Sharon Dunn- Grandmother 1940's

Harold Dunn- Great Grandfather 1940's

Harold Dunn- Great Grandfather 1940's

I admire Kelly mostly in the way she carries herself as equal to anyone. She does not speak to be heard, she speaks to learn. When she talks to you, you are what is important. She doesn’t ask something about someone to state what she wants to say, she is not egocentric.

I admire Aly mostly in the way she is wild. She is a wild creature, she is graceful, strong, and capable. She is beautiful, loving, and free.

I admire Kristof mostly in his ability to live moment to moment. He is relaxed, kind, and thoughtful.

I admire my Mom’s generosity. She works so she can give to her family without expecting anything in return.

I admire Cassie because she is devoted. She will sacrifice herself for another.

I admire Magyar because of his ability to be himself. He is wild and carefree, he doesn’t let his fears rule him.

I admire Kauai because he can talk to anyone. He doesn’t take things seriously, he makes people feel good when he talks.

I admire Justin because he is a powerful personality. He cant walk into a room unnoticed, he will talk to anyone without the fear of saying something stupid.

I admire Miles because he is wild and strong. He will not do what you say for no reason, he will be heard out.

I admire Kjersten in her ability to live out her beliefs, completely against the crowd.

I admire Mark Ruddy because of his strength. He recognizes and faces his fears down.

I admire Esper because she is loving. Her laugh is a rare beauty that shows unimaginable love.

I admire my Dad’s heart. He doesn’t know the words or actions to express himself most of the time, but still his heart is plain.

I admire my Sister’s sense of humor. She is fun to be around, she can make you laugh.

I admire my Grandmother’s understanding. She will sit and have a conversation with you and understand that it’s not about the words being said.

This is how I can love myself.

"
It was missing a piece.
And it was not happy.

So it set off in search of its missing piece.

And as it rolled it sang his song-
"Oh I'm lookin' for my missin' piece
I'm lookin' for my missin' piece
Hi-dee-ho, here I go,
Lookin' for my missin' piece."

Sometimes it bakes in the sun

But then the cool rain would come down.

And sometimes it was frozen by the snow

But then the sun would come and warm it again.

And because it was missing a piece
it could not roll very fast
so it would stop
to talk to a worm

or smell a flower

and sometimes it would pass a beetle

and sometimes the beetle would pass it

and this was the best time of all.

And on it went, over oceans

"Oh I'm lookin' for my missin' piece
Over land and over seas
So grease my knees and fleece mybees
I'm lookin' for my missin' piece."

through swamps and jungles

up mountains

and down mountains

Until one day, lo and behold!

"I've found my missin' piece," it sang,
"I've found my missin' piece
So grease my knees and fleece my bees
I've found my..."

"Wait a minute," said the piece.
"Before you go greasing your knees
and fleecing your bees...

I am no your missing piece.
I am nobody's piece.
I am my own piece.
And even if I was
somebody's missing piece
I don't think I'd be yours!"

"Oh," it said sadly,
"I'm sorry to have bothered you."
And on it rolled.

It found another piece

but this one was too small.

And this one was too big

this one was a little too sharp

and this one was too square.

One time it seemed
to have found
the perfect piece

but it didn't hold it tightly enough

and lost it.

Another time
it held too tightly

and it broke.

So on and on it rolled,

having adventures

falling into holes

and bumping into stone walls.

And then one it came upon
another piece that seemed
to be just right.

"Hi," it said.
"Hi," said the piece.
"Are you anybody else's missing piece?"
"Not that I know of."
"Well, maybe you want to be your own piece?"
"I can be someone's and still be my own."
"Well, maybe you don't want to be mine."
"Maybe I do."
"Maybe we won't fit..."
"Well..."

"Hummmm?"
"Ummmm!"

It fit!
It fit perfectly!
At last! At last!

And away it rolled
and because it was
now complete,
it rolled faster
and faster.
Faster than it had
ever rolled before!

So fast that it could not stop
to talk to a worm

or smell a flower

too fast for a butterfly to land.

But it could sing its happy song,
at last it could sing.
"I've found my missing piece."

And it began to sing-
"I've frown my nizzin' geez
Uf vroun my mitzin' brees
So krease my meas
An bleez ny drees
Uf frown..."

