J. M. W. Turner

The DeYoung has moved a lot of European art to the Legion of Honor. I dislike the building that is the Legion of Honor, altho it is a spectacular setting. When I was at the DeYoung yesterday with a friend, I asked where the Turners are now located. I was told they are all at the Legion of Honor, with 'all' the European art. So we looked at a few galleries.  I try to only spent an hour in any art museum, unless I am traveling and unable to see the museum regularly. I saw several European artists, as well as an interesting contemporary (and monumental) piece by a Nigerian. I went back to the staffer who told me all the European art was at the Legion to inform him of the European artists hanging at the DeYoung. Then I said "I think you moved the more famous European painters to the Legion to generate more traffic at the Legion of Honor. I hate the Legion. I hate its formality, its tiny galleries and, for the most part, it's collection does not interest me."

I am primarily interested in 20th Century art and later, although Turner predates the 20th Century.

After that exchange about Turner, for my main motivation in going to the Legion of HOnor yesterday was to see the Turners. But there weren't any Turners at the Legion of Honor.

Someone at the museum told me the DeYoung is doing a major Turner retrospective in 2015, with art that never leaves the Tate.  I'll be there.

Love's Assault

LOVE’S ASSAULT

January 24, 2015 at 3:26pm

by Antoine Moore, a new friend.  Obviously he owns the copyright to his poem.
(Dedicated to V.A.M.)

Nothing more distressing than to feel
the world’s suddenly gone nuts
But only I
keep coloring inside the lines of crazy

Nothing more daunting than to feel
like I am fighting alone
One person
versus an army of never ending

It’s nearly more than I can handle
Devastation cracks open my wounds
scrambles my inner compass
I was shell-shocked
lost and
tittering on the edge
Once sat humpty dumpty
but had a great fall
but none of the king’s horses
and none of the king’s men
could prevent my sunny side up
from oozing out of me

Tumbled like Alice
down the rabbit hole
into ruins and broken pieces
Landed face down in a desolate demolition zone
My mind is crumbled walls
my esteem is collapsed foundation
my emotions are jackhammered beyond repair
I have knocked down any plans
of further building up my future
since sinkholes are unstable ground for new construction

How to make sense out of the senseless?
Like that
it was your passing
but my death
Your cremation
but my burial
Like that
my everything has changed
yet the world moves on
as if nothing has changed at all
It feels            so surreal

Out of nowhere
I was attacked the day you died
in the thick of night
when I was left alone and unprotected
He thrust himself on me
without my consent
and beat me sad and blue

He forcibly pinned down my strength
tore a whole in my defenses
rendered me a deformed shadow of my former self
He then drowned my ache in a bucket of ice
so I could no longer feel my soul

I cried out for you
my comfort, my solace
but mercy was not to be found
Holding myself
I sat rocking chair
and stared blankly up at the sky
Twinkle, twinkle little star
How I wonder….       
    What you are to me
is a mind-altering dose of morphine
Nothing settled my nerves quite the way you did
As long as I had my drip, I could tolerate any pain
but my tolerance sack has dwindled to empty

If only you were here to
help me catch
this bandit of spirits
this predator of dreams
this executioner who left me with only half a heart
Help me solve the riddle
of this unconscionable attack
Support me to survive
this vicious violation

Your staggering absence
keeps me forever thinking about
our love which
surprisingly
presents the biggest clue
to the greatest crime
I have ever known

What does love have to do with it…?

EVERYTHING

coming to consciousness: Carl Jung

There is no coming to consciousness without pain.  People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul.  One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.

-- Carl G. Jung

Vision in Indigo by Darren Bresale

in Indigo Visions; my Mind drips Magenta
resisting three sixes since the Placenta.
no Sun Shining Haloes, just Poetry Flows,
didactic WordPlay born outta my Soul:
a plantation creation, my bloodline is deep.
genetically tainted but gifted to speak.
Praising The Most High, my first obligation,
my oath's for The Way, towards Purification.
cross-legged I've zoned into Deep Meditation,
spittin' at satan in correct combinations,
my destiny's written, in my estimation,
I was born to enlighten without compensation.
like poor righteous teachers, comparisons drawn,
from projects to prisons to mountains at dawn.
impregnanting minds with Proverbial Wisdom,
like Beautiful Nubia fighting for Freedom.
callin' on Martin & Malcolm & Marcus,
as greed turns Africa into a carcass.
She's bleeding profusely like who really cares,
as from wii to blackberrys you live unaware,
that African soil possesses the means
in creating these toys, now we see in h.d.
in this digital age where airwaves are controlled,
satellites are now watching you do what your told.


stop looking at me like I'm speaking in tongues
just a Poetry Shaman when I spit from my lungs.
speaking Love to Power with the beat of the drum
'cause the future is now & it's where I come from,


the 5th Realm of the Sun!



