After the Hard Climb!!

Posted on February 2, 2017 by Rod's World

What is the best view you have seen? I couldn’t think of a word or distinction for today so I just typed in inspirational quotes in google images and was amazed by what came up. I suppose I would count the Grand Canyon as the greatest I have seen. To see best views you have to put in an effort to get there, so let’s have a look at what quotes have inspired people in getting to their best views of life:

1. They say the reaction time of elite athletes is phenomenal compared to that of the average punter on the street due to their reaction time. The average punter would not have moved by the time the target had arrived that the elite athlete manipulates so easily.

2. They say that when people pass a majority of them talk about the things they regret they did not do. That says something to me about taking as many chances as you can in your life: No Regrets.

3. Often we make our lives a misery by thinking more about what we want than what we have. raise the gratitude level daily and your happiness level will increase.

4. Set your controls for the heart of the sun, or the controls will set them for you and you have no idea where you may end up: Set Your Controls.

5. George Bernard Shaw, known at his insistence simply as Bernard Shaw, was an Irish playwright, critic, and polemicist whose influence on Western theater, culture, and politics extended from the 1880s to his death and beyond. He wrote more than sixty plays, including major works such as Man and Superman, Pygmalion, and Saint Joan. With a range incorporating both contemporary satire and historical allegory, Shaw became the leading dramatist of his generation, and in 1925 was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

6. Live your life to the full, remember you were destined to be: Leader of the Pack.

7. Moment by moment you can take a chance in life or you can go back to what you know, but life will go on whatever you do.

8. Before Enlightenment, chopping wood, after enlightenment chopping wood, one thing at a time, it’s all you can do: Step by Step.

9. Exactly where you need to be even if it didn’t feel that great getting there.

10. Doing a new program this week I now know about ten people I did not know before, I am a different person because of that: Changes.

11. Open the lens of your life, if it’s not a great shot take another one.

12. And remember to stop and smell the roses, or observe the beauty of the planet from time to time: Time after Time.

13. I don’t always remember to breath when I am in my head. I have to let go to do that.

14. And the best kind is a deep faith in yourself because you gotta have: Faith.

15. Originality cannot be made better by rubbing it out.

So lets Live life to the fullest so that we get to see the best views on the world.

Namaste until next time, my dear friends.

Is Your House Clean?

Posted on January 30, 2017 by Rod's World

My mentor Arion writes great poetry, he wrote this about befriending who you really are:

Oh Great Mystery

Beloved friend who has always been

I see you have a thousand faces

And a thousand ways you dance in my skin

So Before I quest to see your one true face

Let me delight in each and every one

For each is so precious that I sing

From my bones and through my blood

For in staring into your thousand directions

I embrace you, again and again

So having attempted to befriend all the different modalities that make us our own best friends how do we walk the journey of friendship with others, let’s take that beautiful trip:

1. Jean de La Fontaine (IPA; 8 July 1621 – 13 April 1695) was a famous French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his Fables, which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Europe and numerous alternative versions in France, and in French regional languages. What a fabulous word fabulist is!! It means a person who composes or relates fables or a liar, especially one who invents elaborately dishonest stories – “a born fabulist, with an imagination unfettered by the laws of logic and probability”

So there is only one song I can use for this, take it away Slade: Mama, We’re all Crazee Now.

3. You get the whole gamut with a true friend.

4. I have had several of these through my life, includes my siblings and a couple of others: Lay Me Down.

5. Remember when we ………… fill in the blanks, only your bestie can.

6. They are the people you call when you need someone to do this or kick you up the arse: Cry me a River.

7. At one time in our lives, our best friends were a rabbit and their friend in this quote, the teddy bear. I’m sure they did this for us.

8. it’s fantastic having people in your lives that you haven’t seen for years but it feels like 5 seconds, I think this is what this quote is pointing out: That’s what friends are For.

9. I totally agree with you, Hubert, so have I.

10. I met one of these people in a restaurant in Leningrad. Raisa was a soviet submarine officer who pressed the nuclear buttons: Thinking the same Thing.

11. Concise but very true by Ralph.

12. Two of the great philosophers, Piglet and Pooh hit the spot with this one: Friends for Life.

13. This puts you in the class of superhero.

14. Reminds me of the night I ended up in the back of a divvy van with my friend Petar, It didn’t work then either: Scuz Me.

