"All you need is love. But a little chocolate now and then doesn't hurt."
Charles M. Schulz
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Tuesday, October 30, 2012
love an animal
"Until one has loved an animal, part of one's soul remains unawakened"
Anatole France, poet
Anatole France, poet
Monday, October 29, 2012
widening our circle of compassion
"Our task must be to free ourselves... by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature and its beauty."
Albert Einstein
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Saturday, October 27, 2012
All things are connected
"If all the beasts were gone, men would die from a great loneliness of spirit, for whatever happens to the beasts also happens to the man. All things are connected."
Chief Seattle
Friday, October 26, 2012
for all the mamas
I showed up to the party a bit late and, as usual, slightly askew from trying to dress myself and all my little people for such a special night out. I'm still carrying a fair amount of baby weight and wearing a nursing bra, and I don't fit into my cute clothes. I felt awkward and tired and rumpled.
I was leaning my aching back against the bar, my now 5-month-old baby sleeping in a carrier on my chest (despite the pounding bass and dulcet tones of LMFAO blasting through the room) when my 5-year-old son ran up to me.
"Come take pictures with me, Mommy," he yelled over the music, "in the photo booth!"
I hesitated. I avoid photographic evidence of my existence these days. To be honest, I avoid even mirrors. When I see myself in pictures, it makes me wince. I know I am far from alone; I know that many of my friends also avoid the camera.
It seems logical. We're sporting mama bodies and we're not as young as we used to be. We don't always have time to blow dry our hair, apply make-up, perhaps even bathe (ducking). The kids are so much cuter than we are; better to just take their pictures, we think.
But we really need to make an effort to get in the picture. Our sons need to see how young and beautiful and human their mamas were. Our daughters need to see us vulnerable and open and just being ourselves -- women, mamas, people living lives. Avoiding the camera because we don't like to see our own pictures? How can that be okay?
Too much of a mama's life goes undocumented and unseen. People, including my children, don't see the way I make sure my kids' favorite stuffed animals are on their beds at night. They don't know how I walk the grocery store aisles looking for treats that will thrill them for a special day. They don't know that I saved their side-snap, paper-thin baby shirts from the hospital where they were born or their little hospital bracelets in keepsake boxes high on the top shelves of their closets. They don't see me tossing and turning in bed wondering if I am doing an okay job as a mother, if they are okay in their schools, where we should take them for a vacation, what we should do for their birthdays. I'm up long past the news on Christmas Eve wrapping presents and eating cookies and milk, and I spend hours hunting the Internet and the local Targets for specially-requested Halloween costumes and birthday presents. They don't see any of that.
Someday, I want them to see me, documented, sitting right there beside them: me, the woman who gave birth to them, whom they can thank for their ample thighs and their pretty hair; me, the woman who nursed them all for the first years of their lives, enduring porn star-sized boobs and leaking through her shirts for months on end; me, who ran around gathering snacks to be the week's parent reader or planning the class Valentine's Day party; me, who cried when I dropped them off at preschool, breathed in the smell of their post-bath hair when I read them bedtime stories, and defied speeding laws when I had to rush them to the pediatric ER in the middle of the night for fill-in-the-blank (ear infections, croup, rotavirus).
I'm everywhere in their young lives, and yet I have very few pictures of me with them. Someday I won't be here -- and I don't know if that someday is tomorrow or thirty or forty or fifty years from now -- but I want them to have pictures of me. I want them to see the way I looked at them, see how much I loved them. I am not perfect to look at and I am not perfect to love, but I am perfectly their mother.
When I look at pictures of my own mother, I don't look at cellulite or hair debacles. I just see her -- her kind eyes, her open-mouthed, joyful smile, her familiar clothes. That's the mother I remember. My mother's body is the vessel that carries all the memories of my childhood. I always loved that her stomach was soft, her skin freckled, her fingers long. I didn't care that she didn't look like a model. She was my mama.
