And now I think the things that matter are unfinished paintings that everyone creates and no one owns. Rather we are created each time we touch the breath of being, and we are connected to everyone who ever lived each time we add a stroke. And sometimes we are briefly aware that we are living parts of the most elemental community of all, the community of life force that moves through everything.  ~Mark Nepo

remembering Stephen Levine….with deep gratitude for words that have held us into the longest of nights…..may the journey be gentle and full of the unimaginable and inexpressible delight you believed in so completely….

Finishing business means that I open my heart to you, that whatever blocks my heart with resentment or fear, that whatever I still want from you, is let go of and i just send love. I let go of what obstructs our deepest sharing. To finish business, we must begin to stop holding back. Gradually love replaces clinging. You cannot unconditionally love someone. You can only be unconditional love. It is not a dualistic emotion. It is a sense of oneness with all that is. The experience of love arises when we surrender our separateness into the universal. It is a feeling of unity.     ~Stephen Levine

when the winds come

The birds have vanished into the sky, and now the last cloud drains away.

We sit together, the mountain and me, until only the mountain remains.

~Li Po