Place a beehive on my grave

"Place a beehive on my grave and let the honey soak through. When I'm dead and gone, that's what I want from you. The streets of heaven are gold and sunny, but I'll stick with my plot & a pot of honey." ~ Sue Monk Kidd

To work with love

"What is it to work with love? It is to sow the seeds with tenderness and reap the harvest with joy, even as if your beloved were to eat the fruit." ~ Kahlil Gibran

Just want to be wonderful

"I am not interested in money. I just want to be wonderful." ~ Marilyn Monroe

Keep Love In Your Heart

“Keep love in your heart. A life without it is like a sunless garden when the flowers are dead. The consciousness of loving and being loved brings a warmth and richness to life that nothing else can bring.” ~ Oscar Wild

Life is...

Life without love
is like a tree without
blossoms or fruit.

~Kahlil Gibran

Alone in Texas

Nirvana

Nirvana may be the final object of attainment, but at the moment it is difficult to reach. Thus the practical and realistic aim is compassion, a warm heart, serving other people, helping others, respecting others, being less selfish.
By practising these, you can gain
benefit and happiness that remain longer.
If you investigate the purpose of life and, with the motivation that results from this inquiry, develop a good heart - compassion and love. Using your whole life this way, each day will become useful and meaningful.

Every human being has the same potential for compassion; the only question is whether we really take any care of that potential, and develop and implement it in our daily life. My hope is that more and more people will realise the value of compassion, and so follow the path of altruism. As for myself, ever since I became a Buddhist monk, that has been my real destiny - for usually I think of myself as just one simple Buddhist monk,
no more and no less.


~Dalai Lama

From BUDDHA BLESS on Facebook.

Barack Obama

Yes We Can

Martin Luther King on Love

~ By Martin Luther King Jr.
US black civil rights leader & clergyman
(1929 - 1968)

I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word in reality. That is why right, temporarily defeated, is stronger than evil triumphant.

Sonnet XLIV

From "100 Love Sonnets" (Cien sonetos de amor)
~ By Pablo Neruda

You must know that I do not love and that I love you,
because everything alive has its two sides;
a word is one wing of silence,
fire has its cold half.

I love you in order to begin to love you,
to start infinity again
and never to stop loving you:
that's why I do not love you yet.

I love you, and I do not love you, as if I held
keys in my hand: to a future of joy-
a wretched, muddled fate-

My love has two lives, in order to love you:
that's why I love you when I do not love you,
and also why I love you when I do.

Angel

~ By Sarah McLachlan
City of Angels Soundtrack


Spend all your time waiting for that second chance
For the break that will make it OK
There's always some reason to feel not good enough
And it's hard at the end of the day
I need some distraction or a beautiful release
Memories seep from my veins
Let me be empty and weightless and maybe
I'll find some peace tonight

In the arms of the Angel far away from here
From this dark, cold hotel room, and the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage of your silent reverie
You're in the arms of the Angel; may you find some comfort here

So tired of the straight line, and everywhere you turn
There's vultures and thieves at your back
The storm keeps on twisting, you keep on building the lies
That you make up for all that you lack
It don't make no difference, escaping one last time
It's easier to believe
In this sweet madness, oh this glorious sadness
That brings me to my knees

In the arms of the Angel far away from here
From this dark, cold hotel room, and the endlessness that you fear
You are pulled from the wreckage of your silent reverie
In the arms of the Angel; may you find some comfort here

You're in the arms of the Angel; may you find some comfort here

In Memoriam

Excerpts from "In Memoriam"
~ By Alfred, Lord Tennyson.

ii

Dark house, by which once more I stand
Here in the long unlovely street,
Doors, where my heart was used to beat
So quickly, waiting for a hand,

A hand that can be clasped no more—
Behold me, for I cannot sleep,
And like a guilty thing I creep
At earliest morning to the door.

He is not here; but far away
The noise of life begins again,
And ghastly through the drizzling rain
On the bald street breaks the blank day.

viii

Love is and was my Lord and King,
And in his presence I attend
To hear the tidings of my friend,
Which every hour his couriers bring.

Love is and was my King and Lord,
And will be, though as yet I keep
Within his court on earth, and sleep
Encompassed by his faithful guard,

And hear at times a sentinel
Who moves about from place to place,
And whispers to the worlds of space,
In the deep night, that all is well.

Time To Say Goodbye

~ Time To Say Goodbye ("Con te partirò") is an Italian song written by Francesco Sartori (music) and Lucio Quarantotto (lyrics)*

When Im alone
I dream on the horizon
And words fail;
Yes, I know there is no light
In a room
Where the sun is not there
If you are not with me.
At the windows
Show everyone my heart
Which you set alight;
Enclose within me
The light you
Encountered on the street.

Time to say goodbye,
To countries I never
Saw and shared with you,
Now, yes, I shall experience them,
Ill go with you
On ships across seas
Which, I know,
No, no, exist no longer;
With you I shall experience them.

When you are far away
I dream on the horizon
And words fail,
And yes, I know
That you are with me;
You, my moon, are here with me,
My sun, you are here with me.
With me, with me, with me,

Time to say goodbye,
To countries I never
Saw and shared with you,
Now, yes, I shall experience them,
Ill go with you
On ships across seas
Which, I know,
No, no, exist no longer;
With you I shall re-experience them.
Ill go with you
On ships across seas
Which, I know,
No, no, exist no longer;
With you I shall re-experience them.
Ill go with you,
I with you.

