Posted by JD on
April 21, 2006
Daily Wisdom from CoffeyTalk.com
“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.â€
-Thornton Wilder
A conscious heart: that’s something to strive for! I have heard it said that the longest distance is the distance between the head and the heart. Why is this? Why do we not trust our hearts? We “think†we know better, but do we? We feel alive, energized, and happy when we feel love and gratitude. Our treasures are all around us and within us. We have only to open up our hearts to it, to open up our awareness to it.
-Lissa Coffey
Posted by JD on
April 18, 2006
If only we would all let our outter shell fall away and reveal our true, loving selves. It can be challenging or it can be the easiest thing we have ever done! - JD
The beautiful kindness in people
CBC News Viewpoint | April 18, 2006 | More from Disability Matters
From: CBC.ca
This column will feature three writers, each with a different disability. They all have something to say about living with a disability and how they view awareness and attitudes toward disabilities in Canada. The column will deal with the rights of people with disabilities, eliminating inequality and discrimination, and issues of self-help and consumer advocacy. Our plan is to rotate among our columnists to have a new column each month.
Ed Smith Ed Smith is a retired educator and full-time writer. His humour column runs in several papers and magazines and he has had eight books published. He has been quadriplegic since 1998. Ed lives in Springdale, Nfld.
I was being interviewed by a young student who had chosen me as an author to profile in a school project for his English class. I was somewhat flattered until his mother told me she had chosen me for his profile because he couldn’t find any writer he liked. She admired my writing, she said, and her son had a good sense of humour. OK.
The questions were fairly routine until he hit me with the Big One.
What are the advantages …? I hadn’t thought about that before. I could list the disadvantages until the cows come home. I could write volumes on the disadvantages of being in a wheelchair. But advantages?
“Not many,” I said. “None that I can think of.”
Silence on the other end of the line. He was allowing me to think, obviously certain I could come up with something if given enough time.
All the cute little responses that are no longer cute ran through my mind: One pair of shoes will last a lifetime. The cuffs of your pants don’t drag in the dirt. You don’t get tired from walking. No one expects you to do those stupid dances. You never trip over your shoelaces. Your feet don’t get damp from the water on the wet street soaking through the holes in the soles of your shoes.
“Well,” I said, “one pair of shoes will …” I stopped. Even a 12-year-old would see that as shallow. There was still silence at the other end of the line. His faith in me to come up with something meaningful was boundless. Can’t destroy a child’s faith in the author he’s profiling, even if the author is his mother’s choice. Let’s see, now, the advantages of being in … Okay, even one advantage.
‘ To help you, my friend, is a blessing’
And then a memory from the night before came to mind.
It was a regular meeting of our local Lions Club. One Lion drives me in my van to the hall and accompanies me up the long ramp and through several doors into the “den” on the second floor. Someone moves quickly to remove a chair and make a place for me at the table.
Another Lion places my dinner in front of me – even though it’s a “serve yourself” meal – almost before anyone else can get theirs. He beats two or three others to the punch. Several more offer me drinks. My dishes are whisked away from in front of me as soon as I finish the main course and apple pie and ice cream appear magically on my tray. That’s how it is all evening.
When I thank one of the Lions for his help he looks at me for a moment.
“To help you, my friend,” he says, “is a blessing.”
I didn’t have to think much longer to finally answer my young student interviewer: “It reminds me of the kindness in people. The beautiful kindness in people.”
I didn’t get reminded of that very much when I was driving a car. Quite the opposite. Kindness and courtesy seem to disappear when most people get behind the wheel. It isn’t difficult to make contact with people at a traffic light when you’re either too slow to get moving or too fast off the mark. Or when you turn without thinking, causing another driver to brake suddenly. Or when you back into the side of a vehicle that’s unexpectedly parked practically across your driveway. Very few of those experiences amount to a blessing.
‘We’ll be here when you come out ‘
And then I remembered another, somewhat different occasion several years ago.
We are in Toronto and I am wheeling down a sidewalk in a commercial area. Somehow I’ve gotten separated from the others walking with me, probably because I’m looking for a certain specialty store and they aren’t. Finally, I see the familiar sign up ahead. And then I see the group hanging out in front of the entrance.
They are the poster boys for your typical street gang. Late teens. A couple with headbands. Sleeveless T-shirts. Prominent tattoos on bare shoulders. Shades.
