Poem of the Month ~ January 2012  With Love, for John O’Donohue (1 Jan 1956 – 4 Jan 2008), Trickster, Lover, Poet, Sage This poem evokes quiet wonderment in me and reminds me of something O’Donohue said, with  a lilting voice and a mischievous twinkle in his eye: “Mind your mind now, and steady yourself, [...]

Poem of the Month ~ November 2011 I love the tumble of images this poet crafts.  And I now love this word: doggerel. You, too, can write your very own doggerel-style mantra, and place it in front of your very own Alter to the Incomprehensible. Caveat: take none of this seriously, lest an ear falls [...]

Poem of the Month ~~ October 2011 Happy Anniversary, Poem of the Month! October 2006: talking about poetry with Denny, my neighbor.  A sudden inspiration: how ‘bout a flyer box in the front yard stuffed with poems?  Just a wee conversation plus one simple act, and here we are, five years and 60 poems later!  [...]

Kairos Network Blog: Stories and Essays on Death and Dying from Healthcare Professionals  has picked up the story posted on Virtual Teahouse two years ago called: Douglas Firs Were Our Sanctuary. This edition is slightly edited and the collages were not able to be included.  But the Andreya’s story (“A”)

From Patti Digh and David Robinson, The Circle Project, www.thecircleproject.com Click  here to download the poster.  

Poem of the Month  ~ September 2011 Ah, Rumi.  Ah, poem…such good medicine, quieting the need for certainly, the quest to figure it all out. To “be helpless” is joy itself.  Receptive to the wisdom, beauty and fierce compassion of the Heart, I can only say, Whew!  Let me be dumbfounded, please!  Thank you, Heart

 I am honored that the story of my 94 year old grandmother Verna’s near death experience is included in this compilation. Available through Amazon on Kindle and in paperback. Click on the picture for a direct Amazon link. You can also read my story  on Finding Ground site: Closer Than Our Own Skin If you’d li

I am. I am. How often do we make that statement? I am. What I’ve witnessed in my mere 43 years walking amongst my fellow humans, is that we all tend to use these words as a precursor to something else. Our state of being… I am excited. I am scared. I am sleepy. I’m [...]

Poem of the Month ~ August 2011 There’s an old adage and it goes like this: You can be right or you can be happy. Indeed!  Amichai’s poem inspired me to create, “The Little Mole Club.” Credo: Undermining Certainties; Radiating Happiness. Now Open!  New members being accepted every single day! The price of admissio

Guest post from Elizabeth Stauder.  Liz lives in Central Oregon, but even as a young adult, she knows that her home is the world.   She has just returned from living for eight months in Guatemala.  During the time she was gone, her beloved friend Penny, a beautiful Golden Retriever, who had come into Liz’s life

Cartoon by David Sipress in The New Yorker From Dave Pollard’s Links for the Month of July on his blog ‘how to save the world’

Guest post from Bonnie Lamont.  Bonnie has posted poetry on the VTH in the past.  She lives as a vibrant 70-something in Bend, Oregon. Letting Go, and the Slippery Slope to Truth…. Four years ago I began a determined quest for truth, in a bitterly cold and bleak winter month.  I had designated this month [...]

Ethiopian Journal 6-16-11 Linda Johnson’s journals from Ethiopia.  See part 1 for more information. After nearly 3 days of frustration, Dick was finally able to fly to Rome to meet his wife.  He did a remarkable job of being productive while he was here for the extra days, but I could feel his strong desire [...]

“Daydreams and Diaries” is the top selling new release cancer book on Amazon and among the top 100 cancer books overall, including ebooks, hardback and paperbacks. I am stunned.     –Tim Black Hot New Releases in Cancer The bestselling new & future releases in Cancer. (Learn more) 1.

