lara simmons

"The precondition to sensitivity is stillness. In the same way that a pond on a still day will visibly register the smallest insect alighting on its surface, but on a windy day it won't, our ability to feel the whole is directly proportional to our ability to become still within ourselves." --Phillip Shepherd

In honor of the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington, here are some of my favorite Martin Luther King, Jr. quotes: "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that." I think this is my favorite one, but the rest are pretty great.... "The means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek. " If only every CEO in America lived by this rule.... "Whatever affects me directly, affects all indirectly. I can never be what I ought to be until you are what you ought to be. This is the inter-related structure of reality." That's the Oneness, baby..... And a new favorite from the radio coverage of the event today: "Not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great because greatness is determined by service... You only need a heart full of grace and a soul generated by love

  The Great Buddha of Kamakura (Daibutsu) "Ichi-go ichi-e." --from the Japanese meaning “every encounter is but once in a lifetime” Every so often you get a "once in a lifetime" opportunity. Our recent trip to Japan was just such an opportunity. To travel alone with my fifth grader, to a country where he speaks the language and I do not, with his former classmates, many of whom will be off in new directions in the fall, to send him off to be hosted by a family who accepted him (and me) sight unseen, truly was a "once in a lifetime" trip. This week I would like to attempt to share some of the trip with you through words and pictures. This will not be an exhaustive account of all that we saw and experienced, but rather an attempt at capturing the spirit of the trip through a few shared stories. "Ichi-go ichi-e" was a phrase I learned on the plane. I think it might have been in the in-flight magazine. I immediately connected with...

"All of these people I see are also me. Expressions of myself." -- Lynnet McKenzie

“We believe ‘We’re all in this together,’ is a far better philosophy than ‘You’re on your own.'" -- Bill Clinton  I couldn't agree more Mr President :)

"If we share what we have, we will all have enough." -- Opportunity Shop brochure from Dubois, WY My great aunt lives in Dubois, WY and I have always wanted to go there. On this trip, we made that happen. One of our stops was the "Opp Shop," as it is known in town, a thrift store that my aunt helped to found as a non-profit that benefits the local community. This quote rings so true to me and yet I know that like many profundities of life, it can be hard. Hard to believe. Hard to trust. Hard to truly live. But I am trying....

"I don't know you, but I love you." --Lydia at Unity of Burbank I was in LA last week for the first time. I had never been before and never really had the desire to go. I still didn't really, but a class I had been wanting to take was being given there and then my sister decided to come out and meet me so it was all coming together. Then, the class was cancelled. Ugh. It was really hard for me to get over this. I had a plan gosh darn it. I was going to take this class, then the next one and then become a certified Akashic Records teacher. The Universe was messing with my plan. You have to laugh, of course, at my boldness, my arrogance, my naïveté. The Universe was messing with MY plan? I decided to go anyway, to spend some time with my sister and see what LA was all about. I couldn't have been more surprised! The people we met were lovely. Warm, friendly and eager to help. We met many Los Angeles angels along the way. Three angels on a bus helped ...

“On this earth we are connected one to another....to another....to another....to another...to another....to another....to another...such that whatever happens to one of happens to all of us.” -- Anna Grossnickle Hines from her book, "Peaceful Pieces" This is a poem called "Dominoes" that my younger son's class read last week on Friday for " Poetry Aloud ." They read it together as a class, one child starting and each child in turn saying "to another," "to another," "to another..." As I listened, the poem came alive for me. The idea of the poem came alive for me. I saw once again that we are all connected, we are all One and that whatever happens for one of us happens to all of us. Did you notice the Freudian slip there? I wrote, "whatever happens for one of us happens to all of us,"  when what I meant to write was, "whatever happens to one of us happens to all of us." But both are equally tr...

"Love is not a matter of getting connected. It is a matter of seeing that we already ARE connected within an intricate web of relationships that extends throughout all life. It is a realization of 'no boundary' -- that we are all made of the same stuff, riding through time on the same spaceship, faced with the same problems in the world, the same hopes and fears. It is a connection at the core, that makes irrelevant skin color, age, sex, looks or money." --Anodea Judith This is one of my all-time favorite quotes about love and it has been resonating for me this week as I ponder life, the Universe and everything. I am obsessed right now with trying to figure it out. "It" being this life, this Universe and everything that surrounds us. How did we get here? Are we alone? What are we to do? What does it all mean? It is unfathomable and frightening, and on some level I know that I will fail because I don't think any true answers are available to us on th...

"Only by accepting full responsibility for our own nature – as events and relationships serve to reveal it to us – can we awaken the true compassion we need towards others. Everyone hopes; everyone hurts; everyone needs love and forgiveness. In the end, it's only by being exactly what we are that we can start to see how much we are all the same." --Guy Finley in New Spirit Journal