<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><div><blockquote type="cite" class=""> Ron asked me to post this note written to him and Toni.</blockquote><blockquote type="cite" class="">~ thanks to all for your companionship on this path of heart and soul ~ ~~~ ~ as we journey on ~ !!! ~ m.🌟<br class=""></blockquote><div><br class=""></div><br class=""><blockquote type="cite" class=""><div class=""><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" class=""><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;" class="">Dear ones ~ this page from Mark Nepo has been coming to mind/heart lately resonating deeply and dovetails so well with yesterday ~ our circle of friends/pilgrims/brothers and sisters on the path ~ bowing in together to the Mystery and the Miracle ~ opening deeper into the Love and Gratitude we share so well and that has in most ways become the ground of our Being so beautifully and so real. <div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Thank you once again for your shining presence and willingness to keep the love flowing and growing ~ </div><div class="">So important to keep these rituals/ceremonies in our lives ~ reminding renewing re-birthing ~ !!<br class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class="">Amen,</div><div class="">~m.🙏🌟<br class=""><div class=""><br class=""><br class=""><br class=""><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><div style="text-align: center;" class="">Ubuntu ~</div><div style="text-align: center;" class="">I am because you are,</div><div style="text-align: center;" class="">you are because I am…</div><div style="text-align: center;" class=""><br class=""></div><div style="text-align: center;" class="">🌟</div><br class="">In the winter, I met a man in South Africa. After several days together, I asked him about Ubuntu. He said, “It is a deep African custom.” He did not explain, but rather repeated its meaning, more slowly and with deeper reverence, “It means…I am because you are; you are because I am…Ubuntu.”<br class=""><br class="">It is something I have always believed in, that in the ignited space of our deepest suffering, in the release of our deepest fears, in the familiar peace of our deepest joys, we are each other. I felt it in the cancer rooms, in the eyes of burdened mothers sitting across from me, none of us wanting the dark things growing inside…Ubuntu.<br class=""><br class="">I have been finding it in every path, in every way…in Martin Buber’s sense of I-Thou, where only in keeping what-is-between-us real can God appear…in the gift of Jesus, where two or more of you come together, there I am…in the one compassion of Buddha…in the numinous love that ancient stones emanate if we are still enough to bow to them. Ubuntu…I am because you are, even in how we live off the breath of plants; you are because I am, even in how plants live off our exhalations.<br class=""><br class="">I remember—years after Robert helped me survive cancer, after I helped him survive alcohol—I remember the two of us in a small park eating sandwiches with numb fingers, like little damaged birds, and Robert raised his head suddenly and said, “I have had cancer,” and I took his hand and offered in return, “And I have been an alcoholic.” Ubuntu…how we need each other to be complete.<br class=""><br class=""><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>• Sit quietly in a public place until your breath and the air you are breathing feel like one.<br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>• Breathe steadily until your heart and the hearts of those around you feel like one.<br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>• Keep breathing slowly until you feel, with each breath, the interconnectedness of all life.<br class=""></div><div class=""><br class=""></div>~Mark Nepo, The Book of Awakening<br class=""><br class=""><br class=""></div></div></div></div></div></div></blockquote></div><br class=""></body></html>