15. My friend Kavisha sings a song Bound for Glory with a line that goes: We are Angels, We’ve forgotten these things and are wings are broken, Luckily we have good friends who remind us they are not.

So fall in love with your thousand friends that reside in your body and get out there and meet someone else’s thousand.

Namaste until next time my dear friends

Dare to Say you Will!!

Posted on January 27, 2017 by Rod's World

I’m reading Brene Brown’s Daring Greatly at the moment – subtitled How the Courage to be Vulnerable transforms the way we Live, Love, Parent and Lead. The section I am reading is on shame and how that is one of the most primitive emotions and the only people who don’t experience shame are those who lack empathy and human connection.

B.I.G. is an acronym Brene uses – what boundaries need to be in place for you to keep my integrity to think the most generous things about you. How do you communicate that deep love so that people know that they are not alone, that you are feeling with them, me too brother and sister!!

So what have we said about dare to say yes you will, let’s go on a journey of daring greatly:

1. Are we at our greatest when we are in the heights of chaotic behaviour? Get in contact with your soul and the courage will deal with it.

2. JFK is quoting Roosevelt’s Man in the Arena speech here, with the great line ” at least fails while daring greatly “. If you fly at a high level it will include failure as well as success: Find the cost of Freedom.

3. Ass Kicking, it’s what you are taking on when you get in the arena, you own and other people’s.

4. Outside the world of chauvinistic leadership styles exists the above style – building each other up versus tearing others down: I’m Every Woman.

5.How disempowering is the statement what if, what if it doesn’t work out, they don’t like me, they do like me, these two simple words have the power to cripple you from being in action.

6. How often do you ask for what you need? Or do you listen to that little voice in your head as to why their answer will be no: Somebody that I used to Know.

7. The love human connection creates, the synergy of becoming real with each other is one of the great acts of daring greatly.

8. I was born in Warracknabeal, a small town in North Central Victoria. It is not the birthplace of what I am hungry for in my life, that’s my soul: Soul Sacrifice

9. And here is Theodore’s actual speech that JFK plagiarised.

10. I have shadow and light cards, the intro states that you must work on both. Hoping that life will be all light is crazy: Shadows and Light.

11. Daring greatly often is this simple or this life threatening, you choose.

12. Jessie Redmon Fauset (April 27, 1882 – April 30, 1961) was an American editor, poet, essayist, novelist, and educator. Before and after working on The Crisis, she worked for decades as a French teacher in public schools in Washington, DC and New York City. In her early career, she travelled to Paris in the summer and studied at La Sorbonne: Being Black.

13. Daring Greatly includes doing the simple things as well.

14. You must do the thing you think you cannot do, so elegant a solution: Warrior.

15. How many days a week do you show up. It’s our chance to let our true selves show up.

O.K. when you wake up in the morning each day, look in the mirror and say I will, then whatever you do that day is you daring greatly.

Namaste until next time, my dear friends.

Action brings your dreams Closer!!

Posted on January 23, 2017 by Rod's World

The women of America could have lain down for four years and hoped Donald didn’t get re-elected, they didn’t do this. They are committed to their rights and the rights of all the groups Donald disrespected and over half a million of them took to the streets to show their commitment to them and their way of life.

What calls people to action and to fulfill their commitments in their lives. Let’s have a look at what people say:

1. There is a famous saying, don’t listen to their words. look at their actions. It’s not your mood that gets things done, it’s your actions.

2. Are you: Shake It Off.

3. In my country, Australia, wedding commitments fail up to 50% of the time, where do they go? What is missing after the words?

4. How often do you go to the convenience store, sorry about the maccas ad: No Excuses.

5. Andy Andrews (born May 22, 1959) is an American author of self-help books and a corporate speaker, known for his 2002 bestselling book The Traveler’s Gift.^[1] He has written over 20 books and sold more than 3.5 million copies around the world. His books have been translated into over 20 languages. Andrews regularly speaks for corporations, organizations, athletic teams, and the U.S. military. Three of his books, The Noticer, The Traveler’s Gift, and “How Do You Kill 11 Million People?” appeared on The New York Times Best Seller List.^[1] Andrews has appeared on The Fox News Channel, and Good Morning America.

6. Commit to the changes that are happening in your life, because it is guaranteed they are: Changes.

7. I use my goals to feel how I want to. To me, it is more important how I feel on the journey than the goal.

8. When you commit to a new future, stop looking back. That was the past and you are after a new future: Little Wonders.

9. When you make big Commitments you may need to do a bit of this, apologies for hurting someone but never for being yourself.