I see you really don't get that this new world is now,
meaning all who resist will be forced to bow down,
through subliminal vibes, turn off your t.v.
we're caught in a matrix we can't even see.
programmed by nonsense that aint even real,
revealed in a blueprint they've tried to conceal,
so the streets won't rebel against bilderburg plots'let them kill over colors refusing to stop.
being micro reflections of global dissensions,
where usury's causing the glocal recession,
deceiving the poor through bilderburg plans,
they planned the election of "Yes We Can"
placting the masses just to distract,
from the real politricks so stay mentaly strapped,
'cause pop mainstream finds us spiritually blind,
time to open Your Big Eye & read all the Signs.
discovering gems for mind transformation
like poetry flowing with an African cadence
in the 48th law towards a new prototype,
spiritually conscous, mathematically tight
like Indigo Visions where minds drips magenta
resisting three sixes since the placenta.
no sunshine haloes, just poetry flows,
didactic wordplay born out of the soul.

quit looking at me like I'm speaking in tongues
just a Poetry Shaman when I spit from my lungs
speaking Love to Power with the beat of the drum
'cause the future is now and it's where I come from,

the 5th Realm of the Sun!

-- Darren Bresale, wrote Vision in Indigo in  09/2009, revised 2/17/2011.

[1.  The color of the sixth chakra is Indigo. The name of this chakra is
Anja which means "to perceive".  It is associated with the "Third Eye" as well as the Element Light and relates to the psychic faculty of deep inner seeing or insight.  It opens us up to the beauty of the inner world, the symbolic realm of archetypes and dreams, and the awakening of a guiding vision.  This chakra is strongly supported by meditation.
2. Indigo is the color of perception, imagination, illusion and the ability to see patterns.
3.  The Number 5 is the union of an odd and even number (2 & 3)  [Or 4 & 1 TF].  It is called equiliblrium, because it divides the perfect number 10 into two equal parts.  I was born 07.24.1963, under the Sun Sign, Leo. My birth date equals 5]
4. The 5th dimension is in the realm of Thought. . .
5.  A Thought is Power

I've decided to be happy

I am enough

I am full of love, empathy, compassion, joy and humor. I want to make the world a better place.  I love well and practice kindness.  I am not afraid of the truth.  I am loyal, adventurous, supportive and surprising. I am a lot of fun to hang out with.  I am a woman.

I am enough.

we have lost our center

 Geez, Anaïs Nin was alive quite some time ago, yet she knew humanity has losts its center.

try hearing the unspoken

slogging along

Today I had strong resistance to doing my laps but I valiantly made myself put on my swimsuit, throw on some clothes and walk over to the pool.  My membership card didn't work and the counter attendant said the computer indicated it had been cancelled as of Jan 19th. On 9th, I had paid for this semester. She let me in, telling me I could check with customer service which I did, and that problem was resolved.

The pool was closed!

So I removed my swimsuit and took a hot shower, turning the water off several times to conserve water as I soaped and shampooed up, put on hair rinse, etc. I feel so pious when I do that. The drought in N. Cali is still very serious. Ah, we squander our water supplies for fracking profits, we destroy the fertile soil that sustains our food system and we pollute our food with chemicals and genetic modifications. I have read that wheat is far less nutritious than it was 100 years ago.

I think water and food wars are going to come along, that competition for increasingly inadequate survival needs is going to get uglier than anyone, at least anyone I know, wants to contemplate.

Did anyone reading this read about the gagillion gallons of oil that spilled into a pristine river in Yellowstone National Park? An oil train derailment. More of that shit is coming at us and I don't think it's going to stop, at least not until things get a whole lot uglier and then, if fortune smiles upon this greedy, rapacious and, perhaps, undeserving race, maybe things will improve.

Not in my lifetime.

