Thursday, February 25, 2010

Great Words from Kids

What Love means to a 4-8 year old.

(These have been around before but I loved reading them again… perhaps you will too!)

Touching words from the mouths of babes….

A group of professional people posed this question to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds, 'What does love mean?' The answers they got were broader and deeper than anyone could have imagined.

'Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day.' ~Mary Ann - age 4

'When my grandmother got arthritis , she couldn't bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That's love.' ~Rebecca- age 8

'When someone loves you , the way they say your name is different. You just know that your name is safe in their mouth.' ~Billy - age 4

'Love is when a girl puts on perfume and a boy puts on shaving cologne and they go out and smell each other.' ~ Karl - age 5

'Love is when you go out to eat and give somebody most of your French fries without making them give you any of theirs.' ~Chrissy - age 6

'Love is what makes you smile when you're tired.' ~Terri - age 4

'Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is OK.' ~Danny - age 7

'Love is when you kiss all the time. Then when you get tired of kissing, you still want to be together and you talk more. My Mommy and Daddy are like that. They look gross when they kiss.' ~Emily - age 8

'Love is what's in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.' ~Bobby - age 7 (Wow!)

'If you want to learn to love better, you should start with a friend who you hate.' ~Nikka - age 6 (We need a few million more Nikka's on this planet.)

'Love is when you tell a guy you like his shirt, then he wears it every day.' ~Noelle - age 7

'Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well.' ~Tommy - age 6

'During my piano recital, I was on a stage and I was scared. I looked at all the people watching me and saw my daddy waving and smiling. He was the only one doing that. I wasn't scared anymore.' ~Cindy - age 8

'My mommy loves me more than anybody. You don't see anyone else kissing me to sleep at night.' ~Clare - age 6

'Love is when Mommy gives Daddy the best piece of chicken.' ~Elaine-age 5

'Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford.' ~Chris - age 7

'I know my older sister loves me because she gives me all her old clothes and has to go out and buy new ones.' ~Lauren - age 4

'When you love somebody, your eyelashes go up and down and little stars come out of you.' ~Karen - age 7

'Love is when Mommy sees Daddy on the toilet and she doesn't think it's gross.' ~Mark - age 6

'You really shouldn't say 'I love you' unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget.' ~Jessica - age 8

And the final one…

The winner was a four year old child whose next door neighbor was an elderly gentleman who had recently lost his wife. Upon seeing the man cry, the little boy went into the old gentleman's yard, climbed onto his lap, and just sat there. When his Mother asked what he had said to the neighbor, the little boy said 'Nothing, I just helped him cry.'

Blessings,
Shakura Cathryn
"There are two kinds of love. Our love. God's love. But God makes both kinds of them." ~Jenny, age

Saturday, February 20, 2010

Lysacek - Avatar Na'vi

While watching the Winter Olympics I have been just amazed by Evan Lysacek, the American winner of the Gold Medal for Men’s Figure Skating. And as I watched him I kept thinking that he reminded me of someone. Finally I realized he reminded me of the male Na’vi hero in the Avatar movie. To my eyes, there is a definite facial resemblance….
(Click on the pictures to enlarge them)


But in addition, he has an incredible long and lean but POWERFUL body, and he is so completely in control and able to do most wondrous thing seemingly flawlessly, like the Na’vi in the movie. There is a similar powerful grace of movement.
Just watch him SKATE! I am awestruck! WOW~!
This video is from his short program on Wednesday night. At the end of this he was in 2nd place. I can’t find a video of the long program on Thursday night, which brought him the gold medal. But this is incredibly GOOD!

I’ve been enjoying the Winter Olympics more than I expected to, and I am so appreciating the beauty of the human body as well as the individual talents of all these incredible athletes!

And if you haven’t seen this movie, I highly recommend finding it while it’s still in theatres. Especially the 3-D version – it’s worth traveling for, if you have to go to another town (like we do) to find a theater capable of showing the 3-D film. The technology has definitely improved since the funky 3-D movies of my younger days. You REALLY feel like you are IN THERE with them. It’s most wondrous!

