I'm just so grateful to be alive, that almost everything else pales by comparison, except the great gift of living with my life partner.

We are a wonderful species of primates who shouldn't be monkeying around with our planetary biosphere.

Smile and be kind to people!

My highest self wants to be fed and sheltered in the company of other humans in peace and harmony.  Our most basic needs are also our highest needs.  Our problems manifest when we believe our highest needs to be greatness, wealth and power.  Indeed, these may honoring our lowest self, not our highest!

Yes, but not in terms of rational thought - more like "monkey see; monkey do."

7 or 8 year-olds.  We are smart enough to deal with complex patterns but not insightful enough to understand our own nature or to be conscious of our relationship with other species and the planet.

We must fully understand that we are a species of primates before we will be able to live sustainably on this planet.  The belief that we are gods or god's creations any more than other life forms distorts our ego and is at the core of pathological consumerism, nationalism and ideological and religious intolerance.  We truly become special only when we believe, and act as if, we aren't!

Hug each other much more!

Today, I was honored to find out that one of my quotations from Gaia.com was used in the brochure of a Duluth, Minnesota organization helping people who are being abused.  The same quote was used in the online Times of India and several blogs.  Others were used in the web profile of a peace activist and one was used in a nonprofit catalog supporting public television.

So, I want to thank Gaia.com for not merely helping us chatter among ourselves, but for empowering deeper content with wonderful tools necessary to help move our culture forward along the path of peace, justice and sustainability. 

The ripples of Gaia.com do move outwards across the Internet, so let's consciously use this wonderful resource to become the change we seek - both internally and externally.  The world can, indeed, change.

Where do your healing words turn up once you send them out in an electronic bottle 0n the Internet's sea of information?  Here's where some of mine went:

(The brochure of a nonprofit in Duluth, MN fighting domestic abuse)
http://www.pavsa.org/Resources/documents/DisabilitiesSideOnecopy.pdf

India (An editorial on peace and tolerance in the Times of India)
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/3927095.cms?

New Zealand (Final paragraph of a Maori Party leader's speech)
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PA0809/S00681.htm

How long has it taken to finally let African Americans feel that they are
a vital part of this nation which they helped build?
What a terrible burden to have to carry! Will it now be lifted?
This is an amazing journey for all of us.

As a white male, I could "pass" for being an "American"
in ways that people of color could not,
in ways that people with visible disabilities can not,
in ways that women still can not.
And when will their burdens be lifted?

How long has it taken for the United States
to finally figure out that racism and sexism are mental disorders?
Does sanity require a majority vote? Apparently, it does.
Does it simply emerge from our souls
and slowly grow until one day we know something
that our ancestors may not have been able to see?

Barack Obama isn't President because America came to its senses.
He was elected because America turned greedy and stupid,
and had nowhere else to turn
than to a people who had kept the faith,
who had witnessed the truth,
and, like the oppressed before them,
became a reservoir of strength and grace,
chosing compassion over violence, love over hate.

But this mixed-race scholar and organizer,
this brilliant and compassionate man,
has stepped up to carry an enormous burden
for all of us. He can not carry this burden alone,
nor is it right to ask him and his family to do so.

My ancestors never owned slaves,
and they were oppressed, themselves,
as many minority groups around the world.
But I can see as clearly as the noon sun
that Barack is my brother and Michelle is my sister.
They have come to help put our nation in order,
to serve us all, to carry a burden that belongs to all of us.

So, let us rededicate ourselves,
Let us inaugurate ourselves,
in this great vision and mission,
to once and for all lift the black man's burden
and the burdens of all those burdened by exclusion,
not just for their benefit, but for the benefit of all,
that they might have the strength to help carry ours.

Black men and women, and girls and boys,
and those who are brown, yellow and red,
and those who may have different abilities,
it is time to bind our partnership in this great land
with a very simple knowledge,
that prejudice and ignorance are self-defeating
mental defects - and that no one deserves to
carry the burdens of racism or sexism or other prejudices.

On this Inauguration Day, we find ourselves in the company of
greatness, not just the Obama's, but all of us.
Let's all pledge to be part of the solution to our many challenges,
and to rid this nation of prejudices - not just because they
can diminish others - but because they diminish all of us.