This is from Lesbian Connection, the Notes from Our Elders (65+) section:

"Don't be afraid of being alone because ultimately, having nothing is better than having trouble. If you feel lonely, remind yourself that when you have nothing, you can put something good there. But when you have trouble, it's all you deal with."

-Toni Armstrong, 86-year-old lesbian

So true. Thanks for sharing .

Whatever is good to know, is difficult to learn. -Greek Proverb

A person who who commits inhuman acts, invariably excuses himself by saying, " I'm only human after all." - Sydney J. Harris

99% of failures come from people who have the habit of making excuses.-George Washington Carver

“I've been making a list of the things they don't teach you at school. They don't teach you how to love somebody. They don't teach you how to be famous. They don't teach you how to be rich or how to be poor. They don't teach you how to walk away from someone you don't love any longer. They don't teach you how to know what's going on in someone else's mind. They don't teach you what to say to someone who's dying. They don't teach you anything worth knowing.”

--Neil Gaiman

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned....

i dont know who said it however i like it...

some of my favorite e.e. cummings quotes
 

I imagine that yes is the only living thing.

I'm living so far beyond my income that we may almost be said to be living apart.

To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

Be of love a little more careful than of anything.

Another personal favorite of mine from cummings;

...here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

Where we go depends upon where we know. And where we know depends upon where we go - Tess Gerristen

"Clouds come floating into my life, no longer to carry rain or usher storm, but to add color to my sunset sky." Rabindranath Tagore

"Never cut a tree down in the wintertime. Never make a negative decision in the low time. Never make your most important decisions when you are in your worst moods. Wait. Be patient. The storm will pass. The spring will come." - Robert Schuller

"It is not light that we need, but fire; it is not the gentle shower, but thunder. We need the storm, the whirlwind, and the earthquake." - Frederick Douglass

Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don't complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don't bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live!
Bob Marley

Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own... Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy.
Robert A. Heinlein

Audre Lorde (February 18, 1934 - November 17, 1992)
 

Audre Lorde once described herself as a "black-lesbian feminist mother lover poet." Born to parents from the West Indies, Audre Lorde grew up in New York City. She wrote and occasionally published poetry and was active in the 1960s movements for civil rights, feminism, and against the Vietnam War. She was a critic of what she saw as feminism's blindness to racial differences and fear of lesbians being involved.

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• The energies I gain from my work help me neutralize those implanted forces of negativity and self-destructiveness that is White America's way of making sure I keep whatever is powerful and creative within me unavailable, ineffective, and non-threatening.

• What woman here is so enamored of her own oppression that she cannot see her heelprint upon another woman's face? What woman's terms of oppression have become precious and necessary to her as a ticket into the fold of the righteous, away from the cold winds of self-scrutiny?

• We welcome all women who can meet us, face to face, beyond objectification and beyond guilt.

• Every woman I have ever known has made a lasting impression on my soul.

• Every woman I have ever loved has left her print upon me, where I loved some invaluable piece of myself apart from me -- so different that I had to stretch and grow in order to recognize her. And in that growing, we came to separation, that place where work begins.

• I write for those women who do not speak, for those who do not have a voice because they were so terrified, because we are taught to respect fear more than ourselves. We've been taught that silence would save us, but it won't.

• For we have been socialized to respect fear more than our own needs for language and definition, and while we wait in silence for that final luxury of fearlessness, the weight of that silence will choke us.

• But the true feminist deals out of a lesbian consciousness whether or not she ever sleeps with women.

• Part of the lesbian consciousness is an absolute recognition of the erotic within our lives and, taking that a step further, dealing with the erotic not only in sexual terms.

• We tend to think of the erotic as an easy, tantalizing sexual arousal. I speak of the erotic as the deepest life force, a force which moves us toward living in a fundamental way.

• My Black woman's anger is a molten pond at the core of me, my most fiercely guarded secret. Your silence will not protect you!

• Black women are programmed to define ourselves within this male attention and to compete with each other for it rather than to recognize and move upon our common interests.

