The Power of Storytelling

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“The power of storytelling is exactly this: to bridge the gaps where everything else has crumbled.”

Paulo Coelho

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Love

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Dear Human: You’ve got it all wrong. You didn’t come here to master unconditional love. That is where you came from and where you’ll return. You came here to learn personal love. Universal love. Messy love. Sweaty love. Crazy love. Broken love. Whole love. Infused with divinity. Lived through the grace of stumbling. Demonstrated through the beauty of… messing up. Often. You didn’t come here to be perfect. You already are. You came here to be gorgeously human. Flawed and fabulous. And then to rise again into remembering. But unconditional love? Stop telling that story. Love, in truth, doesn’t need ANY other adjectives. It doesn’t require modifiers. It doesn’t require the condition of perfection. It only asks that you show up. And do your best. That you stay present and feel fully. That you shine and fly and laugh and cry and hurt and heal and fall and get back up and play and work and live and die as YOU. It’s enough. It’s Plenty.

Courtney A. Walsh

Pavement Gardens – Creating Healthy Free Food for All

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A friend and fellow storyteller from South Africa, wrote me this beautiful inspiring story of her free vegetable pavement garden. Thought it just needed further sharing!

Amanzi Veg garden 008 (2)

As you can see from the photo, I live behind a high wall, which has
electric fencing on the top of it. A couple of months ago, all the
pavements on my side of the road were dug up to put in high speed
Cabling. I thought, “dam it! Let me turn a lemon into a lemonade”. So
I moved all my pretty flowers which were on the pavement, (my sons
inherited a lot, and some I replanted inside, and friends got others)
After the cabling went in, I planted vegetables, and created a vegetable
pavement garden: Spinach, lots of tomatoes, beans, butternut (squash)
moroggo (a SA spinach which black people love). I got a few old tyres,
sprayed them orange and filled them with good soil. I placed the tyres 
where the soil was bad, or close to the edge of the Road where rain
water often washes away plants. I have a few pretty flowers like
marigolds, nasturtiums, zinnias – but they are there to deter bugs
mostly. I have a sign on the pavement which says:
Pick what you can eat, but leave some for your brothers and
sisters. Healthy free vegetables!

I was driving home from shopping last week, and as I came round the
corner, I almost drove into a black man carrying a large bunch of
spinach. He waved at me with a grin from ear to ear, waving the spinach
in the air, saying thank you! I stopped the car, and said: But you
didn’t leave any for your brothers and sisters! (for he had picked just
about all the spinach). With another Huge grin he said, “no problem, I
will share it with my brothers and sisters at home!” What could I say,
I was delighted. This is part of my dream for 2013 – that many more
people plant pavement gardens, creating healthy food for all. And
although this doesn’t bring the walls down, perhaps it helps to make
them a little less solid. And who know what Stories will come out of
talking to people on my pavement!

Der Panther

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Im Jardin des Plantes, Paris

Sein Blick ist vom Vorübergehn der Stäbe
so müd geworden, dass er nichts mehr hält.
Ihm ist, als ob es tausend Stäbe gäbe
und hinter tausend Stäben keine Welt.

Der weiche Gang geschmeidig starker Schritte,
der sich im allerkleinsten Kreise dreht,
ist wie ein Tanz von Kraft um eine Mitte,
in der betäubt ein großer Wille steht.

Nur manchmal schiebt der Vorhang der Pupille
sich lautlos auf -. Dann geht ein Bild hinein,
geht durch der Glieder angespannte Stille –
und hört im Herzen auf zu sein.

Rainer Maria Rilke, 6.11.1902, Paris