Find a job you love and you’ll never work a day in your life.

Confusius

A good rest is half the work.  Yugoslav proverb

After a heavy snowfall, the more heavy branches of the pine break under the weight of the snow, but the more supple willow branches bend thus allowing the snow to fall onto the ground.  Tao – Sacred Symbols

“One should act in consonance with the way of heaven and earth, which is enduring and eternal. The superior person perseveres long in their course, adapts to the times, but remains firm in their direction and correct in their goals.” I Ching

Let no one deceive another
or despise anyone anywhere,
or through anger or irritation
wish for another to suffer.
Buddha
Karaniya Metta Suttra.

Be Content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.

Lao Tzu

It is better to conquer yourself
Than to win a thousand battles.
Then the victory is yours.
It cannot be taken from you,
Not by angels or by demons,
Heaven or hell.

Buddha
Dhammapada.

I am enthralled with aging. I wonder if this is the first time in history that women stand around at a party and so enthusiastically talk about the agony and ecstasy of it all. This actually just happened last Saturday night at a party with about seven of us all in a highly animated circle – each one gingerly pinching our sagging eyelids to see who wins “most eligible for insurance coverage due to impairment of eyesight”. We laughed hysterically. It’s not unlike that great moment with Meryl Streep in What’s Complicated when she exposes her one droopy eyelid!

I don’t remember my mother or her friends ever talking about aging. It was just the natural course of events. No one spoke about longevity, corrective surgery, raw food, HGH injections or what it would be like to live until 100. Nature seemed to simply take its course.

There is a natural evolution to life that we humans seem to keep wanting to mess with, as though we have some all-knowing wisdom only to often end up paying a big price for our meddling. For me, there seems to be a correlation between the more wrinkles I have and the more authentic I feel. And more womanly. There is undoubtedly something deep inside that is calling to be heard, that has a new voice.  Perhaps too, there is a new way to listen.

You’ve no idea how hard I’ve looked for a gift to bring You.
Nothing seemed right. What’s the point of bringing gold
to the gold mine, or water to the Ocean. Everything I came
up with was like taking spices to the Orient. It’s no good
giving my heart and my soul because you already have these.
So- I’ve brought you a mirror. Look at yourself and
remember me.

Jalaluddin Rumi

People usually consider walking on water or in thin air a miracle. But I think the real miracle is not to walk either on water or in thin air,but to walk on earth. Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don’t even recognize: a blue sky, white clouds, green leaves, the black, curious eyes of a child — our own two eyes. All is a miracle.

Thich Nhat Hanh