-----------------

[More beautiful yet, here's Con Te Partiro (original Italian version)]

Quando sono solo
Sogno allorizzonte
E mancan le parole
Si lo so che non c? luce
In una stanza quando manca il sole
Se non ci sei tu con me, con me
Su le finestre
Mostra a tutti il mio cuore
Che hai accesso
Chiudi dentro me
La luce
Che hai incontrato per strada.

Con te partiro
Paesi che non ho mai
Veduto e vissuto con te
Adesso si li vivr?
Con te partiro
Su navi per mari
Che io lo so
No no non esistono pi?
Con te io li rivivro.

Quando sei lontana
Sogno allorizzonte
E mancan le parole
E io si lo so
Che sei con me con me
Tu mia luna tu sei qui con me
Mio sole tu sei qui con me,
Con me, con me, con me.

Con te partiro
Paesi che non ho mai
Veduto e vissuto con te
Adesso s? li vivr?
Con te partir?
Su navi per mari
Che io lo so
No no non esistono pi?
Con te io li rivivr?
Con te partir?
Su navi per mari
Che io lo so
No no non esistono pi?
Con te io li rivivr?
Con te partiro.
Io con te.


* It was first sung by Andrea Bocelli at the 1995 San Remo Festival and recorded on his album of the same year, Bocelli. The song achieved widespread success with a second version sung partly in English, pairing Bocelli with soprano Sarah Brightman, and released as "Time to Say Goodbye".

In November 1996 the duet Time To Say Goodbye by Sarah Brightman & Andrea Bocelli became in a few weeks time a big hit in Germany and later on also in several other countries of continental of Europe. And after it was performed on a T.V. programme of the National Lottery on 10 May 1997 it also become very swiftly successful in the Great Britain.

Watch and listen to it on YouTube

The Lake Isle of Innisfree

~ By W.B. Yeats

I will arise and go now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made:
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for the honey-bee;
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.

And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
There midnight's all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet's wings.

I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear the lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart's core.

W. B. Yeates Biography

A lesson for all parents

A tribute to my mom's moral influence
When I got in trouble with the neighbors, she gave me an indelible lesson.

~ By John Dreyer

CSMonitor.com/2007/0511

Today's Picture (04-26-07)

Mono Lake, California

What you see sometimes is not what you think

~ Author unknown

A woman was at the airport for a “red-eye” flight. She was tired, but also hungry so she bought a box of cookies. She sat down near the gate to read.

After a few minutes, she decided to eat some of the cookies she had purchased, and reached down to get them. As she opened the package, she noticed the man beside her watching with great interest. She took the first cookie and began to eat when, to her great surprise, the man reached over, smiling, and took the second cookie.

This upset the woman but she did not want to create scene. Besides, she thought, “Well, he is only eating one.” The woman ate her cookie in stunned silence, astonished at the audacity of the man. After a moment she determinedly reached for the 3rd cookie, but no sooner had she taken it out of the package than he, again smiling and without a word, reached over and took the 4th. Her indignation rose as back and forth they went in total silence, she taking a cookie, he taking a cookie, until they reached the bottom of the package where the final cookie remained.

The man picked up the final cookie and said to the woman, “Would you like to split it with me?” She was so furious that she grabbed it out of his hand, took her bag and stormed away.

Only a few moments later, already in the plane, she was still fuming. Before she sat down, as she reached into her purse to retrieve her glasses, she stopped short. She was stunned. There in the bag was her unopened package of cookies.

The man she was angry with turned out to be the generous one.

Fight Global Poverty

I want to let you all know about a cool non-profit that is doing great things: Kiva.org

Kiva.org allows individuals to make $25 loans to low-income entrepreneurs in the developing world (microfinance). By doing so,
individuals like you provide affordable working capital for the poor (money to buy a sewing machine, livestock, etc.), empowering them to earn their way out of poverty.

It's a new, direct and sustainable way to fight global poverty.

Anyways, if you have a minute, please check out the site: Kiva.org. Note that they have received great press in
publications ranging from The Wall Street Journal to NPR to BusinessWeek.

I recently viewed a Frontiline (PBS) program regarding Kiva.org and was blown away at how people are responding Kiva. It's people helping people around the world. How moving and sweet.

Today's picture (03-31-2007)

Street Mural, Philadelphia, PA.

Where love begins

Mother Teresa
The Nobel Peace Prize 1979

From the Nobel Lecture


"And so here I am talking with you - I want you to find the poor here, right in your own home first. And begin love there. Be that good news to your own people. And find out about your next-door neighbour - do you know who they are? I had the most extraordinary experience with a Hindu family who had eight children. A gentleman came to our house and said: Mother Teresa, there is a family with eight children, they had not eaten for so long - do something. So I took some rice and I went there immediately. And I saw the children - their eyes shinning with hunger - I don't know if you have ever seen hunger. But I have seen it very often. And she took the rice, she divided the rice, and she went out. When she came back I asked her - where did you go, what did you do? And she gave me a very simple answer: They are hungry also. What struck me most was that she knew - and who are they, a Muslim family - and she knew. I didn't bring more rice that evening because I wanted them to enjoy the joy of sharing. But there were those children, radiating joy, sharing the joy with their mother because she had the love to give. And you see this is where love begins - at home."

Read and/or hear the entire lecture at:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/1979/teresa-lecture.html