10. Do this, however you choose too. It’s got a unicorn in it: Born This Way.

11. Don’t listen to those thoughts. The Universe and your Inner Pilot Light are rooting for You.

12. Include others in your commitments. People are called to you by how you make them feel: Humble and Kind.

13. Can you touch the bottom of your life, make larger commitments!

14. As Jim Carrey says, there is Fear or Love, Choose one: Fear and Love.

15. I love plants in cracks, they have huge commitment.

I honor the women around the world who stood up for their rights and beliefs over the past 24 hours. It gives me hope that the change is truly coming.

Namaste until next time, my dear friends.

It’s often its own Reward!!

Posted on January 16, 2017 by Rod's World

Being rewarded, is that receiving you a financial salary for what you do in life? Or is it a more spiritual path as spoken of by luminaries like His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Deepak Chopra and Carolyn Myss.

Above me, there is a flier advertising the Compassionate Voices Community Choir quoting words such as Rejoice, Improve, Connect and Learn. If this is what being Compassionate has to offer I’m on board.

In our busy lives, compassion is one of those things that is easy to drop out, for ourselves and others. So let’s have a look at what society has said to remind us not to do that over the centuries:

1. I recently read a quote that said do not complain for 24 hours, not even once and your life would transform. I can imagine the same applies for judging oneself and others.

2. Putting life off is not a part of a Compassionate journey. it would be like being in the now moment to moment. How much more would you get done if you did not procrastinate over things: Do It Right Now.

3. Grandparents are old, even older than our parents, and our younger siblings, why do they cling so hard? These are ideas you need to transform because you will probably be all these things sometime in your life.

4. Always have a mirror around so that you can remember you always have someone to practice compassion with, the most important person in your life: Compassion.

5. Compassion has some worth housemates, these are some of them.

6. Compassion, another name could be heart to heart surgery: Open Your Heart.

7. How would the world transform if we taught compassion in the education system as well as knowledge? I say it would be a very different place.

8. The compulsory cute animal photo quote, If you don’t ask or act what you think is purely supposition: Rolling In the Deep.

9. As Byron Katie said in her quote we always have someone to practice compassion with. And when we get that down pat we can then open our heart to others.

10. I’m the leader, the leader of the gang of compassion I am, so can you be too: Leader of the Pack.

11. Each of our senses has a purpose that can empower our lives and the world.

12. Probably better known as Uma Thurman’s dad, Robert Alexander Farrar Thurman (born August 3, 1941) is an American Buddhist writer and academic who has written, edited or translated several books on Tibetan Buddhism. He is the Je Tsongkhapa Professor of Indo-Tibetan Buddhist Studies at Columbia University, holding the first endowed chair in this field of study in the United States. He also is the co-founder and president of the Tibet House New York and is active against the People’s Republic of China’s control of Tibet: Om Mani Pad Me Hung.

13. Have compassion for the days to come, keep growing and creating the best day of your life.

14. Thoughts don’t get a lot done, it needs physical actions as well for anything to happen: Would You.

15. They call it the technological revolution, don’t forget the spiritual technologies such as compassion, kindness, serenity, mindfulness and humility.

Remember to look in the mirror when you first get up and say I Love You then go and pass it on to whoever you come across during the day.

Namaste until next time, my dear friends.

Do not Activate without Coffee!!

Posted on January 12, 2017 by Rod's World

I was going to write this blog on what goals I have set for 2017 but decided instead to write about what activities I have chosen to fulfill. I tend to use Danielle LaPorte’s amazing Desire Map process: Danielle’s homepage. In this process you choose 3 to 5 core desire feelings you wish ot create your life to fulfill. At the moment mine are Vitality, Bliss, Love, Helping Other People Evolve = H.O.P.E. and Being Loved.

As I chose these three years ago I am about to do the process again and see what comes up. it takes a couple of days to do and is a very full look at what turns you on – how to activate your life. How do we look at the art of activation, lets begin the journey:

1. We all choose our roles in life even though quite a few of us get pleasure out of blaming others for our situation. Get some responsibility on board.

2. Not formulated classroom lessons but many adventures to find out what will turn the switch on in each child. Some of the great geniuses of history were considered slow or even stupid when attending school: Child’s Play.

3. Robert began his career playing music and studying and teaching musical composition. He began to see that the structural principles that are so much a part of the composer’s art have profound importance when applied to human development.

