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"The more you praise and celebrate your life, ~ Oprah Winfrey, Motivational TV Talkshow Host
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THIS WEEK'S ISSUE
Yes You Can!... Far Horizons... Links That Shine... Fascinating Facts... Laughing It Off... Untangling the Web... Look at That!... Our Latest Discovery... Joyful Lifestyles...
BE the World My grandma was always 'biding her time' until she could get to Heaven. In the meantime, her life was fairly miserable and she treated my mother abusively. I learned a valuable lesson, however: "Create as much Heaven on Earth as possible with everyone near and dear." ~ Chelle ~
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From the Inside Out
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How can we find positive, sustainable comfort in this age of anxiety? A comfort that connects us to ourselves, and the Divine, regardless of our religion or spiritual tradition? In my life, meditation is a key that turns the lock and opens the mind and heart, as it shifts us from unconsciousness back into consciousness. In my mediation practice and the groups I lead we experience the positive pleasure of being alive. Meditation allows us to reduce our pains, and rekindle our hopes and dreams. It takes us to an inner sanctuary where our inner resources can fuel our outer expression, as they return us to our center, the surest place of comfort in our soul. Meditation is nothing new, yet in our modern world, it has become widely respected as an essential way to reduce stress, enhance well-being and, for some people, feel closer to Divine Source. Studies have shown that meditation is a way to maintain your spiritual center regardless of religion and it can be as simple as carving out 10 minutes a day to just "BE." Stress-related disorders are on the rise due to our complex and constantly changing world and we are seeing symptoms of fear and anxiety that have skyrocketed in the past decade. These directly impact our quality of life and our health. Meditation helps us to take a break from chaos. As we move away from the stimuli of the moment, we are able to gain more clarity, focus and peace of mind. The key to meditation is that it allows us to calm our fears and move into the present moment, and in that moment we can tap into a sense of peace —- rather than worrying about the past or obsessing about the future. Give yourself a meditation break: If you make some form of meditation a regular part of your well-being routine you will find that you waste less and less energy on worry and reactive behavior and that your capacity for coping with life's ups and downs increases. You will begin to adopt a new sense of mindfulness and awareness that will give you the power to participate more fully in your own life. You will learn that your "home" is inside you, and that you can take it with you wherever you go — and retreat to it wherever you are. This means that even if you are traveling —- by train or plane — or hanging out at the office or a beautiful park, you can take time out to center yourself through meditation. The breath is the key to meditation: When we are tense or anxious, we tend to hold our breath. The breath is the key to finding inner peace and harmony. It is our link with our bodies and the world. For most of us, breathing is something we never think about, yet for the most part we are breathing shallow breathes into our chest. This shallow breathing actually can create a stressful condition in our minds and bodies. By slowing down your breath, you will instantly relax your body and bring clarity into your mind. (Continued next week...) ~Barbara Biziou, leading expert on rituals
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Far Horizons BERNINI'S BALDACCHINO
The history of St. Peter’s in Rome goes back to the year A.D. 319, when the emperor Constantine built a basilica over the site of the tomb of St. Peter. St. Peter’s spectacular Baldacchino, directly beneath Michelangelo’s dome at the intersection of the nave and transept, was designed by Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598-1680). This 1633 canopy, commissioned by Pope Urban VIII, stands as tall as a five-story building. The four columns are almost 100 feet high. It was rumored by 17th-Century wags that bronze stripped from crossbeams of the Pantheon’s portico was melted down to make the Baldacchino.
Links That Shine
 "Search Cancer" Finding reliable cancer information can be daunting. This website is a portal to learn more about cancer treatments, therapies, clinical trials and research. www.SearchCancer.com
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Fascinating
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Does a clean house indicate that the computer is broken ... maybe your cat ate the 'mouse'?
Is there ever a day when mattresses are NOT on sale?
Why do people constantly return to the refrigerator in hopes that something new to eat has materialized?
Why do people keep running over a string a dozen times with their vacuum cleaner, then reach down, pick it up, examine it, then put it down to give their vacuum one more chance?
Why is it that no plastic garbage bag will open from the end you first try?
How do those dead bugs get into closed light fixtures?
Considering all the lint you get in your dryer, if you kept drying your clothes would they eventually just disappear?
Why is it that whenever you attempt to catch something that's falling off the table you always manage to knock something else over?
Is it true that the only difference between a yard sale and a trash pickup is how close to the road the stuff is placed?
In winter, why do we try to keep the house as warm as it was in summer when we complained about the heat?
Why is it that inside every older person is a younger person wondering what the heck happened?
Why are the needy only thought of during the holidays? Aren't they just as needy throughout the rest of the year?
Why is it that men can react to broken bones as 'just a sprain' and deep wounds as 'just a scratch', but when they get the sniffles they are deathly ill 'with the flu' and have to be bedridden for weeks?
How come we never hear any father-in-law jokes?
Why do men forget everything and women remember everything?
Shouldn't all married men forget their mistakes? After all there's no sense in two people remembering the same things, right?
If at first you don't succeed, shouldn't you try doing it like your wife told you to?
~Contributed by Ron and Karen in La Follette,Tennessee
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Untangling the Web
How to close the preview pane? .... Look at THAT! DIGITAL DOG TAG
For the wandering pooch...
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Just for YOU
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Joyful Lifestyles: Weekly Insights This week we have a few more excerpts from the 'BEAUTY' issue of "Friends of Silence" out of Jericho, Vermont. This publication was sent to me by Jim in Galena, Illinois, who is a subscriber and long time friend from my high school days in Miami, Florida. The subject matter is indeed a lofty goal, for as Gandhi so perfectly said, "True beauty consists of purity of heart." "Life is a spiral, slowly moving through the seasons and cycles of our lives. If we are balanced in our actions, creating beauty and harmony within our spiral, we are following the path of Right Action, the path we strive to follow. ... To balance the spiral we must participate in our becoming well. We must learn not to be judgmental, not to be dragged down by grief, anger and negativity, forgetting the joy, passion, generosity and kindness of life. Beauty is no threat to the wary. You can walk in beauty and still sack groceries or change diapers ..." (Sweetwater Wisdom: A Native American Spiritual Way by Wendy Crockett) "Beyond finite beauty —- the beauty that we see —- is a depth of infinite beauty from which all created beauty comes, and to which it must return to find its fulfillment. This is the light in which all works of art must be immersed, if they are to touch the depth of all being and of all hearts. ...Every creature gifted with reason has received light to see in all created things both their own individual beauty and that of the Supreme being, from whom they have received their being, and who sustains them in it. ...Our gaze should pass beyond the shadows of created things in order that it may rest in the true Light hidden in beings without reason, but discovered by those who have reason. And with this Being we should strive to be in harmony." (Where Silence is Praise by Dom Augustin Guillerand) "Beauty is luminous radiance. Beauty is lucent, mystical essence, the face that is unforgettably lovely, the dance with the exquisite movements that our minds cannot erase, the music whose notes repeat themselves endlessly in our hearts. Beauty infuses; beauty enthralls; beauty inspires and illumines; beauty lifts up and enlivens our souls." (Heart & Soul by Daphne Rose Kingma) "I wonder what beauty is. I have been seeing lovely things all my life, but they never moved me, never presented themselves so poignantly as they have done since I entered into adversity. Now beauty appears as something more than itself. It seems to me a gateway into God. The thrilling, moving, tremendous thing about is not the special aspect under which it appears, not the tree, the flower, the bird note at dusk, but the occasional sense of otherwhereness, of something more, a marvelous Something —- complete ecstasy —- that beauty half reveals." (A Secret Journal by Jane Steger)
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