“At the height of laughter, the universe is flung into a kaleidoscope of new possibilities.” ~ Jean Houston

“Every adversity carries with it the seed of an equivalent or greater benefit.” ~ Napoleon Hill

“The power of imagination makes us infinite.” ~ John Muir

I have come to the frightening conclusion…
That I am the decisive element.
It is my personal approach that creates the climate.
It is my daily mood that makes the weather.
I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous.
I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration,
I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal.
In all situations, it is my response that decides
Whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated,
And a person is humanized or de-humanized.
If we treat people as they are, we make them worse.
If we treat people as they ought to be,
We help them become
What they are capable of becoming.

~ J.W.Goethe ~

Do good, and leave behind you a monument of virtue that the storm of time can never destroy. Write your name in kindness, love, grace, and mercy, on the hearts of thousands you come in contact with year by year. You will never be forgotten. Know your name, your deeds, will be as legible on the hearts you leave behind as the stars on the brow of the evening. Good deeds will shine as the stars of heaven.

~ T. Chalmers

To seek approval is to have no resting place, no sanctuary.
Like all judgment, approval encourages a constant striving.
It makes us uncertain of who we are and of our true value.
Approval cannot be trusted.
It can be withdrawn at any time no matter what our track record has been.
It is as nourishing of real growth as cotton candy.
Yet many of us spend our lives pursuing it.

~ Rachel Naomi Remen

Photo is “Death by Cotton Candy” by Daniela Edburg

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up
into fragments by narrow domestic walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason
has not lost its way into the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action…
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

~ Rabindranath Tagore

This is now. Now is,
all there is. Don’t wait for Then;
strike the spark, light the fire.

Sit at the Beloved’s table,
feast with gusto, drink your fill

then dance
the way branches
of jasmine and cypress
dance in a spring wind.

The green earth
is your cloth;
tailor your robe
with dignity and grace.

Rumi