I have lived restricted
for so many years
the days they vanish
the years disappear
One day I feel
from the ocean a breeze
It warms my inside
and melts my ice
There are doors forgotten
that lead somewhere
though I never dared
believe they existed
⚜
Restricted Living by Kjell Walfridsson
If you want to know the past, to know what has caused you, look at yourself in the PRESENT, for that is the past’s effect. If you want to know your future, then look at yourself in the PRESENT, for that is the cause of the future.
🍾
– Majjhima Nikaya 
Holy One,
as a new year approaches
I seek to become not a new person
but more myself,
more aware of what is infinitely good in me,
more attentive to you in me,
who you become in me to be.
I am grateful for your presence,
in awe of your glory,
open to your grace
in me.
Unfold your light in me
and I will become you.
Unbind your compassion in me
and I will shine with you.
Be in me;
I will be in you.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
Weather Report
Light
today and tomorrow,
emanating from within.
Visibility will be mixed
as some hide the light and others glow.
An atmosphere of glory will prevail
as God moves through us all.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
CLOSING 2015
One always has to know when a stage comes to an end. If we insist on staying longer than the necessary time, we lose the happiness and the meaning of the other stages we have to go through.
Closing cycles, shutting doors, ending chapters – whatever name we give it, what matters is to leave in the past the moments of life that have finished.
Did you lose your job? Has a loving relationship come to an end? Did you leave your parents’ house? Gone to live abroad? Has a long-lasting friendship ended all of a sudden?
You can spend a long time wondering why this has happened.
You can tell yourself you won’t take another step until you find out why certain things that were so important and so solid in your life have turned into dust, just like that.
But such an attitude will be awfully stressing for everyone involved: your parents, your husband or wife, your friends, your children, your sister.
Everyone is finishing chapters, turning over new leaves, getting on with life, and they will all feel bad seeing you at a standstill.
Things pass, and the best we can do is to let them really go away.
That is why it is so important (however painful it may be!) to destroy souvenirs, move, give lots of things away to orphanages, sell or donate the books you have at home.
Everything in this visible world is a manifestation of the invisible world, of what is going on in our hearts – and getting rid of certain memories also means making some room for other memories to take their place.
Let things go. Release them. Detach yourself from them.
Nobody plays this life with marked cards, so sometimes we win and sometimes we lose.
Do not expect anything in return, do not expect your efforts to be appreciated, your genius to be discovered, your love to be understood.
Stop turning on your emotional television to watch the same program over and over again, the one that shows how much you suffered from a certain loss: that is only poisoning you, nothing else.
Nothing is more dangerous than not accepting love relationships that are broken off, work that is promised but there is no starting date, decisions that are always put off waiting for the “ideal moment.”
Before a new chapter is begun, the old one has to be finished: tell yourself that what has passed will never come back.
Remember that there was a time when you could live without that thing or that person – nothing is irreplaceable, a habit is not a need.
This may sound so obvious, it may even be difficult, but it is very important.
Closing cycles. Not because of pride, incapacity or arrogance, but simply because that no longer fits your life.
Shut the door, change the record, clean the house, shake off the dust.
Stop being who you were, and change into who you are.
🎭
Paulo Coelho
The devil loves unspoken secrets, especially those that fester in a man’s soul.
– Melville
the path keeps winding
I keep walking
always into surprises
always into adventures
today an unexpected ‘wow’ on the path
love always wins
grace always changes us
I keep seeing it
as I practice this truth named love
as I let go into the the flow
as I clear out the old
leave
return
let go
keep letting go
making space for now
the work of living in now
this freedom thing is a worthwhile challenge
this mystery just keeps expanding
this love thing is truly
the only thing
that could possibly
change this world….
or anyone…
mainly..
namely.
someone
like
me.
begin again
trust the new beginning.
🌎
AL
how much of our lives do we predict through our words
which come from our thoughts
our actions following that form
belief systems so deep seeded are seated
within us deeper than deep
most times we do things
from an unconscious place
of familial familiarity
patterns so old
we can trace them into generations past passing
the torturous torch
ever forward
how do we stop this bitter flower flowering?
how do we dam the damning history if our history?
remember to remember
thoughts become things
words are power
actions speak louder than shouting
we can do hard things
we get to choose
that’s what free will is all about
all we need is love
love wins every time
put that truth in your peace pipe and smoke it!