Dear Virtual Teahouse readers: Some of you read entries I posted entitled “Daydreams and Diaries.” Last week it was published as an ebook at Untreed Reads, a California publisher. The authors are Taylor and Tim Black and it is available on Amazon and other sights as well as the publisher’s website, Untreed

Linda Johnson’s journals from Ethiopia.  See part 1 for more information. Ethiopian Journal 6-11-11 I haven’t written in a few days—have been coming down with an intestinal thing and have just been exhausted.  Will try to capture the highlights of the past few days. On Friday morning, Dick and I went to Black Li

Ethiopian Journal 6-9-11 The past 48 hours have been incredible, challenging, and very emotional for me.  The best way I can think to describe it is when deepest dreams meet natural gifts to become reality.  More of an explanation is in order. The pace of things has been picking up here, as we have gotten [...]

Ethiopian Journal, June 6, 2011 I had yet another amazing night last night at dinner. We went for Italian food at a wonderful restaurant nestled in the midst of a large art gallery.  There were scads of oil paintings from prominent Ethiopian artists on the walls, in the entry, in the outer gallery, and stacked [...]

Ethiopian Journal June 3, 2011 As usual, today started with a plan.  And, as is customary here, plans were made to be broken. My day started with a wonderful skype conversation with my husband, and I was struck with how much I miss seeing him, and how much I miss our in-depth conversations on all [...]

From Linda Johnson’s unedited journals while in Ethopia May/June 2011 withn Reach Another Foundation. Ethiopian  Journal Day 3, 5-28-11 Today is Saturday, and in spite of my usual routine of sleeping in until I awake naturally, those plans won’t work here. I took an Ambien last night and had the best night’s slee

My dear friend Linda Johnson is on a month long work tour in Ethiopia with the Reach Another Foundation*.  Linda is an RN and an administrator.  She has applied and been accepted for the Peace Corps, but is awaiting deployment later in 2011 or early 2012.  We are posting her journal entries, several at a time for [...]

From one of my favorite artists… How To Invite Yourself To Tea When you invite yourself to tea Be sure to bring enough cream and cookies along. Shortbread cookies sure are nice in the morning. Be sure to bring a journal and plenty of colored pens. And don’t forget to light the candles whatever you [...]

I’ve Got You Now  By Rumi My face free of sorrow, my mouth full of wine, my clothes torn off my body. Look what you’ve done to me now. He says, That’s what I do. I tear away the layers. I melt the shame. I reveal the unrevealed. He moves too fast. One breath, he [...]

Dear friends of Virtual Teahouse, One of the first posts made to the VTH back in February or March of 2007 was in the forums section and was about a near-death experience of my maternal Grandmother.  Because Wordpress doesn’t have forums, I wanted to post this story because while it is personally very powerful, it

I don’t know much info about this video except that it touched me deeply this morning.  Apparently this young man rescued this baby hummingbird and is raising it, caring for it very tenderly and teaching it what it needs to know to survive.  Hope you enjoy it too.  (Wish I could embed it, but that [...]

Amidst clouds, a double rainbow bestows grace. There are no tears where magic meets the heart. If I can kiss the flower awake And genuflect to the morning light I am found.

Found this by Rumi called Spring Giddiness: “Today, like every other day, we wake up empty and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument. Let the beauty we love be what we do. There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground. ———̵

POEM OF THE MONTH ~ MAY 2011 May you know True Happiness, which wants only to bless you, unceasingly. Such grace does abound. It is already so, as you read these words. –Krayna The Return of the Prodigal Son (1773) by Pompeo Batoni HAPPINESS There’s just no accounting for happiness, or the way it turns [...]

You’ve heard the Buddhist wisdom of “die a thousand deaths”? I find, as I stop more often during each day to allow myself to be present, I am aware of the millions of times I fall back into conditioned thinking and my heart is broken over and over by circumstances, by people I love, even by the [...]

This video talks about her faithfulness, discipline, consistency and alignment…but it can’t ever tell us how she really did it… Mystery should stay just that.  Her work can never be replicated, only revered as revolutionary and mystical. She’s always on my mind as I wander the West.