So when all is said and done, if I can't do it for myself, I want to do it for my kids. I want to be in the picture, to give them that visual memory of me. I want them to see how much I am here, how my body looks wrapped around them in a hug, how loved they are.
I will save the little printed page with four squares of pictures on it and the words "Morgan's Sweet Sixteen" scrawled across the top with the date. There I am, hair not quite coiffed, make-up minimal, face fuller than I would like -- one hand holding a sleeping baby's head, and the other wrapped around my sweet littlest guy, who could not care less what I look like.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allison-tate/mom-pictures-with-kids_b_1926073.html?utm_hp_ref=parents&ir=Parents
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
keep love in your heart
"Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead."
Oscar Wilde
Oscar Wilde
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
Monday, October 22, 2012
Sunday, October 21, 2012
I Open And Fill With Love
""Everything Is Soul And Flowering.
I Open And Fill With Love
And What Is Not Love Evaporates."
Rumi
I Open And Fill With Love
And What Is Not Love Evaporates."
Rumi
Saturday, October 20, 2012
Friday, October 19, 2012
Thursday, October 18, 2012
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
miles
"
Can miles truly separate you from friends... If you want to be with someone you love, aren't you already there?"
Richard Bach
Richard Bach
Tuesday, October 16, 2012
Big Sugar
Big Sugar explores the dark history and modern power of the world's reigning sugar cartels. Using dramatic reenactments, it reveals how sugar was at the heart of slavery in the West Indies in the 18th century, while showing how present-day consumers are slaves to a sugar-based diet. Going undercover, Big Sugar witnesses the appalling working conditions on plantations in the Dominican Republic, where Haitian cane cutters live like slaves. Workers who live on Central Romano, a Fanjul-owned plantation, go hungry while working 12-hour days to earn $2 (US).
part 1
how to cook your life
A Zen priest in San Francisco and cookbook author use Zen Buddhism and cooking to relate to everyday life.
beautiful ~ a must see for anyone with a love of food, cooking, and inner peace. it can help bring a whole new mindfulness to your plate & life. enjoy!
The Weight of the World
This fascinating documentary looks at obesity. Stockholm’s Dr. Stephan Rossner, an obesity specialist, proves beyond doubt that obesity is a man-made epidemic. Super-sized fast foods and a $12 billion ad industry are proving to be lethal when mixed with a car-dominated culture, urban sprawl and labour-saving technologies.
The Weight of the World by Glynis Whiting, National Film Board of Canada
Monday, October 15, 2012
door of your own heart
"Why are you knocking at every other door?
Go, knock at the door of your own heart."
Rumi
Go, knock at the door of your own heart."
Rumi
Sunday, October 14, 2012
Saturday, October 13, 2012
the most beautiful things in the world
"The most beautiful things in the world
cannot be seen or even touched,
they must be felt with the heart."
Helen Keller
cannot be seen or even touched,
they must be felt with the heart."
Helen Keller
Friday, October 12, 2012
Thursday, October 11, 2012
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Tuesday, October 9, 2012
Monday, October 8, 2012
happy thanksgiving
"Every breath is a sacrament, an
affirmation of our connection with
all other living things, a renewal
of our link with ancestors
and a contribution to generations
yet to come."
David Suzuki
affirmation of our connection with
all other living things, a renewal
of our link with ancestors
and a contribution to generations
yet to come."
David Suzuki
Sunday, October 7, 2012
generosity of love
“Since Love has made ruins of my heart the sun must come and illumine them. Such generosity has broken me with shame.”
Rumi
Rumi
Saturday, October 6, 2012
everything in between
“Sometimes love does not have the most
honorable beginnings, and the endings, the endings will break you in
half. It’s everything in between we live for.”
Ann Patchett
Ann Patchett
Friday, October 5, 2012
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
the paradox
Mother Teresa
Tuesday, October 2, 2012
Monday, October 1, 2012
one day we will realize
"One day we will realize that big hearts will bring us more peace than big weapons."
Anthony Douglas Williams
Inside the Divine Pattern
Anthony Douglas Williams
Inside the Divine Pattern
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