Final Farewell Thoughts...

There is nothing original about the  ending to my examination of my unexamined life.  But then there rarely is anything original about endings (or beginnings) for that matter.  Unique in the mind of the individual, certainly... But original? Never.   Here are  a series of quotes from the famous  to the obscure. Handwritten on sheets of notebook paper, tucked inside my morning meditation books. Each etched out  a few steps on my path in my spiritual journey to discover my authenticity and redefining my reality.  I accumulated so many of them. I found it fascinating to see there is little original about their meaning and content. A kind of you say potato, I say po-tahhhh-toe scenario. Three decades ago Zig Zigler's PMA (positive mental attitude) is today's "The Secret".   Quotes and schools of thought cited throughout the centuries, same concept, written in varying ways, by different individuals. The beauty in the repetition of wisdom, repeated throughout time, isn't so much about the verbiage as it is about our own pace  to understanding, and which words resonate with our higher selves.  What is unique, and original, is each soul, and its means of "getting there".... And, we all will, eventually. I have experienced some of the greatest joys in my life this year.  I didn't need to buy anything new, move, fall in love, travel outside the country, accumulate stuff, accumulate friends, get a noteworthy job, cling to everyone else's opinion of me, to feel good about me,  inject my face with botox, get new breasts, or starve or exercise myself into a size 2.   What I have learned to do is pay attention, feel what I am feeling... good or bad, acknowledge it and try not to judge it; treat my body as my sacred home instead of a guest cottage, pray in new ways, listening more, chattering less; I have learned how to forgive, beginning with myself;  see others as spirit rather than form; learn the real meaning of love, by learning how to love me. I am a phenomenal lover these days!  I  look at the world now through the curious eyes of a child.  I've learned to be honest, beginning with my own heart, honoring who I am and what I need rather than trying to fit, or please others; I also now  give much more purely, accept what I cannot change (and I can only change me), and I know to let go, empowers me.   The quotes/wisdom of others made my walk in the desert less solitary.  Wisdom arises from experience.  Others quotes helped me to know, they too have walked in their own desert.  Here are some of the pebbles dropped along my road this year, markers to help me make my way home.


1.  Things that matter most must never be at the mercy of things that matter least. - Goethe
2.  Life does not accommodate you, it shatters you.  It is meant to, and it couldn't do it better.  Every seed destroys its container or else there would be no fruition. - Florida Scott-Maxwell
3.  We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark.  The real tragedy is when men are afraid of the light. - Plato
4.  Everybody is a genius.  But, if you judge a fish by its inability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid. - Albert Einstein
5.  Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.  - Robert Frost
6. The first time someone shows you who they are, believe them. _ Maya Angelou
7.  Don't cry because its over.  Smile because it happened. - Dr. Seuss
8. Honesty is the first chapter in the book of wisdom. - Thomas Jefferson
9. If it isn't good, let it die.  If it doesn't die, make it good. - Ajah Chah
10.  People will do anything, no  matter how absurd to avoid facing their own soul. - Carl Gustav Jung
11.  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
12.  In the end only three things matter:  How well we have lived, how well we have loved, and how well we have learned to let go. - Jack Kornfield
13.  Duh... girls, girls... it's toilet paper! - Cameron Elizabeth Eckert, age 3
14.  Don't let anyone walk through your mind with their dirty feet. - Mahatma Gandhi
15.  I have an everyday religion that works for me.  Love yourself first, then everything else falls into place. - Lucille Ball
16. It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye. - Antoine de St. Exupery
17. I wonder why love is so often equated with joy when it is everything else as well: devastation, balm, obsession, granting and receiving excessive value, and losing it again. - Florida Scott Maxwell
18.  I could choose peace instead of this. - Course in Miracles

19. ON A LIGHTER NOTE:  Sex is interesting, but it's not totally important. I mean it's not even as important (physically) as excretion. A man can go seventy years without a piece of ass, but he can die in a week without a bowel movement. - Charles Bukowski (certainly put some things in perspective!!)
And finally............
20.  You're off to Great Places!  Today is your day! Your mountain is waiting, 
So.... get on your way! - Dr. Seuss (Oh, The Places You'll Go)

With Love....