Wednesday's Inspiration

"Zen does not confuse spirituality with thinking about God while one is peeling potatoes.
Zen spirituality is just to peel the potatoes."
_____ Alan Watts

Tuesday's Inspiration

"The sublime vision comes to the pure and
simple soul in a clean and chaste body."
_____ Ralph Waldo Emerson

Monday's Message

"At the center of your being you have the answer;
you know who you are and you know what you want."
_____ Lao-tzu

Weekend Inspiration

"In dwelling, live close to the ground. In thinking, keep it simple. In conflict, be fair and generous.
In governing, don't try to control. In work do what you enjoy. In family life, be completely present."
_____ Tao Te Ching

Friday's Inspiration

"Calm is the morn without the sound,
Calm as to suit a calmer grief,
And only through the faded leaf
The chestnut pattering to the ground."
_____ Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Thursday's Inspiration

"The true value of a human being can be found in the degree to
Which he has attained liberation from the self.
_____ Albert Einstein."

Wednesday's Inspiration

"The prayer of the monk is not perfect until he no longer
recognizes himself or the fact that he is praying."
_____ Saint Anthony

Tuesday's Inspiration

"The person of superior integrity does not insist upon his integrity.
For this reason he has integrity. The person of inferior integrity
never loses sight of his integrity; for this reason' he lacks integrity."
_____ Lao-tzu

Monday's Message

"He who is of a calm and happy nature will hardly feel the pressure of age,
But to him who is of an opposite disposition youth and age are equally a burden."
_____ Plato

Tatting and Weekend Inspiration

This tatted doily was made from Linda Davies, Coronet Doily pattern. I just omitted the last row because it made it the perfect size for it's new home. I will post a picture of it's new home next week. This doily was made using Oren Bayan threads size perle 12 colours 804 and 865. The directions can be found on Lindas' blog which can be found here.

"Spiritual love is a position of standing with one hand extended to the universe and
one hand extended into the world, letting ourselves be a conduit for passing energy."
_____ Christina Baldwin

Friday's Inspiration

"To set up what you like against what you dislike,
this is the disease of the mind."
_____ Seng-Ts'an

I'm in The Newspaper

Our local newspaper the Brantford Expositor has done an article on me and
tatting today. Although a couple of the numbers are off I think it is a good
article to promote tatting. You can find the article by following this link.
Happy tatting
everyone.




"If you are patient in one moment of anger,
you will escape a hundred days of sorrow."
_____ Chinese proverb

Wednesday's Inspiration

"It is not only by the questions we have answered that progress may be measured, but also those we are still asking. The passionate controversies of one era are viewed as sterile preoccupations by another, for knowledge alters what we seek as well as what we find.
_____ Freda Adler

Tuesday's Inspiration

"Meditation is not an escape from life,
but preparation for really being in life."
_____ Thich Nhat Manh

Monday's Message

"Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as an enlightened person.
There is only enlightened activity."
_____ Shunryu Suzuki

Weekend Inspiration

"In struggling against anguish one never produces serenity;
The struggle against anguish only produces new forms of anguish."
_____ Simone Weil

Friday's Inspiration

"Contentment is natural wealth.
Luxury is artificial poverty."
_____ Socrates

Thursday's Inspiration

"Do not turn away what is given you,
Nor reach out for what is given to others,
Lest you disturb your quietness."
_____ The Dhammapada

Wednesday's Inspiration

"Truth is in things, and not in words."
Herman Melville

Tuesday's Inspiration

"I believe in the forest, and in the meadow,
and in the night in which the corn grows."
_____ Henry David Thoreau

Monday's Message

"Do not conquer the world with force, for force only causes resistance.
Thorns spring up when an army passes. Years of misery follow a great victory.
Do only what needs to be done, without using violence."
_____ Lao-Tzu

Weekend Inspiration

"The purpose of zen is the perfection of character."
_____ Yamada Roshi

Friday's Inspiration

Happy New Year
And may life provide you the opportunities to fulfill your dreams.