I’ll take all that into all the upcoming
brand spanking,
sparkling
new years
year after year –
I choose a life of love
🍾
AL
So, you get to choose – are you going to suffer, or be happy for the next seven years?
I’m going to suffer.
HEALING: is moving forward even when nothing is working out, and understanding that one day, it will all work together to create an even better today than yesterday.
– Soul Pancake
Lean forward into your life… catch the best bits and the finest wind. Just tip your feathers in flight a wee bit and see how dramatically that small lean can change your life.
🔹
— Mary Anne Radmacher
📩
I’ve received all these things
in envelopes
of various shapes,
colors even:
checks
cash
invitations
cards
art
poems
precious stones
rocks
music
glitter
bills
pills
seeds
buttons
forgiveness
candy
letters
cards
keys
doodles
stickers
stamps
words
hate
love
broken love
addresses
certificates
the list goes on…
I search for direction a poem about envelopes
and all these different envelopes,
from years past,
pass,
kaleidoscope like,
filing quickly through my thoughts –
then come the questions –
what about pushing the envelope?
(where did that saying come from?)
what about return to sender?
what about that pony express?
what about priority mail?
Then the simple thought descends –
Envelopes contain sealed mysteries
easily revealed by tearing them open
as do we…
we never know what we’ll find
until we get inside.
💌
AL
photos found at http://www.pinterest.com
✉️📬
My Word is made flesh.
This is how I live.
I am born not once long ago,
but each moment, always.
Will you be my flesh?
Having none of my own,
can I put you on and wear you
into the world?
Will you be born for me?
Walk in the woods for me, will you?
Touch what you can touch for me,
touch with gentle fingers.
Listen for me. Hear so that I may hear.
Smell pine and sage, babies and cities.
Smell for me.
Look with my eyes.
See what I long to see,
one thing at a time.
Be with the lonely for me, will you?
Stay close to the suffering,
dance with the joyful, dance
as only a body can dance.
Let your heart be broken,
as only a beating one can.
Reach out to the despised,
notice the beauty.
Dare to be a child in a rough world.
This is how I come.
You are my flesh now, dear one.
Bear me into this world
and I will always be in you
and in all you meet.
Have an eye for those who don’t know this;
see it in them even when they can’t.
Let me discover
what it is to come to myself
in my own Creation.
Look— even now
I am coming close,
seeking the manger.
Even now I enter.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
On the streets of anywhere lives a man.
The same man.
Homeless and alone in the world.
The tears that fill his eyes go by silent, and unnoticed.
Tears that cry out for a simple glimpse of the certainty that he’s a brother to us all.
That he belongs.
But you and I dare not look. Lest we catch such a glimpse.
A glimpse that might show us the frailty of our own humanity.
A glimpse that might admit that we are, and always have been, more than brothers.
– Nic Askew
I am struck by the otherness of things rather than their sameness.
The way a tiny pile of snow perches in the crook of a branch in the
tall pine, away by itself, high enough not to be noticed by people,
out of reach of stray dogs. It leans against the scaly pine bark, busy
at some existence that does not need me.
It is the differences of objects that I love, that lift me toward the rest
of the universe, that amaze me. That each thing on earth has its own
soul, its own life, that each tree, each clod is filled with the mud of
its own star. I watch where I step and see that the fallen leaf, old
broken grass, an icy stone are placed in exactly the right spot on the
earth, carefully, royalty in their own country
❄️
Looking for the Differences by Tom Hennen
❄️
top photo found at http://www.pinterest.com
photos by Fisherman Dan @ Branford, CT
❄️
O come thou Mystery,
unseen, unbidden, unfelt,
but so madly needed here.
Come to us
who push you away with our despair,
snare us with wonder.
Come to us, the lonely and broken,
O Small One,
not to solve but to be with.
Come to us who grieve
place or worth or hope,
and find it with us.
Come to us in our smugness
and lay yourself down in the manger
of our secret wounds.
Come to us in our privilege
and let us hang our lives
on a poor little peasant child.
Come to us in our violent fear
and calm us with your tiny voice.
Ask us to love you.
For us who find it hard to love each other,
come and gather us in a circle,
have us care, have us sing.
Come to us, too afraid to need,
be fragile among us,
and let us fall in love.
Neglect our neglect, Emmanuel,
come and be a tiny flame of love among us,
and light our own.
__________________
Steve Garnaas-Holmes
Unfolding Light
life: acoustic & amplified 