My Favorite Poem... maybe ever.

	The Invitation Oriah Mountain Dreamer Canadian Teacher and Author
	It doesn't interest me what you do for a living I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing. It doesn't interest me how old you are I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love for your dreams for the adventure of being alive. It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon... I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow if you have been opened by life's betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain. I want to know if you can sit with pain mine or your own without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy mine or your own if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful be realistic to remember the limitations of being human. It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence. I want to know if you can live with failure yours and mine and still stand on the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes." It doesn't interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after a night of grief and despair weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children. It doesn't interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back. It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

My Favorite Things Right Now

1. Andrew Bird and Dan Auerbach on vinyl
2. Homemade granola
3. Yoga everyday
4. Hippie pants
5. Catching up with old friends
6. Green
7. Hummus
8. Night walks
9. Poetry
10. Dark Chocolate (Amano 6, Sea Salt, Chili)
11. Good Heep hop (hip hop)
12. RJD2, Little Dragon, Laserfang, and Interpol are coming!
13. Free tickets to #12
14. Making new friends
15. Being really happy.

Bitches.

There's so much more that we could be doing with our lives than worrying about what we look like. We could be doing so much to make the world a better place. We need to raise women and girls to support each other and not be threatened by others success.

-Radioactive, KRCL show, Sundance Film Festival Movie 2011

Traveling Alone

http://matadornetwork.com/bnt/2008/04/17/10-things-to-learn-about-yourself-when-traveling-alone/

In the depth of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay
an invincible summer.
- Albert Camus

Make this day Gigantic.

Waking up with the Pixies. Most excellent.

Serendipity

an aptitude for making desirable discoveries by accident

Comptine d'une autre été - l'apres midi

Yann Tiersen-

I am learning this song on the banjo. It's gorgeous.

"The river flowed from century to century, and human affairs play themselves out on its banks. Play themselves out to be forgotten the next day, while the river flows on. "
— Milan Kundera (The Unbearable Lightness of Being)

God hates me.

This week blows. God killed my beloved 120 GB ipod full of delicious music, and my favorite dog(probably putting him down this week), broke my car ($400 later...fixed), got 2 really nice boys mad at me (okay I take responsibility for that one...you are out on that one God, but I hold you accountable for the rest!)

Thanks a lot.

They say bad things come in 3's. I put in mine for 2011. Done. No more.

Please and thank you.

"oh... you died for our sins? what have you done for me lately??" -JESSE DUNN

Music Monday is back bitches!

The uncoolest kids ever singing about cool kids.
Cause cool kids... they belong together.

Serenity NOW

Meditation
is not about
building yourself up
or trying to be a certain way.

It is not about becoming
a peaceful person
or a wise person
or even an enlightened person.

In meditation
you simply become aware
of what is here.

You turn your focus
back upon yourself
and notice what presents itself.

If you do this,
the ego structure
begins to be peeled away.

Behind all the desires,
distractions, opinions,
beliefs, worries
and emotions.

Behind everything
that the mind has built
upon itself
in order to feel important
and in control
is something
overwhelmingly tender
and vulnerable.

Even painful.

A sense of being
very small and alone
and all of the fear
and helplessness
that goes with it.

And by survival instinct,
you don't want to feel it,
you don't want to see it.

The very drive of the ego
is to get as far away
from this vulnerability as possible.

You want to fit in
or at least stand out.

Nobody wants to be a nobody.

But if you can allow yourself
to feel it.

If you can surrender and
allow yourself to be that small
helpless nobody.

If you allow it all to be as it is
at the very core,
then you fall into the essence
which is behind it.

You become immersed
in what is behind it.

And that is love,
that is peace.

You do not have love and peace
as though it was an object to attain,
you dissolve into it.

It bubbles up
from your essence
and spills into
every level of your being
because you have let go
of the very idea of
trying to be a someone.

Politics as Usual.

FEUDALISM: You have two cows. Your lord takes some of the milk.

PURE SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and puts them in a barn with everyone else's cows. You have to take care of all of the cows. The government gives you as much milk as you need.

BUREAUCRATIC SOCIALISM: You have two cows. The government takes them and put them in a barn with everyone else's cows. They are cared for by ex-chicken farmers. You have to take care of the chickens the government took from the chicken farmers. The government gives you as much milk and eggs as the regulations say you need.

FASCISM: You have two cows. The government takes both, hires you to take care of them and sells you the milk.

PURE COMMUNISM: You have two cows. Your neighbors help you take care of them, and you all share the milk.

RUSSIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. You have to take care of them, but the government takes all the milk.

CAMBODIAN COMMUNISM: You have two cows. The government takes both of them and shoots you.

