My daughter created a ceramic plaque in middle school, later turned into a mug, that said:
"Even impossible says "I'm possible."
Jack Johnson signs about things that may not be necessarily what "they say they are." Listen to his song. Maybe what you believe about your life is not really accurate. Think about turning things "Upside Down" or to put it another way--- Look at life from a different point of view. When you do, you may also see your love in a different way.
When a younger woman marries an older man, people can find many reasons to be critical of that arrangement and yet both Liv Ullman and Ingmar Bergman and Lauren Bacall, who married an older Humphrey Bogart, realized something else in these connections. Liv said about Ingmar, in the documentary "Painfully Connected" that "he changed my life." Lauren Bacall, also reflected on her marriage to Bogart – Bacall was 19, Bogart 45 - but she found life with him exciting because she met all these interesting people. Both of these young women had a chemistry with their older husbands. I think their relationships provide a truth about love as well. If it is a great love, it should change your life.
Lauren Bacall & Humphrey Bogart
With the film To Have And Have Not she forged the unforgettable partnership with Humphrey Bogart.
Love is about being present. It is mostly about giving: your time, your wisdom, sharing your dreams, and yes, even your poetry and song. The man in the Spelling Bee contest, Marshall Davis Jones, shows us another aspect of love: It is not a game where you win and lose. Love is about finding the right words even if they are misspelled.
Marshall Davis Jones
In his video "Spelling Father," you will find a very moving account of his love for his mother, but the sharing of his poetry, is another act of love.
Listen to this mother (Whitney Houston) sing. This tribute by Kevin Costner is another form of love, remembering a friend.
When you look in the mirored surface of this shiny metal heart, an outdoor sculpture entitled "Sacred Heart" by the artist Jeffrey Koons, you see your own image reflected back to you. Perhaps, this mirrored image serves as a reminder, that each of us carries within us our own sacred heart. If there are other people looking at the sculpture with you, or even the people we don't see who live or work inside the buildings mirrored against the ribbon of the heart, their faces are also reflected in the artwork. This sculpture reminds me we must all find a place to live in this world together. To achieve this togetherness, our world often forgets the sacred love we need to show one another.
This song (below) by Rascal Flatts, is often used as wedding song. Some people have used the song for the first dance at their wedding. A wedding of two hearts is no better time to call upon a spiritual force to guide us toward a sacred love.
"Forever in Time We'll Be" from Irene in Time - Andrea Marcovicci
After her husband developed a stroke, which took away his ability to communicate, but not his expressiveness for love,
this story, about the brain and loving relationships, written by Diane Ackerman appeared in the NY Times:
"Love is the best school, but the tuition is high and the homework can be painful. As imaging studies by the U.C.L.A. neuroscientist Naomi Eisenberger show, the same areas of the brain that register physical pain are active when someone feels socially rejected. That’s why being spurned by a lover hurts all over the body, but in no place you can point to. Or rather, you’d need to point to the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex in the brain, the front of a collar wrapped around the corpus callosum, the bundle of nerve fibers zinging messages between the hemispheres that register both rejection and physical assault."
"Whether they speak Armenian or Mandarin, people around the world use the same images of physical pain to describe a broken heart, which they perceive as crushing and crippling. It’s not just a metaphor for an emotional punch. Social pain can trigger the same sort of distress as a stomachache or a broken bone."
So, listen to this song of love, sung by Andrea Marcovicci. Doesn't your brain feel wonderful?
In the silent, transitional passage of wakefulness into sleep, all the noises of the day drift away. The last sound you hear is your gentle final whispers of love. The uniqueness of that "noise" is often the beginning of sweet dreams. The poet Rumi describes that moment here:
In my ear nothing remained except the noise of love. No reason or no idea remained in my spirit Except for the beauty of the world Of the eternal past.
~Rumi
As you begin to fall asleep, you can only guess about the future. But the beauty of the world is always something worth dreaming about.
Roses are best known and admired as ornamental plants grown for their flowers and scent. They are part of the family of plants called Rosacea and science has now sequenced the genome of the Rose. That is, scientists now know the genes (sentences) that make up the beautiful plant (paragraph) called the pink rose in the chapter on Roses. Nevertheless, the importance of the rose is more than just its genetic structure (genome). It is the destiny of the rose that gives the Rose its importance to humankind. For whom is this pink rose? Which person will receive its fragrance? What hand will receive the flower? It is this romantic mystery that make the rose important. This is the soul of the rose as depicted in the images below. The future of science may allow us to create new species of the rose, but it will never be able to re-create the soul of the rose. Only the woman in this painting by John William Waterhouse (inspired by a poem "Come into the Garde, Maud" by Alfred Lord Tennyson) knows why these roses draw her closer to the fragrance at the garden wall, or why her hand touches the wall with soft sensuality.
