Long road winding

Author Unknown

Long road winding began in the stars,

spilled onto the mountain tops,

was carried in the snow to the streams,

to the rivers, to the ocean!

It covers Canada, Alaska, America,

Mexico to Guatemala,

and keeps winding around the indigenous.

The Red Road is a circle of people

standing hand in hand,

people in this world, people between

people in the Spirit world.

star people, animal people, stone people,

river people, tree people!

The Sacred Hoop.

To walk the Red Road

is to know sacrifice, suffering.

It is to understand humility.

It is the ability to stand naked before God

in all things for your wrong doings,

for your lack of strength,

for your uncompassionate way,

for your arrogance - because to walk

the Red Road, you always know

you can do better. And you know,

when you do good things,

it is through the Creator, and you are grateful.

To walk the Red Road

is to know you stand on equal ground

with all living things. It is to know that

because you were born human,

it gives you superiority over nothing.

It is to know that every creation carries a Spirit,

and the river knows more than you do,

the mountains know more than you do,

the stone people know more than you do,

the trees know more than you do,

the wind is wiser than you are,

and animal people carry wisdom.

You can learn from every one of them,

because they have something you don't:

They are void of evil thoughts.

They wish vengeance on no one, they seek Justice.

To Walk the Red Road,

you have God given rights,

you have the right to pray,

you have the right to dance,

you have the right to think,

you have the right to protect,

you have the right to know Mother,

you have the right to dream,

you have the right to vision,

you have the right to teach,

you have the right to learn,

you have a right to grieve,

you have a right to happiness,

you have the right to fix the wrongs,

you have the right to truth,

you have a right to the Spirit World.

To Walk the Red Road

is to know your Ancestors,

to call to them for assistance!

It is to know that there is good medicine,

and there is bad medicine!

It is to know that Evil exists,

but is cowardly as it is often in disguise.

It is to know there are evil spirits

who are in constant watch

for a way to gain strength for themselves

at the expense of you.

To Walk the Red Road,

you have less fear of being wrong,

because you know that life is a journey,

a continuous circle, a sacred hoop.

Mistakes will be made,

and mistakes can be corrected -

if you will be humble,

for if you cannot be humble,

you will never know

when you have made a mistake.

If you walk the Red Road,

you know that every sorrow

leads to a better understanding,

every horror cannot be explained,

but can offer growth.

To Walk the Red Road

is to look for beauty in all things.

To Walk the Red Road

is to know you will one day

cross to the Spirit World, and you will not be afraid!

"A Buddhist Prayer of Forgiveness"

"A Buddhist Prayer of Forgiveness"

"If I have harmed anyone in any way
either knowingly or unknowingly
through my own confusions
I ask their forgiveness.
If anyone has harmed me in any way
either knowingly or unknowingly
through their own confusions
I forgive them.
And if there is a situation
I am not yet ready to forgive
I forgive myself for that.
For all the ways that I harm myself,
negate, doubt, belittle myself,
judge or be unkind to myself
through my own confusions
I forgive myself."

Your mother....

"Your mother pushes your button because she installed them baby!" 

 Robin Williams

A Blessing for the New Year

From To Bless the Space Between Us: A Book of Blessing by John O'Donohue

A Blessing for the New Year

Bennacht
For Josie.

On the day when
The weight deadens
On your shoulders
And you stumble,
May the clay dance
To balance you.

And when your eyes
 Freeze behind
The gray window
And the ghost of loss
Gets into you,
May a flock of colors,
Indigo, red, green
And azure blue,
Come to awaken in you
A meadow of delight.

When the canvas frays
In the curragh of thought
And a stain of ocean
Blackens beneath you,
May there come across the waters
A path of yellow moonlight
To being you safely home.

My the nourishment of the earth be yours,
May the clarity of light be yours,
May the fluency of the ocean be yours,
May the protection of the ancestors be yours.

And so may a slow
Wind work these words
Of love around you,
An invisible cloak
To mind your life.

How to embed ppt in a blog

http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/powerpoint/embed-a-powerpoint-presentation-on-a-webpage-FX102602487.aspx

Happiness

"Happiness that the world can not take away only flourishes in the secret garden of our souls. By tending to our inner garden and uprooting the weeds of external expectations, can we nurture our authentic happiness the way we would nurture something that's beautiful and alive. Happiness is a living emotion."

~Simple Abundance: A Daybook of Comfort and Joy by Sarah Ban Breathnach

 I love the visual, visceral (earthy instinct) of "uprooting the weeds of external expectations". Not just pulling the weeds; by doing such will allow them to return; but uprooting - firmly grasping the external expectation and removing every flower (even weeds have flowers all the more easily to be disguised), seed, stamen, and taproot of it! How liberating! Once the weeds are gone, with careful diligence, new shoots of growth - peace, gratitude, and happiness can be planted and tended.

Sometimes those "external expectations" become part of the my landscape without even a glance let alone a thoughtful, conscious, perusal. They feel like they are mine - the shoulds, woulds, cant's, all feeding on fear perpetuated by the "external expectations" of others that I have allowed to become mine.

It is time to work in my secret garden!