TELECOURSE SCRIPTS

Each of the 13 broadcasts will open with the MTSU and Telecourse logos and music.

Then the course title: How to live a wonderful life!

With Dr. Charles H. Frost

Lesson # 1: Futuristic

The only difference between openings will be the Lesson # & title will change.

Go directly from the Lesson # title to a shot of the audience. The audience will be shouting out a key word for that particular show (e.g., LIVE, LIVE, LIVE….or….YES, YES, YES).

Camera then goes from audience to Dr. Frost and the first segment of the show.

Segment One-LECTURE: Dr. Frost lectures. At the end of the lecture Dr. Frost will do a segue to Segment Two.

Segment Two-ROLE PLAY: Role Play with Dr. Jette Halladay. Dr. Halladay will have her students do a role play. At the end of the role play segment, the camera goes back to Dr. Frost.

Segment Three-POEMS: Dr. Frost reads and interprets poems. At the end of this segment, he does a segue to the Belleruth audiotape.

Segment Four-IMAGERY: Experiential Imagery by Belleruth Naparstek. This part of each of the 13 shows will consist of audiotaped material with musical background already built into the audiotape. The video feed will be a picture of clouds, or a fountain, or flowers designed to be a relatively neutral video background for the audiotaped material and/or tape of the studio audience doing the exercise.

After the four segments of each Lesson are over ( Lecture, Role Play, Poems, Imagery) the credits will then run. (Behind the credits, we might show the audience getting up and leaving…..or?????)

Credits to include: Dr. Charles H. Frost, Writer & Executive Producer

Dr. Jette Halladay, Role Play Director

Along with the names of the students doing the role plays

Belleruth Naparstek, Audiotaped Imagery Exercises

TELECOURSE SCRIPT

Lesson #1: FUTURISTIC audience: "Yes, yes, yes!"

A. LECTURE: CIA/FBI and Clinton Legacy. (Commitment to corrupt leaders rather than to principles.) Hyde Park Corner, 1960. Sir Christopher Wren and the workers on St.Paul's Cathedral in London. Child alone, tossing up baseball and swinging at it. "I am the greatest baseball batter that ever lived." Keeps missing and keeps repeating statement. "I am the greatest pitcher that ever lived." Dream, risk, ADAPT, serve others. Is the glass half empty, or half full? Future: attitude & stress management.

Research clearly shows that a short period of relaxation prior to a problem-solving session significantly enhances your mental ability. David Lewis & James Green

Holding new images before the eyes tends to produce the reality suggested by the image. This follows from a well-known psychological law: Images or mental pictures and ideas tend to produce the physical conditions and external acts that correspond to them. Dr. Robert Assagioli

Visualization takes advantage of what almost might be called a "weakness" of the body: it cannot distinguish between a vivid mental experience and an actual physical experience. Dr. Bernie Siegel

I was saying "I'm the greatest" long before I believed it. Muhammad Ali

We are what we imagine ourselves to be. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

The practice of doing affirmations allows us to begin replacing some of our stale, worn out, or negative mind chatter with more positive ideas and concepts. It is a powerful technique, one which can in a short time completely transform our attitudes and expectations about life, and thereby totally change what we create for ourselves. Shakti Gawain

It appears that once the self-image receives a message with enough frequency, that message will become a habit that we accept as part of us. Dennis Waitley

Affirmations have to be supported by the behavior that makes them happen. Charles Garfield

Quiet the chatter of your mind for a moment and really think about this concept: Your mind is a tool you can use any way you wish…If your images are positive, they will support you and cheer you on when you get discouraged. Negative pictures rattle around inside of you, affecting you without your knowing it. Virginia Satir

B. ROLE PLAYING: (Scene: Two students talking to one another.) What are your plans for college? What do you want to become? I want to make a lot of money! That's what my dad says is the best thing to do. The person who dies with the most toys at the end of the game of life is the winner. That's my dream. Or, is that the nightmare? Is your dad happy with all his toys? Well, not really, in fact, sometimes it seems that, once he has bought it and brought it home, he really doesn't get all that much out of it. Mom complains all the time that he spends all his time with his toys and not much time with her. That doesn't sound like all that great a future to me. I wonder what the future is going to be like for me?

POEMS AND DISCUSSION: The New Millennium

The Invitation by Oriah Mountain Dreamer

It doesn't interest me what you do for a living

I want to know what you ache for

and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart's longing.

It doesn't interest me how old you are

I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool

for love

for your dream

for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn't interest me what planets are squaring your moon…

I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow

if you have been opened by life's betrayals

or have become shriveled and closed

from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain

mine or your own

without moving to hide it

or fade it

or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy

mine or your own

if you can dance with wildness

and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your

fingers and toes

without cautioning us to

be careful

be realistic

to remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn't interest me if the story you are telling me

is true.

I want to know if you can

disappoint another

to be true to your self.

If you can bear the accusation of betrayal

and not betray your own soul.

If you can be faithless

and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty

even when it is not pretty

every day.

And if you can source your own life

from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure

yours and mine

and still stand on the edge of the lake

and shout to the silver of the full moon,

"Yes."

It doesn't interest me

to know where you live or how much money you have.

I want to know if you can get up

after a night of grief and despair

weary and bruised to the bone

and do what needs to be done

to feed the children.

It doesn't interest me who you know

or how you came to be here.

I want to know if you will stand

in the center of the fire

with me

and not shrink back.

It doesn't interest me where or what or with whom

you have studied.

I want to know what sustains you

from the inside

when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone

with yourself

and if you truly like the company you keep

in the empty moments.

Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it. Goethe

Somebody Said That It Couldn't Be Done by Anonymous

Somebody said that it couldn't be done---

But he, with a grin, replied

He'd never be one to say it couldn't be done---

Leastways, not 'til he'd tried.

So he buckled right in, with a trace of a grin;

By golly, he went right to it.

He tackled The Thing That Couldn't Be Done!

And he couldn't do it.

Mutability by Shelley

The flower that smiles today

Tomorrow dies;

All that we wish to stay

Tempts and then flies.

Safe Upon the Solid Rock by Edna St. Vincent Millay

Safe upon the solid rock the ugly houses stand:

Come and see my shining palace built upon the sand!

IMAGERY: Experiential Exercises by Belleruth Naparstek

TELECOURSE SCRIPT

Lesson #2: LOVING audience: "Love, love, love!"

LECTURE: National Cleaning Contractors of NYC, XYZ system in Sacramento, My Mom and her life post-accident. Understanding how the culture and environment influence our method of attempting to obtain and give love. Katherine Mansfield's The Change and the messages from my mom. Loving: anger, empathy, unconditional positive regard, and genuineness. Don't take things for granted. Stretching myself through such plays as Harvey and Saroyan's The Time of Your Life.

The Change from the Journal of Katherine Mansfield

For a long time she said she did not want to change anything in him, and she meant it. Yet she hated things in him and wished they were otherwise. Then she said she did not want to change anything in him and she meant it. And the dark things that she had hated she now regarded with indifference. Then she said she did not want to change anything in him, but now she loved him so that even the dark things she loved, too. She wished them there; she was not indifferent. Still they were dark and strange but she loved them. And it was for this they had been waiting. They changed. They shed their darkness…the curse was lifted and they shone forth as Royal Princess once more, as creatures of light.

Certainly the disease of our age is lack of purpose, lack of meaning, lack of commitment on the part of individuals. Carl Rogers

It is the capacity for receiving feedback information which enables the organism continually to adjust its behavior and reactions so as to achieve the maximum possible self-enhancement. Carl Rogers

Try as much as possible to be wholly alive, with all your might, and when you laugh, laugh like hell and when you get angry, get good and angry. Try to be alive. You will be dead soon enough. William Saroyan

Not only to be loved but to be told I am loved. The realm of silence is large enough beyond the grave. George Eliot

Each second we live is a new and unique moment of the universe, a moment that never was before and never will be again. And what do we teach our children in school? We teach them that two and two make four and that Paris is the capital of France. When will we teach them what they are? We should say to them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all of the world there is no other child exactly like you. In the millions of years that have passed, there has never been a child like you. And look at your body---what a wonder it is! Your legs, your arms, your cunning fingers, the way you move! You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who is, like you, a marvel? You must cherish one another. You must work---we must all work to make this world worthy of its children. Pablo Casals

ROLE PLAYING: (Scene: Student and parents.) Student gets into argument with his/her parents over something that is really all a misunderstanding. The student is late getting home, the parents jump all over him/her, he/she gets defensive, but, after they cool down they find out that: (1) he/she left a message on the answering machine, (2) he was out making them a wedding anniversary present.