 Blessings,
Shakura Cathryn
www.moonsinger.com
www.dancingpeace.blogspot.com
http://sites.google.com/site/dupnaz/
"Is it reality, or is it not reality? All things are reality. Even if only one is imagining it, it is a reality in that the thought has been offered and someone, who has the ability to translate that vibration, will perceive it. It must be fair to say that anything that can be perceived must be reality. Because, as creators, your reality depends upon what you are willing to imagine and allow." ~Abraham

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Living With Cancer - Bonfires on the Shore


Yesterday (2/17/2010) I received this story from my friend Forest, who gave me permission to share it. It is so beautifully poignant.  __________________


[Forest]
Today, my cousin's partner Janine celebrates 45 years of life. I passed along her words about "living with cancer," not "dying from cancer," last summer. Now at a moment of great challenge, she has given us a message which I’m [sharing]. May it give you inspiration!
___________________

[Janine]
The other evening as I was feeling sad and scared about my life and my body, I was thankfully able to take it to prayer. My image of the water keeps returning to me, morphing and adjusting according to what I need in the moment. I again saw myself standing on the edge of the lake with the brilliant night sky overhead. Again I was summoned to come into the water. Over and over, I feel myself invited (no, summoned feels more right) to walk into the water and let myself fall back into a floating position. It all feels part of the letting go, trusting in the water to hold me up, to embrace me, to carry me. This time, though, as I laid back on the water, feeling rather alone, I began to see not one bonfire, but dozens of fires along the shore, surrounding me. I had this overwhelming sense that I may be alone out here on the water, but hundreds of people were camped at these fires, their bodies facing me, standing and sitting in silence, holding vigil in my name. It was a sacred moment that reduced me to tears, and reminded me (again) how much I am loved, how many there are of you holding me in your loving thoughts and prayers. I am not alone. I am not alone. I am not alone. I am grateful for each of you for filling me with your presence. 

So on this day, this anniversary of my life’s beginning, I am both grateful and sad. I stand in the space where life is both sweet and bitter, joyful and sorrowful, strong and vulnerable. And here I find the Holy. Here I find love. Here I find life.
___________________

[Cathryn]
I belong to an international prayer organization. From time to time people ask me to add their friends and family members to the prayer list for these people from all over the world to pray for. A couple of years ago some local friends asked me to include prayers for their friend Tom, who had cancer. A year or so later I had the privilege to meet Tom, who was doing well. He told me that he had felt our prayers coming to him in waves of energy. His experience was similar to Janine's story, above.

I am praying for all people who are facing a major health challenge or some situation in which they feel alone and perhaps are afraid they won't be able to find a successful outcome to that challenge. I am visualizing lights of consciousness all around those people, like bonfires on the shore, sending love and light to all who are suffering.

Blessings,
Shakura Cathryn
http://www.moonsinger.com/ 
http://www.dancingpeace.blogspot.com/
http://sites.google.com/site/dupnaz/ 
May All Beings Be Well
May All Beings Be Happy
Peace, Peace, Peace
~Buddhist Blessing
Picture from http://www.cambriatourism.org/july4th/

The Dalai Lama Meets with President Obama Today, 2/18/2010

One of my Facebook friends posted a reminder notice that the Dalai Lama is meeting with President Obama today (Thursday, 2/18/2010) at the White House. One of her friends replied: "Praying for Obama and the Dalai Lama starts off one's day with a very fine rhyme. God bless Obama and the Dalai Lama! Really a great start to each and every day!” I was happy to receive that reminder to lend my own good wishes and prayers to both of them today, and to have the intention to pray for them (and for all the world leaders) on a daily basis.
I choose this lotus (from the Buddha Bless people on Facebook) as a blessing for the meeting of the Dalai Lama and President Obama. May they “walk upon the waters” of the world, rising above the negativity and fear that is projected toward them from so many people.