I come to a halt in a hurry. Do I carry on as if they aren’t there or what? The innate stubbornness of most Newfoundlanders comes to the fore and I wheel up to the lads. They are more or less blocking the entrance, at least for wheelchairs.
Then it happens. One particularly tough-looking character suddenly sees me and immediately jumps to open the door. One of his buddies goes through the door ahead of me and opens the inside door. They stand aside to let me through.
“Thanks very much, guys,” I manage. My surprise must be showing.
“No problem,” says the first fellow, wearing a headband. “We’ll be here when you come out.”
“Being in a wheelchair reminds me that everyone has the capacity for kindness,” I said to my young friend on the phone. “The beautiful capacity for kindness.”
I hope he understands.
Posted by JD on
April 7, 2006
6 Things You Probably Never Knew or Thought About
At least 5 people in this world love you so much they would die for you.
At least 15 people in this world love you in some way.
Every night, SOMEONE thinks about you before they go to sleep.
You mean the world to someone.
If not for you, someone may not be living.
Someone that you don’t even know exists loves you.
Take the time .. to live and love.
Posted by JD on
April 7, 2006
Taken from here
The Thinking Heart:
An Interview with Paul Pearsall
by Hal Bennett and Susan Sparrow
Essay Excerpt:
For centuries, scientists, philosophers, physicians, and poets have argued about the function of the heart. Is its sole purpose to move blood throughout our bodies? Or does it do something more? Theologians and doctors of ancient times saw the heart as the “thinking organ” of the body and the dwelling place of the soul. In recent years, particularly since the success of heart transplants, evidence has surfaced that perhaps these early inklings were more accurate than we thought.
Paul Pearsall is one of many researchers who has observed that transplant patients who receive an organ from another person’s body may also receive much more — what he calls their “cellular memories.” Recipients have reported inheriting everything from the donor’s food cravings to knowledge about his murderer — information that in one case led to the killer’s arrest. As a result of these and other researchers’ findings, Pearsall is now convinced that the heart has its own form of intelligence, that we are only rarely aware of in modern life. In his view, the heart processes information about the body and the outside world through an “info-energetic code” — a profuse network of blood vessels and cells that serves not only as our circulatory system but as an energy information gathering and distribution system, much like a complex telephone network. What’s more, he believes that the soul, at least in part, is a set of cellular memories that is carried largely by our hearts. Predictably, such views have met with opposition in the medical world. But in his view, the implications of his theories — that the heart “thinks,” cells remember, and communication can therefore transcend the boundaries of time and space — are too important for him to dismiss.
“I see myself as a bridge,” Pearsall explains. “We need the brain, and we need these brilliant scientists who are bringing their brain power to the world. But we want them to have heart, and that’s what drives me.”
Bennett/Sparrow: This is a controversial subject in scientific circles, as you surely know. I suspect that you’ve had to confront a lot of criticism from your peers for carrying this banner.
Pearsall: The Heart’s Code is not my theory, of course. I’ve drawn most of what’s in the book from scientists who’ve been researching it. But the heart as a sentient organ has always interested me. It’s a crucial hypothesis!
Bennett/Sparrow: I think we may be the first civilization in history that hasn’t believed that the heart has an important role in our mental, emotional, and spiritual processes. Why do you think we’ve taken this position?
Pearsall: The short answer is that we’re a brain culture as distinct from a heart culture. We want to quantify everything. If we can’t weigh it and measure it objectively, it simply doesn’t exist for us. The Hawaiians have always believed that it is through the heart that we know the truth. For them, the heart is as sentient as the brain. We find this same belief with the Hopi Indians in New Mexico, and with the Chinese; within many cultures the heart chakra, is the key to healing. My kahuna friends here in Hawaii say to me, “What took you so long? We’ve known this for centuries!”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Hal Zina Bennett and Susan J. Sparrow are a husband-wife team who collaborate both as authors and as creative writing teachers and coaches. Together they have over 30 successful books, both fiction and non-fiction. Hal’s The Well Body Book is legendary, since it helped to launch the holistic health movement. Susan and Hal live with two small dogs in a remote village on a lake in Northern California. Their books together include Follow Your Bliss, Spirit Guides, and Write From the Heart. Hal’s newest book, Spirit Animals and the Wheel of Life, explores Nature-based spirituality as a way of healing our relationships with our planet, ourselves and each other. Susan is presently working on a new book about women and their perspectives on marriage. Susan and Hal are co-founders of Tenacity Press, an independent book publisher, and Write From the Heart Seminars.