POEMS AND DISCUSSION: What's love got to do with it: Exploring how we

love and why we love?

Pass It On by Henry Burton

Have you had a kindness shown?

Pass it on;

'Twas not given for thee alone.

Pass it on;

Let it travel down the years,

Let it wipe another's tears,

'Till in Heaven the ded appears.

Pass it on.

From Sonnets 18 by William Shakespeare (1564-1616)

Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

And summer's lease hath all too short a date:

Sometimes too hot the eye of heaven shines,

And often is his gold complexion dimmed;

And every fair from fair sometimes declines,

By chance or nature's changing course untrimmed;

But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;

Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:

So long as men can breathe, or eyes can see,

So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

From Sonnets 71

No longer mourn for me when I am dead

Than you shall hear the surly sullen bell

Give warning to the world that I am fled

From this vile world, with vilest worms to dwell:

Nay, if you read this line, remember not

The hand that writ it; for I love you so,

That I in your sweet thoughts would be forgot,

If thinking on me then should make you woe.

Oh, if, I say, you look upon this verse

When I perhaps compounded am with clay,

Do not so much as my poor name rehearse,

But let your love even with my life decay;

Lest the wise world should look into your moan,

And mock you with me after I am gone.

Let Me Not to the Marriage of True Minds by William Shakespeare

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove.

O no! it is the ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come;

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

When You're Away by Samuel Hoffenstein

When you're away, I'm restless, lonely,

Wretched, bored, dejected; only

Here's the rub, my darling dear,

I feel the same when you are near.

The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner by Alden Nowlan

My wife bursts into the room

Where I'm writing well

Of my love for her

And because now

The poem is lost

I silently curse her.

Love Letter by David Ray

For months now you've hated me

And sent on angry letters

From creditors without comment

Though you've had to address

New envelopes; your anger

Is joined to theirs

And I take it all broadside

Here in an empty apartment

Where I watch the carts plunge

Past all night, where I own

A morning moon above distant farms

And my cough annoys no one.

Song by Christina Rossetti (1830-1894)

When I am dead, my dearest,

Sing no sad songs for me;

Plant thou no roses at my head,

Nor shady cypress tree:

Be the green grass above me

With showers and dewdrops wet;

And if thou wilt, remember,

And if thou wilt, forget.

I shall not see the shadows,

I shall not feel the rain;

I shall not hear the nightingale

Sing on, as if in pain:

And dreaming through the twilight

That doth not rise nor set,

Haply I may remember,

And haply may forget.

On a faded violet by Shelley

The odour from the flower is gone

Which like thy kisses breathed on me;

The colour from the flower is flown

Which glowed of thee and only thee!

A shrivelled, lifeless, vacant form,

It lies on my abandoned breast,

And mocks the heart which yet is warm,

With cold and silent rest.

I weep,---my tears revive it not!

I sigh,---it breathes no more on me;

Its mute and uncomplaining lot

Is such as mine should be.

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Then said Almitra, Speak to us of Love.

And he raised his head and looked upon the people, and there fell a stillness upon them.

And with a great voice he said:

When love beckons to you follow him,

Though his ways are hard and steep.

And when his wings enfold you yield to him,

Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.

And when he speaks to you believe in him,

Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.

For even as love crowns you so shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth so is he for your pruning.

Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,

So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.

Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.

He threshes you to make you naked.

He sifts you to free you from your husks.

He grinds you to whiteness.

He kneads you until you are pliant;

And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.

All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.

But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,

Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,

Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.

IMAGERY: Experiential Exercises by Belleruth Naparstek

TELECOURSE SCRIPT

Lesson #3: BALANCED audience: "I am, I am, I am!"

LECTURE: My father and his life as a role model. Dangers of drug use.

Elsa TenBroeck and standing outside the door. Balanced: anger, empathy,

genuineness, strengths orientation.

Courage may be the most important of all virtues, because without it one cannot practice any other virtue with consistency. Maya Angelou

Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear. Mark Twain

For fast acting relief, try slowing down. Lily Tomlin

To many Westerners, a lack of overt activity signals that nothing is happening. But many people in the world recognize that just because life is quiet on the surface does not mean change is absent. The Chinese, for example, are masters of waiting for the right moment. They believe the wait itself creates that moment. How long is the wait? As long as it needs to be. Robert Levine, Ph.D., from A Geography of Time (Basic Books, 1997).

B. ROLE PLAYING: (Scene:Two guys talking about their fathers.) One is putting his dad down for putting up with the shit that he does from his employers. He is bragging that he would never do that. The other reflects on how his dad never put up with that either, and so he ended up abandoning his family. He reflects on how it takes courage to hang in there

C. POEMS AND DISCUSSION: How do we begin to build a better more

balanced brain in order to more effectively deal with the new

millennium's challenges?

Advice to My Son by J. Peter Meinke

The trick is, to live your days

as if each one may be your last

(for they go fast, and young men lose their lives

in strange and unimaginable ways)

but at the same time, plan long range

(for they go slow: if you survive

the shattered windshield and the bursting shell

you will arrive

at our approximation here below

of heaven or hell).

To be specific, between the peony and the rose

plant squash and spinach, turnips and tomatoes;

beauty is nectar

and nectar, in a desert, saves---

but the stomach craves stronger sustenance

than the honied vine.

Therefore, marry a pretty girl

after seeing her mother;

show your soul to one man,

work with another;

and always serve bread with your wine.

But, son,

always serve wine.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Mending Wall by Robert Frost (1874-1963)

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,

And spills the upper boulders in the sun;

And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:

I have come after them and made repair

Where they have left not one stone on a stone,

But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,

To please the yelping dogs. The gaps I mean,

No one has seen them made or heard them made,

But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;

And on a day we meet to walk the line

And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls

We have to use a spell to make them balance:

'Stay where you are until our backs are turned!'

We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,

One on a side. It comes to little more:

There where it is we do not need the wall:

He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across

And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, "Good fences make good neighbors."

Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder

If I could put a notion in his head:

"Why do they make good neighbors? Isn't it

Where there are cows? But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know

What I was walling in or walling out,

And to whom I was like to give offense.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall,

That wants it down." I could say "Elves" to him,

But it's not elves exactly, and I'd rather

He said it for himself. I see him there

Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top

In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,

Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father's saying,

And he likes having thought of it so well

He says again, "Good fences make good neighbors."

The Negro Speaks of Rivers by Langston Hughes (1902-1967)

(to W.E.B. DuBois) (The American historian, educator, and African American leader--1868-1963)

I've known rivers:

I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the

Flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.

I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.

I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.

I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln

went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy

bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:

Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Harlem by Langston Hughes

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up

like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore---

And then run?

Does it stink like rotten meat?

Or crust and sugar over---

like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags

Like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

The Lack of……Relaxed…..June 6, 1998 by C. Frost

It is very at ease here

Easy, at ease, no fear

The suns rays warm but not burn

I relax, relax, relax yet spurn

The lack of….

My body says ease is right

It would relax day and night

No reason on earth to complain

I have no reason to distain

The lack of…

What is it, I ask, I miss?

A tender touch or kiss?

Alone though I am right now

It is not company I seek some how

The lack of…

Balance?

Too much of a good thing?

Relaxing can also sadness bring

Challenges of body and mind

Are the things I also find

The lack of…

It is balance

Relaxing after the hard fight

Relaxing after exhaustion and before the night

Relaxing as reward is right

Relaxing just before entering into God's Light

D. IMAGERY: Experiential Exercises by Belleruth Naparstek

TELECOURSE SCRIPT

Lesson #4: HAPPY AT WORK audience: "Hi ho, hi ho, and off to work we go!"

LECTURE: GAIN versus AFDC offices. Mondragon research and building the Sierra County Mental Health Program. One of the key obstacles to living a wonderful life is fear. Fear of those who might hurt us. Fear of becoming impoverished. The answer to both of these fears, to a large extent, is Mondragon. The Almond Growers and their cooperative that began in 1910---today it has 4,000 grower members and their Blue Diamond brand is the largest almond marketer in the world. DMV days. SSEU and Bert Alpert. Sacramento Ballet Company. Happy at work: attitude, creativity, service to others, stress.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever does. Margaret Mead

The quickest tool for refocusing is always the single question: What is your dream? Joyce Chapman

This above all; to thine own self be true. William Shakespeare

Reflect on your present blessings, of which every man has many; not on your past misfortunes, of which all men have some. Charles Dickens

ROLE PLAYING: (Scene:Teenager talking to his/her mother about how things are going so poorly and it is all out of his control.) Mother responds with story about her own life and how she felt the same way until she discovered that she was in control, she could change the way things happened. We all have strengths, we just have to play to them, like Helen Keller did: I am only one; but still I am one. I cannot do everything, but still I can do something; I will not refuse to do the something I can do.

