"Have You Ever Fallen in Love?"

The master and student joined each other by the stream for their daily wisdom talk.
 
The student asked the master, "Honorable One, have you ever fallen in love?"

The master smiled and said, "I have never been out of love."

The master continued, "Achal, it is natural for people to fall in love. Then they may raise children and extend their love. They may love other family members or close friends as well. There are some that are able to have love for their community, their culture, and their country. This is all wonderful. No love, however limited, is without merit"

"But for you Honorable One," the student continued, "you love all beings?"

"Achal, my love is not limited to a particular being or beings. As you grow in understanding, you will find that you are the only one that places a limit on love."

"It is difficult for me, Honorable One, to have that unlimited love you describe," the student responded.

The master smiled and said, "Remember no love, no matter how limited, is without benefit. So start from what you can love and remain mindful of the circumstances other beings must face in order to survive in this world. Once you can see others clearly, you will have compassion and empathy for them. Then you will find that your love is expanding toward all of life."

Grant

A Political Necessity

 

 It not only helps a politician to be a liar, it is a necessity. Well at least they provide good entertainment for people. In fact, they are the best jokes money can buy.
Grant

The School is No Good?

Jawan laid in bed listening to the gun shots outside. He was used to that. Usually Jawan found he could even sleep through the shootings and the sirens. But tonight Jawan found it hard to sleep.

The gunshots were making him think of his older brother who was shot just going down to the carry out.

Then he started thinking of his dad. He only remembers seeing him a few times. Jawan could barely remember him but he still thought about him once in awhile. He wondered if his dad was still alive. He thought how much different it would be if his mom was still alive. Jawan loved his grandmother, but she was very sick and he could hardly care for her. His grandmother could barely afford to feed him and his sisters.

Jawan thought, "I wish it wasn't so cold in this place. I bet even the rats are freezing tonight."

Then Jawan thought about school tomorrow. He thought about how he liked going to school and seeing Ms. Howard.

Then he became sad.

"Next year", he thought, "they are closing down my school and now I am going to have to walk a long way to that other school."

He sighed.

He thought about how they are saying his school was not any good.

Jawan began to feel more restless and even angry. 

"Man", Jawan thought, "they say that we should be learning more. But that school is the only good thing in this rotten place."

Jawan thought about not having that school anymore. He became even sadder. He went back to listening to the gunfire.
Grant

How Can Hatred Be Overcome?

The master and student joined each other by the stream for their daily wisdom talk.
The student asked the master, "Honorable One how can hatred be overcome?"
The master took out his walking stick and smacked the student hard on his shoulder.
The student became enraged and at first felt as if he wanted to strike his master. The student then thought, here I have given all my time and effort to the spiritual life and the master treats me like a dog. His anger changed to hatred for his master. 
The master sat quietly.
The student began to settle down and the student's feelings of rage began to subside. 
Then the master lovingly smiled.
The student loved the master's smile. That smile always made him feel good. Then the student noticed that just a few moments ago he was full of anger and even had hatred for his teacher. But now he felt the love and respect for his master that he had always had.
The student now understood how to overcome hatred.
Grant

Humanity's Costly Mind-Set

Long ago the elders were honored because they were the source of tradition and the keepers of wisdom. Today in our throw away culture, the elders are looked upon as a drain on society and a burdensome expense. Children too are looked upon as some sort of investment that has to pay off. Everything is a commodity, especially human beings.
The commercial mind-set has taken hold of the way we think and the way we perceive. Human values are discarded in favor of the bottom line.

How much does it cost and how will it pay off?
So society buys into this mind-set of evil and it has a greater cost than any amount of dollars we can print.
A sick mind-set can be made healthy. But we must first acknowledge that our world view is not healthy toward ourselves or the life of the planet. Our present mind-set is choking the life out of the planet and destroying any pleasure we might have in living. This consumerist mind-set is all about money and nothing else. Unfortunately we are paying for this mind-set with our lives.  Grant

The Richest Man in the Cemetery

Recently I read that the head of JP Morgan Chase, Jamie Dimon, has been diagnosed with throat cancer. Under Dimon's leadership, JP Morgan Chase has been a part of the massive foreclosure fraud, the rigging of markets, and...