Oh my, now that
it was complete
it could not sing at all.

"Aha," it thought.
"So that's how it is!"

So it stopped rolling...
and it set the piece down gently,

and slowly rolled away

and as it rolled it softly sang-
"Oh I'm lookin' for my missin' piece
I'm lookin' for my missin' piece
Hi-dee-ho, here I go,
Lookin' for my missin' piece."

"

"This morning my old jack-in-the-box
Popped out– – and wouldn’t get back-in-the-box.
He cried, “Hey, there’s a tack-in-the-box,
And it’s cutting me through and through.

“There also is a crack-in-the-box,
And I never find a snack-in-the-box,
And sometimes I hear a quack-in-the-box,
‘Cause a duck lives in here too.”

Complain, complain is all he did– –
I finally had to close the lid. "

My home

I want it to be a meeting place for friends and family.

I want it to have secret spaces

I want outdoor space for my kids to roam unabided.

I want the choice to have farm animals.

I want to live surrounded by gardens and wild life.

I want to be close enough to town.

I want it to blend into nature.

I want it to be safe and warm.

I want it to be self sustaining.

I want it to be made from garbage.

I want it to be non toxic.

I want to have indoor gardens.

I want to have workshop space.

I don’t want to have a mortgage.

----------------

I caress the darkness as though you are there. I feel your breath on my face. I feel the warmth of your body next to mine. I trace lines from your lips to the outline of your ear with my nose. I breath in the scent of your neck. I hold your hand in mine and with the other I hold the small of your back. I feel the moisture of your lips on my ear. I feel the beating of your heart on my chest strong with life. I understand the holiness of the moment for the moment is already gone.

---------------

Guided by moonlight I climb. Threw the snow and between the trees. Using my hands now with my feet I reach where I want to be. Taken back by the lonely beauty of the night I think about jumping, if only to fly for a moment. I see myself floating over the lights and the frozen river. Watching people open garage doors and take out their garbage, I see them with a flickering blue light inside their homes, sitting so alone. I see stop lights changing with no one to obey them. I see street lights chasing away the darkness. I see dogs barking at the silence. I see myself sitting alone on top of the world.

“If I had my life to do live over I’d make more mistakes next time. I’d relax. I’d limber up. I would be sillier than I have been this trip. I would take fewer things seriously. I would take more chances. I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers. I would eat more ice cream and less beans. I would perhaps have more actual troubles but I’d have fewer imaginary ones.

You see, I’m one of those people who live sensibly and sanely hour after hour, day after day. Oh, I’v had my moments, and if I had it to do over again, I’d have more of them. In fact, I’d try to have nothing else. Just moments, one after another, instead of living so many years ahead of each day. I’ve been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat, and a parachute. If I have to do it again, I would travel lighter than I have.

If I have my life to live, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall. I would go to more dances. I would ride more merry-go-rounds. I would pick more daisies. ”

“There once was a king who was going to put to death many people, but before doing so he offered a challenge. If any of them could come up with something which would make him happy when he was sad, and sad when he was happy, he would spare their lives.

All night the wise men meditated on the matter. In the morning they brought the king a ring. The kind said that he did not see how the ring would serve to make him happy when he was sad and sad when he was happy.

The wise men pointed to the inscription. When the kind read it, he was so delighted that he spared them all

And the inscription? “This too shall pass.” ”

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“the man in whom tao acts without impediment does not bother with his own interests and does not despise others who do. He does not struggle to make money and does not make a virtue of poverty. He goes his way without relying on others and does not pride himself on walking alone. While he does not follow the crowd he wont complain of those who do. Rank and reward make no appeal to him; disgrace and shame do not deter him. He is not always looking for right and wrong always desciding “yes” or ”no.”

"Your job is to render them independent; to teach them as quickly and completely as possible how to get along without you. For you are no blessing to them so long as they need you to survive, but bless them truly only in the moment they realize you are unnecessary. In the same sense, God's greatest moment is the moment you realize you need no God."

