Posts from — February 2006

The Association for Applied and Therapeutic Humor http://aath.org Created to educate health care professionals and lay audiences about the values and therapeutic uses of humour and laughter. Features an extensive book list. The Happiness Workshop www.ivillage.co.uk/ .. A four-week workshop which aims to help you identify problem areas and provide you with the skills and strategies needed to fulfil your happiness potential. Humor Project www.humorproject.com Aims to help people get more 'smileage' out of their lives and jobs by applying the practical, positive power of humour and creativity. Features discussion boards and a bookstore. American-based. Homeopathic Physician – Dr Kaplan www.drkaplan.co.uk This website, owned by Dr Brian Kaplan, is dedicated to the sharing of stories about homeopathy, homeopaths and patients. Patch Adams www.patchadams.org Official site of The Gesundheit! Institute and Patch Adams, the doctor-clown, whose life was played by actor Robin Williams in the Golden-Globe-nominated film Patch Adams.

If you think you need to get it all done before you can be happy, consider that on the day you die, you will have email in your inbox. -- Robert Holden Rhonda's comments: I have had the great pleasure of training with Robert in Oxford, England several years ago. Check out his website and all his amazing work to further the awareness of the importance of happiness at http://www.happiness.co.uk/.

"Even though you may want to move forward in your life, you may have one foot on the brakes. In order to be free, we must learn how to let go. Release the hurt. Release the fear. Refuse to entertain your old pain. The energy it takes to hang onto the past is holding you back from a new life." -- Mary Manin Morrissey

If you read the front page story of the SF Chronicle on Thursday, Dec 14, 2005, you would have read about a female humpback whale who had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body-her tail, her torso, a line tugging in her mouth. A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farallon Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for help. Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her-a very dangerous proposition. One slap of the tail could kill a rescuer. They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her. When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushed them gently around-she thanked them. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives. The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth says her eye was following him the whole time, and he will never be the same. May you, and all those you love, be so blessed and fortunate----to be surrounded by people who will help you get untangled from the things that are binding you. And, may you always know the joy of giving and receiving gratitude. -- This came to me via the internet as having been reported on a bay area news station in comment to report in the San Francisco Chronicle. I apologize for not siting the source more than this, but felt the message was too important to pass up! -- Rhonda

If you read the front page story of the SF Chronicle on Thursday, Dec 14, 2005, you would have read about a female humpback whale who had become entangled in a spider web of crab traps and lines. She was weighted down by hundreds of pounds of traps that caused her to struggle to stay afloat. She also had hundreds of yards of line rope wrapped around her body-her tail, her torso, a line tugging in her mouth. A fisherman spotted her just east of the Farallon Islands (outside the Golden Gate) and radioed an environmental group for help. Within a few hours, the rescue team arrived and determined that she was so bad off, the only way to save her was to dive in and untangle her-a very dangerous proposition. One slap of the tail could kill a rescuer. They worked for hours with curved knives and eventually freed her. When she was free, the divers say she swam in what seemed like joyous circles. She then came back to each and every diver, one at a time, and nudged them, pushed them gently around-she thanked them. Some said it was the most incredibly beautiful experience of their lives. The guy who cut the rope out of her mouth says her eye was following him the whole time, and he will never be the same. May you, and all those you love, be so blessed and fortunate----to be surrounded by people who will help you get untangled from the things that are binding you. And, may you always know the joy of giving and receiving gratitude. -- This came to me via the internet as having been reported on a bay area news station in comment to report in the San Francisco Chronicle. I apologize for not siting the source more than this, but felt the message was too important to pass up! -- Rhonda

Day and night, no difference. The sun *is* the moon: an amalgam. Their gold and silver melt together. This is the season when the dead branch and the green branch are the same branch. Nightmares fill with light like a holiday. Humans and angels speak one language. The elusive ones finally meet. Good and evil, dead and alive, everything blooms from one natural stem. You know this already, I'll stop. Any direction you turn it's one vision. -Rumi as translated and rendered by Coleman Barks and David Ulansey

I hold it true that thoughts are things; They're endowed with bodies and breath and wings And that we send them forth to fill The world with good results, or ill. That which we call our secret thought Speeds forth to earth's remotest spot, Leaving its blessings or its woes Like tracks behind it as it goes. We build our future, thought by thought, For good or ill, yet know it not. Yet, so the universe was wrought. Thought is another name for fate; Choose, then, thy destiny and wait, For love brings love and hate brings hate. - Henry Van Dyke

There is nothing to prove to your Source. There is nothing to do to establish your worth. There is nothing to teach or make or accomplish. You are worthy. You are valuable. You are enough. --Betty Lue Lieber, Loving Reminders 2.10.06, bettylue@reunionministries.org

A farmer had a horse but one day, the horse ran away and so the farmer and his son had to plow their fields themselves. Their neighbors said, "Oh, what bad luck that your horse ran away!" But the farmer replied, "Bad luck, good luck, who knows?" The next week, the horse returned to the farm, bringing a herd of wild horses with him. "What wonderful luck!" cried the neighbors, but the farmer responded, "Good luck, bad luck, who knows?" Then, the farmer's son was thrown as he tried to ride one of the wild horses, and he broke his leg. "Ah, such bad luck," sympathized the neighbors. Once again, the farmer responded, "Bad luck, good luck, who knows?" A short time later, the ruler of the country recruited all young men to join his army for battle. The son, with his broken leg, was left at home. "What good luck that your son was not forced into battle!" celebrated the neighbors. And the farmer remarked, "Good luck, bad luck, who knows?"