through a different prism

"When I'm really into a novel, I'm seeing the world differently during that time - not just for the hour or so in the day when I get to read. I'm actually walking around in a bit of a haze, spellbound by the book and looking at everything through a different prism." - Colin Firth

well being

I'm reading the book Flourish: A Visionary New Understanding of Happiness and Well-being by Martin E.P. Seligman, the guru of "positive psychology".


Seligman identifies factors that can help us thrive which he calls P.E.R.M.A.: Positive emotion, Engagement with what we are doing, good Relationships, Meaning, and a sense of Accomplishment.


Professor Seligman says, we think too much about what goes wrong and not enough about what goes right in our lives. He suggests we do the Three-Good-Things exercise... that is, every night for the next week, set aside 10 minutes before you go to sleep and write down 3 things that went well that day and why they went well.


Also he says we should identify our signature strengths. You can do that here: on his web site authentichappiness.org 

And just for fun, why not find out your well-being score at well-being tracker

second hand

The term "second hand" can mean two things...
it refers to the ticking hand of a clock and it describes re-used items.
Hmmm....
are you obsessed with either? would you rather save time or save stuff?
or...
is there a balance that can be struck between these two modern obsessions.

Second Hand from Isaac King on Vimeo.

a conscious listening world...

... a world of connection, a world of understanding, and a world of peace.

a bit of understanding from Cabaret...

Meine Damen und Herren, 
Mesdames and Messieurs
Ladies and Gentleman
Is it a crime to fall in love?
Can we ever tell where the heart truly leads us?
All we are asking is eine bisschen Verstandnis 
Why can't the world leben und leben lassen?
'Live and let live....' 

 images from the AP wire ... the first weekend of legal gay marriage in NY

no stress, no rules journal

I just ordered this cool journal created by Meredith and Sofie Jacobs. This mother-daughter duo have been sharing a journal since Sofie was nine years old. They created this fun journal to help other moms and daughters get to know each other in a whole new way. 


Advice and thoughtful writing prompts pave the way to discussing everything from friends and school to crushes and growing up. It also includes pages for drawing pictures, making lists and plenty of free space for writing about whatever comes to mind. 


The 144 page journal has prompting pages such as "twenty things about me", "what I was like when I was a daughter your age", & "what I'd be like if I were a mom".


With perspectives and collaborations from both generations, this one-of-a-kind journal is sure to become a keepsake for any mother-daughter pair.  

compassion

Yesterday, as the news of the tragedy in Oslo surfaced,  our hearts filled with sorrow.
Today, we send our prayers and compassion to the people of Norway. And I send my love to the parents and friends of all the young people killed in the Utoya Island shooting. 

lovely

"Morris Lessmore loved words. He loved stories. He loved books.
His life was a book of his own writing, one orderly page after another.
He would open it every morning and write of his joys and sorrows, of all that he knew and everything that he hoped."

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore iPad App Trailer from Moonbot Studios on Vimeo.


"Everyone's story matters," concluded Morris Lessmore, and the books agreed with him.

The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore is a game changing app...
changing how kids will read.
Amazing!

piece of peace

Anger is the ultimate destroyer of your own piece of mind. 
 - HH the 14th Dalai Lama

power to the words

“If you don’t give power to the words
 that people throw at you to hurt you, 
they don’t hurt you anymore.
 And you actually have power over those people.”

encore

"Take a chance! All life is a chance. 

The man who goes farthest is generally

the one who is willing to do and dare."

- Dale Carnegie 

believe

Believe in taking a stand

100,000 Homes

The 100,000 Homes campaign is working to find homes for 100,000 Americans in three years time.
Across the nation, communities are refusing to accept that homelessness is unsolvable.
Check out their amazing video... sure to inspire hope

Midnight in Paris

Do you recognize these stairs? 

They are the magical stairs in Paris from the movie

Midnight in Paris.

The movie opens with a montage of shots

of a beautiful, dreamy city... 

a love letter to historic Parisian landmarks.

 I could watch the opening again & again...

What is your "Golden Age" ?

Who would you love to go back in time and meet?

Do you see the absolute beauty in the present?

the end of an era...

"Do not pity the dead, Harry. 

Pity the living, 

and, above all, 

those who live without love."

“Tell me one last thing,” said Harry. “Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”
“Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”

Hope

 What is true of the individual 

will be tomorrow true of the whole nation 

if individuals will but refuse to lose heart and hope*. 

-- Mohandas Gandhi 

* (speaking of Hope... fingers crossed for Hope Solo and the USA women's soccer team on Sunday.)

I don’t let go of my thoughts—

I meet them with understanding, then they let go of me.

- Byron Katie

for you and along with you

I know you’re reading this.  
And I want you to know I’m writing this for you.  
Others will be confused.  
They will think I’m writing this for them.  
But I’m not.
This one’s for you.

I know that life may not always seem easy;  every day is an unpredictable, wonderful challenge.  Some days it can feel difficult to simply get out of bed in the morning; to face our perceived reality and put on that smile.  But I want you to know, your smile has kept me going on more days than I can count.  Never forget that... even through the toughest times, you are incredible.  You really are.