So why do I eat so carefully, exercise a lot.  I would be just fine if I died in my sleep tonight. There really isn't anything I want to do. I go through the motions.   My health discipline runs on autopilot. As a friend recently pointed out, I take care of myself so if I do get very old, I will have a more enjoyable quality of life.  I'm not sure about that kind of thinking.

I refused my annual mammogram in 2013 and I let 2014 pass without getting one. The second miss was an oversight. Now I am thinking maybe I'll stop mammograms.  Right now, some of my health care providers are focussed on my latest thyroid test, wanting to do another biopsy of my thyroid. I had a biopsy two years ago. I've had the nodules on my thyroid all my life.  What if I did get thyroid cancer or breast cancer?

Sometimes I think about folks on the Paleo diet. I eat somewhat Paleo but they don't eat legumes and I love my lentils, cannellini, navy beans, etc.  Anyway.

It seems illogical to me to attempt to recreate what contemporary humans guess was the human diet in the Paleolithic era yet submit to modern allopathic medicine.  Paleolithic era humans did not have biopsies, or insulin when a pancreas stops making insulin.

Is insulin okay on a Paleo diet?

Once day, somewhere in the not too distant past,

friendship for a healthy heart

This link takes you to The Atlantic's story on friendship being integral to heart health.
friendship-for-a-healthy-heart/

love the people you meet

it will happen if it happens

King Tut

King Tut is in the news today. Part of his gold-plated burial mask was broken during cleaning. The cleaning staff, apparently, hurriedly glued the broken bits back on with epoxy, further damaging this revered relic.

I saw the King Tut burial mask, his burial chamber and lots of relics from his tomb at the Chicago Museum of Natural History.  My dad took me, my younger brothers and my baby sister to see King Tut during a college break. I think it was at Christmas time.

There were huge crowds. Back then, selling admissions to museum galleries at fixed times was not common. Plus, no one sold tickets to museum shows online in the early seventies, which was when I was in college. People showed up and waited in long lines that snaked down the many stairs of the museum. I think there were three or four stories of stairs. The line to see King Tut snaked down the stairs and around the museum, almost going all the way around.

My dad took one look at the unanticipated line and told the big kids to keep an eye on the little kids. Then my dad rushed up the stairs to the ticket window.

He soon came back down with tickets for immediate entrance to the King Tut exhibit. He had told the ticket seller that he had a son at the bottom of the stairs in a wheelchair. This was also before all museums had wheelchair ramps. Dad had told her he didn't want to carry his son up unless he could be sure he would get tickets. The ticker seller sold my dad tickets and told him to bring his wheelchair son right on up.

Us kids were embarassed. We imagined that everyone standing in line might somehow know how unjustly we had gotten our tickets.  "But dad," someone said, "When we go up, the museum staff will see there is no kid in a wheelchair."  Dad said "No way. The place is a zoo, the staff won't know when we hand over our tickets how we got them. And they are all overwhelmed by the crowds."

Dad was right.  We all ran up those stairs, entered the museum and saw King Tut.

It was, I acknowledge, a fascinating show. I had read about King Tut's tomb several times. It was nice to actually see such amazing antiquities.

I carried the sting of mild shame for a little while but not too long. The exhibit was so interesting that I forgot about the dishonorable way my dad had gotten us to the top of that very, very long line.

my rock is still rollling

"There is no sun without shadow and it is essential to know the night." Albert Camus on Sisyphus.

"The struggle itself towards the heights is enough to fill a man's heart." Albert Camus on Sisyphus.

"The rock is still rolling." Albert Camus on Sisyphus.

My rock is still rolling, I thought as I lay in bed this morning.

no separation when we love w/heart & soul

Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes, because for those who love with heart and soul, there is no separation.
~ Rumi

Rilke: love your solitude

“Therefore, dear Sir, love your solitude and try to sing out with the pain it causes you. For those who are near you are far away... and this shows that the space around you is beginning to grow vast.... be happy about your growth, in which of course you can't take anyone with you, and be gentle with those who stay behind; be confident and calm in front of them and don't torment them with your doubts and don't frighten them with your faith or joy, which they wouldn't be able to comprehend. Seek out some simple and true feeling of what you have in common with them, which doesn't necessarily have to alter when you yourself change again and again; when you see them, love life in a form that is not your own and be indulgent toward those who are growing old, who are afraid of the aloneness that you trust.... and don't expect any understanding; but believe in a love that is being stored up for you like an inheritance, and have faith that in this love there is a strength and a blessing so large that you can travel as far as you wish without having to step outside it.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke

W.B. Yeats on magic

The world is full of magic things, patiently waiting for our sense to grow sharper.