"I have arrived.
I am home.
In the here,
In the now.
I am solid.
I am free.
In the ultimate
I dwell."
_____ Thich Nhat Hanh

Thursday's Inspiration

Rabbit foot fern

"The real enemies of our life are the 'oughts' and the 'ifs'.
They pull us backward into the unalterable past and forward into the unpredictable future."
_____ Henri J.M. Nouwen

Wednesday's Inspiration

"If you want something then you loose everything.
If you don't want anything then you already have everything."
_____ Seung Sahn

Tuesday's Inspiration

"Happiness....not in another place, but this place....
Not for another hour, but this hour.
_____ Walt Whitman

Monday's Message

"Do not look back. And do not dream about the future, either. It will neither give you back the past, nor satisfy your other daydreams. Your duty, your reward___your destiny___are here and now."
_____ Dag Hammarskjold

Weekend Inspiration

Merry Christmas to my wonderful friends.

"Just don't seek from others,
Or you'll be far estranged from self.
I know go on alone;
Everywhere I meet it:
It now is me; I now am it."
_____ Dongshan Liangjie

Friday's Inspiration

"Every day we are engaged in a miracle which we don't even recognize; a blue sky, white clouds,
green leaves, the black curious eyes of a child...our own two eyes. All is a miracle.
_____ Yhich Nhat Hanh

Thursday's Inspiration

"Things pass....That I have seen. Life is what you make it now.
So let us put our energies into life."
____ U Kyi Maung

Wednesday's Inspiration

"To the one who knows how to look and feel,
Every moment of this free wandering life is an enchantment."
_____ Alexandra David-Neel

Tuesday's Inspiration

"Taking off your shoes is a sacred ritual. It is a hallowed moment of remembering the goodness of space and time. It is a way of celebrating the holy ground on which you stand."
_____ Macrina Wiederkehr

Monday's Message

"Without freedom from the past, there is no freedom at all,
Because the mind is never new, fresh, innocent."
_____ Krishnamurti

Weekend Inspiration

"I walk towards one of our ponds; but what signifies the beauty of nature when men are base?
We walk to lakes to see our serenity reflected in them;
When we are not serene, we go not to them."
_____ Henry David Thoreau

Friday's Inspiration

"Because I know that time is always time and place is always and only place,
And what is actual is actual for only one time,
And only for one place,
I rejoice that things are as they are...."
_____ T. S. Elliot

Thursday's Inspiration

"If for a moment we make way with our petty selves, wish no ill on anyone, apprehend no ill, cease to be but as a crystal which reflects a ray ---- what shall we not reflect! What a universe will appear crystallized and radiant around us.
_____ Henry David Thoreau

Wednesday's Inspiration

"Too make all life
more poetical, more sane
more living, loving
to experience
the true off all things
this moment.....
this moment.....
this moment."
_____ William Segal

Tuesday's Inspiration

"If a man or woman speaks or acts with a pure thought,
Happiness follows them, like a shadow that never leaves them.
_____ The Dhammapada

Monday's Message and our Christmas Tree

Christmas tree covered in tatting at night
and during the day.

"At the end of all things, the blessed will say,
We never lived anywhere but in heaven."
_____ C. S. Lewis

Weekend Inspiration

"People have a hard time of letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown,
they prefer suffering that is familiar."
_____ Thich Nhat Hanh

Friday's Inspiration

"Foolish, ignorant people indulge in careless lives, Where as
a clever man guards his attention as his most prized possession."
_____ Buddha

Thursday's Inspiration

"Fill your mind with the meaningless stimuli of a world preoccupied with meaningless things,
and it will not be easy to feel peace in your heart."
_____ Marianne Williamson

Wednesday's Inspiration

"Always we hope someone else has the answer. Some other place will be better, it will all turn out. This is it.
No one else has the answer. No other place will be better, and it has already turned out."
_____ Lao-Tzu

Tuesday's Inspiration

"We cannot put off living until we are ready. The most salient characteristic of life is it's urgency, 'here and now' without any possible postponement. Life is fired at us point-blank."
_____ Jose Ortega Y Gasset

Monday's Message

"The mature person pays attention to what
is happening in the innermost self."
_____ Tzu Ssu

Weekend Inspiration

Honeysuckle in bloom surrounding the tool shed.

"Listen to your life.
All moments are key moments."
_____ Frederick Buechner

Friday's Inspiration

"It is for us to make the effort.
The result is always in God's hands.
_____ Gandhi

Thursday's Inspiration

"The best preparation for a better life next year is a full,
complete, harmonious, joyous life this year."
_____ Thomas Dreier

Wednesday's Inspiration

"Zen is not some kind of excitement.
But concentration on our usual everyday routine."
_____ Shunryu Suzuki