What Is

You don't get to vote on what is.
Have you noticed?
~ Byron Katie 

Authenticity

If you think you have nothing to lose you win

if you think you have something to win you lose.

It all drives to motivation. 

Why are you doing what you are doing right now? 

To avoid loss? 

To achieve gain?

Wrong reason both times. 

Life is not about win-and-lose.

Life is about being or not being, 

expressing or not expressing, 

who you are.

Don't do things for personal benefit. 

And don't do things to avoid personal damage. 

Do things to feel personal authenticity.  

Then your life will make sense, 

no matter what is going on around you.

~Neale Donald Walsh

Things That Matter

Of all the things that really and truly matter

working more efficiently

and getting more done

is not among them.

~The Universe

Little Buddies

Everybody needs a little buddy.

:-)

Hungry

Compassion is not religious business

it is human business

it is not luxury

it is essential for our own peace and mental stability

it is essential for human survival
~Dalai Lama

Austin Ballroom Festival

Here we have 

 Victor Fung

2nd place International Ballroom Dance Champion

(among other credits)

and his partner

Anastasia Muravyeva

Finalist of Professional Open Championships 

of Russia, France, Holland, Finland, Italy 

(among other credits)

at The Austin International Ballroom Festival last night.

 Thanks to Stewart for trusting me
with this fantastic, fast paced event.

It was lots of fun, challenging, and so worth it!

I Am Not All...

"I Am Not All That God Is,

But God Is All That I Am."

~Sue Baggett Spears

Artists of Being Alive

The most visible creators I know 

are those artists whose medium is life itself. 

The ones who express the inexpressible

-without brush, hammer, clay or guitar. 

They neither paint nor sculpt

-their medium is their being. 

Whatever their presence touches has increased life. 

They see and don’t have to draw. 

They are the artists of being alive.

~J. Stone

New Website!

I have finally launched a new website.  

If you like what you see,

contact me.

:-)

Things are not always what they seem;

the first appearance deceives many;

the intelligence of a few

perceives what has been carefully hidden. 
 ~Phaedrus

Memories

 
Memories may escape the action of the will, may sleep a long time, but when stirred by the right influence, though that influence be light as a shadow, they flash into stature and life with everything in place.
~John Muir

Wind

Since I grew tired of the chase

And search, I learned to find;

And since the wind blows in my face

I sail with every wind.

~Freidrich Nietzsche

"A tree does not move unless there is wind."
~ Proverb quotes

Nothing To Learn

You came into this life with nothing to learn,

- you have only to demonstrate what you already know.

In the demonstration of it, will you function it out,

and create yourself anew, through your experience.

Thus do you justify life and give it purpose.

Thus do you render it holy.

~Neal Donald Walsh

Conversations With God Book I

(Let the wind blow....)

The Truth

Men occasionally stumble over the truth,

but most of them pick themselves up

and hurry off as if nothing had happened.  

~Winston Churchill

Robyn and Kevin

My congratulations to Robyn and Kevin

It POURED rain on their wedding day

... I understand that's good luck.

Faith

“Faith does not rely 

on knowing anything with certainty. 

It requires only the courage 

to accept that whatever happens

is for the highest good.”

~Dan Millman

Get Out of The Way

There are so many ways to heal. 

Arrogance may have a place in technology, 

but not in healing. 

I need to get out of my own way

if I am to heal.

~Anne Wilson Schaef 

On Arrogance

 He was like a cock who thought the sun had risen to hear him crow.

 ~George Eliot

Angels

To love for the sake of being loved is human, 

but to love for the sake of loving is angelic.

~Alphonse de Lemartine

Enlightenment

Enlightenment--

that magnificent escape from anguish and ignorance--

never happens by accident. 

It results from the brave 

and sometimes lonely battle 

of one person against his own weaknesses.

~Bhikkhu Nyanasobhano

Good Breeding

The test of a man or a woman's breeding 

is how they behave in a quarrel.

~George Bernard Shaw

...drink his remedy...

AND a woman spoke, saying, Tell us of Pain.

And he said:

Your pain is the breaking of the shell
that encloses your understanding.

Even as the stone of the fruit must break,that its
heart may stand in the sun, so must you know pain.

And could you keep your heart in wonder
at the daily miracles of your life, your pain
would not seem less wondrous than your joy;

And you would accept the seasons of your
heart, even as you have always accepted
the seasons that pass over your fields.

And you would watch with serenity
through the winters of your grief.

Much of your pain is self-chosen.

It is the bitter potion by which the
physician within you heals your sick self.

Therefore trust the physician, and drink
his remedy in silence and tranquility:

For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided
by the tender hand of the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips,
has been fashioned of the clay which the Potter
has moistened with His own sacred tears. 

~Kahlil Gibran

The Prophet

The Soul of The Soul

“Oh soul,
you worry too much.
You have seen your own strength.
You have seen your own beauty.
You have seen your golden wings.
Of anything less,
why do you worry?
You are in truth
the soul, of the soul, of the soul.”

~Rumi

Friendship

It takes a long time

to grow an old friend.

~John Leonard

Rowdy and Ebullient

A rowdy and ebullient display

in honor of last night. 
An evening very worthy
of remembering

in so many ways.

Feeling blessed.

And so it is.

Time

Time warms the chill of pain

gives rise to understanding

and respects intuition.

Time kisses tears,
embraces anger,
understands sadness,
encompasses rage.

Time gives new knowledge, new feelings, new purpose.

Time is generous, and enough.

Time is a perfect lover,

softening rough edges under its inviting touch.

Intuition

"Guidance requires action, but it does not guarantee safety.
While we measure our own success in terms
of our personal comfort and security
the universe measures our success by how much we have learned.
So long as we use comfort and security as our criteria of success,
we will fear our own intuitive guidance
because by its very nature
it directs us into new cycles of learning
that are sometimes uncomfortable."
~Caroline Myss

Que Gallery

I've recently submitted some work 

over at Que Gallery.

If you are a LGBTQ artist

with work to submit,

consider doing so.

The show will coincide with PRIDE

with a grand opening June 1.

 

PVJ8AY5WH33K

Happy Easter

"The real message of Easter 

is going through tough times 

and learning from them...

resurrecting our lives
out of painful circumstance 

into something better."

~ Christopher Ian Chenowith

Transition

"Birth and death, 

old and new, 

mourning for what was 

while waiting expectantly for what is to come. 

"In-between times" 

can have an abundance of opposites. 

It is best to be in such times of transition 

gently and quietly, 

not rushing the process 

but taking it a day at a time."
~Ruth Hanna, M.Ed., LPC

The Quest

In the attitude of silence 

the soul finds a path

in a clearer light

and what is elusive and deceptive

resolves itself into crystal clearness...

~Mahatma Ghandi

The Sky Will Bow To Your Beauty

Brother stand the pain; 

Escape the poison of your impulses. 

The sky will bow to your beauty, if you do. 

Learn to light the candle. 

Rise with the sun. 

Turn away from the cave of your sleeping. 

That way a thorn expands to a rose. 

A particular glows with the universal.

~Rumi