-- W.B. Yeats

love is better

“You can never know anyone as completely as you want. But that’s okay, love is better.”
-- Caroline Paul, in Lost Cat

hold the gate open

It seems counter-intuitive to romantics and those who feel ready to partner when someone walks away from a beautiful love connection. But some people can only handle a half love because whole love shines a light on their dark places. Real intimacy requires real presence, and if someone isn't ready to be truly here on an individual level, they will find it very difficult to manage all the triggers that come up when real love comes. Only a small few can hold the gate open when profound love enters. A blessed and courageous few.

-- Jeff Brown

the field is self-transcendant

what you hold in your heart you see in the world

"A man sees in the world what he carries in his heart."

-- Wolfgang Johann von Goethe

people w/greatest potential move slowly

abstinence

My friend Stephen co-directed the documentary about James Broughton, Big Joy. Broughton was a brilliant filmmaker and poet who influenced contemporary art and culture far more than he was given credit for in his lifetime. I believe he was overlooked a bit because he was gay. Watch the film and you see he had great influence with many artists, of many mediums. And the film is great . . and, last time I checked, streaming on Netflix.

true nature of others

"When our awareness opens to cosmic perceptions, we can more clearly see ourselves in ideal relationships to our world and others.
Small-minded, self-centered, grasping or possessive attitudes and behaviors are unworthy of us as spiritual beings; they are nurtured by egoism, insecurity, self-righteousness, and inclinations to demonstrate personal power and control over others and circumstances.
Life is whole; there is a right place in the universe for us, and for everyone and everything that contributes to the overall good.
Compassionate behavior is spontaneous when we clearly acknowledge that the true nature of others is identical to our own; that we share a common foundation-source in God and a common destined awakening in God." 
~ Paramhamsa Yogivah Giri 

you always have choice

 I have been softened and made kinder by my suffering. Blessed be human me.

my daughter used to call me a feminazi

My daughter used to call me a feminazi. Usually when she called me a feminazi she followed up by telling me that feminism was over, women had equality and my, as she put it, obsession with feminism was passé.  Sometimes I would spout some feminist response, decrying her suggestion that women had equal rights and feminism was over. Sometimes I just sucked up her negative characterization.  It did not really charge me that she called me a feminazi. I actually liked it, liked being seen as a feminist.

Once, on the penultimate day of a ten-day Vipassana retreat, when they let everyone talk, I was talking to a bunch of twenty-something women and mentioned my daughter used to call me a feminazi. One shrewd young woman looked at me closely, took a long, pregnant pause and said "I think you are proud that she called you a feminazi." She was right. I was. So I admitted as much to the young women.

My daughter is very different from me. She is gorgeous, very attractive to men (and women, for she had her female flings). She's very thin, curvaceous, stylish and very beautiful.  I am not ugly but I don't have her flair, her thinness or any concern about style. I am, as a guy once put it, in a compliment for him (and it struck me as a compliment), a plain chick. This guy wrote that he always preferred plain chicks, women who did not wear make up or obsess with clothing. Be still my heart!

Hell yeah I liked being called a feminazi by my kid, even when she meant it as a slam.

I wonder how she views feminism and women's equality with men after ten years or so in the business world. I wonder if she received equal pay. I wonder if she is respected first and foremost for what she knows and does. I am sure she is valued for being beautiful and I imagine she likes that but I wonder if she has a bit more insight into the fact that prioritizing women's appearance for their value undermines women.  I have no idea what she thinks, what her experience has been since 2001, the last time she talked to me.

I hope she is happy. I hope she is a feminazi but, somehow, I doubt it.

visiting flyover country

I apologize for referring to the Great Plains of the Midwest as 'flyover country'.  Lots of folks on the West Coast, and probably the East Coast, who don't know where all the states are reveal their ignorance by referring to 'flyover' country.

I was born in South Dakota but my parents lived in Chicago when I was born and my mom, 1.5 year old brother and I landed back in Chicago when I was two months old. I guess it counts as going back to Chicago for baby me because I had lived there inside my mom, right?