Chase Bank also purposefully misled the public on the "London Whale" scam, in which the bank lost $6 billion making bets on derivatives with depositors' money, yet still managed to make a record $21 billion profit. Dimon escaped accountability for this bungle, even though his bank admitted to violating securities laws and two Chase traders are facing criminal charges. Additionally, one of Chase's clients was Bernie Madoff, the same guy who rooked investors out of $50 billion and is currently doing hard time in jail. Chase's penalty for turning a blind eye to Madoff's ponzi scheme is roughly $2 billion, a slap on the wrist for a megabank like Chase....

When I heard the news about Dimon, I got to thinking about that Biblical verse in which Jesus is quoted as saying, "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"

We can accumulate an ungodly amount of wealth and possessions here on earth. Yet when it is time to pass on, we take none of that with us.  What we think we have or possess is an illusion. When we die, this material world will eventually pass away just as a dream does when we wake up. 
I believe that nobody but God can judge a person's soul, but we can judge a person's actions here on earth. Perhaps Dimon will survive. Certainly he will have the finest health care. But the body is only a temporary vehicle. 

It is never too late to learn something from life. So maybe Dimon will learn that no matter how much wealth we gain and treasure we plunder, when we pass on we only take ourselves with us. On earth, our possessions and power can serve as a temporary ego rush and a passing preoccupation.  But when we die, great wealth and power can only build us a fabulous mausoleum.  Grant 

There are No People There Anymore

 

It was a happy place. A beautiful river ran through the land and it supplied the people with everything. The people grew prosperous but they had no care or appreciation for that river. Some people complained about the trash and the filth that was dumped into the river. But the people thought it was their right and privilege to do as they pleased with the river. Soon the life of the river died and the people became sick.
The young ones of that once happy place started dying or were born crippled and disfigured. Those that survived were unable to have children. Some of the people said God was cursing them. Others thought that the death and the sickness was now something that was natural for them. Over the years, the people became used to seeing the sickness and the death. The people had forgotten how things used to be.
Soon all the people died.
The river kept flowing and after many years, the river became beautiful again. Life returned to that river. But there are no people there anymore. 
Grant

Intentional Living and the Unity of Life

In psychology there is an understanding that our first impressions often leave lasting impressions. So there are numerous books written on body language, dressing for success, using motivational words, cultivating the right connections, and even thinking the right thoughts for success. Some people teach that you can fake it until you make it, whatever making it means.

If you want to see this type of intentional deception in action then just watch a politician for a couple of minutes. They have morphed themselves into a product and they hope they can convince enough people buy it.
But all of this intentional deception and manipulation to try to convince others that we are something they might like always seemed like a lot of work to me. Instead I have found it easier to practice an honest intention of compassion and to try to focus a loving attention on others. Obviously not everybody appreciates it and I know I don't always make a great impression. But at least this style of being is a lot more genuine and a lot easier for me.
You can fool some of the people all the time, but if you are sincere you don't need to fool anybody anytime.

Ancient teachers of nearly every spiritual tradition recognized the unity of life. They realized that if you developed a loving heart and cultivated thoughts built on respect then you were going to make a connection with others that go beyond the superficial mind games that we are taught to play.
All of life is connected in ways we don't understand. We are only conscious of a tiny bit of energy that is happening all around us. Since we can only consciously manipulate a tiny bit of the tiny bit of energy we are aware of then it seems like a big waste of energy and time to do anything but sincerely respect the individual beings that are a part of this unity of life.  Grant

At Least The Honorable are Buried with Their Dignity

 

Often times we use the word honorable for those who have none.
Or we confuse being honorable with wealth or fame or possessing some office or position. But honor is not something that somebody can give us. It is something we ourselves have to earn. Although we are all human and subject to making mistakes. We can choose to focus our lives on living in an honorable way.
Honor is a matter of commitment and intent.
We all have various ideas of what an honorable life is for us. But to live an honorable life requires great courage. It requires that we do what we think is right even in the face of great obstacles.
At present, society does little to encourage us to live in an honorable way. In fact, in our materialist culture we are judged simply by our ability to consume. Those that can consume the most are given high honor in a twisted society that has lost any meaningful sense of what honor is.
Today, being an honorable person requires more courage than at anytime in recorded history since few honor the honorable. The truly honorable may live out forgotten lives but at least they are buried with their dignity.
Grant 

Do You Know How to Tell the Right Time?