4. A statement by Superman who lost nearly everything a human could think of losing but it never deactivated his lust for life: See what I mean.

5. Remember when we activate goals and plans for our lives what comes with them is the not that goals and plans, this is to teach you what it takes to fulfill a goal.

6. It’s great to look at including these in your activities, the more positive they are for your mind and body the better for your soul: What a Wonderful World.

7. It was so cute I just had to use it; Reminds me of previous blog on Synergy.

8. What activates fear in you, the underlying emotion that prevents us dealing with our lack of success with our goals because we are afraid of confronting them: When you say nothing at All.

9. All of us do this, it may end up in ecstatic states , or bouts of sadness, or even madness. But be sure it will take you somewhere. I suggest bodywork as a remedy.

10. Could it be this simple, give it a go and see what happens: F***ing Perfect.

11. Here’s a list of people we know for their fame, check out what they did before, from carpenters to chicken pluckers: What did they do?

12. Interesting comparison by king of everything psychedelic Timothy Leary. I think I understand computers but not so sure about some of my acid experiences: Lucy In the Sky with Diamonds.

13. This statement from Albert says a lot about why traditional goal setting methodology fails, it is never activated.

14. Quiz time, which president of the United States was JQA and from which century, this quote still holds today: Titanium.

15. What do you wish to activate with your words on Social Media? I wish to promote possibility and Love. Sometimes I slip into political disarray which taints my personal brand.

So lets have a beautiful day activating what it is you wish to in your lives.

Namaste until next time, my dear friends.

Team Work makes the Dream Work!!

Posted on January 9, 2017 by Rod's World

I was cleaning up my apartment the other day when I found my old Synergy sticker. Synergy is an all night dance event that works because so many people put their time and efforts into making it work. Thats the definition of Synergy: the interaction or cooperation of two or more people, organisations, substances, or other agents to produce a combined effect greater than the sum of their separate effects: “the synergy between artist and record company”:

synonyms: collaboration · working together · joint action · combined effort · teamwork · mutual support · partnership · coopetition · coordination · liaison · association · unity · concurrence · concord · accord · understanding · give and take · compromise · dealings · relations · coaction.

It been realised for a very long time that synergy works, what have we said about it over this time, lets have a look:

1. Stephen Richards Covey (October 24, 1932 – July 16, 2012) was an American educator, author, businessman, and keynote speaker. His most popular book was The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. His other books include First Things First, Principle-Centered Leadership, The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Families, The 8th Habit, and The Leader In Me — How Schools and Parents Around the World Are Inspiring Greatness, One Child at a Time. He was a professor at the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University at the time of his death.

2. Another way of looking at synergy is to take all the natural brilliance of the people involved and mix them together and look at what pours out: Team.

3. How do we exploit all the advantages people have? Use synergy as the base for all enterprise I say.

4. si-nar-je , that for my Chinese english students. They would find the original spelling difficult: Rise.

5. James Bond AKA Pierce Brosnan was involved in a campaign that used the synergy a campaign brings to amend when the navy had their training exercises so that mass migrations were not affected.

6. Branson doesn’t merely say things like, “Screw it, just get on and do it.” He actually lives his life that way. He drops out of school and starts a business. He signs the Sex Pistols to his record label when everyone else says they are too controversial. He charters a plane when he doesn’t have the money. When everyone else balks or comes up with a good reason for why the time isn’t right, Branson gets started. He realises the power of synergy: Richard on People.

7. This is what may hold the creation of synergy back, thinking that you are not that. You don’t need to be. Someone else on your team will be.

8. Toba Beta is sci-fi writer from Indonesia. He works as economist/practitioner in Indonesia financial industries and capital market. He is dubbed as Mister Bond by Investor Magazine. He writes journals, novels, quotes and poems. This is quite a powerful quote: Open Book.

9. Love this quote, it expresses all that is positive about using synergy in your life.

10. I find it difficult to relate to people who attempt to split their personal and work life into two different aspects. They are all hours spent living int eh same day, the same lifetime: A Day in the Life.

11. Ou were you? I’m a proof reader by profession as well as a blogger. Just a little oops there.

12. This is a great way to relate to other in a situation that requires synergy to evolve: Karma.

13. I believe it also takes action, thoughts are fine, but no action equals nada, nothing, zip, etc. etc.

14. Isn’t this just so beautiful. A big Aww from me: Never let you Go.

15. Here’s another great definition of Synergy.

So I hope this helps you focus on your dreams and the power working with Synergy will bring to them.

