Talking to my DD...

always opens out a world of hitherto unthought of or scared-to-allow-into-my-mind possibilities. But, she, young and full of life and making sure that she extracts the most out of life, will not allow me to hide behind the limitations that I perceive or think I perceive, and sometimes even cook up. For everything she has an answer that I cannot fault, or poke holes in......and it sets me wondering......am I doing this to myself?? and the answer stares me in my face---------------yes, I am...

Got this, from this morning's meditation - and it was as if she had especially ordered it in for me with my morning coffee.

'You have powers you never dreamed of.' - and this is not to mention the powers that I know I have, but which I'm afraid to acknowledge, let alone use.......'You can do things you never thought you could do.' - again, lots of hiding here........'There are no limitations in what you can do except the limitations of your own mind.' - which is - admit it - so true.....

The quote was by Darwin P. Kingsley

Seems like it's easier to make excuses--in fact the amount of energy I expend in making excuses could better be used to doing the things that I really want to do......that come into my mind.........that I feel would make life interesting.....

Have been reading...

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

An utterly charming book...

And one character who has totally captivated me is Dickon.

In the protagonist Mary's words:

'His speech was so quick and easy. It sounded as if he liked her and was not the least afraid she would not like him, though he was only a common moor boy, in patched clothes and with a funny face and a rough, rusty-red head. She noticed that there was a clean fresh scent of heather and grass and leaves about him, almost as if he were made of them.'

He was at one with the natural world...totally and completely...

According to Dickon: (paraphrasing from his thick Yorkshire-accented speech)

'There's naught as nice as the smell of good clean earth, except the smell of fresh growing things when the rain falls on them.'

And this one's something to go by:

'There doesn't seem to be no need for anyone to be contrary when there's flowers and such like, and such lots of friendly wild things running about making homes for themselves or building nests and singing and whistling, is there?'

And yet, how often we allow things to make us contrary.....

A book everyone can find something in.....most of all......just reading about Dickon lifts the heart....

In Muscat...

with my DD...

Happy and so at peace...

We left Muscat on 12 February 2003. Back after almost 10 years, it seems as if we'd never left! Huge changes have taken place in the landscape, but the essence remains the same...the vibes are the same...

the feelings that were evoked were the same...

How fortunate we were to have had the chance to live here!

We revisited the places we knew and frequented, drove past the homes we'd lived in, and re-looked at and re-lived memories...

And realized that going back a-ways in the past need not be painful...

Early morning...

writing to a very dear friend who's father is bedridden and who does not have too many days left to live, trying to offer words of comfort and strength, I realized that it is not the illness or the fact that one has the loved one only for a few more days that really stresses us out. It is the end of the familiar - familiar daily routine, familiar ways of the person, familiar round of duties, a familiar way of life that we have got used to - it is the end of our regular family day, it is the end of the comfort of knowing that we don't have to worry about the mundane, regular things of life, it is the end of planned expenditure, it is the end of a chapter, most probably.....it is the end of what we have come to accept as our normal...it is the end of what we believe is our due, without really having thought about it...it is the end of a comfortable way of life...in fact, it is our world turned on its head...It is also getting used to a new way of life, it is having to deal with uncomfortable thoughts, it is knowing that certain things have to be dealt with and there is no tomorrow to push it off it, or no comfortable carpet to push it under, it is coming face-to-face with reality, as it were......and that is surely the most difficult thing to deal with.....our comfort zone is smashed....

With a loved invalid, or semi-invalid who we know has not much longer to live, life now has to be re-worked around that person....we strive to make each day count....we try to deal with thoughts and feelings hitherto unknown....we try to cope.....and this is besides dealing, sometimes rather helplessly, with seeing the loved one suffer...

We buckle under this, we fight it, we do not accept it, we think and say out loud, hoping it will come true, that this is a passing phase....and deep down we know that there is no way out, or around----we have to deal with it....and this is nub of it all.

And yet, after the fighting with ourselves is over, a new pattern emerges which, in fact, is also beautiful...

Something I got when surfing...

 'To my 15-year-old self': Things I wish I'd known. 

Robin Bernstein - Relax and let the future arrive on its own time and in its own way.

Oprah Winfrey - You've spent too many days and years trying to please others and be what they wanted you to be. You will have to learn that the wounds of your past damaged your self-esteem, Yet through it all, you've held on to a belief in God and God's belief in you.

Christiane Amanpour - Perhaps the most important thing I could say is to never be thrown by failure and mistakes. You will only achieve success if you know how to learn from your failures and mistakes. It's vital.

Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah of Jordan - Carve your own path. Be different, explore the twists and turns on your way, and don't fear the occasional fall - it's part of every journey.

Victoria Azarenka - Never be afraid to show the real you and have fun.

Maria Shriver - Never think that someone else knows what's best for you. Trust your way and don't ask for so much advice. Learn how to be quiet and still enough to hear your own voice. It's up to you: Your voice will either be silenced or will get to roar.

Zaha Hadid - Trust your intuitions - even if they seem bizarre and strange.

Maria Sharapova - Don't put so much pressure in your life. There is always going to be room for improvement.

