On responsibility:
It is my responsibility to allow others to use their own powers of creation.
It is my responsibility to stay centered in my life and my connection to source.
Here's a little story from my life to make this point.
Once a year we have an event at my Karate School called the Okinawan Karate
Dojo Water Olympics.
It's a silly little fun tournament and at the end a few of us get presented personalized trophies for being the winners of the event.
We will have this "spec tical" August 22nd.
We only do this event in August, since August gets really, really hot in Florida.
All my students practice during every class for 10 or 20 minutes with a cup of water on their head and we do all the regular karate routines, punches, kicks, katas, partner exercises etc. with this cup of water balanced.
Of course the practice sessions are pretty messy. Not everyone can do this the first week.
The day of the event if anyone spills a drop they will be eliminated and when we have the actual event, there will be parents and friends watching and people taking pictures. Two or three students will make it to the end, moment by moment and not have spilt a drop and these few will then parade into my indoor workout area and do one or two katas in the sacred training hall balancing the cup of water (after maybe 30 minutes of previous focused not spilling a drop effort). What fun. We laugh at the practice and we laugh at the actual event and in addition to getting better karate techniques, we get gerrrrrrrrrate pictures!
This is our first week of practice. We do the training for this event on my concrete with a roof over head out door workout area so wet and sloppy is no big deal.
Yesterday there were a few children practicing for the event. We all had a half full cup of water and we were moving slowly. I found myself reaching out and fixing or
adjusting one of the kid's water filled cup because the cup was sitting cock-eyed on his or her head.
hummmm....
I had never done that before. It was just too tempting. I knew if I didn't do that, the cup would fall and the water would splash.
Instead of minding my own business, I adjusted the cups......hahahaha
I had to laugh at myself for wanting to control in another's experience.
No big deal but afterward I thought, it is my responsibility to just let other people's cups of water fall and then allow them to begin again.
ahhhhhhhh....I just couldn't resist reaching out and making that little adjustment in someone else's experience, so that they could avoid the shame and the humiliation of water splashing all over them....when in reality, when the water falls...we laugh and begin again the process of refilling the cup and then just getting back on line.
It was a tad windy on the out door deck,yesterday, I lost my cup too...hahaha...but I just said, "Arigato"
(thank you in Japanese) picked up my cup and poured water from the jug into my empty cup and got back on line....no big deal. (a tad shameful for me, the Sensei,...hahaha...but I got over it!)
A lesson for me in responsibility to allow others their experience and their creation.
If you got this far, thanks for listening.

August 5th, we renewed our vows on Cocoa Beach.

My husband and I went for a walk on the beach tonight and standing on the shore line was a just married bride and tuxedoed groom complete with photographers and maid of honor and all that jazz. The bride was wearing a strapless white satin long flowing dress. She had bunched up her gown. Her white cren-a-lyn slip was hanging down and through the white weaved fabric her bare feet could be seen tip toeing through the sand as she and her group had turned from the waters edge to head for their reception back in the hotel restaurant.

My husband and I continued walking hand in hand, leisurely strolling down the edge of the Atlantic Ocean when we saw over to the right by the sand dunes a heart shaped area with rose petals outlined in the sand with a narrow pathway leading into the heart. Rose petals were strewn all over the site. This must be where their ceremony took place.
Gleefully, I said to my husband. Lets hold a space for that couple that just got married.

He said: "Okay"!
My husband almost never says no to me.

I asked him to walk down the skinny path into the heart that was strewn with red and pink and white petals.
My husband was wearing long white pants and a Hawaiian shirt.
I was wearing a denim mini-skirt with a leopard tank top and a long sleeve pea green corduroy shirt.
I took off my shirt and placed it over my head. My husband turned around at the end of the "isle" and waited for me. I strut very slowly holding my make believe wedding bouquet and moved like I was doing the "wedding walk" to that traditional "march"
Hear comes the bride
while strutting slowly, I waved to imaginary guests at our imaginary ceremony.
Now we are standing face to face. My husbands eyes are shining in the moonlight and we grasp each others hands and are silent for a time. It is a peaceful easy feeling looking into his eyes and smiling and being quite in the stillness of the ocean waves. I brake the silence and make up some vows and he makes up some vows and there is a little kiss and wow, we just shared another magic moment of make believe to treasure forever.
Next we walk back down the aisle and we are living happily ever after!