Namaste until next time , my dear friends.

Good Shoes, Take you Good Places

Posted on January 2, 2017 by Rod's World

I was resisted doing my Monday blog as we all know that it’s the holiday break and not many people are reading it anyway. Then I did Leonie Dawsons Shining Light Workbook: Leonie’s Webpage. and one of my goals os to triple my readership so that definitely would not have been a great way to start fulfilling that goal.

I also found a vision I wrote for Arion Light’s six-week activation program I just completed. It goes like this:

There is a place in my heart where essence lives.

It has no solid form, it’s just a sense of magnificence that

lives out day to day my dreams and wishes for the life of the planet and the Universe.

The word magnificence stuck so our journey today is on that subject:

1. Esther Hicks (born Esther Weaver) is an American inspirational speaker and author. She has co-written nine books with her husband Jerry Hicks, presented numerous workshops on the law of attraction with Abraham-Hicks Publications and appeared in the original version of the 2006 film The Secret.[1] The Hicks’ books, including the series The Law of Attraction, are — according to Esther Hicks — “translated from a group of non-physical entities called Abraham.” Hicks describes what she is doing as tapping into “infinite intelligence”.

2. Sometimes it is a bit difficult to understand what Rumi is getting at, but is always magnificent: There is so much Magnificence.

3. The Prime minister of our country Malcolm Turnbull said on being re-elected that there was no better time to be living in our country, hope he had this in mind.

4. I hold my weekly choir singing sacred, what is your form of this musical tome: Holocene.

5. I don’t really imagine Ralph Waldo Emerson using rats as a simile but it’s there in google images.

6. A great place to view this is on the Eyre Highway on the South Australian/ West Australian border on a clear night: Where I Stood.

7. How many conversations do you have a day to unveil magnificence. Take it up for the New Year.

8. I often wonder why Gaia invented so many languages on the one planet. That’s why it is a joy when you meet another soul with who it doesn’t matter: Living In the Moment.

9. Just loved the Image and Sentiment.

10. Answer the question, your choice!! : It’s Getting Better.

11. Nature has its own magnificence, you can hear it, see it and smell it everywhere.

12. It’s always great to celebrate elder occasions so many people never make it there: Happy Birthday to You.

13. My artistry is my words and my voice, I am slightly jealous of songwriters and people who paint.

14. There appears to be a lot of people trying to disclaim this quote. Most, can’t :3,6 and the 9.

15. How many universes are there, The fact that no one knows the answer to this question is what makes it exciting. The story of physics has been one of an ever-expanding understanding of the sheer scale of reality, to the point where physicists are now postulating that there may be far more universes than just our own.

So we have a lot of magnificence to fill our life up with, enjoy doing it in 2017.

Namaste until next time, my dear friends.

The delight with which you Savour!!

Posted on December 29, 2016 by Rod's World

Still reading Jeff Foster’s book, The Way of Rest: Jeff’s Home Page. I’m at the section on abundance. Jeff says it is not the things in your life that equate to abundance but the connection to every breath, how sensitive you are to every flicker of sensation and emotion in the body. It is the delight you savor each unique moment.It is the freshness of each morning unencumbered by memory or false hope.

It sounds very much like the teachings of my mentor Arion Light through his Activation School: What is Activation?

So let’s go on a journey of delight!!

1. Often if you have more than one child you need a box of each as they try their unique diets. For your health information, Froot Loops lead the sugar stakes by a big way.

2. My favourite teacher had this saying, he said he wasn’t trying to get us to be perfect as that was the booby prize, the way to never complete anything: Unique.

3. Did you know that 75% of fashion magazines are advertising, don’t give up your unique beauty and believe their crap.

4. Seen as a champion of individualism and a prescient critic of the countervailing pressures of society, Ralph disseminated his thoughts through dozens of published essays and more than 1,500 public lectures across the United States, I apologise for the coke ad: Fuc**** Perfect!.

5. If you try and imitate the great artists they charge you with fraud, there’s a reason for this. Be your own great artist.

