Okay, he’s not really a hippie by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s a nice thought regardless:
“As a writer, you should not judge, you should understand.”
Category: quotes
To 2013
Happy New Year! Let’s kick it off with a quote from that old hippie Steve Jobs, which I think is going to be the theme for the year:
You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something—your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.
[…]Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma—which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.
This
From “Christmas for Mystics,” by Marianne Williamson. Happy hippie Christmas, everyone!
According to the mystical tradition, Christ is born into the world through each of us. As we open our hearts, he is born into the world. As we choose to forgive, he is born into the world. As we rise to the occasion, he is born into the world. As we make our hearts true conduits for love, and our minds true conduits for higher thoughts, then absolutely a divine birth takes place. Who we’re capable of being emerges into the world, and weaknesses of the former self begin to fade.
Beyond the mythmaking, doctrine and dogma, [Jesus] is a magnificent spiritual force. And one doesn’t have to be Christian to appreciate that fact… Beyond the nativity scenes, beyond the doctrinal hoopla, lies one important thing: the hope that we might yet become, while still on this earth, who we truly are.
Friday!
So the blog move is all done and you should be seeing a fancy new font and fancy new navigation and a fancy new book linen background. Many thanks again to my long-time friends (and brilliant business owners) Amber and Steve for getting this together for me.
I need to do a wrap-up on the 3+2 Things for the year, but I think that’s about all I’ll be posting next week–because we made it through the Solstice (at 4:11 this morning MST), Christmas is upon us, and there are Thin Man movies to be watched.
Because I never miss a chance for a hippie quote, here is what the shamans are telling us about the Solstice today:
The energy is about honoring and forgiving the structure that has held life together up until this point. Move yourself into a place of trust that a new structure has been organizing itself… through a collective intention of having a better world. The best intention during this time is to be in trust.
I Probably Should Re-name The Blog
How about “Better Living Through Hippie Readings”? Because I’m sharing another one. (There may be one every day, if that’s what it takes to make it to the solstice.)
Anyway, as part of the 3+2 Goals to “be happier [in my work, but really just in general]” and “be more compassionate,” I bought The Book of Awakening, a year of readings and meditation prompts. This was today’s:
[Try to] honor each obstacle as something flowing in its own right in the Universal stream, to see ourselves and the obstacle as two limbs of the same tree drifting in the same river, bumping into each other, and even blocking on another for a moment…we must focus on our relationship to the stream and not to the things being carried alongside us.
December
If it’s December, it’s time for my favorite part of it: The Hubble Space Telescope Advent Calendar.
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| Today’s image: Part of the Carina Nebula |
It’s also time to keep something in mind that my yoga teacher shared on Saturday: “The theme for December is forgiveness.” That’s taken from this page, and the metaphor of “moving houses” really touched me, as did this:
This is the task this month: To forgive and let go. To release the unproductive partnerships and bad investments and stupid mistakes and all the guilt and shame around the ways that we were naïve or impulsive or addicted or ignorant.
…and as you release and let go and forgive, look at what may be coming to you that is new, innovative and exciting. Take a chance on something that feels right and inspires you. Now is the time to have the courage to make the changes you know are right.
And there you go. Space and hippies, brought together for your Monday morning.
Gratitude
“Finding our attitude of gratitude may be a difficult task, but the more we learn to return thanks, the more space we make for new unexpected blessings to appear in our lives. There is no substitute for finally acknowledging the blessings that we have taken for granted. In this process we rediscover the magic and wonder of the most simple gifts. Do we have to suffer from emphysema before we can have gratitude for the precious breath of life? Do we have to lose our homes before we can return thanks for having shelter? If we have taken for granted all our blessings of health or a loving family, will we need to be reminded to be grateful through near tragedy or actual loss?”
(quote and image via Mystic Mamma)
This weekend is for focusing on my blessings, and finally pruning the lavender, and Tofurkey. I’ll be back Monday.
Happy Birthday, Carl Sagan
Today is the birthday of my science boyfriend Carl Sagan. It’s hard to narrow down what I want to say about him, or pick a favorite quote, because how can you say that this:
There was a time when the stars seemed an impenetrable mystery, but today we have begun to understand them. In our personal lives, also, we journey from ignorance to knowledge. Our individual growth reflects the advancement of the species. The exploration of the cosmos is a voyage of self-discovery.
is more inspiring than this?
Even The Writer’s Almanac gave him a mention today:
Because he had done extensive research on nearby planets, NASA hired him as an advisor for a mission to send remote-controlled spacecrafts to Venus..In preparation for the mission, Sagan was shocked to learn that there would be no cameras on the robotic spacecrafts, called Mariner I and Mariner II. The other scientists thought cameras would be a waste of valuable space and equipment…Sagan couldn’t believe they would give up the chance to see an alien planet up close[…]
Sagan lost the argument that time, but he won over NASA eventually. The Mariners were the last exploratory spacecraft ever launched by NASA without cameras. He contributed to the Viking, Voyager, and Galileo planetary exploration missions, and his insistence on the use of cameras helped us get the first close-up photographs of the outer planets and their moons.
I think that this latest image from Curiosity–on THE SURFACE OF MARS, fer crissake–reflects his legacy.
Bravery
I haven’t had an inspirational hippie quote to start off the week in a while. Here’s one for today (source):
The truth is that meaningful change is a process. It can be uncomfortable and is often risky, especially when we’re talking about embracing our imperfections, cultivating authenticity, and looking the world in the eye and saying, “I am enough.”
However afraid we are of change, the question that we must ultimately answer is this: What the greater risk? Letting go of what people think or letting go of how I feel, what I believe, and who I am?
Wholehearted living is about engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness. It’s about cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, “No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough.”
OK. Let’s do this.
Hippie Quote Thursday
There’s an ongoing “let’s plan!” vs. “let’s not plan!” debate between me and the significant other. Ironically enough, the hippie quotes seem to be supporting his (decidedly non-hippie) view:
When we stop trying to control events, they fall into natural order, an order that works. We’re at rest while a power much greater than our own takes over, and it does a much better job than we could have done. We learn to trust that the power that holds galaxies together can handle the circumstances of our relative little lives.