Betsy Grant: Today's Thoughts

This is a repost of an entry I posted awhile back.  Not sure who said this, but I can see the truth in it: "Whatever you hold in your mind will tend to occur in your life. If you continue to believe as you have always believed, you will continue to act as you have always acted. If you continue to act as you have always acted, you will continue to get what you have always gotten. If you want different results in your life or your work, all you have to do is change your mind."

There's a great children's book called "The Seven Wonders Of Sassafras Springs" (by Betty Birney) about a boy who is challenged by his father to see if he can find seven "wonders" in the "ordinary"  town he lives in.  The boy believes that wonders are only to be seen in far away, "glamorous" places like Egypt and Greece.  He accepts the challenge of finding seven wonders in the time span of a week, with his father's promise that he will send him on a trip to Colorado as a reward.  Without spoiling the story (it's worth reading it yourself), the boy shows the reader that the secret to discovering the wonders of life is to adopt the attitude of a child.   It reminds us of how much we miss by taking everyone and everything for granted.

"As a gift of love is given, it must be returned"

-from The Book Of ECK Parables Volume 2 by Harold Klemp

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

"I have found the paradox, that if you love until it hurts, there can be no more hurt, only more love."

-Mother Teresa

Education without values, as useful as it is, seems rather to make man a more clever devil.
C. S. Lewis

“Sometimes it's the smallest decisions that can change your life forever.” - Keri Russell

Not sure who said this but I can see the truth of it.

“Whatever you hold in your mind will tend to occur in your life. If you continue to believe as you have always believed, you will continue to act as you have always acted. If you continue to act as you have always acted, you will continue to get what you have always gotten. If you want different results in your life or your work, all you have to do is change your mind.”

“For everything you have missed, you have gained something else, and for everything you gain, you lose something else.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Everything we do has a purpose - unconscious or conscious. We are Soul, divine beings. The way we view life has a profound affect on how we experience it. If we strive constantly to tune into the very highest part of our self (the divine), our experience is from that standpoint. If we are concerned and occupied constantly with material and emotional comfort, are attention is riveted to that aspect (the temporary passing show) and we begin to feel identified with that aspect of living rather than seeing the body, emotions, and mind as a house for Soul (the divine aspect). Am I caring for the well-being of my body so that I can be of greater service to life? Are my actions designed to give me the opportunity to give more light and love to others? Or I am simply and purely concerned completely and totally with self and it's physical, mental, and emotional comfort?

Life talks to us all the time, if we would listen. It talks to us when our bodies are tired and we need to slow down and rest. It talks to us when we go through the motions of life without any real joy or meaning - reminding us to pay attention and cherish every breath. Sometimes it even talks to us through the man or woman at the grocery store who's words suddenly light up for us in a special way, reminding us of some important lesson we've been trying to learn or remember. It hints at what's important in life by reminding us to pay attention, love ourselves and our loved ones, and give meaning to our lives by caring about the quality of our work, creativity, and play. It reminds us that we are the creators of our lives, and we are the ones that improve the quality of our lives by our appreciation of every moment - big and small.

Imagination is more important than knowledge. For knowledge is limited to all we know and understand, while imagination embraces the entire world, and all there ever will be to know and understand." - Albert Einstein

Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

One of the most important things in an artist's work is the need to protect his/her purity of expression, and not allow promoters, or society's expectations, or the lure of money to taint what the artist truly wants to express. This isn't always easy, and requires a considerable degree of self-honesty. However, the experience of freedom and joy that comes with a pure expression of the artist's love is well worth the sacrifices made, and benefits the viewer/listeners in a more beneficial way.

With the tempo of life as it is today, it is sometimes difficult to find time for a sincerely spiritual activity. Making time for recognition of the Source of all the blessings in our life becomes increasingly difficult - and simultaneously more important. The world pulls at us from every direction, leaving us spiritually destitute if we're not careful. An easy exercise to counteract the distractions from our attention to Spirit is simply to be very grateful for every thing in our life - to say nothing of the gift of life itself. That we have existence is, in itself no small miracle, if we stop to consider the complexity of even a single human being - spiritually, mentally, emotionally, and physically

Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering.
There is a crack in everything,
That's how the light gets in.
~Leonard Cohen

Will Rogers, who died in a 1935 plane crash with his best friend, Wylie Post, was probably the greatest political sage this country ever has known.
Enjoy the following:
1. Never slap a man who's chewing tobacco.
2. Never kick a cow chip on a hot day.
3.. There are two theories to arguing with a woman . . Neither works.
4. Never miss a good chance to shut up.
5. Always drink upstream from the herd.
6. If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.
7. The quickest way to double your money is to fold it and put it back into your pocket.
8. There are three kinds of men: The ones that learn by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence and find out for themselves.
9. Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.
10. If you're riding' ahead of the herd, take a look back every now and then to make sure it's still there.
11. Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier'n puttin' it back.
12. After eating an entire bull, a mountain lion felt so good he started roaring. He kept it up until a hunter came along and shot him. The moral: When you're full of bull, keep your mouth shut.

"Soul's single purpose in life is to come into harmony with Spirit, " he added. "Life's school of hardship buffs smooth the sharp edges of bitterness, anger, passion, miserliness, pettiness, scorn, dishonesty, small-mindedness, perversion, lust, meanness, poverty of Spirit, corruption, vanity -and every other negative trait that comes to mind. " - (excerpt from the book "Soul Travelers Of The Far Country" by Harold Klemp)

There is always something left to love. And if you ain't learned that, you ain't learned nothing.

- Lorraine Hansberry

Henry Ward Beecher
It is not what we take up, but what we give up, that makes us rich.

Do I love you because you're beautiful,
Or are you beautiful because I love you?
~Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II, Cinderella

Patience serves as a protection against wrongs as clothes do against cold. For if you put on more clothes as the cold increases, it will have no power to hurt you. So in like manner you must grow in patience when you meet with great wrongs, and they will then be powerless to vex your mind.
Leonardo da Vinci

a poem by R.L. Sharpe

Isn't it strange
That princes and kings,
And clowns that caper
In sawdust rings,
And common people
Like you and me
Are builders for eternity?
Each is given a bag of tools.
A shapeless mass,
A book of rules;
And each must make-
Ere life is flown-
A stumbling block
Or a stepping stone.

To succeed in life, you need three things: a wishbone, a backbone and a funnybone. ~Reba McEntire

"Creative people who cherish the gift of life often slip into the secret chambers of the creative mind. Their solutions are well-rounded, more sensible than those of people who rely upon reason as their mainstay. Gratitude unseals fountains of creativity, because a grateful person is relaxed. This allows him to take stock of his circumstances with an objective mind. A creative person often gets three-dimensional answers to his problems." (from the book "The Language of Soul" by Harold Klemp)