Some people say "never give up". The idea is that if you just hang in there long enough then you will succeed and everything will work out. But from my experience, most people hang in there far too long. They hold onto broken relationships well past the point of no return, they stay in dead end jobs when it is clear that they should have moved on long ago, they hold onto worn out ideas and emotions that no longer serve any meaningful purpose.
The most successful people in life (and we are not only talking financially) are not usually the smartest or the the ones that never give up. Rather they are the ones that have a good sense of timing. They are in touch with their intuitive side and they know when to act and not to act.
You can't gain this type of direction from listening to motivational tapes or from reading innumerable books. This type of gut instinct comes from a whole brain/whole heart approach. A person has a better chance of making the right choices when they have clear understanding of their situation and when they are in touch with their inner sense about the situation.
In life, when I was unsure on what direction I needed to take I had a saying that helped guide me, "follow your feet". The meaning of that was that when my mind was confused about a particular path then my body (my intuition) usually knew which way to go and I followed that direction. The right timing is key to successful choices, and you know when the time is right by being able to tap into that inner wisdom that knows what time it is.  Grant

A Genocide Museum

 

A Genocide is the deliberate and systematic destruction, in whole or in part, of an ethnic, racial, religious or national group.

It is estimated that the population of North America prior to the arrival of Columbus was around 12 million. Four centuries later, the tribal peoples of North America were reduced to about 237,000.
The near destruction of native the peoples in North America was brought about by a deliberate and systematic policy driven by greed.
Americans have created a history that makes heroes of mass murderers. History is always written by the victors. Slaughters and massacres are glorified as the will of God and "Manifest Destiny". Beautiful human beings were vilified in order to carry out the most horrible and inhumane deeds.
Americans must come to terms with their genocide.
In the United States, we have a Holocaust Museum near the National Mall in Washington D.C. This is certainly a great thing to remember those that perished at the hands of the Nazis. But we need a genocide museum right there in the Nation's Capitol to remember our own barbarism and our cruelty. A place where we can honor those we decimated. A place where we can also make a promise of "Never Again."
A promise that we will stop stealing Native resources, stop poisoning their lands, stop stripping them of their culture. A promise that we will respect their dignity and their sovereignty. It should be a place where the truth is explored and the real history is presented.
A genocide museum will certainly not correct the past, but it will help us honor the truth and a people.  

Grant 

A Purpose Driven Life

Life seems random and meaningless at times and the horror of it sometimes is overwhelming.  But it is during these tough times, the answer to coping is often found in the experience itself. 
Victor Frankl, a brilliant Viennese neurologist, was nearly killed in the Nazi concentration camps. His whole family, including his wife, were rounded up and put to work in the camps. Eventually the only surviving member of his family, besides Victor, was his sister. During the bleakest time of his experience in the camps, Frankl writes:

...A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth – that love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which Man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of Man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved. In a position of utter desolation, when Man cannot express himself in positive action, when his only achievement may consist in enduring his sufferings in the right way – an honorable way – in such a position Man can, through loving contemplation of the image he carries of his beloved, achieve fulfillment. For the first time in my life I was able to understand the meaning of the words, "The angels are lost in perpetual contemplation of an infinite glory."

Victor went on to found a branch of humanistic psychology known as "logotherapy".

...Rather than power or pleasure, logotherapy is founded upon the belief that it is the striving to find a meaning in one's life that is the primary, most powerful motivating and driving force in humans....^[4]

Frankl learned from that horrid experience in the brutal Nazi concentration camps, that those that were able to better mentally cope with their camp experience had a sense of purpose for their lives.
Nobody can tell us what our purpose in life is. We have to work that out for ourselves. But usually we find our purpose in life by examining what truly makes us feel alive and what animates us. It also helps to be mindful of our life experiences so we can learn what opportunities exist that we might be ignoring.
Ultimately, our purpose may be as simple and as powerful as being a source of love and compassion in the world, as Frankl himself had experienced in his darkest hours.