POEMS AND DISCUSSION: How do we begin to build better organizations?

Song to the men of England by Shelley

The seed ye sow, another reaps;

The wealth ye find, another keeps;

The robes ye weave, another wears;

The arms ye forge, another bears.

Sow seed,---but let no tyrant reap;

Find wealth,---let no impostor heap;

Weave robes,---let not the idle wear;

Forge arms,---in your defense to bear.

As long as they fear me, let them hate me as much as they like.

Caligula, quoted by Suetonius

A Curse On Mine-Owners by Anonymous

(American folk verse, Pennsylvania, ca. 1900)

May God above

Send down a dove

With wings as sharp as razors

To cut the throats

Of those old bloats

Who cut poor miners' wages!

The Perforated Spirit by Morris Bishop

The fellows up in Personnel,

They have a set of cards on me.

The sprinkled perforations tell

My individuality.

And what am I? I am a chart

Upon the cards of IBM;

The secret places of the heart

Have little secrecy for them.

It matters not how I may prate,

They punch with punishments my scroll.

The files are masters of my fate,

They are the captains of my soul.

Monday my brain began to buzz;

I was in agony all night.

I found out what the trouble was:

They had my paper clip too tight.

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Work is love made visible.

And if you cannot work with love but only with distaste, it is better that you should leave your work and sit at the gate of the temple and take alms of those who work with joy.

For if you bake bread with indifference, you bake a bitter bread that feeds but half man's hunger.

On Firing a Salesman by James A. Autry

It's like a little murder,

taking his life,

his reason for getting on the train,

his lunches at Christ Cella,

and his meetings in warm and sunny places

where they all gather,

these smiling men,

in sherbet slacks and blue blazers,

and talk about business

but never about prices,

never breaking that law

about the prices they charge.

But what about the prices they pay?

What about gray evenings in the bar car

and smoke-filled clothes and hair

and children already asleep

and wives who say

"You stink"

when they come to bed?

What about the promotions they don't get,

the good accounts they lose

to some kid MBA

because somebody thinks their energy is gone?

What about those times they see in a mirror

or the corner of their eye

some guy at the club shake his head

when they walk through the locker room

the way they shook their heads years ago

at an old duffer

whose handicap had grown along with his age?

And what about this morning,

the summons,

the closed door,

and somebody shaved and barbered and shined

fifteen years their junior

trying to put on a sad face and saying he understands?

A murder with no funeral,

nothing but those quick steps outside the door,

those set jaws,

those confident smiles,

that young disregard for even the thought

of a salesman's mortality.

(Note: Autry wrote his first book of poetry about his boyhood in the Delta region of Tennessee and northern Mississippi. He went on to become a successful Fortune 500 executive.)

Thumb and Ink by C. Frost

I dip my thumb into ink

Creating lines unique I think

No other squiggles quite the same

Perhaps this will bring me fame.

But then again I hear

That other thumbs are just as dear.

Fame and glory before I die

My name writ large across the sky

Such desires are we trained to seek

So push on and on, don't be meek.

Then again….

Perhaps another path, another way

One open to all, every day

Where we accept everyone as unique

See no reason to chase, to seek

To be better than the rest

Rather, simply, to be our best

Struggling each hour and day

To find a softer more gentle way.

IMAGERY: Experiential Exercises by Belleruth Naparstek

TELECOURSE SCRIPT

Lesson #5: INTELLIGENT audience: "Think, think, think!"

LECTURE: The debate team. The Spanish Prison lesson. The Smithsonian connection. Emotional intelligence: adaptive, creative, risk taking, serving others. God is in the details. ( Meis van der Rohe) The camel and the eye of the needle and fairness and justice.

My contemplation of life and human nature in that secluded place (prison) had taught me that he who cannot change the very fabric of his thought will never be able to change reality, and will never, therefore, make any progress. Anwar Sadat

Once upon a time there was a magnet, and in its close neighborhood were some steel filings. One day two or three little filings felt a sudden desire to go and visit the magnet and they began to talk of what a pleasant thing it would be to do. Other filings nearby overheard their conversation, and they, too, became infected with the same desire. Still others joined them, till at last all the filings began to discuss the matter and more and more their vague desire grew into an impulse. "Why not go today?" said some of them; but others were of the opinion that it would be better to wait till tomorrow. Meanwhile, without their having noticed it, they had been involuntarily moving nearer to the magnet, which lay there quite still, apparently taking no heed of them. And so they went on discussing all the time insensibly drawing nearer to their neighbor; and the more they talked, the more they felt the impulse growing stronger, till the more impatient ones declared they would go that day, whatever the rest did. Some were heard to say that it was their duty to visit the magnet, and that they ought to have gone a long time ago. And while they talked, they moved nearer and nearer, without realizing that they had moved. Then, at last, the impatient ones prevailed and, with one irresistible impulse, the whole body cried out, "There is no use waiting, we will go today. We will go now. We will go at once." And then in one unanimous mass they swept along and in another moment were clinging fast to the magnet on every side. Then the magnet smiled---for the steel filings had no doubt at all but that they were paying that visit of their own free will. Oscar Wilde

What are the magnets in your life? Are they ones that you have chosen or ones that have chosen you?

A. ROLE PLAYING: (Scene: Two students are excitedly talking.) One has broken the law and plans on running away and hiding. The other is trying to talk him into giving himself up. Consequences of their actions explored. How they got into the situation in the first place presented. One key to why he got into trouble is that he was not enjoying life very much.

A. POEMS AND DISCUSSION: What type of intelligence will be valued most

highly?

Summer Song by W.W. Watt

(After a Surfeit of Irresistible Ads)

I have spot-resistant trousers

And a crease-resistant coat,

And a wilt-resistant collar

At my thirst-resistant throat.

I've a shock-resistant wristwatch

And two leak-resistant pens,

And some sun-resistant goggles

With a glare-resistant lens.

I have scuff-resistant sneakers

Over sweat-resistant hose,

Also run-resistant nose drops

In my pollinated nose,

And my stretch-resistant muscles

Groan in work-resistant pain

While my battered conscience tussles

With my thought-resistant brain.

Curiosity by Alastair Reid

may have killed the cat; more likely

the cat was just unlucky, or else curious

to see what death was like, having no cause

to go on licking paws, or fathering

litter on litter of kittens, predictably.

Nevertheless, to be curious

is dangerous enough. To distrust

what is always said, what seems,

to ask odd questions, interfere in dreams,

leave home, smell rats, have hunches

does not endear him to those doggy circles

where well-smelt baskets, suitable wives, good lunches

are the order of things, and where prevails

much wagging of incurious heads and tails.

Face it. Curiosity

will not cause him to die---

only lack of it will.

Never to want to see

the other side of the hill,

or that improbable country

where living is an idyll

(although a probable hell)

would kill us all.

Only the curious

have, if they live, a tale

worth telling at all.

Dogs say he loves too much, is irresponsible,

is changeable, marries too many wives,

deserts his children, chills all dinner tables

with tales of his nine lives.

Well, he is lucky. Let him be

nine-lived and contradictory,

curious enough to change, prepared to pay

the cat price, which is to die

and die again and again,

each time with no less pain.

A cat minority of one

is all that can be counted on

to tell the truth. And what he has to tell

on each return from hell

is this: that dying is what the living do,

that dying is what the loving do,

and that dead dogs are those who do not know

that hell is where, to live, they have to go.

Christians At War by John F. Kendrick

(Tune: "Onward, Christian Soldier")

Onward, Christian soldiers! Duty's way is plain;

Slay your Christian neighbors, or by them be slain.

Pulpiteers are spouting effervescent swill,

God above is calling you to rob and rape and kill,

All your acts are sanctified by the Lamp on High;

If you love the Holy Ghost, go murder, pray and die.

Onward, Christian soldiers, rip and tear and smite!

Let the gentle Jesus bless your dynamite.

Splinter skulls with shrapnel, fertilize the sod;

Folks who do not speak your tongue deserve the curse of God.

Smash the doors of every home, pretty maidens seize;

Use your might and sacred right to treat them as you please.