• As I have said elsewhere, it is not the destiny of black America to repeat white America's mistakes. But we will, if we mistake the trappings of success in a sick society for the signs of a meaningful life. If black men continue to do so, defining 'femininity' in its archaic European terms, this augurs ill for our survival as a people, let alone our survival as individuals. Freedom and future for blacks do not mean absorbing the dominant white male disease.

• As black people, we cannot begin our dialogue by denying the oppressive nature of male privilege. And if black males choose to assume that privilege, for whatever reason, raping, brutalizing, and killing women, then we cannot ignore black male oppression. One oppression does not justify another.

We must develop and maintain the capacity to forgive. He who is devoid of the power to forgive is devoid of the power to love. There is some good in the worst of us and some evil in the best of us. When we discover this, we are less prone to hate our enemies.


Martin Luther King, Jr.

My favorite poem
 

Kahlil Gibran - On Love

When love beckons to you, follow him,
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams
as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart," but rather, "I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.

Gloria Steinem (1934 - )
 

Feminist and journalist, Gloria Steinem was a key figure in the women's movement from 1969. She founded Ms. magazine, starting in 1972. Her good looks and quick, humorous responses made her the media's favorite spokesperson for feminism, but she was often attacked by the radical elements in the women's movement for being too middle-class-oriented. She was an outspoken advocate for the Equal Rights Amendment and helped found the National Women's Political Caucus.
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• Sex and race because they are easy and visible differences have been the primary ways of organizing human beings into superior and inferior groups and into the cheap labour in which this system still depends. We are talking about a society in which there will be no roles other than those chosen or those earned. We are really talking about humanism.

• The first problem for all of us, men and women, is not to learn, but to unlearn.

• A pedestal is as much a prison as any small, confined space.

• We've begun to raise daughters more like sons... but few have the courage to raise our sons more like our daughters.

• But the problem is that when I go around and speak on campuses, I still don't get young men standing up and saying, "How can I combine career and family?"

• For much of the female half of the world, food is the first signal of our inferiority. It lets us know that our own families may consider female bodies to be less deserving, less needy, less valuable.

If you lend a friend 5 dollars and never see him again, it was well worth it. - Dutch Proverb

I did not attend his funeral; but I wrote a nice letter saying I approved of it. - Mark Twain

Do not rejoice at my grief, for when mine is old, yours will be new. - Spanish Proverb

When it comes to thought, some people stop at nothing.

Bella Abzug (1920-1998)
 

First Jewish Congresswoman, Bella Abzug was known for her wide-brimmed hats and fiery personality, as well as her work for feminism, peace, and civil liberties.

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• They used to give us a day--it was called International Women's Day. In 1975 they gave us a year, the Year of the Woman. Then from 1975 to 1985 they gave us a decade, the Decade of the Woman. I said at the time, who knows, if we behave they may let us into the whole thing. Well, we didn't behave and here we are.

• The establishment is made up of little men, very frightened.

• I am not being facetious when I say that the real enemies in this country are the Pentagon and its pals in big business.

• I am not elevating women to sainthood, nor am I suggesting that all women share the same views, or that all women are good and all men bad.

• The inside operation of Congress -- the deals, the compromises, the selling out, the co-opting, the unprincipled manipulating, the self-serving career-building -- is a story of such monumental decadence that I believe if people find out about it they will demand an end to it.

• I began wearing hats as a young lawyer because it helped me to establish my professional identity. Before that, whenever I was at a meeting, someone would ask me to get coffee.

The happiest people are those who are too busy to notice. - Unknown

Hatred is the coward's revenge for being intimidated. -George Bernard Shaw


The hearts testimony is stronger than a thousand witnesses. -Turkish Proverb

House guarded by a shotgun.
(Guess which days)

When the power of love is stronger
than the love of power
there will be peace.