Like It or Not, the Universe is Always "In Sync" With You

 

We believe reality is based on strict causality. The causal nature of events means that one thing causes another or because of this, that happens and because of that, this happens. But this view of our world is likely to be simply based on the way our minds are trained to see things.
In quantum physics, according to the uncertainty principle, the more precisely you know the momentum of the particle the less precisely you will know its position and the more precisely you know the position of a particle the less precisely you know the momentum. This is the opposite of what you would expect. Moreover there is other quantum weirdness that defies our logic. According to the double slit experiment and the delayed choice quantum eraser experiment, if we have a certain knowledge of a photon's path then that knowledge appears to be enough to collapse the wave function. The experiments show that the measurement itself doesn't determine whether a photon appears as a wave or a particle, but it is the level of knowledge of the experimenter or the ability of the experimenter to know which path the photon will take that collapses the wave function (whether the photon appears as a wave or particle).
So we are told that it is all just quantum weirdness and it doesn't apply to the world of large objects. But if you pay close attention to the macro world that we call reality, we see that there is an interconnection between our consciousness and this so called "real" world.
Some things happen that defy an explanation based on causality.
Carl Jung used the term "synchronicity" in which he pointed out that our "reality" often corresponds to our consciousness and events don't seem to have a causal relation. For instance, you may be thinking of a particular meaningful event involving a person that you haven't seen for 20 years. You have moved thousands of miles from the town where that person lives. You presently live in a city of 2 million people, but you go to the store and you see that person. Some would claim this is just a coincidence.
But to say that there is a world of causation separate from ourselves is to deny what the evidence seems to suggest.
In scientific studies, there is something called the experimenter effect in which it is well known that an experimenter's expectations can influence the experiment even when the experiment is designed under the most rigid protocols. Double blind experiments can reduce the experimenter effect but you can never completely rule it out. Some would suggest that it is the subtle body language or other cues given by the experimenter that lead to this effect. But I think this is a stretch in which those persons are trying to make a world fit according to a limited understanding of the true nature of things.
Reality unfolds not separate from our consciousness but in sync with our very being. We carry our Karma around with us as a turtle carries around it's shell. Our life unfolds according to a certain pattern of relationships that aligns to our level of understanding at any particular phase in our existence.
When we were a child, we experienced a child's life based on a child's level of understanding. As adults with various levels of understanding, our life is experienced according to that level of our understanding. The universe is always in sync with who we are and it presents to us a life that is designed to move us beyond our certain level of understanding and grow us into a higher understanding. This view of the world is outside of the classical view of the causal nature of things,  but it is likely more in line with the world as it is.

The Disease of Modern Man

 

Today we are spewing a deadly mixture of chemicals and toxins into the environment. We know that certain chemicals are dangerous and toxic, but nobody really knows the dangers they pose when they interact with each other. We do know, however, that the human body is being bathed in an onslaught of man made chemicals and it is taking a deadly toll.
We are made to believe that cancer is something that develops because of bad genetics. But the research shows that it is carcinogens that lead to cancer.

Researchers looking at almost a thousand mummies from ancient Egypt and South America found only a handful suffered from cancer when now it accounts for nearly one in three deaths.The findings suggest that it is modern lifestyles and pollution levels caused by industry that are the main cause of the disease and that it is not a naturally occurring condition.The study showed the disease rate has risen dramatically since the Industrial Revolution, in particular childhood cancer – proving that the rise is not simply due to people living longer.

So when you see a child with cancer then you can be reasonably sure that it was the toxins in their environment that led to the disease. But not only is our way of life killing even those we hold most dear. It is also killing the planet. 

The rapid loss of species we are seeing today is estimated by experts to be between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than the natural extinction rate.*

We are poisoning and killing ourselves in our greedy lust to consume and we are killing a great deal of life that supports us. If we open our eyes, we see a cruel irony in all of this. Our reckless consumption is creating a disease that literally is consuming us. But on a deeper level, it is the cancer of consumerism that has taken hold of our very being and has blackened our hearts and minds so that we continue in our deadly activities.  