Onward, Christian soldiers! Eat and drink your fill;

Rob with bloody fingers, Christ O.K.'s the bill.

Steal the farmers' savings, take their grain and meat;

Even though the children starve, the Savior's bums must eat.

Burn the peasants' cottages, orphans leave bereft;

In Jehovah's holy name, wreak ruin right and left.

Onward, Christian soldiers! Drench the land with gore;

Mercy is a weakness all the gods abhor.

Bayonet the babies, jab the mothers, too;

Hoist the cross of Calvary to hallow all you do.

File your bullets' noses flat, poison every well;

God decrees your enemies must all go plumb to hell.

Onward, Christian soldiers! Blighting all you meet,

Trampling human freedom under pious feet.

Praise the Lord whose dollar sign dupes his favored race!

Make the foreign trash respect your bullion brand of grace.

Trust in mock salvation, service as pirates' tools;

History will say of you: "That pack of G…d…fools."

Ode on a Grecian Urn by John Keats (1795-1821)

(the final lines)

Beauty is truth, truth beauty,---that is all

Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

I Hate That Drum's Discordant Sound by John Scott

I hate that drum's discordant sound,

Parading round, and round, and round:

To thoughtless youth it pleasure yields,

And lures from cities and from fields,

To sell their liberty for charms

Of tawdry lace and glittering arms;

And when Ambition's voice commands,

To march, and fight, and fall, in foreign lands.

I hate that drum's discordant sound,

Parading round, and round, and round:

To me it talks of ravag'd plains,

And burning towns, and ruin'd swains,

And mangled limbs, and dying groans,

And widows' tears, and orphans' moans;

And all that Misery's hand bestows,

To fill the catalogue of human woes.

A. IMAGERY: Experiential Exercises by Belleruth Naparstek

TELECOURSE SCRIPT

Lesson #6: JOYFUL audience: "Fun, fun, fun!"

A. LECTURE: The example of Dr. B.F. Fern, learning to get into a state of flow no matter how limiting your situation appears to be. Humor as chemistry. Perspective, attitude---seeing the humor.

A man's errors are his portals of discovery. James Joyce

Good people are good because they've come to wisdom through failure.

William Saroyan

When you do something from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy. Rumi

A. ROLE PLAYING: (Scene: Two students. One is singing with his/her eyes shut.) The other interrupts and asks what he/she is doing. I'm painting. Painting? Yes, painting, Picasso taught me how. What? Picasso, the great modern painter, you know. Yeah, I know of Picasso. But you were singing, not painting. Yeah, I know that but… But what? But Picasso said that: "If you want to draw, you must shut your eyes and sing." What? "If you want to draw, you must shut your eyes and sing." That's crazy. Yeah, right on, it's crazy. That's the whole idea. We need to be a little crazy. That is the point that Picasso is making. If you want to be a great painter, if you want to be great at anything, you can't just go at it head on. You have to first throw yourself at it indirectly. It is when you are singing, when you are engaged in some joyful activity, that you begin to learn how to draw. But, why the closed eyes? Why can't you just sing with your eyes open? Because then you would get distracted. He is telling you that you need to concentrate on that creative event, and not be doing it for fame or glory but just for yourself, you are not looking to see how others are reacting to you. Hey, I never thought of it that way. I can dig it. "If you want to draw, you must shut your eyes and sing." If you want to find happiness, if you want to be successful, to be creative, to do the things that really count in life, then you have to really get happy and get happy doing something great because you think it is great, not because someone else thinks it's great. Yeah. (They both close their eyes and begin singing.)

A. POEMS AND DISCUSSION: How do we go about enjoying ourselves as we

change?

Song of Myself: A Poem of Walt Whitman, an American by Walt Whitman

I celebrate myself,

And what I assume you shall assume,

For every atom belonging to me, as good belongs to you.

I loafe and invite my soul,

I lean and loafe at my ease, observing a spear of summer grass.

Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.

I am satisfied---I see, dance, laugh, sing,

I have no mockings or arguments---I witness and wait.

In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barley-corn less,

And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them.

And I know I am solid and sound,

To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow,

All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means.

I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood,

I see that the elementary laws never apologize,

I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by after all.

I exist as I am, that is enough,

If no other in the world be aware I sit content,

And if each and all be aware I sit content.

Walt Whitman, an American, one of the roughs, a kosmos,

Disorderly fleshy and sensual, eating drinking and breeding,

No sentimentalist---no stander above men and women or apart from them---no more

modest than immodest.

Unscrew the locks from the doors!

Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!

Whoever degrades another degrades me, and whatever is done or said returns at last to

me,

And whatever I do or say I also return.

By God! I will accept nothing which all cannot have their counterpart of on the same

terms.

I believe in the flesh and the appetites,

Seeing hearing and feeling are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.

Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touched from,

The scent of these arm-pits is aroma finer than prayer,

This head is more than churches or bibles or creeds.

Each moment and whatever happens thrills me with joy.

All truths wait in all things,

They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it,

They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon,

The insignificant is as big to me as any,

What is less or more than a touch?

Logic and sermons never convince,

The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.

Only what proves itself to every man and woman is so,

Only what nobody denies is so.

I think I could turn and live awhile with the animals, they are so placid and self-

contained,

I stand and look at them sometimes half the day long.

They do not sweat and whine about their condition,

They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,

They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,

Not one is dissatisfied---not one is demented with the mania of owning things,

Not one kneels to another nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,

Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.

I do not ask the wounded person how he feels---I myself become the wounded person,

Not a mutineer walks handcuffed to the jail, but I am handcuffed to him

and walk by his side,

I am less the jolly one there, and more the silent one with sweat on my twitching lips.

Not a youngster is taken for larceny, but I go too and am tried and sentenced.

Not a cholera patient lies at the last gasp, but I also lie at the last gasp,

My face is ash-colored, my sinews gnarl---away from me people retreat.

Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity,

What I give I give out of myself.

To a drudge of the cotton-fields or emptier of privies I lean---on his right cheek I put

the family kiss,

And in my soul I swear I never will deny him.

I hear and behold God in every object, yet I understand God not in the least,

Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.

Why should I wish to see God better than this day?

I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,

In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass,

I find letters from God dropped in the street, and every one is signed by God's name,

And I leave them where they are, for I know that others will punctually come forever

and ever.

Do I contradict myself?

Very well then, I contradict myself,

I am large---I contain multitudes.

Get Drunk! By Charles Baudelaire

One should always be drunk. That's the great thing; the only question.

Not to feel the horrible burden of Time

weighing on your shoulders and bowing you to the earth,

you should be drunk without respite.

Drunk with what?

With wine, with poetry,

With virtue, as you please.

But get drunk.

And if sometimes you should happen to awake,

on the stairs of a palace,

on the green grass of a ditch,

in the dreary solitude of your own room

and find that your drunkenness is ebbing

or has vanished, ask the wind and the wave,

ask star, bird, or clock, ask everything

that flows, everything that sings,

everything that speaks, ask them the time;

and the wind, the wave, the stare, the bird

and the clock will all reply:

"It is Time to get drunk! If you are not

to be martyred slaves of Time,

be perpetually Drunk!

With wine, with poetry,

or with virtue, as you please."

Finger of Necessity by Coleman Barks

(Postal Area #29, Los Angeles)

Twice recently young girls have

given me the finger. The

first was on the freeway, she

sitting close to her boyfriend turned

with sure purpose and aimed

at prominence, seatbelted in

two lanes over. The chemical shock to

my system made me feel so

like they wanted I chased them

for miles trying to think of something

to yell back. The second a few

minutes ago standing beside a

drugstore would have been easy to

go back by but I just waved

like oh another one. It must

be something in the atmosphere, Scorpio

on the ascendant, or maybe they

were bored with the just looking

and better this than what I didn't give,

much better. With one buzzoff

Finger she became the mother

of my invention with her red

shirt and her hiphuggers

and her flowered vinyl belt:

Hey cat lady, you eat it.

Lines for a Christmas Card by Hilaire Belloc

May all my enemies go to hell,

Noel, Noel, Noel, Noel.

I Can't Think What He Sees in Her by A.P. Herbert

Jealousy's an awful thing and foreign to my nature;

I'd punish it by law if I was in the Legislature.

One can't have all of any one, and wanting it is mean,

But still, there is a limit, and I speak of Miss Duveen.

I'm not a jealous woman,

But I can't see what he sees in her,

I can't see what he sees in her,

I can't see what he sees in her!