I went to college in Wisconsin.  I went to law school in Minnesota. I have also lived in Nebraska and Michigan, visited virtually all states except Hawaii and Alaska.  I can even identify all the southern states. Do you know where Arkansas is?

I haven't been in the Midwest for some time.  I am visiting Minneapolis.

Then I am darting down to Chicago.  I hope to see all three of my Chicagoland brothers but I will definitely see my baby brother Dave. He is taking days off from work to hang with me.  Dave was my first baby.  I heavily contributed to his care from the day he came home from the hospital.   When I wasn't in school, I was taking care of Dave.  I haven't seen him for too long.  Plus he hopes to arrange a visit with our other two Chicago-based brothers.  It would be lovely to see my brothers, even lovelier to see my nieces and nephews and grandnieces and grandnephews. I have lost track, a bit, about grandnieces and grandnephews.  And all my nieces are not in Chicagoland these days.

I am enjoying the anticipation of all the great art museums in Minneapolis and Chicago. I am also enjoying the anticipation of spending some time with my friend Lana's granddaughters. 

used be a bigger dope

I used to be a much bigger dope than I am now. I don't think I am a dope at all.

In 2001, when my daughter disowned me, I wanted to move back to Minnesota, where I had gone to law school, raised Rosie and lived the longest of anywhere.  I grew up in Chicago but have not lived there since I left home for college at age 18. Minnesota feels like home to me.

I moved to the Pacific Northwest instead because my daughter had told me I could never move back to Minneapolis because she might return there to live after college. And I, mickey the mope, let her demand control my life choices. First, I pleaded. I pointed out that living in a metropolitan area with millions of residents left plenty of room for Rosie and I to live in the same place and never have contact.  I pointed out that once she finished college, and she was a sophomore in college at Cornell at the time, she could end of living anywhere and I should not be limited in my own life choices because she might want to return to Minneapolis.

She did not return to Minneapolis to live. She spent a few years in NYC, then moved to Chicago, which is where I grew up.

Having written the above, I acknowledge I always felt a draw to the West Coast. I applied, and was accepted, to a couple law schools on the West Coast. That time, I let my dad's bullying keep me in the Midwest. There were something like 12 law schools in Chicago. I did not apply to any law schools in Illinois. I wanted to get away from my toxic family.

I guess my daughter considers me toxic and that's why she has so assiduously avoided me since 2001. WTF did I do?

And WTF did I let her bully me into not moving back to Minnesota, where I had the deepest social network.

Shoulda woulda coulda.

I like living in Berkeley. I like not having frigid winters.  But I lack a sense of family and of groundedness. I notice flickering thoughts, rare ones, of returning to the Midwest.  I don't really want to move back to the Midwest but I want a chosen family of friends. I don't have that anywhere.

Rosie was wrong to insist I could never live in Minneapolis in case she ever opted to return. I was wrong to capitulate to her demand. And, yet, I am glad I spent time in the Pacific Northwest and I like living in the SF Bay Area. I like Berkeley.

I have yearnings to live in the countryside, in a small community, in a small house but those are inchoate longings with no grounding. I think such longings reflect my low grade discontent, not a true desire to move.

pants falling down

When my daughter was in the second grade, her teacher had all the students in her class write daily essays. The minimum was two sentences and Rosie mostly wrote the minimum. The teacher would give a theme or a question each day and the children had to write.

When the theme was "write about your most embarassing moment", Rosie wrote "My most embarassing moment was the time my pants fell down in a food store."

Her pants did, indeed, fall down in a food store when she was four or five. I was amazed that she had been so embarrassed that she wrote about it at age seven. At the time, I was unaware she had been embarrassed, primarily because we were in a wing off the regular grocery aisles, a kind of bend. Her pants fell down in the back of the bend, no one was within our sight so no one saw her. And she pulled her pants up so fast I barely saw them down.  It had enough energy for her that it became her most embarrassing moment a few years later.  Maybe she could not think of anything embarrassing.  Maybe she really was embarrassed when her pants fell down with no one around but me.

My pants once fell down in public. In 2006, shortly after I moved to California. I lost a lot of weight that year. I had just bought a new pair of smaller jeans two days before they fell down because they were too loose. I was standing in line at SFMOMA to show my membership card and get a ticket to enter. And, poof, my pants slide down off my hips. Of course I caught them before they fell further. It was not embarrassing. It was thrilling. Having new pants fall down after only owning them two days because they had gotten loose since I bought the was a lot of fun.

