madness or
suicide or murder,
don't do it.
unless the sun inside you is
burning your gut,
don't do it.

when it is truly time,
and if you have been chosen,
it will do it by
itself and it will keep on doing it
until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was.

Free and Easy - By Lama Gendun Rinpoche

Happiness cannot be found

through great effort and willpower,

but is already present, in open relaxation and letting go.

Don’t strain yourself,

there is nothing to do or undo.

Whatever momentarily arises in the body-mind

has no real importance at all, has little reality whatsoever.

Why identify with, and become attached to it,

passing judgment upon it and ourselves?

Far better to simply

let the entire game happen on its own,

springing up and falling back like waves—

without changing or manipulating anything—

and notice how everything vanishes and

reappears, magically, again and again,

time without end.

Only our searching for happiness

prevents us from seeing it.

It’s like a vivid rainbow which you pursue without ever catching,

or a dog chasing its own tail.

Although peace and happiness do not exist

as an actual thing or place,

it is always available

and accompanies you every instant.

Don’t believe in the reality

of good and bad experiences;

they are like today’s ephemeral weather,

like rainbows in the sky.

Wanting to grasp the ungraspable,

you exhaust yourself in vain.

As soon as you open and relax this tight fist of grasping,

infinite space is there—open, inviting and comfortable.

Make use of the spaciousness, this freedom and natural ease.

Don’t search any further.

Don’t go into the tangled jungle

looking for the great awakened elephant,

who is already resting quietly at home

in front of your own hearth.

Nothing to do or undo,

nothing to force,

nothing to want,

and nothing missing----

Marvelous!

Everything happens by itself.

She let go - Jennifer Eckert Bernau

Without a thought or a word, she let go.

She let go of fear. 

She let go of judgments. 

She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head.
She let go of the committee of indecision within her. 

She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons.
Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.

She didn’t ask anyone for advice. 

She didn’t read a book on how to let go.
She just let go.
She let go of all the memories that held her back. 

She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward.

She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right. 

She didn’t promise to let go. 

She didn’t journal about it.
She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer. 

She made no public announcement. 

She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope.
She just let go.

She didn’t analyze whether she should let go. 

She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter. 

She didn’t utter one word.
She just let go.

No one was around when it happened. There was no applause or congratulations.
No one thanked her or praised her. No one noticed a thing.
Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.

There was no effort. There was no struggle. 

It wasn’t good. It wasn’t bad.
It was what it was, and it is just that.
In the space of letting go, she let it all be. 

A small smile came over her face. A light breeze blew through her.

And the sun and the moon shone forevermore.

Here’s to giving ourselves the gift of letting go…

There’s only one guru ~ you.

A Ritual to Read to Each Other By William E. Stafford

If you don't know the kind of person I am
and I don't know the kind of person you are
a pattern that others made may prevail in the world
and following the wrong god home we may miss our star.

For there is many a small betrayal in the mind,
a shrug that lets the fragile sequence break
sending with shouts the horrible errors of childhood
storming out to play through the broken dike.

And as elephants parade holding each elephant's tail,
but if one wanders the circus won't find the park,
I call it cruel and maybe the root of all cruelty
to know what occurs but not recognize the fact.

And so I appeal to a voice, to something shadowy,
a remote important region in all who talk:
though we could fool each other, we should consider
lest the parade of our mutual life get lost in the dark.

For it is important that awake people be awake,
or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep;
the signals we give — yes or no, or maybe —
should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.