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"If there were such a thing as sin this would be it: to allow yourself to become what you are because of the experience of others. This is the "sin" you have committed. All of you. You do not await your own experience, you accept the experience of others as gospel (literally), and then, when you encounter the actual experience for the first time, you overlay what you think you already know onto the encounter.
If you did not do this, you might have a wholly different experience-one that might render your original teacher or source wrong. In most cases, you don't want to make your parents, your schools, your religions, your traditions, your holy scriptures wrong-so you deny your own experience in the favor of what you have been told to think."

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"Here is the paradox of all human relationships: You have no need for a particular other in order for you to experience, fully Who You Are, and...without another, you are nothing.
This is both the mystery and the wonder, the frustration and the joy of the human experience. It requires deep understanding and total willingness to live within this paradox in a way which makes sense."

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"It is very romantic to say that now that your special other has entered your life, you feel complete. Yet the purpose of relationship is not to have another who might complete you; but to have another with whom you might share your completeness."

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"When human love relationships fail, (relationships never truly fail, except in the strictly human sense that they did not produce what you want), they fail fail because they were entered into for the wrong reason.
("Wrong," of course, is a relative term, meaning something measure against that which is "right"-whatever that is! It would be more accurate in your language to say "relations fail-change-most often when they are entered into for reasons not wholly beneficial or conducive to their survival.")"

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"You were told from your earliest days that you're "bad". You accept that you were born in "sin". Feeling guilty is a learned response. You've been told to feel guilty about yourself for things you did before you could even do anything. You have been taught to feel shame for being born less than perfect.
This alleged stated of imperfection in which you are said to have come into this world is what your religionists have the gall to call original sin. And it is original sin-but not yours. It is the first sin to be perpetrated upon your by a world which which knows nothing of God if it thinks that God would-or could-create anything imperfect.
Some of your religions have built up whole theologies around this misconception. And that is what it is, literally: a misconception. For anything I conceive-all that to which I give life-is perfect; a perfect reflection of perfection itself, made in the image and likeness of Me.
Yet, in order to justify the idea of a punitive God, your religions needed to create something of me to be angry about. So that even those people who lead exemplary lives somehow need to be saved. If they don't need to be saved from themselves, then they need to be saved from their own built in imperfection. So (these religions say) you'd better do something about of this-and fast-or you'll go straight to hell.
This, in the end, may do nothing to mollify a weird, vindictive, angry God, but it does give life to weird, vindictive, angry religions. This do religions perpetuate themselves. Thus does power remain concentrated in the hands of the few, rather than experienced through the hands of many.
Of course you choose constantly the lesser though, the smaller idea, the tiniest concept of yourself and your power, to say nothing of Me and Mine. You've been taught to."

Two Thousand Four
song 1
song 2
song 3
song 4

"You have been taught to live in fear. You have been told about the survival of the fittest and the victory of the strongest and the success of the cleverest. Precious little is said about the glory of the most loving. And so you strive to be the fittest, the strongest, and the cleverest-in one way or another-and if you see yourself as something less than this in any situation, you fear loss, for you have been told that to be less is to lose.
And so of course you choose the actions fear sponsors, for that is what you have been taught. Yet I teach you this: when you choose the action love sponsors, then will you do more than survive, then will you do more than win, then will you do more than succeed. Then will you experience the full glory of Who You Really Are, and who you can be.
To do this you must turn aside the teachings of your well-meaning, but misinformed, worldly tutors, and hear the teachings of those whose wisdom comes from another source.
There are many such teachers among you, as always there have been, for I will not leave you without those who would show, teach you, guide you, and remind you of these truths. Yet the greatest reminder is not anyone outside you, but the voice within you. This is the first tool that I use, because it is the most accessible.
The voice within is the loudest voice with which I speak, because it is the closest to you. It is the voice which tells you whether everything else is true or false, right or wrong, good or bad as you have defined it. It is the radar that sets the course, steers the ship, guides the journey if you but let it.
It is the voice which tells you right now right now whether the very words you are reading are words of love or words of fear. By this measure can you determine whether they are words to heed or words to ignore."

"Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable."

"Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.

When you love you should not say, "God is in my heart,"
but rather, "I am in the heart of God."
And think not you can direct the course of love,
for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.

Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires,
let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings
its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart
and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noon hour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart
and a song of praise upon your lips."