LONGING
I long to return where my heart’s song began
The quaint city by the ocean I once knew so well
How I long to play along her sugar white shore
Swim in her ocean as deep and as blue as my longing
I long to jump up and down amidst her ocean floor with it’s scattered sea shells that tumble and stumble, all the while, tickling the tips of my toes
Crash about in her ocean waves as if I were a discarded cork, bobbing freely, just me…
©2011 Angela C. Soelzer Ragosa
I wonder if nasty people know they’re nasty, or if they think they’re perfectly agreeable and good. Maybe they know they’re nasty, but don’t much care. I’d put nasty clown Donald Trump in that category.
I’m not talking about occasionally nasty people (I surely fit in that category). I’m talking full on nasty, 24/7. People who can’t utter a sentence without it sounding like they’re trying to put you on the defensive. People whose faces are perpetually scrunched into scowls, the corner of their mouths turned downward, their slitty eyes menacingly staring at you. These people are usually controlling and paranoid, too, a lovely combination that makes you want to scream.
If I put on my amateur psychiatrist hat, I think nasty people are all unhappy people, but not all unhappy people are nasty. I know a man (I’ll call him Robert) who ranks right up there in the ranks of nasties. Even after he had a major heart attack, he told someone I know that it “didn’t change him a bit.” If it wasn’t so pitiful, I’d laugh. Someone else I know, who is unhappy about being unemployed and can barely make ends meet, doesn’t have a nasty bone in her body.
The most effective way to deal with nasty people is to avoid them. If that’s not possible (let’s say you have to work with them), it’s wise to smile, kill them with kindness and not let them bother you, hard as it may be.
Nasty people usually get their comeuppance somewhere along the way. But remember, that even if that doesn’t seem to be the case outwardly, chances are they’re suffering inwardly much of the time. It doesn’t make you like them a tad more, but it makes it a lot easier to suffer them!
“Not one day in anyone’s life is an uneventful day, no day without profound meaning, no matter how dull and boring it might seem, no matter whether you are a seamstress or a queen, a shoeshine boy, or a movie star, a renowned philosopher or a Down’s-syndrome child. Because in every day of your life, there are opportunities to perform little kin
dnesses for others, both by conscious acts of will and unconscious example. Each smallest act of kindness—even just words of hope when they are needed, the remembrance of a birthday, a compliment that engenders a smile—reverberates across great distances and spans of time, affecting lives unknown to the one whose generous spirit was the source of this good echo, because kindness is passed on and grows each time it’s passed, until a simple courtesy becomes an act of selfless courage years later and far away. Likewise, each small meanness, each thoughtless expression of hatred, each envious and bitter act, regardless of how petty, can inspire others, and is therefore the seed that ultimately produces evil fruit, poisoning people whom you have never met and never will. All human lives are so profoundly and intricately entwined—those dead, those living, those generations yet to come—that the fate of all is the fate of each, and the hope of humanity rests in every heart and in every pair of hands. Therefore, after every failure, we are obliged to strive again for success, and when faced with the end of one thing, we must build something new and better in the ashes, just as from pain and grief, we must weave hope, for each of us is a thread critical to the strength—to the very survival of the human tapestry. Every hour in every life contains such often-unrecognized potential to affect the world that the great days and thrilling possibilities are combined always in this momentous day.”
― Dean Koontz, From the Corner of His Eye
1. Bodies in motion tend to stay in motion.
Keep yours moving.
2. Alignment comes naturally.
Balance cannot be achieved by force.
3. Yoga is more than a series of poses; it’s an approach to life-
and to the world around you.
4. A daily walk can reengage your body and mind.
5. You can’t force flexibility.
It’s about releasing and opening gradually.
6. Experiment with exercise that soothes as well as strengthens.
7. Balance isn’t static; to achieve it,
you have to move, adjust, and change.
8. Your core supports the whole body.
Explore ways to keep it strong.
9. See physical fitness as a practice, not a goal.
10. To find your strength, push past your comfort zone.
“You don’t have to let the surroundings and occurrences of your world bring you stress. You can choose to give them love and appreciation.
Instead of handing out judgments about every little frustration, annoyance and disturbance, you can exude peace and positive purpose.
Instead of letting life get to you, let real, authentic joy flow forth from you.
You are perfectly capable of being ever peaceful, even though you may not always be in peaceful surroundings. You are easily and naturally able to be continually positive, regardless of what may come your way.
The quality of your life in every moment is your decision. Peace is not a place or even an external condition, but a choice of how you are.
Let go of conflicting thoughts about how life is supposed to be.
Live life simply and purely as you choose to be.”
Today, many will awaken with a fresh sense of inspiration. Why not you?
Today, many will open their eyes to the beauty that surrounds them. Why not you?
Today, many will choose to leave the ghost of yesterday behind and seize the immeasurable power of today. Why not you?
Today, many will break through the barriers of the past by looking at the blessings of the present. Why not you?
Today, for many the burden of self doubt and insecurity will be lifted by the security and confidence of empowerment. Why not you?
Today, many will rise above their believed limitations and make contact with their powerful innate strength. Why not you?
You said, “I will go to another land, I will go to another sea.
Another city will be found, better than this.
Every effort of mine is condemned by fate;
and my heart is — like a corpse — buried.
How long in this wasteland will my mind remain.
Wherever I turn my eyes, wherever I may look
I see the black ruins of my life here,
where I spent so many years, and ruined and wasted.”
New lands you will not find, you will not find other seas.
The city will follow you. You will roam the same
streets. And you will age in the same neighborhoods;
in these same houses you will grow gray.
Always you will arrive in this city. To another land — do not hope –
there is no ship for you, there is no road.
As you have ruined your life here
in this little corner, you have destroyed it in the whole world.
A simple guide to mapping out the journey of your lifetime.
I read this article recently in O Magazine and found it a clever way of practicing introspection. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did…
Odysseus just wanted to go to Ithaca. No, not the one in upstate New York—the one in ancient Greece. He dreamed of it the whole seven years he spent trapped on the island of the nymph Calypso. Eventually the pitying gods ordered Calypso to free him, at which point he managed to build a boat and set out on what he hoped would be a brief and pleasant journey.
Ha.
At every turn, Odysseus’s travels were filled with surprises. He conquered monsters at sea only to find worse ones waiting on land. He encountered seductions that sent him half mad with longing. Finally, in the Land of the Dead, he got clear directions from a seer who, oxymoronically enough, was blind.
Does this ring any bells for you? Maybe you, too, feel stranded in your life, awash in a turbulent sea, or lured by the Siren song of a terrifying love. Or maybe you just hope to experience Winnipeg someday, if only for a long weekend. Fortunately, you have your own internal “blind seer”. It can feel its way into the future and draw you a map. I mean literally. Our project today is to help you create a map of your own epic tomorrows—a magically morphing guide that will get more detailed and accurate as you travel.