6. Love this image, nature is so great at being unique: Born This Way.

7. We see them on the trains in their business burqa’s, hundreds and thousands of them. Ban the business burqa.

8. I write all my comments in bold, should I add italics: Confident.

9. Repeat to yourself in the mirror five times after you get up.

10. Only you can be you, the more you get this the less you struggle with the world: Just the Way You Are!

11. Papa Jack, aka John Gemperie is a Filipino celebrity whose main aim is to spread love.

12. The brave men of Scotland: Be Brave Enough!

13. Says it all in two words.

14. At age 13, Kerr entered and won the 1997 annual Dolly magazine/Impulse model competition. She was flown to Sydney a week before her 14th birthday to shoot for the magazine. Upon Kerr’s win, local media expressed “concerned outrage” at her young age. The controversy raised concerns about the glorification of young girls within the fashion, beauty, and entertainment industries^{: Too Young.}

15. I’m not like everyone else because they are not me. Tattoo this on your arm in case you forget from time to time.

Try to get what you want, and it’s already far away. Be what you want, and it’s already in your heart. The rest is details. The rest, you never really wanted anyway. from lack to abundance in a heartbeat.

Namaste until next time, my dear friends.

Fire up your Heart, for the Wind is getting Cold!!

Posted on December 26, 2016 by Rod's World

I have two Jeff’s in my top ten Facebook contributors, Jeff Brown: Jeff Brown’s Homepage. and Jeff Foster: Jeff Foster’s Homepage. I used to post much more of jeff Browns material, then a friend I trust told me about Jeff Foster and brought me one of his books of essays: The Way of Rest. I have been reading it over the holiday break and was particularly taken by one on firing up your heart, hence the title of this blog.

It began: Break me Open, Life. Shatter my remaining defenses against you. It is called Sing, World, Sing.

So let’s have a look at how the world puts fire in your heart with words:

1. When you find what your passion is your life may appear to be like this instead of the numbness of 9 to 5 living.

2. Jim Carrey in his memorable speech says there are only two states, Fear, and Love. Guess which one sets your heart on fire: Fearless.

3. Samuel Butler (4 December 1835 – 18 June 1902) was an iconoclastic Victorian-era English author who published a variety of works. Two of his most famous pieces are the Utopian satire Erewhon and a semi-autobiographical novel published posthumously, The Way of All Flesh. He is also known for examining Christian orthodoxy, substantive studies of evolutionary thought, studies of Italian art, and works of literary history and criticism. Butler made prose translations of the Iliad and Odyssey, which remain in use to this day.

4. Possibly my favorite poet, E.E. Cummings points out in this quote why it is essential to have the fire in your heart: To Be Yourself.

5. I am learning to be able to tell the difference when women have this.

6. Of course, it has to be this song: Burning down the House.

7. In our community, the Conscious community of Melbourne, Australia, we call it finding your Tribe. Rumi says it better.

8. I love it when I meet these people, you are instantly attracted to them: I saw the Light.

9. Weapon of mass Creation – Your Heart on Fire.

10. To kindle: set (something) on fire.
synonyms: light · ignite · set alight · set light to · set on fire · set fire to · put a match to · set burning · get going · start · touch off · spark · torch: Light my Fire.

11. Josephine Baker (born Freda Josephine McDonald; 3 June 1906 – 12 April 1975) was an African-American expatriate singer and entertainer, whose career was centered primarily in Europe and in particular in her adoptive country of France. In her early career she was also renowned as a dancer, and was among the most celebrated performers to headline in the lavish revues of the Folies Bergère in Paris. Her performance in the revue Un Vent de Folie in 1927 caused a sensation in Paris, with Baker in her costume consisting of only a girdle of bananas becoming not only her most iconic image but also a symbol of the jazz age and the 1920‘s. She was celebrated by all of the great artists and intellectuals of the era, with various circles dubbing her the “Black Pearl”, the “Bronze Venus”, as well as the “Creole Goddess”. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, she renounced her U.S. citizenship to become a citizen of France in 1937 upon her marriage to Jean Lyon.

12. Life is never like a silent stream, it contains flows and ebbs. If your fire is alight it is easier to remain strong: We shall Overcome.

13. More Jalāl ad-Dīn Muhammad Rūmī, aka Rumi. This is a beautiful few lines to live life by.

14. Mary Lou Retton (born January 24, 1968) is a retired American gymnast. At the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, she won a gold medal in the individual all-around competition, as well as two silver medals and two bronze medals. Her performance made her one of the most popular athletes in the United States. The fire is still in her heart, Wikipedia says she is worth 5.8 million dollars: Undeniable.