So smile more often.  You have so many reasons to.  Time and again, my reason to smile is you.

You won’t always be perfect.  Neither will I.  Because nobody is perfect, and nobody ever will be.  Nobody has it easy; everybody has issues.  You will never know exactly what I’m going through.  And I will never know exactly what you’re going through.  That's what we're up against. As Plato said, Everyone is fighting a hard battle.

But we are fighting through it simultaneously, together.

Whenever somebody discredits you, and tells you that you can’t do something, keep in mind that they are speaking from within the boundaries of their own limitations.  Ignore them.  Don’t give in.  In this crazy world that’s trying to make you like everyone else, find the courage to keep being your awesome self. 

Like Mary Radmacher said, "Our courage doesn’t always roar.  Sometimes it’s the quiet voice at the end of the day whispering, 'I will try again tomorrow'” that is our true strength.  So stand strong.  

"Things turn out best for people who make the best out of the way things turn out." 

- John Wooden

And I am here to make the best of it along with you.

of the essence

"Time is but a stream I go a-fishing in." 

    -- Henry David Thoreau

I'm reading lama surya das's new book, Buddha Standard Time: Awakening to the Infinite Possibilities of Now, and loving it. 


    "For Eons people have been grappling with the concept of time. From Sophocles to Ben Franklin to Einstein to Mick Jagger, the wisdom has been passed down to us: Time is the stuff life is made of. Time is money. Time is of the essence. Time flies. Time is relative. Time is on my side. Time is a cruel thief... We measure time. We lose time. We kill time. We are strapped for time."


As a parent, I tend to set myself up to struggle with time even though there's no rational reason for it. I find myself rushing my children to activities or trying to squeeze additional tasks into small windows of time. It's actually quite crazy.


As the Pharaoh Akhenaton wrote in the fourteenth century BCE, "He who neglects the present moment throws away all he has." This is something we all need to remember... we can't afford not to learn this lesson. As lama surya das puts it: "It's now or never, as always"


It's always now. Not earlier, not later, not yesterday, not tomorrow, but right now.


We have a timeless nature. Learn how to tap into that nature. Buddhism for me is the practice of living fully and authentically... now.

Mallika Chopra

I am a big fan of Mallika Chopra. She is the founder of intent.com and the daughter of Deepak Chopra.
check out her meditation in Union Square, San Francisco:

Who am I?
What do I want?
Why am I here?
How can I serve?


All of us can find inner peace no matter where we are.


my favorite Mallika Chopra video:

caught in reflection

 Thank You

very proud and happy

"I come from Sweden,

but this core American value

 of bringing the best out of one another 

is infectious. 

I'm very proud and happy 

to be coach of the USA." 

- Coach Pia Sundhage

Abby Wamback and Hope Solo

you may be surprised

Believe in yourself, 

you may be surprised at how many other people

already do.

relax...

 Life isn't as serious as the mind makes it out to be.

- Eckhart Tolle

no boundaries

Today the space shuttle Atlantis was launched. It was NASA's last space shuttle launch.

I have been reading about astronaut, Edgar Mitchell. He was on an Apollo mission, Apollo 14. He was the sixth man to walk on the moon. Upon his flight return to Earth, he was able to see the sun, the moon, the vast field of stars, and the Earth as only a select few have ever been able. As he looked down on Earth ... something happened that Mr. Mitchell would spend the rest of his life trying to understand... everything he thought he knew, the Newtonian model of a predictable/physical universe, seemed grossly wrong. Somehow, looking at the cosmos, he did not so much understand the universal framework so much as feel it. He felt his relationship to all things. Edgar Mitchell felt there were no boundaries, no distinctions between himself and... anything.

The space program has provided us with a new image of the Earth. The images of our planet sitting improbably in a dense black field are widely credited with changing our view of the Earth from solely intellectual to intuitive and emotional.

STS-135 Atlantis is now on flickr

kindness

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness...


Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to mail letters and
    purchase bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
it is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you every where
like a shadow or a friend.
-Naomi Shihab Nye, from The Words Under the Words

"Kindness is the golden chain by which society is bound together." ~Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

belonging

V spent her last unit of inquiry in 4th grade learning about sound. 
Continuing her investigation of sound, we found this beautiful film...

SoundWorks Collection: "The Lost Thing" from Michael Coleman on Vimeo.

This film adaptation of the lovely book, The Lost Thing, won the 2011 academy award for the best animated short film. It's the story of boy who finds a bizarre creature at the beach and sets out to discover where it came from and who owns it, but is met with indifference by everyone he encounters. Magnificently illustrated and vibrantly poetic, the story is really about the search for belonging. It is a brilliant fable about any number of social concerns.
The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan is a book, a DVD, and available on itunes.

Change the way you look at things,

and the things you look at change.

"Anyone who knows anything of conservation,

 knows it is not a partisan matter. 

It is a nationwide movement 

conceived for the benefit of the nation as a whole..."

- Struthers Burt, 1944

The most precious gift we can offer others is our presence.

When mindfulness embraces those we love, 

they will bloom like flowers.

- Thich Nhat Han