The last gift of love we can give someone is something so basic that it is overlooked. These are the words of praise. When everything about our physical beauty is gone: the alluring blooms of the rose or the golden wheat of the great harvest, we are left with our empty branches. This is the autumn of our life. But love doesn't die. The lover remembers his singer's love song. It is easy to comprehend that their love endures beyond death because something still glistens.
The above poem was set to music by Ralph Vaughan Williams. Listen here.
The word Beauty, if capitalized, is a synonym for God , said the naturalist John Muir. He referred to the Beauty of Nature. One woman who also understood the true meaning of beauty was Audery Hepburn.
She often quoted this poem called "Time Tested Beauty Tips," written by Sam Levinson.
For attractive lips, speak words of kindness.
For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people.
For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.
For beautiful hair, let a child run his or her fingers through it once a day.
For poise, walk with the knowledge you'll never walk alone.
People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed; Never throw out anybody.
Remember, If you ever need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm.
As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands, one for helping yourself, the other for helping others.
The beauty of a woman is not in the clothes she wears, the figure that she carries, or the way she combs her hair. The beauty of a woman must be seen from in her eyes, because that is the doorway to her heart, the place where love resides.
The beauty of a woman is not in a facial mole, but true beauty in a woman is reflected in her soul. It is the caring that she lovingly gives, the passion that she shows, and the beauty of a woman with passing years only grows!
Audrey Hepburn worked not only in the glitz of Hollywood , but also as a UNICEF ambassador in the hunger-torn landscape of Somalia and bringing love to the hungry and forsaken children of Ethiopia.
Although admired by millions for her acting role, she struggled with personal love until her last marriage. Here is a beautiful film of her reading from the book The Diary of Anne Frank.
When you contemplate beauty, says Anne Frank, you cannot be unhappy.
Think of all the beauty that's still left in and around you and be happy. Anne Frank
Lou Reed, rock musician and soul singer died this week, but his music lives on in the hearts of those who found his poetic style riveting. I was introduced to the music of Lou Reed when I was in college. I wrote record reviews for my college newspaper and one of the first albums I reviewed was Lou Reed’s Rock N' Roll Animal, his first gold record. His songs had so much to say and the music was
unrelenting.
A few years later I saw a guy standing on
the street in New York's Greenwich Village whomI immediately recognized as Lou Reed. He was thinner than I
expected and wearing shorts. He looked at me and I smiled back at him, with a
look of recognition. Sure, he was famous, but I kept my distance. That is how
many New Yorkers act around the rich and famous.
His recent death
reminds me how much I loved his music. This song I’ve chosen to remember him is
about transformation into a new man. Thephrase that seems most memorable to me is his understanding of love
that fits inside him like "a pocket of the heart."
I look at the shirt I am
wearing. Right over my heart is a pocket. Inside that shirt pocket you can only
stuff something small: a phone number, a photograph, two tickets to a concert. That little pocket can hold so much promise and if it’s the right person, there are no regrets. In the pocket of the heart, love can fill that space. Not just any love, but a mindful, mindless love.
Lyrics to
Set The Twilight Reeling :
Take me
for what I am ... a star newly emerging
Long
simmering explodes ... inside the self is reeling
In the
pocket of the heart, in the rushing of the blood
In the
muscle of my sex, in the mindful mindless love
I accept
the new found man and set the twilight reeling
At 5 am
the moon and the sun ... sit set before my window
Light
glances off the blue glass we set ... right before the window
And you
who accept ... in your soul and your head
What was
misunderstood ... what was thought of with dread
A new self
is born ... the other self dead
I accept
the new found man and set the twilight reeling
A soul
singer stands on the stage ... the spotlight shows him sweating
He sinks
to one knee ... Seems to cry ... the horn are unrelenting
But as the
drums beats he finds himself growing hard
In the
microphone's face he sees her face growing large
And the swelling
crescendo no longer retards
I accept
the new found man and set the twilight reeling
As the
twilight sunburst gleams
As the
chromium moon it sets
As I lose
all my regrets and set the twilight reeling