A few days ago, walking home from the swimming pool, a dazed-appearing, homeless-appearing man was swaying on the corner immediately in front of my building. I concluded 'homeless' because he was carrying a sleeping bag. He appeared completely out of it and was staggering in a small space, as if he was unsure where to go. I faced him as I crossed the street to return to my building so I saw him as I walked across Oxford Street. Half way across, he dropped his pants. He was naked under his navy blue work pants. I don't think he was flashing. I think he needed a belt.

I went into my building and asked my property manager if she thought I should report the guy. Not to get him in trouble, but, perhaps, get him some help.  He sure seemed to need it. She and I peeked out to see if he was still there before we called and he was gone.

pants falling down.

no failure in golden tunnel

The golden tunnel is my word for those times when I am happy and everything upon which my eyes glance is embued with radiant light.  I love the golden tunnel.

I am casting about for a name for my current experience of happiness. Perhaps I only need to reframe my golden tunnel.  As I grow more calmly equanimous, more mindful, my happiness is calmer, more secure.  I believe having grown deeply mindful about eating might be my most powerful mindfulness practice. It took me several years to truly ground the habit of only eating healthy, nutritious foods.

I wonder why so many humans, at least humans living with easy access to food such as we have here in the good old USA, eat crap. Oh, wait a minute. I know why. We Americans eat crap because we mindlessly let the corporate world tell us to eat crap.

Mindful eating begins at the market, be it a farmers market or a grocery store.  If you don't buy processed food, you can't eat it at home.

I guess what I am getting at is that I am happy.  There are many things I would like to change in my life.  I am not into mindless positivity so I can't allow myself to think that I can change all the things I wish were different in my life. I have learned that I can be happy even when there are things, many things, that I am unhappy about. Am I making any sense?

Dwelling in possibility makes me happy, but so does accepting failure. Failure can shimmer. Who knew?

forgive often

can two empaths become close?

I used to know someone who was regularly upset with me because he felt my pain. He wrote, via email, that I was supposed to keep my pain on my side of the 'net' and never sully the table of friendship with it.  Sometimes, I acknowledge, I offloaded pain when emotionally hurt and not being mindful of both the fact that I was triggered and then acting out by offloading my pain.  I don't know anyone who has not done this, including the man I refer to who demanded, yes demanded, that I take responsibility for his experience when I was in pain. I was in pain over my stuff. I've never had a friend, and I don't want such a friend,  who thinks I am 'going over the net' for revealing honestly what was going on with me.  I don't want to hide who I am, giving up who I am as the price of knowing someone else is a price I don't think anyone should ever pay.

I think this person and I are both high empaths, which means we tend to feel a lot of the energy of others.

Gosh, I was in my forties before I realized I am an empath, before I realized that quite a lot of what I felt was other people's stuff. I was much less able to remain grounded in equanimity when I was unaware that I felt other people's energy as keenly as I do.  I've become more mindful over the years, more away of where my energy ends and the energy of others begins but it is ongoing work. Mindfulness work, I guess, although I am a little uneasy with the sudden hipness of mindfulness. I was meditating for thirty years but now it's all about mindfulness. Whazzaup with that?

I think two empaths who feel attracted to know one another closely would have to do a lot of work together, work which can only be done by spending lots of tie together, sensing into one another to know where one person begins and the other person ends. Almost a high wire act but work worth the effort.  The rewards, in the relationship I have alluded to, would have been awesome. Both he and I are, as he once put it, such very special people.

Special people need special people. I need someone like him, as sensitive and brilliant as he is, but someone who loves me back unconditionally. I deserve it and I will call such a man in.

heal ANY relationship

There are days when I wish I could erase all the horrors that I have witnessed from my mind. It seems that there is no end to the creative ways we humans can find to hurt each other, and no end to the reasons we feel justified in doing so. There is also no end to the human capacity for healing. In each of us there is an innate ability to create joy out of suffering, to find hope in the most hopeless of situations, and to heal any relationship that is in need of healing.
--From The Book of Forgiving by Desmond and Mpho Tutu

on trust

"The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them."

- Ernest Hemingway

 This quote is truth. I trust easily and I am only rarely repaid with distrust. When someone says to me "I don't trust you" they are telling me they are not trustworthy.