Vanessa Mae - .....improvise.... in your life

Arianna Huffington - Don't let that voice of doubt - the obnoxious roommate in your head - have the last word.

I was inspired by these words. They touched something within me. These are women who allowed themselves to feel-think-see-learn...so their words come out of the depths of truth. This is what I too am striving for.....to really go to the depth of what I am - not for anyone, but for myself...


You'll find more at:
http://edition.cnn.com/2012/10/11/world/gallery/international-day-of-the-girl/index.html?hpt=hp_c1&iid=article_sidebar

Guess what I stumbled on...

listening to Blue Storm Texas Country Music on Live 365 (Internet radio)...

A song by Gary Allen:

"Life Ain't Always Beautiful"

Life aint always beautiful

Sometimes it's just plain hard

Life can knock you down, it can break your heart

Life ain't always beautiful

You think you're on your way

And it's just a dead end road at the end of the day

But the struggles make you stronger

And the changes make you wise

And happiness has its own way of takin it's sweet time

[CHORUS]

No, life aint always beautiful

Tears will fall sometimes

Life aint always beautiful

But it's a beautiful ride

Powerful words...

for all of us who at one time or other have felt cowed down by people or circumstances...

Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept noone's definition of your life, but define yourself.
- Harvey S. Firestone

God is not going to ask us how many people we were accepted by, or how many people we pleased, or what we did to stay in favor with people...

He is going to ask us what we did with our talents, our potentials, our possibilities...

I just can't seem to...

think of anything else other than little Malala fighting for her life...

How brave these young girls are and how strongly they fight for what is right and for their freedom to express this...

Pussy Riot member Yekaterina Samutsevich, who was freed, had this to say: "We are not finished, nor are we going to end our political protest."

These girls have the inner strength and power to take on the Taliban, as in Malala's case, and the State, as the Pussy Riot girls did

Brave, brave girls......I wish I had a hundredth of their strength of mind...

So often I ask...

and hear people ask...

If there is a God above, why does He let bad things happen?

It was made clear in today's Upper Room meditation. God gave us a beautiful world to live in. He gave us free will. We've gone and screwed up big time. We've also relentlessly, in the pursuit of our own selfish needs and purposes, not bothered about the impact of our selfish decisions on other people and on the world. But God does not leave us alone....He's always there....silently, lovingly holding us close....As the writer says in the Upper Room, "God does not cause such tragedies, but God is present in them. '[God] does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone' (Lam 3:33, NRSV). God works through all the horrible things that happen to draw us closer to Him."

One of my mother's favorite lines was:

Underneath are His everlasting arms.

The next 48 hours...

are crucial for Malala Yousufzai. Join me in prayer...

We can never...

and must never deny our heritage.

Yes, we can change what we believe is wrong for us, we can choose differently, but we must never deny it...for then we would be denying our very being. We can choose to be who we want to be only if we recognize where we come from...For that we have to know our heritage, we have to find out about it, and we have to learn to accept that this is where we come from......and then go on from there.

Bothering me a lot...

if a young girl - Malalah Yousufai - believes she has the right to be free, the right to speak and dance and sing, the right to be educated, the right for peace, why do I shy away from thinking like this, be afraid to think  like this? And this fear has locked me into myself. Is it too late to break out?

Every fibre of my being cries 'no'......I too can.....

Joining in prayer...

for Malala Yousufzai, and her family...

Something I learnt...

yesterday...

and I've been mulling over it since.

For those of us who pride ourselves on our work, check and re-check to see if we've got everything down right, and maybe even re-do something till it is perfect in our eyes, it is mortifying when an error is pointed out - we die a thousand deaths trying to figure out the how and why of the error, we flagellate ourselves beyond all proportion, and generally feel like pond scum or worse.

Now here's what I learnt - if at that time - when an error is pointed out - you force - FORCE - yourself to say - Wow! I'm so glad you pointed this out to me. It's something I've been battling with, or Thanks for telling me 'cos now I've finally got it right, or something to this effect.....it works wonders. Now these are not the thoughts we generally think when an error is pointed out, so it is extremely difficult to accept - difficult to accept the error, and even more difficult to believe that we can accept the error gracefully.....instead, we lose sleep and our sense of well-being as well as our self-esteem. It needn't be so.

I tried this yesterday, and instead of feeling small and dreadfully inadequate, I actually felt good - for, Life is not a cruel examination; and the person who corrected me is not the judge of my life...

Life is a process of learning, and we are learning all the time...

Try it......it works.....and you don't fall in anyone's esteem least of all your own!!! and that itself is a great feeling...

Somehow, this picture...

on the BBC news home page struck at the very roots of my heart.....and my being...

The true nature of woman....and yet she will go on and on and on.....

On the flight back...

I saw the film Best Exotic Marigold Hotel. It's a film I'd been wanting to see 'cos of Judi Dench- a person I admire both as an actress and as a person. It was a thought-provoking film, and I liked it.

The thread that runs through it is - "In India, we have a saying: everything will be all right in the end. So, if it is not all right, it is not yet the end."

I've been playing hooky...

not really....

just trying to assimilate the wonderfully intense time we had in Sydney where we'd gone to attend the 'Festival of Dangerous Ideas'...

Lots to share......