“To everyone else ordinary.
To us everything” 🏳️🌈⚧️🏳️⚧️
I found this so profoundly powerful that I wanted to have on the grid. Thank you @boysbythelake the names
#lgbt #equality #loveislove
Tuesday, November 25, 2025
Via Daily Dharma: Freedom in Mindfulness
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Via Dhamma Wheel | Right View: Understanding the Noble Truth of Suffering
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Via White Crane Institute //
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| This Day in Gay History | |||
November 24Born  1632 - BARUCH SPINOZA, Dutch philosopher was born (d.1677); One of the great rationalists of 17th century philosophy, he laid the groundwork for the 18th century Enlightenment and modern biblical criticism. By virtue of his magnum opus, the posthumous Ethics, Spinoza is also considered one of Western philosophy's definitive ethicists. He was raised and educated in the Orthodox Jewish fashion, also studying Latin and was thoroughly familiar with European humanism. What exactly is it that caused him to be excommunicated from the synagogue when he was only twenty-four years old? Many scholars have speculated that the horror Spinoza inspired in the Jewish community may have come not only from his espousal of advanced economic theories, but from his espousal, as well, of "Greek love" among impressionable students in the liberal circle where he taught. A Dutch physician, J. Roderpoort, wrote at The Hague in 1897: “Spinoza excites the youth to respect women not at all and to give themselves to debauchery.” Was Spinoza merely teaching the Greek and Roman classics, with their inevitable passages on pederasty? What were Roderpoort’s motives for discrediting the Jewish philosopher? Was Spinoza, in fact a pederast? It’s all open to speculation.
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Today's Gay Wisdom  2017 - The Wisdom of Baruch Spinoza God would say: Stop praying. What I want you to do is go out into the world and enjoy your life. I want you to sing, have fun and enjoy everything I've made for you. Stop going into those dark, cold temples that you built yourself and saying they are my house. My house is in the mountains, in the woods, rivers, lakes, beaches. That's where I live and there I express my love for you. Stop blaming me for your miserable life; I never told you there was anything wrong with you or that you were a sinner, or that your sexuality was a bad thing. Sex is a gift I have given you and with which you can express your love, your ecstasy, your joy. So don't blame me for everything they made you believe. Stop reading alleged sacred scriptures that have nothing to do with me. If you can't read me in a sunrise, in a landscape, in the look of your friends, in your son's eyes...you will find me in no book! Stop asking me "will you tell me how to do my job?" Stop being so scared of me. I do not judge you or criticize you, nor get angry, or bothered. I am pure love. Stop asking for forgiveness, there's nothing to forgive. If I made you... I filled you with passions, limitations, pleasures, feelings, needs, inconsistencies... free will. How can I blame you if you respond to something I put in you? How can I punish you for being the way you are, if I'm the one who made you? Do you think I could create a place to burn all my children who behave badly for the rest of eternity? What kind of god would do that? Respect your peers and don't do what you don't want for yourself. All I ask is that you pay attention in your life, that alertness is your guide. My beloved, this life is not a test, not a step on the way, not a rehearsal, nor a prelude to paradise. This life is the only thing here and now and it is all you need. I have set you absolutely free, no prizes or punishments, no sins or virtues, no one carries a marker, no one keeps a record. You are absolutely free to create in your life. Heaven or hell. I can't tell you if there's anything after this life but I can give you a tip. Live as if there is not. As if this is your only chance to enjoy, to love, to exist. So, if there's nothing after, then you will have enjoyed the opportunity I gave you. And if there is, rest assured that I won't ask if you behaved right or wrong, I'll ask. Did you like it? Did you have fun? What did you enjoy the most? What did you learn?... Stop believing in me; believing is assuming, guessing, imagining. I don't want you to believe in me, I want you to believe in you. I want you to feel me in you when you kiss your beloved, when you tuck in your little girl, when you caress your dog, when you bathe in the sea. Stop praising me, what kind of egomaniac God do you think I am? I'm bored being praised. I'm tired of being thanked. Feeling grateful? Prove it by taking care of yourself, your health, your relationships, the world. Express your joy! That's the way to praise me. Stop complicating things and repeating as a parakeet what you've been taught about me. What do you need more miracles for? So many explanations? The only thing for sure is that you are here, that you are alive, that this world is full of wonders. | ||
|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8 Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute "With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989! |8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8 |
Sunday, November 23, 2025
Via FB //
Epictetus /
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"Seek not that the things which happen should happen as you wish; but wish the things which happen to be as they are, and you will have a tranquil flow of life."
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"Epictetus (born AD 55, probably at Hierapolis, Phrygia [now Pamukkale, Turkey]—died c. 135, Nicopolis, Epirus [Greece]) was a Greek philosopher associated with the Stoics, remembered for the religious tone of his teachings, which commended him to numerous early Christian thinkers.