This is the information from Buddha Bless that accompanies the picture:

Like the lotus mankind can glow into radiant brightness if he can save himself from the debris of life.

Dormant seed that lies under mud and muck and bursts into life under sunlight like the light of optimism. You can be born in the worst conditions possible, much like the lotus, but with considerable growth and determination you can get to the top of the "pond" and become something more then what you were born into.

Om Mani Padme Hum

"The one who wanders independent in the world, free from opinions and viewpoints, does not grasp them and enter into disputations and arguments. As the lotus rises on its stalk unsoiled by the mud and the water, so the wise one speaks of peace and is unstained by the opinions of the world." ~Buddha

Blessings,
Shakura Cathryn
"There is nothing so fragile as action without prayer." ~Buddhist saying

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

A Suspended Blue Ocean

The sky
Is a suspended blue ocean.
The stars are the fish
That swim.
The planets are the white whales
I sometimes hitch a ride on,
And the sun and all light
Have forever fused themselves
Into my heart and upon
My skin.
There is only one rule
On this Wild Playground,
For every sign Hafiz has ever seen
Reads the same.
They all say,
"Have fun, my dear; my dear, have fun,
In the Beloved's Divine
Game,
O, in the Beloved's
Wonderful
Game."
~Hafiz, Translated by Daniel Ladinsky


Shakura Cathryn
Even after all this time
The Sun never says to the Earth
'You owe me'
Look what happens
With a love like that,
It lights the whole sky.
~Hafiz

Monday, February 15, 2010

Valentine from the Universe?

I'm late posting this for Valentine's Day because I didn't find it until late at night.... it was posted to Facebook by one of my friends. I researched it enough to find out that this crop circle appeared in 2000. I saw several other photos of this formation but I don't know where this particular picture was first published, or who took it. However, it's beautiful! A green Valentine from the Unknown!

Valentine's Day Love and Blessings for the Planet,
Shakura Cathryn
"The visible world is the invisible organization of energy."
~Physicist Heinz Pagels

Friday, February 12, 2010

An Inconvenient Truth

Al Gore's excellent documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" will be shown this coming Saturday night, February 13, 2010, on the Planet Green Network. I saw it in 2006 and I STILL HIGHLY RECOMMEND SEEING THIS MOVIE.


Al Gore's presentation and manner were thoughtful and entertaining, and while the outlook of the scientific predictions of future conditions on our planet is NOT good news, it was not presented as a doomsday scenario. The movie did not play on our fears. The information was clearly and concisely presented, with humor, dignity and compassion. The hard science was interspersed with Gore's personal memories and stories from his life which illuminate his reasons for being so passionately committed to raising consciousness about the changing climatic conditions on this beautiful planet Earth.


Blessings,
Shakura Cathryn
www.moonsinger.com
www.dancingpeace.blogspot.com
http://sites.google.com/site/dupnaz/
"Man did not weave the web of life, he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself." ~Chief Seattle
"Only after the last tree has been cut down, only after the last fish has been caught, only after the last river has been poisoned, only then will you realize that money cannot be eaten." ~Cree proverb
"Plans to protect air and water, wilderness and wildlife are in fact plans to protect man." ~Stewart Udall
"You may clean up the environment and return the Earth to her pristine beauty, or as near as you can come with the wear and tear from billions of humans treading not-so-lightly, or you may hasten her demise with your greediness for her resources. Each is a choice that will gather collective karma for you as a people, and now is the time for the decision to be made as to which course of action you will pursue." ~Michael, channeled by Karen Murphy

Monday, February 8, 2010

Doctor's Office

This came to me by e-mail... Thanks, Anthony. Gave me a good laugh!
______________________________
I'm sure that you have seen pharmaceutical advertising in doctor's offices 
on everything from tissues to note pads. Well, in my book, this one should get the prize....

I e-mailed it to my Chinese doctor friend…

He e-mailed back:
"If light stay on more than 4 hours, call erectrician."

Blessings,
Shakura Cathryn
"May the FARCE be with you." ~Swami Beyondananda