If she was something striking

I could understand the liking,

And I wouldn't have a word to say to that;

But I can't see why he's fond

Of that objectionable blonde---

That fluffy little, stuffy little, flashy little,

trashy little, creepy-crawly, music-hally, horrid

little CAT!

I wouldn't say a word against the girl---be sure of that;

It's not the creature's fault she has the manners of a rat.

Her dresses may be dowdy, but her hair is always new,

And if she squints a little bit---well, many people do.

I'm not a jealous woman,

But I can't see what he sees in her,

I can't see what he sees in her,

I can't see what he sees in her!

He's absolutely free---

There's no bitterness in me,

Though an ordinary woman would explode;

I'd only like to know

What he sees in such a crow

As that insinuating, calculating, irritating,

titivating, sleepy little, creepy little, sticky

little TOAD!

"Mine enemy is growing old" by Emily Dickinson

Mine Enemy is growing old---

I have at last Revenge---

The Palate of the Hate departs---

If any would avenge

Let him be quick---the Viand flits---

It is a faded Meat---

Anger as soon as fed is dead---

'Tis starving makes it fat.

A. IMAGERY: Experiential Exercises by Belleruth Naparstek.

TELECOURSE SCRIPT

Lesson #7: HEALTHY audience: "Stop, look, listen!"

A. LECTURE: George Scholtz and concentration camps. Chicken Soup and Amy Graham. Five most dangerous words: Maybe it will go away. Attitude: fighting the good fight. Faking it until you make it. Pain---if you are distracted, your pain not only seems to go away…it does go away!

We could say that most men in a concentration camp believed that the real opportunities of life had passed. Yet, in reality, there was an opportunity and a challenge. One could make a victory of those experiences, turning life into an inner triumph, or one could ignore the challenge and simply vegetate, as did a majority of prisoners. Dr. Victor E. Frankl

If you are pained by external things, it is not they that disturb you, but your own judgment of them. And it is in your power to wipe out that judgment now. Marcus Aurelius

The mind is its own place, and in itself can make heaven of Hell, a hell of Heaven. John Milton

It's your thoughts and only yours that are making you feel terrible; you're the only person in the world who can effectively persecute yourself. Dr. David Burns

A. ROLE PLAYING: (Scene: Group of students fighting amongst themselves.) First verbally, then physically. It all starts out when one pushes the other. The person who first gets pushed takes this very angrily. And, then it all evolves from there into the argument and fight. They are then interrupted by Dr. Frost and asked to start all over. Again, the person is pushed. But this time they don't react with hostility. Instead they react in positive terms and it all evolves into a very friendly group hug.

A. POEMS AND DISCUSSION: What specific steps do we take to live a healthier

life?

If I Had My Child To Raise Over Again by Diane Loomans

If I had my child to raise over again,

I'd finger paint more, and point the finger less.

I'd do less correcting, and more connecting.

I'd take my eyes off my watch, and watch with my eyes.

I would care to know less, and know to care more.

I'd take more hikes and fly more kites.

I'd stop playing serious and serious play.

I'd run through more fields, and gaze at more stars.

I'd do more hugging, and less tugging.

I would be firm less often, and affirm much more.

I'd build self-esteem first, and the house later.

I'd teach less about the love of power,

And more about the power of love.

The Whipping by Robert Hayden

The old woman across the way

is whipping the boy again

and shouting to the neighborhood

her goodness and his wrongs.

Wildly he crashes through elephant ears,

pleads in dusty zinnias,

while she in spite of crippling fat

pursues and corners him.

She strikes and strikes the shrilly circling

boy till the stick breaks

in her hand. His tears are rainy weather

to woundlike memories:

My head gripped in bony vise

of knees, the writhing struggle

to wrench free, the blows, the fear

worse than blows that hateful

Words could bring, the fact that I

no longer knew or loved…

Well, it is over now, it is over,

and the boy sobs in his room,

And the woman leans muttering against

a tree, exhausted, purged---

avenged in part for lifelong hidings

she has had to bear.

At the Theatre: To the Lady Behind Me by A.P. Herbert

Dear Madam, you have seen this play;

I never saw it till today.

You know the details of the plot,

But, let me tell you, I do not.

The author seeks to keep from me

The murderer's identity,

And you are not a friend of his

If you keep shouting who it is.

The actors in their funny way

Have several funny things to say,

But they do not amuse me more

If you have said them just before;

The merit of the drama lies,

I understand, in some surprise;

But the surprise must now be small

Since you have just foretold it all.

The lady you have brought with you

Is, I infer, a half-wit too,

But I can understand the piece

Without assistance from your niece.

In short, foul woman, it would suit

Me just as well if you were mute;

In fact, to make my meaning plain,

I trust you will not speak again.

And---may I add one human touch?---

Don't breathe upon my neck so much.

This Is Just To Say by William Carlos Williams

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold

Driving to Town Late to Mail a Letter by Robert Bly

It is a cold and snowy night. The main street is deserted.

The only things moving are swirls of snow.

As I lift the mailbox door, I feel its cold iron.

There is a privacy I love in this snowy night.

Driving around, I will waste more time.

A. IMAGERY: Experiential Exercises by Belleruth Naparstek.

TELECOURSE SCRIPT

Lesson #8: VERY HEALTHY audience: "Now, now, now!"

A. LECTURE: Information please! Pigeons and hunting spiders. Attitude: we are all magical beings.

When I was quite young, my father had one of the first telephones in our neighborhood. I remember well the polished old case fastened to the wall. The shiny receiver hung on the side of the box. I was too little to reach the telephone, but used to listen with fascination when my mother used to talk to it. Then I discovered that somewhere inside the wonderful device lived an amazing person---her name was "information Please" and there was nothing she did not know. "Information Please" could supply anybody's number and the correct time.

My first personal experience with this genie-in-the-bottle came one day while my mother was visiting a neighbor. Amusing myself at the tool bench in the basement, I whacked my finger with a hammer. The pain was terrible, but there didn't seem to be any reason in crying because there was no one home to give sympathy. I walked around the house sucking my throbbing finger, finally arriving at the stairway. The telephone! Quickly, I ran for the foot stool in the parlor and dragged it to the landing. Climbing up, I unhooked the receiver in the parlor and held it to my ear. "Information Please," I said into the mouthpiece just above my head. A click or two and a small clear voice spoke into my ear. "Information" "I hurt my finger…." I wailed into the phone. The tears came readily enough now that I had an audience. "Isn't your mother home?" came the question. "Nobody's home but me." I blubbered. "Are you bleeding?" "No," I replied. "I hit my finger with the hammer and it hurts." "Can you open your icebox?" she asked. I said I could. "Then chip off a little piece of ice and hold it to your finger," said the voice. After that, I called "Information Please" for everything. I asked her for help with my geography and she told me where Philadelphia was. She helped me with my math. She told me my pet chipmunk that I had caught in the park just the day before would eat fruit and nuts. Then, there was the time Petey, our pet canary died. I called "Information Please" and told her the sad story. She listened, then said the usual things grown-ups say to soothe the child. But I was un-consoled. I asked her, "Why is it that birds should sing so beautifully and bring joy to all families, only to end up as a heap of feathers on the bottom of a cage?" She must have sensed my deep concern, for she said quietly, "Paul, always remember that there are other worlds to sing in." Somehow I felt better. Another day I was on the telephone. "Information Please." "Information," said the now familiar voice. "How do you spell fix?" I asked. All this took place in a small town in the Pacific Northwest. When I was 9 years old, we moved across the country to Boston. I missed my friend very much. "Information Please" belonged in that old wooden box back home, and I somehow never thought of trying the tall, shiny new phone that sat on the table in the hall. As I grew into my teens, the memories of those childhood conversations never really left me. Often, in moments of doubt and perplexity, I would recall the serene sense of security I had then. I appreciated now the how patient, understanding, and kind she was to have spent her time on a little boy.

A few year's later, on my way west to college, my plane put down in Seattle. I had about half an hour or so between planes. I spent 15 minutes or so on the phone with my sister, who lived there now. Then without thinking what I was doing, I dialed my hometown operator and said, "Information Please." Miraculously, I heard the small, clear voice I knew so well, "Information." I hadn't planned this but I heard myself saying, "Could you please tell me how to spell fix?" There was a long pause. Then came the soft spoken answer, "I guess your finger must have healed by now." I laughed. "So it's really still you," I said. "I wonder if you have any idea how much you meant to me during that time." "I wonder," she said, "if you know how much your calls meant to me. I never had any children, and I used to look forward to your calls." I told her how often I had thought of her over the years and I asked if I could call her again when I came back to visit my sister. "Please do," she said. "Just ask for Sally."