Grant 

The Blame Game Brought to You By the Owners

 You ever notice that there is never any shortage of people to blame for the mess in this country. We blame the teachers, we blame the police, we blame immigrants, we blame the families, we blame the workers, we blame the poor and the aged, we blame the media, we blame the politicians, and the list goes on and on. But none of these people mentioned have any real power. The politicians are just puppets and the media just follow sanctioned entertainment (sometimes called news). Certainly the rest of the groups previously mentioned don't have enough power to really screw things up.
But who are the people with real power that always seem to escape blame?
They are the true owners of this country.  These owners of this country, and now a good part of the world, want you to keep blaming those without real power so that you will never blame those with the real power. So when the owners collapsed the economies of the world in 2008 and bankrupted countries around the globe making those very nations give them trillions of dollars in bailouts, they escaped any sort of justice and gave themselves fabulous bonuses. These financial criminals print our money, control the money supply, the markets, and the world's economy. They answer to no one. Rather they make sure everybody answers to them. This banking cabal will keep you ignorant of their real power since it keeps them in fabulous wealth and out of prison. Sadly, the blame game will continue for as long as these people own this country and much of the world.
Grant

What They Don't Want You to Know

 

It would be funny what we are told to believe if it weren't so sad. For the last 3 and half decades, we have been told that if you just make the super wealthy even more wealthy that somehow that wealth would trickle down to the rest of us to make the economy better. But today in the US, Adjusted for inflation, our hourly wage has about the same purchasing power that it did in 1979. The American labor participation rate has dropped to the levels not seen since 1978. There are presently nearly 92 million people not in the labor force in the US. But since the late 1970's, the top 1% (those families with total assets more than 20 million in 2012) has increased their wealth from 7% to 22%. The truth is just the opposite of what we have been lied to believe. If you put more money in the hands of the people, the economy will grow and the country will have a large tax base from which to collect. Funny thing about people, if they have money they will spend it. This makes for a growing economy, more jobs, better schools, better roads, less poverty and less government subsidies for those that need it. Instead of continuing to make the super wealthy even more wealthier in the hopes something might trickle down, we should be enacting laws that protect the workers, make a living wage a minimum, and tax Wall Street so that the super wealthy actually pay a sales tax on their transactions (just like the poor and everybody else do on their purchases). In reality, the financial elite know the truth about the economy. They just don't want you to know.
Grant

Source Orientated

Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to a better understanding of ourselves.

Carl Jung  

 

We don't see the world as it is, we see it as we are. We have been conditioned by a variety of societal forces (family, media, government, etc.,) to see the world in a certain way. All of these forces go into making up our personality, including our perceptions, thoughts, and feelings. We mistake all of this conditioning as our fundamental being. But underlying all of this is the being we share with all of life. It is our source. When we become source orientated, we see life in a different way. We see all other beings (the earth, water, plants, animals, humans) as our brothers and sisters worthy of our respect and understanding. 

Grant

Feeling is Power

Nearly a billion people are hungry. Over 20,000 people died today from starvation and a million and a half children will die of starvation this year. Eighty five of the world's richest people have as much wealth as 3.5 billion of the planet's poorest people. You don't need to know much about economics or human misery to know that this is a horror of epic proportions. You only need to have some sense of humanity to understand that this cannot be allowed to continue. So we don't need to know much, but we do need to be able to feel just a little to create a better world. Grant

Beyond the Constraints of the Ego

I know that pop psychology teaches that their are no limits and we can do anything, all the time, whenever we want. But in truth, we have limitations. In the 12 step groups, they have the serenity prayer in which a person asks for serenity to accept what a person can't change, the courage to change what can be changed, and the wisdom to know the difference. A simple prayer but it promotes a healing attitude in which a person comes to terms with himself and courageously does what he can and accepts the very real limitations that he or she faces. The prayer is also correct, in my view, in that in order to come to this healing attitude a person must rely on something beyond his or her own limited ability to reason, but be able to connect with their higher being (power) that is beyond the constraints of their own Ego. A difficult task for sure. But it is made easier by humility and a desire to be directed by something other than our personal cravings and selfish desires. So, paradoxically, recognizing our very real  limitations can be the key to a greater freedom beyond the stifling binding of our ego constraints.
Grant

The Real Gift of Meditation

 

I think meditation is often misunderstood. It is promoted as a way to relax, grow your brain (nueroplasticity), and a tool for coping. Meditation does do this but it does so much more. Meditation ultimately invites a spiritual revolution that changes you to the core. The practice of meditation will not make life easier (although it will make it better) and it will more likely introduce you to conditions that will challenge you in ways you never thought possible. But through it all, if practiced, meditation will connect you with the source of life that will sustain you and guide you with enhanced intuition and an expanded awareness. Ultimately that is the real gift of meditation.
Grant

