words like ‘friend’ and ‘love’ - oh - melts my heart.
(Source: marketwarriors, via coolnerdyreader)
Bazaar cover, February 1970. Photo by Hiro.
the year, the month i was born:
“Love Is Rocking The Country”
damn straight.
(Source: pinterest.com)
"Learning how to love is the goal and the purpose of spiritual life—not learning how to develop psychic powers, not learning how to bow, chant, do yoga, or even meditate, but learning to love. Love is the truth. Love is the light."
— Lama Surya Das (via utasteofhoney)
(Source: theawakenedstate, via raiseyourvibration)
♥
last week i was organizing some old, loose photos and i sorted out a few that i felt belonged more with the people in the pictures, than with me. one of them was a picture of my paternal grandmother and my sister - from about 15 yrs ago. my grandmother has since passed and my sister has since become a 32 year old adult. the picture is of a captured moment between the two of them; they’re peering up at each other and snickering - you can tell it was a moment only between them. my grandmother was already quite ill with alzheimer’s in the picture, but she was there for that shot. i love that picture, but i knew it belonged with my sister, so i mailed it to her.
when my grandmother passed away, we were afforded the opportunity to place something in her casket. i wrote a letter or i enclosed a photo - honestly, i’m not sure. my sister wrote a letter on the paper she copied that exact photo onto. i had no idea.
so when she got it in the mail from me, out of the blue, it felt like a sign to her.
and when she emailed that to me, my heart grew and the universe got bigger and smaller at the same time.
Mister Rogers and the Dalai Lama
1. Even Koko the Gorilla Loved Him
Most people have heard of Koko, the Stanford-educated gorilla who could speak about 1000 words in American Sign Language, and understand about 2000 in English. What most people don’t know, however, is that Koko was an avid Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood fan. As Esquire reported, when Fred Rogers took a trip out to meet Koko for his show, not only did she immediately wrap her arms around him and embrace him, she did what she’d always seen him do onscreen: she proceeded to take his shoes off!
2. He Made Thieves Think Twice
According to a TV Guide profile, Fred Rogers drove a plain old Impala for years. One day, however, the car was stolen from the street near the TV station. When Rogers filed a police report, the story was picked up by every newspaper, radio and media outlet around town. Amazingly, within 48 hours the car was left in the exact spot where it was taken from, with an apology on the dashboard. It read, “If we’d known it was yours, we never would have taken it.”
3. He Watched His Figure to the Pound
In covering Rogers’ daily routine (waking up at 5; praying for a few hours for all of his friends and family; studying; writing, making calls and reaching out to every fan who took the time to write him; going for a morning swim; getting on a scale; then really starting his day), writer Tom Junod explained that Mr. Rogers weighed in at exactly 143 pounds every day for the last 30 years of his life. He didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, didn’t eat the flesh of any animals, and was extremely disciplined in his daily routine. And while I’m not sure if any of that was because he’d mostly grown up a chubby, single child, Junod points out that Rogers found beauty in the number 143. According to the piece, Rogers came “to see that number as a gift… because, as he says, “the number 143 means ‘I love you.’ It takes one letter to say ‘I’ and four letters to say ‘love’ and three letters to say ‘you.’ One hundred and forty-three.”
4. He Saved Both Public Television and the VCR
Strange but true. When the government wanted to cut Public Television funds in 1969, the relatively unknown Mister Rogers went to Washington. Almost straight out of a Capra film, his testimony on how TV had the potential to give kids hope and create more productive citizens was so simple but passionate that even the most gruff politicians were charmed. While the budget should have been cut, the funding instead jumped from $9 to $22 million. Rogers also swayed the Supreme Court to allow VCRs to record television shows from the home. It was a cantankerous debate at the time, but his argument was that recording a program like his allowed working parents to sit down with their children and watch shows as a family.
5. He Might Have Been the Most Tolerant American Ever
Mister Rogers seems to have been almost exactly the same off-screen as he was onscreen. As an ordained Presbyterian minister, and a man of tremendous faith, Mister Rogers preached tolerance first. Whenever he was asked to castigate non-Christians or gays for their differing beliefs, he would instead face them and say, with sincerity, “God loves you just the way you are.” Often this provoked ire from fundamentalists.