Three months later I was back in Seattle. A different voice answered "Information." I asked for Sally. "Are you a friend?" she said. "Yes, a very old friend," I answered. "I'm sorry to have to tell you this, she said. Sally had been working part-time the last few years because she was sick. She died five weeks ago." Before I could hang up she said, "Wait a minute. Did you say your name was Paul?" "Yes." "Well, Sally left a message for you. She wrote it down in case you called. Let me read it to you." The note said, "Tell him I still say there are other worlds to sing in. He'll know what I mean." I thanked her and hung up. I knew what Sally meant. Never underestimate the impression you may make on others. Whose life have you touched today?

If we all did the things we are capable of doing, we would literally astound ourselves. Thomas A. Edison

A. ROLE PLAYING: (Scene: Two or three students talking.) Hey, did you hear about Jamie's mom? No, what about her? She is dying from cancer! Oh, my, not her. She is such a nice person. I saw her no long ago and she seemed fine to me. Yeah, I know, but sometimes it hits real sudden. Yeah, that's the way it hit my Uncle Pete. It really wiped him out quick. It was like he was fine and then, bang! Why does God do this to people. Yeah, why does God give cancer to such nice people. It doesn't seem fair to me. It isn't fair, that's for sure. But it's not like God is doing it to anyone. We do it to ourselves. Jamie's mom didn't give herself cancer, stupid. No, no, that is not what I mean. It's not like she wanted cancer, or sat down and gave herself cancer. That's not what I meant. Then what do you mean. Well, when my Aunt got cancer my parents were very upset by it and they went to our minister and he showed us a different way of looking at it. What way? Yeah, what are you talking about? Well, he explained that God doesn't do these things to anyone. What God has done is created a marvelous world that works by various natural laws and when you violate those laws you pay the price. But, you mean that Jamie's mom violated some laws? Well, I don't know. Sometimes a person violates laws and another person pays the price? What? For example, if you drive drunk and hit another person's car and kill them, but you don't get hurt, and you drive off and don't get caught, you have violated the law, but someone else has paid the price. Yeah, but what does that have to do with cancer? Well, a lot of medical problems have either been caused or made worse by events in your life. If you are under a lot of stress at work, if you work in a place where you breathe polluted air, lots of things can cause you to get sick. Your body is designed by God to avoid illness in most situations, but, God designed it so that your body needs to be taken good care of if you are going to lessen the chances of your getting sick. That's what I learned. We all know this because of the warnings on cigarette packs. If you smoke, then you are more likely to get sick. There is a cause and effect relationship. Yeah, now that you mention it, Jamie's mom smoked. Funny how you don't really listen to things until it hits you over the head. Yeah.

A. POEMS AND DISCUSSION: What more steps do we need to take to be very

healthy?

The Complete Misanthropist by Morris Bishop

I love to think of things I hate

In moments of mopishness;

I hate people who sit up straight,

And youths who smirk about their "date,"

And the dates who smirk no less.

I hate children who clutch and whine,

And the arrogant, virtuous poor;

And critical connoisseurs of wine,

And everything that is called a shrine,

And art and literature.

I hate eggs and I hate the hen;

I hate the rooster, too.

I hate people who wield the pen,

I hate women and I hate men;

And what's more, I hate you.

Bones by Walter de la Mare

Said Mr. Smith, "I really cannot

Tell you, Dr. Jones---

The most peculiar pain I'm in---

I think it's in my bones."

Said Dr. Jones, "Oh, Mr. Smith,

That's nothing. Without doubt

We have a simple cure for that;

It is to take them out."

He laid forthwith poor Mr. Smith

Close-clamped upon the table,

And, cold as stone, took out his bone

As fast as he was able.

And Smith said, "Thank you, thank you, thank you,"

And wished him a good-day;

And with his parcel 'neath his arm

He slowly moved away.

'Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night' by Dylan Thomas

Do not go gentle into that good night,

Old age should burn and rave at close of day;

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Though wise men at their end know dark is right,

Because their words had forked no lightning they

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright

Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,

And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight

Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

And you, my father, there on the sad height,

Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray.

Do not go gentle into that good night.

Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

A. IMAGERY: Experiential Exercises by Belleruth Naparstek.

TELECOURSE SCRIPT

Lesson #9: SUCCESSFUL audience: "Choices, choices, choices!"

A. LECTURE: Philippines and poverty and the family next door. In 1998 Michael Eisner "earned" $575.6 million as the CEO of Disney (U.S.News and World Report, p. 50, 5/17/99). The typical Rolls Royce owner has 6 other cars. Their hath no greater temptation than the belief that some end will justify the means---there are no ends, only means. Chicken Soup and Rick Little. Successful attitude.

The deepest personal defeat suffered by human beings is constituted by the difference between what one was capable of becoming and what one has in fact become. Ashley Montagu

Great works are performed not by strength, but perseverance. Samuel Johnson

In studying the source of people's success, I've found that persistence overshadows even talent as the most valued and effective resource in creating and shaping the quality of life. Anthony Robbins

I'm a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.

Thomas Jefferson

Press on: Nothing in the world can take the place of perseverance. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent.

Calvin Coolidge

I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all. Ecclesiastes 9:11

The race is not always to the swift, not the battle to the strong, but that's the way to bet. Damon Runyon

A. ROLE PLAYING: (Scene: A parent and college student are talking.) Parent is upset about the fact that the student wants to start their own business and he/she has not even finished college. The parent feels that the "child" is being too grandiose in their planning. At first the student is angry and upset at the parental advice. Then, they both become more accepting of the plan when the student stops attacking the parent and, instead, thanks them for all the support they have provided. The student indicates that, one of the reasons that they are going to take the risk of starting a new business, is because of how the parent has built their self-esteem over the years, thus giving them the confidence to try the "impossible" and see what happens. The student assures the parent that the worst that will happen is that they will fail and learn from the failure. The parent realizes that this can be a wonderful learning experience and ends with praising the child for taking the risk and gives the "child" their support. The parent also begins to realize that the "child" is growing up and needs to begin to make their own decisions and that the parent is less in control.

A. POEMS AND DISCUSSION: What habits do we need to develop in order to

be successful?

The Road Not Taken by Robert Frost

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

And sorry I could not travel both

And be one traveler, long I stood

And looked down one as far as I could

To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,

And having perhaps the better claim,

Because it was grassy and wanted wear;

Though as for that, the passing there

Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay

In leaves no step had trodden black.

Oh, I kept the first for another day!

Yet knowing how way leads on to way,

I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I---

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening by Robert Frost

Whose woods these are I think I know.

His house is in the village, though;

He will not see me stopping here

To watch his woods fill up with snow.

My little horse must think it queer

To stop without a farm house near

Between the woods and frozen lake

The darkest evening of the year.

He gives his harness bells a shake

To ask if there is some mistake.

The only other sound's the sweep

Of easy wind and downy flake.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet.

Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught but ecstasy and sweet communion.

For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you shall not receive:

(and then the Prophet gives them an example of how to pray)

"Our God, who art our winged self, it is thy will in us that willeth.

It is thy desire in us that desireth.

It is thy urge in us that would turn our nights, which are thine, into days which are thine also.

We cannot ask thee for aught, for thou knowest our needs before they are born in us:

Thou art our need; and in giving us more of thyself thou givest us all."

Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them. Mark, 11:24

And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.

Mathew 21:22

And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.

And the second is like, namely this, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. Mark 12:30-31

For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance: but from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath. Mathew 25:29

Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you. Luke 6:28

A. IMAGERY: Experiential Exercises by Belleruth Naparstek.

TELECOURSE SCRIPT

Lesson #10: IN CONTROL audience: "Let go, let go, let go!"

A. LECTURE: Risk taking: loaded gun, knives & clubs & taking away and giving back battered children, S.F. teen trips and gay empathy and anger management, moving the CIP office. HABITS: changing them works better when you bring in a new message (affirmation) instead of simply saying that you are going to stop the negative message.

When a man does not know what harbor he is making for, no wind is the right wind. Seneca

A. ROLE PLAYING: (Scene: Three students talking about gays and lesbians.) Two of them are talking about gay bashing and how that is something they can see themselves doing. They are very animated, tough talking, loud. The third one breaks in and says, "Why would you want to hurt me?" At first they are puzzled, because this is their friend. They indicate that they are not interested in hurting her, they were talking about the gays and lesbians. She says something to the effect that, "How do you know whether or not I'm a lesbian?" Through the discussion she helps them realize that gays and lesbians are real persons and that they should not think in terms of hurting another person simply because they are different. She helps them see that they are also different people in some ways.

