This blog is for sharing words and imagery that reflect changing, expanding perceptions of the beautiful, complex world we live in
Sunday, May 6, 2007
Happy Birthday, Mom
Today is Mom’s 75th birthday — happy birthday! We celebrated at Ceiba last night, an enticing Latin-American restaurant in DC named after the town in Puerto Rico near where Mom, Dad and Laurie lived when Laurie was born. Dinner was excellent: albondigas, beef empanadas, pork feijoadas, crab torrejitas and black beans with margaritas, pina coladas, and sangria — so good! We toasted Mom and remembered Laurie, who was with us at the restaurant some months after it opened in 2003. A bright and colorful mural of tropical birds was our backdrop, an image of joy and beauty that is always Puerto Rico. Check out the photos of a magnificent 300-year old ceiba tree on the island of Vieques, off PR's east coast near Ceiba.
"As custodians of the planet it is our responsibility to deal with all species with kindness, love and compassion. That these animals suffer through human cruelty is beyond understanding. Please help to stop this madness." Richard Gere
What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be happy? What is love? What is fear? What is my greatest potential as a human, and how can I achieve it? How can we live together as spiritual beings -- according respect, value, appreciation, love, truth, and equality to everyone? What patterns can we use to create change?
"Health is a large word. It embraces not the body only, but the mind and spirit as well...and not today's pain or pleasure alone, but the whole being and outlook of a man." James H. West “We are not human beings having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual beings having a human experience.” Teilhard de Chardin
"No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other's worth." Robert Southey "The greatest wealth is health." Virgil
"Never discourage anyone...who continually makes progress, no matter how slow." Plato "When love and skill come together, expect a masterpiece." John Rustin
"High above us the myriad stars glow full as they turn. Yet in you the outliving of stars has already begun." Rainer Maria Rilke
"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace." Jimi Hendrix
"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less." Marie Curie
If you can talk, you can sing. If you can walk, you can dance. Zimbabwean Proverb
"The unexamined life is not worth living." Socrates
"As you think, you travel, and as you love, you attract. You are today where your thoughts have brought you; you will be tomorrow where your thoughts take you." James Lane Allen
"Unconditional love...has no strings, no judgments, no ifs, no resistance, no denial; indeed, it is total and blessed freedom from any needs at all." Kathy Oddenino
"As long as Nature is seen as something outside ourselves -- frontiered and foreign, separate, it is lost both to us and in us. It follows that to achieve a society in harmony with Nature, we must be guided by respect for it." Sir Crispin Tickell
"No one is free who has not obtained the empire of himself." Pythagoras
“Be the change you want to see in the world.” Mahatma Gandhi
“Imagination is the greatest creative force in the universe.” Albert Einstein
"I appreciate all experience as an opportunity to understand who I am as a human being." Kathy Oddenino
Today is Mom’s 75th birthday — happy birthday! We celebrated at Ceiba last night, an enticing Latin-American restaurant in DC named after the town in Puerto Rico near where Mom, Dad and Laurie lived when Laurie was born. Dinner was excellent: albondigas, beef empanadas, pork feijoadas, crab torrejitas and black beans with margaritas, pina coladas, and sangria — so good! We toasted Mom and remembered Laurie, who was with us at the restaurant some months after it opened in 2003. A bright 
and colorful mural of tropical birds was our backdrop, an image of joy and beauty that is always Puerto Rico. Check out the photos of a magnificent 300-year old ceiba tree on the island of Vieques, off PR's east coast near Ceiba.