DICTATORSHIP: You have two cows. The government takes both and drafts you.

PURE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors decide who gets the milk.

REPRESENTATIVE DEMOCRACY: You have two cows. Your neighbors pick someone to tell you who gets the milk.

BUREAUCRACY: You have two cows. At first the government regulates what you can feed them and when you can milk them. Then it pays you not to milk them. Then it takes both, shoots one, milks the other and pours the milk down the drain. Then it requires you to fill out forms accounting for the missing cows.

PURE ANARCHY: You have two cows. Either you sell the milk at a fair price or your neighbors try to take the cows and kill you.

LIBERTARIAN/ANARCHO-CAPITALISM: You have two cows. You sell one and buy a bull.

SURREALISM: You have two giraffes. The government requires you to take harmonica lessons.

Come and see that someone exactly like you has never existed before and never will again.

-Rumi

I'm really really really really really really really really really happy right now.

Life is so good.
Thank you.

Home

Home is where the heart is.

My first night back I went to my friends cabin in the mountains and experienced a major jam session. We were just hanging out by the fire.... and people started playing for a good few hours... then there was more hanging out. and sleep... but we had 2 banjos, 2 guitars, and a mandolin. It was beautiful. We were singing the good old stuff such as the Byrds and Bob Dylan....the Beatles....Neil Young.... and also Ryan Adams, Amos Lee....

These people were all so musically talented. Someone could just start playing and the other would feed off of them and join in adding their own spin on things. Emily, Tim, and Matt have voices of angels...BEAUTIFUL way to spend my first night home....6 ft of snow in the mountains in a beautiful cabin with great people. And a lot of laughs... especially at Jeremy in his cheetah pajamas (homeless jungle cat).

My first day of school was great too. I got to see all my friends. I sported my new Peruvian garb...gave away some bracelets from Peru. Got a lot of hugs. It was great.

After we went to Coffee Garden and Yoga. Then Ashley and I went to her house and made healthy food for the week and went for an awesome night walk where we came full circle with a really interesting, deep conversation about organized religion, sheltering, suffering, relationships, life. I wrote down songs for play lists and some good poetry she showed me.

Also, I started a vision board for what I want in my life this year. Thursday we are going to a documentary about Bob Dylan at Brewvies.

This is the good stuff.

Too small for you

You must learn one thing:
The world was made to be free in.
Give up all other worlds
except the one which you belong.
Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness
to learn that
anything or anyone that does not bring you alive
is too small for you...

Espanolism

:::::Another Night In the Jungle::::

I just have to say that my Spanish was pretty freaking decent by the time I left Peru. I was able to understand most of what people were saying. Speaking always comes last...

I could have very basic conversations with locals... I definitely could ask for what I needed and directions. I got professional at bartering in the markets.

I even had a cute little Peruvian grandma adopt me on my bus ride to the Amazon... she fed me her bread and shared a blanket with me...We talked about her daughter with asthma and her other daughter going to nursing school. She pointed out animals, trees, and flowers and named them for me. :)

I can only imagine how the experience would be heightened if you could fully converse in the native language. That's the only way you won't feel so much like an outsider and get to intimately know the country you travel in. That's the only way you can truly make a difference too.

One of my goals this year is to keep up on it and learn it. It has been on my goal list every year.... and I always neglect it. This year.... no excuses.

Mi Mariposa

Love is like a butterfly: It goes where it pleases and it pleases wherever it goes.

Time Flies.

Tomorrow I fly home.

I have fallen so behind on writing what has transpired within the last couple weeks......

Not a word since I went to the jungle.

I don't even know where to begin. I fell in love with the Amazon Jungle. I trekked on top of the world on the Inca Trail. I experienced peace on Machu Picchu... I have laughed until tears come out of my eyeballs... I have met some seriously wonderful people. People I will remember forever that make your life that much more beautiful for having known them, even if for only a short time.

All I can say is what an amazing, life changing experience this journey has been. I have learned so much about myself... and people... and confirmed things I already believed in.

It is soooo good to meet like-minded people; To meet people who have new ideas; To exchange cultural nuances; To know that you are not alone in the world, wherever you go; That you can go anywhere... you can even go alone... and people are going to love you and take you into their worlds. I standby my belief that traveling alone is the best way to go if you want a life changing experience.

You create your life; your experiences; your happiness. And it's SO GOOD if you let it be and take risks.

I pierced my nose today. I just wanted to solidify what I have experienced and learned on this trip. So for me I guess it is a bit symbolic; like piercing it all into my being, my soul.

It's good.

I think later I will write about my experiences if it strikes me... or just keep them sacred in my heart and my journal. It's all yet to be determined. Such is life.