A. POEMS AND DISCUSSION: How do we develop the habits we need for

success?

To a Junior Waiter by A.P. Herbert

I know I look the kind of dolt

Who never would or could revolt,

A martyr who prefers to wait

For food to blossom on his plate.

It's true I hate to make a scene,

Especially in front of Jean;

But, waiter, when I am upset

I am the fiercest fellow yet;

Quite suddenly I tear my hair

And leave the building then and there,

Employing rude expressions such

As would enrage you very much;

And from that moment I go on

And on about the Restaurant.

It's true I hate to make a scene,

Especially in front of Jean,

But there'll be one this afternoon,

If something doesn't happen soon.

The Enemy's Portrait by Thomas Hardy

He saw the portrait of his enemy, offered

At auction in a street he journeyed nigh,

That enemy, now late dead, who in his lifetime

Had injured deeply him the passer-by.

"To get that picture, pleased be God, I'll try,

And utterly destroy it; and no more

Shall be inflicted on man's mortal eye

A countenance so sinister and sore!"

And so he bought the painting. Driving homeward,

"The frame will come in useful," he declared,

"The rest is fuel." On his arrival, weary,

Asked what he bore with him, and how he fared,

He said he had bid for a picture, though he cared

For the frame only: on the morrow he

Would burn the canvas, which could well be spared,

Seeing that it portrayed his enemy.

Next day some other duty found him busy:

The foe was laid his face against the wall;

But on the next he set himself to loosen

The straining-strips. And then a casual call

Prevented his proceeding therewithal;

And thus the picture waited, day by day,

Its owner's pleasure, like a wretched thrall,

Until a month and more had slipped away.

And then upon a morn he found it shifted,

Hung in a corner by a servitor.

"Why did you take on you to hang that picture?

You know it was the frame I bought it for."

"It stood in the way of every visitor,

And I just hitched it there."---"Well, it must go:

I don't commemorate men whom I abhor.

Remind me 'tis to do. The frame I'll stow."

But things become forgotten. In the shadow

Of the dark corner hung it by its string,

And there it stayed---once noticed by its owner,

Who said, "Ah me---I must destroy that thing!"

But when he died, there, none remembering,

It hung, till moved to prominence, as one sees;

And comers pause and say, examining,

"I thought they were the bitterest enemies?"

Untitled by Basho

Climb Mount Fuji,

O snail,

but slowly, slowly.

(Note: Robert Haas, a native Californian who teaches at the University of California, Berkeley, is a skilled translator of Japanese haiku. The haiku, a Japanese form of poetry, consists of three lines with five, seven, and five syllables respectively. Haas states that: "Basho was the great seventeenth-century initiator of the haiku form…Basho, who was really quite an amazing man, in some ways (is) a figure as powerful in Japanese literature as Shakespeare is in English.")

A. IMAGERY: Experiential Exercises by Belleruth Naparstek.

TELECOURSE SCRIPT

Lesson #11: SENSITIVE audience: "Reach out, reach out, reach out!"

A. LECTURE: Yuba County attempted firing, who is in control, and sensitivity/empathy. The cracked pot parable. Genuineness, unconditional positive regard, and empathy. If you were going to die tomorrow, who would you call today? What would you say? Why are you not calling and saying?

The Cracked Pot

A water bearer in India had two large pots, each hung on each end of a pole which he carried across his neck. One of the pots had a crack in it, and while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water at the end of the long walk from the stream to the master's house, the cracked pot arrived only half full. For a full two years this went on daily, with the bearer delivering only one and a half pots full of water in his master's house. Of course, the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments, perfect to the end for which it was made. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it was able to accomplish only half of what it had been made to do. After two years of what it perceived to be a bitter failure, it spoke to the water bearer one day by the stream. "I am ashamed of myself, and I want to apologize to you." "Why?" asked the bearer. "What are you ashamed of?" "I have been able, for these past two years, to deliver only half my load because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your master's house. Because of my flaws, you have to do all of this work, and you don't get full value from your efforts," The pot said. The water bearer felt sorry for the old cracked pot, and in his compassion he said, "As we return to the master's house, I want you to notice the beautiful flowers along the path." Indeed, as they went up the hill, the old cracked pot took notice of the sun warming the beautiful wild flowers on the side of the path, and this cheered it some. But at the end of the trail, it still felt bad because it had leaked out half its load, and so again it apologized to the bearer for its failure. The bearer said to the pot, "Did you notice that there were flowers only on your side of your path, but not on the other pot's side? That's because I have always known about your flaw, and I took advantage of it. I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back from the stream, you've watered them. For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate my master's table. Without you being just the way you are, he would not have this beauty to grace his house." Each of us has our own unique flaws. We are all cracked pots. But if we will allow it, the Lord will use our flaws to grace His Father's table.

Forgiveness is the fragrance the violet sheds on the heel that has crushed it.

Mark Twain

Living life as an art requires a readiness to forgive. Maya Angelou

Forgiveness does not mean ignoring what has been done or putting a false label on an evil act. It means, rather, that the evil act no longer remains as a barrier to the relationship. Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you take steps to accomplish something, that action will have a result---either failure or success…trust is knowing that there will be a message. When you trust in those messages, the reflections of the phenomenal world, the world begins to seem like a bank, or reservoir, of richness. You feel that you are living in a rich world, one that never runs out of messages…Those messages are regarded neither as punishment nor as congratulations. You trust, not in success, but in reality.

Chogyam Trungpa

A. ROLE PLAYING: (Scene: Two students talking about a friend of theirs who has just committed suicide.) Why did he/she do it? Why didn't someone see it coming? What can they do to see that it doesn't happen again, to another friend?

A. POEMS AND DISCUSSION: When do we value sensitivity?

King Lear, Act I, Scene iv, (Lear's curse on Goneril) by William Shakespeare

Hear, nature, hear; dear goddess, hear!

Suspend thy purpose, if thou didst intend

To make this creature fruitful:

Into her womb convey sterility,

Dry up in her the organs of increase,

And from her derogate body never spring

A babe to honor her! If she must teem,

Create her child of spleen, that it may live

And be a thwart disnatured torment to her.

Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth;

With cadent tears fret channels in her cheeks; cadent=falling

Turn all her mother's pains and benefits

To laughter and contempt, that she may feel

How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is

To have a thankless child! Away, away!

Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robinson (1869-1935)

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,

We people on the pavement looked at him:

He was a gentleman from sole to crown,

Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,

And he was always human when he talked;

But still he fluttered pulses when he said,

"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich---yes, richer than a king---

And admirably schooled in every grace:

In fine, we thought that he was everything

To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,

And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;

And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,

Went home and put a bullet through his head.

The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran

Then Almitra spoke again and said, And what of Marriage, master?

And he answered saying:

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.

You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.

Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness,

And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.

Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,

Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.

For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

And stand together, yet not too near together:

For the pillars of the temple stand apart,

And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.

And he said:

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.

A. IMAGERY: Experiential Exercises by Belleruth Naparstek.

TELECOURSE SCRIPT

Lesson #12: RESPONSIBLE audience: "Smaller & better, smaller & better!"

A. LECTURE: Harry Glantz and Dieter Springlefski and money management and a minimalist approach. Linda Nedderman and SAFE film and her website. Responsible: attitude, intelligence, service to others, chemistry of caring.

Electric consumption per capita in kilowatt-hours as of 1994 (National Geographic, Sept. 1997).

United States: 12,711; Russia 5,805; Venezuela 3,405; Brazil 1,837; China 780.

If we could shrink the earth's population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratios remaining the same, it would look something like the following. There would be:

57 Asians, 21 Europeans, 14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south, 8 Africans.

52 would be female, 48 would be male.

70 would be non-white. 30 would be white.

70 would be non-Christian, 30 would be Christian.

89 would be heterosexual, 11 would be homosexual.

6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the United States.

80 would live in substandard housing. 70 would be unable to read. 50 would suffer from malnutrition. 1 would be near death. 1 would be near birth.

1 would have a college education.

1 would own a computer.

When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent. (Source, Phillip M. Harter, MD, FACEP, Stanford University, School of Medicine.)