His original name is not known; epiktētos is the Greek word meaning “acquired.” As a boy he was a slave but managed to attend lectures by the Stoic Musonius Rufus. He later became a freedman and lived his life lame and in ill health. In AD 90 he was expelled from Rome with other philosophers by the emperor Domitian, who was irritated by the favourable reception given by Stoics to opponents of his tyranny. The rest of his life Epictetus spent at Nicopolis.
As far as is known, Epictetus wrote nothing. His teachings were transmitted by Arrian, his pupil, in two works: Discourses, of which four books are extant; and the Encheiridion, or Manual, a condensed aphoristic version of the main doctrines. In his teachings Epictetus followed the early rather than the late Stoics, reverting to Socrates and to Diogenes, the philosopher of Cynicism, as historical models of the sage. Primarily interested in ethics, Epictetus described philosophy as learning “how it is possible to employ desire and aversion without hindrance.” True education, he believed, consists in recognizing that there is only one thing that belongs to an individual fully—his will, or purpose. God, acting as a good king and father, has given each being a will that cannot be compelled or thwarted by anything external. Men are not responsible for the ideas that present themselves to their consciousness, though they are wholly responsible for the way in which they use them. #fblifestyle
Via White Crane Institute /// Thanksgiving
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| This Day in Gay History | |||
November 23 | |||
Today's Gay Wisdom  1941 - Influenced by the campaigning of author Sarah Josepha Hale, who wrote letters to politicians for around 40 years trying to make it an official holiday, Lincoln proclaimed the date to be the final Thursday in November in an attempt to foster a sense of American unity between the Northern and Southern states. Because of the ongoing Civil War and the Confederate States of America's refusal to recognize Lincoln's authority, a nationwide roll-out of the Thanksgiving date was not realized until Reconstruction was completed in the 1870s. These things happen when you try something new, right? Abraham Lincoln made Thanksgiving an official holiday by proclamation in 1863, designating it as the last Thursday of November. Many southern states weren’t supportive of Thanksgiving at first. They were not happy about the federal government telling them to celebrate and felt that it was a “New England” holiday. They were still a bit miffed about the whole Civil War thing. Despite Lincoln’s proclamation, the date of Thanksgiving was not fixed until 1941, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed a bill setting the holiday on the fourth Thursday of November. He moved it up a week to help the economy by lengthening the Christmas shopping season. Republicans were not down with this change, and retaliated by calling it “Democrat Thanksgiving” (or “Franksgiving”). They celebrated the following Thursday, calling that “Republican Thanksgiving.” Many Republican governors defied the change of date and observed the holiday on the last Thursday of the month, anyway. Republicans have some experience of being childish pre-Obama, it seems. Macy’s first Thanksgiving Day parade in 1924 was held with live animals from the Central Park Zoo and was billed as “The Christmas Parade.” This was the parade for the next three years. In 1927, Goodyear sponsored a giant balloon of Felix the Cat, starting that tradition. Until 1933, the balloons were just released to float off into the sky at the end of the parade and $100 was given by Macy’s to whomever found a deflated balloon. That stopped when a pilot trying to grab a loose balloon crashed his plane and died. Mickey Mouse made his debut seven years later. Kermit the Frog came along in 1985. Snoopy, who joined the parade in 1968, holds the record for most appearances in the parade with seven. The parade route was moved to its present starting point at 77th and Central Park West in 1946. It was first televised nationally in 1947, drawing respectable viewership. Fifty years ago, the parade was almost cancelled due to the assassination of JFK. But it was felt that the nation needed it so the show went on. Each year, approximately 3.5 million people line the streets to watch the parade live while another 50 million or so watch it on TV. Sources:
A Taste of Thanksgiving: Curious Facts About America’s Holiday by Christopher Forest Ancient Ways: Reclaiming Pagan Traditions by Pauline Campanelli and Dan Campanelli Hawaiian Mythology by Martha Warren Beckwith The Everything Christmas Book: Stories, Songs, Food, Traditions, Revelry, and More by Brandon Toropov, Sharon Gapen Cook, Marian Gonsior and Susan Robinson | ||
|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8 Gay Wisdom for Daily Living from White Crane Institute "With the increasing commodification of gay news, views, and culture by powerful corporate interests, having a strong independent voice in our community is all the more important. White Crane is one of the last brave standouts in this bland new world... a triumph over the looming mediocrity of the mainstream Gay world." - Mark Thompson Exploring Gay Wisdom & Culture since 1989! |8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8|O|8 |
Via Ram Dass - Love Serve Remember Foundation //
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Via Daily Dharma: A Peaceful Mind
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