Gratitude Log

Words are not enough.

We hear thoughts of wisdom in every corner of our way to somewhere. They make sense. They say, 'Happiness is accepting who you are', 'Your dreams will come true if you follow them'...  I don't know, there are so many proverbs, and fabulous quotes about living life... But, here’s what I’ve just realized. The idea of Happiness, of Love, of Gratitude it’s just a thought, words put together to create a sense of something that could be real, but it’s not. So, while we're feeding ourselves of lovely ideas about Life, and we should live it, we’re just grasping the whole “choose life” stuff.

Practice is Life.

We need inspiration to feed our mind, like we need nutritive food to feed our body, but we taste the food, the temperature, the consistency, its flavor. So, how do we taste inspiration? We get inspired and then what happens?

We need to make things happen. We need to touch, to feel, to smell, to build with our owns hands, to get cut, to get all cover in dirt, paint or soaking wet from the rain, to live the INSPIRATION. To be inspired means to have been directly and immediately incited by some “divine” influence to act.

We were born inspired. This is such a powerful thought.
We were born inspired.

Who tamed* the lioness?

* made docile and submissive; lacking spirit, zest, interest, or the capacity to excite.

This will be a post a bit off of what is usual here, but the proximity of the full moon brings up deeper feelings of my inner animal side. I chose the title "who tamed the lioness" because I was thinking on how most people I know, including myself obviously, have become a softer version of themselves. A more domesticable, tamed, version of what they are.

Freud had this theory of deep inner energetic impulses, stronger than our consciousness, that controlled our decision making process. He called them "pulsões" (from latin: action pousser, pellere, pulsum). According to him, the behavior generated from those energetic impulses came from certain inputs of our unconscious being. Of course this was all connected to our sexuality. Everything in Freud is deeply rooted into the eroticly fetished sexuality of the human being.

I don’t agree with a lot of Freud theories, but I can’t blame him for being sometimes so wrong about women psychology, those were very different times (1856-1939), but what brings me here is exactly that same topic. Our sexual energy as primal energy, as source of our most inner desires and truths.
When I walk around appreciating people and life, and when I stop and look also at myself, there’s part of me, as in others, that feels dull, dormant, asleep, greyish.

So I have to ask, are we forgetting to be more wild and less domesticated?
Are we becoming so technological driven, that our sexual energy levels have become more fake and entertaining than real and spectacular?

Well, no one resists the involuntary adaptation of coupling and from coupling comes mating, and with mating comes that softer version of ourselves. But if you’re the dreamer type, the artist, the fool, that is something that once happening means your loosing an important part of your creative juice. 

So what can we do to keep that inner sexual impulse alive without falling into wild orchids affairs?
 

Create. Vibrate and resonate through music. Dance. Especially keep dreaming and don’t be shy to be the way you are. Yes, most people will think you’re a bit out of this world, but others will potentiate the best in you, and that way you will continue having orgasmic joyful ideas, and you’ll continue smiling naturally for no reason at all, except that you feel good in your skin. Your skin...

 

 

"'I am free,’ he said suddenly. And his joy changed, on the spot, to a crushing sense of anguish."

- Jean-Paul Sartre
 

Founder of a free school for slum children Rajesh Kumar Sharma, second from right, and Laxmi Chandra, right, write on black boards, painted on a building wall, at a free school run under a metro bridge in New Delhi, India. At least 30 children living in the nearby slums have been receiving free education from this school for the last three years. via politics-war

More on Happiness

We almost extenuating try to understand what make us happy, and the answers repeat themselves over and over, in more or less words, in philosophical, spiritual or scientific ways. Happiness is a question of mental attitude, and that’s all. Whether you discipline yourself through meditation, pray or re-program your own mental thoughts, the goal is to perceive reality in a kind and positive way.

Bad things happen, bad choices are made, things break or get lost, people leave, things change, but we live, and we either react to it in a good way, or we take in the sadness and anger.

To make my point here, I’ll share a short story.

A woman, when she was about 16, was raped brutally on the back seat of a taxi. Afterwards she found out she was pregnant. She decided to have the baby. Some women are capable of differentiating the two episodes. The rape, and the miracle of birth. When the interviewer asked this woman how she felt about the man that raped her, if she was still angry, beyond understanding, she replied: No, I pity that man. Pity? What you mean? And she continued: I feel pity because I know that man, and I know he has two daughters and granddaughters but he doesn’t know that, he doesn’t know what love is. I love my daughter. I have love...

FROM PODCAST "FRESH AIR" - Parenting A Child Who's Fallen 'Far From The Tree

The good die young.

Austin Peralta (October 25, 1990 – November 21, 2012)

I have to share the amazing energy with which he plays the piano. Absolutely flowing from the heart and from a mind highly trained.

Engage...



More:

A bit of what made us so portuguese...

The history of Portuguese rock’n’roll since the late 50s to modern days captured on screen. Precious...

Driven by...

"(...) se não formos audazes, o que não é sinónimo de irresponsabilidade, se não formos terrivelmente audazes com os nossos sonhos e não acreditarmos neles até se tornarem realidade, então os nossos sonhos murcham, morrem, e , com eles, nós também."

- Luís Spúlveda, em "O poder dos sonhos"

Acrescento: ... mas outros sonhos surgem em lugar dos que murcharam. Haja força para sonhar mesmo seriamente, com pormenores, cheiros, sabor, sonhar como se fosse realidade. É que a realidade depois acontece mesmo e parece um sonho.