Wherever We Go, We Take Ourselves With Us

 

In my life I have done some things I have been proud of and some things that have not been good. I guess most people can say the same. Life passes quickly and we will soon have to leave everything behind. But there is one thing that we will carry with us and that will be ourselves. Wherever we go, we have to take ourselves with us. So we should try to be loving and compassionate with ourselves as well as others. The funny thing about love is that the more you give the more you have. It never gets exhausted. Only you can choose to stop it. We have been trained to think it is wrong to love and care for ourselves. But the truth is that we are no less of a being than anybody else. The more love we give (yes even to ourselves), the more rewarding and meaningful will be our life. When we transition from this life, we can leave as a being full of light and love or we can leave as something else. But remember that wherever we go, we take ourselves with us.
Grant

You Get What You Pay For

 

It is odd the way many people think. They know that in order to have a nice house or a nice car or a nice whatever, they have to pay for it. People know, as the saying goes, "you get what you pay for". Still when it comes to having a safe and functional society with educated and healthy citizens, they believe that it should somehow magically appear and that they shouldn't have to invest in it. Still the thinking of many people gets even stranger. They believe that those that have benefited the most from society, the super wealthy, should have to invest the least in it. Many people believe that it is somehow wrong to have wealthy corporations and those that run them pay the same percentage in taxes as the average citizen. But it is really true that you get what you pay for. When you fail to invest in a functional and compassionate society then you get what we have at present here in America. A collapsing system in which the cities are crumbling and the people are becoming more and more desperate with very little opportunity and very little help. Yep, you really do get what you pay for. Grant

The Most Heinous of Lies

All my life I have been presented by societal institutions with a never ending list of enemies. Their main aim was to destroy us, destroy democracy, destroy our way of life, destroy the economy, destroy the family, destroy society, destroy everything. They are always presented as somehow not human. They are fully evil and have one main objective--to get me and those I care about. This is the way we are mobilized to hate and fear.When the European settlers here in North America wanted Native Peoples' land and resources, those Peoples were presented as savages and not even human. Whole tribes were exterminated and those that survived lost everything. But they were the enemy and that is what we were made to believe they deserved. Today when the global corporate power structure wants the wealth and resources of the planet, it is the same old story. There are enemies everywhere and the only way we can be safe (gain control of their countries and get their resources) is to destroy them. So people all over the planet are presented as subhuman and monsters not worthy of life or the basic necessities of life. We are made to fear, hate, and destroy the people and the life of the planet and we do this horrendous evil because that is what our enemies deserve. But this propaganda is the most heinous of lies created so that human beings will do the most inhumane things to other human beings in the name of defense and safety. Sadly, it always seems to work. Grant

Many Words Won't Hide What We Are

We should strive to be the people that we want our children to be. It is interesting to me that adults preach about bullying to youth, yet many adults cheer on bullying by politicians, media talking heads, CEOs, and other supposed societal leaders. Youth see what we are even though our many words may try to present a different picture. We can preach about character but if we have little of it then the youth will rightly call us hypocrites and ignore us. Grant

The Benefit of Seeing the Simple Truth

There is a fundamental mistake that is promoted at all levels of our modern society. That we are individual separate beings entitled to do as we please and to destroy as we will for our individual gain. A closer look clearly demonstrates that we are relational beings and that there never is and never could be relational beings separate from the rest of life. We live in relation and not separate from the rest of life. We are evolving and changing in relation to the rest of other relational beings. All relational beings rely on each other for their present state of being. However, it is our mistaken modern view that we are somehow separate from the rest of life that is leading to our present day march toward extinction. Seeing the simple yet powerful truth of our relational existence is all that is needed at present.  Grant

Perfect as a Tree

 

A great source of unnecessary suffering is the desire for perfect. We are conditioned to believe that we have to have a perfect body, a perfect job, a perfect family, a perfect relationship, and the list goes on. But the "perfect" is an illusion that drives us to despair. Nature doesn't ask that we be perfect, but only that we be perfectly ourselves. Like a tree, we are bent and mangled. All of us are like that and yet we are every bit as beautiful as the rest of nature. Like a tree, we are not perfect but we are perfectly ourselves.  Grant