-Jimi Hendrix

Mystery creates wonder and wonder is the basis of man's desire to understand. -Neil Armstrong

"Just let me go, we have to be able to criticize what we love, to say what we have to say 'cause if you're not trying to make something better, then as far as I can tell, you are just in the way."
Ani Difranco(f)

Guard your roving thoughts with a jealous care, for speech is but the dialer of thoughts, and every fool can plainly read in your words what is the hour of your thoughts.
Alfred Lord Tennyson

"Don't change so people will like you.
Be yourself and the right people will love the real you."

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Poetry by Me...
 

~My Love~

My Love,
You have stirred deep inside of me
A place so oddly familiar...
A place where the light in me shines so brightly
Through your boldness at times...
I can see with a clarity so clearly
Your pure intentions...
Like the moon sits upon the backdrop
Of an Indigo sky so peacefully.

I comprehend the many volumes you speak in silences
And each meaning conveyed in your need to withdrawal...
From your musings thoughtfully abstracted the truth is always surrendered.

My love,
I stand right before you
Though miles from your shore.
And yet my soul knows exactly where to look
and how to decipher
the many truths and secrets you have buried
upon the shoreline
deep within each grain of sand
on so many of your solitary walks
Along the beach...
Feeling the breeze
Wisping softly against your face.
Know you do not walk alone
For these are kisses from me.

I am strong enough to look into the depths of your soul
I see past just your eyes...
I remember the times I spent deciphering
Your blank stares. It is the truth of Our story today.

I cherish the memories so foreign to you now.
I long to compliment and complete you.
Like the color of Manganese
One must risk it's toxicity
To truly be able to see and appreciate it's awe. Like the risk in loving what we can't see
We still share the same moon, sun, stars...
Look no further to also find me.

My love,
Try to remember the promise I made to you
for each time we had to depart from here
from one another
I vowed to always return to meet you
At our safe haven.

But only once we learned
How to recognize
And where to look for and find the truth.
The key lies in being ready to hear the truth.

Hidden somewhere between the twilight's gleam
and the early morning dawn
Sparkles so many flickers of light
All vying for your undivided attention.
But only one tiny flicker will endure
Choosing the right one
Finding it...
One must go through many tries first
Many trials. But none were in vain.

Yes, you are bright, bold, and a rarity.
Do you even remember where to look for me?
What to do once you find my slumbering soul?

No matter if you do or not
One thing is certain. No matter how far apart
We are in mere miles physically.
We share the same indigo sky...
Under the same full moon at the end of summer
Seek the beauty of it's simplicity in its complexity.

I hear a symphony speak to me in your silences.
Love...
Feel the purity in my burning passion for you
And with nothing more to test...
Nothing more to question...
Simply feel my beauty as you trust the
feeling of the gentle breeze running through your
Hair, body and being.
For under this Moon and Indigo sky
know that it is I that has kissed your face
Like the wind, like that breeze.
You can't see it...until its a tornado
But you can always feel its stirrings long before it appears.

Keeping Quiet~~ Neruda
 

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still
for once on the face of the earth,
let's not speak in any language;
let's stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would not look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.

Life is what it is about...

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with
death.

Now I'll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.


Katniss~~ (apparently needing to keep the f*ck quiet for a change)

R.I.P My Sweet Lizzie
 

Playing A Violin With Three Strings
Jack Riemer






On Nov. 18, 1995, Itzhak Perlman, the violinist, came on stage to give a concert at Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York City.

If you have ever been to a Perlman concert, you know that getting on stage is no small achievement for him. He was stricken with polio as a child, and so he has braces on both legs and walks with the aid of two crutches. To see him walk across the stage one step at a time, painfully and slowly, is an awesome sight.

He walks painfully, yet majestically, until he reaches his chair. Then he sits down, slowly, puts his crutches on the floor, undoes the clasps on his legs, tucks one foot back and extends the other foot forward. Then he bends down and picks up the violin, puts it under his chin, nods to the conductor and proceeds to play.

By now, the audience is used to this ritual. They sit quietly while he makes his way across the stage to his chair. They
remain reverently silent while he undoes the clasps on his legs. They wait until he is ready to play.