"“Find something you’re passionate about and
keep tremendously interested in it.”

- Julia Child



“You will know when you are doing your specific work when there is a deep resonance within your being. The ease and grace with which your life flows is also a clear indication that you are aligned with your true function.” 

- ET 101: The Cosmic Instruction

Man's Nature

Our loss of wisdom...

Heading up towards mediocrity...

In this I believe... if only there were no guns.

We can be in peace. We can be tolerant. We can be brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers, grandparents, teachers and students of everyone we encounter in our lives. There's no "we" in war, in fanatism, in greed, in selfishness, in ignorance, in indolence, in inertia. To practice Kindness can bring such a wonderful and powerful energy to the world.

I can't understand why war, rape, torture, extreme poverty and other monstrous acts are still happening in this world. I really can't. And there isn't much I can do to stop any of those wounds that keep bleeding, everyday, except trying the best of me to "be the change I want to see in this world". In that I believe. Let us not forget that important role we can have in our own lives.

Transparency.

“We need people in our lives with whom we can be as open as possible. To have real conversation with people may seem like such a simple, obvious suggestion, but it involves courage and risk.”

- Thomas Moore

Aayubowan...*

Breathe into balance, intuition, simplicity, and always, above all, gratitude, and Life will flow. If you let yourself be closed and tight inside, those angry, frustrated, and sad feelings will take over your smile and positivity. Let go. What can not be changed must be accepted with grace.

*meaning: wish you a long life) cultural symbol in Sri Lankan hospitality.

“Words, like nature, half reveal and half conceal the soul within.”

- Alfred Lord Tennyson

IMAGE & TEXT FOUND ON: http://shaktilover.tumblr.com/

Wishful Living...

Too many dreams create the feeling of an existence that seems far from being my own. Who dreamt this place where I am now? How did I end up living a life behind the computer, with almost no time to be with friends, to go for long walks in nature, with a constant need of reconnecting with my spirit through pictures and written words, only having sometimes a glimpse of what there is beyond all this cement, metal, plastic and asphalt. Why have I created a life that does not fit my entire body and soul?

- MAX RITCHER "Recomposed Vivaldi's Four Seasons"

Restful silence... create the mood.

“There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” 

 
― Albert Einstein


Let me share with you how important is the act of Silence.
In the quietness of stillness, believe, your mind and your spirit really become intertwined, and your heart opens up, as if finally it can have that deep long breath that melts you away, and the relief of all the pressure you carry inside fades into a shinning blue sky.

Like a morning fog, heavy and misty, that hides all the trees, buildings and roads you know that stand in front of you, the same occurs in our mind when we forget to sit, even just for a moment, in silence. We know that we know, yet we fail to see things that stand obvious, things that alert us, things that might appease us, because wee keep ourselves in the mist of the daily rushing life.

The monkey mind, constantly chattering, and making plans, and questioning, keeps us so busy, that we loose sight of a different perspective, a different approach, different answers. That’s why “problems” are so difficult to solve. We rarely have the distance from the problem to actually deconstruct what is made off. We need to step away from ourselves and look impartially at things to understand them more clearly.

But you think you don’t have the time! You think it’s silly! ‘What? With so many things to do you’re going to suddenly stop everything and sit quietly??’... Yes! That’s it. You stop everything you’re doing, you stop thinking of all is left undone and you don’t create any more things to do.

You stop. You stop and you breath.

Give it a try, at least once.

Sit somewhere where you know no one will interrupt you. Put some inspiring music, the kind that really turns you brain into a different wave length, or don’t put any sound on. Just create that soft ambient as if for slow and sexy love making. So candles are a good idea. Then sit in a comfortable away, but imagine the posture of a king or queen, expanded, great, to open up your chest. Get in the mood, get sensually spirited. You’ll start relaxing and your mind slipping into a more subtle existence. Keep your focus on that breath, ‘I’m breathing in, now I hold, then I let go, I hold again (feel that quietness when there’s no air inside of you) and breath again. Keep doing this and let it slowly change into a gentler breath. Your mind will pop up with thoughts. Give thanks to your ego for reminding you of that though, but tell it that right now you’re in the zone, so no need to worry, you’re not going to do anything about it right now, and go back to the breath....

If you put some music on, than you’ll know that when it ends, 10, 15, 20 minutes will have passed, and that’s the enough amount of stillness for a healthy way of being.

Try. It might be it for you.

Ommmm... ; )

Image taken from: http://amolife.com/image/women/women-and-nature.html

From nothing to everything...

"Everything in your body, and everything you can see around you, is made up of tiny objects called atoms. Atoms come in different types called elements. Hydrogen, oxygen and carbon are three of the most important elements in your body […] How did those elements get into our bodies? The only way they could have got there, to make up all the material on our Earth, is if some of those stars exploded a long time ago, spewing all the elements from their cores into space. Then, about four and a half billion years ago, in our part of our galaxy, the material in space began to collapse. This is how the Sun was formed, and the solar system around it, as well as the material that forms all life on earth. So, most of the atoms that now make up your body were created inside stars! The atoms in your left hand might have come from a different star from those in your right hand. You are really a child of the stars."

- Particle physicist and cosmologist Lawrence Krauss

Lawrence Krauss on Cosmic Connections from The School of Life on Vimeo.

“If you blame someone else, there is no end to the blame.”

- Lao Tzu