The human capacity to care for others isn’t something trivial or something to be taken for granted. Rather, it is something we should cherish. Compassion is a marvel of human nature, a precious inner resource, and the foundation of our well-being and the harmony of our societies. If we seek happiness for ourselves, we should practice compassion: and if we seek happiness for others, we should also practice compassion. ~~ His Holiness The Dalai Lama

When we ourselves our struggling we must remember that we are still capable of having compassion for others. It is in that compassion that we lift ourselves up and we lift up those to whom we give our compassion.

Willow Weep For Me is one of my all time favorite old jazz tunes… this version with Phil Woods and David Sanborn is outstanding.

I’ve always believed in the power of positive thought and intent but sometimes even within a daily practice of affirmations, gratitude and prayers, you still feel as though the sea is tossing you from side to side.

Still, there are moments as each day passes by, that I see the light at the end of the tunnel. There is a reflection of light so wonderous, that it fills me with the necessary strength to push through the rough seas…

(Photo: Reflection on the Salt Marsh ~ c. Pamela J. Leavey 2011)

The center of suffering

When you see a most lovely thing, a beautiful mountain, a beautiful sunset, a ravishing smile, a ravishing face, that fact stuns you, and you are silent; hasn’t it ever happened to you? Then you hug the world in your arms. But that is something from outside which comes to your mind, but I am talking of the mind which is not stunned but which wants to look, to observe. Now, can you observe without all this upsurging of conditioning? To a person in sorrow, I explain in words; sorrow is inevitable, sorrow is the result of fulfillment. When all explanations have completely stopped, then only can you look -which means you are not looking from the center. When you look from a center, your faculties of observation are limited. If I hold to a post and want to be there, there is a strain, there is pain. When I look from the center into suffering, there is suffering. It is the incapacity to observe that creates pain. I cannot observe if I think, function, see from a center- as when I say, ‘I must have no pain, I must find out why I suffer, I must escape.’ When I observe from a center, whether the center is a conclusion, an idea, hope, despair, or anything else, that observation is very restricted, very narrow, very small, and that engenders sorrow. ~~ J. Krishnamurti, The Book of Life

Let go of the suffering, I believe Krishnamurti is saying here. Release it. Sorrow is inevitable, we all go through it. We can’t get past it if we hold it at our center. It’s a hard lesson, but in time we must release the sorrow and suffering and move through it.

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I’m a waiting for that change…

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Loreena McKennitt has such an amazing voice… she sings so effortlessly and carries you away with her beautiful melodies.

Dark Nights Of The Soul is from the CD Mask & Mirror.

Oh my goodness what a gift this baby polar bear is!

Born at the Toronto Zoo, the staff has “nurtured him carefully from just a pound a half in weight to his current healthy 37 pound-plus.”

They gave him plenty of tender loving care until, at 90 days, he began to walk.

But one thing they didn’t give him was a name. They’re throwing that to the public, in the form of a contest that will be open until March 16. The winning moniker will be announced March 31.

Learn more about the polar bear cub here, and learn how you can enter the naming contest here.

You gotta just smile to see this little bear! He’s pure inspiration…

Sometimes the universe heaps so much unsavory matter in our lives, we feel swallowed up by the enormity of it all. It is there, we are in times of deepest despair and sorrow, brought to our knees. Some of us, come to know this time as the Dark Nights of the Soul.

It is here, we lay our troubles ahead of us like an unknown path to a destination that was not on our agenda. Crippled we find ourselves unable to walk the path and find the answers waiting in the light.

But trust we must, that the answers to our questions will be answered if we still our hearts and minds and listen.

It is there in the still of the dark night, that we cry out in anguish that life is so unfair. We weary of the thought of carrying on, because we have been worn down by so much grief.

And so in the darkness, we take one small step at a time, towards the light, with trust and faith that we will be encompassed with the ever glorious light of the universe.

Though the journey might be tough and and the process slower than we wished, we must all take this journey at times in our lives, because it is on this journey that we learn the lessons necessary and gain the strength to move forward in our lives.

The light is there… Trust we must.

(Photo: Parker River Sunset ~~ c. Pamela J. Leavey 2012)

(Photo: Merrimack River at Point Shore, July 2011 ~~ c. Pamela J. Leavey 2011)