The more we practice the habit of acting from a position of responsibility, the more effective we become as human beings, and the more successful we become as mangers of our lives. Joyce Chapman

Responsibility…is…the ability to fulfill one's needs, and to do so in a way that does not deprive others of the ability to fulfill their needs. Dr. William Glasser

A. ROLE PLAYING: (Scene: One student almost gets into a fight with another student about smoking in their area.) They finally get past the anger and join together in an effort to work on a problem related to pollution.

A. POEMS AND DISCUSSION: What is our responsibility to others? What

others?

The Waking by Theodore Roethke

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.

I learn by going where I have to go.

We think by feeling. What is there to know?

I hear my being dance from ear to ear.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Of those so close beside me, which are you?

God bless the Ground! I shall walk softly there,

And learn by going where I have to go.

Light takes the Tree; but who can tell us how?

The lowly worm climbs up a winding stair;

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

Great nature has another thing to do

To you and me; so take the lively air,

And, lovely, learn by going where to go.

This shaking keeps me steady. I should know.

What falls away is always. And is near.

I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.

I learn by going where I have to go.

Love's Philosophy by Shelley

The Fountains mingle with the River

And the Rivers with the Ocean,

The winds of Heaven mix forever

With a sweet emotion;

Nothing in the world is single;

All things by a law divine

In one spirit meet and mingle.

Why not I with thine?

Ozymandias by Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land

Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,

Half sunk, a Shattered visage lies, whose frown,

And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,

Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:

And on the pedestal these words appear:

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"

Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Those Two Boys by Franklin P. Adams

When Bill was a lad he was terribly bad.

He worried his parents a lot;

He'd lied and he'd swear and pull little girls' hair;

His boyhood was naught but a blot.

At play and in school he would fracture each rule---

In mischief from autumn to spring;

And the villagers knew when to manhood he grew

He would never amount to a thing.

When Jim was a child he was not very wild;

He was known as a good little boy;

He was honest and bright and the teacher's delight---

To his mother and father a joy.

All the neighbors were sure that his virtue'd endure,

That his life would be free of a spot;

They were certain that Jim had a great head on him

And that Jim would amount to a lot.

And Bill grew to manhood and honor and fame

And bears a good name;

While Jim is shut up in a dark prison cell---

You never can tell.

Remember by Joy Harjo

Remember the sky that you were born under,

know each of the star's stories.

Remember the moon, know who she is, I met her

in a bar once in Iowa City.

Remember the sun's birth at dawn, that is the

strongest point of time. Remember sundown

and the giving away to night.

Remember your birth, how your mother struggled

to give you form and breath. You are evidence of

her life, and her mother's, and hers.

Remember your father. He is your life, also.

Remember the earth whose skin you are:

red earth, black earth, yellow earth, white earth,

brown earth, we are earth.

Remember the plants, trees, animal life who all have their

tribes, their families, their histories, too. Talk to them,

listen to them. They are alive poems.

Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the

origin of this universe. I heard her singing Kiowa war

dance songs at the corner of Fourth and Central once.

Remember that you are all people and that all people

are you.

Remember that you are this universe and that this

universe is you.

Remember that all is in motion, is growing, is you.

Remember that language comes from this.

Remember the dance that language is, that life is.

Remember.

I Give You Back by Joy Harjo

I release you, my beautiful and terrible

fear. I release you. You were my beloved

and hated twin, but now, I don't know you

as myself. I release you with all the

pain I would know at the death of

my daughters.

You are not my blood anymore.

I give you back to the white soldiers

who burned down my home, beheaded my children,

raped and sodomized my brothers and sisters.

I give you back to those who stole the

food from our plates when we were starving.

I release you, fear, because you hold

these scenes in front of me and I was born

with eyes that can never close.

I release you, fear, so you can no longer

keep me naked and frozen in the winter,

or smothered under blankets in the summer.

I release you

I release you

I release you

I release you

I am not afraid to be angry.

I am not afraid to rejoice.

I am not afraid to be black.

I am not afraid to be white.

I am not afraid to be hungry.

I am not afraid to be full.

I am not afraid to be hated.

I am not afraid to be loved, to be loved, to be loved, fear.

Oh, you have choked me, but I gave you the leash.

You have gutted me, but I gave you the knife.

You have devoured me, but I laid myself across the fire.

I take myself back, fear.

You are not my shadow any longer.

I won't hold you in my hands.

You can't live in my eyes, my ears, my voice

my belly, or in my heart my heart

my heart my heart

But come here, fear

I am alive and you are so afraid

of dying.

(Note: Joy Harjo was born to a Creek Father and a French-Cherokee mother. She says that when she writes, she is often guided by the voice of an old Creek Indian within her. She often performs her poems---and plays the saxophone---with her band, Poetic Justice. She teaches at the University of Arizona in Tucson. Harjo believes that: "For me the illusion is that we're separate…Ultimately, a poem has an electrical force field which is love."

A. IMAGERY: Experiential Exercises by Belleruth Naparstek.

TELECOURSE SCRIPT

Lesson #13: SELF-AWARE audience: "Live, live, live!"

A. LECTURE: Chanting and auras, the work of the Simontons, lessons from the weekend of unbreakable glass and magical swimming goggles.

The essential goal of contemplation is increased awareness of the world outside oneself, the world inside oneself, and the relationship between the two.

Dr. M. Scott Peck

A. ROLE PLAYING: (Scene: Four students talking about what they learned in a course.) One is talking about how the professor is a nut and has lots of crazy ideas. One of the students agrees. The other two disagree. They finally resolve the argument, which gets rather noisy, when they all get to the point of agreeing that, most of the things they learn from the professors that are not crazy, only supports the status quo, which stinks, and, if they are going to make a difference in this world, they need to think outside-the-box, and they shouldn't reject or accept any professor's opinion, but rather, explore it.

A. POEMS AND DISCUSSION: How do we develop our self-awareness?

A Word of Encouragement by J.R. Pope

O what a tangled web we weave

When first we practice to deceive!

But when we've practiced quite a while

How vastly we improve our style!

'I am the Only Being Whose Doom' by Emily Bronte

I am the only being whose doom

No tongue would ask, no eye would mourn;

I never caused a thought of gloom,

A smile of joy, since I was born.

In secret pleasure, secret tears,

This changeful life has slipped away,

As friendless after eighteen years,

As lone as on my natal day.

There have been times I cannot hide,

There have been times when this was drear,

When my sad soul forgot its pride

And longed for one to love me here.

But those were in the early glow

Of feelings since subdued by care;

And they have died so long ago,

I hardly now believe they were.

First melted off the hope of youth,

Then fancy's rainbow fast withdrew;

And then experience told me truth

In mortal bosoms never grew.

'Twas grief enough to think mankind

All hollow, servile, insincere;

But worse to trust to my own mind

And find the same corruption there.

The Heart by Stephen Crane

In the desert

I saw a creature, naked, bestial,

Who, squatting upon the ground,

Held his heart in his hands,

And ate of it.

I said, "Is it good, friend?"

"It is bitter---bitter," he answered;

"But I like it

Because it is bitter,

And because it is my heart."

Untitled by Rumi (most of his poems are either untitled or simply have a number

Keep walking, though there's no place to get to.

Don't try to see through the distances.

That's not for human beings. Move within,

but don't move the way fear makes you move.

1359

Do you think I know what I'm doing?

That for one breath or half-breath I belong to myself?

As much as a pen knows what it's writing,

or the ball can guess where it's going next.

549

We take long trips.

We puzzle over the meaning of a painting or a book,

when what we're wanting to see and understand

in this world, we are that.

2196

You're song,

a wished-for song.

Go through the ear to the center,

where sky is, where wind, where

silent knowing.

Put seeds and cover them.

Blades will sprout

where you do your work.

Untitled

I, you, he, she, we.

In the garden of mystic lovers,

these are not true distinctions.

(Note: Coleman Barks, who grew up in Chattanooga, is the translator of Rumi's poems into English and is himself a poet who teaches at the University of Georgia in Athens. According to Barks: "Jelaluddin Rumi was a thirteenth-century mystical teacher who lived from 1207 to 1273. He was a teacher first and a poet only in relation to that activity. His poems---which sprang spontaneously from the work he was doing with the dervish learning community in Konya, Turkey---were spoken in Persian." Rumi was prolific and spoke some 20,000 poems during his life and is considered to be the Shakespeare of the Islamic world.)

Desiderata by Max Ehrmann (1872-1945)

Go placidly amid the noise and the haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons, they are vexatious to the spirit.

If you compare yourself with others you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.

Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans. Keep interested in your own career, however, humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time.

Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is as perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness.

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

D. IMAGERY: Experiential Exercises by Belleruth Naparstek.