6. He Was Genuinely Curious About Others
Mister Rogers was known as one of the toughest interviews because he’d often befriend reporters, asking them tons of questions, taking pictures of them, compiling an album for them at the end of their time together, and calling them after to check in on them and hear about their families. He wasn’t concerned with himself, and genuinely loved hearing the life stories of others. Amazingly, it wasn’t just with reporters. Once, on a fancy trip up to a PBS exec’s house, he heard the limo driver was going to wait outside for 2 hours, so he insisted the driver come in and join them (which flustered the host). On the way back, Rogers sat up front, and when he learned that they were passing the driver’s home on the way, he asked if they could stop in to meet his family. According to the driver, it was one of the best nights of his life—the house supposedly lit up when Rogers arrived, and he played jazz piano and bantered with them late into the night. Further, like with the reporters, Rogers sent him notes and kept in touch with the driver for the rest of his life.
7. He Was Color-blind
Literally. He couldn’t see the color blue. Of course, he was also figuratively color-blind, as you probably guessed. As were his parents who took in a black foster child when Rogers was growing up.
8. He Could Make a Subway Car full of Strangers Sing
Once while rushing to a New York meeting, there were no cabs available, so Rogers and one of his colleagues hopped on the subway. Esquire reported that the car was filled with people, and they assumed they wouldn’t be noticed. But when the crowd spotted Rogers, they all simultaneously burst into song, chanting “It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.” The result made Rogers smile wide.
A few more things about him…
9. He Got into TV Because He Hated TV. The first time he turned one on, he saw people angrily throwing pies in each other’s faces. He immediately vowed to use the medium for better than that. Over the years he covered topics as varied as why kids shouldn’t be scared of a haircut, or the bathroom drain (because you won’t fit!), to divorce and war.
10. He Was an Ivy League Dropout. Rogers moved from Dartmouth to Rollins College to pursue his studies in music.
11. He Composed all the Songs on the Show, and over 200 tunes.
12. He Was a perfectionist, and Disliked Ad Libbing. He felt he owed it to children to make sure every word on his show was thought out.
13. Michael Keaton Got His Start on the Show as an assistant — helping puppeteer and operate the trolley.
14. Several Characters on the Show are Named for His Family. Queen Sara is named after Rogers’ wife, and the postman Mr. McFeely is named for his maternal grandfather who always talked to him like an adult, and reminded young Fred that he made every day special just by being himself. Sound familiar? It was the same way Mister Rogers closed every show.
15. The Sweaters. Every one of the cardigans he wore on the show had been hand-knit by his mother.
without a doubt, Mister Rogers is one of my favorite humans and reading these kinds of wonderful things about him makes me cry - but in a good way - in an overflowing love kind of way.
(via largerloves)
While we’re all making good fun of the famous Ecce Homo restauration by Mrs. Cecilia Gimenez, the poor thing is bed ridden with heavy anxiety attacks.
I wish someone would tell her she is now even more famous than the original artist and a sensation on the Internet.
Poor thing, hope she gets well soon. She’s 81, I would hate for this to kill her.
please join me in sending your most loving and comforting thoughts and energy to this dear lady. think big, shiny, happy, “please don’t worry, love” thoughts to her. join me. it sure seems like she had the purest of intentions.
(via lickypickystickyme)
"To love at all is to be vulnerable."
— C.S. Lewis (via onlinecounsellingcollege)
how can you not reblog LOVE?
(Source: mrorigin, via tiny-pine-trail)
Conn. Man Rescues 80-Year-Old Lobster From Restaurant Menu
“It takes seven years for him to even become a lobster big enough to keep,” MacKenzie told The Day of New London. “For a lobster to live this long and avoid lobster traps, nets, lobster pots … he doesn’t deserve a bib and butter.”
“This lobster has seen World War I, World War II, seen the landing on the moon and the Red Sox win the World Series. He’s made it this far in life,” MacKenzie said. “He deserves to live.”
peace & love
When I make reference to my ‘hippie spirit’, I mean just that - the spirit of it as it relates to my human experience. I’m fairly certain there are some glaring areas in my life that aren’t at all a ‘hippie experience’. I guess what I want is for any hippies and free-thinkers who were there in the late 60s, I want you to know your message did eventually drill in deep enough to reach my layer of awareness. With an especially heartfelt thanks to those of you who were involved in children’s programming, I give a bow to you all and your efforts.
It’s taken a long time my peaceful warrior hippie elders - but your message has finally begun to dawn on me. It had to trickle down through the tiniest of tributaries and squeeze itself through my conservative, same-thinking, no wave-making, be a good girl human experience; but after more than forty years, I’m finally getting it. I feel your intention and intend to carry it on in my own, evolved, adaptive way that celebrates the spirit of my experience.