But this time, something went wrong. Just as he finished the first few bars, one of the strings on his violin broke. You
could hear it snap - it went off like gunfire across the room. There was no mistaking what that sound meant. There was no mistaking what he had to do.

We figured that he would have to get up, put on the clasps again, pick up the crutches and limp his way off stage - to either find another violin or else find another string for this one. But he didn't. Instead, he waited a moment, closed his eyes and then signaled the conductor to begin again.

The orchestra began, and he played from where he had left off. And he played with such passion and such power and such purity as they had never heard before.

Of course, anyone knows that it is impossible to play a symphonic work with just three strings. I know that, and you know that, but that night Itzhak Perlman refused to
know that.

You could see him modulating, changing, re-composing the piece in his head. At one point, it sounded like he was de-tuning the strings to get new sounds from them that they had never made before.

When he finished, there was an awesome silence in the room. And then people rose and cheered. There was an extraordinary outburst of applause from every corner of the auditorium. We were all on our feet, screaming and cheering, doing everything we could to show how much we appreciated what he had done.

He smiled, wiped the sweat from this brow, raised his bow to quiet us, and then he said - not boastfully, but in a quiet, pensive, reverent tone - "You know, sometimes it is the artist's task to find out how much music you can still make with what you have left."

What a powerful line that is. It has stayed in my mind ever since I heard it. And who knows? Perhaps that is the definition of life - not just for artists but for all of us.

Here is a man who has prepared all his life to make music on a violin of four strings, who, all of a sudden, in the middle of a concert, finds himself with only three strings; so he makes music with three strings, and the music he made that night with just three strings was more beautiful, more sacred, more memorable, than any that he had ever made before, when he had four strings.

So, perhaps our task in this shaky, fast-changing, bewildering world in which we live is to make music, at first with all that we have, and then, when that is no longer possible, to make music with what we have left.

Erma Bombeck (1927-1996)
 

Columnist Erma Bombeck was known for her quick wit and her wisdom about motherhood and family life.

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• We've got a generation now who were born with semiequality. They don't know how it was before, so they think, this isn't too bad. We're working. We have our attaché cases and our three-piece suits. I get very disgusted with the younger generation of women. We had a torch to pass, and they are just sitting there. They don't realize it can be taken away. Things are going to have to get worse before they join in fighting the battle.

• I'm going to stop punishing my children by saying, "Never mind! I'll do it myself."

• Making coffee has become the great compromise of the decade. It's the only thing "real" men do that doesn't seem to threaten their masculinity. To women, it's on the same domestic entry level as putting the spring back into the toilet-tissue holder or taking a chicken out of the freezer to thaw.

• Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the 'Titanic' who waved off the dessert cart.

• When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, "I used everything you gave me."

He who loses honor can lose nothing else. -Latin Proverb


What you don't know would make a great book. - Sydney Smith


Everything comes to him who hustles while he waits.- Thomas Edison

FeminineAllure
 

I had never heard this before and it is AMAZINGLY powerful and beautiful. It really touched me. Thank you so much for posting this.

Katniss~~

We are all manifestations of a mystic power: the power of life, which has shaped all life, and which has shaped us all in our mother's womb. And this kind of wisdom lives in us, and it represents the force of this power, this energy, pouring into the field of time and space. But it's a transcendent energy. It's an energy that comes from a realm beyond our powers of knowledge. And that energy becomes bound in each of us - in this body - to a certain commitment. Now, the mind that thinks, the eyes that see, they can become so involved in concepts and local, temporal tasks that we become bound up and don't let this energy flow through. And then we become sick. The energy is blocked, and we are thrown off center... So the psychological problem, the way to keep from becoming blocked, is to make yourself transparent to the transcendent...

And one of the problems with the popularization of religious ideas is that the god becomes a final fact and is no longer itself transparent to the transcendent. This is what Lao-Tzu means when he says, in the...Tao-te Ching, "The Tao that can be named is not the Tao." Make your god transparent to the transcendent and it doesn't matter what his name is.

-Joseph Campbell
Pathways to Bliss